Ece and ELT - Find out more about English Language Teaching and Learning

       What can freelance teachers do as new beginners?                        There are many things freelance teachers can do different from tutoring.                Here are  Ece & ELT’s suggestions to help you widen your perspective:  Have a teaching style: Be original and unique.  Start a blog  to share your ideas, to revise your past experiences and knowledge, you can use it as a notebook and to introduce yourself.  Set up a profile on LinkedIn to introduce yourself effectively. Share your blog posts there. Contact with other professionals in your subject area.  Learn more about how to use social media actively and effectively: you can search for it on the Internet, ask your friends, family members, colleagues, who you know are techno geek, for new ideas. Here are ELT’s suggestions:  Be positive on socia...

  A useful guide for prospective teachers      There are some points you have to take into consideration before starting your school experience and teaching practice or starting to teach as prospective teachers.            If you are given enough time to observe the class, teacher, here are things you can do:  Take observation notes based on classroom environment, teaching style, course materials (books, activities, games, etc.), class size, classroom management, communication between students and teacher, assessment style, students’ age, proficiency level, interests, attitudes towards the lesson, topics that are taught, scaffolding techniques (how the teacher scaffolds learners if they have problems with learning or answering questions), stages of a lesson to prepare your lessons considering these factors.  Be well-organised: You may need a weekly planner to plan what you are going to do in your classes.  Con...

  How to present new words effectively to learners in all ages          Presenting new words can be challenging in our classes, sometimes. Some students may get bored easily or you may feel that you can't get their attention for new vocabulary teaching.  Here are some ideas to help you while presenting new words effectively to learners in all ages:  Create a vocabulary box for each topic.   Pick up flashcards in big size one by one to make sure that everyone in your class can see or you can prepare a presentation to teach new words for online classes or if you have a smart board and a projection in your class.   Vocabulary books and pop-up books are especially very enjoyable as students can see pictures in big size, clearly. If you don’t have any books like these, you can stick pictures on cartoons and bring them together as a book. Then, you can pull each picture to stick it on board.   You can create a vocabulary file, too. P...

  14 steps to conduct scientific research           After planning the right time, doing observation, revising literature and deciding on your research topic, you are ready to begin your research.       Here are 14 steps, which I personally followed while conducting research in the field of ELT as a teacher candidate and I can suggest you follow, to help you conduct scientific research:  Prepare hypotheses / research questions: Hypotheses and research questions are essential to seek for answers when you carry out a scientific study.  Write the introduction part: Explain why it’s necessary to do research on the topic you aim to search.  Get access to more sources: Search for more scientific studies, articles, books on the Internet. You can use sites like Google Academics, ResearchGate, Academia for this.  Write the literature review part: Paraphrase and summarise the studies other researchers have done befo...

  How to prepare story books and use storytelling techniques for your classes       Story books are one of the great ways to teach young learners English especially when you are supposed to present new vocabulary and new grammar structures. Here is your guide, which I personally follow and highly recommend, to help you prepare your own story books as English teachers:   The book should be visual and in big size so that your students see it clearly.  The cover of the book should include the characters to give a clue to the students.   The story should be enjoyable, positive, engaging and appropriate for the students’ age, proficiency level and interests with characters, place, time and events.   The characters can be the students’ favourite cartoon characters or imaginary characters can be created like super heroes to take their attention.   The place can be somewhere the students know like park, school, home or a different universe if you pre...

     Teachers, keep updated without feeling overwhelmed!        We are willing to keep updated professionally as teachers; however, we also have many responsibilities that go beyond our willingness. From time to time, we can have problems with setting a balance between work and professional development or we may not know how to start and we need solutions to overcome them.  Here are pieces of advice to help you keep updated without feeling overwhelmed:  Have weekly, monthly planners and schedules, which can help you keep more organised, make future plans and set time limit between school and free time.  Do not be strict with your plans. It is usual not to be able to follow your plans every day. This is called ‘’life’’. Sometimes, something that may completely change your plans happens.  Do not forget to have a rest after work and get ready psychologically for what you can do to keep updated in your field.  Join online courses...