Learning to Teach Better

One useful way to teach is to use dominoes for different grammar/vocabulary items. The one attached is for echo questions, but it could be done for prepositions (I thought ...... about this and I prepared..... for the project), question tags, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms etc. It could be made easily at home and I personally like to laminate and cut the ones I know I would be using more than few times.

Hello everyone! So sorry for not writing earlier, it was a hectic week! I would like to comment on the first reading tip. I usually never ask students to read out loud with the exception of total beginners, since my goal there IS to practice pronunciation and text are usually quite short, so it doesn't take much time. Students in Serbia are used to reading out loud, so higher levels usually feel surprised if they read silently. The tip that really took me by surprise is number 3 - guessing from the context. I usually do Face 2 Face course books (huge fan, I must say) and they even have texts whose purpose is guessing from context. They do that with grammar as well and I am pretty used to it. I actually get two opposing ideas from my students - on one hand, they don't like to guess from context because it makes them think and reread and they prefer just to be given the words. On the other hand, higher levels have told me that they could read an unabridged English book with very ...

Hello again! One of the finest lectures so far, thank you Penny for pointing some things out! I am personally struggling with no-L1 system because of the reputation all-English teachers have in Serbia. In my previous school, you were considered uneducated or methodologically weak if you couldn't/didn't explain everything in English only, regardless of the level. I once had a group of seniors and there was no way that they could listen to English only from the start. The reason for this is rooted in our traditional educational system which encouraged grammar-translation method, extensive use of Serbian, and people who couldn't converse in English after years of classes but could successfully make a difference between Present Perfect and Past Simple on paper. For them, English-only system was difficult and unnecessary. For younger generations, the situation is different, but there are still those who dislike things like eliciting ('Why should we guess, you tell us and don...

Hello again! For me, speaking tip 7 is the most important one - my students actually see all that grammar/vocabulary being put in use. I would wholeheartedly recommend (if not the course book itself, then at least the method) Face 2 Face, second edition. It is a course book mainly for adult learners. It relies heavily on speaking, while still paying respect to other skills. In these books, almost every activity has speaking as its base - I will give you some examples: I had a/the/ rice for lunch yesterday. Students have to choose the correct article and afterwards comment on whether this sentence is true or false in their case. They are expected to expand on their answer a bit (as much as they are able to, of course) - ''No, I didn't, but I had...'' -If you ___ (be) rich, what countries ___ (you visit)? Same task here, practicing II conditional. - what/on/do/Sundays/you/do/usually Make a question and answer it immediately. Most of my students enjoy it because the...

Hello again! I would like to comment on two things, one being lesson time and its effective use. I personally had problems with this, especially as a novice - I wanted my students to like me, so I sometimes chose fun rather than meaningful activities. What really helped me was discovering resource materials from various teacher's books by various publishers. They are helpful because they are not always strictly connected to that particular course book, but can be used universally and you are sure to combine fun and learning. The other aspect I wished to mention is the importance of listening and I would love to hear other teachers' opinion on this. When I look back, in addition to writing (which has become most universally disliked skill when learning English), students in my country have some kind of aversion towards listening. When asked why, they usually tell me that they see no point in listening, that nobody will make them do multiple choice questions in real life, that th...

Hello everyone! I'm Jelena and I come from Serbia. I've been teaching English for about 6 years now and this is something I would like to do for the rest of my life. So far I have taught general and conversational English, preparation for international exams, business English, as well as tailor-made courses. I'd like to get to know some fellow teachers and to improve my knowledge in couple of problematic areas. Nice to meet you all!