Teaching strategies
How to motivate your students in China
Teaching strategies
May 28, 2019 by Nicholas McKay
Fact: unless we’re inspired to do something, it probably won’t get done. As a TEFL teacher in China, we’re often required to not only bring an enthusiasm for teaching, but to bring enough motivation for all of our students too....
Teaching oral English to university students in China
Teaching strategies
December 13, 2018 by Kim Ooi
Ah, the lure of the TEFL industry. See the world, they said, experience a new culture, broaden your horizons! The EFL job ads literally scream at you, “Come and teach in our country!” So, after a robust interview process, you get ac...
The 7 secret methods of a highly successful teacher in China
Teaching strategies
October 30, 2018 by Kim Ooi
Any teacher who’s passionate about their profession wants the best for their students. If there were some secret methods or techniques that we could use to engage our students, we’d be keen to know what those were. Right? Although I...
Whoosh away your English classroom problems!
Teaching strategies
July 21, 2018 by Nicholas McKay
Has the title of this article gone ‘whoosh’ right over your head? Don’t worry, the same thing happened to me when I first heard the concept of a ‘Whoosh!’ exercise. Imagine you are teaching students a text, whether...
How to set exams in China
Teaching strategies
March 05, 2018 by Kim Ooi
China’s education system is exam-focused and even foreign teachers can’t escape having to set exams. Yet, no TEFL course to my knowledge teaches their trainees how to set and grade exams. There are many ways to set exams and hopeful...
Teaching subjects in China
Teaching strategies
March 01, 2018 by Kim Ooi
You’ve passed your TEFL course. After a period of job hunting, you get offered a job as an English teacher at a university in China. Full of excitement and enthusiasm, you fly off to the Middle Kingdom. As you wander around your new surr...
How I embraced the digital classroom in China
Teaching strategies
December 09, 2017 by Sarah Bucknall
For many of us, we can remember the sound of chalk scraping along the blackboard. The teacher, almost a dictator, would rarely venture more than an arm’s length away from their main teaching aid. In an ESL classroom in China, the environment...
4 student homework habits to help kick off your teaching career
Teaching strategies
September 29, 2017 by Alex Moore
This blog consists of tips, experience and wisdom – some of it my own, some of it second-hand – that I wish I had put into action in my first year of teaching. I am a hypocrite though. I didn’t do a single one of these things in...
Using a Guttman Chart to help your students in China
Teaching strategies
July 23, 2017 by Nicholas McKay
I swear by using a Guttman Chart when teaching large classes. It's a tool designed to ascertain a student’s 'zone of proximal development' (ZPD), otherwise referred to as 'what they are ready to learn next'. There will...
Using movies in your ESL classroom in China
Teaching strategies
July 16, 2017 by Sarah Bucknall
Using movies in your ESL classroom in China is really worthwhile. But for me, it wasn’t as easy as just clicking on ‘play’. It was 8:30am and I felt it was too early to be having a debate. We had just had our lesson plans chec...
