Purpose in the Process: Preparing Pupils for Performance

This is a slightly expanded version of the handout from my talk at the Association for Language Learning Language World Conference this morning at Imperial College, London. The main thrust of my presentation was that where we aim for in a series of lessons is important, but equally important is how we get there.  There [...]

comSIMPLEplexity: Objectively speaking

I’m going to home in on two of the activities I mentioned in the last post on comSIMPLEplexity, the flashcard activity in pairs and pelmanism, and look at the language used.  And then we’ll have that long-promised think about learning objectives.  If you haven’t seen the last post – cue bugle –  (comSIMPLEplexity: Getting pupils [...]

comSIMPLEplexity: Getting pupils to use complex structures

In my first post on the subject of comSIMPLEplexity, we looked at how something as simple and basic as today’s date can be used to set up a routine which brings in more complex language for interaction between the teacher and the class.  In the second article, we looked at an example of how the [...]

comSIMPLEplexity: Presenting New Language

So, picking up where we left off in our introduction to comSIMPLEplexity, the class is warmed up, the cobwebs of their native language have been blown away in the first activity, which may or may not have anything to do with the rest of the lesson, and the context is set for the next activity.  [...]

comSIMPLEplexity: An Introduction

This might seem an odd title, but it sums up pretty well an approach to presenting new vocabulary within mixed-ability and mixed-experience groups. I say mixed-experience because I feel that this is a grouping which rarely gets a mention, but which presents its own particular demands in terms of how we teach them.  Such a [...]