admin2468 Photo from Getty Images There are two types of ‘beginners’ in terms of students; false beginners and true beginners. Most students are what are dubbed ‘false beginners’ in the ESL world, which means they have learned some English at some point, perhaps in basic courses at school, but they are not good at English. Most … Read more
Snapshot of the covers of some Pearson Graded Readers What Are Graded Readers? Graded Readers are a genre of fiction that few ESL teachers seem to know about, but should. They are fiction stories – English classics and contemporary, popular stories- that have been simplified for English learners of all ages and levels of learning. … Read more
One of the fastest ways to make quick progress towards near native fluency, in English is to master the use of the 12 verb tenses in English. There are other crucial grammar elements to learn as well (e.g. there is/ there are; the conditional ‘if’; count and non-count nouns, word order; the parts of speech), … Read more
Sometimes making your own worksheet is the perfect solution when you have a student who needs extra drill practise to master a grammar concept. Usually making your own worksheet is a quicker solution than trying to find a suitable exercise in a workbook, or online in Teachers Pay Teachers or Pinterest. It’s also a handy … Read more
Learn smarter, not longer – this is a technique I have been teaching my students for years, and Spaced Repetition is the main component of my teachings. Spending long hours mindlessly repeating vocabulary or writing it out is not nearly as effective as Space Repeition. If you have ever used the Pimsleur Language Learning method, … Read more
Most tutors find that when students say they need and want conversation classes, what they really need is help pronouncing the sounds in English like a native speaker, and how to speak with natural sounding intonation and word stress. Usually the students already know a lot of vocabulary. However, they struggle to be understood, and … Read more
This article describes what to look for in a good dictionary for English language learners, and my top picks for free onine dictionary and pronunciation resources. A good dictionary can become an essential learning tool, a personalized course book that is useful for years, and so can be very worthwhile to purchase early on in … Read more
Here is a quick and easy way to overcome the obstacle of knowing if a book is an appropriate language level for a student. While it can help to follow the publisher description of the language level of a book to collect a few book samples to test out on a student ( e.g. look … Read more
There are many ways to assess the reading level of a book, and each publisher uses their own scales of measure and adapts the original text differently, which is why you will see different Lexile and CEFR benchmarks ( Common European Framework for the Reference of Languages) for the same title. However, although it is … Read more
This blog was created and published in August 2023 to help people learn English using stories, and to help people new to tutoring learn how to teach English well. It includes resources for English language learners and tutors alike. It’s based on my 15+ years of teaching English in seven countries on four continents (Thailand, … Read more