Vivian Magalhães, Autor em RichmondShare Blog | High quality content and interaction in the ELT world

Vivian Magalhães

Ask not what the internet can do for you

25 de setembro de 2015

When we, English teachers, think of the internet, we often tend to think about what it has to offer: unlimited information at our fingertips, ready-made materials for download, songs with their lyrics, clipart and other graphic resources, teaching ideas, podcasts, videos, tutorials, educational online games and many other resources that were unavailable when most of...Read More

Educational Technology, Reflections about Education

Collaborative Education, Getting and Giving, internet

Critical thinking as an antidote to stupid rules

17 de fevereiro de 2015

by Vivian Magalhães

At least once a week, I have to go to the post office to mail books people order through my website. I usually go to the same agency, which is actually a privately-owned postal franchise, near my house. This month, however, I was on vacation away from home, so I had to go to a...Read More

Reflections about Education

critical thinking, teachers's role

The necessary balance between theory and practice in Teacher Education

25 de janeiro de 2015

by Vivian Magalhães

The performance of Brazilian students in national and international assessment tests has been consistently low, which has led researchers to look into the reasons for the inefficiency of our educational system. A study conducted by Fundação Carlos Chagas has found that the programs offered by most universities in the area of teacher education do not...Read More

Career, Teacher Development

education, Teacher education, teacher training

Building Learner autonomy – Part II

17 de dezembro de 2014

by Vivian Magalhães

Last month, I wrote about the need for students to become autonomous learners, and the difficulty that most teachers face in developing such autonomy in them. My students responded very well to the article, admitting that they hadn’t been investing as much time or effort as they should towards their goal of becoming proficient speakers...Read More

Classroom Experiences, Reflections about Education, Resources

learner's autonomy, student engagement, tools

The challenge of developing learner autonomy

17 de novembro de 2014

by Vivian Magalhães

Robin MacClure starts her article “Unnecessary Parents” by saying that “the ultimate job of parents is to raise kids in a way so that they are not needed. In other words, parents should work themselves out of a job.” Well, I think that also applies to teachers, and especially to language teachers. Our goal should...Read More

Classroom Experiences, Educational Technology, Reflections about Education, Resources, Teacher Development

autonomy, student engagement, tools

Neither victims nor heroes: just teachers

17 de outubro de 2014

by Vivian Magalhães

There seems to be a day to celebrate everything in Brazil. March 14th is Bald Men’s Day and April 26th is Goalkeeper’s Day, followed by the Flight Attendants Day on the 31st of May and Students’ Day on the 11t of August, just to mention a few . Since we have taught them all –the...Read More

Career, Reflections about Education, Teacher Development

choices, Teacher's Day, teaching carreer

Video Lessons Made Easier

17 de setembro de 2014

by Vivian Magalhães

In my book Teacher Tools, I open the chapter “Movie Time” with an email I received from a teacher who said that not only him, but “thousands of workmates don’t have time to prepare materials or to follow the recipes that many authors of books and/or presenters of workshops give us.” I go on to...Read More

Educational Technology, Resources, Technology

video, websites

Ice-breakers, Warmers and Fillers

17 de julho de 2014

by Vivian Magalhães

Some teachers see warmers, ice-breakers and fillers as basically different ways to say the same thing. In fact, they are quite different. While ice-breakers are usually meant to help students get to know each other better, the objective of warmers is to get them ready for a certain topic or task. Fillers, on the other...Read More

Games, Grammar, Lesson Ideas, Teacher Development, Vocabulary

activities, fillers, ice-breakers, warmers

The University of Edinburgh has just proven that I was right!

17 de junho de 2014

by Vivian Magalhães

Good news for teachers (and even better news for students) of foreign languages: a new longitudinal research, whose results were recently published in a journal of the American Neurological Association, reveals that bilingualism has a positive effect on cognition and may delay the onset of dementia in older adults. The participants, who live in the...Read More

Language Acquisition

Adult education, brain, language learning

Teaching children is not a “anyone-can-do” sort of job

17 de maio de 2014

by Vivian Magalhães

Trying to respond to a high demand for English instruction, English schools pop up everywhere, without a proper control from the government in relation to the educational background of the teachers who will work in such schools. Called “cursos livres” by the Ministry of Education, they are not part of the regular school system, which...Read More

Career, Reflections about Education, Teacher Development

Continued Education, Teacher education, Young learners

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