In the classroom (page 3)
Lesson plans, grammar and vocabulary activities, and rescuing a bad lesson.
Time Management In The Classroom
Managing class time is important – you have a limited time with your students and they generally pay a lot to be there.
TEFL Debate Topics
Debate topics you might be able to use in class: Plastic surgery should be available for free to anyone who wants it.
Innovative Papercutting Method
If you’re like me, you cut up a lot of papers for your classes (I like to think of it as catering to kinaesthetic learners).
Teaching Listening: What To Do About Boring CDs And Cassettes
There’s been a good deal of debate (well, okay, some) in the EFL world about listening in class: how can teachers incorporate more modern methods of listening, like podcasts or authentic audio…
Managing Your Prep Time
The ability to manage your time will come in handy especially if you have split shifts which can be…trying, to say the least.
Top 10: Funny Moments In TEFL
Exposing multi-colored, bought-in-a-rush-at-Target undergarments when you turn around and reach up to write at the top of the whiteboard.
The Upside Of Testing
As the end of the year draws near, many EFL teachers will find themselves giving tests.
Teacher Bloopers: Part 2
As much as I try to be a know-it-all here at the TEFL Logue, I must admit I am not immune to mistakes.
What If I Make A Mistake?
First of all, prepare yourself as best as possible for classes! This is ideal for you and for your students: they get correct information, not to mention an interesting and engaging lesson, and you…
Classroom Activity: Call My Bluff
Skirmish (n.) Is it: a) an Afghan food made of sheep meat and cheese? b) A small fight or altercation? c) The experience you have when you can’t remember a word in your own language?
Teaching Grammar: Assuming Another Identity To Practice Forms
This recyclable activity can be used with a variety of levels to practice some grammatical form or forms in a fun way.
In The Classroom: Table Of Contents
This will remain the table of contents for Classroom Activities - see In The Classroom (Classroom Management, Tips, and Other Stuff) for things like... classroom management, tips, and other stuff.
TEFL Warmers: Short Activities To Start Class
It's often effective to start each class with a short but useful English language activity. Here are a few of my favorites: Moving Questions – if you have enough students and enough room.
Should I Speak My Students' Language?
Carol at ESL Lesson Plan recently reviewed an article about speaking your students’ language in class and it got me thinking.
Recycling Classroom Activities
The more intrepid TEFL Logue readers will be happy to hear that my search for some recycling containers near where I live has ended well. This post, however, is related to the classroom.
Holidays While TEFL-ing: Part 2
If you didn’t get your fill from the first installation (or even if you think you did), read on for more on celebrating holidays abroad.
Reading: Why Students Really DON'T Need To Understand Every Word
What’s a bumper harvest? What does it mean “though”? “Burgeoning?” Is there a different English word for an artificial beehive? What exactly is a fig?
Is TEFL Just Entertainment?
Some of the activities I use in my English classes would never fly in a language classroom in a public school in the US, even a progressive one. Nor are they used in public schools abroad.
Teaching Writing: Tips For Making It Fun
With the limited time available in class, it’s not surprising that many teachers assign written tasks as homework (and by writing, I’m thinking about these longer written tasks like essays or…
Is The Communicative Method Overrated?
I came across Grammatical Consciousness-Raising, an article by Evelyn Doman, in the January 2005 issue of Modern English Teacher (yep, the British Council is still lacking Cosmo), and it raised some…
Dueling Coursebooks: The Headway/Cutting Edge Debate
Featured at the right is my favorite EFL teacher holding a copy of New Headway Elementary. Which book do you prefer and why? TEFL Logue readers, help me out and leave me some comments.
Dealing With Dominant Students
In any group of people there are likely to be some members who talk more than others – in most cases things just unfold that way, but in the EFL classroom the teacher is generally expected to…
Using Movies In Class...Without Sound?
Browsing through the January 2005 print issue of Modern English Teacher , I came across a great activity presented in an article entitled “Silent Movies” by Glenn Gainer.
TEFL Games
...or better yet just "moving" activities. These are not all competitions, but all involve physical components - like standing up and moving at least - to some extent.
Get YOUR Class To Participate In A Culture Share
Guy Courchesne over at This Guy is Teaching Abroad is at the center of a cross-cultural exchange.
Teaching Pronunciation
Pronunciation is important. If no one understands what a speaker says, it doesn’t matter how many words or tenses he knows – he can’t communicate.
Urban Legends Reading Race: Halloween Lesson Plan
Holidays from your own country provide the perfect opportunity to break the mold and shake things up a bit with an activity that's not from the text book.
Teaching Business English
While many classes or books are called business English, this is basically general English with business vocabulary and topics. Common textbooks include Market Leader and In Company .
See Grammarman In Action At YouTube
With the advent of YouTube , TEFL Logue readers can now experience Grammarman live: follow him as he prevents poor punctuation, gets rid of gruesome grammar mistakes and wipes out wrong words.
Class Size
Class size affects which activities you chose to do with your group, how many heads you will be able to put together for brainstorming, and how much group speaking (as opposed to pairwork) you can…
The Great Globalization Debate
Discussing topics like globalization can be risky, especially if you are from the US.
Homework
Students everywhere are famous for not doing homework. I very much understand that many English language students have a number of responsibilities outside of class and work, but that doesn’t stop me…
TEFL (Dis)Organization
I’ve experienced a surprising amount of disorganization in the TEFL world and I don’t know what to attribute this to.
Your Favorite English Word
This article in the Sun Herald of Mississippi is great for a laugh or two. It presents some of the "favorite English words" of mainly middle school students.
Poetry In Class?!
Though my suave prose here at the TEFL Logue might lead you to believe otherwise (yeah, right), I don’t read much poetry. I understand even less.
Vocabulary Activity
This is one of my favorite activities to do when I need to pre- teach a number of apparently unrelated words for a reading.
Online (And Print) Resource: English Teaching Professional
I’ll be honest. I arrived at the British Council hoping I could find the British editions of Glamour, Cosmo or Marie Claire. No such luck so I picked up English Teaching Professional instead.
Laptops For Little Kids in Libya
Mika of Travel Gear Blog fame sent me this article about laptops in Libya . Apparently the MIT-affiliated non-profit association One Laptop per Child has developed a simple, sturdy and portable…
Drama In The Teachers' Room
Cutting Edge Intermediate. Unit 4 Present Perfect Simple and Continuous . Need I say more? Well, yes, I guess so.
Teaching In A Post-Conflict Country
My admission that I have taught in Sarajevo is often met with raised eyebrows. I usually start by pointing out that it’s peaceful now, the war has been over for some time, and it is actually quite a…
Teaching Reading
Some basic and not-so-basic tips and ideas for teaching reading: Always give students some task to do and tell them what it is before they read.
Teaching Listening
Teaching listening can be hard for teachers and students both. Students who are fine with speaking at their own pace and reading may have trouble listening to a recording that is a regular-speed…
European Day of Languages...And Tongue Twisters
September 26 (from Hidden Europe and the BootsnAll Europe Travel Board ) was European Day of Languages...so I'm a bit behind with this post, but better late than never, right?
Games Using The Whiteboard
These are a couple of games using the whiteboard which have received good reviews in classes: Backs to the board This can be adapted to any number of topics, but I originally learned it with numbers;…
Using Games In Class: Pros and Cons
I like using games with a physical competition component in class for sevaral reasons. First of all, games are intrinsically motivating.
Jigsaw Activities
Jigsaw activities – where, like a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of information fit together to make one picture in the end – are great in the EFL classroom.
Everybody Loves Movies
Your students will cheer when you wheel a television into class. They will be slightly less excited when they realize they have to do some task along with it…but it will still be a hit if done well.
How To Choose Debate Topics
Check out these sites for ideas on debate topics and activities: Tefl.net for a list of controversial statements (or write your own).
Debate Class
One of my all-time favorite classes was the debate class I taught in Chicago. My students were mainly from Korea, but also included at times a Brazilian business man, a Taiwanese father, and a…
Classroom Activities: Alibi
There are several variations on this classic TEFL activity (including a Hungarian one called “I’ve been to America”), but the standard one goes something like this: I ask my students if they have…
Teaching Exam Prep
Plenty of schools ask for native speakers to teach exam preparation for tests such as the TOEFL, Cambridge Exams, or IELTS. Is this for you?
Jokes In Class
“Three men are stranded on a desert island, and all they want to do is leave. But none of them is smart enough to figure out a plan.
Why I Don't Do No So Much Corrections?
Teachers have different views on correcting students’ mistakes, and many won’t agree with me…but I hate breaking into someone else’s speech and correcting them.
Correct-the-mistake Activities
I like to avoid breaking into a student's speech to make a correction, so I try to use these activities instead when possible.
Speaking Activities for TEFL
One of a native speaker teacher’s primary goals is, almost without fail, to get students to speak.
First Meeting Activity: Two Questions
One of my favorite first meeting, getting-to-know-you activities, this requires about two minutes prep time and paper and pencils for students.
First Classes
The first time you meet a class is a good opportunity to get them to talk, get to know them, and have fun (while putting off starting the book for one more day).
English Only
It sounds difficult, especially for many native English speakers who studied foreign languages with translation.
Using Songs In TEFL Class
One traditional way to use songs in class is to print out the lyrics, white out some words and have students fill them in when they listen. Make sure to choose words which are clear.
Oops
We had a long listening activity about an embarrassing event. A famous actor was speaking about a childhood musical in which he had played the lead, a homeless boy dressed in rags.
Tips For Teaching Grammar
Teaching grammar may be the thing that scares native speakers the most. Most people don’t have an in-depth understanding of the grammar of their own language.
Teacher Bloopers: Part 1
Robert started his lower-intermediate class by asking “What did you do this weekend?” Several students had typical answers:“I went to a movie”, “I went out with friends”, “I had a party”.
Games In The Classroom
Games with an English language component can be fun, competitive and motivating. I learned a lot in my TEFL course, but didn’t come across these basic activities until well into my first year of…
Practical Teaching Tips
A few of the most important practical tips I’ve come across in TEFL: Don’t talk with your back to the class. Face them and speak clearly and loudly enough.
"Teaching kids...
…is not something you just walk into,” a senior teacher advised me. That might be true, I thought, but I’m tough.
Military English
I stepped up into the back of a military jeep in downtown Sarajevo for the twenty minute drive to a military base near the airport.