working in the classroom

A multi-level writing class

Jo Budden — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:32:22 +0000

This activity is a great writing task to use in the first week or so with a new group. It gives the students a chance to find about you, their new teacher, and it also gives you a valuable opportunity to assess your students' level. It can also be a useful and productive class if you ever find yourself substituting a class at short notice.

Classroom layout

Jo Budden — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:07:19 +0000

When you’re planning your lessons do you ever think about the layout of the classroom? Sometimes it may be impossible and impractical to move the furniture around at all for many reasons including the fact that in some schools the tables are bolted to the floor!

Monitoring

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:08:22 +0000

When your students are on-task and engaged in a speaking activity where are you and what are you doing? This may sound like an odd question as you could be doing a million different things.

Grouping students

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:07:40 +0000

Introduction
When you’re planning your lessons how much time do you spend thinking about how you’re going to group students for the activities in your plan?

Memory

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:06:31 +0000

Introduction
I recently attended a talk about memory by Gillie Cunningham who is a teacher, trainer and EFL author. I would like to pass on to you the main ideas from her talk,

Motivating the students

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:05:59 +0000

Introduction
Keeping your students motivated to learn is one of the biggest challenges any teacher faces. There’s nothing worse than going into a class full of people who don’t really want to be there.

Jazzing up grammar

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:05:15 +0000

Introduction
Making grammar more interesting for students is one of the great challenges any EFL teacher faces. Whether teaching from a course book or from other sources,

Establishing the ground rules

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:04:20 +0000

Introduction
Good classroom management skills are essential to the smooth and efficient running of any classroom. But, no one is born knowing all the ‘tricks of the trade’ and most teachers learn the hard way,

Error Correction

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:03:35 +0000

Introduction
One of the main dilemmas for teachers giving conversation groups is error correction. It’s always tricky to know when and if to correct students and how to go about it.

MOTIVATION 2 - THE TEACHER

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:02:34 +0000

Who were your favourite teachers at school or college?
If you spend a few minutes thinking about the question above, probably a couple of teachers will spring to mind. Now, ask yourself,