Several years ago now, I wrote a conference talk entitled - rather wittily, I felt - What have corpora ever done for us? In retrospect, I now realise it's quite probable that the fact its title and much of its…
Making active and creative use of all the languages in your classroom.
I was recently at the third annual BELTA Day conference in Brussels, organised by the excellent Belgian English Language Teachers' Association. Whilst there, I saw a really fascinating presentation by a local teacher called Joris Van Den Bosch. Joris has…
Asking more: why some questions are better than others
There's an old saying that claims questions are never dangerous - only answers are. Well, a recent presentation I saw by Jim Scrivener gave me pause to reconsider this received wisdowm and to ask whether some questions might be if…
The Lexical Approach and natural selection
Today we're pleased to be able to bring you a guest post by Dr. Ivor Timmis. Ivor works at Leeds Beckett University and has always been one of the people we most look forward to hearing speak at conferences. Ivor…
In so many words: on the importance and shape of vocabulary lists
Today we're delighted to feature a guest post by Bruno Leys. Bruno works at VIVES University College in Bruges, Belgium. He's published several coursebook series such as Breakaway, Takeaway and High Five and he regularly gives talks and workshops for…
Phrasal verbs: myths and realities
Last year I was lucky enough to attend the PASE conference in Warsaw, where I saw a locally based teacher, Jonathan Marks, give a thought-provoking talk on phrasal verbs. Having long believed that this is one area of the language…