Teacher development, teacher learning
The current issue of ELT NEWS focuses on teacher development.
The Indian poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1996) believed that just like a lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame, teachers can never truly teach unless they are learning themselves. As a child Tagore...
Choosing the right coursebook
“…books are good servants but poor masters” (Cunningsworth, 1984, p.1).
When I was at school, language learning materials were often quite dated, not particularly colourful, and often rather uninspiring. Τhe situation now is completely different. We’ve got so much choice available to us and course books are extremely...
Teenagers Are Not ‘Monsters’
Teaching English to teenagers can be a challenging but rewarding experience. Teenagers constitute by far the largest subpopulation of English language learners in the world. Whatever the cultural differences that divide them teenagers share the experience of transiting from childhood to adulthood via the phases of puberty and...
Teaching Young Learners
In the current issue of ELT NEWS, we focus on teaching young learners. A teacher of young learners, especially of those aged below 10 years ultimately takes on the role of children’s entertainer. For kid’s classes, you need to have a lot of different activities planned beforehand because if you are left thinking on the spot trying...
Major changes are happening in ELT triggering new educational models and transformations. New teaching programmes, and new approaches and techniques are being developed creating opportunities and challenges for our sector.
In this issue we host the views of some of this year’s most influential teacher trainers, and practicing teachers whose innovative and...
A C2 Level Certificate: A midsummer’s night dream?
A C2 Level Certificate was, and still is, the dream of most English language learners.
For the vast majority of learners reaching a C2 Level is an unachievable goal. I mean to be able to do all or almost all the ‘Çan Do Statements’ as described in the Common European Framework of Languages. Even...
What affects student motivation?
Students come to the classroom with a complex range of social and cultural contexts, schooling experiences, and educational beliefs, and it is always a challenge to find the ingredients to motivate them.
We know that the motivational state of students influences a multitude of factors that affect learning, including...
School teachers’ quality of work is unique not only in the quantity of work required of them but also primarily in the complexity and nature of their relationship with students. In schools, educators are confronted with human, emotional, and intellectual challenges that often go far beyond those acknowledged in other types of work. The special nature of...
Teaching English to young learners
Young learners, those attending preschool and kindergarten, do not have any personal reason for studying English.
It is simply another subject that they have to study at school or that their parents have told them they need to learn. At this point in their lives, they may not know or comprehend how important these...
Teacher Development: Letting Our Light Shine
During my long career in ELT I have attended numerous seminars, conferences, workshops both in Greece and abroad and I still do. As I reflect on all those events, I am so grateful to the amazing teacher leaders I have encountered; their impact on my own practice was immeasurable. I returned to my classroom...
Cheating in exams
Language testing fulfils a variety of functions, and it can take many forms. At school, the purpose of a test might typically be to check what a student has learnt (or not learnt) at the end of a teaching unit (in a ‘progress’ test, set to monitor a list of objectives, or a ‘diagnostic’ test if it is intended to identify problems); in a...
The current issue of ELT NEWS focuses on B1 Level. I would dare say that this level is very challenging. Learners have covered the basics of the language regarding vocabulary and grammar and are ready to explore more demanding learning areas. They are required to use prior knowledge and experiences and develop language awareness -that is how language...
In the current issue of ELT NEWS we focus on the use of technology in education.
Technology has introduced revolutionary changes in all areas of life, from interpersonal communication, economy, and entertainment industry to education to name just a few. It seems that today, more than ever, students are faced with changes that not only fundamentally alter...
It is not the first time ELT NEWS focuses on language exams and it won’t be the last. Our educational system relies on tests scores to discriminate strong and weak learners. In addition, the five or so thousand FL schools across the country function as spare parts of a huge exam machine ensuring its maintenance and existence. Personnel recruitment in...
A grammar structure? Can we learn it as a chunk? Ιs it feasible?
I am writing this editorial both as a learner and a teacher. Many a times it’s useful to empathise with the students and realise how hard it is for them to internalize grammar in a foreign language.
The English grammar is much simpler than the grammar of the other three Romance languages I...
How do we know the state of the learner arriving in our classroom?
How do we know if they are motivated to learn? What does a motivated student look like? While we think they look motivated to learn, their interest may be peaked by something completely different.
Students come to the classroom with a complex range of social and cultural contexts...
The new school year has already started. After the first two weeks’ lessons we realise that:
The coursebook we have chosen doesn’t work the way we had expected;
The topics do not attract our students’ interest;
Some of our students have learning gaps from previous years;
They can’t use grammar correctly to express themselves;
They have...
A language certificate at the age of 12, 15 or 16? What’s the point?
To answer this question, it is important to remember that FL learning is not meant to be merely a school subject for learners with no specific use later on in their lives. In Greece learners aspire to make good use of a foreign language and the accompanied certification at a later stage...
Who has not experienced moments seeing that flash of interest in students’ eyes, smiling as the bell rings because the energy is so high and no one wants the period to end? How do we extend these moments? How do we create an environment that keeps students stimulated and craving more? How do we have more fun? How can we prevent ‘boredom’?
What is it that...
The current issue of ELT NEWS focuses on teacher development and adult learning.
The Indian poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1996) believed that just like a lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame, teachers can never truly teach unless they are learning themselves. As a child Tagore abhorred formal...
