Word Pairs

  The two words "farther" and "further" are a pair of words that is often used interchangeably to talk about distances. However, not many know that there is actually a slight difference between the two. "Farther" is used for physical distances. So we would use it in this example: "Tokyo is farther away than Beijing". When using "further" we talk about non-physical, figurative distances, for example "I'm falling further away from my goals". As you can see, the two words have slighty different usages. However, in spoken English the two words are often used interchangeably without a difference. However, if you are keen to use them properly, you should stick to the rules mentioned above. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Understanding the main purpose of any language usage as a means of exchanging, obtaining information, rendering our emotions, feelings, desires, states, or transmitting ideas inevitably involves this process, other people. In other words, we use language to communicate with other language speakers. So why not use this peculiarity in the process of language studying? Thereby using peer learning techniques in an ESA classroom becomes an essential and inherent part of it. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mariia M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Let us consider teaching a lasting group of students having lessons twice a week...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Flashcards on its own is an easy method to apply when teaching beginners, teenagers even adults because they can match the words to the pictures and it's an easy way to remember new vocabulary. I think this is the best way of acquiring a new word of a second language because identification and recognition is the key. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sombong V. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The whole class can take part in this activity. The objective is to use sight words to make up questions. How to play: Photocopy and cut apart the word and picture cards. Layout the word cards face up. Mix up the picture cards and place...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Teaching Ideas Of the four language skills taught in an ESL classroom, listening skills are often overlooked as teachers can be unsure how to make these lessons interesting and relevant to their students. However, as listening skills are a fundamental part of the language learning process, it is vital that we give them the classroom time they deserve. The good news is that there are many ways to make listening skills lessons both fun and productive. Here are 6 ideas for livening up your lesson plans. One simple way to engage your students in a listening lesson is to use popular culture as a tool. Most students would much rather listen to music, TV shows, movies, or podcasts than sit through a dry monologue from a textbook. To add...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Classroom management is an important and essential skill for teachers and students. Classroom management aids teachers in organization and time management. Teachers who manage and instruct the class using eye contact, their voice, and group the students together using pair work and group work have more effective classroom management. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Costas P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Keeping eye contact with the students establishes a good rapport. It helps them to show their involvement in the lesson and ensures that the students understand what is going on in the classroom. It maintains discipline and...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas When students hear ‘vocabulary’, they may expect to hear the word ‘list’ next. More often than not, we associate the word ‘list’ with ‘boring’! We think of 2 daunting columns of black letters on white paper: one with the native language and one with the target language. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and for teaching young learners, it cannot be that way. Certainly, teaching vocabulary will involve lists that help learners to receive language methodically and thoroughly. But what a teacher does with the vocabulary lists can be creative and fun and, most of all, memorable! This post was written by our ITTT graduate Roxanne L. When teachers hear ‘vocabulary’, they should pair it with the word...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning is a process that can take place even in ‘’non-friendly’’ environments. Everything can be made out to be a competition between students and mistakes can be the shame of the ones making them. Group work and pair work can be replaced by a teacher talking time and individual work. English language lessons though as all language lessons are important for communication and this need and will for communication first take place in the safe environment of the class, so that later on, it can extend out of the classroom, in real life. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Maria C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. A class is a...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching new words should be organized as a vivid way for better understanding and a higher level of remembering. These activities are easy to implement with any group of students. They are also very adaptable to online teaching format. The easiest way to introduce new vocabulary is to show students colorful pictures. You can use flashcards, magazine images, digital pictures, picture dictionaries, or photographs when helping your students to visualize new words. Also Read: Roles a Teacher has to Possess to Help Students Love English Students will remember new vocabulary better if you use real objects in the introduction. It’s also a great method of teaching kinesthetic-style learners as they’ll form stronger...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Flashcards are a simple, versatile, yet often underexploited resource, and they are instrumental in eliciting more obscure words. They are a great way to present, practice, and recycle vocabulary and some grammar structures. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Fatoş T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Flashcards can also be bright and colorful and make a real impact on visual learners. It is essential to appeal to visual learners, as a very high proportion of learners have this type of intelligence. When putting together flashcard sets, teachers should use...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Learning vocabulary words is a big part of any EFL classroom. Sometimes, it can be challenging for students to learn and remember new words - this is where the following activities come in handy! Here are 7 fun ways to introduce new EFL vocabulary! This activity works well for a lot of vocabulary words. It is based around the total physical response method, which links physical movement with learning. Illustrate new vocabulary by acting out the words as you introduce them to your students. You can have the whole class get active and move around. Songs are a great way to get your students engaged! Use the melody of a well-known song and change the lyrics to fit your vocabulary words. This not only aids certain...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Teaching Ideas When I had completed approximately thirty percent of the TEFL course I decided to go to a local school here in the North East of Thailand, where I live, and my friend, who is a Canadian national, is the English teacher at that particular school. I had already arranged with him, that I would take his English lesson acting as a visiting English trainee teacher, and he would assess me. I gave a lesson to the students in the English language sentence structure. On completion of the lesson I approached my friend and asked his assessment of my teaching abilities, and he replied that I taught to a satisfactory standard apart from the fact that, I was a little bit nervous and the students didn’t speak much at all. Although...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Teaching vocabulary is an integral part of every ESL class. There are many ways teachers can introduce new vocabulary to their students that aren’t dull and boring and actually peak the students’ interest and get them excited to learn. Here are 7 great and easy ways to introduce new vocabulary to your ESL students. Using real-life objects to introduce new vocabulary to your students will greatly help them associating a mental image to the word. Kinesthetic learners will especially enjoy this way of learning as it gives them a physical connection with a lexical concept. You can use toys, clothing articles, plastic (or real) fruits and vegetables, animal figures, and more. Show the object to your class, introduce...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences As English becomes the de facto global language, people all over the world are learning English for schoolwork, career advancement, or the ability to visit English-speaking countries. Even though the content they are learning is about the same, the problems they most frequently encounter are not. In this essay I will focus on the problems commonly encountered by English learners in Hong Kong. The reasons for this choice are twofold—one is that I am a Chinese American and thus familiar with Chinese culture and potential problems in English learning resulting from this culture, the other is that I want to teach English in Hong Kong in the foreseeable future and thus it makes sense for me to focus on the potential...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Rapport according to the Cambridge dictionary means “a good understanding of someone and an ability to communicate well with them”, it can also be defined as a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kudzai K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Establishing rapport with your students can make a great amount of difference when teaching, especially in a second language. It increases the bond between a teacher and his students and thus more often than not makes learning interesting and more fun for...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching English in the classroom remains a popular educational choice for families and children in decades. However, a lot of students cannot attend in-classroom all the time for many reasons. That’s why teaching online has a potential extension possibility despite their limited competitive advantages in comparison with the general education method. Hence, online teachers need to be more creative in their lessons to increase learner’s interest. As a result, many interactive activities have been developed in online English courses. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Linh Vu T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Firstly, in my...  [Read more]

  Our next consideration is going to be how we actually group our students. There are perhaps three types of grouping arrangements that we can consider and within those we'll have a look at the potential positive and negatives of those particular arrangements. So firstly, what arrangements can we use? We could arrange our group as a whole class so all of their activities will be done as a whole class. They could be working as individuals and the final grouping arrangement we'll consider is that of small groups or indeed the use of pair work. So for each of these types of arrangements what are the potential positive and negatives with that type of arrangement? For the whole class certainly one of the main positive features is that it gives that class a sense of belonging. Secondly...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Repetition is a very important part of learning. In my country (Serbia) we often use a Latin quote: "Repetitio mater studiorum est" or repetition is a Mother of learning. In my case, it was the truth for all the subjects, and especially for learning foreign languages. Flashcards are a great tool for repetition. I like to use them in teaching. That is why I am going to present a few ways of using flashcards in teaching English. I made flashcards with CVC words and matching pictures (sun, hat, run, pot, cot, pit,...) and l laminated them. If you have students that you need to teach reading and writing this is a great activity to start with. In the beginning, you can take 5-8 cards and ask students to read them....  [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]

  The final stage of the lesson will be the activate and the activate phase is going to form the main speaking activity within the lesson. So, it's very very important that here, we do a good demonstration of what it is that we're expecting them to do, that we elicit the type of target language we're expecting them to produce from the activity. So, one way we could go around it is to, firstly, form pairs. Each pair is going to be given a card and onto that card they're going to write the country and a month. What the teacher can then do, just to add a little bit of spice to it, is to collect all of the cards and shuffle them around and then redistribute them to the pairs so that they get a card that doesn't have their country or their month on it. What they're then going to do is...  [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]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences English is one of the most widely spoken languages and it is taught in a lot of countries. Globalization, fast economic development makes many people study English. People learn English for different reasons: business, education, life abroad, traveling, personal interest. Chinese students are not an exception. With the growing economies of China, the need for learning English increased dramatically. What challenges do Chinese students face when learning English? What challenges does the teacher meet teaching Chinese students? What teaching approach can be found? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Darya M. Let’s talk about the most typical challenges when teaching Chinese learners and...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching English idioms is not the easiest task. The following activities will help you to engage students quickly and help them understand this difficult language topic. For this activity, you need to write various idioms on an index card and shuffle them. Let your students come to the front of the classroom, choose a card and act out that idiom. The rest of the class guesses which idiom it is. Also Read: 15 TEFL Course Testimonials You Should Watch Before Taking a Course Ask students to choose an idiom to illustrate and split a large sheet of paper into 2 sections. On the right side, they write down the meaning of the idiom, on the left side, a literal representation. When students are done with the task, post...  [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]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In this essay, I will deal with the pronunciation difficulties of German learners of English. In particular, I will treat some issues at the segmental level. Although both English and German are Germanic languages, the sound inventories of these two languages are quite different, especially the vowels. In the following table, the sounds are listed which exist only in one but not in the other language: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Gisella F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Consonants Consonants /θ/, /ð/ tʃ/, /dʒ/ /w/ /x/ /ҫ/ Vowels Vowels Monophthongs Monophthongs /y, yː/ /eː/, /ø, øː/ /oː/ /ɜ/ /ɔ/ /ʌ/...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning English is becoming more and more popular due to globalization. Thousands of people around the world choose to learn English for different purposes such as traveling, business, international communication. Attending group lessons at a language school or finding a private tutor is a matter of personal preference and well-being. Both group and one to one lessons have their pros and cons for students and teachers as well. So let's consider the difference between teaching these ways. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Olena M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Teaching individuals may seem an easy task at first glance....  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas As an ESL teacher, getting your students talking can be one of the most difficult things to accomplish. English learners often lack the necessary confidence to speak openly and freely in English. The following activities are perfect for getting your students out of their shells! Pair up your students and let them write a short dialogue. After all the pairs are done, they go in front of the class and perform their dialogue like a play. Hand out a role-play scenario and let two students perform the role-play in front of the class. After they have been talking for a while, freeze the conversation, and choose two new students to pick up and continue the play. Do this several times. Interviews are a great way for students...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Classroom Management is the skill of organizing and managing the class, having a friendly, relaxed manner and maintaining discipline. Keeping a classroom under control is often my biggest challenge mostly with the pupils. With the help of the ITTT 120-hours TESOL/TEFL course, I've finally found some classroom management strategies that actually worked and eventually turned things around. These strategies apply to all levels of learners and even to new and existing classes. I can now say things have got to the point where my classes are now under control, focused, on task, and learning effectively. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Cheng Y. Please note that this blog post might not...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I have been learning English my whole life and I have been teaching the language for the last nine years in three different countries, and in both roles (student and teacher) flashcards have been part of my learning and lessons; in fact, almost in every lesson. Most of the teachers and students with whom I have used these resources to work vocabulary and create different routines to learn and drill it, have really enjoyed it. It goes further than showing a picture and repeating the words which the teacher says: using flashcards opens up a wide world of possibilities to put into practice in our lessons. They can be games, drills, memory activities… It allows us to work either individually, in small groups, or...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Students from many different backgrounds with various skillsets, native languages, cultures, and experiences daily enter my Level 3 Low-Intermediatlow-intermediate Some students come having been exposed to English from a young age watching American television or listening to popular songs. Some of these students feel comfortable speaking in simple, broken sentences but communicating, nonetheless. Others step into the ESL classroom timid and insecure. They’ve just recently learned the Roman alphabet and have difficulty understanding simple directions or piecing words together. Regardless of where students come from and their prior experience with the English language, there are some useful tools teachers can...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I have been teaching English as an assistant language teacher in Japan for the past 4 years. I have taught all grades from kindergarten through 9th grade, and have worked with many teachers with a variety of teaching styles. In this essay I will look at the use of games in the foreign language classroom, drawing from my experiences to look at several specific games and discuss how they help students learn and use English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Tansly S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. There are many types of games that are used in numerous contexts. Some games can be played with different age groups, modifying the...  [Read more]