Met Editor

A spotlight on communication and differentiation Rachel Tsateri | Wednesday 19th February 2025 | 16.00 – 17:00 (London time) The MET Spotlight Series shines a light on key topics we’ve explored in MET. In these webinars, our fantastic MET contributors will explore their chosen topic in more detail, and share their expertise alongside practical tips, useful ideas and more. Lesson planning can be time consuming and, by the end, it often doesn’t feel as though it has been productive enough. Planning lessons that encourage learners to communicate, whilst differentiating for different levels in your class can be a huge challenge. However, in an article in Modern English Teacher in March...

When was the last time you picked up a pen or pencil to draw? For many of us, drawing is an activity firmly relegated to childhood and is not part of our professional adult lives. The thought of bringing it into the language classroom with adult learners may even be something that makes you scoff. However, drawing is not simply child’s play. As the foundation of all design, architecture and engineering, it has a significant influence on our lives, with every object we own and encounter beginning life via the touch of pen to paper in the form of...

In this webinar, David Byrne and Mark Heffernan will explore the importance of discussing voice and persona with learners. With the development of AI, it’s become even more important for learners to know their voice, to know how they want to come across, and to stand out from AI generated content.

María Elena, Peru Hello! I’m María Elena Mendoza, from Peru, and I’ve been teaching English for about 20 years. Over that time, witnessing how teaching and learning have evolved has been nothing short of an adventure. Think of it as a front-row seat to the world’s most unpredictable reality show – where technology constantly raises the stakes and teachers like me learn to adapt, often on the fly! I’ve had the privilege of working for a distinguished Peruvian language school that’s been around for over 80 years. Yes, we’ve been teaching English since long before ‘googling it’ was even a concept....

English language learners (ELLs) have many options for learning colloquial language, but what propels them into academic and higher levels of fluency is academic vocabulary acquisition. Jim Cummins (1981, 2000) conceptualised the distinction between basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP), where BICS is colloquial English and CALP is academic language. Although students demonstrating high levels of BICS appear to have commensurate levels of fluency and vocabulary, this ability can mask diminished levels of CALP vocabulary development. To lift the BICS mask, it is imperative to design lessons that drive a deeper acquisition of academic...