U R Gay In Spanish

Linda Dunsmore Visa and Legal Destinations TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Traveling abroad is an exciting but challenging adventure, for anyone. Still, teaching abroad as an LGBTQ person often means traveling has some added difficulties. It is more than likely that your adjustment to a new country will include more than culture shock and a language barrier. LGBTQ teachers have to deal with a lot of questions before deciding to teach English abroad: However, there’s also a bright side. Equality rights have come a great way over the past decade in many parts of the world. The number of countries legalizing same-sex marriage is increasing - but there’s still a long way to go. It’s not fair to have to consider travel destinations based on your sexuality - but that’s the reality...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Qingshu Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Hanzhong 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 a native English speaker, my first major foreign language experience began in 8th grade, where I had the option of studying either Spanish or French. I chose Spanish, as I’d always been drawn to the language and Latin American culture, and hoped to one day live in a Spanish speaking country. I studied the language throughout high school, but in the years...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences As a native English speaker, my first major foreign language experience began in 8th grade, where I had the option of studying either Spanish or French. I chose Spanish, as I’d always been drawn to the language and Latin American culture, and hoped to one day live in a Spanish speaking country. I studied the language throughout high school, but in the years afterward, it wasn’t much of a priority and wasn’t something I used on a regular basis. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lauren M. In high school, our language classes were mainly structured around learning grammar and following the textbook. From time to time, we would listen to and translate songs in Spanish, or watch a movie in Spanish, and in some classes we would...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Spanish speakers from Mexico face several challenges for acquiring successful pronunciation skills in English. Many students here will have had at least some exposure to English through media and contact with American-English speakers, however, this does not mean that they will have a complete understanding of the phonemic system in English and how it differs from that of Spanish. This essay will briefly describe some outcomes stemming from pronunciation problems in students, followed by an overview of the basic phonetic and phonological differences between English and Mexican Spanish with examples and discussion around the rules that govern English word stress. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Matt B. Please note that this...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This essay displays my own experience as well as information from other (internet) resources. I work as an English teacher in Chile, mainly teaching professionals in the mining industry. Only 3 to 5 percent of the population in Chile speaks proficient English. The Ministry of Education created a plan to upscale the level of English and the percentage of English speakers in the country. They welcome teachers from abroad. Chile is a Spanish speaking country. Spanish speakers have a certain advantage when it comes to learning English, like the use of cognates. But they also have specific difficulties that need attention while learning English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Yvette O. Please note that this blog post might not...  [Read more]

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]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Parents have a definite role in the education of their children, especially if the language of the family is different from the target language of the children. Because of the closeness that should exist between parent and child, the first teachers in all areas of life should be the parent. However, due to the situations created in our society, this is not often the case. When one thinks of modern society, the difficulties that parents encounter in the role of the teacher can be seen. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Norris J. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Imagine the situation in which both parents have to work each day putting in long hours and then returning...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I would say the hardest part about becoming a Teacher is having the confidence to face your students in the classroom. I speak from experience because this was a challenge for me in the beginning when I taught Spanish as a foreign language. My students were primary and high school students, essentially just kids, but this intimidated me the most about my job. In time you will indeed and should become more confident teaching in the classroom, as the saying goes…” practice makes perfect”, right? However, there are some things a new teacher can do or be aware of to help increase their confidence in the classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Genoveve C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Beiji 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. Japan is a country with a long history, deep tradition, and vibrant culture. Within this culture sits the Japanese language. At first, being a spoken language and then adopting the Chinese Writing System, Japanese has grown and changed into what it is today. If you look at all languages, most Western languages originate from a set family, such as Romance Languages...  [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]

Tamara Jennings Teaching Ideas While there is great value in learning a second language, it can also be quite time-consuming. It also requires a good amount of patience and determination. Thanks to technology, the bright side is that learning doesn’t always have to feel like work! Continue reading to find out ways to use media to your advantage in assisting students with enjoyable ways to gain their target language skills. I love Spanish, and when I set out to really learn the language in 2019, I started by taking two college-level courses. These classes gave me a wealth of information on vocabulary, rules, and conjugation, but I still had no idea how to really use Spanish. I felt those classes didn’t really do much to teach me much about how to “operate” the language. Another...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Jifeng 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. English learners from Spanish speaking countries have some advantages over learners from Asia and even Europe. The Spanish language uses the same alphabet as the English language with very few exceptions. Spanish also has similar punctuation and grammar rules to English. Many of the Spanish speaking countries have similar values, beliefs, and cultural behavior that...  [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 Alumni Experiences Japan is a country with a long history, deep tradition, and vibrant culture. Within this culture sits the Japanese language. At first, being a spoken language and then adopting the Chinese Writing System, Japanese has grown and changed into what it is today. If you look at all languages, most Western languages originate from a set family, such as Romance Languages (which became today’s Spanish, French, Italian, etc). But Japanese (as most Asian languages) was formed from entirely different roots. These fundamental differences mean that the method of learning these languages has a lot to do with memorization and repetitive practice of the Chinese symbols and the words they represent. Which means it is difficult to find any common ground between it...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas For non-native English student in Spain, specific difficulties may be encountered when learning English. A good English teacher will help a student address those difficulties including, but not limited to, pronunciation, listening, and grammar. A good English teacher to non-native English students requires a solid foundation in the knowledge of English as the student relies on the teacher as the main source of the language. The student looks to the teacher for guidance and direction in order to comprehend English. The teacher must instill trust and display confidence for the student to learn adequately. These are difficulties in teaching English to non-native students in general. This post concentrates on the difficulties a...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zhongzhang 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. Summative Task I chose to write my Summative Task on 22. Peculiarities of the English language. I did not realize how difficult English is until I became fluent in Spanish. I am currently studying French and I am pretty good at French. I have a basic knowledge of Esperanto. English is difficult for several reasons. 1. English is not a phonetic language. English...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I did not realize how difficult English is until I became fluent in Spanish. I am currently studying French and I am pretty good at French. I have a basic knowledge of Esperanto. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Wayne K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I will just touch on each of these since a book could be written about each of these. Also Read: Teaching Young Learners vs. Adult Learners - The Differences You Can Expect I have found many poems(1) and articles on the internet discussing the insane way English is spelled and pronounced. On the previously sited website(ibid) an English instructor states that he has very often offered students €100 if they could...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I think of myself as having been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to learn other languages at a young age. I was taught French in primary school and at home, I learned or acquired Spanish. At school, I remember my language teacher being very textbook-oriented and she focused and followed the book to the “T”. I picked up easily on the grammar because I had already learned Spanish at home and I was also very keen to learn foreign languages, especially French. The grammar didn’t seem difficult or boring to me at all because I had already been exposed to the language at a very early age. However, many students didn’t feel the same way I did and had difficulty with the subject and therefore, developed a disinterest in learning another...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In the following essay, I have chosen to explain my late-in-life interest in becoming certified as an EFL teacher, based on my background with foreign language experience, which began at an early age. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Manuel GK. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I was what some would call an early bloomer. As a baby, my mother read to me at night until I fell asleep. By the age of 2, I could speak in simple but uninterrupted sentences with proper syntax. By a few months after my third birthday, I was able to read the same children's’ books that my mother used to read for me and speak more complex sentences with vastly improved vocabulary. Language...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In speaking of any language is global, and in our case, particularly English, several categories could be discussed to give us more understanding. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Frederic S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The first is the history of the language, where did it originate? If we say English was an obscure German dialect we can also say that without knowing more of the history behind it, there would be no way for us to plot its progression or understand its popularity. The second is the spread of the language, how and why did it occur? The third is economic, what were the factors that propelled its growth, and lastly, the cultural category. ...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The accelerated growth of English as a global language has made people from all around the world realize how important this one is nowadays, even in our everyday life we find English words and content wherever we look, technology, movies, tv, business, and internet are only some of them. Therefore, people from different nationalities around the globe, show a lot of interest in learning the English language. This time we are going to focus on Latin and Hispanic students and the challenges that these Spanish speakers encounter when learning English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dayana M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. People assume that the term Spanish speaker is...  [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 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]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences To finish the TEFL course, I would like to write on a topic that worries many EFL high school teachers in Spain: the lack of motivation, improvement, and participation of their students in the classroom. This is a topic that was widely discussed during my MA in Foreign Language Teaching. For this reason, I would like to take this opportunity to do some further research on this since I believe it's a topic of ultimate importance to all EFL teachers working in Spain. I will discuss how to solve this issue through the use of IT created to facilitate school exchanges. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ana Maria Serra C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Spain's Center...  [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 Teaching Ideas For this assignment, I decided to research problems experienced by Colombian students learning English. I will be teaching English in Colombia and thought this subject would benefit me. My findings more generally reflect the difficulties of Spanish-speaking learners. The paper outlines the top ten difficulties for Spanish-speakers learning English (vocabulary, spelling/pronunciation, subject-verb-agreement, verb tense, dialects, subject omission, pronunciation, stress, slang, and literal translations) based on CCJK (2019). Where possible I relate this information to my experiences/examples and units in the TEFL course. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate David B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Many students of English as a Second Language (ESL) find that, of the many struggles they have with the language, pronunciation is the most difficult to master. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sophie M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Pronunciation is an extremely important ability to have to sound more fluent in English. By gaining the knowledge and skill of proper pronunciation, an ESL student can come across at a much higher level of English ability and intelligence. However, this is easier said than done. In South Korea, for example, certain sounds aren’t used in their language but are used in English. Because these sounds don’t exist in Korean, students...  [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 Alumni Experiences For the past several years I have been working for a non-profit company that provides high-quality daycare and preschool education for financially disadvantaged children. The population we serve is diverse, but the majority of families in our particular centers are Latino. Although I am not employed in a classroom teaching position, I have a great deal of contact with the children and with their parents. Part of my responsibility is to conduct an intake interview with the parents to explain the policies of the school, and to do a health history of the child before he enters. These meetings take about forty minutes when the parent speaks English, and an hour or more if I need the help of a translator. This post was written by our TEFL certification...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences As the mother of a 3-year-old son, born in Spain to British parents, I have found that singing the same song in both English and Spanish has helped my son become bilingual. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Alessandra Fay B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Provided it is done in a fun and interesting way, James appears to retain information much quicker when presented to him in song form. For example, we sing the days of the week, first in English and then in Spanish, both to the same tune and he enjoys repeating these over and over. I have also used the tune from the song “if you are happy and you know it” to teach him different types of actions like, turn...  [Read more]