The theme of this year’s ELTAI (English Language Teachers’ Association of India) Conference, “Western theories and Eastern practices”, was evident throughout the memorable event, not only in the conference itself, but it also seemed to imbue the heavy monsoon air that circulated around the venue, and the bustling city of Kochi, Kerala – ‘God’s own…… Continue reading ELTAI Conference 2017; Kochi, India: East meets West… and transcends it 🙂

Taking on the live-blogging role for the British Council #ELTons Awards was quite a responsibility. I wanted to ensure that all the finalists got a mention, and that all the authors were credited for their work. I ended up writing over 4000 words. Indeed, I was so busy with that that I had almost forgotten…… Continue reading Delighted to win the British Council Master’s Dissertation award

I’m very happy to announce that I will be the official live blogger for the British Council 15th ELTons Awards, taking place this Wednesday, 14 June, 2017. We’ll be kicking off at about 5:30 PM (current UK time is GMT+1). Join us via the live stream video link, where, as well as watching the whole…… Continue reading Join me at the ELTons Awards

This article, written for ELT Journal, explores the potential implications of translanguaging and translingualism for foreign language teaching and learning, especially English language teaching. It reports on an exploratory study of ‘EFL learners’ in the UK, finding that over 76% of them perceive a need for translingual practices in their varied future professions and studies.…… Continue reading Reimagining English language learners from a translingual perspective

Download a free resource for teachers! A couple of weeks ago, my students requested a lesson on pronouncing place names in London and England because they were always having difficulty making themselves understood at train and coach stations. I didn’t find many resources on the Internet designed for language students, only more technical guides that often…… Continue reading How to pronounce English place names

Many thanks to Adi Rajan for this interesting and very positive appraisal of the CAP model!

The first of 2 articles on the 3-stage lesson planning model that I propose has just been published in the IATEFL Teacher Education Newsletter. In the article I argue that CAP is more appropriate and more relevant for today’s teaching and teacher education courses than alternatives such as PPP, ESA, etc. It’s also the topic…… Continue reading CAP – Context, Analysis, Practice: A lesson planning model for language teacher education

Some of us love grammar lessons, but others… If you, or your learners, fall into the second category, one great way to make grammar meaningful, interesting and even edifying is to adapt stories to include a little grammar that you can then extract and analyse. Stories provide for ‘Context, Analysis and Practice’ (C-A-P: something I’ll be…… Continue reading The Farmer and the Fortune Teller: Using stories to teach grammar