TEFL White Swan

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas For nearly a year, I have taught four to six-year-olds residing in the outskirts of Beijing. My students do not sit at desks. They instead sit side-by-side on a line of chairs, all of which face an interactive whiteboard complete with pre-designed flipcharts. As my students are still learning essential words for everyday English use, drills and flashcards are crucial within our lessons. However, drilling can quickly lose a young learner's interest. To remedy the monotony, I have used the following five activities: One-Step, Monster, Bomb; Hopscotch; Fly Swat Race; Tic-Tac-Toe; and Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament. Each game proved to be an...  [Read more]

Ahmed Taha TEFL Information Teaching Ideas This article explains what TBLT is and how it differs from more traditional approaches to teaching. Why has it become such a popular teaching method for languages? Will it continue to be popular or will it be replaced by another approach? PPP now stands for present, practise, and produce. The teacher is in charge of everything in the PPP classroom. As a result, there is a finite amount of room for student behaviour and agency. A linear syllabus is also a part of PPP. So you only get one chance to learn grammatical rules and other aspects of the language. Finally, lessons in the PPP format can become repetitive and boring. So this isn't the most effective method of inspiring students....  [Read more]

Minh Huy Hoang Destinations Alumni Experiences Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing countries in the top of Southeast Asia. The country has a warm tropical climate, great food, reliable infrastructure, abundant nature, and beautiful beaches and is a place that attracts a large number of tourists from all over the world. So what opportunities does this country have to attract people who want to live and work here permanently? Here are some reasons to help you decide whether or not to teach English in Vietnam: First of all, I would like to introduce Vietnamese history which started from about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. Vietnam has been inhabited since the Paleolithic period. By around 1,200 BC, the development of paddy rice...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Kinesthetic learners are learners that learn through objects that they can touch and explore. They also learn best by discovering and experiencing and particularly enjoy physical activities that involve getting out of their seat and moving around. Unlike visual and auditory learners, kinesthetic learners can be tough to accommodate in the classroom because of their need to be physically active. Since they need to be active in their learning, they may get bored very quickly if you allow them to simply listen and look at your visual aids or video presentation. As teachers, we must always be versatile and understand how to incorporate different types of learners. Luckily, there are...  [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 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]

Regan McAllister TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Learning another language can and should be fun. A primary focus as a teacher should be to create an engaging learning environment for students. One of the simplest ways to do this is by diversifying your lessons. Having a variety of teaching styles and activities is a productive way to ensure that you teach a combination of skills and touch on the interests of all students. Monotony breeds boredom. Having different activities and assignments will keep students excited, creating an ideal learning environment that inspires learners to excel. A class that consistently has the same formula can become repetitive, and students may get bored. If...  [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 Alumni Experiences What’s the most difficult part of learning a new language? Is it writing? Perhaps it’s the reading or memorizing new vocabulary? Well for some it’s speaking the new language, specifically when it comes to pronunciation. Every language has its unique ways or pronouncing their vowels and constants as well as how they form their sentence structure. Especially this write up will focus on Japanese English as a Second Language (ESL) students and the difficulties they face while learning English and its pronunciation. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Zachary B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. First, it helps to understand a...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas When I had to design my first lesson plan I wanted it to be as coherent as possible as the purpose of every lesson plan is to guide the teacher in organizing her material and herself for the purpose of helping the students to attain the intended learning outcomes. When planning lessons, we need to think carefully about what stages a lesson will go through and how we will get from one stage to another. In this plan I stuck to the ESA (Engage, Study, Activate) Method that I learned about during my TEFL certification course. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Cengiz K. To start the lesson, I use a picture of Ainsley Harriot who is a famous English celebrity chef...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas One may be keen to know what grammar is. Why do we need to learn grammar in our lives? How can I learn grammar? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mbalenhle S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Grammar is the set of rules that we follow when we speak to express our thoughts and to have a sound and meaningful conversation. It serves as an umbrella that comprises several things including part of speech, phrases, clauses and sentence diagrams which we normally use on our daily talks to be grammatically correct concise. Part of speech refers to a noun, pronoun, verbs, adjective, adverb, conjunction, preposition, and interjection, they...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Over the last month and a half, I have been completing a TEFL course. I am currently working as an assistant language teacher at a Japanese high school. Overall, I have found the experience to be very useful. The following reasons are why a TEFL course should be completed. Firstly, you gain a better understanding of how English grammar works. Secondly, from my perspective, it has reinforced and improved my current teaching strategies and practices. Thirdly, it gives teachers a structural theoretical framework to create lessons. Finally, completing a TEFL course gives you lesson ideas and activities. For these reasons, it is important to complete a TEFL course. This post was written by our TEFL certification...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Teaching Ideas For many new and experienced EFL teachers, one of the most challenging aspects of their career is coming up with lesson plans that are both engaging and effective. Even if your employer provides a specific textbook to follow as a curriculum, you will often find that this can be rather dull for the students unless you spice things up by adding in some fun and original ideas from an outside source. By searching online you will find a huge amount of sites offering all manner of resources of varying quality and relevance. To save you the hassle of searching through them all, we have listed our 5 favorite websites that you can use to find quality lesson plans free of charge. This very useful website offers teachers a wealth...  [Read more]

Shirin Sophy TEFL Information Alumni Experiences In today's cosmopolitan world, the noticeable necessity of mastery over foreign languages apart from one's native language is motivating manifold people to consider improving this particular ability which results in an increasing demand for language learning courses and services. Among the major purposes of language learning, communication and language production are definitely much more measurable and outstanding, specifically through productive skills, including writing and speaking. In terms of pedagogy, the following is a suggested procedure that can be taken into account while teaching productive skills after the engagement phase is applied and learners are ready to start...  [Read more]

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