Richard Gresswell over at ELT BITES posted a low-materials challenge for teachers recently – you can find the challenge and instructions here. I thought I would try, so… Lesson Idea: “What’s up? There’s been a powercut” True story – I arrived at work one morning many years ago to find the school in darkness and dismay – there was […]
Powerful beyond measure
This is to the teachers I am working with on our current CELTA course. We have come a long way since the beginning, two weeks ago. Through your journals I have had the privilege of following your developmental and emotional journey. Of all the ideas, thoughts, questions and wishes that keep recurring, one of the […]
Dear Diary…
On our CELTA courses up to now, we have maintained an approach to finding out what our trainees thought about their teaching that is fairly typical of such courses: we ask them to write a self-evaluation after they have taught, which they submit to us before we sit down with them to discuss the lesson.
Teaching Tao ‘n’ Zen…
Teaching Tao ‘n’ Zen… …We have a firm opinion about our strengths and weaknesses, we believe we know enough to know our character, and recognise our limits. In this we know, strictly speaking, absolutely nothing. What we “know” about ourselves, we have learnt through comparison. All the characteristics that we have attributed to ourselves, we […]
In Memoriam: Chris Foley (? – 2011)
These are private words addressed to you in public – T.S. Eliot I do not expect many will read this. It does not matter. As I write, I imagine you are being carried by friends and family from the church to your final resting place. I doubt you will like that very much: you never […]
Security Theatre in ELT
A common feature of many initial teacher training programmes is a strong emphasis on detailed paper-based lesson planning. Whether this actually increases teacher preparedness to teach is questionable. Prompted by a TED Talk on Security Theatre and risk assessment, I suggest that focusing on anticipating problems and trying to eliminate perceived lack of control in […]
Copy, cat!
In my last post, I took a light-hearted look at some – ahem – cultural icons whom I felt had some affinity with language learning and teaching. A few people were amused by it and one of those took up the idea and ran with it, creating the scurrilously hilarious interview blog alternativeeflgurus. This example of […]
The Littlest Hobo (And Other Unsung Language Teaching Heroes)
Browsing the British Airways Business Life in-flight magazine (as you do), I noticed a feature called Think like…, where unlikely characters from everyday life or entertainment are co-opted as surprisingly profound business gurus. This got me thinking about all the characters from the entertainment world who we could learn from if only we were more […]
Why ELT needs to cut like a knife
A few weeks back I was working with a group of CEF B2 learners. I had recently returned from a holiday in France and had brought a souvenir back with me: a pocket knife made by hand in the traditional heart of French blade-making, Thiers. The knife itself (as you can see in the picture) is […]
Own Experience?
About a week ago, this comment appeared on my blog: Hi Anthony, I had an interesting chat with some other TEFLers and 1 person was positive that pre-CELTA teaching really helped him on his CELTA. This would fit in with reflection but do you think it’s important to only accept people with some teaching exp or even […]