Interaction Patterns in the English Language Classroom
Teaching English is different from teaching maths or teaching geography because English is a language and this means that practising...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Mar 173 min read
Helping students to record vocabulary
On a CELTA course, we spend a long time looking at what happens in the lesson itself. How do we get the meaning of a word across to our...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Jan 93 min read
Deciding when to deviate from a lesson plan
New teachers can sometimes cling to a plan, and there are good reasons for this. A lesson plan is your roadmap. The final stage of a...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Nov 28, 20233 min read
Planning a series of lessons
By the end of a CELTA course, you should be very good at planning an individual lesson, but you might feel intimidated at the idea of...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Nov 13, 20234 min read
Teaching Mixed-level English Classes: Five Top Tips
In a dream world, every student in a class is exactly the same level - they all know the same words as each other, they are all equally...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Oct 31, 20233 min read
How to teach advanced students
New teachers can be intimidated by advanced students - "What if they know more about grammar than I do?" "What if they correct my...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Oct 24, 20233 min read
Teacher Talking Time: How can we reduce it?
For many new trainee teachers on their first CELTA course, one of the first and most frequent action points that they get told to work on...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Oct 17, 20233 min read
What is controlled practice?
Part of learning anything is to practise it. When I was a teenager and I learned to drive in Ireland in the 1990s, my father took me to...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Oct 3, 20233 min read
Five top tips for writing a CELTA lesson plan
When we meet people at the end of their CELTA courses, one of the comments they often make is that they didn't realise just how much time...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Sep 27, 20233 min read
Receptive skills tasks for the English language classroom
Reading and listening are known as the 'receptive skills' because we receive language while reading and listening. The other language...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Sep 19, 20232 min read
Correcting students' spoken errors in your CELTA lessons
Students all make mistakes, and it's important we respond to these. When students are speaking in class, and a teacher hears a mistake,...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Sep 12, 20233 min read
Checking students' understanding of meaning
One of the most important skills to learn as a new teacher is the skill of checking students' understanding. We might think we're...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Sep 5, 20232 min read
Test-teach-test: A framework for CELTA grammar and vocabulary lessons
Most grammar or vocabulary lessons on an English teaching course, be it an online CELTA course or a classroom CELTA, will start with some...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Aug 30, 20233 min read
Giving feedback to students in CELTA teaching practice
On a CELTA course, you'll be encouraged to get students to do most tasks by themselves, maybe working alone or in pairs or groups, and...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Aug 15, 20233 min read
Five games for vocabulary practice on CELTA
New teachers sometimes think that 'controlled practice' means 'boring practice'. It's true that controlled practice activities include...
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Connor O'Donoghue
Aug 8, 20233 min read
Product writing: a simple approach to teaching writing
Some CELTA tutors will avoid giving trainees writing lessons to teach, even though it is part of the syllabus. It is true that it's...
1,344 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
Aug 1, 20232 min read
Anticipating problems when planning your CELTA lesson
Some parts of writing a lesson plan are easier than others, and many CELTA trainees complain that they just don't know where to start...
1,488 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
Jul 25, 20233 min read
How to drill pronunciation like a pro
Drilling simply means repeating things aloud. It's one of the simplest language teaching tools we have and it's one of the ones we've...
782 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
Jul 18, 20232 min read
What is guided discovery?
As you progress through a CELTA course, you will start to get comfortable with all the things you need to do when you're teaching new...
420 views1 comment
Connor O'Donoghue
Jul 4, 20233 min read
The 3 tools you need to master classroom management
Every lesson is essentially a sequence of activities. Activities come in all shapes and sizes, but ideally, they are student-centred, and...
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