How To Teach English Language Learners

1. Introduction 2. Benefits of Teaching English to Young Learners 3. ITTT's TEFL Certification Programs for Young Learners 4. Conclusion Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) to young learners is a rewarding and fulfilling experience. Children have a natural ability to learn languages, and as a teacher, you have the opportunity to shape their language skills and foster a love for learning. At ITTT, we offer specialized TEFL certification programs that focus on teaching English to young learners. Our courses provide you with the knowledge, skills, and techniques needed to create engaging and effective lessons for children of all ages. Teaching English to young learners comes with a variety of benefits. Not only does it allow you to make a positive impact on children's lives, but it...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences This academic discourse will examine the concepts of motivation in an ESL classroom, through the lens of some motivational theorists such as John Schumann and John Keller. According to Kreitner ( 1995 ), “Motivation is the psychological process that gives behavior purpose and direction”. Dalton E (1974) stated that “ Motivation refers to how urges drives, desires, aspirations, and strivings or needs direct, control or explain the behavior of human beings. From the definitions quoted above, one can conclude that without motivation, there’s inertia at the level of human ability and energy. There are four kinds of motivation: intrinsic, extrinsic, instrumental, and integrative. This post was written by...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching English as a foreign language can be done one of two ways: teaching a group of students or by teaching on a one-to-one basis. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Xiaobing W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. On the contrary, one to one teaching is made more special by the fact that many teachers have to develop their strategies, approaches, and materials. One-to-one courses are, by definition, tailor-made courses. On the one hand, the teacher not only has a greater opportunity to engage in real interaction and to learn. But no need to worry about the problems of large groups- mixed ability, group dynamics, early finishers,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Common standards must be met by every American student in classes like mathematics, science, social studies, and language arts. English language learners are held to the same standards and given the same assessments in these different content area classes. Are these assessments a true measure of what an English language learner knows? How can teachers prepare English language learners for the rigors and expectations of the American educational system? Teachers who are prepared can help these students to succeed in both their learning of the new language and the content of the academic classes in which they are enrolled. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Danita O. Please note that this blog...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas For this task, I have selected learning modes: Young learners v.s. Adults. When teachers are instructing students, they should first think about how to instruct them using the best methodologies to make learning best or what factors or aspects of learning they should consider for their classes, such as student motivation, previous learning experience, language awareness, behavior problems that could arise in class and the students’ life experiences. All of the above factors can be divided by many different students, but it has been shown in this course that these facets are predominantly divided by young learners. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Heejeong K. Please note that this blog...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching techniques are a crucial aspect within the classroom and encompass all the different ways to take important information that a learner requires in understanding a specific topic and projecting it across a classroom/skype in a way that all the learners will listen, comprehend and apply. Teaching techniques come in many different forms. They can be in the form of simplistic games or the form of choral repetition. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brendan S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Different teaching techniques target different and specific areas of the subject and in the case of a TEFL teacher, the teaching...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Thailand is the country located in South East Asia with a population of over 69 million people. Thailand is divided into four regions which include Northern Thailand, Northeastern Thailand, Central Thailand, and Southern Thailand. The official language of Thailand is Thai. But each of the regions in Thailand has its dialect. But the language used for the government, education system or Thai society is the Thai language which Thai people always speak Thai in everyday life as well as in school. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Chadawan S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. English is the international language. It is the medium of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Daisy C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. One problem facing many Japanese students learning English is differentiating between countable and uncountable nouns. In the Japanese language, the same word is often used for ‘much’ and ‘many’. In English, ‘much’ is used to describe countable nouns, and ‘many’ is used to describe uncountable nouns. A problem facing many EFL learners, especially Japanese learners, is idioms. The English language has thousands of idioms, which are used in everyday life. These are difficult for the learner to understand the meaning of, and to remember how...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Reading plays an important role in language learning. It is one of the language skills that can be used to interpret a written text and discuss the given information applying speaking and listening skills as well. Reading different books, texts, advertising wallpapers, or magazines helps us gain knowledge or receive important information. Since old times books have always been one of the main sources of knowledge. While reading people could imagine themselves traveling to different places, having an amazing adventure, possessing pirates’ treasure, or even solving a mystery, and at the same time learn about different countries and their cultures. In other words, reading has always provided its readers with...  [Read more]

  Dima from Ukraine is planning to use his 120-hour certificate from ITTT to teach English to children in China. In this TEFL review, Dima recommends the course for those who want to learn how to teach English professionally around the world. ITTT’s online TEFL and TESOL courses will give you the skills you need to teach English successfully. Our certificates are internationally recognised and enable you to find work as an English teacher almost anywhere in the world. 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...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences A life long learner, to me, is one who desires to learn new things based on interests, motivations, and knowledge to be gained. As one who is a certified teacher in first through eighth grades (in Louisiana, USA), possesses a master degree in education, as well as having a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a minor in Leadership and Supervision, does not mean that I know it all; far from it. In my middle school teaching days and years of teaching in higher education preparing teachers to teach, I encountered students from other culturally diverse backgrounds; yet, I did not have the basic fundamentals of teaching students whose first language was not English. This I regret. This post was written by our...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences How many of us have had to call into customer service only to struggle to understand the employee’s English? The simple process to find a solution to a problem often becomes increasingly frustrating and exhausting for both parties. While monolinguistic persons may not appreciate the struggle to learn and master a new language, as instructors to those individuals working to learning English, phonetics is key. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Antranik D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The modern-day English alphabet does not visually represent the range of phonetic sounds utilized by the language and this presents...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Grammar plays a very important role in learning and teaching a foreign language. What is grammar? Crystal describes grammar as “the business of taking a language to pieces, to see how it works” (as cited in Bentsen, 2017). This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Meral B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. According to Swan ‘‘grammar is essentially a limited set of devices for expressing a few kinds of necessary meaning that cannot be conveyed by referential vocabulary alone’’ (as cited in Hu, 2012). Ur believes that ‘‘grammar may be roughly defined as the way a language manipulates and combines words (or bits of words)...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Jeremy Harmer, in his book How to Teach English, discusses different learning styles of students. He states that everyone responds to stimuli like photos, pictures, sounds, music, and movement, but that some things stimulate student learning more than other things do. Harmer cites Richard Bandler and John Grinder’s neuro-linguistic programming theory which states that everyone has a preferred stimulus (e.g. visual, auditory, or kinesthetic) which they respond to above all others. Students who have a visual preference will remember things better if they see them. Those with an auditory preference are more likely to recall things they hear. Kinesthetic learners are influenced by activity and learn best when...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas When native Arabic learners attempt to learn the English language, they are faced with a variety of difficulties since there are fundamental differences between the two languages. Arabic words have a three-consonant root as its base, so all words are formed by combining the roots with either a fixed vowel pattern or and affix. The Arabic language has 28 consonants and 8 vowels which is three times less than the English language in terms of vowel sounds. Due to those differences, Arabic learners struggle in the following areas; writing, grammar, phonology, and pronunciation when learning the English language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ayman E. Please note that this blog post might not...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching can be extremely satisfying and rewarding, but how we teach and the methodologies that we use should be adapted to teaching each specific learner or groups of learners. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Omar B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Let's begin with defining what is considered to be an adult and what is considered to be a young learner. According to regulatory standards, an adult is an individual over the age of 18. Young learners, on the other hand, can be categorized based on three bases; from the age of seven and under (very young learners), between the ages 8 to 12 and post-puberty, usually from ages 13...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Have you ever wondered why nursery rhymes are one of the first grammar structures taught in the life of a young learner? And how come it is easy for most adults to remember lyrics to a song that they learned in Kindergarten? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dee S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Let us analyze a few elements that Song and Rhyme have that make them effective teaching methods in learning a new language in the classroom : In Unit 19 of this course, it was stated that it is best to teach very simple grammar concepts to beginner students. Nursery rhymes are short and contain no complex storylines, symbols, and...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas A lesson plan is a working document that serves as a reference point for teaching. A lesson plan is also a record; it can be referred to in any future lesson by the teacher. It also serves as a guide for a teacher who is covering an absent teacher. It helps the teacher to know how to carry out the lesson. This means that a lesson plan has to be simple and clear for another teacher to understand. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Esther O. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. It is important to know the number of learners you will be teaching. It helps in planning how to pair or group learners in an activity. The planning for a large...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences To begin with, I had completed my TEFL onsite course with International TEFL and TESOL Training in Paris, France before starting my CTEYL online course. After practicing teaching both to adults and young learners, I decided that I am more interested in teaching English to young learners. That’s why I chose the 50-hour specialized course Teaching English to Young Learners. After successfully completing all the units of this course, I can say that my experience of this course has been of great benefit to me in many ways. It helped me to expand both my theoretical and practical knowledge concerning the teaching of the English language to young learners. This post was written by our ITTT graduate Chrysoula D. To...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences This post will focus on the differences English teacher face when they are working with a class of young learners compared to a class of adult learners. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rebecca M. First, it is necessary to define what we mean by adult learners and young learners in the TEFL environment. An adult learner is defined as any student over the age of eighteen who engages in English language tuition. A younger learner, therefore, is a student under the age of eighteen years old. There is a much greater variety within the young learner category due to the vast developmental changes that occur during this period. For example, a five- year- old is a very different type of learner...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Listening is an important skill in which learners need help in developing their abilities. Listening strategies are so helpful. By giving a learner, tools to listen to the learner can develop more control over his/her listening abilities. Many learners ask “ Teacher, how can I improve my listening?” The truth of the matter is with training from teachers. We can apply strategies in class to help learners overcome the obstacles, which they encounter while listening. The spoken text varies greatly from written text, and these differences can affect the listeners’ understanding. For example, when listening to spoken text the learner must process the information right away, and in some cases, there is often...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas “Teachers must learn how to teach… they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching”, (B. F. Skinner 1972). Understanding how these theories of learning suggested by philosophers can bring or has brought about a change in teaching helps teachers to be very effective in the classroom as they aid in shaping the lives of young men and women for the future. Two great theories of learning that have impacted teaching are Behaviorism and Cognitive development theory. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Samantha D. Using behavioral theory in the classroom can be rewarding for both students and teachers. Behavioral change occurs for a reason,...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Upon completing the 50-hour Teaching English to Young Learners Course, the best things I’ve learned would have to be the section that covered course development, including ESA (engage, study, activate), testing/assessment, and how they all come together to form a syllabus and ultimately an English language course. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kinsey K. I have seen ESA in the previous 120-hour TEFL course and my 50-hour Teaching Business English Course, however, I had not seen it applied in a way to be used specifically with the young learner in mind. Whenever a teacher is planning a course and a syllabus, the teacher needs to be able to ensure the material is at the appropriate level...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Online English teachers are divided into two groups. The first group is online ESL teachers that work for an education company. The second group is online ESL teachers who freelance. I will explain the two types of teaching materials, authentic and created materials, and how materials are incorporated in teaching English online to students. The focus of this article will be young learners as that is my personal career goal. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dora E. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The first group of teaching materials is authentic materials. Authentic materials are defined as “anything a native speaker would...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I haven’t been a teacher for very long, but I have noticed more and more, since taking this course that a classroom can succeed if a teacher knows that teaching isn’t just the passing of information. The teacher must understand that there are many different types of learners, that they must build a rapport with these learners, and they must tailor lessons based on these aspects. Teaching is more than just teaching a subject or language; this is the best thing I’ve learned from my ITTT classes. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Erin W. As a foundation, to being teaching, I have learned that there are many types of learners, which is a lesson in itself and more than just teaching....  [Read more]

  http://www.teflcourse.net In a previous grammar video we looked at the future simple, future continuous, future perfect and future perfect continuous. In this video we look at three other forms used for talking about the future. These are the 'going to' future, the present continuous and the present simple. The 'going to' future: Subject + verb to be "am/is/are" + going to + base verb. It is used for intentions/things decided upon before speaking as in: "I'm going to teach English in Korea next year". The 'going to' future is also used when making predictions with evidence. The present continuous: Subject + verb to be "am/is/are" + present participle. This is used to talk about future arrangements that we might have such as: "I'm starting a TEFL course next month", this is...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Let's begin with this - classroom activities are useful. Teachers need to use suitable games for students based on their level and that way students can train their vocabulary and language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sandra S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. They are fun! It's important because nobody wants to sit in the classroom and be bored. Doing games in the classroom, educators can make a great relationship with learners, while learners can gain confidence, build self-esteem, so they will feel free to speak and participate in the class. Games boost students' energy, which makes the class more dynamic, more...  [Read more]

1. Introduction 2. Benefits of Online English Language Education 3. How ITTT Can Help 4. Conclusion In today's globalized world, the ability to communicate in English is more important than ever. English is considered the lingua franca of the business world, and proficiency in the language can open up a world of opportunities for individuals. However, not everyone has access to quality English language education, especially in countries like Myanmar. This is where online platforms can play a crucial role in bridging the gap and providing accessible and affordable English language education to learners. Online English language education offers a host of benefits to learners. Firstly, it provides flexibility, allowing individuals to study at their own pace and at a time that is convenient...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences As a developing country, Vietnam currently has an urgent need for the international language English to attract foreign investment and to promote the economy, especially after becoming a member of the World Trade Organisation (Nguyen T.T, 2007). With this growth of international trade and an increasing number of foreign tourists, the ability to communicate in English has become a passport to a better job for many Vietnamese. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Stuart B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. English is taught in schools, universities and foreign language centers across the country. There are now more teachers and...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Thailand is famously known as “ the land of smiles”. In some situations, smiling is the way to save face or to avoid conflicts. This often includes the time when Thai people have to communicate with foreigners in English and have no idea what the other meant. They simply smile to get out of a situation instead of making the best out of it by practicing their English speaking skill. On the other hand, they build up a fear of making mistakes and avoid being in that particular circumstance in the future. As English today plays important roles in tourism and the Thai economy as a whole, still, Thai people struggle to communicate effectively. Here are some areas suggested why it is difficult for Thai learners to...  [Read more]