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A Practical Guide to Concept-Checking Questions (CCQs) for CELTA and Beyond
1. What Are Concept-Checking Questions? Concept-checking questions (CCQs) are short, targeted questions teachers use to check whether...

Connor O'Donoghue
Oct 127 min read


How to Teach Better Speaking Lessons: Tips for New English Teachers
For many English learners, speaking fluently and confidently is the ultimate goal. While reading, writing, and listening matter, most...

Connor O'Donoghue
Jul 153 min read


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...

Connor O'Donoghue
Mar 17, 20243 min read


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...

Connor O'Donoghue
Oct 17, 20233 min read


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...

Connor O'Donoghue
Sep 12, 20233 min read


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...

Connor O'Donoghue
Sep 5, 20232 min read


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...

Connor O'Donoghue
Aug 15, 20233 min read


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...

Connor O'Donoghue
Jul 18, 20232 min read


Vocabulary: conveying meaning to students
Learning new words is one of the most important parts of learning a new language. You may be able to get your meaning across with poor...

Connor O'Donoghue
Jun 20, 20233 min read
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