Episode Thirty-one

Interview with Eliberto Salinas: Teaching Learners of Different Levels in the Same Class

Show Notes

In episode 31 of Expand Your Horizons, we're pleased to welcome Eliberto Salinas as our guest. Eliberto has extensive experience as an English teacher and is also a CELTA trainer at International House Mexico, where he is based in Mexico City. Today, he’s joining me to talk about something many teachers find challenging: supporting students of different English levels in the same classroom. join us for our conversation about how to identify and cater to students’ differences in the classroom, including some practical strategies for adapting activities and presenting materials to accommodate students of varying language levels in the same group, even in an online class.

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In this Episode

• The fact that any class with more than one student is heterogeneous: students will differ!

• Ways in which students can differ in a classroom

• Where to start: how to become aware of your students’ differences

• How students’ perception of their own English level can affect their motivation

• How having students of different levels in the same class can be challenging for teachers, and how it can affect the lesson

• Differentiated instruction: what is it?

• What students at lower language levels need in order to keep up with the lesson

• How the way you ask questions can cater to students at different levels

• How to use timing to change the ease of your tasks

• Giving instructions: why this is not the time to teach anything - how to make these simple

• How you can tweak your activity design to cater to learners at different levels

• Pairing: different ways you can pair students to accommodate different levels

• Encouraging students so they know it’s ok to make mistakes

• Individualization: what it means and how to incorporate this principle

• Giving students some autonomy with tasks

• Personalization: how to make the lesson relevant to each student

• Open-ended activities: what these are and how to employ them

• “Tiered tasks:” creating different versions of an activity for different levels of learners

• How to motivate learners with praise

• “Compulsory” vs. “optional” tasks

• Using answer keys

• Making sure all students feel like they’re a part of the group

• Adapting these strategies to online learning

• Using “breakout rooms” in online platforms

• Using the “task cycle” to provide processing time for all students

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The CELTA course can now be done fully online! Check it out here.

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Episode Twenty-six

How to Teach Writing

Show Notes

How do you approach teaching writing? Do you actually give your students writing exercises in class, or do you just assign writing tasks as homework? In this episode, we look at the benefits of working on writing in the classroom, and we go through exactly how to structure an effective writing lesson. We discuss why the writing task itself is the most important piece of the whole thing, and we describe the practical process that allows you to turn your students into better writers.

Want a free reference chart outlining the stages and advice for an effective writing lesson? You can download it below!

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In this Episode

• Do you think writing in class is a waste of time? Why many teachers give writing exercises as homework

• Why it’s actually helpful for students to practice writing in class

• Making sure your writing lesson is more than just the students coming to class, writing something, and then leaving

• Why not just any written work in class counts as an actual writing exercise

• Making your task authentic: what we mean by an “authentic” task and examples of what this might look like

• Why “write ten sentences about…” or “write a paragraph about…” is not a good writing task

• How to make sure the writing task you set is achievable in the amount of time you have in the lesson

• Why everything in your writing lesson stems from what the writing task is

  The structure of a writing lesson

• The first stage: the lead-in - why it’s not necessary to start by saying, “Today we’re going to do some writing…”

• How your writing task informs the context you set in your lead-in

• Why you want to give your students a “model text” as an example of whatever you want them to write in the lesson

• Why the model text should look as authentic as possible

• Why students first need to read the model text for gist (the main idea) before doing anything else with it and how this helps support them later on in the lesson when they start their own writing

• Why you should adapt the model text if you need to- and how to know if you need to

• How to help students notice and use the structure of the model text in their own writing

• Why it’s helpful to give students “useful language for the task” and how to choose what kind of language this is

• Why those useful phrases should be planted in the model text you give students earlier on in the lesson and how this makes for a smooth transition from one stage to the next

• How to help students brainstorm before writing and why you don’t want to skip this stage

• The actual writing stage: why it can feel a bit strange to sit in silence while students write… but why it’s necessary!

• How to make sure you leave students enough time to actually write in the lesson

• A tip: give students time warnings as they write

• How to conduct a peer editing stage: why it’s helpful to give students instructions for what to look for in their partner’s writing

• What to have students do with their writing after they write it: “publish” it!

• How to conduct a successful publishing stage

• Why students need a task for reading each other’s work- and how to make this authentic depending on what your writing task was

• Getting content feedback on students’ writing

• Why you shouldn’t ask students to read their writing out loud to the class

• Delayed error correction, or language feedback, at the end of a writing lesson

  General Tips for Writing Lessons

• Managing timing: shorten the task itself if you need to save time

• Alternatives for just “write a paragraph about…” - how to turn this into a more authentic task

• How to deal with students writing different amounts or taking different lengths of time when writing

• Fast finisher tasks: what you can ask students to do if they finish writing early

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Did you enjoy this episode? Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!

Download your free writing lesson reference chart to review instructions for each stage of a writing lesson.

Episode Twenty-four

How to Teach Speaking

Show Notes

We know that helping students develop their speaking fluency is important, but are students really getting better at speaking EVERY time they're talking in a lesson? How can we measure whether students’ speaking skills have actually improved during class? In this week's episode, we look at how to devote an entire lesson to speaking fluency. We’ll walk you through the stages of an effective speaking lesson, break down exactly what to do and why, and give you practical advice for helping students experience a boost in their fluency— even from a single lesson.

In this Episode

• Why teaching English isn’t just teaching grammar and vocabulary: it’s about skills, too!

• The productive skills: speaking and writing

• How teaching a skills lesson is different from teaching a systems (grammar or vocabulary) lesson

• How students speaking in the classroom is different from practicing speaking outside the classroom

• How you can make sure your speaking lesson is more than just “speaking and leaving”

• The suggested structure for a speaking lesson

• Why starting with a lead-in still matters (because it always matters!)

• Why ANY speaking activity isn’t THE speaking activity in a speaking lesson

• How to set the speaking task with intention (and how this differs from students actually doing the task)

• Why a speaking task needs a communicative goal

• How to design a speaking task that will motivate students to speak

• Why a demo of the speaking task is important and how to set this up

• Why it’s helpful to give students “useful language” for the task and what kind of language that might be

• How to plant this “useful language” in your speaking task demo

• Why you should think of this language input stage as “language light”

• How to let students prepare for the speaking task (brainstorming time!)

• Why there’s a lot that goes into a speaking lesson before students even get to the speaking task! (But also why you don’t want to make your speaking lesson too “top-heavy”)

• How to pair or group your students for the speaking activity (why it’s helpful to be deliberate here)

• Why you’ll want to stay out of the way while students are actually doing the speaking task

• What to do while the students are speaking/ engaged in the task: monitor (but stay aloof!)

• What to listen for as you monitor

• How to prepare for a delayed error correction stage (why you don’t want to correct errors on the spot in a speaking fluency task)

• What to do immediately after the speaking task and before delayed error correction: content feedback

• How the communicative goal (that you set up for the task) contributes to content feedback

• How to maximize content feedback and ensure everyone is engaged

• How to get the most out of delayed error correction

• A summary: the three keys to a speaking lesson that make it truly effective

• The ideal way to extend a speaking lesson: have students repeat the task after error correction

• A variation of how to structure the speaking task(s) if you have a longer lesson

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Want to teach this speaking lesson? Enter your email address and we’ll send you the party planning speaking task we referenced in this episode, so you can try it out in your classroom!

Episode Twenty-two

How to Teach Listening 2: Different Sub-Skills and WHy They Matter

Show Notes

In this episode, we're going into even more depth on how to teach effective listening lessons. First, we talk about different ways we listen in real life and how we can apply this to our listening lessons in the classroom. Then we go over the different listening "sub-skills," why the distinction between them matters, and examples of how you can help students practice each one. Finally, we offer some suggestions for taking listening tasks to the next level, and answer some common questions (should you give students the transcript?) along the way.

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In this Episode

• Listening as a skill- just any listening doesn’t necessarily count as true listening comprehension practice!

• Why it’s important to practice listening in the classroom

• Creating a bridge between the classroom and real life listening

• Why we listen to different types of audio in different ways, and how this applies to listening lessons

• Three different listening “sub-skills” and how these compare to the reading sub-skills we discussed in this episode

• How to choose which types of listening comprehension or sub-skills to have students practice- why the audio text itself determines this

  Listening for gist

• How to set up a listening for gist task when you can’t make students “skim” listen

• How to set a task that helps students practice listening for the main idea

• Examples of listening for gist tasks

  Listening for specific information

• How to identify what “specific information” is in a text

• What listening for specific information requires of students - how it’s different from listening for gist

• Examples of specific information tasks

  Listening for detail

• How this is different from listening for specific information and how to tell the two sub-skills apart

• Why it’s helpful to let students listen for gist before asking them to listen for detail

• Why practicing this sub-skill usually requires playing the audio multiple times

• Why it’s ok if students don’t get all the answers right the first time around

• A good strategy for going over the answers to listening for detail tasks

• Examples of listening for detail tasks

  More advice for teaching listening

• Why it’s not important for students to understand every single word in a text - it’s about the process, not the final result!

• What else you can do with an audio text, after you’ve already gone through tasks to practice listening for gist, specific information and detail

• How to help students understand connected speech

• A situation in which you can use the transcript

• A specific example of a complete listening lesson - including an exercise in which students practice listening to connected speech

• Why students need to be comfortable with the content of the audio before you give them an exercise on connected speech

• What to do if students continue to have trouble with the detailed listening task

• How to help students use logic and knowledge of context to help them understand what they might have missed in their comprehension

• Our shameless plea to review us on Apple Podcasts

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Episode Twenty

How to Teach Listening: Tips for Effective Listening Lessons

Show Notes

In this week's episode, we're continuing our series on helping students develop their receptive skills, but today we're shifting our focus to listening! We discuss why listening comprehension needs its own targeted focus and why reading out the transcript isn't as helpful as playing an audio file. Then we walk through specific, practical tips on how to make sure your listening lessons are successful, including how to manage timing, how to deal with tech malfunctions, how to coach students through particularly challenging audio texts, and how to get the most out of feedback.

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In this Episode

On Teaching Listening in General

• Listening is a skill that needs to be developed through practice

• Any listening isn’t necessarily developing students’ listening comprehension- just listening to you give instructions, for example, doesn’t count

• Why students need specific, targeted focus on developing their listening comprehension

• Why playing an audio recording is preferable to the teacher reading out a transcript

• How to avoid audio trouble- make sure you set up and check your tech in advance!

Tips for Listening Lessons

• Why it’s especially important to set context in a listening lesson, and how to do this. Check out our blog post on lead-ins if you need a refresher on setting context!

• An example of how you might set context in a listening lesson

• “Task before text”- why you want to set a clear task or give the students a structured activity before you push play

• Why the first listening comprehension activity should be very general to help students warm up

• How knowing what they’re listening for helps students feel less intimidated and more motivated to tackle difficult audio texts

• How to deal with difficult accents/ fast speakers in recordings - it’s ok to warn students, but don’t freak them out!

• Why it’s better to play the audio track all the way through rather than pausing after each section

• Why you should be playing the audio track at least twice in the lesson- if not more!

• Why it’s ok if students don’t get all the answers right away

• Why you shouldn’t give the students the audio transcript to read along with as they listen

• How to effectively monitor in a listening lesson- strategies for doing it without being distracting

• What you should be listening for as students check answers to the listening tasks in pairs

• How to get the most out of feedback sessions- what to do if the students aren’t sure about an answer or couldn’t understand everything

• How to manage timing if you need to replay the audio several more times

• Why you shouldn’t give students the transcript until you’ve played the recording multiple times without it

Listening Lesson Troubleshooting

• What to do if your audio tech malfunctions

• When it IS ok to use the transcript

• What to do if students still don’t understand the audio, even after you’ve played it multiple times

• What do if your audio track is unusually long or especially challenging

• How to manage timing to ensure you have enough time to achieve your listening aims

• Why you want to keep your lead-in short

• Specific strategies for what to do if you have too much time or too little time as you go through your listening lesson

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Episode Eighteen

How to Teach Reading: Developing Sub-Skills and Designing Tasks

Show Notes

This week, we're continuing on with the topic of how to effectively teach reading lessons. We're going into more depth on how to best help students develop their comprehension without feeling bored or overwhelmed. First we talk about three reading "sub-skills" and why the distinction between them matters. Then we go through specific tips for making your reading lesson successful, including how to manage pace, how to keep students motivated, and what to do when a debate breaks out over an answer.

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In this Episode

• We’re picking up where we left off in Episode 16 - give that one a listen if you haven’t already!

• Why it’s important to help students with reading comprehension in the first place

• Making sure the text is relevant to the learners

• Making sure tasks are authentic

  Reading sub-skills: different ways that we read

• Skimming: reading quickly to get the main idea or gist of the text

• Types of texts we might skim

• Examples of skimming tasks

• Why practicing skimming is helpful for students

• Why skimming tasks require a short time limit

• Scanning: moving quickly through a text to find specific pieces of information

• Types of texts we might scan

• Examples of scanning tasks

• Where a scanning task might fit into a lesson

• How to decide if a text lends itself to skimming or scanning tasks

• Key differences between skimming and scanning

• Reading for Detail: intensive reading for subtleties and depth

• Where a detailed reading task might fit into a lesson

• Examples of detailed reading tasks

• The difference between detailed questions and specific information questions

• Why the distinction between sub-skills matters and why students need practice with each of them

• How using these reading techniques builds students’ confidence

  General Tips for Reading Lessons

• How to engage students in a text (even when you think they won’t be interested in it)

• The importance of a lead-in in a reading lesson

• “Context before content:” a good rule to remember

• Using the task cycle in a reading lesson (review the task cycle in Episode 12)

• “Task before text” - why you should set a task before you hand out the text and have students start reading

• Why you don’t want to ask students extra questions during feedback

• How to get the most out of feedback: asking students to justify their answers

• Why students debating over answers is not a bad thing

• Managing pace: how much time to give students on reading tasks

• How to monitor effectively and what to look for as you do it

• How to assign “fast finisher tasks” for readers who finish first

• A hint at what we’ll talk about in upcoming episodes

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Episode Fifteen

Interview With Stephanie Vogel: Building a TEFL Career

Show Notes

This week, we welcome Stephanie Vogel as our guest on the show. Steph has had a long and successful journey through the TEFL industry. After dropping out of med school, she felt inspired to try something totally different, so she went to Istanbul to get a CELTA certification. From there, she wound up in Vietnam, where she spent six years progressing from ESL teacher to assistant academic manager to CELTA and DELTA trainer. She then moved back to the US to further advance her career, eventually becoming the director of Teaching House, the largest provider of CELTA courses in the US. Join us as we talk about how she built her career in TEFL, share insights into the world of teaching and training, and probably have a little too much fun recounting hilarious teaching disasters.

“One of the special gifts of teaching is that you come away with a lot of amazing stories. The people you meet… it’s a way to create a life of stories. ”

In this Episode

• How Steph became a “late entrant” into the field of ESL

• Her CELTA experience in Istanbul and why she thought the trainers were “magic”

• Her teaching experience in Istanbul, including being chauffeured to work!

• Going off-site for business English classes

• How to avoid burnout in your first year of post-CELTA teaching

• What realistic lesson planning might look like after a training program

• Her embarrassing first ever day of teaching, in which she found herself asking all her students about their underwear

• How studying German refreshed her passion for teaching English

• Why she decided to go to Vietnam

• What her job was like there

• What her daily life was like in Vietnam

• The advantages of working in a large, well-established school

• How she progressed from teacher to academic management

• The fact that it’s not typical to be on a 9-5 schedule in the TEFL industry

• How she achieved her goal of becoming a CELTA trainer

• The DELTA course: CELTA on steroids

• The training up process to become a CELTA trainer

• The advice she’d give someone thinking about moving abroad to teach

• What she wishes she’d known before she started teaching

• What makes a teacher successful

• Why authenticity in the classroom matters

• The difference between a good lesson and a great lesson

• What kept her in Vietnam for so long

• How she transitioned back to the US and continued on her TEFL career path

• How she became the director of Teaching House, the largest CELTA provider in the US

• The pros and cons of moving into an admin role in the TEFL industry

• Making TEFL a career and not just a “gap year”

• How skills developed as an ESL teacher translate into other fields

• Her favorite travel destination(s): Hoi An, Vietnam and the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep, Turkey

• And of course, a shout-out to her hometown of Detroit

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Thinking about doing a CELTA certification? Check out our free email course: Ready, Set, CELTA! You’ll get a thorough overview of the course and our best trainer advice delivered right to your inbox.

What do you want to hear about? Do you have questions about teaching you’d like us to answer on the show? Or interest in teaching in a certain place? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Episode Fourteen

Interview with TEFL Horizons Co-Founder, Lauren Harrington

Show Notes

This is a special episode of Expand Your Horizons, because the interview is with one of our co-founders! Shannon interviews Lauren all about her teaching experience in Romania, how she fell in love with the TEFL field, and that one time she was invited to do a "small training" in Brazil that ended up being a massive, nationally televised presentation! Tune in for the inside scoop on Ms. Harrington herself.

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In this Episode

• How Lauren got into the TEFL field- what inspired her to start teaching

• Her spontaneous decision to move to Romania

• What teaching was like for her without a certification or any experience

• What her life in Romania was like- her work and the day-to-day

• Her tips for teaching (very) young learners

• Why she recommends getting at least preliminary training before starting to teach

• What kept her in Romania for six years

• How her career evolved- what caused her to take the next step

• How she found her first teaching job in the United States

• How she found out about the CELTA course and learned the value of good training

• What her job at EF language school in Boston was like- and how to succeed in a private language school in the US

• What inspired her to pursue a DELTA certification

• How she got through a (surprise!) massive presentation in Brazil that she’d been told would be a small private training

• How she became a CELTA trainer

• How being a trainer affects her teaching now

• What life as a CELTA trainer is like

• What she still loves about teaching

• Her advice for anyone who wants to become a CELTA trainer

• Her advice for prospective teachers

• What she’d do differently before moving abroad if she could go back in time

• How she got into materials writing

• Her favorite travel destinations

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“I love when you see that moment of clarity on (your students’ or trainees’) faces. ”

“One of the things that I’m grateful for and one of the things I really push in training is using frameworks as approaches to teaching a lesson. I’m a really creative teacher, so I can bring a lot of different elements into the classroom. But I found earlier in my career that it could be really hard to structure all of those ideas (. . .) what was the end goal? Without a framework I found it hard to measure my students’ achievement of their goals.”