ELT365 · Day 233 — Student Talk Time — Building It Up
Idea Student talk time (STT) is not just speaking-skill practice — it is thinking time in the target language. Every minute of productive STT is a…
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ELT365 · Day 228 — Keeping Learners on Task
Idea Task design drives on-task behaviour. If learners go off-task consistently, the task may be too easy, too hard, or the outcome too unclear. Example Adding…
ReadELT365 · Day 221 — Ending the Lesson Well
Idea A strong close recycles the lesson’s aim and gives learners something to take away. Trailing off or running over time undermines the lesson’s impact. Example…
ReadELT365 · Day 220 — Starting the Lesson Well
Idea The first three minutes set the pace and signal what kind of lesson this will be. A strong start narrows the gap between what learners…
ReadELT365 · Day 211 — Designing a Productive-Skills Lesson from Scratch
Idea — A productive-skills lesson follows: lead-in → model and analyse → prepare → task → content feedback → language feedback. Skip language focus and learners…
ReadELT365 · Day 196 — Teacher feedback on writing — less is more
Idea — Marking every error overwhelms learners and trains them to hunt for red pen, not to read for meaning. Target feedback to the lesson aim…
ReadELT365 · Day 168 — Staging a listening lesson
Idea — Three stages, always in this order: pre-listening (activate schema, remove blockers) → while-listening (task) → post-listening (exploit the text, produce something). Skipping pre is…
ReadELT365 · Day 159 — Graded vs authentic texts — choosing wisely
Idea — Graded texts are written to match a CEFR level: controlled vocabulary, short sentences. Authentic texts are real-world material at natural complexity. Neither is better;…
ReadELT365 · Day 211 — Integrating all four skills in one lesson
Idea — Real language use rarely isolates a skill. A well-designed lesson threads reading, listening, speaking, and writing through one topic — each skill feeds the…
ReadELT365 · Day 210 — Six common productive-skills lesson mistakes
Idea — Common errors: correcting during fluency tasks; no model before freer practice; open prompts with no outcome; giving the answer before learners self-correct; no feedback…
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