Ways to Learn Thinking in a Foreign Language: Guest Blog by Sophia Anderson Although most people don’t really pay attention to it, we all have our own internal monologues going on all the time. It is this very ability that can help you improve your knowledge of any foreign language. But, learning to think in another language is easier said than done, which is why we have put together a list of 7 practical exercises and

Guest Post by Brenda Savoie In a very popular TED conversation, game designer Jane McGonigal explored important questions: why are games so attractive, and how can we get as much from our games as we’re giving them? As a collective, people spend 3 billion hours a week playing video games. Older generations take those numbers for granted, and they are devastated by the way young people are wasting their time. However, educators have found great ways

For ESL students who have grown up with little exposure to the English language, English can be either a fun subject to learn or a source of frustration and nightmares. Teaching ESL to kids requires a teacher who knows how to have fun with the language, teach in a lively manner, speak in simple English while using gestures and body language, and incorporate songs and games into the classes. When teaching kids ESL, perhaps the

Teaching the present perfect tense to ESL students can be tricky, as this tense relates to the past as well as the present. Following are some simple tips for teaching students how to use the present perfect tense properly. 1. Explain the conjugation It is relatively easy to conjugate present tense verbs. Simply use “has/have” and the past participle of the verb. For regular verbs (whose past tense is formed by adding “-ed), the past

When entering the ESL teaching profession, it can at times seem daunting to create a classroom environment this is fun and productive. It is not enough to be simply a native speaker; successful ESL teachers must take certain steps to earn the respect of their students and lead enjoyable classes. Below are seven key steps to becoming an effective ESL teacher. 1. Learn the rules of the English grammar It should go without saying that

Recently, in an elementary school in the small Asian city where I live, the students were being orally tested on some basic sentence patterns. One of these involved the pattern, “My favorite…”, with the students being quizzed about their favorite food, favorite place, favorite singer, favorite teacher, etc. After finishing this test, the teacher who administered the test came up to my girlfriend, who is a native English teacher in the school. “I have to