AI – Chat GPT

The blog post discusses using Chat GPT in English language teaching. It outlines pros such as time-saving and material generation, but highlights concerns around accuracy and ethical use. Guidance on refining prompts is also provided.

Having given a few teacher training workshops on the topic of AI in ELT, I thought it was about time I shared my thoughts on it here. Is it really the way forward? In the first of a series of blog posts on AI in teaching, let’s take a look at one of the basics – Chat GPT.

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Monitoring – What? Why? When? How?

On a recent course, getting a balance in monitoring caused our trainees some problems. Let’s look at what it is exactly, why and when we need to do it and how it should be done …

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Lesson Plans: Troubleshooting

Lesson planning is such a major part of teaching, if you have a thorough lesson plan, you should be able to sit back and enjoy the lesson, while the learners do all the work! Read on for some tips on how to perfect your plans!

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In it for the learners!

I’m sorry to say that EFL teaching is not going to make you a millionaire! Having said that, most of us do not do it (just) for the money but get huge satisfaction from helping our learners. It seems obvious, therefore, that these learners should be at the forefront of our minds when planning and delivering lessons. Indeed, on the CELTA course, one of the criteria for a Pass A is that the candidate has a very good awareness of their learners but what exactly do we need to know about them and why?

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Teaching unplugged revisited: A Scott Thornbury webinar

On LinkedIn last week I spotted a series of webinars by Delta Publishing called “Speaking Globally”. The webinars included speakers such as David Crystal, Nicky Hockly and Scott Thornbury so I decided to sign up for what I could fit into my teaching schedule and Tuesday early evening found me sitting comfortably on my sofa with my laptop.

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I have seen Scott Thornbury speak several times on the topic of Dogme teaching but if it’s new to you, here are the basic principles:

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CELTA Basics: Feedback

Looking back on some recent CELTA courses and thinking about trainees who have done well and those that have struggled, there is one thing that is particularly noticeable – being able to put feedback into practice quickly is key to doing well on the course. Let’s look at a couple of examples …

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My Top Five ELT Tools

Whether you are teaching solely online or managing to combine your online lessons with some socially distanced, face to face teaching as I am, technology is where it’s at. My top five ELT tools change regularly depending on what I’ve read/ heard about recently but in no particular order here are my top 5 at the time of writing …

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100% CELTA Online: Anything to Lose?

Many of you will have seen that Cambridge is offering the CELTA course fully online during these strange times, something which has never been possible before. So what are the advantages and disadvantages or is this a purely win-win situation?

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How to Achieve a Pass A on your CELTA Course

I often read or hear from trainees that their aim is to achieve a Pass A when doing CELTA. So what exactly is the best way to go about this?

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A Guide to Lesson Planning: Basic Stages

On our most recent CELTA course in Munich, some of the trainees seemed to have a problem with the stages a lesson should include so I’ve tried to break down the basic stages for different lesson types.

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