Federico Riva

Developments in the study of Psychology starting from the 1950's led to new theories of learning. These theories were translated into new methods. One such method was called Suggestopedia. What does this method involve and how effective does it appear to be?

It has been noted that the function of the brain is separated into two sides (hemispheres) commonly known as the left and right brain. What specific functions are included in the two sides of the brain and how did this information become incorporated into a mainstream ESL teaching methodology.

What are some of the most important reasons for planning our lessons? Covering these ideas will then inform us as to what we should actually put on our lesson plan. In this blog post, we cover both these aspects of lesson planning.

Methodology, Approach, Method and Technique, what are all these terms and how do they relate to my teaching ESL in the classroom? We take a look at these concepts and explain their meaning.

The receptive skills of reading and listening, generally get less attention than the other skills of speaking and writing. Here we look at some of the reasons they are avoided and why e should overcome these fears.

In this blog post, we will consider three different categories of speaking activity. For each we look at where each individual type is used and then look at some general ideas for delivering any of the three types of activity.

We can quote people through what's called direct speech. In written form it would look like “Corey said we're moving house next week”. We've used quotes and we've quoted Corey directly, i.e. used the exact words that he used. There is however another way we can quote people, and this is through reported speech. We don't quote their exact words, but we simply let people know what has been said.

In this blog we will consider how best to use the teaching material course book that often accompanies a course. There are a number of stategies we can adopt to get the most out of the book in different situations.

What are conditionals? In simplest terms, they say “if this happens, then that happens”. They're commonly referred to as ‘if' sentence structures’.

In this blog we will show how a simple speaking interview with the student, can be used to place them in one of the five ESL teaching bands, from Starter to Upper-Intermediate. Using a process known as progressive questioning, we can easily determine the student's level.

In this blog we will look at the ever popular ESL exams known as the Cambridge suite. It has exams at five levels, we will look at each and relate them to our typically ESL teaching group levels. What should you expect when teaching for these exams?

The receptive skills of reading and listening, generally get less attention than the other skills of speaking and writing. Here we look at some of the reasons they are avoided and why e should overcome these fears.