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teacher development

Standing the test of time

Monday, 6 p.m., the sun peeking through the blinds in the brick and mortar language school building in Brazil. The teacher enters the room carrying a bag of props, flashcards, and her tape recorder. The recorder being to her as precious as a map to a Geography teacher: “Hi, John Peter! How are you today?”...Read More

‘Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world’

My third piece of advice is to cultivate a sense of empathy – to put yourself in other people’s shoes – to see the world from their eyes. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world. Barack Obama Empathy is ‘the art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of another person, understanding...Read More

From novice to expert: what teacher development frameworks can teach us

Teaching a language, especially when you’re a novice, can be really daunting. In fact, the word “daunting” immediately brings to mind a Duck commercial that was constantly on when I studied in Australia. The voice-over would go, “Cleaning your bathroom can seem like a daunting task”, and the small bathroom would grow huge with the...Read More

Greenhouses, Gardens and Jungles – 2

Taking the DELTA has changed me as a teacher in many ways, but I believe that it has most influenced the way I perceive and teach listening. I first came across the term ‘decoding’ when my dear tutor Melissa Lamb from IH London introduced me to John Field’s book ‘Listening in the Language Classroom’. Later...Read More

Teacher Talent

Are Good Teachers Born or Made? (https://www.richmondshare.com.br/are-good-teachers-born-or-made/) is probably one of my favourite articles by Marcela Cintra here on the RichmondShare Blog. I sometimes revisit it when looking for some inspiration. When the going gets tough, teachers turn to other teachers for support. In this enlightening article she argues, among other things, that teaching is...Read More

Greenhouses, Gardens and Jungles – 1

What is your passion when it comes to teaching EFL? Is it one of the four skills [listening, speaking, reading or writing]? One of the four systems [pronunciation, lexis, grammar or discourse]? Teaching YLs or teens? Methodology, perhaps? Teacher training? – Hard to pick one, right? Well, I’ll do it anyways! I’ll start with Listening...Read More

The PDCA Continuous Improvement Cycle

Have you ever heard of a continuous improvement cycle called the PDCA cycle? I am sure most of you who have already studied a little bit of business management have certainly come across this acronym before. But for those of you who haven’t studied any business theories, PDCA is an acronym that stands for Plan-Do-Check-Act....Read More

CPD and courses: who, what, when and how much

We hear about CPD, the acronym for Continuous Professional Development, all the time. Although CPD is not only about taking courses, they are certainly a prototypical concept and the number of courses aimed at teachers has been increasing steadily, or at least this is the impression I have. When it comes to courses, one of...Read More

The Power of Generosity

I’d like to start this post with Maya Angelou’s beautiful statement: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” As a subscriber to MET (Modern English Teacher), I received the October 2018 issue at home this month. Their...Read More

Assessing the Assessor – Lesson Observation

This is a fairly broad topic with a myriad of issues, such as the observer and observee’s attitudes towards having his/her lessons assessed. There is also the matter of how many times a teacher should be observed in a term, and when (before/after tests, two weeks after the first lesson, etc), having in mind the...Read More
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