Grammar Teaching and The Problem of Terminology
Grammar Teaching and The Problem of Terminology “What’s in a word?” Shakespeare once asked. And his answer: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In other words, […]
Financial Planning for Your Retirement, with Ben Shearon
Ben Shearon is a retired university English teacher based in Sendai. He was born in Germany and grew up in Spain but claims to be British. After living in Spain, […]
Adjective Order in English Revisited
Adjective Order in English Revisited Look at this picture. How would you describe this object? Which of these sentences sounds most correct? It’s a big, round, orange pumpkin. It’s a […]
An Interview with Basil Tonks the Founder and CEO of Two Education Companies in Japan
Born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1966, Basil moved to Canada in 1969. After graduating from the University of Toronto, he pursued Asian Studies at the Graduate School of the […]
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, […]
Decoding the IELTS and TOEFL Essay Rubrics
IELTS and TOEFL essay rubrics As teachers, it is helpful to use IELTS and TOEFL essay rubrics to guide our students to get top scores on their independent essays. However, […]
How to Activate Your Classes with Drama
Many teachers are well aware of techniques like dialogues or roleplaying as standard parts of many textbooks for teaching ESL/EFL conversation, for example. However, they may not be aware of […]
Icebreaker Activities for EFL Students
It’s advisable to use icebreaker activities or “getting to know you” activities, so that students can become more familiar with each other and get along better as the course progresses. […]
5 Activities for Learning Names
When you start teaching a new group of students, it’s important to begin learning their names right away. As Lang (2020) puts it, “learning and using the names of your […]
How to Choose ELT Coursebooks or Materials
There are so many different coursebooks, worksheets and other resources available for teaching English nowadays; how can teachers or directors of study choose which ones to use? Additionally, as other […]