Monday, September 28, 2009
Jobs are important, they are the door to $$$$ and it is important even if you have a secure job, to keep intouch with what is happening in the ELT (English Language Teaching) job market. I’ve been a student of this biz for awhile and will be coming out with a new site that is [...]
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
“Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.” — Jules Renard
“ideas to get your student’s pencils moving”
Writing is and isn’t an easy thing to do in the classroom. Especially nowadays when students don’t have long attention spans and are more and more “digital” and visual learners.
However, it is a vital skill that opens up [...]
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Sunday, September 6, 2009
I am of late, a very big fan of culturally specific content. What I mean is English teaching material that uses the student’s own culture and environment as the backdrop and “content”. I live and teach in Korea right now, so I have been using a lot of Korean subjects and Korean culture by which [...]
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Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The teacher must orient his work not on yesterday’s development in the child but on tomorrow’s. – Lev Vygotsky
At a lecture last week, I mentioned Vygotsky and several teachers were curious and asked me for more information. It got me thinking about my own relationship with this collossus and sharing some of his “necessary” words [...]
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I have many presentations both on our Professional Development page, on our Practice Page and on our Teacher Training page — which provide many tips and pointers regarding teaching language.
Here are the main ones in video that might benefit those newer teachers starting to teach this coming school year. Get them directly by [...]
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Headlines Around the World
Long ago, when lost in translation, in E. Europe, I was a copy editor for a English Chinese business magazine. I’d get the articles and polish them and send them back. This was in the very early days of the internet. Part of my job was rewriting the headlines. The Chinese were [...]
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
It is so important for language teachers to understand “the world” of their students and/or the society they are entering/visiting/living in….
One of the essential handbooks for gaining quick and valuable information about a foreign culture is Understanding Your International Students – Jeffra Flaitz, U. of Mich. Press. / Also, Understanding your Immigrant Students Here [...]
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Short videos like those on Youtube or EFL Classroom, are perfect “engaging” starters for great language learning. I did a previous blog post on ways to use videos, especially “silent videos”. Also see my own presentation with “cautions” when using video. Here are some suggestions on how to use videos which have vocabulary in them, [...]
One of the things any ESL / EFL / ESOL teacher cannot avoid is “culture”. We deal on this playing field, a classroom/school where cultures meet and collide, even if only our own and the native culture. So it is imperative that we teachers have a sensitive, refined understanding of how culture [...]
One of my previous blog posts spoofed the 7 “marvellous” sins of great teachers. Now, I’d like to unspoof and great real and talk about “new” English teachers.
I just spent 2 days interviewing 29 new teachers each day! Wow, talk about a treadmill….. The teachers besides answering questions had to go through a "demo" lesson [...]
