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What are the best books for teaching ESL? - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ TEFL FAQs
The realm of ESL teaching books is expansive, with renowned publishers offering a plethora of resources. Generally, ESL teaching materials can be categorized into:
These categories encompass a range of tools, from structured lesson plans to interactive activities, essential for any ESL educator.
Book Series
Teaching Theory Books
Activity Resources
There are a number of well known book series. These are specifically written for the ESL teaching market and are generally set at the five levels most often taught. These levels are Starter or Beginner, Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, and Upper-Intermediate.
A typical book series at each level will contain three books. These are the teacher book, student book and resources book (or similar names). The teacher book gives an outline... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Coursebooks And Materials/resource Books Part 2 - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
Let's just consider next, when using these resource books, the student book, the workbook and the teachers resource book, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using those types of materials? Well, firstly, the main advantage perhaps of using these types of material is that it's quicker than actually creating your own. Secondly, the course books that you will get will be graded for a particular level. So there'll be a set of books for the starter level, a set of books for the elementary level and so on and so forth. So you know that the activities and materials in there will have been graded for level. The use of the book can also offer continuity so that the syllabuses have been covered in a particular way by the book itself and are presented in a logical order.... [Read more]
14 Course Books to Improve Your Business English Classes - TEFL Blog
Jon ITTT
TEFL Information
Business English falls under the umbrella of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and is an area of English language teaching that focuses on the language students need in order to function in an international business setting. It is a popular sector for qualified TEFL teachers to work in and one that can be financially rewarding. Students taking business English classes will generally already have a reasonable level of English language ability and course books tend to be aimed at pre-intermediate level students and above but there are books aimed at lower level students.
Oxford University Press
Cambridge University Press
Pearson/Longman
Macmillan
Collins ELT
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Course Books for Business English ▷ Infographic - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
Business English is an area of English language teaching and learning that is part of the wider category of English for Specific Purposes. Unlike general English, business English focuses on the language students need in order to function in an international business setting. Students taking business English classes will generally already have a reasonable level of English language ability and course books tend to be aimed at pre-intermediate level students and above.
There are several publishers involved in producing course books for the business English classroom. The main ones are Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. These two publishers produce business English course books across a range of levels in British, American and International English... [Read more]
General English Course Books for Young Learners ▷ Infographic - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
General English course books for young learners differ from those for adults in a number of ways. Obviously the types of topics will be geared towards the interests of younger people but there are also differences in the way the language is presented. Grammar chants are a popular method of drilling grammar points in books for young learners and while course books for adults will generally have sections with explicit presentations of a grammar point, books for young learners do not usually cover grammar in such detail, especially those for very young learners.
There are several publishers involved in producing general English course books for young learners. The main publishers are Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. These two publishers produce course books across... [Read more]
General English Course Books for Adults ▷ Infographic - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
There are several publishers involved in producing course books for the ESL classroom. The main publishers are Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. These two publishers produce course books across a range of ESL sectors including, young learners, adults, business English, and English for specific purposes.
General English course books for adults will include topics geared towards the interest of adults such as the world of work, entertainment, socialising etc. They will also have more detailed explanations of grammar than you would find in books aimed at young learners.
The majority of these course books can be ordered directly through the’ websites of the publishers, online from Amazon or in the EFL section at your local bookshop. Depending where you are located,... [Read more]
Course Books for English for Specific Purposes and English for Academic Purposes ▷ Infographic - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
English for Specific Purposes is an area of English language teaching and learning that encompasses business English, English for Academic Purposes as well as courses that teach English needed for specific professions. In this infographic we look at course books aimed at teaching English to those in certain professions such as finance, law, tourism, medicine and aviation. We also look at course books available for teaching English for Academic Purposes. EAP focuses on the language and skills needed for students to study in English at university level. As with other English teaching, EAP deals with reading, writing, listening and speaking, as well as vocabulary and grammar but these are linked to the students’ specific study needs such as essay writing.
There are several... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Coursebooks And Materials/making Best Use Coursebook - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
So how do we actually make best use of the course book? Well, just a couple of factors that you need to keep into consideration when using these types of material, use the course book to help you create a balanced lesson in terms of the range of skills that are being taught and the actual types of material within that the grammar or vocabulary. Secondly, don't use it all the time, particularly with things like activities, we can create our own materials and we can tailor those materials much more specifically to the actual class that we're teaching. As very often the actual creations in the book are very general, we can make our own materials much more specific. The third thing you need to be aware of is that you can't always rely 100% on the information that's presented in those... [Read more]
10 Idioms About Books - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
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Here are 10 fun idioms about books to share with your ESL students.
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What are some useful ESL teaching resource books? - TEFL Blog
Federico Riva
TEFL Information Teaching Ideas
The market for ESL teaching books is very large and all the major publishers have some form of involvement in the production and selling of these resources. There are many different types of books and resources that are used in ESL teaching and we will consider three main categories.1) General teaching theory books2) ESL book series3) Activity resource books
General teaching theory books
ESL book series
Activity Resource books
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As an ESL teacher unless you spend your entire career teaching kindergarten, you are going to have to teach English grammar. There are many books that cover this well and you... [Read more]
How Globalization Has Fueled the TEFL Boom - TEFL Blog
Mark Crocker
TEFL Information Alumni Experiences
The 20th century brought in its wake the concept of globalization, changing the dynamics of the world to what we have come to know it as today. As the world continues to move towards becoming a grand global village, many countries, people and things which once seemed so far out of reach are now more readily available and closer to home. Undoubtedly, with the advent of globalization, communication has become paramount to the ways in which we share knowledge and gather or receive information. Why? Because without this, humans will have a much more challenging time building relationships with others be it for economic, social or spiritual gains (just to name a few).
Language Use Worldwide
The Boom in Worldwide Travel
The Benefit of TEFL When... [Read more]
Tefl Review For Online Tefl Course 20 - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
Maria is very impressed with the 120-hour online course. She thinks all 20 course units are very well structured. She printed each unit and created a binder book with all the content that she can refer to in the future. She learned a lot about methodologies on teaching, classroom management as well as the basics of English grammar. She also enjoyed the audio and visual explanations adding to the written units. She is very excited to start her career in teaching overseas.
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Speaking Activity: Conversation Cards about Books - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
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Using speaking cards is a great way to encourage conversations among ESL learners. The cards act as guides to give the students a direction in their conversations. Below you will find conversation cards about books and reading for your ESL classroom.
Let's take a look at all of the questions and possible answers.
Possible answer: I recently finished reading the first book of the Outlander series. It's a fantastic book about an English woman from 1945 who travels back in time to Scotland in 1745. The story is very compelling and the characters' personalities are very well thought-through.
Possible answer: One of my favorite books is "The Da Vinci Code" written by Dan Brown. Even though it is a fictional story, Dan... [Read more]
5 Effective Ways to Inspire Children's Passion for Books - TEFL Blog
Federico Riva
Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas
Nowadays, we see children who readily pick up an iPad instead of a book. It seems that reading is not as popular as it used to be. It is lessening. Reading is a receptive skill, and it is a meaningful activity that should be enjoyed by all children. So how can we instill a love for reading in children? As a person who has a passion for reading, I would like to make some recommendations.
Teach the Importance of Reading
Make Books Accessible or Low-Cost
Use Positive Reinforcement
Assess Reading Activity and Performance
Make Reading Fun!
Conclusion
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this... [Read more]
What Books to Use: An Overview of The ESL Teaching Materials - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
hey everybody it's lisa here and i'm super glad to welcome you to the weekly live stream by itt um if you don't know me yet um once again my name is lisa and i'm a non-native english teacher from russia i've been working online primarily since 2020 and today um i would like to reach out to you and tell you about um some esl course books uh to pick out for your uh teaching i'm not going to dig into details i'm just going to briefly present my approach how i choose the most appropriate materials but anyways i hope that this topic um will be interesting and helpful so uh stay tuned uh and um let me know that you hear and see me clearly because uh right now i i can see that there are seven people watching but i'm not sure if my equipment works well so uh we've got this comment section uh... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Coursebooks And Materials/resource Books Part 1 - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
The next item that we're going to consider is the use of resource books. There are many different types of resource books available and within those books there tends to be a general pattern and typically the resource book pack will come in a three book series and typically that three book series will be in the form of the student book, a workbook and a teacher's resource book. So for example here are those three books for this particular series called ?Total English? and in the student book the type of information that we can gain from here is the actual background to the teaching points themselves plus some additional information in terms of short worksheets and so on and so forth and tape transcripts at the end for listening activities, which these days often come on a CD rather... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Bad Vs Badly English Grammar Teaching Tips - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
In this video we explain the difference in using "bad" and "badly". The key difference is that 'bad' is used as an adjective and 'badly' as an adverb. Therfore, 'bad' describes that something is not good, while 'badly' refers to something that is done in a bad manner, harmfully or in correctly. A good example sentence for 'bad' would be "Jenny had a car accident today. This is bad". Let's look at an example for 'badly': "Austin behaved badly". I'm sure you'll never confuse the two words again.
Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you... [Read more]
Readers Are Leaders: How to Instill a Love for Reading in Children? - TEFL Blog
Federico Riva
TEFL Information Alumni Experiences
Children usually prioritize their joy and prefer rewarding activities. They are more interested in reading when it is rewarding and beneficial to them. Interestingly, children learning a second language find it easier to learn reading compared to those who are learning to read for the first time. This is because young second language (L2) learners have already experienced that reading can be interesting and entertaining. By making reading in a second language interesting, students are likely to be motivated.
Text Difficulty and Vocabulary Support
Setting Achievable Reading Goals
Tailoring Reading Material to Children's Interests
Reading and Writing as Positive Activities
Empowering Children's Choice in Reading
Engaging Activities to... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Tefl 120 Hour Course Unit 14 - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
Unit 14 looks at course books and other materials that can be used in your English language lessons. The unit discusses the differences between authentic and created materials and why and when each should be used in a class. It also covers the advantages and disadvantages of using course books and the best ways to use a course book in your lessons.
Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.
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My last unit... [Read more]
Leaders Are Readers: How to Develop Children’s Interest for Reading - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
Reading it's a skill which we learn when we are children. Some children learn to read before they start to join the elementary school, it depends on parents always. But how we can instill a love for reading in children?
Parents Role
Reading Activities For The Classroom
Benefits of Reading
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Radka S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Parents should read a children's books since childhood like this the relationship between parents and a child become stronger, the child gets to know emotions by reading books and it becomes a favorite activity of a child... [Read more]
How to Help Children Become a Strong Reader - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
As language acquisition through immersion goes, reading is positively amazing. Where movies may help with attitude and tone, reading allows us to see the words, form visual connections between them, and familiarise ourselves with spelling, punctuation, and structure. The best results, of course, are seen in readers who do it for pleasure, and for whom the point of reading is not simply to be done with it. How, then, do we get our children to read for fun when most of them seem to dread it?
Step One: Drop mandatory/standardized reading
Step Two: Make it social
Step Three: Accept differences
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Smaranda E. Please note that this... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Tefl 120 Hour Course Unit 13 - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
In Chantelle?s thirteenth video diary entry she talks about unit 13 of her 120-hour online TEFL course. Unit 13 covers pronunciation and phonology. As Chantelle notes there is a lot of information presented in this unit including phonology, stress, articulation and the phonemic alphabet. The unit also looks at how to teach individual sounds and when we should teach pronunciation to our students.
Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.
Register now & get... [Read more]
Tefl reviews - Tefl 120 Hour Course Unit 8 - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
This video diary entry outlines Chantelle?s experience of studying unit 8 of her online TEFL course. Unit 8 is another tense unit, this time looking at the future tenses. These include the future simple, future continuous, future perfect, future perfect continuous and the ?going to? future. It also covers how the present simple and present continuous can be used to talk about the future. In this unit you will learn how the tenses are formed and used and what some of the most common errors students make.
Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means... [Read more]
How Reading Nourishes the World - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
One of the most valuable human attributes is imagination. An active and healthy imagination can be inspired by many things. One of the most significant inspirations behind a lively imagination is reading. Alternatively, an image can contribute to valuable characteristics, such as bravery, dignity, and leadership. Reading can introduce people to comprehension, vocabulary, new places, languages, cultures, ideas, perspectives, information, words, and sentences. Speaking and reading are great ways to learn new words of another language, as well as learn how to structure those new words in a sentence.
Reading in childhood
Teenage reading
Reading in adulthood
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Tefl reviews - English Grammar Present Simple Usage Online Tesol Course - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ITTT
This video outlines two usages of the Present Simple tense. There are several usages but the video focuses on the two main ones. The first usage is to talk about habits and routines. For example, I teach every Monday. She walks to school every day. It rains almost every day in the wet season. His mother does yoga twice a week. The second main usage of the Present Simple is to talk about general facts and truths. For example, The sun rises in the east. The earth is round. She works at the local mall. Coming to terms with the tense system can often cause both students and teachers the greatest amount of difficulty, not to mention other grammar points such as conditionals, modals, active and passive voice. ITTT's online teaching courses assume no previous knowledge of English grammar... [Read more]
4 Best Ways to Choose Business English Course Materials - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
When teaching Business English, it is important to tailor lessons to the maturity and ability of the class. Essential to any lesson is the course materials to be used by both the teacher and the students. By tailoring these course materials to be more relevant to the Business English students, the teacher will hopefully gain a greater level of interest and create a better learning environment. To assist with a teacher with the style and type of course materials to be used with a specific Business English class there are several things the teacher could do.
1. Research First
2. Sourced Materials
3. Created Materials
4. Ready-to-Use Materials
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Listen to this blog post
This post was written by our... [Read more]
British English vs American English. Which is Better? - TEFL Blog
Jon ITTT
Alumni Experiences
As more and more countries place a growing importance on its people to learn English as a secondary language, for work purposes or for general use, there is a growing debate about which is the better English to learn - British English or American English.
Both versions are essentially the same
Prioritise teaching "Good English"
Certain students may need specific versions of English
Points to consider when choosing a version to teach
Exploring the differences can be an interesting lesson
Don't get obsessed with minor differences
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Max E.
The argument stems from the growing influence of America in the modern world. British... [Read more]
How Important is the Difference Between American English and British English for EFL Learners? - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Teaching Ideas
This summative essay will exam the importance of teaching the differences between American English and British English for EFL learners. I will examine the intention behind teaching these differences, and when these teachings should be applied, and to what effect and purpose. This essay will focus primarily on the problems of pronunciation and spelling, which are the two main differences. I am a British citizen, born and raised in London, England, and currently teach at a public high school in Tokyo.
Spelling
Challenges for Beginners and Intermediate Learners
What do Students Think?
Grammar
Interesting Experience for Adults
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How is teaching business English different from general English? - ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ TEFL FAQs
Business English and General English serve distinct purposes and audiences:
In essence, while General English provides foundational language skills, Business English hones in on the nuanced communication needs of the business realm.
Business English classes
What's the difference between business English and general English?
Business English resources
Business English is a unique area of teaching that comes under the banner of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Business English courses are designed for employees of any type of company who need to communicate using English in the workplace. Business English classes can cover a range of areas including:
A business English course often includes employees from all levels of a particular company, from salespeople and receptionists, to... [Read more]
English as a Global Language: What Motivates Students to Learn English? - TEFL Blog
Elizaveta Pachina
Alumni Experiences
As an international study major in college, I learned that the United Nations, a non-governmental organization, officially recognizes six world languages: every meeting, written document, and speech are translated into these languages. English is one of them. It is spoken and written by billions of people around the world. Having traveled in eight countries myself, I was surprised to have seen how commonplace it was for countries to translate directional signs in both the official language and in English. A student's mastery of the English language, or in any language, can be a difficult journey to venture. Therefore, this essay will explore what factors may motivate a student to learn English.
English for adults
Ways to learn
English for young... [Read more]