Gareth Davies

All the talk in teaching over the last 10 years has been about global skills, especially the four ‘C’s: creativity; critical thinking; collaboration; and communication. These, apparently, are the skills that will prepare students for an ever-changing world. Recently, other skills like cultural awareness, digital competencies and emotional self-regulation have been added to the original four. Coursebooks claim they integrate them, courses claim to develop them, businesses say they want them, ergo they have found their way into our everyday teaching, alongside the language and skills. But for all this talk of four ‘C’s, I think there are two...

Dialogue building Gareth Davies, Wales, UK I did a controlled practice with a group of pre-intermediates recently. This was one of the gap-fill sentences. What do you think James _____ ______ me? I am sure it’ll be something nice. The answer was will get. So, during feedback I asked them what they thought James will buy. They looked at me blankly. They had filled in the gap from the options without fully understanding the sentence. I realised that the students weren’t concerned with the meaning, just with getting the right answer in the gap. I then caught myself doing exactly the...

Writing whispers Gareth Davies, Wales, UK Do you ever play a whispering game where you whisper a sentence to one student, then they pass it down a line and you see how accurate it is when the final student hears it? Well, this is a writing version of that game that encourages students to be creative and can be used with almost any language point and at any level. All you need are some pictures, some paper and your students’ imagination. Put the students into pairs or small groups and give each group a different picture and some paper or a mini...

Who wants to write a story? Gareth Davies shows how creative writing can boost your students’ confidence and ability and give you an idea of where they are.