10 Illustrated English Idioms That Will Make Your Life Easier For many people learning English for the first time it can be daunting and complex language to master. Lots of silent letters, complex spellings and odd expressions which often go over the heads of most non-English speakers. To make learning English a little easier, Irish illustrator Roisin Hahessy has created some wonderfully simple yet funny pictures to help make things a little clearer. She's also a part-time English teacher in Brazil so she uses the series to aid her students as well. Now whenever you hear any of these English idioms, thanks to Hahessy at least now you'll have a better idea of where the conversation is heading! Via Roisin Hahessy
The Fly Swatter Game teaching tip - Free ESL teaching tips made by teachers I use this party game called Tick Tack Bumm to practise class words. (I\'m sure it\'s an internationally distributed game). The game comes with a time bomb that runs on two batteries. take a photo and…. | The eltpics ideas site for teachers EFL Activities for Kids, ESL Printables, Worksheets, Games, Puzzles, for Preschool, Primary English Learners Course planning Pre-service teacher training courses typically focus on the detailed planning of a 40 minute or 60 minute lesson and don’t focus attention on how to go about planning a much longer scheme of work. This is also an important area to consider though, because most teachers are involved in teaching courses, which may typically last anywhere between 30 and 120 hours. The aim of this article is to share some of the conclusions of a recent project I was part of, with the hope that it might enable other teachers to plan a little faster too! Why do we plan our lessons? I think that most teachers plan lessons in order to feel more confident in the class itself. The aim of planning is also to map out learning activities in a coherent, logical way, in order to help students understand, learn and practice concepts and skills which will develop their abilities in English. Why, What and How? At the start of a course, we need to sit down and think about ‘What’ we intend to cover in the course, and ‘Why’.
The 50 most important English proverbs The 50 most important English proverbs What are proverbs? Every culture has a collection of wise sayings that offer advice about how to live your life. How can you use proverbs to learn English? It's good to know the really common English proverbs because you hear them come up in conversation all the time. You know what they say: when the going gets tough... (Read #5 below to learn the rest of this proverb and what it means.) Learning proverbs can also help you to understand the way that people in English-speaking cultures think about the world. Proverbs can also give you good example sentences which you can memorize and use as models for building your own sentences. The most important English Proverbs This is a list of some of the most important and well-known English proverbs. The meanings of some of these phrases have shifted over the years, so a proverb might have originally had a different meaning than the one I explain. "Two wrongs don't make a right." Print this List
Vocabulary and autonomy The general aim is to involve the students in a more autonomous fashion in their learning, rather than simply having them presented with word lists selected by the teacher or syllabus. The role of vocabulary teachingHow can teachers help their learners?Self-initiated independent learningFormal practiceFunctional practiceMemorizingBest approachPractical activitiesReferences The role of vocabulary teaching In the context of learning English as a foreign language, a learner is forced to be autonomous and independent and make conscious effort to learn vocabulary outside the classroom simply because the exposure to the target language is limited in class. So teachers cannot rely on their Ss 'picking up' lexical items. This makes explicit vocabulary teaching necessary. How can teachers help their learners? Self-initiated independent learning These strategies involve planned, active and motivated learning and exposure to language outside the classroom (media). Examples of strategies
Plenary by Joy Egbert | IATEFL Online Engagement principles and practice in classroom learning, language and technology A still-common issue with technology use in language learning is an overly-strong focus on the digital tools and a relatively weak emphasis on actual learning. This technocentric approach may arise, in part, from a lack of clear theoretical grounding for classroom technology use. While it's unclear whether atheoretical uses of technology actually provide barriers to learning, it is clear from the research that principled uses can lead to student achievement. But which principles should language educators use to guide their planning? This plenary proposes that principles of task engagement, as part of an educator's overall understanding of second language learning, can serve both educators and learners well in technologyenhanced environments. ALSO WATCH: IATEFL 2015 Interview with Joy Egbert
Google Katherine Bilsborough: Lesson plans – less is more You can travel without a list of course but you will avoid a few problems if you spend a bit of time planning – not a whole week though. That would be silly. A few minutes should be enough. Pre-empting problems will bring peace of mind and when it comes to teaching, this is a major defence against burnout and work stress. New teachers who have had training will have been evaluated and assessed on their lesson plans. They will spend hours preparing a 45-minute lesson. You can find lesson plan templates on the Internet too – that you can fill out yourself for your own classes. More experienced teachers tend to spend less time on lesson planning. But what the wise teachers have in common - whether they are new or more experienced - is that they understand the importance of lesson planning but are 100% practical in their approach. No more burnout – a simple guide to successful and time-efficient lesson planning
No More Lost in Translation ⋆ Teaching Matters The most common way of rehearsing words in the Swedish schools is to use a bilingual word list and ask the students to give the English “translation” of the Swedish word. This method is risky in at least four ways: 1) Students learn to believe that all words are directly translatable 2) Students believe that the given answer is the only possible one 3) Students keep thinking in their mother tongue when trying to speak English 4) Students with a mother tongue other than Swedish are given a disadvantage in learning Research says that new vocabulary is best learned in context, but there are also simple ways to keep the word lists and just eliminate the need of the translations.
7 krokov k úžasnému hurikánu: Stavíme sa, že túto švajčiarsku roládu ste ešte nepiekli! Ľahká, nadýchaná, efektná... 10 porcií 140 ml mlieka 7 g kakaa 80 ml oleja 80 g hladkej múky 15 g sušeného mlieka (prášok) pol balíčka vanilkového cukru štvrť lyžičky soli 110 g kryštálového cukru pol lyžice kypriaceho prášku 6 vajec Postup: 1.Rúru vyhrejte na 170 °C. Hlbší plech veľkosti približne 30 x 30 cm vysteľte papierom na pečenie. 2. 3. 4. 5 – 6 lyžíc vaječnej hmoty odlejte do inej misky a vymiešajte s kakaovou hmotou. 5. 4 lyžice snehu odoberte do misky s kakaovou hmotou, ale ešte nemiešajte. 6. 7. Naša rada: Roládu stačí naplniť kvalitným džemom alebo ľahkým krémom z mascarpone, medu a vyšľahanej smotany. Namiesto kakaa môžete časť bledého cesta zafarbiť potravinárskymi farbami alebo čajom matcha. Foto: Pinterest
Is an internet connection really necessary in the classroom? There is a lot to say when it comes to technology in ELT and we all know that the discussion will never end as to whether use technology in the classroom or leave it and stick to our own traditional methods. (Keep in mind that 20 years later, what we have now as ‘high tech’ will be considered ‘traditional’ and the discussion will still be there!) The solution is as easy as ‘we still have a lot of easy-to-use, internet-free tools and resources, don’t we?’ Here is a list of the main things I have been using for the last year while training Malaysian language teachers with the British Council where we have had to deal with poor connectivity: 1. 1.1 Microsoft Word When we have access to a computer lab, writing, commenting, editing and completing exercises happens in a simple word document. 1.2 Microsoft Powerpoint 2. Most people have mobile phones with cameras these days which basically means they have photo albums in their pockets! 3. 4. Most mobile phones have a voice recorder by default. 5.