ESOL practitioners will know that use of a first language in class is often frowned upon. It is said that it uses up valuable practice time and also upsets any fluent rhythm generated in speaking activities. But is this really the case? As far as we know there hasn’t been any definitive research in this […]

We at EducationState would like to celebrate the achievement of the ESOL experiment as it goes into decline, replaced by EFL.

Like the end of the Beatles, the death knell has been sounded and something that we all knew was inevitable has come to pass. No-more will teachers be able to make decisions based solely on […]

We have had the current Edumonolith in our sights for some time at EducationState but for once we are going to come out in support.

Since it was announced that there wouldn’t be automatic fee remission for ESOL students, there have been howls of protest from refugee groups, teaching unions and even the right-wing press. But, […]

If you want an insight into how important accent and pronunciation are to learning, check out the latest research on teaching literacy to children.

Seems that we learn words based not on BBC English phonics but according to how we process words. No longer can we allow external assessment as this allows for socio-cultural inequality and […]

EducationState welcomes the £15 million hand-out awarded to FE Colleges in London.

This will allow SMT’s to sweeten the pill that is redundancy and postpone the inevitable for another year. Such money, of course, does not come without strings and it was interesting to note the 1/3 of the cash was stumped up by the London […]

Heard the one about the Job Centre and FE Colleges competing for the same students and then striking a deal so that both can claim to have those students on their books to guarantee funding and ensure achievement and retention stats don’t dip?
Or, how about the Job Centre and FE Colleges running exactly the same […]

Recent influxes of economic migrants has highlighted the importance of not just Skills for Life but Values for Life. That is, the harbouring of outdated and offensive attitudes needs addressing and it currently isn’t it. In our classrooms of late there have been several racist incidents, cleverly nuanced admittedly, but racist nevertheless. The Government is […]

Recent changes to ESOL-funding priorities have left everyone involved scratching their heads. No-one knows if students will stump up the cash for something that they once got for free, teachers don’t know if they’ll have jobs, managers don’t know how many courses they need to put on and ESOL-providers have no idea how much money […]

Why are there so many exam boards? The Edumonolith is the supplier of patronage, we know, but is it really necessary to have exams tailored to every level. Learning doesn’t happen in such a cosy way so why then do we still persist with levels and grades? One exam level to join them all, please. […]

WE are very much against the use of numbers to assess education. Schools, colleges, universities and alike are NOT companies and shouldn’t be judged in the same way as an auditor judges a company i.e. on profits and costs. It should be the the impact on the students’ lives i.e. on their view of its […]