How many words do you know? There's a fascinating web project which hopes to find out not only how many words you know, but how many words everyone else knows as well. Since it began it's measured over 2 million people and the results have just been published. They...
I read an interesting article on teaching English in Trinidad and Tobago today. Essentially Creole is spoken in TT and by some it's regarded as a "sub-standard" English. In schools children learn to speak standard English which means erasing the mistakes they've...
First off let me say I'm a cat lover. And a dog lover. But this English teacher goes one step further. She was teaching English in China and adopted a stray cat. Then she spent £2,500 (about $3,800 USD) to take it back to the UK when she left the country. I don't...
There is not one single Chinese language as such but several varieties which are more or less mutually understandable. In all, these are spoken by over 1 billion people (making it more popular than English). Of the different varieties of Chinese, Mandarin is the most...
Until recently English was all but banned in universities in France and only English language courses and visiting dignitaries were allowed to use it. But now the French government is about to lift restrictions and allow English to spread into teaching. In reality...
Imagine this. You are standing in front of your CALL class and tell them to visit a certain online resource on which you've based an entire lesson. The students start work and then one by one tell you that the website you've told them to visit no longer exists. It's...
Over the years ICAL TEFL has given away many thousands of dollars in charitable donations to causes we feel are worthwhile and beneficial to the community. These have ranged from schools in Africa to books in Mongolia to help for inner-city students in the USA. Each...
Guest blogger Timothy Wright explains what happened when he got the class to grade themselves. Want to improve your student grades? Simple, have your students grade themselves. It may shock them and it may shock you, but it works! It's not as crazy as it first seems...
ESLdrama is a brand new web series produced especially for learners of English.It's stylish, clever and well produced. I watched the first episode earlier and found it completely engaging. Then I spoke to Sean James Sutton, the director of the series, to find out...
ESLdrama is a web series (a drama for ESL students) designed specifically for learners of English. It is essentially a soap opera built around the lives of half a dozen or characters. Each episode features several short scenes and the language used is basic. It has...
