This is a new series of blog posts for teachers looking to become materials writers. It aims to help future writers explore topics and issues in writing, encourage deeper insight into the content of published materials, and promote a principled… Read More ›

pronunciation
Materials writing conversations #3: natural, authentic speech
This is a completely imaginary conversation. No characters in the convo are based on real people – I’m just bored and imagining conversations I might have with editors… Editor: So, do you have any suggestions for the pronunciation stage? We… Read More ›
Book review: Teaching English as a Lingua Franca
I’ve finally got my hands on a copy of this book! Woohoo! What can I say? I’ve a keen interest in the topic of English as a Lingua Franca. ELF was a buzzword during my BA, well before I entered… Read More ›
My dissertation
Sharing my recent MA dissertation for general interest. I say ‘general interest’, but I imagine the interest will be extremely specific! Here’s the title: Pronunciation materials in an A2/B1 level British Council Adult General English course in Thailand – do… Read More ›
More PronPack – contrastive stress
More PronPack in class today. I’m just making a quick note of a follow-up activity I did – worked well. I used ‘Stress Jigsaw’, a cool activity for raising awareness of contrastive stress. It involves matching questions with the correct… Read More ›
Using PronPack
I’ve been using PronPack a bit in class recently. I was going to review it, but I think it’s more interesting to write about how I’m using it instead. I’ve just taught my teen classes the phonemic chart and we’ve… Read More ›
10 pronunciation books for DipTESOL trainees
Here’s my suggested reading list for the phonology component of the DipTESOL. I don’t want to mislead you – the course is 9 months long (depending) and you’ve a lot to do during that time. I’m not saying you should… Read More ›
Webinar: Teaching English pronunciation for the real world (Laura Patsko)
This webinar from November 2018 is a good introduction to the concept of English as a Lingua Franca. The hour-long session gives an overview the following:
Review: ELT Training Library (Language Fuel)
I love a freebie! I‘ve just completed a two-week free trial of Language Fuel. Overall, I give it an ELTplanning thumbs up. Skip to the end for my overall thoughts…
Pronunciation articles for DipTESOL students
I’m trying to persuade our DipTESOL students to engage with some pronunciation-related research. I’ve hand-picked these five articles for their relevance to our context (well, the last one is more general), and I’ll be sharing them with our candidates this… Read More ›