Teacher Discussion Forums

There are many teacher training universities are using Normal University. Is this term correct ? Sounds perfectly Chinglish to me! "teacher training universities" is the subject followed by the predicate "are using" followed by "Normal University"; if "Normal University" is the object, for clarific...

Hey, mooney, quite well thought-out advice. Do you teach your students English grammar as well/ My advice would be to use English as the medium of instruction rather than Chinese! I do deplore that our CHinese colleagues never, or very rarely, bother to use English themselves; yet this is the only w...

AJ, are we, perhap-s, trying to be aloof, magisterial and a little dictatorial? I have the distinct impression you ae a Chinese person, at least, you are someone from relatively outside the TEFL field. Do you know how hard labouring under typical CHinese classroom conditions can be? There simply is ...

Quite good advice. Maybe it even works? Personally, on the top of my wish list is the request to my students to actually learn something at home before coming to class. Or to "English Corners". I think, if I take my time to prepare something entertaining and edifying for them, then the least I could...

This is an interesting research topic, though I have hardly anything to offer except some classroom observations. I taught for two onsecutive years at one kindergarten in China; it was not necessary to tell me where to begin with my preschoolers as I had to sort out our communication hurdles on my o...

Somewhat mystified by machjo's ideas of "easy" language(s); I don't understand his point of what is an 'easy" language since obviously he thinks Turkish to be one of them. Turkish? If that language is "easy", then so is English!

Somewhat mystified by machjo's ideas of "easy" language(s); I don't understand his point of what is an 'easy" language since obviously he thinks Turkish to be one of them. Turkish? If that language is "easy", then so is English!

"A sheet of paper" sounds too precise for me! My students might ask me: "Do you mean an A 4 size sheet of paper or an A 3 size one?"

Oh Larry, that was a tgood point! I concur of course with those who do chorussing to a moderate extent, with a clear objective in their minds. If the teacher has actor aspirations these will come handy. I would even suggest students read some drama! How about Harold Pinter? But my doubts remain as m...

Chercheuse has obviously solid experience in tackling such classes. For me as another East Asia resident teacher, the opportunity that presents itself to you would be an invitation to force these students to deliver speeches to their classmates. It should be possible to assign a theme or topic to ea...

Chercheuse has obviously solid experience in tackling such classes. For me as another East Asia resident teacher, the opportunity that presents itself to you would be an invitation to force these students to deliver speeches to their classmates. It should be possible to assign a theme or topic to ea...

The only country where I have seen chorussing take place is China; here, however, teachers say a word at a time and ask their classes to repeat after them; this they do three times. Oddly, many students mispronounce individual words because they don't hear their neighbours, and nobody notices their ...

Don't know if my reply is "advice" to you... I am basically faced with the same situation over here in the PR of C; the problems you have listed are the exact identical ones I find here. Is the problem related to the cultural background of our students? First of all: do we as teachers have to do as ...

I wholeheartedly support the idea that STUDENTS should post here as well - perhaps THEY ought to prod us into thinking about English and how it works. One of the reasons why I am not an avid oral English fan is that many of my colleagues over-empathise with their English learners. We shouldn't pity ...

I wholeheartedly support the idea that STUDENTS should post here as well - perhaps THEY ought to prod us into thinking about English and how it works. One of the reasons why I am not an avid oral English fan is that many of my colleagues over-empathise with their English learners. We shouldn't pity ...