Teaching & Learning English
This page is set up to help students explore the use of the BAWE corpus as a tool for informing vocabulary choices in academic writing. The examples below come from either common errors in student writing or questions my students have asked about specific lexicogrammar features of English. If you search for words or phrases … Read more
As part of an induction to a pre-sessional programme for postgraduates that I will be teaching on this summer, I attended a session with several academics from four different disciplinary areas (Education, Engineering, Management, Biological Sciences) to discuss the particular issues that their international students faced. This was very useful not only because it enables pre-sessional … Read more
As mentioned in my previous post, every so often during examining work, one comes across an odd phrase or expression that occurs too regularly for it to be dismissed as random or individual error. One such occurrence I have noticed today is the word revert being used where reply or respond would be the more orthodox (correct?) choice of … Read more
It is exam marking season again and I’ve been quite busy. Some seasons I notice a trend to comment on (for example the increasing use of relatable) and this is no exception – what is it with students adding the word what to a sentence where it is not needed? The two sentences below are … Read more
Marking student assignments can be a very interesting job. I often get to read about subjects that, left to my own initiative, it would never have occurred to me to think about. Sometimes the odd idea stands out as worthy of a quick Google search. This was one such idea… I was reading a report … Read more
I have been working on a series of bilingual English-Chinese educational books based on characters created by my daughter when she was between 18 months and 3 years of age . These Magic People books are a little rough around the edges because they began life as drawing sessions for my daughter and child’s scribble … Read more
That well known Brexiteer and bane of UK teachers, Michael Gove, famously declared that Britons “have had enough of experts”. This strikes me as an extremely irresponsible comment, opening the door to all manner of pseudo-scientific nonsense to confuse and mislead the public without constraint. I will explain my concerns through two examples where the … Read more
I have spent most of July and August teaching on the University of Bristol’s pre-sessional English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme. This was a very rewarding experience. It was a chance to get back into the field in which I am now a certified expert. I was especially pleased to discover that visualisations formed a very important component of the course … Read more
Late in 2015, I started tutoring an undergraduate student who was studying education and creative writing. She had employed me to help her better organise her academic writing with the aim of raising her grade for her final dissertation. The first piece of work I helped her with was her proposal and this contained the … Read more
Upon returning to England I took on a tutoring assignment to support an undergraduate student in her writing with the aim of moving her from a 2:2 to a 2:1. We got off to a slightly shaky start when the first assignment with my input returned a 2:2. However, the strategy of using it as … Read more
Having worked in English language education, teaching and assessment in China for over twelve years, I have noticed certain trends in the language difficulties Chinese learners of English experience. I share them here as a resource for other English teachers. I will no doubt update this post a few times as this is by no … Read more
How good it is to have no deadline coming up! My doctoral (EdD) thesis was accepted by the Open University last week and I am now free to get on with all the creative projects that have been on hold for the last year and a half, such as the construction of this website 🙂 … Read more