New teacher abroad? Six vital teaching tips

As one term finishes and before we start the next, it's a nice time to reflect on not only the year just completed but also one's career to-date. After seven years of teaching English in five countries I can certainly say I've had a journey, and in the process learnt a lot about myself, the classroom, the English language itself and what it really takes to teach it effectively. Here are six tips which I hope will help encourage and guide anyone preparing to embark on their first trip abroad to teach English as a Foreign language or for anyone more experienced...

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Summer TEFL: Tips and Strategies for success

Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) has become a popular career choice for many individuals seeking to teach at home and abroad. With the demand for English language proficiency continually on the increase, TEFL teachers are in high demand and Summer TEFL programmes offer a range of opportunities...

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ChatGPT and English Teaching: Should we be scared of Artificial Intelligence?

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last six months or making a sustained effort to avoid news media altogether, you have probably heard about ChatGPT, the recently-released and Microsoft-backed Artificial Intelligence program. Produced by the non-profit OpenAI. ChatGPT and its rival Bard, produced by Google, have been making headlines this year due to their groundbreaking use of AI to perform a variety of functions in response to requests made by...

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Adults with Autism in EFL.

Estimates for the number of people with autism range from 1 to 2 percent of the population worldwide. The rate of diagnosis has been rising, which doesn’t mean that it’s becoming more prevalent necessarily, but that more and more people are seeking a diagnosis for themselves or their children. Late diagnosis in adults in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond is also becoming more widespread as new research has lead to a better understanding of the condition. In recent years, high profile personalities in the UK such as TV presenter Chris Packham have gone public with their diagnosis in order to raise awareness...

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Power, Politics and Cultural Stereotypes in the EFL Classroom

Keeping politics out of the EFL classroom is not as straightforward as it may seem. Even the most politically correct of EFL teachers can unwittingly reinforce or challenge stereotypes and power structures in subtle ways. This can be done through their choice of course materials, language exercises, role-play activities, seating arrangements or just in the way they communicate with their students. In some cases, these factors will be determined largely by their employer and will have different implications depending on the teaching context...

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Teaching the Smartphone Generation

Who remembers the Nokia 3310? I got my first phone when I was 12 and it had the Snake game on it, which at the time seemed very cool. Today’s children get their first phone much younger of course, and have the entire internet and app stores at their fingertips, as well as the world of social media. Sadly, for every individual utilising free educational apps, tracking their daily footsteps or jogging route, or looking up vocabulary on translator apps, there are many more watching YouTube and TikTok videos, engaged in mind-numbing and attention-span-crippling...

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Lemmings Online: The Great Leap Forward

After months of uncertainty, cancellations, and a frantic reorientation to online classes, IPT (In person teacher) jobs are once again being advertised. We will soon see whether the crisis really has permanently let the online learning 'genie out of the bottle'...

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Midsummer Madness - The realities of working at Summer Camp

If I had to choose one word to describe working in a summer camp, it would have to be INTENSE. Don’t get me wrong, my experiences at summer camp have always been overwhelmingly positive, but certainly not easy or relaxing compared to teaching year-round. I worked for 3 consecutive summers at a camp based in Edinburgh, Scotland and one year in Castellon, Spain. In both cases the camps were based at large residential schools, outside of the city and I found the day-to-day structure to be pretty similar. The only notable difference being that...

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Transitioning from the in-person to the online classroom

Working from home, flexible hours, customize your own classroom – becoming an online English teacher is so appealing, and there are lots of opportunities to get started. In this article, I will go through some of the most important changes and considerations I had to make when moving from the in-person to the online classroom. I believe that the rapport with students and sharing in students’ success is very similar, teaching online can be a very rewarding experience.

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The Surge to Online Teaching

There is a mini-crisis looming in the world of English Language teaching. Most companies which play in this area are still operating on the traditional business model. They have very expensive training centres filled with very expensive teaching staff, delivering very expensively designed and created training courses – always run on a very expensive computer network and displayed on different sizes and shapes of displays, some small and basic, some large and interactive, but...

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