TEFL Prague and Abroad

Don't Be A One- Upper! Here's a grammar/communicative lesson with a New Year's Eve theme. Students will be attending extravagant New Year's parties. They will try to one-up each other on their past experiences using the present perfect and past simple. Ideally, this lesson is suitable for Upper Intermediates, but can probably be used for a strong intermediate class. Intro: a minute or two Come to class with some kind of New Year's paraphernalia. You can also play Auld Lang Syne and enter into the classroom while it's playing. Here's a link to the song if you need it. Elicit the concept of New Year's and tell them that you have to decide on a party. Offer the class a couple of different scenarios with pictures of different people/parties that you are thinking of attending. The class can vote on which one they would like the most e.g. spending time with a small group of friends or going to a fancy party. Lead In: 5 minutes or so Have the st

Is 2015 the Best Year to Teach English in Prague with The Language House TEFL? The USD is currently trading very strong against the Euro. What does this mean for current and future applicants of The Language House TEFL ? It means that our 2015 courses are currently cheaper than ever for Americans applying to teach abroad. Our courses are in Euro and this is going to save all Americans a lot on course fees and housing. It will also make the city a bit cheaper than it was even a few months ago. Take advantage of the savings and sign up to teach abroad. Contact me for more information.

  Check out this money saver!

 Here's a video of me talking about teaching abroad and The Language House TEFL. Take a look!

  Meet some of the staff of The Language House TEFL. Watch video!

   Matthew gives his review of Prague, The Language House TEFL, the YLT program and Prague nightlife. Watch all of our graduate videos and read more about the course here  The Language House TEFL

   Check out our new series of videos 'Graduate Voices'. We are featuring off the cuff interviews from graduate and staff of The Language House. If you are interested at all in teaching abroad, please take a look at our website  The Language House

  Not teaching related but worth checking out. Colors of Dance is a dance studio where a lot of our TLH graduates, staff and myself go to take fun dance lessons from Misa and Anicka (the two girls in the video). Check them out. They are great dancers and dedicated teachers. If you ever decide to come to Prague, Colors of Dance is well worth giving a try.

TLH TEFL graduate Emori gives her impressions of The Language House TEFL course, living abroad, the YLT program and Prague Nightlife. If you have any interest in teaching abroad, please take a look at our course here  Language House Prague

Want to teach abroad but are hesitant to make the jump? We interviewed close to a dozen graduates of The Language House TEFL and candidly asked them about their experience on the course and what life is like living and teaching in Prague. All of the interviews were completely unscripted. I'll be posting these videos each week under the label 'graduate voices'. Check them out! There's a lot to learn from the experience of current teachers in the city. Cheers, Chris The Language House TEFL

A potentially provocative lesson that deals with political art. This is best suited for Czechs, due to the subject matter, but should be successful with other democratic/liberal nationalities. Careful teaching the lesson in countries where political dissent is prohibited. The lesson deals with a reading about David Cerny, a Czech artist, and concludes with students creating and presenting their own political/protest piece of art. The reading is pretty short, but I'm sure there are longer articles on the subject matter that you could use. The article for the lesson can be found here  Provocative art link . Introduction: 1-2 minutes Option 1. Stage a mini protest in your class. Start the class by complaining about a relatively 'light' social problem - e.g. ice-cream is too expensive in the city. Have signs prepared and chants. Tell the students that you plan on taking it to the streets to get your message across and you need their help. Try to elicit the concept of pr

Talva Brunette - TLH Grad If you are thinking about teaching abroad, it's wise to connect with new teachers currently in the field.    I try my best at The Language House TEFL to get as many voices from past graduates as I can to talk about their experience. Teaching abroad is fun. It's exciting to pack up your bags and try something completely new in a new country far away from home, and more importantly, far away from your comfort zone. Over the next few months, I'm going to be posting stories from our graduates. Learn from their experiences! If you'd like to write me about teaching abroad, I'm happy to answer your inquiries - chris@thelanguagehouse.net Here's the first one -  Language House alum and the very popular Talva Brunette. Read up on her experience teaching here -  Language House TEFL graduate Talva .

Comparative/Superlative lesson plan featuring James Bond. Students at the end of the lesson will contrast and compare the different James Bonds on a variety of different qualities and come to a consensus on who is the best 007 of all time. Aside from the grammatical point, this lesson can teach/train a lot of new personality adjectives. Note: For this to work, your students have to have some knowledge of the 007 movies. Check this out beforehand. Materials: James bond theme music. Pictures of different James Bond actors. Introduction: a few minutes.  Version 1: Come into class dressed in a large coat, sunglasses and a hat. Proceed to interact with your students in 'spy like' ways. Try to elicit the concept of spy/espionage. Versions 2: You might just come in playing the James Bond theme music to elicit James Bond/Spies. Lead In: 10 minutes at least with boarding lexis Students in groups answer these questions. 1. Name three famous spy agencies from around the wor

        Evil Company  Due to popular demand, here's the lesson plan for "Evil Company.' This is the same lesson plan we use as the lexis demo on The Language House TEFL certificate course. This lesson can be used for regular EFL classes or for business English classes depending on what lexis you choose to activate. Intro: Tell the class that you or your school is coming up with a new logo for the company and you'd like their input on which possible new logo the school should use. Show them a variety of logos from companies with a less than stellar reputation. Companies can include Walmart, McDonalds, Marlboro, BP... etc. The logos should elicit a negative response from the students, mainly 'unethical companies'. Play devil's advocate with them and question why they think these companies are unethical. Laugh at their responses in a condescending way. Lead in: Demo these questions with students and then put them in groups. Make sure to monitor

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Here's a lesson that can be used for big and small groups around upper intermediates and up. The Target Language can be modified for lower levels if needed. Without a reading add on, the lesson should take no more than 45 minutes to complete. With smaller class sizes, you'll probably need another activity at the end to take up time, but if you stretch out the activation, you should be fine. Materials:  Cash currency of different denominations. Ideally bring in currency from your own country and host country. If you feel uncomfortable with that, make photocopies. Prep work: Do a bit of research on the currency you are bringing in. Be aware of the iconic figures and symbols on the bills. For me, I used a dollar bill. Here's a great image that goes over some of the symbolism.  Check it out -  1 dollar bill  Alternatively, you can use this reading in the lesson for longer classes. Introduction:  Version 1 for larger classes:  Before class, hide either real or photoco

Looks like we finally got on the bandwagon with Instagram for The Language House TEFL in Prague.  I don't have any cool pics posted yet, but you can be assured that many will come in the following weeks/months. Check us out! Follow us  http://instagram.com/languagehouseprague Cheers, Chris Westergaard

Not a full lesson video, but basically unedited demo of an Intro, Lead in and Grammar Presentation for the Present Perfect vs past simple. No frills here, just straight academic grammar presentation to a group of intermediate students. Grammar Presentation Video