Tefl.NET Forums

Check out Catalyst: A Conversation Taskbook for English Language Learners . It's completely self-contained with lesson plans, targets, review, assessment and a topic creation mechanism built in. Topics are relevant because they are created by the students themselves. Students are trained to respond ...

You can use simple word association exercises to start building more spontaneous, meaningful responses in the class. It's a pretty complex topic so I'm not going to attempt to elucidate it in its entirety here. I've just published a book on the subject. You don't have to buy it to get enough insight...

Use of the students' native language in the classroom by the teacher is verboten, imho. Some teachers will argue that doing so improves efficiency but what it really does is rob the student of a small but not insignificant chance at real communication. That's instead of a lot of the pretend -- and n...

Your instincts are correct, writing wouldn't be the most valuable use of time. Privates should mostly be devoted to oral-output. It's the one skill students cannot practice outside of class. Listening, reading and even writing are easy to accomplish online. Speaking, not so much. Keep in mind that o...

You are dealing with the fundamental psychological make up of this student so you have to tread lightly, move slowly and only do so with the person's explicit permission. What approach you take will depend very much on where you are in the world. Journal writing is a good place to start. Begin with ...