Mar 6, 2022 Opinions, The state of our profession Teaching through the tears: creating cross-border classes in a time of conflict I first went to Russia in December 1999 to visit a friend of mine who’d just taken a teaching job there. Little did I know then what a central part in my life the country would come to play over the next twenty-plus years. Since the turn of the century, I’ve visited Russia more times […]
Dec 1, 2021 Opinions, The state of our profession Another five things I’ve learned running the ENGLISH QUESTIONS ANSWERED group Three years ago now, I was talked into setting up a Facebook group called ENGLISH QUESTIONS ANSWERED. It was designed to be a space where anyone at any level could ask questions about how English is used, whether or not something was correct, why things work the way they do, and so on. I also […]
Nov 26, 2020 Grammar, Opinions, The state of our profession Five more things I’ve learned from running the ENGLISH QUESTIONS ANSWERED group Two years ago now, I set up a Facebook group called ENGLISH QUESTIONS ANSWERED. In a sense, it was a purely selfish move as I wanted to be able to shepherd into one place all the questions about language that I regularly got asked across a wide range of platforms. Looking around at the many […]
Oct 20, 2020 Opinions, The state of our profession The curse of native speakerism Many moons ago, I used to work in the EFL department of a university here in London. Among my colleagues was a wonderful teacher called Kasia. Originally from Poland, she’d moved to the UK, met someone and ended up settling. Kasia came into the university set-up via one of our CELTA courses, on which she […]
Sep 26, 2020 Classroom Activities, Opinions, The state of our profession, Twenty things in twenty years 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 that bare minimum of twenty days of training, and teaching practice from day two of […]
