Blogs
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When an ESL classroom can be a musical feast!
Picture the scene. My IELTS students have just completed a rigorous 90-minute Reading exam. The mood is low. What do you do? How about several renditions of ‘Happy Birthday’ in several different languages? This scenario unfolded last week, for Asel, from Kazakhstan, whose birthday we celebrated. It got me pondering more…
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Intensive listening
Intensive listening is a skill which I believe to be overlooked in many contexts. Historically, one could argue that there was too much intensive listening, at the expense of general comprehension. However, nowadays coursebooks and teachers may have shifted too far in the other direction with the focus mainly on more…
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Thank you, Global!
I would like to thank everyone at Global and especially Lindsay Clandfield and Matthew Kay for giving me the opportunity to be guest blogger on the Global website and also for the material I received! My last blog post is dedicated to everyone at Macmillan!
As this is my last post more… -
Just happy to be here: sometimes teaching can be a very humbling experience
With the World Cup party in full swing, I asked my low intermediate conversation class which group of fans they thought were the most colourful. The majority went with the South Africans who they felt celebrated regardless of the team’s result, and who just dressed happily as Bruno, my Brazilian more…
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Making your clarification more effective
‘Clarification’ refers to the ‘teach’ stage of your lesson, where the rules of meaning, use, form and pronunciation are clarified. In the past it was called the ‘presentation’ stage, but nowadays this term can hold slightly negative connotations, and be associated with more teacher-fronted lessons.
In a grammar lesson, the clarification more… -
The working life of an ESL student
My afternoon Vocabulary/Conversation class had asked me recently if we could do a class focusing on the topic of work and all its related issues. They are an outgoing group of various levels and had suggested at the beginning of the session that they select the topics of discussion. I more…
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A day with a difference 2
Last week we looked at some ways in which you can incorporate change into your teaching. Here are some more suggestions.
• Use an approach or technique which is new for you, such as a dictogloss, a transformation exercise, a mumble drill (where students just repeat the target items repeatedly ‘under more… -
Brazilians and Borsch! Koreans and Kebabs! There’s nothing like food to bring your students together.
I had a wonderfully enjoyable time with my IELTS students last week. To say ‘thank you’ for all their efforts, I brought two apple pies into class. They were delighted, and, as always, I marvelled at how effective food is as a conversation topic. I decided to combine good food with more…
