Well, we’ve just about recovered from December and January – time to get back on the horse!

The first #AusELT Twitter chat of 2015 is scheduled for Thurs 5th Feb at 8.30pm Sydney time (click here to check the time where you are).

We had a few interesting suggestions for topics:

Group work

There’s more to this than meets the eye. We could discuss: what works, what doesn’t; how to group; who to group; group projects/ homework (in/out of classroom); group management; etc. (thanks Lesley Cioccarelli for these ideas). If this appeals, you might also want to have a look at this blog post which recently attracted a big positive response on social media: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/students-riding-coattails-group-work-five-simple-ideas-try/ (thanks Phil Chappell for sharing).

Writing with lower levels

Writing is often a neglected skill, and in particular, teachers often seem to be struggling to get lower-level students writing. We could talk about foundations for writing, helping students with literacy needs, and helping Academic English students bring their writing level up, as well as what activities, book and other resources have helped. If this interests you, why not also take a look at the summary of an #AusELT chat on motivating General English students to write.

Reading tasks and methods

What kind of reading do we do in class? Are we really teaching sub skills of reading beyond “gist” and “detail” and if so, what? Can we teach reading more effectively? Does phonics have a role in the English language reading classroom? The ideas here are different to last year’s discussion of extensive reading, and recently provoked some discussion on the #AusELT Facebook page.

So without further ado, please vote for the topic you would most like to talk about on Thursday using the poll below. Results will be announced on Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday.

This post by @sophiakhan4