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Learning a language is a complex and long process as anyone who has tried will agree. One of the most difficult and frustrating things is making the transition from the classroom to the 'real' world. In the classroom, everyone knows you are a student and mistakes are allowed, and the environment is contained and safe.

A year of teaching English to twelve-years-old children in Vietnam has provided some insight into some of the special areas of difficulty which derive from fundamental differences between their mother tongue, Vietnamese, and the language of the Anglo-Saxons. Language students everywhere have a problem in preventing the structure and tone of their native tongue intruding on their efforts in using the new language, and the problem is magnified when the two languages are so widely separated in every respect.
The Vietnamese language consists of short words that can have as many as eight different meanings depending on the tone of pronunciation. A word can be spelt with the same letters but differences in tone are indicated by diacritical marks placed above and below a vowel. Most words in Vietnamese have only three or four letters and almost none has more than six, so one might expect that the spelling of English words, which are often much longer and with irregular spelling, would ...

The world of today is run by computers and it is time that teachers understand this. The idea of going to a library and reading a book is not ideal to the students of today. Students would rather go online and read into a subject on a webpage rather than go and have to read an entire book or have to skim for the part they are looking for. So, if your a teacher what are you to do?

When people speak or write, they try to find the best way to describe what they are referring to. Using details to explain things makes the topic more interesting, as well as easier to picture and understand. Sometimes, it gets a little confusing trying to think of descriptive words and to remember how they work. In these moments, you may find that you need a little help.
There are websites that explain how and when to use descriptive words and give many examples of great word choices. Words used to describe other things are called adjectives and adverbs. While both add description, they work a little differently. A quality website that instructs on the proper use of descriptive words will use numerous models to show the differences in how the words are used.
Adjectives describe pronouns and nouns, such as people, places, things, and ideas. Questions that can help you remember adjectives include: which one? How many? What kind? These are questions that can be answered with: that... ; ...

This article describes the process of using consciousness-raising activities in your classroom, and gives a rationale for their use for all levels, particular in EFL.

The Productive Skills - Speaking

Somewhere between scholarly studies of how people learn and the frontline experience of teaching, the issue of how TEFL/ESL learners actually acquire and keep language is confronted in activity design. Language practice activities come in many forms...

At our popular Breakthrough Strategies to Teach and Counsel Troubled Youth Workshops, we always let the course participants name the problem areas they want to cover during the in-service workshop. We can always count on teachers asking for ideas for classroom management and control. Nearly every teacher has had moments when maintaining control over the class was difficult or impossible. Some teachers tell us that their class has actually gotten out of control. Here's help.

Using the Experiential Learning Cycle as a framework for training TESOL teachers can have many positive outcomes including on the confidence and competence of each individual participant. The stages of the ELC framework are explored along with its benefits.

There is always the possibility that some students will try to discover a little too much about you or try to make you feel uncomfortable by asking increasingly personal, inappropriate, or silly questions. This is especially true when you start teaching a new class as the students are trying to test your boundaries and see if they can get you uncomfortable and upset. This type of behaviour needs to be dealt with swiftly or you could risk losing control of your entire class.