Teaching English Pronunciation and Intonation
Teaching English pronunciation and intonation is a challenging job. And learning it is even harder. Part of the problem is that we are born with our first language intonation already […]
Case Study: The AI Solution to South Korea’s Declining English Proficiency
Case Study: The AI Solution to South Korea’s Declining English Proficiency My Speaking Score’s second biggest market outside of the US is South Korea. The peninsula’s slipping ranks in English […]
Warmers for English Lessons
Warmers for English Lessons I have attended language classes of several types, covering both my native language and the foreign languages I speak. One thing sets some classes apart from […]
TEFL Books for Teachers – A Starter Library
TEFL Books for Teachers – A Starter Library In this day and age, we take the endless sea of useful (and sometimes less than useful) information available on the internet […]
Phonetics and Phonology in the Teaching of Pronunciation
Phonetics and Phonology in the Teaching of Pronunciation Introduction The teaching of pronunciation has witnessed remarkable changes throughout the history of language teaching and learning. As one of the most […]
Teaching Phrasal Verbs – Lesson Planning
Teaching Phrasal Verbs – Lesson Planning Firstly, let me explain the thinking behind the teaching phrasal verbs (GA). Over the last forty years, I have become increasingly dissatisfied with conventional […]
Synthetic Phonics for EFL/ESL Learners
Let us begin with the most basic question: what exactly is “synthetic phonics”? To “synthesize” means to combine parts or elements together. Using the term “to synthesize” in a literacy […]
Teaching Conversational English in Japan: Is AI the Solution?
Teaching Conversational English in Japan: Is AI the Solution? If you had ever visited Japan before the age of Google Maps (and before or after the period of mandatory 2-meter […]
Edinburgh’s EFL revival?
Following the twin blows of Covid and Brexit, there are signs of renewed life in Edinburgh’s EFL scene. While several schools have closed for good in the last three years, […]
Zen and the Art of Language Presentations
To teach new language successfully, and in a way that students are interested in, it can often help to point to something beyond the language itself in order for the […]