English language teaching articles

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english language teaching articles

Language Learners' Listening Comprehension
"Teacher, I don't understand." "Huh?", "What?", "Can you repeat that, please?" "What did he say?", "Teacher, we don't understand." Do any of these sound familiar? Undoubtedly they do... read more

English Only in the EFL Classroom: Worth the Hassle?
When should teachers use L1 in EFL classrooms? ....read more

What is standard English?
The term English speaker is so broad few people realize the extent of our language differences across the world. Whilst we all essentially speak one language there are some variations both in grammar and vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation....read more

How to Teach a Child English One to One - make one to one teaching fun...read more

Teaching Mixed Ability Language Courses - A Solution
One of the most difficult situations for the language teacher is a group which includes students of different levels, of varying learning ability, or even both. How do you design a lesson to meet all the varying needs?...read more

Teaching High Level Lexis to Business English Learners
Do business English students need phrasal verbs, metaphorical and idiomatic language, and the full range of lexis used by native speakers?...read more

Classroom Warmers
An effective warmer could make the difference between an alert and participating class, and a group of zombies who decide to catch up on the sleep they missed out on from the night before...read more

Using Authentic Materials
How can authentic materials be incorporated into an English language teaching curriculum or course of study?...read more

Top Tips for Teaching Business English
The following tips should help you feel more prepared when you take on a Business English class for the first time...read more

Using Stories in the Preschool ESL Classroom
Do you want to start using stories in the preschool ESL classroom but don't know where to start? Here are some ways to get started...read more

Interactive Story Telling
Short stories and folktales can be used in the EFL classroom to practise both listening and speaking. Here's one way...read more

Negotiating Course Content
How do you react if you're convinced that what the student wants is not what they really need? Do you insist on doing it "your way" and almost certainly lose the student's belief in the efficacy of the course? Or do you give them what they want although firmly believing it will do little to advance their learning? This article looks at a response which worked well with one student... read more

Teaching Grammar with Fun Learning Games
Teaching English grammar can be hard going - for the teacher and the students. It doesn't have to be difficult or painful. Here are four sound reasons to teach grammar with games... read more

Giving and Checking Instructions
Some of the activities that we use in the classroom are fairly complex in terms of the way they're organised. How can you make sure that your instructions are as clear and comprehensible as possible? Here are some guidelines...read more

Staying in control of a large class
If you have a large class you need a few things up your sleeve to bring the class into line immediately if things get a little over-heated. Here are some tips and ideas to help you contain your pupils' enthusiasm and manage your large class... read more

Motivating young children to learn English
Young children are often eager, almost too eager. The problem arises when they are eager to do things other than what you’re trying to teach them. Here are six tips to keep them interested in class and motivated to do what you want them to do... read more

Teaching Your ESL Students to Understand Real English
In class, do you slow down your speech and try to articulate a little more precisely than you do when talking to other native speakers?... read more

Grammar Teaching: Implicit or Explicit?
Based on my 15 years of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching experience, the statement "grammar teaching should be implicit, not explicit" could be argued both for and against... read more

Teaching children grammar through games
One of the questions ESL and TEFL teachers are asking on forums the world over is: how can you teach grammar through games? You'll find you can teach everything you want with games, and the children remember it better to boot... read more

Fun EFL Class Projects
Class projects are a great way to put into practice skills that have been learnt during an English course. The following projects that I'll be sharing with you have worked really well with teenagers who were on short term courses of a few weeks... read more

Activities with little preparation
How often do you find yourself preparing a class, racking your brain for something different, a new activity to liven up a group of tired students, or just to bring something fresh to the ESL classroom? Here are 10 ideas to get you started... read more

Using Popular Songs to Improve Language Listening Comprehension Skills
Are your students sometimes bored in spite of your best efforts? Are you looking for some new and different techniques? Could you use a learning activity that would really wake them up? Would you like to get and keep the students' interest?... read more

Teaching ESL to Children
Teaching ESL to children is challenging but also very rewarding. Before I walk into a class of 10-year olds, I take a deep breath. Children have no attention span AT ALL, and so I tell myself to slow right down before I start... read more

Three Fun Ideas for Teaching Grammar
Grammar. The very mention of the word strikes fear into the heart of the staunchest language learner. Many EFL teachers also feel the pit of their stomach churn at the thought of preparing and giving a grammar lesson. But what are we to do?... read more

Should English TEFL Teachers Be Bi-Lingual?
The Controversy... often, when prospective TESOL trainees are taking their first TEFL certification course, the question arises, "Do English teachers need to know a foreign language?"... read more

Authentic VS. Graded Material in Second Languages
The main difference between authentic vs. graded materials is that in the latter, the materials almost always revolve around a particular structure. For example, with "The Past Tense", every single speaker in the dialogs or even the texts given to the students are in that tense... read more

Exploiting an Authentic Reading Passage for English Language Learning
Teachers of EFL are almost constantly strapped for time and fresh materials to use in their English classes. With the advent of the internet, however, authentic readings in English are now only a few mouse clicks away. But what to do with these snippets of information?... read more

How to Dramatize Your Foreign Language Teaching and Learning
To crank out more speaking and develop more vocabulary and language use in context, try some of these additional drama-based activities to spice things up a bit... read more

How to Add Drama to an EFL Class or Start a Drama Group
Why not incorporate more drama into our classrooms? Here are some interesting ways you could initiate drama into an EFL class or new drama group... read more

Creating Materials for the EFL Classroom Part 1
You don't really need to be a genius to produce highly successful, dynamic lessons using authentic materials. You do need to know about your EFL or ESL students, what they can do, what they like, how they think and their motivations for learning English... read more

Three Mistakes Foreign Language Teachers Make
Are you guilty of any of these erroneous practices in ELT? Any one of them can easily derail the students' efforts in language acquisition and learning or cause them grave problems. Don't be a stumbling block to your learners' progress... read more

How to Use Mind-Maps in Language Learning
The basic principle of mind-maps is that the mind dislikes traditional, linear note taking and thus anything we write should start in the centre of the page with related ideas branching out in all directions. Mind-maps can be an important and effective asset to anyone who wants to learn a language... read more

Are you in a Really Communicative Second Language Classroom?
Almost everyone has heard about the need for authentic communication in the classroom and almost every single course on the market and even classrooms say they are communicative in nature. Nevertheless, upon completion of those courses, students fail to engage in even basic conversations. How is this possible?... read more

Second Language Acquisition in Adult Learners
In "Language Acquisition vs. Language Learning" we mentioned an important distinction in the way in which children acquire their mother tongue naturally, by means of meaningful interactions with their parents in which the focus of every single exchange is communicative in nature... read more

Language acquisition vs Language Learning
According to linguists, there is an important distinction between language acquisition and language learning. Children acquire their mother tongue through interaction with their parents and their environment. Their need to communicate paves the way for language acquisition... read more

Why You Should Use Songs to Teach English
Language teachers can and should use songs as part of their classroom teaching repertoire. Songs contain authentic language, are easily obtainable, provide vocabulary, grammar and cultural aspects and are fun for the students... read more

What's the Strangest Thing You've Ever Eaten?
What brought the house down was my tale of breakfasts in America's south with fried pork brains scrambled with eggs along with fried slices of pig testicles, known as "mountain oysters". Mouths dropped open and glazed-over eyes seemed to double in size. Then they started talking... read more

ESL Roleplay
One of the most difficult and frustrating things is making the transition from the classroom to the 'real' world. In the classroom, everyone knows you are a student and mistakes are allowed. Speaking another language outside the classroom is completely different... read more

Effective Learners and a Learner-Centered Classroom (Part 1)
Each learner and each learning experience is unique; yet educators can identify patterns in the learning process. Designing effective learning requirements requires a clear understanding of both commonalities and differences in the learners and the learning... read more

Blindfold activities in the TEFL classroom
One method of creating a genuine information gap is through the use of blindfold activities. Blindfolds can be employed in a variety of ways in the TEFL classroom to foster a truly communicative and student-centered approach to learning. Here are a few ideas to get you started... read more

Teaching ESL with Playing Cards
Cards are a wonderful way to motivate students and teach English. They don't even think it as class work. The fascination with card games is that they involve mental math, chance, skill, social interaction and sometimes cheating or bluffing... read more

10 ways to use DVD and video in your ESL class - part 1
Have you ever wondered how to use movies in your ESL classes, without just sitting your students down in front of the screen, hitting 'Play' and sitting back to watch. Here are a few ideas to get you started... read more

10 ways to use DVD and video in your ESL class - part 2
Here are a few more ideas for using video in ESL classes, using very short extracts from movies to present and practise new language, and develop communicative skills... read more