Which kinds of teaching materials do you use for teaching English?

From your experience, which teaching materials and methods were the most efficient?

For me, I prefer to use colorful pictures and let the students watch some videos related to the topic that is about to discuss or being discussed for classroom settings. Combination of teacher-student centered and interactive method are the most efficient for me. 

Charlyn wrote:

For me, I prefer to use colorful pictures and let the students watch some videos related to the topic that is about to discuss or being discussed for classroom settings. Combination of teacher-student centered and interactive method are the most efficient for me.

Agree! Colorful pictures, roleplaying or games would be a great help.

As a student: In my high school they had an English lab and they had reading and listening material uploaded in a program in their computers. It was really helpful.

What kind of games were really fun and effective? Did you play board games in English as well? 

For spelling we play a lot of hangman in my academy, we also play pairs and bingo with word and picture mini flashcards

But most of the learners are younger. 

Now that I think about it, I've never played board games in English, just video games. That help me with vocabulary.

Pictures and videos are great for adult learners. Mostly for pattern and imitation. For simple things, a whiteboard and marker are quite useful.

As to method, one of our favorites was to mime an interaction (like Meeting For The First Time) and have each individual in a group repeat the lines, then repeat them in pairs, then repeat them with other pairs, until everyone got it. I learned basic Arabic greetings and Japanese greetings that way, though I suspect I'm probably rusty now since I never get the chance to use them.  

Phillip.Laplana wrote:

Pictures and videos are great for adult learners. Mostly for pattern and imitation. For simple things, a whiteboard and marker are quite useful.

As to method, one of our favorites was to mime an interaction (like Meeting For The First Time) and have each individual in a group repeat the lines, then repeat them in pairs, then repeat them with other pairs, until everyone got it. I learned basic Arabic greetings and Japanese greetings that way, though I suspect I'm probably rusty now since I never get the chance to use them. :yum:

We do a lot of roleplay too I send my students to our pretend store with a shopping list and see if they can buy the right items (new vocab learnt)

Jade.Xuereb wrote:

We do a lot of roleplay too I send my students to our pretend store with a shopping list and see if they can buy the right items (new vocab learnt)

Ooh, practical, survival activities! How cool.

For reading, in Primary school(as we call it) there were textbooks with comprehensions and essays we had to read continuously each student assigned to each different paragraphs.

flash cards and games! catchy songs too!

It depends on the ESL company where you work at. Mostly, they will just give you some guidelines on how you should conduct the lesson and how to handle the students as well. But smiling a lot and building a good rapport to your students really help. That's what they said, but I don't really have the real experience in teaching English to Asian students though. :)

I give some English classes via Skype, and such lessons differ immensely from 'normal' ones. I am currently working with two teenagers (11 and 15), and preparation for such classes takes a bit more time.

We do the same things that we used to do when we could meet face-to-face: reading texts, lots of speaking, watching videos and discussing them etc. Regarding the writing skills, I give some short essays as homework, and they ought to send me a word file / scan of their work.

Are there any tips on Skype lessons? 

I use text book resources in Skype from Oxford and Kensington English courses I keep pdf units ona cloud I use drop box ... Then I send password links to the students and we both have a copytoeork from , but I also use lots of conversation. One of my A1 students does a book /film club with me every month we settle on a movie or book now that his reading is amazing, and we watch it separately to discuss next time. He notes things he doesn't understand we talk about subtext, ecpressions, slang etc but mostly just have a good chat about it. 

[quote name="Jade.Xuereb"]

I use text book resources in Skype from Oxford and Kensington English courses I keep pdf units ona cloud I use drop box ... Then I send password links to the students and we both have a copytoeork from , but I also use lots of conversation. One of my A1 students does a book /film club with me every month we settle on a movie or book now that his reading is amazing, and we watch it separately to discuss next time. He notes things he doesn't understand we talk about subtext, ecpressions, slang etc but mostly just have a good chat about it. 

[/quote

He is C1 ! :see_no_evil:

Back when I was an English tutor, we used picture books for early learners (elementary students). For adults (who prefer daily conversation), we refer to news sites and TED videos to discuss interesting topics and learn new vocabulary.

As with my kids, Youtube videos and movies have a high influence in their speaking abilities since we don't really speak English at home.

TED videos are pretty great ! Kids do love movies and videos so that makes sense for them to learn from them.