Someone recently messaged me to encourage me to publish a book of low-resource ideas for initial language teacher training. I think I would like to write such a book (when I get the time, that is!), but I would hate to do it if the world doesn’t seem to want something like that with the […]
Tag: materials-light
Christmas ELT Appeal: Worst Case Scenario Survival Toolkit
I got an email a few days ago from a teacher in Australia called Rufus. She works with teachers in parts of the world where resources that many of us take for granted can be scarce, and where others that we may occasionally get our hands on are pure pipe dream. She asked me to […]
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.
ELT BITES Materials-Light Lesson Challenge!
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 […]
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: “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 […]
Throwing down the gauntlet
We are language teachers and teacher trainers working on initial teacher training courses in Hamburg, Germany. During the course of our work we have constantly sought to refine our course design and delivery so that it provides the best training experience for the people who come to us as possible. Over the years this has […]
Simplify
Welcome. This is all about simplifying language teaching and teacher education. I hope you find it useful. All the best, Anthony