What materials do you need to teach?

As ever, a video clip is worth a thousand words...

Here is another informative clip from madridteacher.com

Five Great TOEFL Links

TOEFL Links

Love it or hate it, the TOEFL ain't going away any time soon. Here are some of my, ahem, favourite links to some of the best TOEFL related websites.

TOEFL Prep Info

TOEFL information that will help you understand the TOEFL test.

TOEFL- Test Preparation Materials and Practice Questions

Preparation for the TOEFL test from the ETS and TOEFL Online.

Testwise TOEFL
Testwise is a site which offers Toefl tips and a free on-line TOEFL test.

Beat the TOEFL Test Online

TOEFL writing courses and practice tests.

Online Toefl Grammar Test

Test your knowledge of English as a foreign language for the TOEFL exam.

The Hell of ESL: The Pain in Spain Blog

If you're thinking of teaching English in Spain but finding it hard to sort through all the information online, Pain in Spain is one TEFL blog which could definitely help you.

Posts including how to become legal in Spain help you to find out what it's really like to teach English in Madrid through the eyes of a current EFL teacher and a former (recovering) English teacher. 

Personally, I haven’t worked in Spain, but I find the blog both easy to follow and informative. It is honest about the frustrations and challenges of TEFL, particularly in Spain and in the bloggers' particular context, without being overly cynical.

There is advice on finding ESL jobs in Spain…

'Most English academies in Madrid do not bother recruiting much outside of Spain, because they don’t have to. They may place ads on www.tefl.com or another EFL job site, but by the time your CV has reached their inbox, they’ve probably already had 10 English teachers drop off their CVs in person.'

….and getting to the end of the month:

'Unfortunately for many current and former EFL teachers I know, it’s not uncommon to find that their pay slip at the beginning of the month is far less than what they expected. Academies come up with all sorts of excuses – and, in all fairness, sometimes it’s a simple slip-up when they’re counting the hours – but not all are quick to fix their mistakes.'

Other posts include five things to ask before signing a contract in Spain and five reasons not to be an English teacher in Madrid. The blogger is still teaching, and I think maintains a nice balance between pointing out some of the difficult to cope with realities and sharing the positive things about working in Spain as well.

Visit the Spain & Portugal forum.

March 1st: Horizons Issue 3

Issue 3 of the (ELT) World renowned journal will be hot off the printers on 1st March, and it's an action packed issue...

What Would Motivate you to Take a New Job?
by members of the forum (general discussion)

Interview:
Teacher Reflections, Global Connections

Teaching Collocations
by Adam Simpson

The EnglishUK Teachers Conference
by Paul Gallantry

Academicus Electronicus
by Brandreth McClure

Was your Initial Training Course Worth it?
by members of the forum (general discussion)

The Ideal English Teacher through the Eyes of ELT Trainees
by Sandra Bayona & Adriana Wiegand

Teaching English in New Zealand
by Martin McMorrow

Interview:
The Latin America Job list and TEFL Tips

Remember: issue 1 and issue 2 are still available, totally free, for your reading pleasure.

Intermediate listening task: parkour

Check out a task on the increasingly popular sport of parkour on the new ELT listening resources blog.

Spreading the TEFL Love, David style

Who loves his fellow TEFLers, eh? Who loves ya? It fills my heart with joy to be able to make you all so happy, which is why I’m reposting this ever popular free PDF…

Methods of teaching foreign languages is the most popular in the series of free downloadable articles giving background information on the TEFL profession, downloaded by hundreds of you so far.

This article looks at methods of teaching foreign languages: The grammar translation method, The direct method, The audio-lingual method, Communicative language teaching, Language immersion, Minimalist/methodist, Directed practice, Learning by teaching (LdL) and the Silent Way.

It also looks into learning strategies: Code switching, Blended learning, and Private tutoring as well as language education in Europe, foreign language education, bilingual education, language education in the United States and in Australia:

 

Subscribe to David's English Teaching World by Email

Jeremy Harmer: the Queen is Irrelevant

New York-based English language expert and TEFL legend Jeremy Harmer has said that “the idea of speaking Queen’s English is no longer relevant to the world in 2008, especially in the context of compatibility and intelligibility of the language.”

Speaking to The Hindu website he said it was “absolutely fantastic” to see so many different kinds of English, including “American, Pakistani, Indian, Australian and Singlish (Singaporean English)” being taught and learnt in India. What a charmer.

Read The Hindu article.

Who owns the Zebra?

Anyone wishing to raise discussion in class could make use of a puzzle like this...

On a city block there are five houses in a row, numbered from left to right, each of a different color and inhabited by men of different nationalities, with different pets, drinks and cigarettes. You are given the following clues:

* The Englishman lives in the red house;
* The Spaniard owns the dog;
* Coffee is drunk in the green house;
* The Ukrainian drinks tea;
* The green house is immediately to the right of the ivory house;
* The Old Gold smoker owns snails;
* Kools are smoked in the yellow house;
* Milk is drunk in house #3;
* The Norwegian lives in house #1;
* The man who smokes Chesterfields lives in the house next to the man with the fox;
* Kools are smoked in the house next to the house where the horse is kept;
* The Lucky Strike smoker drinks orange juice;
* The Japanese smokes Parliaments;
* The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.

Questions:

Who drinks water?

Who owns the zebra?

Answer to appear when enough of you have been driven crazy!

TEFL Lifestyles abroad

The lifestyles abroad forum has proven to be a very popular addition to the ELT World forums since its introduction just over a month ago. Here are some of the topics raising much discussion.

The Must See/Do list for where you are

Every place has a list of places and things one must see/do when visiting. Most are pretty obvious but are there anythings that are not on the general list but you think are just as good if not better……

Street food

In Turkey there's the ever popular simit: This is a bread-type product that can be purchased just about anywhere for about 50 kurus (20 pence UK). If you buy from a deli, they are usually quite fresh and delicious. If you buy from someone on the street, be careful as they can be very stale……

Alcohol specialities round your way

Raki is a usually anise-flavored apéritif that is produced by twice distilling either only suma or suma that has been mixed with ethyl alcohol in traditional copper alembics of 5000 lt (1320 US gallon, 1100 UK gallon) volume or less with aniseed. It is similar to several kinds of alcoholic beverages available in the Mediterranean and parts of the Balkans, including pastis, sambuca and ouzo. The general consensus is that all these liqueurs preceded arak, a similar Arabic liqueur, but it remains a theory. In the Balkans, however, raki refers to a drink made from distilled pomace, similar to Italian grappa, Bulgarian rakia, Greek ouzo and tsipouro, Cretan tsikoudia, Cypriot zivania and Spanish orujo……

Dating colleagues--aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhhh!

What is it about this profession (or what is it about me, if it's not the norm in the profession?) that makes dating fellow teachers so appealing? It's all fine and dandy until things fall apart and you see your ex every day at work, in the market, in all of your favorite restaurants, and pretty much everywhere around town……


Remember, we’re always waiting for more of you to come and join us!

ELT World Link Exchange

Places on the Web that Link to ELT World...  

It's hard for me to believe, but some of you have actually taken the time to add this blog to your own sites! Mutual backscratching is great, I really need to start a who's who of the excellent bloggers out there. Why not help me get started?

Here's what to do:

Having the topic of "English" is not a prerequisite for link exchange but all links must be reciprocal.

If you would like to add your link to this blog, first add this address (http://www.english-blog.com) somewhere on your website or blog. Then, come back to this entry and enter your information in the comment box HERE.

NOTE: Be sure to use the following format in the comment field (see the examples of others before you):

1. Name of your site, e.g. "learning English through knitting"

2. Blog or Website address (you may use html to hotlink it if you want), e.g. "http://www.esl-knitting.com"

3. A short description (about 250 words) about your website, e.g. "A site whichlinks knitting English teachers..."

4. The actual address of where you've linked to ELT World somewhere in the comment, e.g. "Your link can be found here: http://www.esl-knitting.com/elt-world-is-lovely/"

Note: These return links will be checked regularlyish. Inactive links and missing return links will result in the deletion of your entry. Thanks so much for your reciprocation!

Note 2: If you've already linked to me, let me know as my list was lost when I reformatted the blog.

Was your teacher training course worth it?

Here are the results of the poll that ran on the blog during December. This is an early extract from the forthcoming issue of Horizons journal, in which the responses given are analysed in detail...

Get paid to blog about TEFL

Advertise on blogs

There have been some interesting and very, very useful discussions over on the forums recently on the subject of how to get paid for blogging. NatureGirl321 raised the subject in a thread named making money on the side, which has proven to be very popular among forum members.

Blogging is becoming an increasingly popular form of generating extra income. EFL Geek pointedly noted that when he started blogging in 2004, there were only a handful of TEFL related blogs. There are now thousands, and most are employing some techniques to ensure that they get paid for blogging.

Of the issues raised on the forum thread, a popular one was allowing businesses to advertise on blogs via third party service providers. Smorty is one such service connecting advertisers with bloggers. Basically, Smorty operates by putting advertisers in touch with bloggers, with the view to writing opinion posts with links back to the advertiser's site. Smorty allows businesses to advertise on blogs while making extra money for the hard working blogger.

I’ve tried many such get paid to advertise providers and like the way Smorty is set up, particularly the easy payment via Paypal and the clarity of the website.

Bullying at work

The excellent ESL Lesson Plan blog is running a survey on bullying in the workplace, which is, sadly, more prevalent than we might wish:


'I recently read an article about bullies in the workplace which reported that 1 in 6 people surveyed had been bullied by someone at work. While some countries have laws protecting employees against verbal or physical abuse, few people who get stuck in such a situation know what to do.'


Take part in the survey here.

What is a Lesson Plan?

Finally, I continue my occasional series of files that aim to make the world of ELT a better place. For those of you new to the world of teaching, this new PDf file might give some pointers as to what lesson plans are all about:

Sorry for the lack of tasty treats recently, there'll be more along soon.

Project DELTA

I received a very interesting email from Nergiz Kern recently, informing me about Project DELTA, a wiki that Nergiz has set up relating to the DELTA course.

Here's some background info:

Who is this Wiki for?

• For teachers like me who have just done the DELTA couresework component and are waiting for the exam results.
  
• For teachers who are contemplating or have already signded up for a DELTA course.
  
• For tutors to give them an idea what expectations and questions prospective DELTA candidates have and to get feedback from former DELTA candidates.
  

Why a Wiki about DELTA?

• There are many exam preperation books for our students but no prep books for the DELTA.
  
• I've searched the Internet a lot but couldn't find many DELTA-related websites.
  
• No matter how much they tell you to prepare well, you come unprepared for what it really is.
  
• Because of the time pressure there was not much time to exchange ideas and talk about our experience and opinions. This wiki could become an extension of the course. Candidates who are doing the course or who have finished could meet up here and continue to talk and share.
  

This seems like it could develop into a fantastic resource and I'm sure will receive a lot of interest.

Educators Urge Professionalism in English Teaching

An article in the Korea Times notes the need for professional qualifications:

English educators have stressed the need for professional qualifications in the 'art' of English teaching if teachers are to help students learn the language in an effective way. They said the presidential transition team's plan to hire skill-based teachers disregards the rule that there is an art to teaching. A fluent language skill is not enough for educators as English teaching is much more than supplying information, they said.

Read the full article here.

Teaching without Borders

Last month I highlighted the excellent Teaching without Borders blog: Teacher Reflections, Global Connections, explaining what a great idea I thought it was to reflect on the different teaching experiences of the different countries of the contributors. I’m delighted that Jennifer Uhler and Jeff Mattison have taken the time and considerable effort to talk to me about what they want to achieve from their blog.

1) How did you come up with the idea for your site?

Jenn: As teachers who enjoy our jobs but also encounter problems, we thought it would be a positive experience to share these reflections with a wider audience. I think we also wanted to encourage ourselves to reflect critically on our own teaching and being held accountable to a peer audience really helps me to do something I ordinarily don't take time to do in a formal way.

Jeff: After the TESOL conference in Seattle last year, I thought about how I could start some casual research as I began a new teaching experience in California public schools. While teaching in Japan, I'd kept a daily journal reflecting on my experience in the classroom. Jenn and I have also kept personal blogs, Wanderings and Brave New Word. I figured that we could combine the practice of reflective teaching with the technology of blogging. The last element, collaboration, came from my communications with Jenn, Hisako, and Tomoko since leaving graduate school. We'd kept in touch, mentioning issues that had come up with our teaching. So we decided to weld these three things into a new form of journaling: the collaborative on-line reflective journal. The result has been a synergy of TEFL topics discussed and applied to various contexts.

We've posted on popular topics such as classroom management and American culture , to the obscure mentioning of learned helplessness and how to tell secrets.

2) What are the major differences you notice in your teaching contexts?

Jenn: The most obvious differences are not the cultural ones you might expect. Rather, I think the biggest differences are in our student audiences and institutions. I sometimes feel like, in my case, teaching English to professors in a post-Soviet context, could not be more different than battling the challenges of teaching ESL in a public California school. On the other hand, perhaps because of these different locations, I think we are able to objectively respond to each other's posts with fresh ideas and new insights. I benefit from Jeff's questions and often find myself finding a way to link the same issue to my own classroom teaching.

Jeff: We knew from the start that our different teaching contexts would be one of the most interesting features of the blog. With Jenn as a "native" speaker teaching EFL, Hisako and Tomoko as "non-native" speakers teaching EFL and myself as a "native" speaker teaching ESL, we each have a different interface of teacher and student identities. I've also noticed that these different contexts have given fresh perspectives in comments. Jenn likes to call my teaching environment, a public school comprised mostly of first-generation Hispanic-Americans, as the "teaching in the trenches on the front lines". There are some days where I'd love to be in the "ivory tower" of higher education, but I know there are challenges where ever one teaches. I think because we're all interested in commenting and encouraging each other, the seeming incongruity of our different contexts doesn't matter. It’s about communicating for professional growth.

3) What are your various backgrounds in teaching?

Jenn: I have taught overseas and in the U.S. for about the last ten years. My start was a bit surreptitious as a TEFL volunteer in the Peace Corps in a small village where I taught the whole town. Since then, I have taught > in an elementary school in Mexico, college and graduate programs in California, teacher training programs in Montana, Austria, and Estonia, university in Romania, and my current position as an English Language Fellow in Estonia. Jeff and I have in common a curious spirit and enthusiasm for teaching, but we did our MATESOL degrees together about three years ago at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Jeff: I started teaching watersports at Camp Leelanau during my college years. I also was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin and Jamaica, but I taught environmental education in these settings. It was my experience in Jamaica, with its colorful creole language, that interested me in linguistics and language teaching. Since attending the Monterey Institute, I've taught English at Concordia Language Villages in northern Minnesota, a private Christian boys' junior high school in Japan, adult school ESL in urban Long Beach, and now at the middle school level in rural Salinas.

4) What are your other favorite teaching sites?

Jenn: I teach mostly academic skills. My hands-down favorite sites are the Purdue OWL site and (just for fun) an Etymology site (etymonline.com).

Jeff: For materials, I have borrowed so much from Boggles World (now Lanternfish). Because classroom management is one of my biggest themes this year, I've spent a lot of time with Harry Wong's articles on teachers.net. For random introductions to other ESL websites and blogs, I follow the ESLoop.

5) What are the main challenges facing TEFL teachers today?

Jenn: We fight so much for legitimacy as a profession. You can see it in professional venues, publications, materials, and conferences. We push ourselves really hard to define and redefine methods; to question our place as language teachers and cultural propagators; and to show that we have meaning to larger and more powerful aspects of our institutions. We really care about our students and think what we do is important, but language centers and language teaching are often marginalized -- through low salaries, inequities in hiring practice, location and budgets. And yet, we find ourselves not only teaching overloads, but also writing manuals, translating, producing materials, meeting with students, attending conferences on our own dime, requalifying ourselves, often without the extra compensation or incentives that other professionals might demand. The biggest challenges are hard to balance: How do we fight for recognition and prove ourselves without pushing the margins of our professional lives too far?

Jeff: Jenn really has her finger on the pulse of many professional issues for TEFL teachers. In the USA, I would add that ESL teachers are advocates for their students' rights as immigrants. Festooned with a myth of monolingualism, Americans think that assimilation is the "method" for acquiring English the fastest. Large immigrant population states such as California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have passed laws restricting how English can be taught. TESL teachers here are challenged with informing mainstream teachers, politicians, and everyday citizens of the complexity in language learning.

6) What are your most positive teaching experiences?

Jenn: This is a hard question to answer because I find it hard to compare different experiences. One highlight that sticks out is my teaching at the University of Montana two summers ago with Korean English teachers. It was positive because the students were so curious and self-motivated and the staff was pleasant to collaborate with (not to mention the gorgeous environs in Missoula!)


Jeff: Teaching at Kwansei Gakuin Junior High School in Nishinomiya, Japan has been my most positive teaching experience. I taught with such supportive colleagues and respectful students, it was a great way to launch my TEFL career.

7) What are your future plans for your blog/website?

Jenn: We are planning a presentation at the IATEFL conference in Exeter this April in which we comb through our blog to datamine patterns in our responses and entries. I think we both agree that it has been a good experience, and we hope to continue blogging (until we run out of words!). It would be nice to gather more community or to find other writers to comment and post in the future.

Jeff: We also are trying to "build the conversation" by expanding our audience and exposure on the blogosphere. Writing a thoughtful, helpful blog entry just for two or three people to read is like writing a novel just for the editor. Blogs are meant to be shared, and achieving that broad sharing requires a different skill set than teaching or writing. So Jenn and I are learning how to reach out to others. Thanks to you David, we're taking a step in that direction!



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This interview will also appear in the forthcoming issue of the journal.

DELTA Discourse advice

A very informative and interesting thread has opened up on the general discussion forum concerning the DELTA. The ever giving and knowlegdeable mmcmorrow has offered the following advice on those thinking of doing an assignment on discourse:

This is a bit of advice for an assignment / lesson on 'discourse'. My experience has been that this area is the one where DELTA candidates have the most difficulty with focus. Generally, teachers are on safe ground with grammar. They identify the system (grammar) and subsystem (eg verb tenses) and then choose one topic area within it to focus on - eg progressive aspect. They then come up with a title such as "helping elementary learners with the progressive aspect" - and they're set. But with 'discourse', this process doesn't go so smoothly and what you get are very wide-ranging, but necessarily superficial discussions of 'discourse' or 'collocation' or whatever in general. In other words, the teacher hasn't gone through the third step of focusing on a particular topic within the field of collocation, for instance.

The other aspect of focus is finding the right balance between theory and practice - and this is also made much more difficult by trying to bite off more than you can chew! You've probably already been given a sort of template for assignments, but here's one suggestion:

A: Intro (reason for selection of topic) 100-150 words

B: Analysis of topic (eg form / meaning / use / phonology / spelling - depending on what you've chosen) 700 - 750 words

C: Range of problems for learners (referring to own experience, observation as well as your sources, such as Swan & Smith 'Learner English' etc) 700 - 750 words

D: Strategies for teachers - a well-selected set of activities or approaches that deal with the problems for learners that you've mentioned above. Not a list - each suggestion should have a brief rationale, description, evaluation 700 - 750 words

E: Conclusion - eg implications for future practice or for other contexts 50 - 100 words

Anyway, as you can see, most of the theory is embedded in practical applications. So try to get the balance right - and also continuity - so that what you say about the problems for learners is reflected in your ideas for strategies for teachers.

I'll add one more suggestion - I hope I'm not poking my nose in. Here are three things I like about lessons (or suggestions for classroom activities) when I get the chance to observe:

1) Here-and-now-ness

In other words, the topic and/or activities are for this place, these students (and teacher) and their interests. I'm not saying it all has to be original - but a complete coursebook based lesson is hardly likely to impress

2) Topic

I like lessons that are about something - not just language - and where there's continuity of theme. Scott Thornbury wrote about this in an article in the ELTJ about 10 years ago. He quoted from EM Forster's 'Aspects of the Novel' regarding the difference between a story and a plot. 'The queen died and then the king died and then ... there was this funny chicken ...': that's a story: 'The queen died and then the king died - of grief': that's a plot. Things happen in an order and for a reason.

3) Flexibility

If a plan has stated in advance everything that's to happen, then it's almost a statement of belief that students don't matter - that what they say or do is of no possible interest to everyone. Pawns in the lesson plan! But good planning is the very opposite of predetermination. It's the structure that allows student participation and teacher engagement. So, practically speaking, I think it makes sense to have A and B options later on in lesson plans to allow the teacher to make judgements based on his/her perceptions of student needs - as the lesson itself unfolds. A lesson isn't a scripted play, it's a structured impro.

By the way, it goes down particularly badly, I think, if a teacher has made a big point of learner autonomy in a background assignment, but then delivered a plan which predetermines every move. What you're looking for overall is consistency - of beliefs, analysis, methodology, planning and performance. Consistency - and a core of effective classroom skills - not perfection!

Thanks to mmcmorrow for these great tips. See his fine article on teaching in New Zealand in the upcoming issue of the journal. Good luck to all those embroiled in the course as I write!

Literacy Now: Malaysia

Is the present English language curriculum in Malaysia preparing students for the new literacies of the 21st century?

This is the question raised in the Malaysian Star online:

NOT many people would use a line from Hamlet to make a link between the present state of English language teaching and learning in Malaysia and what it should be in the future. In his inaugural lecture, following his promotion to full professor at Universiti Malaya, Prof Dr Moses Samuel did exactly that.

Prof Moses used a quote from Marcellus, a secondary character in Hamlet, who urges his friend to speak to the spectre or ghost that had appeared, by saying, “Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.” In drawing this parallel, Prof Moses asked a pertinent question: Is the English language curriculum in Malaysia speaking to our youth?

Read the text here. Learn more at David’s English Teaching World Malaysia Blog.

Angola: "Anelta" On Strengthened English Language Teaching Quality

AllAfrica.com notes that members of the National English Language Teachers Association (ANELTA) met in their fourth conference, with view to outline the strategies to reinforce the quality of English teaching in Angola.


The three-day meeting, under the motto "Challenges and Innovations for English teachers and students of other languages (TESOL), ANELTA also intends, in partnership with the Education Ministry (MED), to standardise the teaching of this language and enable its expansion in order to meet the current demands of the market.


Read the full story here. Join the Africa forum for more discussion.