CELTA TP potholes; exploring early career teacher development; plus TEFLtastic- an Aladdin's cave for English teachers...

Phew! That was quite an energetic week. We've walked 50 (hilly!) miles since Monday in really beautiful scenery- seen shrines and waterfalls and eaten an incredible array of Japanese food. Some of this I loved..some a bit more alien to my tastes (especially at breakfast time)... but a great adventure. Today, we're off to Kyoto. So many of you answered my call for recommendations last week- I think I've thanked you all. What a great resource you are!

Onwards...this week I'm back to my usual 'Something for Everyone' format and I feel pretty confident that I'm covering a lot of bases! Got your beverage of choice? Let's go...

Something old

A few weeks ago, I brought together a collection of videos on Classroom Management, aimed at trainee and novice teachers and added to them a FREE downloadable pdf of the content (it's here if you missed it).

This seemed to go down pretty well with a really pleasing number of downloads, so I thought I'd do another one! This time it's on a series called CELTA TP Potholes; hthe kind of mistakes that I see trainees on every CELTA course (and a lot of novice teachers) fall into. It includes things like teacher talk, giving clear instructions, running out of time (or material), how to start a class off well, anticipating problems and more... The ten short videos are all together on this page and you can download a FREE pdf of the content there to refer back to. I hope it's helpful!

Something new

Moving on, my something new this week isn't a video, for a change- it's a podcast!

A while ago, my old friend Christian Tiplady asked if he could interview me on DEVELOPOD- the IATEFL Teacher Development Special Interest Group podcast (that's a mouthful!). This was for a series on early career teacher development and it was published this week. I was number 7 of 8 in the series and earlier episodes are with a wide range of wonderful teacher educators so I'd recommend a listen to them, too. You can find them all at the same link.

Something borrowed

Finally, this week I was burrowing into the internet, (as you do) in search of an interesting activity and I was reminded of a site I hadn't looked at for a while. I've mentioned it to you before, but not for a long time and it's definitely worth revisiting, so take a minute to go and explore.

Alex Case 's TEFLtastic website is an Aladdin's cave for an English teacher. It's difficult to believe the amount of free material that Alex has amassed in there and the variety. There's tons for General English, but also Business English, Academic English, English for Designers and Artists, Legal English, activities to work with certain coursebooks... the list just goes on and on. I challenge you to find something in there for your lesson on Monday- I guarantee you can!

He also has a range of eBooks that he sells (they're super-cheap) that I think are well worth looking at. They're mainly for Business English Teaching or for IELTS and they include interactive tasks on topics like Teaching Presenting, Teaching Negotiating, Teaching IELTS Listening. Have a look and let me know what you think.

OK- that's your lot! Happy St Patrick's Day if you celebrate it and I'll see you next week - from the UK.

Best

PS. You can view all my resources for CELTA here and for teachers here.