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So…Is Teaching ESL All You Thought it Would Be?

9/14/2015

Wow, it’s already September 14.

It could very well be September 15 where you are, however.

Yeah, I’m here in America, and have been for more than 2 years now. My teaching days ended in the spring of 2013.

I’m willing to be that for some of you, your ESL teaching career has just begun.

Let’s not call it a career – let’s call it a journey.

It’s been a journey so far.

Perhaps you’re way over in the Middle Kingdom like I was. China is an interesting place, and can take some time to get used to.

Maybe you’re in Russia, just beginning to feel the pinch of winter…for I’m not sure if there’s an autumn in that country.

It could be you’re sweating something fierce down there in Thailand, hitting the beaches up in the evenings and on the weekends, drink in hand.

I bet you might be in Korea, the South of course, and having quite a blast in those advanced metropolises…or small hamlets.

The UK is a fine place, and I bet some of you hail from there. Yep, ESL is taught in English-speaking countries.

France has a sizable ESL-teacher-contingent, for there’s plenty of migration from the former colonies of Africa.

I bet you could even be south of the border, down there in Mexico.

I know that you’re in one of those places most likely. I know this because I can track my site’s analytics.

Wherever you’re from, I hope you find some helpful advice, some games that work, and just something to read when you’re feeling a little bummed out.

Yeah, you’ll get bummed out quite a bit your first year of teaching.

It could be the culture shock or just the sheer difficulty of teaching English to students that often aren’t the best behaved.

Hey – you’re out there in the world, you’re doing it!

Most people are afraid to leave their country. You’ve already done what so many couldn’t.

I bet you’ll continue to impress yourself as the year continues. Hang in there – you can do it!

Your First ESL Lesson

6/28/2015

Are you just getting into ESL Teaching? Maybe you will be soon, what with fall approaching.

It’ll arrive faster than you think. I can’t believe it was seven years ago that I was first getting read to move to China to be an ESL teacher. That was back in 2008, when the American economy was just about to collapse.

I had no idea what I was doing when I got into the classroom, and my lessons really sucked. But I learned, and I got better. By my second year, I knew all the tips and tricks to make my life easier.

One of those was my ESL Introductory Lesson. You can read all about it by following that link. I wrote about it in February 2014, and the PPT is free.

If you find it useful, please consider checking out some of the other PowerPoints on this site, or some of my ESL teaching books.

Thanks for reading…and happy teaching!

Do You Feel Like an ESL Loser?

5/23/2015

Have you had one of those days when you just felt like the biggest loser in the world?

That sucks, and when you’re an ESL teacher, you might think like that from time to time. I thought like that quite a bit when I was a teacher.

You’re in a foreign country and the language isn’t always easy, so getting around and doing stuff isn’t always easy.

You’re working at a job that doesn’t pay that much and a lot of the time it seems like you’re getting no respect and what you do seems like it has no value.

You’re wondering why you decided to travel half way around the world so you could do…this.

Yeah, you’re an ESL teacher. The good news is that you won’t be forever.

No one is an ESL teacher forever. Even people that stay in the ESL industry for 30 years only work as a teacher for a certain amount of time. After that they move up into management and do more sitting in a desk than yelling at, er…teaching students.

Everyone else teaches for a year or so and then heads home to do…God knows what. If someone asked me, I’d say that just 10% to 20% of ESL teachers teach for more than a year…it just doesn’t happen that often. Teaching ESL is seen as a year off, a learning experience, a way to find yourself. After that, many go home and continue with their education or get a ‘real’ job…whatever that means.

I will tell you this – by teaching ESL, you’re really going to be ahead of many of your peers when you get back to America or Canada or Europe or Australia or…wherever.

You’re going to be able to think on your feet, act quickly, and come up with new ideas when everyone else is staring at their feet.

You’re going to be great at communicating, and standing in front of a room of people won’t bother you that much.

You’re going to be super at striking up conversations, reading body language, and ‘figuring out’ what people are trying to say.

These are all things that you get when you’re an ESL teacher. On top of it, you’ll have a perspective on your home country that few of your fellows will have. Really, probably the same 10% to 20% of people actually live abroad for an extended period, and now you’re one.

Wow, isn’t it amazing how much of a boost you get by being an ESL teacher? In just a single year of teaching, you build up a wide range of skills and abilities that others just don’t have.

Golly, come to think of it…you’re awesome!

5 ESL Sanity Savers

5/18/2015

Are you about to pull all your hair out?

Are students going to give you a heart attack?

Does the thought of hopping on a plane to anywhere appeal to you?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, chances are good you’re an ESL teacher. Chances are also good that you won’t act on a single on one of those things, and will instead continue to stew in your self-made world of misery.

Hey, I taught ESL for 5 years, so I know all about this. I also know a few tips and tricks that might keep that top of yours from blowing. Here they are:

Ignore that Student

You know who I’m talking about, that little shit that always speaks up, snarks off, gets his way, or does nothing. He’s a cheeky bastard, and you’ve had enough…like 10 weeks ago. His parents don’t care, and the staff just wishes he would go away. So go with the flow – ignore the prick.

Ignoring students is one of the best things you can do to save your sanity. Oh, it might not win any points at work or improve that kid’s English, but it will keep you out of jail. Yep, sometimes you feel like killing a student, and if you continue to put yourself in that situation without making any changes, you just might. Why not try something different? Cut off their craving for attention.

Leave the Room

Are you about to unleash a torrent of F-bombs? I’ve done that a few times, and it never works out well. It might make you feel good short-term, but after that it’s pretty much downhill for your relationship with that class.

Instead, why not go throw those F-bombs out at the plant in the hallway? How about that guy selling something downstairs, you know, the one that just laughs at all your words anyways, English or otherwise.

The point is, take a walk and leave the room and let off that steam. Punch the wall if you must! Just don’t lose it in front of the students because it sucks for you and them.

Just Play a Game Already!

To hell with the lesson plan, to hell with the boss looking through the small window in the door, and to hell with your job! If you do not play a game in the next 10 seconds, the world will feel your wrath!

When you get to moments like this, just play a game and be done with it. So what if little Tommy doesn’t learn all the verbs on page 24 today – it won’t ruin his existence. It might ruin yours if you keep pounding away at it, however, so play a game. Even a teaser game of 10 minutes before getting back to page 24 might be best at this point. After all…you’re about to lose it, big time!

Show a Damn Video

I know you’re not supposed to show videos, but do it anyways. Hell, show a whole move, and not just today, but over a whole week!

I’m sure your bosses at the school will understand. They’ve been there before, at the edge and looking over. If those students don’t stop annoying the hell out of you, there will be blood. That’s the feeling, and you need a breather. Let go, give in, let them walk all over you – show the video. If you don’t, the consequences could be far worse.

Tell Your Boss

Sometimes you just need to tell your boss that life is shit and you feel like ripping someone’s head off!

This is a really good way to get a little break on next week’s schedule, or lose your job in general. Mostly, though, if you do it right, telling your boss that your job sucks is a good way to making it so your job doesn’t suck. If they just shrug off your concerns, perhaps it really is time to think about a job or career change.

ESL is tricky, and teaching can be a pain in the you know what. Take it easy and remember, in a few years you’ll likely be doing something else and you’ll be thankful you didn’t ‘lose it’ that one time.

101 ESL PowerPoints for You

3/9/2015

Do you like teaching English PowerPoint, but you’re running out of ideas?

Don’t worry – I have 101 ESL PowerPoint ideas in this book, Teaching English: 101 ESL PowerPoint Ideas That Get Students Talking.

The book’s not really new, I have to say. It came about when I decided to combine Teaching English: 25 ESL PowerPoint Ideas That Get Students Talking with Bilingual English: 25 More ESL PowerPoint Ideas That Get Students Talking. I then added 50 more ESL PowerPoints to get this book where it is today.

It comes in at just over 36,000 words, but because of the more than 250 images in the book, you’re getting 335 pages.

Wow, 335 pages of ESL advice!

I’m selling this book for $9.99 as an eBook, and in a week or two I’ll have the print book out. Muck like English Rocks, the print book will be going for close to $20.

So it’s in your best interest to get this as an eBook. And don’t think I talk about all of these PPTs on this site – I don’t. I have around 50 new PPTs here, and some of them aren’t even for sale on this site yet.

Perhaps the greatest thing, however, is how many PPTs you’ll get for free. This book already points out about 10 PPTs that I give you for free here on ESL Adventure, and then it gives you links to 10 more, PPTs that other people have to pay for. That’s a more than $10 value, yours free!

Check out this 101 ESL PowerPoint book today on Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble and more. It will save you time, and help save your sanity.

Happy teaching!

The Most Popular ESL PowerPoints on This Site

2/17/2015

Do you need a good ESL game or ESL lesson that works?

I’ve used all the PPTs on this site, and many other teachers have as well. In fact, here’s what the sales look like:

As you can see, the most popular ESL PowerPoint is ESL Deserted Island, hands down. People love this one, and that includes all the teachers I used to work with.

After that there’s American Slang, one PowerPoint that I never thought would be that popular. Still, as you can see from the comments, not everyone like it.

After that we get Horror Island and Food and Restaurants – two really great PowerPoints that will take up a lot of class.

You can see the breakdown after that, and you can probably also see that a lot of sales are in the “other” category. This means I have a lot of PowerPoints that get one or two sales. Since I have more than 150 ESL PowerPoints on this site, that’s understandable.

I hope you’ll check out the links to some of those English PowerPoints – lots of other teachers have, and they’ve all had a good class because of it.

You can too – buy an ESL PowerPoint for $0.99 today!

The Best ESL Advice for Teachers

1/20/2015

Are you looking for helpful ESL teaching advice?

Do you want to make your students like you?

Great – check out these awesome ESL posts!

Here’s a collection of some of the best ESL articles and some of the most popular ESL games. Many of these posts come from more than a year ago, and I figured it was time to draw attention to them again.

You’ll find many of these ESL games and ESL PowerPoints free on the free files page, and others are just $0.99.

Have fun in your class today!

Free ESL Battleship Games

ESL Deserted Island

ESL Game: Say It First

Free ESL Jeopardy Games

Big Word – Great Game for Shy Students

A Runaway Train Adventure Game

ESL Adventure Game Pack

Check out these awesome ESL PowerPoint Lessons:

Free ESL Doctor PowerPoint

Rockin’ ESL Hobbies PowerPoint

ESL Palm Reading Lesson

American Slang ESL PowerPoint

ESL Aliens PowerPoint

ESL Prepositions PowerPoint

Free ESL Deserts of the World PowerPoint

Scenic Ocean ESL PowerPoint

These informative posts will offer teaching advice:

“List It” Worksheet Saves Me Again

Marvel Secret Wars – ESL Boys Love It

10 Famous ESL Teachers

25 Proven Ways to Get Through an Hour of ESL Teaching

Simple, Fun & Free ESL Reading Worksheet

Fun and Simple ESL Project Idea

Your Very First Lesson

ESL Adjectives and ESL Verbs Handouts

Using iPads in the Classroom: 7 Helpful Links

Your Biggest Problem: Indifference

Funny and Free ESL Game Pieces

Like what you're reading on this site? Check out more helpful advice on Amazon and iTunes!

Get ESL Resources Daily

12/6/2014

I want to remind you all that I put up new stuff each day in my Google+ community, ESL & Bilingual Teacher Resources.

So…what is ‘new stuff’ then?

ESL Worksheets & Handouts
ESL PowerPoint Ideas
Helpful Links to Useful ESL Websites
Funny English Art & Photos
Amazing Photos of the World
Cool English Music Videos
Teaching Advice

There’s more to it than that, but so far the group has more than 130 members, and that’s after starting it in June or so. I’m pretty happy about that, and it puts me up near the top of the Google+ ESL groups, as you can see:

ESL Teacher Communities on Google+

I’m also pretty happy that this group has so many posts, 394. Most of the other ESL groups have just a handful, although that top group there – ESL Teachers – has more than 2,000 now!

Anyways, I know some of you can’t access Facebook in China, and I know many of you in other countries rely on Google a lot.

I just thought you’d want to know about a place that has useful ideas and resources each day.

Thanks!

Oh No…September is Coming!

8/26/2014

What are you going to do?

I know you’ve been thinking this over and over…just waiting for that first day of classes, which if your schedule was anything like mine, will hit on September 1.

What are you going to do?

Well, if you’re reading this then I’m sure you already have a pretty good idea what you’re going to do. After all, this site is full of free ESL games and handouts that will help you.

Try out the First Class Handout, which really saved my butt during my whole first week of teaching that second year in China.

Check out the ESL Battleship handouts that are always a popular destination for most visitors to this site – about 500 a month to that article alone!

If you want to get your whole class excited and having fun, while learning a bit of English in the process, try out the free ESL Jeopardy games.

And don’t forget that you can find detailed explanations on how to teach ESL, all kinds of games and lesson ideas, as well as what to do when you finish your ESL career, in my nine ESL books.

There’s a lot of stuff here to help you, and I’ve got even more in my ESL Google+ group. Remember, if you’re teaching in China you might not have the best of luck using Facebook, so this group could be a real help to you.

Other than that, I think you’ll just have to get into your first class and screw up a lot.

Yeah, it doesn’t sound like that much fun, but you’ll learn pretty quickly what works and what doesn’t…and hopefully what to do about it.

Good luck…September is coming!

English Rocks! Your Go-To ESL Classroom Teaching Book

7/26/2014

You’re not going to find a better ESL classroom resource than English Rocks! 101 ESL Games, Activities, and Lesson Plans.

This book will help any teacher that’s struggling in an ESL classroom. And if you’re an old hand at teaching, well, I bet you can get a few new ideas as well.

The book has 101 ideas, and each of them has its own page or stretches over multiple pages. In fact, there are 211 pages with this eBook and 271 pages with the print book.

Yes, that’s right…English Rocks! is now available in print format!

Both versions have 112 pictures to explain the ideas that are discussed, and you’ll pick up a lot just from looking at those. With over 35,000 words, this isn’t some dinky manual either. This is a real book, with real solutions to your classroom problems.

It’s written in an easy-to-read style that won’t have you scratching your head wondering what’s being discussed. You can easily flip through the different lessons with the table of contents, so finding just the thing you need to get your class going now is no problem.

Real Solutions to Your ESL Problems

I taught English in China for 5 years. I’ve seen little 3-year olds who cry and cry and older teenagers who mope and mope. Most students don’t want to talk. You can try to make them, but that doesn’t work out well for you or them. It’s much better to make them want to talk.

So how do you do that? You give them something they like. Give them games, give them activities, and give them excitement. When students are excited and having fun, speech naturally spills forth.

Public school classes in China are large

If you’re teaching ESL, games and activities are your best friends. These things don’t detract from learning, they add to it. All of the games and activities in English Rocks! have been tried and perfected by me in dozens of classes over the years. The last thing I want is a horrible lesson, and I’m not going to give that to you.

Anyone who’s scrolled through the posts on this website knows that I provide quality. If you’ve taken advantage of the free downloads, you know they work. This book will give you the ideas, and this site will give you the files…FOR FREE!

The free files you get with this book

Those are all the free files you’ll get when you buy the book. There are 50…which is an incredible deal. Some of those, such as Deserted Island Adventure and Mountain Plane Crash Adventure, you’d have to pay for otherwise. They’re both free with the purchase of this book.

Some of these games and activities are up on this site now for free. You can find the following articles from more than a year ago:

If you buy this book you’ll get all those ideas and more. Your students will love you and your time as an ESL teacher will finally be headache-free. So toss out that textbook and burn those boring grammar sheets and use something that works!

English Games are Key

My students loved playing games in my ESL classes and they’ll love playing game in yours when you try out some of the ideas in English Rocks! But when you want to get down to the nitty-gritty of English, there’ll be plenty of activities, warm-ups, and lesson plans to effectively target the vocabulary and grammar that you’re using in class on a daily basis.

ESL class in China in Winter (Notice coats? No heat in the South)

I’ve put my five years of teaching knowledge into this book, and my biggest hope is that it will help other teachers out there. The book’s got things that will really save you in class. I wish I had something like this when I started teaching – it would have saved me headaches!

The good news is that you can now pull this book out right in class. It’s in print format, which means you can buy it and keep it in your bag. Of course you can bring it to class on your iPad, or even print out the PDF version if you get it on Smashwords. Hey, might as well get all the free use you can out of those school computers, right?

The point is, use this book any way you can to keep your sanity. I know if you’re teaching ESL right now you know what I’m talking about. For all of you thinking about it or perhaps just waiting to do so, however, I want you to know that even a dozen kids yelling and shouting in class will wear on you after a time. Even when you’re having fun things get loud and just…well, it’s overwhelming at times.

Books like this and other quality ESL teaching books will help you handle this. I wish you luck, but I know with English Rocks! you won’t need it.

You can get this ESL eBook for any format you’d like:

So what are you waiting for? Get your class rockin’ with English Rocks!

Copyright 2012-2013 Greg Strandberg