Author Archives

Teacher and Materials Writer

• Subject knowledge, jargon, learners

  By Pete on May 15, 2018 • ( 2 )

  

  This is a post aimed at candidates about to take a diploma course, but is still relevant to all. It also loosely connects to Sandy’s recent post about mistakes you’ve made in class (click here).

• 1000 words on… Correcting spoken errors

  By Pete on May 14, 2018 • ( 6 )

  

  This is an interesting topic I’ve been revisiting this week. I wrote about it during my diploma (see here) and I like how relevant and applicable this topic is to my classroom practice. Lyster and Ranta (1997) suggest that there… Read More ›

• I clearly love coursebooks

  By Pete on April 17, 2018 • ( 26 )

  

  I always feel embarrassed when I speak up for coursebooks. I think I’m supposed to hate them. Everybody else seems to, so I guess that’s the right thing to do. According to Steve Brown’s latest post (well worth a read),… Read More ›

• Article for Modern English Teacher: using Quizlet in teen classes

  By Pete on April 4, 2018 • ( 5 )

  

  Here’s my article for the latest Modern English Teacher, April 2018. I did a bit of action research on using Quizlet in class, which I mentioned before in this post. Sorry about the graphs, Scribd makes them look a bit… Read More ›

• DipTESOL: introduction to the phonemic chart

  By Pete on April 1, 2018 • ( 3 )

  

  This is an introductory session on the phonemic chart for trainees taking the DipTESOL. I’ve designed this to supplement input given via distance learning courses, to be run in-house. It’s meant to help trainees give a basic explanation of the… Read More ›

• Book review: Her Own Worst Enemy

  By Pete on March 25, 2018 • ( 3 )

  

  The latest offering from Alphabet Publishing looks like a great resource for bringing drama into the language classroom. Her Own Worst Enemy is written by Alice Savage, a Professor of ESOL in Texas who has previous publications with Longman and… Read More ›

• General ideas for teaching pronunciation

  By Pete on January 30, 2018 • ( 2 )

  

  (This is a follow-up to my post on phonology-based activities. I’m sharing it now because some of our teachers are about to begin training for the Trinity DipTESOL. Phonology/pronunciation features quite a bit on that course, so I want to… Read More ›

• The 8 stages of teaching my own materials

  By Pete on November 21, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  I sat down to plan a General English class for our adult learners to the other day. I say plan, more like adapt. We have an in-house set of lessons so there’s already a plan in place, but the lesson… Read More ›

• Integrating technology in the EFL classroom

  By Pete on October 30, 2017 • ( 8 )

  

  A few weeks ago I blogged about my recent experience of using edtech in class. Claudia Andrade shared an interesting response to the post: This got me thinking about my practice and my reliance on certain forms of evaluation. Looking… Read More ›

• How I plan with coursebooks

  By Pete on October 26, 2017 • ( 8 )

  

  Coursebooks. Arrgh. I write and read so many rants about them. Global coursebooks are too ‘catch-all’, they’re not aligned with what we know about second language acquisition, they’re a straightjacket, the images promote certain ideals, the content is too diluted,… Read More ›