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.
The IPA or International Phonetic Alphabet is an alphabet of sounds (not letters). It is used to show how to pronounce words. Using the IPA in your class is a useful tool to give your students. It will help them understand the pronunciation of English words they find in the […]
Intonation is the system of rising and falling levels, as well as variations in pitch sequences, when we speak. People don’t talk in a monotone (unless they’re very boring) but instead there is rising and falling in what they say. In other words, intonation is the melody of speech. Intonation […]
English is an international language which people from all over the world learn in order to communicate with each other. Accuracy and Fluency are two factors which can determine the success of English language students in the future. Essentially accuracy is the ability to produce correct sentences using correct grammar […]
What is the difference between Accent, Dialect and Language? This article looks at the differences between the three terms. People often confuse them and there is a certain degree of overlap (even linguists don’t always agree on what the difference is between them) but generally speaking we can talk about: […]
Minimal Pairs are pairs of words (and sometimes phrases) which differ in their sound by just one element. They are an incredibly useful tool in the TEFL teachers’ bag and if you haven’t started yet, you should learn about them and use them! Mostly minimal pairs are used as pronunciation […]