Mar 14, 2025 Core Principles, Coursebooks, Grammar, Lesson planning Do we really need needs analysis? Teachers are often urged to conduct a needs analysis at the start of their course. But if your analysis is just choosing a coursebook, don’t feel guilty. The reality of most teachers’ contexts and the students they have is that a formal needs analysis often won’t produce anything you don’t know already or lead to […]
Mar 1, 2021 Classroom Activities, Coursebooks, Opinions, Pronunciation, Twenty things in twenty years Twenty things in twenty years part ten: the main point of focusing on pronunciation in class isn’t to improve pronunciation! Pronunciation is quite possibly the most neglected area of language teaching that there is. In many of the classes I’ve observed over the years, I’ve seen little or no attempt to work on pronunciation and where it IS focused on, it’s often instinctive attempts at correcting mispronounced discrete phonemes of the kind we’re all so […]
May 3, 2020 Classroom Activities, Coursebooks, Opinions, Twenty things in twenty years Twenty Things in Twenty Years Part Five: there really is no need for needs analysis! One of the more ridiculous notions instilled in me on my month-long CELTA course taken back in the early 1990s was the idea that via a scribbled sheet of paper containing a few topics and some grammar structures, I might somehow be able to discern the ‘needs’ of my subsequent classes. In retrospect, it now […]
Mar 20, 2020 Classroom Activities, Coursebooks, Grammar, Lexis, Opinions, Pronunciation Back to school Part 2: TomAYto TomARto In my last post, I described two basic routes to learning language as a means of communication. At this point, I should reiterate that what I am talking about here are not routes to any real kind of fully-functional fluency. One of the most profound realisations you have when you start learning a new language […]
Jan 20, 2020 Classroom Activities, Coursebooks, Lexis, Opinions Beyond word lists: eight ways to get more from the OUTCOMES Vocabulary Builder One of the more innovative add-ons that accompanies the OUTCOMES series of General English coursebooks we wrote for National Geographic Learning is the Vocabulary Builder, which is often just known as the VB. The main idea behind the Vocabulary Builder was to provide both teachers and students with a list of language covered on each […]
