Articles - ideas on teaching
In this section you will find articles from experienced teachers and ELT professionals on a wide range of subjects. Click the links below to select articles under each topic area.

Making time for tasks and still covering the syllabus  
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The wish of language teachers everywhere is to promote genuine learning - the ability to use the language and to interact with a reasonable degree of fluency.

Average: 3.5 (47 votes)
From priming tasks and target tasks to language focus and grammar  

In this article, I will show how we can

  • increase learners' exposure to natural English through teacher talk and teacher-led tasks
  • exploit text-book material to help structure a task sequence
  • incorporate priming tasks at the Pre-task stage
  • manage a task-planning-report cycle with a language focus in the Planning stage
  • do form focused study after the task cycle
    Average: 3.3 (79 votes)
Six types of task for TBL  

In this article we look at different types of task, and see which kinds are most often used in textbooks. I also suggest ways of adjusting them so that they stimulate more opportunities for meaning-focused interaction, and encourage learners to give longer responses. Finally I show how a graded set of tasks can be developed on a theme.

Average: 3.6 (22 votes)
Criteria for identifying tasks for TBL  

This is the first in a series of three articles which will explore how to integrate a task-based approach into a typical textbook to maximise learning opportunities for your learners and to save teacher preparation time.

Average: 4.5 (19 votes)
Emotional Intelligence and ELT  

The theory of Emotional Intelligence and its measurement, the Emotional Quotient (EQ) were developed in the 1970s and 80s but popularised by Daniel Goleman in the mid-90s.

Average: 3.8 (11 votes)
Classroom layout  

The layout of your classroom can have a serious impact on the way you teach and the way your students learn. This article looks at some of the basic points that you can consider regarding the way you arrange your classroom.

Average: 3.6 (11 votes)
Asking questions  

Asking questions is a natural feature of communication, but also one of the most important tools which teachers have at their disposal. Questioning is crucial to the way teachers manage the class, engage students with content, encourage participation and increase understanding.

Average: 4 (7 votes)
Presenting new language  

When we decide to present new language items to learners explicitly, there are two underlying approaches for the differing techniques we can use – deductive and inductive.

Average: 4.1 (8 votes)
Homework  

Homework seems to be an accepted part of teachers’ and students’ routines, but there is little mention of it in ELT literature. The role of homework is hardly mentioned in the majority of general ELT texts or training courses,

Average: 3.9 (8 votes)
Creativite environment  

We have seen so far how we can organise our classroom work to incorporate the four features of creativity and how we can add the essential element of creative thinking, transition between two ways of thinking to our language learning activities.

Average: 4.8 (4 votes)
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