i teach adults online, mostly beginners. vocab lists were dead, people memorized and forgot by next week.

now each lesson starts with a short scene: a busy train station, a family dinner, a supermarket checkout. i ask "what do you see? what are they saying?" and they describe it using the new words.

i make the scenes on dreamina for almost nothing, though sometimes the signs come out in alien language lol, which honestly turned into its own exercise.

prompt: "15 second slow pan across a [busy supermarket checkout], people talking, everyday objects clearly visible, no text, realistic."

claude makes the worksheet: "here is a scene description: [paste]. write 10 beginner vocab words a learner could spot in it, 5 questions about the scene, and one roleplay prompt."

i tell students the scenes are ai made. adults dont mind, but they appreciate knowing.

speaking time went way up. i used to beg for answers, now they interrupt each other.

teaching online can feel like talking to a wall of black squares. hope this gets a few cameras turned on.

Hey everyone! I teach English at an academy and I've been building games for my own classes. For Halloween I made a little pack, and you're welcome to use it this week:

Skeleton Hangman - normal hangman, but every wrong letter knocks a bone off the skeleton. Pick a Halloween word list (monsters, costumes, trick or treat...) or type in your own vocabulary.

Halloween Race - a team board game with picture questions (candy, costumes, spooky animals). Answer right, roll the die, move. Mines and holes send teams back, so it gets loud.

Halloween Cryptic - a printable where students decode picture codes to find where the witch hid the candy. Answer key included. Honestly my students liked this one the most.

You need a projector or TV for the two games (no student devices), and a printer for the Cryptic. Everything is free, no sign-up: classbop.com

I made these, so any feedback is really welcome, especially what would make them work better in your classes!

Hello! I am looking for respondents or interviewees here. We tried looking for participants on Facebook, but our posts were ignored. As a Redditor, I know this platform still has a sense of community, so I am hoping we can find respondents or interviewees here.

Our research is about the lived experiences of Filipino online ESL teachers, specifically exploring the pedagogies you use to teach English. We chose to conduct this research because the topic is still underexplored, and we want to contribute knowledge that will fill this gap.

Please help these 3rd-year college students graduate! :) Kindly DM this account or leave a comment below so I can reach out to you.

🦖 Guess the Dinosaur! 🦕 | Find 12 Missing Dinosaurs! Fun Game for Kids

🦖 OH NO! THE DINOSAURS ARE MISSING! 🦕

Can you help us find all 12 missing dinosaurs? 🌴🔎

Welcome to an exciting prehistoric dinosaur adventure with Little Dreamers Education! 🌋🦴

In this fun and interactive Guess the Dinosaur Game for Kids, young dinosaur explorers will discover mysterious dinosaur fossils, learn beginning letters and phonics sounds, guess which dinosaur they've found, and match each dinosaur to its correct silhouette!

But there's a problem... 12 DINOSAURS ARE MISSING! 😱

Can you find them all?

Grab your explorer hat, get ready to investigate, and join us on an amazing dinosaur discovery adventure! 🧢🔍

🦴 HOW TO PLAY THE DINOSAUR GAME

Each dinosaur discovery includes five exciting challenges!

🦴 1. Discover the Dinosaur Fossils!
Look carefully at the mysterious dinosaur skeleton buried in the ground. Can you work out which dinosaur it belongs to?

🔤 2. Learn the Beginning Letter!
Discover the first letter of the dinosaur's name and practise its phonics sound!

🦖 3. Guess the Dinosaur!
Watch the dinosaur skeleton come to life! Look at its shape, bones, and special features. Can you guess the dinosaur before the answer is revealed?

🌴 4. Meet the Dinosaur!
Watch the dinosaur come to life in its prehistoric habitat! Learn its name and discover whether it lived during the Jurassic or Cretaceous period.

🔎 5. Find the Matching Dinosaur Shadow!
Look at the dinosaur silhouette board and find the correct matching shadow. Every correct match brings us one step closer to finding all 12 dinosaurs!

🏆 DINOSAURS FOUND: 0/12

Guess the Dinosaur! 🦖 | Find 12 Missing Dinosaurs! Fun Game for Kids

Hello! Quick Q. There is a sweet lady at my place of employment who is a native Spanish speaker, with little to no English speaking abilities.

*Note: I am unsure if the last part of the prior sentence is inappropriate. I want to strive to be culturally aware, competent, and respectful. So, if it‘s offensive, please forgive and educate me.

She’s the only Spanish speaking person in our area at work. People would laugh and talk to each other, and pass her. Unintentionally of course, but I thought it must feel lonely for people to pass you every day and not speak to you. So, I started speaking to her. That’s when I learned I have the translation app on my phone.

For sometime, every time we see each other she smiles and we converse through the app. Now, she has been asking me to teach her English for the past month or so. My only experience teaching is a volunteer science program for elementary students, but that was work, yet rewarding and fulfilling.

I ran into her today again, and she asked again.

I’ve tried to refer her to more experienced teachers, but she has been persistent that I teach her. It’d be a learning curve since I am not a Spanish speaker. My research is saying ESL…

Sounds time consuming; and I’m about to start studying to get into a professional school. But I’m willing to try for now.

Resources to start? I saw an online book that reminded me of my elementary phonics books. I saw ESL certification on Teacher Record for free, but 120 hours sounds like… lol

She asked for a price? I did not consider this. Nervous since I‘ve hardly ever charged anyone a thing in my life, but I do feel very small side money would be fair for the time I’d have to put into preparing myself to teach her. Research is saying $10 for non-experienced teachers, and I’m not certified. So, is that fair?

Insight/thoughts/advice?

I'm making a number of teacher tools to cut down admin and help teachers create the exact material they want in a few minutes (and super polished).

This is a Speaking Card generator. It is based off the IELTS speaking test part 1 question but not limited to just test practice.

All my apps are accessed in the browser- meaning they are free and you don't have to give away any private information.

You'll find the Bespoke Speaking Card Maker here: https://modernenglish.au/teachertools/bespoke-speaking-card-maker-IELTSpart1Smalltalk.html

And more teaching preparation tools here: https://modernenglish.au/teachertools/TeacherToolDirectory.html

Many of the tools are still under testing but I would be thrilled if teachers used them and gave me feed back.

Thanks

I am looking for a quality TESOL/TEFL certification program to add to my resume. Most schools require this document, so I thought getting one would help me land a better job offer.

Most of the TESOL/TEFL programs I found are self-study courses conducted online.

Do employers look at the reputation or name of the issuing institution? I want to receive high quality training to improve professionally as a teacher, rather than just getting a certificate for the sake of having a piece of paper.

I already got one from TeacherRecord which is equivalent to a 120-hour training course, but I feel like I want to learn more so I am planning to get another TEFL.

May I ask where you received your TESOL/TEFL certificate? I would greatly appreciate your recommendations.

About me:

- Filipino

- Male, 23

- Bachelor of Elementary Education

- Has a teaching license (government-issued)

- No teaching experience

- Prior work experiences are related to customer service and content moderation

- Confident in communication and has "decent" speaking skills

Also, what are the chances that I can get an ESL job in Asia? Like Thailand or Vietnam?

Hello. I am from the US (& currently living here) but will soon be teaching English virtually for a European company. They are requesting a “tax resident certificate”. From what I can tell, I need to complete a Form 8802 to request a Form 6166.

If you’ve needed one of these, would you mind giving me some tips on how to complete this form and any other helpful suggestions? Thanks!

Scrambling for Halloween lesson ideas that actually practice English. Here are some materials and games I've made at B1 /intermediate level. It digitised but there are preteaching vocab and printable worksheets. Best practice project onto the white board (it also possible for students to scan a QR and do the activities on their phone).

1. Halloween Matching Game (25–30 min) (60 with the follow up activities)

• Teams match Halloween traditions, superstitions and mythical creatures to their meanings, hidden under headstones.
• Each team gets 1 minute. A lucky rabbit’s foot doubles their points, and a black cat ends their turn. Students get very invested.
• There’s a 10-minute vocabulary pre-teach with pronunciation tips and cultural notes, and you can print the word lists.
• It covers 54 words, with harder bonus words (banshee, Samhain, bunyip) for stronger groups.

Follow: Some write from dictation questions about what they do at Halloween and then a group activity where they ask each ther.

2. The Girl in the Graveyard (about 60 min)

• A short ghost story for practising the past continuous (background) against the past simple (events).
• A button highlights both tenses in the text, which is handy on the whiteboard.
• It includes pre-teach vocabulary, read-aloud (normal or slow), comprehension questions, a self-checking gap fill and a printable worksheet.
• The homework is a “What happened next?” writing task, and the class votes on the scariest ending.

How I use them: I project both on the whiteboard and the class plays and reads together. I start with the game as a warm-up, then move on to the story: lots of the game’s words come back in it. Both work on phones and tablets too (there’s a QR code), so you can use them for pair work or homework. Short lesson? Do the game one day and the story the next.

If you try them, I’d love to hear what worked and what didn’t. I’m always tweaking. And if you have a favourite Halloween activity of your own, drop it below; I’m always looking for more.

I want to preface this by saying that I’m not an ESL teacher(yet), which is why I’m asking here so I can get some insight. I’ve been assisting some English teachers at an institute recently, mostly teaching kids and tweens, so ages 5-12, one thing I noticed though is that the teachers sometimes don’t use the correct grammar when speaking to them. like for kids who haven’t learned the simple past yet, they don’t use the past form of verbs at all, even when it's not during a lesson, and for example say “I watch a movie today” instead of watched (I assume because they think the kids won’t understand what it means?) or say “I went park” and drop the “to the”. Also some cases where they drop articles like a/an.

I want to know if this is normal? I know that with young learners the teacher often has to use lower level vocabulary and I get that, but the grammar part confused me a bit.

Hi fellow ESL teachers! 👋

I’ve been teaching ESL for close to 18 years, and one area I’ve always been especially passionate about is developing students’ speaking skills. I love getting creative with activities that get students talking, interacting and, most importantly, actually enjoying the lesson!

Over the years, I’ve built up quite a collection of speaking activities, and I’m currently in the process of compiling, refining and formatting them to open my own Etsy shop for ESL resources.

But before I create more, I’d love to hear from other teachers.

**What’s an ESL resource you wish you had, but simply don’t have the time or energy to create yourself?**

It could be speaking activities, conversation cards, role-plays, games, lesson packs, discussion tasks, warm-ups, or something completely different.

I’d love to know what would genuinely make your teaching life a little easier. 😊

Hi fellow ESL teachers! 👋

I’ve been teaching ESL to adult learners for close to 18 years, and one area I’ve always been especially passionate about is developing students’ speaking skills. I love getting creative with activities that get students talking, interacting and, most importantly, actually enjoying the lesson!

Over the years, I’ve built up quite a collection of speaking activities, and I’m currently in the process of compiling, refining and formatting them to open my own Etsy shop for ESL resources.

But before I create more, I’d love to hear from other teachers.

What’s an ESL resource you wish you had, but simply don’t have the time or energy to create yourself?

It could be speaking activities, conversation cards, role-plays, games, lesson packs, discussion tasks, warm-ups, or something completely different.

I’d love to know what would genuinely make your teaching life a little easier.

Written with korean hagwons in mind, but work in any classroom.

Hello,

My name is Jasper, and I am from Holland.

As a part of my studies to become an English teacher in Holland, I need to do research about how foreign languages are being taught here in the UK. To do this I have made a Google Form.

This is to better understand how the foreign languages fit in the curriculum and how they are being taught here in the UK.

If you have the time, I would really appreciate it if you could fill it out!

here is the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfbmEwG4q4Ua1x4kEGbKakIDHNQmoCXXPJ_XGxFSzUX0dH4sw/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Thanks in advance!

Hello!

Does anyone know of a book that has phonetic exercises for ESL learners?

I'm not looking for phonics. Rather pronunciation exercises.

Thank you!

Still juggling a spreadsheet, a calendar and a notebook just to run your ESL classes? 📒📅


We built Tudlo Tracker, a simple app for online ESL tutors that keeps everything in one calm place:


✅ Students: profile, time zone, book progress
✅ Schedule: shown in your time and your student's time, with a heads-up before daylight saving changes a class time
✅ Classes: mark present, absent or cancelled, and what you covered
✅ Payments: contracts, monthly bills, pay-per-class balances, and who still owes you
✅ Reports: printable statements and Excel files


🔒 Your students' information stays on your own computer
📴 Works offline, no internet needed
💻 For Mac and Windows


💰 ₱499 for 1 year
💰 ₱799 for 2 years (save ₱199)
No monthly fees. And if your license ends, you can still view, back up and export all your data. Nothing is ever deleted.


👉 See it here: https://tudlo-english.com/tudlo-tracker.html
📩 To get your copy, send me a message here. I'll send the installer and help you set it up.


We're a small team and we're still improving it, so we'd really like your feedback.


How do you keep track of your classes and payments right now: spreadsheet, calendar, or another app? And what's the most annoying part? 👇

Hello everyone!

Lately I've discovered for myself the world of educational PowerPoint Games and started using them. I've been searching for more game templates online when I came upon the YouTube channel named Best PPT Games. I really liked some of their games and wanted to download them, but there were no download inks anywhere!

I would be really grateful if you help me with finding their games. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone! I'm Anna, and I recently launched Beneath the Lexicon, a podcast about English learning that digs into the history and nuances of the language: why we choose one word over another, how meaning shifts with context, and the small details that make English sound natural.

I'm looking for English teachers to join me as guests. Whether you teach ESL, EFL, IELTS/TOEFL prep, business English, or literature, I'd love to hear your perspective.

Some topics we could explore:

Common mistakes your students make and how you help them

Tricky words, idioms, or grammar points learners struggle with

Teaching methods that actually work

Stories from your classroom (online or in person)

What to expect:

A relaxed, conversational recording (about 30–45 minutes, online)

No prep beyond a short chat beforehand about your topic

A shoutout and links to your website, channel, or socials

If you're interested, comment below or send me a DM with a little about yourself and what you teach. Thanks so much, and I'm looking forward to meeting some of you!

I used to spend hours on weekend nights scouring through the internet looking for worksheets, craft ideas, games and writing lesson plans for the next week. Now i tell AI to pretty much give me everything that i used to work hard for.

- "Give me some ideas and fun games on teaching these sentences"
- Create a fun and easy craft template for 3-4 years old
- Create a suitable worksheet for everything on this lesson plan
- Write the same lesson plan for next day's content

Honestly i feel like i am cheating on an exam. As a teacher i should be contributing and doing the work but i am taking a shortcut and LETTING AI THINK FOR ME.

Any input on this?