Phrasal verb resource books you’ve used… GO! Okay, so there was a good one on the bookshelf at LTC called ‘Illustrated Phrasal Verbs’. Me and Sketch used it so often that the student’s book fell apart (only one copy –… Read More ›

materials evaluation
Course review: Evaluating Digital Materials (iTDi)
I recently took the iTDi course on Evaluating Digital Materials, delivered by Pete Sharma. If you can’t be bothered with the whole review – here’s a summary in, er… wait… 17 words: Excellent input, great delivery, very active forum, useful… Read More ›
How sanitized is your coursebook?
Tut! Coursebooks with their PARSNIP policy. You’ve literally given me nothing this term – not even a shred of controversy.
Coursebook activities and SLA theory – do they match?
According to Tomlinson (2013:12-15), ‘it is generally accepted that [Second Language Acquisition] is facilitated by: a rich and meaningful exposure to language in use affective and cognitive engagement making use of mental resources typically used in L1 communication noticing how… Read More ›
A rant about comprehension questions
On my module in materials development we’ve just looked at reading and listening tasks. We spoke about what makes good/bad comprehension questions. ‘Plain sense’ questions are seen as pretty ineffective, as they just test familiarity with sentence structure rather than… Read More ›
Evaluating course books – checklists
I’m currently studying a module in Materials Development through NILE online. It’s a really worthwhile course so far! Unit two talked about evaluating materials, specifically course books. We were introduced to a range of checklists that could be used for… Read More ›