Categories Of English

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas The first thing to bear in mind when we're looking at the category of beginners is that beginners can be of any age and experience, so really what we should do is to break the beginner category down into a number of sub categories. Our first group we may call the absolute beginner, the second group we could have are called false beginners. The next category may be the adult beginners and therefore the category of young beginners and our final grouping called beginners without the Roman alphabet. The absolute beginner as the name implies are those people with no language knowledge of the particular language being learnt, so they've never been taught it and they probably have had no...  [Read more]

  The acronyms IELTS and TOEFL are commonly used in the English teaching world. IELTS = International English Language Testing System TOEFL = Test of English as a Foreign Language 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. Teaching special groups unit explains/give a tip that knowing the different categories of the term 'beginners' is a basic and helpful thing that will help the teacher to know what methodology and techniques he/she should use. The...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word "ingenuous". This word refers to an innocent or unsuspecting person or situation. Synonyms of ingenuous include naive, innocent and simple. The origin of the word is from the Latin word "ingenuus" meaning native or freeborn. 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. This unit discussed the teaching receptive skills and the categories of reading and listening. The reasons for reading and listening...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word categorical. This word is used as an adjective and means explicit and direct. It comes from the Greek word kat?goria meaning ‘statement’. 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. This unit is a follow up from 'Past Tense'. I read about the future tense and how to categories sentences knowing which tense the sentence belong to. Future tense is activity or event that has bot taken place as yet...  [Read more]

  In this TEFL review Koichi from Japan describes his experience as a TEFL/TESOL student with ITTT. He took the combined course and completed the in-class component in Phuket. 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. THIS UNIT,JUST LIKE THE OTHER UNITS TALKS ABOUT MODALS,PHRASAL, VERBS AND PASSIVE VOICE,WHICH ELABORATES HOW WE CAN IDENTIFY THE PASSIVE AND ACTIVE VOICE. IT ALSO TALK ABOUT THE 3 CATEGORIES OF CLAUSES AND WHEN THEY ARE USED.WE ALSO...  [Read more]

  Chantelle is taking a 120-hour online TEFL course with tutor support and videos with ITTT. This is the first of her video diary entries outlining her experience taking the course. Chantelle took the online course because it was better for her to study online than to commit to attending an onsite course. In this video she talks about the first unit of the course. Unit 1 deals with teachers and learners discussing what makes good teachers and learners as well as the types of roles teachers perform in class, motivation levels of different types of learners and the different language levels. 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...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences English teachers have a significant role to play in a classroom. They are involved in engaging students to maintain a focus on the language. However, the major roles of the English teacher in a classroom are classified into five premium categories. These categories involve their roles as a controller, organizer, assessor, participant, and a helper (Keller, 2016). This essay aims to highlight the role of English teachers in the classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Priyanka B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. As a controller of the classroom, an English teacher is the one who instructs the students that when they need...  [Read more]

  This video focuses on the difference between the usage of "bring" and "take". These two words often cause confusion, especailly for English learners. It is important to consider the direction in order to determine which word to use. The word "bring" describes the movement of something toward a specified location, such as in this sentence: Can you bring some snacks to the party tonight? The word "take" on the other hand generally describes the movement of something away from a location, such as here: Do you want to take any leftovers home? As you can see, it's quite easy to determine the correct word to use in a sentence when considering the direction you are referring to. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas When approaching a new language, one must understand that this will be a challenging journey. Not an impossible one, but a learning process that, sooner or later, will require a great deal of motivation, passion, and commitment. As educators, I think that our first duty is not only to really outline this journey for our students, but also to bring to life their inner motivation. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Flavia-Ioana S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. It is quite a well-known fact that while most of the students who decide to learn English, especially if we take into consideration adults, are self-motivated and they...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I would like to introduce five flashcards activities which I found fun and practical to enhance a student's vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, listening, and speaking. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate MOHSEN H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. This activity is designed to teach vocabulary as well as practice listening. It can be used for teaching various categories (animals, food, fruits, …) or a mix of them. The teacher gives each of the students a set of flashcards and asks them to show him/her the correct card when they hear the item spoken. For example: “Show me a pig” “Hands up if you’ve got a banana” “Stand...  [Read more]

  For the lesson that even takes place, there are a number of things that you need to have considered. Obviously, you need a very clear idea of what it is you're expecting the students to have to do and they need to know why. It's very important before you ask them to do an activity that they have an understanding of the purpose of that activity. You should, secondly, have had a thought about what they already know. Linked to that is, will it be necessary to do any form of pre-teaching before I can expect them to do this activity and finally, we need to make sure that we have prepared all our materials and our instructions for this particular activity. So, we'll consider a straight arrow ESA lesson, the focus of which is to be speaking skills. So, we'll start with our engage and in...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Traditionally, intelligence has been regarded as a unitary quantity. This narrowly limited the discriminating factor of whether a child was “smart” or “educationally adept”. Teachers could, therefore, focus the creation of their course syllabus to be built from a perspective of ascertaining the subject content to cover and how best to teach it. But the research was done by Gardner to suggest that there are different categories of intelligence and that everyone has some intelligence in every category. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Nicholas P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Gardner’s research contributed along...  [Read more]

  http://www.teflcourse.net This video from one of ITTT's TESOL courses looks at how the future continuous tense is formed and used. Firstly, the structure: Positive: Subject + will + be + present participle. I will be learning to teach English. Negative: Subject + will + not + be + present participle. I will not be coming to the party. Question: Will + subject + be + present participle? Will you be staying for the weekend? Now the usages: Actions in progress at a future time. She'll be playing live at Wembley on the 16th. Predict the present. He'll be getting on the plane about now. Polite enquiries (without influence): Will you be coming to the party? For those wanting to learn how to teach English TESOL courses are great ways to learn the necessary grammar such...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas So you’ve got your TEFL certificate in hand and landed your dream teaching job abroad. Once you’re at the school, it’s time to prep for your classes. More often than not, teachers are expected to create their own course syllabi for their different classes. Here is our guide to writing your first TEFL syllabus. This post was written by our ITTT graduate Zirui P. The syllabus of a course is the frame of what the course is. It tells the students and the teacher what is being taught in the course as well as in what order it is being taught. This is especially true in language learning, as different types of syllabi will indicate what is being learned. There are many types of syllabi for language learning. Depending...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas There are many resources for use in the classroom at the disposal of an ESL/EFL teacher. Broadly speaking, these are divided into two categories: authentic materials, and non-authentic (or created) materials. The distinction between these two categories is that authentic materials are those that have been produced in the world for a purpose that is not teaching, while non-authentic materials have been created expressly to teach language students. Authentic materials would include company brochures, advertisements, television and radio programs, realia, newspapers, and magazines, etc., whereas non-authentic materials include created worksheets (e.g., crosswords, word search puzzles, gap fills, etc.), flashcards,...  [Read more]

  Whereas stress is typically concerned with one individual word, intonation is generally concerned with the variation in volume and pitch throughout an entire sentence. Intonation carries the message of a sentence. It's particularly important when questioning or agreeing, disagreeing and confirming statements. It's also very important when expressing emotions and feelings. The normal pattern for intonation is the rise-fall. Few examples would be ?I haven't seen him for a week,? or a simple word as ?okay?. With the falling intonation, we?re indicating that we're finished speaking. Again, ?I haven't seen him for a week? and ?okay?. A few more examples would be ?I'll see you at six then,? or a question of information ?How do you spell rough?? These are straightforward statements that...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences For many people who travel, considering the cultural norms of whatever country you are visiting helps ensure a smooth trip. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ryan A. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. It is quite unfortunate that travellers from the United States often have a bad reputation for being loud, inconsiderate, and oblivious. While this is the case, it is also the case for a lot of people from various other countries. Being a well-behaved visitor is not restricted to your region of origin, but is a voluntary path. Do not let other countries’ stereotypical ideas of you define how you act when travelling abroad....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas By completing the online TEFL courses, I’ve obtained a clear understanding of what factors are concerned when it comes to teaching English. It’s important because it offers a tremendous amount of knowledge as well as benefits to whoever wishes to develop a career in the English education field. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Fengze C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The online TEFL courses provide detailed information on many aspects. I conclude them as following categories for better understanding for myself and other people who might be interested in completing a TEFL. It provided a solid introduction to the world of...  [Read more]

  The first group of students we are looking at in this series are the beginners. It is important to understand that beginners can be of any age. This is why we break this category down into the following sub-categories: absolute beginners, false beginners, adult beginners, young beginners and beginners without the Roman alphabet. Find out more about this type of student group in this video. 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. This unit has...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences We can notice two approaches of teachers to the possibility of teaching to beginner students: the first is the craze, the second is the fear. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Cassandre F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Indeed, an experienced teacher will no doubt look forward to introducing a new language to novices who are most motivated and interested in learning English. But if the opportunity to teach novices materializes, a young teacher still inexperienced will feel apprehension and fear in the face of this ambitious challenge. Fear of not knowing where to start his lessons, fear of failing to instill in his...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Using games in the classroom is beneficial for better student learning. Games are helpful when introducing new content, enhancing the learning process, or reviewing learned material. A low-stress atmosphere in the classroom is created easily by adding games. From Gap fill to Fizz Bizz to I Spy they can help the teacher maintain a positive attitude and establish rapport with students. Games create an environment where students want to participate and aren't afraid of correction or failure. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ellen P. Vince Goman RTC, CPCC, BBA, Somatic Counselor said in his book, Let The Fire Burn, "Play is the foundation for academic learning. While the left brain is more...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Child development is an extremely complicated process that can be broken down into many different and well-defined stages. When attempting to further examine and analyze these, countless internal and external factors need to be taken into account. Child development forms a crucial subfield of psychology, and it provides an almost infinite amount of research opportunities. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Zalán P. Most (evolutionary) psychologists and biologists would agree that child development involves the prenatal period and life of children and extends all the way to the end of their adolescent year(s), those being 18 and/or 19. The main stages are namely (followed by the weeks/ages):...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This essay focuses on what “multiple intelligence” is, a comparison between multiple intelligences and the traditional notion of intelligence, what these multiple intelligence categories (“modalities") are, and their significance in the classroom context. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Stephanie T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. "Multiple intelligence" was a theory developed by Professor Howard Gardner in the early 1980s to describe the various innate talents that everyone possesses. Multiple intelligence theory was a reaction to the conventional teaching methods that cater predominantly to the book-smarts, those...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Spanish speakers from Mexico face several challenges for acquiring successful pronunciation skills in English. Many students here will have had at least some exposure to English through media and contact with American-English speakers, however, this does not mean that they will have a complete understanding of the phonemic system in English and how it differs from that of Spanish. This essay will briefly describe some outcomes stemming from pronunciation problems in students, followed by an overview of the basic phonetic and phonological differences between English and Mexican Spanish with examples and discussion around the rules that govern English word stress. This post was written by our TEFL certification...  [Read more]

Shirin Sophy TEFL Information Teaching Ideas The fact that nowadays, the ESA method is conventional wisdom among all the English teachers around the world highly simplifies and standardizes the process of preparation and lesson planning, specifically for those who are at the beginning of their career path as a teacher. This method simply suggests that every lesson needs to be started with an engagement stage in which the teacher aims to attract students' attention in order to encourage and enhance their active participation during the lesson. Furthermore, the recent textbooks' content is mostly designed based on the ESA method, and there are manifold attractive engagement ideas included in them that teachers can take advantage...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information In this blog post, we will consider three different categories of speaking activity. For each we look at where each individual type is used and then look at some general ideas for delivering any of the three types of activity. Speaking activities will come in many different forms but we can generalize them into three basic types. Controlled activities tend to be used in the study phase and here the teacher will be helping the students in terms of what they need to say and how they go about saying it. So there's a high level of structure within a controlled activity. A guided activity has slightly less structure than this and it can be used in either they study or the activate stages themselves. The final type of...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas A consideration for the categorization of your language learners is actually their language level. So within any class the language level the students should all have, (assuming that your class is not a mixed ability class) is usually at one particular level. Typically your students will have had some form of level test to put them into one of the levels and in ESL teaching there are often five different levels of grouping described. Level one, the most basic level is called Starter. Moving on from that the Elementary level, the next one beyond that is level three, called the Pre-Intermediate level and then on to the Intermediate level and finally level five, which is called the...  [Read more]

Etienne Van Rooyen TEFL Information Alumni Experiences There are three types of senior high schools in Japan. Each senior high school (grades 10, 11, and 12) has a different purpose and students attend it. Understanding this helps us learn how English language learning in Japan is differently yet similars each school. With this knowledge, as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) you can adapt your lessons plans, materials and style to fit your school/s. There are three main types of high schools in Japan with sub-categories: Note: There are also Special Needs schools, which teach students with physical and mental disabilities. These schools will be covered in another blog post. Purpose: These schools focus on intense academic...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Howard Gardener, in his 1993 book Frames of Mind, provides a means of mapping the broad range of abilities humans possess. His later work expanded upon this and posits that our capabilities can be grouped into eight comprehensive categories or intelligences (Gardener, 1999). These are the eight proposed: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, interpersonal, and naturalist. When asked why intelligence and not talent, he said “I am deliberately being somewhat provocative. If I’d said that there are seven kinds of competencies, people would yawn and say ‘Yeah, yeah.’ But by calling them ‘intelligence,’ I’m saying that we’ve tended to put on a pedestal...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Tenses- Usually it creates tense for many ESL students during communication. It defines and differentiates the situation by time. Is time important in communication? Yes, it is. The wrong usage of tenses changes the exact meaning of the situation, what the speaker is trying to convey. So focusing tenses in grammar is more essential than others. Still, the proper usage of tenses is a complicated and confusing task for many high-level students in competitive exams. Then, what about the ESL students? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Vallikkannu M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. We can classify the ESL students into two...  [Read more]