Author Archives

Teacher and Materials Writer

• Review: NILE Technology-assisted Language Learning course

  By Pete on March 30, 2019 • ( 2 )

  

  I took the MA module in Technology-assisted Language Learning through NILE back in 2017. Here are some thoughts on the course (views my own). Overview The course “covers the uses of technology in language education and includes theoretical perspectives, practical… Read More ›

• Review: NILE Materials Development course

  By Pete on March 28, 2019 • ( 19 )

  

  I completed the MA module on Materials Development through NILE back in 2016. Here’s a quick review of the course (all views my own). Overview The online course runs for 8 weeks, with a mid-course break. It explores ‘many aspects… Read More ›

• Materials writing news and views, March 2019

  By Pete on March 1, 2019 • ( 0 )

  

  A longer post this month – some overspill from the last post and then happenings over the last few weeks… What’s new out recently? Here are some recent coursebooks from publishers that I’ve clocked mainly on LinkedIn… Oxford Uni Press… Read More ›

• More PronPack – contrastive stress

  By Pete on February 24, 2019 • ( 1 )

  

  More PronPack in class today. I’m just making a quick note of a follow-up activity I did – worked well. I used ‘Stress Jigsaw’, a cool activity for raising awareness of contrastive stress. It involves matching questions with the correct… Read More ›

• Webinar: The Value of Gamification for Language Learning

  By Pete on February 22, 2019 • ( 1 )

  

  I watched this short webinar today from Cambridge Assessment English on gamifying learning (Sarah Albrecht and Ollie Wood). It was a straightforward introduction to the topic of gamification, then a short Q+A between presenters and live listeners. Here is the… Read More ›

• Using PronPack

  By Pete on February 20, 2019 • ( 3 )

  

  I’ve been using PronPack a bit in class recently. I was going to review it, but I think it’s more interesting to write about how I’m using it instead. I’ve just taught my teen classes the phonemic chart and we’ve… Read More ›

• Materials writing news and views, Feb 2019

  By Pete on February 12, 2019 • ( 12 )

  

  Thought I’d start sharing a semi-regular post on materials writing for those (semi-)interested. Just news, views, jobs I see and stuff. Whatever, don’t know yet! 9 ways to get noticed by an ELT publisher This is a new blog post… Read More ›

• TEFL Tiglets #2

  By Pete on February 4, 2019 • ( 0 )

  

  Following on from my original post on TEFL Sniglets (Tiglets), here are a few more words that should be in our TEFL dictionaries but aren’t…

• Book review: Egghead

  By Pete on February 4, 2019 • ( 1 )

  

  Egghead (Michael Lacey Freeman, 2015) is an A2 level graded reader for teens from ELI Publishing. It is an autobiographical story of the author’s experience of being bullied at school, and how friendship helped him overcome his difficulties.

• Book review: Loving London

  By Pete on January 30, 2019 • ( 5 )

  

  Loving London by Angela Tomkinson is an A2 level reader for teens. It provides 26 short texts on London (alphabetical), covering a whole range of topics (see image). Each text includes a short after-reading activity, and there are audio recordings… Read More ›