Met Editor

Paul Bress considers how we can endeavour to become the David Beckhams of the ELT world.

50 Tips for Teacher DevelopmentJack C RichardsCambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers/Cambridge University Press 2017Teacher development is a fundamental part of any teacher’s career, but there is not always a clear path towards teaching excellence. Fortunately, Jack Richards has written the book 50 Tips for Teacher Development to fill the gap in guidelines for teacher development. The author explains that he wrote this book to help with the ongoing professional learning that all teachers currently find necessary in our ever-changing field. As language teachers, we are faced with learning new skills, theories, techniques and strategies in order to keep up...

John Hughes proposes some practical procedures for you to do it yourself, here reviewing the use of gap-fills in the classroom.

In our main feature, Martin Bastkowski outlines his vision for more efficient teaching, in which simple techniques and routines save time and effort on the part of teachers, thus freeing up more opportunities for learning and allowing everyone to focus on the job in hand, rather than wasting time hunting for old worksheets or trying to remember activities used successfully in the past.Efficiency would seem to be a worthwhile goal for both teachers and learners. In an unusual article which compares language learning with the process that London’s ‘black cab’ drivers go through in order to obtain their licences...

Successful International Communicationby Chia Suan Chong Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd 2018 978-1-912755-13-4 Miscommunication is a daily occurrence – and not just between people from different countries. About 25 years ago, I was a member of a multicultural team of professionals from various European countries, and although we all spoke fluent English, our meetings (and email correspondence) often suffered from communication breakdowns. The irony was that most team members were employed by public broadcasters and, in theory, should have been good at communicating. In the end, the project folded, partly due to the vagaries of EU funding but...

Jamie Clayton asserts that extensive listening is as important as extensive reading in improving students’ language skills, and he outlines a project that gives plenty of listening practice.

Simon Mumford makes the Academic Word List less stressful and more meaningful in his Predictable Patterns article.

In our main feature, Ben Beaumont examines how teachers can involve themselves in their own classroom enquiries, successfully navigating the conventions of research to devise sensible objectives and find approaches that are appropriate to those objectives.

More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all worked for ETp readers.

Creative Output: Activities for Teaching Speaking and Writingby Gerhard Erasmus and Hall Houston Erasmus and Houston 2017 978-1-537-12828-3How do I keep my lessons interesting and fun over the long haul? This is a question most of us have had to ask at some point in our teaching careers. Students demand that their lessons should be both fun and interesting, perhaps more than ever, and it is part of the unspoken contract between the students and the teacher that they should be so. No matter how many training courses we have been on, and how many years of experience we...

Alan Maley reflects on reading in an electronic age.

Chiara Bruzzano reviews Become an Online English Teacher by Nestor Kiourtzidis.

In the third article in this series, Jamie Keddie looks at some of the issues associated with putting video cameras in the hands of the learners.

Nicky Hockly looks at how teachers can use email with their students.

More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all worked for ETp readers.