As you may have read, I’ve been creating an academic English syllabus for KS3 EAL intensive provision. This has been an AI-assisted project, and you can catch up on (most of) the process through this tag. Anyhow, after a brief… Read More ›
international school
Interlude: Beyond the coursebook for tiered EAL provision
(This is a text-heavy post, so every now and then I’m going to drop in an album cover of a band I’ve been listening to recently – just so you don’t get bored) I’m building an ‘academic English syllabus’ for… Read More ›
Beyond the coursebook for tiered EAL provision (Part 4: unit overviews)
For context, I’m creating an ‘academic English’ syllabus for Year 7 EAL learners. So, I currently have: About 45 core skill areas for learners to develop across 5 areas: reading/viewing, speaking/oracy, listening, writing, plurilingual competencies (see Part 1). These are… Read More ›
Beyond the coursebook for tiered EAL provision (Part 3: sub-skills)
For context, I’m attempting to build an ‘academic English syllabus’ for an international school. I initially set out to create suitable alternatives to coursebook-driven provision, or to at least suggest enhancements to that model. Am I getting anywhere, or am… Read More ›
Beyond the coursebook for tiered EAL provision (Part 2: vocab!)
If you missed Part 1, basically I’m attempting to build an ‘academic English syllabus’ for EAL contexts. The overall purpose is so that we don’t have to fall back on using ELT coursebooks for tiered provision. Famous last words –… Read More ›
EAL Digest August 2026
Shorter summary than usual, but I’ve been a bit busy! New releases The new EAL Journal from NALDIC is out: Putting Multilingualism on the Map. Find out more here. Jason Anderson and Suyog Dixit have a new book out: Translanguaging… Read More ›
EAL Digest July 2026
I never really got this update off the ground a few years back. Feels like I need to keep track of different things I come across so I’m starting it again. New releases Oracy strategies for all ages and phases… Read More ›
Effective questioning
Jane Maria Harding da Rosa at EELT asked if I had any tips regarding effective questioning. She felt that effective questioning is not covered much on initial teacher training courses, so is planning some input on it for her blog/channel… Read More ›
Community building activities for tutor time
Last year, Joel Lawrence and I worked on some community building resources for tutor time at St. Joes. They were meant to be used as part of an induction phase, maybe weeks 1-2 of term. Nothing ground-breaking here! Just sharing… Read More ›
Interview task: create a lesson for a Year 10 IGCSE ESL class
I recently had an interview for a Head of EAL role here in Bangkok. It was for a school called King’s College, which is a fairly new school with a good reputation. I did okay – made it through to… Read More ›
