Archive for the ‘Listening’ Category

Did you know that what you dream about can tell you what will happen in your classes? Try reading the descriptions below and in Part One to find something you have dreamed about, and then write it in the aims section of your observed lesson’s lesson plan…

What animals in your dreams tell you about your future lessons:

A dog/ a moose - you will have an exceedingly ugly student with a crush on you
 
Horses - you will be distracted from your grammar explanations etc. by a student’s extremely odd teeth

Cats- One of your students will start singing along unprompted when you do Tom’s Diner in your Present Continuous lesson

A flying bird- You will escape TEFL

Rats- The management of your school will leave as they find out about the financial problems in the company, without telling any of the teachers

Parrots - Too much drilling will make your students repeat everything you say, including questions and game instructions
 
Ants - Your boss will introduce even more paperwork aimed at standardizing lessons
 
Bees/ wasps - Your seemingly happy students will complain about too many games in the end of term feedback sheets
 
Bears- One student will be so disgusted by the chest hair showing when you wear an open collar shirt that they will ask to change classes
 
Hyenas - A student with a loud laugh that distracts the other groups will join the class

Have done a bit more tedious reorganisation so that you don’t need to do so much tedious searching, and you can now find all the links to my stuff on said topics elsewhere on the internet as well as my exclusive TEFLtastic stuff here:

Teaching exam classes-articles and tips for teachers

and here:

EFL exam worksheets, lesson plans and tips for students

Comments or tips for other good sources welcome here:

Re-reading my little story on weeping housewives (or not) who hadn’t done their homework, I must admit that it does really cut it as an anecdote- never been a talent of mine, as I find my own life incredibly dull and so hardly worth telling anyone about. To make up for it, here’s the one anecdote from other teachers I have heard over the last 13 years that has made me laugh more than any other. 

Our hero starts with a fairly typical set of difficult TEFLing circumstances, he’s got the Headway textbook and teacher’s book but no tape. Not worried so far, he is slightly put off by the fact that the lesson that is coming up is the part of Headway with the song “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton. Luckily, he finds a solution. (more…)

Hopefully it’s just Mayday bank holiday rather than my lack of effort TEFLtasticwise recently that has seen a sudden drop in my number of views, but if only to make myself feel better I thought I’d give a list of where I’ve been making much more effort elsewhere, with links:

TEFL.net Idea Thinktank

15 fun ways to switch students onto graded readers

15 fun gapfill tasks

15 fun job application practice tasks- CV writing, cover letter, interview practice, HR vocabulary etc.

TEFL.net articles

15 common misconceptions about Business English and ESP

15 cultural differences in the Japanese classroom

15 more cultural differences in the Japanese classroom

15 criteria for a good cultural training lesson

15 more criteria for good cultural training lesson

15 important cultural differences in the classroom

15 more important cultural differences in the classroom

Onestopenglish (Macmillan) articles

Motivating teachers whose Business English students miss class

UsingEnglish articles for teachers

Why your students overuse their dictionaries- with solutions

70 characteristics of a good grammar presentation- possibly the longest article on this subject ever!

Why your students don’t want to do pairwork- with solutions and some pondering about whether they might not sometimes be right

Why your students still make mistakes with grammar they know well- with solutions and a call to relax when there are no solutions

The advantages and disadvantages of peer observations- with how to exploit the advantages and avoid the disadvantages

Things to put in a Self-Access Centre or Student Library- with tips on how to do it on the cheap

Why do my students question me?- with solutions

Why your students have problems with listening comprehension- with solutions

UsingEnglish.com articles for students (teachers might also want to have a look at what I am writing about them)

Why does my teacher make me read silently?

Why doesn’t my teacher correct all my mistakes when I’m speaking?

Why does my teacher make me learn the phonemic script?

UsingEnglish photocopiable PDF worksheets

Travel English pairwork B and V

Business and technical English easily confused words

CAE Reading Part Two match the quotes

TEFLtastic worksheets (pain in the arse to print out but worth the effort)

English for job applications/ HR worksheets

Cultural training worksheets for EFL classes

Requests and offers functional language review

The Roots of Medical English LP and 4 worksheets

And that’s it for TEFL stuff. The other thing I’ve been busy with is my wedding speech for the day after tomorrow, which could well mean that May will be an even less busy month in TEFLtasticland. Anyone fancy writing a guest piece or feeding me a story to keep the 1700 viewers I get on a good day entertained until I get back into the flow? If so, try the “Contact me” link on the right…

Why does reaching for the play button cause snoring, sighs or panic? Possible reasons and solutions:

1. Build up of wax in students’ ears

You could try giving cotton buds as prizes for getting good marks in the test, or doing a cultural awareness lesson on “Personal hygiene around the world”

2. Lack of respect for your ancient sound equipment

You could try hiding your cassette recorder behind a computer monitor and randomly moving a mouse with one hand to distract the students as you turn the tape player on with the other.

3. Incomprehension that sound can exist without pictures

Oh, young people nowadays… A quick clip round the ear should sort them out!

Or alternatively, you could look at my sensible suggestions on why some students find listening difficult and what we can do about it on Usingenglish.com here.

And there’s more! As much as I complain about TOEIC, it seems to have caused such a creative (?) outpouring that I’d even forgotten I’d written half of these. Think of the articles as my Kublai Khan:

TOEIC FAQs

How to choose a good TOEIC class and TOEIC teacher

100 Ways to Improve your TOEIC Listening

Those are all designed for students, although they could also help teachers give their students the right hints. Lesson plans, game ideas and tips for teachers all in the post below.

Despite the attempts of some textbooks to use more stimulating listening activities like jigsaw listenings, stories in episodes that end at suspenseful moments, comic dialogues etc, turning on a tape is still the most likely action to make some of your students either sleepy or panicky. As well as adapting drier listening texts to incorporate more fun textbook activities like those just mentioned, there are plenty of things you can do to make a listening text less boring and less difficult for your students. These can be divided into things they do:
1. Before listening
2. Before class
3. While listening
4. After listening

(more…)

Putting the seasonal cheer back into grammar (and putting the grammar back into Xmas)

Some of you might be thinking that the problem with Xmas today is an excess of commercialism or the lack of real religious feeling, but the way I see it the problem is an excess of worksheets teaching students vocabulary like “holly” that they will have forgotten by the same time next year (if they even understand the concept of holly anyway) and a lack of tie ins between those seasonal worksheets and everything else students do in the classroom. For those that agree with me that what is needed to make your Xmas complete is lots more grammar, here are some ideas on how to tie in your Xmas lessons with whatever grammar point you are studying at the time (the ideas should work with other major festivals and celebrations too)…

See below for not only shed loads of good grammar ideas in the continuation of this article, but also a whole stocking full of other ideas for Chrimbo-themed lessons for kids (from pre-school) to adults- “Christmastastic fun for all the family” (R)

(more…)

Sorry there hasn’t been a lot going on the blog page of my blog. It’s all going on elsewhere though: (more…)

Have got plenty of new worksheets up at Usingenglish.com  , have added a whole bunch of TEFLtasticly multimedia song worksheets for teaching and practising grammar to my video worksheets (more to come of both of these), and have been rearranging the mini reviews on the reviews page so that they are a little easier to find. Have also somehow found time to teach my classes, in fact sometimes it’s a nice break to get away from the computer screen and into class! That is, until I think of another nice worksheet I could type up for the next class…