As a brand new teacher, I found myself teaching supply to a class of eight year olds. I had just completed a Cert TESOL a month prior, but I still didn’t have an overwhelming bank of ‘go to‘ vocabulary activities to draw from. The games that I remembered from my own childhood were “I Spy” and “...
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23rd January 2018By Eve Conway
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16th January 2018By Tom Garside
Users of English from different language backgrounds have specific issues with language for a variety of reasons. Sometimes patterns of grammar or pronunciation get carried over from their first language (L1 transfer issues), and sometimes a feature exists in English that is not present in their... -
9th January 2018By Tom Garside
With so much global demand for English teachers, and with such a broad range of different TEFL, TESOL and TESL certificates out there, it can be difficult to decide how, or even whether to get qualified before signing up for an English teaching job. Any teacher who has done a 120-hour, face-to-face... -
2nd January 2018By Tom Garside
Informed pronunciation teaching is a challenge for new and experienced teachers. It involves a minefield of technical knowledge, confusion over accents and varieties of English, and when related to reading, involves a lot of fighting against the horrible spelling rules that English has held onto... -
26th December 2017By Eve Conway
As a Cert TESOL tutor, I work with trainee teachers every day who upon finishing the course go out to teach in the real world. One of the biggest challenges facing new teachers in particular is planning. Whilst experienced teachers may have a bank of readily available lesson planning ideas which... -
19th December 2017By Eve Conway
Not long ago, I stumbled across a game that went viral on Facebook, which most language teachers will know as ‘Two truths and a lie’. For anyone who doesn’t know this game, you tell 2 truths about yourself and make up one lie. The person that you are playing with needs to decide which ones are the... -
12th December 2017By Bryan Holmes
Using authentic materials in an ESL classroom provides many benefits for learners. Exploiting them in class can give learners a sense of achievement, show language in a realistic context, and offer an opportunity for real communication. Unfortunately, many learners assume that they are incapable of... -
5th December 2017By Ryan Robbie
Teaching in Asia is full of surprises. One of the most surprising things I found is how many students write “Christmas tree” at the top of their Christmas wish list. This helped me understand just how different our cultures are from East to West. Even though Christmas may not be celebrated at...