Listen to the show. This show starts off with a quick discussion about the new teacher tips video blog that Matt has put together on DreamEnglish.com called the Teach Kids English Show. They are short 3-4 minute videos packed full of tips for teachers that are teaching young learners. Talking briefly about MES-English‘s 5th anniversary on the web,…

Listen to the show. This week we welcome Dave from http://www.learnenglish-online.com. Dave is working at a language school and international high school in Canada. Additionally he runs his own website for students to “learn English online.” We’ll talk a bit about his website and also in general about website building/promotion later in the show…

Listen to the show. Even though it’s February, happy New Year! Valentine’s Day is on the way and Mark has a new site with some cool teacher tools. Print With My Pic.com allows you to add your photo to cards, calendars or certificates. Since Valentine’s is just around the corner, why not send your Valentine a card with your photo! This week’s sho…

Listen to the show. Christmas is upon us … ho! ho! ho! Merry Christmas everybody! Tis the season, so Matt has a new Christmas Song for you to download and use in your classes: Merry Christmas! It’s a play-like song with speaking, actions and a matching picture book! There are a few more resources discussed that are available for download from ME…

Listen to the show. This show was recorded back in the summer and a few shows got bumped up, so if you feel we’ve gone back in time, I guess we have But first, we of course have some new things on the web to talk about …Â Check those out at the end of the show notes. Teaching toddlers: This show goes over some basic problems that come up in teachin…

Listen to the show. Happy fall everybody! We’ll get back to fall and Halloween for the games of the week, but Matt has some great news for you. He’s finished and launched Dream English volume 3. There is a download pack on his website and it contains all of the songs from the 3 CDs plus a few bonus songs (over 45 songs.) You can also just get th…

Listen to the show. Mark starts off the show with a description of a few new things MES English has to offer its users. In the show Mark has gone over his speaking first curriculum and now some of that is listed on the MES English website with links to all of the resources and additional resources you might need. There are also some new teaching v…

Listen to the show. Matt has a few new songs on Dream English for younger children (shapes and more.) There’s also a little discussion on the benefits of using children’s songs . Dream English has 40+ free downloadable chants. They are very popular for teaching languages and Matt and Mark go over teaching with chants. The main points of the podc…

Listen to the show. The show starts off with unseasonable weather and a circus but moves quickly into this show’s theme, the present continuous. Matt and Mark go over: presenting the target language orally why teach the present continuous early on in your curriculum teaching and explaining the grammar using only English forming questions and negati…

Listen to the show. Matt has added some new simple easy songs for 1-3 year old classes. Mark and Matt cover creating thematic units. This show covers what a thematic unit is, what the goals of a thematic unit should be, and what you need to get your thematic unit off the ground. Mark covers the city, food and animals as examples of thematic units …

Listen to the show. Mark has added some phonics games for students at Fun Fonix.com. This show discusses MES-English.com‘s curriculum for young learners. This is the second part of teaching without a textbook or teaching oral English only. For the first episode of this check here. The curriculum covers core sections: content – vocabulary target la…

Listen to the show. This show Mark explains some new features to the free word search maker at Tools for Educators. It really makes a word search a worksheet but keeps it fun. Matt has opened a new website Kids English Books.com and there you can find simple stories to download or use online. This week’s show deals with how to explain activities …

Listen to the show. This show Mark and Matt have a few new things on their websites for visitors. Matt has a new Skidamarink Song up on Free ABC Songs and Mark posted a new book to the Fun Fonix website. This week’s show covers the ‘do’ verbs. We discuss: teaching the concept of ‘do’ as action verbs teaching ‘do’ without translation and just workin…

Listen to the show. This show Mark and Matt have a few new things on their websites for visitors. Matt has put up some new videos to match the Dream English songs. Some of the videos have ‘live performances and some utelize images. Please check them out. Mark has added some worksheet makers to Fun Fonix.com. You can make quite a few custom work…

Listen to the show. This show discusses MES-English.com‘s curriculum for young learners. It’s the first steps for teaching without a course book or for teachers who are thrown into a teaching situation where there is no set curriculum or textbook. The curriculum covers core sections: content – vocabulary target language – phrases, questions, speec…

Listen to the show. Welcome back for Season 3 of ESL Teacher Talk! If you’re new to ETT, then … just Welcome! In Season 3 we have a new co-host, Matt of Dream English.com. With Matt and the other ETT co-hosts, we hope to cover some smaller areas of teaching English. We will be focusing on teaching specific grammar points, how we teach them, how …

Listen to the show. This is the end of Season 2 here at ESL Teacher Talk. This week we talk about the communicative approach. We cover: what the communicative approach is the theory behind the communicative approach and what it’s supposed to do the 5 main points of the communicative approach how the communicative approach can be used in your lesso…

Listen to the show. Total Physical Response (TPR) is a methodology made famous by James Ashner. It’s teaching style based on kinestetic learning. Teachers speak and students respond in some manner physically. We cover: what TPR is the theory behind TPR and what it’s supposed to do how TPR can be used in your lessons what are the main benefits, cl…

Listen to the show. This week’s show we welcome John Marks from www.eltgames.com and www.langwichscool.com and we discuss exam preparation courses. In this show we discuss some ideas on how to organize and exam prep course, what are some key points to include, how to maintain motivation, some ideas for the interview sections and more. Mark avoids t…

Listen to the show. This week’s show is almost the end of our teaching methodolgies series. Today we offer … Suggestodepia We cover: what suggestopedia is how does a suggestopedia lesson run the principles of the method what are the main benefits, claims, and criticisms of the method We’d definitely like to hear what you think about the method. Pos…

Listen to the show. This week’s show is on using board games off the shelf.  Ron and Mark offer some suggestions for how you can use board games in ESL classes and as communicative activities. We cover: games that are ready to go right of the shelf, like Scrabble, Pictionary, … games you need to tweak a little, like UNO, Jenga, … games you can u…

Listen to the show. This week Chris Cotter from Heads Up English.com is with us again. Heads Up English.com has some new lower intermediate exercises: speaking activities, listening activities, grammar worksheets and vocabulary exercises free for download! Please check out Heads Up English.com! Mark starts the conversation off and offers quite a fe…

Listen to the show. We have a big show this week, so we get right into it. Mark and Ron cover these points concerning the Silent Way methodology: what is the Silent Way Method key aspects of the Silent Method how does the Silent Method work in class using cuisenaire rods, colored blocks and instilling learner autonomy criticism of the Silent Method…

Listen to the show. Clive of ESL Podcards is with us again this week. He’s been working his site and enrolled in a new course. He’s learning about Content and Language Intergrated Learning (CLIL.) In the beginning Clive gives us a quick run down of what CLIL is. Clive and Mark take a look at their experiences team teaching. Some of their experience…

Listen to the show. THe show starts off with a brief look at the possible hazards associated with teaching ESL. Mark has a pretty interesting story from work this week. This podcast we’re glad to welcome Patrick Bickford, from Englipedia. Patrick tells us a little about where he’s teaching, what he’s doing and about the website he’s been working on…

Listen to the show. The new school year has started in Taiwan and Ron is back to work. Easter and St. Patrick’s Day are upon us this month and Mark has some new materials for these holidays if you’re interested. Easter – flashcards, coloring, stickers, sticker charts, printable greeting cards, certificates, Easter bingo cards, an Easter board game …

Listen to the show. Mark has a lot of news. Things are moving and shaking at MES-English with a new website that will bring a lot of flexibility to MES-English users and provide materials for teachers that may not have been MES-E users in the past. Tools for Educators.com! Mark has been working for a month or so on the new site and it offers teache…

Listen to the show. This week’s show deals with creating a lesson plan. requirements for a lesson plan why you should have a lesson plan what goes into a lesson plan the lesson plan as a record for other teachers tips for adding to your plan while it’s in action sample lesson plans from Mark and Ron ending the lesson Sorry, a short and sweet write-…

Listen to the show. Happy New Year! We’re back and we hope everyone has had a great holiday. Ron’s in Tailand and Mark is freezing in Nagano. The idea of enjoying winter and getting out in the snow came up, but … This show deals with putting together an ESL event, show, or presentation for your school or the parents. It can seem like a lot to a…

Listen to the show. Merry Christmas! This will be the last podcast of 2007 and we wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Mark has a lot of news this show. Hospital English.com has been updated! I’m sure everyone was waiting for this and it has come. There are a bunch of new materials on there for teachers. So, if yo…

Listen to the show. In a quick intro to the show, we find out Mark is ecstatically jubilant this week. Things are fabulously wonderful in Japan. Find out why. Continuing with teaching methods, this week’s show is about the Direct Method. Mark and Ron will run down for you what the direct method is, how it was used and why. We may give the Direct Me…

Listen to the show. This might be the last podcast that opens with a Halloween discussion. It was recorded back at the beginning of Oct. If you’d like to see the outcome of all of this Halloween talk, here’s the pictures and run down of Mark’s 2007 Halloween party www.marks-english-school.com/news/2007halloween/ Kenny has left the building and some…

Listen to the show. This show we’re starting a small series on methodologies in ESL/EFL. Through the years there have been quite a few different takes on teaching languages. We’ll look at each one and give our ideas on what’s good and bad. This first segment, we’ll take a look at Grammar Translation. Discuss this show, other shows, and grammar tran…

Listen to the show. This show we welcome Richard Graham from GenkiEnglish.com. Richard runs www.genkienglish.com and provides music, games and downloads for teachers. He tells us a bit about how he got started with music, what was behind the creation of his songs, and what new things are available over at GenkiEnglish.com. Also, in case you were wo…

Listen to the show. It’s wet and wild in Japan. A Typhoon has landed and after the podcast Mark actually had to head out to do some volunteer fire fighter work. Saving the day! This week we’re back with part 2 of phonics order. Mark and Ron finish off phonics and what order they teach things. As well a that, they touch on some ideas for advanced…

Listen to the show. It’s tough to cover all of phonics, but Mark and Ron give it a shot. The show takes a look first at spelling through the ages and why English spelling is the monster it is. There are a lot of things that have happened within English spelling over the past 1000 years. Mark goes through a few of the things that have had a big im…

Listen to the show. Just when you thought the stores were putting out their Halloween stuff a little too early, Mark explains to you the market they’re after. Luckily, Halloween isn’t the topic of this September show. Don’t let the beginning make you think other wise. Mark and Clive both run their own school and one of the more difficult problems w…

Listen to the show. Teaching advanced learners can often feel like tuning up a Ferrari. What do you do? How do you make those students run better? This week’s show brings back Chris Cotter from www.headsupenglish.com. Mark, Ron and Chris cover how to break bad habits, build vocabulary, use dictionaries, set goals, and keep students motivated. Discu…

Listen to the show. Using news articles in classes provides interesting and useful content, but how should we go about it? This show Chris Cotter from www.headsupenglish.com visits with us. HeadsUpEnglish.com offers ESL lesson plans based around current news articles with matching activities and worksheets for ESL teachers and audio for students. I…

Listen to the show. Mark and Ron pick up from the show two episodes ago and deal with new classes, new students and new teachers. This show covers adult classes and young adult learners. we go over some ideas for a teacher’s first class, an entirely new class, a single new student and private classes. There are tips, advice and a few things to just…

Listen to the show. A new co-host, Clive, squares off with Mark about which is better teaching children or teaching adults. Mark prefers teaching children and has some suggestions for Clive’s problems in children’s classes. Then Clive, who prefers teaching adults, offers Mark some suggestions for Mark’s problems with adult classes. Clive will be ap…

Listen to the show. Part one – Children’s classes: There’s a lot to think about when dealing with a new class. Ron and Mark offer you some advice and give you a few things to think about when the class is new, you the teacher are new or a new student is introduced into the class. Game of the Week: the Yes No race A nice warm-up activity and can be …

Listen to the show. This first segment brings you a short interview with the new co-host Ron Molenda. We learn a little bit about Ron and what all this Season 2 nonsense is about. In the Just Talk section of the show, Ron tells us about living and working in Taiwan. You can get a feel for what to expect, good ways to find a job and what to be weary…

Listen to the show. There have been 30 shows over the past year, and this week’s show is the season finale. Mark and Eric go over why they created eslTeacherTalk. What they hope they have done to help other teachers and the future of this show. Sorry, no game of the week this week.By ESL Teacher Talk

Listen to the show. They’re everywhere and about everything, why not start your own. You have a lot of experiences and advice to pass on! Blog today! This week, Mark and Eric discuss the benefits of creating an ESL blog, how to get started and what you need to know. Get a free blog here: www.blogger.com Domain owners, get a template here: wordpress…

Listen to the show. This is a relatively easy to prepare game that you can use to practice compound words or spelling. It is designed for larger classes, but can be easily adapted to small groups. Have fun!By ESL Teacher Talk

Listen to the show. Devon Thagard, co-creator of SuperSimpleSongs, comes to the studio this week. He discusses his ESL experience and how he uses songs in class with young children. There are also some recommendations for music for young learners and a way to get a free set of SuperSimpleSong CDs. Learn more: www.supersimplesongs.com Visit devon’s …

Listen to the show. In 5 minutes practice any target language with students aged 5-100. All you need are some markers and students. It’s a great warm-up activity or review activity.By ESL Teacher Talk

Listen to the show. This week we have Patrick Jackson, author of the Potato Pals series published through Oxford Press. He talks about his experiences getting the books to print, what potato pals are, why he created them and how he uses them in class. You can read more about Patrick Jackson and the Potato Pals at http://potatopals.blogspot.com. Vi…