I Don't Have Time Today In Spanish

Sabrina Segal Alumni Experiences Language skills begin in the womb when a fetus's hearing first develops, they begin to listen to the language of their mother. Once the baby is born they recognize their mother tongue. Though, a baby is born with the ability to learn any language and multiple languages. When babies hear a word repeatedly their brain forms neural connections, which is a step towards their speech. The brain of a child is like a sponge. It retains so much information that by the time a child reaches 3 years of age, their brain has formed double the amount of connections that adults have. Young children learn language through simple exposure. It is possible to learn a language later on in life but the process is slower and more difficult. The best time for language...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences Difficulty with pronunciation is likely something that every EFL teacher will face at one point or another in their career. Every language in the world has different ways of pronouncing different words/ letters. In addition to this, most speakers of other languages have heavy accents that can make pronouncing English words very difficult. This can be a challenge when teaching English as a foreign language. It can be especially challenging because not all learners around the world will face the same problems. Students in Vietnam will likely have different pronunciation problems than students in Kenya and students in Brazil will likely have different pronunciation problems than students in Morocco. For this essay, I will focus on the specific problems of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas At a very early age, I was amazed by the sounds of English. I used to listen to songs in English while one of my parent’s friends was cleaning his car. He used to play them out loud and I wanted to know what the lyrics said. Several years later I had the chance to go to China to be part of a cultural exchange program to learn Chinese. My accepting interview was completely in English rather than Chinese or even my native language Spanish. All paperwork was done in either Spanish or Chinese depending on where I was. Either here in Latin-American or on the other side of the world, the medium of communication was English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Andres G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The native language in Ecuador is Quichua, an Inca language. It is spoken by the Indian population, but Spanish is the most common, widely spoken language. Besides Spanish, ten native languages are spoken in Ecuador. English is the most spoken foreign language amongst tourist providers and professionals. For this reason, English is taught in most schools as a Foreign Language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jemma W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Most students find it very hard to learn English in Ecuador as there are very few people to practice with. It is only the most dedicated students who put the effort in to studying and practicing and can have a...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas “My sweater. I cannot find my sweater. Can you help me look for?” I scratched my head. Sweater? I kicked myself for agreeing to help Rosa in the study hall. Our teacher, Mr. Randall, had told me she was struggling with basic grammar and thought I might be able to help since I had spent a lot of time in Mexico and had a good grasp of both English and Spanish. Now not only did we have to go over the nitty-gritty of grammar, but she also had a lisp or something. Great, as if the grammar wasn’t enough. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Moriah D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I shivered and wished for a jacket or at the very least a sweater to fend off the cool...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Pronunciation problems in El Salvador is very common, as many know Spanish is the main Language in this country, people in El Salvador tend to speak their native Language all the time because this is what they feel more comfortable with, as there is not any other dialect, other than Spanish, they are taught English in school, English Is the only language taught in El Salvador in public schools, but only for those that can attend one, this is because there are many people that can't attend a school due to economic matter, family problems or due to the work that is done in their household many don't have time to study and there are kids that can't attend school because they have to work, but there are many that do go to school and take English classes....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas First and foremost I'd like to address why phonetics issues very early piqued my interest in teaching English for foreigners. Ever since childhood, I was surrounded by people with substantial articulatory and auditory phonetic problems, not so much with the acoustic ones. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Asbiorn B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Firstly, those auditory problems were inherited biologically by people around me and couldn't be helped much before the very sophisticated miniature hearing aids just recently were introduced. However, some foreign students can't afford these rather expensive items and subsequently require my special attention in English...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Most of the Mexican learners have difficulties with English due to a lack of the use of English in daily life. Most people in Mexico do not normally have real contact with English outside the classroom. They are usually only exposed to it through the media, such as online channels or music videos but most of them never listened to a real conversation in English or practiced a real-life situation (as asking for directions, ordering food, etc). If you are interested in teaching English in Mexico, this article will be very helpful as it highlights the most common problems students in Mexico face when learning English. This post was written by our ITTT graduate Pablo P. Only a minor percentage of Mexican students have had the chance of traveling outside the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning a new language can be nerve-wracking, especially for young learners who experience a great deal of peer pressure and fear of sounding unintelligent in front of their classmates. This fear is something adults learning a new language experience as well. I have personally experienced it as a native English speaker learning Spanish. Therefore, praise from the teacher they view as an expert in the language they’re learning is vital to the learning process in many ways. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Alexandra W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I believe praising students is very important. It is essential, however, that the praise teachers give is genuine....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences English is my first language, however, I studied Spanish throughout high school growing up in the Midwest and eventually received a Master’s degree in Spanish Literature. I learned to speak Spanish very well after becoming a high school Spanish teacher for eight years and then a principal for elementary and secondary schools for 26 more years speaking Spanish to new immigrant students and parents the whole time. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rex P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. In reflecting on the title question I first asked myself how Spanish had influenced me over the years. The first obvious answer was that I became bilingual and began communicating...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Visa and Legal Spain is traditionally one of the most popular destinations in Europe for teaching English abroad due to the great climate, fascinating culture and large number of jobs on offer year round. However, as the process of obtaining a work visa for non-EU citizens can be a bit of a hassle, many employers choose to only hire teachers with an EU passport. If you are not from an EU country you can apply for a student visa which enables you to legally work as an English language teacher for a set number of hours every week. If you like the sound of a student visa you need to visit your nearest Spanish Consulate to begin the application process. As it can take a while to process the application we recommend that you contact the consulate at least three months before you...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Xi-an-shi? Are you interested in teaching English in Xi-an-shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Check out which city/town you may be more interested in and start your journey| For the past several years I have been working for a non-profit company that provides high quality day care and preschool education for financially disadvantaged children What do you think of when I say the word “teacher”? When I think of this word, I think of the “teacher when I was a...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Although many ESL teachers do have foreign language experience, many are not aware of how much this experience benefits them. Sure, if they are teaching English in Japan, having Japanese language experience is helpful for daily life situations, but how could it bleed into the classroom as well? And the language experience doesn’t necessarily have to involve the first language of the students, either. Having foreign language experiences allows the teacher to understand just how hard learning a language is, can understand where certain errors may come from, see English from a different perspective, and gives them a stronger grasp on English grammar. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sarah D. Firstly, learning another language...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Over the past two years, as part of an international community, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting people from all over the world. We share the common experience of learning an L2. I’ve spoken to nearly 100 people now, and what I’ve learned about learning L2 is, well, it’s hard. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Janis U. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Most people I’ve “interviewed” have either learned an L2 over many years or are still in the process of learning it. Of those that have learned an L2, they tend to be more fluent than accurate and most have learned L2 out of necessity within 1-3 years. I consider myself in the process of learning my...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Type in "teaching grammar effectively" into Google and the reader will be confronted with pages and pages of advice/frameworks/theories on how to effectively teach grammar. Most of the content does acknowledge that there is no "golden rule" for effective grammar teaching before imparting their particular key rules or areas that should be incorporated into teaching grammar. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Joe S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Also Read: Top 7 Spanish Speaking Countries for Teaching English Abroad There's a lot of theory around, much of it contradictory. It can be valuable, but I sometimes feel, to quote Mark Twain, that "the researches of many...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas Hi my name is Linda from ITTT, international TEFL and TESOL Training and I'm back again today for another live session. If you can hear me and see me please let me know as I'm trying out a new mic today so if that is working well it would be good to know. So please leave a quick comment to say hi and where you're watching from. I have been living in South Korea for five and a half years, so for me right now it's 10:00 a.m. Friday morning. Let me know where you are tuning in from and what time it is where you are. We can get started on today's topic which is the best government programs for teaching English abroad. If you're interested in teaching English abroad then you should definitely keep watching as there's a lot of good stuff coming...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Grammar is the rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in a natural language. Simply put, grammar is the general rule of a language. Language is logical; grammar tells us in which order we say words. It’s about how words become phrases; how words and phrases become sentences and how sentences become language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Yang S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Some of these rules are acquired naturally in childhood while others are acquired in the learning process under the guidance of a teacher. While most of the time, people don’t know which grammatical rule they are following when speaking, they know that what they...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Spanish is my mother tongue; however, I also managed to learn English and French at a young age. Both of these languages stuck with me even years after I had left the countries where I learned them. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jorge P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Despite staying in those countries for a short time (less than a year), it surprised me how, when comparing myself with people who had had similar experiences, my language skills were much better than theirs. Looking back on those days, I believe that it’s because I was not learning the language for itself, but rather as a means to an end. I was using those languages with a purpose. And this...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas English to me and I'll answer them to the best of my ability. We have a first time watcher Sebastian watching from Cameroon and it is 2:00 a.m. there, wow thanks so much for staying up and watching our live stream, that's awesome. We are actually streaming live on Facebook and also on YouTube at the same time, so wherever you're watching from you can throw your questions at me at any time and if you don't want to miss out on any of our live streams don't forget to like and subscribe so that you always get notifications. I go live every Friday morning my time, depending on where you're watching it might still be Thursday, and then my colleague Liza does her live sessions every Tuesday. If you have already watched our joint...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Huaxu Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Xi'an Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. English is well on its way to become the dominant global language. Is this a good thing? A language which is spoken internationally is a global language. A living global language has a large number of speakers, a substantial fraction of non-native speakers and has an official status in several countries. A global language is used for example by international...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences A language is a tool that allows us to organize our thoughts as well as to communicate. Since language is unable to be separated from our conscious thought, it can be difficult to imagine how another language can function without the use of the core elements that we employ in our own native language. Likewise, it can be difficult to comprehend the function of a language element completely foreign to us. As a teacher, it can be important to understand the peculiarities of English to understand which language elements may be more difficult for the student. Some elements that may be completely new to English learners are the number system, verb tenses, and locative language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Melisa K. Please note...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker TEFL Information Online English language teaching is one area of the TEFL field that has grown rapidly in recent times and it is only going to become more popular. With this growth comes an increased demand for teachers which is a very positive thing for anyone who doesn’t have a full university degree. While some online employers do insist on a degree, the two most important ingredients when applying for online teaching jobs are generally a TEFL/TESOL certification and in some cases being a native English speaker. For anyone without a degree, the best thing to do is to offer as much else to the employer as possible. As mentioned, a TEFL/TESOL certification is essential (a minimum 120-hour course is usually expected). Other sought after skills include foreign language...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Pronunciation is an essential part of the English language. Clear and cohesive speech can create meaningful conversations, meanwhile incorrect pronunciation can lead to misunderstandings. Every, non-native English-speaking country has pronunciation problems. One of the countries which come across with pronunciation errors is my homeland Azerbaijan. It is a lovely country, with nice traditions and people. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Narmina M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. There are many different nationalities that live in my country. People speak various languages. Our official language is Azerbaijani; however, the people here speak Russian and Turkish too....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Many parents find helping their children learn English quite challenging and it can be more difficult if they are not native English speakers. So how can you still be a good source of learning a new language to your children? There are different ways that parents can influence their children in learning English at home. The best way to learn English is to practice every day. Try to make learning fun and interactive at all times. Talking to your child about everyday situations using English can also have a great impact on their English development. The most influential part is to be supportive and praise your child each step of the way. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Edgar R. Please note that this blog post might not...  [Read more]

Maria Ducha Destinations Argentina is not only the fourth most populated Spanish-speaking country in the world but it also offers great opportunities for English teachers all over the country. Attracted by the vibrant culture, exciting nightlife and spectacular natural wonders, many thousands of people come to live and work in Argentina each year. Find out why Argentina is a great place to teach English abroad in this article. The scenery of Argentina ranges from snowy mountains and blue lakes in the south to the most amazing waterfalls in the northeast near Brazil that will really take your breath away. The “Cerro de los 7 colores” offer picturesque scenery paired with amazing wildlife, and the “Glaciar Perito Moreno”, the largest glacier in the country, should also not be...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Welcome guys, Linda here from ITTT for another live session. I'm so happy to be here today, the weather is great today, the lighting is good. If you were watching last week it was pretty much like the end of the world weather here, but today it's great, I feel good. If you can see me and hear me please drop a hi into the comments. We are live on Facebook and also on YouTube and if you're listening to this as a podcast episode thanks for the download. We always turn our live sessions into podcast episodes and you can find them on all major podcast platforms like iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts etc. It's called the TEFL and TESOL Podcast by ITTT. I see there are some people already here. Hi Gwen, thanks for joining today....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching styles can vary drastically and no one style is king. Over time and in different parts of the world different styles have risen to prominence while others lose favor. The effectiveness of a teaching style depends on the students, their need, the language they are being taught, the language they are being taught in, and many other factors. Effective teachers will be familiar with different styles and the various methods introduced in each style. They will be capable of creating their own unique style based on what is most effective for their situation. The following methodologies of teaching all have their strengths and weaknesses, most are found to be outdated or overly flawed but we can still learn and adapt using elements of these styles....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching styles can vary drastically and no one style is king. Over time and in different parts of the world different styles have risen to prominence while others lose favor. The effectiveness of a teaching style depends on the students, their need, the language they are being taught, the language they are being taught in, and many other factors. Effective teachers will be familiar with different styles and the various methods introduced in each style. They will be capable of creating their own unique style based on what is most effective for their situation. The following methodologies of teaching all have their strengths and weaknesses, most are found to be outdated or overly flawed but we can still learn and adapt using elements of these styles. This...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Hello everybody and welcome. We're actually also going live on Instagram today, so I'm going to check that out as well as the usual Facebook and YouTube. Hopefully everything will work fine. I hope everybody can hear me well and can see me. This is the first time that we're actually live on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at the same time, so I have a lot of screens here in front of me. Hello there, I see somebody tuned in on Instagram and we have a few people here on Facebook and YouTube already. I hope everything is going well today. Unfortunately, if you're watching on Instagram you won't be able to see the screen and maybe some of the questions that I'm popping in there but that's all good, you can still drop your...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Being able to communicate in English is probably one of the most beneficial things anybody in the world could be able to do today, especially if you are wanting to work, or simply explore in any field on the international level. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Meara B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. It is one of the most widely spoken languages and one of the fastest-growing in the entire world. So much in fact that in many countries English is a required academic course in their school curriculum, sometimes starting from as young as the age of 5 and carrying through to college. I believe that one reason for this, and possibly the biggest one out there, is the...  [Read more]