Lindsey English

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences From the 60-year-old successful businessman who has never studied English to the third grader who is learning it for the first time in a school setting, each student has their own motivation and background. Their unique experiences will dictate what they bring to the table and be a factor in their success or difficulty in learning English. Understanding what brought the learners to the classroom, will help a teacher tailor the lessons to be most beneficial to her students. This includes understanding their culture to a certain extent, specifically as it relates to faux pas or misunderstandings that could arise in the classroom setting. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lindsey D. Beginners who are in a school setting often do not...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching English one to one can have many benefits for the students as well as the teacher. It is a way to create excitement and provide a motivation to learn that is more personalized to the learner. This individualized way of teaching gives the teacher the ability to discover where their student’s abilities and their interests lay. By being able to know the students on a deeper level, they can help shape their lessons directly to meet the student’s needs. These direct lessons, in turn, can aid in the student’s ability to improve their English. Teaching one to one can also benefit the teacher, as they will only need to plan for the individual student, not for thirty students, and classroom management may be easier to address with one student. This...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas When teaching a class of students, teachers may discover that when they are trying to explain or introduce a new concept or segment of work, they are talking for more time than their students are. This can consequently reduce the effectiveness of the lesson and in turn result in a poor experience for the learners, as well as not equipping them properly to communicate in English outside of the classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lindsay K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The method I would use to minimize this problem would be a combination of drilling and simplification exercises. While teaching, I would employ the use of a prompt sound to force student...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas A motivated student is a student who is eager to learn, and that means they are much more likely to absorb and retain what they are being taught than if they were disengaged or disinterested. This is why it is so important for teachers to foster motivation in the classroom and engage their students to be open to learning before the start of each lesson. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lindsay G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. There are many different techniques teachers can use to get their students in a learning mindset. Some common and effective approaches are mental warm-ups like word games, vocal activities like singing, and physical activities like movement...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Imagine a student walks into English class for the first time and sees the teacher [a woman - solely for example’s sake] fumbling for a cord and searching for an outlet because her lesson was based off a slideshow on her laptop, which ran out of battery power and she wasn’t prepared to have to plug it in. The student might get a negative first impression of the teacher, possibly thinking she’s disorganized and maybe even doubting her competency to teach the class well. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lindsay G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The above example illustrates the importance of being prepared in the classroom, particularly with respect to managing...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas My personal opinion is that teachers should not “punish” students for bad behavior. That said, I also believe that if words or actions transpire in the classroom that is not allowed, or are inappropriate or disruptive, the teacher should address the situation to reduce the risk or likelihood of it happening again going forward - however, in a positive, constructive, solution-based way. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lindsay G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Punishment can take many forms and degrees, from being sternly spoken to, being assigned extra work, having a reward or privilege taken away, being sent to the office or detention, or worse. Although often...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences Technology these days is evolving at a massive pace. As a product is released into the market, newer versions or updates follow almost simultaneously, making previous versions obsolete. Back when I was in school, the only technology we had was the basic computer, calculators, VCR players and slide projectors. In a few years, technology allowed us to learn through apps on our smartphones, compact and more user-friendly laptops, tablets, and so on. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lindsay S. Computer-aided-learning is vastly used across the three C's - curricula, courses and countries. Right now, it’s all about the cloud. With IaaS, PaaS and SaaS (Infrastructure / Platform / Software as a Service), educators can create customized...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Like we all know, the English alphabet has 26 letters. These 26 letters can make 44 different sounds or phonemes – 20 sounds come from the vowels a, e, i, o and u; and 24 sounds come from the remaining 21 consonants. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word. If we consider sounds made simply by the letter ‘a’ for instance, in the word ‘apple’ – it’s /ae/, in ‘car’ – it’s /a:/, in amount – it’s /a/, and so on. This, consequently, makes English a non-phonetic language, which means that the pronunciation of a word is not dependent on its spelling. Now in order to pronounce a word correctly, we need to get three factors in it right - vowel sounds, consonant sounds and syllable stress. In this...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teachers of ESL will often find themselves in charge of a class with students at different levels of proficiency. When this happens, the teacher needs to know ways to adapt and manage the class and activities in a way that benefits all the students. The stronger students could become bored if the teacher caters to the weaker ones, and, reversely, the weaker students could become demotivated and feel forgotten and left behind when they cannot keep up with the advanced students. So how can a teacher make sure all the students get what they need from the class? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Leigh K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Joe Budden, in the article "Adapting...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Jishan 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. When I decided to design a lesson I wanted it to be as coherent as possible. The purpose of every lesson plan is to communicate. Every single lesson plan guides the teacher in organizing her material and herself for the purpose of helping her students to attain the intended learning outcomes. Your lesson plan must not be interpreted in many ways; otherwise it will be...  [Read more]