How happy have you been over the last week? Has it been a good or a bad week? This is (broadly speaking) what my week looked like: The Happiness Graph is a warmer that you can use with any... Continue Reading →
With the introduction of a compulsory essay task in the Cambridge English: First & Advanced exams, it's become quite important for learners to understand essay structure and organisation. Here's a ten minute talk I did for the International House Teacher's... Continue Reading →
IELTS teachers will be glad to know that The Economist has a "Daily Chart" section on their blog pages called Graphic Detail. Featuring "charts, maps and infographics", not all the content is useful for those IELTS Academic writing part one... Continue Reading →
For those that may have missed it, here are the slides (as pdf) from the webinar I gave at the IH Teachers' Online Conference on 3rd November. The session was a look at common problems learners have with writing for... Continue Reading →
There is a lot of talk about learner needs, needs analysis and learner centred lesson planning and course planning. But do learners really know what they need? Or do they just tell us what they want? The difference between "wants"... Continue Reading →
On the eleventh day of Geekmas, teflgeek gave to me: 11 tips for writing Welcome to the teflgeek Christmas celebration! Themed around the classic Christmas carol – but going backwards, mostly because it’s more like a countdown that way: 12 blogs worth... Continue Reading →
Trying to come up with new and interesting ways of saying the same old thing is a skill that taxes most of us on a daily basis: "I like your hair." "Your hair looks nice." "Wow! Have you had your... Continue Reading →
I just came across, during a further exploration of the Pearson ELT Community site, their idioms discussions space. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of discussion, but they have posted a set of mini-videos which purport to... Continue Reading →
An email from my friendly local publishers' rep dropped into my inbox this morning, which I thought I'd pass on. Not because I have eagerly signed up - I haven't had time to fully get to grips with what's on... Continue Reading →