
5 ways to shine at your speaking test
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There's always one part of testing English that you hate. Some hate writing, others listening (aye, that would be me), but somehow it's speaking that seems to cause lots of worries. To tell you the truth, I haven't had problems with speaking ever since I came up with some simple steps. I can't claim you'll excel at speaking tests after following my ideas, but I do encourage you to give them a go - maybe they'll work out for you just as they did for me!

Self-assessment: how I introduced it in the classroom and survived
What implementing self-assessment gave me, was something close to all-year long system of formative assessment. The great bonus is that those teens gain the great skill of being able to self-assess their own progress and this is a skill that will be useful in the future, when the memory of the IELTS preparation course is long gone.

Role-Playing Teaching (Part 8 - making classes SuperBetter)
It's a really strange feeling, when you read a book in April and you realise you've just read your Book of the Year. Also, it's hard to believe I hadn't heard of Jane McGonigal before my Prince Consort picked her book during our monthly book hunt and said "You will love it". He was right, naturally.

Role-Playing Teaching (Part 7: For Those About to Roll)
The following note is a rough translation of the post Erpegi na pierwszy raz. The author, Michał Laskowski, kindly agreed to me translating and sharing his work. It is originally meant for people who are already familiar with RPGs, so I believe you already know enough of theory and it's high time to start playing on your own!

Quizizz: making tests fun (+ activity ideas)
You must have heard of Quizlet and Kahoot!, but today I want to share my favourite quiz-making application: Quizizz. Apart from a name (try remembering which z is doubled!), this tool is not only useful and easy to grasp, but also fun to use, both for teachers and students. Quizizz allows people to create and use one another’s multiple-choice quizzes, so they can be used live as a form of classroom competition, or as homework.

Children Learning English: A Guidebook for English Language Teachers (book review)
Trying to broaden my horizons on the topic, I read a book by Jayne Moon “Children Learning English: A Guidebook for English Language Teachers”. As the author mentions in the introduction, "the book will help you to build on the knowledge and skills you already have, become aware of your beliefs about children and about teaching, re-assess your practice in the classroom, provide fresh ideas and new insights (…) and deepen your commitment to and enthusiasm for teaching children."

Role-Playing Teaching (Part 6: Game Mechanics)
I don't think I can move forward in writing about RPGs without discussing the mechanics. If you haven't played any proper RPGs before, you probably won't know that this aspect of games has been discussed for years, and involved: fandom wars, friendships ruined (seriously, been there) and physical injuries (OK, I might exaggerate a bit here) by almost all RPG players (minus D&D players who simply watch from the sidelines and eat popcorn ;) ).

5 applications to boost your English
Today I want to help everyone struggling with keeping up with English by sharing my favourite applications to learn English. You may recommend them to your students, but I encourage you to try them on your own - I do.

5 Tips on How to Start a Course without a Coursebook
After years of dealing with students who are interested in classes but not really with coursebooks, I came up with five steps that will help you in case you're stuck with covering for a teacher who's forgotten to leave the teacher's book, creating a very short course or managing a course that isn't supplemented with students' copies.

Role-Playing Teaching (Part 5: Character Creation)
It's the fifth part of my Role-Playing Teaching series of articles and I can proudly say that we're done with theory - today we're going to start working on a proper RPG. Before we go on an adventure we need to create Players' Characters. Since we're going to talk on various topics during character creation, the minimum level required is A2+.