In this section there are 2,124 articles that cover essential ESL topics such as how to teach grammar, use realia, and teach young learners. There are also a lot of lesson ideas and fun activities included in the articles. This ESL article, for example, is about teaching grammar and describes five great activities. It has been given five stars by other busy teachers so it obviously has useful content. Check it out for yourself or take a look at other articles that relate better to your questions or teaching situation.
There are a lot of dos and don’ts and tips and tricks that many teachers learn through teaching.
Our ESL Essentials section will help you master the basics of teaching English and will help you start teaching like a 'pro'. Every ESL Essentials article provides clear, to-the-point instructions that can be used with the students right away.
At the moment we have 2,124 ESL Essentials.
Sometimes that is the best way to learn but the experiences of others can also help you develop your teaching skills without having to make the same mistakes. If you have a great story or activity, feel free to submit your own article so that you can share your knowledge with others. We would love to hear from you!
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ESL Articles
View our latest knowledgebase articles that will help you become a better English teacher. Learn from
professional teachers and put a bit of your own creativity into it!
Most of us hate those dreaded “We need to talk” conversations, having been on both the talking and listening sides.
They are, however, sometimes necessary when dealing with unacceptab ...
When talking about language, people say that they “speak French” or “know Russian,” as if these are monolithic forms without variation.
This is of course not true: there a ...
The office water cooler, that plastic dispenser of cold water and traditional place for employees to gather, is an icon in American culture, the place to take a break and share news and gossip.
T ...
You’ve passed the most difficult hurdle; you have scheduled your ESL teaching interview. But what should you know before you get there? How can you best prepare for the big moment?
Make sur ...
You walk into your writing class on the first day of the semester. Your students are sitting patiently with their textbooks and laptops, waiting for you to begin. But where do you start?
What do ...
Adverbs may not be the first topic you cover in your ESL class, but they are sure to come up sooner or later.
Once your students understand the basics of how this part of speech works, it’s ...
For many years I have been teaching English to non-native speakers, both around the world and in the USA, my home country.
Upon returning to the USA in Fall 2008, I started teaching at an Intensi ...
The ability to hold a conversation is a vital part of the human experience.
While most children develop a conversational repertoire by listening, observing, asking questions and interacting with ...
You've probably asked yourself this one simple question before: how do you teach a large ESL class and give each of your students the attention they deserve?
The answer is not as simple. Obviousl ...
Time flies when you’re having fun, and your students are sure to have a good time with these fun filled activities that teach prepositions of time!
Try These 7 Super Easy Activities for T ...
Speaking is an essential skill in learning English as a second language – most students agree that this is what they struggle with the most. Still, many of us focus most of our efforts on dr ...
Many students approach reading and writing classes with trepidation: seeing it as a place of endless harping over their spelling, grammar, and punctuation issues rather than a place to communicate ...
Occasionally in visiting another teacher’s classroom, I’ll be impressed by the order: everyone is on task, respectful, and knows what to do.
If they don’t, another classmate wil ...
One of my first teaching experiences was in a continuation classroom in California, which is a classroom filled with students who have experienced school failure in some way: truancy, poor grades, ...
Whenever I hear the word conjunction, a song from one of my favorite childhood television programs comes to mind.
“Conjunction junction, what’s your function?” I always loved gr ...
To voice or not to voice? That makes all the difference when it comes to English verbs and past tense pronunciation.
Regular past tense verbs in English may be easy to spell, but correct pronunci ...
Under, over, near, far…to, at, in, on…English prepositions of location may be the fodder for bad poetry, but more likely they are a key component of your beginning students’ En ...
Try These 7 Great Activities for Reviewing the Future Perfect Progressive
1
My Evil Twin
Have your students imagine that they each have an evil twin. Have each person share what his evil ...
Whether English is your first language or you are an accomplished second language speaker, dialect plays a part in how you speak.
Where we live and the people we hear play a part in how we learn ...
As teachers in the ESL classroom, we get to make all the rules, and we call the shots. Or do we?
Isn’t it a relief when we let go, and let our students make some of the decisions or provide ...
One challenge every ESL teacher faces is teaching his or her students correct pronunciation.
The sounds a person instinctively makes have been a part of their brains since they were less than a y ...
You have a class of talkers: they sit in small groups and will chat about anything and frequently about nothing, their speech filled with “like” and “you know,” devoid of a ...
As we strive to help students improve English fluency, words are one of the basic buildings blocks.
They are the principal carriers of meaning in speech and without them, students simply can&rsqu ...
Lots of ESL teachers complain that students don’t talk enough. They’re too quiet. They just sit there and don’t say anything.
There are several reasons why students are quiet, b ...
It’s sad, but by secondary school students are often already “burned out” on the educational process: they don’t see its value, see it as disconnected from the “real ...
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