The TEFL Blog

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year's!!!!

I attended a workshop a couple weeks and the presenter started his workshop by saying  "If someone who died in 1900 was brought back to life in 2016, the only thing that he / she would recognize were our schools and classrooms." His comment was addressing the fact that the education sector in society is lagging well behind other sectors in it's adaptation of technology. While technology has radically changed every part of our lives in the last couple decades, there is still a lot of resistance to employing new technology in classrooms. There are many reasons for this resistance (lack of training, negative perceptions of technology, lack of motivation to change, etc.), however to teach future generations, technology must be further integrated in education; this of course includes English language education.  In the following blog, I am briefly going to touch upon the benefits of using technology in the ELL / ESL classroom and mention a couple ways that teachers ca...

It's been a little while since my last post, so I wanted to come back with something fun and practical for teachers to use in their English classrooms. Below are 5 of my favorite games that I use in my own classes that can be used with a variety of learners. Two Truths and A Lie    Two Truths and a lie is a great game which is perfect for the beginning of a new class as it is a 'getting to know you' kind of game. This game is also wonderful for practicing speaking and listening skills. Why use it? Ice-breaker; Speaking / Listening skills Who it's best for: Appropriate for all levels and ages How to play: Have students write 3 statements about themselves on a piece of paper, two of which should be lies and one which should be true. Pair the students up and have them ask each other questions about each statement and then guess which one is the truth. If you want to really extend the game and give students even more time to practice their sp...

Hey Everyone, There's a number of blogs that I read on a regular basis to keep up-to-date with the TEFL scene around the world, and I'd like to share " A Journey in TEFL  with you. Written by Eva Simkesyan (an English teacher for over 20 years) she shares great teaching ideas, links and opinions related to Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Check it out when you get a chance. A Journey in TEFL | My adventure in teaching https://continuingstudies.uvic.ca/education-learning-and-development/courses/teaching-english-as-a-foreign-language-tefl https://www.facebook.com/uvictefl/

For me, teaching grammar to English language learners was always a challenge. In fact, to teach English grammar I had to learn English grammar first. It's truly amazing how native-English speakers can produce a language so well, but not know the grammar rules of English. If someone had come up to me before I started teaching English and asked me to explain the Present Perfect to them, I would have been clueless. What additionally makes teaching grammar so difficult, is that even though your students might not be able to speak or write English well, they may know more about English grammar rules than you do. Combine that with the fact that grammar itself can come off as pretty dry and dull to many students, and you can see where some of the challenges lie. In this blog, I'll give you some of my tips for making grammar exciting and understandable for your students. As mentioned earlier, teaching grammar has never been my strength, but I feel that my classes were mostly succ...

Although most of my entries in the past have focused on teaching English in a foreign country, today's entry will look at teaching English in North America, with a specific focus on Canada. Although many people enroll in TEFL/TESL programs to teach abroad, there are many people who choose to stay right here and begin their teaching careers. Likewise, a great deal of people after returning home from teaching English abroad, also choose to stay in this sector of education. You might not think it initially, but at home in Canada and the United States there is so much demand to learn English; thus there are so many opportunities to teach as well. Also like the job market abroad, not all schools are created equal. In fact, there may be a higher percentage of bad English school in North America, than there are abroad. As someone who is looking to teach English in their home country, how do you avoid working at one of these types of schools? This blog will take a look at some things t...

Hey Everyone, This post has really nothing to do with TEFL, but it's about great new product that my wife has developed that allows you to carefully pack all your jewelry when you travel...no more tangled necklaces!!! If you are interested, you can order one at chrisiljtw.com . My wife, an avid traveler is encouraging everyone who buys one to go to her website and share some of the favorite travel stories on the site.