A recent post on Patrice’s blog about time management made me stop and think. Like many in the education business, I never feel like I have enough time to do all my work. And then […]
The Art of Exams
There’s a lot of takeaways in Sharon Hartle’s new blog post, THE ART OF GATHERING… EVEN FOR EXAMS. I think assessment and examinations are a neglected topic in TESOL/EFL circles. Particularly in a world where examinations […]
Activities for Thanksgiving
There are a lot of reasons to teach about Thanksgiving and do some activities for Thanksgiving in the classroom. First, Thanksgiving is a major American holiday* and students living in the US should know about […]
Stories Without End in the Classroom
I was recently uploading more individual stories without end (from Taylor’s wonderful book) to Teachers Pay Teachers. One of the pieces of information you need to fill out there is how long the material will […]
Readers Theatre or reader’s theater or Something Else?
One of the challenges of writing about and publishing lots of books about drama in language education is trying to decide what to call the thing where students read plays or dramatized texts out loud. […]
Why a Teacher Shared Her Burnout Story
Patrice Palmer had been teaching English for 20 years when she left teaching in 2015. She felt no desire to continue teaching even though she loved ESL. But she didn’t realize that she had burned […]
Storytelling for EFL Students
Storytelling is an important skill for EFL students to learn. In fact, being able to tell a story is a helpful human skill as we are constantly constructing narratives to explain what we are doing, […]
Public Speaking in English is Scary. Drama Can Help
Poor Emilio! He seemed like such a confident student, but when he had to give a talk in front of the class, he ran to the bathroom and was sick. Emilio’s case might be extreme, […]
EdYOUfest Takeaways
EdYOUfest, where I presented on using drama to teach speaking skills, was a lot of fun. The most striking feature of the conference is that it’s small (under 100 people) and that you are all […]
First Day of Class Advice for Teachers
The first day of class is always a mixed blessing. Going back to school is very exciting and meeting new students for the first time is always a pleasure. But it’s hard to plan for […]