Author Archives

Teacher and Materials Writer

• Cover letters for international school jobs

  By Pete on February 22, 2025 • ( 2 )

  

  How do you approach writing a cover letter/supporting statement for international school roles? Here’s what I do – I’ll explain it with some examples from previous applications… Step 1a: Research the school. Get a genuine sense for the mission, ethos… Read More ›

• Embedding EAL in-class support

  By Pete on February 21, 2025 • ( 1 )

  

  When we set up our EAL department last year we started with one HoD, one EAL teacher, and  two EAL support coaches.  As the HoD, I teach an 80% timetable. Our teacher has a full timetable. Our coaches oversee about… Read More ›

• Another year in review

  By Pete on December 18, 2024 • ( 1 )

  

  2024 vibe: PGCEi and AO QTS go-to! This year, I decided to get Qualified Teacher Status in England. It was a great decision to do this through the Uni of Sunderland – I’ve blogged about the overall experience and the… Read More ›

• Assessment Only Route to QTS: Interview Presentation

  By Pete on November 12, 2024 • ( 1 )

  

  Part of the interview process for the AO Route to QTS (Sunderland) is delivering a presentation. You do this during the live interview. The presentation lasts approximately 20 minutes, and it’s recorded for moderation. During the interview you should respond… Read More ›

• EAL response to literature displays

  By Pete on November 5, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  I recently mentioned how our learners created a final display board in response to a unit on poetry. Here’s a screenshot of what our common assessment checklist looked like for the final product: I could scrutinize here – there’s room… Read More ›

• Materials writing conversations #19: vague briefs

  By Pete on October 31, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  Host (Des): Welcome back to ELT Publishing Family Fortunes. Before the break, we asked each publishing team to name ‘Something that publishers are deliberately vague about in project briefs’.  Donald gained control of the board for Big Four ELT with… Read More ›

• ChatGPT experiments: New unit intros (IGCSE ESL)

  By Pete on October 29, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  Luiz Octávio Barros was asking about scripts we feed ChatGPT the other day. I mentioned this: Which is a very boring example of an (over the word count) type IGCSE ESL text I generate for correction practice. I’m not *massively*… Read More ›

• Conventional, common-sense vocabulary and grammar instruction (Boers)

  By Pete on October 18, 2024 • ( 2 )

  

  Boers (2021) outlines six explicit vocabulary and grammar teaching practices that are backed up by research.  He does so almost apologetically, noting that most of the practices align with more traditional/conventional methods, and that they also seem ‘commonsensical’. I lack… Read More ›

• One of our research areas is missing

  By Pete on October 10, 2024 • ( 1 )

  

  I’ve been flicking through Jamie Clark’s Teaching One-Pagers recently, and overall I’m a big fan. Evidence-informed summaries of research and practice – informative, accessible, perfect for the staffroom coffee table.  As Oliver Caviglioli points out in the foreword, One-Pagers is… Read More ›

• Pre-teaching academic vocabulary

  By Pete on September 29, 2024 • ( 4 )

  

  This term we’re trialing an approach to pre-teaching academic vocabulary. Here’s the basic process: Step 1: Subject teachers identify 10-12 items of key vocab for an upcoming topic in either science, humanities, or maths. This should happen a couple of… Read More ›