In a couple of days I will be leaving to attend a 5-week intensive Delta module two course at AVO Language School in Sofia. I have been working on the distance part in the last month (including my experimental practice and first drafts of LSA1), but the bulk of the course will be while I […]
Most of my teaching is done off-site, in various places from state schools to companies and offices. This means that the learning environments I find myself in vary enormously, and so does the equipment available. Which is why I bring with me what I call my “on-the-go classroom” in a laptop bag. This way I
There are plenty of articles and videos on how journaling can help you focus, clear your mind, process your thoughts and so on. But if you are like me, you probably don’t really believe them. I’ve been keeping a journal since I was 8, when my school teacher read us passages from Anne Frank’s Diary
I have recently watched this short film and I found it so compellingly beautiful that I thought about creating a lesson around it. 73 COWS 73 Cows is an award-winning short documentary about the journey and personal conflict of Jay Wilde, the first farmer in the UK to embark upon transitioning from beef farming to
After a long hiatus since my Module 1 exam, I have finally started Module 2. I will be working on it all through the summer, and hopefully will have my certificate by September. The good thing about it is that it is helping me to feel motivated again — a lack of motivation is what
I have recently had the pleasure to visit a contemporary art exhibition in Vienna, whose main focus was the experience of alienation. I am by no means an art expert, therefore I am in no position to judge or comment on contemporary art, but among all the amazingly thought-provoking installations and artworks I witnessed, one
I have to admit, I almost closed this blog a few months ago. I thought I was done with it, that I didn’t have anything else to say. I also felt slightly burnt out, so the idea of spending my free time thinking and writing about ELT wasn’t appealing any more. Nothing major had really
Here’s another set of notes from a talk I attended yesterday. Introduction We live in a world where people who are in position of power are using it to further disadvantage people in an already disadvantaged position. We are assisting to the commodification of language, learning and teaching! Wheere is power located in ELT? school owners publishing
Here are my notes from this very interesting and thought-provoking session I attended yesterday. Premise PARSNIPs are left out of classroom practice because of: institutional policies local culture lack of materials fear of Ss reactions However, they are important and Ss often need the language to talk about these issues. So why boycott them? How
I apologise for the rant that follows, but sometimes I just need to get things out of my chest, and this is one of those times. Despite the best efforts of the institution I work for to actively promote equality, we still get loads of requests for madrelingua (native speakers). And do you know where these
