A newly-qualified CELTA teacher has asked me for advice about how to deal with functional language. So… this is one of my approaches to teaching functional language! The example is from a lesson I did last weekend about the World… Read More ›
ideas
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 ›
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: 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 ›
Learn English through football
Ball ball ball, footie footie footie! I’m a bit obsessed with the beautiful game, and I’ve taught plenty of students who are too! You may have come across Premier Skills English before, the British Council/Premier League site dedicated to teaching… Read More ›
Lesson ideas: football and conditionals
Looking for a way to teach/review conditionals? A former colleague at LTC Eastbourne (cheers Angel) told me that football was his ‘go to’ topic for conditional structures… Show the students a league table (or part of it): source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/football Use actual… Read More ›
Workstations for reviews (young learners)
I saw my boss use a simple workstation activity during a peer observation. It was a really good way to prepare students for their final task. I often include a quick 10-15 minute workstation activity in my YL classes now…. Read More ›
Lesson idea – self-portraits
I love the book Being Creative by Chaz Pugliese. It’s full of great activities and ideas for personalising learning. It’s also a great book for new teachers to have around as it will encourage you to experiment. I first used… Read More ›
Introducing travel – student quiz
This came up again recently. There’s nothing wrong with ‘Where the hell is Matt?’, that will always be a classic. However, I like to mix things up, personalise, find different ways to engage my students. This worked well… First up,… Read More ›
Comparatives and superlatives – Top Trumps
This is a classic. I find Top Trumps are a fun way to practise comparatives (mainly) and superlatives with young learners. Here’s something I did recently… The topic was ‘Wild World’, but talk of animals like polar bears feels a… Read More ›
ELT Planning 