Jim@SpongeELT

Sponge Chats – Teacher Training and Development with Thom Kiddle, Director of NILE

This blog post is part of the Sponge Chats video series. In the ninth Sponge Chat, I had the pleasure to sit down with Thom Kiddle, the director of NILE and board member of many other associations including Eaquals and AQUEDUTO. We got to talk about Thom’s journey from teacher to trainer and from trainer to trainerContinue reading “Sponge Chats – Teacher Training and Development with Thom Kiddle, Director of NILE”

Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task-Based Approach – Week 6

Why not check out the previous weeks’ post, if you haven’t already: Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 We are finally here – the last week! This final week has been focused on really making a task from a reading text; in a sense, bringing everything we have learnt over theContinue reading “Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task-Based Approach – Week 6”

Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task-Based Approach – Week 5

Before reading Week 5, why not check out the previous weeks: Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 This week focused pretty much entirely on extensive reading, which I thought was really interesting. We did look at TBLT towards the end (and more in a way of extending extensive reading), but the main objectiveContinue reading “Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task-Based Approach – Week 5”

Review: Activities for Task-Based Learning – N. Anderson and N. McCutcheon

This year I have been going TBTL crazy. I’ve always been keen on TBLT, but I made the conscious decision to really build my understanding of it so that I could better implement it in my classes (generally in a task-supported manner) and so I could better answer questions from teachers. One of the booksContinue reading “Review: Activities for Task-Based Learning – N. Anderson and N. McCutcheon”

Sponge Chats – Teacher Training with Teresa Bestwick

This blog post is part of the Sponge Chats video series. Last Thursday, I had the pleasure to sit down with teacher trainer, materials writer and all-round awesome person, Teresa Bestwick. Teresa is a CertTESOL and DipTESOL trainer, and she is very active in the online development world as well. For example, she and Simon Pearlman haveContinue reading “Sponge Chats – Teacher Training with Teresa Bestwick”

IATEFL – TTEdSIG Pre-conference event notes

This year I joined IATEFL and chose TTEdSIG as my special interest group (SIG). Apart from there being a whole load of new acronyms to learn, there are also a lot of benefits from being part of IATEFL and specific SIGs, one being a discount to the pre-conference event (PCE). In these PCEs, SIGs haveContinue reading “IATEFL – TTEdSIG Pre-conference event notes”

The Teacher Trainer Diaries – A year of workshops – Part 2

To see the first part of this group of posts, click here. In this part, I will look at term two’s workshops, the rationale behind them, and my reflections on how they all went. Term 2 – Working with Cambridge English exams Course type Drip feed Breadth or depth Breadth Coherent or standalone Coherent theme,Continue reading “The Teacher Trainer Diaries – A year of workshops – Part 2”

A TBLT lesson of my own – Learner-created Kahoots

Last week I asked my learners what they wanted to do over the last few weeks of term. Of course one of the first things that came up was ‘Play Kahoot’. I made a deal with them – we can play Kahoot if they make the Kahoots (well, the questions at least)! This post isContinue reading “A TBLT lesson of my own – Learner-created Kahoots”

Sponge Chats – Teaching English in Spain with Alan McDyre, President of ACEIA

This blog post is part of the Sponge Chats video series. There are few within Spain who have more knowledge about the current language teaching context than Alan McDyre, President of ACEIA, Spain’s largest language teaching association. I have had the pleasure to meet Alan a number times at various ACEIA and FECEI conferences, and now IContinue reading “Sponge Chats – Teaching English in Spain with Alan McDyre, President of ACEIA”

Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task-Based Approach – Week 4

If you’d like to read the previous weeks’ posts, check them out here: Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Whereas the previous weeks have been focused on TBLT and reading in general, we got a little more specific this week – we focused on language in the reading classroom. That is, how we can integrateContinue reading “Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task-Based Approach – Week 4”