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The Language Gym by Gianfranco Conti

I rarely come across a blog combining theory and practice which I feel I can wholeheartedly recommend to language teachers. Gianfranco Conti's blog called The Language Gym is excellent. He has recently been blogging prolifically on a range of topics including reading, the relevance of Bloom's taxonomy, personality, pre- and post-task activities, noun-based teaching, gender and social class and technology.

Gianfranco blogs as a practising teacher who is also well read in applied linguistic theory and research. He writes a good number of his own resources which he shares with fellow teachers on the TES site. In his clearly written and well-referenced blog he is happy to challenge fashionable views, bringing experience and pragmatism to his reflections. Whilst he values the comprehensible input dimension in second language learning, he seems to place a particular emphasis on the structured practice of skills. He seems to be an unashamed "skill-builder". His own interactive website reflects this.

Do go and have a look at Gianfranco's blog and interactive website.

http://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com

http://www.language-gym.com




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