A Verb Phrase is a group of words which work together in the same way as a single verb does. For example, the verbs in the sentences below are highlighted bold. She slept soundly. The dog barked all night. In the following examples instead of a single word acting as a...
Suicide & the Hangman Game
There's a report in a Japanese paper about how a TEFL teacher in Yachiyo has come in for criticism after continually playing Hangman with students even after a student at the school committed suicide by hanging. (See below for a translation of the original article.)...
Travel makes you Creative!
How Multicultural Learning Experiences Facilitate Creativity - that's the title of a research paper published earlier this year. It says, essentially, that if you have more experiences traveling and living abroad then you'll be more creative in your everyday life....
Macmillan Bribery in TEFL
It's just come out that Macmillan Publishers has been banned by the World Bank over bribes it paid to the Sudanese government to secure lucrative education contracts in the Sudan. This came as quite a surprise to me (and I guess a lot of other people, too) for a...
Teaching in [put country here] frustrations!
Trust me. If you want to find out what it's like teaching in a particular country be prepared to wade through loads of advertising rubbish if you decide to use Google! We had an inquiry from one of our students who was interested in teaching in Croatia and asked us...
Trying out Rosetta Stone
You may or may not be familiar with the Rosetta Stone language learning software. I got a chance to play with some; a friend lent me the German package so all week I've been learning German from the ground up. Essentially you start off with some nouns and labels:...
Back behind a Desk – learning a new language
Well I'm on business/holiday right now but in Portugal - a country I've never visited before. I always think it's a fascinating experience to be in a place where you know nothing at all of the language. It immediately reminds you what it is like to be a complete...