While teaching young people is often not easy, managing classrooms with students of mixed abilities and diverse backgrounds can be really challenging. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges is getting a class to be quiet. Picture this: it’s the first day of school and you are required to be the homeroom teacher for a class of boys in their early teens. Boys at this age can be a handful!
Using visuals is an integral part of our daily teaching practice; however, often, our visual aids are rather mundane. For example, one of the primary and most popular visual aid has been PowerPoint. Despite the benefits of using this tool, it can easily turn a classroom into a passive learning environment.
Having said this, there are other tools available through which knowledge and information can be transferred to students. One of the alternatives available is Kahoot. Now, many of us might have heard of or used this tool in our classrooms. Kahoot is a game-based teaching tool that teachers usually use to test student knowledge after their teaching is completed. However, Kahoot can be used for purposes other than testing. This post introduces Kahoot as a tool that can replace PowerPoint presentations Continue reading
If you’re a Twitter user, join the next #CdnELTchat on Tuesday, November 27th. Below is a recap of the November 4th chat from the #CdnELTchat moderators.
What does it mean for learners to be autonomous and accountable? How do you teach students to take responsibility of their own learning? What roles does metacognition play in learner autonomy? These are some of the questions that a group of educators tackled on November 6th. Bonnie Jean Nicholas (@EALStories) and Jennifer Chow (@jennifermchow) moderated a #CdnELTchat to explore this topic.
Thank-you so much to the enthusiastic participants Continue reading
If you’re a Twitter user, read on to learn all about how you can join the next #CdnELTchat which takes place tomorrow, November 6th. Below is a recap of last month’s chat from the #CdnELTchat moderators.
In our personal lives, we use YouTube playlists, Facebook feeds, pins on Pinterest, Instagram feeds, saved tweets on Twitter etc. to save and share videos, news, images and information. With the increase of accessible information and resources online, what can educators and students do to curate content effectively? Bonnie Jean Nicholas (@EALStories) and Jennifer Chow (@jennifermchow) moderated a #CdnELTchat on “Content Curation” to explore this topic.
This year at the TESL ON conference, Asmaa Cober, Sanctuary Refugee Health Centre, will be one of our Keynote Speakers. The following blog post was written by Asmaa. Here she gives you a synopsis of her keynote address:
Learning never happens in a vacuum — people bring all of their experiences with them to the classroom. Newcomers (and refugees in particular) have a life history — experiences that greatly affect their ability to learn. We will explore some of the types of experiences that refugees bring with them to the classroom. Continue reading
This blog post is about the verb “to get,” and how sometimes this verb can get in the way of progress. Biber and Conrad (2001) list the verb “to get” as one of the twelve most commonly used verbs in spoken English, which explains why it would be an important verb to know. However, too much of a good thing can sometimes get in the way of progress. The verb “to get” and all its inflections can end up replacing every other possible verb, which in turn might prevent some learners from moving to the next stage of language proficiency. Continue reading
I imagine we’ve all had classes in which one or two students dominate the room. Maybe they ask questions at every turn or monopolize discussions, not leaving room for others to speak. Making room for everyone in the classroom without alienating these students can be a difficult task. Here are some methods that can be used to keep a balanced classroom: Continue reading
I was talking with a colleague, Lisa, during lunch break the other day. At our school, the students have a 1-hour class with a pronunciation instructor once per week. Lisa was suggesting the merits of having a similar intensive lesson every week on reading. After our discussion, I began to consider the importance of reading versus the other skills. I am beginning to wonder if reading is the key skill to developing English proficiency.
Don’t get me wrong – Teaching pronunciation is one of my favourite classes to teach. I guess I like the focus of language use and playing with the sounds, the stress, intonation and inflection. Many students have expressed that it is important for them, as well.
Anyway, back to reading. Continue reading
One of the best things teachers can do for their students is to help them learn to help themselves. To promote learner autonomy, we need to build students’ self-confidence and give them strategies for teaching themselves. Some of the ways we can do this include the following. Continue reading
Do you limit teacher talk time in favour of active learning? Good!
Do you limit teacher talk time because your students seem disengaged or don’t understand? Bad…
Let’s face it, teacher talk time (TTT) is valuable. Although it should not be the focus of any lesson, it can certainly be an opportunity to mediate learning, not just facilitate it or curate it. Hence, done purposefully, TTT can help students take better notes, recall valuable information, and differentiate between main ideas and extraneous detail. How can this be?
Let me explain . . . Continue reading