Marmara Elt Resources

One of the most involving ways of discovering what is really hapening in the world of the classroom is to experience it as a learner yourself.Numerous accounts of teachers becoming learners appear in the literature.In a 1987 article,Tim Lowe describes an experiment in which a group of teachers became learners in a part-time course in Mandarian.The language teacher,teacher-learners, and an observer all kept diaries.It was a real experience for all participants;sharing impressions from their diaries helped them discover that many more things were happening in the classroom that they had ever realized.

12 Great Memory Strategies For Better Grades by StrongLearning
STRATEGY 1. CHUNKING

It is easier to memorize information when you break it up into small chunks. This is called chunking. You may not realize it, but you use chunking often, like when you memorize your friend’s telephone number, a locker combination, or your social security number. It’s easier to remember long numbers when you “chunk” them into groups of threes, fours and fives. That’s because most people can only remember about three, four or five bits of information at a time.

Here are suggestions on how you can use “chunking” to remember information as well as numbers.

• Chunk vocabulary words by grouping them by parts of speech or other attributes.

• Chunk history by time periods or events.

• Chunk foreign language by grouping words into categories like household items or occupations.

• If there is no pattern to the information you need to study, just group the items into three, four or five at a time, and that will help a lot.
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Three Fun Ideas for Teaching Grammar to TEFL Learners
Grammar. The very mention of the word strikes fear into the heart of the staunchest language learner. Many English EFL and ESL teachers also feel the pit of their stomach churn at the thought of preparing and giving a grammar lesson. But what are we to do? If lexis and vocabulary are the building blocks of language, then certainly grammar is the mortar or structure that holds them together. Teaching it and learning it are therefore inescapable. The only thing to do then is to make it as interesting, pleasant or at least as painless as possible. Here are some ideas to help you do just that.

1. Use Grammar Games
Both learners and teachers alike love to use games in the English EFL ESL classroom. So, make extensive use of games to teach and reinforce critical grammar points. What, you say you don’t know any grammar games? Or perhaps you’ll quip that you don’t have a good stock of them so you can’t count on regularly employing them for use in your classes? Au contraire! They abound on English teacher websites, commercial publications and in the minds and hearts of your colleagues worldwide. If you have a good game to share, post it on an ELT forum or TEFL materials / activities website. Create your own based on popular games you’re familiar with. Use pursuit and turn-taking games, card games, board games or TPR-based games to get maximum involvement of your learners. Actually, you should get in there too. Don’t be a lazy butt. Read the rest of this entry »

There are numerous coping strategies and activities that teachers can use to deal with the challenges of timing and student engagement.
Advantages of Teaching Small Classes
* Comfort: Teachers and students often feel more comfortable when the class size is smaller. Students generally feel more comfortable voicing their questions and opinions.
* Students’ needs met: Teachers can design customized lessons to meet the needs and interests of all of the class members.
* Student centred: Teaching is student centred and often more communicative than is possible in large classes. Students also have more opportunity to speak.
* Space: Students have plenty of space to move around in the classroom. Teachers can also arrange excursions (or suggest spontaneous ones) outside of the classroom where students can be exposed to real world English.
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