If you, like me, learnt English, or any other language in fact, using Grammar Translation (a method which now generally enjoys a bad rap) at a time when communicative language teaching hadn’t perhaps quite taken off, this is the definition of grammar you will probably be most familiar with: (more…)
Author: Deb Catavello
Problem Tree Analysis: demystifying critical thinking through systematic analysis
“Complete, relevant, fairly sophisticated response to task”. This is how the first descriptor in the 70s band of the International Foundation Programme (IFP) marking criteria reads. But what do these words – to which we could add “criticality”, “thorough” “in-depth” “systematic” analysis – mean to my students on the IFP? Although we’d discussed some of this language in class – sometimes using this visual of Bloom’s taxonomy – I wanted to provide my IFP students with a toolkit they could use to go about doing analysis. (more…)
Theorising from practice: reflections on choosing a methodology
by Deb Catavello and Grant Hartley
When we set out to research teachers’ feedback practices, we had a very vague idea of how to go about it. What we knew was what we did not want to do: we didn’t want to end up making qualitative judgements on what individual teachers do when giving feedback. Instead, we wanted to 1. find out what influences our (like the participants in our study, we’re first and foremost teachers) practices and 2. avoid oversimplifying things. (more…)