A Cleft Sentence (cleft, past participle of cleave = split) is a sentence that has been split into two clauses - a main clause and a subordinate clause - in order to emphasize one part of it. This part is often referred to as the "focus". It is her kindness that I...
Teaching English in Afghanistan
TEFL/TESOL in Afghanistan Although English used to be shunned by the Taliban in Afghanistan, it is now the language of choice for a growing number of foreign language schools springing up in a climate of more tolerance in the country. In many schools English is taught...
Grammar Translation in TEFL
The Grammar-Translation method (or GTM) was the most popular teaching method for over 100 years and it continues to be used even today despite many years of criticism. Essentially the GTM involves simply translating English into the mother tongue of the students....
Stage Fright – Overcoming Teaching Nerves
All performers - and teachers when they stand in front of a class are performers - feel stage fright when they begin. However, experienced performers (including teachers) channel that fright into performing energy. Fight your fears and the rewards will soon outweigh...
Inventions Who & When?! – passive voice activity
Inventions Who & When?! is a simple activity to help your students practice using the passive voice. It is very flexible and can be used with all ages and levels who are familiar with the passive voice. There are a number of variations on the activity at the...
Fundamentals of English Grammar (book)
Author: Betty Schrampfer Azar Publisher: Pearson ESL Details: paperback; 3rd Edition; Pub. 2007 ISBN: 0132353350 A very interactive English grammar book, featuring many useful charts on major and minor grammar topics. A book you can use either to learn or to teach....
ELT – English Language Teaching
ELT is an acronym standing for English Language Teaching, something of a catch-all term to describe teaching English to people who do not speak it as a native language. Of course there is not one "English Language" to be taught. What you teach will depend very much...
Discipline in your TEFL Class
Unfortunately TEFL is not just about teaching English, the issue of Discipline also arises and needs to be covered and dealt with effectively. Whilst discipline in language schools is not normally as much of a problem as it is in regular state schools, as a teacher...
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the ability to speak more than one language. In some definitions this means speaking a language as a native speaker or to native speaker standard, however some definitions are more flexible allowing multilingual to mean being able to communicate in...
Comparison in English Grammar
When we compare two or more items, we have different ways to do it, depending on the items we are comparing. We can change the form of the word or use a phrase. Comparatives and Superlatives To compare nouns, we can change the adjective describing them by using...