How Do You Say I Don't Speak Japanese

Fri, 28 Feb 2020 Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences How Can English Influence a Student's Career English is my first language, however, I studied Spanish throughout high school growing up in the Midwest and eventually received a Master's degree in Spanish Literature. I learned to speak Spanish very well after becoming a high school Spanish teacher for eight years and then a principal for elementary and secondary schools for 26 more years speaking Spanish to new immigrant students and parents the whole time. Table of Contents Bilingualism Confidence Advantages and Perspectives Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rex P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]

Fri, 19 Jul 2019 Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences The 2 Pronunciation Problems ESL Students Suffer From in Japan There are several pronunciation problems that students of English will face in Japan; however, I will focus on two. Table of Contents 1. Differences in the phonetic systems of two languages 2. Lack of exposure to authentic English resources Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course today! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brandie K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. 1. Differences in the phonetic systems of two languages The first of these problems they face is the fact that Japanese doesn't have some of the same sounds in its' alphabet as English...  [Read more]

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences How Discipline Affects Motivation In and Out of Japanese Classrooms I work in two schools. I am an assistant language teacher at one commercial (low-level English) high school, and an integrated (high-level English) academic junior high and high school. I have had experiences with different kinds of students, Japanese-English teachers, and classroom atmospheres. In Japan, students take an entrance exam to get into high school. If they scored low on the entrance exam, then they are placed in the lowest ranking class. Each school has a certain number of classrooms for each grade. Both of my high schools have six classes total for each grade. There are usually around forty to forty-two students in each class as well. Teaching forty...  [Read more]

Fri, 18 Oct 2019 Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences There Is No L (And Other Differences Between Japanese and English) Throughout high school and college, I mainly focused on learning how to speak Japanese as my second language. Unlike English, Japanese is a fairly phonetic language. Two of its three writing systems, hiragana and katakana, are phonetic. This makes it easy for foreigners to learn because each syllable, also known as sound clusters in some circles, is almost always said exactly how it is spelled. The third writing system, kanji, is not and, as such, is much more difficult for foreigners to learn because kanji are essentially pictures that describe their meaning. They are much more difficult to learn and use in everyday speech. Table of Contents Differences in...  [Read more]

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Why Is English Challenging to Learn for Japanese Students? Japanese are known for being disciplined, dedicated, and hardworking individuals not only in their work but also in other aspects of their life like hobbies and studies. But why is it difficult for them to learn English despite their strong dedication, patience, efforts, and determination? Table of Contents My Teaching Experience But still, the Japanese cannot speak English, why is that? Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Princess D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. My Teaching Experience I've been teaching English...  [Read more]

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas How Can Teachers Develop the Productive Skills of Japanese Junior High School Students Change is coming to the way that English is taught in Japanese public schools. The changes to the curriculum by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) increase the teaching of English at all levels of schooling. The goal of this change is, in the words of Ikuko Tsuboya-Newel, founder and chair of Tokyo International School, "The government has decided that beginning in 2020 all high school graduates must achieve a level of English equivalent to B1" ("Why do Japanese have trouble learning English?", The Japan Times, October 29, 2017). To achieve that goal, high school entrance exams are expected to include more...  [Read more]

Alumni TEFL Chat with Maddy & Georgia - Two Aussie Sisters Teaching English in Japan 07/08/2021 all right hi hey everyone hi as you can see it's not only me this week welcome to our live stream we have guests today i'm super happy about it hi maddie hi georgia hello hey so yeah back here another for another week and i'm live on a different day i usually go live on fridays so today is very special and also because we have guests so i'm super happy about that and yeah if you are watching if you can see us if you can hear us please just leave a high in the comments that would be really cool and where you're watching from i'm always really curious about where people are watching from and um yeah i'm in south korea my name is linda from itt if you don't know me and i'm yeah about an hour...  [Read more]

Wed, 09 Oct 2019 Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas How to Help Chinese Native Speakers to Follow English Grammar Rules in Speaking Grammar is the rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in a natural language. Simply put, grammar is the general rule of a language. Language is logical; grammar tells us in which order we say words. It's about how words become phrases; how words and phrases become sentences and how sentences become language. Table of Contents The Essence of Grammar Different languages have different grammar rules How to teach grammar (EFL: how to teach Chinese students English) Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Yang S. Please note that this blog post...  [Read more]

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Common Issues Japanese Learners Face When Learning English Through my experience as an Assistant Language Teacher in Japan, there have been numerous difficulties and challenges my students face in learning the English language. My students are primarily between the ages of 5 and 15. These challenges involve the pronunciation difficulties the students face coming from Japanese pronunciation, as well as the methodology of teaching English in Japan They may not apply to all of Japan but are definitely prominent issues within my area. Table of Contents Pronunciation The Problem of Making Mistakes Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate James W....  [Read more]

Wed, 25 Dec 2019 Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Several Points Which Can Surprise You about Teaching EFL in a Kindergarten I am an EFL teacher in a kindergarten in Japan. I have two years of experience teaching English in kindergarten. It is only a 30 minutes session every day. In my first week, I made a lesson plan for them that is good for one month. I was surprised that they didn't get the lesson, memorized it or even pronounce it properly. Then the lesson plan I had to prepare last for about 3 to 4 months. I find it hard teaching English as a foreign language to my students even though I am only teaching them the basic vocabularies and some nursery rhymes. But their curiosity in the English language and their eagerness to talk with a foreigner in school helps me to find my...  [Read more]

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 Maddy Payne Destinations TEFL Information Alumni Experiences An Australian Amongst American Textbooks in Japan: ✅ Teaching in a Country that Values American English Assistant Language Teachers in Japan come from different countries worldwide, bringing different kinds of English with them. In my experience, American English is often the most sought-after version of English. Some countries highly value Language Teachers from the USA, which often matches their American-style textbooks and resources. Sometimes people are even overlooked for job opportunities due to their Australian accent and British English background. Well, Japan is no different in this regard. Many Japanese schools hold American English in high regard, so what is it like being an Australian-English...  [Read more]

The Dos & Don'ts Of Teaching English Abroad 02/27/2023 hi guys hey Linda here from ITTT back this week with another live session thank you so much for joining me today and taking some time out of your day today to be here with me and learn something new hopefully about teaching English and today we're going to talk about the do's and don'ts of teaching English abroad sort of everything you need to know you should know before you embark on this exciting journey of teaching English abroad so yeah let me know if you can hear me if you can see me uh drop a hi in the comment section oh perfect and also let me know where are you watching from today I already see crystalline here Hi crystaline how are you doing good to see you again awesome great where are you guys watching from today where...  [Read more]

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Live TEFL/TESOL Q&A: Ask Us Anything! Welcome guys, Linda here from ITTT for another live session. I'm so happy to be here today, the weather is great today, the lighting is good. If you were watching last week it was pretty much like the end of the world weather here, but today it's great, I feel good. If you can see me and hear me please drop a hi into the comments. We are live on Facebook and also on YouTube and if you're listening to this as a podcast episode thanks for the download. We always turn our live sessions into podcast episodes and you can find them on all major podcast platforms like iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts etc. It's called the TEFL and TESOL Podcast by ITTT. Table of...  [Read more]

Live TEFL/TESOL Q&A: Ask Us Anything!   Welcome guys, Linda here from ITTT for another live session. I'm so happy to be here today, the weather is great today, the lighting is good. If you were watching last week it was pretty much like the end of the world weather here, but today it's great, I feel good. If you can see me and hear me please drop a hi into the comments. We are live on Facebook and also on YouTube and if you're listening to this as a podcast episode thanks for the download. We always turn our live sessions into podcast episodes and you can find them on all major podcast platforms like iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts etc. It's called the TEFL and TESOL Podcast by ITTT. I see there are some people already here. Hi Gwen, thanks for joining today. We also have...  [Read more]

Top Tips for Teaching English to Young Learners 02/18/2023 hi welcome Linda here from ITT back this week with another live session I hope you're doing well thank you so much for joining me today I'm happy to see you if you can see me and if you can hear me clearly if everything's working please just leave a high in the comment section and uh maybe also let me know where you are right now where are you watching from today what time is it there how are you doing let me know in the comments we are live on Facebook and on YouTube at the same time and we also always turn our live sessions into podcast episodes so if you're listening to this as a podcast thank you so much for the download and thank you so much for listening we really appreciate that don't forget to like And subscribe um so...  [Read more]

Thu, 29 Nov 2018 Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas 9 Small Details That Matter When Teaching EFL When you teach English as a foreign language it's important to pay attention to details that we sometimes ignore when communicating with other native level speakers, either in spoken or written English. Some people have got into the habit of writing in uppercase/capital letters, use abbreviations, and don't think much about punctuation. We also tend not to be too critical of people's spoken English as long as we get the point across. 'There's a lot of cars on the road today' is grammatically incorrect for example. Table of Contents 1. Punctuation 2. Upper and Lowercase 3. Abbreviations 4. Use of Colour on the Board 5. Avoid Boring Gap-Fills 6. Avoid Changing What Students Say 7. Maximizing...  [Read more]

The Peak Hiring Seasons for Teaching English Abroad 02/20/2023 hello welcome Linda here from ITT back this week with another live session welcome welcome today we're going to talk about the top hiring seasons for teaching English abroad so we're going to cover different regions Europe Asia Latin America Central America um and different countries specifically in these regions and the top hiring seasons for each of those countries so you know exactly when to apply for the job for an English teaching job in the country that you want to teach in so um a couple weeks ago we talked about um tefl interviews and how to find jobs Etc so now this is kind of part of this series and just to yeah give you an overview of the top hiring season so that you know exactly when you should be applying for...  [Read more]

Mon, 25 May 2020 Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Should ESL Students Receive Teaching of Slang and Idioms? ESL students will receive many formal grammar lessons that will give them a good grounding in proper English sentence structures, when to use who and whom, various verb tenses, the importance of noun-verb agreement and proper punctuation—and much more. Proper grammar will give them a thorough understanding of the elements of grammar and equip them to navigate through formal English-language communication, such as business letters and reports, meetings, emails to clients, and formal assignments in English classes. Table of Contents Real vocabulary Real-life situations Colloquialisms Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course today! Related Articles: ...  [Read more]

Teaching Abroad: How to Save Money & Pay off Loans 02/24/2023 hi welcome Linda here back this week with another live session for ITT the tefl and tesol training um yeah thank you so much for joining and for being here today uh if you're seeing this for the first time thank you so much for tuning in I'm going to introduce myself in a little bit and I'm also going to share a 30 off discount opportunity today um that you can use to uh get 30 off any of itt's tefl or tesol courses today so we have a wide variety of different courses um you can take a look at our website tefl course.net and you'll see all of the different courses that we offer if you are not new here and you have seen me before and you have joined this live stream before thank you so much um I really appreciate all the...  [Read more]

Answering the Most Asked TEFL/TESOL Questions 06/03/2021 hi welcome guys linda here from itt for another live session this week i'm so happy to be here today the weather is great today the lighting is good uh if you were watching last week uh yeah it was pretty much like the end of the world weather here and it suddenly turned super dark and i don't have a light or anything like a ring light so um but today it's great i feel good i have my coffee right here even though it's almost gone but um yeah so happy to be here if you can see me if you can hear me please just drop a high into the comments we are live on facebook and we're also live on youtube and if you're listening to this as a podcast episode thanks for the download we really appreciate it we always turn our live sessions into...  [Read more]

Fri, 09 Apr 2021 Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas Overview of the Best Online Teaching Platforms Hello everybody, we are just about to start our new live session. Thanks for joining me and while we are waiting for more people to join please let me know that you can hear me clearly and you can see me clearly. There is a comments box so you can use it to communicate with me. I really appreciate it if you use it because when there is interaction during the live session it's always much easier for myself to present it and I feel a little bit more comfortable because I am not just speaking to myself. Table of Contents Watch the live session here There was another comment if I can figure it out. So you want to find a resource with different lesson plans and things for adults?...  [Read more]

ESA Methodology of Teaching - Why Every Teacher Should Use It 08/26/2021 hello oh my gosh hello welcome hi linda here from itt back with another live session this week hi guys how are you doing um first of all if you can see me if you can hear me just drop a quick hi into um the comment box we are actually live on facebook and we're also live on youtube at the same time so if you can see me if you can hear me please just let me know and also let me know where you're watching from where are you at right now i am in south korea it is 10 a.m friday morning i'm super excited to be here again so um yeah sometimes there are some technical difficulties i had some issues i think last week so um there was no sound for some reason for for a few seconds so if that happens just let me know and then...  [Read more]

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas How Relationships With Your Students Influence Their Learning Process There are many different types of teachers in the world: funny ones, boring ones, excitable ones, monotonous ones, stern ones and ones that are just too laid back. In my lifetime, I have had many teachers and experienced many different types of teaching styles. As I considered all these in retrospect, I realized there was a common theme in the handful of teachers that had a special place in my heart. These are the teachers that not only communicated genuine care for me and my success but exuded enthusiasm for what they did. This life in them changed my perspective on subjects I had always detested, like algebra and calculus! These teachers have played a major role...  [Read more]

Mon, 10 Jun 2019 Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Motivating All Groups of Students In my experience of teaching in an institution in South Korea, I have found one of the most vital elements to my students succeeding, is to establish a positive and comfortable environment in my classroom. To do so, it is essential that my students be highly motivated. In the following paragraphs, my aim is to show why motivating students is so important and to give examples of some of the most effective ways to do so. Table of Contents Teacher's Nightmare My Experience Reward System Motivating Older Learners Motivating Falling Behind Students Are you ready to teach different groups of ESL students? Related Articles: Listen to this blog post This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate...  [Read more]

The Best Countries for Teaching English in 2021 12/17/2020 hello hello hello and welcome to another live session my name is linda from itt and you can find me on social media at linda ghost east um yeah thanks for tuning in let me just see that everything's working if you can see me and if you can hear me please um leave a comment as always you know the drill and yeah this is actually our last um live session or my last live session we have another one on tuesday from my colleague lisa but me it's my last live session before christmas and so um i wanted to get a little festive this is my attempt at being festive so um yeah that's what we're working with today um yeah if you can see me and hear me please leave a comment that would be really really awesome yay awesome it starts yeah hi...  [Read more]

Overview of the Best Online Teaching Platforms 01/20/2021 hello hello hello everybody this is here and we are just about to start our new live session uh thanks for joining me and uh while we are waiting for more people uh to come please let me know that you can hear me clearly and you can see me clearly there is a comments box um so you can use it uh to communicate with me and i really appreciate you use it because when there is interaction during the live session it's always much easier for myself to present um and feel a little bit more comfortable because i basically speak to myself uh right now and when i don't see any comments i feel a little bit confused you know um and let me share the topic of today's session so that everyone can see it uh today we are going to talk about um...  [Read more]

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas TEFL TALK: Open Q&A Session about all things TEFL & Teaching Hello everybody and welcome. We're actually also going live on Instagram today, so I'm going to check that out as well as the usual Facebook and YouTube. Hopefully everything will work fine. I hope everybody can hear me well and can see me. This is the first time that we're actually live on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at the same time, so I have a lot of screens here in front of me. Table of Contents Watch the live session here I see there's quite a lot of questions coming in on Instagram, I need to check that out. One of the questions was: is your institution recognized internationally? Another question on Instagram. Is the...  [Read more]

Fri, 14 May 2021 Federico Riva TEFL Information Why You Should Take a TEFL Course Right Now - Even If You Aren't Leaving Yet Hi everybody, thanks so much for tuning in. It's Linda here from ITTT with my morning coffee, because if you've watched me before in one of our live sessions you will know that I am in South Korea and it's currently 10:00 a.m. on Friday morning. So I'm having my morning coffee and I'm going to have a chat with you guys. If you can see me and hear me, please drop a hi or something into the comment box, I would really appreciate it. Table of Contents Watch the live session here We have a question from Rebecca. Do these certifications ever expire? Anyway, why should you take a TEFL course right now, even if you are not leaving yet? Okay, why you should take a...  [Read more]

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 Amanda Stern Alumni Experiences Comparing Foreign Language Learning in Japan and Canada Globalization has been changing our world. Once foreign cultures have become more and more familiar, and some even hit the global mainstream, such as Bollywood film and the recent wave of K-pop. One thing aiding in bridging this gap would be the rise of interest in bilingualism and multilingualism. Table of Contents Canada: Fluency and Productive Skills Language Fluency Productive Skills Japan: Accuracy and Reception Skills Accuracy Reception Skills Balacing Fluency and Accuracy Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course! Related Articles: Many children are in education systems where a second language is mandatory to study from a young age. For example, In Canada,...  [Read more]

The Different Types of Schools Where TEFL/TESOL Teachers Work 02/02/2022 hi guys hello i'm linda back with another live session this week from itt welcome so nice to have you here i'm super excited it's a beautiful day outside um it is 10 a.m in south korea what about you where are you at where are you watching from today let me know in the comments and what time it is there and what brought you here are you an itttt tefl tesol graduate um are you yet to take a course um what's what's going on with you let me know in the comments who are you like a brief introduction would be great i'm also going to introduce myself in a little bit if you don't know who i am um and also please don't forget to like and subscribe you're already here you have nothing to lose we share a lot of good content...  [Read more]