Extensive Reading (reading whole books for information or entertainment) helps learners consolidate their English enjoyably and in a stress-free way. This is particularly important when students fall behind with their studies, for whatever reason. Free time or holidays offer an opportunity to catch up.
This blog presents five golden rules for free time reading with guidelines on encouraging young learners and teenagers to read and some suggested reading lists. Continue reading
As Roald Dahl once said, “Life is more fun if you play games.” I could not agree more! That’s why I believe flashcard games can be an effective and practical tool to introduce a new set of vocabulary, revise newly taught words or as a way of starting a storytelling lesson. There are so many things to do with a bunch of flashcards. Playing flashcard games can help and encourage learners to maintain their work and enthusiasm. I believe every teacher has lots of games in their toolbox, and they get to choose one when needed. Continue reading
Last December I took part in an online discussion about digital literacy. Amongst the many interesting questions posed by teachers, one question came up that I had never been asked before – Whose job is it to teach digital literacy?
As someone who teaches it as a subject, and also as part of my ELT lessons, I just assumed it was something any and all teachers should do. Which is pretty much the answer I gave at the time. However, the question came up several times. I feel my assumption is not held by everyone, so I’d like to use this opportunity to qualify my answer. Continue reading
There are many ways to assess learners, for example, mini-tests or observations, in order to evaluate and monitor their understanding and progress. As well as checking learners’ competencies in some specific language or skill, evaluation allows us to guide learners on how to improve. Part of this is noting any errors they make in completing the assessments, especially errors in the language they use. However, focusing on errors too much can be de-motivating for learners. They may struggle to improve because they are anxious about making mistakes, especially with productive tasks. So how can we correct English errors and at the same time keep learners motivated to improve? Continue reading
Any mode of teaching comes with its advantages and disadvantages, and this is certainly true of online teaching. One advantage of teaching synchronous classes online is that there is normally the option of using the chatbox. The chatbox enables more students to participate at once, it can get shy students to communicate more, and it can be used to develop aspects of writing. Below are five simple activities
which language teachers can use in their synchronous online classes. Continue reading