‘Do you understand?’ – A case for reassessment

For trainee teachers on pre-service training courses, ICQs (instruction check questions) and CCQs (concept check questions) can often be some of the most challenging things to get right. Yet, when compared with many other aspects of pre-service training courses, there is a comparatively low survival rate for check questions (CQs) after trainees graduate. Indeed, when …

Traffic lights: A free resource for correcting errors and checking understanding

Earlier this year I became concerned that I was over-correcting my adult students during speaking activities. I tend to use both direct correction and delayed correction (via the board) depending on the situation. I know that many of my learners do want me to correct them directly, but I wasn’t sure that all of them …

Holes in the English language

Anyone who speaks two or more languages will be aware that there are linguistic ‘gaps’ in all languages. Given that English is now established as the predominant lingua franca of the world, the existence of such gaps can be at best inconvenient, and at worst, it may influence what we say or think (depending on …

Teaching English in Large Classes – forthcoming webinar

On Saturday 19th November at 13:30pm (UK time), I led a webinar on Teaching English in Large Classes for British Council English Agenda. The webinar focused on English language teaching, adopting a sociocultural perspective that aims to situate the English language teacher in her/his local teaching community. This is in contrast to what often happens in …

Speaking Games shortlisted for ESU Duke of Edinburgh award

I'm proud to announce that my book Speaking Games (2014, Delta Publishing) has been shortlisted for the English Speaking Union Duke of Edinburgh Award for Resources for Teachers, one of four titles in its category. This prestigious award celebrates innovation and good practice in English language teaching. This year the judges were looking in particular for …

A fundamental dichotomy in ELT methodology: A response to Pang (forthcoming)

Now available in Advance Access in ELT Journal. May Pang recently wrote an interesting critique of my 2015 ELT Journal article ‘Affordance, learning opportunities and the lesson plan pro forma’. Pang’s piece in the current ELT Journal (‘Companion guides for lesson planning: a planning template and the lesson plan pro forma’) follows her earlier article …

The most important animal in the world

Regular readers of my blog (both of them) will probably know a little about my interest in nature. Occasionally I find opportunities to bring this together with my passion for creating teaching materials. My Delta Download for this month, produced for Delta Publishing is an interesting jigsaw reading activity on what might just be the …

1-minute survey: CPD support on using the mother tongue to teach English

In preparation for a plenary talk I am giving at the Pharos University International ELT Symposium in Alexandria, Egypt on 3rd September, I'm doing a very quick (4-question) survey on support that teachers receive on the issue of L1 / mother tongue use in the classroom. It should only take 1 minute to complete. To …

The PPP saga ends

Having become known as 'Mr PPP' to some of my acquaintances, it is with mixed emotions that I finally conclude my work on this paradigm. I was never the world's biggest fan, but given the shared mythology that has been disseminated within the TEFL community on PPP, I felt the research warranted, and it was. Just over …

Why practice makes perfect sense

For those interested in the PPP research I've been doing, my more academic paper on this topic has just come out, in the journal: English Language Teaching Education and Development (ELTED). See here for a link to the open access article. The full title is 'Why practice makes perfect sense: The past, present and future …