Lately, I’ve been really struggling to keep students’ attention – and I know I’m not alone.As an ELICOS teacher and teacher trainer, I’ve always believed in the power of tech to enhance learning. But I have to be honest: more and more often, I’m finding it frustrating.🧠 Students appear to be on task — typing,…

As English language teachers, we’re often positioned somewhere in the middle of a learner’s journey, but we don’t always realise how deeply we influence the outcome. Our work can feel routine, even invisible, but its long-term effects are far-reaching. When training new teachers, I like to remind them that we play a quiet but crucial…

Whether you’re a teacher, a trainer, a DoS, a coordinator, or in any other leadership role in education, ego can quietly shape how we relate to others and how we are perceived.In our field, where collaboration, communication, and compassion are essential, unchecked ego can become a real obstacle. As Ryan Holiday writes in Ego is…

Lesson planning is not just writing down a list of activities. It’s about building a clear, logical sequence where each stage has a purpose and helps learners reach the lesson aim. When stages connect smoothly, the lesson becomes more focused, more engaging, and more effective. As a CELTA trainer, I often see trainees struggle with…

An important development we look for during the CELTA course is trainees becoming more independent in their approach to lesson planning and professional reflection. At the beginning of the course, it’s completely normal for trainees to rely heavily on their tutors, that’s part of the process. But as the course moves forward, we hope to…