After a long absence I am back to the blog. In fact, I am piecing together a series of articles for the new esl teacher or tutor. I plan to offer practical advice and information for the rookie tutor or teacher to handle their new esl students individually or in a classroom setting. There is more to teaching than putting together a lesson plan, as you may have or most likely will soon find out. Anytime you are mixing more than one culture together and trying to communicate, there will be complications. These do not have to be negative complications, but a new tutor or teacher would be wise to be aware of them and have a plan to overcome them.

General themes of the articles that you can expect to see here in the coming days and weeks will be “What they didn’t tell you when you signed on”, “Classroom management”, “How to teach”, “Happiness is when we all get along”, and Resources and Checklists.

Hopefully you will tune in to see what I am sharing and please feel free to add your own experiences and advice in the comments.

Talk to you soon!

Technorati Tags: classroom management, esl teaching, esl tutoring, teaching resources

What is even more incredible about this is that the service is offered absolutely FREE! From the owner herself, Diane , we have the following information:

1. Tutors can sign up for free or for a paid, premium membership with more exposure ($29/year).

2. Basic tutor listing are limited to listing availability for one subject, but premium tutors can list as many subjects as they cover.

3. Students and/or their parents search for tutors for free on the site, and ther is no need for anyone to sign up–just search for a tutor and click “Contact this Tutor”.

4. All tutors get leads from students via email.

5. Tutors can work face to face or online, and they negotiate their own rates and don’t have to pay TutorMatch anything. TutorMatch is not involved after the lead is passed on to the tutor.

Now, this sounds like a pretty good deal to me. For free or a minimal expense you have an opportunity to expand your business to anywhere in the world. Does it sound like a good opportunity to you too? I signed up myself today.

Let me hear your input on this. Take charge of your ESL tutoring business, and have fun!

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Technorati Tags: esl tutoring

This is good advice for whatever you teach. If you are running out of ideas or a class is especially difficult, it is tempting to want to talk about anything or teach anything to just fill in time. However, you really do need to stop and consider why you are teaching what you are. Reannon goes through a list of 10 songs that we typically learn as children in our own native speaking culture, but that really do not seem to have a real purpose for an ESL tutoring session. It is important to then collect as many ideas and resources BEFORE entering a classroom or tutoring situation so you can draw upon them when you need to fill in time. She gave a list of 7 children songs that she thinks are relevant and the lessons that they teach. Feel free to borrow these ideas as useful tools for your own resource collection. They are the following:

1. The Hokey Pokey (In/Out, Body Parts)
2. Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
3. The Walking Song (Actions)
4. The Rainbow Song (Colors)
5. The Colors of Our Clothes (Colors, Clothing)
6. The Hello/How Are You Song (Greetings)
7. One Little, Two Little, Three Little Fingers

If you are like me, you may not know all of these songs, but understand the idea behind it and can think of others I could use in my own tutoring situations.

I guess one of the main points of all preparations and resources is to have fun and don’t be afraid to get a little crazy. Kids will love you for it, and it will help you be a little more free and creative in all your other teaching exploits.

If you want to follow along with more of what Rannon’s blog has to say, you can track her at http://reannon-takenbythewind.blogspot.com/2008/06/when-wheels-on-bus-have-long-since.html .

Technorati Tags: esl for children, esl resources, esl tutoring

http://www.supersimplesongs.com/

http://www.thedailyenglishshow.com/members

I really recommend these CDs if you teach English to children. If you have a few good songs, I find the whole lesson falls into place. They’d also make a great present for friends with children. Some people don’t have the money to send their kids to an English school, or maybe they don’t have a school nearby – but I think they could learn a lot just listening to these CDs at home.

English Script:
http://thedailyenglishshow.blogspot.com/2008/06/show-758-monday-9-june.html

英文スクリプト＋日本語訳＋番組詳細
http://tdes.blog120.fc2.com/blog-entry-219.html

Show 758 Monday 9 June
The Daily English Show
http://www.thedailyenglishshow.com/

Duration : 0:8:56

Technorati Tags: children, English, ESL, kids, songs, study, supersimplesongs

Duration : 0:3:41

Technorati Tags: class, classroom, compeditive, competitive, dicipline, discipline, ESL, Korea, Kyle, management, points, room

everyone knows to include things like what class you taught, what lesson you taught them, the date, attendance, etc.

but i recommend including how successful each lesson was, and comparing the results to your lesson plans, so you can see what works and what does not.

Duration : 0:4:29

Technorati Tags: class, English, ESL, keeping, Korea, Kyle, language, log, second, teach, teaching, tips

Duration : 0:4:5

Technorati Tags: English, ESL, help, Korea, Kyle, language, second, teaching, tips