
So - you'd like to teach online?
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I love teaching online - I'm lucky to work with a good online school as well (good online school is a school that provides you with training, shares teaching materials with you and has supervisors ready to help), and I've been asked by some teachers how I actually got into online teaching and if it's like teaching via Skype. And since I guess it's slightly more complicated than "tutoring via Skype", I've decided to reflect on my journey so far - I know I have much more to learn, but things I've covered so far make me quite prepared to online teaching.

Lateral puzzles, literal fun :)
It's easier for the adults (they either go abroad or stay in touch with a foreigner - and communicate on their own), it may be more difficult with younger learners simply because they have stuff to learn at school anyway, don't really know WHY they may need English and lose motivation easily.

Blurred grammar with Weird Al
The last time I wrote about music, and somehow I completely forgot to mention one of the masters of English, the funny, intertextual, one and only Weird Al Yankovic!

First classes dictation to boost motivation
I found this poem by Chanie Gorkin, and once I saw it, I thought I could use it on my very first classes, to make my students remember.... well, here's the poem I make my students write down as a dictation, line by line (of course, I'll have to adjust vocabulary to my students' proficiency level, but what's so difficult in replacing convince with tell etc.?):

"First writing" tips
Writing can be one of the most tiresome endeavours of a student - can you recall your own papers, compositions, etc?
I see no reason not to teach some writing techniques to my own students. I've realised that the sooner they get the basics, the better their writing compositions are.

Tenses review - a quickie
To make my - and my students' - life easier, I've decided to make a cheat sheet for all the tenses & aspects, their uses and syntax. I'm happy to share it with you.

Online classes - taking TEFL to a new level
I've started teaching online and it's quite challenging (hence no new posts here). But since I'm comfortable with the new environment, I'd love to share my impressions so far - I've been teaching online for almost two months so far and I find the experience really fascinating (especially that I teach regular groups, not the one-to-one conversations).

Merry Crimbo :)
When a student of mine showed me this video, it actually inspired me to bring my students at least one Christmas-related activity - and with Christmas approaching, I thought I may share it on my blog.

Let's write a poem!
Yesterday, when I was on my way to work, I was thinking about the lesson - a group of pre-int teenagers and grammar + vocabulary revision. Not necessarily exciting thing, admit it.
Maybe I'll give them a funny warm up at least, I thought - and I decided to make them write a poem, which we had never done before.

10 short warm-ups to revise vocabulary
What needs constant revision, is vocabulary, especially on the more advanced levels - the students learn the words but don't use them regularly. One way to make them revise vocabulary is to do short warm-ups in the classroom. I've got my favourite ten activities that I use regularly