Category: Chat Reviews

A PLN for ELT Professionals

What would you like to talk about on Wednesday January 12th?

Review   Last week’s #ELTchat got the year started with two great discussions on how to overcome colleagues’ resistance to online professional development and  on the principles that govern our materials preparation.   In response to the chats and the experience of sharing in the discussion and, on that particular day, the moderation of #ELTchat,…
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ELTchats in Review -Topics, Soft Skills and more!

Interviews Last week’s interview is arriving somewhat late, with apologies to Janet Bianchini / @janetbianchini, who sat in front of a crackling fireplace while Marisa Constantinides / @Marisa_C asked her about teaching through topics and themes. Janet is a teacher and teacher trainer who lives in Abruzzo, Italy.   This week, @ShellTerrell talked to Erika…
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ELTchat Review – Fluency and Teaching Qualifications

This week we look at the importance of fluency in the classroom – where does it come in and how should we approach it.  Vytheeshwaran gave us some feedback from India on the session and Guido in Spain added his views.  In the second session, Graham Stanley talked to us about teaching qualifications and gave…
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ELTchat Review – Traditional Approaches and Social Media

This week’s ELTchat took in both the old and the new – we looked at traditional approaches to teaching and asked if they have all been superseeded, and we looked at the (relatively) new phenomena of social media and looked at its role in the classroom. The session on traditional approaches showed that people have…
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ELTchat Review – Teaching Grammar and Culture

This week sees the introduction of a new feature to the podcast.  We are reporting from the ELTAM conference in Macedonia and will in future include reports from as many conferences as we can.  If you are attending a conference and would like to record a short piece then get in contact with us at…
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ELTchat Review – Personal Development and Discipline

This week saw two very popular themes being discussed on #ELTchat.  Although discipline tends to be regarded as a topic in the secondary system, issues are not unknown in adult teaching.  Greta Sandler joined us from Argentina to review the session.   Our Blog post of the Week is the intriguingly-titled “bona to vada your…
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ELTchat Review – Pronunciation and Dogme

It was a great week for #ELTchat with an absolute flood of ideas, thought and view during both of the chat sessions.  We asked Richard, a new participant in ELTchat for his views on the pronunciation session and he obliged with some insightful comments and ideas. Vicky Loras kindly took the time to review the…
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ELTchat Review – Measuring oral improvement and dealing with shy students

This week the chat sessions focused on two tough subjects – the most popular topic in the poll was how to deal with quiet or shy students. This is obviously a critical area in language learning as any reluctance to speak is going to have a major effect on progress.  Cecilia Coelho joined us with…
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ELTchat Review – Taboo subjects and using L1 in the classroom

Well we had two more great sessions on #ELTchat with masses of information changing hands and people with very differing views discussing the pros and cons of the two topics.   The first session looked at the issue of taboo subjects in the ELT classroom.  Mike Harrison got the ball rolling with some good observations…
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ELTchat Review – Using Coursebooks and Critical Thinking

This week was a cracking #ELTchat, and rather than just review it, we asked some of the contributors to expand on the views they posted during the sessions.  Joe McVeigh gave us a fascinating insight to the thinking of the materials designer and Tara Benwell from @ESLlibrary joined Shelly to expand on her thoughts regarding coursebooks.  Henrick…
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