Perceiving Prominence – Part #1 (the “What?”)

How would you say these example sentences? a. I think that's the right answer, but I'm not sure.  b. I think that's the right answer, no matter what you say! I'm guessing that "I" and "think" sounded different when you said these two sentences to yourself - and it is this difference that is interesting …

How to access ELT-relevant research

A while back, I summarised an article for ELT Research Bites exploring the reasons why language teaching professionals rarely access primary research reports. The main findings were that practitioners may have negative perceptions of research as irrelevant, they may face practical constraints such as expensive pay walls and a lack of time to find and …

What Postgraduates Appreciate in Online Feedback on Academic Writing #researchbites

In this article, Northcott, Gillies and Coutlon explore their students' perceptions of how effective online formative feedback was for improving their postgraduate academic writing, and aim to highlight best practices for online writing feedback.

Exhibiting CLIL: Developing student skills through project-based learning

Dr Jenny Skipp Exhibiting CLIL: Developing Student Skills through project-based learning My dear colleague Jenny has just held  her first ever presentation at an iatefl conference! It was a very well delivered talk, with a perfect balance of theory and practical ideas teachers can adapt into their own teaching. It'll probably be of most interest with …

ELT Research Bites

Followers of my blog will know that I believe we, as language teachers, all need to understand the pedagogical underpinnings of what we do in our language classrooms. That's why I aim in my blog posts to provide information on theoretical backgrounds and lesson materials which apply them practically. I would also love for more …

British Council Teaching for Success – My Webinar

Here are the slides (inc. references) from my talk yesterday as part of the British Council's "Teaching for Success" online conference. This talk takes research into feedback practices & translates it into practical ideas for classroom application! Click here for Slides. Link to the recorded talk: http://britishcouncil.adobeconnect.com/p424b8xlubb/ Abstract: Providing meticulous correction of errors and hand-written summaries on each …

Learner-Driven Feedback in Essay Writing

A recent focus of work into feedback in ELT looks at ways of increasing students’ openness to teachers’ feedback and how students can be stimulated to engage more thoroughly with the feedback they receive. Learner-Driven Feedback (LDF) seems to be a promising practice here, and below is a summary of some research done in this area. …

Marking Writing: Feedback Strategies to Challenge the Red Pen’s Reign – IATEFL 2016

By popular demand... My handout from my presentation held at IATEFL 2016 in Birmingham, with the above title. Abstract: This talk provides teachers with time-efficient alternatives to traditional ‘red-pen correction’, by demonstrating and evaluating several effective feedback strategies that are applicable to giving feedback on writing in diverse contexts, and presenting summaries of published research …

Help! Overwhelmed by research!

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 …

Action Research – What and how?

Many schemes of professional development for teachers, as well as advanced teaching certificates, include an element of 'Action Research' (AR). In my work as a team leader of EFL tutors, I've come to see just how important AR is for teachers to continue to develop and professionalise their teaching practices. And I'm so enthusiastic about …