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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We’ll answer your teaching questions in an upcoming episode! Leave us a comment below and let us know what you want to hear.

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Episode Seventeen

Interview with the Other TEFL Horizons Co-Founder, Shannon Felt

Show Notes

We’re switching things around this week; Lauren is hosting the show so she can interview Shannon! Tune in to hear the backstory of our other co-founder, as she describes what drew her into the TEFL industry, how her career progressed, her biggest professional development takeaways and what she loves about teaching.

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In this Episode

• How Shannon got into teaching ESL

• How she fell in love with Budapest

• How she decided on a certification

• What her experience on the CELTA course was like

• What she would change about her CELTA experience if she could go back in time

• How she found her first ESL job

• Advice for finding a job in central or eastern Europe

• Her experience teaching in Budapest at Katedra Language School

• Why her first exam prep student “fired” her

• Her advice for anyone who wants to teach English in Hungary

• The mistake she made when she first started teaching private students outside a school- and advice for what to do instead

• How she became interested in training

• What inspired her to pursue a DELTA certification

• Her experience on the DELTA at IH Budapest

• How she advanced into a senior teaching and training role

• How she transitioned back to the United States and became a CELTA trainer

• The experiences that have most helped her develop in her career

• Why she values hands-on learning

• How and why CELTA training has made her a better teacher

• Her favorite thing(s) about the TEFL industry

• The thing she finds ironic and a little disappointing about the TEFL industry

• The shocking feedback she received in her first year of teaching

• The direction her career is heading with TEFL Horizons

• The transition from training in a classroom to publishing training content online

• Her favorite travel destinations so far

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“As a teacher, I’m also a lifelong learner, as all of us are. I think most of us get into this industry because we never want to stop learning. ”

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We love connecting with you! Reach out on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or email us at info@teflhorizons.com.

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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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Interested in learning more about lesson frameworks? Check out our blog post all about them, or sign up for our newsletter for teaching tips and guidance delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday.

“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.”

Episode Thirteen

Interview with Josh Niezgoda: Life in Andorra

Show Notes

Today’s guest on the show is Josh Niezgoda. After he got his CELTA, Josh spent a short time teaching at a local language school in Washington, DC to hone his skills before he headed overseas to teach English in Andorra. Tune in for our conversation about how he ended up in a tiny country many people have never even heard of and what it’s like to live and teach there.

In This Episode

• How Josh got started in the ESL industry

• How he ended up in Andorra (and where in the world it is!)

• Andorran culture and geography: food, music, nature, and winter tourism

• What his daily life is like

• His teaching experience: the levels, classes, and students he works with

• How teaching children is different than teaching adults

• How he transitions between age groups in terms of planning and teaching style

• The complexities of the visa system

• His advice for anyone looking to teach in Andorra

• What to expect in terms of salary and housing

• Why homesickness is normal and how to deal with it

• How he feels CELTA helped prepare him for teaching

• His favorite and least favorite things about working in the TEFL industry

• His advice on teaching teenagers

• His favorite travel destination

• Where he’s planning to go next and why
  

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If you’re thinking about getting CELTA-certified, 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.

Looking for even more teaching resources? Check out our blog for lesson planning guidance and activity ideas or brush up your grammar knowledge with our online grammar course. And subscribe to our newsletter to get our top teaching tips every Wednesday!

Episode Twelve

How to Master Classroom Management

Show Notes

In this week’s episode, we’re talking all about classroom management. First, we share what makes the biggest difference in structuring every lesson you teach: the task cycle. We discuss what it is, how to use it, and how it can revolutionize your lessons to make them more student-centered and create more opportunities for interactive learning. Then we over over additional favorite strategies for managing an adult ESL classroom naturally and masterfully.

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In this Episode

• The task cycle, or the “microstages” within each stage/ activity of your lesson. These include: giving instructions, letting students work alone, letting students check in pairs, and conducting whole class feedback

• The “burger:” a fun analogy for the task cycle

• How to make instructions clear using techniques like ICQs (instruction check questions) and demos

• Anchoring: why your placement in the classroom matters and how to make sure you’re “anchored” in the right spot

• Minimizing teacher talk: why this is essential and how you can ensure you keep your teacher talk low

• Language grade: no, we don’t mean assessment- this is how to simplify your language without sounding unnatural

• Task before text: why you don’t want to hand out papers before you finish giving instructions

• Monitoring: what you should be doing as the students are quietly working, and how the way you use this time impacts the rest of your lesson

• Interaction patterns: the whole class should never just be you interacting with the students. How to mix things up to maximize student interaction and communication

• Nominating: how to handle who’s speaking when during feedback and how to ensure all students get a chance to participate

• Avoiding echoing: the difference between echoing and “correchoing” and why you should only be doing one of them!

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Did you find this episode useful? Do you have questions about teaching you’d like us to answer on the show? Or any additional strategies you use to manage your classroom effectively? Reach out and let us know!

We’d love to hear your comments below. And if you enjoyed this episode, we’d be extremely grateful if you share it on your social media or subscribe here on iTunes and leave us a review. Your support means so much to us! For more teaching tips delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Episode Ten

Six More Grammar Lesson Tips: Advice on Planning and Resources

Show Notes

In episode eight, we brought you six actionable tips for teaching grammar lessons. Now we’re taking it all the way back to the planning stage to help you structure a successful grammar lesson from the ground up. We’ve got six more of our best, most practical tips for you- this time focused exclusively around how to plan your lesson from start to finish and how to find and use the resources you need. We’re covering everything from effective lesson structure to our favorite reference books. And we share our strategies for how to look at a course book and know exactly what to keep and what to cut.

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In this Episode

• Tip #1: Use a lesson framework. A framework is a set pattern of activities you can use to structure your lesson. It’s an essential outline that will guide your students through the lesson and ensure your main aim is achieved. Head over to the blog post on frameworks for more in-depth information.

• Tip #2: Use the course book as a jumping off point for grammar research. Did you know most course books have a “grammar bank” in the back? The grammar bank provides a clear explanation of exactly what your students need to know about the target grammar- already curated and simplified for you.

• Tip #3: Teach a lot about a little, not a little about a lot. Focus is key. Make sure you’re narrowing your focus to a digestible amount of material for your students (and for yourself!) to ensure that the students walk away really being able to use a small amount of new language, rather than still feeling confused about the ten different things you tried to teach at once.

• Tip #4: Extra time? Add more activities, not more information. Avoid the temptation to bring in new language or material near the end of your lesson. Students will benefit much more from additional opportunities to practice what they’ve just learned rather than having to completely shift their focus and try to grasp brand new information in the last fifteen minutes of class.

• Tip #5: Adapt, adapt, adapt! Take ownership of your material and be proactive in making sure it does exactly what you wan it to do. If you’re using a course book, take the exercises you want, cut the ones you don’t, and change any activity to ensure it helps streamline your lesson. Want to know what this looks like in practice? Register below for our free video training on exactly how to adapt course book material.

• Tip #6: Use the right resources. Here are a few of our favorites that we mention in this episode:

• Our online grammar course: Be Your Own Grammar Guru

• Grammar reference books, especially Teaching Tenses by Rosemary Aitken and Understanding and Using English Grammar by Betty Azar (plus more recommendations).

• Upcoming webinars on how to teach grammar

• Podcast Episode 8: Our Top Six Tips for Teaching Grammar Lessons and Podcast Episode 2: Five Misconceptions About Teaching Grammar

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Want to know exactly how these planning tips work in practice? Watch our free video workshop in which we show you how to take a page straight out of a course book and make it into a streamlined, communicative grammar lesson.

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Did you find these tips useful? Do you have questions about planning and teaching grammar? Let us know!

We’d love to hear your comments below. And if you enjoyed this episode, we’d be extremely grateful if you share it on your social media or subscribe here on iTunes and leave us a review. Your support means so much to us! For more teaching tips delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Episode One

our story and our first big teaching takeaways

Show Notes

We’re very excited (and even a little audibly nervous at first!) to kick off our initial podcast episode. We share the story of how we started out as teachers, evolved into trainers, and got to where we are now. We discuss what we thought teaching would be like going in… and how we quickly realized it was actually much different. And we share the major “aha!” moments we each experienced early on in our careers.

In this Episode…

• Our backgrounds- graduating from college “unemployable”

• Why we decided to start teaching

• Our initial training (or lack thereof!)

• How Lauren started teaching in Romania

• How Shannon started teaching in Hungary

• The coincidence(s) surrounding how we met

• What inspired us to create TEFL Horizons

• Our teaching expectations vs. reality

• The things we found most surprising when we first started teaching

• The biggest lessons we learned about how to be effective teachers

“You can’t anticipate everything that’s going to come up in a lesson...and you shouldn’t be able to! That’s real language. And at the end of the day there are real humans sitting in front of you, and their needs are individual (...) and I love that so much about teaching... it’s teaching to the individual.”