It happens to me almost every time I'm in Russia. In fact, it's happened so many times now that I've stopped finding it strange and it's something I rarely even bother to comment on these days. It's only when other…
Author Archive
Word of the day: landslide
As you've probably noticed, France has elected a new president. From a British point of view, the French system is quite peculiar in that not only do the people directly elect the President, but there are also are two rounds…
Word of the day: professional
When I was in Norilsk, in the far north of Russia earlier this year, I was lucky enough to have a free day at the end of the teacher development course I'd been running there. We decided we were going…
Phrase of the day: a big If
We use the phrase that’s / it’s a big if to show that we realise that what we are about to say – or what someone has just been speculating about – is really very unlikely indeed to actually happen.…
Phrase of the day: Time is of the essence
Over recent weeks, we've been taking a fair few bookings for what will be our first ever London summer school. It's all very exciting, even if it does involve far more red tape than we'd initially anticipated. In order to…
Word of the day: pimp
A few weeks ago, I ran a teacher development course in Norilsk, Siberia. In one session, we were talking about how to give better examples of new language and I was trying to get teachers to think more about not…
Complicating the coursebook debate part 2: can’t we just be friends?
This week I thought I would take a break from the grammar series (to be continued!) and pick up on the discussion of coursebooks that Hugh started some time ago with the somewhat optimistically titled Complicating the coursebook debate part…
Phrase of the day: two-fingered salute
At some point during most courses we run, we end up taking whichever students are up for it to the pub. It's a grand British tradition and the pub is basically where we go to let our hair down, relax…
Word of the day: snap
For many years, Britain had a reputation around the world for stability. Rightly or wrongly, it was widely believed that things here happened as they should and there were no sudden or harmful changes. Over the last couple of years,…
Phrase of the day: deeply divided
Last Sunday, Turkey went to the polls to vote on whether to approve 18 proposed amendments to the Turkish constitution that had been put forward by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). If implemented,…