Language In Sentence

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Grammar is the whole system of language. It includes a set of rules known as syntax. Occasionally when working on the computer you may get a message “Error Syntax; code 141” this means you have typed into the computer something that did not fit into the rules. This is not allowed and the computer will reject it and force you to obey the rules. When speaking English we have no restrictions on the structure or form and no computer monitoring us to stop us from speaking incorrectly. We can say anything anyway we choose, well-spoken or poorly spoken. There are some common words which are frequently misused. They are, affect, that, and whom. This essay will look at each of these in an effort to clarify their use....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Learning a second language can be difficult, and this is especially true when the learners L1 and their target language are completely different in structure, sound, and tones. An English as a second language student who speaks French, German, or any other European language will have an easier task than one who speaks a language that is not of European origins. One such language is Mandarin Chinese. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ashley L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The areas that native Mandarin speakers most often run into difficulty are pronunciation, tones, tenses, and sentence structure. A Chinese speaker might...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In today’s world learning English is no longer a possibility, but an essential part of being a world citizen. However, we must face the fact- for some people- to learn English grammar is not so easy and fun, they hate grammar and even think it is the most boring part of learning a new language. On the other hand, others are extremely interested in learning grammar rules and practice it as much as they can. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Glaucia S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Whoever wants to become an effective language learner cannot run from grammar lessons; it is a crucial part of the learning process besides...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this essay, I am going to talk about how students can be motivated, more specifically, how to encourage shy or reluctant students to participate in class discussions. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Bertram R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. With the possible exception of mental "problems" such as being a mute, most of the time I find that a student who is unwilling to talk is either not confident in their abilities, or waiting for somebody else to answer the question. Also Read: The Benefits and Pitfalls when Teaching One-on-One What I have found to be a good way of encouraging students to talk who are shy is to teach...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Grammar and the correct usage of it is a vital part of all communication whether spoken, written or read. It allows the speaker to correctly convey their message or ideas and for the listener to understand what is been said. Been able to communicate is not just about speaking or listening but been able to do this correctly and therefore the usage of grammar and how it is constructed within a sentence is important to know. Grammar develops effective communication skills and assists in fluency in the language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dawn C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. With technology, today slang and the shortening...  [Read more]

  And now we'll have a look at both the infinitive and the gerund. Infinitive is the word "to", followed by the base form of the verb. We"ll typically use it after a verb, specifically verbs like "want" or "hope". We can make statements like "I want to go to the beach." We also have our gerund. Our gerund is a verb followed by "-ing", but specifically used as a noun within the sentence. We have a verb plus a gerund: "I enjoy playing poker." The main verb is "enjoy" and, although "playing" looks as if it's a verb, it's actually used as the noun within the sentence. We also can use it with a preposition followed by a gerund: "How about going to the beach?" We could also put it in the front of a sentence: "Smoking is bad for you." Again, the verb plus "-ing" can act as two things...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas What are ice breakers and when and where do we use them? In this blog post, we will cover these issues and give actual examples of activities you can use with your classes. Icebreakers are games or activities that are designed to ‘break the ice’. Typically you would use these kinds of games or activities at the beginning of a new school year, when you have a new set of students, or a new class that you don't know and they don't know you. You also can use icebreakers to get your students going at the start of the lesson speaking in English and that's really important as you don't want to come into the classroom and say, “Open your books to page five” and then start studying....  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word psychology. This word is used as a noun and describes the science of mind and behavior of a person or animal. The word was created by combining the Greek word psych? (meaning life or soul) with –logia, from the Greek logos, meaning reason. 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. in this particular unit,I've learnt a range of very different teaching strategies and themes. such as, Songs, Chants...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I have been living in Japan for the past one and a half years. Needless to say, the experience has been enthralling. This country would have never been my first choice for a country to relocate to, from my home country, India. But if my stay has taught me anything, it is that never judge a book by its cover. When we think of Japan, the first thing that pops up is that it is a country of workaholics; it has zero English presence, and the people are highly prejudiced against foreigners and foreign culture. I was proven wrong. Japan is a beautiful country. It is culturally so rich, it makes me want to live here forever. The people, though tend to be a little distant initially, a warm-up to you eventually, and...  [Read more]

  As mentioned earlier, our example sentence has used a regular verb 'to play'. With the regular verbs we simply add '-ed'. This spelling pattern changes for words that end with a consonant and a Y: 'cry' goes to 'cried', 'try' to 'tried'. Another spelling pattern we have to be aware of is our consonant plus vowel plus consonant. In these instances, we double the consonant used: 'shop' needs the double P; 'ship' needs the double P. With these spelling patterns, and most spelling patterns in general for the English language, there are always exceptions to the rules. So we have to be aware of those exceptions. We also have to impart those exceptions on to our students. We can do so through various exercises and various activities to end our class. To form the negative sentence here,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Sometimes problems may be encountered when teaching students from different nationalities due to varied reasons. When teaching English to students that are culturally and linguistically different from one's own, the teacher must take great care to prepare and identify the specific problems one may encounter as well as be attentive to the problems that occur in real-time. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Roman S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The problems an ESL or TEFL teacher may encounter can vary widely but are usually identified in these areas: pronunciation, grammar, and syntax as it pertains to language but also...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Reading is an integral part of the process of acquiring language skills and can be strong support for the development of listening, speaking and writing skills. We will explore the benefits of the diversity of written material - both in topic and style - the ways it can be utilized or expanded upon. We will also look at its shortcomings and some strategies for overcoming them. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jason T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. A key benefit of written texts is that they provide complete and properly formed sentence structures that are static, allowing students to process the information at their own...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Speaking like a native speaker is always expected from learners. However, they encounter many factors that prevent their success. Therefore, as an English teacher, I want to explore some common difficulties that Vietnamese students face when they learn to pronounce English so that I can teach effectively and help them communicate more confidently. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Thuong L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Four major features can cause problems for them. Firstly, the complexity of tense and lax vowels in English creates confusion for Vietnamese learners. Secondly, a variety of dialect differences and consonant...  [Read more]

  "Who" and "whom" are another set of words that often causes confusion. Howeer, there is actuall a simple trick to deciding which one to use in a sentence. "Who" is used to refer to the subject of a sentence and 'whom' is used to refer to the object. Keeping this in mind will eliminate the chance of making mistakes. We recommend the following trick. The usage of these two words is the same as he and him. "He" is the subject and "him" is the object. If you are confused about which one you should use, look at the sentences and check whether "he" or "him" should be used. If it's "he", then you should use "who". If it's "him", then "whom" should be used. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas While teaching a new language, we, as a teacher need to concentrate on some very important skills. such as writing, reading, speaking and listening. If we miss one of these skills, it will mean that we don't provide the needed knowledge for our students., and all these are equally important. Today I am going to speak about English grammar and my main point will be the modal auxiliary verbs and how to teach them as a grammar rule. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Edgar V. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. These verbs are used to show willingness, capability, necessity or possibility. And like other verbs, the modal verbs also...  [Read more]

Shirin Sophy Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Today's pedagogical approaches put considerable emphasis upon the importance of providing students with the opportunity to have a joyful educational experience through adding enough and well-located variety to the lessons. One practical way to do so is designing and adding aimful games to your plan in order to inject positive energy into your lessons, improve the mood of your class and make your lessons stick in students' long-term memory. Since not only young learners but also grownups enjoy playing fun games while taking English lessons, teachers, therefore, are always trying to come up with games that serve this purpose. So here are some ESL game ideas that you can adapt to your...  [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]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Over the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of teaching English as a foreign language online for a company called Education First. The format would normally be an internationally diverse group in an audio-only platform. During these sessions, I found that my students from China would have specific challenges in pronunciation that many of my European and Brazilian students would not. I recognized their tendency to add an “a” at the end of words that clearly ended in a consonant. Unfortunately, I was not educated enough in the specific challenges that Mandarin speakers faced in their attempt to learn English. I’m scheduled to begin teaching in China later this year, and it has become clear to me that I...  [Read more]

  In this TEFL review, Deeksha tells us how she enjoyed taking the 120-hour online TEFL course with ITTT. She found that the course units were clear and comprehensive. She also found that the level of difficulty of the course helped motivate her to keep going. 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 section merely contained an overview and explanation of different testing types and strategies, as well as a summary of the more common \"external...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word rejuvenate. This word is used as a verb and refers to making a person look or feel younger, as well as fresher, and more lively. Some synonyms for rejuvenate include revive, revitalize and regenerate. The word is a combination from re- ‘again’ and the Latin word juvenis meaning ‘young’. 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 equipment can be used to make my class...  [Read more]

  And now it's time to have a look at our first grammar unit. Grammar in its widest sense is the structure of a language. We as speakers of the language can structure our language without a problem. However, as teachers of the language we need to be able to better analyze the grammar and the grammar that exists within statements that we make. These basic parts of grammar are called parts of speech. Each part of speech has a certain function within a sentence. Our example sentence here is "My older brother lives in Tokyo." Each one of these words is a certain part of speech, which we'll have a look at in just a minute but let's just think about the words within this particular sentence. We have ?my?, indicating whose brother it is, we have "older", indicating which brother it is....  [Read more]

  In this video Linda breaks down the difference between "in time" and "on time". Due to the fact that both expressions revolve around time, they can be quite difficult to distinguish. However, this video provides helpful examples and explanations that will help EFL teachers and students alike to grasp the difference. 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 is a good hard Unit honestly I'm really confused now, I thought i knew English but...  [Read more]

  And now let's look at the pronouns. Simply put, pronouns take the place of a noun. We have various types of pronouns. They are personal pronouns, which can either be subject or object. We have reflexive pronouns, relative pronouns and possessive pronouns. With our personal pronouns, we have to decide whether it's the subject or the object. The subject is the doer of an action, whereas the object is the one that receives the action. Subject pronouns are: I, you, he, she, it etc. Object pronouns are: me, you, him, her, etc. In the sentence "Greg hit Pete," the subject of the sentence is "Greg", therefore I would say "He hit Pete," or I could put a pronoun in for the object of the sentence, where "Greg hit Pete", now, I go into "Greg hit him." With our reflexive pronouns, these are...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Challenges are inevitable especially if you want to be successful at what you do and teaching EFL is not devoid of them. In fact, teaching English as a Foreign Language can be very much exciting but also very challenging as it comes with lots of problems. Among these problems are what to do for the first lessons and how to get students motivated for the EFL course. These problems like many others have solutions and this essay seeks to highlight the problems and provide some practical solutions to them. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Belinda S. What to teach for a first lesson can be very problematic sometimes and as the proverb goes, “First impressions are the most lasting”. First...  [Read more]

  Two former trainees talk about their experiences during their TEFL course in Corinth Greece in this TEFL review video. If you are a person of a mature age or a senior citizen, do not be put you off from doing one of our courses. ITTT welcomes all applications regardless of age, gender or nationality. You just need to be committed to applying yourself to our demanding course. We at ITTT are committed to doing everything we can in assisting trainees to successfully complete the course and to promptly acquire a teaching job abroad. 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,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Peculiarities in the English language can be quite difficult and challenging to explain to students but are certainly very rewarding. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Monique E. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. If we look at the word “Peace” – in English this word could refer to “peace between family, neighbors, and friends” or it could mean “peace of mind” or “peace” etc. We also have the same word spoken in the same way, but spelled differently and has a completely different meaning – as in “Piece” – a piece of cake. In some languages, there is no way to use one word to convey all those different...  [Read more]

  This TEFL review is from Rodney. He is originally from Jamaica but currently living and working in Japan. He recently completed our 120-hour TEFL/TESOL course online and had a great experience. He realized the importance of an internationally recognized TEFL/TESOL certification and decided to go for it. After completing the course, he received a range of new opportunities, especially in teaching English online. He cannot recommend this course enough to anyone who is interested in teaching English. 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...  [Read more]

  CELTA is an internationally recognized teaching qualification in the field of teaching English as a foreign or second language. The course is aimed at potential teachers with little or no experience inside a classroom. CELTA courses can be studied in a number of locations around the world and are individually designed and organized by different language institutes. Although there may be some variety between individual courses, the fundamental specifics of the course are dictated by Cambridge ESOL, part of the University of Cambridge. 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...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This paper will discuss the benefits of teaching slangs and idioms to students learning English as a second language. It posits that both are necessary to fully use and understand the language, and will look at when it would be appropriate to introduce them to different types of students and how they might be incorporated into lessons. 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. Both slang and idioms are natural parts of the English language; however, textbooks are usually lacking in them, due the fact that they cannot be updated quickly enough to keep up with the change of language or because it...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Passive voice is something native English speakers can use without much thought but it can be difficult for language learners to master because the switch from active to passive voice is quite an involved process – as many EFL teachers find when they first attempt to present it. Here are some fun activities that you can use in the classroom to help your students practice using this tricky language pattern. Do remember when you adapt these games that not every verb or tense in the English language can be used for the passive voice! This is a tried and tested game that’s been used with the passive voice for a long time. It’s a lot of fun and easily adaptable to past and present tenses, although you may need to be...  [Read more]