If you’re a non-native speaker of English and you’ve recently embarked on a teaching career, chances are that you might be making one or two classroom language mistakes you’re not even remotely aware of. After all, as an advanced student, you were probably never corrected in class if you said something like “open your books …
You will probably find this post useful if: 1. You’re a teacher of English. 2. English is not your native language. 3. You have recently made the transition from advanced student to teacher. 4. You suspect that you might still make a few pronunciation mistakes, which never get corrected.
First things first: What is subject / verb agreement? It’s a grammatical rule that states that the verb must agree in number with its subject. In English, present tense verbs change to show agreement in the third person singular form by adding an S (or ES). Seems fairly straightforward, doesn’t it? So how could it be that …
This (long!) post questions the effectiveness of an input-based teacher-education models and considers the extent to which experiential frameworks based on John Dewey’s ideas could be a viable alternative.