Teaching Young Learners without resources
Even if you teach in a context without access to many resources, there are lots of ways you can teach engaging, useful and fun lessons.
Using your learners as a resource
It is important to get to ...
Responding to the Needs of Every Young Learner
“All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think.”
Sir Ken Robinson
Elementary school learners generally...
Teaching English to Young Learners
How can we approach teaching vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation to young learners? How can we create a supportive environment that encourages young learners to learn about and reflect on their ...
Conditioning Young Learners’ Class Behaviours
What do you do when off-task behaviours and student disruptions occur? Here are some things you can do to establish procedures and avoid disruptions.
Greet students at the door and give them a piec...
Exams - Tips for Success
Exams are an important part of the educational process, but they can also be a source of stress for many students. However, with the right approach, students can prepare and perform well on exams wi...
Education
Interviews
Special Sections
Teaching Tips
Fortune Cookies by Dimitris Maroulis
Exams
News
Exams & Exam Preparation
Relieve exam stress with practice tests
Practice tests can be an effective tool for exam preparation, and they are commonly used by students and educators to help assess and improve learning. In this article, we will discuss the benefits ...
C2: “The End of English”!
Exam Craze
For many decades, Greece had had the largest number of candidates sitting for C2 exams. Other countries with much larger populations were nowhere near the Greek candidature for this level....
How long does it take to reach C1 and C2 Level?
It takes at least 12 years in general for a native speaker to reach C1 level in his own language, so you can hardly expect that a teenage or adult foreigner can take any less than a decade to approach...
Extensive listening activities in the EFL classroom
No matter which language, listening has been demonstrated to be a crucial component of successful human communication (Rost, 2011; Rost & Candlin, 2014; Chang, 2018), hence a skill not to be negle...
What does it mean to be fluent?
Language learning is a marathon, not a sprint
The term ‘fluency’ in the world of EFL refers to the measurement of the ability one has to speak smoothly and freely without the need to pause and think ...
I Passed My Proficiency Exam. Now I Can Teach English!
“Hey Ms. Katherine! Now that I’ve passed my proficiency exam, I’m officially a teacher like you! I’m capable of doing your job, right? Besides, how difficult can it be?”
Woah there! Just hold your ho...
On Raising the Excellence Bar Teaching C1 & C2
A paradigm of excellence
It requires approximately 700 – 800 learning hours to reach C1 and 1,000-1,200 learning hours to reach C2 level. Since the discussion is on humanities, language, in particu...
A different approach towards B2 preparation
When someone listens to the word ‘exams’ instantly the mind shifts into long hours of studying, mock tests, demanding preparation, and pressure, both for teachers and students. It is true though that ...
Teaching Speaking to B2 Students- The “Building Block” Method
This may seem like an unusual introduction to an ELT article, but bear with me- I have a point and I promise I will be making it soon. You see, my two sons are huge fans of LEGO. They spend hours on ...
Creative Writing Through Our Senses
Are you looking for a creative way to get your students more enthusiastic about writing? Are you one of the many teachers who want to make their writing lessons more engaging and awaken your students’...
ELT Magazine Selections
Education
Habitat and Protected Areas Management in Greece
Natural ecosystems are threatened, and human life is endangered because of our unwise choices. The natural environment is bleeding, while at the same time there is a rapid destabilization of the glo...
‘Do students need more time to learn or do they need more time to play?’
When I was a child, my friends and I had two educations. We had school, and we also had ‘play education’. We played in mixed-age neighbourhood groups almost every day after school, often until dark. W...
Focus on the Learner. Teaching lessons from Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian”.
Do you know the scene in Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian” where a crowd has gathered outside his house and are chanting as one? Brian tells them they don’t need to follow a leader; that they are a...
Teaching to the test: the demise of language teaching
Language teaching has been an essential part of the education system for decades. Learning a foreign language can provide numerous benefits, including enhanced communication skills, cognitive develo...
The Link Between Exams and Stress
Exams are an integral part of the educational system and often determine a student's academic performance, level of achievement, and future opportunities. However, the pressure to perform well on ex...
Exams - Tips for Success
Exams are an important part of the educational process, but they can also be a source of stress for many students. However, with the right approach, students can prepare and perform well on exams wi...
News
DISCOVER SHAKESPEARE WITH DR LUKE PRODROMOU An Online Event by the QLS Book Club
On Saturday 4 February, the QLS Book Club had the honour of hosting one of the foremost luminaries in the field of ELT globally, Dr Luke Prodromou, over two online events under the title "Discover S...
STORY TELLING IN ELT for EFL Teachers
A Story telling seminar was organized by Dr. Evaggelia Karagianni, ELT State School advisor for Eastern Attika and was hosted at the premises of Ellinogermaniki Agogi. The four-hour workshop was ...
English Language Summer Courses – Where to begin?
StudyTours goes to Rome
English is one of the most widely spoken languages across the globe – with approximately 20 per cent of the world’s population listing English as one of their spoken tongues...
NOCN ESOL International Convention
Last month, November 10th, we had the chance to meet friends, colleagues and dear fellow education travellers in a very warm place in Neo Heraklion with one basic thing in mind; the most effective tea...
If you are a qualified teacher of English, and you have the right to work in the UK, read on!
PLUS offers English courses to young learners aged 10-17. We provide a comprehensive package of tuition, social experience, and accommodation to international groups in our 14 dedicated junior schoo...
Cambridge University Press and Assessment is partnering with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Cambridge University Press and Assessment is partnering with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on a new English language assessment. The goal of the new assessment...
Professional Development
Teacher Collaboration Part B; why is it so hard to work together?
Just be kind…
Some of you might remember my first article about teacher collaboration, some of you might not; it doesn’t really matter. My point is a different one. I am not sure if this happens in...
Co-teaching: It takes two (or more) to tango!
Co-teaching is when teachers are paired together in a classroom and they share equal responsibilities for planning, instructing, and assessing students. The most common way of co-teaching is when g...
Communication can change your… colours
I bet you have all listened to this Cyndi Lauper song. Quite cheesy I would say as seeing the true colours of someone could lead not to love but to a million different emotions to start with. ...
Teacher well-being - ‘Teacher what?’
..you think to yourself when you see this title and you smile ironically but you start reading the article because you still want to -slash- need to think positively!
Let’s try to describe what a ...
Successful Continuous Professional Development
Professional development is very important in educators’ personal and professional life. We have all seen teachers, who passionately attend preservice courses but are left unsupported afterwards. Th...
Doctors specialize, shouldn’t you as an English teacher?
In my experience of 32 years in the ELT trade I have seen and worked in most sectors and I have one thing to say: it’s about time that the majority of EFL teachers who teach general English move on ...
Interviews
Feature Sections
Teaching Young Learners without resources
Even if you teach in a context without access to many resources, there are lots of ways you can teach engaging, useful and fun lessons.
Using your learners as a resource
It is important to get to ...
Responding to the Needs of Every Young Learner
“All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think.”
Sir Ken Robinson
Elementary school learners generally...
Teaching English to Young Learners
How can we approach teaching vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation to young learners? How can we create a supportive environment that encourages young learners to learn about and reflect on their ...
Conditioning Young Learners’ Class Behaviours
What do you do when off-task behaviours and student disruptions occur? Here are some things you can do to establish procedures and avoid disruptions.
Greet students at the door and give them a piec...
Teaching Young Learners
In the current issue of ELT NEWS, we focus on teaching young learners. A teacher of young learners, especially of those aged below 10 years ultimately takes on the role of children’s entertainer. F...
When devices are left to their own…devices!
How can technology work in class?
Every now and then, I can see articles popping up on the media with huge, eye-catching headlines like “School ditches tablets”. Flashy stories come as no surprise. B...
Practical Tips for the Beginning of the New School Year
So here we are again, ready to start a new school year, in volatile times, not aware if we are to continue in our classrooms or whether we will remain at home and teach (and our students and pupils ...
If I walked into a new class: Tips on unlocking engagement with a new class
When we walk into a new class, we have “absolute musts” in mind. Some of my “absolute musts” is that I inspire trust through personal credibility, that my students get an overview of the academic ma...
The strategies begin with lesson one at the start of the course
Like most teachers, I use the first lesson for a ‘getting to know you’ period to establish a harmonious classroom community. There are three activities that we do at this time:
By Helen Papadopo...
Never lose contact with your inner child!
Teaching junior classes! Some of us love it, others dread it. In the latter case, kindly abstain from ever getting involved with it, lest you discover that it is not the nightmare you feared it would ...
Fortune Cookies
Wear Your Sunscreen
“Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young” (Mary Schmich)
The Appetizers
Mary Schmich, a Chicago Tribune columnist, was strolling along a beach when she noticed a small group of youn...
Some Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
“We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems” (John W. Gardner)
The Appetizers
Picture this: you are under a shady umbrella, lying on ...
Self-healing
“Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in”… Leonard Cohen
The Appetizers
The end of the school year evok...
Decoding CODA
“There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see” Leonardo Da Vinci
Text by: Dimitris Maroulis
The Appetizers
Child of Deaf Adults is what ...
Imagine IF…
“Our role is to create the right conditions for life and learning to flourish. When we do that, we realise we have been in the miracle business all along”
(Sir Ken Robinson)
The Appetizers
There ar...
The Power of Metaphors
“Your time is limited: don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinion drow...
Special Education Needs
The 3 Principles to Supporting Special Educational Needs Students
Research in the field of special educational needs and inclusion has equipped the educational community with evidence-based practices and ideas to support classroom diversity. How come that stude...
Teaching Dyslexic Learners Online
Technology is a gift for students with dyslexia, provided that it is used properly. This is because most dyslexic learners are visual learners and computer materials are designed to be accessed t...