Surely one of the most fascinating subjects for the language classroom is the subject of language itself. By that, I’m not referring to those all-too-familiar grammar explanations in which the teacher uses images of winning the lottery to explain the second conditional (we’ve all done it!) I am referring to the topics that might be […]

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This is the title of a guest posting that I have written for the Macmillan Dictionary blog (link given below). In the posting, I look at the theory behind a YouTube clip that I made a few months ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5XNR419aXE

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You can read the posting here.

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Here’s my favourite YouTube clip of the moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_B5UrI7nAI

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This is a bit like an audio version of the famous Rubin’s vase. In this optical illusion, you can see either the vase or the two profiled faces but you can’t see them both at once.

Similarly, in the “Obama’s elf” auditory illusion (if that’s what you can call […]

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I’ve just posted a lesson plan on teflclips called Can you say that grammatically?. The aim of the activity is to introduce students to variation in English.
Part of the activity involves getting students to identify the non-standard grammar in a series of sentences such as:

I’ll give it you tomorrow
What would you do if it would […]

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