Uncategorized – Page 4 – Chris Richards ELT

Impact

I was thinking about the people who have had an impact on me and on my teaching. I was thinking about how I could write an entire book about all those influences. So instead I’m going to focus on just four people who have had an impact; not necessarily the biggest nor the best impact.Continue reading “Impact”

Why teach?

‘Don’t be a teacher’. The advice of my A-level English teacher couldn’t have been clearer. ‘It’s the only profession’, he counselled, ‘where everyone knows how to do it better than you do’. This post could be a charge sheet of examples of people with no pedagogical training, and not a second of classroom experience, proving thatContinue reading “Why teach?”

Pride

My grandma will often quote the aphorism that “pride cometh before a fall”. Culturally, we’re encouraged to avoid being too proud. We call a group of lions “a pride”. LGBT Pride is celebrated in many countries around the world and can be an important part of the calendar for queer people. We also encourage ourContinue reading “Pride”

Five Objects

It’s one of those desert island type questions: what five objects do I want in my classroom? Maybe I don’t need five, maybe I need more than five, maybe a year ago (or in another year) my five would be different. This list is offered for a face-to-face classroom in non-pandemic times; however, with aContinue reading “Five Objects”

Appreciation

If ever there were a year in which appreciation was necessary, 2020 has been one. I was at the TESOL Spain Annual Congress for the weekend before the Spanish confinement began on March 14th and among the many freebies available, I acquired myself a nice notebook, made from recycled paper. The keynote address was givenContinue reading “Appreciation”

A Year in ELT

525, 600 minutes – the number of minutes in a year. The song ‘Seasons of Love’ from Jonathan Larsen’s hit musical Rent invites us to ask how to measure a year: In daylights?In sunsets?In midnights?In cups of coffee?In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife? Should I measure this year in tweets? Online lessons? GoogleContinue reading “A Year in ELT”

Phrasally Verbocious

Between 2018 and 2020, my colleague Alan Hall and I released 30 episodes of a podcast called ‘Phrasally Verbocious’. It was great fun to make and we reflected on a number of important issues and themes in ELT including inclusivity and diversity, technology in the classroom, and use of L1 in the classroom which isContinue reading “Phrasally Verbocious”