140 character bio
I’m a teacher, trainer and writer of material for learners and teachers of English. I am a regular speaker at conferences.
1. What do you do?
I teach, I train teachers and I write material for learners and teachers of English.
2. Why do you do it?
I get a real buzz from each and I can’t see myself doing anything else now really. I like the mixture of the social and the solitary in my work.
3. What’s the most interesting thing happening in ELT right now?
Probably the connections that are being made between teachers around the world thanks to social media. Lots coming out from that.
4. What do you think the developments in EdTech mean for learners of English?
Learning is becoming more ubiquitous and richer in terms of different channels and media. But the basics are the same as they always were.
5. What do you think the developments in EdTech mean for teachers?
Great liberation developing own ideas and material for learners. But also a real danger that more and more control will be taken away from them.
6. What does EdTech mean for publishers?
A serious challenge to make a business model that works as well as it has done for them over the past thirty years. Potential to influence education even more (for good or bad).
7. Gamification: a fad or the future?
A fad. A really neat one, and something I’d like to experiment with, but a fad.
8. How will mobile learning transform ELT?
I’m now wondering if it will that much. I still think most ELT will take place in classes in the next ten to twenty years. Much more interesting ideas now for homework though.
9. What next for online learning?
Massive competition in the area of learning management systems. Teachers needing much more training in making the online space communicative and collaborative.
10. How will ELT be different 5 years from now?
The same trends in technology we see now will have advanced a little bit, but we’ll still be worrying that we are behind. Classes will not have got any more communicative.
