Reading cannot be called reading unless comprehension is involved. But before children can focus their attention on making meaning from the text, they must get rid of the decoding effort. Decoding is an essential skill for reading but it is not enough in itself to enable comprehension. In order to
Decision-making is an important life skill that all children need to develop. As teachers we share the responsibility, not only of providing opportunities in the classroom for our learners to make choices, but also to help them understand that the choices they make have consequences. There are lots of ways
Critical thinking is often associated with teaching students at higher language levels. Perhaps it’s because the kinds of problem-solving tasks which are associated with critical thinking require a level of English at Intermediate or above. Maybe it’s also that the kind of language used to describe critical thinking skills includes
Last time, we examined the psychological need to complete things and make them whole, and how that can be exploited to help students stay motivated. The word ‘need’ is a key term when we’re looking at students’ motivation, of course. At its most fundamental level, motivation is all about wants
Failure is a word and a concept that our students often fear. In today’s society, with its focus on success, celebrity, fame and wealth, failure is linked with a sense of not being good enough. But actually, failure is a hugely important part of learning. By failing, we see where
For over a century, students have had opportunities to learn about far off places through pictures brought back by intrepid explorers venturing across the globe. The world learned about the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu through the images of explorer Hiram Bingham and saw the view from Mount Everest after
When I first started teaching English, there were almost no published materials to teach from. I was teaching academically oriented students, and sadly, focusing a lot on grammar and sentence structure because that was the assigned textbook. Today we are all fortunate to have a wealth of excellent materials to
According to the internet, video is processed 60,000 faster than text – an amazing, but seemingly unfounded claim repeated over and over online. Still, the old proverb A picture’s worth a thousand words isn’t wrong, and as teachers, we understand that one of the great things about video is the
As many teachers who use ELT titles from National Geographic Learning will be aware, critical thinking is a key feature of the materials and informs our approach to English Language teaching. Now, Life authors Paul Dummett and John Hughes are carrying out research into how critical thinking is applied and
In this series of blog posts Katherine will share a selection of learner centered classroom activities for teachers to try out with their own learners. Each month she will suggest something new to try out in the classroom and provide a simple reflection task to support Professional Development. We invite