Limited Resources in the TEFL Classroom When you teach abroad, you are likely to find yourself having to do without many familiar teaching materials. Art supplies, markers, textbooks, a photocopier, games and computers could all be in short supply for you and your students. But don’t be discouraged by limited resources -this is the perfect…
The Course Book as a useful starting point Communicative Language Teaching, with its focus on the use of authentic texts in the classroom, brought about a dilemma for language teachers and syllabus (coursebook) designers. Communicative Language Teaching required a re-evaluation of the learning processes. A syllabus could no longer be designed as a convenient list…
Creating a TEFL Syllabus & Timetable There are essentially two types of TEFL syllabus: Synthetic and Analytic. A Synthetic syllabus segments the target language into discrete linguistic items for presentation one at a time. These are: – structural – lexical – notional – functional An Analytical syllabus presents the target language in whole chunks at…
Recommendations & Suggestions for Discipline Issues Discipline problems in the ESL classroom may stem from a variety of different issues. It is discipline that is cited by many teachers as the issue which affects their choice to remain in the teaching profession. Discipline challenges should be dealt with on an incident by incident basis, taking…
Should mother tongue be permitted in the TEFL Classroom? The issue of whether or not to use the mother tongue (L1) in the English language (L2) classroom is extremely complex. In his book Teaching Monolingual Classes (1993), Atkinson talks about “careful, limited use of L1” to help students get the maximum benefit from activities which…
Managing a TEFL Class – Physical Environment, Rapport, Sense of Belonging Managing a TEFL Class – the TEFL teacher’s job is to create a productive learning atmosphere and to know the subject matter. Vital in doing a good job are: 1. Planning i.e. Thinking out how you will manage the class as well as researching…
Monitoring – a supervisor, facilitator and listener Monitoring is not only important but vital in order to assess how the students are coping with a particular classroom activity. It also gives you an opportunity to take some notes on any areas of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar which may be causing difficulties. The TEFL teacher is…