Over twenty years since the publication of Michael Lewis’s The Lexical Approach[1] and having followed all the debate on it[2], where do we stand in relation to the teaching of vocabulary? A little review of the materials we use in our classrooms and our own attitude to vocabulary teaching/learning may prove useful, so let’s get …
This month I have written a short story and prepared some activities that go with it for you to use with B2 level students onwards. The drawing was done by a good friend of mine called Maj-Lis Strunk. The story touches on immigrants and refugees motivating students to reflect and discuss this important current topic. …
I am an extremely visual person when it comes down to learning. I image stories, phrases, equations…whatever the context might be. There has been a lot of uproar regarding Cambridge English’s pledge to remove the phrase “learning styles” from the Celta and Delta courses. “The decision was motivated by the lack of supporting evidence …
GIVE ME FIVE! “BATE AQUI NA MÃO!” Give me five, man! Bate aqui (na mão), cara! Informalmente, quando se quer comemorar algo ou fechar um acordo, costuma-se bater a palma da mão aberta contra a mão aberta de outra pessoa. Para convidar alguém a fazer isso, diz-se Give me five! – ao pé da letra, …
In our last post we saw that you can bake chicken and potatoes, aside from all the sweet stuff like cookies, cakes etc. Today we are going to see what we can ROAST. Curiously, both chicken and potatoes show up in the top 20 occurrences of ROAST followed by a noun, first word to the …
About two years ago I started learning Russian from scratch. If you want to know what it is like to be in your students´ shoes when learning a language, I highly recommend going through the process of picking up a completely new language. It can be an enlightening experience. One thing which I find challenging …
Teaching English to children at a public school in Vitória/ES If you have read my June post, you may recall that it was about how I designed the syllabus and created the modules I work on with my 6-to-10-year-old students at a public school in Vitória/ES. This month, you are going to have the chance …
Ricardo Madureira – Absolute beginners, unlike the so-called false beginners, are learners who have no previous knowledge whatsoever of the target language they are about to start studying. Teachers will often wrongly assume that some language structures are easier than others and consequently they will rush through some grammar points in the hope that students …