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Should teachers use students’ first language(s) in the English Language classroom?
Go into many language centre classrooms, and you will see a sign on the wall: ‘English only’, or ‘speak English in class’. Students are

Tom Garside
Aug 9, 20214 min read


What can a level 6 Trinity Certificate for Practising Teachers (Cert PT) qualification do for you?
If you have an initial qualification in TESOL and a couple of years of experience in the classroom, you may be wondering where to go next...

Tom Garside
Aug 5, 20214 min read


How to teach listening: 3 ways to make listening activities more purposeful
Listening in a second language involves a lot more than identifying keywords and answering information questions, so why are most listening

Tom Garside
Jul 26, 20214 min read


Helping learners to develop written arguments
In this final article about teaching writing, we will look at another common essay genre: argument essays. Argumentation operates in

Tom Garside
Jul 19, 20215 min read


How to teach writing 3 - Developing ideas in student essays: Sandwiches vs spaghetti
Writing is a complex activity - it involves language, culture, cognition and the management of ideas as they develop onto the page.

Tom Garside
Jul 13, 20214 min read


How to teach writing 2 - increasing precision in student essays
A common issue with ESOL learner writing is connected to the appropriate usage of words and phrases for different kinds of text.

Tom Garside
Jul 9, 20213 min read


TEFL Certificates, CELTA, CertTESOL… What’s the difference? Qualifications in ELT explained
Here is a list of the course and qualification types on offer, to help you make the right choice for you and your teaching journey:

Tom Garside
Jul 6, 20213 min read


What the EFL? TEFL, TESOL, ESOL, EAL, ESL… What’s the difference?
In the world of English Language Teaching, there are abbreviations everywhere. Sometimes it is easy to get so lost in the letters and

Tom Garside
Jul 6, 20213 min read


How to teach writing 1 - Activities with conjunctions and linking devices
In second-language writing, there is a balance between the points being communicated and the way that they are put together. Point to point,

Tom Garside
Jul 4, 20214 min read


Online interviews - practical tips - before the interview
Interviews are TWO WAY processes. Yes, the world is 'interesting' right now but in any interview you are also interviewing the school.

Tom Garside
Jun 30, 20213 min read


Acing an online TEFL interview - academic focus
The world of international teaching and learning has changed over the last couple of years. Schools and education organisations are looking

Tom Garside
Jun 29, 20213 min read


The Cert PT who, what, when?
The Trinity CertPT can be taken by teachers who work with second-language learners of English, in any study setting.

Tom Garside
Jun 23, 20212 min read


Learner Styles & Preferences
Ask a teacher about how their students learn best, and they will probably tell you that their students are ‘very visual learners’. They

Tom Garside
Jun 22, 20214 min read


Giving feedback on student writing - Should you correct your students’ work or simply mark it?
As with any productive skills work, writing involves a wide range of different language subskills, as well as knowledge of text organisation

Tom Garside
May 19, 20213 min read


Tips for teachers: How to plan and teach a focused pronunciation lesson
Pronunciation is an essential part of language learning, and needs to be tailored to the specific needs of the students you are teaching

Tom Garside
May 5, 20214 min read


Quick tips for new teachers Part 1: Designing effective teaching materials
So you've just finished your initial training course, you've started your first job and you’ve been given the materials you'll be using with

Tom Garside
Apr 19, 20214 min read


Error correction 2 - What's the best way of correcting errors and mistakes?
As any teacher will tell you, repeated mistakes in student language are frustrating, and can linger despite the teacher repeatedly giving

Tom Garside
Apr 12, 20213 min read


It's OK to make mistakes - error correction
Despite what you may have been told at school, errors and mistakes are an important part of learning. This is especially true in

Tom Garside
Mar 30, 20213 min read


The TEFL world is opening up - be ready for the change. Red flag checklist on a job posting
We're nearly through the first part of 2021, we’ve all been stuck inside for months, many of us under lockdown, dreaming of being anywhere

Tom Garside
Mar 16, 20213 min read


A surefire way of presenting past simple and present perfect tenses to learners
As with the presentation of most tenses, context is everything. Without the knowledge of when things are happening, and when a sentence is

Tom Garside
Mar 8, 20213 min read
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