Author Archives: Simon Borg

Improving National Levels of English – What Matters Most?

Two recent projects I have worked on had the common goal of trying to understand at a national level the status of English learning and the factors that influence it. The two countries involved were Iraq and India – very … Continue reading

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Assessing Children’s English – Again

If I asked teachers to ‘agree or disagree’ with the following statements, what would most say?: ‘The purpose of assessment is to allow students to demonstrate what they know’.‘One function of assessment is to increase student motivation to learn’.‘Assessment should … Continue reading

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COVID and Language Teacher Education: New Research

Discussions of the impact of COVID–19 on education are understandably often framed in negative terms; the pandemic has, after all, had a massive disruptive impact on schooling globally. Teacher education – both initial teacher preparation and continuing professional development – … Continue reading

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Video-Based Observation on Teacher Development Projects

One of the challenges on large–scale teacher development projects is observing enough lessons to arrive at some general conclusions about teachers’ classroom practices, before, during and after an intervention. Various factors related to budget, human resources, and geography do in … Continue reading

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Incongruence in Pre-Service Teacher Education

“Teacher educators seem to agree that, to be able to support their student teachers’ learning, they themselves should be good models of the kind of teaching they are trying to promote. However, it is clear from the literature that this congruent … Continue reading

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