TEFL Prague and Abroad

    If you've been teaching in one country for a while and want to make the move to another country, especially a country where the competition between TEFL teachers is high, I recommend making a demo video of one of your lessons. This is great way for you to showcase your skills in the classroom, and it will even out the negative of you not being able to interview in person.    Most high paying schools want to see you teach. Simply conducting a phone interview can't really achieve this. What usually happens is that the school will hire, if they can, a local teacher instead. If you can make a quick 5-10 minute video of you teaching, you can get around this. To get this done, you'll need one of your current classes that doesn't mind being videoed, a camera man, and a great lesson to show off what you know. Camera work, technology and editing software/options are cheap and accessible today. Most smart phones can even shoot in HD and can be used if you don't have a...

  Great article on Expats.cz that mentions me and one of my previous posts regarding customer service in Prague. I have to say, I'm flattered. Check it out. Service with a frown? You must be in Prague. Why is it that customer service here is so often substandard and what – if anything – can be done about it? Every expat has their favorite customer service horror story, whether the staff they encountered were sour-faced, unwilling to be the least bit proactive, or just downright rude. The venue could have been  a shop , restaurant or government office. The perpetrator might be young or old, male or female. In the Czech Republic, a basic lack of understanding of the minimum level of courtesy required when dealing with the public seems all too widespread – and it’s costing companies dearly. A  survey by telecommunications firm Genesys estimates  that Czech businesses lose 1.08 billion US dollars annually because of substandard customer service.  In an article o...

 Take a look at a video that I just shot for the gradable/ungradable adjective lesson that was posted a few weeks ago. The actual lesson was about 35 minutes long and it was done to intermediate-upper intermediate students. It was my first time meeting them, so I start of the lesson with a bit of an icebreaker. The video is just shy of 10 minutes and it's been edited with labels to show you what part of the lesson we are in. Let me know your thoughts, and if you want your own lesson created, give me a grammar point or topic, and I will be happy to make one for you. Here's the video   Cheers, Chris The Language House TEFL

  Here's a lesson for intermediate students and up that involves the students making a mock movie and pitching it to a movie studio.   Introduction: just a few minutes.  Come in pretending to be a director and mime filming the class. Elicit the concept of movies or film.  Lead in: around 7 minutes. Demo these questions out and put students in groups to answer them. 1. Do you like watching movies? What is your favorite movie? 2. What good movies have you seen this last year? 3. Who is your favorite actor and director? Why? 4. What well known movies have been made in your country? Lexis: around 10 minutes. Elicit and CCQ the following an actor, a star, a lead role, a supporting role a director a producer a plot a cast a setting a genre a thriller a horror movie a comedy, a black comedy, a romantic comedy a drama a documentary to pitch (a movie) a twist Study 1: around 5 minutes. Matching with strips. Students match the definition with...

 I just got a news flash from some graduates working in South Korea that the government has recently put in regulations requiring teachers to have a recognized TEFL certificate if they do not have background in either education or linguistics. This comes directly from EPIK recruiting in Korea, one of the largest and most respected recruiting agencies in the country. Previously, a TEFL certificate was not necessary, but did equate to earning a higher salary. Now, it is needed if you want to find legal work.  If you are thinking of teaching in Korea, you're going to need a TEFL certificate to ensure success these days at a quality school. The Language House TEFL has a great network of graduates who have taught in Korea, and we can help. Contact us if you are interested in taking a TEFL course with us or for more information on these new policies.  Cheers Chris Westergaard The Language House Prague Courses 

Here's a lesson for solid intermediates and up with a language focus on the passive voice and crime lexis. At the end of the lesson, students take the roles of police officers and have to give a press briefing to the media about a crime scene that they witnessed. Ideally, you will need an empty room to set up a crime scene for the activation and a language school that is ok with you trashing things around a bit. There are other ways to get around this, if this is not possible. * I create tailored lesson plans for anyone who wants them. If you want me to create you a lesson from scratch, contact me, and I'll do one for you. Please follow my blog on the right to show your support. Introduction: just a couple of min. Do any of the following. 1. Show a clip from a movie that shows a police officer giving a press briefing to the media 2. Come in and immediately address the class as if they are police officers 3. Have a picture of a police chalk outline and ask students wh...

Here's another quick game that I created, but I'm sure another teacher probably created before me, that I use on the TEFL course. You can use this with intermediate and advanced students in groups of threes. Set up:  Two students face each other with a meter apart between them. One student is blindfolded, and the other student strikes a convoluted pose. The more intricate and complex the pose is, the better. Now, a third student instructs the blindfolded student to copy and mirror the pose. It sounds basic, but the language can get really complex. Think 'twist your wrist so it's facing you and extend your first and second finger....Tilt your head back and shrug your shoulder close to your neck' See what I mean? You can have a lot of fun with this, and it's a quick activity to teach and jump into. To make it more engaging, make it a competition, where one person from each team strikes a pose for the other team to solve. This will make the posing students re...