24 maio 2018

by | in Classroom Experiences, Language Acquisition, Learner Autonomy, Reflections about Education, Vocabulary

It goes without saying that vocabulary is one aspect language acquisition that plays an important role when learning one mother’s tongue, let alone a foreign language. I have often had learners saying that they can fairly get by grammatical structures and the real factor holding them back is how to put words within this lexical construct. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula through which one can get by learning new lexis, being it from the word level to the sentence level; however, memory seems to be one key element...

14 maio 2018

by | in Classroom Experiences, Learner Autonomy, Reflections about Education, Sin categoría

I plan all the lessons I teach, but I don’t teach all the lessons I plan. The initial idea for this one was not mine; I found it online. I was looking for different ways to review past modals of speculation for an FCE prep group. Having a group filled with teenagers, ages ranging from 13 to 16, I wanted something cool to use for a TTT (test-teach-test) approach that would eventually culminate in… past papers. Oh, woe. A fellow teacher had posted a suggestion online: why not use a...

04 maio 2018

by | in Language Acquisition, Learner Autonomy, Lesson Ideas

The writing process involves, at least, four different steps: analysing the task question, brainstorming, drafting, proofreading and finally handing it to the teacher so that the work can be checked. This process is also known as a ”recursive” process because when you are proofreading it is almost certain that you might have to return to the brainstorming step to develop and/or expand your ideas. That is actually the beauty of it: playing with words, picking and choosing what fits best, changing your mind, rewording, paraphrasing, maybe in more sophisticated...

27 fev 2018

by | in Classroom Experiences, Learner Autonomy, Teacher Development

A very controversial issue that I always come across in discussions related to English-language-teaching is whether pre-teaching is recommendable. Most discussions I’ve seen revolve around the pre-teaching of vocabulary before a reading or listening. On the one hand, pre-teaching of key vocabulary allows students to tackle the task more easily and reduces their anxiety. On the other hand, it is not a very natural activity, as in the real world we are not pre-taught the vocabulary in texts that we read or listen to We need to learn...

27 jan 2018

by | in Language testing & assessment, Learner Autonomy, Reflections about Education, Teacher Development

EFL teachers that change into a bilingual education environment, often tend to forget that they are not teaching language as the primary goal anymore and that has dramatic implications. The acronym CLIL - Content and Language Integrated Learning - implies that there is much more to it than just language teaching. But what is there besides language? The first big addition is the fact that language is not the ultimate goal anymore: it now plays the role of a tool for students to learn content from other subject areas....

13 jan 2018

by | in Language Acquisition, Learner Autonomy, Skills, Speaking and Spoken Language

Last January 3rd, my husband and I were driving back home from the beautiful state of Minas Gerais. Days before, during our stay in the effervescent Belo Horizonte, the capital city, we had met a very interesting twenty-something Japanese young man in the hostel. His name is Goro and he’d been living in Brazil for 2 years. He was doing some backpacking since this is his last month in Brazil. As we were all going back to São Paulo, we offered him a ride. A pause to explain: Goro's...

29 nov 2017

by | in Learner Autonomy, Lesson Ideas, Teacher Development

One of the best features of my job is that I get to observe teachers in their second semester in the language institute where I work.  In their first semester, they go through a mentoring process and are then observed by two other academic specialists. These observations usually go very well. The teachers are very professional in their attitude toward the whole process; they submit their lesson plans in advance and participate actively and reflectively in our pre and post-observation meetings. I find it a very rewarding experience in...

25 nov 2017

by | in Learner Autonomy

(Obs.:  I will be back only on the 4th of January) Tip number (3) -  multiple-choice part As you know, this is a longer text. (FCE and CPE - part 7 & CAE - part 8). In order not to get anxious and/or frustrated, you will read the first question and focus only on the first paragraph. Then, you move on to the second question and second paragraph and so on. Everything is in order. Again, you should underline the keywords in the questions and in all the options (answers)....

04 nov 2017

by | in Learner Autonomy

Are you sitting for Cambridge Exams in November? I believe I can help you by providing practical tips. First, I’ll share my personal experience with you. I have taken the FCE-CAE-CPE and since I passed, it’s safe to say I had the vocabulary demanded by those levels, I used to study every day (whenever possible), I have always read, or tried to read at least a book a month, still, I had no idea what I was doing. Thus, I have developed techniques in order to be able to look...

04 out 2017

by | in Language Acquisition, Learner Autonomy, Reflections about Education

David Crystal once said that the biggest challenge for teachers is “without a doubt to keep pace with the language change”. And I could not agree more! Now, my question is. How to do it? How to keep pace with one of the most complex aspects of human behaviour? Taking into consideration that many countries, states, cities, towns, regions, areas, and tribes are alive and changing, developing, building language by the second, how are we supposed to keep track of it to then help our students? “Watch TV series online, you...