I hear this a lot during my interviews for EAL teaching/leadership roles. It’s in response to my question about which EAL assessment tool(s) the school use and *the extent to which they are embedded*. I love the honest responses from… Read More ›
reflections
Research in brief: Harnessing the translanguaging corriente
Article: The translanguaging pedagogies continuum (Ossa Parra and Proctor, 2022) Link here Summary: Research into best practice for teaching multilingual learners (in the US and elsewhere) has focused on English-only instructional settings, and systemic monolingual contexts. This runs contrary to… Read More ›
Another year in review
An interesting one – lots of change! Leaving Malaysia My two-year contract at St. Joseph’s International School ended in July. During those two years, our EAL team achieved a lot. Establishing an EAL department in the high school, building multi-tiered… Read More ›
Research in Brief: Input Enhancement and L2 Grammatical Development
The research: Leow, R. P. (2008). Input enhancement and L2 grammatical development: What the research reveals. (Open access, see here) Type of research A meta-analysis of research into the effectiveness of different input enhancement techniques. The range of studies were… Read More ›
Performativity in education
I tend to post my short-thoughts on LinkedIn rather than on this blog. This one is an example from around 8 months ago – but I decided to post here too just for easy reference. I originally came across Ball’s… Read More ›
Research in brief: Language ideologies and pedagogical tensions
An interesting (small scale) study on home language use in the EAL classroom from Neokleous and Natlandsmyr (2025) – Link here. Plenty of interesting findings within those themes: Theme 1 Theme 2 Relating this to my context The findings seemed… Read More ›
Further IGCSE ESL musings
A few months ago, I wrote a post on the value of the IGCSE ESL course. I’ve had a few other thoughts since, which I’ve shared on other platforms. I just wanted to file those thoughts somewhere under ‘random Pete… Read More ›
IGCSE LinkedInLit (Volume 2)
Here are more of my #LinkedInLit posts about IGCSE English as a Second Language. You can read the first volume here. The cultural trip ‘This cultural trip to England is an excellent opportunity for #IGCSE #ESL students,’ said Mr Wells… Read More ›
Does IGCSE ESL miss the mark?
I like teaching IGCSE ESL although I’m not sure it’s always suitable for my learners. Here are a few thoughts I have on it, both good and bad. Note, I’m writing about the Cambridge course here, as it’s the one… Read More ›
Bell Assessment Framework: Guide for International Users
A few months back, I wrote about the CEFR and the benefits of reading the Companion Volume. Similarly, the Bell Assessment Framework also has a companion doc – a ‘Guide for International Users’. It’s a concise and accessible resource. Well… Read More ›