What Can Teachers Do Instead Of Teaching

Discipline in the Classroom Eight out of ten TESOL teachers who do not return after their first year of teaching drop out because they are unable to control their problem in the classroom. According to the researches, that have done recently, discipline ranked as the number one problem in the schools. What is discipline? According to the Webster’s dictionary discipline is the “training that corrects, molds, or perfect the mental faculties or moral character.” How can a teacher maintain discipline in a classroom? There will be many ideas to maintain discipline in the classroom. For sure those suggestions will be helpful, but first of all, teacher should know the main reasons for students’ misbehavior. The students have not learned the behaviors that are expected of them Good...  [Read more]

  In this video we explain the difference in using "bad" and "badly". The key difference is that 'bad' is used as an adjective and 'badly' as an adverb. Therfore, 'bad' describes that something is not good, while 'badly' refers to something that is done in a bad manner, harmfully or in correctly. A good example sentence for 'bad' would be "Jenny had a car accident today. This is bad". Let's look at an example for 'badly': "Austin behaved badly". I'm sure you'll never confuse the two words again. 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...  [Read more]

  There are certain instances where we tend to use the passive voice instead of the active voice. This is true when the agent is unknown or unimportant. We also use the passive voice to change focus or to conceal the agent. Find out more about this topic in this video. 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. Gerunds are not parts of grammar I was familiar with. Therefore, it helped reading about those as well as the different types of adjectives. ...  [Read more]

  In this video, we explain the difference between the usage of "capital" and "capitol". These two terms are often confused due to their similar spelling and pronunciation. The word ?capital? is used to refer to a capital letter, a city that serves as a center of government and also wealth in the form of money or property. A good example sentence would be: In American schools, the capital letter "A" means your work was at least 90% correct. This sentence uses 'capital' to refer to a capitalized letter, 'A' in this case. Tokyo is the capital of Japan. In this example, capital refers to the capital city of Japan. The business did not have enough capital to buy the new building. Here, capital means money or wealth. "Capitol" spelled with an ?o? on the other hand refers to the actual...  [Read more]

  And now it's time to have a look at our first grammar unit. Grammar in its widest sense is the structure of a language. We as speakers of the language can structure our language without a problem. However, as teachers of the language we need to be able to better analyze the grammar and the grammar that exists within statements that we make. These basic parts of grammar are called parts of speech. Each part of speech has a certain function within a sentence. Our example sentence here is "My older brother lives in Tokyo." Each one of these words is a certain part of speech, which we'll have a look at in just a minute but let's just think about the words within this particular sentence. We have ?my?, indicating whose brother it is, we have "older", indicating which brother it is....  [Read more]

The Role of the Teacher If only the role of a teacher was as easy as being a ‘medium through which students learn’. In today’s day and age, no matter what country the role takes place in, a teacher is so much more than a resource for information. When I was young, I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up, simply because I wanted to write on the chalkboard! My teachers seemed to be the greatest printers, curving their letters just so, and I wanted to do it also! Now, after ‘higher education’, and three different career paths, I have come back to wanting to be a teacher, but my reasons have changed. I was fortunate in my years of high school, to have teachers that really cared about me as an individual, and I want to give this back. This is where the difference between...  [Read more]

Teacher Self Analysis My early experiences of learning in the State education system of the UK clearly affected my career and attitude to education. In the main, I was taught by root, this had the affect of making me become bored and if I am honest, I did not take full advantage of my education. Later realising I still had some untapped potential I enrolled on a course in Higher Education. I expected the same teaching methods that I had experienced earlier in my life, but instead found a more progressive, student centered approach. My motivation was high and I achieved my Certificate in Education. I took these varied experiences with me when I entered teaching some ten years ago. I soon found that most learners at the college were I worked were poorly motivated, lacking drive and...  [Read more]

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  Now we'll have a look at the teaching ideas for the future simple tense. As we said earlier, the future simple tense can be used for threats or promises or, in this case, for predictions. Here, we'll have a pair of students working together. One has a prompt to say something and the other will begin it with a certain comment and then make a sentence using the future simple tense. Here, 'I'm taking my driving test tomorrow' 'Good luck. You'll pass for sure'. 'I lost at tennis again.' 'Cheer up. You'll do better next time,' so on and so forth. Of course, having a bit of feedback at the end. Some additional ideas for the future simple tense include things like horoscopes. Here you'll divide your class up into groups, provide them with zodiac sign, they'll create a horoscope for that...  [Read more]

Learning Teaching Skills Teaching is a challenging job not only because of the bulk of responsibility of training the students to be academically able but also because of the fact that somehow, we are expected to take part in preparing them to be socially and emotionally stable. In class, how can we let the students recognize that it is not just the quantity of instruction that is essential but they, themselves are? What skills should we learn as teachers so that we can meet this challenge that is put onto our hands? The following ideas have been tried, proven, and practical teaching techniques that may answer the above concern. Utilizing the above teaching skills demonstrates the goal of authentic teachers: that they “… teach from the heart not from the book.” (author unknown)...  [Read more]

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  In this video Linda breaks down the difference between "everyday" and "every day". Due to their spelling, it can be quite hard for non-native English learners to understand the difference between the two. This video explains exactly how to differenciate between both expressions. 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. As a teacher you should be more aware and considerate of your student and you should be more observant than focusing on your own...  [Read more]

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Motivating Students Motivating students in a language class is a perennial problem for English teachers. Motivation has become more commonly recognized as perhaps the major determining factor for successful learning in general, whether one is an adult learner taking distance education courses or a high school student pushing one’s way through the battery of required courses need to graduate. In any learning setting, the dynamics of motivation will be different. What will help a high school student sustain motivation may not apply to an adult learner or child, for example. The problem is that in many ESL/EFL learning environments, there is an attitude among educators and administrators that “it is up to the student” to be successful. When students fall behind, or are not progressing,...  [Read more]

  Connected speech is also an important element of phonology and it's involved in joining words together in an effect to make our speech more efficient. Some might say it's a product of being lazy but nonetheless it's what we all do and we want all of our non-native speakers to speak as naturally as possible, so we have to be aware of these things. Here are a few of the more common examples. We have linking, dropping, changing and extra lettering. An example of each would be with linking, we link our words together so that they almost in effect become one word. Instead of saying ?What do you want to do,? we typically will say ?Whatdoyou want to do?? Then, we can also have dropping. Rather than pronouncing each and every consonant, we can sometimes, especially in certain accents,...  [Read more]

Teaching one-to-one Teaching English as a foreign language can be done one of two ways: teaching a group of students or by teaching on a one-to-one basis. It’s estimated that up to 40% of TESOL teaching is done one-to-one, however teachers find it increasingly difficult to find relevant material, advice and assistance on the method. Nicola Meldrum argues that teaching one-to-one “unfortunately is not covered much in ELT discussion” and that ‘It is somehow assumed that teaching English as a foreign language means organizing huge groups of students, while the reality is that one to one is a normal and significant part of our teaching lives”. Teachers are in effect left to their own devices; however this doesn’t stop the concept of teaching one-to-one being an effective and...  [Read more]

  This video breaks down the difference between the two words "invite" and "invitation". They are often used interchangeably but actually aren't synonyms. The word ?invite? is a verb and refers to the action of asking someone if they?d like to do something or go somewhere, such as here: 'I want to invite all my friends to a BBQ party'. "Invitation", on the other hand, is a noun and refers to the actual message of asking someone if they?d like to do something or go somewhere. A suitable example would be: 'I sent out an invitation to all my friends'. A very common mistake is to use 'invite' as a noun instead of 'invitation'. However, the sentence ?I haven?t responded to her invite yet? is incorrect and 'invitation' should be used. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate...  [Read more]

Slang and Teaching Idioms In TESOL education, idioms appear particularly daunting for students and teachers alike and for this reason they are often neglected in English courses. A brief overview of everyday slang reveals an intimidating array of idioms that could easily go unnoticed by the native speaker but prove confusing for the student of English. On Kenneth Lawrence’s website devoted solely to idioms, he has attempted, like many other books on idioms and websites that focus on them, to organize idioms into coherent categories. The categories are diverse; there are bird idioms, money idioms, and even arm, head and finger idioms. It is clear from the amount of idioms in existence and the limited activities used for teaching them that idioms are a subject for more advanced English...  [Read more]

Building Confidence in Students Education is certainly the birthright of all people. The motivation of every nation should be to generate literate, well-educated and intelligent residents who are able to add to the proper progress and progress of the whole society. There is still mystery on how accurately a foreign language is learnt. On the subject of building confidence there are yet more theories which are even more difficult to confirm. I myself do not trust that confidence is built using one magic activity, but rather it is continuously acquired all over the learning process. That’s why, all the theories I pick to focus on three things Grammar, Drilling, and of course the role of the teacher. All of these will prepare the student for circumstances they might meet later. [1] After...  [Read more]