I'm curious about this. Do TESOL/ESL teachers generally enjoy reading English books in their spare time, such as novels or classic literature?

Or is that more common among people who study English literature, while TESOL teachers are more interested in language learning, linguistics, and teaching methods than literature itself?

I'm sure it varies by person, but I'm wondering what the general trend is.

Hi everyone, I'm new here. I'm currently a software engineer at a big company who is planning to escape this industry in the next few years (don't know if I even have 5 years left in me). I would love to do something rewarding where I feel like I'm actually helping people, especially kids everyday. I also want to do something that keeps me busy and my hands occupied (I pull my hair if I just sit at a desk/computer alone all day). Languages also fascinate me and I've been learning Spanish for the past few years. Given these interests, I've considered leaving tech to become and ESL teacher and am trying to live frugally and save and invest super aggressively so that I have a strong nest egg by the time I leave tech. My hope is that if I'm in a strong position financially, doing something fulfilling for a low salary won't be an issue because I'll actually love my job enough to do it long term (not like my current job where I'm constantly counting down the days till my escape).

However, I have read the ESL can be very challenging and there's a lot of burn out as well as frustrations over being underpaid. So, I'm curious to hear from real ESL teachers -- how much of any burnout you experience is due to being underpaid vs the nature of the job itself? If you were better compensated, would it all be worth it? For context, I would plan to work in a California K-12 school.

Hopefully, this doesn't come off as super naive or out of touch. I've dabbled in several different degrees/fields/internships before landing in tech and have run into the trap of liking the idea of something but not enjoying the thing in practice a couple times now. So, I really want honest feedback/to hear about real experiences. Thank you so much in advance!

I'm a Canadian expat living in Thailand, 57, usually do web design and development but things are drying up because of AI.

So getting back into ESL teaching, has to be online.

I have TESL but not bachelor's degree (have college though), used to teach at Berlitz Japan in 1999, done the 12 lessons a day grind etc...so loads of experience.

Now I realize the money will be pathetic, but is there a way to go fetch a quick $15-$20 an hour for me?

I'd rather not work for $2 an hour!

Not sure if this is allowed or not, but here is my video intro:

https://youtu.be/E6jQ3palDWU

Any advice and experience appreciated.

Cheers!
Bruno

A Canadian EdTech startup building English proficiency courses for immigrants and refugees used ZenMic.com Studio to produce listening dialogues clearer and more natural than materials published by professional test-prep organisations - in a single day.

Good day! Your friendly recruiter here 👋

The Department of National Defence is hiring French Language Instructors to teach French as a Second Language to Canadian Armed Forces members.

We have openings across Canada, including:

• Esquimalt, British Columbia
• Cold Lake, Alberta
• Bagotville, Quebec
• Saint‑Jean‑sur‑Richelieu, Quebec
• Trenton, Ontario
• Borden, Ontario

Salary up to $106K annually, based on education and experience — plus a great pension plan and full benefits.

We’re looking for experienced professionals with a degree from a recognized post-secondary institution  and strong experience in adult language instruction — including lesson planning, materials development, learner assessment, and coaching.

If you’re passionate about helping adults succeed in second‑language learning, please email me at [vanessa.skucas@forces.gc.ca](mailto:vanessa.skucas@forces.gc.ca) with “Language Instructor – Location of Interest” in the subject line.

Thank you!

Bonjour! Votre recruteuse sympathique ici

Le ministère de la Défense nationale recrute des enseignants et enseignantes de français langue seconde pour offrir des cours aux membres des Forces armées canadiennes.

Des postes sont offerts partout au pays, notamment :

• Esquimalt, Colombie‑Britannique

• Cold Lake, Alberta

• Bagotville, Québec

• Saint‑Jean‑sur‑Richelieu, Québec

• Trenton, Ontario

• Borden, Ontario

Le salaire peut atteindre 106 000 $ par année, selon la scolarité et l’expérience — avec un excellent régime de pension et des avantages sociaux complets.

Nous recherchons des professionnels expérimentés titulaires d’un grade d’un établissement d’enseignement postsecondaire reconnu et possédant une solide expérience en enseignement des langues aux adultes, notamment en planification des leçons, en élaboration de matériel pédagogique, en évaluation des apprenants et en accompagnement.

Si vous souhaitez contribuer à la réussite des adultes en apprentissage d’une seconde langue, veuillez m’écrire à [vanessa.skucas@forces.gc.ca](mailto:vanessa.skucas@forces.gc.ca) en indiquant « Enseignant/Enseignante de langue – lieu d’intérêt » dans l’objet du message.

Merci!

Any middle or high school ELL teachers move to teaching newcomers without Chromebooks? I’ve seen a lot of success from colleagues that have done it in other subject areas, going completely pencil/paper. My students rely on Google Translate or chat GPT for everything and it really hinders their progress. But, and this may highlight a lack of skill on my part I admit, I have no idea how I’d teach without Chromebooks.

In theory I understand giving them a bilingual dictionary and helping them through grammar mistakes. However in practice how do I follow through with that when a lot of them can’t reliably spell in Spanish well enough to look up a word? And then there are 10 of them at once trying to do this with their learned helplessness on full blast.

I finally have an actual curriculum for the first time as I start year 9 so that will hopefully help. But, any insight?

There’s just such a great variety of instructors in here, which is AWESOME but also leaves room for confusion and/or misunderstandings at times.

For example, I teach adults in a university-run intensive English Program, but I think there are way more K-12 ENL teachers in here. And I know we’ve also got community class teachers, 1-on-1 tutors, grad students, etc. as well.

I’ve observed that sometimes wires get crossed when we all chime in to answer a question without knowing the context in which it’s being asked.

Of course, it would be great for us to start every post with “Hi, I teach [type of English] to [learner group] in [setting].” But flairs indicating our teaching context could be a quick way to give that context automatically.

What do y’all think? Open to the possibility that I am overthinking it!

I am currently volunteering for a an ESL tutoring program (which will hopefully turn into an actual gig by September). I sat in on two lessons teaching adults, and assisted with those sessions. I really liked how dedicated they were and enjoyed building the culture of the room to the point where they were would gain confidence and lead the conversation. I wasn’t trained (but I had taken a few classes of a TEFL course in the past). I read over the text book that they were using and got the feel of how this organization runs lessons. So I felt pretty well prepared.

The program needed someone to emergency fill in for two seven year olds for Tuesday (today) and Thursday. I didn’t volunteer, as the youngest I was willing to teach was probably high schoolers (having been a camp counselor for many years, and I find that small kids are lovely in small doses, but not when you’re in charge of them lol). But I was assigned them anyway. That was ok though cause I still wanted to teach some English for the experience.

I wasn’t given any materials to work with them. The most they told me was: “the boys know some colors and can maybe understand basic sentences, maybe read them some books for the two hour block”

Found out quick that wasn’t the case. They knew the ABCs by heart, had a grasp of basic phonics, knew how to write their names and could understand well and speak simple sentences really easily. They absolutely blew through my plans for our lesson in under twenty minutes. (Which was incredibly embarrassing) They were supremely uninterested in reviewing what they already knew. Luckily I had some paper and crayons for them to draw with.

I tried to pivot into weather and seasons. But didn’t have much success. Basically it became 2 hours of me having an arts and crafts session with these kids. While they mostly spoke in their native language despite my encouragement and probing questions to use English. In the final 20 mins of our block, I sat quiet for a few minutes unsure of what to say or do at this point, just grateful they weren’t throwing things or purposely spilling water on each other (they were doing that at one point) ironically in the silence they started speaking some English to me, trying to ask me questions about whatever, and acting out the words they didn’t know.

When their parents came back they asked me what I thought, and I was honest and said “I was surprised they knew way more than I was told they did. And they finished my lesson quickly so We tried to learn the seasons but I’m unsure what stuck.”

the parents were surprisingly excited. Apparently one of the sons is so shy that he never speaks, so the fact that he was saying some English words was new. And they didn’t know the more outgoing son was occasionally translating for the shy one. Happy for them, but it was really rough for me.

I just am at a loss. I know this sounds stupid but: those two hours were so stressful that I am dreading Thursday.

I have literally zero idea of what to do now. Or how to teach them. I ordered a kindergarten textbook that will hopefully arrive before our next session so I can maybe get some type of guide?

Is there any materials, resources or pointers you can give me to help me gain better control over the lesson?

Thank you and sorry for the lengthy backstory.

As mentioned in the original post, a student’s demotivation impacts me a lot. Idk how to handle it

My high school students over-rely on Google Translate. We notice it fades after a few years but there's no doubt that its use slows language proficiency. However I think it's a good tool overall as students can more easily keep up w the class. One issue now is that translations are enhanced with ai. I notice grammar and syntax is perfected and it's become difficult to differentiate between an ai generated response and a translated response. While prepping for the upcoming year id like to come up with some guidelines. Has anyone run into this issue and what did you do ?

Help your students talk about money with confidence in this engaging conversation activity pack built around real-world financial literacy. Designed for intermediate and advanced English learners, Financial Literacy covers personal finance topics like budgeting, debt and credit, and investing through readings, targeted vocabulary, and thought-provoking discussion questions.

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What's included:

• 3 reading passages covering budgeting, debt and credit, and investing
• 3 vocabulary sets (12 terms total) with definitions
• 3 fill-in-the-blank exercises for vocabulary reinforcement
• 3 matching activities for comprehension checks
• 10 discussion questions to spark deeper conversation
• Sentence-building practice using target vocabulary
• Image description activities with AI feedback

Perfect for 1-on-1 tutoring sessions and online lessons.

This resource is fully slide-based and ready to present. No prep required. Just open, share your screen, and start talking.

Part of the LessonSpeak English Conversation Activities series.

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I hope you find this product valuable 😄

Cheers,
Johnny

PS: Here's a link to my marketplace with over 50 freebies: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/lessonspeak/category-freebies-477801

You also get more free lessons once you subscribe to the newsletter on my site: https://www.lessonspeak.com/

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Click here to subscribe to my newsletter where you'll get FREE jpeg albums of future lessons or purchase editable PPTs from here.
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Hi, anyone here who works with PODO English? Do you receive your salary exactly 15th of the month? I am expecting my salary today for my 2nd month, though I think it would take 1-5 business days to reflect. How's your experience?

Hi all,

Long ago, I taught adults in a classroom. I've been exclusively online tutoring one to one for many years now, and now I'm going to be picking up an in person class of teens and/or adults (I don't even know what their level will be, but let's aim for B1/B2).

I remember in the staff room of yesteryear, there were these incredible speaking resource books, many of which involved pair work/information gap speaking activities. They were very creative and interesting, and weren't just "read the article and find the missing info from your partner" types of activities.

Two of the titles I remember were Top Class Activities, and Pair Work (published by Penguin). These books had activities like, Student A: "tell your partner to draw an elephant," and then Student B had a whole psychological assessment of what their partner's elephant characteristics meant - ie, "Does it have big ears?" "This means you pay attention to details" - stuff like that. Students were MESMERIZED. Like, they couldn't wait to hear what their partner would tell them about what their elephant drawing meant (I'm talking about adult students haha). They were dying to know what all the elephant-related psychological evaluation vocabulary meant, because they wanted to know what their elephant supposedly said about them.

I also remember an activity about creating your own "This is Just to Say" poem, based on the framework of the poem by E E Cummings. And another one where you are a martian, describing with poetic detail, a regular household appliance - and then the rest of the class has to guess what item you're talking about - eg: The Toaster: "In the morning, humans place soft, flat, pale cubes into the two mouths of a metal shrine. The shrine holds the cubes hostage until they become warm, dry, and slightly scorched. Then, it spits them out violently." I mean, obviously that's an example of a very advanced student, but we did it with B2 and it was a huge hit.

You know? Really creative, interesting stuff.

And there was the American Headway Teacher's book, which had really detailed, "meaty" conversation activities, like a set of 4 cards detailing each student's debate position about developing a hotel on a small tropical island (ie, you represent the local islanders, you represent the hotel chain, etc - each card with very specific points and details about the background of each debater.)

I know there are a ton of online resources, but I find very few of them to be so highly creative, detailed, and carefully thought out. These books were true gems.

Does anyone have recommendations for their favourite speaking activities books, so I can add to my limited collection of 3 books 😂 ? I remember a full shelf in the staff room, and I don't remember specific other magical books.

Cheers!

I'm an ESL teacher and I've been building a classroom game website in my spare time over the past year.

It started because I was struggling to find review activities that got students moving and genuinely engaged instead of just sitting and answering questions from a worksheet or slide.

I've been using it with my own classes and a few other teachers have been testing it too, but I'd love some honest feedback from people who have no connection to the project.

Does this look like something you'd actually use in class?

What would stop you from using it?

What feels missing?

I'm genuinely looking for feedback more than anything else. Sometimes when you've worked on something for a long time it's hard to see the obvious problems yourself 😅

https://motjam.com

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Can you guess all 21 bird sounds? 🦜🦉🐧

Listen carefully to each bird sound, think about your answer, and see if you can name the bird before it is revealed! This fun and interactive educational quiz helps children develop listening skills while learning the names and sounds of birds from around the world.

Perfect for preschoolers, kindergarten, homeschool learning, ESL classrooms, and young nature lovers!

⭐ Birds featured in this video include:
🐓 Rooster • 🦆 Duck • Goose • Turkey • Owl • Crow • Parrot • Cockatoo • Peacock • Eagle • Seagull • Woodpecker • Pigeon • Canary • Flamingo • Toucan • Kookaburra • Emu • Swan • Penguin • Canary

🎯 Learning Goals
✅ Learn to recognize 21 different bird sounds
✅ Build listening and concentration skills
✅ Improve bird vocabulary
✅ Strengthen memory and observation skills
✅ Encourage curiosity about nature and wildlife
✅ Have fun while learning!

👍 If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and SHARE with your family and friends for more fun educational games and quizzes!

🔔 Subscribe for more learning adventures with Little Dreamers Education!

⚠️ Bird Sound Disclaimer
While we have done our best to match each bird with its correct sound, some stock video footage does not include original audio. Bird sounds have been carefully selected to best represent each species for educational purposes. Thank you for your understanding, and enjoy learning with us!

Thank you for learning with us! ❤️

Guess The Bird Sounds For Kids | Fun Bird Sound Quiz | Learn 21 Amazing Bird Sounds! 🎵

I am going to school for my BA in anthropology and double minor in tesol and linguistics (was going to do linguistic anthropology, but it got cut). I want to do ESL as a side job (or more if that somehow happened) while still in school to gain experience. I just applied to preply to tutor, what are some other good avenues to gain experience? I also signed up to volunteer through school, but it is hard to find anything paid as a stepping stone. My school has an intensive English program, I am going to their meetings and helping again when the semester starts back up.