Language

Yi Wang describes how she uses her present and former students’ stories and conversations as scaffolding for her teaching in her beginners’ classes.

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

Adrian Underhill presents a list of ten activities for raising students’ awareness of pronunciation along with their ability to speak and listen .

Inspired by the January 2018 issue of Modern English Teacher and a recent debate in his teaching centre, MET resident blogger David Dodgson addresses some common misconceptions about teaching pronunciation, and suggests some quick and easy ideas for incorporating more pron work into our classes.

Skills such as collaboration, communication and creativity can be taught quite naturally in the language classroom. What about critical thinking and social responsibility? Matthew Ellman gives a guide to these new areas.

Chi Cheung Ruby Yang describes three important areas when helping develop reading skills. Collaborative reading and chunking texts are useful activities as is reinforcing the content or topic through a video.

James Clanton suggests ways of using spelling alphabets for listening, speaking, reading, and writing exercises, used as warmers and with exams and quizzes often turning unplanned gaps into a productive learning experience.

Students do not always understand the rationale behind assessments and exams nor what useful subskills are being tested. By being clear with your class they can become more motivated.

Nick Micheloudiakis looks at the impact of nudging and provides an exercise to help you and your students understand more about it.

Students in Japan are being encouraged to use the target language more actively. Andrew McInuity suggests a series of activities with this aim in mind.