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Academic life

94 articles
The Benefits of Peer Feedback: Encouraging Collaboration in Class
4 min read 4 min

Feedback plays a crucial role in helping us to communicate with others. Every day we nod in agreement, smile, raise our eyebrows, or ask people to rep...

AI in the classroom: What teachers need to know in 2026
5 min read 5 min

The most popular AI tools have been available to the public for three years now. In that time, the pendulum has swung from concerns about global secur...

How to create excellent handouts – 10 tips
4 min read 4 min

The classic handout is one of teaching’s most used resources. But what makes a good handout? Here, EF’s Marc Kets gives his top 10 tips for taking you...

19 ways to challenge yourself as a teacher
4 min read 4 min

In education, we often talk about how to challenge our students—but what about ourselves as teachers? In a teaching career, it’s normal to find yourse...

11 (more) tips to encourage unmotivated students
4 min read 4 min

If you’re struggling with ideas to motivate a discouraged student or learner who can’t see the progress they’re making, we’ve got a few tips to share....

Are native English speaking teachers better?
4 min read 4 min

Some students and schools believe that the only good teacher is a Native English Speaking Teacher (sometimes referred to as a NEST or Mother Tongue sp...

Enhancing Students’ Critical Thinking Skills through Literary Analysis
4 min read 4 min

The importance of critical thinking in language educationWhen it comes to learning English, there is an important distinction between descriptive spee...

How my students benefited from studying a language abroad
4 min read 4 min

Mara Reynoso is a teacher living and working in Mexico. During her career she has gone on several overseas group travel trips with her students. Here,...

Building the Foundations of Differentiation: Helping Students to Set Clear Goals
3 min read 3 min

Most teachers at some point have struggled to cope with the range of abilities and backgrounds of students in a class. Tailoring instructional methods...

Teaching English Grammar Effectively: Exploring the Difference Between Explicit and Implicit Grammar Teaching
4 min read 4 min

IntroductionThe decades-old debate between explicit and implicit grammar teaching is one of the most divisive in language education.Advocates of expli...

Five things students can learn from an English test
3 min read 3 min

English tests are not an aim in and of themselves, although they’re sometimes treated as if they were. In fact, there’s a lot that English testing sho...

Technology in the classroom
4 min read 4 min

Technology in the classroomLearning technologies have been essential for teachers and students for decades, if not centuries. In fact, at one point, e...