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"!

Five Sizzling Summer Reads for English Learners

A common question asked to teachers is ‘What can we do outside class to improve English?’ In this blog post for Modern English Teacher, David Dogson explains why his answer is ‘read’ and recommends five original novels that are great for secondary students and older at intermediate level and above.

Dos and Don’ts for Using Authentic Materials in the Language Classroom

MET blogger David Dodgson now switches his focus to the use of authentic materials in the English language classroom. He offers advice on what to do and what to avoid when selecting, adapting, and utilising articles, images, videos, songs, and other ‘real world’ media to supplement our courses and achieve our learning goals.

6 Reasons for Using Coursebooks (from a teacher who doesn’t usually like them)

Having looked back at how his approach to lesson planning has changed over the years, MET blogger David Dodgson this month (in conjunction with our current Modern English Teacher issue on using coursebooks) revisits the on-going materials debate. After many years of extolling the virtues of being coursebook free, he this time considers the debate from the other side and examines the benefits of published materials.

Top Tips for Teaching Online with Video

Nearly all of us have had to teach live online in the last year, and may have needed to make videos for our classes for the first time. In this month’s blog, David Dodgson shares his top tips for improving the quality of your online video teaching.

Another year on

In his first blog post of 2019, MET blogger David Dodgson looks back on his post from January 2018 and reflects on how far he got in achieving his goals for the year just gone.