It's doing the rounds of the internet - an Italian YouTube chef shows how frustrating and impossible the English language can sometimes be. In the video quite simply he just wants to say "Worcestershire Sauce". https://youtu.be/YwTT8YQFJDQ But Pasquale Sciarappa fails...
An idea of how important it is to punctuate correctly. Punctuation does, indeed, save lives...
Strange English is a collection of statements about English which deserve more thinking about. If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented? If people from Poland are called "Poles," why aren't people from Holland called...
English spelling is easy. We all no that as this poem demonstrates. Eye have a spelling chequer, it came with my pea sea, It plainly marks, for my revue, mist aches I cannot sea. Each time when eye have struck the quays I weight four it to say If wot eye rote is wrong...
BBC: Smack the Pony-English as a Foreign Language A woman tries to register for an EFL course... but there's a problem. This clip comes from the British TV series, Smack the Pony.
Can we teach like this? Of course not because we're mere mortals. But Harold Ramis in the 1981 film classic, Stripes, can. Stripes - Basic English The film opens with Russell Ziskey (played by Harold Ramis) teaching a brand new class to speak English when he himself...
Mind Your Language was a British sitcom about an EFL teacher to a stereotypical collection of students. It was made in 1977 and ran for two years averaging huge audiences (over 18 million per episode) but because of the offensive stereotyping, it was cancelled. Let's...
This clip comes from the British Comic Relief show (a yearly show designed to raise money for charity) where Katherine Tate as a surly teenager cross examines her new Scottish English teacher and then moves on to Shakespeare.
The following commercial was apparently banned for the taboo language it used: Banned Commercials - Learn English Don't listen if you're easily shocked. The commercial was made for the Soesman Language Institute and entitled, A Day Trip. It features a middle aged...
Do You Speak English? is a sketch from the BBC television comedy series, Big Train. It plays upon Quintin Crisp's aphorism, "I don't hold with abroad and think that foreigners speak English when our backs are turned."
In this video, Katherine Tate states confidently that she can help out in an awkward situation because, "I did TEFL in my Gap Year."
The following clip demonstrates the art of English pronunciation training as practiced by Steve Martin in the Pink Panther: Learning English Pronunciation
Of course English is important, we all know that. But in this epic fail it's a matter of life or death! Check out this video and you'll see why: Learn English (really funny commercial) Use It! And then, why not use it with your TEFL class? Set up the scene. Show the...
Teachers mess up as well. Many of us have spent time teaching in a foreign country and grappling with the problems of the local language. Here are a few problems which arise: A class were playing a word game where they had to explain a word to the rest of the class....
Although there are jokes we can use in the class to drive home a language point and make the lesson more engaging, these are jokes about teachers and students in general and especially about the English language and the way we use it. Some of them are terrible and...
English Teachers - the series, is a fictional webseries about the lives of English teachers in a language school in Japan. The first episode aired in September 2010. It is directed and produced by Anthony Gilmore who teaches English part-time at the Nagoya University...
During the war in the Balkans (1992-1995), much was made of the spelling and pronunciation of placenames in Serbia and so on. This satirical news item was popular at the time. {AF}Before an emergency joint session of Congress yesterday, President Clinton announced US...
The following gems were picked up over the years by English teachers around the world. The interesting thing is that if you look at them, often they make profound sense in a strange way. Comments like When I grow up I'd like to be a kindergardener do somehow ring...
The table below illustrates just some of the difficulties in understanding the subtleties of the English language. In this case it's British English which, along with British manners, make the meanings of words said often nothing like the meaning of the words spoken!...
You know you're a TEFL teacher when... ...you watch Eastenders and want to correct their pronunciation and grammar. ...you think it's perfectly fine to say close the light. ...you meet the parents and understand immediately why the child is the way it is. ...you want...
We here at ICAL TEFL have prepared this motivational poster so you can explain to your friends, family and the world at large exactly what we all do. Feel free to copy and paste!
TEFL on Film are those movies or television series which have as a theme or plot point, the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language. Here we present a short list ordered by date and review them. If you know of any others including TEFL then do please email us with...
