I went to my last class this past Friday expecting my entire class to be present. Well, of the 13 who normally attend, only 5 showed up! I didn’t know how to feel about this. But no matter, I carried on with the lesson. To stay positive, I thought it was great that I could […]
What’s IPDP you may ask…It stands for Individualized Professional Development Plan. It’s the type of professional growth you sketch out for yourself – for your own growth. It does not include the type of PD your workplace or professional organization requires of you – the type you have to complete because …well…you have to. IPDP […]
I had taught the lesson many times. You can count apples, but you can’t count water, so you say how many apples and how much water. You can count people, but you can’t count sand, so you say fewer people and less sand. I’d go over and over the lists of nouns that were count […]
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” —John Dewey I love this quote. It’s so simple but, at its core, it embodies the vastness of what it means to be “educated”. In its essence, education is so much more than desks or books or technology. As the Winter/Spring term of my EAP […]
What is student-centred learning? There are many facets to this idea. It can be lessons based on students’ needs. It can mean choosing topics based on students’ interests. But one of the concepts that is most commonly related to student-centred learning is learning through discovery. When someone learns through discovery, they are given enough autonomy […]
How many of us sit down at the end of the day and reflect on the lesson? I mean really sit down and think about the good, the bad, the ugly, and the potential. For many of us, I’m sure the intentions are there, but on a really bad day, we’re probably more inclined to […]
It had been a total failure. I had tried to introduce poetry to my class and have them write some, but they were reluctant and bored. However, something inside told me to give it another shot a few months later. I had been introduced to the concept at a TESL London workshop. The presenter was […]
I was looking for something inspirational to write about when I came across this very interesting and thought-provoking article online by Judie Haynes, and felt the need to share it with everyone: http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/cooperative_teaching_two_teach_83908.php. The article discusses co-teaching and begs the question: Is two better than one when applied to ESL classrooms? Judie breaks it down […]
This question is not new. The answers are ongoing (just do a quick library search on “EAP debate” and you’ll find great peer reviewed articles on the topic, including articles written by Krashen, Ferris and Hedgcock, Grabe and Kaplan, Krapels, Silva, Cummins, and Belcher and Hirbela – you name it). EAP continues to be a […]
We’re always out to find what’s the best way to effectively teach our learners. I don’t know about everyone else, but it’s been my experience that grammar gets the short end of the stick in the sense that everyone dreads teaching it, and most learners dread learning it. Am I the only one who actually […]