Matthew Ellman

I love playing chess, but I am, sadly, very bad at it. As part of my never-ending search for ways to get better, I recently came across the so-called ‘cave strategy’ for chess improvement. This involves hiding away (in a metaphorical cave) and studying chess openings, tactics and endgames until they’ve all been mastered. Then you emerge from your ‘cave’ and enjoy your newly acquired chess skills by winning every game. It sounds marvellous but, of course, the cave strategy doesn’t work. Like many others, I’ve fallen into the trap of believing that if I just work through one more...

Skills such as collaboration, communication and creativity can be taught quite naturally in the language classroom. What about critical thinking and social responsibility? Matthew Ellman gives a guide to these new areas.

Matthew Ellman looks at three main areas of classroom change and offers ideas for our own improvement. He looks at digitisation and how it can be used to personalise learning. He considers using a blended learning approach and also the risks of attention scarcity.