Category Archives: Trying out something new

That Feeling When …

Posted on January 9, 2016 by

I don’t know about  you, but for me, it’s not always easy to resume teaching on Mondays or after a holiday, especially if the break was longer than usual. I normally start the first class by asking students what they’ve experienced … Continue reading →

Posted in Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new | 2 Comments

A flood of conversation

Posted on January 7, 2016 by

If you need your students to practise speaking about a specific topic, here’s a simple idea you may use in class. Let’s say you want your learners to talk about natural disasters. What a great topic to start the new … Continue reading →

Posted in Dogme teaching, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | 10 Comments

The 30 questions and student thinking time

Posted on January 4, 2016 by

The other day I came across an interesting post by Nick Bilbrough about student thinking time, at the end of which the author poses the following question: Is student thinking time as important as student talking time? If so, what’s the best … Continue reading →

Posted in Classroom management, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new | 1 Comment

The ‘shush’ tweak and lexical priming

Posted on January 1, 2016 by

Did I tell you how much I love the define-and-guess-the-word activities with the ‘shush’ tweak? The tweak lies in the rule that whenever a student guesses the word (or an expression, idiom, picture, movie, etc.), they are never allowed to … Continue reading →

Posted in Dogme teaching, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | 2 Comments

Everyone is a genius.

Posted on December 30, 2015 by

I must admit that the older I get, the more I appreciate simplicity and spontaneity in language teaching. It makes me very happy when a beautiful, meaningful lesson grows out of something seemingly trivial or when an impromptu action leads to something … Continue reading →

Posted in Classroom management, Dogme teaching, Education, Grammar, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | 7 Comments

Mindfulness Blog Challenge

Posted on November 6, 2015 by

I’m proud to announce that I’ve recently taken part in The Mindfulness Summit, a not-for-profit project with a mission to make mindfulness mainstream. Now, what is mindfulness and why am I writing about it on an ELT blog? In a nutshell, … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog challenges, Blogging, Dogme teaching, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | 2 Comments

How languages should be taught

Posted on October 18, 2015 by

When I was registering for another ILC IH Brno conference earlier in October, I noticed that they were offering two workshops for teachers of German. This tweak immediately caught my attention, mainly because this was the first time the organizers … Continue reading →

Posted in Conferences, Education, Personal challenges, Professional development, Trying out something new | 6 Comments