Lessons

Catch-22: Academic honesty and the pressure to succeed

This is a downloadable lesson appropriate for C1/C2 learners on the topic of academic honesty in the age of ChatGPT.

The Human Predicament

This short course based on the work of Dr. Nate Hagens — Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future and host of the podcast The Great Simplication —  will help you understand climate change in an entirely new light and share these vital perspectives with your learners.

Teaching Grammar

Grammar Profile Bingo

Here are some ideas for incorporating the Cambridge English Profile in your teaching and getting your learners to engage with it. I recommend a type of bingo game as well as suggest how we could use the grammar profile with a dictogloss.

Cambridge English Profile

Find out how to use the Cambridge English Profile, a database which includes roughly 1200 grammar structures from A1-C2. This is a fanastic tool to develop your own grammar curriculum as it is far more representative than any coursebooks. The materials include a spreadsheet specifically covering the 241 grammar items at C1-C2 with examples.

EFL Resources

ELT Concourse

This is widely recognised as one of the most comprehensive collection of resources for teachers, teachers in training, teacher trainers and learners of English. Great for anyone preparing for Delta Module 1.

Scott Thornbury

Although a rather unoriginal choice, I would be remiss if I didn’t include Scott’s excellent blog. I particularly recommend “An A-Z of ELT”, organised alphabetically around key topics. (One of my all-time favourites is “V is for Vocabulary”). In his articles section I’d recommend “Having a good jaw: voice-setting phonology”, which is great for those of you keen on new ways of teaching pronunciation.

Leoxicon

Leo Selivan, the author of Lexical Grammar, also has an insightful EFL blog with a lexical orientation.

Podcasts

Teacher Talking Time

A podcast aimed at teaching professionals and learners. Leo, Mike, and Andrew bring you discussions, interviews and debates on English language training and learning. From approaches, misconceptions and successful and failed case studies, each episode is dedicated to their vision: continual growth.

Knowledge Matters

Natalie Wexler hosts the inaugural series, Reading Comprehension Revisited. Although it’s ostensibly about reading skills in elementary school, many of the ideas are relevant to teaching young adults in EFL.

Reading

The Electric Typewriter

This is a compendium of great essays and articles written by well-regarded writers and journalists. Much of the content is free, though some of it is behind a paywall. You can browse by subject and author. This is an absolute goldmine for adult learners!

The Marginalian

It began as a modest blog and is now included in the Library of Congress’ web archive of culturally valuable materials. Its creator, Maria Popova, describes it as “a chronicle of my ongoing becoming — intellectually, creatively, spiritually, poetically — drawn from my extended marginalia on the search for meaning across science, art, philosophy, and the various other tendrils of human thought and feeling.”

The New Yorker

Known for its distinctive, urbane style (some would say pretentious!) the New Yorker is in a class of its own. Combining ambitious long-form journalism, cartoons, fiction and much more, this magazine is a small luxury worth every penny. Non-subscribers get a set number of free articles per month – choose wisely! A single article may run to eight pages so even a couple of free articles per month is a good chunk of reading.

Aeon

Aeon is a digital magazine of ideas, philosophy and culture. It describes itself as a publication which “asks the biggest questions and finds the freshest, most original answers, provided by world-leading authorities on science, philosophy and society.” Check out the section “Psyche” for all things psychological. All of their long-form articles are free.

Pyschology Today

Psychology Today is among the oldest media outlets with a focus on behavioural science. Its tagline is “Here to Help” and its mission is to cover all aspects of human behaviour so as to help people better manage their own health and wellness, adjust their mindset and manage a range of mental health and relationship concerns.