Some Thoughts on English Language Teaching in Indonesia
By M. Faruq Ubaidillah “It is the uncontested America’s socio-economic factors that make English a language of international communication”, David Crystal I feel a…
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August 2018
Teaching Diverse L1 Learners in the Adult ESL Classroom
By Natalie S. Johnson Many ESL teachers have classroom experience in countries where learners all speak the same first language or L1. Some may…
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Classroom Management – Kеерing Diѕсiрlinе
By Todd Squitieri It’s certainly not unusual for nеw teachers to ѕtrugglе with сlаѕѕrооm discipline. It can prove very challenging to try and mаnаgе…
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Using “The Road Not Taken” in the classroom
I teach English as a second language in an International school in India. It is a well known fact that technology in India is…
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7 Ready-to-Go Spolin Improv Activities for Your Classroom
by Philip Pound Improvisation for the Theatre by Viola Spolin Improvisation for the Theatre by Viola Spolin, came into my possession buried in a…
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Some of My Favourite Sites and Groups for Professional Development
By Tory Thorkelson According to edglossarry.org, “[i]n education, the term professional development may be used in reference to a wide variety of specialized training,…
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York – a Great Place to Study and Teach EFL
York, a rewarding and fascinating City in which to study and teach EFL….where size certainly doesn’t matter! By Peter Read York city, the ancient…
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A Short Overview of English Language Learning in India
by Anita Chakrabarti Children from the Avantskill initiative which works towards empowering the underprivileged through English language teaching in India. English Language was introduced…
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20 Fascinating Facts about the English Language
by Arlene Miller, the Grammar Diva. Here are 20 fascinating facts about the history of the English language. According to Global Language Monitor, the…
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Where I Teach: Piraeus, Greece
By Vasiliki Lismani Since 2016, by Law (Government Gazette B’ 2419/ 5 – 8 – 2016), Greek students officially start learning English as a…
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Confessions of a ‘LAZ(Z)Y’ University Professor
By Tory Thorkelson Early on in my teaching career, I recall a colleague storming into my noisy middle school EFL classroom in Japan and…
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Some Tips on Supporting Blended Learning
By John Allan Scenario I teach in a mixed gender technical college in the Middle East. The majority of students are in their twenties…
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Where I Teach in Thailand
By Eric Haeg I started teaching in Thailand 14 years ago. Before that, I’d never been to Asia, much less eaten Thai food. Despite…
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What Does the Future Hold for TH Sounds?
By Jonathon Owen The TH-sounds /θ/ and /ð/ (dental fricatives) can be challenging for English language learners to master if their native language (L1)…
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Keep Your Students Connected and Engaged with H5P
By Valerie Sartor We are now living in an age where direct instruction is becoming passé. In Spring 2018, I created a questionnaire for…
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Who are the patriots today?
By Tristan Cotterill Are you a TESOL teacher, state school teacher, or a private school teacher. A teachers of the arts, or a STEM…
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Cantonese Dreams, Global Digital Voices
By Chris Panell “That will never happen, Mr. Panell.” We had been discussing the year 2047, the date for Hong Kong to be “fully…
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How to Make Conversation Classes More Meaningful for Your Students
By Tory Thorkelson Just like that book about how Kindergarten teaches you everything important about life, much of what I do and how I…
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Online News Stories: A place for Autonomy and Language Development
by Mohamed Elhess In a typical language classroom, some students prefer to work individually, some rely upon kinesthetic or visual learning style, some show…
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Teaching IELTS Speaking: Tips and Tricks
By John Kenmuir Recently, IELTS has become one of the major language tests worldwide. As a result, markets have appeared, both virtually and in…
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“Scaffolding”: The Poetic Metaphor of Learning
By Mariana Acosta I was blessed to come across the world of British and American literature during my BA in ELT, many years ago….
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Taking the Pain Out of Preparing Tailor-Made Lessons
By Yuliia Bilonoh When teaching one to one we often have to make more effort to keep our students interested and to make the…
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Examining Adult Learners in More Detail
By Maroussa Pavli PART 1 A description of adult strengths & weaknesses If you’ve read my previous article entitled ‘Useful thoughts on teaching adults’,…
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Developing Your Resilience - Advice for English Language Teachers
By Daniel Clausen Teachers are people, too. We face the same types of problems as others. We stumble into the burdens of bad relationships,…
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Grammar Police – Mistakes Native English Speakers Make
by Nico De Napoli Back in the noughties, I taught English as a second language for several years. Being a foreign national made it…
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Some Ideas on Enhancing Guest Speaker Sessions
By John Allan It sounds simple. The syllabus calls for guest speakers in the classroom. Inviting experts into your classroom is a great idea!…
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Teaching and Exploring in a New Culture
By Alyssa Micek This article is designed to facilitate discussion regarding the cultural challenges of teaching abroad as well as the valuable lessons one…
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EVE: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
by Sue Leather Why EVE? It seems that the time is right for this kind of initiative. Good progress has been made already in…
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Beware the Costly Comma – A Short Guide to Comma Use
By Peter Read Those of us who teach English as a foreign language are only too well aware of the need to stretch our…
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An Interview with Harald Kruithof of Language Partners
Managing Director of Language Partners, based in The Netherlands By Daniel Israel Harald, you are a co-owner of Language Partners. Are you a linguist…
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Penny Ur : 100 Teaching Tips – Book Review
by Penny Ur Cambridge University Press 2016 Reviewed by Scott Zimmermann, D.A. Few authors in the field of EFL are as eminently qualified as…
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Where I Teach – Henan Polytechnic University
by Peter Hughes I teach at Henan Polytechnic University (HPU) in China. It is a beautiful campus, with Lotus flower lakes, rivers with black…
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How to Use Poems in EFL Teaching
By Tony Penston This is an example of how to use a popular poem to engage students and improve pronunciation using old-fashioned but effective…
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Teaching Mixed Ability and Multicultural Classes
By Pola Papadopoulou In an ideal world, all students in a classroom would have the same abilities when it came to learning, the same…
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Why You Should Use Laptops in Your Classroom
By Dana Mizrahi Junior High School Principal and English Teacher, Hadassim Youth Village In January 2018, Israel’s Athena Fund launched its new program, Laptops…
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Where I Teach – A Freelance English Teacher in Stockholm
by Pola Papadopoulou I am a freelance English teacher in Stockholm, Sweden. I work with all ages and levels, but my expertise lies in…
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Reflection as an act of sharing and caring
By Vasiliki Lismani “Sharing is caring”. You might think “What a cliché!” but, as teachers we know that this is (or at least should…
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Being Mistaken for a Native Speaker… Mission Accomplished?
by Laura Polanco As foreign language teachers, we are aware of how big the “native speaker” controversy has become and somehow, we, consciously and…
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Interview with Nicholas Walker
By Sharyn Collins Hello, Nicholas, could you tell me about your background and how you got into EFL? I’m English, but I was born…
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Where I Teach: Timor Leste
By Margie Beck Here I am with two of my students, both of whom are now teaching in primary schools. I am a self-funded…
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Where I teach
By Nataliia Tkachenko I am a full-time English teacher at Taras Shevchenko Himnazia, Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine. It is a state school that combines primary, middle…
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10 Confessions of an EFL teacher
by Paul Finnerty Most things published by wannabe journalist-teachers like me focus on what we do well. Much of what we write is idealistic…
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A Cat on a Bike: How to Speed Up Vocabulary Learning
By Gabriel Clark Problems with making vocabulary stick It’s always the same, isn’t it? We do a lesson with all these fantastic words and…
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What’s Real Reading? The E-books or Print Books Debate
by Chuck Sandy If you want to start an argument among a room full of reading specialists, ask them what reading is and how…
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Indie Authors and Publishers: Where Do We Go From Here?
By Julie Pratten While the debate about print books becoming extinct and digital taking over is still raging, for the time being, physical books…
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The ‘Proper’ Use(s) of Journals
by Tory Thorkelson Now that I have your attention, I would like to share some thoughts and my experience with using journals in my…
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How to Make Your Classroom More Gender-Neutral
By AJ Dalmaso Nowadays, the topic of gender is widely discussed. When we talk about gender-neutral environments, we idealize a place where students are…
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Media Bias and Critically Evaluating Information
By Tory Thorkelson In 2016, Vanessa Otero created a chart showing how biased various media sources available in the US were (see: http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/). While…
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Teach First Certificate
by Nicola Prentis Book Review by Pietro Pacini This is a highly practical book, which I now use regularly with my students. It is…
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Where I Teach: South Korea
By Tory Thorkelson Where do you teach? A private University in Seoul, South Korea. According to the Complete University Guide, “[there are 43 national…
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Constructing a Rhizomatic Personal Learning Environment
By Nguyen Minh Trang Constructing a do-it-yourself website as a rhizomatic personal learning environment to promote learner independence, interdependence and self-motivation to convert case….
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Immediate or Delayed Error Correction? Fix learners’ mistakes
By Gabriel Clark Let’s start this article with a bit of well-grounded research. According to John Hattie’s epic meta-study on factors that impact learning…
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Using Drawings to Help Explain Grammar
Michael Garry Smout I have been using this activity for well over twenty years, but am really unsure of where it came from. I…
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Why Writing is So Terrifying and How to Make It Less So
By Nhu Quynh “I’m sorry miss, but I just can’t do it”. One of the students in my pre-IELTS class was not hesitant to…
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5 things that my students and I have learnt from Pollyanna
Last month I was talking to one of my students about a book he was reading. The teenager was eager to tell me about…
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To Teach Back Home or Not
by Tristan Cotterill. Currently in the United Kingdom (UK), the education system is facing a crisis point. There is a severe lack of teachers….
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Delivering Online Classes for Busy Professionals
By Lucy Nankivell Delivering online classes for busy professionals When I changed from classroom to online teaching, I thought I would be using much…
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‘Mobile Learning’ Book Review
By Shaun Wilden Mobile Learning Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-420039-4 This slim volume of around 100 pages is all about helping teachers to come…
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Where I Teach in Ukraine
By Iryna Zuyenok Having graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk National University (Ukraine) 35 years ago, I have experienced all the jobs the awarded qualification allows…
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Recruiting and Selecting Teaching Staff: A Strategic Approach
By Jonathan Owen Teachers can make or break an educational institution. For this reason, the process used to recruit them is critical to a…
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Teaching Vocabulary in the EFL Classroom
by Scott Zimmermann, D.A. Vocabulary is paramount in the classroom. According to Jack C. Richards, “Vocabulary, of course, is basic to all the skills.”…
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Three Unlikely Helpers
by Glenn G. Dahlem, Ph.D. Many EFL teachers shudder when any of the three ominous figures of speech appear unannounced during class. These are…
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Interview with Elisabeth Bekes, EFL Teacher and So Much More!
By Sharyn Collins Elizabeth, you continue to have an extraordinary and fascinating life, could you tell me where it all began? I was born…
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Impress in English
Presentation skills for Non-native Speakers Matterhorn Languages Susanne Lewis ISBN 9781977034779 Review for EFL Magazine by Steve Hirschhorn It seems to me that public…
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My bigly bad…
by Rachel Boyce In 2017 there was one new phrase that I kept hearing, from students, on TV and social media. My bad The…
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Death to the Yes/No Concept Question
By Tony Penston Who calls for greater adherence to the principles of Communicative Language Teaching I wish to show that the Yes/No Concept Question,…
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Teaching in Low Resource Classrooms – Voices of Experience
Book Review: Edited by Richard Smith, Amol Padwad and Deborah Bullock produced by the British Council. This review written by Lina Gordyshevkaya won first…
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Where do you teach?
by Sharyn Collins Editor Dear readers, our readership has grown so much over the last couple of years and without doubt a great part…
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Talking Tips: Ten Things You Don’t Want to Say!
BY ARLENE MILLER Many times we talk about grammar in terms of writing. This article is about speaking. We don’t need to worry about…
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Give Me Words and Let Me speak
By Shimmi Sharma As an English teacher, I have worked in a private school in Lahartara Varanasi, the holy city of India for ten…
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The ‘Painless’ Course Creation Cycle: Tips and Tricks from an EFL Veteran
Tory S. Thorkelson, M.Ed. Imagine being called into your Department Chair’s office three weeks before a new term begins. With all the real (and…
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Fancy a new challenge?
By Daniel Israel The Diploma in English Language Teaching for Adults (DELTA) is certainly worth the investment (part 1 of 3 modules as a…
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Technology in your classes
Chuck Sandy The Real Revolution I teach in a classroom in 2012 that’s not all that different from the one my grandmother taught in…
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Talking Adults
In response to ‘Useful Thoughts on Teaching Adults’ – Applying these principles to my teaching context. By Paul Finnerty Just as I was about…
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International Teacher Development Institute – Free Offer
At the International Teacher Development Institute (iTDi.pro), we are committed to helping ALL teachers – native, non-native, teachers in big cities and those far…
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The Seven Deadly Sins of the 0ne to 0ne Lesson, from the Point of View of a Learner
By Eve Conway They say that teachers make the worst students to which I can attest myself. As much as I encourage my own…
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The Nuances of Teaching Business English
By Pola Papadopoulou As a branch of English that is constantly gaining more attention, both from students and researchers who further wish to understand…
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Useful Thoughts on Teaching Adults
By Maroussa Pavli Have you been teaching English to children and teenagers and you’re now interested in working with adult learners? Do you know…
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Don’t stare – start writing instead
by Elizabeth Bekes Cuenca, Ecuador Book review on The PhD Writing Handbook by Desmond Thomas Palgrave September 2016 The opening scene of Sally Potter’s…
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The “Uberfication” of Online ELT
by Rachel Boyce Learning with computers is nothing new… ………..as they have been used in language teaching since the 1980s, if not longer in…
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A Holistic Approach to Civil Engineering Teaching in China
By Peter Hughes I teach Civil Engineering in China at The Henan Polytechnic University (HPU). With a long history, it is the first mining…
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Athena Fund to Provide Laptops to 13,000 English Teachers in Israel
by Daphna Tamir Israel’s Athena Fund has launched a new program – Laptop for Every English Teacher in Israel – in which English teachers…
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Motivating our students
By Chuck Sandy Please Stop Talking About Motivation When we say someone is unmotivated, what we often mean is they are not doing what…
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How Vocabulary is Learned
Webb, S. & Nation, P. Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-440355-9 Review for EFL Magazine by Steve Hirschhorn, January 2018 How Vocabulary is Learned is…
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Interview with Peter Read, trainer in Business English
By Sharyn Collins Peter Read, LL.B, FCILA, CELTA is an English Teacher and Trainer with a background in ESP who has taught students with…
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Creativity on call: empowering learners’ autonomy
By Vasiliki Have you ever realized that some amazing things have happened completely unintentionally during our teaching practice, so spontaneously but yet so effectively…
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Teaching English is Just a Funny Old Game (of football)
By Paul Finnerty So, I’m an English teacher. I have been for seven years now. I also happen to be an absolute fanatic of…
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Mathematics: it’s the language that counts
By Tony Grice Can you speak mathematics? Some linguists claim that mathematics has the design features of a language. Equations are the equivalent of…
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What We Lose When We Ban Students, Countries
Enduring Lessons from a Welcome Center by Walter Fernando Balser, Ed.D. In the summer of 1999, I emerged from graduate school as a young…
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Supporting in-sessional students in higher education
By Mark Lawrence Context The university where I work, Sheffield University, has a huge number of international students and we offer a lot of…
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Lifting a fourth-grade language learner
By Fred Gamble According to Pellino (2012, para. 1), “Students with English as a second language (ESL) constitute a significant percentage of the population…
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“Comma knowledge”: Some points about punctuation in EFL
by Alex Moore A Quiz Can you match these eight sentences to their writers’ L1s? They were all written by either an Arabic, Chinese,…
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The Wiki as a Collaborative Tool: why to use it, how to use it.
By Rita Zeinstejer A wiki can be described as a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit, delete or…
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Sentence Structure with a Dash of Zombie
By Terry McLean As an English as an Additional Language (EAL) teacher, I find that many students struggle with the use of sentence variety….
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Beyond the “Square Mile”
By Peter Read Teaching Modern Business English in a rapidly changing global market – the need to adopt a practical approach. Teaching Modern Business…
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Reconceptualising Authenticity for English as a Global Language
by Richard S. Pinner 2016 Multilingual Matters Taking a position on the authenticity continuum Book review by Erzsébet Békés I came across the issue…
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Some Observations on Engaging in Self-Observation
Christopher L. Miller A Challenge Embraced A few years ago Dr. Thomas Farrell gave a plenary talk at the KOTESOL International Conference. Among the…
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Post Academy Life
By Troy Nahumko Open a job search for ESL job openings around the world at any time of the year and a sunny southern…
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In Search of Christmas Present, Past and Future
By Philip Briggs Christmas comes; Christmas goes. And if you’re reading this in January or March, it’s gone. In which case, you’re now existing…
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Teaching Exam Listening
Does Practice actually make Perfect? For learners preparing to take Cambridge exams in Italy, listening is notoriously the most difficult skill. This is backed…
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English as a Lingua Franca in University
I. Introduction: Conceptualizing English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Any lingua franca through time has made possible the communication of people who have different…
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Some Approaches to Teaching Phrasal Verbs
Phrasal verbs present a difficult challenge for most students who study English as a second language. Phrasal verbs are often confusing for students, due…
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Academic Writing Buddy
A proposal to establish an international academic writing buddy system for mentoring and being mentored, with a view to getting published. Comments from teachers…
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Planning a Successful Demo Lesson
Demo Lesson A demo lesson can be nightmare, especially if you are a shiny, new teacher trying to land your first job. Some people…
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A US Peace Corps Volunteer’s TEFL Experience in The Republic Macedonia
Being a Peace Corps volunteer in Macedonia (FYROM) and working in the education sector has been a one-of-a-kind, transformative experience. The Peace Corps is…
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Interview with Ken Collins
Ken, we come from the same city of Newcastle upon Tyne England, share the same surname and have known each other you since you…
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Writing Drama for English Language Learners
By Scott Granville Film and television shows have universal appeal as an entertainment source in popular culture. Yet while online video content is more…
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Teachers Stories: The Secret Vault
As I always tell my students and clients, stories are magic carpet rides. They fly us to any destination, allow us to explore endless…
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Social Bingo
Recently teenagers have been accused of being unable to socialise face to face, think and even make eye contact. Parents and adults in general put…
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Successful Group Work, 13 Activities to Teach Teamwork Skills
Successful Group Work, 13 Activities to Teach Teamwork Skills Palmer, P 2017 Alphabet Publishing ISBN 9780997762846 This slim book of just over 50 pages,…
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Getting Students Reading
Extensive reading has been the focus of a great deal of academic attention since Bamford and Day first published their ground-breaking work, ‘Extensive Reading…
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The Wolf of Upwork
By Matt Cates Dear Readers, Clearly I don’t know what I’m doing. Most EFL teachers aren’t in this for the big bucks, but at…
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The Dvolver Phenomenon
By Charles McKinney, IV When I started my English-teaching career in South Korea, my Korean co-teacher discovered an interesting website from a teacher-training workshop…
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Recently: the Time Adverbial that trespasses Grammar to Reach out for Difference
By Maaouia Haj Mabrouk: ELT inspector Tunisia Introduction Among the adjunct adverbials1 that kept puzzling me as a teacher, then as a teacher trainer,…
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How to create content for online ESL lessons
by Kris Jagasia Dear Teachers! My name is Kris Jagasia. My colleague, James Heywood and I have been creating content for our online ESL…
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EFL lessons from the 2016 film Arrival
by Tristan Cotterill As a teacher, it is best for us to use a range of techniques to keep our students’ attention, and for…
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A Day in the Life of an EFL Teacher
By Paul Finnerty The fact that it’s mid-October and I’ve just got back from swimming in the sea rather sums up why I chose…
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Interview with Guillaume Catella
The founder of Bilingua, a language exchange and learning companion app, connecting learners based on similar interests or personalities. By Sharyn Collins Hello Guillaume….
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Where are we going wrong with teaching reading skills?
By Mark Bartholomew Past and Present? – Teaching Techniques Do you remember reading classes in English, Spanish, or whatever foreign language you were studying,…
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What I learnt from Jeremy Harmer
About the role of course books in the modern age Helbling Languages – Books and Bits (joint professional development event) by Erzsébet Békés As…
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“A-Z of Hope”
Review by Marusya Hristova I am an ESL teacher who believes in positive education and that we teachers, are our students’ role models. That…
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The five guiding principles of vocabulary learning
by Yoanis Ulloa Tejera Vocabulary is vital to express meaning. Teaching English vocabulary, an important field in language teaching, is worthy of effort. For…
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Sex Differences and ELT: Theory, Evidence and Practice
Introduction Around the world, teachers adjust lessons based on students’ L1. In Russia, teachers focus on English article systems as there is no equivalent….
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Interview with Giovanni Rottura, founder and CEO of Gallery Teachers
By SHARYN COLLINS Giovanni where were you born? I am Italian. I was born in Palermo but, as my father was in the army,…
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Teaching English as a Dyslexic
By Tristan Cotterill The probability of you reading the title of this article is still less than the probability that I thought I would…
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How Important Can A Teacher’s Meeting Be?
By Leticia Sales As with most schools in Brazil, the one where I am a pedagogical coordinator has a teacher’s meeting (or branch) meeting…
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Teaching Tolerance
By Corinna Keefe I was standing in front of the class, writing on the blackboard. We were playing a word game in our weekly…
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How to Create Great Materials for you ESL Classroom
by Kia DeKou When I first started teaching over 20 years ago, the company I worked for was relatively new and didn’t have any…
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Impressing your students with your Youtube skills
By Tory Thorkelson As teachers, we are certainly aware of the place technology will take in the classroom whether we want it to or…
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Seeing The Dog Alive
(NEW WAYS TO USE AN INTERACTIVE BOARD FOR TEACHING VERBAL GRAMMAR) By Nick Koretsky ESL teacher Studying a dog’s abstraction. It has been my…
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How to develop and thrive as a teacher without taking CELTA or TESOL
By Ahmad Zaytoun When experience and qualifications are discussed in English language teaching, TEFL, CELTA, TESOL, and DELTA instantly spring to mind. However, the…
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Integrating Global Issues in the Creative English Language Classroom
By: Magali Arteaga With reference to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Edited by: Alan Maley and Nik Peachey British Council 2017 208 pages…
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Reconsidering the Role of the Teacher
by Michael Fletcher As a zealous, overly-confident, but ultimately well-intentioned newly qualified teacher, I cherished the responsibility of attending parent’s evening, primarily due to…
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The Recent History of Pronunciation Teaching in English Language Teaching
by Steve Hirschhorn In Europe, pronunciation teaching prior to the late 19th c relied largely on imitation along with approximations derived from spelling and…
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No Write, No Grumble: Teaching Students that Change Can Start with Them
By Michelle Shin In 2010, Hawaii’s legislature and governor signed into law a bill that would extend the school day, first by an hour…
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Using “The Most Dangerous Writing App” in the Classroom
The Most Dangerous Writing App So many of us go through moments where we just stare at a page and can’t get our ideas…
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What Needs Analysis Is and How It Plays a Pivotal Role in Teacherpreneurship
What Needs Analysis Is and How It Plays a Pivotal Role in Teacherpreneurship “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk…
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Some Tips on Being Consistent in Your Writing
Some Tips on Being Consistent in Your Writing I always rewrite the very beginning of a novel. I rewrite the beginning as I write…
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Book Review: Creative Output, Activities for Teaching Speaking and Writing
Creative Output, Activities for Teaching Speaking and Writing This book of just over 130 pages starts with a clear and concise theoretical underpinning and…
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Phil Wade Interviews: Thomas S C Farrell
Phil Wade Interviews: Thomas S C Farrell You are known for your reflective practice work and this has been rather fashionable recently but as…
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Teaching through Context: Bringing the World into Your Classroom
Teaching through Context: Bringing the World into Your Classroom Nowadays, with the development of technology, we hear almost every day about how important it…
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The Plain Way for EAP Students to Say It Like It Is
The Plain Way for EAP Students to Say It Like It Is The Vampire Papers I have read hundreds of university-level essays by non-native…
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Modern Radio: Exploiting Podcasts in the EFL Classroom
Modern Radio: Exploiting Podcasts in the EFL Classroom Door to door, it takes me about an hour and five minutes to get to work…
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Posterama Ideas for the ESL/EFL classroom
Posterama Ideas for the ESL/EFL classroom As I depend more and more on technology in the classroom, despite the potential for a technical problem…
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My Approach to Using Authentic Materials with Lower Level Learners
My Approach to Using Authentic Materials with Lower Level Learners A 1-2-1 student of mine has just passed his (Hungarian B2 CEFR level) matura…
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Speak Out, But Be Heard: Against Sexual Harassment in ELT
Speak Out, But Be Heard: Against Sexual Harassment in ELT About thirty years ago I walked out of my fully funded MPhil/PhD position because…
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CREATIVE TEACHERS AND THEIR INSTRUCTIONAL METHODS, APPROACHES & ACTIVITIES
Creative Teachers and Their Instructional Methods, Approaches & Activites Introduction Most people, when they hear the word creativity, think of singers, painters, designers, or…
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Are You Composed? Compose vs Comprise
Are You Composed? Compose vs Comprise “Hmmm….Should I use compose or comprise? What is the difference?” Yes, these two words are confusing indeed. They…
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Socratic Circles in the EFL Classroom
Socratic Circles in the EFL Classroom The face of the EFL classroom is changing. Deep transformations are being introduced and tested practically on a…
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The Alphabet Franca
The Alphabet Franca There are about 46 different alphabets in use today and about 7,000 languages, excluding dialects.It is no surprise, therefore that at…
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Writing Creatively to Learn Adverbs
Writing Creatively to Learn Adverbs When it comes to grammar instruction, teachers often struggle with these questions: Do I teach my students the grammar…
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Phil Wade Interviews: Matthew Armstrong
Phil Wade Interviews: Matthew Armstrong Mathew has been teaching in Beijing for nearly five years. He has a CELTA from Language Link, Beijing and…
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The Dangers of The Diagnostic Test – What Happened Next?
The Dangers of The Diagnostic Test – What Happened Next? A couple of months ago, I wrote an article for this magazine about what…
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Teaching the Article to EFL Learners with No Article in their L1
Teaching the Article to EFL Learners with No L1 Articles occur more frequently than any other word in the English language (“Word Frequency Data”)….
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Critical Readers in the Misinformation Age
Critical Readers in the Misinformation Age Did you know that Chicago was the most dangerous city in the US in 2014? I didn’t. I…
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How to Use Ready-Made Mind Maps in Your Business Classes
How to Use Ready-Made Mind Maps in Your Business Classes A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information. It starts with a central word…
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The Life of an Unlikely ESL Curricula Composer
The Life of an Unlikely ESL Curricula Composer The deal is done I enter a Chinese mall in a Vancouver suburb and walk over…
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It Never Got Weird Enough for Me…So I Made It Weirder
It Never Got Weird Enough for Me…So I Made It Weirder It can get weird fast, teaching English, but as Hunter S. Thompson said,…
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Book Review: Reflections on Language Teacher Identity Research
Book Review: Reflections on Language Teacher Identity Research Identity issues for language teachers are like layers of an onion: the outer layer is personal…
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