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,…
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 Five: there really is no need for needs analysis!
One of the more ridiculous notions instilled in me on my month-long CELTA course taken back in the early 1990s was the idea that via a scribbled sheet of paper containing a few topics and some grammar structures, I might…
Twenty Things in Twenty Years Part Four: the way I was taught to teach grammar crippled my understanding of grammar!
I feel it best to warn you in advance that this is a post that could potentially spiral wildly out of control! It may also, I fear, contain themes I’ve entered into from slightly angles during other posts in this…
Twenty Things in Twenty Years Part Three: kicking the grammar habit
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my induction into English Language Teaching via a four-week CELTA at Westminster College (and, indeed, my subsequent year-long part-time DELTA) left me with that very same affliction that so many of our students still…
Twenty Things in Twenty Years Part Two: Troubling trouble when trouble troubles you!
There are plenty of things that you generally don’t learn on a four-week CELTA course: how bizarre many of the staff rooms you’ll later find yourself in will be; how rife the illegal photocopying of published material is around the…
Twenty Things In Twenty Years Part One: Falling Into A Me-Shaped Hole
In much the same way as I once found it inconceivable that I’d ever suffer the indignity of reaching the terrifying age of 30, so it seems preposterous that I've now racked up well over twenty-five years in English Language…