What Is Calp

  We now consider what we might call the technology that we could use within the classroom then that could include things such as cassettes, the use of CDs, the use of DVD and video. Some general issues surrounding the use of these types of material, make sure whenever you're using any of this type of technology though you know how it actually works when using it for a listening activity, for example. How long does it take for the whole tape to play through? How long does it take to rewind and so on. Other issues that you might need to think about is if you're using a cassette player or CD or something that you set the volume level before you actually start the lesson so that when you switch on you don't shock everyone with a very loud sound or that they can't actually hear it....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas A computer has led to greater strides in education, allowing students and teachers opportunities to use multiple learning tools in ways that were unimaginable some years ago. A computer has gained a well-defined function in English teaching and learning. Computers have enhanced drill on basic skills such as decoding, reading comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and so on. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Florence C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The usage of computers in English language teaching and learning started as early as the 1950s. Computers have programs specially designed for teaching and...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas Our consideration here is going to be discipline within the classroom. From your own experiences at school you will know that some teachers have more discipline problems than others. Whilst there are no set rules which will work for all situations that you find yourself in, there are some things that we can do to stop problems arising in the first place. One of the major causes of problems is when students do not respect the teacher and there are some things that we can do to help build and maintain that respect from our students. 1) It is very important that you are always seen to be fair. 2) You are always well prepared in terms of your materials and activities. 3) You do not...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word "thanatology". This word refers to the description or study of death and of the psychological mechanisms for coping with the phenomena of death. The word derived from Greek mythology where Thanatos was the personification of death. 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. I think the contents of this unit have a direct effect on the preparation of our classes. It is very useful for teachers to...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word filibuster. This word can be used both as a noun and as a verb. As a noun, it refers to a speech that avoids the progress in a legislative assembly while not technically being illegal or unlawful. As a verb, it describes the action of acting in an obstructive manner in legislature. The word originates from the Dutch vrijbuiter meaning freebooter. 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...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas Here we're going to consider the use of visual aids in the classroom. Visual aids can include examples such as, real objects (which we call realia), the use of pictures and photographs and also the use of models. So let's consider some of the ideas surrounding the use of visual aids. First of all the use of a visual aid can reduce teacher talk time (TTT) which is always desirable. It is much simpler to just show a real object than to try to describe it, so that we could just ask the students, “what is this”? and they would say, “that is a pen” rather than trying to actually describe the pen. Again if we were eliciting names of fruit and vegetables, rather than to try and...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas What are conditionals? In simplest terms, they say “if this happens, then that happens”. They're commonly referred to as ‘if' sentence structures’. In this blog entry we're going to introduce conditionals. What are conditionals? In simplest terms, they say “if this happens, then that happens”. They're commonly referred to as ‘if sentence structures’ because they often contain the word ‘if’. There is variety of patterns that we use depending on the situations that we're talking about, depending on whether the situation is factual or completely impossible, and anything in between. There are five typical patterns that are most commonly taught when teaching English...  [Read more]

Hadassah Roberts Destinations TEFL Information We are all human. Let’s face it. Arguments, miscommunications, and considerations are inevitable. Unless we are going to go hide in the mountains forever to be alone, we are going to disagree with people and be disagreed with. Unless we forever stay by ourselves, we are going to have times when other people hurt us and when we hurt others. Since we know that arguments are inevitable in the course of our life, maybe there is a way that the common argument can be turned into a beautiful conversation where everyone actually leaves happy, where everyone feels understood, and both sides always find a solution. Here accusations and explosive behavior are minimized where reasoning and...  [Read more]

  The next item we're going to consider is the use of dictionaries and here perhaps the first thing we should do is to make a distinction between the two main types of dictionary and that distinction is between the monolingual and the bilingual dictionary. In a monolingual dictionary you have a word and its associated meaning and those two are both described for example in English so the word and the description of that word are both given in English. Whereas in a bilingual dictionary that word meaning could often be for example the word given in English and the explanation given in Thai and vice versa. So what can we use a dictionary for? Well, within the dictionary itself obviously we can get things like how words are spelled or the spelling of the word. We can also get the...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Alumni Experiences We can quote people through what's called direct speech. In written form it would look like “Corey said we're moving house next week”. We've used quotes and we've quoted Corey directly, i.e. used the exact words that he used. There is however another way we can quote people, and this is through reported speech. We don't quote their exact words, but we simply let people know what has been said. In English we often have a need to quote people. We can do so through what's called direct speech. In written form it would look like “Corey said we're moving house next week”. We've used quotes and we've quoted Corey directly, i.e. used the exact words that he used. There is however another way we can quote people,...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Every preschool/ kindergarten level teacher will swear by the need for excellent constructive circle time. It sets the tone for what is to follow throughout the day. A good circle time should be welcoming, engaging, and informative. Children should not be forced into participation; instead should be drawn into it. Circle time is the classic example of a good "engage" stage in an ESA teaching style. Therefore, during circle time, you introduce a topic that is to be covered that day or week. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Najia S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Have you ever considered living and experiencing a different culture? If the answer is yes, teaching is a good way to achieve your goal. Teaching can be hard and challenging but also very rewarding to watch your students improve. This is why taking a TEFL course is important for several reasons including the following: methods for teaching younger students, methods for teaching students who require different approaches to learning, and methods for keeping students under control in the classroom during an English lesson. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Taylor E. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. First, I learned that...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas The first thing to bear in mind when we're looking at the category of beginners is that beginners can be of any age and experience, so really what we should do is to break the beginner category down into a number of sub categories. Our first group we may call the absolute beginner, the second group we could have are called false beginners. The next category may be the adult beginners and therefore the category of young beginners and our final grouping called beginners without the Roman alphabet. The absolute beginner as the name implies are those people with no language knowledge of the particular language being learnt, so they've never been taught it and they probably have had no...  [Read more]

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Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas In this blog post, we will look at an actual example of an ESA straight arrow lesson plan. We will include examples of the activities used and their purpose. You can adapt this plan to a variety of other uses and levels. Straight arrow ESA Lesson Plan Class level: Elementary Number of students: 8 Lesson aim: After the lesson the students should be able to look at an animal and make sentences to say what it “can and can’t” do. Sample sentences when looking at the picture of an elephant. It can walk. It can’t fly. Show the students a video of animals and they are going to say what they like about those animals and try to create a list of...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas In this blog post, we are going to have a look at some of the reasons why we plan lessons. We suggest there are three main reasons why we need to plan our lessons. First and foremost perhaps, is that it's going to create a logical sequence for our lessons. If we didn't have a lesson plan it is quite possible that we could go all over the place and it would become confusing for the students. By having this plan, what we've created is a structure that we can work from. In effect the lesson plan itself is a working document, which we can refer to it at various times in a lesson. If ever we're not quite sure what we're supposed to be doing next, we can just take a quick look at our plan...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Teaching Ideas The Importance of lesson planning cannot be overemphasized, as the teachers need to map out a plan of what the learners need to learn and how it will be done to ensure effective teaching and learning at a particular period during classes. Designing appropriate learning activities and developing strategies to obtain feedback on learners, is one of the importance of lesson planning. A well-constructed lesson plan for each lesson allows the teacher to teach with more confidence and also helps maximize the chances of having a meaningful and well-organized learning experience in all intent and purpose. However, a lesson plan is said to be a blueprint that contains the teaching activities for a particular period. A good...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Reviews & TESOL Reviews For ITTT, our community of students and alumni is the most important to us. That’s why we’d love to share what our course grads have to say! This will not only have others make a better decision in whether TEFL/TESOL is for them, but it will also help the ITTT community grow bigger and stronger! The below answers were given from real ITTT alumni who have agreed to share their thoughts for our blog section. Anam Javed I'm from Lahore, Pakistan. I took the TEFL/TESOL course so that I can legally teach abroad. My favorite part of the course was grammar and classroom management. Right now, I'm waiting for the reopening of boarders so that I can visit China or Vietnam. I'm planning to teach English...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas If every single lesson that we undertook with our students was a straight arrow ESA lesson then it is quite possible that the students would be able to predict what is going to come up next. Whilst this might be good for the lower level students, it could potentially become a little bit boring for our higher level students. Harmer considered this and his response was to generate two other types of ESA lesson that we can use to try and generate a little bit more interest. The first of these is known as a boomerang lesson and the second is known as a patchwork lesson. First let us recap the structure of a Straight arrow ESA lesson. This takes each of the three phases in turn, so a...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas In this blog we will consider how best to use the teaching material course book that often accompanies a course. There are a number of stategies we can adopt to get the most out of the book in different situations. You should try to use these books to help you create a balanced lesson in terms of the range of skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) that are being taught and the actual types of lesson material such as the grammar or vocabulary. Secondly don't use them all the time, particularly with things like suggested activities, we can create our own materials and we can tailor those materials much more specifically to the actual class that we're teaching. Very often...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Alumni Experiences When working one-on-one or with large groups, you need to adjust your methods appropriately. There are large differences in how you approach each group, how you teach them, and how much you should expect them to learn. We will be going over the differences by working with each of these groups based upon my own experiences. While they require differing techniques, at their core what is required is the same. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lee Z. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. What all class sizes require is an understanding of the students' skills and prior knowledge. When working on English you can provide small exams and a...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Teaching Ideas In this blog we will consider how best to use the teaching material course book that often accompanies a course. There are a number of stategies we can adopt to get the most out of the book in different situations. ### Watch the video about this topic There are a number of factors that you should take into consideration when using ESL teaching course books. You should try to use these books to help you create a balanced lesson in terms of the range of skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) that are being taught and the actual types of lesson material such as the grammar or vocabulary. Secondly don't use them all the time, particularly with things like suggested activities, we can create our own materials...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Alumni Experiences Do you want to make your English lessons more exciting? We have the perfect teaching ideas for you! Here are 7 amazing activities to spice up your ESL classes. This is a great one to practice different tenses, especially the passive voice. Have your students come up with headlines for their class; such as “The teacher’s purse was stolen,” “the students were taught passive voice.” This also works for vocabulary lessons and other grammar structures. This one works well with intermediate and advanced students. Introduce a controversial issue, such as capital punishment, for example. Then, the students choose their “side” and group into teams. They do some research about the topic and take notes that...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Two classifications of ESL materials are Authentic and Non-Authentic (or created). What is the difference between what are called authentic and created materials? Authentic materials as the name implies are actual materials that are created for any reason outside of the classroom. Examples of authentic materials would be things like, newspapers; those are generated for the general public and they're certainly not generated for the use in the classroom. However they can be used within the classroom. Other examples would be things like songs and poems and even things such as brochures and magazines and indeed menus from restaurants. So these are...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas ESL teachers when they meet their class for the first time should learn what students know and what they need to know. Even for General English in schools or university classrooms where students have more or less the same level of English. There should be some short tests to determine students’ gaps in knowledge, personal objectives or institutional requirements. Especially assessment is needed when teaching Business English. This essay will discuss types of assessments in the early stages of teaching Business English to students. ESL teachers are often hired by companies to improve the English knowledge of employees. Every adult student has a different level of language knowledge due to background and learning...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas When using the ESA methodology, there are a number of lesson formats available. In the third of this series we look at a Patchwork lesson. What does a Patchwork lesson look like and for what level of student is it most appropriate? Lesson aim: For the students to be able to discuss holidays using vocabulary and conducting a role-play. Student Level: Intermediate (Due to the complexity of Patchwork lessons they should only be used for Intermediate level and above) We start by reminding ourselves of the form of a Patchwork ESA lesson. We start with an engage as always and we will finish with an activate and there will be some combination of E, S and A within the brackets. Starting...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Alumni Experiences TEFL Reviews & TESOL Reviews For ITTT, our community of students and alumni is the most important to us. That’s why we’d love to share what our course grads have to say! This will not only have others make a better decision in whether TEFL/TESOL is for them, but it will also help the ITTT community grow bigger and stronger! The below answers were given from real ITTT alumni who have agreed to share their thoughts for our blog section. Sabrina Oliveira I am from and currently residing in Brazil. I took the course to be able to teach and live abroad. I thoroughly enjoyed learning new techniques and methods to help the students. My dream is to look for jobs in my country, then open my...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This blog post contains information on keeping adult students motivated. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This blog post is devoted to self-confidence of students in the ESL class. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This blog post is devoted to lesson planning and its goals. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this article, our TEFL graduate overviews the principles of acquiring second language by young students and adults. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This blog post was written by our...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas In this blog post, we will take a look at a typical example of a boomerang lesson. First we will recap the structure E  A1  S  A2 Here the students are just going to have a discussion about jobs, what happens at interviews and so on and so forth. During that engage phase what we would hope to do is to elicit some useful language about, jobs, interviews and the types of questions that are being asked in interviews. Some of this information can be put on the board. We do no teaching in this phase, we do not correct any mistakes either, just let the students talk freely. Next, we're going to move immediately into an activate...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Idioms are great yet a challenging material to teach as they usually are culturally and stylistically influenced. Another problem is choosing a suitable idiom to teach different groups of students. In this blog post, we share ten fun English idioms and three ideas to teach these English indioms in your EFL classroom. To help students understand the meaning of an idiom and to help remember it fast, offer them a visual presentation. Draw the literal meaning of the idiom on one side of the sheet (what it sounds like it means) and the figurative meaning on the other side (what it actually means). If you don’t feel like drawing, use popular memes. This activity can be used with any idioms that have a clear literal...  [Read more]