Hands On Activities For Esl Students

  Exploring Internship Opportunities Abroad Volunteering for Teaching English Overseas Participating in Cultural Exchange Programs Joining Language Immersion Programs Teaching English Through Online Platforms Engaging in Community Outreach Projects Applying for Teaching Assistant Positions Becoming a Language Tutor Taking Part in TEFL Practicum Courses Gaining Experience through Freelance Teaching Internships offer valuable hands-on experience for individuals looking to teach English abroad. Organizations like ITTT provide internships in various countries, allowing participants to immerse themselves in different cultures while honing their teaching skills. These opportunities often include training, mentorship, and practical classroom experience, making them ideal for aspiring ESL...  [Read more]

Experiential learning plays a crucial role in the TEFL classroom as it actively engages students in the learning process. By providing hands-on experiences, students are able to apply language skills in real-life situations, making learning more authentic and meaningful. This approach helps students develop not only their language proficiency but also their critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills. Through experiential learning, students are more motivated and enthusiastic about learning English, leading to better retention of knowledge and improved fluency. Incorporating hands-on activities in the TEFL classroom is essential for promoting language learning. Activities such as role plays, simulations, games, and real-life tasks provide students with opportunities to...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here are four fun Easter activities for ESL students.   Grab this printable ESL worksheet with four Easter-themed activities for your ESL students.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Federico Riva Teaching Ideas Many students struggle with paying attention during class. It could be the material lacks interest, is too challenging, or it could be the students themselves are tired or overworked. By incorporating a peaceful environment, adding creativity and variety, incorporating movement and managing time, you can help students with short attention spans to be successful in the classroom. Classroom Environment Surprise! Movement Flexibility Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Corby K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The environment plays an important part in how we learn. Is the classroom a clean and...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Activities bring your classroom to life. They provide meaningful and fun use of language. Children learn through play and it is how adults learn, too. Acting, moving, having fun help learners effectively participate in the lesson, and retain what is being taught. The following are 5 activities with flashcards in the classroom: 1. Cups and cards (young kids): 2. Picture word match race: 3. Slam: 4. Four Corners: 5. Shopping: Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Trang M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Place the 3 cups in a row in front of your students. Tell your students to watch carefully...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Defining games for kids can open up a broad prospect but in this topic, we are going to specifically talk about the various games that kids can not only enjoy but can incorporate in their learning curriculum. 1. Monopoly 2. Pictionary 3. Taboo 4. Tongue twisters 5. Bingo 6. Charades 7. Hangman Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course today! Playing games in the classroom helps kids to feel more relaxed and friendly with the teachers. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sonal L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Learning becomes more of a fun activity for them rather than the same boring schedule which makes them lethargic and least interested in studying....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Storytelling can be useful to enhance students' imaginations as well as improve a wide variety of skills such as listening, comprehension, order, memory, and vocabulary. It is targeted for all ages, but best to start earliest possible to allow students to develop a liking towards reading. Storytelling can come with different forms of follow-up activities to further increase teaching efficiency as well as to check understanding of the students through elicitation. This essay will be focused on mainly storytelling activities for young learners in schools. Activities Experience Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jin K. Please note that this blog post might not...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas When the aroma of gingerbread and eggnog is in the air, you know it's time to translate your love for the most beautiful season of the year into your TEFL classroom with winter ESL activities! Listen to this blog post: 1. What makes the perfect winter day? 2. Write an article for a local newspaper 3. Make paper snowflakes 4. Read something about winter 5. Play a game of Taboo 6. Holiday Extravaganza! 7. If everything else fails: These worksheets do the trick! Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! While this is the perfect time to embrace winter in TEFL destinations with changing seasons, it's also ideal to educate your students living in places with tropical temperatures...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas We all know what it's like to teach a class with reluctant students who don't want to talk. It's like pulling teeth. However, with these 7 awesome ESL conversation activities, you can really get your students talking! Listen to this blog post: 1. Ice Breaker Jenga 2. Get To Know You Bingo 3. Mystery Party Guest 4. 20 Questions 5. Create a Game 6. Apples to Apples 7. Choose Your Victim Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! For this activity, you simply use a tumbling block game such as Jenga and write 1 simple ice breaker question on each block. Before a student places a block on the stack, they must first answer the question on the block. This activity is especially...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas When teaching young learners, it's important not to spend too much time on any one activity as they can soon lose interest. It is also a good idea to have activities that give younger learners the chance to move about and use the boundless energy they have at that age. Below we present a list of short activities suitable for young and very young learners of English. Listen to this blog post: What's the Time Mr. Wolf? Telephone Basketball Volleyball Bingo Can you …? I Spy Odd One Out Stand Up Please Mastermind Blindfold Obstacle Course Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! This is a good activity for practicing time with small classes. Clear a space in the center of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning a new language is an inherently challenging task. One important way for ESL teachers to help beginner students learn English is to focus not only on teaching language concepts but on building their confidence to experiment with the language and persist with their learning. This essay will firstly examine why building confidence is important in ESL teaching, and different strategies teachers can employ to do this, including how they interact with students and the content they choose for classes. Why might beginner students suffer from low confidence, and how can this interfere with their learning? Student-Teacher Relationships Correction Techniques Course Structure The Focus of the Lesson Type of Materials Do you want to teach English abroad?...  [Read more]

1. Engaging English Teaching Activities 2. Benefits of Using Engaging Activities in English Teaching 3. Types of Engaging English Activities 4. How ITTT Can Help Enhance English Teaching through Engaging Activities In the realm of language education, engaging students is key to successful learning outcomes. The use of interactive and stimulating activities can significantly enhance the English language acquisition process. By incorporating engaging activities into lessons, educators can create a dynamic and immersive learning environment that captivates students' attention and fosters active participation. This results in improved comprehension, retention, and overall language proficiency development. The benefits of incorporating engaging activities into English teaching are manifold....  [Read more]

  Online ESL Activities: Are you an online English teacher? Do you want your students to enjoy and have fun? Then, this live stream is for you! Our TEFL/TESOL expert, Liza, will share five interactive activities that you will be able to use at your next class. Great news that these games will suit any age group and level. Don't miss! #TEFL#BestTEFL #TeachEnglishOnline 00:00-00:48 Mic was off 00:48-01:00 Intro Are you ready to teach English abroad or online? Click here and get started today: https://bit.ly/37gs5vO What is TEFL Certification? Where is it valid: https://bit.ly/36ma2Fg Check out our wide range of TEFL Courses: https://bit.ly/3ltqt73 Teach English online from anywhere you want: https://bit.ly/3ltqEPL Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Laura Payne Teaching Ideas Much of language learning comes through language experimentation; steering away from examples and formulas and attempting to arrange your own ideas into words. No matter what a student's goal may be in learning English, they will eventually have to do this by leaving the classroom and using English on their own. Activities like creative writing are one method to encourage the practice of experimentation and expression in ESL students. In this post, we're going to look at five different activities students can use to put their thoughts into writing. Listen to this blog post: 1. (New Year's) Resolutions 2. Letters to the Future 3. Cultural Ambassadors 4. Travel Itinerary 5. Reactions Take a TEFL course and start teaching English around the world! Related...  [Read more]

Francesca Marchi TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas From my experience, when you deal with older ESL learners, you have to take into account the fact that they do not want to look bad while practicing their English skills. Actually, activities and exercises should make them feel at ease and confident in their learning, as well as satisfied with the goals achieved so far. It goes without saying that the teaching techniques that include a direct confrontation between an adult student and the teacher or a classmate as a judge of their performance should be avoided so as not to make them feel uncomfortable. Here are a few ideas for you to try. 1) Personal Questions and Answers 2) Dictation with Self-Correction 3) Find the Mistakes 4) Listening at a Slower Pace 5) Asking for...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Yes, in my opinion, English is for sure a global language. Even as a little girl I was simply intrigued by that language. I like it so much, that I even tried to make up some words. It seems to me that it's a kind of language that can easily go through your ears. It's elegant and very special, al least that's how I see it. Nowadays, it's a world spread language that is taught in schools around the globe. English is everywhere. We can find it to be the main language in computers, mobile phones, video games. Meetings are being held in English, there are restaurant menus all around the world, written in English, there are street signs in English. Youngsters communicate in English via e-mails, social networks, video games and so much more... English has...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Teaching new tenses to students of a foreign language is often not as easy as you might anticipate, especially when the tense you are trying to teach them does not exist in their native language. The following 7 activities for teaching the present perfect for the ESL classroom will help your students pick up the tense in no time! Listen to this blog post: 1. Great Accomplishments 2. Have You Ever? 3. How Many Times Since? 4. Great Ambitions 5. Most Deprived 6. Bucket Lists 7. Since or For? Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! This is a great warm-up activity to make your students understand what the present perfect is all about. After teaching the structure of the...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas ESL teachers often encounter difficulties when teaching grammar patterns to students abroad. The following 7 activities for teaching the simple present for the ESL classroom will help your students pick up the tense in an easy and efficient way. Listen to this blog post: 1. Daily Routine 2. Cultural Norms 3. Classmate Interviews 4. ESP (Extraordinary Sensory Perceptions) 5. Where am I? 6. Present Simple BINGO Mingle 7. Weekend Party Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! This is a very good activity for when you start discussing the simple present and how it's used for routines and regularities. You can place the students into groups or pairs and have them discuss their...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas The simple past is one of the most important tenses in the English language. As it describes past actions, it's quite an easy tense to teach using a variety of fun and interactive activities. Here are 7 activities for teaching the simple past for the ESL classroom. 1. Preparations 2. Good Days and Bad Days 3. Charades Series 4. Dear Diary 5. Get Out and About 6. Accurate Endings 7. Double Duty Review Listen to this blog post Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: For more activities check out: 10 Exciting Activities for the Past Simple For this activity, the students think of significant accomplishments in their lives. After sharing with the class what they have accomplished, the students should describe what they did in order to achieve...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Teaching grammar patterns often involves a lot of classtime and the more activities you have up your sleeve as a teacher the better. The following 7 activities for teaching the past progressive for the ESL classroom will help your students pick up the tense in no time! 1. Memory Challenge 2. People Watching 3. The Luck of The Draw 4. What You Didn't Do 5. So Much in Common 6. Strange Explanations 7. My Alibi Listen to this blog post Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Pull up an image with a lot of actions going on, for example, people engaging in different activities at a park or another public place. You can either hand out printed images or show it to your students on an overhead projector or TV. After having your students analyze...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas The present progressive is one of the most important tenses in the English language. As it describes actions currently happening, it's quite an easy tense to teach using a variety of fun and interactive activities. Here are 7 activities for teaching the present progressive for the ESL classroom. 1. Look Around 2. A Letter Home 3. A Picture's Worth 4. Charade Call Out 5. What are you doing? 6. Sorry, I Can't 7. Picture Perfect Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Have your class make observations about what's happening all around in the classroom and outside the windows. Make sure they students use the present progressive when describing what they see. Ask your students to write a letter to a parent, relative or friend describing their...  [Read more]

  Online ESL Activities: Are you an online English teacher? Do you want your students to enjoy and have fun? Then, this live stream is for you! Our TEFL/TESOL expert, Liza, will share five interactive activities that you will be able to use at your next class. Great news that these games will suit any age group and level. Don't miss! #TEFL#BestTEFL #TeachEnglishOnline 00:00-00:48 Mic was off 00:48-01:00 Intro Are you ready to teach English abroad or online? Click here and get started today: bit.ly/37gs5vO What is TEFL Certification? Where is it valid: bit.ly/36ma2Fg Check out our wide range of TEFL Courses: bit.ly/3ltqt73 Teach English online from anywhere you want: bit.ly/3ltqEPL Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas One of the great things about teaching conditionals is that once you discover some classroom activities that work well for one, they can be adapted to suit any of the conditional patterns that you may be asked to teach. Here are 7 fun activities for teaching conditionals for the ESL classroom that you can easily adapt to help your students understand the correct structures and usages. Listen to this blog post: 1. Pass the Pig 2. Chain Conditionals 3. Pelmanism ("Concentration") 4. Mill Drill Questionnaire 5. Group Discussions 6. Board Game With Prompts 7. Using Songs Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! Tell your students to stand up and form in two lines (teams) and...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Teaching Ideas One of the first things you should learn during a TEFL certification course is that delivering interesting lessons goes a long way to keeping your students happy and motivated in the classroom. And, if your students are stimulated by your lessons they are likely to progress quicker, which also makes the teachers job that much more satisfying. Listen to this blog post: Silent Movie The Prediction Game Vocabulary Match Guess the Dialogue Guess My Movie Are you ready to take your students to the movies? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! So what exactly makes a TEFL lesson interesting? There are many things you can do to make your lessons stand out, but one of the main ways to pique the interest of your...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas As an ESL teacher, getting your students talking can be one of the most difficult things to accomplish. English learners often lack the necessary confidence to speak openly and freely in English. The following activities are perfect for getting your students out of their shells! Listen to this blog post: Here are 7 go-to activities for your ESL conversation class. 1. Dialogue 2. Role-Play Change-Up 3. Interviews 4. Tag Team Role Play 5. Mystery Partner 6. Problem Solved 7. Creative Improvisation Are you ready to teach English as a foreign language? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! Pair up your students and let them write a short dialogue. After all the pairs are done, they go in front of the class and...  [Read more]

1. Importance of Speaking Activities in ESL Teaching 2. Types of Speaking Activities for Fluency 3. Tips for Implementing Speaking Activities in ESL Classes 4. Resources for ESL Speaking Activities In ESL teaching, speaking activities play a crucial role in developing students' fluency and confidence in using the English language. Engaging in conversations, discussions, role-plays, and other interactive speaking tasks helps learners improve their pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and overall communication skills. By providing ample opportunities for students to practice speaking in a supportive environment, teachers can enhance their linguistic abilities and prepare them for real-life communication situations. There are various types of speaking activities that can be used to promote...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas When teaching reported speech the potential for mistakes, errors, and the general difficulty is enormous due to the number of changes that are made with verb tenses, patterns, pronouns, questions, time expressions etc.. It's important to cover the subject slowly with lots of verbal practice at every opportunity. There are plenty of standard 'change the direct speech to reported speech' activities, but your students will soon tire of these if you overuse them. Here are some ideas which have worked well in the EFL classroom and will give your students a good amount of talk time in a variety of ways. Listen to this blog post: The Go-Between Game The Lying Game Pelmanism ("Concentration") Guess Who Reported Speech "Tennis" Who Asked What? Find Someone...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas You will find the web full of ideas for teaching vocabulary and, although most of them are undoubtedly good activities, some are only suited to a particular level. Here are some tried and tested activities that can be adapted to suit any level of student and a variety of class sizes. Listen to this blog post: 1. Hot seat 2. Beat the clock 3. Crosswords 4. Board games 5. Slow Pictionary 6. Vocabulary tennis 7. Pelmanism ("Concentration") Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: Check out what our course grads say in our many video testimonials! This is a great activity that can be used as a warm-up at the beginning of a class, or as a game at the end of a lesson. It's suitable for any class size over 4 students and requires minimal...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas In a previous post, we looked at various teaching ideas for future simple and here we're going to describe some fun ideas for teaching three other future tenses. There are a wide variety of usages for future tenses and it's always important to make sure your activities focus on the usages that you've taught in your lesson. For example, future continuous can be used to talk about an ongoing action at a point in the future, a fixed future event, polite enquiries or to predict the future or the present. Predicting the present is one that students often have trouble conceptualizing, so we might as well start from there. Listen to this blog post: Predicting the present Ongoing action at a point in the future Expected achievements at a point in the future...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas There are a myriad of ways to talk about the future in English, so it's important to have a variety of activities for students to practice what you've taught them. Here we're going to focus on various usages for future simple and describe some fun teaching ideas that match them. 1. Spontaneous decisions 2. Predictions (no evidence) 3. Facts/certainties 4. Assumptions/deductions Listen to this blog post Are you ready to teach English abroad? Related Articles: One of the most common ways we use future simple in our day to day lives is to make spontaneous or unplanned decisions. For example, when choosing food from a menu, (I'll have the fish please), or if you have to make a change of plan (a friend calls to say they can't pick you up to go out and you might...  [Read more]