Nov 11, 2020 Chunks, Phrase of the day What’s in a name? Almost as soon as I started teaching, I realised that there were plenty of countries out there that took names a bit more seriously than we do here in England. When meeting new classes, I’d often be told things like “I’m Haruko. My name means spring child“, or “My name’s Hakim, which means wise in […]
Nov 7, 2020 Opinions, Twenty things in twenty years Twenty Things in Twenty Years Part Eight: There’s nothing as practical as a good theory In the early years of my career, like many others in my profession, I suffered from an insatiable hunger for recipes. I devoured the resource books that were available in the staff rooms of the schools I was teaching in, and spent much of my hard-earned cash investing in further similar tomes. I rushed through […]
Oct 30, 2020 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: cancel culture Over recent years, we’ve seen the push for greater equality come in many shapes and forms – there have been the calls from Black Lives Matter protesters for an end to police brutality and racially-motivated violence against black people, the #MeToo movement has been campaigning against sexual abuse and harassment and has outed the worst […]
Oct 20, 2020 Opinions, The state of our profession The curse of native speakerism Many moons ago, I used to work in the EFL department of a university here in London. Among my colleagues was a wonderful teacher called Kasia. Originally from Poland, she’d moved to the UK, met someone and ended up settling. Kasia came into the university set-up via one of our CELTA courses, on which she […]
Sep 26, 2020 Classroom Activities, Opinions, The state of our profession, Twenty things in twenty years Twenty Things in Twenty Years Part Seven: Input is more important than output To say that the CTEFLA that was my gateway into the world of English Language Teaching encouraged me to be output-focused would be an understatement. Like many teachers who’ve come through the British ELT system, with its roots firmly in that bare minimum of twenty days of training, and teaching practice from day two of […]
