Using Pictures to Teach English
“He must be joking!” I thought. I was shocked but I kept quiet. My friend Jane didn´t. “Why the hell should I throw all my work away?” she asked. We went silent and expected that Jane will be punished.
SVOMPT – Word Order in English
The SVOMPT rule is the most important rule in English. As there are very few declinations in English, the word order rule is the one that keeps the sentences understandable. If you do not apply this rule, your sentences will make no sense. <!– wp:more –> Unfortunately, there are very few textbook that teach this…
Why Einstein Never Wore Socks
At Christmas I got and read a book by Christian Ankowitsch called Warum Einstein niemals Socken trug (Why Einstein Never Wore Socks). The author collects all the pieces of research that show how our physical behaviour influences our thinking. There are many interesting facts that you may find useful in your daily life. But can…
Months – a lexical set to learn
Months are one of the few lexical sets that students have to learn. In general, lexical sets are difficult to learn and remember. Therefore, we should teach vocabulary in thematic sets. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. There are some lexical sets which should be taught as such. They are for example…
Fifty most frequent irregular verbs
I can see what you think. Irregular verbs again? You must be joking!!! I know. I have already published many posts on irregular verbs. For example: <!– wp:more –> Irregular verbs with Fluency MC Irregular verbs rhymes Irregular verbs straightforward ADVERT: [showmyads] But let´s be honest. None of them proved to be the miracle solution…
Dates – great activities to teach dates in English
It is very important for students to be able to say and understand dates in English. For example if our students deal with someone about a deadline, they need to be sure what date is being talked about. In business, missing the deadline can have dire consequences. Therefore, dates are extremely important for the students…
Thematic vocabulary – Birthday
In the issue 105 of English Teaching Professional there is a wonderful article by Chris Payne. It is called Plan V and it deals with vocabulary teaching. Chris explains that teachers should teach vocabulary every lesson, they should teach high frequency words and they should not teach semantic sets. He supports his arguments with research…
Dictation for learners of English
Dictation is one of the best listening activities. To be able to write what you hear, you have to understand it and know the words. Once you can divide the stream of sounds into separate words, then you can understand it. And as dictation makes you do this, it is the best way to improve…
Irregular Verbs – Board Game
Irregular verbs in English are very important for students to learn. These verbs belong among the most frequent words in English and if you want to speak about your experience you cannot do without them. Therefore it is extremely important to give a lot of time to teaching and learning these verbs. <!– wp:more –>…
Online Quizzes to Practise Present Simple
In this post I would like to share 7 online quizzes to practise the present simple tense. All the quizzes are in HTML 5, so you or your students can play them on their mobile phones. Moreover, if you have a website or a wordpress site, you can easily enter these exercise there by copying…
Forming questions and answers in the present simple tense
In this post, I would like to share the best activities I know to teach questions in the present simple tense. The aim of these fun activities is to help your students form the YES/NO questions and short answers correctly. I have used all these activities in my classes and they worked very well. In…
Difficult and hard synonyms
In English there are many words which have the same or very similar meaning. Words that have the similar meaning are called synonyms. In this post, I am going to present synonyms for the words DIFFICULT and HARD. <!– wp:more –> In this post, there are two quizzes to practise the new vocabulary and an…
Speed reading for elementary students
Speed reading activities are very important for learners of English. By trying to read quickly, they develop their comprehension and fluency in reading in a foreign language. Thus they improve their knowledge of English. The problem with speed reading activities is, that they are not for elementary students of English. The texts mostly aim at…
Phrasal verbs with Fluency MC
A few years ago Jason better known as Fluency MC, came up with a rap song and a video. In this video he teaches ten phrasal verbs. And as I like the video very much and I think it is really useful, I decided to create a post using the video. <!– wp:more –> In…
Phrasal verbs II
Yesterday I published a post in which I taught 16 phrasal verbs which belong among the 50 most frequent phrasal verbs in English. In this post I am going to introduce 10 more phrasal verb which belong into the same category.
Speed Reading
Paul Nation in his book What Should Every EFL Teacher Know suggests that every language course should consist of four strands: Vocabulary development, Extensive input and output, grammar explanation and fluency development. By giving these four strands equal amount of time in EFL lessons, students will learn the foreign language. <!– wp:more –> In this…
Books for teachers and learners of English
Ever since I was a boy I wanted to write and publish a book. It took over thirty years for my dream to come true. In this post I would like to introduce the three books for learners and teachers of English which I published. <!– wp:more –> ADVERT: [showmyads] Grammar Up is a book…
Grammar Up – a new book to improve your grammar
I have just published a new book. It is called Grammar Up. Grammar Up is a new, holistic approach to teaching and learning English grammar. <!– wp:more –> When you take English in school, you learn one piece of grammar at a time. After a while, you become confused by all the rules, and you…
190 Irregular Verbs mobile app
I recently created my first app for mobile phones and it became a hit among my students. Already 85 students downloaded the game and they are working hard on learning the new vocabulary. <!– wp:more –> However, as this app was just for Czech students, I wondered whether I could offer it to people from…
4 TEFL Speaking Activities
We live and teach in the communicative era. However, the textbooks offer very few speaking activities where students could practise the language they have learnt. That is why I decided to share several speaking activities with you. <!– wp:more –> In this post there are two speaking activities to practise describing a house using the…