I teach a mainstream Year 7 class. The overall level is very high, but sometimes I think the in-house content we have could do with more scaffolding at times. I mean, it’s awesome content – I’m just talking a few… Read More ›
teacher development
EAL adaptations: Floodland
I teach a support group of EAL learners in Year 6. We study the same content as all other English classes and take the same assessment. It’s just that the content and lesson resource needs a bit of adapting to… Read More ›
Interview task: Optimising the development of SLA in an international school
I had a positive job hunting experience towards the end of this week. I put out the feelers for work at a good school on Wednesday, was offered an interview on Thursday, interviewed Friday morning, then rejected Friday afternoon. Why… Read More ›
Research in brief: Disciplinary literacy and verbal language in PE
I haven’t come across many studies into disciplinary literacy development in PE, so this action research from Lindberg (2024) is fascinating. Here’s a very brief summary – logging it here for my own reference more than anything! The action research… Read More ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
Assessment Only Route to QTS: D5 record of standards
Comment from a reader on my recent post about the Assessment Only route: Here are some general tips on compiling your D5 record of standards doc for the AO route through Sunderland, with some screenshots of mine included for reference…. Read More ›
Assessment Only Route to QTS: Interview Presentation
Part of the interview process for the AO Route to QTS (Sunderland) is delivering a presentation. You do this during the live interview. The presentation lasts approximately 20 minutes, and it’s recorded for moderation. During the interview you should respond… Read More ›
Pre-teaching academic vocabulary
This term we’re trialing an approach to pre-teaching academic vocabulary. Here’s the basic process: Step 1: Subject teachers identify 10-12 items of key vocab for an upcoming topic in either science, humanities, or maths. This should happen a couple of… Read More ›
ELT Planning 