Information Gap Activity

A communicative speaking (and reading) activity where students are presented with incomplete information, which they must complete by interacting with others who do have that information. Typically undertaken as a milling activity with all students interacting with all others.  [Read more]

Check out tefl tesol about TESOL Loretto Minnesota and apply today to be certified to teach English abroad. You could also be interested in: This is how our TEFL graduates feel they have gained from their course, and how they plan to put into action what they learned: said: Unit 12: For Unit 12, Teaching Productive Skills was introduced. The skills used in this lesson are speaking and writing. Speaking is the skill most commonly thought of when teaching English, because it is covered in the classroom. Writing is an often neglected part of learning the English language, mostly because it is left as homework. Accuracy and fluency are equally important skills to develop in the classroom. During the Study Phase, accuracy is emphasized, drilling exercises are often...  [Read more]

Check out tefl tesol about TESOL Jobs India Vellore and apply today to be certified to teach English abroad. You could also be interested in: This is how our TEFL graduates feel they have gained from their course, and how they plan to put into action what they learned: said: Unit 12 discusses the teaching of productive skills- speaking and writing. Accuracy and fluency in speaking/writing are both equally as important. Activities can be geared to address each of these factors. During a controlled accuracy activity the teacher can use techniques such as drilling or prompting, and the language must be controlled by the teacher. In a guided accuracy activity the output is controlled by the teacher but the exact language is not. During fluency based activities, the scenario...  [Read more]

Check out tefl tesol about TESOL Moscow and apply today to be certified to teach English abroad. You could also be interested in: This is how our TEFL graduates feel they have gained from their course, and how they plan to put into action what they learned: A.L. – U.S.A. said: The two types of productive skills are speaking and writing. Throughout this unit, I have learned that speaking activities in the classroom are either controlled, creative communication or guided and each activity can be grouped as accuracy or fluency. Accuracy based activities such as drilling and tongue twisters are focused on producing correct language while fluency activities create opportunities for students to be creative with the language. Creative communication involves activities such...  [Read more]

Check out tefl tesol about TESOL Miluo and apply today to be certified to teach English abroad. You could also be interested in: This is how our TEFL graduates feel they have gained from their course, and how they plan to put into action what they learned: J. L. - U.S.A. said: Unit 17: Equipment and teaching aids The board: all board work should be planned and organized in advanced Interactive whiteboard: the teacher should test the lesson before the class starts. She/he should also have a back up plan already. Overhead proyector: there are some advantages: it focuses the students attention, OHTs can be prepared in advance, it helps the teacher avoid having his/her back to the students, OHTs can model grammar and present vocabulary, they can be used for time reading...  [Read more]

  This video is part of our ESA Methodology series. The ESA methodology consists of three stages. In this series, we look at the individual purposes of each stage and typical activities for each stage. This second video introduces the study phase of ESA. The purpose of this phase is to cover the actual teaching of the lesson and to check the understanding of that material.The second stage or phase of the lesson is known as the study phase and really the purpose of this phase is to cover the actual teaching of the lesson and to check understanding of that material. Typically in an ESA lesson, the study phase will have two parts. The first phase of the study is to cover the actual teaching component in what's known as the board work and what we try to do in the board work phase is to...  [Read more]

  So, having elicited this particular structure, what I'm now able to do is to move on to the actual study activities. Typically, they will be in the form of worksheets to check that the students actually understand this information. So, I might prepare three activities. They may not do them all but, for example, I could prepare these three study activities. So, the first one is going to be a fairly straightforward matching activity, where perhaps they match the subject to its correct verb "to be" in that part of the sentence. The second one is going to be a gap fill. For example, I might use this verb here and ask them to complete a sentence using that verb, so that I can check that any spelling changes that take place are correct and the final one is going to be an unscramble,...  [Read more]

  Now an example of a straight arrow ESA lesson for our engage phase. What we're going to do is to show the students a video of animals and they are going to say what they like about those animals and try to create a list of some more. So, remember what we're trying to do here is to get the students talking and thinking in English. We're using a typical engage activity, which is to create a list and we try to make sure that all the students have been involved in some way in creating those lists. Moving on to the study phase, the first part is going to be the board work and the teacher is going to try to elicit from the students what each of those animals can and can't do. Typically, what the students will say is just single words, so "run," "jump," "fly," etc. What we would then...  [Read more]

  Once we're satisfied that all the students have been engaged and that they've been given the opportunity to say something, we can move on to our study phase. Here, it may be necessary or useful to actually pre-teach some gaps in knowledge that have been shown from the engage phase and those gaps in knowledge may include actual grammar structures or indeed useful vocabulary and it's very important that, before we move on to doing any forms of activity, we check their understanding of this material. So, we need to do some study exercises. It's also very useful if you leave this information up on the board through all that study period. Those study activities can just be the normal types of gap fills or matching activities and, as always, we need to demonstrate those activities,...  [Read more]

Computer Aided Language Learning With the advent of the internet and its increasing importance in the classroom, Computer Aided Language Learning, or CALL, has become a viable and useful source for both teachers and students. CALL first became prevalent in US classrooms in the late 1070’s. Since its introduction it has gone from a primitive, structured Q&A program, to full-fledged language programs such as Rosetta stone. Although programs like Rosetta Stone have experienced success, many experts believe that CALL should be used to augment rather than replace face-to-face learning environments. This was one of the big questions facing ESL teachers in the late 90s, how to integrate CALL and its resulting technological concerns successfully into the classroom. Such things as whether an...  [Read more]

Check out tefl tesol about Fulltime TESOL Classes and apply today to be certified to teach English abroad. You could also be interested in: This is how our TEFL graduates feel they have gained from their course, and how they plan to put into action what they learned: K.G. - South Africa said: Managing equipment and teaching aidsThere are so many factors that contribute to understanding and effective learning. The teacher needs to consider and realize all these contributing factors and adopt various roles and methodologies to promote learning. Teaching students in a language other than their mother tongue presents a greater challenge for the teacher as he/she cannot rely merely on spoken words for explanation, but has to apply a more visual teaching approach. Thus the EFL...  [Read more]

Japan can present the traveller with a bewildering combination of culture, manners, beauty, architecture and personalities. Whether one goes to Fuji San - mount Fuji, to admire it’s serene beauty, or one parties all night long in Roppongi - the nightclub district of Tokyo, one is constantly taken aback and presented with the unexpected. At times a shade frustrating, such as when you are on a train so crowded that you go three stops past the one you wanted because you cannot move. Hence, the ‘gaijin’, or foreigner learns to laugh about these things and accepts them as a part of life. A population of one-hundred and twenty seven millions is jammed into a landmass of one-hundred and forty five square miles. Indeed, the population density in the big cities is amazing. The official...  [Read more]

This TESOL glossary presents terms which are links to the description of that term. All the terms are in general use throughout the teaching industry with a particular focus on EFL. Some slight variations in meaning may be possible depending upon the specific area the term relates to, but on the whole, we have chosen those terms with generally accepted meaning and minimal ambiguity. Simply click on the TESOL glossary link term below for the full definition. When learning the English language students are regularly confronted with vocabulary that is new and unfamiliar to them. In order to learn how to pronounce these words correctly the student needs to hear... READ MORE Recognition that professional standards have been met. Recognition that academic and other standards have been...  [Read more]

Building Confidence in Students Education is certainly the birthright of all people. The motivation of every nation should be to generate literate, well-educated and intelligent residents who are able to add to the proper progress and progress of the whole society. There is still mystery on how accurately a foreign language is learnt. On the subject of building confidence there are yet more theories which are even more difficult to confirm. I myself do not trust that confidence is built using one magic activity, but rather it is continuously acquired all over the learning process. That’s why, all the theories I pick to focus on three things Grammar, Drilling, and of course the role of the teacher. All of these will prepare the student for circumstances they might meet later. [1] After...  [Read more]