Not a proper blog post this time but just a list of references and useful links I have compiled for a series of workshops I have been giving...

Image by Peter Megyeri on Flickr (CC BY 2.0) My interest in experimental practice was piqued at the TESOL France’s last annual colloqu...

Image by @sandymillin via eltpics on Flickr For the first time since it was last held in Harrogate (2010), I didn’t go to the annual I...

Photo by Tzvi Meller As much as it seems counter-intuitive, teaching new vocabulary in semantic sets (e.g. jobs: doctor, teacher, lawye...

Images by Tim Evanson ,   Gene  Hunt &  Alex Alishevskikh  via Flickr As usual, as a follow up to the traditional end-of-year new...

Traditional quiz for your first lesson in 2014 By lasanta.com.ec  via Flickr [CC BY 2.0] For some reason I had a hard time coming up ...

As the year draws to a close it’s time for various top 10, 20 etc lists. I am going to limit myself to 3 and share the web tools that ha...

In response to the blog tag challenge By Masachi Mochida via Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0] I’ve been tagged. Twice. In a blog challen...

Image source: www.universalstudiosentertainment.com I use a lot of films in my teaching: not just occasional Youtube clips but full-len...

A summary of the TESOL France’s  32nd annual colloquium  which took place in Paris between 22 and 24 November 2013. ELT conferences oft...

Image source: www.willis-elt.co.uk I opened my Facebook yesterday morning and was saddened to see Chia Suan Chong’s post about the pass...

By jjpacres  via Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0] I often cite research in my talks so in this series of posts I would like to share some intere...

Photo by @GoldsteinBen via eltpics on Flickr A second lesson with two new pre-intermediate (A2) students (I usually put my private ...

By @eannegrenoble |  eltpics  on Flickr In the middle of the market where I go for my weekly vegetable shopping there is a stall wher...

One of the pleasures of teaching lexically is when you see your students starting to incorporate i nto their speech and writing  lexical ch...

Penny Ur was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire ) for services to English Language Teaching earlier this year and a...

Photo by Victoria Boobyer via eltpics   Do your students often say "it's depend..." or things like "it's not co...

Having recently returned from another summer school in Baku, Azerbaijan I reproduce here an article originally written for the British Coun...

Second Language Acquisition ( SLA ) research also needs a lexical revolution to free itself from the shackles of grammar tyranny.  Rant ale...

Photo by @Mr_Schenk via eltpics About a month ago I took part in a debate entitled Teaching Vocabulary: in or out of context where I ...

Yesterday I completed the online feedback questionnaire for the IATEFL 2013 conference, which took place earlier this month in Liverpool , a...

This year sees the 20th anniversary of the publication of Michael Lewis's "The Lexical Approach", the book that has changed ...

Sinclair's seminal work - the bible of corpus linguistics In this post I would like to defend linguistic corpora and their relevanc...

Photo by @aclil2climb via eltpics Binomials are two word expressions (strong collocations) such as "dead or alive", "give...