Varieties of English and EIL/ELF

Just revising for the exam, and know I won’t remember much. Mark had a funny acronym for this condition: CRS, can’t remember shit. Yesterday I learned quite a lot because my concentration was up, so I got some connections that I’d missed before. But this morning, I’m having trouble remembering my middle name. This was […]

The BE/ESP Blog Carnival

photo: S. Hofschlaeger / pixelio.de This roundup of blog posts written by BE/ESP teachers, teacher trainers and materials writers includes personal professional blogs and regular or guest posts for a magazine or publisher. Written for two separate target groups, viz. learners vs. peers, their purpose varies widely: to reflect on personal development to share materials […]

Simplicity: Flipchart rather than pinboard

In compact business seminars, the kind where the participants expect and get a full script to take home (so much for unplugged!), I usually use cards and a pinboard to collect, sort and focus the participants’ ideas. But you can drive a good thing into the ground. The act of pinning the card is a […]

Dogme – Schmogme

Karenne Syvester’s “Dogme challenge 1+2”, infused by Candy van Olst’s “CELTA -Schmelta”, dampened by yesterday’s “Failwhale” #Edchat, refreshed by Jeremy Harmer’s “No Dogme for EFL” combine to inspire this friendly response, the title an obvious take-off. So Dogme means “emergent” and “co-constructed learning” on the one hand, and “essential bareness” on the other. It has […]

Coming up: A Business English/ ESP blog carnival

As announced by Larry Ferlazzo, coming up on 1 November, there’ll be a blog carnival – that is, a round-up of posts submitted by bloggers for the purpose – dedicated to the teaching of Business English and English for Special Purposes, here on this blog.  If you’re a blogger, please use this form to submit […]

Janelle Monae: Tightrope

My exciting news this week is that we’re moving to Berlin. Helmut has a new job. He told me a few years ago that he didn’t want to climb the social ladder (Karriere machen), but here he is, with new challenges. So babe, this song is dedicated to you, with all of my love. Keep […]