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 17
- 3 min
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...
189 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Jan 9
- 3 min
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...
286 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Nov 28, 2023
- 3 min
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...
154 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Nov 13, 2023
- 4 min
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...
85 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Oct 31, 2023
- 3 min
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...
193 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Oct 24, 2023
- 3 min
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...
1,133 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Oct 17, 2023
- 3 min
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, 2023
- 3 min
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, 2023
- 3 min
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, 2023
- 2 min
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, 2023
- 3 min
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...
214 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Sep 5, 2023
- 2 min
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, 2023
- 3 min
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, 2023
- 3 min
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...
637 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Aug 8, 2023
- 3 min
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...
1,013 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Aug 1, 2023
- 2 min
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...
1,251 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Jul 26, 2023
- 3 min
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...
610 views0 comments
Connor O'Donoghue
- Jul 18, 2023
- 2 min
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...
367 views1 comment
Connor O'Donoghue
- Jul 4, 2023
- 3 min
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...
47 views0 comments
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