Jun 23, 2025 Chunk of the day, Chunks, Lexis More sailing idioms This is the second in a short series of posts looking at sailing idioms and idioms connected to the UK’s long history as a maritime nation. It’s a reflection of the way in which our 8000-mile coastline has shaped the language and the way we process the world – and by the way, you can […]
Jun 8, 2025 Core Principles, Opinions, Teaching lexically What makes effective language teachers? Method or something else? What makes effective language teachers? There seem to be two routes taken in answering this question. The first is methodology. Some would suggest that the only effective teacher is one working within, say, task-based teaching. The second route might be described as ‘affective’ factors: the ‘quality’ of the teacher, how they are and how they […]
May 29, 2025 Chunks, Core Principles, Revision Word-for-word translation: an activity with possibilities Generally speaking, teachers discourage word-for-word translation from a students own language into the language they are learning. Sometimes they discourage it for the wrong reason – that translation or the use of L1 is just wrong. Sometimes teachers discourage it because they know it’ll end up in gobbledygook and they teach students that the correct […]
May 7, 2025 Beginners & Low levels, Chunks, Exploiting Exercises, Lexis, Revision, Teaching lexically Rereading texts to revise language at low levels Rereading texts to revise language can be good because we access language outside the selection in exercises labelled vocabulary or grammar. Whether you have treated the listening or reading text as purely developing skills or not, there is good reason to revisit texts to focus on language – especially when we want to revise content […]
Apr 30, 2025 Beginners & Low levels, Classroom Activities, Lesson planning, Revision, Teaching lexically More activities to revise language in class at low levels Why do activities to revise language in class? Teachers sometimes see class time as only for ‘new’ input. Revision is for students to do at home. I understand that idea. It also depends a bit how long your class is. If you have one 50 or 60-minute class a week, maybe that makes some sense. […]
