Teacher Discussion Forums

Let me chime in here too. Many academic institutions love paper, and completing formal evaluations seems to fit the ethos of many schools and adult students. It's natural for students to want to see their progress documented. Likewise, schools often require documentation of student progress for thei...

Your caution is commendable! While I know nothing of the program that mentioned, I strongly advice doing your homework and speaking to current and former employees. You can't, it seems to me, research a situation too carefully. Personally, I only take work from institutions where I personally know i...

While you have probably already discovered the huge range of salaries depending on employer and geography, please allow me to share three suggestions for other novice IEP teachers. 1. Salaries remain insufficient and far lower than they should be in far too many situations. Part-time, seasonal work ...

Student motivations matter, and the situation you describe could frustrate the most dedicated, patriotic teacher. Sometimes we have to recognize the limits to our power to influence, let alone inspire, students to appreciate history. Your class, alas, seems to fall into that difficult category. Bett...

If you are looking for documentary films, you might want to check the excellent Library of Congress website or the Museum of Radio and Television website. Both have outstanding collections of unusual film and television clips.

good luck.

Like so many other English teachers here at Dave's ESLcafe, I have found YouTube videoclips to be a powerful classroom tool. I've used YouTube to have students research job interview tips, stress patterns, pronunciation problems, and informational interviews. The results have been consistently posit...

Thanks for both the lead and the update. This seems like a valuable lead, especially for teenagers studying English on their own in an EFL context.

Do you know the excellent anthology of film reviews by American historians called Past Imperfect? Dozens of field specialists look at 75 or so historical films in self-contained four page chapters and critique the films for accuracy. It's an accessible, fascinating way to teach both American and wor...

As somebody who used to teach a two-hour conversation twice a week, I read your post with great sympathy. You might find the book Talking Your Head Off of interest. The format is similar to your wishes, and it's cheaper than the popular Conversation Book 1 and Conversation Book 2 which just lists 20...

Consider me curious. What did you decide to do? Why?

Many other aspiring ESL and EFL teachers have faced a similar dilemma. What's your advice? Why?

Perhaps you've left the field and moved on to different work, but the last six or seven posts seem to have nothing to do with ESL. You talked about getting married, yoga, and many other interesting topics - but none related to teaching English.

Or did I miss something. Consider me baffled.

Let me just state the obvious: you really can't make a language class student centered with 120 students in a lecture hall class for ESL. While group and partner activities are helpful, you are working under almost impossible conditions. From my perspective, language classes really should not be mor...

While you have many choices, none may be perfect. As the former director of an adult education center and longtime IEP teacher, I am going to offer some unconventional advice. Consider short excerpts from Ken Davis' excellent "Don't Know Much About History", selected four page readings from Past Imp...

Homework provides many advantages - even for adult education and intensive English students. My standard homework assignment for English students remains having students find, summarize, and present newspaper articles on a topic (elections, housing, job interviews). The worksheet asks them to list c...

Learn as much as possible about your students. One simple technique is to ask a question on the daily attendance sheet: What's your favorite movie? Share a favorite English word. Who is your favorite singer? What is your favorite website? Where would you like to visit? What's the best book you ever ...