Teacher Discussion Forums

Those are good suggestions. I think a lot of my problems revolve around being nervous in the classroom, and dealing with classroom management. I'm pretty young, and my students are adults, which means many of them are my age or older, which I feel is an especial disadvantage when I make mistakes. Th...

are good resources for all sorts of writing things. I've taught four sessions of TOEFL writing, and tried a variety of different things with my students to try to keep them interested. I found that (if your students will do it) working in groups for writing tasks can enliven the process a lot. Put t...

Hi. I've been teaching in a private language school for 6 months after getting my CELTA over the summer. I have a degree in English, and my task since I started has been to teach Intensive Grammar Sessions using the Longman Focus on Grammar Texts. The courses are 4 hrs/day for 6 weeks, and the stude...

My family just got the board game Nymble for Christmas- we've had fun with it and I may try it in the classroom. It's good for spelling and vocabulary. The basic premise is to start out with 9 random letters (a word scramble). There are three rounds that last 3 minutes each. YOu have three minutes t...

I'm a very new teacher, and my school assigned me to teach TOEFL writing. I'm trying to keep up with my students about grammar, but it's tough because, for the most part, they know more than I do. They're all advanced and I'm a brand new teacher, I just started in September. One of my students asked...

As I said, this is my first experience teaching the TOEFL at all, so the Delta is my introduction to it. I can't say I'm particulary impressed at all, at least not with the writing section. The Integrated Task section essentially gives nothing but practice tests, and little explanation on how to str...

Thanks, that helps some. But they're all pretty sophisticated speakers and they get bored quickly with things they already know about. I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the classes to tie in the material I've already covered. The focus on the class is on listening and speaking, so I need to c...

Your advice, alas, does come a bit late. I finished the Integrated Task class last week. We did A LOT of practice on the Task, and I approached it in a step-by-step way. First, we practiced listening for key vocabulary words that appeared in the both the lecture and the reading. Then we practicied i...

I'm a nearly brand-new teacher (I got my CELTA over the summer.) I took a job in a school where the teachers create their own curriculum from scratch (no textbooks given, the school discourages using one textbook.) I am teaching two theme-based class. One is an advanced class "English for Everyday L...

I am a brand-new teacher with a CELTA cert that just started teaching in New York. I'm supposed to teach an intensive TOEFL writing class (six weeks,two days a week, 3.5 hrs/day- the other three days the students will cover the other areas of the TOEFL with a different teacher.) I've never taught th...