It happens to me almost every time I'm in Russia. In fact, it's happened so many times now that I've stopped finding it strange and it's something I rarely even bother to comment on these days. It's only when other…
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…
If you ask me … the problem with opening gambits
Many moons ago, I enjoyed a brief and intense love affair with a book by Eric Keller and Sylvia Warner called Conversation Gambits. First published by LTP back in 1988, I came to it in the mid-1990s and at the…
ELT: In need of family therapy?
In my previous blogging incarnation on the CELT training site, I wrote about why lexical sets may be popular and about some of the downsides to them. That blog was closed when I left University of Westminster and I have…
Why teachers shouldn’t prefer blonde
I recently asked a couple of colleagues which word they thought was more frequent - arise or blonde. Almost immediately, the answer blonde came back. However, despite the confidence of the response, according to the British National Corpus (BNC) and…