Professor Thomas Farrell joins me to discuss MA TESOL courses: what are their shortcomings and how could these be improved? We discuss what is covered in MA courses, how they are taught, whether MA TESOLs ought to include a practicum, and much more.
Student Self-Assessment (with Sara Cotterall)
Vocabulary: What to Teach and How to Teach It (with Michael McCarthy)
Professor Michael McCarthy joins me to talk about what vocabulary we should teach and how to teach it. Mike tells us about the most common words in English and what non-common words we should teach our students, what aspects of vocabulary we should teach at different levels and how to stop students from forgetting the vocabulary they’ve already learned.
Behavior: the Elephant in the Classroom (with Chris Roland)
Student behavior and trying to control student behavior is huge worry for many teachers of young learners and teenagers, yet it’s also one of the least talked about. In this special length end of year episode, we talk with Chris Roland, author of Understanding Teenagers in the ELT Classroom about why students don’t always behave as teachers would like them to, why behavior gets discussed so little on teacher training courses and what teachers can do to better manage their students’ behavior.
Making Group Work Work (with Jonathan Newton)
L1: Friend or Foe (with Penny Ur)
All language students speak a first language, but what do we do with it? Some teachers ban it. Some teachers use it to teach English in. Some schools make students sign a pledge never to use it. Penny Ur tells us about what we can do take advantage of students first language, when to avoid it and when even to encourage it.
The Power of Fluency (with Paul Nation)
Involving Students in Feedback (with David Carless)
Professor David Carless from the University of Hong Kong joins me to talk about feedback. David tells us why our students should spend more time reading and acting on feedback than teachers spend writing it, how we can use examples from outstanding students to help students give feedback to themselves and how much should the content of feedback be based on teachers’ ideas as opposed to students.
Making Reflection Effective (with Lesley Painter-Farrell)
Getting Your Students Moving (with Matt Courtois)
Tasks and Interactions with Young Learners (with Rhonda Oliver)
I speak with Rhonda Oliver, SLA expert with young learners about tasks and interactions with young learners. Does speaking with other students help students learn language? How can teachers design tasks which students will find interesting? And which students should teachers pair their students with to get the most out of group work tasks?
Building Autonomous Teachers (With Ian McGrath)
Ian McGrath, author of Learner Autonomy, Teacher Autonomy: Future Directions talks to us about teacher autonomy. How can teacher education help make teachers more autonomous? How do observations from supervisors and student testing encroach on teachers’ decision making? And how can observations and testing be redesigned to give teachers the freedom to teach students the way they need to be taught?
Knowledge and Challenges for Young Learner Teachers (With Wendy Arnold)
Wendy Arnold passes on a wealth of experience of teaching and writing about young learners. Wendy tells us about how young learners' home lives affect their development, how the expectations of teachers and materials writers can effect student achievement and the problems associated with one size fits all curricula and coursebooks.
Involving Students' Parents in Language Learning (with Jake Whiddon)
Parents are one of the most important factors in determining how successful students are. In this episode, Jake Whiddon and I discuss how to involve parents in young learners’ learning. Why is it important to involve students' parents in language learning? How can we demonstrate learning to parents? What can teachers do to help parents understand language learning?
Tools For Teacher Reflection (with Dave Weller)
Teaching Comprehension Skills and Strategies (with Michael Swan)
How can we help students improve their listening and reading? Traditionally, teachers teach skills like predicting, skimming, scanning and guessing from context. In this episode, Michael Swan presents reasons why we should avoid this approach, the reasons students find comprehension difficult and what alternative approach teachers should take to improving listening and reading skills.
What Should Language Assessments Measure? (with Thom Kiddle)
Thom Kiddle from NILE joins me to talk about what assessments should measure. Should we separate skills or integrate them? Should language tests measure how complex learners can make their speech, or how well they can adapt their speech to the listener? And when is it useful to test grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation?
Teaching Phonics (with Lesley White)
Letterland teacher trainer Lesley White tells Ross about phonics. We touch on the history, the advantages of phonics over other approaches, different options to teachers within the phonics system and some of the differences between learning to read in your first language and in your second language.
Using Storybooks and Graded Readers (with Jake Whiddon)
Jake Whiddon joins me to talk about using storybooks in class. So many schools have graded readers, but so few teachers use these in class. Graded readers can be used with students of any age group and any level. They’re a great alternative to the coursebook and a contextualized way of presenting new language. In this episode, you’ll hear a simple five step approach that you can use to use graded readers with your students.
