Jim@SpongeELT

Article notes – Teacher Beliefs and Teacher Training – Helen Basturkmen

‘Article Notes’ is a set of blog posts in which I write down my notes about articles that I read. These notes are not meant to be ‘academic’ or ‘formal’; rather, they are my ramblings and immediate thoughts in reaction to the content I read. I’ve written them up to help me remember the article,Continue reading “Article notes – Teacher Beliefs and Teacher Training – Helen Basturkmen”

Conference notes – Innovate ELT 2022

Innovate 2022 – Back into face-to-face conferences with a blast When I sent my proposal through to Oxford TEFL for the 2022 Innovate ELT conference, I was really hoping that it would be accepted for two reasons. One, I wanted to share my ideas on using tasks with Young Learners, and two, I wanted toContinue reading “Conference notes – Innovate ELT 2022”

Article notes – Four perspectives in teaching teachers – Gabriel Diaz Maggioli

‘Article Notes’ is a set of blog posts in which I write down my notes about articles that I read. These notes are not meant to be ‘academic’ or ‘formal’; rather, they are my ramblings and immediate thoughts in reaction to the content I read. I’ve written them up to help me remember the article,Continue reading “Article notes – Four perspectives in teaching teachers – Gabriel Diaz Maggioli”

Musing of an academic manager – The manager I’d like to be

As part of induction week and their start-of-the-year development, teachers at my academy completed the following task: This is of course the activity The teacher I’d like to be, taken from Wright and Bolitho’s brilliant book, Trainer Development. I have been using this with teachers for the past two years, and have found it reallyContinue reading “Musing of an academic manager – The manager I’d like to be”

Musings of an academic manager – the art of timetabling classes

The last two years have been interesting – especially around September. One of the most challenging aspects of running a language academy has been timetabling – working out what classes go where, and who is going to teach these classes. In this short post, I’m going to talk about some mistakes we’ve made over theContinue reading “Musings of an academic manager – the art of timetabling classes”

The Teacher Trainer Diaries: 2021/2022 in review – Part 3: The year overall

Here are the links to the other parts: Part 1 and Part 2. So, this will be the final post in reviewing the academic year. I had wanted to include more stuff, but finding the time is so difficult at the moment! In this post, I’ll look at the development programme as a whole, goingContinue reading “The Teacher Trainer Diaries: 2021/2022 in review – Part 3: The year overall”

Review: Cambridge Elements – Reflective Practice in Language Teaching – Thomas S.C. Farrell

For those that don’t know, Cambridge has an Elements series, which is basically a series of 50-page booklets aiming to cover all the relevant and recent research on a certain topic. When they are released, there is usually a two-week period in which they are free to download, then you need to pay for them.Continue reading “Review: Cambridge Elements – Reflective Practice in Language Teaching – Thomas S.C. Farrell”

The Teacher Trainer Diaries: 2021/2022 in review – Part 2: Workshops throughout the year

You can read Part 1 of the 2021/2022 in review series here 🙂 This part will focus on the workshops that were planned and delivered over the course of the 2021/22 academic year. I won’t go into too much detail about all the workshops, but I will talk about the rationale behind the workshops, howContinue reading “The Teacher Trainer Diaries: 2021/2022 in review – Part 2: Workshops throughout the year”

Review: Language Teacher Education – Jon Roberts

On the reading list for the NILE MATD is Jon Roberts’ Language Teacher Education. I had never heard of it, to be honest, but after reading it I am unsure as to why it isn’t more widely known. In this review, I’ll talk about the ‘what’ of the book, major takeaways, as well as myContinue reading “Review: Language Teacher Education – Jon Roberts”

Review: Cambridge Elements – Explicit and Implicit Learning in Second Language Acquisition – Bill VanPatten and Megan Smith

Some time ago, Cambridge released VanPatten and Smith’s Explicit and Implicit Learning in Second Language Acquisition as part of the Cambridge Elements series. Whenever these Cambridge Elements come out, there is usually a period of about two weeks in which they are free to download. I took advantage of this, got myself a copy, andContinue reading “Review: Cambridge Elements – Explicit and Implicit Learning in Second Language Acquisition – Bill VanPatten and Megan Smith”