At yesterday’s closing plenary at TESOL Spain, Stefania Balloto asked us to reflect on a teacher who made us feel seen and how that made us feel. I immediately knew who that was. My mind was taken back to a conversation in my third year at university with a lecturer who told me that sheContinue reading “A teacher who made me feel seen…”
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Conference Report: TESOL Spain 2025 (Burgos)
The TESOL Spain convention in Burgos featured insightful talks on topics like social justice in English language teaching, AI in pronunciation, and emotional well-being for teachers. The event fostered connections and inspiration, culminating in a warm community atmosphere and anticipation for next year’s convention in Sevilla.
A Term of ELT Events
The first in the series of planned posts on this rejuvenated blog is an overview of the last couple of months in ELT from my perspective, what’s being going on (and therefore, what’s been keeping me from posting!). Bilbao It feels like ‘Bridging the North’ has been a staple of the Spanish ELT event calendarContinue reading “A Term of ELT Events”
Normal Service to be Resumed
It’s been a while since a post has been published here, but I’ve got a bit of series planned to appear over the coming weeks and months. Keep your eyes peeled!
Conference Review: TESOL Spain 2024
I felt like I was returning home. I lived in Cáceres for three years from 2016-2019 and when I first arrived, I could barely say more in Spanish than request basic food staples and state that I didn’t eat meat (and that includes tuna; and no, not even jamón). So I was returning to myContinue reading “Conference Review: TESOL Spain 2024”
Celebration
At ACEIA in Sevilla earlier this month, I spoke about ‘A Sense of Achievement’. I talked about the difference I see between achieving things and perceiving that things have been achieved. I posed the discussion question to the attendees: have you ever achieved something, but it didn’t feel like an achievement for some reason? TheContinue reading “Celebration”
Key Takeaways: ‘Explicit English Teaching’ (Needham, 2023)
I was asked for my key takeaways from this read earlier in the summer. There is plenty more in the book which I throughly recommend to anyone interested in exploring ideas around explicit or direct instruction, but a very brief summary: Learning is very difficult to define, and even with established definitions from the literature,Continue reading “Key Takeaways: ‘Explicit English Teaching’ (Needham, 2023)”
Diploma in Academic Management
When I took my first course with IH OTTI, I didn’t imagine that I would end up pursuing the full diploma in Academic Management. I took the Observation and Feedback course because, despite having ten years experience in the classroom and a reasonable number of hours observing teaching and giving feedback as a DoS/Academic Manager,Continue reading “Diploma in Academic Management”
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 thirdContinue reading “Empowering our Students Through Lexical Choice”
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 happenContinue reading “Conference Review: TESOL Spain 2023”
Chris Richards ELT 