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~~Planning and executing effective lessons is of course an extremely important part of teaching. The teacher should always ask themselves the following questions:
 What is the objective of the whole lesson?
 What is the aim of this activity?
 How are learners working together?
 Who is speaking to whom?
 Is the time being used efficiently?
The focus of any class should be on developing the communicative abilities of the learners. Ideally the speaking ratio should be 30 percent maximum teacher (TTT) and 70 percent minimum learners (STT).
As such teachers need to consider the following when planning lessons to maximize learner-learner interaction.
Groupings
Whole Class Teaching: This approach is fine for controlled activities and can foster a sense of belonging in the classroom. However it can restrict learners from saying their own thing or can make them feel exposed if they are talking to the whole group (consider the culture of classes you are teaching). Also the transmission ...

~~ASEAN Now - Weekly Wrap, http://www.thestartv.com/programme/asean-now-weekly-wrap/, is a week’s worth of news that made the headlines across the Southeast Asian region in one quick and easy take.
In this article, I present some ideas that anyone can use to stimulate interest, guide students to understanding, encouraging them to try to listen to news programs in English and foster a more global view of the region and the world. With AEC (ASEAN Economic Community) coming into effect in 2016, the ASEAN nations have entered into higher level of collaboration. This also makes the region the third largest economy in Asia and the seventh largest in the world. So, it is useful for all students to learn English through current events that are happening in ASEAN.
These are some of the reasons an EFL teacher would want to use TV news in their classroom:
• TV News stories are short; usually lasting 3-4 minutes each. Anything longer than 10 minutes is often difficult for language learners to ...

 
“To travel is to live” these are wise words from Hans Christian Anderson. They inspire young individuals to travel far and wide building their confidence and experience the world.
Becoming an English teacher by obtaining a TEFL certification the only question left is “Where to travel”? Don’t worry, because this article is going to help.
 Here is a list of 5 countries with huge demand for ESL Teachers. So, stick around, and find out, you don’t want to miss out on these great tips!
 
Beautiful weather in Thailand
Let’s start with a country that has the best weather in the world. Thailand has a unique culture that is breathtaking. Although it’s not the richest of countries, they make up for it by investing in private schools and ELS.
It is safe to say that because of that there are positions available for every type of English speaker. A degree is all you need to get a work visa.  Check it out here for more details jobs.movinhand.com/teaching-english-abroad/thailand. 
Working in large ...

According to Lucia Capocchione, play keeps us vital and alive and it gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable. Without it, life just doesn’t taste good. Play is an integral part of childhood and an early childhood education is extraordinarily affected by naturalism. Thus there is no preferred route over fusing recreations and play in the technique for instructing kids. Play can drag the eager personalities into the classroom material in an all the more fascinating route and in addition it helps the children appreciate what they are realizing. Play consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. The pre and primary teachers training makes the trainee teachers aware of the salient features of this method linking play and literacy effectively.
Playing promotes parental empathy for the developmental capabilities of young children. It is also the best method to apply their day to day lesson in their practical lives as they are constantly learning from various problem solving ...

The 21st century classroom should be an environment of student-centered spaces. Good-bye desks! Good-bye front of the room where the teacher stands and the students watch. Hello, change!
This is not a new concept, in the early 1900's Maria Montessori, an Italian physician, educator and innovator, established her well-known educational method. As a psychiatrist, with an interest in education she approached this method with the awareness that children will learn what they need to on their own. This makes sense, if you think about it on an instinctual level, in order to survive, learning is essential. And failure is our best teacher.
Our pupils need a space that is set up to enhance their learning, not meet our teaching demands. But what about the demands they place on the teacher to have every child meeting every learning standard by whatever date they deem necessary? I've never met a teacher that agrees with this demand. However, I see classroom teachers scrambling to cram in this ...

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. - Henri L. Bergson
Teaching is pointless when behavioral objectives are not highlighted and employed. They are performance indicators that determine the effects of learning. They direct how the learning process should be administered in a formal or non-formal classrooms. Their effects can generate feedback on how reinforcement, remediation, and development can be designed. With a few of these significance mentioned, every educator has to advocate and develop consciousness concerning their presence in all pedagogical operations being undertaken at any instructive setting regardless of any specialization in the academe.
Behavioral teaching objectives belong to three domains which are cognitive, psychomotor and affective. Cognitive is where knowledge are attained. Psychomotor generates physical skills out of the knowledge while affective leads to attitude or values displayed by learners after knowledge acquisition. These three ...

Pursuing a teacher training program in order to have a fulfilling career as an ESL/EFL educator is a mandate nowadays, as good schools and other educational and grooming organisations prefer recruiting trained ESL/EFL aspirants for their learners. Anyway, a trained teacher will always be better and more competent and knowledgeable than their non-trained counterparts, and here lies the primary reason for preferring trained aspirants. There are two types of TEFL training programs available for the aspirants – in the in-class mode and online mode. Both have their set of advantages and disadvantages; however, since this is the age of technology where our lives seem to be functioning highly on it, as it is making our lives easier and smoother, hence we will here focus on online TEFL programs offered by the various training institutes today.
Online TEFL (Teaching English as a foreign Language) courses are beneficial for the candidates who are all busy and occupied with their present work ...

~~Warmers are fun and communicative, they should take around five minutes, be very simple to set up and are a good way to review or practise language. They are not an opportunity to present or learn ‘new’ language. They should energise the learners rather than dominate the lesson.
Learners need time to ‘warm up’ in English at the start of each lesson. By varying your activities and making them brief and purposeful learners will be more energized and focused towards dealing with the target language of the lesson.
By varying warmers the learners can be kept on their toes, interested, focussed and extends their knowledge. Always using the same warmer can be repetitive and often result in the same or similar language being produced week after week. Warmers should energise the learners rather than let the warmer dominate the lesson.
Below are some ideas for warmers, these can be adapted for different levels and learner types.
Ball Throws
Stand learners in a circle, say your name “My ...

Finding yourself in a dilemma due to grammar rules while writing is quite embarrassing. No one wishes to get stuck in this situation. Though, grammar is tricky, but you cannot make your writing sophisticated without learning it.
Do you always wish to have someone around you to do grammar check of your writing? Do not worry; you are not the only one. Many who are learning English always wish to have an English teacher to correct them whatever they write. However, it is not possible every time.
Why do not you take the help of the tool that does grammar check free? It corrects your piece of writing and highlights your mistakes. The finest thing is that you come across where you committed wrong.
Common Rules That You Must Keep In Your Mind -
You must use a free online grammar checker to make your text errors free. Here, some of the most common mistakes have cited below.
1. Homophones -
They are words that hold different meaning, but sound the same. Before using them, you must come across ...

Introduction 
Since the dawn of public education teachers and schools have focused on the academic achievement of students. All students were expected to leave school with basic reading writing and math skills. Some kids excelled and went on to institutions of higher learning, some were trained at a trade such as carpentry, or auto mechanics, and still others left school with those basics and worked at more labor related jobs such as factory or office work. Everyone who left secondary school did have the basics just at different levels. Every student may not have had the capacity to go to college but just about everyone finished school and had the ability to function in the real world. With the onslaught of state mandated testing in so many school districts throughout the country teachers are still pressured to ensure that students achieve but the landscape has changed and hitting the bull's eye is far more difficult than it was say forty years ago. The bull's eye is tough to hit ...