Hello! Welcome to Teacher Training Unplugged Radio – my name is Anthony Gaughan. (if you can’t see the podcast player above, click this link for the audio.) There has been quite a long gap between episodes as Christmas and New Year got in the way. I had to do something to convince Father Christmas that […]
Tag: dogme
What makes a lesson GREAT? Part #3
This is the third installment in a short series of posts inspired by a question posed by Mike Harrison – you can give him your own answer on the IATEFL Facebook page. To recap, I thought the following things were likely to make a lesson GREAT: Group dynamic Relevance to learners’ lives Emergent language Attentiveness […]
On Why The (Unplugged) Revolution Will Not Be Televised
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjaADbq_2AI (Gil Scott-Heron reciting The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) There is nothing like a conference to re-ignite debate.
Cooking Unplugged (or: the roaring in the oven)
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about food recently. Granted, this soon after the festive excesses of the Christmas/New Year period, the last thing you may want to read about is food, but please bear with me for a while. Recent debate over in Chia Suan Chong’s Devil’s Advocate blog series drew my attention back once more […]
A Different Kind Of Scaffolding in ELT
There was a trainee teacher on my last CELTA course who had come to us without any academic background to speak of but with a wealth of life experience; in the end, he turned out to be one of the most interesting trainees I’ve worked with.
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 […]
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 […]
TDSIG Unplugged Countdown: “We have lift-off…”
TDSIG Unplugged Countdown: “One…”
This mini-series sketches out some of the ideas that I would like to explore at the upcoming TDSIG Unplugged Conference in Barcelona on 21 May 2011. If any of them chime with you and you would like to explore them as well – or if you would like to work on completely different issues, the conference […]
TDSIG Unplugged Countdown: “Two…”
This mini-series sketches out some of the ideas that I would like to explore at the upcoming TDSIG Unplugged Conference in Barcelona on 21 May 2011. If any of them chime with you and you would like to explore them as well – or if you would like to work on completely different issues, the conference […]