The “skills” in English language teaching are: reading, writing, listening and speaking. These are sometimes broken down into sub-skills.
Each one requires a different approach, different exercises and activities, and different assessment. Some students will have a bias towards one or more skills and in a very general way, some nationalities will also. This depends on how they have been previously taught as well as how their mother-tongue compares to English.
The articles here look at the different skills in TEFL and how you can deal with them as a TEFL teacher.
Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), who wrote under the pseudonym of Charivarius, was a Dutch writer, traveler and teacher. In 1922 he wrote The Chaos (also often known by its opening line, Dearest Creature in Creation) which is a poem featuring around 800 of the most awkwardly and counter-intuitively spelled words […]
One Word Speeches is a very simple activity which needs very little preparation but which is highly effective in giving your students practice in all four skills, especially listening and speaking. It is very flexible and in different forms it works for both beginners right up to highly advanced students, […]
Non-Threatening Debates are ideal TEFL debates which can be held in class and then voted on. The idea is simple. If you get your class to debate a hot topic (e.g. anything political or religious) then students can get very emotional and carried away. Because they are often emotionally involved […]
IPA Decode is a great game to play with the class which helps them understand and use the IPA or International Phonetic Alphabet. It can be used with a reasonably proficient class who are familiar with the IPA already and who would benefit from a little more practice. Preparation Firstly […]
Guess Who is a simple ice breaker which can be used on the first day of class. There’s little preparation and it can easily develop into a chat or discussion with more advanced classes. All you need to prepare this activity are small strips of paper; say two for each […]
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