Free Business English Materials – part one

February 7, 2010

At my school’s office they’re having a big laugh coining lame management speak for our various ESL objectives (personally, I think they should get out more!) One of them is… “execute with personality”. What this means is that they’re trying to make our teachers lives easier and the classes more effecient by designing classes.Therefore, all [...]

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ESL Salary: Five tips to earn better wages teaching English – Part 1

February 4, 2010

KEY QUESTIONS…
Is teaching English a waste of time? Is teaching ESL a low status, downwardly mobile job with a rubbish salary?

Before we start you’re going to have to ask yourself the above questions, because many teacher’s bad position and bad salary in the world of ESL are the result of a negative attitude. The problem [...]

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Textbooks and ESL Existential dilemnas

January 30, 2010

As any of you know who read my last post, I was raring to go and give my first class speech on Monday and begin a new world order (in ESL terms). Unfortunately, the speech will have to be shelved on account of an unexpected e-mail from the office. It went something like this…
- Group [...]

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First class ESL speech – The hard facts about company classes

January 27, 2010

I’ll be giving this little speech for a first class on monday – new corporate client…
“Hi, welcome to XX language school. Before we start I want everyone to have something clear: these classes do not exist so that you can learn English. To frame the motive of these classes in those terms is to frame [...]

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Extract from forthcoming work – TEFL Insurgent

January 25, 2010

When an academic field is dominated by an esteemed institution like Cambridge University it’s easy to have total faith in the theory transmitted through their courses. However, one doesn’t have to stray far to find examples of esteemed, very clever institutions being not very clever. The recent financial crisis, for example, showed that the prevailing [...]

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ESL Logistics: Accurate Record Keeping

January 22, 2010

Just like in novels where one moment encapsulates a wider context, I said goodbye to some students on Friday and it suddenly illuminated a very big problem. These moments are called system insights: moments were as a teacher involved in a language school you suddenly see a means to improve the school’s efficiency or ESL [...]

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TEFL Conversation topics: free manual

January 21, 2010

Lynch is an extraordinarily boring man (by his own admission). He’s just spent a month writing a book of 1000 conversation questions. Although the task was quite boring, however, the conversation topics aren’t, and the result can make your classes and life more interesting with this free conversation manual.
We’ve decided to divide it up [...]

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ESl Curriculum. Design a course that addresses the student’s real needs

January 21, 2010

Another new year, another round of students, and another flurry of needs analysis. This year however I can save myself loads of work by nicking Lynch’s ESL Route to fluency.
For some time now, I’ve been looking at the result of my needs analysis and starting to think it was all a bit abstract. As [...]

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ESL Fun – What to do 1.

January 19, 2010

I’ve just come back from one of the most hilarious classes I’ve ever done in my life. Inspired by my Dad’s insistence we play something called charades at Christmas (apparently it was all the rage in the 1970s) I decided to try it in the ESL classroom.
In case you don’t know what charades is – [...]

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ESL Job interviews – Top Tips 1

January 18, 2010

Dealing with language school owners.Tips for Teaching English Interviews.
English teaching Interview tip 1: Ask questions about the school, even if you don’t care about the school and are just after a job. Any job!
I’ve worked in all sorts of spheres, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across as much self obsession as that of [...]

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