“Native-Japanese speakers taking the paper-based Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, scored lower than students from China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, South Korea and Vietnam in 2007. Even North Koreans scored higher.”
From the famous Japan analyst William Pissant.
To which my reply is- (more…)
As a blogger and writer of articles on the internet whose technical knowledge stops at Word, as usual I feel half chuffed at churning out so many articles, including a good one here and there, and half guilty at creating so much work for those who can name a programming language more recent than BASIC. So, with many thanks to the tech sorts who made this possible and without further ado, here are the new bits and pieces on the web that I’ve been associated with:
The TEFL.net review pages I edit now allow comments on any of the titles reviewed there, which is a fabulous idea which I wish had been mine.
On TEFL.net too, there is a new Idea Thinktank of practical teaching games etc, on which I have about 12 (!) articles including 15 Fun Things to do with a Whiteboard (yes, that’s a whiteboard rather than an interactive whiteboard- showing my age??) and the 15 Most Fun Pronunciation Games.
As if that wasn’t enough, I’ve also got some slightly more weighty ones up on the rejigged TEFL.net TEFL Articles Page, including Easy Ways to Improve Your TEFL Career.
And on Usingenglish.com in March:
Election- Second Conditionals speaking practice
101 IELTS Speaking Part Two Tasks about sports and hobbies
Why your students speak L1 in class
Why your students don’t do their homework
101 IELTS Speaking Part Two tasks about people, places, actions, things and times
Setting up workshops for teachers
Business English silent letters and syllables
The language of trends spot the difference
I also had a review of a couple of BULATS books out in MET magazine this month, should you have a copy handy and fancy a look.
“We didn’t have active discussion, active uses of English. … We inertly listened to her [the professor] during the class,”
You’re thinking it’s from a 3rd world country, maybe one with a non-democratic regime, right?
Think again.
”Several students said they felt that the classes were poorly organized, and the wide range of student abilities made learning more difficult.”
Sounds like Japan, all shiny and Western looking on the outside but Confucian chaos on the inside. But no…
So, must be one of those European countries with teacher-led grammar-obsessed English classes like Spain we always forget when contrasting Asia with “the West”. Well, let’s have a look through the round window*…
(more…)
“Hi Alex
Just been looking at the worksheets and lesson plans you´ve reproduced. You´ve certainly been busy, great work I will be using quite a lot of them. I was checking through to see if you had any specific to Legal English, as I am currently teaching a group of five lawyers in Spain. If you have anything or know any good links to other websites I´d really appreciate your help.
Thanks very much.
Cheers
Sarah”
———-
“Hi Sarah
Thanks for your nice comments. I’m afraid I’ve never taught lawyers (the nearest I got was immigration officers), but do you mind if I post your email to see if any other readers have suggestions?
Thanks
All the best
Alex”
———
“Hiya
Thanks for your quick response. Yes, you can post my email if you like.
saludos
Sarah”
—
So, any help at all gratefully received by me and Sarah. Please! Pretty please!
callipygian:
To make up for all the navel gazing recently, have decided to give the public what it wants for once. And what the public wants is TEFL sex!
That first paragraph should get some nice bizarre Google searches coming my way, but actually I’ve already done that topic to death (really!), so I’ll instead be expanding on the most popular recent post, which was on writing the perfect CV and cover letter for a TEFL teacher. Now we have, for your delight and delectation:
The perfect CV and cover letter for an EFL exam class teacher
The perfect CV and cover letter for a TEFL young learners teacher
The perfect CV and cover letter for an EFL manager
The perfect CV and cover letter for a teacher trainer
And last and (possibly) least:
The perfect CV and cover letter for a Business English teacher
In answer to my own question, I’m actually quite happy being a TEFL pleb again after trying teacher training and what have you, which is perhaps why I am the only person who will give advice to others on how to get into it as I’m not competing with you for the jobs…
Somewhere along the way I have come up with idea of looking at games in the classroom in a completely different way, by brainstorming games for language points that absolutely all kinds of students need and so not dividing them up by age or level. The idea behind this is:
it can free you up to brainstorm a similar broad range of activities for the classes and language points you need to prepare for
it can help you bring a range of learning styles into classes where they are usually neglected, e.g. logic puzzles with younger students or physical activities with advanced adults
it can illustrate how cross-fertilization of ideas across different areas of teaching and from outside teaching can be a great source of ideas (more…)
“Economists use decimal points to prove they have a sense of humour” (more…)
In my endless quest to make Business English fun and to tie together seemingly unrelated topics (why I can’t just say “Right, that’s done, let’s move onto page 53″ like normal people, I really don’t understand!), I have come up with a fun way of practising negotiations that also brings up planning how to give a presentation:
Presentation/ workshop preparation checklist and negotiations
Enjoy! Feedback gratefully accepted below:
More Xmas links, should you be a glutton for merriment (including one that says “Focus: Fluency speaking, advanced vocab, conversation, destroying students’ enjoyment of Christmas”, which is nice)