A day in the life

Yesterday, 14th Feb 2020, was a special day for me. Not in the romantic, Valentine’s Day way, though. It was the last day of the teaching semester at the university where I teach – cue high fives all round! 😀 Recently, I’ve read a couple of ‘A day in the life’ blog posts giving insight …

Jumbled sentences: An authentic ELT task?

Last week, we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr Betty Lanteigne from LCC Klaipeda as a guest lecturer at the university where I work. She gave a talk in our 'English Linguists Circle' with the title "Unscrambling jumbled sentences: An authentic task for English language assessment?" and it got me thinking about several questions... and …

Writers’ Block Busters

We've all been there, haven't we? We desperately want (or need!) to get something finished - an article, a manuscript, a set of materials, whatever we're writing - but our brain just feels bereft of any ideas or information. Either that, or our grey cells are buzzing, but shooting around so many random thoughts that …

Fun things I’ve learnt from writing one ELT coursebook

I've recently read (am a bit slow) this post https://eltplanning.com/2018/08/03/materials-writer-elt/ and one point really stood out to me - about how being interested in lots of things is helpful for materials writers. And as I'm just going through the proof stage of a book I've co-written, it made me reflect on the interesting things I've …

How to serve PARSNIPs

I'm not convinced that avoiding PARSNIP topics at all costs makes for engaging materials. As I see it, it should be a case of considering HOW and from which angle, not just WHAT topic is covered. It's more important how you serve the parsnips!

Revision Week for my Materials

Finally it is the last week of our semester here, which started in October. It's been a long, hard slog, but we've made it! But the final week of term is a weird one. We still have classes, most of which are revision sessions or tests, and we have to make sure we get all …

Teaching a deaf student EAP oral skills

Since October I've had a student in my class who is practically deaf, especially if she hasn't got her hearing aid.  The class that she's taking with me is actually an Oral Skills class; it's the first class of an EAP programme and focuses on presentation and seminar skills. Clearly, not being able to hear …