New year, new me: tips on how to have a successful term
A new term is just around the corner and the summer break is in the rearview mirror. Have you taken a moment to relax during your break? This time off from teaching is extremely important. You are probably tired from facing many challenges as an educator. Harmer (2015, p. 120), when discussing these challenges, says […]
Planning Effective Language Lessons
The goal isn’t just to teach a language, it is to create effective language users. If you’ve ever watched a student shrink into their seat when asked to speak, you know the frustration of a lesson that hasn’t built true confidence in them. But why do we plan lessons in the first place? Jeremy Harmer […]
Scaffolding as a principle of lesson design
Have you ever felt like your students were producing less than you thought they should? I have. I remember when I was delivering a lesson and something came up like “they are moving towards CEFR B1, they should already know this!”. It was until I did some research on its descriptors that I knew that […]
Finding Our Way Home: CPD as a Beacon for Weary Educators
If you enjoy listening to Coldplay and analysing lyrics as I do, you probably listened to the song ‘Fix You’. At the beginning, they say: “When you try your best, but you don’t succeed. When you get what you want, but not what you need. When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep.” (COLDPLAY, […]
I am a teacher. Am I a leader?
It is often said that teachers take on many roles. As Diane Larsen-Freeman and Marti Anderson point out, “the work of teaching is simultaneously mental and social. It is also physical, emotional, practical, behavioral, political, experiential, historical, cultural, spiritual, and personal (2011, p. ix)”. Jeremy Harmer states that, “we are called upon to assume a […]