It may seem mercenary but sometimes you need to drop one class in favor of higher paying class or series of classes. It happens. You're not happy about it. But needs will out.
30 January 2010
29 January 2010
28 January 2010
27 January 2010
Jobs
You will lose classes all the time... Don't let it get you down. There's more around the corner
26 January 2010
Writing it all down....
Always write down your lesson plans for the day. Sometimes it is best to keep your lessons straight in your mind and many times your school will ask you for some hard copy of your in-class activities.
A great way to teach sentence structure is to put a label of a grammatical component (subject, verb, etc) to each student and have them arrange and re-arrange themselves into a correct sentence. This is activity is effective for low level students, but it can also be used to teach complex sentence structure to more experienced students.
Next Month's Workshop
There is still room in my latest class, and we might be expanding into
a second night.
25 January 2010
24 January 2010
23 January 2010
Correcting Students
Correct mistakes but not constantly and not 100% in one class, this will simply lead to discouragement in your student(s).
22 January 2010
Word Searches
Word searches are useful. After finding the words, you can have students use the words in sentence construction.
21 January 2010
WiFi
Even if you have WiFi at home, be aware of where your local hotspots are... you will sometimes need to check your emails without having to return to your home.
19 January 2010
Advertise
A great site to advertise yourself is LingoBongo. They will send your CV/resume to all the schools in the Madrid area for 10 euros.
Field Trips
It's a good idea to plan a time to get your students out and about speaking English. Now they best way to do this in Madrid is to go to an intercambio night at a local bar or for something less threatening, perhaps, an English Language bookstore such as Bacchus or JandJ's Books and Coffee.
16 January 2010
Mind the GAP
Use popular songs as gap activities. Students feel an immediate response when they are confronted by a piece of popular culture, especially a popular song that they are already trying to understand.
15 January 2010
13 January 2010
12 January 2010
11 January 2010
Advice...
You should never be afraid to ask a more experienced teacher for help or advice. Most teachers will be happy to help and give you helpful hints on everything from best textbooks to pay scales to how to deal with unruly students. Take advantage of them, they are a useful resources.
10 January 2010
08 January 2010
07 January 2010
05 January 2010
Portable Speakers
Invest in a pair of portable speakers. You can find a pair for under 20 euros. Listening activities are essential to good teaching and you don't want to be at the mercy of the school/company's CD players. Along with you iPod, you can cart around all the listening activities from your textbook and any others you create on your own. Also, you look very cool to the students when you set it up for them.
04 January 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)