Music and language acquisition
How music benefits the language learner
Learning language through music helps students' verbatim memory, improves pronunciation, speaks better, and promotes positive atmosphere in learning.
Great Expectations
When parents of students are simply too demanding
The demands and expectations that some parents burden their children with are alas often too great. At the moment I’m teaching a kid who hasn’t even turned six, yet his life revolves solely around learning.
Why is English so poor in Thailand?
Students are simply just not 'taught' here
Recently I read an article that stated adults in Thailand are ranked 55th from a list of 60 countries on their English proficiency skills. From what I have seen as an English teacher working in government secondary schools over the last 10 years, I'm not surprised,
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.
Is it necessary to have practical experience in order to teach it?
As a professor of Management and Business Studies, I have been asked a few times in the classroom, usually after lecturing on how to run a global enterprise, by bright and inquisitive students why I wasn't actually in management as opposed to teaching it.
The Growing Pains of the TEFL Industry
My take on another ajarn.com writer's column
I can understand Steve's disillusion with someone he probably trusted and looked up to. I also think part of his criticism is justified; teachers, administrators, recruiters and policy-makers alike should question themselves and the industry they are in more regularly. I do not, however, agree with the overall image that Steve paints of the EFL industry.
The native speaker myth
Postbox letter from Y. Coarter
English is not a language owned by any country and for that matter it is spoken (communicated) appropriately by a larger population of people in countries other than those mentioned as native speaker countries
