Learner Centred Teaching Methods

  Before looking at the methods or approaches themselves, there are some terms that we need to define. These are the approach, the method or the technique. Basically, these are hierarchical. The approach is an overriding set of principles that a method can actually make use of, whereas the technique are the things that we actually do in the classroom to approach that method. So, these three words are going to appear during the presentation. Again, for each of either the approaches all the methodologies we're going to ask four questions. So be it an approach or a method for each of those things: Where did it come from? What's its background? What does it involve when we're talking about actually in the classroom, in other words techniques? What is positive about it? What appears to...  [Read more]

  "In terms of the things that are negative about it, we've already said that it doesn't develop speaking but perhaps the biggest negative point about this particular methodology is that it's very unnatural. Ok, so despite the criticisms of this particular method, and particularly the fact that is unnatural, this particular methodology was in use all the way through the 17th, 18th and 19th century and indeed it's still in use today. However, Gouin in the 1880s and Berlitz in the early 1900s decided that this particular methodology was so unnatural that they wanted to come up with something new. The method that they came up with, they called the direct method. You will also sometimes see it as the natural method. What these two people were saying is that if we wish to learn a language...  [Read more]

  The purpose of grammar translation then is to basically translate between L1 and L2 and vice versa. So, we could take a simple example. Let's imagine that our native language was English and our target language was French and let's assume that we want to translate a document from French into English. Let's take a simple sentence. Here's a sentence in French "Ouvre la fenêtre" and we'll add "s'il vous plaît" at the end. What we want to do is to take this L2 and translate it back into English. Now, if we have a reasonable knowledge of French then we may well know that this particular verb "ouvre" "to open" translates directly and this female form of the and finally the fenêtre "Open the window" and this polite form of "please". This is all very well if the two structures that...  [Read more]

  Our next methodology is called the silent way and it's accredited to Caleb Gattegno and was developed in or around the 1970s. This particular methodology moved on from the behaviorist stimulus response to what's called a theory of constructivism and this constructivist approach was very very different, very radical to anything that had been tried before. The background to this particular methodology was that there was a French mathematics teacher who found that his students were finding it very difficult to understand particular concepts. What he realized was that what they needed was a more visual representation of the information. So he came up with a series of colored rods to help with those concepts in mathematics. He gave his name to those rods and they're called Cuisenaire...  [Read more]

  Before we move on to the final methodology for today, let's just recap and see where we are at this point in time. We're looking at different learning methodologies. Each of those methodologies takes its premise from being somewhere on this particular spectrum of ?nature versus nurture? and where we are on this spectrum gives us a starting point for the background or theory to that particular methodology. So, we?ve had a look starting in the 17th century and the classical method and moving on as the ideas of psychology developed to various methods, such as audiolingualism, the silent way, Suggestopedia and TPR. Each of these showing a development as knowledge about learning increased and each of these takes a different starting point on our English spectrum. Below you can read...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Being an English teacher, teaching skills are very important. The quality of learning result depends on many factors, but the teacher's methods are the essential elements for learners' learning progress, motivation, enthusiasm, etc. to help them have the best result in studying English. I will concentrate on "How to teach vocabulary effectively". The Role of Vocabulary in Communication Engagement Delivering New Means of Communication Practicing Acquired Linguistic Devices Other Ways to Teach Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Nhat D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. It can't be denied that the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas There are a lot of teaching methods. Some of them are more popular, some of them less. But the theme of this summative task is about efficiency, not about the most interesting or the most popular method. So, is drilling an effective teaching method? If we want to ask this question, first, we need to consider the following question: "What is drilling?". After this, we can discuss the pros and cons of this method. What is drilling for? Skills Group size Students' Level Advantages and Disadvantages Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dmitry S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. In short, drilling is a...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas When we start to learn new things as children, we tend to do that with the help of games. That is why in many classrooms of young learners, we find games to be a highly popular medium amongst educators. It is a way of absorbing and processing a piece of information in a fun and educational way. But when we grow up, we somehow forget the necessity of games in the classroom. Ice Breaker Ways to Include Games into Your Lesson What Games to Choose? Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Anna B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. When it comes to learning a second language, children immerse themselves in...  [Read more]

  Also in the 1970s la señal came up with a new methodology called "Suggestopedia". As psychological theory was developing, one of the ideas that came up was something called ?the effective filter?. Basically, the effective filter is a barrier to learning. It's the reasons why we inhibit our learning of a particular language. There are two main elements to the effective filter, two sets of factors, if you like, those are known as internal and external factors. The external factors to learning, the reasons why we have barriers to learning, may be just simple things such as external noise. So, people talking to us while we're trying to learn and so on and so forth. Perhaps more important are these internal factors and the internal factors one of the main things here is our previous...  [Read more]

  In this TESOL review video, Youcef shares his experience of taking a TEFL course with ITTT. He loved the course and enjoyed learned a lot about teaching methods, different techniques, and classroom management. He is now ready to take his new-learned skills into his classroom and provide his students with the best learning experience possible. Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

We will follow a largely chronological order as we delve into the different strategies for teaching English, from time-tested methods to modern approaches. The Classical Method The Direct Method Audio-Lingual Method Task Based Learning Total Physical Response Engage Study Activate CLIL Conclusion This approach, also known as grammar translation, was originally used for teaching classical languages like Greek and Latin. It places a strong emphasis on grammar, particularly verb conjugations and language rules. Also known as the "natural approach", it strives to mimic the way we acquire our mother tongue naturally. Consequently, only the target language is employed, prioritizing speaking and listening skills. As the name suggests, this method primarily emphasizes listening ('audio') and...  [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]

  So what we're going to do is to run through a series of methodologies that were created mainly in the 1900s that adopted the idea that language learning should be much more communicative, much more natural. The first one is called audiolingualism and it's also called the army method because of where it was developed. Basically, psychology, during the 1950s and 60s, was building up new theories about behaviorism. Perhaps the most famous experiments that were done in this particular area were by Pavlov, where he was showing that most animals undergo a stimulus response mechanism and he had a series of famous experiments, where by ringing a bell, he could cause a dog to salivate, that would be his response, in the expectation of getting some food. This behaviorist idea of stimulus...  [Read more]

  So let's take an example of what those drills might involve. So here is an example of a repetition drill. I will model the language and then my class will repeat after me. So "This is a cup." "Spoon" ? "This is a spoon." "Knife" - "his is a knife." Thank you. The reason that it's called or also called the army method is that it was the method adopted by the United States military who had personnel stationed around the world at the end of Second World War and they realized that they needed those personnel to pick up the language very quickly and one of the positive things about this particular methodology is that you do very quickly learn vocabulary. Another positive thing about it is that you quickly learn the correct pronunciation of that vocabulary. However, there are some...  [Read more]

  Our next particular methodology is accredited to James Asher around 1965 and is called total physical response. Asher looked at the way in which we learn our native language and he saw that most children, before they even went to school, have picked up a very large percentage of both the grammar and the vocabulary that they would use in their native language before any type of formal schooling. So Asher started to have a look at ideas of how to use the whole of our brain in language learning in the way that we do when we're very young. It's accepted that within our brain there are two hemispheres, one is the left hemisphere the other is the right hemisphere, and one of the functions of the left hemisphere is language learning. One of the major functions of the right hemisphere is...  [Read more]

  This presentation is going to focus on the theories, methods and techniques of teaching and we're going to start with a quote. This is an interesting quotation because it contains within it a philosophical argument and it's a philosophical argument in the way in which we learn. Basically, this one is saying that the intelligence of their own children comes about due to a natural process. So this one could be said to be due to nature. This is exactly the opposite of this one, which is saying that they're teaching the environment that we create, creates that intelligence. So this one can be said to be due to nurture and this argument 'nature versus nurture' has been going on for thousands of years. These two viewpoints are two ends of a scale, or a continuum if you like, and every...  [Read more]

    Teaching English to Young Learners is a rapidly expanding area of the TEFL/TESOL market. No previous experience or training in education is required to complete this course. The course is designed for anyone who is currently working, or intends to work within the field of teaching English to young learners. On completion of the course you should have gained a basic knowledge of teachers and their roles, students and their needs, how to manage a classroom and the all-important skill of creating your own lessons, all with specific reference to teaching English to young learners. Further topics of study include the practical requirements of hardware and software needed to teach your young learners online. The course concludes with a look at the teaching employment market. A...  [Read more]

Date posted:2018-04-27 | Writer: Wall Street English | Email: [email protected] The Swiss Learning Group is an educational organisation that has taught languages to more than 10,000 students per year since 1986. Wall Street English is the best known brand of the group, and is present in 28 different countries. Our 8 English language schools in Switzerland are located in city centres, close to railway stations, and therefore easily accessible whatever your means of transportation.  We have in immediate opportunity for a TEFL qualified teacher in our Lausanne school close to Lake Geneva. We are looking for someone who is flexible, interested in working with students at different language levels/abilities and willing to work part-time hours and especially during...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In this essay I will be discussing the problems for young Japanese learners of English, and what problems Japanese learners often encounter as well as explaining some of the reasons why teachers can run into problems while teaching in Japan. I will be referring to the book "The Smart Guide to Teaching English in Japan' by Charlie Moritz and Martin Bragalone, as well as drawing from my knowledge and experiences of studying and volunteering in Japan. Japan can be a challenging but rewarding country to work in, despite stereotypes of Japanese people being polite and studious so it is important to consider that reality can be different when teaching in Japan. Eikaiwa Juku ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) Kindergarten/International preschool Do you want...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I have been working in China for more than six months now and it's been a very interesting time for me not just to learn more about the country and its people, but also to enrich my teaching skills and grow professionally as a teacher. Specific Approach Assistance Teaching an extremely large classroom Total physical response Do you want to teach English in China? Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Evgeniya S. When I arrived in China, I hardly knew anything about specific features of teaching in that country, so I thought that the knowledge I had was quite enough to handle the classes in kindergarten or primary school. But since my first working day, I have often been surprised and even sometimes perplexed by...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Vocabulary has a direct impact on written and spoken language comprehension. All students come to school with differences in their vocabulary knowledge, and part of teaching them how to be successful in English is to teach them vocabulary. Vocabulary development plays a critical role in helping English language learners increase their ability to communicate in the receptive and expressive domains in English. This is why vocabulary must be explicitly and systematically taught. Learn how to teach vocabulary effectively with a TEFL course today! Listen to this blog post Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Gina A. Research suggests the following three big ideas about teaching and learning new words: Also read: 4 Super...  [Read more]

hi welcome Linda here from ITT back this week with another live session I hope you're doing well thank you so much for joining me today I'm happy to see you if you can see me and if you can hear me clearly if everything's working please just leave a high in the comment section and uh maybe also let me know where you are right now where are you watching from today what time is it there how are you doing let me know in the comments we are live on Facebook and on YouTube at the same time and we also always turn our live sessions into podcast episodes so if you're listening to this as a podcast thank you so much for the download and thank you so much for listening we really appreciate that don't forget to like And subscribe um so you're always up to date whenever we go live um last week we had...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information The teaching of Young Learners forms a very large part of the ESL teaching market. It is important to keep some simple strategies in mind when teaching them. Teaching YL's can be very rewarding as their progress can be quick, however, being young, they also present challenges. The following ideas have been tried and tested over many years and have proven to be effective. One: Create a Positive Learning Environment Two: Employ Language Acquisition Strategies Three: Individualized Instruction Four: Integrating all four Language Skills Five: Culturally Responsive Teaching Six: Technology Integration Conclusion Are you ready to teach English as a foreign language? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video...  [Read more]

Date posted:2019-11-28 | Writer: The Learning Tree International Kindergarten | Email: [email protected] The Learning Tree International Kindergarten (TLT) is a private accredited kindergarten center catering to young children two to seven years of age in Zagreb, Croatia. The kindergarten's multi-cultural atmosphere provides opportunities for children to grow, unite and connect with other families of different nationalities around the globe. We are always looking for experienced English-speaking teachers who have high standards and believe that the care they provide is invaluable TLT offers a completely English-speaking atmosphere following a premier best practice curriculum that maximizes each child's potentials and learning skills. In addition, our small child-teacher of six is...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Description: Teaching English as a foreign language in a kindergarten can be a dynamically different experience than teaching students in older age groups. Teaching in a kindergarten has advantages such as motivation, smiles, and the ability to learn the material in short bursts. It also has disadvantages, such as; short attention spans, diapers, and tantrums. Teaching young children can be extremely rewarding and extremely demanding. Learning is fun for small children. Children have a low attention span. Misconceptions about teaching young learners Do you want to teach English to young learners? Related Articles: Listen to this blog post: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate William K. Teaching Children between the ages of two and...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Drawing on my substantial personal teaching experience, I naturally gravitated toward this topic for a summative task. Throughout my six years of teaching English, I have encountered various settings, approaches, and challenges. Here, I recount my journey from a language school to one-on-one tutoring, highlighting my evolving teaching methods, materials, and strategies. From Language School to One-on-One Teaching Embracing One-on-One Tutoring Crafting Engaging Lessons Interactive Learning and Progress Evolving with Proficiency Shaping Language Skills Insights from Teaching Individual Students Tailoring Learning to Individual Needs Focusing on Adult Learners Crafting a Unique Teaching Methodology Expanding Knowledge with...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas One of the main differences between teaching groups and individual students is the lesson plan. Teaching One-to-One From a Learner's Perspective What do Teachers Think Lesson Plan for Group Teaching Students Abilities Students Peculiarities Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: Several factors need to be considered when planning a lesson for a single student: The aforementioned factors should be taken into account even when teaching groups but in one-to-one lessons they are crucial. Considering that the whole lesson is dedicated to one individual, material covered should be graded to his/her exact level to achieve the best result, giving the teacher freedom to make the lessons challenging to stimulate further...  [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]

Date posted:2018-05-07 | Writer: The Learning Tree International Kindergarten | Email: [email protected] The Learning Tree International Kindergarten (TLT) is a well-established private accredited kindergarten center in Zagreb catering to young children two to seven years of age. The kindergarten's multi-cultural atmosphere provides opportunities for children to grow, unite and connect with other families of different nationalities around the globe, so we are always interested in receiving applications from TEFL trained teachers from any part of the world. Our small child-teacher of six is to one ratio allows us to provide undivided attention and individualized instruction to each child JOB REQUIREMENTS: Proficient English skills minimum B2 level (native speaker preferable, with...  [Read more]

When teaching vocabulary in TEFL, it is imperative to employ strategies that maximize retention and practical use. Key approaches include: Harnessing these methods, TEFL teachers can ensure students not only learn but also effectively utilize new vocabulary both in and outside the classroom. Teach new words in context Frequent repetition is a must Use pictures and other visuals Use games to practice new vocabulary One of the most beneficial strategies for helping students remember new language is teaching it in context. Simply listing new words on the board and expecting immediate comprehension might lead to disappointment. When introducing new vocabulary, it is advisable to group related words together rather than disconnected ones. Vocabulary lessons can be themed around subjects such...  [Read more]