The Power of Emergent Language — with Lewis Jaquest

Lewis Jaquest joins Laura to explore how emergent language and learner agency can transform the language classroom. In this episode, Lewis shares how he developed the Student Emergent Language Framework (SELF), reflects on his transition to bottom-up teaching, and unpacks what truly makes language learning meaningful.

Watch with closed captions.

TALKING POINTS

1. What is Emergent Language? How Lewis discovered the power of emergent language through real-world teaching—and how it aligned with Dogme ELT and "Teaching Unplugged".
2. Letting Go of Control: Why embracing messiness and letting go of rigid lesson plans can lead to more meaningful learning.
3. The Student Emergent Language Framework (SELF): How SELF helps learners track, reflect on, and own their learning—plus how it can reverse-engineer an entire syllabus.
4. Reflection as a Teaching Tool: Lewis shares how reflection (for both teachers and students) underpins his framework—and why it’s often overlooked.
5. From Framework to Podcast: How Lewis’s learners used the SELF framework to create their own language podcast, showcasing language they truly needed.

ABOUT

Lewis Jaquest is a passionate English language and communication trainer and materials writer from Swansea, South Wales. He has worked in ELT for nearly 20 years. He began teaching English in Hamburg, Germany in 2007 and went on to do a Diploma in Teaching in Barcelona in 2019. Lewis founded his language and communication business, Wordsmithery, in the same year and transitioned to online teaching in 2020. He’s particularly interested in helping Business English learners communicate authentically and creates tailor-made materials for his online lessons which focus on exploiting emergent learner language to make learning experiences that are interactive, engaging and fun. He writes the regular newsletters “Gimme 5 “ for learners and “Bright Sparks - the Creative Business English Teacher” for educators. 

RESOURCES & REFERENCES

🔗 The SELFI framework for emergent language

🔗 Wordsmithery.ELT

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CREDITS

Producer: Laura Wilkes

Editor: Haven Tsang

Special thanks to our guest, Lewis Jaquest

Production by Communicating for Impact

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