Esa Tefl

  Now an example of a straight arrow ESA lesson for our engage phase. What we're going to do is to show the students a video of animals and they are going to say what they like about those animals and try to create a list of some more. So, remember what we're trying to do here is to get the students talking and thinking in English. We're using a typical engage activity, which is to create a list and we try to make sure that all the students have been involved in some way in creating those lists. Moving on to the study phase, the first part is going to be the board work and the teacher is going to try to elicit from the students what each of those animals can and can't do. Typically, what the students will say is just single words, so "run," "jump," "fly," etc. What we would then need...  [Read more]

  This particular methodology is known as a straight arrow ESA lesson. If every single lesson that we undertook with our students was a straight arrow ESA lesson then it is quite possible that the students would be able to predict what is going to come up next and whilst this is good for the lower level students, then it could potentially become a little bit boring for our higher level students. So what Harmer did in his ideas about ESA, was to generate two other types of ESA lesson that we can use to try and generate a little bit more interest. So, the other two types of ESA lesson that we can follow: The first is known as a boomerang lesson and the second is known as a patchwork lesson and what we're going to do is to have a look at those other types of ESA lesson in a little bit...  [Read more]

  The next example is going to be that of a boomerang lesson and remember the structure is like this. So, again, we're going to start with an engage phase and for our engage, the students are just going to have a discussion about jobs. What happens at interviews and so on and so forth. So, during that engage phase, what we'd hope to do is to elicit some useful language about jobs and interviews and the types of questions that are being asked. Then, we're going to move immediately into an activate activity and this is going to involve a role-play. So, we'll break the students into pairs. One will be an interviewer, the other will be an interviewee and they'll generate the language that that role-play will produce. What the teacher can do whilst that is taking place is to go around and...  [Read more]

  A final example is going to be an example of a patchwork ESA lesson and remember we said the form of this particular lesson will start with and engage always and will finish with and activate and there'll be some variation of E, S and A within the brackets here. So we're going to generate our patchwork ESA lesson as follows. Starting with the engage, the students are going to look at holiday photos and talk about what they like and don't like from what they see. From that, we're going to move directly into an activate phase and what the students are going to do is to make comments about holiday brochures and try to act out a role-play between the travel agent and a customer. Again, as this is taking place, the teacher will be moving around and looking for gaps in knowledge in terms...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences One of the most crucial roles of the teacher is to improve students' performance. In daily lessons, teachers are engaged in different classroom scenarios, performed teaching duties, and rendered extra effort to help maximize students' learning. Another thing that adds to this noble task is the diverse roles of the teacher he/she has to play. Engager Servicer Activator Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Glen Mar L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. With this, I thought of three basic roles that teachers need to portray in the 21st century. This Engager-Servicer-Activator (ESA) teacher roles...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas ESA is a common methodology that teachers use when teaching students another language. It is also a large part of your TEFL certification course. By using the layout of the ESA method to plan your lessons, they will be more structured, organized and effective. Listen to this blog post: What is ESA? The Engage Phase The Study Phase The Activate Phase Benefits of Using the ESA Method Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! This post was written by our ITTT graduate Casandra L. ESA stands for engage, study, and activate. By using ESA, it gives teacher's the flexibility to conduct a classroom in an organized and productive way. ESA is extremely important when it comes to...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas A New Perspective on Lesson Planning Prior to beginning this course, I had only considered lesson planning in the form of worksheets and topics, a brief lecture here and there, and some talk activities placed sporadically throughout the lesson. I also understood the critical nature of talking and listening as a means of gaining proficiency in a new language, but I did not think there would be a way to square this need with other aspects of what I perceived to be my own general education experience. Introducing the Engage, Study, Activate (ESA) Model Engage: Fostering Comfort and Preparation Study: Promoting Engagement and Confidence Activate: Culminating Experience and Real-Time Practice ESA: A Community of Learners Are...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas 5 activities with flashcards it's one way to make a class more interesting especially when teaching kids. 1. Missing card 2. Jump over 3. Tower building 4. Sit on the flashcard 5. Pass the flashcard 6. Hide and seek Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Manling Z. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. This activity you will have to teach first the words and make sure the kids know the words and when they see the picture they can be able to identify what it is, so what you have to do is spread all the flashcards on the floor and tell them to look carefully if possible you can read with them the words one...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Every fresh teacher, once starting his or her career, has this question: how should I teach English? What is the best way to organize my classes to make sure students would not be bored and learn something? And how to keep them motivated and enjoy every lesson? I did have all these questions at the beginning of my teaching career, and by trials and errors, I found the approach this TEFL course is based on – ESA. My Language Learning Story Teaching Practice Lesson Steps Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Angelina G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. My English journey began long before...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences The best thing I have learned from this TEFL course is that teaching methodology is no longer dominated by the framework of translation/grammar-based learning, but newer, more holistic methods are starting to be used by teachers, such as the ESA method. Considering Language Structure A New Methodology Learned My Findings Are you ready to take your TEFL course? Related Articles: Listen to this blog post This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Leslie H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Grammar/translation learning primarily uses the practice of finding equivalents of the students' language in their target language. One of my main criticisms of this method is the...  [Read more]

  This video is part of our ESA Methodology series. The ESA methodology consists of three stages. In this series, we look at the individual purposes of each stage and typical activities for each stage. This second video introduces the study phase of ESA. The purpose of this phase is to cover the actual teaching of the lesson and to check the understanding of that material.The second stage or phase of the lesson is known as the study phase and really the purpose of this phase is to cover the actual teaching of the lesson and to check understanding of that material. Typically in an ESA lesson, the study phase will have two parts. The first phase of the study is to cover the actual teaching component in what's known as the board work and what we try to do in the board work phase is to...  [Read more]

  This presentation is going to focus on the ESA methodology of teaching. In our teaching methodologies section, we briefly had a look at what ESA was about, but in this presentation, we're going to look in greater detail about that particular methodology. This particular methodology is accredited to Jeremy Harmer from his "Practice of English language Teaching" book. It's a three-stage methodology and what we're going to do is to look at the purpose of each one of these stages and some typical activities that take place during those stages. So, the first stage is known as the engage and its sole purpose, as the name implies, is to get the students talking and thinking in English. There is no reason whatsoever, when these students come to your class, that they should have said a...  [Read more]

  And so on to the final phase of the ESA lesson, which is called the activate phase. What we have done so far, if you remember, is to engage the students, to get them talking and thinking in English, where possible we've elicited the teaching point from the students and covered any gaps in knowledge to make sure that the teaching point has been fully covered and then we've checked understanding of that teaching point by asking targeted and specific questions. Usually the types of activities that we've done for the study phase will involve using a single word in order to answer those questions correctly this, however, is not how language is actually used. When we use language, we always use it in some form of context. So the purpose of the activate activity is to put that teaching...  [Read more]

  Our final methodology is accredited to Jeremy Harmer and it's known by the letters ESA. Around 1998, Jeremy Harmer produced a book called "How to teach English" and basically what Harmer did, is a background to this book is to do what we have done today and to work through all of the different methodologies that have come about over the last 300 years. He highlighted for each of those methodologies what was good about it, what was positive and what didn't appear to work and then put all of the positive things into a melting pot and came out with this methodology, which he called ESA. It's a three-stage methodology, where each of the letters represents a particular phase of the lesson. The first one being called the engage phase, the second the study phase and the final one the...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Teaching writing skills to elementary English learners can be an exciting and rewarding experience. With a well-structured lesson plan, you can engage students, introduce key concepts, and provide opportunities for practice. In this blog post, we'll walk you through a sample one-hour straight arrow ESA (Engage-Study-Activate) writing skills lesson plan, tailored for an elementary English class. Engage (10 minutes): Study (25 minutes): Activate (20 minutes): Summary (5 minutes): Are you ready to teach English as a foreign language? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! To kickstart the class, begin with a lively warm-up activity that activates students' prior knowledge and generates interest...  [Read more]

hello oh my gosh hello welcome hi linda here from itt back with another live session this week hi guys how are you doing um first of all if you can see me if you can hear me just drop a quick hi into um the comment box we are actually live on facebook and we're also live on youtube at the same time so if you can see me if you can hear me please just let me know and also let me know where you're watching from where are you at right now i am in south korea it is 10 a.m friday morning i'm super excited to be here again so um yeah sometimes there are some technical difficulties i had some issues i think last week so um there was no sound for some reason for for a few seconds so if that happens just let me know and then i can repeat myself or i can fix try and fix the issue so that's why it's...  [Read more]

  So, let's have a look at a typical receptive skills lesson. The main focus of this lesson is going to be reading, although there will be some listening involved as well and it?s going to be a patchwork ESA lesson. As a patchwork lesson, it will start off with an engage and this engage what we're going to do is to play an extract about Elvis Presley and it's going to be an Elvis Presley song and we can ask the students if they know who it is and if they know anything about him can help generate the interest in this. We can also ask them what they'd like to know about it. What we can then do is just to introduce them to the text but they're going to read the detail later on but just at this stage we'll do a quick skimming or scanning exercise to find some information from that...  [Read more]

  Jerzy is from Poland but is currently living in Latvia. He completed our 120-hour TEFL/TESOL course to further his education and career opportunities. He enjoyed learning about the ESA method and other techniques. Moreover, he did not think that lesson planning would be that useful and is now able to independently structure and create interactive lessons for his students. He is excited to make use of the new skills in teaching overseas. Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

  So let's have a look now what might take place in a typical writing lesson and, again, we're going to use the format of a straight arrow ESA lesson. Our first stage is to the go to the engage stage and, if we think back to what we said before, what we need to do is try to generate interest. So, an example here could be we show a picture first of all taken from a newspaper or magazine and then we can ask the students some questions. From looking at the picture we can ask them if they can tell us what is actually happening now as shown by the picture. Then, we can generate a bit more interest by asking them to give us ideas about what they thought was happening before this picture took place and what happened after. So, here we're just trying to build up the idea of a sequence of...  [Read more]

  So, we'll focus first of all on a speaking skills lesson and perhaps a starting point for this would be to ask a question which is: Why do we speak to each other? The reason that it's important to ask ourselves this question is that whatever answers there are to this should be present in our lessons. So, why do we speak to each other? Well, there are a multitude of answers to that but when you boil them all down to their essence, they probably actually come down to one or two things. We communicate to each other by speaking because of either a need. We need something. We want something or a desire to achieve something. 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...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Though I have been an English teacher for a period of seven (7) years in two different countries including my home country, yet I spent hours trying to decide the most appropriate topic for my summative essay, I finally decide to choose "The best thing I've learned from my TEFL/TESOL course" Why? Because I genuinely learned a lot during the course of my study and I will like to share my views, but I will discuss only two major points in this essay. Listen to this blog post: 1. Lesson Planning 2. ESA Methodology Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course today! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Oluwatosin B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of...  [Read more]

The majority of TEFL courses now offered, including those provided by ITTT, are divided into several modules to make the learning process as streamlined and simple to assimilate as possible. You should find it simpler to navigate through the materials and retain all of the information given by segmenting the many components of the course into distinct units, such as specific grammatical issues, classroom management, and lesson planning techniques. There is generally no predetermined number of modules in a TEFL course, as the majority of TEFL course providers offer a wide range of course alternatives to fit different aims and conditions. At ITTT we make sure that our selection of TEFL courses meets every need, from short-form courses appropriate for volunteer teaching to advanced-level...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching English to foreign-speaking students comes with much responsibility, creativity, patience, and kindness. On the opposite end, learning another language is challenging, requires practice and can be frustrating. To make the teaching and learning exchange seamless there are a variety of lesson structures and independent/ group activities available for teachers to implement into classrooms. Although many methods can be used, grammar, vocabulary, reading, listening, writing, and speaking are all important structures taken into consideration as learning the language comfortably and fluently is always the end goal. Throughout this summative task, different methodologies will be paired and compared to find out which one is the best. The PPP Method...  [Read more]

  Linda lives in China and is taking the 120-hour TEFL course with ITTT. This is the fifth installment of her TEFL review video journal outlining her experiences on the course. In this video Linda tells us about unit 5 of the course which covers aspects of classroom management. The unit has plenty of useful information on how students can be grouped within class and the types of activities that are suitable for different groupings. It also covers ways of dealing with problem behavior and methods for engaging students when they may not be interested in learning. At a quarter of the way through the course Linda is still clearly excited about earning her TEFL certificate. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course....  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word "jinni". This word describes an entity or a spirit in Muslim beliefs that can take human or animal form and influence human with supernatural powers. The word came into the English language from the Arabic word "jinn?" that can also mean demon. 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 certified to teach english abroad! Unit eleven discusses receptive skills, reading and listening....  [Read more]

  This video is the first video of our series on conditionals and reported speech. The conditionals are commonly referred to as "if" sentence structure speaking about if this happens then that happens. 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 certified to teach english abroad! There is 3 different ESA approaches. The straight arrow ESA approach which is mostly used for vocabulary or grammar. Then there is the boomerang and patchwork ESA...  [Read more]

  This TESOL review is from Aleksandr. He recently took our TEFL/TESOL course as he wants to take advantage of the high demand in qualified English language teachers all over the world. He chose our online course option and he greatly enjoyed the flexibility of it as it allowed him to work from anywhere in the world and at his own pace. He especially enjoyed the units on teaching methodologies as he now improved his own teaching style and is following a more interactive way of teaching. He recommends this course to anyone who wants to travel the world teaching English. 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...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching skills can be summarized in four key concepts: communication, critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration. What do English teachers teach? Role of the teacher Teaching methods Accuracy and Fluency Students abilities The 4 Basic Concepts of Teaching Skills Professional development Are you ready to implement your teaching skills in an ESL classroom? Related Articles: Listen to this blog post: Of course, when describing these skills we aren't just talking about teaching English but these skills can be used to prepare students in order to be able to express and communicate themselves independently and with groups in a globalized world as well as being capable to be adaptive, flexible and think creatively. This post was written by our TEFL...  [Read more]

  Lidya completed her 120-hour online TEFL course with ITTT. In her TEFL review, Lidya tells us that one of the best things she found with the course was the ability to work when and where she wanted. This flexibility is what attracts many people to ITTT's online TEFL certification courses. 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 certified to teach english abroad! Unit eighteen goes over the modal verbs, phrasal verbs, and passive verbs....  [Read more]

  Ben taught English in South Korea for four years before returning to his native California. In this TEFL review he describes how after returning home, he decided to seek out further qualifications in teaching English and found ITTT?s online TEFL course was the right one for him. Despite teaching English for several years, Ben found that the course had several new things to teach him including new methods and techniques. 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. ...  [Read more]