EAPEducation

     Our last lesson was the  cheating  lesson then we had a break for a couple of weeks due to the midterm exams. During the  transport  lesson one of the students mentioned how he 'needed' a car, in fact, he 'needed' two cars, maybe even three. This information surprised another student from a different country. The exchange between the two students got me thinking about necessities and what our students value, and do different cultures value the same things?  The class was for two hours with international students studying a variety of different majors at a Korean university. All the students have an IELTS score of 5.5 or above. I will continue to use Bloom's   as a guide for my activities. I have 50 students spread over three classes. For this lesson on necessities, I modified, or some would more accurately say, stole ideas from a  National Geographic textbook . The class started with some warm-up questions.  Class 101. The ques...

     The  transport   lesson worked well. One of the biggest concerns I sensed with the class was that the topic was irrelevant to some students. This is always a problem; how do we know which topics will benefit the students? Of course, we can't. The best we can do is to continue to ask students for advice and feedback about the class. Often we gain much-needed insight into what our students are interested in by reading their comments and listening to them during regular meetings (see my 7 education principles post ).      In the next class, we focused on cheating. I feel this is a very interesting topic for our students, they will have all experienced cheating at some point in their lives, but it seems to be a topic that isn't covered in the textbooks I have used. I also hoped it might allow the students to confront their inner cheats and reflect on their behaviour in education, and of course, that is what they did! I heard some interesting stor...

     As teachers, it is important to encourage the development of 21st-century skills. Smartphones can be seen as a distraction, but I believe that there is a place for smartphones in our language classrooms. We need to let our students use their devices in class and see the smartphone as a tool to engage the students and also enhance their 21st-century skills. Smartphones are an essential part of our students’ lives, students do almost everything on their devices, and if they ever go to an English speaking country, they will probably use their devices to solve problems. Why not embrace this behaviour and utilise it in the classroom? Most English textbooks have a shopping chapter, and the vast majority of my students enjoy internet shopping, so why not put the two together? Teach the students how to navigate an English shopping site and teach essential vocabulary and throw a little conversation practise into the mix. I couldn’t think of a reason why not, so I created an a...