Little learners can be a big challenge online, but they also can provide the most rewarding lessons. Here are some of my reflections about teaching VYLs online, and what I consider the must-haves in an online VYL or YL lesson
It's that time of year again, and after 2020 I decided my learners need to finish this year on a high so I decided to put together an online Christmas lesson (which can also be easily adapted for face to face learners) to celebrate the much loved Christmas tradition of..... advertising.
Now that the dust has settled, online teaching is fast becoming the new 'normal' for many of us and the knee-jerk emergency teaching measures are slowly being replaced by a renewed drive for ways of delivering quality lessons. One observation from the last two months of teaching online is that at times the digital platform [...]
Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Tinder; digital photos are everywhere. It seems like a lifetime ago when we were able to do anything we wanted without the threat of it being immortalised thanks to someone's smartphone. Selfies have become so ubiquitous that the thought of asking someone else to take our photo in a beauty spot or [...]
As I lie on my sunbed with my toes covered in sand and nothing but my two small children to disturb my daydreams, I can truly understand the importance of maintaining a good work-life balance. While this would appear obvious to most, it’s something that as teachers we tend to forget as the lines between personal [...]
While thinking of ways to reduce our environmental impact, as part of a scholarship opportunity which I'm sad to say alas for me wasn't successful, I started to think about rethinking my whole approach to teaching to take the paperless classroom to the next level. While my idea went no further in the competition, I [...]
Part 3 of the Key English Test (KET) focuses on communicative interaction, students need to choose the correct responses in a dialogue. This sounds easier than it is, as it's not just a straight forward question-answer match, but requires students to know a range of conversational phrases, as well as having good analytical abilities to [...]
Dependent prepositions are a crucial part of English. Being able to correctly use them with their adjectives, verbs or nouns is important, not only for the speaking and writing exams but also in the Use of English paper, particularly in parts 1 and 2 where a good knowledge of dependent prepositions can help you to [...]
Successful communication hinges upon the ability to express yourself, whether it be by spoken fluency, gesticulation, music or art. Having lived in Italy for the past ten years, more feelings and messages are conveyed through a series of body movements than through the accompanying stream of loud and passionate words that follows them. In fact so [...]
Art is a wonderful medium to use in the ELT classroom, it has so many incredible benefits as well as being fun and engaging. So here are 10 ways that you can use art in your lessons. Dictadraw Dictadraws are a great way to get students explaining things. It can be the teacher describing a [...]
2019 finally seems to be the year when people are standing up and taking notice of the devastating effect we are having on the environment. The entire ELT industry seems to be finally taking a little more responsibility for its environmental impact and, as we step away from the photocopier and embrace more environmentally friendly [...]
The Cambridge Young Learner's Flyers exam includes two different types of cloze activites where the students' grammatical and lexical knowledge is tested. Activities such as this one below will help students to think carefully about language patterns and to notice the most common ones which regularly come up in these cloze exercises. Download pdf version [...]
Learning lessons from TEFL 