Teaching to the test
Standardized tests are primarily associated with large-scale tests administered to large populations of students.
A standardized test is any form of test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from common bank of questions, in the same way, and that is scored in a “standard” or...
Why Are Teachers Underappreciated?
Most people have a kind of metaphor in their minds when they think of teachers and what they do. They see something like a conduit. Educators are people who know things and can pass that information along in the same way a pipeline moves a fluid from one location to another. In this case, the “fluid” is knowledge or...
Is it possible to learn a foreign language online?
I always wanted to learn foreign languages especially French, Italian and Spanish. Alas no time…Getting two university degrees, working and raising my two sons was not an easy task.
My first attempt to learn French was quite an experience. It was some ten years ago when I enrolled in a French course...
What is teaching and its future?
Where does the word ‘teach’ derive from?
Origin
According to Oxford Dictionary ‘teach’ derives from old English tǣcan which means ‘show, present, point out’, and is of Germanic origin. It is related to token, from an Indo-European root shared by Greek δείχνω ‘show’, δείγμα ‘sample’.
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In theory...
Improve Classroom Behaviour
We need a culture where pupils learn from their behaviour mistakes as much as from academic ones. I have no issues with the fact that clear structures need to be in place in schools to challenge negative behaviour and promote positive behaviour. In fact, children who have the most extreme emotional and behavioural needs are...
How do you restart, refresh and refine your English?
More and more adults are signing up for English classes either to receive a certificate, refresh their long-forgotten skills or just be able to use English for professional or personal reasons. While teachers might think adults will be ‘easier’ lessons because they are mature, more disciplined and know...
Do we need coursebooks?
Coursebook selection and evaluation is a complex and multifaceted task. Especially at a time when the market is inundated with a host of coursebooks for the teaching of English as a foreign language, selecting a suitable coursebook becomes a critical process, since it can have an enormous impact on students’ engagement...
Teaching Young Learners
t takes a special person to teach English as a foreign language. It takes an even more special person to teach English as a foreign language to young children.
Young learners can be a real pleasure to teach because they do not feel stressed by their studies and approach everything with youthful innocence.
At this point in their...
Graded Readers: an underexplored thesaurus
My interest in Graded Readers began when I ran my own language school back in the 90s. I made a very brave decision at that time; I inserted a course between the end of one level and the beginning of the next to improve skills, using one Reader over a period of a few lessons. I had realised that students were...
To Test or Not to Test? That’s the Question
For many people testing is a symptom of a very sick education system because all our educational energy is taken up with covering the content of the test, developing test taking strategies and preparing the students for their exams. Where, in all that, is the education of the individual?
There are lots of...
Supplementary Materials, Do they work?
Course books are regarded as the core of teaching materials in the classroom and serve as pivotal role to facilitate the instructors’ teaching in the classroom. Penny Ur has described a textbook as a principal basis for instructors to follow on a systematic manner to carry out teaching in a language course.
What...
SHOULD WE FOCUS ON TEACHING OR CONTENT?
We live in an era where everything (almost) is instant. Social media, the internet and technology in general has made us seek for instant approval, instant satisfaction and instant everything. If you want to buy something you go to Amazon or Skroutz and in a few clicks your order is processed. If you want instant...
In the past two decades there has been a temptation to simply try to get through formal and foreign language education unscathed, to focus on the language exams success data and get the best possible place in the local market place. But this short-term outlook is a barrier to genuine improvement of the human resources we have in our country.
In formal...
Developing Reading and Listening skills
The current edition of ELT NEWS focuses on Reading and Listening. Listening is receiving language through the ears. It involves identifying the sounds of speech and processing them into words and sentences. When we listen, we use our ears to receive individual sounds (letters, stress, rhythm and pauses) and we use...
May's issue focuses on professional development and adult learning. But what is learning? How do people learn? What are the principles of learning?
Who does not want to acquire new skills and master new material more easily and with less angst? Who does not want to feel satisfaction, and the sense of achievement in mastering something?
The key to...
Writing is a key component of language and it remains a real-world skill. Writing well is really a big challenge for both native and non-native students. In general, it is much bigger with the students of English as a foreign language. Students nowadays have very little interest in writing which is so important to fulfill the education requirements. This...
March's issue is dedicated to the skeleton of any language, grammar. Our contributors explore the art of teaching grammar and try to investigate if learners actually need grammar and if so what kind of grammar lessons do they need.
In addition, we look at how we can build rapport with our students, how we can use feedback and teacher evaluation for our...
A comprehensive guide to language exams with tips from examination bodies, oral examiners and teacher trainers.
Tips for
Pearson Test of English
ECPE
LanguageCert
KPG
STYLE
TIE
Classic International ESOL
Speaking Skills: How to motivate adult learners at B2+ level
The Effect Of Speaking Topics On Candidate Performance
Communicative...
Issue 330 (December 2017) marks the end of 2017 with fun Christmas activities for the classroom. Being the end of the year we look at the most popular read articles of 2017 on our site.
Our contributor George Knoring gives tips on how to help students tackle text anxiety. Ms Melponi Ioannidou teaches adjectives through Instagram while Cliff Pary takes...
In November's issue we look at Language Certification, the role of Language Tests as well as the whys and the why nots of sitting for an exam. In addition our contributors, Dimitris Primalis and Marina Siskou tackle the problem that we often face with writing assignments and how to spark the learner's interest for writing.
We also talk to Nigel...
