Here’s the video 🎥 I made about AI 🤖 in education 🧑‍🏫 .

It’s the first in a series for teachers (and students, too) called THINKING WITH METAPHORS.

Let me know what you think? 💭

Can you teach a level faster? ⏩

Or is “a level” the problem with that question?

Here’s the second of my Thinking with Metaphors shorts — this one’s about language levels … but it’s also about paint 🎨, grass 🌱, and what happens when the map 🗺️ gets mistaken for the territory 🌍

CEFR levels are incredibly useful. But B1 isn’t a box of language that can simply be taught, covered, or delivered.

The descriptors are a way of organising and talking about something much messier: what people can actually do with language.

So when we ask how quickly we can “teach a level”, we need to ask what we mean by teach — and what we think a level actually is. 🤔 This video is about this second point: what do we mean by a “level”?

Tell me what you think 💭🤩 🧠

Happy Saturday! ☀️

How can you teach a level faster? ⏩

Here’s part two of that question — and the third of my Thinking with Metaphors videos.

The original question came from a teacher in Samarkand: “How can I teach a level faster?”

In the last video, I asked what we mean by “a level.” This time, I’m interested in the other half of the question: what do we mean by “teach”? 🤔

Because teaching something, covering it in class or from a textbook, explaining it, practising it, and somebody actually learning the thing — those aren’t necessarily the same at all.

So I’m curious: when you say you’ve “taught” something, what do you mean? What has to have happened for you to say it’s been “taught”? Tell me in the comments what you think!

Happy Wednesday! ☀️

Old stones, hidden histories, and a walk in an Irish forest. 🌳🪨

Here’s the latest in my Thinking with Metaphors series, and this time, I’m thinking about layers and about what we don’t see when we look at the learners in front of us 🧅

A question for you: Have you ever discovered something about a learner’s previous experiences that changed how you understood their behaviour in class? 🤔

I’d love to hear your stories! 💬

📚 Who decides what goes in the bookshop window, and what gets hidden away at the back?

Here's the next instalment of *Thinking with Metaphors*, inspired by an afternoon poking around the second-hand bookshops of Wigtown, Scotland's amazing little book town. 🤩

Today I kept thinking about how we organise knowledge ... and how those decisions shape what we notice, what we value, and even what we think knowledge *is*.

And then I started thinking about language teaching 🤔
Why does the present perfect get so much attention while discourse, genre and pragmatics are so often tucked away at the back of the shop beside the fire escape?

This reel is about the geography of attention and about what happens when the shop floor plan becomes a kind of curriculum.

💭 What do you think we're putting in the metaphorical shop window in language education? And what are we leaving hidden at the back?

🚗 Learning to drive is one thing. Understanding driving is another.

In this Thinking with Metaphors video, I'm out and about in Edinburgh, using driving as a metaphor to help us think about the difference between teacher training and teacher development.

Teacher training — like CELTA — is a bit like learning to drive. You learn the skills, practise them, and develop confidence behind the wheel. It’s the HOW and the WHAT. It’s super important.

But teacher development takes us in some rather different directions next. It gives us the WHY 🧠

I split this into three broad areas:
🔧 Cognitive approaches: thinking like a mechanic.
🚌 Sociocultural approaches: thinking like a bus driver.
🏙️ Critical approaches: thinking like a city planner.

Same roads. Similar driving skills. Very different questions and insights.

And the point isn't that one approach is better or worse. It's that each helps us see something the others might miss.

💬 Which of these ways of thinking has most shaped your own development as a teacher? What kind of learning and development do you feel you need next, and why? Let’s discuss!

#ThinkingWithMetaphors #TeacherDevelopment #TeacherEducation
#ELT #TESOL #TeacherTraining

🗓️ How much do you know about the Stone Age? How’s your sense of DEEP TIME?

Knowing history isn’t just about remembering dates. History lets us understand the world — what happened when, what existed alongside what, and just how *weirdly recent* some things are. 🤯

And this matters massively for teachers. Think about IELTS: it tests language, but its texts and tasks draw on everything. Science, history, archaeology, technology, society, the environment… 🌍 EVERYTHING 🫨😱😁

So come with me to some very old places while I squeeze 300,000 years of human history into a single calendar year.

📣 If you enjoy this one, please help it travel! Repost it to your broadcast channel, or forward it to others who might enjoy it too. ❤️

#ThinkingWithMetaphors #DeepTime #IELTS #ELT #TESOL #teachers #history #stoneage

How are shadows like IELTS scores? What do restaurant star ratings have to do with reality? Are step counts the same as physical activity levels?

Let’s talk about proxies.

#thinkingwithmetaphors #IELTS #teachers #tesol #ELT

Some things are fun while you’re doing them. Others are mostly cold, tiring, frustrating, difficult, uncomfortable — and somehow become enjoyable afterwards.

That’s Type 2 fun.

In this video, I use hiking to think about language learning: the gap between comfort and challenge, why difficulty can be productive, and why progress often involves spending time doing things that don’t feel especially fluent or successful in the moment.

Along the way: steep hills, bad weather, the Zone of Proximal Development, Krashen’s i+1, and my own experience of learning Spanish through increasingly difficult novels.

Because learning isn’t always supposed to feel easy.

#LanguageLearning #LanguageTeaching #TESOL #AppliedLinguistics #TeacherDevelopment #Learning #Hiking

What does it mean to sound like a “native speaker” — and why is that so often treated as the goal? What do YOU think? Are you trying to sound “native”, or not, and why?

In this video, a group of Scottish men have a completely fluent, animated conversation about… mint.

They are native speakers. Their English is entirely legitimate. And for many listeners, much of it may be extremely difficult to understand.

That is not a failure on anyone’s part. It is a reminder that “nativeness” and intelligibility are not the same thing.

If the purpose of English is communication across different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, then perhaps the better target is not imitation of native speakers at all.

Intelligibility is not just about speakers, and it’s not just about listeners. It’s about both speakers and listeners and the situations they’re in.

#Intelligibility #ELF #EnglishAsALinguaFranca #LanguageTeaching #TESOL #AppliedLinguistics #TeacherDevelopment

❤️ THINKING WITH METAPHORS: SWEETHEART ABBEY

What can a ruined abbey in Scotland tell us about how language works?

Quite a lot, it turns out.

There’s a love story, a rather unusual burial, and three fascinating ways we make meaning: metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche.

Come for the medieval romance. Stay for the linguistics. ❤️

THINKING WITH METAPHORS: KEYS

I’ve got a bunch of keys that I carry around with me. Different types of keys. For different things.

But what can a bunch of keys tell us about teaching English?

More than you might think. 🔑

🦁 Thinking With Metaphors: BAD LIONS

What do historical paintings and sculptures of lions have to do with teaching English?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

This week, we’re going back hundreds of years to meet some lions … and also some “lions” 🤣 From there, we’re heading into the language classroom.

A question to think about as you watch: How closely does the English in our textbooks resemble the English that people actually use?

Enjoy! 🦁