Apologies for not having written one of these word / chunk of the day posts for quite some time. I've just been up to my ears in work these last few weeks, although I must admit I have also actually…
Author Archive
Teaching young learners lexically
We're very pleased to be able to offer you another in our series of occasional guest posts by teachers and writers we admire. This time, a young teacher from Moscow called Masha Andreivitch, who we first saw speak at a…
Phrase of the day: Nae bother
I have just come back from Scotland, where I was giving the keynote talk at the City of Glasgow College’s ESOL conference. I got given a present afterwards of a quaich - a small silver cup for sharing and drinking…
A different kind of Beginner-level book 4: a spiralling syllabus
A spiralling syllabus is NOT just about grammar Hopefully, you'll have read our previous post on a spiral syllabus. In this short post, I want to add that the spiral syllabus doesn’t only apply to grammar. The same principles also…
A different kind of Beginner-level book 3: choosing which vocabulary to teach
Making choices about vocabulary: teaching what’s relevant to most students, responding to individuals In our last post, we looked at how we've tried to ensure that Outcomes Beginner provides students with just enough grammar to have the kinds of basic…
A different kind of Beginner-level book 2
Just enough grammar and a spiral syllabus In our last post on teaching beginner-level students, we stated this principle: While there is a value in noticing and practising a particular aspect of grammar or vocabulary, it will not be mastered…
A different kind of Beginner-level book 1
If that’s what it’s not, what is it? My post about the Beginner syllabus and short answers with auxiliaries has produced quite a few responses o social media - both positive and negative. On the whole, I'm happy to receive…
In Memoriam: Remembering Michael Lewis
Like many of you, my first encounter with Michael Lewis came via his seminal 1993 book The Lexical Approach: The state of ELT and a Way Forward. I did my DTEFLA in 1995 and it had already made it onto…
Why don’t we teach more grammatical chunks at low levels?
One of the curiosities of the dominant grammar syllabus at low levels is that certain 'higher-level' grammar does occasionally creep through as words or chunks, while other patterns are apparently still not allowed to. Would you like some more chunks?…
Grammar nonsense 7: 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…