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Teacher and Materials Writer

  • Jamboard (so far)

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    Jamboard mentioned a lot recently. I decided to give it a go with my Secondary classes. Started using it last week so this is all new to me. Early thoughts. Jamboard versus (e.g.) whiteboard.fi This was the first step for… Read More ›

  • Course review: PGCEi

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    This review is for the PGCEi from the University of Nottingham. It’s a bit general – see links for more details. Overview of modules There are 3 modules on this course.

  • Materials Writing news and views, January 2021

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    Hi all. Short one. Diversity features quite a bit. New releases Another offering from the George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley of ELT, this time via Waygooze Press. Other than that, I’ve haven’t seen much released. I’ve been reading some of… Read More ›

  • Fluency and fun: Hidden words

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    Here’s a quick speaking activity for Primary EAL. A good one for Friday afternoon fun. Check out this ‘Hidden Words‘ post on Bored Panda. Is just a load of illustrations with six hidden words in each. Get the students to… Read More ›

  • Reading tasks for homework

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    Hiya, hope online learning is going well. Here are some random reading tasks I set for homework. Each student chooses one of these to do a week. These are in a big folder on my desk, but they’ll be adapted… Read More ›

  • Self-study suggestions handout

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    Lockdown again 😦 Here’s a handout I gave to learners for self-study over Christmas. Might be useful now seeing as we’re going back to online learning. Ha, not as a handout obvs… Just the image! Cheers.

  • Materials writing and pub quizzes

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    Before lockdown I was an avid pub quizzer. It’s the perfect hobby for a materials writer because we accumulate tons of useless facts when researching articles. Here’s a list of some random topics I’ve written texts on in the last,… Read More ›

  • Top 10 reads from the PGCEi

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    The PGCEi was full of great reads. Here were the articles and chapters I most enjoyed from the course, all of which were part of the core content. I’ll find as many open access links as I can! 10 Roberts… Read More ›

  • Year in review

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    Last blog post of 2020. Here’s how the year went… January: Handed in my notice at British Council. Started Module 2 of the PGCEi. Goaded a few people on Twitter, felt guilty, stopped using Twitter. For a day.

  • How to get a PGCEi Distinction

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    I’ve just finished a PGCEi through University of Nottingham. I got a mark of 78 for each of the three modules, which basically means ‘your writing is okay, but your stuff’s not really a contribution to the field or anything;… Read More ›