There is an overall lack of really good, up-to-day coursebooks for Business English. The general consensus amongst teachers is that what is currently available on the market tends to have a rather uniform approach in style and a "one size fits all" attitude which...
Teaching English in Panama
TEFL/TESOL in Panama Panama is a narrow isthmus which links Central America to South America. It is a major business centre and also home to the Panama Canal which links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Introduction Although the official language is Spanish, due to a...
SOV in English Sentence Structure
SOV stands for: {subject} + {object} + {verb} * I + dinner + made. * We + car + buy. * an asterisk at the beginning of a sentence shows it's ungrammatical In this sentence structure the subject comes first, the object second, and the verb third. English is not an SOV...
Diane Larsen-Freeman
Diane Larsen-Freeman is Professor of Education, Professor of Linguistics, and Director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is also a Distinguished Senior Faculty Fellow at the School for International Training in...
Teaching English in Bolivia
TEFL/TESOL in Bolivia Bolivia, often referred to as the "Tibet of the Americas", is a very poor country where education is a luxury for many of the poorer children who earn their living on the streets from a very early age. The highest concentration of Bolivians is to...
What is Linguistics?
Linguistics is the scientific and academic study of language. It tries to answer basic questions such as What is language? How is language represented in the mind? How does language work? The underlying goal of linguists is to discover the underlying rules of all...
Jigsaw Reading in TEFL
Jigsaw Reading is a common reading technique. The name comes from the way in which jigsaw puzzles are put together: several pieces slotted into the right place to build up the complete picture. Essentially you divide the text into small parts. Each part is given to a...
A Word A Day
A Word A Day is a simple daily email which anyone can sign up to which sends out a word and definition each day which is useful to help enrich and enlarge vocabulary. For TEFL teachers it is ideal; with students it is perhaps better suited to advanced learners. The...
Teaching English in Bulgaria
Since the end of Communism Bulgaria, like its neighbouring countries in the Eastern Bloc, has experienced some growth and a push towards westernization. However, the economic crises that has hit hard many of the former soviet satellite states has inevitably affected...
Gender Neutral Pronouns in English Grammar
Life would sound a bit repetitive without pronouns: Brian got up. Brian washed Brian. Later Brian went out. Brian got in Brian's car and drove off. Change a person's name into a personal pronoun and it all gets a little easier on the ear: Brian got up. He washed...