Erika Osvath, an experienced teacher and teacher-trainer, explores the third of our Solutions Speaking Challenges: ‘It’s so hard getting the weaker students to join in’.  As I am sitting at my desk thinking over the issue of how to get weaker students to join in, my thoughts keep returning to the same questions: Who are the weaker students? What makes them ‘weaker’? How do I want them to "join in"? I can’t seem to escape them. I could just list various activities that may encourage students to participate more actively in speaking activities, but I feel have to go deeper this time. And as a result, I find myself wondering about my own preconceptions as a teacher. I expect a "weaker student" to say less, come up with fewer ideas, make more mistakes, and be more insecure. As a result, when they join in - if they ever do - they will be like this. Does this sound familiar to you? This is known as the Pygmalion effect, a psychological principle asserting that expectations decisively influence performance. So what can we do to adjust our expectations and thus create situations where "weaker students" feel more comfortable contributing? First of all - and this seems quite obvious - we can create a warmer atmosphere for all the students. Research has shown that we tend to unconsciously build a more relaxed climate for students that we have more favourable expectations of - we tend to be nicer to them both in terms of what we say and how we express it. We need to consciously try to do this for all the students in the class, regardless of ability, by using accepting words, true smiles, and demonstrating understanding and openness towards them. Secondly, we tend to teach more material to students we consider more able. The key here, then, is to expect more of the students we perceive as "weaker". So, when setting up a speaking activity, make it clear what you expect from all students. Tell students that they must offer a minimum of three ideas during the activity and use the past perfect at least once. Students will be able to live up to these challenges if you elicit some examples and note them down on the board before they start preparing their own ideas. Then, as you are monitoring their work during the preparation time and the speaking activity, make it clear that you expect them to do the task you had set. Of course, it is important not to be pushy or unrealistic, but make your expectations clear in a gentle and supportive manner. However, the following two factors are the most important ones in influencing the way our students perform in all activities, including speaking. Firstly, when giving students the opportunity to respond to a question in class, we tend to call on the students we think of as "stronger ones" more often. A simple way that we can encourage less able students to join in speaking activities is to increase the number of opportunities they are given to respond - and if they need more time and support, shape the answers with them and give them longer to formulate their response. Do not give up on them thinking that "they cannot do better than this anyway", something that can often occur unconsciously. Instead, offer small anchors in constructing ideas and sentences together in front of the class, this way encouraging them to speak and contribute in small group activities as well. One way you can ensure equal speaking opportunities in pair or group activities is by giving every student say, three slips of paper - signs of their contribution to the task. The aim of the speaking activity is to get rid of the paper, and students can put one card down only if they contributed at least one idea or sentence. The second important factor is the quality of the feedback we give. If more is expected of a student, they are praised more. If the teacher thinks less of a student, they are more willing to accept low quality answers with the undertone of "not worth the time or effort, because they won’t know it anyway". Our task is to reverse this process, making sure that we do expect higher quality responses from students who might need more support too. All these four factors will greatly influence the way less able students perform. They will start raising their own challenges and demonstrate a greater willingness to join in with speaking activities and other activities too!Filed under: Professional Development, Skills, Teenagers Tagged: Mixed-ability, Solutions, Solutions Speaking Challenges, Speaking, Speaking in class, Teenagers

This is the second of a six part series of articles from two ELT professionals who have successfully done just that: Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol. Here, they share advice on producing a business plan, goal-setting, and planning actions to achieve them. As a freelancer you are a business, albeit a one-person business, but you still need a plan. It doesn’t have to be a formalised plan, but a simple overview of your finances, your goals, and how you plan to achieve them. This process can help keep you on track and stay focused. Finances The first step in writing a business plan is often carrying out a basic financial analysis of your current situation. It can be very helpful to create a spreadsheet (e.g. Excel) with all of your regular expenses, broken into columns representing weekly, monthly and yearly expenses. For example, on the left-hand side, put: Fixed expenditure: Rent or mortgage payments, car insurance, public transport card, gym or association membership, phone bills etc. Variable expenditure: Estimates of items such as food, clothing, entertainment, etc. Sundry items: Regular savings, donations, a new computer, further training, and an emergency fund you can dip into in case you have a few quiet weeks or months. Add up the columns and divide by ten to give you an idea of the monthly income needed to sustain your current lifestyle. Why ten rather than twelve? a) There will always be quiet months b) You may need a few sick days c) Everyone deserves a holiday! In another column on the right, type your expected, realistic, monthly income and review it every 14 days or so to check that you are still on track with relation to the expenses listed on the left. As your income grows you can increase your expenditure, or conversely, if your expenditure grows you’ll either need to earn more, or cut back on spending. Goals Once you have an overview of your financial standing, move on to evaluating your short-, medium- and long-term goals. Creating SMART goals can help you stay on track; these are Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. As with your finances, goals need to be realistic and defined; avoid statements such as "I’d like more clients." or "I want to work less for language schools." Set quantifiable targets: "I want to get three new clients by the end of this year." or "I’d like to increase my income by 10% / reduce my working hours by 10%." Once you’ve set realistic targets you can then focus on any investment in marketing, further training, quality control, etc. in order to reach those targets. A SWOT Analysis Whether you are teaching, editing, translating or doing other ELT-related work, we suggest you carry out a SWOT analysis on yourself and the services you provide. A SWOT analysis looks at the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats associated with a proposed course of action, project or plan. Your strengths are the areas in which you excel as an ELT professional. Strengths can be skills and services that are exclusive to your business, that no one else can provide. Use this differentiation to your advantage. Keep a close eye on your weaknesses. Don’t worry, we all have them! But don’t take on tasks you aren’t fully capable of carrying out or services for which you aren’t qualified. Doing so might get you that first contract, but probably not the second; and it certainly won’t help your reputation. In order to identify the opportunities, you’ll need to do some market research. Find out what your potential clients are looking for and what your competitors are offering. Keep your eyes and ears open so that you don’t miss opportunities. If you focus on your strengths, opportunities will find you, so be ready! And finally, as Lao Tzu wrote in the Art of War, "If you know yourself and know your enemy you can win a hundred battles without a single loss." Know your threats. When assessing your competitors, don’t concentrate on taking their business or being better than them. It’s healthier and more beneficial to think about how you can differentiate yourself from companies offering similar services to yours. You can do this in a number of ways: price, quality, and simple things such as reliability and professionalism. Be prepared to lose a client every now and then through no fault of your own and have the financial safety net set up to catch you. Further to your financial plan and SWOT analysis you should also create a checklist to: Define your customer (even if this is a language school) Define your services Define your added value Conduct market research into potential clients and competitors In the next article in this series we’ll look at implementation and how to put your plan into practice with a clear sales and marketing strategy. This article first appeared in the November 2013 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.   © Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to the authors with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Business & English for Specific Purposes, Professional Development Tagged: Becoming a freelancer, Bethany Cagnol, ELT, ELT professionals, Freelancing, Mike Hogan, Teaching adults

Image source: http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-281194868-hd.jpg Mark Bartram, a teacher trainer and materials writer, explores different approaches for processing written and spoken text, and how they can be integrated into the English language classroom.  Are you a top-downer or a bottom-upper? The debate as to the relative importance of these two approaches to understanding spoken or written text has been going on for decades. Most people would agree that both approaches are useful at different times and for different reasons. In this blog I will attempt to explain why the bottom-up approach should not be neglected. First, some definitions. Top-down processing starts from the reader or listener. It assumes that the learner brings to the text certain knowledge - of the world, of texts (including how certain types of conversation typically unfold), and of language. This knowledge is likely to be useful in understanding a text (whether written or spoken), but it often needs to be activated, and activities such as discussions, questionnaires, quizzes, brainstorms, and vocabulary-anticipation can all be used to do this. For example, when you saw the title of this piece, you probably started thinking about what it might mean, what the arguments in the piece were likely to be, whether you wanted to read it, and so on. So assuming you still do want to read it… Bottom-up processing starts from the text. It assumes that by working on a combination of different aspects of the written or spoken text, the learner can increase their ability to comprehend it. These might be very "micro-" elements, such as the fact that we tend to insert a "w" sound between certain vowels; or they could be at a more "macro-" level, such as searching for synonyms within a text. The key idea here is decoding. For example, in order to understand the second sentence of this piece (the one that starts "The debate…"), you needed to work out that the first 17 words are the subject (a complex noun phrase), that the verb comes next ("has been going on"), followed by an adverbial (though unless you are a grammar geek, you won’t have used these terms). Identifying the verb is a key aspect of decoding complex texts. Improving the ability to decode Most people would agree that we use a combination of the two approaches when we are processing a text. We tend to switch from one to another as is needed. But whereas it used to be thought that we revert to bottom-up processing when we are unable to use top-down (for example, if we are unable to predict the content, we have to listen to the actual words!), research suggests that in fact the reverse is true. If you are in a noisy café, and can’t "decode" what your friend is saying (bottom-up), you tend to fill in the gaps with your knowledge of the world, or your friend’s usual speech habits. Within this framework, the idea of "comprehending a text" needs to be defined. Many activities in coursebooks are essentially asking the learners: "Did you understand this text?" - i.e. the one in front of them. This can work as an assessment or diagnostic tool, but the danger is that it does not prepare the learners for the next text. In other words, we need to train learners in transferable skills that can be used for any text in the future. We can do this to a limited extent with top-down activities - for example, we can train learners to use prediction techniques to anticipate the content and language of a text. Furthermore, classroom research and teacher experience tell us that top-down activities such as the ones listed above can be integrated easily into lessons, are motivating and fun, and enhance the overall experience for the learner. So we should not discount top-down activities entirely. However, common sense tells us that we are often in situations where we are less able to use top-down skills, for example, in exams, or simply when we turn on the radio at random. At this point, our ability to decode becomes key. And it is with bottom-up approaches that the training aspect comes into its own. Vocabulary, of course, is vital. The wider your vocabulary, the more fluent your reading or listening is likely to be. However, bottom-up skills remain important because they work on aspects of the text that are useful even when the learner’s vocabulary level is high. We have all heard learners say plaintively "Well, I know all these words, but I still didn’t get what they were saying!" For this reason, reading and listening activities need to include work on decoding text. Subsequent blog articles will explore how training in bottom-up decoding can be introduced painlessly into the classroom.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: bottom-up skills, decoding, ELT, Listening, Reading, Teaching English, transferable skills, Vocabulary

I have always been reluctant to spend money on software when there are so many free options available but I have always thought that buying expensive hardware was a good investment. That was until recently when my expensive investment in an iMac has been slowly gathering dust in the corner.When I first bought it 3 years ago, I used it for almost everything. Now, I use it to watch a movie about once a week. So what changed?About a year ago we were investigating a possible implementation of Chromebooks so I was given a Samsung Series 3 to test its functionality. From the moment I took it out of the box I was impressed. I pressed the power button and within 10 seconds, it was ready to go. The look and feel was a bit like a Macbook Air, albeit on a budget. I am not going to lie and say it is a better machine than a Macbook Air, but if you work on a principle of 'good enough to do everything I need' then it is truly impressive.What I didn't realise when I first used the Chromebook was how much of my computing was done in the cloud. I expected to have to use my iMac regularly but I found that almost everything I had to do, both work and personal I could do on the Chromebook. There were occasional frustrations and barriers (like no Skype for one!) but in most cases, you can find a Chrome Extension or App that does what you need.There is also another advantage. I happen to use Chrome as my primary browser in school so when I close the lid on my Chromebook at home and go in to school, I can open up where I left off on my desktop. Also the range of useful third party apps is remarkable. If you already use Google Chrome, check out the web store.With every OS upgrade, my Mac is getting slower and slower. Soon it will need to be replaced. I think it is highly unlikely that I will buy another Mac, as excellent as they are, when I can buy a Chromebook for a fraction of the price with all the functionality I need. Right now I have my eye on this one, but I will keep using my Mac until it dies and who knows what model will be available then.This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

What exactly are authentic texts, and how should we use them? Edward de Chazal is a freelance consultant, author and presenter. In the first of three articles on the subject, Edward takes an in-depth look at authentic texts and how bring them into the EAP classroom. Authentic texts are widely used in EAP, and clearly there are good reasons for doing so. When students are studying in their chosen disciplines, they have to read authentic academic texts such as textbooks and journal articles, so it makes sense to bring these into the EAP classroom. I have been doing this for years, which has prompted me to think more deeply about exactly what authentic texts are and how to use them. What is an authentic text? An authentic text is usually taken to mean a text which was not written for the language classroom, and which hasn’t been messed with - it retains its original vocabulary and grammar, and bits of the text have not been cut out. Preferably it is unprocessed, i.e. not retyped, so it still looks the same as it always did: the same font and graphics. In other words, authentic texts are written for any purpose other than language learning, and are intact rather than processed, adapted, or simplified. Authenticity is a broader concept, however. Not only is the text itself authentic, but also its context and related tasks. For instance, in EAP an authentic text (such as an extract from a university textbook) needs to be situated to some extent in its intended academic context. This means EAP students need to read the text in order to gain knowledge and use selected parts of it in their own new text (such as an essay or presentation), just as they would in their university department. Choosing an authentic text for your class When you’re choosing an authentic text to use in class, there is also the question of level to consider. By ‘level’ we usually mean language level - whether a text is at B1 or B2, for example - but there’s another crucial aspect: cognitive level. Some texts are much more challenging than others in terms of how difficult their ideas and concepts are. When selecting a text, it’s important to think about what you want your students to get out of it. Do you want them to gain a comprehensive understanding of the whole text, or will they use it more superficially - for example, in order to identify key words? In this way, you can use authentic texts which are at a high linguistic level in your lower level classes, so long as you set appropriate, achievable tasks. Let’s try and bring all these questions together in a possible scenario. Suppose our EAP students are recent high-school graduates planning to go to university. Their English language level is solid B1. They will have recent experience of high school exams such as IB (International Baccalaureate) or A-level. Using an IB text is ideal in this scenario: it is at an appropriate level, both linguistically and cognitively. These students usually approach such textbooks in order to learn something new, as well as to develop their English. Developing tasks and learning outcomes Similarly, in the EAP classroom we can come up with learning outcomes and tasks which engage with the content of the text and develop language. For instance, students learn to write a summary of a textbook extract (the learning outcome), and achieve this by identifying and noting down the main points (the task), which they then use to form the basis of their summary. In this way we’ve got an example of authentic text, context, and tasks. The EAP context reflects their future academic context as they will have to read and summarize texts in the disciplines. In short, using authentic texts means not only selecting an authentic text, but also setting up an authentic context and authentic tasks. The concept of authenticity also applies to the level of the text, including its language level and cognitive level. In my next article I will be discussing the nature of academic listening texts and how we can use them in the EAP classroom.Filed under: Business & English for Specific Purposes Tagged: Authentic texts, Critical thinking, EAP, Edward De Chazal, English for Academic Purposes, Methodology, Teacher Development, Teaching EAP

I'm just going to put it out there. I'm not a cat lover. Dogs are way more fun. Just to clarify in case some of you are cat lovers, I don't hate cats, I just have a preference for dogs so don't hate me. Because of my mild dislike of felines, I was quite amused when I heard about an online platform game called Erase all Kittens. In the game you are a character called Arca, a creature banished to the ruins of the ancient internet. Arca's only friends were kittens but they then start to go missing. Arca must try to save the kittens or risk being alone for ever.The beauty of the game is that it teaches children how to code and create on the web. It does this by encouraging them to hack into levels written in html5 and CSS to complete the game. An early example is lengthening a platform by changing the code inside (simply done by increasing the amount of text in the box) so that the main character can then jump across a narrower gap. I guarantee you will find this game a fun way to teach kids how to code. Check it out.This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

Sam McCarter is a teacher, consultant and freelance writer/editor with special interests in medical English communication skills, and IELTS. He is the author of Medicine 1 from the Oxford English for Careers series. In this post he explores some practical ways of bringing language to life for professionals. Teaching professionals such as postgraduate doctors requires a number of modifications in approach on the part of any teacher coming into ESP. At a recent event, a participant was reporting a discussion with a volunteer tutor about what he, a retired consultant in the medical field, should call the members of the group he was teaching. He didn’t feel it was right to call his fellow professionals ‘students’. A seemingly minor episode, but it does highlight the shifts that we as professionals need to think about when teaching other professionals. It may be that our students carry on being ‘students’, but our attitude towards them, our behaviour and way of working does need to undergo some transformation. Working in a team In the medical field, if you are lucky enough, you may find yourself working as an ESP teacher with a team of health professionals in a hospital setting. You may be part of a team made up of other language professionals, a general practitioner, a nurse, a social worker, (a) consultant(s) along with professional actors/ actresses, all working together in the same training session. You may, however, be working on your own in a language school and feel that you are isolated, but realise there is more to teaching in the medical field than just doing language practice. In this case, it may be possible to bring in retired or practising health professionals such as consultants or doctors or nurses to help with training, or arrange a visit to a local hospital or clinic. The aim is to make any classroom training as close to the hospital setting as possible, which the Medicine 1 and 2 and Nursing 1 and 2 in the Oxford English For Careers series have aimed to do with their task-based approach. Training in a hospital setting A typical training session in communication skills for doctors might involve a multidisciplinary approach with one or more team members where the language itself may appear incidental, but is integral, to the tasks the doctors perform. Each doctor can be given a scenario such as a 25 year-old young woman, Miss Brown, presents with a severe headache. How much detail the doctor is given can be modulated even to the point that all the doctor has is the name and age of the patient; or, if the patient has seen the doctor before, then some past history can be given. For safety and confidentiality reasons, the patient in the training is an experienced actress who has a defined role to play with medical information and details on personality, behaviour and attitude/ mood as well as accent. The history taking is watched by fellow doctors and other health professionals such as those mentioned above, including the language professional. The process is then followed by constructive feedback from the doctor himself, from the actress as the patient, the actress as herself, the other students and trainers. In this instance, the language input on the part of the language professional is dictated by the performance of the doctor in the scenario. The classroom The cost of providing the multidisciplinary training described in the previous section may make it difficult to replicate outside the hospital. However, it is possible to create scenarios where the doctors are the patients and their colleagues give feedback from different perspectives (social/ medical/ psychiatric) with the teacher maintaining the role of the language expert. If at all possible, you may be able to bring in actors/ actresses for the scenarios, which will enhance the training considerably. Your students can also be given open-ended problem solving tasks such as dealing with the performance of a colleague. The students discuss the problem in groups of about four within a defined time. Each group member has their own observer who gives constructive feedback on their group interaction. This latter task is a good way to improve insight and self-awareness. The same training principles apply in other areas of ESP such as business, engineering, finance and law where a problem solving approach can be taken to bring the language to life, focusing not on language practice, but on language use.Filed under: Business & English for Specific Purposes, Skills Tagged: English for Medicine, English for Specific Purposes, English Language Teaching, International English, Medicine, Oxford English for Careers, Roleplay, Sam McCarter

Here is a run down of the top blog posts I have read this week.I am hoping to make this a weekly feature (time permitting!).The first one isn't specifically edtech but contains from great advice from the UK National College for Teaching and Leadership on how to run successful school-led research projects.Students should be able to tell us what they are learning, not what app they are using. Wise words. This post runs through the top 10 ways we can use technology for learning.Macbooks, Chromebooks or ipads. This post tells us why we should think beyond the platform.Enjoy and have a nice weekend!This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

This is the third of a six part series of articles from two ELT professionals who have successfully done just that: Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol. Here, they share advice on mapping out a marketing strategy. Following on from our previous articles, once you’ve thought about your income and expenditure needs, defined your services, carried out a SWOT analysis and researched your potential market and competitors, the next step is thinking about how to market and sell your training to clients and differentiating yourself from similar organizations. Where to start? Your business strategy is essential and also provides your starting point. You need to know where you are now, where you’re going and why. Your marketing strategy must then match your business strategy. The Market Mix 4 Ps is a good starting point. Get ready to define your Product, and in the case of ELT, your service. The place, promotion and price are the other three Ps. When thinking of the place, consider whether you’ll offer your services virtually or face-to-face, and whether you’ll offer them from home, a hired training room, the clients’ premises or elsewhere. Promotion refers to the channels you’ll use to communicate what you have to offer; researching your market and potential competitors can help you define these. With regard to price, you’ll need to think of the value of what you’re offering in its own right, but also relative to current market conditions, your competitors, and other factors. Getting noticed There’s no single ‘best’ way to market your ELT services. First, think about your prospective clientele and where they turn for information. If they read industry-specific journals, why not submit an article that draws on your expertise in this field. If they go to conferences, consider presenting some research or running a workshop. Conferences can also be useful in developing contacts with your peers, which in turn can lead to future project collaboration. Professional-looking business cards are essential, as is an online presence. Do you have a website or at least an online profile? Can you or your services be easily found online when doing a search for your area? How are you building a brand around your name? It’s not something which can be done overnight and requires patience and a step-by-step approach and a great deal of patience. Building relationships and serving needs Marketing is all about serving needs. Serving your customers’ needs requires skills in building relationships, finding out what they need and considering how you can meet those needs. You might even be able to create a need that a client was previously unaware of, which you, of course, can fill. When you meet with potential clients, focus on listening to what’s important for them, rather than trying to push your services. When you truly understand their needs, you’ll be better positioned to package what you can offer in a more suitable way. Get involved in ‘the business’ of language teaching. If you’re a freelancer, you’re the service provider and the school/client is your customer. Treat them like one. Care for them. Remember: they aren’t obliged to fill your schedule. Sales Sales and Marketing are inextricably linked. It’s essential that you’re comfortable presenting, negotiating, and talking about prices and money if you’re going to be selling your services. This doesn’t come easy to many, but you can actually find tips in coursebooks in the sales, marketing, presentations and negotiations sections. Remember all those roleplays you’ve done with your learners? Apply the same principles to your meetings with clients. With practice, it gets easier! If a potential client schedules a meeting with you, they’re probably also talking to your competitors. Don’t wait to reply to that email or draft that offer until tomorrow. Do it today. Complacency and overconfidence can be deadly. And even if your client is a long-standing and satisfied one, always assume that could change at any moment. Fend off competitors by continuing to offer tailored, top-quality services that differentiate you from the rest. Sometimes you may get a training contract with more training than you can deliver. This is when it becomes necessary to hire / subcontract other freelancers to work on your behalf. Remember they’ll be delivering the training under your name and your brand, and this can be pretty scary at first. So the importance of continued quality control in such instances can’t be stressed enough. Finally, a marketing plan is always in a state of flux. You need to monitor it regularly and adjust as necessary to react to changing market conditions and stay aligned with your overall strategy. This article first appeared in the January 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.   © Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to the authors with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Business & English for Specific Purposes, Professional Development Tagged: Becoming a freelancer, Bethany Cagnol, ELT, ELT professionals, Freelancing, Mike Hogan, Teaching adults

Keith Morrow, an ELT consultant and trainer, reflects on how ‘authentic’ activities can provide an effective learning and teaching experience in the ELT classroom, ahead of his webinar on the subject.  Two buzz words in one title. Not bad! How authentic are you feeling today? Will the real you be going into class to do real things? And are you feeling autonomous? A free spirit or a cog in the machine? For a long time we have thought about ‘authenticity’ mainly in terms of materials. Let’s use real material from the real world in class. Down with stilted dialogues about John and Mary, up with real texts from magazines - or of course from the Internet. They are bound to be more interesting, because they are real. Umm, well - are they? Last weekend I got a notice from the tax authorities reminding me that I owe them some money. This was pretty boring even for me, but for a learner of English in a classroom anywhere in the world, being made to read my tax demand would be absolutely deadly. It has no connection to their world, and so they how could they engage with it? To use a distinction that Henry Widdowson made nearly 40 years ago, the text is ‘genuine’ - but the only person in the world for whom it is ‘authentic’ is me. I think that finding ways to make activities ‘authentic’ for learners is at the heart of good teaching. But what does this involve? How can we do it? Comments and suggestions are welcome. I’ll be exploring this and making some suggestions in the webinar I am leading next week on Tuesday 15th July and on Wednesday 16th July, so please come and join in. And while you are at it, what about ‘autonomy’? What can we do in the classroom to help learners to take charge of their own learning? And equally intriguing - what can we do to help teachers to develop their own skills? Again, please share your comments and suggestions. In the webinar I’m going to be drawing on two articles from ELT Journal to illustrate some ways of doing both of these, and I hope to be able to share links with you so that you can access the articles free of charge.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development Tagged: EFL, ELT, English Language Teaching, Keith Morrow, Professional Development, Teacher Development, Webinar