I’ve been working on a cool new series of functional Business English lessons for ESL Library. Here’s a bit about the approach taken and my experience of working with ESL Library. The overall content Here’s the basic info: And here… Read More ›
writing reflections
Review: Eduland Writing Project
Eduland is a short story project for the China ELT market. You write short fiction texts for young learners, add a few comprehension questions (guidance given), do one round of edits (typically), and get paid! Currently, the short stories are… Read More ›
Materials writing and pub quizzes
Before lockdown I was an avid pub quizzer. It’s the perfect hobby for a materials writer because we accumulate tons of useless facts when researching articles. Here’s a list of some random topics I’ve written texts on in the last,… Read More ›
Writing and full-time teaching
I wrote this in 2019. Just came across it again. My loose thoughts on a random post-writing, pre-COVID evening… Balancing writing alongside teaching (and other) commitments isn’t always easy. I try to be realistic about the amount of time I… Read More ›
ELT materials writing – my year in review
It’s been quite a good year on the writing front. Balancing writing with full-time teaching is tough, but the rewards are great! It’s only three weeks until our xmas holidays so I’m calling this the end of my writing year…. Read More ›
Trends in the ELT materials market (?)
I don’t know what the trends are. No facts here. Just my opinion. I’m interested – do you agree/disagree/take offence/think these are pointlessly general statements/etc? Please comment! Key markets for most publishers seem to be China, Mexico, Turkey and Brazil…. Read More ›
Lesson Share Winner!
I don’t often win things – just like the football team I support! However, I was lucky enough to be the Onestopenglish Lesson Share winner for February. Woohoo! Check out the competition here. What was the lesson? Resources based on… Read More ›
30 Role-plays for TEFL
Do you want to bring some drama and creativity into class? Are you looking for new ways to motivate and engage your teen/adult learners? Are you on the lookout for a good value TEFL resource written by real teachers, for real teachers?… Read More ›
Webinar notes: What about principles for materials development? (Brian Tomlinson)
Here is Brian Tomlinson’s recent webinar in written form: ‘What about principles for materials development?’ The session was delivered as part of the MaWSIG ‘What about…? Webinar series. It was full of take home points so this post is pretty… Read More ›
The 8 stages of teaching my own materials
I sat down to plan a General English class for our adult learners to the other day. I say plan, more like adapt. We have an in-house set of lessons so there’s already a plan in place, but the lesson… Read More ›
ELT Planning 