Tag: Learn English

Rereading texts to revise language at low levels

Written by Andrew Walkley on May 7, 2025. Posted in Beginners & Low levels, Chunks, Exploiting Exercises, Lexis, Revision, Teaching lexically. 4 Comments on Rereading texts to revise language at low levels

Rereading texts to revise language can be good because we access language outside the selection in exercises labelled vocabulary or grammar. Whether you have treated the listening or reading text as purely developing skills or not, there is good reason to revisit texts to focus on language – especially when we want to revise content later in the course and especially at low levels.Rereading to improve reading fluency (and revise words)In the case of lower levels, it can be good to reread a text to help with reading fluency – especially when your students are working with a new...

Meet learners’ needs by following language desire paths

Written by Andrew Walkley on January 13, 2025. Posted in Exploiting Exercises, Grammar, Opinions, Teaching lexically, Uncategorized. No Comments on 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. Desire paths: a metaphor for meeting all the learners’ language needs while using a coursebookI 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 route which I have now discovered is called a ‘ desire path’. But as I did so, I started thinking that the this kind of path, which you see all over the place, could be a kind of metaphor for...

GRAMMAR NONSENSE & CURIOSITIES: can

Written by Andrew Walkley on August 29, 2024. Posted in Grammar, Grammar bugbears and curiosities, Uncategorized. No Comments on 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 missed opportunities more as an example of how change sometimes happens while we remain unable to fully accept it. It all reminds me a bit of people who accept that a variety of sexualities exist in the world, but don’t want to see any public displays of affection connected to most...

Aiming for average

Written by Andrew Walkley on February 1, 2024. Posted in Opinions. 2 Comments on Aiming for average

An amazing feat, but that’s allI recently watched Nyad – a new film about the super-endurance swimmer Diane Nyad, who swam from Cuba to Florida. I like these kinds of stories, and the achievements they depict are often pretty amazing – but I’m turned off if they are presented as models of how to achieve things in life, which is exactly what happens at the end of Nyad. I buy these stories as entertainment, but I don’t buy into the lessons that are supposed to be learnt: “Look at me and learn how anything is possible if you just believe in yourself”, “Follow your dreams and give...

More fictional characters who appear in everyday English

Written by Hugh Dellar on December 20, 2023. Posted in Chunk of the day, Chunks. 1 Comment on More fictional characters who appear in everyday English

After the positive reception that my last post on literary figures in everyday speech got, I figured it made sense to write a follow-up exploring the way the names of some more fictional characters are used in daily conversation. Today, we’ll look at five famous characters and consider how they’ve passed into the language. First up is one of the most iconic detectives of all time – Sherlock Holmes. Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes is famous for his powers of observation and deduction, his razor-sharp mind, and his logical reasoning. He’s also been portrayed...

Word of the day: Harry Pottered out

Written by Hugh Dellar on December 6, 2023. Posted in Chunks, Word of the day. No Comments on Word of the day: Harry Pottered out

I spent last Friday and Saturday in Bologna, Italy, where I was talking at an excellent conference for English-language teachers. In one of the talks that I saw, a teacher was describing a one-week summer school course for kids that she’d helped organise. The week had been based around the Harry Potter books, so kids had made their own costumes, acted out various scenes and so on. “By the end of the five days“, she said, “I was totally Harry Pottered out!” In other words, she’d had enough of Harry...

From a trickle to a flood: water metaphors and their emotional pull

Written by Hugh Dellar on December 5, 2023. Posted in Chunk of the day, Chunks. No Comments on From a trickle to a flood: water metaphors and their emotional pull

One of the most depressing things about British politics right now – and trust me, there are plenty of things to get depressed about – is the fact that there aren’t really any mainstream politicians who’re willing to be honest about the fact that the country needs immigrants . . . and that without significant amounts of immigration, the economy in general and the NHS and the care sector in particular would be in grave danger of collapsing. Instead what we get is the worst possible people exploiting the suffering of those fleeing conflict or hardship abroad and demonising the...