January 2020 issue out now

"These days, unless the learner really wants it, the only contact with the language is in the classroom. Online contacts tend to be in the mother tongue and with social media taking up such a large part of waking hours, a lot of time is dedicated to non-English activities."

In his January editorial, Robert McLarty considers the context behind this month's theme - English for Academic Purposes - and introduces the articles you'll find inside the issue.

Read the editorial

In the current issue of Modern English Teacher...

Classroom management

The final countdown
Lauren Angus describes a different activity for each day of the week with the aim of empowering and engaging students.

Building rapport to reduce anxiety
Nadiah Ammar describes the importance of a good atmosphere in your classroom.

English for academic purposes

Programme design – a wide angle view of the key components
Andrew Barker looks at the essential elements of programme design from different stakeholders’ perspectives.

Understanding the purpose of summaries in relation to assigned tasks
Do your students really understand how to write summaries? How can you help them? Roy Edwards starts a three-part series.

Critical thinking, EAP and supplementary resources
Anthea Fester describes a three-stage process for helping your students learn to think more critically.

Equipping students with basic qualitative research skills
Andrew Boon describes the steps taken with one of his classes as they learn how to do qualitative research.

Rubrics: For teachers? Students? … Or?
Do your students understand when and how they are assessed? Is your assessment transparent? Gus Wong offers some advice. 

Academic writing: trials and tribulations
Kat Robb offers some insights into her EAP learners and how she helps them improve their reading and writing skills.

What is really common in EAP?
Mark Krzanowski considers the importance of disciplinary variations and genre specifications. Certain skills and vocabulary sets are common to all academic English.

A tale of two EAP programmes: preparatory & freshman
Do all your students know what subject they want to go on to study in higher education? How easy is it to get your Academic English up to the appropriate level? Read this study of two contrasting cohorts.

Planning

‘The best laid plans …’
This article discusses why we need to factor in more time when we are planning lessons and courses.

The view from here

Managing millennials – the generational challenge and what it can teach us
Matthew Hallett describes some of the challenges and solutions managing the next generation of language teachers.

Management

Entrepreneurship education in ELT
Daniel Xerri describes ways of developing entrepreneurship skills within schools.

Teacher development

The Little Prince’s journey into language classrooms
What kind of teacher are you? Do you know? Are you the same every time? Jaber Kamali describes a wide range of teaching personalities and styles.

Practical ideas

Kinetic English
Looking for ways to make your teaching more lively and your students more dynamic? Rachel James has a wide range of activities on offer.

In my opinion

EFL classrooms and global issues
With so many international events and movements impacting on our learners, this article argues that we include more of these topics in our classes.

Teaching listening

Did you hear what I said?
Robin Walker offers some suggestions for helping learners improve their listening skills.

Teaching writing

Using motivational tools to give feedback in writing: a classroom experience
How do your students react to your comments on their written work? Do you mark their ideas or their language? Glenda Demes da Cruz discusses the importance of positive, interactive teacher feedback.

Teaching grammar

The importance of teaching advanced grammar explicitly
Advanced English grammar can seem extremely complicated. Who needs this level of knowledge? When should it be taught?

English medium instruction

From EFL to EMI trainer: some reflections
This article describes the similarities in English language teacher-training and English medium instructor teacher-training and show where there is useful crossover.

Exam preparation

Teaching doctors to write: from IELTS to OET
Norman Whitby looks at the Occupational English Test and suggests it is a good alternative to IELTS for doctors and nurses because of the context.

Teaching vocabulary

Three nightmares become beautiful dreams
Raising awareness of this part of English vocabulary can be a very useful and engaging activity. Glenn Dahlem explains his approach.

Reflections

My new year reflections
Robert McLarty suggests five marginal gains he is hoping for in his teaching next year.