30 jun 2019

by | in Grammar, Reflections about Education, Teacher Development, Trends in ELT

As the title may reveal, the language is in constant change, no one owns it and everybody does. Therefore, we can all play with it as we wish. Can we? While some of us stand as the grammar police to correct tests, written tasks, posts on Facebook or so many other things people say and write around the world, many of us (also) fight to help learners better communicate in a world where English is frequently used as a lingua franca. Today I propose a discussion on priorities...

28 jan 2017

by | in Career, Classroom Experiences, Grammar, Language Acquisition, Pronunciation, Reflections about Education, Resources, Skills, Teacher Development

“A teacher who loves learning earns the right and the ability to help others learn.” ― Ruth Beechick, An Easy Start in Arithmetic, Grades K-3 In my last post, I talked about writing. The reason why I wrote about it is because I write, and writing is my journey into the core of the English language. The more I write, the more I learn about collocations, spelling, and how words are combined to form sentences. I also learn how words can impact one’s understanding and how they can persuade, motivate, inspire, and...

12 ago 2016

by | in Grammar, Language Acquisition

1. Why is noticing even a buzzword, anyway? Noticing in language learning is perhaps ELT’s most user-friendly buzzword. To have a vague understanding of what it is, you don’t need to delve into the works of Rod Ellis, Peter Skehan or even Richard Schmidt, whose 1990 study essentially put the term on the map. Perhaps a simple dictionary definition will do: [caption id="attachment_4760" align="alignnone" width="597"] Taken from dictionary.com[/caption]   The noticing hypothesis is conceptually intuitive, too. To put it in the simplest of terms: Students learn the language items they pay attention to, as...

18 jan 2016

by | in Career, Grammar, Teacher Development, Vocabulary

As I'm writing this post I'm thinking about my English skills as a non-native speaker. I'm aware of the fact that my English is far from being perfect and I can't expect it to be flawless. Nonetheless, I consider myself a successful English learner-teacher as far as language is concerned for one simple reason: I see myself as a language scavenger. What does it take to be a scavenger? When people speak to me and when I'm exposed to language items, I collect whatever I think is useful or...

03 dez 2015

by | in Grammar

One of the pleasures of teaching private students is helping them negotiate the mindfield of school exams. I was doing so with one fourteen year old last week. Part of the language she had to revise were the first and second conditionals. Learners in my experience find these structures grammatically challenging, which they are, due to the amount of gramatical processing involved. However, in my opinion they shouldn't find the meaning as difficult to grasp as it is similar to Portuguese. But some do, and I put this down...

03 jan 2015

by | in Grammar

I am pretty sure that anyone who has either learnt English as a student or been a teacher even for a short period of time must have come across the English Grammar in Use series by Raymond Murphy. Apparently, they are one of the best selling grammar books of all time. Go into a staff room and you will more than likey see three or four copies on the shelves. When a student tells you that he has a grammar book, it is very likey that it will be...

26 nov 2014

by | in Grammar, Teacher Development

O Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portugesa define metalinguagem como "linguagem (natural ou formalizada) que serve para descrever ou falar sobre uma outra linguagem, natural ou artificial". De modo simples, trata-se da linguagem que usamos para falar sobre a língua(gem). Em inglês, metalinguagem é chamada de metalanguage e, do ponto de vista linguístico, é recomendável referir-se a ela com a palavra "terminologia" (terminology). Abaixo, falarei resumidamente sobre o assunto e sobre o fato de ensinar isso aos estudantes de inglês ou não. Para que você compreenda melhor o que é...

24 out 2014

by | in Grammar

It is often said that dealing with grammar instruction in class is rather dull, let alone, demanding on both learners and teachers. The first ones might consider it as something heavy-going to take on board. The latter ones might consider it demanding on the grounds that preparation is a key element when delivering a grammar-based lesson. Unfortunately, grammar treatment tends to be downgraded and, to make matters worse, regarded as not instrumental in enabling learners to use the language more accurately.  Much to the contrary, approaching grammar instruction should...

21 out 2014

by | in Grammar, Language Acquisition, Reflections about Education, Teacher Development

"Over the years, language teachers have alternated between favoring teaching approaches that focus primarily on language use and those that focus on language forms or analysis. The alternation has been due to a fundamental disagreement concerning whether one learns to communicate in a second language by communicating in that language (such as in an immersion experience) or whether one learns to communicate in a second language by learning the lexicogrammar - the words and grammatical structures - of the target language. In other words, the argument has been...