• Do These 5 Essential Things When Teaching Young Adult ESL Students

    Teaching young adult ESL students is not the same as public school ESL classes or buxiban classes in China.  Whether you’ve already done a stint overseas or this is your first time teaching adult ESL, taking these five steps will ensure greater success for you as a teacher and for your students as learners. Intensive… Read More

    Do These 5 Essential Things When Teaching Young Adult ESL Students
  • 3 Ideas for Inspiring Shared Gratitude in the Classroom

    Have you ever worked at a place where people had genuine (not coffee-induced) smiles in the mornings?  Where people asked about your weekend and listened instead of bemoaning another Monday?  If you have, isn’t that what you want in your classroom for your students?  If you haven’t, wouldn’t you like to make that part of your life? … Read More

    3 Ideas for Inspiring Shared Gratitude in the Classroom
  • Vocabulary Bingo: The Playful Way to Review in Adult ESL Classes

    Why vocabulary bingo? Here’s why! Are you looking for a fun and interactive way to review vocabulary with your students? Look no further than vocabulary bingo! When playing vocabulary bingo, students have the opportunity to see, hear, and use the new vocabulary in context, which can help them better understand and remember the words. This… Read More

    Vocabulary Bingo: The Playful Way to Review in Adult ESL Classes
  • Improve English Pronunciation with 4 Strategies to Overcome Strong Accents

    Your highly-motivated student is eager to talk and capitalizes on every opportunity to speak. The problem? You can’t understand what she says. Bigger problem? Neither can the rest of your class! Time to tackle English pronunciation challenges! The Otherwise Perfect Student No One Understood “Shimin,” a 19-year-old, started in our lowest level class, but it… Read More

    Improve English Pronunciation with 4 Strategies to Overcome Strong Accents
  • Study Habits: Supercharge Their Effectiveness with One Question & One Strategy

    I blinked in disbelief as I looked at the mostly blank paper with seemingly random words shoved into sentence-like structure and then at the student who embodied both defiance and remorse at the same time. Without a thought, I opened my mouth and asked all the wrong questions. These are the wrong questions to ask… Read More

    Study Habits:  Supercharge Their Effectiveness with One Question & One Strategy
  • Dear Past, Hello Future: Another New Year

    So this one will be different. Another year has passed, remarkably fast and excruciatingly slow both in turns and at the same time. Time is a weird concept to me. Once I learned that it’s not the same “time” for everyone in the world simultaneously, a lot of time-related traditions became meaningless for me, especially… Read More

    Dear Past, Hello Future: Another New Year
  • 10 Practical Ways to Teach the Alphabet to Adult ESL Students

    Alphabet in adult ESL classes? Yes! So you’re teaching an adult ESL true beginner class, and the alphabet is one of your starting points.  You know there are millions of resources and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but everything you find is made for children.  Your adult students don’t need to use a finger to… Read More

    10 Practical Ways to Teach the Alphabet to Adult ESL Students
  • 3 Fun Speaking Activities for Comparative Adjectives

    Your adult ESL students barely managed to politely smother their sighs and suppress the glaze from creeping across their eyes when they realized that today’s grammar lesson would be a review on comparative adjectives.  You know they need the practice, and if pressed, they’re likely to admit it even if only in their heads.  Still,… Read More

    3 Fun Speaking Activities for Comparative Adjectives
  • Teaching ESL Grammar When You’re Clueless about the Rules

    Teaching ESL grammar when you aren’t sure what the past perfect is can be overwhelming for new teachers.  At the first adult language school where I taught, I’d be assigned a new round of courses every month.  We had 10 levels each of grammar, reading, writing, and speaking/listening courses, as well as TOEFL prep and… Read More

    Teaching ESL Grammar When You’re Clueless about the Rules
  • 4 Fun Plural Noun Activities for Adult ESL

    While I absolutely see the value in a good worksheet, using plural noun activities when you have the time is just so much more fun! What kind of activity would be appropriate for an adult ESL class? Here are four I encourage you to try. Stage a plural noun linguistic investigation. Linguistic investigations are one… Read More

    4 Fun Plural Noun Activities for Adult ESL
  • 8 Great Ideas for Teaching Weather Vocabulary in Adult ESL

    Weather vocabulary serves important communication purposes for adult ESL.  Students can use it to quickly break the ice when speaking with someone new because it is such an innocuous part of small talk. Knowing the terms associated with the extreme weather found in their location could be a matter of safety or even life or… Read More

    8 Great Ideas for Teaching Weather Vocabulary in Adult ESL
  • Teaching Home Vocabulary: A Comprehensive Overview for Adult ESL Teachers

    Home vocabulary for the win! Adult ESL teachers understand the importance of providing their students with the tools and resources they need to succeed in both the classroom and everyday life. One way to do this is by teaching home vocabulary, which can be incredibly useful for adult learners navigating a new country and culture.… Read More

    Teaching Home Vocabulary: A Comprehensive Overview for Adult ESL Teachers
  • How to Create Unlimited Adult ESL Games with Jenga

    They just sit there uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact with each other and practically pulsating with the desire to take out their phones and check for messages.  Oh, they’ll listen and repeat, and they’ll answer direct questions from you, but they’re not about to open themselves up to a stranger just because he/she is sitting next… Read More

    How to Create Unlimited Adult ESL Games with Jenga
  • The 5 Best TH-Pronunciation Activities for Adult ESL

    Why do we need TH-pronunciation activities?  The voiced TH and the unvoiced TH are two of the most difficult sounds for many of our adult ESL students because these rare phonemes simply don’t exist in many languages.  /θ/ is even rarer than /ð/.  Imagine going your entire life never making a specific sound and then… Read More

    The 5 Best TH-Pronunciation Activities for Adult ESL
  • 6 Exciting Subject-Verb Agreement Games & Activities for Adult ESL

    Subject-verb agreement need not be a musty grammar concept! First, let’s do a quick run-down on subject-verb agreement in case we have a new teacher reading this. Subject-Verb Agreement in a Nutshell What is subject-verb agreement? Subjects must agree with their verbs. A singular subject takes a singular verb. Plural subjects take plural verbs. Sounds… Read More

    6 Exciting Subject-Verb Agreement Games & Activities for Adult ESL

Join the Newsletter!

Read more GRAMMAR posts

8 Practical Strategies for Teaching Grade 12 Tier 2 Vocabulary to Adult ESL Students

Why teach grade 12 Tier 2 vocabulary to adults?  Well, vocabulary is the cornerstone of language learning, and its importance in ESL education just cannot be overstated. After all, the ability to express one’s thoughts and ideas effectively hinges on having a robust vocabulary. However, some teachers find themselves with complete freedom in what to …
Read More about 8 Practical Strategies for Teaching Grade 12 Tier 2 Vocabulary to Adult ESL Students

Read more vocabulary posts

Jobs and Careers: Creative Conversations in the Adult ESL Classroom

Incorporate real-world themes and topics, such as jobs and careers, into your lessons to make them relevant and engaging for your adult learners. Jobs and careers can be a particularly useful and relevant theme. Most adults can relate to and have experience with it, and it also provides numerous opportunities for speaking practice and vocabulary …
Read More about Jobs and Careers: Creative Conversations in the Adult ESL Classroom

Read more speaking posts

read more pronunciation posts