Information Gap Activity

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas If every single lesson that we undertook with our students was a straight arrow ESA lesson then it is quite possible that the students would be able to predict what is going to come up next. Whilst this might be good for the lower level students, it could potentially become a little bit boring for our higher level students. Harmer considered this and his response was to generate two other types of ESA lesson that we can use to try and generate a little bit more interest. The first of these is known as a boomerang lesson and the second is known as a patchwork lesson. First let us recap the structure of a Straight arrow ESA lesson. This takes each of the three phases in turn, so a picture of the lesson looks like this: Engage  Study ...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zezhang Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Yuncheng 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. Which activities can be used for teaching productive skills? Almost every language consists of productive and receptive skills. Speaking and writing are productive, active skills; information is produced in oral or written form. Listening and reading, on the other hand, are receptive abilities. These skills are used when we receive information. A good language...  [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]

  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]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Yankuangjituanjidongxincun? Are you interested in teaching English in Jining 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. Speaking and writing are key when it comes to communication. In the classroom, there are many ways to effectively develop productive skills. By using different activities, the classroom can be varied and interesting to the students. A teacher must be able to influence the students to want to communicate by using different speaking activities, games, and...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas In this blog post, we will take a look at a typical example of a boomerang lesson. First we will recap the structure E  A1  S  A2 Here the students are just going to have a discussion about jobs, what happens at interviews and so on and so forth. During that engage phase what we would hope to do is to elicit some useful language about, jobs, interviews and the types of questions that are being asked in interviews. Some of this information can be put on the board. We do no teaching in this phase, we do not correct any mistakes either, just let the students talk freely. Next, we're going to move immediately into an activate activity and this is going to involve a role-play. We will put the students into pairs, one...  [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]

  A final example is going to be an example of a patchwork ESA lesson and remember we said the form of this particular lesson will start with and engage always and will finish with and activate and there'll be some variation of E, S and A within the brackets here. So we're going to generate our patchwork ESA lesson as follows. Starting with the engage, the students are going to look at holiday photos and talk about what they like and don't like from what they see. From that, we're going to move directly into an activate phase and what the students are going to do is to make comments about holiday brochures and try to act out a role-play between the travel agent and a customer. Again, as this is taking place, the teacher will be moving around and looking for gaps in knowledge in...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas When using the ESA methodology, there are a number of lesson formats available. In the third of this series we look at a Patchwork lesson. What does a Patchwork lesson look like and for what level of student is it most appropriate? Lesson aim: For the students to be able to discuss holidays using vocabulary and conducting a role-play. Student Level: Intermediate (Due to the complexity of Patchwork lessons they should only be used for Intermediate level and above) We start by reminding ourselves of the form of a Patchwork ESA lesson. We start with an engage as always and we will finish with an activate and there will be some combination of E, S and A within the brackets. Starting with the engage, (E1) the students are going to look at...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Xiangtan Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Bazhong 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. Songs in the classroom Songs rock! Never underestimate the power of music in the class room. Nowadays most people are fans of some kind of music, young or old, male or female; they open a place for listening to music in certain times. So if you as a teacher include music in your classroom it will be a great motivation for language learners to build their interest...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching a real class, first, we need to mention the rapport between teachers and students. What makes a good teacher and a good learner are tend to be “student-centered” class than “teacher-centered”, which means teachers’ talking time is less than students’. Being a good teacher will always remind and encourage learners about their learning motivations and interests. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Crystal D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Before teaching a class, we need to plan a class and what you expect students to achieve by the end of the class. In a lesson plan, we need a learning objective what do you want students to achieve by the end of the...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Meizhong Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Liaocheng 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. The information covered in this course was extremely useful and has provided a solid foundation of knowledge in teaching English as a foreign language. With that said, between ensuring that I am fully prepared for each class and having to keep the coursework stimulating for the students, the thought getting up in front of a class for the first time seems a bit...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Jianchi Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Ankang 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. Speaking and writing are called productive skills. Both are used for the same purpose which is communication. When we learn a language, we listen to those around us at first (Listening). Then, we try to make utterances (Speaking) and finally we learn to read and write in that language. Speaking: To make students speak, the teacher must create a desire and need for...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The most helpful teaching strategy that I learned about in this course was ESA lesson planning. An ESA lesson is one that includes three distinct stages: Engage, Study, and Activate. A successful lesson should include all three components, beginning with an engaging stage and concluding with an activated stage. I plan to use this framework for my own lesson planning because it is flexible, yet has enough structure to establish students’ expectations for how they will learn during every class period. I especially like the distinction between study and activate because it helps me understand the role of different types of activities in a lesson. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rachel S. Please note that this blog post might not...  [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]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Tanba Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Ankang 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. One of my favorite units in this program was when we watched two full classes and compared the two. I loved how the first one they showed was the poorly taught one. The teacher came in, formed no connection with the students, and just started teaching. We saw that the student really didn’t comprehend what the teacher was trying to teach them, but he just kept...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Shituan Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Ziyang 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. this unit contains a real good information ... about how we should deal with the student ... how the lesson should be in a proper way ... giving us more ideas like when to give the information when to pause when to stop ... it needs patience and knowledge ....it has the definition of the word engage...study , activity ... and many other theories ...the structure of...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Yanglou Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Heze 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. Teaching an ESL or EFL student requires different ways to approach. First, we need to understand that an ESL learner learns English for their everyday life situations, where as their first language is not English but need to use the language in an English-Speaking country. For example, a person who immigrates to a country like England for their job, he needs to be able...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas In this blog post, we will look at an actual example of an ESA straight arrow lesson plan. We will include examples of the activities used and their purpose. You can adapt this plan to a variety of other uses and levels. Straight arrow ESA Lesson Plan Class level: Elementary Number of students: 8 Lesson aim: After the lesson the students should be able to look at an animal and make sentences to say what it “can and can’t” do. Sample sentences when looking at the picture of an elephant. It can walk. It can’t fly. 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. Remember what we're trying to do here is to get the students talking...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Yujiawan Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Yan'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. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY RAPPORT? WHAT ARE THE PRACTICAL WAYS TO HELP ESTABLISH RAPPORT? Rapport means a close or harmonious relationship in which the concerned people understand each others feelings and communicate in a better way. Inside a classroom, establishing rapport between the teacher and students is very much important. It plays a very crucial role in...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas In this blog post, we will consider some important educational background theoretical and practical knowledge. The planning of a lesson for speaking skills (one of the two productive skills) requires us to look first at the ideas of accuracy versus fluency. We will start by defining our terms. 1) Speaking accuracy relates to the correct usage of grammar and vocabulary. 2) Speaking fluency relates to our ability to continue speaking without any interruption, such as thinking what the next word should be. If we consider language learning in general and an ESA style lesson in particular, then within the whole lesson fluency and accuracy are equally important. With an ESA lesson however depending upon which stage we are in during that lesson,...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Tuya Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Bazhong 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. Before I dive into this topic and try to answer the above question, let me quickly draw your attention and provide you some examples on how different teaching online is from teaching in person. In case you teach in person, you need to drive or travel when you have to teach. In addition, you need to bring textbooks, worksheets, activity sheets all printed out in enough...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zhitian Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Xianyang 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. Over the course of this certification program, I learned an abundance of information and methodologies, but none as important as the ESA outline; the ESA methodology is, undoubtedly, the best thing I’ve learned from my TEFL course. The ESA procedure provides a myriad of benefits, engaging learners in a series of dynamic activities aimed to create a seamless and...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Duanjia Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Baoji 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. For many years, English teachers have used the PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production) as the preferred teaching model. However, since 1998, with the book by Jeremy Hamer « How to teach English », a new method has been in use: ESA (Engage, Study, Activate). In this book, the author had elaborated the methodology and in depth the use of these 3 elements in teaching...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Linnan Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Dezhou 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. A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. Having a carefully constructed lesson plan for each 3-hour lesson allows you to enter the classroom with more...  [Read more]

Shirin Sophy TEFL Information Alumni Experiences In today's cosmopolitan world, the noticeable necessity of mastery over foreign languages apart from one's native language is motivating manifold people to consider improving this particular ability which results in an increasing demand for language learning courses and services. Among the major purposes of language learning, communication and language production are definitely much more measurable and outstanding, specifically through productive skills, including writing and speaking. In terms of pedagogy, the following is a suggested procedure that can be taken into account while teaching productive skills after the engagement phase is applied and learners are ready to start the study phase. Exposure to the target language in the format...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Kindergarten students are at the "Beginner" phase of learning English. Therefore, you must treat the students and the learning experience in a fun and appropriate manner. Being kind, friendly, and entertaining is vital for young learners and your rapport as a teacher. Building a good rapport is essential to truly provide the best English course and helping the Kindergarteners progress throughout the semester. Since the students are so young and open to learning, talking only easy, simple words are beneficial to them at the moment. Do not go into further detail in the time being. They are beginners and need to learn the absolute basics before going into further detail about grammar. Your role as a teacher will be to observe, teach, and be a model for the...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Mashanzi Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Binzhou 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. As we all know, a ESA class means Engage, Study and Activate phase, which is widely used in most classes.in the class, we teachers pay attention to how to attract students, how to motivate students, how to make the language point clear and easy to understand, and how to make the opportunity to use it. All of these are we need to make sure that play well in the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during class time. Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. Having a carefully constructed lesson plan for each 3-hour lesson allows you to enter the classroom with more confidence and maximizes your chance of having a meaningful learning experience with your students. A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates three key components: Learning Objectives, Learning Activities, Assessment to check for student understanding. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Elorm D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Meizi Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Ankang 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. A class of mixed ability is a class which has students with different abilities learning in the same class. This is not an easy problem to solve, and there is no simple solution. The solutions to the problem depends on cooperation between the students in the class. It is necessary to stress the need for teamwork and for the class to use English wherever possible in...  [Read more]