Apr 22, 2020 Grammar, Opinions, Twenty things in twenty years Twenty Things in Twenty Years Part Three: kicking the grammar habit As I’m sure I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my induction into English Language Teaching via a four-week CELTA at Westminster College (and, indeed, my subsequent year-long part-time DELTA) left me with that very same affliction that so many of our students still find themselves stuck with a bad case of: Grammar Anxiety. The whole main thrust of […]
Apr 21, 2020 Classroom Activities, Grammar, Lexis, Opinions Back to School Part Three: lessons of forgetting and laughter They say that learning a foreign language is a good way of avoiding dementia in later life, but with learning Russian I sometimes feel that maybe dementia has already set in! Words taught mere seconds ago can become a blank and I find myself stuck in a loop of asking “What’s that word?” and “How […]
Apr 21, 2020 Classroom Activities, Opinions, The state of our profession, Twenty things in twenty years Twenty Things in Twenty Years Part Two: Troubling trouble when trouble troubles you! There are plenty of things that you generally don’t learn on a four-week CELTA course: how bizarre many of the staff rooms you’ll later find yourself in will be; how rife the illegal photocopying of published material is around the world; how you’ll probably end up inventing Dogme by accident one morning as you stumble […]
Apr 20, 2020 Opinions, The state of our profession, Twenty things in twenty years Twenty Things In Twenty Years Part One: Falling Into A Me-Shaped Hole In much the same way as I once found it inconceivable that I’d ever suffer the indignity of reaching the terrifying age of 30, so it seems preposterous that I’ve now racked up well over twenty-five years in English Language Teaching! In acknowledgement and commemoration of this, I’ve decided that I shall attempt to blog […]
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 […]
