An interesting sideline to the eternal debate about taboo words. The BBC reports that the English term, shitstorm, considered by many to be vulgar and not a word to be used in public as such, has entered the German vocabulary. However, it has entered as a...
In the past week or so I've seen a couple of videos posted online which feature famous people speaking English. One was in the British Daily Telegraph newspaper and was of Russian president Vladimir Putin talking about the World Expo. The Daily Telegraph sneer and...
A random collection of students' feedback. Thanks to each and every ICAL student for sharing their course experience with other TEFLers. What ICAL Students Say From XN1C3B Paul, working on mod3. What I'm learning in my ICAL studies has already helped me very much with...
An article in Education Week (see link below) says that when a group of teachers spent time abroad they were much more employable when they returned to the US than a comparable group who did not spend time abroad. The actual figures quoted were 20% of graduate...
If you know English well enough, you can theoretically teach English at any age. You can get involved in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) or TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) whenever you want. On the ICAL TEFL Certificate Course, for...
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...
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...
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...
So this person said they wouldn't date someone with bad grammar. Would you? It might seem a bit harsh but it might also be a sign of greater differences between them. Social class, for example. General education & intelligence.
There have been rumors floating around about the recent changes made for any teacher joining the EPIK scheme to teach in South Korea. This blog post explains exactly what those changes are and exactly what you need to join EPIK. What is EPIK? EPIK is a program run...
What is the past form of pay? This often causes problems for students. The verb pay means to give money to someone and it is usually an irregular verb. I pay $15 each month for my internet connection. Last month I paid $15 for my internet connection. I have paid $15...
How hard is it to learn English? Well that's not easy for me to say since I've been learning it since the day I was born (actually, recent research suggests I've been learning it since I was in the womb1). But it got me thinking. I searched around a bit and couldn't...
As TEFL teachers, we all know that getting the class to engage is vitally important and also that engagement comes through enjoyment. This means that anything which lets your class practice English in a fun, non-didactic way is going to be a hit. And we have just been...
Diabetes is a medical condition where a person has high blood sugar (glucose) levels. There are 3 types of diabetes (see below) and the incidence of diabetes is increasing significantly in developed countries. It has been described in terms of "epidemic" proportions...
The Essential Guide to Teaching English and Living in Thailand. Guest blogger and author Michael Plews gives us just a taste of what it is like to teach and live in Thailand. Sun-kissed beaches, amazing cuisine, a rich cultural heritage and some of the friendliest...
I go on the news sites each morning to catch up on what's happening in the world. And yesterday I tried a new site: Reuters. They have a bit of a reputation of being there with the scoops, pretty fair minded when it comes to reporting and they're well regarded in the...
According to an article in the Scientific American (link below) people are more logical and reason better in a foreign language than their native tongue. Basically they looked at questions where reasoning was required (financial decisions gambling and so on) and...
We'd like to welcome guest blogger Evelyn Robinson; in this first blog for ICAL she writes about traveling the world as a TEFL teacher and the opportunities available out there! Every TEFL teacher gets frustrated when their friends and family see their job abroad as a...
Listening is one of the four major language skills. This article is about listening for pleasure. Often as teachers we'll give our class a very specific listening task which will often run like this: listen to this short dialog between a shopkeeper and a shopper;...
Its and it's are often confused, not only by learners but also native English speakers (the picture on the right comes from one of Disney's theme parks). This article explains the difference between them. Its Very simply, its (without the apostrophe) is a possessive...
The ICAL TEFL Community gives a voice to TEFL teachers and other guests wherever you are. Let's start with... ICAL TEFL Forum If you'd like to start a discussion or ask a question about TEFL then visit the ICAL TEFL Forums. Here you'll find discussions about...
It's estimated that the most common 1, 000 words in the English language are used in 89% of communication. Well, to prove it's possible to say almost anything using those words the folks at xkcd have taken a blueprint for the space rocket Apollo 5 (or Up Goer as they...
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...
Learners of English (and native English speakers too) often confuse these two words: Affect vs Effect. They also confuse forms of these words: Affectively vs Effectively; Affective vs Effective and so on. Part of the problem is that they are pronounced almost the...
Prof. Goodnight is the pen name of a senior ESL trainer working at a major North American university. Here he discusses the rise of technology in the classroom and how bad it is. The NY Times reported earlier this week on two recent studies which suggest that...
