Category: ELTWeekly Volume 11

Edutopia contributor Matthew Farber has published ‘A Guide to Teaching Writing With Minecraft’. In the book Lifelong Kindergarten, Mitch Resnick suggests that all of school should be like kindergarten. By this, he means that students should be invited to learn through what he calls the 4 Ps: projects, peers, passion, and play. Instead of projects that… Continue reading A Guide to Teaching Writing With Minecraft

The Basics I’ve said this before: don’t confuse verb tense names with real time. They sometimes coincide, but not always. Today I checked ten languages, more or less randomly: six of them used the same word to translate ‘time’ and ‘tense’. But they are not the same. Think about any languages you know. Do they… Continue reading Past simple and progressive by Nick Shepherd

Two more futures: plans and ‘unalterable’ plans by Nick Shepherd Spoken Grammar: why is it important? Michael McCarthy Challenges of Creating Teacher Presence in the Remote Classroom – Nik Peachey at ELT Summit 2020 Going Beyond a Diverse Classroom Library Professionalism in English Language Teaching – Silvana Richardson Teaching Capitals Fun with Phonics | Charlotte… Continue reading ELTWeekly Volume 11, Issue 18 | October 2020

In many contexts English Language Teachers have been perceived historically as the ‘Cinderella’ of the teaching profession. In some cases they have been required to ‘top up’ their qualifications, as a result of education authorities making calls to ‘professionalise the sector’. This talk will explore the causes of such perceptions, what it means to be… Continue reading Professionalism in English Language Teaching – Silvana Richardson

Edutopia’s Jaren Maynard has published an useful article titled ‘Going Beyond a Diverse Classroom Library. ou’ve diversified your classroom library—now what? We have been inundated with information telling us we need books that allow our students to see themselves in the text. We have created Amazon Wish Lists, DonorsChoose projects, and everything in between to… Continue reading Going Beyond a Diverse Classroom Library

During the ELT Summit 2020 pre-conference workshop on ‘The Challenges of Creating Teacher Presence in the Remote Classroom – What makes a good online teacher?’ renowned ELT expert Nik Peachey shared very fruitful insights on managing to teach – remotely. He shared strategies on how teachers can develop their teacher presence in the remote classroom.… Continue reading Challenges of Creating Teacher Presence in the Remote Classroom – Nik Peachey at ELT Summit 2020

BusyTeacher has published a new article titled ‘Teaching Capitals’. In this post, we will take a look at ten capitalization worksheets for ESL students. While most of the worksheets are geared towards elementary-level students, we have also included a few intermediate level worksheets to solidify capitalization rules with your more advanced students. Let’s jump right… Continue reading Teaching Capitals

Here is an article by OUP’s Charlotte Rance on phonics. If I asked you what the hardest part of learning English was, how many of you would point out the relationship (or seeming lack of a relationship) between how English sounds and how it is written? My social media feeds are full of jokes about… Continue reading Fun with Phonics | Charlotte Rance | OUP

In ELTWeekly (8 Sep 2020), I mentioned two uses of the present simple and present progressive, to talk about the future.  Here are the two examples I used: Plan: “I am taking my holiday in Ibiza this year.”                                Pres. progressive. Unalterable plan: “The train leaves Paddington at 17.42.”                 Pres. simple I’ve already talked about going… Continue reading Two more futures: plans and ‘unalterable’ plans by Nick Shepherd