Many teachers consider doing further qualifications to improve their teaching knowledge and skills, but sometimes it can be difficult to choose which course is right for you. For those of you that already hold a Cert TESOL (or equivalent) certificate and have at least two years of post-cert...
-
30th September 2019By Clare Voke
-
2nd July 2019By Sharon Maloney
Ever feel like your students are stultifying, bored and demotivated? Maybe it’s not the subject, but your teaching. Competing for the splintered attentions of our learners has never been harder. It has now become a chronic situation, familiar to all teachers when struggling to motivate learners... -
11th June 2019By Bryan Holmes
Many non-native English speakers have problems recognizing and using the different intonation patterns in English. For an instructor, it’s crucial to raise the learners’ awareness of intonation because it performs a function, as well as indicating an emotion. Teaching this aspect of phonology... -
4th June 2019By Bryan Holmes
‘Receptive Skills’ (also known as ‘Passive Skills’, or reading and listening) are often contrasted with productive skills (speaking and writing). When learning a new language learners tend to develop their receptive skills first and then acquire productive capability. It’s a complex... -
21st May 2019By Tom Garside
Whenever we use language, whether we are speaking, listening, reading or writing, we do it in some kind of context. The situation we are in, the tone we want to express and the ways that others respond to us all affect the nature of the language choices that we make. Language without context lacks... -
30th April 2019By Tom Garside
Over the past 200 years or so, English has grown to become the lingua franca (shared language) in a huge range of industries. The fields of media, engineering, medicine, shipping, air travel, international business and commerce all rely on English as the common language which can facilitate... -
16th April 2019By James Pengelley
The grammar juggernaut continues to roll on despite many of the criticisms of an overly grammar-oriented focus that we’ve discussed previously on this blog. In spite of our criticisms, one of the confusing things to make clear is that we don’t discourage teachers from teaching grammar entirely.... -
29th May 2018By Tom Garside
China has grown into a fascinating, diverse, challenging and ultimately rewarding place to be an English teacher (though of course this depends on the situation where you find yourself when you get to the school you are working with). The range of education groups, schools, kindergartens,...