Teacher Discussion Forums

My students do this too, and I realized after a time that I do it as well! When I was in school I was really good at spelling, and apparently I was doing this same thing subconsciously. With words like Wednesday that sound a lot different than they're spelled, when I have to write them I think, Wed ...

Speak from your diaphragm. This requires breathing from your diaphragm also... Good posture (back straight, head up) helps a lot to project your voice and use your diaphragm, and in practices like yoga and pilates there's a lot of information about diaphragm breathing. It sure helps me!

I'm sure that things are going in that direction in the US, but computers aren't so prevalent everywhere... It'll take quite a while to get to other countries, in my opinion.

Most people I know use English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy. He has various levels, and it's good for grammar.

What I do is assign them homework from that book and look it over in class. If the student doesn't do the homework you can do the activities conversationally also...

I'm actually from Arizona, but I've never worked there. When I was going to school, 1997-2001, it seems like the Spanish speakers were all whisked off to a separate wing of the school where they did ESL. Seemed like a kind of silly strategy. Separate them, put them with other people who don't speak ...

There was an article on the NYTimes a while ago that basically said that tests are the best teaching tool. Being tested improves retention, apparently.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/healt ... 7mind.html

Enjoy!

I see people misusing this all the time online. "I've never broken a promise" is correct, I think the issue is that a lot of younger Americans don't know about the past participle. Oh well...

I make them dictate sentences to each other. Very slowly, with the best pronunciation possible. It puts social pressure on them to make themselves understood, and my low level people end up pronouncing much better than most.

Good luck,
Daniel.

Hey there! Fluffyhamster is right about all the phonetic stuff, but I have had absolutely no success with teaching phonetics to people. I teach native Spanish speakers too. What I do is first, make them aware of the difference. E.g. worked lived ended Make them aware that one of the last sounds is a...

The way I look at it is this: I speak American English. I didn't graduate Yale or anything, but I don't think any legitimate English speaker would be able to argue with my comprehensibility. I make some concessions to British English, mostly by pronouncing a hard "t" instead of a "d" for example in ...

Hey Christopher, I've only been teaching for six years. I've survived (so far) because I love what I do, and because I enjoy my life outside of work and where I live. When I stop loving Madrid, or the job, or my life, that'll be a sign it's time to change something. Good luck with your article! Dani...

It's probably a bad idea giving somebody money to look for a job for you. Why not just send your CV out to schools where you want to go. See how much potential interest there is for you before you get on a plane, and it's free!

Good luck,
Daniel.

I don't know if prices are the same in Germany as they are in Spain, but here you can start at around 15 euros an hour or a bit more. Raise it as soon as you can, because if you're charging more you get more serious people and also they treat you better (plus you get more money). I recommend you loo...

What I do to evaluate the level my private students have is to ask them questions in a variety of verb tenses and see if I can get them to respond in the same tense (or an appropriate one.) If they try to answer everything in present, well, then I know they don't have a very high level. If you want ...

The bbc has some great pronunciation stuff in their learning English section http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learn ... mmar/pron/

I also have some articles on my website, mostly in Spanish.

Here's my audio collection:

http://madridingles.es/tagged/audio
Have fun,
Daniel.