Teacher Nik's English Teaching & Foodie World

 I'm sure you were getting 'antsy' for my return, so I am back, to review none other than 'Anatolia' a Turkish restaurant on Earlsdon High Street  Anatolia https://www.anatoliacoventry.co.uk/ 52B Earlsdon St. Having decided to go out for some food, and spending quite some time perusing trip advisor for 'Coventry's best restaurants' my friend and I decided to head to a nearby pub which was highly rated by a large number of reviews. However, upon arrival- disaster struck, as despite arriving at 7.30 and food advertised as being served until 8. The surly waitress informed us in no uncertain terms that the kitchen was closed. Well, this left us in quite a pickle, what to do, what to do- when my friend had a lightning bulb moment- let's try the Turkish place in Earlsdon. So, driving over there- we called them up to make sure there was space-and despite the restaurant being absolutely rammed- the friendly waiting staff managed to squeeze us in a table (alt...

I promised I would return, and I feel that the time has come that you are hungry for more Nik-knacks. Well, I'm not just an aspiring languages teacher and Technology enthusiast(see all previous blogs) I'm also a big fan of a good meal (who isn't), so moving forward some of these blogs will be reviewing various eateries. A lot of the meal reviews will be based around Coventry and it's surrounding area as this is where I am currently based. Furthermore, if future Warwick University students find this blog, it will serve as a useful guide of places to go/avoid. So without further ado, lets get on with our first review:  Arco  Bar and Ristorante  https://www.arcocoventry.com/ Located at 13 The Butts, Arco is located in an ideal area just on the outskirts of the city centre and handily very close to student friendly pub The Aardvark.  Opening at 5pm each evening, it's an Italian establishment offering Pizza, Pasta, Seafood and meat based dishes. With a 4.8/5 Star rating ...

Dad joke alert! but a nice segue into this weeks blog looking at how a mobile can help in the world of ELT. Oh hello, did you miss me? What and when was your first phone? Do you remember? Mine was the Nokia 232 (1994), it was the phone that Alicia Silverstone's (dream girl alert) character had in Clueless! before like everyone else in the 90s I 'upgraded' to the 3210. Back then it wasn't that common to have a phone, nowadays you would be hard pressed to find someone without a Mobile, with the cheapest smart phones available from as little as £29 in the UK. Of course, this can be somewhat of a drawback, how many times have you been teaching a class only to note some plucky upstart sniggering away at their mobile? More than once I dare say.  Yet, mobiles are not going away, like it or not- they are a part of every day life and will be for at least the foreseeable future. So how can we utilise this to improve the classroom experience for these mobile wielding scamps? There...

Oh hello you- I hope you enjoyed my Moira compilation last week and welcome to this weeks blog. Today I'm taking a look at Padlet. An online tool which can be used in class (pending T'internet access) and set as a (short) homework.  So what is it? In essence, it's effectively a noticeboard. You can post a topic/subject (a padlet) which your learners can then respond to. You will need to sign up for an account - you can do this using your google, Microsoft or Apple email address: Now it's important to note there is both a free and paid version of Padlet- The free version only allows you to post up to 3 Padlets- (you can delete and post new ones consistently of course) or you can pay $8 a month to be able to post unlimited Padlets- this is of course worth doing if you intend to make Padlets a regular part of your teaching. But should you? Let's  take  the Padlet adventure together and find out! Being a very poor student, I was unable to get the old moth collector out,...

  FLIPADELPHIA Sorry for the confusion- but as much as I would enjoy writing about Sunny (one of my favourite shows) that was just a bit of fun word play, for today I am casting my beady eye over 'Flipgrid' and taking a look at this video based website:   Flipgrid | Empower Every Voice Now being a video based site, it would be remiss of me to not include a video introduction to flipgrid and this is one of the best: That's a really good introduction of what Flipgrid is and how to use it, but actually reviewing the tool- that's my job! I should note since that video- the site has updated a little (which is always a good sign- they are continually trying to improve it. Now when you first sign up- you will need to create a group- this is effectively your classroom (can add students to it). You can then create topics/assignments (the blue +topic button shown below) You will note there is already the introduce yourself topic, which is pre-loaded into every group, its perfectl...

*insert shameless sexy dance here* Today I'm taking a look at https://lyricstraining.com/ and as you might have guessed from the title, this is a music based website. But what does it do? Well firstly, as a language teacher or 'instructor' if ya nasty, we can't just consider what happens in the classroom,  we also want to both consider and promote autonomous learning. The more autonomous a language learner becomes, the more likely they are to achieve high language proficiency . Lyricstraining is exactly that, a tool we can use to promote autonomous learning outside the classroom. To use the lyricstrainer, the user simply inputs missing word from music videos that are being played.  When you first go to the lyricstraining website- you will note from the picture below, you can download it as an app to your smartphone or tablet device (very handy) However, I proceeded to the website version of Lyricstraining, and hit sign up for a free account: You might note here that you...