Empowering our Students Through Lexical Choice
This is an adapted version of the talk I gave at TEOSL Spain 2023. Be aware that I make reference to and give examples of vulgar language. I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about one particular group that I teach. It’s a Cambridge Advanced exam prep group of eight teenagers varying in age from third…
Conference Review: TESOL Spain 2023
It had been three years since we last all met in Salamanca. We were hosted then by the beautiful university and spent the weekend learning from one another, socialising and discussing the big ideas of the moment. We were in a state of something like pre-lapsarian bliss: blissfully innocent of what was about to happen…
Conference Review: FECEI 2023
After a beautiful journey along winding roads, with snow on the ground and the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the fir trees, we arrived in Segovia around 6pm on Friday evening. Just enough time to relax before getting ready to attend the FECEI Premios Top IX Edición. The Premios, and Gala that follows, are a…
Opportunity (n.)
‘Opportunity’ comes into English from Latin via Old French, meaning a fit, convenient or seasonable time; the Latin opportunus itself derives from the phrase ob portum veniens or ‘coming towards a port’ (etymonline). To have an opportunity, therefore, was to be travelling with a favourable wind towards a place where you could make landfall. In…
Business Management
Last autumn, I embarked on my third course with International House OTTI. I’ve written previously about my experiences with their Observation and Giving Feedback and Performance Management courses. Here I’m going to reflect on my learning while taking their Business Management course. With this module, I was really stepping out of my comfort zone. Although…
Who Talks When?
Wise men* talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something. usually accredited to Plato (* or women) As Hugh Dellar writes, the abbreviation in ELT that has attracted ‘the most hatred and vitriol is undoubtedly the dreaded TTT’. As you will no doubt be aware if you are…
ACEIA in Sevilla
The first ELT conference I ever attended was ACEIA 2016. A group of us from the academy in Cáceres where I had just started working travelled down to make a weekend of it. I remember being amazed to be surrounded by so many people so passionate about teaching English that they would give up a…
Change (n., vb.)
Sometimes it’s a noun and sometimes it’s a verb, the word ‘change’ is itself changeable. Wonderfully you can read about how the meaning of ‘change’ has changed over time (see etymonline) from its origins in Proto-Indo European that suggest a root meaning ‘to bend’. In Welsh, the noun meaning ‘change’ is newid and the adjective…
A New Academic Year Begins
It’s 31st August. I woke and read with my morning coffee which is always my routine. I had a lazy breakfast while regarding my new running shoes nestled inside the shoe. But I put off their maiden run until tomorrow – today is the last day of the summer holidays, after all. I’m now sitting…
Evidence-Informed Practice
Last autumn, I undertook a course from the Chartered College of Teachers that led to my being awarded a Certificate in Evidence-Informed Practice. Like the courses I’ve taken with International House (Observation and Giving Feedback and Performance Management), this one was largely asynchronous which, naturally, fits with the schedule of a teacher working full-time. It…
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Chris Richards ELT 