Craig Thaine’s ‘Maintaining Motivation: Engaging learners through the course’ Webinar Replay

[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 4 | January 27, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]   Motivated learners are more likely to engage in the learning process both inside and outside the classroom.…

Continue ReadingCraig Thaine’s ‘Maintaining Motivation: Engaging learners through the course’ Webinar Replay

Encouraging ESL learner independence (OUP ELT Blog)

[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 4 | January 27, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]


The student-centered approach is becoming more common as teachers realize the benefits of being a facilitator in the classroom, encouraging students to take responsibility for their own learning in collaborative tasks and discussions. Of course, as a teacher you decide what happens in the classroom, but how can you extend learner independence outside it?

Set learning goals

Students come to class with their own individual learning goals. Often their motivation for learning will be goal-oriented: geared towards a specific exam, career or university placement and so getting them to spend time on skills

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Bottom-up decoding: listening (OUP ELT Blog)

[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 4 | January 27, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]


In a previous post I explained some of the reasons why we should focus on bottom-up strategies for listening and reading. In this post, I’d like to show how this might work in practice for the skill of listening.

Even learners who have a good range of grammar and vocabulary can struggle with understanding natural speech. And the same is true even for listeners who have a reasonable grasp of the topic and good prediction skills (usually associated with top-down strategies).

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Continue ReadingBottom-up decoding: listening (OUP ELT Blog)