By James Jenkin
A tag question (or question tag) is a question added to a declarative sentence: You like grammar, don’t you?
Course books force students to learn tag questions – and usually all forms and uses at the same time. But learners find them immensely...
By Dr Jeremy Koay
A limited view
While learner-centred pedagogy is a common idea, evaluation is usually teacher-centred for a number of reasons. The belief that only teachers should evaluate students’ progress is driven by the idea that teachers are language learning experts. Advocates of...
By James Jenkin
Demotivation to learn English, roughly speaking, means losing any enthusiasm to learn the language. Every teacher meets demotivated students. Why have they lost interest?
Some researchers (Arai, 2004; Kojima, 2004) have highlighted internal factors: in particular, a lack of...
By Lottie Dowling
In January 2017, I returned to Beijing, China for work after a two-year absence. I left Beijing in 2015 after living there for nine and a half years to move to Australia. Having arrived in Beijing pre-Olympics and lived through the incredible transformation of the...
By Dr Jeremy Koay
A limited view
The zone of proximal development (ZPD) and Krashen’s notion of i + 1 are sometimes misunderstood as expressing the same idea (Lantolf, Thorne & Poehner, 2015). The main difference between the two concepts is that the ZPD focuses on what learners can...
By Lottie Dowling
Globalisation has become an everyday word, often heard in the news, political statements or trade-related topics. We don’t need to look far, however, to see how globalisation affects us all on a daily basis: we drink coffee grown in Brazil, wear clothing manufactured...
By James Jenkin
We see a lot of trends in TESOL. We know ‘grammar-translation’ is out, ‘post-method’ is in.
One tool to do this is Google Trends (trends.google.com), which shows the number of searches for a term over time.
TEFL and TESOL
100 signifies the peak popularity...
By Dr Jeremy Koay
A limited view
Graded readers are generally understood as storybooks that are simplified and adapted for children by limiting the vocabulary range and controlling the grammatical structures. However, content is not limited to storybooks, and there is a significant proportion of...
By James Jenkin
Most people realize that when you teach someone a word, you have to teach what it means. We do it instinctively, often providing a dictionary-like definition: ‘A clock? That’s the thing that tells the time’.
Teacher training courses like CELTA spend a lot...
By Dr Jeremy Koay
A limited view
Trying to improve my English as a secondary school student in Malaysia, I tried to read as many English books as I could. I went to the school library and borrowed books that interested me. Because I hadn’t developed a reading habit in my teens, this...
By Dr Jeremy Koay
A limited view
If language learning is likened to a chemistry experiment, there is probably no room for teacher reflection, as chemical reactions are mostly predictable within controlled environments. However, human behaviour and human interactions are different from chemical...
By James Jenkin
ESP – English for Specific Purposes – describes an English course tailored to a specific job, such as English for Doctors, English for Hotel Receptionists or English for Pilots. In ESP ‘the purpose for learning is paramount and related directly to what the...
By Dr Jeremy Koay
A limited view
A common misunderstanding of task-based language learning is that it does not provide adequate grammar coverage (Ellis, 2009). However, this is not the case. In fact, some advocates of task-based approach suggest that some teaching of grammar should be included in...
By James Jenkin
Teachers are often told they need to write lesson plans. This might be on a teacher training course, or at the school where they teach.
From my experience, it’s often for the wrong reasons. Directors of Studies see producing a lesson plan as a kind of discipline (Of course,...
By Dr Jeremy Koay
A limited view
Peer feedback refers to comments and suggestions that learners receive from their classmates. Students and teachers who are not aware of its benefits and goals are often sceptical about this, and may think it is a waste of time. Given the complexity of the task,...
By James Jenkin
This is a question often asked by prospective teachers. The very unsatisfying answer is: it depends.
This is because of the size and spread of the TEFL (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language) industry. The number of learners is expected to grow to 2 billion this decade...
By Dr Jeremy Koay
A limited view
Some teachers and students, particularly in an exam-oriented learning environment, think that group work is a waste of time. This is often because group activities are not well-designed. Due to unclear instructions and expectations, learners tend to work ...
By James Jenkin
Many language learners (and teachers) like having a course book.
Students feel a book gives a course direction, and makes it seem organized. They can review what they’ve covered. And many modern course books are well-written, attractive and interesting.
However, we can make...
By Dr Jeremy Koay
A limited view
Children’s literature is usually associated with colourful pictures, fairy tales and nursery rhymes. In some families, bedtime stories are a ritual. Some teachers believe that reading stories written for children is useful for second language (L2) extensive...
By Lottie Dowling
In the first week of school holidays in Victoria, Australia, I accompanied 25 young Victorians on a three-day holiday adventure camp – with a twist. This camp had all the usual trappings of a school holiday camp: water-based activities, a campfire session with...
