Teacher Discussion Forums

The situation which Amy h describes in Germany is fairly common in China as well. Most of my serious students are studying English with the intention of going to university in Britain or the USA. But they usually have a very naive view of life in the West. At an appropriate moment in the course I do...

I would be inclined to try giving them the answer to their questions about sex in a dead pan voice and full of medical terms. I am a man and maybe it is easier for me but if you can keep a straight face and avoid blushing or giggling then they will see that what they are doing is neither clever nor ...

I agree with the earlier posters that trying to teach every variation of stress patterns learners will encounter in different dialects is neither possible nor desirable. It is my experience that you should concentrate on two areas. 1. Familiarising students with the different stress patterns used in...

I don't know a web site but if you have access to a decent library you will find "Learner English: A Teacher's guide to interference and other problems" by Michael Swan and Bernard Smith very helpful. It has chapters dealing with pronounciation problems encountered by speakers of all the main langua...

I teach in public state run schools in China at primary, middle school and college levels and I have had similar experiences. It is sometimes possible to introduce more communicative methods but it has to be done step by step. If you try to introduce the western approach in one fell swoop you will m...

The problem of students dropping the final " t" came up again in class yesterday. Modelling with my mouth and the puff of air trick worked for about half the class. But the rest were still struggling so I tried your suggestion of teaching the lengthening of the previous vowel sound. As these are 7 y...

Have you tried getting the students to write something for homework; preferably a follow up piece about the same topic you have discussed in class? When you mark their compositions look for patterns of weakness in their grammar. If a pattern emerges then do a short presentation at the start oft he n...

Thanks for the suggestions Lorikeet. They are interesting. I am actually British and so instinctively teach as I speak which may be part of the problem. The school move teachers around like chess pieces and my colleagues are either American or Chinese so the students do get confused with the differe...

I have the same problem with Chinese speaking students in Nanning, South West China. This is particularly noticable when the last consonant is "t". It causes real communication problems because the student's don't hear the final "t" either and therefore often confuse negative short forms such as "do...

I am new to teaching TOFEL. :?: Can anyone recommend a good textbook to use when preparing students in China for paper TOFEL exams to be taken in the spring of 2005? Also does anyone know whether students sitting paper TOFEL in China are allowed to use e dictionaries during the exams? If they are ba...