A Common Valentine's Day Present Top 7

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In the early lessons of the course, I was able to better understand the components of the sentence, and the knowledge about word types was expanded. It includes a definite article, adjective, noun, verb, preposition, adverb, conjunction, gerund, personal pronoun. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Phuong P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. In unit 4, we have started talking about tenses in English. I looked at the four present tenses; the present simple, present continuous (sometimes called the present progressive), present perfect and present perfect continuous. Summary, the tense system is probably the area of the English...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas The simple past is one of the most important tenses in the English language. As it describes past actions, it's quite an easy tense to teach using a variety of fun and interactive activities. Here are 7 activities for teaching the simple past for the ESL classroom. For more activities check out: 10 Exciting Activities for the Past Simple For this activity, the students think of significant accomplishments in their lives. After sharing with the class what they have accomplished, the students should describe what they did in order to achieve this goal, for example they graduated college, studied English, took classes, etc. It’s important that the students use the simple past to talk about these actions. Also read: 7...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Use these 7 activities for the ESL classroom to teach the simple present to your students and help them understand the correct structure and usage of the tense both quickly and easily. Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Setting up your EFL classroom is a very important task for any teacher of English abroad. Here are the best tips on how to set up your EFL classroom the right way to maximize efficiency and fun with your students. Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Use these 7 activities for teaching the past progressive for the ESL classroom to teach the present perfect tense to your students and help them...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas When the aroma of gingerbread and eggnog is in the air, you know it’s time to translate your love for the most beautiful season of the year into your TEFL classroom with winter ESL activities! While this is the perfect time to embrace winter in TEFL destinations with changing seasons, it’s also ideal to educate your students living in places with tropical temperatures and other cultures about the holiday celebrations. Here are 7 amazing winter and Christmas ESL activities your students will love! Tell your students to imagine the following: You wake up in your bed and look out the window when you see a brightly decorated Christmas tree. It’s cold and even looks like snow is slowly falling from the sky. The...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Teaching Ideas Grammar lessons can often be quite boring for students so it is important for us as TEFL teachers to have fun activities that encourage the students to use the target language creatively and foster high student talking time. Below is a list of 10 activities that can be used for lessons on the past simple. The teacher creates a set of cards with present simple verbs and a set with the past simple form of the same verbs. The sets are mixed together and placed face down on the desk. Students take turns to turn over two cards. If the two cards match i.e. both forms of the same verb, the student has to make a sentence with the past simple form before they can keep the cards. If they cannot make a correct sentence, the cards...  [Read more]

  Willy from the U.S.A. is currently living in Japan and took the 120-hour online TESOL course with tutor support and videos from ITTT. In this TESOL review video, Willy tells us that he has been living in Japan for the last 7 years and working as an assistant language teacher. He really enjoyed the course which brought him a number of new perspectives and ideas and helped him to improve his teaching skills. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next. I...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Schools are starting again and students and teachers flock back to the classroom. Check out these simple and powerful back-to-school ideas and your students will surely remember this first lesson of yours for a long time! Have your students write a short report (or let them do it verbally) about something newsworthy that happened in their neighborhood or town during the school break. Introduce a weekly journal to your students. The focus of this should be on fluency practice and less on correctness. Have your students write in the journal every day based on a topic that came up in class. Divide your class into groups and hand out one paragraph of a reading topic to every group. Then, have them share the information...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas ESL teachers often encounter difficulties when teaching grammar patterns to students abroad. The following 7 activities for teaching the simple present for the ESL classroom will help your students pick up the tense in an easy and efficient way. This is a very good activity for when you start discussing the simple present and how it’s used for routines and regularities. You can place the students into groups or pairs and have them discuss their daily routines. What do they do in the morning? In the afternoon? In the evening? You can then also have them write up a schedule of their daily routines and share their findings with the class later on in a class discussion. Also read: Top Online Lesson Plan Resources for...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Teaching new tenses to students of a foreign language is often not as easy as you might anticipate, especially when the tense you are trying to teach them does not exist in their native language. The following 7 activities for teaching the present perfect for the ESL classroom will help your students pick up the tense in no time! This is a great warm-up activity to make your students understand what the present perfect is all about. After teaching the structure of the tense, have your students write down 2-3 things they have accomplished in their lives. When they are finished, have your students share their statements with the class, for example, “I have won a speech contest,” “I have traveled to America,” or...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences The word ‘grammar’ is often feared by students and teachers alike. It has an image of being difficult to comprehend and hard to teach. However, with planning and a positive approach to the lesson, it can be a fun and interesting way to improve English skills. Also, students can often feel a true sense of accomplishment by being able to use the vocabulary and sentences structures that they have learned. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Janet K. So where do we start? How to use verbs and the study of tenses is a perfect first step. By dividing the tenses into three sections, present, past and future, and then again into the simple, continuous, perfect and perfect continuous forms, we...  [Read more]

  Once you have completed your chosen TEFL course and have that all important certificate in your hand, you can seriously start to plan the next stage of your adventure. Thanks to the sustained demand for English language teachers right across the world there are plenty of countries to choose from, each with its own unique set of attractions. But how long will you have to commit for when you sign the job contract? Europe The most common contract in European schools is for an academic year that generally runs from September to June. The great thing here is you will have a couple of months off during the summer break to travel or earn some extra cash working with private students or at a summer camp. Summer language camps are very popular across much of Europe and usually run for 4...  [Read more]

  The simple answer is no, you do not need to have any knowledge or experience of languages other than English to take a TEFL course or to become an EFL teacher. The ability to speak other languages is not required as the vast majority of TEFL classrooms around the world rely on the communicative approach to English teaching that specifies that English is the only language used in the classroom. In multilingual classrooms where the students could have a dozen or more different first languages, being able to communicate in one or two of them would obviously be of no particular advantage. In monolingual classrooms you may also find that students are more inclined to revert to their mother tongue during the lesson if they are aware that the teacher can understand what is being said....  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas As ESL teachers there are many things we can do to make our lessons both productive and enjoyable. In this post, an ITTT graduate discusses the benefit of games as a teaching tool. Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas By taking a TEFL certification course you will learn about many different areas of teaching the English language. In this post, one of our graduates takes a look at classroom management. Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Evaluation and testing are important areas of an English language...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Teaching multiple tenses might sound frightening as teaching a single tense can sometimes be a challenge on its own. However, while it might seem difficult the first time you try it, it isn’t as daunting as you would think. When teaching more than one tense at a time there are two main factors to consider: which tenses to teach together and what language level you are teaching. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ferenc M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The general rule is that basic tenses are for lower level students and harder ones are for intermediates and above. Despite this, many higher...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Teaching Ideas If like many TEFL qualified teachers, you have moved your teaching online in recent times you will probably have found that it is much harder than you might have imagined. Although you spend most of your lessons sitting down on a comfy office chair rather than standing in front of the class, you still end the day more exhausted than you ever did in a normal classroom setting. If this sounds familiar, don’t worry you are not alone as teaching English online is a tiring proposition for many teachers. Here we look at the main reasons why it is so tough and more importantly, what you can do to make things that bit easier. One of the biggest differences between teaching online and teaching in-class is trying to read how...  [Read more]

Laura Payne Teaching Ideas Much of language learning comes through language experimentation; steering away from examples and formulas and attempting to arrange your own ideas into words. No matter what a student's goal may be in learning English, they will eventually have to do this by leaving the classroom and using English on their own. Activities like creative writing are one method to encourage the practice of experimentation and expression in ESL students. In this post, we're going to look at five different activities students can use to put their thoughts into writing. Celebrating a new year is practically a universal tradition, and all students have goals. Writing down New Year's resolutions allows students to practice various usages of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Grammar is an essential part of English. However, to an EFL student, learning grammar can be challenging. Although there are a lot of rules and exceptions, Grammar helps EFL students correct their mistakes and improve their receptive and productive skills. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Johnay G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Learning Grammar is important because EFL students commonly make mistakes in the rules and exceptions of English. EFL students commonly make mistakes with the use of articles, which are determiners. For example, an EFL student might write the sentence, “Class will be over in an hour.”, in which...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Playing games is not only for fun, but we can use it to make students more understand about the topic of the lesson. Games also can build rapport between student-student and teacher-class. How a game is important to make students understand the topic of the lesson? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Umi H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. For some students, playing a game is a fun thing. It also can kill boredom and increase the attention of students. Games also can make students more understand the lesson in class. For children who always want to play even in class, they have a short span of attention, playing games are...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Placement tests are designed to put students in their appropriate ESL level band. What are the levels and how do the tests do this? ### Watch the video about this topic One type of test we commonly use for our ESL students is called the placement test. They're also called level tests and as the name implies what we're trying to do is to place students in a particular level of class. Typically there are five levels, these being, Starter (Level 1), Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate and Upper- Intermediate (Level 5) Some of the more common features of these tests are that; 1. All four skills are commonly tested that means, reading, writing, speaking and listening and 2....  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Teaching grammar patterns often involves a lot of classtime and the more activities you have up your sleeve as a teacher the better. The following 7 activities for teaching the past progressive for the ESL classroom will help your students pick up the tense in no time! Pull up an image with a lot of actions going on, for example, people engaging in different activities at a park or another public place. You can either hand out printed images or show it to your students on an overhead projector or TV. After having your students analyze the image, turn off the TV or collect the prints and start asking what the people in the photo were doing. Also read: 5 Reasons Why Teaching English Abroad Enhances Your Career...  [Read more]

  OgSun from South Korea took the 120-hour online TESOL with tutor support and videos. In this TESOL review video OgSun tells how she had always wanted to take a TESOL course but struggled to be able to fit studying into her already busy schedule. The online course from ITTT solved this problem by allowing her to study where and when she wanted. With a six-month time limit and the ability to study anywhere, ITTT’s online courses are ideal for those who need to fit their study time around their busy schedules. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas In this blog post, we will discuss some of the more common problems that can be associated with the teaching of Business English classes. They are some of the things that we need to be aware of as teachers about our learners. Firstly we need to bear in mind that very often our students will have been working all day before they come to their English classes and so our students are going to be tired. We need to be aware of that and we need to take account of it within our lessons. It is unreasonable to expect full attention and engagement from our students under these circumstances. Secondly if the students come to us from a particular department in a company which is very often...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences I worked as an Emirates Airlines flight attendant for over 6 years. In order to be accepted you need to pass multiple group exercises, a written exam and a two person interview. There are always over a thousand applicants but they only accept a very small number. Two years ago I left the company and moved to Vietnam where I noticed a great interest in younger people wanting to become flight attendants, but many were fearful of the Open Day, a two day process of interviews and exercises because they were not sure if their level of English was good enough. It didn’t take long for me and two friends, who had also worked for the same airline, to decide to put together an 8 day course for people interested in becoming...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I have been teaching ESL classes professionally for two years. In addition to this experience, I have several years of experience as a volunteer teacher/mentor with ESL students. Through my experiences, I have learned that importance of establishing immediate rapport in the classroom. In this short article, I will talk about why it is vital to establish rapport from the very first day between the students and teacher as well as among the students. I will offer advice from my own experience of teaching both young learners and adults. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Michael S. Establishing rapport between the teacher and student is something that begins on the first day of class and it...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas In this blog post we will consider how we need to adjust to teaching a single (one-to-one) student. Methods and techniques will need to be somewhat different from teaching a class where student to student interaction is available. Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas This blog post outlines some of the best tips to use with your various beginner classes. Ideas about keeping them motivated and keeping them using the language are covered. Try these ideas with your beginners. Shakira Moss TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Every preschool/ kindergarten level teacher will swear by the need for excellent constructive circle time. It sets the tone for what is to follow throughout the day. A good circle time should be welcoming, engaging, and informative. Children should not be forced into participation; instead should be drawn into it. Circle time is the classic example of a good "engage" stage in an ESA teaching style. Therefore, during circle time, you introduce a topic that is to be covered that day or week. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Najia S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Teaching speaking skills is an important part of an ESL class. Sometimes, entire conversation classes are established that focus solely on speaking. Here are 7 great games for your ESL conversation class. Write down the names and key points about five celebrities and assign them to the same amount of students in your classroom. One by one, a student enters a “party” with another student playing the host. The host must then find out the identity of each guest by having a conversation with everyone. Have your students stand in a circle. Choose a specific grammar point and have the first person asks a question using the grammar structure. The student then throws a ball to another student who answers the question...  [Read more]

Estefany Garduño TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Let’s change the game by giving a higher immersion of English to your ESL students without going to an English-speaking country to obtain more vocabulary, pronunciation, and speaking practice. Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas In this blog post, we will discuss some of the more common problems that can be associated with the teaching of Business English classes. They are some of the things that we need to be aware of as teachers about our learners. Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences ...  [Read more]

Dana W TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Online learning has become extremely popular over the last several years. Many people take college courses and several other types of learning classes online, especially now during this global pandemic. If you’re considering online learning, you may have questions. What makes it different from taking a class in a language school? Are online teachers just as qualified to teach me? Will I learn the same information as I would face to face? I’d like to provide some clarity on what to expect when learning a language online. In one-to-one online classes, you can be sure that all of the attention will be dedicated to you! You and your instructor will...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas I am a lifelong ESL student myself. Every day I am learning something new from the books, from the things around me, and my students. For the last few years, I've been teaching the English language here in China, which is why I chose this topic. China is a great country with beautiful sceneries and very hard-working, enthusiastic, and friendly people. Learning any language is not an easy job. It requires patience, practice, and of course, a desire. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Buned S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Chinese students are swift at...  [Read more]