Solving your difficulties as an EFL teacher – #EFLproblems

This is really inspiring. I think that the contributions made here will save much time and effort one often spends trying to work out the usual problems faced in classrooms and will also provide much knowledge and experience for teachers

It is really interesting this article and its proposal. I will always check here what the next post.
I have problems to teach english here in Brazil and to make students get interest. I think they do not know the importance of learning a new language can open a world of opportunities for them.

Posted on our Facebook page:

“A challenge for my classroom is Cell Phones. I tell my students (all adults in an Intensive English Program) to turn off phones and if I see it being used they will receive a deduction of participation points for the class. Some still use it.”

Hi

My name is Simone and I run a prime school for seniors, they complain a lot about understanding and using the language abroad. Do you have any extra hints for teaching people over 50 years old?

Att,

Simone
Personal Teacher C

Posted on our Facebook page:

“I think teaching writing has been the most challenging thing for me. It’s very difficult nowadays to get children, as indeed adults, to write anything. Because there’s been a general switch in humanity from written to oral tradition (again!), people generally write less. They obviously write more short messages, like texts and chats on whatsapp and other social services but this doesn’t actually help with writing longer texts like for&against essays or formal letters. Plus, when they chat, they use abbreviations, jargon and “improper” grammatical structures. Which is fine, I don’t have a problem with that. But at the end of the day I have to grade these writings according to scales which penalize all of the above.”

What a great concept!

I don’t know if this is my greatest challenge but I would like to see my children self-correct more when they are writing. It’s a shame to see the same kind of errors popping up again and again. Sometimes it’s L1 interference, sometimes its just children being children. I do for a fact, though, know that they know better. I don’t want to cover their written work with red markings but I don’t want them to continue repeating errors either. Any ideas?

Cell Phones are a big problem in classroom. There are some students no matter I ask to turn off the cell phone, they still use. Some schools do not allow cell phones. In some cases this is the only solution.

One major problem is that the educational system in my country is mainly exam-based. Most teachers, students, and even parents do not care at all about the quality of learning. They are mainly concerned with passing the exams. L1 is all the time used in class, real life English is not stressed, language skills are not practised at all, learning aims are not achieved, and private lessons given to students at home or in private centers are the norm. This is really frustrating for some teachers who are keen on improving their teaching skills and eager to get their students engaged in the learning process, thus, achieve a real progress and taste the beauty of language.

Thank you for sending your comments. Our team will be responding to these in the coming weeks. Please keep your ideas coming!

I have put up my challenge on facebook page, but I have decided to explain it furthere here. I teach in multi-grade classrooms, meaning that there are more grades together, learning different curricula from different course books. It requires a lot of time and effort to prepare for these classes, but even so, I really feel frustrated. They are mostly 7 and 9-year olds together, and 8 and 10-year olds together, but in two villages, they are all four grades together! Is it mission impossible?

The challenge of teaching a monolingual class vs. a multilingual one.

Thanks for the ichallenge, Harvey. We will take this on board as an issue for the new year. In the meantime, you might be interested in Kate Bell’s blog, How ESL and EFL classrooms differ.

I need help with my Grammar Sense practice access code on the back cover of my book, it refuses to accept my code-S-227-369-0681. if anyone can help , please do so, thank you.

I wonder what the best way is to monitor pairwork effectively. I use pairwork because it helps students get used to speaking; however, I am aware that they may be making a lot of mistakes which I don’t have the opportunity to correct. Not all students are willing or able to correct their partner’s errors. Have you any advice on how to ‘listen in’ to six pairs of speakers?

Thanks, Susanna. Look out for our response to this coming up in March.

I teach English to university students at the English Department in a non-native English speaking country. My students lack the basic skills of the language. Their levels are beginner and/or elementary at best. My question is: what is the best and the most suitable choice for them? Is it general English because of its language input and real life context or EAP which is badly needed for their academic studies?

As new in the field of teaching English, I lack the necessary means of dealing with disciplinary issues. Thus, I lose a lot of time trying to inculcate into students’ mind to realize that their behaviour does not help them in understanding the material discussed. However, they continue as if I have spoken to the wall. They are just one impenetrable wall, one stubborn child. They stubbornly refuse to realize that there others in the classroom that want to learn something and that their behaviour prevents them from doing it effectively. Still, no results.

Why viewers still make use of to read news papers when in this technological globe
the whole thing is available on net?

You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be really something that I think I would never understand.

It seems too complex and very broad for me.
I am looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!