When a new school year is starting, I find it helpful to set some goals for personal and professional growth — after all our students are not the only ones who need a sense of progress in order to be motivated. So I usually think back about my practice, my lessons and my general teaching …
Author Archives: Capybara
Wisdom
听而易忘,见而易记,做而易懂 I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
With the new school year come many changes in my life. Here’s just a few.
Primary school nightmare
I’m writing this on a sweltering day here in Italy, so I apologise in advance if any of this is going to sound a bit harsh. I also want to point out that most of the colleagues I met during the experience I am going to describe were great teachers and wonderful colleagues, to whom …
Delta panic attack
This is going to be a very personal post, nothing about methodology, Dogme or classroom experiments. Something both wonderful and scary happened recently that I felt I had to blog about it: I have found out that I’ll be undertaking Delta Module 1 starting September. I’m going to take a part-time course while also working, …
Sensitive issues and ELT
It all started with a notelt from Mike Harrison where he was asking if we thought it appropriate to bring up hot or controversial topics in class. I thought my answer would be “no”. I remember my CELTA tutors telling us how “what’s the best way to avoid stress” is a good topic for ELT, …
A lesson on Brexit?
Read why you should definitely try this lesson with your students, especially after Brexit.
On Dogme and how a world map transformed my lesson
I have already discussed on this blog how I love the idea of materials-light teaching and how I am experimenting with an unplugged approach. So it comes as no surprise that last week I decided to unplug one of my intermediate-level lessons to see where it would go. The result was amazing to me. Some background information before I start: …
Continue reading “On Dogme and how a world map transformed my lesson”
The effectiveness of conversation classes
I’m delighted to link this great post by Anthony Ash in response to my question on the effectiveness of conversation lessons.
The problems I see with flipped, game-based teaching
Can a flipped, game-based approach to teaching English really work with adult, monolingual classes?