Who: ELT writer, teacher and teacher educator specialising in children aged 3–12 (Madrid-based). Author of 500 Activities for the Primary Classroom (Macmillan 2007) and coursebooks (Footprints, Hello, Robby Rabbit).
What: A finished 26-post A–Z of primary ELT (Jan 2010 – Aug 2011), distilled from ~25 years of practice. Every post is practical, with numbered lists.
Stance: Sociocultural (Vygotsky, Bruner) and whole-child. Affect, relationships and routines are preconditions for learning. Sceptical of learning styles and of movement for its own sake.
Why it matters for me: The best compact YL methodology source in my bookmarks. It maps directly onto CTYL content and Starters–Flyers classes.
Processed notes
- Behaviour management is mostly pre-emption
- Descriptive praise beats evaluative praise
- Flexibility within a planned framework
- Jazz chants - a six-step procedure
- Kinesthetic activity must have a learning purpose
- Learning to learn starts in primary
- Multiple intelligences as a variety checklist, with four provisos
- Name the age band - young learners is a catch-all
- Oracy - talking to learn, not just learning to talk
- Pitch tasks inside the ZPD and hand over support
- Question purposefully - socio-psychological vs pedagogical questions
- Stories as shared contexts for language
- The C-Wheel - eight conditions for children’s learning
Next to process
- Deeper pass done (C, O, Y, J, M). Next: “L is for Learning to learn”, “K is for Kinesthetic learning”.