There are many language teacher associations (LTAs) around the world, most of which are managed by volunteers and board members who make daily decisions that directly affect their LTA. These decisions are sometimes guided by initiatives proposed by members; in other cases, they emerge from pressing issues in the community. LTAs become visible in…

The purpose of this article is to offer suggestions teacher trainers might implement to improve their understanding of the local teachers they work with as well as ways of knowing the self and how the self interfaces with local contexts. The first part of the article focuses on ways a teacher trainer can better understand the needs of the local…

Many Language teacher associations (LTAs) are nonprofit organizations and thus rely heavily on volunteers to carry out their mission. A volunteer is a person who donates time and labor in service to others. In the case of LTAs, volunteers play key roles in governing the association, planning and realizing national conferences and local workshops,…

The author describes a challenge that is familiar to many language teachers: trying to get students to speak up independently, share thoughts, and participate authentically in the target language. The article includes general and specific tips for creating a comfortable, communicative classroom environment.

Graciela Chera is hesitant to talk about herself and her classroom. She claims that she is not doing anything special, yet she is clearly making a powerful impact on her students and the English-teaching community in Paraguay. In this article, learn how Graciela Chera balances academic rigor with fun team spirit as she teaches students of all ages…

Traditionally, many English language teachers around the world have conformed to an English as a foreign language (EFL) model. In this model, they expose their students to the standard language norms of English-dominant nations, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. However, English learners do not only need language skills to…

Being a lucky child, I played lots of games, as my parents were primary-school teachers, and playing games is a natural part of growing up and learning. More recently, I took the opportunity to create new games while teaching a course called "Teaching English to Young Learners" to preservice teachers of English. Among these games, there…

In this article, the author describes how to use "story retelling wheels" as scaffolding devices to support young learners as they develop the important skill of being able to retell stories that they have heard and comprehended. This tool can be adapted to meet young learners at different English language and literacy levels. It…

Blythe Elementary School is one of 176 schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, which serves about 147,000 students in the city of Charlotte and surrounding areas in the state of North Carolina. About 950 students are enrolled at Blythe, and almost a third are language-minority students, meaning they actively use a language other than…

In this article, Elaine Kerry describes the educational context and perspectives of International University of Grand-Bassam (IUGB) Instructor Mohamed Lekrama. Kerry describes his beginnings as a Mauritania-born teacher, who first came to Cote d'Ivoire in 2017 after many classroom journeys of his own, what attracted him to IUGB and Cote d'Ivoire,…

As opportunities for face-to-face teaching, in-person conference attendance, travel, professional exchanges, digital collaboration, and formal institutional and organizational partnerships have gained traction, English language teaching (ELT) professionals have the chance, once again, to engage in numerous types of collaboration. In this article,…

Finding free, level-appropriate texts that can be shared with students--and that have no copyright issues--is a challenge. English language teachers often have to build their own collection of paper-based or online texts by purchasing them and making copies or creating texts entirely on their own, which takes time that many teachers do not have.…

The "6 Principles" of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) are based on decades of research and are meant to serve as universal guidelines for effective English-language teaching and learning. The principles are as follows (TESOL 2018): (1) Know your learners; (2) Create conditions for language learning; (3) Design…

For many secondary-level teachers working with adolescent language learners, one of the motivations for choosing English teaching as a profession is a shared love of reading short stories. At its best, entering a narrative is a sensory experience: engaged readers see, hear, and feel the words of a story and imagine themselves within its pages.…

In 2007, a group of researchers proposed the term "grit" to describe a trait in people who have the diligence and endurance to keep working for a goal in spite of various setbacks, such as extended lengths of time to reach the goal, changing interests, or other problems encountered along the way (Duckworth et al. 2007). According to…