Muddiest points, 6 April

Not surprisingly, as we had no Internet connection, and I couldn't show you what a blog is, "blogs" was the muddiest point for the session this morning. Always have a "Plan B", as I suggested!

Specifically, someone said "the way in which blogs can be useful in English teaching". In a previous post, I suggested some of the things that you can do with a blog...

Do feel free to use the "comments" link that you will find below each of the posts on this blog, by the way!

In previous posts I've also explained how to set a blog up, both on Blogger.com and on Zoomblog.

Two others -- which a 90-minute session really doesn't give us time to look at properly -- were RSS and podcasting.

And finally, difficulties with the terminology, something lots of people find hard -- but which shouldn't put you off using technology!

A-Z of methodology

Andrew Littlejohn, a well-known ELT coursebook writer, has a website with "resources for English language teachers and teacher trainers".

Among them, an A-Z of ELT Methodology, which includes not just definitions but also practical ideas on such things as "checking answers", "errors and error correction", "motivation", "skimming and scanning", "songs", "teacher exhaustion" (!!!) and the "zone of proximal development".

Also on the site there are interesting articles on such things as what makes good language classroom tasks...