Category Archives: Self-study materials

Recommended free Elementary and Pre-Int business self-study materials

This is a list of the best A1 and A2 level materials I could find online. I made this for my students to use while they were waiting for their one-to-one tutorials, to discuss afterwards, and hopefully to use to … Continue reading

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Better self-study materials

Just published two articles on the topic of improving self-study books, homework materials, etc. 20 things wrong with most self-study materials Activities that match the questions in students’ heads After reading them, you can check out my attempt at making … Continue reading

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TEFLtastic e-book – Really Learn the Most Useful Telephone Phrases

After 20 years in TEFL and more than ten publishing my ideas and worksheets, I’ve finally put together a whole book of materials – and one that goes against almost everything I’ve done so far. First of all, it’s a … Continue reading

Posted in Self-study materials, Telephoning | 4 Comments

Copyright and the TEFL teacher

I had a thought provoking email from one of the TEFL.net book reviewers last week. When I told them to “not rush the review and try the book out in class as much as they like”, they came back with … Continue reading

Posted in copyright, ELT publishing, Interactive whiteboard, Materials, Self-study materials, Technology, TEFL, Using authentic texts, video | 5 Comments

Korean euphemisms?

This is when my studies with the Lonely Planet phrasebook started getting completely out of hand, I think I might have been just short of giggling like a school boy on the train at one point… Not that hysterics is … Continue reading

Posted in Alternative teaching techniques, Materials, Self-study materials, Teaching English in Korea, Vocabulary | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Lonely Planet Korean Phrasebook for Pervs

Here is another attempt of mine to cope with my complete lack of language learning motivation, Playstation-generation attention span and need for something new every couple of hours. And the new method is- trying to find as many rude things … Continue reading

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My Lonely Planet is full of eels

Here are some actual sentences taught in the Lonely Planet Korean phrasebook which, while not quite “My hovercraft is full of eels”, tickled me once I realised that trying to find silliness was another whole motivation for using language learning … Continue reading

Posted in Linguistics, applied linguistics and SLA, Materials, Self-study materials, Teaching English in Korea, TEFL | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Anyone can learn a language in just three months

If you don’t believe me, before you buy one of language courses for just 100 dollars* have a free trial of one of our other “…in just three months” ® courses, for example: – Anyone can learn to run 100 … Continue reading

Posted in Guardian TEFL, links, Materials, Self-study materials | Tagged | 3 Comments

New TEFL articles etc August 08

It was a quiet month (if you don’t count the sound of the cicadas), but that will just give you the chance to read all of them for once, starting with a new series of “well balanced…” articles on Usingenglish.com: … Continue reading

Posted in Business English and ESP, CELTA, ELT publishing, ELTgames.com, English for Academic Purposes, Error correction, Error correction games, links, Materials, Needs analysis, Self-study materials, TEFL, TEFL career planning, TEFL certificate, TEFL games, TEFL heroes- Jon Marks, Using L1 in class, Usingenglish | Leave a comment

Surprises about English spelling

More bits and pieces that I didn’t know, had never thought about or had doubts about from The Cambridge Grammar of English: – The reason why you don’t double the p in “developing” is because the previous vowel isn’t stressed. … Continue reading

Posted in Cambridge University Press, Grammar, Grammar books, links, Materials, Self-study materials, Skills, Spelling, Spelling rules, TEFL, Typical spelling mistakes, Writing | Leave a comment