Here is a random selection of our ELT Lesson Activity Plans. Pick one and take a look!
Articles and ideas
Many of these Articles have appeared in a variety of English Language Teaching publications and here we continue to write for teachers and colleagues in the field of ELT.
IATEFL young learners sig journal CATS, Spring 2000
Writing has a bad reputation in many schools, for both teachers and students. For the teacher, it means marking a pile of compositions and they are almost always worse than expected. For many students, writing is a boring chore and an “opportunity” to make a lot of mistakes.However, we believe that writing can be a very interesting and involving activity for students of English.
'Say please!', children are often told, after saying something like 'Give me a biscuit'. If they ask why, they may receive the explanation, 'Because it's polite'. We English teachers sometimes do the same.
Procedia Social and Behavioural Sciences 3 (2010) 24-27
In this article, we will look at the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and why extrinsic motivation alone is not satisfactory for learning in the long run. It is suggested that although students may embark on learning for extrinsic reasons, a more intrinsic motivation can be developed in the classroom.
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 3, 2010, pages 190-193
In this article, I look at several techniques and approaches we could use to help learners perceive the value of general classroom activities and to experience success in the communicative tasks we ask them to do. When used together, these techniques and approaches can generate, maintain and protect motivation.
IATEFL Pronunciation SIG newsletter Speak Out, Dec 2006
This article consists of two parts. In the first part, I will argue that the rejection of certain pronunciation materials on the grounds that they are not communicative may be unjustified. In this argument, I will make use of the concept of language play.
There's so much more to teaching pronunciation than drilling and the phonetic alphabet. A few simple exercises can open your students' senses to the rhythms and patterns of speech.
In 2004, after giving a presentation on the Eurpopean Language Portfolio (ELP) at the TESOL-Spain National Convention, I was invitied to write a series of articles for English Teaching professional (ETp) http://www.etprofessional.com.
The second article on the Eurpoean Laguage Portfolio (ELP) describes how the Dossier is intended to be used. I also refer to my own teaching experiences about 30 years ago, when I was inadvertently using a kind of ELP Dossier with a group of rather educationally jaded secondary school kids.
This last article on the Eurpoean Language Portfolio (ELP) describes how the Passport draws on records and work referenced and stored in the Biography and Dossier. It represents a comprehensive summary of an individual's learning achievement in foreign languages.
IATEFL Pronunciation Sig magazine 'Speak Out', issue 30, Sept 2003
For me, the first example that springs to mind when talking about minimal pairs is ship or sheep. This is almost certainly due to the influence of the title of the well known book Ship or Sheep by Anne Baker. The formula is this: take a word, remove one of the phonemes and replace it with another such that it forms a different word.
