Teaching adult ESL with no materials or time? Here’s what works when nothing else does.
Linguistic Investigations: Teaching Students to Teach Themselves
I’ll never forget watching “Layla” lean over a pile of sentence cards, using her finger to separate them and making that little clicking noise in…
5 Health-Themed Activities That Won’t Make You Want to Fake Being Sick
If you’re looking for a theme that won’t make your adult ESL students groan and check their phones, try “health.” I know, I know. It…
My Bad! Teaching Apologies: Adult ESL Apologizing Role-Play Activities for Real-Life Situations
Apologies can be uncomfortable, right? Different cultures apologize differently. Some are known for apologizing for everything (looking at you, Canada). Some barely apologize at all….
I Don’t Regret Letting YouTube Teach My Grammar Class That Day
I hit play on the YouTube video, turned to face my class, and said, “Take notes. You’ll need them.” Then I sat down at my…
Clothing Vocabulary: Your Adult ESL Students Know “Shirt” and “Pants.” Now What?
I watched Carmen stand in front of the class, gesturing frantically at her sleeves while trying to explain why she needed to return a shirt….
How to Sneak Test-Taking Strategies into Beginning Adult ESL Lessons
When we started working on color vocabulary, Ama’s face went dark. I didn’t know her well because she had just started in my class that…
Commonly Confused Words: 3 Reasons English is Ridiculous
Do your students ask for your advise in learning vocabulary? Its a common question, right? You might want to take a brake in your lessen…
8 Fun and Interactive Modal Activities for Adult ESL Grammar
Years ago, after hearing a co-worker complain about how much they hated teaching modals, I decided right then to make it one of the most…
3 Huge Reasons to Spend as Little as Possible on Your Classroom
It’s back to school time, and teachers everywhere are groaning over the tsunami of products being marketed at them while simultaneously filling up Amazon wishlists….
Are Connectives the Missing Links in Your Adult ESL Writing Classes?
You’ve read this paragraph three times. You’re still lost. The student who wrote it is articulate in class discussions. She participates, she gets the grammar,…
Free Talking with Low-Level Adult ESL Students Without Dying Inside
I’ll never forget my first attempt at a “free talking” session with my A1 class. I had twenty questions printed out. TWENTY. I’d spent the…
Participial Adjectives: 2 Tests to See if They’re Sneaky Verbs
“Teacher, I am very exhausting today.” I looked up from my desk to see Maria standing there, clearly tired. She meant exhausted, of course. We’d…
2 Vocabulary Games That’ll Get Even Your Skeptical Adult ESL Students Excited
The first time I announced we were playing SWOOSH!, my student Saleh crossed his arms and said, “I didn’t pay for this class to play…
The Sophisticated Vocabulary Gap: Why Your College-Bound ESL Students Sound Like They’re Not As Smart As They Are
Mariam could explain complex ideas. She understood the concepts in her psychology class. She could write coherent essays that made sense. But her professor kept…
3 Fun Speaking Activities for Comparative Adjectives
Your adult ESL students barely manage to politely smother their sighs and suppress the glaze from creeping across their eyes when they realize that today’s…
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