Four editions of Modern Teaching Methods, on the record

What if our students had more reasons to engage with a task than simply finding the correct answer? 

In this session, we’ll explore how to make everyday language practice more meaningful, relevant and thought-provoking. We’ll look at practical ways to move beyond textbook scenarios and imaginary characters and bring students’ own experiences, opinions and choices into the classroom. 

You’ll explore a range of meaningful topics and ready-to-use task ideas that can help you engage students more deeply in your lessons, encouraging them to think, analyse, reflect and respond rather than simply complete an exercise.

The concept of creativity casts a long shadow across the world of EFL. All too often, from the moment we first set foot in the classroom, we are encouraged to become more creative as teachers and to creatively adapt classroom material; we are urged to foster creativity in our learners and told not to let our correction interfere with their creative communication.

In this talk, I shall be critiquing the peculiar construct of creativity that we seem to be so in thrall to. I shall suggest that in all areas of human endeavor it is actually the routine, the formulaic, the predictable and the mundane that underpin the creative process. This is as true for classroom practice as it for language use and thus has serious implications for teachers, trainers and materials writers.

I will consider through relevant anecdotes and personal experiences - the chaos that the pursuit of creativity can wreak on classes, making particular reference to activity and exercise types, language goals and error correction.

I will then move on to counter such well-intentioned waywardness by reasserting the importance of repetition and of the everyday. I believe that both should be central pillars in any methodology that aims to help teachers prepare students for the real world. Indeed, I also aim to persuade those in attendance that true creativity is impossible without this.

The talk will be rooted in my own classroom work and will be illustrated with plenty of practical examples. 

A must-see session where Chris will run the length and breadth of his work with tweens, teens and young adults in the ELT classroom to present you with a smorgasbord of techniques, adjustments and considerations that will make you pleased you attended for many teaching years to come. 

There will be anecdotes and examples from Chris’ own classes, plus ample time for you to field any questions you have for him. Suitable for new teachers, seasoned veterans, trainers, co-ordinators and school owners alike.

“Creativity is intelligence having fun!” a quote often ascribed to Albert Einstein. A significant aspect of twenty-first century learning is providing opportunities for trying out new ideas, new ways of thinking and problem-solving. But how can I do this and make my class interesting? 

6 practical tips on how to promote creativity and have fun in the classroom will be shared in this session.

To be added

Most teachers use AI as a vending machine - type a request, collect a worksheet. 

This session shows what changes when Claude works as a thinking partner instead: one that holds your class context between conversations, argues with your lesson design rather than flattering it, and connects to the documents and notes you already work in. 

Projects, memory, connectors and skills, each demonstrated live on a single real planning with a clear line drawn at every stage between what a teacher can hand over and what has to stay theirs. Practical, reproducible, and honest about the limits.

In an era of constant distraction and cognitive overload, how can teachers design lessons that fit tight adult schedules and still lead to meaningful progress?

This session explores microlearning as a focused, flexible and brain-friendly approach to adult language learning. We will challenge common myths around microlearning, examine its key principles and explore how relevant micro-content and focused language input can reduce cognitive overload, strengthen engagement, support retention and turn language learning into a habit.

Drawing on research into memory and attention, the session will introduce practical microlearning techniques for both synchronous and asynchronous learning, demonstrating what microlearning looks like in practice. 

Scaffolding is one of the most frequently discussed concepts in teacher education, yet many of the forms of "support" we build into our lessons do little to help learners succeed. So what separates effective scaffolding from well-intentioned but ineffective support?

In this session, we'll explore the cognitive, cultural, and metacognitive factors that are often overlooked when designing or adapting classroom tasks. Through practical examples, participants will examine how seemingly small changes can make activities more accessible while maintaining an appropriate level of challenge. 

Participants will leave with a practical framework for analysing and adapting materials so that the support they provide genuinely helps learners succeed.

In this practical, hands-on session, we explore different ways of thinking about giving feedback on student speaking and explore why some approaches may have better long-term impacts than others.

Integrating AI and technology into the EFL classroom has brought some significant benefits, such as personalized learning, instant feedback, and, maybe, increased engagement. However, several challenges have emerged that educators must address to maximize effectiveness. As an introduction we will discuss some of the pitfalls discovered as a result.

Critical thinking (CT) has long been heralded as an essential skill for learners, yet despite decades of discourse on its importance, it has often failed to be addressed with the urgency and depth it deserves. In the age of AI, where information is abundant, but discernment is scarce, fostering critical thinkers has never been more crucial. We will explore how the Socratic Method—a timeless approach based on dialogue, questioning, and reflection—can be rebooted to meet the challenges of modern education.

By reintroducing the Socratic Method into EFL learning environments, we can encourage learners to engage deeply with content, question assumptions, and articulate their thoughts clearly and critically. In an age where AI technologies can provide answers but not reasoning, the need for learners to develop their own evaluative and reflective skills is paramount.

Rebooting the Socratic Method isn’t just about asking the right questions, it's about equipping learners to think independently and critically in an AI-driven world cultivating a generation of thoughtful, analytical individuals who don’t just accept information at face value, but instead question, probe, and interpret it.

Content and language integrated learning or CLIL is a method which develops both curriculum content knowledge and foreign language competence simultaneously.

This talk will outline the three core dimensions to CLIL, namely concepts, procedures and language. The presentation will also describe how a typical CLIL lesson moves from 'guiding learners through input content' in textual and multi-media forms to 'supporting learners in producing content' in spoken and written form.

The talk will present the above principles through a range of classroom tested resources and activities which the audience is invited to take away and try in their own teaching contexts.

What if the key to long-term language learning success isn’t grammar or vocabulary (or not just grammar and vocabulary) but a powerful first coaching session? In this session, we’ll dive into the structure and purpose of goal-setting sessions in Transformational Language Coaching©. You’ll discover how to guide learners toward meaningful, motivating goals using coaching-style questions and practical frameworks. We’ll explore goal-setting session outline, and the “why” behind every step—so you can start your own learner journeys with clarity and purpose. We’ll wrap up with a Q&A where you can bring your questions and reflections.

Learning is an act of curiosity and starts with curiosity, it is accentuated through observation and

finally through exposure to information humans are lead to actual acquisition. There are, of course,

limitations. For example, how the information is organised makes a difference. Second, we are

social beings, so our learning is social too. We love constructing knowledge with others and we

thrive on feedback. In general, others play a part in our learning. Still, learning is personal,

arduous and determined by motivation and personal engagement. Contrary to that, teachers these

days are faced with lack of (intrinsic) motivation, limited and fluctuating student engagement and

lack of student response all of which contribute to block learning. This session aims to identify

learning blockers and to suggest simple steps teachers can take to facilitate student learning.

Competency in intercultural communication amongst international companies, groups and organizations has been challenging as more and more diverse teams form. This talk will look at some of the basic misunderstandings that have taken place within different groups of trained, expert educators, native and non-native alike, due to our own varying cultural backgrounds and offer up better methods to avoid potentially serious errors or miscommunications through examination of our own cultural voicing.

This talk will unravel the essence of coaching in education, providing a comprehensive exploration of coaching and its potentially multifaceted role in the educational landscape. From personalized teacher development to fostering student resilience, to transforming how we teach and teacher communication patterns, we will look at educational coaching, instructional coaching and the latest trend integrating coaching within teaching environments. In itself, professional coaching can cultivate a positive learning culture, enhance pedagogical approaches, improve teacher-student relationships as well as provide teachers with the necessary tools to address challenges, promote resilience, and ultimately shape a more dynamic and inclusive educational landscape.

Are you an English teacher who wants to enhance your skills in teaching English to groups of learners? Then this session is for you. Whether you're instructing beginners or advanced students, group teaching presents both distinct challenges and valuable opportunities. In this session, you will gain practical strategies, techniques and tools to effectively manage group dynamics, promote collaborative learning, and ensure that every student is engaged and progressing.

There are numerous tools in ELT classrooms that are notoriously underestimated and have disappeared without any particular reason. In this practical workshop, we are going to give a second life to dictations by looking at them from a different perspective and testing the waters ourselves.

You'll learn 6+ practical activities that you can use in your class the very next day to enhance the efficiency of your lessons immediately.

As our daily teaching schedule and all that involves takes up so much of our time and energy, we don’t often have the chance to thing about ‘what else’ we could be doing. We tend to stick to certain routines and sometimes don’t take advantage of possibilities to stretch ourselves or take on challenges in other areas. This talk will explore the implications of this regarding our teaching styles, methods we are accustomed to using, the types of classes we usually teach, the technology we are comfortable with and a variety of choices available to us as ELT professionals outside the classroom. Some of the reasons we keep doing what we have always done will be discussed providing a basis for us to work together and come up with ways for us to ‘get unstuck’.