Isabela Villas Boas, Autor em RichmondShare Blog | High quality content and interaction in the ELT world

Isabela Villas Boas

Assessment conundrums

8 de junho de 2015

I am teaching a course for public school English teachers in Brasilia and one of the topics addressed is assessment. The aim of this part of the course is to improve teachers’ assessment literacy, allowing them to provide informed feedback on the assessment system used in their institution and develop assessment systems and tools that...Read More

Language testing & assessment

formal assessment, formative assessment, informal assessment, summative assessment. reliability, validity, washback

Aligning lead-ins and “lead-outs”

8 de maio de 2015

by Isabela Villas Boas

My last post dealt with a tendency I have been noticing in my classroom observations regarding lead-ins being either used to pre-teach language that should actually be discovered by students or turned into loose conversation activities with no clear pedagogical purpose beyond “just talk”. I also commented that this long time spent on the lead-in...Read More

Lesson Ideas

lead-ins, lead-outs, lesson planning

What a lead-in should and should not be

8 de abril de 2015

by Isabela Villas Boas

I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to observe around ten teachers each semester. These observations provide me with the chance to assess how effective our mentoring system and teacher induction sessions have been, as I typically observe teachers in their second semester at the institution. Methodologically speaking, most of the classes I observe...Read More

Classroom Experiences, Lesson Ideas, Teacher Development

lead-ins

Are there “weak” students?

8 de março de 2015

by Isabela Villas Boas

In my last post, I referred to Carol Dweck’s book Mindset – How you can Fulfill Your Potential to invite teachers to focus on a growth mindset in 2015 and stay away from ideas and practices that only help perpetuate a fixed mindset. My focus last month, thus, was on teachers themselves and how their...Read More

Reflections about Education, Teacher Development

mindsets

Tips for a great beginning in a new teaching job

8 de fevereiro de 2015

by Isabela Villas Boas

It’s the beginning of the school year in the Southern Hemisphere and many teachers are starting their teaching career or re-starting in a new school or language institute. My experience as a leader in a large ELT institute that hires around thirty new teachers every semester has shown that there are certain attitudes, dispositions and...Read More

Teacher Development

professionalism; professional development

On paradigms and mindsets: A challenge for 2015

8 de janeiro de 2015

by Isabela Villas Boas

As we are beginning a new year and many of us are enjoying our well-deserved summer vacations in the southern hemisphere, in my post today I’m going to relate my vacation experience with what I’m currently reading and propose a new year challenge. On our summer vacations, my husband and I have always favored calmer...Read More

Teacher Development

challenges, fixed mindset, growth mindset, paradigms

Ten tips for effective peer revision of EFL writing

8 de dezembro de 2014

by Isabela Villas Boas

My last post addressed the main excuses given for not doing peer revision of writing in the EFL classroom, especially in contexts such as Brazil, where peer revision is unheard of in most L1 writing classrooms. Having hopefully convinced you that it is worth at least trying peer revision in your classroom, I will now...Read More

Skills

peer revision, second language writing

Five bad excuses for not doing peer revision of writing in the EFL classroom

21 de novembro de 2014

by Isabela Villas Boas

My dear colleague Luiz Otávio Barros wrote a recent post providing ten tips to help teachers give feedback on writing. The ten tips are all very useful and are certainly in-keeping with contemporary ESL/EFL writing pedagogy. Just like Luiz Otávio, I also consider White and Arndt’s 1991 book Process Writing a seminal work on how...Read More

Skills

second language writing; peer revision

Differentiated Professional Development – promoting and experiencing it

15 de outubro de 2014

by Isabela Villas Boas

Last year I saw a call for chapter proposals for a British Council book on innovations in the continuing professional development of English language teachers. Every day I receive briefings and newsletters from the associations I’m a member of and from publications, websites, and communities I follow. Many times I come across such calls for...Read More

Teacher Development

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