teaching English

An Orgy of Evidence

Niall O'Donnell 2 Comments

While writing yesterday’s post about future forms, I took a little time to think of useful example sentences for each form. Not as much time as I might in the classroom though because if you’re reading this you know and use these forms quite well, either through being a native speaker, or having learned to a high enough level to be able to read blogs in English. The examples therefore didn’t need to do any heavy lifting in terms of demonstrating meaning.

But of course that’s different for people who are still figuring things out, and therefore need a little more guidance. Consider the following exchange:

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English Lessons for Experts: Past Simple & Continuous

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

I’ve decided to continue looking at some of the basic aspects of the English language, as I began before. From now on it’ll be a little different, as I won’t go into much detail about what a lesson might look like, mainly because the principles remain largely the same. If you’re a native speaker, you might find this enlightening, and if not, it might be a useful refresher of things you’ve already learned. Before looking at some of the main past tenses, let’s have a quick recap of the present simple and continuous, which I looked at before, but not in much detail:

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English Lesson: Present Simple & Continuous

Niall O'Donnell 10 Comments

Today I thought I’d provide a slightly more detailed look at how we usually go about teaching English. If you’re a native speaker, it might be interesting to get a look at the rules and structures of the language which you’re not normally aware of. If you’re a non-native speaker, you’ve probably learned this already, but it might be useful to get a top-up!

I’m going to go through a fairly typical lesson, then make a few notes about it afterwards. Continue reading →

By the Book

Niall O'Donnell 3 Comments

What do you need to teach a language lesson? Some students of course, and preferably a whiteboard, or a flipchart at a pinch. And, probably, a textbook, or an extract from one. A textbook is something that both students and teachers often take for granted. Many students like to have a trusted source of exercises to improve their English, and provide them with lots of new vocabulary and grammar rules. New teachers often cling to a textbook as a crutch. It’s comforting to know that you’ve got some interesting activities to keep the students busy, and save you having to find different exercises and figure out how they work together. And it helps to get rid of that awful fear newer teachers have that they’ll run of material long before the end of the lesson. Even if you finish your planned exercises before the end of the lesson, a few more pages in the book can feel like a welcome safety net. But how much do you really need a textbook? Continue reading →

Practice Makes Perfect. Or is that “Practise…”

Niall O'Donnell 16 Comments

This post is something of a companion piece to yesterday’s.

Up until early February 2008, I never gave much thought to the spelling of the word practice. Or practise, for that matter. What happened then, in the last depths of winter, to change that?

I wrote my lesson plan for my first teaching practice on my teacher-training course, that’s what happened. Somewhere within that incredibly detailed plan, I wrote something along the lines of Students practice using the target language. Continue reading →

Daily Prompt: Protest

Niall O'Donnell 6 Comments

via Daily Prompt: Protest

What’s the difference between the following words in bold:

I’d like to protest about my treatment!

I’m going to a protest about the treatment of refugees tomorrow.

If you’re linguistically minded, or simply very smart, you may have answered that even though they look identical, the first one is a verb, and the second a noun. You can tell from the context of the sentences. But if you were listening to someone recite those sentences, there’d be another clue to help you know the difference. Think about how you’d say both, or say them both out loud, if it’s not too embarrassing, and see if you can figure out the clue.

If you’re still not sure of the difference, here’s a visual aid: Continue reading →

Talking about Language

Niall O'Donnell 1 Comment

One of the interesting things about learning to become a language teacher is just how much your vocabulary improves. There’s a lot of jargon related to different aspects of language that one doesn’t ordinarily come across in life. So here’s a fairly random sprinkling of some of the more interesting (to me!) words we language teachers learn to use: Continue reading →