How do you become a better teacher? Being a better teacher has as much to do with learning new ideas as it does with being aware of what is working well in your classroom, and things that you need to improve on. In other words, teachers need to be aware
Project work can be the perfect multisensory learning experience to give students the opportunity to make things with their own hands and experience the language and content in a meaningful context. Children are active learners and learn best through concrete tasks and hands-on activities. They learn by doing and will
Each month in this new blog post series, Katherine offers five practical and engaging classroom activities which all use the same photo as a starting point. The ideas can be adapted to work with all ages and levels and are designed to recycle language in an engaging way while developing
It was a privilege to give a webinar on reading for National Geographic Learning recently. I’d participated in webinars before, but this was my first time as a presenter. Admittedly, I was a little apprehensive about presenting to the void – no other faces, no other voices besides mine. In
These productive skills which require students to ‘perform’ can be the most challenging to assess because in many ways the assessment is always subjective. When we listen or read the students’ responses, we can wonder ‘What exactly is good pronunciation?’ or ‘What is a good answer to the task?’. This
Each month in this new blog post series, Katherine offers five practical and engaging classroom activities which all use the same photo as a starting point. The ideas can be adapted to work with all ages and levels and are designed to recycle language in an engaging way while developing
Will you be at the TESOL 2019 convention in Atlanta, Georgia from March 12th-March 15th? We are thrilled to be sponsoring the opening keynote speaker, Dr. David Harrison. Dr. Harrison is an anthropologist, linguist, National Geographic Fellow and co-director of the Society’s Enduring Voices Project. If you’re attending TESOL, be sure
How can we get our learners talking? A combination of factors can often inhibit our students from speaking out loud – fear of making mistakes in front of their peers; not knowing what to say; not feeling motivated or interested in the topic. If we want to engage our students
In this blog post, Katherine writes about think, pair, share, a learning strategy that can be easily incorporated into classroom practice as a way of structuring learners’ approach to a task. She explains what think, pair, share is and why it can be useful. She then shares a step-by-step guide to
Many teachers now have to monitor their learners’ progression – for themselves and for others, such as parents. But we don’t want to keep giving our young learners formal tests, so how can we check how well they are doing while also giving them good support to help them improve?