When she took over the self-access centre at Hong Kong Education University, Dr Jessie Choi realised that ‘physical learning material was no longer a strong attraction.’ This is the story of her vision of a new approach to self-access language learning, based on social interaction.
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Getting the most out of your ESL software supplier
What level of service should you demand from your ESL software supplier? Samuel Sheinberg draws on 20 years of experience with NAS Software to offer some tips.
Treating the untreatable: the Philippines nurses IELTS Writing Project
The requirement for a 7.0 in IELTS Writing is stopping nurses in the Philippines from travelling to the UK, and is proving a headache to the National Health Service. Dr Victoria Clark describes how her team is analysing the problem and coming up with solutions.
Clarity’s Practical Writing reaches ELTons final
Andrew Stokes explains the vision behind ELTons finalist Practical Writing: helping students with all the texts they write (including WhatsApp); and finding a rationale to match technology to activity type.
Development of an online test: Three challenges
'We like your online placement test,' said the teacher at Taiwan’s Asia University, 'but with 1,000 freshers and only 20 computers, we’d be halfway through the first semester before we could even sort out our classes.' Placement tests are a chore. In most schools they...
Why teachers are the key to effective self-access
Teacher involvement is fundamental to the success of online resources. Julia Ker from the University of Surrey talks to Andrew Stokes about how the Language Study Area makes a success of self-study resources through awareness building, advice and, above all, teacher participation.
Free British Council IELTS prep tools
Most IELTS candidates leave their test preparation to the last minute. When they go into the test centre, they discover they don’t understand the question types, they’re not sure how to allocate their time efficiently, and they don’t know what the examiner is looking...
China: is technology replacing teachers?
Paul Liu from the Future Education Research Center in Guangdong discusses the role of online learning in China, and considers the uneasy relationship between teachers and computers.