Tag: ESL activities

We all know droning on about the fundamentals of parts of speech can put anybody to sleep. Students will find anything to distract themselves and others if the teacher bores them. Not only will they not pay attention but they won’t remember your lesson when they need to.

English is a tough language for anyone to learn. While every ESL learner has his or her own unique challenges with the language’s sounds, spelling, and generally nonsensical grammar rules, there are certain challenges that you’ll find are more common than others.

We’ve all experienced the frustration of talking to someone who clearly has a good working knowledge of English but still seems almost unintelligible. Maybe you’ve been that person, too, struggling to master the unfamiliar sounds of a foreign language.

Holidays are a great way to break out of the normal classroom routine, grab your students’ interest, and introduce some culture to the ESL classroom. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it’s a great time to think about ways to incorporate this fun and meaningful holiday into your classroom.

Did you go from a bustling corporation to a teaching gig overseas? Are you planning on going into a corporation after your adventure? Though it might not seem like it, teaching can have a lot of similarities with working for a big business. Here are just some of the similarities that, as a current overseas teacher, I have noticed.

Yup, it’s a pain in the butt for everyone. Regular and irregular verbs, past tense, past participle and past conditional…it’s confusing even for native speakers. When it comes time to learn or review verb tenses, you’ll want to find as many ways as you can to make it fun and intuitive.

Unless you teach kindy, you will most likely feel the same. There are two types of classrooms in a buxiban: The older kids who don’t want to be there because they are teenagers and the young eager learners who want to get rowdy with their new English teacher. It’s essential to create a positive learning environment, not just for the kids sake, but for yours as well.

There are few things more draining to ESL teachers than always feeling like you are pulling teeth to get students speaking. And for your students, speaking up in any class can be intimidating enough – when it’s in a completely new language and they are afraid of mispronunciation or grammar mistakes, it’s an even trickier situation.