TEFL Articles
A selection of articles and essays related to teaching English as a second or foreign language. If you wish, you can submit an article for publication.
Sean Hopwood
In this post, you’ll learn some of the best tips for teaching the English language
Kathy Alameda
Looking for support on teaching online? Here are some practical tips for creating a sustainable and engaging virtual learning experience.
Sanam Edwards
This article is about fusing inquiry into reading and language development in the classroom and how both are rooted in social and emotional learning.
Robert Mcbain
An article for English language teachers who need to compose effective reading comprehension questions for learners
Robert Mcbain
This article relates to the instruction of writing in an IELTS program.
Robert Mcbain
This article relates to integrating content and language in particular EFL instructional design of lessons and materials.
Robert Mcbain
Some no-nonsense advice on how best to construct an EFL teacher’s CV or resume for Thailand and the region. It covers important subjects needed for a CV.
Chad Emery
Teaching online can be challenging. This article shows teachers actionable ways to provide helpful feedback to students online.
Clare Hayward
Advice and tips on preparing students for IELTS exam strategies, the listening, speaking, reading and writing papers, and IELTS scoring
Emma Cowan
Advice for secondary-school teachers in English-speaking countries to help them integrate ESL students into their classes.
51Talk
In this article, you will find the top communication skills that you must develop to keep your students engaged and be an effective online English teacher.
Jason Bakkum
Learning another language can boost brain plasticity and increase empathy, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. How can teachers harness this?
Tate Nanje
When deciding to teach English abroad, the cities that you choose make all the difference in terms of experience and quality of life. Here are my ten best cities.
Rachel Rowland
How you can improve and develop as a teacher, whatever stage of your career you’re at
Rachel Rowland
A look at what you, as a TEFL teacher, might need to consider before communicating in some of the most popular destinations around the world.
Dariga Kenzhebayeva
Let this imaginary English teacher explain what you need to know about individualization
Renae Ghrist
Learn the five basic components of an effective language lesson.
Gabriel Clark
The article gives practical and immediately applicable advice about how to re-inspire yourself as a teacher and escape that rut.
Wade Nichols
Reignite students’ passion for learning through game-based, and importantly, playful learning techniques aided by technology.
Edwin Merino
This article is about three ways an English teacher can expand their teaching business online by applying to a company, freelancing, or creating a course.
Hollie Carroll
English language skills are possibly one of the most important factors you should pay attention to–if you want this teaching job.
Todd Persaud
This is an article that I wrote about my teaching experience. It’s about moving forward and ditching the negativity.
Raquel Thoesen
Individualized instruction provides a unique opportunity to truly engage a student in a lesson. Here are a few ideas to help you teach one-on-one!
Jason Sturgeon
A game-design method for keeping elementary students on task during game play
Andrew Forrester
Why a course on teaching English might include Japanese lessons—and what you can do even if it doesn’t^^
Andrew Forrester
Andrew Forrester explores the perils of mixing business with pleasure
Josef Essberger
The author of the ebook “English Prepositions List” summarizes some of the key points to understand when teaching prepositions and offers tips to make your teaching more effective
Matt Errey
The author of the ebook “1000 Phrasal Verbs in Context” suggests practical ideas to make teaching phrasal verbs easier and more productive
Matt Errey
From the creator of the world’s best-selling ESL board game—ten practical ideas on using games when teaching English
Matt Errey
Matt Errey looks at competitive versus co-operative games, and healthy versus unhealthy competition
Denis Marchant
This article speaks about the importance of teaching pronunciation, or accent reduction, to all ESL students, and includes ideas for lesson plans.
Michael Foy
Teachers need career pathways because if they don’t know where they’re going how can they expect others to follow?
Yesica Galliano
A look at strategies for assessing and evaluating students considering a specific group
Alex Case
Short but thorough guide to teaching “must have done”, “can’t be”, etc.
Alex Case
Using and expanding students’ memories while studying English as a foreign language.
Alex Case
How to start English for Academic Purposes classes in a pleasant and useful way.
Alex Case
What clothes vocabulary to teach and how to do so, including introducing loads of fun.
Alex Case
Fun classroom activities for prefixes and suffixes, especially useful for FCE, CAE and other exam classes.
Alex Case
Presentation and practice ideas for adults and young learners studying “You can’t…”, “… isn’t allowed”, etc.
Alex Case
All kinds of lessons on the vital topic of green spaces in our towns and cities.
Alex Case
How to present and practise a much neglected and badly taught verb for expressing desires.
Alex Case
Presentation and practice of polite requests in communication inside and outside the classroom, including typical student problems.
Alex Case
All kinds of lessons on a pleasant and surprisingly popular topic, also suitable for ESP students such as landscape architects.
Alex Case
Games with miming and other movement for the pronunciation and meaning of can and can’t.
Alex Case
Ways of adding fun and loads of other useful language to what is usually your students’ introduction to modal verbs.
Alex Case
A quick summary of what prepositions to teach kids and how to do so.
Alex Case
The unusual but surprisingly fun and effective combination of televisual images and words like “above” and “between”.
Alex Case
The great combination of artistic activities and words like “on”, “in” and “under”.
Alex Case
Total Physical Response activities to practise on, under, next to etc with young learners.
Alex Case
Ways of revising vocabulary as you present prepositions like “on” and “above”, or revising prepositions like these as you present new vocabulary.
Alex Case
Teaching the language that students need in order to give and ask for opinions, rather than just asking them to do so.
Alex Case
Much more intensive language of agreeing and disagreeing etc than just the usual discussion questions.
Alex Case
Ways to make sure craft activities develop students’ English ability as much as their artistic skills.
Alex Case
How to teach the CLILtastic topic of shapes, also vital for cutting down on L1 in classroom instructions.
Connor Davies
Connor Davies offers tips for TEFL teachers who dream of self-employment.
Alex Case
Students often use the freedom of one-to-one classes to ask too many unimportant questions or questions the teacher can’t answer off the top of their head. This article offers some solutions.
Alex Case
Stimulating and efficient ways of teaching the basics of numbers to young learners.
Editor
A video about the native speaker myth.
Alex Case
Making sure that all classes get lots of functional language and that those lessons are useful for everyone.
Alex Case
Other ways to improve accuracy for the many times when simple correction of oral errors isn’t the best way.
Alex Case
Fitting cultural information in with a grammatical syllabus without taking up extra time.
Alex Case
Practical ideas for teaching polite language and friendly language.
Alex Case
Tying the extended speaking task in with the rest of the IELTS exam.
Alex Case
Practical suggestions for the popular topic of urban areas.
Alex Case
Reassuring tips and messages for people new to IWBs.
Alex Case
The most important language for all parts of the IELTS Speaking exam.
Alex Case
Stimulating practice for “first”, “second”, “twenty third” etc.
Alex Case
Looking at the practicalities of bringing grammar into classes that are mainly about business communication.
Alex Case
Stimulating ways of practising must/may/might/could/can’t for speculation.
Alex Case
Easier, more fun, more challenging and more useful classroom tasks for IELTS Reading.
Alex Case
A practical guide to helping students cope with this most challenging and most modern of skills.
Alex Case
Things to teach to students of all levels about the most important kind of politeness.
Alex Case
Stimulating ways of quickly improving your students’ vital writing skills of planning and paragraphing.
Alex Case
How students can boost their score in the first part of the BULATS Writing exam.
Alex Case
Fun practice for one of the most common mistakes in English, including ideas useable with levels from False Beginner.
Alex Case
Things you need to cover to really teach the vital skill of emailing in English.
Alex Case
Entertaining speaking activities for “always”, “sometimes”, “never” etc, as well as similar expressions like “once every two months” and “three times a day”.
Alex Case
Issues associated with the use of student and teacher names in class.
Alex Case
Ways to teach pronunciation and recognition of the English alphabet, including in fast connected speech
Alex Case
A summary of problems different students have with saying and recognising the English alphabet, including in connected speech
Alex Case
Minimal pairs are underexploited. This article looks at how teachers can teach pronunciation with minimal pairs, with some specific ideas for classroom use.
Alex Case
Fun pronunciation games using pairs of words that vary by one sound only
Alex Case
Games to introduce and practise the important point of words that sound the same but are spelt differently
Alex Case
Reasons to use homophones in teaching English and lots of ways to do so
Alex Case
Making the clichéd topic of weather interesting, relevant and linked to other useful language
Alex Case
Activities and classroom dynamic techniques for coping with students who take over
Alex Case
Stimulating activities to teach and practise the difficult but fascinating topic of words that describe people’s character
Alex Case
Suggestions for bringing the topic of political correctness into class in interesting ways, and for dealing with PC issues when they come up naturally
Alex Case
Ten entertaining ways to present and practise the names of clothes and ways of describing them, with activities for all ages and levels
Alex Case
Classroom issues connected to gender and interesting ways of using that topic in classes of various ages
Alex Case
More fun activities based on the names of clothes and how to describe them. For all ages and levels.
Alex Case
How to use real and pretend noises to liven up the class, make the language memorable, and teach a useful emergency communication technique
Alex Case
Using TPR, drawings, stories and games to make feelings vocabulary memorable and fun
Tara Benwell
Upgrade your TEFL skills for free in your own time.
Tara Benwell
Are you thinking about taking a TEFL training course? Are you a recent TEFL graduate? Please participate in this Q and A. There’s a treat at the end!
Tara Benwell
If tech is your thing, you likely know about the weekly #edchat on #Teacher Tuesday that takes place on Twitter. This week’s #edchat focused on technology. While the topic was whether or not it is possible for teachers to make the wrong choices when using tech in the classroom, many of the contributors focused on […]
Tara Benwell
EnglishClub learners are challenged every day. Here is a challenge for the English teachers!
Shelley Vernon
You know from your own time at school that there were some teachers who you just did not mess around with.
Tara Benwell
EnglishClub.com now has a YouTube channel. Here are some other popular ones for ESL learners.
Tara Benwell
Use quotes as icebreakers, warmers, discussion topics, vocabulary lessons, and more…
Tara Benwell
Have you cleaned your computer lately? Spend a week getting your computer in top shape for a new school year.
Tara Benwell
Teach students to survive language learning by being active participants.
Tara Benwell
How teachers of English are using twitter professionally and personally
Presenting Vocabulary in YL Classes
Be creative. Be appealing. Be quick. To make sure your students will remember all the new words you taught them, be fun and have fun as well!
Ideas on Classroom Management in YL Classes
Tips to make your Young Learner classes work like magic
Cool Corporate English Consciousness
Giving your corporate classes the best approach
Two Gateways for Teachers of English
Review of EnglishClub and TEFL.net
Word Up Review by Alex Case
The biggest hit in our school this year
Guide to Teaching EFL in France
An EFL teacher shares her experience of teaching in central France
Hands off that e-dictionary!
The (few) merits and (many) disadvantages of e-dictionaries from the author's point of view
Lexis - the new grammar?
How new materials are finally challenging established course book conventions
Marketing Your Language Program 101
The basics to successful promotion of your courses
A Student Like Me
Suggestions for those who aspire to re-enter the classroom to get a degree
Motivation and Motivating in EFL
Coursebook: Take it or leave it
We do not have to dispense with the textbook. We only have to disabuse ourselves of the tendency to take a coursebook as gospel.
Intellect or Affect?
Intellect or affect? one may ask. Certainly both. We should not view them as two forces vying with each other, but as the ends of a continuum that is called self-awareness and spiritual elevation.
Speaking Practice through Presentations
Are You Netting the World's best ESL Resource?
Classroom: Forum or Arena?
A look at some of the factors that play an important role in the teaching-learning situation.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Language Learning
SAC Shock!!
Tips for self access centres
Should ESL Instructors Speak Other Languages in the Classroom?
20 Presentation Tips for Your Students
Cutting Out Cutting Up
Tips for lesson plans
How Was the Dip?
A personal reflection on the DELTA
Notes on Using Video in the Language Classroom
The Cultural Dynamics of Teaching
The changing winds and shifting sands of the history of English Language Teaching
Ingredients for Successful Communicative Tasks
Taking off the Training Wheels
Language and Sex
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Accommodation Theory
Each one of us is aware that our style of speech changes in the twinkling of an eye, as it were, depending on a wide range of variables...
An Introduction to "Befogging" Idioms
Do idioms really call the shots?