A little over five years ago I wrote my first blog post here on my website, back when it was called ELT Experiments. The idea of tales from my classroom was to share musings, observations and experiments in my teaching. The first one was a longform piece on mental health in the staffroom, and is still well worth a read.
A couple of years after that I transitioned into something new, moulding my website into a platform for my business as I transitioned into work as a freelancer. That stole time away from blogging as I learnt about promotions and social media, as well as all the ups and downs of running your own business.
At the time of writing it’s early 2026 and I’m plotting another transition, away from freelancing and out of the physical language classroom (at least the one with young children in it). But not, I stress, out of teaching and learning. That has been my passion for far longer than I’ve had this website, and isn’t something I have any intention of leaving behind.
Part of that transition is a return to blogging. Why tales from my soapbox instead of classroom? Goods and produce in the 19th century were often transported in wooden boxes which, once discarded, made excellent little stages. Upturned soapboxes were commonplace in public parks and street corners as the people atop them spouted on about whatever they wanted to share with the world. Consider this blog my soapbox.
While I can’t promise I’ll spout on about something every week, I can promise that I’ll share what’s relevant to me in my teaching and my learners. I reckon there’s a good chance that it’s relevant to you and yours, too. If you like what you read, please consider subscribing – that way any new post will fly straight into your email inbox.
Do your learners like learning English?
As part of redesigning my website, I reached out to some of my learners about providing a testimony about their experience with me. Here’s the end one of them: …The different games and his particular way of explaining the content so that it sticks in your mind make you want to learn a little bit…
Learner friendly assessment scales for B1 writing
This morning, I’ve had two terrible mishaps with email. The first was finding an important message from a reader buried in my spam folder. It was a lovely note, and included a question about some writing material I produced about six years ago. The second mistake was then accidentally emptying the spam folder before replying…
Building bicycles instead of rocket ships
It’s been a long time! This blog post comes more than a year after the last one, and a few things have changed. You’ll notice a new site address, as well as a few other changes on the site. I’m also qualified with a shiny Trinity DipTESOL (yay!). This post takes its inspiration from a…
Are we making tomorrow’s text any easier?
the first in a series of posts on teaching and developing learners’ receptive skills, I want to question whether we always have our learners’ best interests at heart when we plan a reading class.
Student-centred model writing texts
Experimenting with before and after writing models At TESOL Spain Online 2021 I explored ways of teaching B1 students to become better writers. The session was based on some work I did with a class of pre-PET students (although most of them ended up taking the exam), which involved creating a writing portfolio. Every few…
What’s at the heart of your lesson?
If you’re anything like me, you’re in a constant battle with time. There are often a few details that never make it from plan to lesson because of emergent language, tricky questions, painful admin, or classroom management. I’ve found that it’s often the most valuable stuff that gets left by the wayside: corrections, feedback, or…
Homework: Is it useful, and can we make it any better?
‘…language lessons in and of themselves are not sufficient to bring language learning about and to lead to eventual proficiency. If the lessons – whether they are once a week, once a day, or more frequent than that – are the only occasions on which students are engaged with the language, progress will either not…
In a word… What word will you choose for your 2021?
ELT Sustainable courses, the TEFL Development Hub, and a fun alternative to New Year’s Resolutions…
Confessions of a conference junkie
Like many of us in ELT, I’m a conference junkie. But recent developments in my career have made me revisit workshops I’ve seen in the past, and ask the question what I really learnt from them the first time round.
Language Teaching for the Planet
Language Teaching for the Planet is an exciting and collaborative online course about bringing sustainability into our classrooms.
Mental health in the staffroom
when the dust started to settle after the end of the 2019-20 academic year, it became clear that ‘lockdown’ had put enormous strains on teachers across the globe. As our industry grows more aware of the importance of mental health, is there a wider culture of stress in ELT which enables mental health issues?