Modern English Teacher blog

20 years is a long time in English Language Teaching. To mark two decades since taking his Trinity Cert TESOL, David Dodgson shares 20 ideas and reflections he has had in that time. From the need to experiment and reflect to the importance of considering different points of view and challenging established ideas, whilst not forgetting some classroom basics, he has compiled a thought-provoking list. What would you add?

As the festive season draws nearer, our usually jovial MET blogger David Dodgson, goes all grinchy on us with a rant against superficial Christmas-themed lessons to finish off the year. He then explains why in their place he prefers either more reflective activities or simply regular lessons.

Having looked at useful study skills and habits to encourage amongst secondary students in October’s post, this month our MET blogger, David Dodgson, shares with us some of the work he has been doing in collaboration with other academic departments in his school: Developing Effective EAL Support. Rather than focus on finding thematic links, he describes how identifying common skills across subjects has resulted in improved performance from his EAL learners.

In many parts of the world, a new school year is beginning, which means starting over with new classes and new students. In this month’s post, our resident blogger David Dodgson shares some of his favourite activities to get a new academic year or course of study underway and highlights the purpose behind each one.

Having now moved back to the UK after working internationally for almost 20 years, our resident blogger David Dodgson takes time this month to look at current trends in ELT. In particular, he focuses on two positive trends that must continue to develop as our profession moves forwards while also highlighting work that still needs to be done.

Having focused on making the most of the feedback we receive in last month’s post, David Dodgson this month turns his attention to an equally important part of the process – giving feedback. He discusses some of the pitfalls to avoid when discussing an observed lesson and advocates a seemingly simple but subtly skilled approach to ensure teachers get the most out of the process.

In this month’s post, MET blogger David Dodgson considers the importance of feedback and the role it plays in our professional development. He considers experiences in his own teaching context, focusing on why we at times disagree with the feedback we receive and how we can make the most of such discussions to feed further development.

MET blogger David Dodgson now switches his focus to the use of authentic materials in the English language classroom. He offers advice on what to do and what to avoid when selecting, adapting, and utilising articles, images, videos, songs, and other ‘real world’ media to supplement our courses and achieve our learning goals.