A collection of information, ideas and inspiration for ELT teachers
Category: Ponderings
Colleagues and I have long since been aware of the lack of proper research and appropriate source use in our students' EAP and academic essays. We decided to offer a one-hour workshop on researching in the library at our university, and enlisted the help of an expert - the library representative for our subject area. We thought … Continue reading What library research skills training do EAP / undergrad students really need?
Inspired by Joanna's post and and this post by Tekhnologic, who have started using the Twitter hashtag #ELTbehindthescenes, I thought I'd share a little bit of background on How I plan & write my blog posts I'm not a super prolific blogger, I have to admit. My posts appear rather sporadically. I started my blog … Continue reading #ELTbehindthescenes of ClaresELTCompendium
I teach an EAP module which focusses on language and study skills. It's aimed at first-semester students starting an English Studies degree where English is a foreign language for almost all students. They're at the B2+ level. In a 15-week semester, we spend the first five weeks or so looking at what makes a good … Continue reading Peer Presentation Feedback
Recently, a colleague observed my grammar class. The 30 learners are B2-C1 level and the class is required for their degree programme (English Studies). I usually set up my gramamr classes so that the activities build on each other to move from re-capping basic points to more advanced fineties of certain structures, so we discuss answers … Continue reading It’s boring only hearing from the same few students! – Encouraging Oral Participation
I make a lot of worksheets and materials available via this blog, which I hope that many fellow ELT professionals will use and evaluate. In my opinion, though, it's important that anyone who wants to use my materials has some insight into the principles behind my work. I believe Materials for ELT should... be based … Continue reading My Principles for Creating ELT Materials
This is a short, rather personal post; a bit of a call for help! In my head, thoughts are flying around: researching, compiling bibliographies, literature reviews, not having enough time in the day to read everything properly, wasting time reading the 'wrong' things, and feeling swapmed and out-of-touch with the latest state of affairs.... And … Continue reading Help! Overwhelmed by research!
Reading this, I was promoted to think about my teacher beliefs about what exactly it is that makes teaching effective; what is it that I’m aiming for, that I hold as best practice? Expressing this in one sentence has actually been a quite inspiring moment for me; motivating me and giving me new energy to approach my planning for next term.
Anyway, here’s my spontaneously-constructed sentence (which I also posted in the comments section on the blog post):**Teachers have to be passionate about teaching and about what they’re teaching, and they need to know their students and how to motivate them to get active.**
So now I’m interested in your thoughts: What is it that makes teaching most effective?
I’m not looking (necessarily) for Hattie-style lists, but try to summarise your teacher beliefs into one sentence, about what is at the heart of good teaching, for you.Please post them in the comments below! I’m really excited about hearing from you!!
Clare
Earlier this year, a piece from the Edutopia website was doing the rounds under the title “5 highly effective teaching practices”. I automatically question pieces like this as I doubt somewhat whether the purpose of the piece is actually to raise standards in the profession and develop teachers – or whether it is simply to get a bit more traffic to the website. But perhaps I am being unnecessarily cynical?
To be fair, the practices the article suggests are generally quite effective:
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