Blog

Embracing Emergent Language: Insights from "Teaching Unplugged"
and "Teaching Lexically"

Anna Kashcheeva

MSc in Educational Management from the University of Portsmouth

How to become a resilient teacher?

“More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person’s level of resilience will

determine who succeeds and who fails. That’s true in the cancer ward, it’s true in the Olympics and it’s true in the boardroom”

Dean Becker, CEO Adaptive Leaning Systems, Harvard Business

Review, May 2002

What comes to mind when you think of resilience? You can view resilience as an elastic ring that can bend and change shape before coming back to its original form. Or a bamboo bending in the wind and then standing strong again. Resilience, in a nutshell, is our ability to bounce back from difficult experiences.

In the teaching context, resilience is defined as a quality that enables teachers to maintain their

commitment to teaching and their teaching practices despite challenges and setbacks (Beltman et al., 2011). Resilient teachers are known to be less susceptible to problems associated with stress due to their mindset that helps them adapt and thrive despite problems they come by in their personal and professional lives.

What contributes to teacher resilience? In this article, I will look at the SPARK model of resilience used in resilience programs throughout the world (Boniwell et al., 2023). In the model, “s” stands for situation, “p” for perception, “a” for affect, “r” for reaction and “k” for knowledge. The model tells us that, in fact, we all have our own individual perceptions of everyday situations. Interestingly, we perceive life events very differently because of our unique life experiences, culture, upbringing, agenda and mood. What happens then is our perception of a situation tends to trigger an emotion or affect (i.e. an automatic emotional response). This leads to subsequent behavioural reactions and a certain learning or knowledge gained from the experience.

Let’s take a common situation with a disengaged English student that we all come across on a regular basis. Seeing a student stuck to his phone, not engaging with anything during a class, looking tired and bored, might cause frustration, annoyance and uncertainty in teachers. We might perceive it in all sorts of ways from our poor teaching ability to him being disrespectful or lazy. This, in turn, can trigger a negative emotional response that will lead to a behavioural reaction which the teacher might later regret.

To enhance resilience in this situation, it is important to first view it as a collection of neutral facts and then challenge our perception of the student’s behaviour, e.g. he might be experiencing mental health issues or he might find the material irrelevant or difficult. Then we can capture and modify our automatic affective responses and control negative behavioural reactions, e.g. it is better to discuss a situation assertively instead of reprimanding the student or harbouring a grudge against him. This usually leads to an enhanced knowledge, or understanding of the situation and our own role in it.

One of the ways to navigate this common challenge with the disengaged student could be assertivity which allows us to express our beliefs, feelings, opinions and thoughts in an open and respectful manner that doesn’t violate the rights of others. Assertive communicators use actions and words to express their boundaries in a calm manner with an air of confidence.

The language of assertiveness comes from the research and practice of Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg & Chopra, 2015) and includes two parts: honestly expressing ourselves to others, and empathically hearing others. Both are expressed through four components – observations, feelings, needs, and requests.

Observe without judging. Notice and express information without evaluating it in terms

of right or wrong. Notice that there is no evaluation, just factual observation.

Express feelings. Hidden emotions are usually at the heart of failed communication. They often disturb and sabotage communication from within and cannot be addressed and solved because they are not known to your communication partner. Express your emotions in a considerate way, without judgment. To develop your emotional awareness and language, you can use Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions (2001). Taking a look at the wheel regularly and asking yourself ‘what emotion am I experiencing right now?’ contributes a lot to building resilience.

Express and clarify your needs. For example, you can say ‘It is important for me to have your attention and to be treated with care’.

Express specific requests based on your feelings and needs. After clarifying your

emotions and needs, finish by making a clear request, expressing what exactly the other

person should do so that you can feel your needs are met. For instance, ‘That’s why I am

asking you to…’

Thus, resilience isn’t about toughing it out or hardening up. Actually, resilience is about listening to our emotions. In Susan David’s words, ‘emotions are like the guiding beam from a lighthouse’ (David, 2016), so if you need to hunker down and shut out the world and have a mental health day, that’s part of being resilient too. However, if you are faced with a challenge and feel you have to act on it immediately, the SPARK model and assertivity could be your guiding beams.

References

Beltman, S., Mansfield, C., & Price, A. (2011). Thriving not just surviving: A review of research on teacher resilience. Educational research review, 6(3), 185-207.

Boniwell, I., Osin, E., Kalisch, L., Chabanne, J., & Abou Zaki, L. (2023). SPARK Resilience in the workplace: Effectiveness of a brief online resilience intervention during the COVID-19 lockdown. Plos one, 18(3), e0271753.

David, S. (2016). Emotional agility: Get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. Penguin.

Plutchik, R. (2001). The nature of emotions: Human emotions have deep evolutionary roots, a fact that may explain their complexity and provide tools for clinical practice. American scientist, 89(4), 344-350.

Rosenberg, M. B., & Chopra, D. (2015). Nonviolent communication: A language of life: Life-changing tools for healthy relationships. PuddleDancer Press.

Evgenia Lubennikova

Wellbeing coach and an ESP teacher.
Master in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology, Coach ICF

The Art of Self-Compassion

Have you noticed that we tend to be much kinder and more understanding when it comes to our friends’ struggles, but we're often too tough on ourselves? Is there «good enough» or does every single lesson have to be just perfect? How asm I supposed to grow professionally is there’s no inner critic pointing at my mistakes?

Teaching is undoubtedly one of the most rewarding professions, but it's also one of the most demanding. As educators, we often dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to our students, striving to provide them with the best education possible. However, in this noble pursuit, we mustn't forget about ourselves.

Self-compassion, simply put, is treating ourselves with the same kindness, understanding, and forgiveness that we readily extend to others. While it's a concept that applies to everyone, it's especially vital for teachers.

Teaching comes with immense responsibility. We're tasked with shaping the minds and futures of our students. This responsibility can sometimes lead to self-criticism and perfectionism. Self-compassion reminds us that we're human and, like our students, we make mistakes. It encourages us to learn from these mistakes rather than dwell on them.

Teaching can be stressful, with heavy workloads, classroom challenges, and administrative pressures. Self-compassion acts as a buffer against stress. When we treat ourselves kindly, we're better equipped to handle the inevitable stressors of the profession. It helps us maintain our emotional well-being.

Teachers are not just educators; they're role models for their students. By practicing self-compassion, we demonstrate an essential life skill. We teach our students that it's okay to be imperfect, that self-care is crucial, and that kindness should extend to themselves as well as others.

Teaching is a profession fueled by passion. However, burnout is a real concern. Self-compassion can help prevent burnout by reminding us to prioritize self-care. When we take time to recharge and nourish our own well-being, we're better able to sustain our passion for teaching.
In the face of challenges, self-compassion fosters resilience. It helps us bounce back from setbacks, maintain a positive attitude, and continue to provide the best education for our students.

Self-compassion is not a sign of weakness; it's a strength that empowers us to excel in our roles. By being kind and understanding toward ourselves, we become better educators and better role models. So, let's remember that self-compassion isn't just a gift we give ourselves; it's a gift we give to our students as well.

Anna Zavalishina

CELTA, IH VYL, CPE, MA in Counselling (University of Manchester)

Key principles of mediation

Galina Sharonova

CELTA, Delta M2, Teacher Trainer (Train the Trainer qualification), Methodology Course designer and a Teacher Mentor

Mixed-ability classes
(An article inspired by Heather Belgorodtseva's workshop)

Most of the groups I teach this academic year are mixed-ability, which made me want to brush up on what I know about dealing with this kind of class. Heather’s workshop enabled me to do much more than that. Apart from identifying the key principles of working with a mixed-ability class, it suggested ways to make the challenge more manageable and, most importantly, provided the participants with plenty of opportunities to exchange ideas.

The key to successfully addressing the needs of all the students in a mixed-ability class, rather than a selected few, is differentiation of instruction. If each student has a suitable goal to work towards, the strongest of them will feel adequately challenged, while the weaker ones will not any longer regard success as something unattainable. In her workshop, Heather focused on two ways to differentiate: differentiation by outcome and by task.

Differentiation by outcome.
Students work on the same task, but the outcomes expected of them vary according to their language level.The lesson, therefore, has several differentiated aims, defining what success means to different students. For example, for a writing lesson these could be phrased in the following way: “All students will be able to participate in a brainstorming session and complete the essay plan. Some students will be able to write an introduction. A few students will be able to complete the first body paragraph”. This simple technique struck me as extremely useful, as formulating these aims gives ourselves a much clearer understanding of what we hope to achieve, even if we don't write a detailed lesson plan.

Differentiation by task.
Tasks can be either extended or graded. When talking about the former, Heather pointed out that instead of giving fast finishers another task of the same kind, it would be better to offer them an activity requiring a change of focus. For example, in a reading lesson, rather than giving early finishers extra questions, we can ask them to find several new words or collocations, check the meaning in the dictionary and report back to the class.An effective extension activity for a controlled practice vocabulary task will be to ask students to change some of the sentences so that they are true about themselves. This approach helps to keep stronger students engaged and interested, which goes a long way towards avoiding discipline issues.

A graded task offers weaker students extra support, while providing adequate challenge to high achievers. Heather demonstrated how a standard gap-fill exercise can be tweaked to cater for the needs of different students. While less confident learners are asked to open the brackets and complete the sentences with the correct form of a verb, more confident ones are given only the first parts of the sentences and complete them with their own ideas. This and several other examples of graded tasks demonstrated during the workshop showed that adjusting textbook tasks to your students' needs does not have to be time-consuming.

Another valuable takeaway from this part of the workshop was the reminder that when trying to challenge stronger students, it is important not to overdo it and to establish what their adequate level of challenge is. This can only be done if we take into account a variety of their characteristics, rather than their language level only. A student who is strong in English may be less so when it comes to creativity and, therefore, will require support in this respect. Heather's example of this kind of support was a pros and cons essay task which, along with an essay frame to complete for weaker students, provided a list of advantages and disadvantages for stronger ones.

Pair work and grouping

Grouping students is another classroom element providing an opportunity for differentiation. Heather emphasised that the way we pair students depends on the type of task. Stronger students can support weaker ones when checking answers to grammar exercises, and they both will enjoy commenting on the content of each other’s writing. However, for tasks like error correction of writing or free speaking activities pairs should be evenly matched, otherwise more confident learners could feel bored and less confident ones frustrated. Getting the pairing right contributes a lot to the success of an activity, influencing the pace of the lesson and the group dynamics. While it is an important factor to consider when writing a lesson plan for any group, it can virtually save or ruin your lesson in a class of students with different language abilities.

Working with a mixed ability group is not a prospect many teachers will rejoice at, given the inevitable problems with the choice of materials, lesson pace and assessment, to name just a few. It can, however, as Heather’s workshop reminded us, become a rewarding experience, giving both stronger and weaker students a chance to achieve success and providing a teacher with ample opportunities for professional development.

Anna Arsenyeva

Cambridge FCE, BEC Vantage, BEC Higher, CPE specialist
Teaching IELTS, Cambridge exams, TOEFL, ESP, Business English

How to make voluntary reading work everywhere and with everyone

DEAR or Drop Everything And Read is what teachers often want their students to do as free voluntary reading, also known as extensive reading, can bring a myriad of benefits to language learners. If I asked you to brainstorm some, you would easily come up with a bunch of ideas. Indeed, extensive reading develops language proficiency by reinforcing students' knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. It fosters intrinsic motivation and encourages student-student and teacher-student interactions. Besides, by reading extensively, learners become more well-rounded, knowledgeable, and culturally aware individuals. It even has some health benefits. For instance, reading causes relaxation or even ensures that older people show less memory loss and avoid the effects of dementia (Rice 1986; Galluccia et al. 2009; Verghese et al. 2003).

Despite the benefits, however, we often struggle to implement a voluntary reading programme into the curriculum, thinking it's too time-consuming or that our students aren't keen readers even in their first language. In this post, I'll try to prove that free voluntary reading can work in different teaching contexts. Playing the role of a guide, teachers just need to make it both doable and enjoyable!

To make extensive reading programmes successful, teachers need to follow a few principles. First and foremost, the reading material should be well within learners' abilities (doable). Not having to struggle, students are more likely to stay motivated, drop everything, and keep reading. Secondly, learners should choose what they want to read from a variety of reading materials available and read silently for pleasure (enjoyable). Thirdly, reading should be its own reward! If teachers do want to stimulate their learners by giving them a "carrot'', they should give them a book as a present since this will reinforce the notion that reading is valuable in itself! Last but not least, any follow-up activities should encourage rather than discourage further reading. Make them... you guessed it - enjoyable.

Good news! You can find a plethora of engaging ideas and activities to introduce the programme, motivate, monitor and support your students in a wonderful book ''Extensive Reading Activities for Teaching Language", edited by Julian Bamford and Richard R. Day, CAP. Here are just a few suggestions:

Questionnaires: To introduce the reading program, create a questionnaire for your students to discuss and reflect on their past and present reading habits and preferences. This is a positive and personalised way to begin which gives a teacher insights into their students' attitudes towards reading.
Arranging materials: A great way to arrange reading materials is by using differently coloured stickers that can indicate levels and/or genres. Sort, label, and arrange the books from the simplest to the most difficult. It will definitely make your and your students' lives easier.
Choosing a book: Make sure your students know how to choose a book on their own. Pick up the first pages of books of different levels that start in an interesting fashion, and place them on a poster or online board. Clearly mark the levels and ask learners to read and highlight any difficulties. Explain that to read comfortably, there shouldn't be more than three challenging places on a page. This activity will also give learners the first taste of several interesting books.
Simple reports: To monitor the reading process, ask your students to write a simple report, answer a questionnaire, or draw an illustration based on the book. The latter gives students a creative way to report on the books they've read. They can talk or write about what the picture shows, what happens before and after.
What's next?: As their homework, students write 5 main events on strips of paper or stick-it notes, on the sixth they write the title in capital letters. In class, they shuffle the strips for their partners to put the events in order. Make sure students don't include any spoilers. This way students can motivate each other by sharing their reading experience and opinions about the books they've read.
Gifts: Ask students to list the names of the main characters of a book they've read. Then they choose a gift for each character and justify their choice orally or in writing. This activity encourages students to interpret the plot in a fun way.
Letter to a Character is an integrated skills activity that will make students think outside the box. Students work in pairs. They tell the plot of a book as if they were a character. Their partners note down some details but can't ask any questions. Then students swap roles. Partners write each other letters asking or commenting on what they've heard and then respond to each other's letters.
Guess who: Given your students have read quite a lot of books and some of them are in common, run a Guess Who game at the end of a term or academic year. Students guess the names of characters from books by asking yes/no questions.
Book Flood: The Fiji Book Flood experiment by Ellyt and Mangubhai (1981) describes the application of this activity where you allocate some time during the lesson for silent reading. It is best done at the end of lessons (online is even better) as students might want to continue reading. Don't forget to pick up a book yourself!

As teachers, it is in our interest to instil a love for reading in our students. If you make sure reading is both doable and enjoyable, your students are more likely to Drop Everything And Read. So go ahead and give it a try, you might be surprised by the positive impact it has on your learners.

Anna Maksimenko

EFL teacher, DELTA 1, ih-CAM, CELTA, TKT 1-3, CAE (A)

I am a lazy teacher and why you should be, too!

There are many ways in which we could define what an EFL teacher should be and, in particular, what an EFL teacher working with young learners should be.

Looking for a word of advice from the gurus we find that the teacher is the explainer, the involved and the enabler (Scrivener, Learning Teaching, 3rd ed, 2011) and that the teacher plays a range of many different roles in the classroom, from observer and controller to tutor, assessor and participant (Harmer, The practice of English Learning Teaching, 3rd, 2001). Sometimes we steer away from the EFL methodology and focus on the teacher as a human thinking of the characteristics that they should be endowed with, such as: creativity, resourcefulness, kindness or a sense of humor. Finally, sometimes we focus on the characters or, almost, archetypes that we associate our roles in the classroom such as a gardener, a nanny, a sports coach or Darth Vader, to name just a few.

Nowhere, on any of those lists, can you find ‘laziness’ and yet, that is precisely what I would like to promote with this post here.

A lazy teacher is not a teacher who does nothing and a teacher who does not plan and prepare for classes. This is not a teacher who does not make an effort. It is an individual who thinks twice before engaging in material creation, lesson preparation and planning, instructions and interaction in the classroom in order to limit own involvement and the amount of work and to promote the students’ (kids’) production and, engagement, learner autonomy and independence.

And the benefits? Well there are many!

First and foremost, the kids are more involved. They have no choice as their teacher is a lazy individuum. That means that they produce a lot more language on the level that is within their reach and that they are involved in the shaping of the lesson and taking responsibility for it. They can for example give out materials and help clean up, nominate students or form pairs, check the homework or choose stories, games and songs or, sometimes, when it is possible, make decisions about the order and the choice of the activities in a lesson.

Thanks to that the group becomes a community instead of being just a collection of individuals and the lesson is everyone’s business. It is not only this thing that the teacher brings and wants us to do just because they are the adults and, no doubt the most powerful and authoritative people in the room, those who know the parents and the director.

The teachers can benefit, too. They do not spend every minute of the day on designing materials and activities because it is not always necessary. Nor do they the precious time on searching the internet and the library for these perfect supplementary materials because they may simply not even exist or they might not quite match the needs of the people in the classroom. They make time for labelling and organizing the materials in order to be able to use them again. They recycle the materials and activities they have created, not necessarily the specific handout and the boardgame but also the framework, the game with all its rules for different topics and structures. Last but not least, they make the most of what is already in the coursebooks because although sometimes, admittedly, there is not enough to fill up the lesson time, there is a lot already that can be used in a clever way, with minimum preparation for everyone’s benefit. Lazy teachers are also those people who allow themselves to take it easy sometimes in order to save up the energy to spend it on creativity on those special days and lessons.

Some practical solutions from the classroom

One picture aka lazy material preparation for pre-primary is a simple picture with all the words we are studying such as this one here. Cute wild animals set including lion, tiger, hippo, bear, zebra, giraffe, and elephant. Safari jungle animals vector. Woodland animal illustration 6973880 Vector Art at Vecteezy It can be used in a game of riddles (‘It is big. It is green. What’s this?’ ‘It’s a crocodile!’) or in a game that we just call ‘Pairs’ with kids looking (and the teacher circling) any two of the animals based on a feature that they share, starting with some very simple language (‘The crocodile and the frog. It is green and it is green’) and moving on to more complex structures, depending on the level, age etc (‘The tiger and the zebra. The tiger has stripes and the zebra has stripes’).
Maximising out the coursebook. It is quite common for the coursebooks, for VYL and YL to introduce a set of vocabulary with a one-page spread of all the key words in context, like for example has been done with the zoo animals in Superminds 1 by CUP (unit 2, page 22). Apart from playing with flashcards and from the ‘listen and look’ and ‘listen and repeat’ there are quite a few things that can be done with the material on this page in a way that will help the kids learn and produce the new words more effectively, for example: Making riddles about the animals in the zoom, even in the simples of ways (‘It is big, it is brown, it has got 4 legs’) or with the prepositions (‘It is next to the crocodile’). Ranking the animals from 1 (my favourite one) to 8 (my least favourite one) and comparing the list with a friend. Labelling the animals according to whether we like them (draw a heart) or not (draw a crossed heart) and talking about, either by producing sentences (‘I like crocodiles. And you?’) or questions (‘Do you like crocodiles?’) this way bringing back the structure that the children already know and are familiar with. Colour-coding the words starting with the same letter, especially beneficial for the early readers. Memory games in which students play in pairs and test each other, with one of the student looking into the coursebook, the other guessing, simply recalling the numbers (‘What’s number 5?’) or miming or mouthing the words (‘Look at me. What am I?’)
Maxing out the vocabulary list for the older YL, based on a vocabulary list, like the one that can be found in Prepare 3, 2nd edition, CUP, p. 68). The students can also make more complex and higher level vocabulary games. Riddles in which the students give a definition of one of the words. Asking questions in which the students make up their own questions with the words in the book, although here the students might need the question starters such as ‘Do you like…?’, ‘Do you think that…?’ or ‘Did you…last week?’ etc. Find a pair in which the students choose two of the words and explain their choice (‘Action film and adventure film because I like them’, ‘Comedy and animated film because kids often like these kind of films’) etc. Similar or different in which students choose a pair of words for their partner who needs to decide if they are similar or different and justify their decision (‘Thriller and horror film’ ‘They are similar because they are both scary’)
Exam tasks also based on the same list. The students can choose five of the words and talk together, in a debate, answering the question suggested by the teacher, for example ‘Which films could you watch with your friends?’ (film genres, A2 KET), ‘Which is the most difficult job? (jobs, B2 FCE) or ‘Which characteristics are most necessary for a teacher to have?’ (personal features, C1 CAE).
The same set of materials recycled, for example a set of wordwall cards with the places in the city (https://wordwall.net/resource/34597977) which we used with my teens in the following topics: vocabulary lesson on the places in the city, grammar lesson and modal verbs (Tell me about the rules in this place), adverbs of frequency (Tell me how often you go there), there is and there are (Is there a bridge in your town?) and used to (Your city today and in the past).
Maxing out the dialogues, such as the one in Superminds 5 by CUP (page 72). With younger learners, we cover all the points in the coursebook first, then we mark all the key words together, guided by the teacher. We call them the banana words and this way we create a template for the students to create their own version of the dialogue, first by just reading and replacing the highlighted words with their ideas, later on repeating the same, with the books closed. For the higher level, this same dialogue can be used as the basis for the paraphrasing activity in which the students have to re-enact the same dialogue replacing the original sentences with their synonyms.
Liar Liar based on spoken, recorded or written discourse, for example such as the text in Gateway to English, Macmillan (2nd ed, page 7). First and foremost it is a reading skills development activity but it can be further extended into a speaking task. The students work in pairs here, with one of the students trying to retell what they remember from the text, with the other student checking the accuracy of these statements in the book. If an inaccuracy is found, the student with the book says ‘Liar, liar’ and correct the sentence. With the listening task, the same can be done with a transcript of the listening.

Being a lazy teacher is not ‘doing nothing’, going to school unprepared and not caring about your students and lessons. It is just about a slightly different way of managing what we do and how we do it.

I’ve have been practising professional laziness for about three years now and I would love to encourage you to try, too. No matter what age groups or levels you teach, why don’t you try to sit back and think about the lesson you are preparing for tomorrow. Is there something that your students can do? Is there something that you don’t need to look for, type, print and prepare? Is there an easier way? I bet you there is. And after you have experimented with it, don’t forget to let us know here)

Happy teaching!

Anka Zapart

CELTA, IH TYL, a Senior ADOS for VYL, a Freelance Teacher and Teacher Trainer

Professional Development for Teachers: Is it always about Getting a Teaching Qualification?

Anna Kashcheeva

EFL teacher, CELTA and DELTA trainer,

DELTA, MA in TESOL, IHTTC,

MSc in Educational Management from the University of Portsmouth

10 ways to apply Psychology in an EFL classroom

It’s no surprise that Psychology might come in handy for teachers, especially for those who specialise in foreign languages. However, the more you learn about this subject, the more different branches, approaches and theories (often contradictory) you face with. The main thing is just not to get lost!

Psychology can help us focus on our students and their needs, monitor and anticipate group dynamics and interaction patterns in the classroom and, besides, be aware of what part our own personality plays in creating the right atmosphere. Thus, there’s a lot more than Educational Psychology, traditionally presented to teachers.

Check out the questionnaire below to find out what other branches of Psychology might be useful to you!

Do you have to design materials, courses and make lesson plans? Do you want to make revision and recycling more efficient and learn more about students’ perception, attention, memory and learning styles?

Go for: Cognitive Psychology

Do you work with different age groups, including YL and VYL? If you want to know more about the development of Higher Mental Functions, about the stages of development from birth to adulthood, the peculiarities of child play and its transformations,

Go for: Developmental Psychology

Do you want to create a friendly and motivating learning environment? Be more confident when it comes to boosting your students’ motivation? Would you like to cope with your own emotional stress at work more efficiently?

Go for: Psychology of Motivation and Emotions

Do you teach students 1-to-1? Or would you like to make your approach to teaching groups more tailored to your students’ needs and personality types? Have you ever reflected on how your own personality affects your teaching style?

Go for: Personality Psychology

Do you teach groups? Would you like to learn more about the stages that each group goes through before becoming a good team? Find out how social roles shape our behaviour and reflect on what type of leader you’re likely to be?

Go for: Social Psychology

Do you teach in-company classes? Or, perhaps, have to assess and recruit other teachers? Or you might even dream of setting up your own business! Learning about different types of organisational culture, work-life balance and recruitment/assessment techniques, as well as making a plan of your own CPD might be a good idea.

Go for: Organisational / Industrial Psychology

Do you sometimes lack the knowledge of the underlying processes in our brain that are the basis for literacy, cognitive functions and self-control? Do you feel uncomfortable teaching hyperactive children or finding an approach to their parents? Would you like to learn more about the interdisciplinary branches on the brink of Neuroscience and ELT Methodology?

Go for: Neuropsychology

Do you teach multinational groups or, perhaps, teach English abroad? Even within a multinational company you might have to teach people from different countries and pay special attention to culture differences. Social norms and taboos, the expectations about the teacher and learning process, perception of hierarchy and even the way people think is shaped to a great extent by the culture your students belong to.

Go for: Cross-cultural Psychology

Have you ever wanted to get some tips on how to make a good and valid questionnaire or how to give feedback in a friendly and positive way? We can borrow quite a lot of tools from Psychology, e.g. facilitation techniques, active listening, case study method, observation techniques, etc.

Go for: Techniques and methods of Psychology

Are you interested in ELT methodology? To get a deeper understanding of its development, you might need to look into Psychology and the theories that had a great impact on the ELT community. You’ll be surprised to see how the changes in Psychology resulted in the appearance of new teaching techniques and methods!

Go for: General Psychology (Introduction)