In this episode, we celebrate International Women’s Day with a takeover by Sandy Millin and Ceri Jones. They look at the history of the day, talk about their experiences as women in ELT, reflect on representation in ELT, and maintain the TEFL Commute tradition by having not one, but two quizzes!

Our 13th season begins by looking at animals. Lindsay ponders when we teach animal vocabulary, while Shaun gets carried away with onomatopoeic sounds. After joining us at the end of the last season, we welcome Sandy back with her new feature. Add in some quizzes, idioms and collective nouns and we have a bumper first episode of the season,

It’s the final episode of season 12 so it’s our traditional round table (well, round zoom) episode. This season’s theme is podcasts with Shaun and Lindsay joined by James, and a new additional to the TEFL commute team. This year’s rules are simple – bring one podcast related to language, one about teaching and one you’d recommend to others. So come listen and find out what we’ve chosen

In the penultimate episode of the season, Shaun and Lindsay discuss adventure. They look at how TEFL is often marketed as an adventure, and the part adventure plays in course materials as well as discussing how to go about utilising ‘adventure’ with students from timeless classroom activities through to the latest craze of escape rooms.

It’s episode 3 already and this episode we talk ‘fake’, an interesting word that doesn’t always collocate with news! In the episode Shaun and Lindsay look at authenticity, imposter syndrome and whether ‘the man with 13 jobs, is real or not. In addition there is a ‘fake’ music quiz, and producer James gives us an idea for a fake news activity.

In the week of the US election it seemed fitting to do an episode called dictator but don’t worry, we are not giving him too much airtime. While we do look at Trump's impact on the English language, the episode also discusses authoritarian teachers, and explores the use of dictation as a teaching activity.

Shaun and Lindsay kick off the 12th season of the TEFL commute by discussing ‘normal’. The talk about the use of the word ‘normal’, and discover the phrase ‘ the new normal’ is older than it seems. Lindsay regales Shaun with a tale of Mr. Average, and since it’s a new season we even let Producer James join the episode.

In the final instalment of our mini-series Shaun and Lindsay take ten-minutes to discuss the future. With lockdown beginning to undo in many places and schools working out how to start up again we discuss some of the ideas that have been suggested

In our penultimate instalment Lindsay and Shaun discuss taking breaks. We consider how to ensure that we take break in and between lessons and little trips for our well-being.

In this instalment Lindsay and Shaun talk slow. No that will never happen, they only have ten minutes afterall. By slow we mean what to do when the internet slows. Lindsay gives you tips on making sure you have enough bandwidth while shaun gives you some ideas to help you with students on a slow connection.