ESL Lesson Plan

Hi Carol,

have gotten feedback from you in the past. has been very good on advice.

Recently made contact with a recruiter for 'TEFL' for placement in either ' China or South Korea ".

I was told that I did not need the certificate.
Should I go ahead and go, and then later take the TEFL certification course?

And what should I look for if offered a position to teach in either of those countries?

thanking you,

'Lucio '

Hi Lucio,

Even if you don't need a TEFL certificate for some jobs in Asia, I would recommend getting one anyway simply because you most likely will not be getting any training on the job and being prepared to teach will make your life easier. In addition, it will offer you more opportunities later on if you decide to stay in the TEFL field. Furthermore, it's possible that you will be paid more for having it, which means that after a while, it will pay for itself. Of course, that's just my opinion. There are plenty of people who teach in Asia without any qualifications to teach.

When looking for a position, I recommend finding out the following:

* are there any teacher meetings or training for staff?
* what do other teachers think about working there?
* how many students per class?
* what kind of resources will you have access to? (books, photocopying machine, games, etc.)?
* how many classes per week?
* will you have any office hours?
* will they take care of your visa?
* return airfare?
* accommodation- is it provided? if so, is it a dorm room or private apartment? if not, will they assist you in finding your own?
* will you be expected to organize any parties or activities after hours?
* is the salary given before or after tax? if before, how much tax will be taken out? will you see any of it later on (in China, you won't; in Japan, you get some back if you stay long enough; not sure about Korea).

Also, try to get it all in writing- preferably in a proper contract- before you go.

Hope that helps.

C.

Hi Carol!
I'll be a JET in Itami, Hyogo this year so I'm looking everywhere online for ESL high school teaching materials for Japanese teenagers. I have a TESOL cert. from SIT but still feel that I need as much stuff in my bag of tricks as I can get.
What are the best sites for lesson plans, materials, resources...for teaching teenagers English? There's lots of young kid material but I'm looking for highly-motivating-relating-to-teenagers kinds of things.
Sounds like you know your stuff and are passionate about it...please help!!
Thanks so much,
Erin

Hi Erin,

There are plenty of free lessons online (including some on this website). The following three links deal specifically with teenagers:

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?sectionType=listsummary&catid=59478
http://www.oup.com/elt/teachersclub/teenage/?cc=global
http://www.longman.com/teens/teachers/

These links have a wealth of resources for students in general and are worth checking out as well:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/download/download.shtml
http://iteslj.org/links/TESL/Lessons/

There aren't a whole lot of materials made specifically for teenagers; perhaps because what's 'in' one minute is 'out' the next. One thing to keep in mind when you're teaching teenagers (or any student for that matter) is to try to personalize the materials that you do find to make it relevant to your students. In order for students to be motivated, they need to find the materials interesting and/or relevant to their lives.

One way to figure out what interests them is to ask them for some feedback on the first day of class- either through a questionnaire, an informal discussion, or in an essay assignment. Find out what their interests are, what their strengths/weaknesses are, why they want to study English, and even what is motivating them to study (you might find that your teenagers are mostly extrinsically motivated- through their parents :()

You are on the right path already thinking about how to motivate your students. As Dornyei, a leading expert in Motivation in ESL, believes, motivation is such an important factor in language learning that if even if one had no aptitude for learning another language, being motivated to do so would allow such an individual to at least learn how to master the language to a minimal degree. At the same time, those with high aptitudes wouldn’t be able to get very far if they were not motivated.

Back to the resources, though you only asked about online resources, I would find yourself a good set of books that you could use as a base and then work on supplementing the book with some of your own materials as you go along. Two sets of books that I found to be interesting for teenagers were "Inside Out" (Macmillan) and "Innovations" (Thompson).

Go to these links for more info about these books:
http://elt.thomson.com/cgi-telt/course_products_wp.pl?fid=H2S&discipline_number=301&series_id=1000000140
http://www.macmillanenglish.com/default.aspx?id=711

I noticed that Macmillan also has two series that were designed specifically for teenagers: "Shine" and "Prospects". Has anyone used them?

Here are the links for info on those books:
http://www.prospects-macmillan.com
http://www.shine-english.com

If anyone has any other suggestions about what resources you find to be useful for teenagers (especially those in Japan), feel free to add your comments!

Hope that helps!

Carol
Writer, ESL Lesson Plan

I found it very useful.