Student Centered 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]

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]

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]

  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]

  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]

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]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences This is my teaching experience so l will tell it in the form of a story. In 2011, l sat for my Advanced Level final exams and then applied for a post of temporary teacher at a school in an area called Date. Beginning of 2012, l traveled to Date from Harare to begin what l call a character building turmoil. I was an inexperienced 20-year-old girl who was about to take on a class that would be sitting for its final exam come to the end of that year, with half the class being my former primary school classmates and the other half not thinking much of me. My Experience Building Confidence The Importance Of Communication Conquering Doubts And Fears Choice Of Assignments Being Patient Are You Ready To take Your TEFL Course? Related Articles: Listen to this...  [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]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Evaluations are the useful tools or techniques that provide insight for modification, planning and in some cases re-designing a course. Student evaluation also provides the opportunity to address issues regarding student learning while the course is still in progress. There are different ways a teacher can assess a student's language level: Listen to this blog post: Tests Placement Test The Diagnostic Test Progress Test Practice Test Tutorials Evaluation by the Students Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! a) Testsb) Tutorialsc) Evaluation by the students. This post was written by our ITTT graduate Michael O. Students can be tested from time to time during the course....  [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 Alumni Experiences Teaching English to high-school students and teaching English to university students are uniquely different and require different skills and teaching methods. High school students are in a period of development known as adolescence. One of the leading developmental psychologists, Erik Erikson, defines adolescence as a period of struggle between identity versus role confusion (Hutchison, 2013). During adolescence, high schoolers are going through many physical, cognitive, emotional, and social changes (Hutchison, 2013). They are struggling to define who they are in this world not about their parents. They want to make their own choices in life based on their reasoning. A high schooler may choose on their own to learn English as a foreign language, but...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching is a very rewarding experience when you have enthusiastic and motivated students, regardless of teaching one student or a group of students. However, in my opinion, only very young learners seem to have the enthusiasm teachers crave for. Conversation practice Student personality Mix of abilities and interests Teaching bigger classrooms Learn how to approach groups and individual students taking your TEFL course right now! Related Articles: Listen to this blog post: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Carmen T. I have been teaching English in France without a qualification due to the great demand for English teachers and in my personal experience, one-to-one lessons have been difficult as I came across introvert adults...  [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]

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]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information Alumni Experiences In this insightful blog post, we'll explore the essence of grammar, examining various approaches to its teaching, offering a comprehensive understanding of this linguistic foundation. What is Grammar? Preparation Grammar Practice Activities and Games Grammar Quiz Memory test Miming an action Ready to teach English as a Foreign Language? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! For decades, mastering grammar stood pivotal in students' perception of language learning. However, contemporary perspectives vary widely on what constitutes essential learning for learners and the most effective teaching methodologies. Here are some key questions concerning teaching grammar: Prepare some...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching is itself a challenging task when it comes to teaching a beginner student. If the student is an adult or young the challenge might be there. There are means and methods of overcoming such challenges for both the teacher and the student. Analysis test Students behavior Lesson plan Developing materials Why should the teachers be more attentive to beginner students? What are the methods and techniques for teaching beginner students? 1. Using the review technique 2. Make a vocabulary journal 3.Technology implementation 4. Engage them Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sonal L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Teaching and learning are processes that go hand in hand with one another. Effective teachers are able to inspire and engage students with a desire to learn. They must be able to impart their abilities of learning into students in various ways. Through my personal teaching experiences, I firmly believe in establishing high, yet attainable expectations, creating a curriculum that is student centered, and providing real life experiences for students to help them grasp the concepts taught in the lesson. Classroom Management is the Foundation of Learning Student Centered Lesson Content is Key Real Life Experiences Make a Real Difference Bring It All Together Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Listen to this blog post: ...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas A highly motivated student is one who is goal-oriented, driven by passion and focused. He/she does things from the bottom of the heart. Motivation can be viewed as an internal impulse that brings us to complete an action. Without motivation, there is no action. Motivation is what moves or inspires the learner to achieve set objectives. It's the motor that drives the student to achieve pedagogical objectives. Hence it's an essential tool to equip students with, so that whatever they do it effectively and with perfection. Behavior and Motivation Efforts and Motivation Get to Know Your Students Get Your Students Involved Vary Your Activities Choose The Best Strategy Find Perfect Materials Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related...  [Read more]

ITTT's world class onsite TEFL certification course is an excellent way to earn a quality certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. The course is classroom based and takes place over a period of four weeks during this period trainees receive instruction in English language concepts and teaching methodology. The course also contains a considerable amount of practical teaching practice, giving trainees valuable classroom time along with feedback from our experienced, dedicated trainers. Upon successful completion of the course participants receive an internationally recognized TEFL qualification. The course is available at over 30 fascinating locations around the world including China, Thailand, Italy and the United States. The course consists of more than 120 hours of...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Alumni Experiences In today's world, technology has evolved in a way that makes everything so much more accessible. Even in areas that are less fortunate, or have less access to certain resources, it is still possible for them to have access to education because of the availability of online resources. There are many companies nowadays that donate computers, laptops, and facilities to these areas to give them a better chance of having a good education. Teachers from all over the world are now able to provide classes and one-on-one lessons to these areas because of this. Aside from the fact that having online classes gives access to students from all over the world, it is also much more convenient and cost-effective. Overview of Online Possibilities Choice of Resources...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In January, I stood in front of a class of breakthrough English students at a university in Bogotá, Colombia. I'd never taught students in an ESL classroom before, but I was pretty confident having seven years of experience under my belt and a degree in literature. I was naive. I began the lesson with the class that my co-teacher had lent me for the first time. The objective of the lesson was to practice using past tense through storytelling; five minutes into it, I called on a student with his hand in the air. " What up, My Nigga!" He said it and I almost lost all of my composure on the first day while I should have been thinking about building rapport. Tool for communication Pronunciation peculiarities Advanced level of vocabulary Do you want to...  [Read more]