NILE – ELT Planning

MA dissertation promo cringe

By Pete on April 20, 2021 • ( 8 )

Maria Heron from NILE asked me to record a video about my NILE dissertation. They are promoting the course and are keen to get reflections from alumni. She sent me a bunch of questions and asked for a 5 minute… Read More ›

MA, PGCEi or Diploma?

By Pete on August 3, 2020 • ( 5 )

Question from a reader: I’m after some advice. I can’t decide which professional development course to do. I have a CELTA plus five years’ teaching experience and I’ve been thinking for a while about doing a DELTA or Dip. Then… Read More ›

Review: NILE Technology-assisted Language Learning course

By Pete on March 30, 2019 • ( 2 )

I took the MA module in Technology-assisted Language Learning through NILE back in 2017. Here are some thoughts on the course (views my own). Overview The course “covers the uses of technology in language education and includes theoretical perspectives, practical… Read More ›

Review: NILE Materials Development course

By Pete on March 28, 2019 • ( 19 )

I completed the MA module on Materials Development through NILE back in 2016. Here’s a quick review of the course (all views my own). Overview The online course runs for 8 weeks, with a mid-course break. It explores ‘many aspects… Read More ›

Article for Modern English Teacher: using Quizlet in teen classes

By Pete on April 4, 2018 • ( 5 )

Here’s my article for the latest Modern English Teacher, April 2018. I did a bit of action research on using Quizlet in class, which I mentioned before in this post. Sorry about the graphs, Scribd makes them look a bit… Read More ›

Problems with images in ELT materials

By Pete on May 7, 2017 • ( 15 )

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 ›

Lesson idea: Tomlinson’s text-driven approach

By Pete on May 6, 2017 • ( 23 )

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 ›