April update has got a bit long, sorry. It’s mainly because of IATEFL and ELTONS. IATEFL talks There were some interesting talks related to materials writing. Equality, diversity and inclusion was certainly a theme. Two interesting points from John Gray’s… Read More ›

British Council
20 great video sites for the EFL classroom
I was asked on my FB page where I find good videos for class. I stumble upon them now and then (like here, thanks Lana), but I also find these sources pretty useful. Hope this helps!
Review: ELT Lesson Observation & Feedback
Lesson observations – where to start?! Jeanette Barsdell, the author of ELT Lesson Observation and Feedback Handbook, was thrown in at the deep end and expected to observe a teacher on her first day as a DOS. Despite being terrified,… Read More ›
Training: Improve your whiteboard work
I’ve written a training session about whiteboard work designed for our CELTA level teachers. After the last round of teacher observations we established that boarding new/emergent vocabulary was an area for development. This session includes some tips to help teachers… Read More ›
Subject knowledge, jargon, learners
This is a post aimed at candidates about to take a diploma course, but is still relevant to all. It also loosely connects to Sandy’s recent post about mistakes you’ve made in class (click here).
General ideas for teaching pronunciation
(This is a follow-up to my post on phonology-based activities. I’m sharing it now because some of our teachers are about to begin training for the Trinity DipTESOL. Phonology/pronunciation features quite a bit on that course, so I want to… Read More ›
Edtech exploration
I’ve come across loads of edtech sites/tools recently. I’ll forget them all if I don’t start writing them down. Here’s a random mix of stuff I’ve come across or have been using. Things I tried in class last term… Quizlet… Read More ›
Lesson idea: crazy recipes
I feel like I say this a lot, but thanks to ELT-cation (Svetlana) for yet another great lesson idea. Your post on Wordless Videos for ELT was awesome. I used the Western Spaghetti video from PES as inspiration for a… Read More ›
Lesson idea: Introducing inventions (2)
My Primary students (aged 11) are studying technology and inventions at the moment. I used this activity to introduce the topic – it worked well. This idea could be used for generating interest, sharing personal responses, developing schematic knowledge, revising… Read More ›
Students that make my job easy
Full marks to my awesome teen class last week. The work they produced was fantastic and I’m so proud of them. We did a short project based on describing graphs. It started off with scanning tasks and a few activities… Read More ›