Perils of fossilisation
Very debatable, but an interesting read nonetheless: this article by Kris Jagasia claims that personal tutors are much more efficient at improving learners’ accuracy and dealing with fossilised errors....
View ArticleLost without translation
The Cambridge ELT blog has a very interesting article by Philip Kerr about using translation in language classes – an idea which keeps going in and out of methodological fashion, and it seems like it’s...
View ArticleTo err or not to err
If you have ten minutes today for an enjoyable longread on educational psychology, here is an article by Claudia Wallis about the science behind error correction. There are a lot of examples from U.S....
View ArticleAlan November at Teacher Skills Forum in Jordan
Now that I’m back, I have a bit of time to sort through my conference notes. Even a week later, Alan November’s presentation stands out: the speaker’s skills were excellent, his ideas were emphasised...
View ArticleiFake it till you make it
In one of his recent posts on QuickShout, Nik Peachey describes a useful online tool with a very self-explanatory name: iFake Text Message. The app is quite intuitive and doesn’t need much in terms of...
View ArticleJust a teeny tiny minute, only 60 seconds in it
Check out this very comprehensive description of a classical little activity called ‘Just a minute!’. It can help you energise your students when you’re not in the mood for slow teaching. I have tried...
View ArticleProofreading skills with NY Times
Have you seen this great copy-editing quiz from the New York Times? It can work very well with any advanced students, including EAP and exam prep. I had a lot of fun with it myself, and, to be honest,...
View ArticleRed pen hate
Do you still use the red pen to mark your students’ writing? Apparently, this type of feedback is seen as more aggressive and less helpful. This article suggests an excellent alternative: making video...
View ArticleThe art and craft of giving feedback
Here is a very useful weekend read: an article by Paul A. Kirschner and Mirjam Neelen unpacking different types of feedback and putting to rest the notion that ‘feedback is always great for learning’....
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Do learners ‘copy mistakes’ from each other?
Have your students sometimes refused to work with a weaker-level partner? I’ve recently read this interesting post by Betty Azar responding to a teacher’s worry that students will acquire wrong models...
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How to apologise for teaching
What a great post by Larry Ferlazzo! I’m pretty sure most of us make similar errors of judgement in the classroom when we focus on ‘covering the book’, ‘meeting the deadline’, ‘doing the Present...
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Owning your teaching mistakes
Owning your mistakes – this is becoming an impromptu series! Here is a very interesting reflection by Sam Pullan which has surfaced on Twitter today (sorry for skipping the ‘via’ reference, I usually...
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