‘The Three T’s of Continuous Professional Development’ by Alex Quigley

[ELTWeekly Volume 7, Issue 9 | April 6, 2015 | ISSN 0975-3036]

Alex says, ”

All the evidence indicates that teachers develop intensively in their first couple of years of teaching and that they then plateau in their development, regardless of the intricate plans for continuous professional development (CPD) that schools construct.

This was my personal experience. You conquer the struggles of simply managing your class and then you simply get on. You have subject content to learn; exams to grapple with; students to chase up, reports to write, plans to hastily cobble together and much more. There are so many pressures, and so little time, that genuine self-improvement is a struggle. In these conditions CPD can’t hope to make much difference.

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#IATEFL – Second language development in childhood: factors for success (OUP Blog)

[ELTWeekly Volume 7, Issue 9 | April 6, 2015 | ISSN 0975-3036]

Victoria Murphy says, “How children learn second languages has long interested me. Looking back, even from a very young age I was fascinated with the notion of bilingualism. As a child growing up in Ottawa, Canada I was fortunate in that I had very early second language instruction – indeed I was taught French as part of my pre-school and kindergarten education. When I was in grade 3 I recall that a very nice lady came into the class and told us that if we were interested in having all of our school day in French in grade 4, that we should take the letter she was distributing home to our parents and get them to sign it. I vividly remember how excited I was then at the prospect of speaking French for the whole day! (more…)

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Penny Ur’s Video: How to get them to talk (when they don’t want to)

[ELTWeekly Volume 7, Issue 9 | April 6, 2015 | ISSN 0975-3036]

Catch up on this webinar from Cambridge University Press with Discussions and More author, Penny Ur.

Getting learners to talk in English is one of the most difficult challenges facing the teacher. One of the major reasons for this is that speaking – unlike listening, reading and writing – can only normally take place directly in interaction with an audience, in real time: so if you express yourself badly, hesitate, make mistakes – such failings are immediately exposed to the listener(s). Many learners feel uncomfortable and stressed in such a situation, even within a supportive classroom, and often prefer to keep quiet or use their mother tongue.

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