TEFL Butte

  Connected speech is also an important element of phonology and it's involved in joining words together in an effect to make our speech more efficient. Some might say it's a product of being lazy but nonetheless it's what we all do and we want all of our non-native speakers to speak as naturally as possible, so we have to be aware of these things. Here are a few of the more common examples. We have linking, dropping, changing and extra lettering. An example of each would be with linking, we link our words together so that they almost in effect become one word. Instead of saying ?What do you want to do,? we typically will say ?Whatdoyou want to do?? Then, we can also have dropping. Rather than pronouncing each and every consonant, we can sometimes, especially in certain accents,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Throughout high school and college, I mainly focused on learning how to speak Japanese as my second language. Unlike English, Japanese is a fairly phonetic language. Two of its three writing systems, hiragana and katakana, are phonetic. This makes it easy for foreigners to learn because each syllable, also known as sound clusters in some circles, is almost always said exactly how it is spelled. The third writing system, kanji, is not and, as such, is much more difficult for foreigners to learn because kanji are essentially pictures that describe their meaning. They are much more difficult to learn and use in everyday speech. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Nicole H. Please note that...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences For the past two months, I've been locked in on my computer studying the TEFL course. It has been a great experience, and as a teacher, it has given men clarity on several things I didn't have clarity on before. As a person who is already teaching English in a private language school, I can say that the TEFL course has boosted my teaching skills and confidence. The course provided me with valuable tips on teacher conduct and how to get students involved in classes. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ngonidzashe M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The best thing I've learned from the course...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences It's quite weird and confusing that English is different in different places. Many students are being taught in one way, while others in another way. Sooner or later they all face some problems in real-life communication. So, the question is, do they need to learn different versions of English or not? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Taylor K. A student from rural China grows up learning British English in his local language school. He applies to a university in the United States and gets accepted. When asking for directions to his classroom he is told to go to the second floor, but cannot find his class because he is searching one floor higher than he should. During his class, he...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Many ESL teachers have never even heard of phonetics or phonology, yet they use these aspects of speech naturally when they speak. Phonetics and phonology are two areas of linguistics that study the sounds of language. Phonetics focuses on individual sounds, while phonology studies the features and combination of sounds (McMahon, 1-3). There are two reasons why ESL teachers need to know phonetics and phonology: first, it helps them to conceptualize English in a way that their students can understand; and second, it helps them to address their students’ difficult pronunciation problems. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Victoria I. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Destinations So, you love to travel and want to teach English abroad but you’re also a vegan? The good news is that you won’t have to choose between your dietary needs and your dream of exploring the world. The following places are vegan-friendly destinations ideal for teaching English abroad. Due to its significant Buddhist population, Thailand has plenty of vegan food options to choose from. There are vegan eateries all over the country, and you’ll also find healthy salad bar concepts, organic farm-to-table, Japanese macrobiotic and all sorts of other vegan eateries here. Even your regular restaurants often have meatless pad Thai, tom yum soup, coconut milk-based curries and salads on their menu. What’s specific for...  [Read more]