Reaching a TurningPoint
A form of classroom audience response software
I’m sure that every teacher reading this will be able to think of at least one time when they looked over at their charges and felt a sense of unease, maybe even despair, at not being able to get through to them.
Games for large unruly classes
Should games always have a pedagogical value? No.
Some of these appear in different versions and with different names on Dave’s ESL Café, but most of those were designed for smaller classes in countries like South Korea and Japan and don’t work very well with larger groups in Southeast Asia.
EFL Teaching in Thailand (and elsewhere) part two
What’s the best and the worst class you’ve ever taught?
As promised, here are some of the lighter moments that I have been privy to in my time as an ajarn in Thailand; a time that, give or take one or two visits elsewhere, has lasted about twelve years. To be honest, I don’t have to think that hard to come up with memories of my good classes as they spring to mind with relative ease.
Writing your own readers
Why not design your own student reading material
Let your textbooks dictate the level and style of language to use and only introduce new vocabulary if it’s cool and/or funny. Students have a nice habit of always remembering these types of words.
Repetition
An argument about what students really need
Most of us are faced with the same challenge: large class sizes. We can’t do anything about this other than work with it.
The 3-4-3 principle and the importance of repetition
Putting students through their paces
Each lesson has four sides. I lift one side. If by the end of the lesson the students know what is under the remaining three sides, I do not repeat the lesson
Yes, it's official
Thais can be just as good at English as Khmers, Vietnamese and Laotians but
English is a compulsory subject in Thailand. But class sizes are normally large. This leaves little or no room for one-to-one dialogues.
If miniskirts were shorter
Modes of dress among Thai female students
As skirts get shorter and blouses get tighter, I find myself siding with the Thai sticks-in-the-mud on this one. What are the reasons for this sudden prudishness?
Making learners
How learners learn
Each learner and each learning experience is unique; yet educators can identify patterns in the learning process. Designing effective learning requirements requires a clear understanding of, and attention to, both commonalities and differences in the learners and the learning.
Rules and goals for the EFL classroom
Be Informed — when a student walks into my class he/she needs to be ready
Student behavior is nothing more than the rules teachers establish to govern students. For many teachers, these rules have one thing in common - they all begin with the word "NO.” The problem with this rationality is when a teachers states what cannot be done, no positive statement is made as to what will be done in a class - all negative rules do is highlight the bad.
