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 donts 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!
March is an interesting point in the school year and its significance varies depending on your location.
In countries such as Japan, students will finish their studies for the year while in Korea ...
Adult learners can be a pleasure to teach because they are usually more self-motivated than other ESL students.
They often choose to study English to help them in their careers or with other pers ...
Adult ESL learners may not have a lot of time outside of class to devote to their English studies but assigning homework once in a while can be beneficial. Having students complete exercises at ho ...
“Maria sits in the ESL classroom and understands most of what her teacher and classmates say. In fact, she knows most of the answers to her teacher’s questions. But she never raises he ...
Providing feedback throughout lessons is important. It is something that will become second nature with just a little bit of practice. Feedback should be used to encourage students to work ha ...
Both pair work and group work have a place in ESL classes.
Using a variety of seating arrangements and groupings of students is important as it allows learners to practice different types of thin ...
Young learners, those attending preschool and kindergarten, will not have any personal reason for studying English.
It is simply another subject that they have to study at school or that their pa ...
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method that was developed by James Asher in the late 1960s, with the goal of helping students acquire a second language.
The main assumption is that a second la ...
What you wear as a teacher depends a lot on where you work, who you work for, and your students.
Regardless of what the requirements are, you need to be comfortable. Since you are active and stan ...
Many ESL teachers that are native English speakers have little to no teaching experience before being placed in a classroom.
This may be true for recent graduates who have degrees in education to ...
Teaching ESL or anything else for that matter can be a challenge.
Classes do not always go as planned, students may not behave well, and planning, teaching, and grading is a lot of work. In spite ...
As with any lesson plan, the details can make a big difference in how your students respond in class and how comfortable they are using new material. Keeping that in mind, there are lots of things ...
Most ESL teachers need a coursebook to follow. It gives us a structure. It gives students a structure.
But it does not give us fun, engaging speaking tasks. At least, most coursebooks don’t ...
Teachers always need to have an activity or two on hand in case a lesson takes a little bit less time than expected or does not work out exactly as planned.
Some activities that work well in one ...
Some time ago we wrote about using the Internet in TEFL/TESOL. We also looked into teaching English online and discussed the advantages and pitfalls of it. Today we’ll take a look at differe ...
Throughout lessons, teachers have to ensure that students are paying attention and understanding the material. Conducting comprehension checks will highlight what students are struggling with and ...
Students can use “used to” or “would” to talk about actions in the past that they no longer do. Since behaviors change over time, this is an excellent structure to use when ...
Reported speech is used to talk about things other people have said. Instead of introducing this topic using a range of different tenses, stick with a very simple structure for this first lesson. ...
Once students have learned cardinal numbers, you will have to introduce ordinal numbers as well. This lesson should not directly follow the one on cardinal numbers because students need a lot of p ...
Students often have a difficult time knowing when to use gerunds and infinitives.
Even at the intermediate level, this is typically not covered extensively and lesson plans instead focus on very ...
Personal pronouns can be used to replace nouns acting as subjects, objects, or possessive markers in sentences.
For each of these uses, there is a different set of pronouns so students should be ...
Teachers often give students plenty of time to practice answering questions without dedicating sufficient practice time to asking them. For example, Crisscross is a very simple warm up activity wh ...
When we think about teaching a new class, the first things that come to mind are all of the curricular aspects: the grammar, structures and vocabulary we’ll cover throughout the course. Our ...
Teaching assistants are an enormous help both inside and outside the classroom.
With another set of eyes in class, things often run more smoothly while having some extra input can make lesson pla ...
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