The Big Talk Club blog
Blog
Ideas worth discussing, English worth learning from, written for the same teachers and learners the rest of this site is built for.
What the blog is for
Every material in the shop starts from an interesting idea, not a textbook category. The blog is where we think out loud about those ideas before they become a lesson, the topic, the tension in it, and the language it needs, written up as an article instead of a worksheet.
All posts
How to run an English conversation class that isn't just chatting
Chatting is easy to start and impossible to sustain for a term. A sixty minute shape that keeps adults talking, plus what to do about the student who never speaks and the group where levels do not match.
ESL speaking activities that don't end in awkward silence
Ten discussion questions on a slide are not a speaking activity. What actually makes adults talk: something to react to, the language delivered before it is needed, and a task that ends in a decision.
Teaching English to adults: what changes when the student is forty
An adult brings expertise, an ego and a week that keeps eating the homework. Six things that change in the classroom once your student has a job, a mortgage and opinions of their own.
Categories
Every post belongs to one category, and the category collects every text from the same family of materials.
Teaching ideas
Posts for teachers working with adults. Lesson structure, tasks that produce real conversation, and what to do with a group whose levels do not match.