Teacher Stories

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories are universal. They have existed in every culture and every period is known to modern man. From Neolithic cave art to Homer and from Virgil to Dostoevsky, humanity has been enthralled with stories. The most successful speakers constantly engage in bard-like tale-bearing, and, oftentimes, the songs that most resonate with listeners follow a story arch—albeit loosely. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ryan S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Total enthrallment with television and movies proves this theory to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt. People like stories; mankind loves them. It is for these reasons that storytelling has become a central part of...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Gaoxian Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Linfen 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 an international language and it is a global language. Most people use it in media, books and all kinds of technology. Learners who learn English in early age has easier way of communication, understanding and all aspects of life. Stories have power which can bring the young learners into a world of imagination and a colorful picture with many interesting...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Gucheng 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. “Oh the places you’ll go”! This is a title of a book by Doctor Seuss. I find this title a very good description to what happens to the mind of a child when he or she gets subjected to stories. Whether by listening to them or by reading them. Stories are the key to ignite a child’s imagination. Not exposing a child to stories is like locking him or her up in...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Xiaman Muchang? Are you interested in teaching English in Aba Zangzu Qiangzu Zizhizhou —? 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. Stories inspire language development and acquisition in childhood. Telling and listening stories, however, is not just for young learners. Storytelling can improve adults’ language ability and proficiency, too. As a facilitator for the classroom, the teacher can set up activities in which the students create and share their own stories. As a...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Gaodu Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Jincheng 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 one pictures a classroom of young children learning English as a foreign language, the basics come to mind: grammar exercise worksheets, new vocabulary on the board, the teacher drilling pronunciation and intonation and leading students into group activities. But when one thinks about the way a child develops their very first language, the exact opposite of this...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories are an important part of any culture, English speaking or not. They can be oral or written and can showcase how culture works and their history. Whether old traditional stories or new popular current stories, the tales we share with young children can shape their developing ideas and values. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rochelle L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. When working with young children in Early Childhood settings, stories help children to make sense of their world, safely express their emotions, and explore new ideas and values. For example, a story that focuses on friendships might help a child who struggles to make connections with others. A...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Storytelling in the classroom can seemingly be one of the most diverse and engaging ways to help students learn English as a second language. Storytelling for the purposes of this essay is a broad term that I am using to refer not only to students telling stories about what they did on the weekend for example but also using existing stories that are well known and loved, for example, Harry Potter or the Lion King. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jamie S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Firstly, classroom activities using storytelling when centered around the students are a great way for students to get to know one another. With appropriate facilitation, a student...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences "Our lives gain meaning only when we tell our story". -David Steindl-Rast. In our case, stories not only add meaning to our lives in general but are very important in rendering language learning interesting and creative as our specific subject essay will demonstrate. Stories are an effective model for learning the English language through which we can develop the four language skills writing, speaking, listening, and reading. So why and how stories can enable us to effectively learn the English language? First of all, the fact that we have nowadays a vast ocean of stories that tackle a variety of subjects and issues, makes it quite impossible for someone not to find a story that would captivate their passion and interest. This is an advantage, as...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas As a teacher, we often find ourselves daunted with the task of capturing our students’ interests and also equipping them for the future. Not only do we seek to train better students, but we also want to produce better citizens, workers, and future teachers. Teaching is still held the same purpose throughout all these years: bettering our future through the lives of our students. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Madison R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Although our methods need to continually be more thought-provoking, entertaining and motivating, our objective has not changed. We need to incorporate storytelling into teaching English for our early childhood...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Narrativity is ubiquitous in our lives. We encounter narratives in stories, both oral and written, in films, books, television shows, and comic books. Children become acquainted with narrative from a young age, and it is closely tied with the way they learn the language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Javier A. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Among other things, we learn a language to tell stories. We even often tend to think of our lives as long and complex narratives. Because of the pervasiveness and universality of stories, across geographical and cultural boundaries, they are a perfect vehicle for the transmission of language skills. Stories in other languages...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Ekou Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Xinzhou 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. No matter what age a person is or where they are from, there is something inside of us as humans that attracts us to stories. In the ancient days, story telling was used in order to pass down the history of a civilization. They relayed their stories orally, until civilizations began to write them down with pen and paper. We have come a long way since then, but stories...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Early childhood is the period from 0-8 years old, it is a time of remarkable growth with brain development at its peak. During this stage, children are highly influenced by the environment and the people that surround them. We can say further that Early childhood education is a branch of education that relates to the teaching of children from birth to the age of eight, therefore covering infancy, kindergarten and the early school years up to grades 3. So how does storytelling come in? Well, storytelling does a lot here because this stage is very crucial to a child’s early physical, socio-emotional, cognitive and linguistic development. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Chinenye M. Please note that this blog post might not...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Qingtuo Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Linyi 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. Ability to speak English nowadays is an important life skill in order to interact in the society. English has become a necessity for modern society in global life. In Globalization, English is a link between people all around the world (International). As a result, today there is no single field of our life that does not involve English terminologies. The community is...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Xiamen Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Jinzhong 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. Maintaining a story time in a child’s daily routine has no cultural boundaries; the universal act of tucking in a child and sending them off to sleep with narratives of princesses and heroes seems to bring comfort to all. Fictional tales are not only great for parents to bond with their children each night, but they can also help teachers encourage their...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas When I started writing this essay I found loads of interesting material on this topic and I think later on I will look for many more articles and books to learn more about this fascinating world of storytelling. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Olha K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. If you think about storytelling, you notice that the passing down of stories from generation to generation from century to century taught us history, culture, skills, and knowledge. “Thinking of teaching as storytelling encourages us to think of the curriculum as a collection of the great stories of our culture,” says Kieran Egan “If we begin to think in these terms, instead of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories provide a natural and relevant context for the exposure to English language and storytelling built on the children’s innate capacity for fantasy and imaginative play, making it an essential aspect to be integrated into language lessons. Beyond just language skills, students are also able to acquire critical thinking skills such as predicting, hypothesizing, categorizing, sequencing, and inferring meaning through various storytelling activities. Stories are also used to enhance children’s concentration skills and develop moral and emotional intelligence by teaching students to empathize with the characters in the story. Storytelling can be extended to include activities for children to retell, act out, and create their own stories. Therefore...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Pinglidian Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Yantai 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. Stories... we live in a world of stories. Every single day we have a story to tell. A funny story, a serious story, a scary story or even an upsetting story. These are the pictures we keep in our minds, like our own little movie playing in our heads. Attached to every story, is language. Language completes our story, it gives our story meaning. Teaching language...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Children are not born with a set vocabulary, yet it is something that they can acquire and build within themselves. Montessori stated, “The baby absorbs speech it hears spoken around it and with it says a word it says it because it has learned it by hearing it, and holds it present in the memory. It uses it according to its need of the moment”. Young children behave similarly. When children absorb language, they become better equipped to articulate thoughts and experiences. Children can express themselves more clearly. Precise language can render children independent in their ability to express their needs and emotions. In the early years of a child's development, the child must be exposed to rich language, this is a vocabulary that is precise and...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Tonghua 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. Stories. From a young age, virtually every child hears stories. From folktales to novels to family anecdotes, stories are a large part of language learning in nearly every culture. As such, it is only natural that stories be a large part of teaching English as a foreign language to children. Not only is it a familiar form of language acquisition, but it keeps...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Jianyinyanshequ Jiedao? Are you interested in teaching English in Guangyuan 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 included a lot of helpful links on every topic! The topics were related to kinds of creative, fun activities to do with classes of young learners. First there was songs, chants, and music, which emphasized learning through physical movement. Then the unit addressed using games for teaching. Next, the unit talked about using stories. Like songs,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Storytelling is part of life itself. The world we are and most of the things we know about creating the world all came through stories. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Onikoyi F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Storytelling has been one of the ancient and still relevant teaching methodologies to pass information and knowledge from generation to generation. History of the past, fabulous kingdoms, people, and cultures are all learned through stories. History as a subject at the elementary and tertiary levels is mainly made through storytelling. The story, we could say, is an account of imaginary or real people and events told for...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Jiedian 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. Ever since being a young child, there was always the fascination of reading, and books. Having being born in the country, with no television, radio limited to a half-hour radio serial per day, an era where personal computers, notebooks and iPads where only a dream of a fact of fantasy, walking past a bookshelf suddenly unveiled a myriad of secrets, an unexpected...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zhanggu Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Ganzi Zangzu Zizhizhou — Garze? 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. Unit 5 covers the different teaching methods and activities. The range of activities included games, stories, arts and crafts, seasonal activities, drama, and songs. I think the book did a great job in covering games and stories as it demonstrated how to adapt them into the lessons for children. Finally, the lesson also gave several materials to...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Baodian Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Changzhi 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. Stories is very important and has many benefits for the early childhood because the stories can be used to learn about a specific subject, expand the kids vocabulary, practice pronunciation, creativity etc. Depending on how the teacher chooses to use the stories in the classroom, it can support and develop the kids reading, listening, writing and speaking skills....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Stories... we live in a world of stories. Every single day we have a story to tell. A funny story, a serious story, a scary story or even an upsetting story. These are the pictures we keep in our minds, like our own little movie playing in our heads. Attached to every story, is language. Language completes our story, it gives our story meaning. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lindie N. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Teaching language is giving someone the power to add another voice to their pictures, thus enabling the person to share their story with someone in that specific language. in this case - English. For me, stories will always feel like an important part...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Dongxihe Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Guangyuan 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. There are so many things we can do in the class during teaching English: sing songs, play games, tell stories, do art work. Songs, music and chants are very effective for young learners. Songs provide opporunity for listening, reading and creative writing. Better combine them with actions. Games also can be adapted for classroom use. It's a good way to start the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Young learners, especially of kindergarten age, are the most challenging group that a teacher can ever teach during his/her career. They are curious, open-minded, enthusiastic to absorb, explore the world, yet forget as easily as taking in so it takes them much time to master a word/phrase actively. They have a vivid imagination but short attention span so they so easily get sidetracked or busy thinking that they forget to communicate and interact with others. That’s a challenge to help them develop their English speaking abilities at such a young age: How to help them gain as much useful language in a shorter time so that they can use it later in their daily life? How to encourage them (in a natural way) to express and share their thoughts more...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Readers are for sure leaders, not just merely for the fact of reading, but for the thinking process that comes with reading. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Gentiana H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. As an individual, I love reading. I love the smell of the book paper, the tiny letters and turning another page is something that I enjoy deeply. However, I didn't become an avid reader by chance. I become a reader because I was born in a family where reading was a natural thing. My father was a university professor and was reading all the time. My mother, an accounting expert, used to read laws and regulations to ensure that her work respecting the law. Also...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Dengshuang Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Chengdu 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. Reading is an important skill we all need to develop, but it is also a skill that many children find difficult or boring. As teachers teaching English to young students, we should also strive to instill a love of reading in children. Teachers should use books and stories on their classrooms on a regular basis and they can use this reading time to introduce...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Readers are for sure leaders, not just merely for the fact of reading, but for the thinking process that comes with reading. As an individual, I love reading. I love the smell of the book paper. The tiny letters and turning another page is something that I enjoy deeply. However, I didn't become an avid reader by chance. I become a reader because I was born in a family where reading was a natural thing. My father was a university professor and was reading all the time. My mother, an accounting expert, used to read laws and regulations to ensure that her work is respecting the law. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Gentiana H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]