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 book is available now from Amazon.
I firmly believe that English is a simple language – so much so that I have written a whole book about the fundaments of English grammar, exploring what lies at the heart of the language.
The book goes through the different parts of the English verb system, looking at the difference between simple and continuous forms, and explaining how the perfect form really works.
We then consider the idea of distance, which explains the reasons for verb form changes in English. Have you ever wondered why Would you like a drink? is more polite than Will you have a drink? This book explains the logic behind the grammar.
Once we have looked at the verb forms and the modals that English has available to it, we then consider how conditionals are structured – they are more regular and understandable than you have been led to believe!
So, who is the book for?
It’s for everyone – it doesn’t matter if you are teaching English as a foreign language, or if you are a student looking to master what you think are deeply irregular sets of rules. This book will help everyone with an interest in the English language.
It’s available now in both the paperback and Kindle edition, via Amazon.
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.
Take a look at my article, One Year With Duolingo, in the latest edition of the wonderful Modern English Teacher.
I’ve been a big fan of Duolingo for many, many years now, ever since my student and friend Pawel introduced me to the platform in roughly 2015. During the pandemic I finally extended my daily streak to cover a whole year, and this is what I learned about the art of learning languages through that experience.
English Teacher Professional has been merged with another EFL journal to create Modern English Teacher magazine – and issue one is available now.
One of the articles is my very own – on the search for the perfect metaphor in teaching. If you know me, you’ll know that I love my metaphors, and this two-page article explores some of my favourites over the years.
Subscribers can read the latest issue right here.
If you’re like me, you probably love reading. Over the course of my MA Applied Linguistics & TESOL, my reading habits changed, and I went from reading fiction to burying myself under a metric ton of academic articles.
I loved it. In fact, I loved it so much that now that my MA has finished, I already miss that kind of reading.
So I set up this new Facebook Group – EFL Academic Reading. The idea is simple: every couple of weeks, we find another academic article to read, and then we share our ideas about the article in the Group.
Come on and join us – it’s free, and all the articles we look at will also be freely available online. It should be a lot of fun!
I have an article in the IH World Journal on the topic – you can read it for free right here.
If you’ve arrived at my website via that article, you can download the teaching resource here – and if you have any questions about the tasks included, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the SCELT Bratislava conference in late September. The focus of the session was on Special Education Needs (or SEN if you prefer acronyms). I ran a session on Supporting Teachers with Dyslexia, the powerpoint presentation for which you can download here.
I want to thank both the Chamber for having me, and for my school. International House Bielsko-Biala, for their support.