David Dodgson

David Dodgson blogged for Modern English Teacher over 4.5 years up to the end of 2021. During his time as the MET blogger, David wrote 52 posts spanning his teaching and managerial experiences across 3 different countries and 3 different jobs and drawing on his 20+ years in ELT. Throughout his career, David has worked in Kazakhstan, Bahrain, Turkey and Gabon, gaining experience with young learners, adults, EAL students and exam preparation classes, and holds an MA in EdTech and TESOL and the Trinity DipTESOL. When he finally returned to the UK, he relished the challenge of teaching in the UK for the first time as EAL Coordinator in a leading independent school, which was reflected in some of his more recent posts. David still continues to write, so expect to see articles from him in the new-look MET, as well as in publications like MET, ETp and TESL-EJ. You can find his personal blog here. His interests include supporting learning with technology, and teacher self-development. He also uses digital games as authentic materials for language learning, and blogs about it at eltsandbox.wordpress1.com. David believes that writing articles and blog posts allows you to be part of the wider ELT community, provides a platform to share and reflect on your experiences and to learn from others by engaging with the world of ELT beyond your own personal teaching context. So above all, his advice is to "write on"!

6 Tips for a Top Teaching CV

In the second post in his series on career development, MET resident blogger David Dodgson offers some advice on expanding and putting together your CV ready to grab the attention of potential employers. Drawing on his own experience as a recruiter and an applicant, he discusses what to include, what to highlight, and how to present it. As always, your comments and tips are welcome in the comments.

Reviewing an Unprecedented Year in Language

2020 was an unprecedented year, and this was represented in the language that dominated the news and our daily lives. In his first blog post of 2021, David Dodgson shares an intermediate+ lesson idea based on the 2020 ‘Word of the Year’.

Getting full on feedback

In this month’s post, MET blogger David Dodgson considers the importance of feedback and the role it plays in our professional development. He considers experiences in his own teaching context, focusing on why we at times disagree with the feedback we receive and how we can make the most of such discussions to feed further development.

Action Research in Action

In his fourth and final post in our series on bringing research into the classroom, David Dodgson gives an example of a small-scale research project he engaged in with his own learners and discusses the impact the experience had on his classroom practice.

Remote Reflections – A term of online teaching

The last few months have brought unprecedented challenges and changes to the way we teach and learn. In this month’s post, blogger David Dodgson reflects on some of the successes and difficulties of this term and how they might affect his future teaching.