Advancing Learning Podcast
With your co-hosts Will Rixon and Harry Waters, the Advancing Learning Podcast is a place for conversation, debate, idea-sharing and merry-making, all in the name of Advancing Learning in the wonderful world of ELT.
It accompanies the wider Advancing Learning Academic Programme from Macmillan Education, where you'll find a whole range of teacher training webinars, blog articles, resources and more at www.macmillanenglish.com/alap.
Episodes
31 episodes
S02 E14 Critical Thinking in Language Education
Do you teach critical thinking skills in your classroom? How do you go about it? And why do you feel the need to teach them?The unstoppable Chia Suan Chong at long last joins the Advancing Learning Podcast to discuss what forms critical ...
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Season 2
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Episode 14
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27:57
S02 E13 Neurodiversity Questions Answered - ADHD
ADHD expert, Vicky Allan, joins Will and Harry on an episode getting into depth on ADHD, how teachers can identify it, what is actually is (and isn't), and how you can create a learning environment that includes all students present.This...
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Season 2
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Episode 13
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24:23
S02 E12 Neurodiversity Questions Answered - Dyslexia
World-renowned dyslexia expert Boelo van der Pool joins Will and Harry to share his responses to the enormous number of questions we received about supporting students with dyslexia during the Global Teachers' Festival.This is part 2 of ...
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Season 2
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Episode 12
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29:59
S02 E11 Neurodiversity Questions Answered - Autism
The wonderfully talented and experienced Claire Hart joins Will and Harry to answer some of the questions you all asked throughout the Global Teachers' Festival around neurodiversity, more specifically, about supporting learners with autism.
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Season 2
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Episode 11
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30:43
S02 E10 Using Plays to Explore Language and Emotion
Jody Medland joins Will to share his unique experience using manuscripts from plays to allow students to explore them linguistically and also the motivations behind the lines, and therefore, the emotions their character is feeling.Listen...
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Season 2
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Episode 10
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27:53
S02 E09 Mindfulness and Its Journey to the Classroom
Mindful learning and mindful practices are gradually becoming a staple of an effective and efficient learning environment. Why has it become so important? Where did it's journey to education start? And why should all teachers be awa...
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26:40
S02 E08 The Autonomous Teenager: Key Ingredients
What does it take for a teenager to be in control of their learning? Is it the subject matter? The pedagogy behind the content? Or is it a simple matter of having a good relationship with the teacher?Karolina Kotorowicz-Jasińska proposes...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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26:10
S02 E07 Results are in!: Teen Emotions Survey Roundtable
Alicja Gałązka picks apart your responses to questions we posed to you in a recent survey aiming to find out more about your experience of teenagers' emotions when they reach teenagehood and how they manifest during learning.What are the...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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30:30
S02 E06 Making Learning Meaningful to Engage Your Learners
Monica Rodriguez Salvo joins Will and Harry to delve deep into making learning as relevant as possible to make the absolute best of the time you have with your learners.They discuss if you tap into a student's agency and the things they ...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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27:06
S02 E05 Learning Grammar in L1 vs. L2
Anna Parr-Modrzejewska joins Harry and Will in an episode that digs deep into how grammar is taught in a whole variety of circumstances, from L1 to L2, from implicit to explicit instruction, and from younger to more mature learners.What...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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31:47
S02 E04 What's the Point of Assessment?
Pere Cortiella Ibàñez and Will Rixon pull apart the true purpose of assessment why it's regarded in the way it is by all its players: the teacher, the student, the parent, the institution and the government.What is the true purpose of a...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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30:23
S02 E03 Good results should reflect good learning
The third episode of the Advancing Learning Pod brings Claudia Rey into the fray (rhyming intended). Claudia sets Harry and Will on the straight and narrow with what's important when preparing learners for exams.I'll give you a clue...i...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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28:56
S02 E02 Inclusivity, We All Matter
Do you feel your classroom is inclusive? To what extent? What does 'inclusive' mean to you?Sarah Hillyard joins Will and Harry to discuss the multitude of meanings of 'inclusion' and how this might be achieved in the English language le...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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27:00
S02 E01 Curiosity, Classrooms and Beavers
To kick-off the second season of Macmillan Education's Advancing Learning Podcast, Will and Harry are joined by the Eltonix pair, Sea Steele and Sarah Smith to discuss what curiosity is, how brains work when they're curious and how it ca...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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28:40
S01 E16 SDGs: An Infinite Classroom Resource
Harry is joined by Marcela Villan to explore a whole range of classroom ideas that you can use to help your learners to explore the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals in class.Bookmark this session to keep these ideas in your...
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Season 1
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Episode 16
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29:24
S01E15 Instagram, Tik-tok & Short-form Content
Claire Bowes, with more than 1.5 million followers across her Instagram and Tik-tok profiles, Englii, joins Will and...
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Season 1
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Episode 15
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31:17
S01 E14 Proactively Diminishing Bullying Part 2
For the second part of this conversation with the wonderful Donna Lee Fields, she probes Harry and Will on their own reactions to certain behaviour in the classroom.The 3 of them look at 2 scenarios and how might a teacher label them in...
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Season 1
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Episode 14
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31:58
S01 E13 Becoming an ELT Author
Ethan Mansur, author of the recently published Ready For C2 joins Harry and Will on the metaphoric sofa, to discuss how he got into authoring (and others might do so) from being a teacher and teacher trainer. Hear from 3 diff...
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Season 1
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Episode 13
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26:41
S01 E12 Pronunciation: Get Out of Your Head
Harry and Will are joined by Adrian Underhill, a true icon of pronunciation and a lifelong advocate for supporting our language learners with the relevant knowledge and skills to develop their own pronunciation.The conversation begins w...
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Season 1
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Episode 12
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28:45
S01 E11 To C2 or not to C2
Elspeth Pollock (teacher training, assessment and exams extraordinaire) joins Will and Harry for a brilliant discussion about C2 proficiency. They look at the student that has ambitions to achieve a C2 level on paper, and also what it takes to ...
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Season 1
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Episode 11
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31:43
S01 E10 Beyond the Classroom: Face-to-face Vs Online CPD
In this second part to the 'Beyond the Classroom' episodes, Harry and Will delve in the wheres, whys and hows of teaching and learning, focusing on the comparisons between face-to-face vs. online teacher training.What do you think? Does...
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Season 1
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Episode 10
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26:54
S01 E09 Beyond the Classroom: Expanding Horizons in ELT
From their relatively unique perspectives within the wild world of ELT, Harry and Will discuss the life of a teacher outside the day-to-day of the language learning classroom.This episode looks at some ways teachers might explore to div...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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30:05
S01 E08 Proactively Diminishing Bullying Part 1
In this standout episode with Harry and Will, we are joined by Donna Lee Fields to get her eye-opening perspective on reinforcing your students positively.This episode looks at so-called 'bullying', and specifically 3 scenarios and how ...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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36:08
S01 E07 Learning to Love Learning
This episode takes us right back to the origins of learning, with our special guests from Eltonix.com, Sea Steel and Sarah Smith.How can a teacher make the best of those natural urges we all had when we first tried to understand the wor...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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32:52
S01E06 What is Grammar's Role in the ELT Classroom?
With special guest David Spencer joining Harry and Will, listen as they dive into the role of grammar in a classroom of 2023, and if indeed, there is a wrong or right way of approaching grammar instruction.Flipped grammar classroom vide...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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30:31