02/13/2021
hello everybody is anyone there
so while um i'm waiting for uh more people to join
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so when you're joining please let me know if you hear me
well hello hello welcome to uh the weekly live session uh we're just
about to start but we need to wait for some more people to join us
and while we're waiting please let me know if you hear me clearly and see me
clearly so there is a chat box you can use for interaction with myself
so please um leave me a comment if you see me clearly
and hear me clearly so that i know that everything works smooth
okay and uh today's live session um will be devoted to some new trends
in efl teaching last week i took part uh
in a teaching conference and i learned a lot of interesting uh facts
about um efl teaching so i figured out i can share
this with you and um today we will primarily talk about uh
trends which um are devoted to avoiding uh
um as a center of your teaching experience uh hello margaret thank you for
um commenting uh and welcome everyone uh before we start
uh let me introduce myself my name is lisa i work with itttt
and um i am also a non-native efl teacher i used to
teach in in china several years ago but from last year
since last year i've been teaching online primarily so um
this is probably the most uh interested interesting uh mode of teaching for
myself that's why i try to share my experience on a weekly basis and i usually
give some pieces of information related to online teaching and stuff like that so
if you find anything related to online teaching please check out my previous sessions
and um with itttt we also create a lot of useful
information related to different types of teaching
we also talk about teaching abroad and we discuss different
countries so uh if you need uh to learn more about it please check out our
social media okay and now let me um
expand uh on today's topic a little bit more hello everyone
thanks for joining me today and um right now let's just start uh
today's topic so um as i have already mentioned uh we will
talk about some new trends in efl teaching and uh the first one which i consider
the most interesting uh is a smart approach um i believe you uh heard about this
approach in terms of uh time management and self-organization
but uh in the uh teaching conference i um participated in last week this approach
was referred to building a course syllabus which is
quite interesting and um i figured out that it is something really applicable to
teaching in general because uh we as teachers must be as specific as it is possible
and if you uh look at this key points um on this slide you
uh can also see that um specific is um the key feature
of uh building a course syllabus uh so uh when we um plan
our lessons um in advance we need to uh set some specific goals
um we need to uh select some specific things to cover with our
students so um that's why um it's the first um
feature to include in the process of building a course syllabus
then it should be as measurable as it is possible because
when students don't see a particular amount of
themes of grammar structures they don't clearly understand uh what is it
about and what they will learn throughout the course so that's
also something to include when you build your course
and it is also important to mention um how many uh lessons will you have per
week for example how many themes will you cover and things like that uh and the next
um problem would be setting unrealistic goals um i've seen
so many uh advertisements like uh you will learn english in three months uh with this
course uh do you think it's uh reasonable like do you think um someone can do that
uh in this few months uh so this kind of
advertisements would be unrealistic and uh courses like that um
i feel like they are just useless so that's why uh when you start planning
your course or just teaching in general it is important to talk with your
students about setting realistic goals
and then your course should be relevant because your students will also need
to be able to communicate in english
in specific situations and when students don't know about such
situations in advance uh they basically uh lose motivation um of learning english
in general uh and the last key point uh would be that your course syllabus must
be timely so uh it's probably a great idea to set a specific period of time
in order to cover uh some course material
so this would be the first trend i noticed and now
i would like you to uh tell me uh like to give me a feedback
uh on this uh approach uh do you think it's reasonable to use
it in tefl teaching or you would probably choose something else
so let me know in the comments down below um and i will share some of your answers uh
with the other uh participants and also thanks a lot guys for
uh joining me today um i hope today's session will be useful
and interesting to you and if you need any other
information on teaching you should definitely check out our social media and
um join uh some other live sessions so what do you think about
smart approach uh to build the course syllabus would you try
to use this smart approach let me know um and
while you are giving some feedback um i'll show you an example
of a one-week program uh built on the basis of this smart approach
so um for example you could you can focus on uh such things as
vocabulary speaking grammar and listening and reading it's usually uh like that uh but
uh this way it would be more precise uh in terms of this approach so
basically you share with your student on a weekly basis
uh what vocabulary uh you will cover uh what's speaking skills
will they learn uh what grammar points will be
discussed during the lessons and uh what skill uh what skills
will be trained in terms of listening and reading um and here is uh
margaret's uh response uh she says that um it is reasonable for learning any
language and uh i agree um and yeah uh it's it's really important
to uh share uh your plans with the students
um because this way they they will know how to um plan
their life uh and their english learning as well
and um let's come to the second problem which is actually the second
trend a trend in tefl teaching i believe um this trend uh
has been lasting for um several years already because uh grammar
based lessons are so dull and boring um that's why teachers try to find
uh some new strategies uh in order to um make lessons more
interesting and um fascinating to teacher to students
and if you look at this slide you can see several ideas
and i would like you to think what is more appropriate building strong
communicative skills or teaching to speak without mistakes
um so this idea would be um related to
our teaching goals so when teachers uh plan um
a course syllabus they uh try to focus on uh something uh
related to uh building strong speaking abilities uh and um
that's why it is so closely connected to grammar um it it used to be
uh really important uh to um to drill grammar uh in order to
speak without mistakes but nowadays uh we uh as teachers
must um pay attention to building strong community communicative
skills um and um
like put them uh in the first place uh and as for teaching to speak without
mistakes it is also quite important but uh on the higher
uh levels uh for example um if your students are
um a one a two levels uh building strong communicative skills
would be much more uh necessary for them than uh speaking without mistakes what
do you think uh hello guys nice to see you today
thanks for joining uh today we are talking about
some new trends in efl teaching thanks for joining and i hope you will
take part in today's conversation uh share your thoughts in the comments
box and i will i will show them
[Music] during the live session uh so the next point uh which i found
interesting as well is that uh teaching grammar uh should be um replaced
um with teaching lexical units so uh what i mean is that
we used to teach grammar through different tables and
schemes but nowadays um well
this approach is a little bit old-fashioned that is why uh we should switch from
teaching uh grammatical structures um to teaching uh grammar as um
lexical phrases as phrases uh it it means that we think uh
of grammar as uh chunks
okay so uh margaret asks um if uh a1 a2 should be function based
yes it seems like that um so uh
when we um talk about uh some uh grammar skills uh we need to
focus on um some specific um situations and functions of grammar
structures we teach and if we teach uh through changs for example we need to
show students um how uh this grammar um
how these phrases can be implemented uh in speaking situationally
and uh what functions those uh phrases will uh have in your speech
yeah something like that um so we uh switch from um
explaining rules to uh more uh communicative way of
instruction and i believe this idea is
easier for younger students and as far as i know uh
according to the recent um scientific approach uh scientific research um
human brain uh develops up until
25 years and well basically people cannot structure
logical information up until 25 years so that is why it is more
important to um work on communication and soft skills rather than
some logic and um more precise uh skills like
explaining rules and stuff like that and uh let me show you the last
uh idea which fascinates me most it is interactive learning
when we talk about teaching
recently we all had to switch to online education and
this brand will be more and more [Music]
applicable in the real classroom and in the home schooling
so it is quite important to um implement some um
important tools like these ones on the slide i
chose several uh several apps which are really helpful to
make your lessons interactive and um interesting
for students so uh if you for example work online mostly uh you can work
with interactive whiteboards you can help your students learn
vocabulary faster with quizlet or word wall
and for some students it is really important to learn through games so you can
build your own games with learning apps and basically if you need
to structure the whole course um you can try progress me
which is a really really interesting platform uh which has different
materials uh inside you can just use their materials or add your own ones
and uh build the whole course for your students um
and we also share our idt tefl resources we also have a lot of uh
useful information uh on our website uh i will share this um presentation
after the session and you will be able to click on all of this links
and see the contents uh interactive learning will be
uh even more in demand [Music] in the future years so
we as teachers also have to uh adjust uh to this mode of education
so that is pretty much uh of the trends um i found uh and i would like to
hear from you what do you think is important for future of tefl
which things will be important in future
let me know in the comments section and i will also share it with the rest
of the participants so what things
are important for either online teaching or in-class teaching
let me know what you think and now i would like to draw your
attention to this qr code here um in the um
right corner of the screen so if you scan it you will get a 30
off um of any itttttt courses
you can get this discount right now or you can also use
this link i'll share in the comment section
so um if you want uh to get this incentive
feel free to copy it and you will be able to get a 30 discount of any
itt tefl courses um and yeah uh guys i would like to
know what uh what things you consider important for
uh your tefl teaching and what um ideas
can be useful in future
um i hope that you can communicate with me a little bit um because i feel pretty
uh nervous right now um it's it's always hard to uh talk about
uh such difficult uh things as today um but still
i hope we can have a small chat so let me know what you think
and if we move forward i would like to
also discuss some other um ideas like if you have any uh
questions on tefl teaching or maybe working abroad working
online please let me know in the comments as well thanks guys thank you for
your support yeah um i should say um am that
uh student who was told to not to make mistakes that's why uh
when i talk uh in front of the public i feel so um intimidated um
and um i'm like a perfect example that it's better to teach communicative
skills and confidence rather than uh speaking without mistakes
because um it's it's extremely difficult to fix these problems when you grow
older and it's just something [Music]
that makes you feel so depressed i think it's something really important
to discuss as well during this session as well um so and i can see
that there are some people who uh take tefl uh right now who take tefl
course right now and uh that's really great to uh know because
tefl teaching is not just delivering english classes based on your
english learning experience if you are a non-native english teacher but it's
also about knowing how to
motivate students how to organize your lessons and so on and so forth
but if you are um if you wasn't uh trained um
as a professional teacher it's a great idea to take a course
okay margaret that's great to know that you have already bought a course
and it's better to start early because if you uh postpone it is
it it gets so difficult to um start like um i usually
find myself being stuck with some online courses
if i don't begin right after buying those courses
okay uh moses i hope i pronounce your name um correctly uh asks me about my
teaching my experience of finding my first job uh as a non-native speaker so um
it's actually was pretty easy uh i was a student at that time i wasn't
an english teacher um i studied at university at the linguistics
department so i studied english linguistics and some
[Music] friends of my mother asked me to tutor their children
so that's basically how i started teaching at the first stage
of my career but uh later on when i finished university i found it uh
quite difficult um in terms of preparing for lessons and
uh working for different uh groups of students so i decided to take
a tefl course uh just because i wasn't a real teacher
so um i took a tefl course and then uh i started looking for jobs around the
world and my friend from university uh mentioned that it was possible to
work in china and i just um decided that
it was the best opportunity and the best option for myself as an english graduate
so um i found an agency at that time and the agency
um was in china they found a position in a kindergarten that suited
myself and that's how i moved to china at that time unfortunately things
changed since um like 2016 and
nowadays it's more difficult to find jobs abroad due to the current
situation but it is still um possible but what is really important
here is being determined and showing that you are
interested in teaching career um and that you are like a professional um
and what i try to do constantly is um working on my english
uh because i'm still a non-native speaker so right now i'm taking classes um
for uh cpe preparation last year i passed uh ielts
um what else um [Music] so i also visit different conferences
and uh this way i think i build my perfect resume that will help me
in future as a teacher so something like that so when you look for
uh teaching positions around the world or online uh you should also
think of your self-development and don't underestimate
um online courses um i don't know some mock tests uh mock
uh courses it's it's really important to um um from
different resources okay thanks for this question and um
yeah the same idea uh it's difficult to get a job as a non-native teacher yes i agree with
you but probably it's
the matter of creating your resume think of some ways to enhance it
and it should be a great uh start um
what else can i um suggest you is um try to
uh find a job in your country is as well because that's what i uh did when
i came back from china to russia there are a lot of teachers all over the
world and there are also a lot of jobs all over the world but there are still students who
would prefer working with the teacher who can speak their local language and
i can see that such teachers are still in great demand in my country although
it is really easy to find native speaker native speakers and uh work with a
native speaker online or even in a real classroom
but still there are those students who would prefer to talk this to speak
the same language um uh as the teacher okay so don't worry if uh
you can't find your job easily uh you will definitely
do that if you um show your uh interest and if you uh keep doing
like your work proactively
okay so and the same question
i i believe i have already um answered this question but my first job
uh was before tefl course but then i decided to um start tefl
in order to be more uh involved into the sphere and
with tefl it was easier uh to find um a better position
okay and uh when i worked in china my first job was uh in a public
kindergarten uh it was like semi-public half public have
have some owned by some person
but i needed to go from one classroom to another classroom
uh and i had various types of learners and there were
a lot of students in one classroom it was quite difficult for
me even after being trained to work with different learners
but the next year in china i found another position
in a bilingual kindergarten and there i worked with one in the same classroom
on a daily basis i was like a head teacher
a head english teacher of my classroom i also had a head chinese teacher
and we cooperated and there were just 15 students in the classroom and it was
much easier to organize my work with them so something like that
if you guys have any other questions please let me know if
you don't have any further concerns uh i believe that is als that is all i
wanted to cover today so um i would like to finish the session
here and uh let me just remind you that if you scan this qr code
you can get a 30 discount [Music]
to any courses and yeah here you go
um so there is a question in russian uh this person
um art uh i hope i can pronounce your name
correctly they ask me about my contact
and actually guys you can direct message me on facebook this is my
[Music] facebook
so if you have any questions related to english teaching online teaching tefl
uh working abroad you can direct message me on facebook and i will try my
best to help you if you have any questions but i should also mention that
we um at itt share different uh materials uh on our various social
media and if you have uh if you have any questions and if you need any guidance uh
you can um also uh direct message us um on
facebook or instagram for example okay um and uh our managers
will try their best to assist you so that is all for today um
i hope you found the session informative and if you still have any questions
you can contact myself or uh you can contact our itt
um web page okay so thank you guys for today's session
and i'll see you next week uh and have a good day today bye bye
