Total physical response - TPR Where is it from? How can I use it in class? When should I use it? Foreign words used in English Introduction The lesson begins with a short quiz about the English language, which makes sure that the students understand what a hybrid language English is, and the concept of loan words. They then look at some common loan words and try to decide which language they originally came from, before reading a short text to check their ideas. The point is made in the text that English spelling (and pronunciation) seems very irregular because so many words come from different languages. The students then look at some commonly misspelt words and learn to spell them correctly. Bradley - Scaffolding Academic Learning for Second Language Learners The Internet TESL Journal Karen Sue Bradley & Jack Alden Bradleykfksb00 [at] tamuk.eduTexas A&M University (Kingsville, Texas, USA) Introduction What is meant by the term scaffolding?
How to Price Your Online Course (Complete Guide to Course Pricing) If you’ve created an online course, then you know that there were a ton of decisions that you had to make throughout the process. From choosing your course topic to your recording equipment, your course title, what to include in your lessons, how to create your content, how to market your course, and everything else in between. And somewhere in that process, you faced the difficult decision of choosing a price for your course. And if you’re anything like most of the online instructors out there, pricing online courses is not something that comes naturally to you. IATEFL 2018: Safe Speaking Environments - What? Why? How? Published 9 April 2018 In our first post from IATEFL 2018, we’re sharing the talk from Professor of Psycholinguistics, Zoltán Dörnyei, on what exactly Safe Speaking Environments are and why you should care. The talk looks at creating a psychological environment in the classroom which might make students’ lives easier.
Learning styles discussion forum Introduction The aim of this discussion forum was to summarise and critique the current debate around learning styles. Three presenters – Carol Lethaby, Philip Kerr and Phil Dexter - gave short, 20-minute presentations providing insight, clarification and opinion on the debate from varying standpoints, giving carefully considered views on the effectiveness (or not), usefulness (or not), application and criticism of learning styles in English language teaching. Following the presentations, the issue was explored in more depth with a question and answer session. The three presentations Carol Lethaby Motivating speaking activities for lower levels Planning time has been shown to increase production in speaking tasks. Lower level learners often find it especially difficult to speak spontaneously, so these activities incorporate 'thinking time' during which learners can prepare for speaking by planning what they are going to say, and asking the teacher or using a dictionary to look up missing vocabulary. The following activities are relatively short, with minimal materials preparation time for the teacher. They are designed for use as a warmer or a filler in the middle or at the end of a class. 1.
How a Weekly Gratitude Practice Can Change Your Life and Free Printable Cultivating a weekly gratitude practice can do wonders for your health and wellbeing. Anyone can practice gratitude. It only takes a few minutes and doesn’t cost any money. Keeping a gratitude journal is a wonderful way to say ‘thank you’ for all the good in your life. Motivating teenagers I will link three practical classroom activities to the ideas of American Psychologist Carl Rogers. The ideas of Carl Rogers Types of motivation and teenagers Ways to improve motivation:Journals - empathy Using photos - authenticity Music - acceptance The ideas of Carl Rogers Rogers (1957) outlined 3 attitudinal qualities that a teacher, or in his words, a facilitator, should have to assist the learning process. They are empathy (seeing things from the students' viewpoint), authenticity (being yourself) and acceptance (of students' ideas and opinions). Types of motivation and teenagers It is widely agreed that motivation has a great effect on a student's capacity to learn.
The 10 Best Podcasts for Teens: Good Podcasts They’ll Listen to So you’re stuck at home, self-isolating with your teen(s). Is it week six of this? Week 12? We’ve lost track in the madness. Top ten time-management tips for teachers I often hear teachers in staffrooms complaining about students who are late for lessons and claim they have no time to complete their homework tasks, and yet spend their waking hours on social media and binge-watching series after series on Netflix. Then there are teachers who sneer at me when I talk about CPD (Continuing Professional Development) and categorically tell me that they have time for no such thing. There is no doubt that time-management is a skill that we are not born with and like any other skill, takes time (ironic, I know!) to hone.
Practical activities for teaching listening decoding skills – a webinar recording Posted: August 11, 2018 in Uncategorized This blog post was 18 months in the making. Last year I did a webinar on Practical activities for teaching listening decoding skills for the Electronic Village Online session on Teaching Listening. The recording created by the webinar platform was in .exe format so I couldn’t share it, but I really enjoyed the webinar and have been meaning to create a screencast. Today I finally got round to making one, so here goes!
What to consider when teaching English in large classes How many students do you teach? Do you feel that your classes are too big? Author and education consultant Jason Anderson looks at the issues and offers some potential solutions. For many of us, our classes are larger than we would like them to be. They can present a number of challenges that teachers of smaller classes are less likely to face. But what exactly do we mean by large classes? Some thoughts on authentic listening materials I’ve been a materials writer for 2 months now. It’s about time I started reflecting on it. I haven’t had time to do so as it’s a very busy role – hence the lack of blog activity. I’m currently writing lessons for a functional, task-led syllabus. There’s a strong focus on speaking, listening and pronunciation. Each lesson has a listening text (well, bout 90% of them do) which is a model for the main task that students complete during a lesson.