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And there have been many: the intensity of my Trinity Cert TESOL course, that first lesson, teaching beginners/advanced/kids for the first time, getting up to speed with technological possibilities for the classroom, doing an MA, presenting at a...
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As with most good teaching practice, using activities to promote a student's confidence is a simple matter of common sense. Confident students make the best language learners. By creating a classroom in which your students have the confidence to...
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I’d even go as far as to say that it’s my most challenging year yet. I feel this blog post may be somewhat therapeutic for me.Back in March of this year, I moved to Medellín, Colombia. My Colombian fiancée had found herself an interesting job, and...
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Getting to know your students and their abilities, needs and personalities is an important part of a new course. How are you going to make sure these first few classes are effective?
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For a few years now I've been experimenting with sharing lesson summaries with my classes and here I'd like to share a summary from a typical first class. This was an intermediate class of adult students at a private language school in Cádiz. I've...
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An introduction… challenge for young adultsAre you one of those people who accepted the ice bucket challenge in the summer? Had you been nominated but you didn’t dare to pour a bucket of ice water on your head?For those of you unaware of what the...
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When I first learnt French at school, aged about 9 or 10, the teacher insisted on giving us all French names. I was annoyed because mine was Renee (not Rachel). Who was this Renee, and what did she have to do with me? I think the idea came from the...
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Building confidence. Nina MK, Ph.D. Students come to us from various families, and from a vast variety of life situations. No two children are alike, even though at first they may seem to blur into that collective entity, “a class”. If we get...
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Continued Professional Development takes many forms for many people. For some it is simply their on-going development lesson by lesson. For others, it is rather the certificates collected at the end of further development courses. Having spent a...
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The roots of the word "introduction" mean "bringing into existence" , and that's what we're doing with our classes at the beginning of a new school year. And, as we bring them "into existence," one challenge we face is will be help develop a "...
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This lyric comes to mind.Still don't know what I was waitin' forAnd my time was runnin' wildA million dead end streets andEvery time I thought I'd got it madeIt seemed the taste was not so sweetSo I turned myself to face me…
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On September 4, a new EF, English First Center for Adults was opened in my home city of Novosibirsk. My first impression was one of light, since it is situated in a new very modern building with panoramic views over the city and even glass walls and...
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“Don’t you know it ALL?” yet another twenty-two-year-old, newly-minted BA asked me naively. Of course I do, or I can convincingly pretend I do.Here are some simple steps to be taken before your very first lesson.
