Teacher Discussion Forums

Regarding verb forms, I certainly introduce irregular ones first as they are easier!!! Students can hear the difference between go and been with ease; unfortunately, the same cannot be said for walk and walked. Students need a lot of focused listening practice to learn to hear the difference between...

The key to Present Perfect Simple or any Perfect Tense is establishing the existance of two times, here Present and a Past time. I find time lines and real experiences work well for this.

Stephen

One of the most common justifications raised for why English native speakers are needed as instructors is that their instruction has greater efficacy. It is my impression that this justification is most often seen in two places. This is an extremely common justification among teachers who have taug...

There have been some very interesting posts made by all. I'm afraid the key point is that is a lot of EFL employers do not want to pay for good, well trained teachers. In Taiwan, the benchmark for success in getting most jobs is being the right colour to market to parents followed by having a degree...

Sally Regarding your point about standardized testing, I've tested IELTS, BULATS, KET, PET and Cambridge Young Learners, the problem with standardized formats is consistancy, method of testing and assumptions set. IELTS, BULATS and what I've seen of TOEFL and TOEIC all have a number of most serious ...

There are only two tenses in English Past and Present. Both of these can have progressive or perfect aspects . In fact, there are four elements that are important when considering tense usage: time, tense, aspect and mood. It is certainly easy to confuse time and tense; for example, "I was wondering...

I choose the LTP dictionary because when I persuaded my school to buy some, it was as far as I was aware the only one on the market. As it's the one I use it seemed the natural one to recommend.

Thanks for the name of the book Sally, I had a look at a bit of it on Amazon and it does look very interesting, but at 72 US a bit pricy for my budget. Mind you, with luck, I maybe able to find a library here with a copy. I can see how rewriting one model essay for a class of 40 would be quicker tha...

One possible use of concordences would be to use them as part of a tool to help develop a vocabulary notebook. I have all students in reading classes I teach keep a vocabulary notebook in which they record collocation maps/diagrams of new vocabulary they use. This is of course along with other techn...

I was wondering if anybody could explain exactly how MaTESOL and an MA in applied linguistics are different. I presume that in an MATESOL there is some teaching theory (although I here in many no teaching practice), how are the other components different?

The interesting thing about Sally and Woodcutter's is they highlight how differently an EFL class can be conducted. Sally has some great ideas although I wouldn't like to try some of them with a class of 15 or 30. After reading these, it makes me wonder why with all this research on learner styles, ...

Surely this is a matter of balance. The grammar that the students have been learning hasn't been a waste of time, but if they haven't got the vocabulary to plug into that grammar, we shouldn't be surprised that they can't string sentences together. The only worry would be that they haven't even bee...

Tara B does have an important point. If the students actively resist the methodology applied by the teacher, it will fail! Students here in Taiwan often believe that they need to learn more grammar. The fact that a mere six years of grammar during their state school education, perhaps a few more at ...

I remember at school we had a teacher who was incredibly enthusiastic about German; she was also dull as ditch water. Suprisingly, I don't remember learning too much in her classes. In fact, the only German I learnt in a year with her was that the German word for townhall is pronounced rathouse (not...

Hi everyone, Interesting thread. If I can go off on a bit of tangent, isn't all classroom language taught in an EFL classroom prescriptive? We (or the textbook writers) have afterall selected it at the expense of other alternative linguistic items; therefore, it is being prescribed as a correct mode...