Today we have a guest contribution from Victoria Hughes. Victoria has been a TEFL teacher for 5 years and has lived in Poland, China and Turkey. She writes about job hunting, lesson planning and the joys and frustrations of teaching. Enter Victoria I was watching the...
There is a persistent image that crops up again and again when it comes to teachers: a sad and lonely figure standing at a photocopier printing off a huge pile of material for their class. But is that sad figure breaking the law? Could the teacher who supplies their...
I've just been reading a very interesting article about language interference. It recounts the story of a Chinese student in the US who, during a fluent English presentation, happened to glance over to her Chinese professor and accidentally used a simple Mandarin word...
If you're a TEFL teacher then chances are you have had to deal with Fossilized Errors in your classroom, especially if you deal with older students or those past the Beginners stage. Basically a fossilized error is a mistake a student has made so many times that it...
In 1953 the General Service List was published. This was a list of about 2,000 most commonly used words in English. For many years this was used as a basis for materials writing. This list was useful in learning because anyone who knew all the words on the list would...
ESOL is an acronym meaning English to Speakers of Other Languages. It is all about people who do not have English as a mother tongue, learning English. A more common term to ESOL is ESL which means English as a Second Language and refers to people learning English to...
If only teaching were all about teaching and not about keeping order in the classroom or, as it's sometimes known, Classroom Management. A major part of teaching has nothing really to do with imparting information and helping your students learn. Instead it's all...
Chalkface is a term believed to have been coined by Professor Ted Wragg in the Times Education Supplement in the 1980s. It is a reflection of coalface, the toughest point in coal mining where coal is hewn from rock. Like the coalface, the chalkface is where the real,...
It's your first minute in front of a new class. You have a room of expectant faces looking up at you waiting. First impressions count. If you stand there and falter the class will know what they're dealing with. If you allow little Jimmy to answer his mobile phone...
What is the difference between Accent, Dialect and Language? This article looks at the differences between the three terms. People often confuse them and there is a certain degree of overlap (even linguists don't always agree on what the difference is between them)...
You've been asked to give a private TEFL lesson to a new student. You know virtually nothing about them but you know you'll be sitting in a room with them, one on one, for an hour and half. This article is all about how to prepare for a First Private Lesson. What...
Do children have all the advantages when it comes to learning a foreign language? This article looks at the fundamental general differences between language learning amongst adults and children. Talk to any family who have moved abroad with young children and you’ll...
When you teach English as a foreign language you don't just teach "English". No, you teach a specific type of English depending on your class: different people need different English. You can view this in the same way as dance. If you go to a dance class you don't...
This article looks at a few ideas you should bear in mind if you have blind or visually impaired students in your TEFL class. Over the years we at ICAL TEFL have had a number of blind and visually impaired teacher trainees taking our course and we have worked with...
An English teacher in Florida has been suspended after giving their 8th grade class (13-15 year olds) explicit lyrics to analyze. The students were having problems understanding concepts such as puns, similes, and metaphors so rather than continue using more...
There are many reasons why people move abroad, but it often happens that someone abroad is looking for work and stumbles over the idea of teaching English. This article is a quick guide for expats thinking about teaching English as a part-time or full-time job while...
I think we have all found that giving clear instructions to our students, especially lower proficiency students, can be a real challenge. We quickly learn that giving only oral instructions can be futile in getting our students to understand what it is we want them to...
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...
A Lexical Chunk is a unit of language which is made up of two or more words. Here are a few examples of lexical chunks: Good morning. Nice to see you! What's the time? Other lexical chunks can include phrasal verbs, idioms, collocations and so on. Lexical chunks...
Most teachers are old in comparison to their students. And because most teachers choose materials for their class, this often means that the materials they use are old. And by old, I mean stuck in the past and out of date. When a TEFL teacher decides to use music in...
In the TEFL classroom, inductive and deductive teaching methods are two different approaches used in teaching grammar. Inductive teaching (sometimes known as inquiry or discovery teaching) involves giving the students examples of language and working with them to...
New teachers often have problems trying to decide how to speak to students so they understand them best. Should they keep their grammar really simple? Should they avoid unusual words? Should they slow down? Should they speak to students as though they were...
We'd like to welcome Larry Jarocki, MA Applied Linguistics, as a guest author of the ICAL Blog. Larry has been an ICAL tutor for over a decade. Here he talks about his recent findings on effective group work in the ESL classroom, following an eight days seminar on...
Cooperative Learning is a teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different abilities, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Although cooperative learning takes place within teams of students it is...
A Lesson Target is the focus of an individual lesson. It is, if you like, the single main point that you are trying to teach in that particular lesson. Often it can be summed up in a single sentence thus: At the end of the lesson the students will know how to......
Drilling is a simple technique used in EFL and ESL classrooms to practice English. Practice, as they say, makes perfect. And drilling is certainly practice. Essentially it is Repetition; the teacher says something and the students repeat it all together. Then the...
Homework is simply work your students do at home rather than in the classroom. Many teachers give it to their students as a matter of course. Almost all schools will expect you to give it, often with a time caveat: "Give them at least 30 minutes of homework after each...
The Council of Europe divided learners into 6 main bands (A1, A2; B1, B2; C1, C2) as part of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages: A Basic User A1 Breakthrough A2 Waystage B Independent User B1 Threshold B2 Vantage C Proficient User C1...
A semantic field (sometimes known as a lexical field) is a group of words related by meaning. In teaching a semantic field could be: animals verbs of perception foodstuffs ... In practical terms the definition is quite loose and general. Sometimes a word will belong...
