Blogs and Vlogs from Pavilion ELT

Damien Herhily talks about the concept of students using the Internet as a virtual textbook as an introduction. By the end of the series, you'll be able to better help your students practise English outside of the classroom.

In his first blog for Pavilion ELT, Gerhard Erasmus talks about how as a manager, he aims to provide his teaching team with as many opportunities and skills as they are ready for because when the next big promotion comes up, they better be ready. He says he celebrates their promotions probably more than they do themselves, even feeling like he’s succeeded when they succeed! Consequently, when he had a discussion with one of his teachers fairly recently – someone he rates quite highly as a teacher – he ended up being slightly annoyed by the fact that this person had avoided taking up opportunities to present on training days or mini-conferences they’d arranged and also declined becoming a line manager for a part-time teacher. This led to a bit of a rethink... read on to find out what happened next.

When Michelle Ocriciano (one of our new bloggers for English Teaching Professional) started teaching, she had a 5-year degree in Linguistics and teaching, and thought she could conquer the world. She felt that she basically knew two things very well: 1) language teaching is social and 2) knowledge of how language works is essential. But the fact is that she still had many questions, and the more she taught, the more those questions bothered her. Read on to find out what Michelle discovered about the way students really learn.

You plan a lesson well, you’ve already done similar things before, you feel confident. You go into the classroom and it doesn’t work at all. Does this sound familiar? Sometimes, no matter how well we plan (and how many good questions we ask ourselves questions before setting up an activity), we can’t seem to produce the results we expect. Chiara was teaching an IELTS class recently when this happened, but despite the frustration, it turned out to be a great opportunity for development. Read her blog post to find out what happened.

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.

Change comes in many shapes and forms for teachers, trainers and people in publishing – the changes can vary from the mundane through to life changing experiences. Kirsten Holt, the Head of Pavilion ELT, discusses the different components of CHANGE.

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.

Looking to expand your career or share your experiences and knowledge? Want a challenge? Like describing techniques and ideas to others? If you have answered ‘yes’ to all three, then perhaps a writing career is for you. Kirsten Holt, Head of Pavilion ELT, shares some thoughts about how you can get started.

After 8 years of continuous blogging for ETp, Chia Suan Chong writes her last blogpost and shares ten reasons why all teachers should blog.