The idea that testing holds a major role in language teaching and learning practices is nothing but knew. It can be traced back to the 1990s (Beikmahdavi, 2016) and since then, many terms have been employed to describe the aforementioned relationship (ibid.). Shohamy (as cited in Amini & González, 2012) narrows the number of the proposed terms down to...
CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) has been adopted by a growing number of schools and language schools for a number of reasons, including more opportunities for language practice, motivation for learners who are interested in subjects other than English and developing 21st century skills. Yet, many educators often feel that the syllabus...
The Concept of Motivation
The eternal question over how to conquer learners’ hearts and minds is being confronted by foreign language teachers since the foundation of learning and teaching methodology. Motivation is a multi-dimensional concept and the exact nature of its components depends greatly on human cognition and complex contextual...
by Dimitris Maroulis
Paul Dirac was born in 1902, in Bristol. He is considered as one of the most important physicists of the 20th century. He was the father of antimatter created by the annihilation of positrons which he described in the so-called “most beautiful equation in the world of physics” (see the title of this article). He...
I generally use a lot of authentic material in my lessons, mainly to send the students the message that what we learn in the class is not like experiments in a lab cut from the outside world, something theoretical we do in the class and then we forget all about when we leave the class. When we learn the use of subjunctive or unreal past or inversion in...
Customarily, the English-teaching community views re-starters or late starters of English with a suspicious eye. In the late 20th century, the media, the industry and cultural transformations have embraced the use of English on a global basis.
By Marina Siskou, EFL Teacher
A consequence that is observed is a soaring population of learners who wish...
By Ioanna Charalambous and Nick Michelioudakis
It is never too late to learn: There is this old man who lives in Poland. He lives alone with only his dog as company. Then one day he takes it into his head to learn English. So he buys himself an ‘English for Beginners’ course (who needs teachers?) and he designs his own learning regime. The story...
Nowadays the whole world is obsessed with Political correctness. Let us give you some examples. In the kindergartens of the USA a fairy tale ‘Three piglets’ is being renamed into ‘Three puppets’ so that the Muslim people would not be offended. In Japan dwarf penguins were renamed into fairy penguins to avoid offence from short people. A story of...
In modern multicultural communities there are abundant lifelong learning opportunities that many adults willingly exploit despite their busy daily routines. In fact, there are multiple reasons why adults take up foreign language learning nowadays. For instance, many of them long for job satisfaction or pursue increased employment opportunities so the...
By Dimitris Maroulis
There is a castle in Cork, Ireland, the Blarney Castle which hosts the Stone of Eloquence, kissing it you get the gift of the gab. Legend has it that an Irish king rescued a woman who fell into a river. As a reward the woman cast a spell over him, the ability to speak so well that he could persuade people to do whatever he...
