Tefl.NET Forums

Dear Alan, This refers to jigsaw listening or jigsaw reading. You have two cassettes or two texts on the same subject matter but the content should not be too similar. One way of approaching the task is: Present and briefly practise language necessary for the jigsaw. Remember that the students need ...

Dear Kirsten, Young children have very short attention spans, which is not surprising given that the optimum study time for an adult is 40 to 45 minutes. So it's quite normal for your students' attention to stray. Also teaching young children is very different to working with adults, you just need t...

Dear Claire, PPP stands for presentation, practice and production. It's a way of structuring a language lesson when you are presenting grammar, functions or vocabulary for the first time. Presentation is where an explanation of the language takes place. This is usually led by the teacher. In this ph...

Dear Carol, Errors are a natural part of the learning process. For example, an elementary student who says "I taked the bus yesterday" demonstrates that they have learnt that an "ed" ending denotes a past tense. They just haven't learnt the irregular verbs yet. Some errors are sl...

Dear Alan, A company report offers many opportunities for language practice. You can try the following: For speaking practice: split the students into 2 groups: one group are company representatives, the others are (potential) shareholders. Give them time to prepare for a discussion. split the stude...

Dear Megan, I would suggest that the first thing you look at is whether you really want to stay in this job or not. Only you will know the answer to this. What other opportunities are there for you in your area? If there aren’t many, you need to consider what your link is with your town and your rea...

Dear Carol, You could start by asking what the students have already studied and ask to see books they have used to get an idea of the level they are at. You could spend the first lesson actually using this material to see how well they cope with it. This will help you plan the next step. The basics...

Dear Alex, I think it’s a great idea that you want to use newspapers with low level classes. It helps them see that they don’t need to understand every word in order to get the gist of the text. It could also encourage them to go on reading newspapers outside the classroom. You could ask students to...

Dear Joselyn, The communicative approach to language teaching developed as a way of introducing ‘real' communication and language into the classroom. It was a reaction to exercises of the type: reading aloud, listening and repeating, translation and the sort of speaking activities that involved ever...

Dear Barbara, Words ending in consonants are rare or non-existent in Chinese. This explains why your student is having difficulty pronouncing them. Before she can start recognising and pronouncing these sounds correctly, an awareness-raising activity is needed. A useful first step would be to have a...

Dear Zrosa, You don't say the age of the children in your class, I'm guessing that they are primary age. Children of this age haven't fully mastered their mother tongue. They can also spend a long time listening to language, understanding it and absorbing it before they start using it. So you can se...

You are right in thinking that a certificate in TEFL will help you with work possibilities. However, as more people have the Cert there is still a lot of competition. Many certificate courses have contacts with schools and so you have opportunities to apply for jobs while studying. You can ask about...

Dear Syanon, I understand your concern and agree with you that it is preferable to have a teaching qualification that is accredited. For this, you need to check whether it is moderated by an external body or not. An example of this in the UK would be UCLES (University of Cambridge Local Examinations...

Dear Thomas, Some writers use the terms evaluation and feedback interchangeably. This could be the reason you haven't found much on the web under evaluation. If you're really interested in the topic, there is a book on evaluating in the Richmond Handbooks for Teachers series. Here are some ideas for...

The English File by Oxford University Press is excellent. It builds up grammar, vocabulary and useful phrases gradually, incorporating pronunciation practice. There is a teacher's book to accompany it that includes photocopiable resources. Headway Beginner (also by OUP) is another good choice. It al...

Dear Jan, You could use it as follow-up practice on new language presented in class. Many of the older course books (Streamlines, Grapevine, the Strategies series) have ready made cassettes for drills. You could also use it for pronunciation practice, the Headway Pronunciation series has useful mate...

Dear Bryan, I think it's great that you are motivated enough to take on this task yourselves. You could fix a time where you meet up with your colleague(s). A regular day and time is more motivating and more likely to happen than something vague. Here's what you could do: Get some books on teaching ...

Dear Angelina, It depends really on whether they're actually doing the exercise you set in Spanish and so not practising their English. Or, whether they are using Spanish to discuss the task , ie meta-language. In the case of meta-language, you can present and practise useful phrases (eg What did yo...