Teach Translate Travel Repeat

Teaching

  • Bilingual Excellence: A Practical Guide to CLIL Methodology – A Review

    Bilingual Excellence: A Practical Guide to CLIL Methodology – A Review

    Recently, I had the pleasure of hearing through the form of a webinar entitled “Bilingual Excellence: A Practical Guide to CLIL Methodology” by Lesley Voss hosted by the Chartered Institute for Linguists. Lesley has been a language teacher, translator and interpreter for Italian and English at various schools and companies in Italy since 2008, having…

  • Comparative study of modern Romance languages: a linguistic treasure trove!

    Comparative study of modern Romance languages: a linguistic treasure trove!

    I recently had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Michelle Sheehan, a professor of linguistics at Newcastle University, at the School of English Literature, Language and Linguists, entitled “The comparative study of modern Romance languages: a linguistic treasure trove!”. Michelle, who is interested in syntactic theory (i.e. the structure of languages), how languages vary,…

  • Top trends in educational research and the practical implications: Presentation by Maria Elena Metaxas

    Top trends in educational research and the practical implications: Presentation by Maria Elena Metaxas

    Overview Recently, at a Chartered Institute of Linguists’ (CIOL) Continuing Professional Development (CPD) event, Maria Elena Metaxas presented via webinar about the top trends in educational research and their practical implications in the classroom. Her goal was to emphasise the need for educators to stay informed and updated about trends, especially those related to new…

  • International Phonetic Alphabet(s)? How many are there?

    International Phonetic Alphabet(s)? How many are there?

    Before reading this post, you should be familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet and Phonemic Alphabets. You may also want to read IPA: History, Functionality, and Limitations as well. The shower answer to this question is that there is only one International Phonetic Alphabet, the one created in 1888 by the International Phonetic Association. However…

  • IPA: Who uses the International Phonetic Alphabet?

    IPA: Who uses the International Phonetic Alphabet?

    Before reading this post, you should be familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet and Phonemic Alphabets. You may also want to read IPA: History, Functionality, and Limitations as well. IPA may be great for languages, but who actually uses it? The short answer is that the following types of people/professions may use IPA to varying…

  • IPA: History, Functionality, and Limitations

    IPA: History, Functionality, and Limitations

    Introduction The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a notational system for phonetic transcription, representing the sounds of spoken languages. Its widespread use is credited to the uniformity and precision it offers in transcription. However, like every system, IPA has limitations and drawbacks. Some of it is due to its history, while others are due to…

  • Immersive language learning online and offline

    Immersive language learning online and offline

    Guest Blogger: Nick Eley is the Co-Founder of English Like A Native and has become fluent in Spanish and Thai while travelling.   What is immersive language learning? Immersive language learning is the process of surrounding yourself with a language and culture.  At its best, you take away all of the options to engage with the…

  • Double negatives in English – a big no no

    Double negatives in English – a big no no

    Picture it: you are sitting in an English class and a teacher says “don’t use double negatives”. Double negative? What is a double negative? How can anything be negative twice? What is a double negative? A double negative in the content of language is when a sentence has multiple negative words. A negative word can…

  • Future in the past – What were you going to do?

    Future in the past – What were you going to do?

    In English, there exists a concept called “future in the past”. This is when you talk about how the future was going to be at some point in the past (whether it actually happened or not). Before you continue this article, if you are unfamiliar with either the future tense or the past tense, please…

  • Reported Speech – He said, she said

    Reported Speech – He said, she said

    Sometimes when you are telling a story or relaying information someone told you, you don’t necessarily want to say absolutely everything in exactly the same way as it was told to you (i.e. direct speech). Sometimes you simply can’t remember and other times exactly what was said was important. So what do you do instead?…

  • Past habits – Over and over again

    Past habits – Over and over again

    In this article we will cover: You can describe past habits (or actions that happened repeatedly in the past) in three different ways in English: used to, would and the past simple tense. Used to If you have learnt about modal and semi-modal verbs before, you may be familiar with used to. In fact, this…

  • Modal verbs – Can vs May

    Modal verbs – Can vs May

    Before reading this article, make sure you are familiar with the uses of can and may. You will need that information to understand can vs may. You may have heard someone say “Can I go to the bathroom.” You might have also heard “May I go to the bathroom”. Can we use both “can” and…

  • Semi-modal verbs – used to

    Semi-modal verbs – used to

    The last semi-modal on our list is “used to”, which you will probably be very familiar with. You have probably used “used to” to talk about habits: As a child I used to play near the stream every day. This was an action that happened many times in the past but no longer. You can…

  • Semi-modal verbs – ought to

    Semi-modal verbs – ought to

    For many of you, reading this post will be one of the few times (if not the first time) you have seen the word “ought to”. This word is the next semi-modal verb on our list. What is it and why are we including it on our list? What does it even mean? It is…

  • Semi-modal verbs – had better

    Semi-modal verbs – had better

    Probably one of the more unusual semi-modal verbs is “had better”. While it follows the rules of normal modal verbs, this one is the only one that comprises a verb in the past tense (which stays the same for all tenses) and an adverb. You can use it for a variety of things, such as…