Dear Alex The questions you ask (Can theory help teachers? Which theories can make a difference? Should teachers bother?) have some points in common with the...

Hi Piers, Sorry about the tabloid subject line - I just like stirring. I was really interested by your post, and I've been studying your PhD over the last...

Dear Alex Thanks for your thoughts (and kind words). You asked about what an articulatory diagram or other representation for teaching vowels might look like....

Hi Piers, Got to be honest, I haven't had time to check out the articulatory diagrams yet, but will do soon! I suppose a basic question in my mind is this: all...

Dear Alex ... I'd say that sometimes they are, but often not. Which is why teachers have had to develop pedagogical grammars of language (whether they call...

... This is something that has long bothered me about the way vowels are represented and explained using quadrilaterals and triangles. When you go to teach...

Here is a good example of a discussion of what is at issue with the representation of vowels and vowel systems of languages: ...

I was doing some more follow up reading on this. It seems we moderns/post-moderns get confused about at least two things: 1. We often confuse articulatory...

Hi J.Murphy, You sent your message to the Moderator e-mail, rather than posting it on the site, so I'm copy-pasting it across. To respond to posts, click on...

Hello J. Murphy I think you have been rather unlucky to meet so many teachers with so little knowledge. Having prior knowledge of linguistics and so, I feel,...

Hi Anna and J. I think I've worked in different places that coincide with both of your experiences. A central factor seems to be the market for EFL teachers. ...

It seems to me that much of the conceptual apparatus of ELT is creaking. It's locked into structuralist and behaviourist analysis and conceptualization, most...