Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi Wiwi, Honestly, I believe that it's at least partially a cultural problem. You teach in Singapore...are your foreign students mainland Chinese? Indonesian? You may find that the foreign students have a totally different learning style to the one employed in Singapore. Also, it's not uncommon for ...

Hi Itasan, I can't think of a similar story in Western traditions, but I think it's really interesting how an ancient Japanese story actually came true in Canada over the Internet! By the way, I know you'll want to know this: there's a difference between 'a straw' (for drinking) and a 'piece of stra...

This is quite a 'slow' forum, but believe it or not I love materials design! Come on, peeps, let's have more discussions! If anyone is interested in colour theory for materials (especially online), check out this cool little app: http://colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp I passed it on the graphic d...

I find all engineers tiresome <ahem> As an ESL trainer with a degree in electronic engineering, I'll try to ignore that one. software engineers think they are Neo Ouch! Another one! As an e-learning consultant, I'll ignore that one too! Besides, I am Neo. my site: www.roadtogrammar.com

For telephone support work, they need to know a lot of communication skills: effective questioning techniques, showing empathy, dealing with difficult customers, assertive communication, active vs. passive listening. Voice training activities should also work well: practising word stress and sentenc...

Hi Nikita, I helped set up the 'Aula Cervantes' (Spanish self-access center), at my last workplace, although I left the job just before it actually opened. You can check it out here: http://www.help.edu.my/aula/ What materials are you using for the students to access? I think that is probably the mo...

I always like to think that there are two approaches to learning: one, to learn the vocab and grammar and begin to put sentences together (bottom up), and two, to be able to see the big picture and grasp the meaning even when you don't know all the words in a sentence (top down). I think a good lang...

Hi Sam,

Check your PM. I've sent you a message.

I once got my hands on a copy of one company's internal "jargon dictionary". It had been written solely for the purpose of clarifying internal company jargon. I've seen these, too. A call center gave me a list of acronyms which included such gems as 'FTS', which stands for 'follow the sun'. I thoug...

Writing software can be quite tricky when the students need to practice freewriting. My company develops writing practice materials for business English, but it's not free, of course. You can use the student message boards here at eslcafe.com to set assignments in writing. It's fun because it's like...

Here in Malaysia, there was initially some resistance to learning English as it was seen as the language of the former colonial power, the British. People were afraid that the national language might cease to be spoken or become the language of the street market. Of course, English has taken over fr...

My suggestion is to start a blog for your class and give the login details to all your students. They can post their writing on the blog and comment on each other's writing. You can log in and make corrections using the 'edit' feature or even get the students to do peer-to-peer corrections. my site:...

It sounds like you think "reinventing the wheel" is not a well-know phrase. Or did they just use it the wrong way? I mean it's a cool phrase, but when you hear it at every single business meeting you attend, it becomes a well-worn cliche (actually, 'well-worn cliche' may also be a well-worn cliche)...

Sometimes words and phrases spread through a company like 'memes'. For example, I did testing at a company where everybody used to say 'in term of...', and in a college where I worked, it was 'reinventing the wheel'. The phrase can become so normal to the users that they swear everyone uses it and r...

In business English, typical topics are: Job-hunting: interviews and resumes Meetings Negotiations Sales talk Common business documents: reports, emails, letters, proposals Giving presentations Telephone skills Marketing products Dealing with numbers and figures But you'll still need to cover langua...