The English teachers voice

There is a time-old belief that teachers teach, and students listen and learn, but, in today’s world, our students need to learn skills that are far different from those that were required in their parent's and grandparents' days. Today’s students will enter a world where one day they will be required to work autonomously, and the next day, to be a commensurate contributing member of a team. How will they ever be prepared for these challenges if we do not initiate the correct learning process in the classroom? It is for this reason that today, for an English class to be successful, it must have certain characteristics; 1. Today’s classes must be student-focused. Unlike days gone by, professionals today need to be able to perform to a high standard in all situations, and this requires them being educated and prepared in a way where they are given a voice, in a way where they are able to freely use their intelligence to evaluate, plan and create. For us to be able ...

I love to watch my students review what they have learnt in class through games and challenges, but the question is, how can we quickly review what we have previously taught them without affecting their class schedules? For some teachers, many classes begin with revision. Personally, I like to begin many of my classes by revising what I taught the previous lesson. My favorite activity for revising vocabulary, which I am outlining in this article, takes just five minutes, but it makes a huge difference to students ability to retain what they have learnt. The following activity is based upon something that was shared with me many years ago, and over the years, I have altered it to suit my classes, my students and my methodology. I hope that you find it interesting, and are able to adapt it to suit your own classes. : This is an activity requiring students to be in pairs. Prepare a set of 7-10 basic, but level-appropriate questions for each pair. They need to be questions...

Teaching Conditional Sentences: Methods for making them easy to understand and teach. Conditionals  can be a confusing aspect of the English language, both for native and non-native speakers. Different languages approach conditionals in different manners, so EFL lessons that address conditionals will be interpreted differently by students depending on their native language. This article covers the concept of conditionals and suggests teaching methods that could be implemented for your students. Defining Conditionals Conditionals are  sentence structures  that explain a particular situation or circumstance and its consequences. If this happens, then that happens. Conditionals are commonly referred to as "if sentence structures" because they often contain the word "if." In my experience, conditional forms should be introduced to students once they have learned the basics of the past, present, and future tenses. While there are four conditional forms, fi...

All of us, as teachers, have faced the situation, many times, of asking our students questions and receiving either complete silence, or short, muted responses. For a teacher, who in most cases has spent valuable time in the preparation of the activity, this can cause a variety of feelings and responses. The question is, How do we rethink, reform, restyle the questions that we ask in class in order to receive the enthusiastic answers that we seek? How do we get the enthusiastic replies from our students that we need so that we successfully achieve our objectives? What do you do when your question is met with complete silence and looks of confusion?  Pre-planning and framing questions in a correct manner, and scaffolding the right kinds of responses can help teachers avoid those awkward moments of silence when their students just dont know how, or are unwilling to answer their questions. Let’s look at a few ways to prevent those long, difficult moments of silence t...