Category: News

To be honest, I LOVE teaching English online.

Sure, there are some small challenges with working from home.

There are the occasional feelings of loneliness and I may never wear non-stretchy pants again (OK, that part I’m good with!).

But the downsides are easy to overcome. Teaching online is beyond worth it!

Want to know the best part?

Flexibility! Which means more time for myself.

Learn more about this topic by reading on TeachAway.

After reading “Learning an L2 in a troubled world” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

This website brings ideas for activities and games in the English language classroom. Ideas for activities that you can adapt and use at different levels. Imperatives used for instructions; vocabulary for food and cooking; adverbs of sequence; practices for vocabulary building. 

he games contained in this section will also provide you with a great source of ideas for your classes. These tried and tested games provide practice in reading, writing, listening and speaking. The games are also categorized to help you easily find the type of game you are looking for. There are games for young learners, teenagers and adults. Each game comes with full teacher’s notes and most of the games take very little preparation and are easy to set up and play.

The games can be used to introduce new vocabulary, reinforce a language point, practice words or language structures, teach or practice grammar and improve core skills. You can also use these games to warm up the class when the lesson begins, during the lesson to re-energize the class or at the end of class to finish on a positive note and round off the lesson.

Using games and fun activities in class is an important part of teaching ESL. Playing games is a fun way to help students make connections between words and grammar. These connections quicken the process of building language skills. These ESL games can help both native and foreign speakers of English improve their language ability. Playing games in class also helps to focus attention, improve interaction, increase energy levels and build confidence. Furthermore, shy or quiet students begin to open up and speak English when playing games in class. We are sure you will find our games section a useful tool in improving your students’ English language ability.

Learn more about this topic by reading on EnglishClub.

After reading “ESL Activities” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

Essential ESL Activities that are Fun, Relevant and Engaging

ESL Activities for Engaging Classes – Fun, relevant and engaging ESL activities are the nitrous of every successful lesson. Through hundreds of successful ESL classes, we know what does and does NOT work.

ESL exercises are a controlled way to practice a particular language aspect. Instead ESL activities engage in discussion and communication focused on a goal.

For example, you can cut our ESL discussion topics into bite-size papers and have them communicate in pairs. And this is just 1 of 17 ideas waiting for you to build these ESL activities into your classes and to perfection.

These ESL activities give students a chance to use what they have been studying and make it ‘theirs,’ so they can draw on it when needed in their lives. They provide a variety of guided and more independent practice.

Most of these activities can be adapted to many different lessons.

Several are especially useful as icebreakers or warm-ups. Others provide a break or a quick review when there’s a little time left near the end of class. Some emphasize listening or speaking; others reading, writing, or vocabulary.

Icebreakers help classmates get acquainted at the start of a new class.

Warm-ups are good at the start of a lesson, especially if not all students arrive on time. They can review the previous day’s lesson or help students switch their thinking to English.

It’s also very helpful to have a few quick activities in your toolkit for when students get bored or discouraged.

Learn more about this topic by reading on AllESL.

After reading “ESL Activities for Engaging Classes” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

Top ESL Activities and Games – ESL teaching online isn’t difficult if you have a variety of interesting, engaging and student-centred activities as your fingertips. Keep on reading for the top ones to choose from to get started with teaching ESL online.

Or, you may want to check this out too: How to teach English online. If you’re looking for a job, have a look here: Best Online Teaching Jobs for English Teachers.

Who doesn’t need some fun, interesting activities and games for their English classes right? This is the ultimate list that you’re going to need to check out. Keep on reading for 50 of the best ESL activities to make your classes even more awesome.

If you’re looking for ESL activities, you’ve most certainly come to the right place! I’m going to share with you my top 50 ESL activities that cover a range of skills and situations-warm-ups + icebreakers, reading activities, writing activities, speaking activities and listening activities. Most of the activities work great for both children, as well as adults.

One of my favourite ESL activities is ESL surveys. I’m sure my students could tell you this-I use them in almost every one of my classes at least once a month. ESL surveys are so good because they cover all 4-skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) and they also get students up and out of their seats talking to their classmates. They are perfect for sleepy classes on Monday morning, or Friday afternoon!

Another thing ESL surveys are great at doing is encouraging students to ask follow-up questions. It’s often the teacher who asks the student a question, then a follow-up question, then another. But, this is one of the best ESL activities for getting students doing this with each other!

Learn more about this topic by reading on ESLActivity.

After reading “Top ESL Activities and Games” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

How Families Pass Indigenous Languages – Sit in on any Indigenous-language class across Canada, and you’ll hear many, I’d argue almost all, adult students say they are picking up their language in order to teach their children or future children.

Making sure the generations to come have what we did not seems to be one of the most urgent motivations for learning our languages. As adults, we can almost handle that we, ourselves, are not speakers. But when we think about the pain and loss that has caused in our life, we know we would never want the same thing for our little ones.

When I applied for my first Mohawk-language course, in 2017, I stated similar reasons for wanting to learn: “My mother and grandmother didn’t grow up with the language or teachings,” I wrote. “I would like to break that cycle within my family and spread that knowledge, as much as I can, to my nieces and nephews and my own children, eventually.” Although I’ve never really wanted children, I have thought that maybe I would change my mind — if only so that I could be in a position to give a child what I didn’t have growing up.

At some point, I came to peace with the fact that I would not be passing my language on to my own children, but I hope that my role as an auntie will allow me to share what I know about our culture and our language with my nieces and nephews as they grow. My sisters, each with two children under five, don’t have the time to learn a new language while juggling work, kids, and a global pandemic, so I feel that it is a part of my duty (besides being the cool aunt) to pass along what I can.

I have always loved that, in my language, Kanyen’kéha, there is no word for “aunt.” When referring to “my mother,” I say “ake’nihstéha.” When I speak to her, I call her “istah.” In our language, we also call our aunties “istah.” There is no differentiation between “mom” and “auntie,” but, in contrast, there are different words for “uncle” and “father.” To me, that speaks to the ways that we value the older women in our lives and the role that those women (blood relation or not) play in our growing and learning — in the influencing of who we will become.

Learn more about this topic by reading on TVO.

After reading “How Families Pass Indigenous Languages” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

Criticism over bad English – Thai schools are pushing for online learning to slow the spread of the coronavirus, but a recent English lesson posted online is just proof that basic English levels remain poor in the country. The video of a Thai teacher with poor pronunciation spread across the internet, with some saying she should be a student rather than a teacher.

The teacher went back and forth from Thai to English for some of the lesson, but when she spoke in English, much of it was unintelligible. The Pathom 6 class was recorded for Distance Learning TV, or DLTV, with a live class. Many students seemed to stare blankly during the lesson. Even a native English speaker can’t understand much of what she’s saying.

On the Thai Visa thread, some people say that the teacher tried her best to speak English, adding that many foreigners spend years in Thailand and cannot speak Thai. Others rebutted, saying that while she’s trying her best, she’s teaching a language to students and “should get it right”.

Keep reading the rest of the story at The Thaiger.

After reading “Foreign student industry faces dramatic drop”, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

Promote the Rotuman Language

The call has gone out for the creation of a global network to promote Rotuman language and culture in this current Covid-19 pandemic environment.

The coronavirus pandemic failed to stop the inaugural Rotuman Language Week in New Zealand this year.

Instead Covid-19 transformed how the islanders celebrated their language and culture last week.

Rotuman was the first of nine Pacific language weeks and the islanders took to the internet to celebrate the historic milestone.

Rotumans around the world were leveraging tools like Zoom, Facebook, Youtube and WhatsApp to tune in to the events in Aotearoa.

It’s typically a community affair but the New Zealand Rotuman Fellowship Group (NZRG) and the Auckland Rotuman Fellowship Group (ARFG) were forced to think virtual.

An event that’s meant to bring the community together was observed apart.

Programmes including Rotuma Day celebrations on 13 May were quietly marked by islanders in their bubbles across the world.

Instead of sitting in a church, as the pastor prayed for the people and the weeklong event, Rotumans watched and listened through an app on their phones, computers and television monitors.

Language week celebrations in Aotearoa will be different this year.

Thousands of Rotumans marked last week with thanksgiving services, language lessons and videos, arts, panel discussions, dances and youth-led initiatives.

But Rotuman language advocates say the celebrations should not stop there.

Continue reading this article at RNZ.

After reading “Promote the Rotuman Language” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

English rose on Harvey farm – When Zoë Allington was first introduced to her in-laws, she sat quietly around the table listening to them talk in farming jargon — something the English teacher said was almost as alien to her as a foreign language.

She did not have a farming background, nor had she ever really experienced the world of agriculture — until she met her husband Travis.

The couple now co-run Allington Family Farm, a Merino sheep farm in the hills of Harvey, and supply sustainable, ethical and locally produced lamb to West Australians.

What started as a hobby farm with 100 sheep has now progressed into a flock of 1500 breeding ewes. The country farmers have even started practicing Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) — where people buy shares in the farm’s produce and receive a portion of the harvest in return.

Originally from the UK, Zoë was teaching English in the Falkland Islands, a collection of islands off the coast of South America, when she met her future husband — a sheep farmer from Australia.

Learn more about this topic by reading in The West.

After reading “English rose on Harvey farm” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

6 Strategies for Teaching English – Over 10 percent of students in the United States—more than 4.8 million kids—are English language learners (ELLs), and the number is on the rise. Though these students do not learn differently than their native-English-speaking peers, they do have particular educational needs.

To learn about these needs and the best practices for addressing them I interviewed a range of educators and observers. Including Larry Ferlazzo, an educator and author of The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide; longtime teachers of English as a second language (ESL) Emily Francis and Tan Huynh; and the journalist Helen Thorpe, who spent a year observing a teacher who works with ELLs. 

The group emphasized that the strategies listed here, which include both big-picture mindsets and nitty-gritty teaching tactics, can be incorporated into all classrooms, benefiting both native English speakers and ELLs.

Emily Francis, an ESL teacher in Concord, North Carolina, makes clear that she wants her students to “embrace their culture and their language as a foundation of who they are”. She considers that their acquisition of a new culture and language is not as subtractive, but as additive. To help support students who may never have attended school before or may be coping with migration-based trauma, Francis emphasizes that little things make a big difference. “The first thing that I need to think about is, how is my student feeling in my classroom?” she says. “Are they sitting next to a buddy they can ask a question in their home language? Do they feel comfortable tapping me on the shoulder if they have to go to the bathroom?”

Learn more about this topic by reading on Edutopia.

After reading “6 Strategies for Teaching English “, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

ESL Methods – Teaching English. The field of linguistics and teaching in the 20th century is marked by the development of different foreign language teaching methods and approaches. I can observe that some methods have almost zero users while others have plenty. 

Modern foreign language teaching has adopted completely new methods. The work of language professionals during the period between 1950 and 1980 contributed significantly. Different scientific views appeared in the field of L2 teaching and learning.

I notice that some methods are not used or became obscure. They may offer useful insights into the general teaching methodology. Modern teaching is also based on the elements derived from these methods.

I present to you here the teaching methods and their classification. It would be useful to remember what method is in terms of its definition and application in classrooms.  There are many definitions of method but in a nutshell a method is a plan for presenting a certain language material to be learned. Linguists agree that it should be based upon a selected approach.

Learn more about this topic by reading on Owlcation. After you read “ESL Methods – Teaching English” article, you can also check more complete and better written articles on my website in the section ESL Methods.