In this section, you will find a number of articles, which have been written to help you develop your skills and knowledge as a teacher in the professional practice 'Understanding learners'. From primary-aged students to adult learners of English, the articles you will find here are practical, insightful and full of ideas to support your teaching and planning for all kinds of classrooms.It also involves dividing lessons into coherent stages, planning board work, selecting and describing interaction patterns for different activities during the lesson, and planning for differentiated learning. 

Planning lessons and courses includes anticipating problems that may arise during the lesson, and planning how to respond to these, describing how learners’ understanding will be checked or assessed and describing when and how feedback will be provided. It is important to be able to describe how a lesson is linked to those before and after it, plan a broad outline for a sequence of lessons, including the recycling of learning content and reflect on the approach and effectiveness of lesson planning, incorporating learner feedback and other evidence.

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A framework for planning a listening skills lesson - listening article

A framework for planning a listening skills lesson

By developing their ability to listen well we develop our students' ability to become more independent learners, as by hearing accurately they are much more likely to be able to reproduce accurately, refine their understanding of grammar and develop their own vocabulary.

Lesson plans

Why should I write a plan? The best option is always to be prepared. Once you have prepared your lesson you will feel much more confident walking into the classroom and you will soon be able to relax.

Reluctant talkers 1

Being faced with a class which won't speak can be very disappointing after all your planning. When there are rows of blank faces or questions that nobody will answer it can demotivating.

Designing Business English programmes 3 - methodology article

Designing Business English programmes 3

This is the final article in a three part series. In the first part we looked at needs analysis and how to define goals and objectives. In the second part we considered how we could design a business English syllabus and in this last one we will see the last three stages of developing business English programmes.

Producing your own grammar activities

There are many ways of revising and consolidating grammar, but I've found it's often useful to give students short passages containing grammar mistakes which are characteristic of the student's level, nationality, and what the teacher may have identified as areas of particular strength or weakness.

Research and insight

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