One thing my CELTA course skimmed over was how to develop learners’ conversation strategies. There seems to be a good amount of focus on conversation strategies in recent coursebooks. However, at times I find these can be problematic. Models of… Read More ›
General
Review: NILE Membership
The NILE Membership area is a new section on the Norwich Institute of Language Education site. It includes various resources created for language educators by the NILE trainers. There’s new content added each month and (best of all) it is… Read More ›
Materials writing conversations #6: the packager
This is a completely imaginary conversation. No characters in the convo are based on real people – I’m just bored and imagining conversations I might have with editors… Editor: Thanks so much for this work. You’ve clearly put a lot… Read More ›
ELT Twitter chats
I did a digital reset of my Twitter account recently. I now see a much wider range of content than before, and have found loads of awesome EAL/ELL/ESL teachers to follow. One really useful thing about the reset is that… Read More ›
Materials writing news and views, February 2020
I’ll hopefully keep this update going this year. Bit busy at the moment so here are a few very quick updates and some useful links. New releases Express Publishing are promoting a new book English for 21st Century Skills (Mavridi… Read More ›
Book review: The Learning Power Approach
The Learning Power Approach (LPA) proposes that teachers encourage learners to cultivate an array of traits which are seen as beneficial for lifelong learning. These traits, or learning dispositions, include various cognitive, metacognitive and behavioural strategies/processes/habits – summarised on the… Read More ›
Review: Ready to Run video platform (DLA)
This review was first published in the Winter 2019 edition of the ETAS Journal. Many thanks to ETAS for allowing the review to appear on this blog. Ready to Run, from Digital Learning Associates (DLA), is a platform providing video-based… Read More ›
The benefits of using an ELT coursebook
Late last year I read the Jordan and Gray/Hughes exchange on ELT coursebooks, which appeared in ELT Journal. It’s an interesting discussion if you haven’t read it yet. I generally agreed more with Hughes, but that’s to be expected; I… Read More ›
Research in brief: reading disruption of a textbook
The research Winter, C. (2018). Disrupting colonial discourses in the geography curriculum during the introduction of British Values policy in schools. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 50(4), 456-475. Open access, click here. Summary The aim of the study was ‘to expose and disrupt… Read More ›
How to annoy commissioning editors (and find work)
Another ‘how to become a materials writer’ article has popped up – Kirsten Holt’s article for ETPro offers some more good advice for budding writers. Every time I read one of these posts I’m itching to chip in. I really… Read More ›