I consider the greatest problem facing me as a language teacher is knowing how to motivate my students: how to get them past the hurdle of seeing learning English as just another academic subject, to regarding it as developing a communication tool that will be useful for them throughout their lives.
Over the last years I’ve gradually developed a working method that seems, at least, to tackle the problem. It’s based on using web publishing resources for creating tasks which are relevant to students and that produce tangible results.
- Case study
- The broader context – task-based learning and developing PLEs
- Drawing out the implications
Case study: presenting a recipe task
In my first session with a group of adult students (Basque School teachers) we set up a class blog and, soon after, identified that pronunciation was an area they wanted to focus on. Accordingly, I formulated a task for presenting a recipe in a post on their blog.
Read the remaining article at http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think