On the fifth day of Geekmas, some blogger gave to me:  FIVE FAVOURITE THINGS 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 clutching 11 tips for writing 10 tricks for reading 9 pretty pictures 8 talks worth ...

On the sixth day of Geekmas, some blogger gave to me:  six games worth playing 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 clutching 11 tips for writing 10 tricks for reading 9 pretty pictures 8 talks worth ...

Following on from the success of the recent Radio 4 series “A History of the World in 100 objects“, linguist and novelist David Crystal attempts to do the same for the English language.  An interesting read for any and all language teachers and language historians out there! From Riddle to Twittersphere: David Crystal tells the story of English ...

One of the contributors to the debate on student fees in UK universities raised an interesting point the other week.  Roger Moss, in breaking down the fees students pay when compared to what they get, calculated that they paid approximately £92 per seminar.  What else, he wondered in his letter to The Independent, could they have spent the money ...

In 2013 the CPE exam is not only celebrating 100 years of tormenting language learners and confusing their teachers, but will also be metamorphasising into its latest incarnation.  This post takes a look at what changes are being made and what it all might mean!  The full post is also available as a downloadable pdf. The big news is that the Use ...

There’s a really nice app on the BBC website that lets you figure out where you come in the global population statistics – for example, when I was born I was the four billionth, 50 millionth, seven hundred and sixty four thousandth, one hundred and sixty first person alive on the planet.  It goes on to let you look at country population statistics ...

This was the question posed the other week on my MA discussion boards:  ”Based on your teaching experience, write down the criteria you think are essential for language learning.”  And it’s a good question.  In many respects the ultimate teaching question as it really gets down to the core elements of your pedagogical belief system – what do you ...

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 explain English idioms and expressions.  The videos are very short (about a minute) and are followed with a ...

If you’ve had time to look at recent posts on this blog, you’ll have noticed a series of “first lesson” ideas and activities…  after all,  it’s September, we’ve all got “back-to-school-itis”! Stepping back from the plethora of great teaching ideas to fill the class time, today our guest blogger, Dave Tucker, looks at some broader learning and ...

While visiting the UK over the summer, I was introduced to a relatively new BBC Game show – “Pointless“, in which contestants try to score as few points as possible.  Or as the BBC phrase it:  ”Quiz in which contestants try to score as few points as possible by plumbing the depths of their general knowledge to come up with the answers no-one else ...