Giving feedback

Earlier this week I wrote my first blog post for the Richmondshare blog. There were a couple of things I wanted to add to it after reading some comments, so here it is.

How to get a distinction in your Delta module 2 Background Essays – part 2

Part 1 of this post is one of the most popular on the blog and it attracts readers from all over the world – you can find it here in case you missed it. This time around we have a guest blogger sharing his own Delta module 2 experience. I think it’s one that you will find useful as the focus of his LSAs are very different from mine.

If you are reading this and either doing the Delta or thinking about it, I’d strongly recommend joining Cambridge Delta Forum on Facebook.

Without further ado, here’s Konstantinos.

Using phonemic symbols with (one-to-one) students

A couple of days after my blogpost about error correction in one-to-one lessons I had an interesting discussion on Facebook about using phonemic symbols with students.

It had never occurred to me that a teacher would be against it, but apparently that is the case. So I’ve decided to write about the reasons why I think using them is beneficial for students.

Error correction in one-to-one lessons

Error correction is something I have been thinking a lot about recently. This was partly motivated by Luiz Otávios plenary (which I wrote about here), but also because I have been observing lessons every week as a Celta tutor in training.

I have previously written about error correction in conversation lessons here and more in general here, so today I’m going to tackle it from the perspective of one-to-one lessons.

In defence of idioms

A couple of weeks ago I read Damian Williams’ blogpost explaining the problems he sees with the way idioms are taught in English lessons. It got me thinking about why I do like teaching idioms but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Fast-forward to this week when I was preparing a video activity and came across this scene in an episode of New Girl. It made me realize exactly why I think idioms are worth teaching.

Conversation lessons and error correction

Last week I took part in my first BrELT Chat, the topic of which was conversation lessons. At the very end of the chat participants were asked to contribute a final thought and I said ‘aula de conversação também tem correção’ which translates to ‘there should be correction in conversation lessons’.

In a lot of ways, I think the same techniques can be used for error correction in both a conversation lesson and a ‘regular’ lesson. You can see some examples in my previous post on the same topic. What may change, however, is what I choose to correct, rather than how I correct it.

Some thoughts on Error Correction

I have recently become a Celta TiT (Tutor in Training) and something I have been thinking a lot about is error correction (or lack thereof). Aside from correcting students in the first place, there was something said during the course that I thought was particularly important: it makes a big difference if you involve students in the correction and give them a chance to use the target language after it has been corrected. What follows are two examples of how I dealt with mistakes in my lessons last semester.