I’m delighted that one of my virtual ELT colleagues, Amir Esmaeili, has agreed to write this guest post for my blog. It is the summary of his IATEFL article and talk entitled: The non-localism advantage. Hi! My name is Amir Esmaeili from Iran, and I am an English language teacher and trainer. I have been fortunate enough to teach a wide age range, all proficiency levels, and people from different walks of life. In this post, I am going to summarize the main points of an article I wrote in 2023 for IATEFL Voices, issue 295, entitled The non-localism advantage. The ‘non-localism advantage’. It ..read more

This is an activity from Mark Hancock’s great book, Connected speech for listeners. What is fusion: It’s a feature of connected speech. When /t/ or /d/ precede /j/, they may create a hybrid sound, like /ʧ/ in Charlie or /ʤ/ in gym. It’s also called yod coalescence. See Mark’s video here for examples What is fusion dictation: Choose some sentences from the text/audio you used in your lesson or previous lessons that may include fusion. Read them to students producing this feature of connected speech. Example: What May July to the police? (What made you lie to the police?) Students write down ..read more

My online talk About a year ago, I gave a talk at the Educast online conference. It was about the benefits of jigsaw video (or viewing) lessons. You can watch the recording here. My article You can also read a summary and some ideas in my latest Modern English Teacher article, Jigsaw Learning with video, volume 33, issue 2, page 48. The article first of all answers these two questions: Why jigsaw? Why videos? Then, it outlines a lesson procedure which: promotes genuine communication, not communicative practice. facilitates differentiation. encourages self-assessment through the use of a rub ..read more

This post is about the abbreviation MFP, what it means and what kind of activities teachers can use to focus on these three aspects. ‘What is MFP?‘ Teachers often ask. I hope this post answers your question! We usually first come across this abbreviation when taking a course like CELTA or DELTA. When teaching a systems lesson, (lexis, grammar, phonology, discourse) we need to focus on three aspects of the target language (TL). Meaning, form, pronunciation. That’s MFP. By focus, I mean present and/or practice. Present: when you introduce/teach the TL Practice: When students (try to) use the TL ..read more

DELTA Module 3: From Referred to Pass ..read more

Where do you find role-plays for your students, and what are your sources of inspiration? If you’re seeking fresh and engaging role-plays to add to … ROLE-PLAY GENERATOR I’ve just tested this role-play generator, made by Svetlana Kandybovich. I loved it and will definitely use it in my classes! Visit her blog and check it out ..read more

In this post you’ll find 4 ideas for teaching word stress using movement in class. I’ve just read “A case of choral repetition” by T. Jones. You can download it here. Though I don’t really practise choral repetition in my online classes, I thought I’d share the article and list some engaging techniques for teaching word stress. Let’s see how we can teach the stress of the verb reCORD (stress on the second syllable). 1) Using rubber bands : the natural shape represents the first syllable. Stretch the band to represent the scond syllable. 2) Sitting on the first syllable and stan ..read more

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Stay safe, stay healthy and keep up the good work ..read more

The November/December 2023 MET issue featured really engaging articles. Here are the ones that I found particularly useful, as they are more relevant to my context and areas of interest. 1. A deep dive into what learners say. Danny Norrington-Davies shares some practical ways of dealing with learner-generated output. He suggests ideas, such as helping students generate texts based on images. This is a chance for learners to produce personal and relevant output as well as get meaningful input from the teacher at the point of need. They are also learning in a more holistic way rather than being ..read more

In this post, I’m going to share one of my favourite warmers. Ask students to talk about their weekends in pairs/groups. They need to decide who had the most exciting/relaxing/ unusual (or any other adjective you want them to practise) weekend. Why is it effective? Genuine interaction! Students list what they did at the weekend (practising past tense+a range of lexis) They tell a partner and then listen to them. They compare their weekend activities. They don’t just exchange info. They do something with it. It’s a truly communicative task. They really enjoy it! Inspired by Henshaw and Hawki ..read more