Feb 14, 2019 Opinions Grammar nonsense: the syllabus for Beginners It’s been quite a while since we last published a post in this particular series. Writing both a Beginner-level book as part of the Outcomes series and two levels of the new Pearson series Roadmap really hasn’t left much time for writing anything else – especially given my typing speed and slowness of thought. And […]
Jan 17, 2019 Classroom Activities, Grammar, Lexis, Opinions Translation: Tackling the Taboo part 2 In the first post on tackling the taboo that surrounds using any form of translation in the language classroom, I unpacked my own slow conversion, considered the roots of the English-only dogma, and explored why such positions were unsustainable. Today I’d like to move on to more practical matters and simply share seven activities that […]
Dec 23, 2018 Classroom Activities, Grammar, Lexis, Opinions, The state of our profession Translation: tackling the taboo As a native speaker teacher working in a multi-lingual teaching context in the UK, I am perhaps an unlikely convert to the cause of translation in language teaching, and it’s been a long and winding road that’s brought me here. Back in 1993, when I did my four-week CELTA course, there was certainly no mention […]
May 8, 2018 Opinions, The state of our profession Putting our words to work: rethinking Teacher Talking Time English Language Teaching loves a good acronym. There’s ELT to begin with and then, of course, there’s EFL – English as a Foreign Language – ESL, English as a Second Language and EIL – English as an International Language. There’s OHE – Observe, Hypothesise and Experiment and there’s PPP – Present, Practise, and then Pray! […]
Apr 26, 2018 Opinions, The state of our profession Putting your principles into practice: lexical teaching in the age of eclecticism Eclectic or just confused? As teachers, we’re often told that we’re now living in a post-method world and that we should all aspire to be principled eclectics, picking and choosing activities and techniques to teach the language. On one level, an awareness of the wide range of general approaches and specific techniques available to us […]
