Short-term- Create a list of quotes, songs, images, videos, and more that inspire you to be a great educator. Share this list with us. Then let us know where you will place these sources of inspiration so that you will see them daily and they will fuel you with the passion and motivation to be an inspired educator.
Long-term- You have other personal goals to accomplish. Begin to find sources of inspiration for those goals and place them where you will constantly see them. Begin to have rituals such as running …Continue

A query: In the new world order where students have access to smartphones and thus both pocket dictionaries and the Internet at all times, how do we teach them vocabulary acquisition skills? How do you convince a student to bother trying to guess a word’s meaning from context if they feel they can look up any word anytime? What’s the point of pre-teaching vocabulary before you do a reading when the students can get the definition of every word? How can you tell a student to keep a vocab notebook …Continue

Short-term-  Think about a student or colleague you wish was more motivated. Share with them the traits and things you admire about them. Talk to them about their strengths and help them find ways to share these strengths with others. Post what happens in a blog. If you don’t have a blog please post any of your creations on Twitter using the #30Goals hashtag or as a comment on this blog.
Long-term- In your curriculum, include projects where students get to be creative and show other talents. Try getting your colleagues …Continue

Hadn’t expected to find time to do another 30 Goals post so soon after the first one, but I had a great class today that led me to come right home and blog about a highly inspiring group of students I had once.
This was a group of students I had had before and found a bit rowdy but intelligent and serious. I was teaching them in an essay writing class. We had been talking about thesis statements the class before and I was planning to quickly review it and then …Continue

I’m a bit late to the game but I do like the 30 Goals project so I’m going to try to keep up. At the very least, I’ll do them on my own schedule. I hope the community aspect will encourage me to find the time to blog, which is one of my New Year’s Resolutions, along with finding time to do a lot of other things that aren’t work, sleep or zoning out. So here’s a mishmash of things that I think are important in the English language classroom, …Continue

In honor of National Grammar Day, and because of some of the thoughts that I’ve been posting on recently, I thought I’d post on how I approach teaching grammar.
First of all, we need to view grammar not as a set of rules that must be memorized, nor as something that stands outside of other aspects of language. Grammar has to be taught in some kind of communicative context. Having students fill out worksheets where they put the verb in past simple doesn’t help them to use the language. And it’s …Continue

An interesting article that refutes some of the newer pedagogic theories of learning. It seems like more and more teachers move away from testing students. Partially because we move farther away from believing that the value of education is in testable, objective measures. And also because those who do try to force teaching and learning into objective measurable criteria are technocrats and bureaucrats who link testing to sticks and carrots. Furthermore, there seems to be a snowflake trend in child-rearing in general that we shouldn’t put any kind of stress …Continue

This is an article that’s being posted around the Interwebs from the New York Times: Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age.
Interesting points in it for teachers and students to keep in mind. Like Wikipedia (besides not being a serious academic source) is not common knowledge. You do have to cite it.
While reading this article I was thinking of how we teach students not to plagiarize. Usually we focus on rules and citing styles and the penalties for plagiarizing. Maybe we should focus more on why plagiarizing …Continue

I got interviewed for a great blog primarily on children’s literature called Wontok Check out some of my philosophy of teaching and how I failed a ninth-grade class (as a teacher, I failed them. Not that I gave them all Fs).
Also I met Heidi via the TESOL Core Certificate Course. I had heard bad things about online classes and awful things about CELTA and other teaching certificates. That they were too basic or taught only one style of teaching, a lot of touchy-feely stuff, the instructors were all bitter …Continue

I’m currently enrolled in the TESOL Fundamentals of English Certificate course and one of my fellow students posted the most wonderful metaphor on teaching beginning students:
You have to help the students break the ice with the language
For me that brought up the perfect image of shy students terrified to make a mistake or overwhelmed by how little they know, trying to just get to know English. It’s a lot like being at a party with a group of people you don’t know. At first, it’s terrifying, but gradually you break …Continue

Students learning a new language often have moments of low self-esteem. They make a lot of mistakes, they can’t communicate as well as they would like to, and they are sometimes subjected to humiliation by teachers or fellow students. So one great way to build up that confidence is to remind students that they are accomplished in many areas. The Expert Game is a great lesson plan that makes students discuss a topic they know well or a skill they have mastered. In this way their confidence is boosted, they …Continue

Another work related lesson plan and one that kids love is Odd Jobs. In every country and culture every kid wants to grow up to be a fireman or a policeman or the President or maybe a businessman. But who wants to be a bus announcement reader? Or a circus cleaner? Who gets these jobs and what do these people really do every day?
This lesson plan gives students the chance to play the role of someone with a Truly Odd Job and imagine what they do every day, in the …Continue

One of the big issues I have as an English tutor, particularly when I do private lessons, is that I never know where that line is between meeting the students’ needs and just doing whatever they want. For example, right now I’m teaching an IELTS course. I firmly believe that studying every day (6 days a week) for one and half hours, is too much for an IELTS prep class. Students need time to reflect and do other things with their brains. Plus I find that 75% of students who …Continue

Another fun vocab building lesson plan, the School Slang Lesson Plan teaches American school traditions and socialization while also introducing kids to teenage slang and terminology like freshman, sophomore, detention, midterm, prom and jock. A lot of your students have been exposed to American teenage movies, and they will love to discuss exactly what all the slang they’ve heard means.
Also this lesson uses pictures to teach idioms which is a great tool to help kids remember new vocab and phrases. Because idioms don’t translate literally, and sometimes metaphors don’t …Continue