r/ESL_Teachers

Hi everyone. I’m about to teach speaking, writing, and academic soft skills (presentation skills and self-study skills to name a few) to a 13 year old student online. I’m a total beginner at teaching and want to research what activities I could do in class. I also wanna encourage him to care about learning English because he can be lazy at times. His mother expects him to become more confident in himself as he’s quite introverted. Any help is appreciated

Hey everybody,

I teach in a middle school with about 70-80 EL students ranging from newcomers to long term ELs. We have 4 EL teachers. Historically, we have done a mix of sheltered EL classes and push-in support. We say we "co-teach" but it's not actual co-teaching because we don't have any common planning time. ANYWAYS, I am BURNT OUT and our service model is woefully inefficient. We are spread so thin trying to reach everybody throughout the school. We pull kids from core classes and exploratory classes for EL instruction, so they miss exploratories and don't have access to the core curriculum. I'm proposing a shift in our service model next year. I'd like to have a SLIFE cohort that moves together through their core class times and have their core classes co-taught with content teachers and EL teachers. I also want our EL teachers to move toward more content language specialization rather than general EL. For example, I would be the English Language Science teacher. So I would co-teach in science classes across teams. I would still teach reading to our emerging readers, but most of my focus would be on scaffolding science content for our ELs. This would enable EL teachers to focus on one content area rather than several and would allow for students to remain on core teams for most of the day. They also wouldn't need to miss any exploratory times. By keeping our SLIFE and newcomer students together, we can design accessible core classes WITH core teachers so they can benefit from the expertise of both a language specialist and content specialist. This also allows EL teachers more time in the schedule to co-teach and push-in to other content classes to support longer term ELs and dual-identified students.

THOUGHTS?????

Also, If there's anybody out there that does something similar, I'd love to hear from you about what your experience has been. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this model? I'd love to talk with you! Please send me a message or respond here.

At this point, I can't keep doing this hodge podge of EL service delivery. I'M SO BURNT OUT. Something needs to change.

Looking for some advice for interesting and fun things to do with high-level adult learners, my class is B2+, but there are definitely some C1 students. I tend to do discussions about topics I think they'll find interesting, like we've done marriage recently, controversial ideas, food, etc., but I always find it hard to actually teach them anything because it's such a high-level class, and any errors they do make are so specific that it's hard to catch and address with the whole class, to it usually comes down to skills practice. I've done debates, discussions and a lot of scenario-based role-play games like survival island, but I'm just looking for some ideas to spice up the lessons. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but anything you've tried that has been a bit different and received positive feedback with a high-level group. Thanks!

Also, this is for a class focused only on speaking, while I can do other stuff, the focus should be more conversational English.

Hi there everyone!! 😊

Learn domestic animal names and the sounds they make in this fun and interactive video for kids! 🐶🐄🐔

In this lesson, children will listen and repeat as they learn about 20 common domestic animals. After every 5 animals, there’s a fun “What animal am I?” guess the sound quiz where kids can listen carefully and shout out their answers! 🎧

This interactive format helps keep young learners engaged while building listening skills, vocabulary, and confidence. Perfect for use at home, in the classroom, or for ESL learners!

🎯 Learning Goals
・Learn and recognize common domestic animal names
・Identify animal sounds through listening
・Improve listening and concentration skills
・Encourage speaking and participation through guessing
・Build confidence in English vocabulary (great for ESL learners)

Hi ESL teachers 👋

Lesson Mate AI - www.lessonmate.ai - is an AI platform that creates personalized ESL lessons based on CEFR level, grammar focus, and student interests.

Designed for online teachers who want to spend less time planning and more time teaching 🙂

Looking for teachers interested in trying it and sharing feedback.

DM me if interested.

www.lessonmate.ai

These scams are getting sophisticated, or maybe I’m just gullible or desperate to move back abroad.
I got an email saying a university in Germany is hiring for their newly opened language center. They are reaching out to qualified candidates whose resumes were found on a TEFL website.
I’m qualified and I’ve worked in Europe before (Celta + 9 years experience), so this didn’t raise red flags for me but it should’ve.
The email seems to have been sent by a real person who works at the university and can be found on the university’s website.
I apply, they ask me to answer some written questions via email.
They schedule a Zoom interview with me, right beforehand saying that due to technical difficulties videos should be turned off. Should’ve been a red flag but I thought hey, not everyone likes to be on video.
The person conducting the interview can also be found online, works for a consultancy that places teachers in Germany, so that checks out.
It was only when they sent an obviously fake contract with a too good to be true salary that I thought hey…
It turns out the email address used a slightly different format than the usual email addresses used at this university.
I emailed a contact I found on the university’s website and they confirmed they weren’t hiring.
Anyway I’m disappointed and I feel stupid, just wanted to put this out there and remind people to be WARY!

For those working in public schools, how does your school handle providing or not providing ELL services for children with autism particularly those that are nonverbal?

Yesterday, while I was at the barbershop, I started talking in English with the barber and his coworker. They were Polish, I wasn’t. And since cutting hair and trimming a beard takes quite a while, we ended up talking about all kinds of things.

At some point, when they found out that I teach English, the conversation naturally shifted toward their experience learning the language. And, unsurprisingly, the main complaint I heard was very familiar: too much grammar, too much memorization, too many tests and written exercises — and too little real speaking.

And that’s when I told them something that, honestly, applies to almost any state education system.

I think many teachers would actually like to do more speaking practice. But the moment you move toward live communication, you immediately run into the problem of grading. Because it is much harder to give fully objective grades for speaking.

For a system to work in a standardized way, it needs standardized tasks: texts, listening exercises, grammar exercises, tests — things where mistakes can literally be counted and converted into a score.

And because of that, I think that if we truly want English classes to focus more on real communication and real-life situations instead of only grammar and tests, then we have to admit one uncomfortable truth: living language is very difficult to standardize and grade perfectly.

And the less a system is obsessed with grades, the more actual communication there will be. But the more dependent a system becomes on grading, the more it will drift toward tests, exercises, and formal assignments.

Because the main goal of speaking is simply to start speaking. And to start speaking means being willing to speak despite your mistakes.

But doing that becomes incredibly difficult when you know the teacher is carefully listening, tracking every mistake you make, and that those mistakes will later affect your grade — and, as parents love to say, “your entire future.”

HI! I'm struggling with a few students who tend to be very confusing when speaking to me.

I'll talk about one in particular. I had a lesson with her a month ago where I asked her if she had any questions, we were near the middle of a lesson. She responded with, "not have to ask this class to learn?"

I knew she understood that I wanted a question, so I asked her to repeat it. I told her that I was a little confused so I asked her to write it. Still confused. I ended up writing what I heard and eventually figured out what she was asking. Still, this is one example in many, she tends to explain herself with using a lot of negatives and I honestly don't know how to correct sentences like these.

For example, I wanted her to tell me when we use the connectors and and but. "When do we use and in a sentence" She said: For example, I like skirts, and it aren't. But I don't like the skirts, the color or other.

I used the same method I mentioned previously, but this second time I'll admit I spoke too much and may have confused her. Still, any tips on helping this student?

EDIT: To clarify, her written english is amazing and is almost always correct! Her oral language is our main issue.

Teaching materials list for phrasal verbs. I would appreciate it if you could add more sources.

I've compiled a short list for those who prefer not to spend too much time preparing phrasal verbs lessons:

1. ISLCollective.com Large collection of free phrasal verbs worksheets, video lessons, and ESL activities. FREE https://en.islcollective.com/english-esl-worksheets/grammar-topic/phrasal-verbs
2. ChalkLab Phrasal verbs worksheets and interactive exercises that can be customized with AI and put into Canva or Miro. FREE https://www.chalklab.app/esl/worksheets/vocabulary/phrasal-verbs
3. AgendaWeb.org Simple online phrasal verbs exercises for extra practice or homework. FREE https://agendaweb.org/verbs/phrasal_verbs2-exercises.html
4. TEFL Lessons Free phrasal verbs worksheet for ESL lessons. https://tefllessons.com/product/free-esl-phrasal-verbs-worksheet/

I'm always looking for more good phrasal verbs resources, especially for speaking practice, review lessons, homework, or warm-up activities.

Would love to know what other teachers use.

We are open enrollment which means that people can drop in and drop out of the class as they please. I hate not knowing exactly how many students will come whether it be 10 or 2 it makes my planning for classes feel very limited because I can't count on X amount of students to come for a game lets say.

How do I avoid messing this opportunity up? Is there anyone out there who has progressed from teacher to senior teacher and can help me with the general questions I may be asked or can advise me on the mindset i should have going into the interview?

Background:

1. Position interviewing for: middle school senior teacher

2. Heirarchy: Middle School Principal (Chinese woman)> Middle School English Head (Chinese woman)> Senior teacher

3. my position at the school is guaranteed, and the position is 80% secured, they are just doing the final check on me. If I fail this interview, I will fill the "experienced teacher" position

4. Interview will include possibly the school Principal (overseas 1800 students), Vice Principal, Head of Middle school, Middle School English Head

5. Extra information: Lots of changes have happened with change of leadership. Students are especially chaotic. They want to continue doing PBL, and prepare students for KET/PET (skip over FCE)/ and IELTS.

6. they mainly need a foreign teacher to go along with them and contribute (for face obviously, but probably also want a contributor). They want to develop the curricula.

7. Does anyone have any advice for me?

Hi! I'm look for lesson ideas for B2/C1/C2 level Business English Classes. What topics do you find engaging for your students? What topics come up quite frequently?

Attaching a couple of screenshots of some of the lessons on the website (www.thebehub.com) so far!

Thanks for your help!

https://preview.redd.it/4ajbm5wvnr0h1.png?width=2248&format=png&auto=webp&s=f8f0674195cce5d15e2a23acbcf96c076737ad0f

https://preview.redd.it/pg9t4m6ynr0h1.png?width=2270&format=png&auto=webp&s=69aae0f3e534ef5f926ada73bd4a757ab67667c0

Y’all my students’ attendance is abysmal. Like less than half my students show up on a given day. Done write ups for skipping but a lot of them are absent the whole day. Disheartening.

• “out from under there”
• “up against the wall”
• “down into the tunnel”
• “back out of the room”
• “right up to the edge”

What's the theory behind phrases like these? How are they taught to English language learners?

Edit: This is a serious recurring problem. There is no explanation for even the most basic everyday language.