Teacher Discussion Forums

Make up or find a little poem or verse with those sounds in and encourage them. It's good to do plenty of drilling and then if you have it, get them to record their voices and playback until they get it. But please remember it takes a lot of patience to correct these things and little and often is t...

You'll be pleased to hear that I've now added L and N to the pronunciation page with it's own little Flash game to help practice the sounds.
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/beginner/Pronunciation.html

I hope that saves some teachers repeating it 50 times a day!

My students told me that because of the great chinese firewall it was often difficult to get videos from youtube and even when you can, it's terribly slow. However there are two alternatives: 1. Use Baidu: http://video.baidu.com/ (My basic Chinese got me there and it does have some English language ...

You're welcome and still going strong in 2010...

James

That procedure is fine with most students. If you teach Chinese students and they are worried about loss of face then they will ask you individually at the end of class. It tends to be the more outgoing students who will ask you such questions in front of the class. I am afraid if you don't know the...

Yes, I did this a while back... Covers most of the basics:
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/beginner/Pronunciation.html

James

You've got a PGCE, don't undervalue it. The CELTA is specifically for people teaching English as a foreign language. Together they should certainly be enough to get you into an FE College or school. If they don't take you on then I am afraid you'll need to do the summer school and earn your stripes....

The CELTA qualification is the key to most English Language jobs at the entry level. Given your qualifications you would do very well in other parts of the world, but I think that the jobs you are looking at are above entry level and would require a number of years of English as a foreign language t...

The British Council are running the CELTA in Japan. (TEFL training certified by Cambridge University) http://eastasia.britishcouncil.org/public/course-description.aspx?country=japan-en&coursename=CELTA%20(Certificate%20in%20English%20Language%20Teaching%20to%20Adults)&Course_ID=23dede1b-3c3c-4a8b-88...

I'd recommend having a good quality daily paper / Weekly news magazine, making clipping and using that as a launch point for the conversation. Don't forget that she wants to know about your culture and how to have a good conversation in English. Also break it up, include some spoken Grammar if you s...

Of course if we had Sally in our class, there'd be no trouble getting our students to a bit of homework... I used to take the following line in a full time English course and it seemed to work reasonably well: 1. If you come everyday to class and participate fully then that is probably enough to pas...

I found that Headway beginner wasn't bad for helping with vocabulary, because it is mostly picture based and from there you can carefully show the words on the board. I know it may not be as good as something specifically teaching the alphabet, but it may be easier to get a hold of.

James

I'm with Sally on this one... Students much prefer to read magazines rather than books... In fact when I brought a load of magazines into my class I found my students happily reading them during their lunch breaks. I don't know the age of your class, but for teenagers and adults the girls love fashi...

In the UK we can send it to: Santa Reindeerland SAN TA1 It will be directed to the right place... The Royal Mail are very good at picking them out and ensuring Father Christmas gets them. You can even find a templated letter at: http://www.kids-printables.co.uk/resources/santaletter.pdf Internationa...

I did a round up a while back and I've got plenty of books I wasn't too keen on! You can take a look at: http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/exams/TOEFL.html

There's a few handy resources too, so I hope it's handy.

James