James Hallworth is currently a Student Leader, he is supporting a team of seven volunteers from Edge Hill University in Thailand. James has put together this blog post to help current and future volunteers with teaching, as even the most experienced teacher can freeze and panic in an unfamiliar environment! So give his tips a […]
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Teaching Advice: Ice breakers
Having a number of icebreakers up your sleeve can be incredibly useful! They can be used initially to warm up a class or to form a ‘break’ between sections of a lesson. They can be used as a way to introduce yourself to a new class or to introduce a new topic. Entering a new […]
TEFL ORG UK
Worried about teaching English overseas? Don’t have much experience of teaching? We have teamed up with TEFL ORG UK to offer all VESL volunteers a 23% discount of their on-line and practical courses. To find out more about their courses, download their brochure. Interested? Just send us an e-mail ([email protected]) and we will pass your […]
Songs : Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Songs are a great way of learning a language. They help with pronunciation, vocabulary and rhythm. And kids (and adults) love them! Particularly if there are actions to go with them! The kids really won’t mind how terrible you are. Trust me, I’m terrible and they still ask me to sing (again, and again, and […]
Student Talk Time
Increasing student talk time is a very valuable thing to do in a second language classroom. Here are a few ways of helping to make that happen. Ensure that all students have the relevant vocabulary for the lesson. In this example we had been looking at places in town: bank, hotel, museum, library, police station, […]
ESL Letter Cards
My favourite teaching resource is letter cards. They are cheap and easy to make. They’re versatile and the kids love them. What you Need: A list of words Coloured card (4 or 6 different colours depending on how many sets you’d like to make) Black marker pen You can also do it with white card […]
Use a Dictionary
English is my native language. In fact, English is my only language. I studied English through secondary school and did English Literature as part of my University degree. I have a TEFL certificate. And when I teach English I take a dictionary with me to every lesson. Many teachers of English abroad (particularly in Sri […]
ESL Teaching Materials To Buy In-Country
It is tempting to take an enormous amount of stuff with you when you go overseas to teach but there are many reasons to not do this. You don’t want to carry a large suitcase with you when you travel. It’s better to see what the school has and what the school needs before you […]
Using Art to help teach English
Here is a story of some primary students at a school India from a volunteer who had success using art projects in the classroom. “The students were quite disruptive and could be a handful at times. The school was in a poor fishing community in Kerala and many of the students came from very difficult […]
Visual Aids for ESL Teaching
When I arrived at my new school, many classrooms didn’t have any visual aids on the walls. I thought it would great to create a few engaging, colourful displays to help stimulate the kids and it proved to be a get way to get them all interacting with me. Here are some ideas for visual […]
