TEFL Rowe

  The next thing we should look at is how our consonants are arranged for the top two rows we have P and F at the left side of our chart and G and J at the right side of our chart. They're arranged this way because if we analyze the way we speak we're using the front of our mouth to use these sounds as in ?p? and ?f? and I'm using my lips and my teeth to produce those sounds and as we move to the right on the chart slowly but surely we're making those sounds it towards the back of our mouth. We can use the examples of ?g?. The sound ?g? is produced further back in our mouth than ?p?. The next thing we'll notice about our chart is that some of our symbols are shaded. Notice that none of the symbols in the vowel sections are shaded but only a few are in the consonant section. The...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas One important factor to consider when teaching English abroad is how you arrange the seating in the classroom. Space in a classroom can be limited at times so it's important to maximize what you have available. There are multiple ways to arrange a classroom and knowing which ones will provide the most benefit is important. To ensure the best environment for the students and teacher it is essential to have an understanding of the options, as well as when and how to use them. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Alex C. As a rule a classroom will generally consist of at least four walls, an entrance, a surface to write on and desks for the students. Even with only...  [Read more]

  Place of articulation deals with the placement of the vocal organs when producing a sound. Before we can cover the particulars of places of articulation, we'll need to take a look at the various vocal organs and their locations. Moving from the front to the back we'd begin with our lips. We can use both lips in order to create a sound or we can use one of our lips with one of our rows of teeth, usually the top, in order to produce another sound. We also have other sounds, which use both of the rows of teeth. Further back we have what's called the alveolar ridge. That's the bit of the mouth that may get burnt when we're eating a pizza that's a bit too hot and the cheese burns just behind there our top two teeth. That again is the hard bit just behind our top teeth, called the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences A seating arrangement sometimes called a seating plan is used by teachers to organize their classrooms. It indicates the placement of desks and chairs that work best for both the students and the teacher. Here we will be seeing the different seating arrangements and how each of them affects learning or classroom dynamics. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Emilie J. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. When we think of a classroom, the usual image that comes to mind is one of a classic class with rows of desks one behind the other. However, if you step into a classroom today, chances are you’ll see a different setup that is...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas One of the most important elements of an efficiently run class is the seating arrangement in the classroom. There is a lot that is taken into consideration when managing a class, such as a teacher’s voice, hand gestures and eye contact, which are crucial when teaching TEFL class. Although there are other factors, the seating is one that will really set the environment for the activities that the teacher will introduce to the students throughout the course. There are many distinct possibilities for seating arrangements. These arrangements include ones that can be in smaller groups, larger groups, a class as a whole or even individual seating arrangements. However, each possible plan for a seating arrangement has...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas One of the most important elements of an efficiently run class is the seating arrangement in the classroom. There is a lot that is taken into consideration when managing a class, such as a teacher’s voice, hand gestures, and eye contact, which are crucial when teaching TEFL class. Although there are other factors, the seating is one that will really set the environment for the activities that the teacher will introduce to the students throughout the course. There are many distinct possibilities for seating arrangements. These arrangements include ones that can be in smaller groups, larger groups, a class as a whole, or even individual seating arrangements. However, each possible plan for a seating arrangement...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Anyone could learn a syllabus and regurgitate it to a group of people, however, teaching involves more than just the transference of information. Teachers must learn to be able to engage their students with the content, while also building a rapport with the students and managing the classroom as a whole. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kate M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Rapport building with a new group of students or an individual student is a vital first step as well as an ongoing task for any teacher. Encouraging students to introduce themselves to you as the teacher as well as to the rest of the class is a great way...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas There are many important things for an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher to consider when designing a seating arrangement for the classroom. Every teacher desires to create an atmosphere where good interaction can take place between the students as well as an atmosphere where attention can be focused on the teacher during times of teacher instruction. Of course, many limiting factors can affect the seating arrangement of the classroom, and the teacher may not end up having the ideal seating arrangement due to these factors. The two primary limiting factors that affect seating arrangement include the class size and the room size. Here we will look at the positives and negatives of a classroom arranged by...  [Read more]

Kevin Cullen Budget and Salary How much money do I need? Determine your costs to get TEFL certified and your running costs until you get your first teaching paycheck. The TEFL Budget Planner is a tool to estimate your total costs to become TEFL certified and then begin working as a teacher. Its spread out over three months as that’s a conservative plan to complete your one-month in-class TEFL course, interview and secure a position, begin teaching and final get your first paycheck at the end of your initial month. As most all schools pay at the end of the month, we’re assuming—conservatively again—that it’s at the end of the third month when you will start to receive income. Some may receive a partial paycheck in the second month, but...  [Read more]

  In this ITTT TESOL review video a group of students discuss their experiences during their TESOL/TEFL course in Corinth, Greece. They outline some of the components of the course including the teaching practice that the course provides. ITTT's Teaching English as a Foreign Language certification qualifies you to teach English overseas. Having your TEFL certification is a first step to exploring countries and new destinations around the world, experiencing new cultures and being paid for the experience. 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...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Managing a class involves organizing and controlling a class. It also involves having a relaxed manner and a sense of discipline. The class has to be interesting for the learners. A large class can be fun if managed well by the teacher. 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. I would suggest an orderly row arrangement for a large class. This will enable the teacher to move back and forth. This arrangement also enables the teacher to keep eye contact with the learners. A large class requires a confident voice and changes based on the stage of the lesson. Learners can sense a teacher that is...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Arranging seats in your classroom can be an important task, though it may not seem like it when you first are thinking about it. There are so many different options when it comes to how you can arrange seats. There is the full circle, semi-circle, giant square, U-shape, grouping tables in several desks, two desk pairs all facing forward, or the single file rows facing forward, just to name some of the many you can choose from. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brandie K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. All of these arrangements have good and bad points to them. The circle is good because it is easy for all the students to see...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Teaching Ideas Flashcard is an indispensable tool that every teacher needs during the studying process. Regardless of the age of the students, it can be used effective equal with young learners or adults. Usually, in the ESL classes, the teacher uses flashcards when they need to teach new or review the previous vocabulary. It’s also one of the easiest ways to add some games into your lesson, cause mostly it doesn’t need special preparations. Young learners especially like flashcard games because usually it’s active games and allow them to have fun during the lesson. There are different types of flashcards, for instance, on one side could be a word or picture on another side – it's the English translation. Those types of...  [Read more]

  So now we'll consider the actual classroom arrangements themselves in terms of the physical desk layout. There are possibly three main types of arrangements that are used within classrooms and we're going to indicate the desks here as being boxes and the arrangements of the students within those desks will be blue crosses. So here we have the desks ranged in rows and the students sitting within those rows. The second arrangement could be the use of horseshoes or semi circles and finally the use of individual desks. So for each of these arrangements what are the potential advantages and disadvantages of arranging our seating in this way? Let's take the rows first of all. One of the potential advantages is that it does give the teacher the opportunity, if it's arranged correctly,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences When talking about using songs in the classroom, the first things we should probably start by asking ourselves is why use them? And why are they important? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Karina C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. To answer these questions, I will throw you back to your childhood for a moment, more specifically to the first five years of your life and ask you to think of this; how many things do you remember from your early childhood? Do you remember what you use to be told? Or any conversations you had with your mother/father or tutor? What about school lessons (forget about the songs here for a moment...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Flashcards are considered to be an effective means to introduce new vocabulary in the ESL classroom. They are vivid, easy-to-use and they are considered to stimulate active recall method which helps us to retain the vocabulary for long periods. Some teachers consider that flashcards can to be used for young learners only. In my opinion, even adults will benefit from using flashcards. They can help to reduce TTT while introducing new vocabulary, can be used as a revision activity, and when adapted, can even be applied to practice vocabulary in complex grammar structures. Flashcards are easy to find. You can buy ready-made flashcards, use cutouts from old magazines or draw your flashcards. You can even ask your...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Classroom management is one of the most important aspects of teaching. This is because students need a learning-friendly environment to feel safe, which makes the students more willing to actively participate and learn. This learning-friendly environment can be achieved in many ways such as, how the teacher gives instructions, maintains discipline, establishes rapport, arranges the classroom, groups students together, the way they talk to the students, and so on. I am only going to touch on a few of these topics that I think are the most important in managing a classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Emma V. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences The seating arrangement is one of the most important topics in classroom management. Classroom management refers to the various skills and techniques that teachers use to keep students organized, orderly, focused, attentive, on task and academically productive during the class. However, this essay is going to explore more on the various methods of seating arrangement and how they influence classroom management. There are three most common seating arrangement methods that can be used by the teacher. These include the traditional rows and columns, horseshoe or U-shape and clusters. These are going to be explained in detail outlining their advantages and disadvantages in relation to the classroom size and shape,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas There are many distinct elements that influence what goes on inside a classroom. From the actions of the teacher and the students to the material used, the structure was chosen for the lesson, one could theoretically come up with a myriad of variables that can, positively or negatively, impact what goes on inside a classroom. Therefore, in order to better “stack the odds” so as to ensure that every lesson goes as smoothly and successfully as possible, it is the teacher's obligation to try and “tweak” these variables in his favor. One of these is the seating arrangement in the classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Martim D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences With the end goal of working in a Japanese kindergarten or pre-school, I decided to take the Teaching English to Young Learners certification course to accompany the TEFL course I recently completed through ITTT. Even though I knew the skills necessary for teaching young learners would differ from teaching learners of other ages, I found a lot of useful information in this course specifically regarding the topic of classroom management. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Melissa M. For context, most teaching environments for entry-level teaching positions in Japan involve a foreign teacher working alongside a native Japanese teacher. That being said, with the proper certifications and...  [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]

Lydia Pincott Destinations Alumni Experiences “But...why are you here?” It’s a phrase often uttered by Japanese, confused about what your reason could be for straying from the usual temples of Kyoto, shops of Shinjuku, and street-food of Osaka. The beaten path in Japan is pretty great and worth exploring thoroughly, but if you’ve done it, or feel like you’ve done it from seeing other people’s pictures, these 3 destinations are for you. Take a 4-week in-class TEFL/TESOL course in Japan and get a headstart in your teaching career! Picture this: Sandy beaches with perfectly turquoise waters stretching out as far as the eye can see, cafes with fresh, flavorful food just waiting to be devoured, and cheerful locals happy...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas As a teacher you are in charge of a classroom of children, it can be relatively hard to meet all students needs and maintain control. A lot of teachers develop alternative ways to manage students. This can be by establishing classroom rules right from the start and to maintain these rules right throughout the year. Popular discipline techniques are positive discipline, these techniques use positive reinforcement to encourage students to behave, this is a much better way, rather than negative reinforcement, with punishment and humiliation. The teachers turn to problem-solving and then use classroom discussions, so opinions are heard and self-awareness which resolves the problem...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Classroom management is the skill of organizing and managing a class to ensure that students can learn effectively. There are many different methods teachers can use to create an environment that will help students learn, such as classroom arrangement, conducting yourself correctly, grouping students in a sensible way for each task, and also establishing a good rapport with students. The teacher must apply these techniques to create a learning environment for the classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Christopher J. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Classroom management is an important component when teaching in any area of the education system. It is the process that the teacher follows to make sure the classroom lessons go about easily without any difficulties. When the classroom is well managed, the students are more comfortable when asking the teacher questions, the classroom is more organized, the students are involved with the lesson and they are more motivated. A well-managed classroom should involve student commitment, effective time management, and maintaining discipline. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Semra G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Student commitment...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences A smaller class size becomes more popular these days, especially for language courses, since it encourages students’ participation and interaction with teachers and peers. Different from a big class of 25 or more students, a small class requires less teacher’s instructions and more students’ discussions and cooperation, so effective classroom management strategies should be adopted and applied to the class. According to unit 5 of the course, classroom management is “the skill of organizing and managing the class, having a friendly, relaxed manner and maintaining discipline” (1). Focusing on the teacher’s role, seating arrangement, discipline maintenance, and rapport building, this essay will...  [Read more]

  This video covers the difference between 'aisle' and 'isle'. As these two words have a similar pronunciation and spelling, their usage is often confused. The word 'aisle' is a noun and describes a passage between rows of seats in a church, in a theater, an airplane or between shelves in a supermarket. A suitable example sentece for the word 'aisle' would be: The aisle was crowded with people looking for seats. The word 'isle' is also a noun but has a very different meaning. It usually refers to a small island, such as here: The pirates were in search of the lost isle for buried treasure. As you can see, once you know the meanings of the two words, you will not confuse them as their meanings are very different. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The one question that hinders many individuals in the educational profession, is what makes a terrific classroom? Is it the motivated students, the motivational teachers, or the resources? While all these elements are extremely crucial when looking at the dynamics of a classroom, they all lead to one thing, which is the importance of discipline in a classroom setting. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jasmine Q. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Discipline can be simply defined as the practice of training people to obey rules. Furthermore, a teacher uses discipline in a classroom to make sure classroom order is maintained, which...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas There are many reasons why classroom management skill sets are really important for the basics of teaching generally. It effectively helps build a great classroom atmosphere for everyone in it as well as create rapport between the teacher and the student. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Amelie R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Few of the most important skills the teacher needs to acquire are the special details towards their eye contact, gesture, and the voice, as it is can determine the outcome of the class. It is essential for the teacher to always have good eye contact technique which will help in a number of ways...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Have you ever had the experience of saying a fictional character's name out loud to someone for the first time and they don't know whom you are talking about even though you're reading the same book? I have and it was a confusing feeling. The thing I have learned about English is that to truly learn it, you need to speak it. When we learn English by speaking it out loud we can avoid the mistakes of mispronouncing words that we have only ever read in our heads. This is the primary reason I think we need to decrease teacher speaking time in class and dramatically increase student speaking time when we are teaching our students English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jennifer A. Please note...  [Read more]