Author Archive

Principled Eclecticism

According to Michael Swan, when teaching grammar, we should reject nothing on doctrinaire grounds: * deductive teaching through explanations and examples, * inductive discovery activities, * rule-learning, * peer-teaching, * decontextualised practice, * communicative practice, * incidental focus on form during communicative tasks, * teacher correction and recasts, * grammar games, * corpus analysis, * […]

Posted on September 3, 2015 at 10:38 pm by Stacey · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: GRAMMAR, Learning Language Teaching, Who is Who in ELT · Tagged with: ,

The Cambridge Scale – Convert Cambridge Exam Results into IELTS band scores and backwards

Posted on July 2, 2015 at 9:47 pm by Stacey · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: English Exams, Statistics

Protected: 1001 ELT CASE STUDIES * CASE 2 – My students just won’t use all these linking words or new vocab when answering discussion questions … What shall I do? – Use them yourself. Respond to the questions first. Be a good model answer provider.

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Posted on June 27, 2015 at 12:08 am by Stacey · Permalink · Enter your password to view comments.
In: Learning Language Teaching, Observations, Task & Activity Design · Tagged with: , , ,

ETYMOLOGY and MEANING of HAVE your CAKE and EAT IT TOO

a NY T article http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/magazine/20FOB-onlanguage-t.html

Posted on June 23, 2015 at 5:52 pm by Stacey · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: Explorations in Meaning

Protected: 1001 ELT CASE STUDIES * CASE 1 – How to think of a good warm-up activity to start all my lessons over the next term in ONE HOUR or LESS? – Use threads.

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10 Grammar Rules Revisited – they are sometimes OK to break

There are several grammarians and linguists that are always exciting to read and listen to, and Steven Pinker is definitely one of them. His article in the Guardian revisits 10 most important grammar rules. It is surely worth reading http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/15/steven-pinker-10-grammar-rules-break Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style: the Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century is […]

Posted on August 17, 2014 at 10:52 pm by Stacey · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: GRAMMAR

The Nile ELT Glossary of ELT Terms

Lots of ELT Terms are explained thoroughly and clearly at https://mycourses.nile-elt.com/mod/glossary/view.php?id=580

Posted on July 10, 2014 at 10:48 pm by Stacey · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: Learning Language Teaching · Tagged with: 

Writing & Punctuation – 10 Common Mistakes

http://divergenteye.blogspot.com/2014/02/grammar-check-infographic-10-common.html

Posted on April 7, 2014 at 11:54 pm by Stacey · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: Commonly Made Mistakes, GRAMMAR, Punctuation · Tagged with: ,

Pronunciation Insights – Aunt, adult, pajamas: Why can’t we agree how to pronounce common words?

QUOTE  Aunt, adult, pajamas: Why can’t we agree how to pronounce common words? Call it the problem of toilet-paper-roll words By James Harbeck | February 10, 2014 How do you pronounce each of the following words? And is there another correct way to pronounce them? adult, address, almond, amen, arctic, aunt, banal, Caribbean, diabetes, either, envelope, harassment, herb, […]

Posted on February 12, 2014 at 7:01 pm by Stacey · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: Accents, Pronunciation Differences

IELTS past papers, book 9 – where do the practice texts come from?

Those who are studying for IELTS frequently wonder where most of the practice tests originally come from. That is a rather easy question to answer if you have the time to read all the fine print and acknowledgements. Let us examine Book 9, for instance: Some of texts there come from newspapers and magazines, such […]

Posted on February 11, 2014 at 11:18 pm by Stacey · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: ESL/EFL Book Reviews · Tagged with: