The way I see it

I saw an article recently about the benefits of non-native speaking teachers in ESL and I had to admit it was quite interesting. One of the more interesting parts was that many of the points raised were ones that I agreed with and had experienced first hand with my job here in Malaysia.  Without any further ado here is a list of 5 benefits for a non-native English teacher. They understand the difficulties of adapting If we look at language in a cultural standpoint there are many conceits and practices in English that don't exactly translate. It is true that it is the teacher's job to guide the students through this but sometimes that added level of personal experience helps the message come through clearer. They know all the same terms. Maybe this isn't a huge deal but I have seen that non-natives usually know all the terminology right off the bat, which is a great resource for learners. They know all about non-defining clauses, subjects, objects, etc. Where did they l...

There is still a lot of debate as to which of these two certifications is best for teaching abroad and I have noticed a lot of elitism for both certification. Before I toss myself in the debate I think it is best to clarify the terms. CELTA What is it? CELTA is the Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (wait shouldn't it be CTESOL then?) which is endorsed by Cambridge ESOL and is only available via endorsed centres.  In many countries it is offered by the British Council and surprisingly the price varies where you take it. What do you learn?  Long story short you learn to teach.  The material is broken down into five sections and goes through the basics of language learning with some focus on the CELTA methods for learning and preparing lessons. There is no formal exam for CELTA just written assignments and practical teaching of 6 hours. At the end participants will be given a "pass" "pass A" or "pass B" TESOL Wh...

Here is a video I put together to explain the difference between 'advice' and 'advise'

Here is our latest video please enjoy!

I've been working on some writing materials for a course I am supposed to be teaching next week, so I thought I would get the ball rolling by making a post about basic paragraph structuring. What is a paragraph? The most basic thing to learn when tackling writing a paragraph is to understand the relationship between the components and understand the definition of a paragraph. Our end result is the paragraph but before that we must have some sentences, those sentences are made up of words, those words come from ideas, and hopefully our ideas have a theme or topic. To sum up a paragraph is a bunch of words on on topic organised into a series of sentences. Simple right?  What are the parts of a paragraph? So glad I asked because I have a picture just for this: So Informative Many learners do not pay close enough attention to the impact that a good topic sentence can have. In order to have a good topic sentence you must ensure that you have indeed made a logica...

There are many ways to learn English vocabulary words and every teacher has a favourite tip or tips. The methods vary greatly from dictionary osmosis to memorised lists to simply reading and they all work for somebody! I am going to discuss this my way. I love lists and I teach so here are five ways for ESL learners to learn vocabulary. 5. Create a word journal. This may seem like an obvious thing but grab a notebook and jot down words as you learn them. Add a definition and an example sentence and you have got a personal dictionary. The good thing about this method is that you can check exactly what you have recorded and learned. 4.  READ!!!! I know this sems obvious but for a lot of learners it is not! The first rule of reading is to find a book you will actually enjoy. Reading takes time and you won't get anything out of a book you don't enjoy. Second rule is to pick a book that is at your skill level. A great deal of students that I have interacted with try to ...

Today I was reading about Oxford's 'word of the year' and apparently there are many words of the year out there. First fishy thing is that it seems to be up in the air whether or not Oxford dictionaries actually endorses this word.  The LA Times reported it was from Oxford, while wikipedia says the Oxford list isn't from Oxford but from an employee! Strange to say the least, but I don't care I trust Oxford so I'm only gonna focus on them official or not! There are also two different words of the year: one American and one British.  Do we really need two versions of the latest hip word or phrase. Apparently we do. Onto the American word: GIF. WTF is this actually a word?  Well sort of.  It seems that people have started to use this word as a verb ass in "I'm gonna GIF that freak out Adam just had."  personally I have never seen this usage, Hell I never really heard anyone talking about GIFs in years so what do I know.  According to the article ...

I can never express how important it is to read... and I'm not just talking about my blog here.  Reading is critical for some many reasons! As an educator it is an absolute chore to get any student to read.  Why you ask?  Glad you asked that... it is really quite simple. People are lazy.  People are lazy and don't want to take the time to invest a couple hours in reading.  Reading is a multi-faceted exercise we learn from it consciously and unconsciously, it helps with our lexicon, it helps with our compositions and it fosters our imagination.  It can also help you learn cool words.. like 'lexicon'.  I read a lot and I read a bit of everything.  Right now I am reading textbooks which is not so much fun but I can still figure out a lot of interesting things from them me getting paid to do it is just a plus I guess.  So far I've gone through the two lowest levels of books and I am on to the 'pre-intermediate' level.  I've alr...