Reflections and Methodology · 21. July 2017
Somehow I always seem to end up teaching an advanced class in the summer: usually highly educated European teenagers popping over to the UK for a few weeks’ refresher course. They bring their own range of challenges. Some are gluttons for work and demand a sophisticated, highly challenging syllabus, while others are all too happy to coast on what they have already achieved and have no interest in improving any further. Some are intelligent, articulate, and fascinating individuals, while...
Self-Study Ideas · 20. July 2017
Whether it’s a short time or a long time, living in a foreign country can be an amazing experience. But it can be even better if you take a few steps to make sure that you get the most out of it.
Reflections and Methodology · 05. April 2017
If you came to my workshop today at IATEFL - thank you very much! You can find the materials below. If you couldn't make it, but it sounds interesting, please have a look anyway - there's a powerpoint and a handout available for anyone to download. Please note that they do not include everything I said in the workshop. Do get in touch via the contact page here if you have any questions. You are welcome to use the materials to pass on this technique to your colleagues, but please do credit me...
Reflections and Methodology · 25. January 2017
Recently I’ve started learning Hungarian. I love learning languages, but it’s been a long time since I learnt a new language from scratch, particularly a non-Indo-European one. After I'd been learning it for a few weeks into my new project, I happened to teach a small class of beginners for a week, and found that I could relate to their experience much more than usual. I thought I would share some of my reflections here. Firstly, I was struck by the total reliance on a dictionary (or a...
Self-Study Ideas · 06. January 2017
Did you know that the UK has more accents than any other country (for its area)? Even within a large city, local people can often recognise which neighbourhood someone comes from by their accent. People’s accents are often different according to their social class or level of education, as well as the region they are from. Most of the British accents heard in films and on television are RP (received pronunciation) which is the accent of middle-class, well-educated people from the south of...
Self-Study Ideas · 29. November 2016
Here are two model texts that you can use for back translation (improving your writing without a teacher - see the post here). The first one is suitable for elementary - pre-intermediate students, while the second is suitable for intermediate - upper-intermediate students.
Reflections and Methodology · 27. October 2016
Why is laughter important? Laughter gives us the feel-good factor – creating laughter creates enjoyment and relaxation, which will make us teach better and our students learn better. Laughter can be very memorable – a class which included hilarity will be remembered long after other, more sedate lessons, have been forgotten, while a mistake which raised a giggle will be carefully avoided in future.
Self-Study Ideas · 22. September 2016
If you want to improve your writing, it’s often important to have a teacher look at your work and tell you how to improve it. They can point out your mistakes much better than you can, and they will notice sentences that sound strange in English even if they sound fine to you. However, you can still practise writing on your own, using a method called back translation.
Reflections and Methodology · 24. August 2016
In the first and second part of this article I wrote about teenagers' growing need to focus on peer relationships and to challenge authority, and discussed ways that this affects teaching. This final entry discusses the phenomenon of teenage awkwardness, and how to be sensitive to it in the language classroom, as well as presenting a few conclusions.
Reflections and Methodology · 12. August 2016
In my last entry I wrote about how teenagers naturally have a strong focus on peer relationships, and the effect this can have on class dynamics, and on my teaching. In this entry, I'd like to consider another teenage stereotype - the grumpy rebel - and reflect on the surprising benefits of this difficult aspect of adolescence, and suggest ways to keep your cool when faced with it.