Nov 11, 2016 Lexis, Opinions, The state of our profession It’s all in the Mind: Neurobiology and the Lexical Approach Today we’re proud to present a guest post from Bruno Leys, who works at VIVES University College, Bruges, Belgium. Bruno can be contacted on: bruno.leys@vives.be and would love to hear any comments or questions you have. Over to Bruno: When Michael Lewis published The Lexical Approach in 1993, it’s fair to say that the book […]
May 5, 2016 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: against all odds / against the odds If you haven’t heard already, Leicester City won the Premier League title this week against all odds. They have one of the lowest wage bills in the league and the cost of the whole squad was less than Manchester City paid for one player. At the beginning of the season, the odds of them winning […]
Apr 26, 2016 Classroom Activities, Opinions, The state of our profession The best improvisation is prepared improvisation One of the great delights of the annual IATEFL conference is seeing young teachers find their own voices and deliver confident, well thought-out presentations. One of the talks I enjoyed most in Birmingham this year was by Sebastian Lesniewski, and he’s been kind enough to provide a brief overview of his main ideas. Over to […]
Apr 25, 2016 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: come in for criticism President Obama has come in for criticism from BREXIT campaigners after commenting on the upcoming referendum The government has come in for criticism for failing to spend enough on flood defences. The plan has come in for heavy criticism because of the huge costs of the project. When does a collocation become a chunk? The […]
Apr 18, 2016 Opinions, The state of our profession CELTA, the native-speaker bias and possible paths forward Last week at IATEFL, Silvana Richardson delivered a rousing, righteous plenary tracing the historical roots of – and critiquing – the institutionalised mechanisms and habits of mind that continue to privilege native=speaker teachers over non-natives. The talk can be viewed online and speaks for itself, so suffice it to say that it was a powerful […]
