Maria Heron from NILE asked me to record a video about my NILE dissertation. They are promoting the course and are keen to get reflections from alumni. She sent me a bunch of questions and asked for a 5 minute… Read More ›
General
Using Stories Without End
Here’s a quick follow-up to my review of Stories Without End (Taylor Sapp, Alphabet Publishing). As you may have read, I thought this was great resource which could be easily adapted to my own context. Here is an example of… Read More ›
Why I work for free (sometimes)
I take on materials development work for free sometimes. I appreciate that not everyone has time to do that, can afford to, or might want to. I choose to do it for different reasons. It might be for a good… Read More ›
Seesaw for EAL and young learners
Someone contacted me last week in a panic. ‘Aaargh, we’re going to start using Seesaw – any tips? Is it easy? Can you do a lot on it?’ etc. I find Seesaw really easy to use as a classroom learning… Read More ›
Review: Work It Out with Business Idioms
Scroll to *get on with it, Pete* for review. Do you remember that BBC article about how rubbish us native speakers can be at communication? I think that put me off teaching idioms for a bit. I came to think… Read More ›
18 more ways to introduce your lesson topic
This term I’ve tried out a few different ways to introduce a lesson. These ones have worked well. They might be worth reading if you’ve exhausted my previous list! Song lyric gap fill Example: 3rd conditional, regrets Do a short gap… Read More ›
Review: Eduland Writing Project
Eduland is a short story project for the China ELT market. You write short fiction texts for young learners, add a few comprehension questions (guidance given), do one round of edits (typically), and get paid! Currently, the short stories are… Read More ›
Materials writing news and views, March 2021
Mostly new releases, plus references to Premier League sticker albums… New releases English Code – Mary Roulston. Dinosaur on the front cover, win. Cambridge Primary World English teacher’s guides – saw on Melissa Bryant’s Linkedin. Hodder Education. Language Fuel have… Read More ›
Review: Retrieval Practice (Kate Jones)
This resource by Kate Jones (2019) is a concise overview of all things retrieval practice – theory, research and classroom implementation. It begins by defining the term… ‘… the act of recalling learned information from memory (with little or no… Read More ›
Materials Development Task 11: Future-proofing
Think… Have you ever created a resource that aged quickly? What aspects/features of a published resource might make it more susceptible to ‘ageing’? How could you, as a writer, minimize the chance of a resource becoming dated? Do you think… Read More ›
ELT Planning 