I remember being a child and feeling so confused as I read the Bible for the first time, trying to make sense of words like thee, thy and thou shalt.
It all felt Greek to me.
In fact, I never …
Back when I was in high school, teachers often labeled me as defiant and a troublemaker.
The thing is, I wasn’t particularly bad or disruptive.
I just needed to understand why we were expected to follow certain rules.
Of …
My first ESL sports lesson can be described in four words:
Swing and a miss.
I made the mistake of teaching sports lessons straight from the textbook and not finding ways to use sports to engage with my students.…
Are your students not getting your “Smelly Cat” references?
Or do they act completely oblivious when you shout “we were on a break!” at the end of each class recess?
If so, you might need to add some “Friends” into …
Looking to fill awkward silences in your EAL class?
Wracking your brains to come up with unplanned activities on the fly?
Sometimes your lessons might go a little too well.
Students breeze through the textbook exercises in no time, and …
Remember back when you were a student, when lessons were taught using chalkboards and overhead projectors?
It’s amazing that we learned as much as we did using such Stone Age technology in the classroom. I remember scrambling to write down …
Ever had one of those uh-oh moments that completely ruined your lesson?
One time when I was still training to be a teacher, I had lost my lesson plan minutes before my teaching assessment thanks to a computer outage. As …
It takes a special kind of person to teach kindergarteners.
I learned this lesson on my first day of teaching at an English academy for kindergarteners. I thought I was already prepared for the job because of my experience with …
Ever feel like there’s more you could be doing for the environment?
Every few weeks, I like to wake up early on a Saturday morning and pick up trash along the beach. But no matter how often I do it, …
Um… uh… well…
No matter your native language, you’ve probably had one of those moments where you just didn’t know what to say.
Maybe it was when a professor called on you while you were daydreaming about your weekend. …
Have you ever had an interview that was an absolute disaster?
The first interview I had after graduating college was with a marketing firm. I showed up to the meeting unprepared and overconfident.
Then they asked me which project in …
As a kid, I remember waking up every Easter morning to a basket filled with chocolate and sweets.
I also remember eating as much candy as humanly possible, only to pass out a few minutes later from an intense sugar …
Tired of hearing “What?!” or “Huh?” or “Repeat!” in your ESL classroom?
I was too.
At first, it was really awkward for me.
I was confused why my otherwise lovely students seemed so irritated.
While usually polite and friendly, …
How about waking up every morning to Shinto shrines, cherry blossoms, beautiful mountains…
And getting paid for it?
Like many countries in Asia, Japan is looking for adventurous people who are qualified to teach English and want to experience life …
Ready to brew up some video activities for your ESL class from scratch?
It’s okay if you’re thinking, “No, not really.”
Maybe brainstorming fun and creative ways to use video just isn’t your teacherly cup of tea.
But remember, when …
As a kid, I used to bring comics to school.
I’d read them when I should’ve been paying attention in class.
But as an English teacher, I used to hate comic books for the same reason.
Children and teenagers would …
For some people, Christmas is their favorite season.
And when I was teaching English in South Korea, Christmas was my favorite time of the year to lesson plan.
It was a time when I was allowed to move away from …
As a kid, I absolutely loved going to school during Christmas time.
It was that one time of the year when everything was relaxed and teachers focused more on holiday-themed activities than textbook material.
But when I first started teaching …
What’s that I see under the tree?
It’s not very big.
It doesn’t make noise when you shake it.
Go on—unwrap it! What is it?
A pre-made, all-in-one ESL Christmas lesson plan for your classroom?
You must’ve been very nice …
As a student, did you ever glance at your biology or chemistry textbook and wonder if the language you were reading was really English?
Back in college, it was all Greek to me.
(Though, to be fair, some of the …
I once had a student who ended every sentence with a rising intonation.
When I would ask her how she was doing, she would respond, “I am well? Thanks?”
To be honest, before I started teaching her, intonation activities never …
Can you spot the differences between these two adult English students?
They both start learning English as beginners. They both do well on vocabulary and grammar assignments. Each week their conversational skills make noticeable improvement. They’re learning those conjugations …
I was originally opposed to the concept of language labs.
I thought they were impersonal, outdated and not as effective as having actual face-to-face instruction time. I thought of the language labs I knew as an early ESL teacher and …
With the world becoming a more connected place, the demand for English speakers is at an all-time high.
This also means there’s a higher demand for skilled English teachers to teach people how to navigate the English-speaking world in various …
Remember movie day in class when you were a student?
It used to make me dance at my desk.
For most students, it’s exciting to see that TV rolled in or that projection screen pulled down. It means there’ll …
Early in my days as an English teacher, I was once thrown into a classroom of elementary students without any prior preparation.
How do you think that went?
As you would expect, it was chaos.
I had no idea about …
I had that nightmare again last night.
The one where I’m standing in front of my ELL class with a huge, horribly dusty old textbook.
No one is paying attention. No one turned in any homework. I say to myself, …
I remember the first time I stood in front of a classroom full of teenage ESL students.
They were apathetic, tired and clearly didn’t want to be there. Every day, my students would come to class with the same …
Did you ever have that one teacher who went the extra mile?
When I had a teacher who devoted their time to developing exciting material, I was much more engaged in the learning experience.
The lessons and homework …
Harvard professor Howard Gardner came up with the theory of multiple intelligences.
This theory states that individuals learn differently, and what works for one student might not be as effective for another.
Unfortunately, many of the ESL curricula …
