This article has been written by Penny Hands, who is one of the contributors to the Collins COBUILD English Grammar. If we’re going to talk about nonstandard English, it’s a good idea to start by asking what Standard English (SE) is. As David Crystal (1994) states in his article ‘What is […]
This article has been written by Damian Williams, who is an ELT author and teacher trainer. Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can? Sun Tzu The quote above, attributed to an ancient Chinese military strategist, is often used in leadership training to encourage people to act on their […]
This article has been written by Julie Moore, who is an ELT materials developer and lexicographer. For students new to dealing with academic texts in English, they can seem daunting; full of long words and long complex sentences. Are academics just trying to show off how clever they are and confuse their poor readers? […]
This article has been written by Damian Williams, who is an ELT author and teacher trainer. Consider the following statement: Present tenses refer to the present and past tenses refer to the past. How far do you agree with this statement? Can you think of any exceptions? What about the following: I wish you […]
This article has been written by Julie Moore, who is an ELT materials developer and lexicographer. Our last post focused on the difference between a prescriptive and a descriptive approach to grammar. A descriptive grammar, such as the Collins COBUILD English Grammar, describes the language which people actually use, and draws from that a set […]
This article has been written by Penny Hands, who is one of the contributors to the Collins COBUILD English Grammar. In our first blogpost about the new Collins COBUILD English Grammar, we saw how a functional grammar is all about language use: It’s about communicative grammar that learners can use in the typical situations that they […]
This article has been written by Julie Moore, who is an ELT materials developer and lexicographer. Most language learning coursebooks include grammar activities and vocabulary activities. As teachers, we talk about ‘teaching grammar’ and ‘teaching vocabulary’. Grammar and vocabulary are two of the key strands of language learning, yet are they really as separate as […]
This article has been written by Penny Hands, who is one of the contributors to the Collins COBUILD English Grammar. Most people who study and use a language are interested in how they can do things with the language – how they can express their feelings and wishes, get attention, influence people, and […]
In the last couple of years, I’ve occasionally come across articles and conference presentations on the topic of ‘the flipped classroom’. It’s a concept that’s not new, but when I brought it up in conversations with a number of colleagues (I was talking about an upcoming presentation for IATEFL), I realised that few of us […]
How to best help students to make the transition from IELTS essays to academic writing? How can we help students when they realise that writing styles and levels of formality that may have worked fine in an IELTS essay are suddenly regarded as inappropriate at university? Els van Geyte, author of the Writing title in […]