The world used to be so tidy. Back in the misty morning of my youth, I seriously did naively believe that the root cause of student error was essentially grammatical. If only students could somehow have the ‘rules’ for the…
Author Archive
Five more things I’ve learned from running the ENGLISH QUESTIONS ANSWERED group
Two years ago now, I set up a Facebook group called ENGLISH QUESTIONS ANSWERED. In a sense, it was a purely selfish move as I wanted to be able to shepherd into one place all the questions about language that…
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…
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,…
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…
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.…
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…
Twenty Things in Twenty Years Part Six: Resistance is futile – but still remarkably widespread
When I was in my mid-20s living in Jakarta and trying to learn Indonesian, I reached a point where I felt I had to start reading more about Islam. Partly this was because so many of my students were –…
Back to School Part Four: homework … or the lack of it.
In recent years, we've seen much made of the idea of the ‘flipped’ classroom. In ELT terms, this often involves urging students to study words and grammar outside of the classroom - presumably by using a dictionary and doing exercises…
Why ‘Is it formal or informal?’ is perhaps my most-hated question in ELT
Let's face it, over the years, we've probably all asked plenty of questions in class that we later look back on and regret. This starts from our very first teaching practice when we become aware of the fact that we've…