By Theresa Gorman Backhanded compliment, damning with faint praise, complisults, sugarcoated hostility—Such expressions show that compliments and praise can be a tricky area of social intercourse to navigate. By highlighting the role of praise in building and maintaining professional relationships, Tihana Romanic convinced us that this is a worthwhile and… read more >
By Jeanette Mooney “Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you're thinking in order to make your thinking better.” ― Richard Paul Critical thinking is not about overanalysing your language choices (the what, the words), but rather about analysing the processes involved in reaching those choices (the why, the… read more >
Review by Olivia de Paeztron ELTABB members gathered on a cold Friday evening at VHS Mitte to hear what Nick Bilbrough had to say about task repetition. If some of us (ahem, me) were wondering why we were giving up a Friday evening at the end of a hectic week,… read more >
By Jane Potts Ian Badger came to talk to ELTABB in November 2013 and gave me this book when he was here. I was really excited to get it as I am teaching a group of students at B1/B2 level who are studying foreign languages including English with a view… read more >
By Simone Neumann Friday afternoon, just before 4pm: A stone’s throw away from one of the busiest places in Berlin, a peaceful atmosphere was greeting us as we entered the bright and spacious meeting room at the Berlin School of English: Ian’s appearance convinced us on the spot that we… read more >
Review by Jamie McDaniel On Saturday, September 21, 2013, ELTABB was very pleased to host Marjorie Rosenberg, Coordinator of the IATEFL Business Special Interest Group and author of Spotlight on Learning Styles: Teacher strategies for learner success. As participants in the 3-hour workshop, we not only received an in-depth overview… read more >
Review by Jade Blue Andreas Grundtvig’s session today was about ‘hedging’ (hedges are 'words whose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy' Lakoff, G: 1972) in the English Language: how we use various degrees and types of politeness in different situations and the importance of this for students… read more >
By Anne Hodgson Dyane and Khushi are leaving language teaching to coach public speakers. We invited them to give us impulses to improve our body language when we teach. On a warm mid-summer's eve, they had us brainstorming, presenting, announcing, improvising, centering, interacting, and reflecting. Afterwards we had a cool… read more >
By Anne Hodgson Rudi Camerer and Judith Mader of elc (European Language Competence) Training and Consulting came to Berlin and gave us a 4-day train the trainer course to help us prepare learners for effective intercultural communication. A group of 12 participants, 7 from Berlin and 5 from elsewhere, one… read more >
Workhop Review: Dominic Braham and Anthony Gaughan By Jane Potts This was an excellent workshop as any of us who had done the CELTA training in Berlin would have expected. Anthony asked us to think of a metaphor, an image of what grammar represents for us. Easily the most unusual… read more >
