Do any of you remember the Pepsi Challenge? This is the challenge where Pepsi would set up a table with two plain cups. One would contain Pepsi and the other Coca-Cola. Members of the public would then take a blind taste test. The Pepsi rep would then reveal the contents of the cups and the […]
Do you play background music in class? If yes, what kinds of music do you play? I’m curious to hear what others are doing and share my experiences with background music. A few years ago, I taught at a university with a very charismatic teacher. He was extremely popular with his students and his students […]
One of the main reasons I started http://dreamreader.net was because I struggled to find free high quality graded readings. At the time, I was teaching a reading course and wanted to supplement the assigned materials with interesting and engaging readings at the right level for the learners. The lack of free materials made me decide to write […]
by Neil Millington As many of you know, for the last 18 months Brad and I have been writing and publishing free reading materials for teachers and learners around the world. In that time, we have managed to deliver over 500 free lessons. We have done this at our own expense in terms of […]
By Neil Millington A few years ago, I was looking for ideas to liven up my writing class and try to find some ideas to make the group of learners I was teaching more cohesive. I was at a conference and I watched a great presentation on collaborative journal writing. Collaborative journal writing The basic […]
by Brad Smith I used to use MS Office for so many things but I have found lately that using Google Docs is so much easier for me. For one thing, you can access Google Docs easily from any computer as long as you have Internet access. No more saving your precious classroom slides or […]
Language learning anxiety For many of my learners, language learning anxiety in the classroom is a big issue. More specifically, many of my students suffer with communication apprehension. This certainly impacts on their behaviour in class. I teach quite a few speaking classes and it can be a real challenge getting the learners to relax […]
by Neil Millington In my younger years as a teacher, I enjoyed the end of the semester for several reasons. First, I studied under the amazing Charles Alderson when doing my MA and I thought it was always a good chance to create a valid and reliable test that would show which of my students […]
by Neil Millington I am a teacher at a university in Japan. In a traditional Japanese English teachers classroom it is the role of the teacher to give information and for the students to listen. I am not saying this is the case with every English class, but there are several academic papers that suggest […]
by Neil Millington I don’t particularly like to sing in class. Mainly because I’m not that good at it! Each semester I make an exception though for one particular song. It’s a song I learned from Tim Murphey about five or six years ago. I love this song because it is not that difficult to […]
