Return to Simplicity in the Language Classroom

I have recently attended two local online events, namely the conference Učíme jazyky online and an event organised by the Digitální lektoři duo. Both events were very useful, enlightening and actually served as a wake-up call for me. I had recently been through a professionally strenuous time, teaching a Business English course and a Czech-for-foreigners …

Advertisement

Ten Ways of Using Pictures in the Digital Classroom – Focus on Form

This article is written both for my colleagues that teach EFL and CzFL. It is in English, with some occasional explanations/examples in Czech. The underlying principles should be the same for each of the languages. Over the years, some of my most faithful students, both for EFL and CzFL have reached an upper-intermediate level, breaking …

Tweaking Instructions for Groups to Reduce my Workload

About a very simple solution to a problem I had in class and should have thought of first place. I teach a course called English for Educational Purposes at one Czech university – two groups of 30-50 students in their first year of study, studying to become teachers at vocational schools or career counsellors. I’ve …

Course Planning: Removing the Guesswork

It seems to me that most of the posts I write are about course planning. The other day though, a Czech teacher of English asked in one of our private Facebook groups how to plan a conversation course in English; and I realised there can never be enough written on planning courses, especially those where …

Another Handful of Handy Handout Tips

I’ve recently started using some cool hand-out strategies that I’d like to share with my regular readers. As you know I wrote another post on worksheets which was fairly popular and I guess everyone likes useful tips so here’s a quick post. How to save paper I am at a risk of making a fool …

What’s the Question?

Can you hear the silence? Do your learners ask you questions in class when they want to know something? They do, really? Until recently I thought mine certainly did. But last week a student confessed after class, in Czech, that at the start of the lesson she’d wanted to ask me about the health of …

More Notes on Creating Syllabi in Small Courses

I’m really into thinking about complex, sound course syllabi for my private courses. Besides my other hobby, writing worksheets for my classes and forcing my colleagues to try them out, thinking about “what we’ll learn” on a course is fascinating. That is to say, I’m not so much into collecting activities and whenever you ask …

Beyond conversation in one-to-one classes

When you get hired to teach somebody one-one, it is probably because the student wants individual attention and lots of conversation and speaking activities. They might even tell you “not to bother preparing, because all they want is conversation”. Well, I advise caution. Private lessons are very expensive these days and we, teachers, should provide …

How to “Cook” Home-Made Worksheets

“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.” -- Julia Child I have been going on about home-made worksheets for so long here and there that I suppose it is about time to share with you how I do it. Firstly, what do I mean when I say "home-made"? It …

Dialogue Procedure in Beginners’ Classes

Today a friend/colleague asked me if we could go over her lesson plan before her observed class. As we did, I realised I use different techniques for teaching dialogues than she does and thought they might be worth sharing. Also, following the hoo-ha of my two latest posts, I’m writing a humble, practical text to …