Tag: Teaching advice

Learning any language is hard! Transitions and translations between two languages can be particularly rocky– especially with Chinese and English. I’ve heard a couple of mistakes repeated by my students that have given me clues about what the translation sounds like in Chinese.

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.

Moving anywhere new always comes with pros and cons. Although, it will take quite some time to fully appreciate and understand a new country and working environment there are some things that we still need to keep in mind.

So you have been thinking about traveling abroad to teach– that’s great! You have taken your first step in the process: research. As usual, I will herald that everybody will have their own experience wherever they are. With that being said, there are a number of things that you should prepare yourself for before you make the big move. Here are some things you didn’t know about teaching abroad:

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.