Pere Cortiella Ibàñez and Will Rixon pull apart the true purpose of assessment why it's regarded in the way it is by all its players: the teacher, the student, the parent, the institution and the government.

What is the true purpose of assessment?
How does it help the student?
How might the process of assessing be improved from all the aforementioned perspectives?

The third episode of the Advancing Learning Pod brings Claudia Rey into the fray (rhyming intended). Claudia sets Harry and Will on the straight and narrow with what's important when preparing learners for exams.

I'll give you a clue...it's not repeatedly offering exam practice tasks. It starts with 'fee' and ends with 'dback'.

This episode is brought to you by Macmillan Education's course for young learners, Learning Well. Learn all about it here:

https://www.macmillanenglish.com/learningwell 

Do you feel your classroom is inclusive? To what extent? What does 'inclusive' mean to you?

Sarah Hillyard joins Will and Harry to discuss the multitude of meanings of 'inclusion' and how this might be achieved in the English language learning environment. 

This episode is sponsored by Share with Friends, an engaging 7-level primary course that empowers children to speak confidently in English while fostering respect, inclusion, and empathy. Find out more here: http://bit.ly/3ZDyyx2 

To kick-off the second season of Macmillan Education's Advancing Learning Podcast, Will and Harry are joined by the Eltonix pair, Sea Steele and Sarah Smith to discuss what curiosity is, how brains work when they're curious and how it can be leveraged as one of the most crucial elements to make learning productive.

Learn more about Curious Kids here: https://www.macmillanenglish.com/catalogue/courses/young-learners/curious-kids/course-information 

Harry is joined by Marcela Villan to explore a whole range of classroom ideas that you can use to help your learners to explore the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals in class.

Bookmark this session to keep these ideas in your back pocket for future lesson planning and let's make sure we include our learners in making a positive impact on the environment in how they live and behave.

Claire Bowes, with more than 1.5 million followers across her Instagram and Tik-tok profiles, Englii, joins Will and Harry (not the Princes, the other two) discussing some best practices for getting heard amongst the social media din!

They take a closer look at how teachers can get started if your thinking about creating more student-facing English language content for social media, specifically Instagram and Tik-tok. 

For the second part of this conversation with the wonderful Donna Lee Fields, she probes Harry and Will on their own reactions to certain behaviour in the classroom.

The 3 of them look at 2 scenarios and how might a teacher label them in order to decide on an appropriate response at the moment it happens.

You might also want to know that if this episode is your 'cuppa', then you will almost certainly be interested in Learning Well, an English language course with well-being at its heart. Check out some samples here: https://www.macmillanenglish.com/catalogue/courses/young-learners/learningwell/course-information 

Ethan Mansur, author of the recently published Ready For C2 joins Harry and Will on the metaphoric sofa, to discuss how he got into authoring (and others might do so)  from being a teacher and teacher trainer. 

Hear from 3 differing perspectives on how a coursebook is written as well as some advice on how you might enter the world of publishing as an author!

This episode is brought to you by the Ready For series, which has just released the aforementioned C2 level, which you can check out right here:

https://www.macmillanenglish.com/catalogue/courses/exam-preparation/ready-for-c2-proficiency/course-information 

Harry and Will are joined by Adrian Underhill, a true icon of pronunciation and a lifelong advocate for supporting our language learners with the relevant knowledge and skills to develop their own pronunciation.

The conversation begins with a look a the why behind explicit teaching of pronunciation, quickly followed by how it should be taught, and importantly, how it should not be taught for the learners to genuinely and comprehensively improve their intelligibility.

Elspeth Pollock (teacher training, assessment and exams extraordinaire) joins Will and Harry for a brilliant discussion about C2 proficiency. They look at the student that has ambitions to achieve a C2 level on paper, and also what it takes to be a teacher preparing students for that paper.

This episode is brought to you by Ready For, a course that has been helping students prepare for their exams for over twenty years! The brand-new READY FOR C2 Proficiency level is the latest in the series and continues to provide the in-depth exam training for which the course is known.

Have a tour with the Ready For Showroom: https://www.showroom.macmillanenglish.com/ready-for-c2/hello