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 […]
What’s in my teacher’s bag Read More »
Today I would like to share a very successful lesson I created for a B2 (upper-intermediate) group around the topic of climate change and this article by The Guardian. This is a very rough plan and needs fine-tuning, mainly to suit your learners needs and interests. I have used this lesson with both adults and
Fighting climate change: lesson notes Read More »
This is a follow-up to my previous post about a student who completely switched off during my first lesson with his group. I had another (the third) lesson with the group today, and here’s what I did to improve the situation. How I tweaked my lesson After the first couple of lessons, during which I “studied”
Re-engaging teenage students Read More »
I have recently started a new course with a small group of 17-18-year-olds in a school. The course is aimed at supporting the work their classroom teacher is doing, with a possible outcome being to then prepare the students for a certification. I had my first lesson last week, and as usual I prepared a
Students switching off Read More »
A few weeks back I had to cover a lesson with a small group of young learners (6-7 boys and girls aged 10-11). It was the group’s first lesson, and while some students knew each other from the previous year, there were also some new students so I decided to devote about half the lesson
Getting to know each other activities for YLs Read More »
Last year I wrote a blog post about what I perceived as a commodification of an amazing Buddhist concept: mindfulness, or sati. Today, I would like to go back on the topic, after I’ve recently attended: a one-day Vipassana meditation retreat; a two-hour training session on mindfulness for teachers. I now feel I have familiarised with both
About mindfulness in ELT (again!) Read More »
How many times have we hear this phrase coming out of one of our student’s mouth? The student who feels she can’t understand ‘nothing’ because she missed a word — or even a phrase — and so switches off completely for the rest of the listening activity, or of the whole lesson. Recently, one of the tasks
‘I don’t understand nothing!’ Read More »
Today I’d like to share a lesson with you. It’s a lesson structure more than a lesson plan, as it is easily adaptable to many exams — I used it with all the Cambridge suite, but I’m sure you can adapt it with IELTS or TOEFL too. I generally use it as first lesson for
Exam preparation: a lesson plan Read More »
Free and open source IWB software that I find really useful in my everyday teaching.
Freedom in the classroom: Open Sankoré Read More »
My considerations on lesson planning on a daily basis.
Reflections on lesson planning Read More »
