Is Phonics Still Taught

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences This piece will discuss the difficulties faced by Japanese learners of English regarding English pronunciation and suggest methods to help learners in different age groups overcome them. It posits that most difficulties stem from the differences in phonology between the English alphabet and the Japanese kana system. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Niall M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. While the English alphabet is phonemic, with each letter representing a single sound, kana is syllabic, with most characters representing a consonant followed by a vowel. This means that Japanese speakers may add vowels onto the end of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences My own teaching experience, though not as extensive as many seasoned teachers, is quite diverse. I have taught English class to middle and high school students in the US public school system, worked for an alternative school for students with behavior problems, taught in a language training school, taught in a bilingual Montessori kindergarten, tutored numerous students one-on-one, and I’ve taught many different kinds of online classes. Currently, I work as a course designer and an actor, filming fun videos to teach Chinese students English through an interactive online app. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Christy N. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas What is phonology? Most students have not even heard about it. Whenever I ask my students whether they know or have ever learned about phonetics, the same answers come out, “No, we don’t know about it at all”. It is no wonder they reply like this because there is no phonetic teaching lesson in English classes from KG to high school here in my country. As for me, I got to study about this only when I attended college. Even then, it wasn’t taught comprehensively and I only learned very little. So I couldn’t read nor write phonetic symbols very well. Thus I thought it was the most difficult part of studying English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Thein G. Please note that this blog...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning difficulties can found in all teaching environments, be it a classroom of mixed ability students, a one-to-one tutoring session, teaching EFL or online teaching. Learning difficulties affect all age groups, both genders, and all languages and cultures, therefore a good teacher must be able to both foresee and prepare for supporting a student’s learning difficulties. This is even more important when teaching EFL students as unless these difficulties are met and coping methods are established then the student will struggle to make any progress in their learning English as a second language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Tammy T. Please note that this blog post might not...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I was an English teacher in Japan for over three and a half years. In that time, I gained a lot of experience teaching young learners. My students were aged from two to fourteen. As I taught these students, I learned a lot about how songs can be used effectively in the classroom. Songs can be used to teach sentence structure, routines, vocabulary, and help aid the understanding of instructions in the classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Megan B. Before students can even grasp the language, they can understand rhythm and music. When teaching the youngest students (two years old), we used a lot of chants. Chants are not necessarily music but work much in the same way. Generally,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I’m a non-native English speaker who never once benefited from an effective ESL program in her entire school years. It’s rather ironic that I became an ESL teacher and taught English for six years, essentially preaching what I had never practiced myself. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Somy L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I was born in Korea, and my family and I moved to South Africa when I was ten. Before 2000, ESL programs were not widespread knowledge and resources were on the limited side. My ESL teacher at the time would just give printouts to the students to color and trace words. The amount of progress I made in...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Many challenges come with teaching English in Japan that is unique and not innately obvious to some people. In addition to the more universal challenges of learning a new language, there are inherent cultural obstacles that English learners must overcome in Japan as well as several problems with the current course of study that is being taught. However, English teachers should do their best to work within the limits of the system to foster an interest and passion for language that lives on outside the classroom and beyond the school years of learners. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Issei E. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of...  [Read more]

Umber Sherjeel Destinations Alumni Experiences Being in the teaching field for more than a decade and having taught in Saudi Arabia for the last 7+ years, I will give some pointers about my experience here as an English Language teacher. The education industry in Saudi Arabia is very blooming. There are many international schools, colleges, and universities - and the English education field in Saudi Arabia continues to grow and expand. Due to the rapid shift in the education system during the past few years, the country has established an insatiable appetite for ESL English Language teachers. English language learning has become mandatory in pretty much the entire school system. Since English is considered as a key skill for...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences I have been a teacher with 51 Talk for three years now and to improve my career and teaching skills I have learned some things on this TEFL course that will help me brush up my skills in teaching. Though I have been a teacher’s aid before, as well as a bright student who used to tutor others during my school years, it was now that I realized how hard teachers used to work for us to become good learners in school and understand the subjects. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Saba S. Also read My Experience Taking the 50-hour Teaching English to Young Learners TEFL Course from ITTT I used to not really like tests that much but now I realize how important they are for teachers to learn about where...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Budget and Salary TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Hello everybody, my name is Liza and I am super glad to welcome you to my weekly live session. Please let me know that you can see me clearly and hear me clearly. Today's live session is going to be devoted to a really popular question in my direct messages. I've received several requests to talk about teaching career advice and I hope everybody will find something interesting in this live stream. We've got the chat box here and you basically can comment with whatever you want. As I have already mentioned my name is Liza and I am a TEFL expert and a former ESL teacher. I’ve been teaching online since 2020 because of the quarantine and...  [Read more]