Back to School Guide - Teachers

Getting ready to go back to school can be as simple as reviewing what you've studied or taught, or as difficult as learning new skills to prepare you for a new class. This guide to teacher resources and lessons at the site will help you prepare for the new school year.

Planning Your Courses

Appropriate Teaching Materials
A discussion of when to use authentic and teacher generated teaching materials for the class room.

Teaching Writing: Strategies
A focus on effective strategies for teaching writing to the ESL learner.

BRAIN friendly English Learning
Take a look at this exciting approach to learning/teaching English which focuses on using all areas of the brain while enjoying learning.

Conversation Tips
Discussion of strategies to help students improve their conversational skills.

Computers in the Classroom
A discussion and guide to using computers effectively in an ESL setting. Including a brief example lesson outline.

Guide to Teaching English (ESL, EFL, TEFL) for Non - Professionals - 1
Speaking English as your mother tongue does not a ESL or EFL (English as second language / English as foreign language) teacher make! This guide is provided for those of you who would like to know some of the basics of teaching English to non-native speakers of English. These basic techniques are useful when teaching friends, at a charity, on a volunteer basis, as a part-time job, as a hobby, etc.

Guide to Teaching English Basics for Non - Professionals - 2
Learn the basics to creating an effective learning experience for your classes or private students. This feature focuses on building a program for your class or private students based on language recycling, a technique that assures long-term communicative success. Use these guidelines to help you decide what should be taught and how to teach particular linguistic functions.

Principled Eclecticism
The art of picking and choosing your approach based on a student needs analysis. Includes an analysis of two example classes.

Setting ESL Objectives
Knowing exactly what you want is half the battle and can dramatically improve your learning curve.

Intermediate Level Syllabus Outline
This syllabus provides a general outline proposal for creating courses for intermediate level students. This syllabus can be easily adapted for individual classes while retaining an overall structure aimed at helping students acquire the language they need to communicate.

Elementary Level Syllabus for Beginner Level Courses
This syllabus is designed for a course of approximately 60 hours of instruction and takes students from the verb 'To be' through present, past and future forms, as well as other basic structures such as the comparative and superlative forms, the use of 'some' and 'any', 'have got', etc. This course is geared towards adult learners who need English for work and, as such, concentrates on vocabulary and forms that are useful for the working world.

Quick! Help!: Short Activities for the ESL / EFL Teacher
This feature serves as an introduction to a new section on this site dedicated to short, helpful activities to be used in those situations when you could use a good idea to help get the class started, or fill those inevitable gaps.

Teaching Beginners
Most ESL / EFL teachers agree that there are two types of beginning students: Absolute Beginners and False Beginners. This feature focuses on both types of beginners and includes a discussion of what to expect, as well as giving helpful hints on teaching both types of beginners.

Teaching Absolute Beginners - 20 Point Program
Teaching absolute beginners requires the teacher to pay special attention to the order in which new language is introduced. This 20 point program provides a syllabus to take students from speaking no English at all to being able to fulfill basic communication needs including; giving person information describing their daily routines and the world around them.

Here is a sampling of some of the over 100 lesson plans available on the site. These lesson plans are especially suited to beginning the school year.

Tense Review for Advanced Levels
Time for school to start. Before you or your students get down to studying the specifics of various grammar structures, it is a good idea to review the basic English tenses. If you are an upper level student but not yet aware of all the tenses, these exercises will make a good introduction to some of the important structures ahead.

Lesson: Tense Review
Intermediate level lesson aimed at inductively reviewing names and structures of basic tenses.

Quiz Lesson
People learn English for many reasons. Unfortunately, learners often think that there is only one way to learn English and that the same things are important for everyone. Students who are aware of why they are learning English can also be persuaded that different things are important for different learners. This lesson uses a quiz first and helps identify learners as:

1. English for Career Purposes Learner
2. Global English Learner
3. Learner Who Wants to Live (or already lives) in an English Speaking Culture
4. English for Fun and Pleasure Learner

Getting to Know your Classmates - Advanced
The following conversation exercise serves the double purpose of introducing students to each other and getting them to converse from the get-go, as well as reviewing the a number of more advanced structures that they will be working on during your course. This spoken exercise can also work well as a means of review. For advanced learners.

Getting to Know your Classmates - Lower-Intermediate
The following conversation exercise serves the double purpose of introducing students to each other and getting them to converse from the get-go, as well as reviewing the basic tense structures that they will be working on during your course. This spoken exercise can also work well as a means of review. For lower-intermediate or false beginners.

Debate 3: Is Grammar Necessary?
Try this debate with your class having students take viewpoints opposing what they really believe. Focus on the question of what is truly necessary for effective English learning.

Lesson: Vocabulary Charts
Help students improve their "long term" memorization of new vocabulary through the use of vocabulary charts.

Lesson: Vocabulary Tables
Lesson for intermediate to advanced students aimed at expanding vocabulary based on existing knowledge of terms concerning specific topics.

Short Writing Topics
The idea of this exercise is to get students to quickly write about a topic they choose (or you assign). These short presentations are then used in two manners; to generate spontaneous conversations on a wide range of topics, and to take a look at some common writing problems.

Using the Internet to teach English for Special Purposes (ESP)
One of the problems that faces many English as Second Language (read ESP, ESL, EFL, TEFL, TESOL, TOEFL etc.) teachers is that students expect the teacher to be incredibly knowledgeable about everything! By using the methods in the example lesson - actually you will probably need at least two lessons - you can give your students "real world" English for their specific ESP needs.

Lesson: Writing Descriptive Paragraphs
Intermediate to upper-intermediate lesson aimed at helping students develop a strategy for writing concise sentences leading to well-formed descriptive paragraphs.

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