Christopher Walker: EFL Teacher and Writer
Have you ever wondered why we place adjectives in a specific order? Why do we say “a big orange pumpkin” instead of “an orange big pumpkin”? In this article, I consider a new way of thinking about adjective order in English.
I have a new article available to read for free in Issue 51 of the IH Journal. This piece is an academic article on the nature of bilingual education, focussing on my own teaching context here in Poland, but looking too at the wider perspective of bilingual teaching in any territory where English is being introduced as a non-community language.
My latest piece for Modern English Teacher is now available to subscribers of the magazine. In this article I consider a novel approach to understanding the bulk of English grammar – that everything (besides the modals) can be understood by considering the operators do, be, and have.
It’s a bit left-field, to be honest – and might leave many confused. You could even argue that I don’t seem to understand the conception very well myself (though I hope I make a convincing case for it in the article!) – but my hope is that it will generate a fresh discussion about the rudiments of English grammar.
My latest article in Modern English Teacher is about a reconsideration of the skills division – how Listening tasks should precede Speaking tasks, and Reading tasks should precede Writing tasks. I also make the point that we should do more to take advantage of the materials we have, and not treat them so lightly.
You can read the article in its digital form on MET.
I have a new article out – this one is about scaffolding, which is the idea of making tasks for your students more achievable. I took Duolingo as a case study and considered some of the approaches they implement so successfully.
Read the article here.
Read my article about the life and work of the Polish satirist and absurdist, Slawomir Mrozek, author of ‘The Elephant’ and other books and plays.
I was first introduced to Mrozek through my wife, who bought one of his books for me as a Christmas present – I have been indebted to her ever since, as Mrozek is in many ways just as fascinating a writer as Franz Kafka. His brilliantly dark absurdist tales are definitely worth reading if you are of an anti-establishment kind of bent, but if you are more into antidisestablishmentarianism, I’m not sure if his is the work for you. Well, it might be – I’m not 100% sure what the word rightly means…
When preparing students for formal examinations, it’s important that we teach the task – and sometimes that means curtailing our students’ greater ambitions. Writing 500 words on an area of interest is not going to lead to a high grade when the rubric calls for 200 words on a clearly defined topic.
Read more at Humanising Language Teaching