It’s a given that learning words in isolation is not particularly helpful when it comes to learning a foreign language. Words rarely appear in isolation when we communicate, and ELT has come a long way from the days in which vocabulary appeared as single words in a vocabulary box to the presentation of manageable language… Read More
Using L1 in the classroom – an example
I’ve already written about the use of L1 in the language classroom before here and here. I do believe that L1, if used properly in the classroom, might actually help learners. The problem, then, lies in knowing when to use L1 in a class and, most importantly, how to use it to promote learning instead of… Read More
Surviving a last-minute substitution class
I’m pretty sure you are acquainted with this situation: It’s five minutes before lessons start and suddenly you receive a phone call – the dreaded phone call from a teacher saying that he or she won’t be able to get to school on time, or that something unforeseen has come up and they won’t be… Read More
Care to join me?
Even though things have been a lot quieter than I wanted them to be, I’ve been doing lots of thinking lately. There are many posts yet to come in response to other blog posts I’ve read, and a couple of extra material on the way. This semester’s been particularly busy as I’ve taken up some… Read More
Some of the things I’ve tried out recently
It’s been a while since I last shared a couple of things I’ve tried out in class. However, instead of writing a post about certain activities, I decided to share a couple of things that I did in class in the past weeks. Some of them worked particularly well; others not so much. Anyway, these… Read More
Collaborative project
A while ago, I published a post asking for EFL/ESL teacher whether they’d like to join in a cross-cultural exchange project. We actually managed to get a good group of committed teachers who were willing to take it further. We moved from a wiki to a ning, and more and more teachers joined it. However,… Read More
Linking sounds
I’ve noticed that some of my students, or perhaps most of them, have problems with connected speech. This is true to many different areas, but I realised it’s particularly difficult for them to understand the linking sounds in English. So, this is an activity I used a long time ago to show students such linking… Read More
Speaking activity – Debating about the environment
(Note: before you start reading the post, I think it’s important to tell you that one of the videos I used in the activity does contain some ‘inappropriate’ language to some audiences, and I recommend you use it only with adults. If you feel your learners shouldn’t be exposed to this kind of language, you… Read More
Using CNN student news
I haven’t heard many things about CNN student news even though I find it useful in the classroom. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a daily video-podcast which lasts about 10 minutes, and, as you can guess from its name, it’s made by the folks at CNN. Anyway, I decided to share an activity… Read More
Speaking activity – Speculating about pictures
This is the tenth post on the blog. One of the things I had in mind when I created the blog was also to post some of the activities I’ve worked with in class. As I hadn’t done it up to now, it seems like post number 10 is a good one to do it.… Read More
