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Teaching tips
In this section you will find a selection of teaching tips sent in by contributors around the world. We are planning to add more and more teaching tips to this area of the site over the coming months, so if you have a new teaching tip or game you would like to share, please send it to us! You can use the form on the Contact us page.
Avoiding terminology  
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Coursebooks and supplementary materials use a lot of grammar terminology but I try to be cautious about what I use in the class. For example, my learners get confused by the ‘present simple’ which doesn’t just refer to the present.

Average: 3.3 (12 votes)
Publishing student writing  
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Sometimes my learners get really inspired by writing tasks and produce work where they really want to communicate something, so it seems natural to respect this and to give them a wider audience.

Average: 3.7 (11 votes)
Emphasis on phonemic script  
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The phonemic script is a very useful tool for my classes but not one that all my learners are comfortable with.

Average: 4.2 (5 votes)
Vocabulary records  
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When I write a new word up on the board, I rarely only write the word itself. I try to consider what extra useful information I should include.

Average: 3.8 (38 votes)
Choral drills  
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I am always reluctant to use choral drills in my classes to practise spoken language but my learners’ reactions always prove me wrong.
Average: 3.1 (37 votes)
Peer editing and correction  
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When I ask learners to correct their own work, I always try to give them support and guidance because it is very difficult to identify your own mistakes – if it was easier you wouldn’t make t

Average: 3.4 (43 votes)
Reading out loud  

When I work on reading aloud with learners, I always try to do two things.

Average: 3.3 (54 votes)
Telling students why  
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The aims of many of the things that I do with my class are clear to me but not always to my learners – an example is when I use an inductive approach instead of giving them rules to work with.
Average: 3.4 (21 votes)
Going off plan  
It’s easy to digress in an open class discussion or even when talking to individual learners but I do so with great care, as I sometimes doubt the value of this.
Average: 3.5 (4 votes)
Learners writing on the board  
I like learners to write on the board but I try to be careful with this because there are dangers. I always do this activity when learners are in groups so I can give a pen to the group, not individuals, so there is no pressure on anybody.
Average: 2.3 (3 votes)
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