TEACHING ARTICLES
Teaching articles
Welcome to the Teaching Articles page, where you’ll find articles, essays, ideas and tips of special interest to teachers in general and teachers of English in particular.
How Should Teachers Give Instructions?
The way teachers talk to students, the manner in which they interact is crucial to both successful learning and teaching. Perhaps the most important point that determines how succecssfully students will learn is the way instructions are formulated and sometimes it is this point which distinguishes good teachers from bad ones. It is important, therefore, that teachers directions relating to academic activity and behaviour are clear, precise and effective. It goes without saying that the best activity in the world will turn into a disappointing failure if students don’t understand the instructions .
Changing Classroom Desk Arrangement
Teachers shouldn’t be afraid of changing the room’s physical layout. The arrangement of desks, for example, may make the classroom a more attractive place to study.
Boredom – The Enemy to successful Learning
Boredom is one of the greatest enemies of successful learning. This happens , mainly, when students predict what will happen next in the classroom. Students frequently know what will occur next because it will be the same as what happened in the previous session and a whole string of sessions before. This predictability is the deadening bullet that classroom vitality may recieve
Study Skills – Preparing for exams
Helping our students learn how to study for exams can determine their success not only in the exams but also in their lives. Examination needs careful preparation if students are to do well. Everyone feels nervous on the day of the exam but with careful revision and good examination technique they should succeed.
The Main reasons For Lesson Plans
Although lesson plans constitute a major part of being a teacher, they are dreaded and sometimes their importance underestimated by some teachers. Some teachers even advance the unpredictability of some events in the classroom to discredit any attempt to provide any strict planning of what occurs in the classroom. Although this might be true, it should be noted that a lesson plan is a project of a lesson. It’s not (and cannot) be a description of what will exactly happen during lesson delivery. It provides, however, a guide for managing the classroom environment and the learning process.
The Importance of Lesson Planning
Why is lesson planning important? How is lesson planning important for the teacher? For the learners? What do you take into account when you design a lesson plan?
The integration of problem solving skills in education seeks to produce competent problem solvers who are willing to take action and come up with creative ideas. In fact, encouraging our students to be able to come up with new original solutions to problems is one of the key elements in any successful educational system.
It goes without saying that new English users worldwide speak different “Englishes”. Given the new facts, what will become of the standard English used in the United States, Canada and Great Britain? Will the standard English users become the minority?
Brainstorming in EFL and ESL Classes
Brainstorming is a combination of a relaxed, informal approach to problem-solving and lateral thinking. People are asked to find ideas and thoughts that can at first seem to be a bit irrelevent. The idea is to use some of these ideas to form original, creative solutions to problems. Even some seemingly useless ideas can spark still more ideas. The goal of brainstorming is to direct people to new ways of thinking and break from the usual way of reasoning.
Advantages of Using a Blog for Teaching
This is a very informative, valuable slideshow that covers key concepts. It presents all the advantages that a blog can bring for teaching.
Do you use your blog or website for teaching? How can a blog contribute to the teaching process?
Why do teachers need a lesson plan?
A lesson plan is a lesson “project” written down on paper. It is only a “project” because a lot of unpredictabe events occur in the classroom. It is also a dreaded part of instruction that most teachers detest. It nevertheless provides a guide for managing the learning environment.
Why Do You Let Others Controle You?
“Why Do You Let Othesr Controle You? ” said to a student may be a clue to ending a fight in the classroom according to Larry Ferlazzo’s experience with a bad class. Instead of using punishment, this kind of straight forward strategy can work perfectly to solve classroom management problems. It focuses on the psychological outcome, on valuing the self, humanizing the students and building a tolerant peaceful personality.
Why Should Teachers Use Technology?
When I was a student, I had sometimes to save my pocket money to buy books. My only resources consisted of these few books and some newspapers and magazines. Our teachers were the holders of the truth and we had to be attentive to every word they utter. Now things have changed and will undoubtedly change ever more. Technology has entered every room, fulfilled every human need of knowledge and made our lives interwoven with information. So shall we, as teachers, stick to the conventional ways of teaching while our students are searching for what they need elsewhere?
Let me start by saying that there is no right answer. Learners differ in the way they learn and a good teacher depends on individual learners stand ponit. I remember that the teachers who left a salient impact on me were different. Each had his own footprint on my education in his own way. This doesn’t mean that there are not any common characteristics of good teachers.
This is a list of mybest 2009 posts. The list contains posts that attracted some comments but also posts that I consider worth being republished here. The topics range from classroom management and teaching tips to lesson plans.
Should L1 be used in EFL classes?
The use of the mother tongue in EFL classes is debatable in the foreign language classroom. Advocates of the monolingual approach suggest that the target language should be the only medium of communication, believing that the prohibition of the native language would maximize the effectiveness of learning the target language.
Nik Peachey On Web 2.0 For EFL and ESL Teachers
A video by Nik Peachey explaining what web 2.0 is all about and how it can be useful to EFL and ESL teachers.
He first starts by presenting what was the internet like before web 2.0 and then he shows how the internet is now a richer and more powerful tool at the hand of both teachers and students, enabling them to connect and share information in an unprecedented way.
Teaching Standard or Global English?
English has now acquired the title of the world’s leading global language because it is used for business, science, and politics. Using the word “English” , I don’t mean an agreed upon standard English, the one used in the United States or Britain. In fact, it is misleading to think that these are the only varieties of English that exist. One cannot exclude, for example the English usesd in India, Singapore, Nigeria as being “non-English” forms of English. There are even other varieities of English that emerged with the expansion of world wide business, commerce and politics. So which forms of English should EFL and ESL teachers instruct?
Scott Thornbury on Repetition in English Language Teaching
Scott Thornbury Explains that repeating and recycling language points in different forms fosters language learning and long term memory.
Do you use recycling and repetition in your language class?
Watch the video.
Content-Based Instruction – A Cognitive Approach
Most of us would agree that a second or a foreign language is learned not as much by direct instruction of its rules as by using it in meaningful context, especially when the students’ experience, interest and knowledge of the world are involved. Content based instruction offers the possiblity to use language as a medium of learning. Instead of teaching language in isolation from subject matter, teachers should integrate language development with content learning.
Enviromental activities- Linking the classroom to the world
The urgency of environmental problems has led to a quantum leap in the attention paid to green issues. The environment has become the subject of newspaper and magazine articles, radio and television reports, documentaries and feature films. In this post I present the rationale behind incorporating enviromental issues into language teaching.
Explicit or implicit grammar teaching?
In ESL and EFL grammar teaching methods are dabatable. Some see grammar as the backbone of languages and learners should be presented with explicit grammar courses. Others, however, think that knowing the grammar doesn’t necessarily lead to language mastery. They contend that focusing on explicit grammar teaching produces unsuccessful language users. Which is of these methods is the right one is a matter of the English language teaching approach you adopt.
How to teach students with learning problems
As teachers we provide our students with the best of ourselves because we want them to succeed. We choose the most appropriate methods, the best tools and wrap up our courage to deliver our lessons effectively. We are concerned about their academic development and are enthusiastic when we spot any positive change in their behavioral and cognitive development. However, we get depressed when are faced with students with learning problems who fail. We are lost and feel our efforts are useless. This happens because not all teachers have had the type of training that provide strategies to cope with these types of problems.
The definitions of intelligence is dogged by controversy and disagreement. While there are different definitions about intelligence, they all share some common features.This includes a wider range of area
Intelligent minds and creative thinking
Intelligence is the ability to see relationships and to use this abilty to solve problems. Creativity on the other hand is the ability to come up with a range of possible new original solutions to a given problem. What makes us differ in dealing with a problem is the strategies we follow to come up with these solutions…
Dictation is one of the oldest language teaching activities. It is perhaps for this reason that it has been neglected recently by teachers, claiming that it is too teacher centered, uncommunicative, boring and old fashioned. But is dictation without any merit? Is it really old fashioned and uncommunicative?
Summative and Formative assessment
Assessment englobes everything from nationwide accountability tests to local learners evaluation to everyday classroom quizes. Some teachers contend that over use of any kind of testing may hinder the very process of learning, claiming that we shouldn’t teach to the test but rather teach to the standards. While this is true, we can not deny the importance of testing in gathering information about learners.
Learning strategies or study skills determine the approach for achieving the learning objectives. The strategies are usually tied to students needs and interests to enhance learning and are based on many types of learning styles. However, not all of our students develop strategies to deal with their studies spontaneausly.
Repetitions and recycling in EFL and ESL teaching
Textbook are designed to englobe different units based on different topics. Because of the constraints of time or fear of being boring we follow the order of the units of the textbook. We rarely go back to previous units to recycle the linguistic elements studied before.
Glossary for EFL, ESL teaching
Glossary of terms relevent to the English teaching profession. This glossary includes terms related to English, ESL, EFL ,TESOL, TEFL, and pedagogy.
Although tests are the dreaded learning part for our students, they are considered an important teaching tool. They create competition within the classroom, provide feedback and give a sense of success to the learners.
Writing tasks! Are they time consuming ?(1)
Apart from the fact that it is an opportunity to have a feed back, writing activities are productive tasks that bear some incredible positive learning results. It is a window through which we learn more about our students. Not only their level of language mastery, serving as diagnosis , but also their personality, their interests, [...]
Writing tasks! Are they time consuming? (2)
Although writing tasks can be time consuming when assigned in the classroom, it would be a huge mistake to reduce the frequency of its assignment. On the contrary teachers should try hard to make it part and parcel of every classroom activity as they offer an opprtunity to gain feedback, learn more about our students [...]
Classroom activities breakdown
Some EFL and ESLclassroom activities don’t work all the time or they may work for some classes but fall apart for others. What is certain is that flexibility and professionalism may be of extreme importance. There are also some techniques that may help teachers overcome teaching breakdowns.
Born when her mother was 47,Boyle was briefly deprived of oxygen during the difficult birth; she was diagnosed as having learning difficulties. She says she was bullied as a child, and was nicknamed “Susie Simple” at school. After leaving school with few qualifications, she was employed for the only time in her life as [...]
The adventure of English langauge teaching is quite outstanding. From the early grammar translation method to the new trends focusing on communication, English language teaching has drawn from theories and approaches that have enriched the profession in so many ways.
Angela Maiers has raised in her post “Can We Please Get Some RESPECT?” a problem that has become so pressing lately
in many schools aroud the world. In fact a lot of teachers complain about the disrespect they get from their students and nothing seem to help. Punishing or suspending them doesnt’t work. Parents don’t care. [...]
Teachers, parents and homework (1)
We assign homework day-in-day-out. We tend to think that it is part and parcel of our job and our students’ duty. We never question or discuss homework policies and practices. However, there is clear evidence of the importance of raising our attention to an insghitful reflection on homework especially nowadays that technology has entred majestically [...]
Teachers, parents and homework (2)
Homework must be part and parcel of any learning process. The classroom is just an artificial setting and classroom tasks are only starting points. They provide guidance, assistance and purpose. However, more tasks should be dealt with in the outside world. These tasks should meet some criteria in order to be effective. These critera may [...]
Sometimes success and self actualisation lie in sensible words that we hear. Words that function as a stimulant, the air that we breath, the fuel that keeps our lives on the right track. I want to share with you some of these inspirational words. So here are some of the finest quotes [...]
Teach with love and logic – Breaking the ice!
It is one thing to be a knowledgeable teacher with a supreme authority and a prevailing dominance of the classroom; but it is another thing to be a successful teacher with interactional skills that would facilitate the learning.
Motivation- Be motivated to motivate!
Be motivated to motivate your students. You and your students will gain a lot!
If teaching is stressful, financially less rewarding, why do teachers teach? It is a legitimate question!
My first post – The what and the why!
This blog ,which is part of www.myenglishpages.com, will be dedicated to teaching, especially English language teaching, but I will certainly be looking at general issues related to the profession.
What is intelligence?
What is intelligence?
The definitions of intelligence is dogged by controversy and disagreement. While there are different definitions about intelligence, they all share some common features.This includes a wider range of areas:
