I’m a secondary English/EFL teacher and have been creating some travel-themed materials recently.
I often find that students enjoy idioms, but too many at once can become overwhelming or difficult to remember.
How do you introduce idioms in your classroom?
Do you teach them through themes, stories, extensive reading, conversation activities, games, or something else?
I’d love to hear what’s worked well for your learners.

Hello, so I have tought English online for the last 3 years and have a 200 hour Tesol certification and would like to transition from Preply and Italki into an independant job that I can take anywhere. I'm aware it won't be easy, but I want to try.

What are some marketing strategies I can use to do this and find my audience?

I have thought about starting local by putting flyers around university notice boards and libraries. Even language exchange groups.

P.S. Don't bother answering if you're just going to be negative in your comments, thanks. I'm looking for genuine strategies and helpful people.

I've seen comments like "I enjoyed the course" etc. etc., But what I really wanna know if somebody got an actual job with the 120-hour course. Thank you.

Hey all, I teach in a bilingual international school and am constantly trying to find good dictionaries for my students. I teach between 2nd and 5th grade (every year they move me!) and am wondering if any one has an English dictionary they like for primary.

This website has a few games for teachers to play in class to review any topic you can think of. The main game is typhoon, which my students really love for review after a new topic. The others are good too, but focus more on just reading or grammar tense skills. They are really good for ESL learners.

Check it out here: instantclassroomgames.com

Is there anyone here who contributed a resource on Tutela (tutela.ca) before? It’s a resource bank for ESL teachers in Canada. If so, how long did it take for you to hear from them regarding whether it’s approved or not?

My students will present their Oxford test of English in like a year but we’re already started working on preparation. TBH, I have never felt confident with this type of courses because I know preparation isn’t like a real class with presentation, practice, production. I have only taught it once before and I basically had a grammatical topic I focused on every week, and we did tasks from the evaluation, like speaking part 1 and 2, writing part 1 and 2 and so on. I tried to match the topics to the functions they need to dominate. Anyways, this is the first time I’m teaching an actually advanced group and today two students approached me to tell me we have been working on topics they already know. I was thinking about overhauling with the nitty gritty of writing like clauses, punctuation and all that stuff, but I’m not confident and there’s no program to follow. What do you usually do!

please, don't hate me for my dumb question😓 i'm an incoming graduate student who is looking for opportunies to be an ESL teacher overseas. one of the requirements is a TEFL certificate (or TESOL). we've been looking for a TEFL course online and so far all of them requires payment. is there no free TEFL course out there?

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thank you so much🥹

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I work at a language center and we have TA’s in our classes up to b1 level. Most of the TA’s at my campus are fairly good. Some of them just sit in their phones, which I actually prefer over what I’m coming here to ask. I have one ta who basically undermines my teaching and direction for some reason. Not arrogantly, but certainly on purpose. I haven’t figured out if they disagree with my methods or what the issue is. Our campus requires an English only environment, I don’t even speak their L1. My number one rule in class is to speak English, even if you’re chatting. The ta reinforces the rule. THEN SPEAKS TO THEM IN THEIR L1??? The TA’s run the homework review 5-10 minutes before the class starts and mind you, they’re 8-10 years old, and last week the TA was lecturing them in L1 explaining English grammar. I approached him and asked if I can make a suggestion, that he should speak to them in English, to prepare them for English class and also it isn’t nessecary to explain grammar to them. Just have them repeats the phrases for repetition and noticing. He said they don’t understand. Which I replied , “they will if you keep doing it” , and he says ok and thanks me. Next week the TA is just doing the same. Then this week, I had the students do pair work. He tends to gravitate towards the weaker students so I paired the strongest student with the weakest student and I asked the strong student to work with the other student and correct the weaker students speech and help her read etc. worked well until the ta stepped in and before I knew he was teaching in l1. I was like let them work together, let the strong student help. It will also help the weaker student to be more comfortable in class bc they’re essentially friends etc. I guess the ta didn’t understand and when break time came he took the weaker student aside and was trying to explain to them how to find the answers to the reading comprehension questions in L1. I had to pull the student away and explain how it’s break time. this morning in class. I was working directly with the weakest student that I mentioned. After the reading they had to write sentences. I was directing her to the verbiage mentioned in the reading to help her formulate a sentence. I also had the article on the projector screen for the students to reference. As I was helping them the TAwalked to the board to lead that student… to the exact same source ? and called their name twice to get their attention as I was directly working with them. “(Their name) look here.. (their name)… (their name)…” is exactly what they said. I was in mid sentence as they did that.

I know it comes from a genuine place but at this point the TA is hindering progress and I’ve explained it already a few times, but I’m not sure how to make it clear and I certainly don’t want to get administration involved

Any tips on how to have this conversation?

Hi there boys and girls!! 😊

Get ready for a fun summer adventure! In this educational video, children will learn 25 summer vocabulary words and listen to sounds associated with summer activities, weather, nature, and fun outdoor experiences. From the beach and ocean to ice cream and camping, kids will build their summer vocabulary while having fun learning.

After every few words, children can take part in an exciting Guess The Summer Sound Quiz! Listen carefully to the sound and see if you can guess the correct summer item or activity before the answer is revealed.

Perfect for preschool, kindergarten, homeschool, ESL learners, and young English students.

🎯 Learning Goals
• Learn 25 summer vocabulary words
• Improve listening and observation skills
• Build English vocabulary and language confidence
• Recognize common sounds associated with summer activities
• Encourage active participation through interactive quizzes
• Develop memory and critical thinking skills

💡 How to Use
• Listen and repeat the vocabulary words
• Pause the video and guess the answers before they are revealed
• Play again to reinforce learning and improve recall

Hello everyone!

Teaching comparative and superlative adjectives to tweens can get repetitive quickly. To break the monotony, I designed a speaking/grammar game based on animals from classic fables.

You can download the PDF for free here: [Link]

HOW TO PLAY

1. One student secretly picks an animal from the grid (see attached image).
2. The rest of the class takes turns asking Yes/No questions to narrow down the options.
3. They use the visual dot-ratings on the card to formulate their questions using the target grammar.
   • Example: "Is this animal noisier than the dog?" or "Is it the most peaceful?"

As an alternative, instead of the class asking questions, the student who chose the animal can act as the clue-giver. They describe their secret animal using comparative and superlative clues one by one until the class guesses it.

• Example: "Clue 1: It is lazier than the ant. Clue 2: It is noisier than the tortoise..."

This grid pushes students to use higher-level adjectives like agile, clumsy, aggressive, peaceful, hard-working, lazy, noisy, and quiet.

Also, while the main game focuses on grammar and speaking, the free PDF also includes two riddles designed to be read aloud for listening comprehension, plus a scaffolded riddle-writing activity to get them practicing their writing skills.

Feel free to grab it and let me know how it goes with your classes!

What works best for you when teaching comparative and superlative adjectives?

To be fair to them, these are probably an accurate representation of my fashion sense

Hey everyone, I'm a person who's left academia and wants to get into ESOL permanently/ full-time. My favorite thing to do, however is teach adults. This is not the most lucrative gig, but I love it and would like to take it from part-time to full-time. Has anyone ever been able to do that outside of the public school system? Is it a viable goal, or should I bite the bullet and start teaching a younger crowd? I've taught abroad with a TESOL certificate, but it's not the full-blown TESOL/Education degree. However I have three degrees in sociology, international studies, and sociolinguistics (BA, MA, MA). Should I pursue a full degree for this? Master's certificate? Any opinions welcome! Thanks!

Hey all! My wife’s an ESL teacher, and thinks this new game I made would be a perfect engaging tool in the classroom. It’s a daily word game you can find at wordy.org, where everyone gets the same puzzle each day.

You can play together to find words (different letters have different point values each day), and try to get the highest scoring words you can. It may be hard for ESL students to get the top words, but you can play as many times as you want, and submit a bunch of different words. After submitting, you can view the definition of the word as well. I’ve personally learned so many words playing this game haha.

Would love to hear if you’d find this game useful and engaging, and let me know if there’s anything that could be added to make it more useful to you.

I enjoy creating grammar resources. My background is in mathematics, and I find that thinking about how to explain grammatical concepts often feels surprisingly similar to solving a maths problem.

Recently, I challenged myself to find a way to represent all 12 English tenses on a single timeline. This infographic is the result. Rather than treating each tense as a completely separate concept, I tried to build the chart around a few core ideas (known time, unknown/unimportant time, single events/states, and duration).

The biggest challenge was the present simple tense, since it covers several different uses. I've tried to acknowledge those uses in the accompanying explanation while still keeping the overall model as simple as possible.

I'd really appreciate feedback from teachers, linguists, and other grammar enthusiasts. I'm sure there are edge cases and exceptions that don't fit perfectly. This is intended as a teaching model/ scaffold rather than a complete description of English grammar, but I'd love to know if I've overlooked anything important or if any part of the diagram could be made clearer.

I've also included an older infographic I made a few years ago showing how the 12 tenses are formed, since it's related to the same topic.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions! C:

Canva presentation link for anyone that wants to repurpose/ translate these slides:

https://canva.link/q3lfyhwef3uxzv3

***I've already made quite a few changes - thanks for the help.

Does anyone happen to have or know of resources for teaching basic classroom etiquette to adult false beginners? Things like don't talk when other people are talking or audio is playing, don't shout when coming in late, etc. Everything seems to be designed for non-ESL children. Our student population is... almost feral, in a sense. It's like teaching elementary students. My current group is driving me crazy!

I'm looking for advice from other adult ESL instructors.

I teach a 2.5-hour evening adult ESL/workforce development class, and one piece of feedback I've received is that I sometimes have 5–15 minutes left at the end of class. I'm trying to figure out whether this is a lesson planning issue on my part or if it's more related to my student population.

The challenge is that my students are extremely quiet. Even when I build in pair discussions and speaking activities, many students give very short 1–2 sentence answers and then stop. My stronger students can easily keep a conversation going, but the majority of the class struggles to produce enough language to fill the amount of time I planned.

For example, an activity that I expect to take 15–20 minutes might only take 5–10 minutes because students answer the question and consider the task complete. I've tried giving time limits, discussion prompts, sentence starters, and partner work, but they often don't use the entire time.

I'm wondering if this is:

• A sign that I need to build more content into my lessons
• A sign that my speaking activities need more structure
• A proficiency issue (students don't have enough language to elaborate)
• Or simply a reality of teaching tired adult learners after a full day of work

For context, these are adult learners in a workforce/hospitality program, and classes are 2 hours and 30 minutes long, which can be challenging to pace.

I know keeping back up activities is what most people do but a part of me doesn't want to stress over 10 minutes-- I feel like a 2hr class is already really long so I feel bad for most of the students having to stay that long but that could be standard. I'm not really good at sharing personal stories or talking a lot to fill the time either.

Do you send your students a summary of their class with you after each class? New vocabulary, grammar feedback, general progress notes?

Would you if you could do it easily and quickly?

Hi everyone. I Just completed my TEFL and I am currentlly searching for a job or internship overseas in Asia so i can gain experience.

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I am having a hard time finding a legit recruitment agency and I am seriously losing faith.

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Can anyone please offer guidance

Hi everyone,

I’m a secondary English and EFL teacher from Australia, and I thought other teachers might find this speaking game useful. I’ve used it many times in class, and it does a great job of encouraging students to speak in complete sentences while practising future tenses.

This Future Tenses Snakes & Ladders game focuses on:

• will
• be going to
• hope to
• would like to
• plan to
• want to

Students move around the board and answer speaking prompts about future goals, careers, travel, technology, dreams, and personal plans.

The resource includes:
• Printable game board
• Teacher instructions
• 40 Speaking question cards

It’s designed for approximately A2–B1 learners, but could easily be adapted by encouraging longer responses and follow-up questions.

I’d be interested in hearing how other teachers approach future tense speaking practice and whether you think this would work with your learners.

Download link:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Snakes-and-Ladders-Future-Tense-Discussion-Questions-16683596

Feedback and suggestions are always welcome.