Young Learners and grammar: how can we make it work?
Telling your young learners that they are going to learn all about the ‘past simple’ this morning, will be met with absent-minded stares and is unlikely to fill them with excitement. However, most schools and parents do expect young learners’ teachers to enable learners to get their ‘head around’ grammar rules. In this webinar, we […]
Testing and Assessment
In this podcast, the Pearson English panel and I discuss what testing and assessment really and why they are so important. We continue our chat about assessment options available and end with some tips about teaching exam classes. Sadly, the accompanying blog post from Pearson seems no longer available. https://www.english.com/blog/testing-and-assessment-podcast
Professionalising global TEYL practices – Focus on global skills
Although some teachers might wonder if global skills have a place in teaching English to young learners (TEYL), I am a strong believer that we, as English language teachers, have an important role to play in raising learners’ awareness of the significant challenges the world is facing. Focusing on global issues in an age-accessible way and […]
Reflections as Professional Learning
Happy 2022! A new year has started offering us a chance to develop some new good habits: regular reflections! Dewey stated it clearly “we don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” Reflective practice is a powerful tool and key for development because it enables ‘continuous learning’ as Schön highlights. Teachers who want […]
Teacher Talks, a chat with Volkan Iner
In this podcast I’m sharing my teaching experiences, philosophy of teaching and much more. Volkan nicely summarised my motto as “Don’t Let Perfect Stop You From Being Good Enough”! Happy watching 🙂 And if you liked this interview, checkout Volkan’s Instragram account with about 184 talks.. with teachers!
Looking back to move forward…
If COVID-19 has a silver lining, is it definitely the learning opportunities this shock-event has provided us with as ELT teachers and teacher educators, even in 2021. This year most of us started with more awareness and knowledge about online education and teaching live online, but personally, I feel I’ve come out with more knowledge, […]
Zooming in on Wellbeing
In this ELTeaTIme episode for Macmillan Education, I join -with my South Africa Rooibos tea, Nathan Waller and his fruity Strawberry and Raspberry. Together we explored wellbeing, social and emotional learning and mindfulness in teaching and learning (both for teachers and students) and shared some tips to help promote and integrate wellbeing in the language […]
What makes a great teacher?
What is it that makes a great teacher? Is it passion? Empathy? Belief – in themselves and their students? Knowledge? Creativity? Flexibility? Dedication? Enthusiasm? Patience? Being a good listener? Having the willingness to try new things? Being able to reflect? Willingness to learn from mistakes and to keep on learning? And the list goes on…… […]
Language teachers teach language. But is that all we need to know?
Well that is our job, right? A while ago, I attended a fabulous conference with Jim Scrivener and in one of his talks he referred to a comment Michael Swan had made about language teaching: our job as language teachers is to teach language. Full stop. This comment stayed on my mind and made me think about my own language […]
Back to School: Motivating Learning Online for all Students
While most teachers are now more confident teaching with technology and online, many teachers are still reporting that student motivation remains a challenge. In this interactive webinar, I explore the concept of motivation and highlights the importance of shifting away from teachers motivating learners to student-generated motivation and found ways to ignite the fire from within.