Recent Posts - page 39
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Assessment Capable Learners in the primary classroom
In this guest post Kirsten Anne shares some great advice on encouraging self-assessment in the primary classroom. I am a primary school teacher and currently work in a year 3 classroom. My students are between 7 and 8 years of age and… Read More ›
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Quizlet Teacher account – worth it?
I’ve been using Quizlet in class for a while. This term I’m getting to grips with it a bit more as part of a project for my MA. Huh, Quizlet? Quizlet is a site which allows you to create your own… Read More ›
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Classroom silence and digital natives
Svetlana Kandybovich recently wrote a post about allowing students thinking time. It’s full of useful ideas for the classroom and well worth a read. Something else worth reading is ‘The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World’ by… Read More ›
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Problems with images in ELT materials
Images in ELT coursebooks are often ambiguous. What might seem a fairly obvious depiction of an act or concept to us may be perceived as something completely different to our learners. In an interesting, small-scale study, Hewings (1991) asked a… Read More ›
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Lesson idea: Tomlinson’s text-driven approach
In Developing Materials for Language Teaching (2013) Tomlinson introduces a text-driven approach to materials development. He goes into quite a bit of detail regarding text selection, offers a suggested framework for the approach and provides a practical example (pages 99-114)…. Read More ›
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IATEFL 2017: Does feedback work?
A summary of Loraine Kennedy’s main points from the talk ‘In one ear and out the other: does feedback work?’ You can access the session here (again, won’t embed). Orientation This talk was specifically about in-service feedback for teachers, not… Read More ›
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IATEFL 2017: Developing teacher talk
I’ve just watched Jamie Keddie’s talk entitled ‘Developing Teacher Talk’. I was excited about this one. I’m a fan of Jamie’s site and I recently watched his TEDx talk On Videotelling. Here’s a link to the talk (can’t embed again)…. Read More ›
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IATEFL 2017: Integrating pronunciation
I just watched a good talk from Mark McKinnon and Nicola Meldrum called ‘Making pronunciation an integral part of your classroom practice’. Here’s a link (I can’t embed the vid for some reason). I’m a DipTESOL graduate so ‘pron’ is… Read More ›
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Metaphors for teaching materials
What are coursebooks to you? This question prompted plenty of discussion on our materials development course. We were given various metaphors to choose from – a springboard, a straitjacket, a recipe, a compass, etc. I opted for a crutch, as… Read More ›
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The role of teaching materials – deficiency vs difference
I took a course on materials development recently. It was really good – plenty of input and ideas I could apply in my current context. Here’s a link to the course if you’re interested. The role of teaching materials (as… Read More ›
Featured Categories
materials writing ›
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Materials writing conversations #20: The title
September 7, 2025
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Materials writing conversations #19: vague briefs
October 31, 2024
DipTESOL tips ›
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DipTESOL Independent Research Project
August 10, 2021
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Reflections on the DipTESOL
June 29, 2021
teacher development ›
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Interview task: create a lesson for a Year 10 IGCSE ESL class
February 15, 2026
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AI experiments: IGCSE ESL speaking assessment bank
February 8, 2026