Feb 14, 2025 Classroom Activities, Core Principles, Teaching lexically, Uncategorized How should I use my coursebook? With principles! It seems that most teachers see the value of using a coursebook, but the bigger question is: how should I use them? That was my conclusion from reading a recent post on LinkedIn by Katherine Bilsborough. She asked for English language teachers who were anti-coursebook to explain why they were against using them. As it […]
Jan 13, 2025 Exploiting Exercises, Grammar, Opinions, Teaching lexically, Uncategorized Meet learners’ needs by following language desire paths If we want to meet learners’ needs, then try following their conversations and teach the language they desire rather than just what we set out to teach. I was out walking the other day and it being somewhat damp and muddy, I decided to stick to the paved pathway rather than take this more direct […]
Jan 6, 2025 Chunk of the day, Chunks, Lexis Boat Idioms There are a lot of boat idioms in English perhaps as a result of the history and geography of UK itself. The United Kingdom has almost 8000 miles of coastline and a long history as a seafaring nation, so it’s no surprise that many words and phrases that were originally used on boats and at […]
Nov 14, 2024 Classroom Activities, Core Principles, Exploiting Exercises, Pronunciation Dictation and decoding A long time ago I did a Diploma in TEFL and I remember a particular piece of feedback I was given after one of my observed lessons. In this lesson, I’d dictated a series of words to the students. Now, I can’t remember exactly what those words were or why I was dictating them, but […]
Aug 29, 2024 Grammar, Grammar bugbears and curiosities, Uncategorized GRAMMAR NONSENSE & CURIOSITIES: can It may seem a bit strange to include can under the umbrella of grammar nonsense. I’m sure few of you have considered the rules for its usage as wrong or find the way it’s presented particularly weird – and n the whole, I’d agree with you! I include it in our ongoing series of ELT shame and […]
