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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‘Young learners’ A term invented by the TEFL muppets

January 18, 2010

When I did my TEFl or CELTA or TESOL or whatever it’s called, I wasn’t popular with my tutors. I was one of those annoying teachers who’d already taught and was just doing the course for the qualification and spent most of the four weeks questioning what was being taught. Not because I was intrinsically [...]

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Business English Activities – Improving Materials

January 16, 2010

“Even the worlds’s greatest publishing company can produce inferior products…from time to time”
This is what the CEO of I-Ling told me the other day when I told him that his materials on businesss English skills – e-mail english, telephone english etc.. – were, quite frankly, a pile of poo. Apparently they were created in [...]

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ESL Fundamentals: Should I always set homework?

January 16, 2010

The fact that this question is so often asked is a symptom of the sorry state of language teaching today. To be quite frank, it is an absurd question. It’s rather like saying “I want to drive to work…should I use a car?”
Before we answer it however, you must remember one of the key principals [...]

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ESL Fundamentals: Homework 2 – What do I set them?

January 16, 2010

ESL Homework – What to set?
(WARNING – THE REST OF THIS POST IS A PLUG… NOT INTENTIONAL, IT’S JUST THAT SO MUCH OF I-LING’S WORK IS BASED ON REAL CLASROOM PROBLEMS (like schools not setting homework or providing a study plan) WE END UP COMING TO THE I-LING SOLOUTION. SORRY ABOUT THIS … STOP READING [...]

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