Category: English Language Teaching Webinars

Vol. 4 Issue 28 – Book of the week: The Heinemann ELT Wordbuilder

The Heinemann ELT Wordbuilder provides vocabulary development and practice for higher-level students. It includes 60 units of vocabulary in context, presented through a wide variety of games, reading texts, dialogues and diagrams.

Vol. 4 Issue 28 – David Crystal – Should English be taught as a ‘global’ language?

The pronunciation of “can” and “can’t” in English is difficult to both hear and speak. In this lesson, I’ll show you the simple trick to mastering this! You CAN do it!

Vol. 4 Issue 28 – Video: Jay Walker on the world’s English mania (TED Talks, 2009)

The pronunciation of “can” and “can’t” in English is difficult to both hear and speak. In this lesson, I’ll show you the simple trick to mastering this! You CAN do it!

Vol. 4 Issue 28 – Video: Three Secrets You Need to Know About Spoken English

The pronunciation of “can” and “can’t” in English is difficult to both hear and speak. In this lesson, I’ll show you the simple trick to mastering this! You CAN do it!

Vol. 4 Issue 28 – Research Paper: ‘How to Cope With Speaking Anxiety in EFL Classrooms’ by Ali KARAKAŞ

Many English language teachers are familiar with the above statement voiced by a majority of their students in speaking classes. This is, as well, a common complaint levelled by EFL teachers about their silent students. This is because teaching spoken language is deemed as a rather demanding task for teachers to achieve as compared to the other aspects of language teaching (Brown & Yule, 1999) and for learners, speaking is a highly anxiety-provoking situation (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986). The above comment from a student essentially points to the psychological construct termed as “anxiety”, which has been in the limelight of language research since 1980s (e.g. Horwitz et. al., 1986; Young, 1991) and has been found to excessively influence students’ oral skill (Fang-peng & Dong, 2010). Despite its significant impact on language learning, EFL teachers have failed to identify students suffering from anxiety in speaking classes, even worse, instead of taking steps, teachers misconceived their students’ anxiety as low ability, reluctance to engage in speaking activities or low motivation (Tsiplakides & Keramida, 2009) and have rarely taken measures to handle this serious issue (Riasiti, 2011). It is for these reasons that this paper aims to shed light on the sources of speaking anxiety by providing suggestions to diminish its adverse effects on learners’ performance in speaking classes.

Vol. 4 Issue 28 – eBook of the week: ‘Cambridge Guide to Second Language Teacher Education’ by Anne Burns and Jack Richards

This collection provides an overview of current issues, debates, and approaches in Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE) presented by internationally prominent researchers, educators, and emerging scholars. Chapters address such issues as distance education, non-native English-speaking educators, technology, assessment, standards, and the changing contexts of contemporary language teaching and teacher education.

Vol. 4 Issue 28 – Research Paper: ‘Communicative English Language Teaching: It’s Concurrent Relevance – An overview’ by Jinendra Jain

English Language Teaching resides in among many methods and approaches. The span is spread from Grammar Translation method to the recent method Communicative Language Teaching method, participatory approaches and multiple intelligence. The different techniques of ELT have seen several changes, upheavals and transitions. The trend of Language teaching and learning started from writing on dry leaves, then with chalk and duster with black board and then with most modern technological tools like computer, mobiles and satellite and with internet. But, in spite of all this, the ability of ‘Communication’ of the people (learners) has not been that improved which was much expected the way technology developed. The present article focusses chiefly as to how the learners can develop their communicative ability.