Regular guest Matt Courtois and I discuss staging lessons with young learners. What is staging? How much should teachers deviate from their plans? How can we avoid running out of time in our lessons.

Dave Weller joins me to talk about how to use stories in class. We discuss prediction activities, what engages students in stories and how to do follow-up activities.

TEFL guru Jeremy Harmer joins me to discuss deliberate learning. How important is input? Can students “pick up” language in the classroom with “study”? What is the role of grammar? And what does Jeremy think about Stephen Krashen’s ideas about language acquisition?

What should we do when new teachers struggle with teaching? What about when students complain? Why do we even observe teachers in the first place?

We talk to friends and experts and ask two questions about changes they’d like to see in classrooms: what common teaching practices would you like to see less? And, which less common teaching practices would you like to see more?

We discuss classroom activities teachers can use, what it means to get to know your students, and other ways of collecting useful data about our learners.

I speak with Amol Padwad from Ambedkar University Delhi about teacher motivation and teacher development. What incentives make sense for teachers at different stages of their careers? What demotivates teachers from wanting to develop? And how can schools encourage all their teachers to develop without forcing them?

Regular guest, Matt Courtois joins me to talk about how teachers can encourage young learners to be creative. We discuss what creativity is, why it is challenging at low level and share some of our favorite creative activities.

We talk about how fair the different criteria are, what are some common misunderstandings about the criteria and how teachers can help students improve their IELTS speaking scores.

Kirsten Campbell from Busuu joins me to discuss how to keep learners engaged in learning using an app.