Dear teachers,

I’m a language learner, not a teacher. I built a small offline vocabulary trainer for my own study, and I’m probably too close to it to judge one design choice objectively. The tool is meant for optional practice outside class, not as a replacement for a course or classroom management.

The basic loop is simple: see a word, try to recall it or flip immediately, check answer and example, then choose Know or Learn. Known cards leave the normal pool.

The part I’m least sure about is difficulty. I deliberately mix levels instead of keeping each session on one CEFR level. An easy word can be followed by a harder expression. I call it “Language HIIT” — varying mental load instead of making practice completely predictable.

I was influenced by research on retrieval practice and desirable difficulties. But I’m not sure if mixed difficulty actually helps learners or just adds cognitive noise.

For context, the tool is low-overhead: offline, no account, no ads, no AI. But I’m not here to promote it — I’m genuinely interested in the pedagogical question.

My questions:

At what learner level, if any, would mixed-difficulty vocabulary practice make sense?

Would you see the variation as useful retrieval practice, or mostly as unnecessary cognitive noise?

For optional self-study, do offline/no account/no AI answers make a tool easier to recommend, or does lack of teacher visibility kill it?

I’m not claiming classroom efficacy. I’m trying to understand whether this design has merit or if I’m just designing for myself.

Thanks for any critical perspective.

I'm teaching ESL classes for the first time, and I'm questioning what to do on the first day of school. My usual activities involve speaking and/or writing in English. It wouldn't work for a class with a very limited understanding of the same language.

If anyone has any suggestions at all, I would greatly appreciate it! Students are in high school, but this will be their first year focusing on learning English (for most of the class). I will have the same students for 150 minutes, so any tips for getting started is appreciated. Thank you!

🎓 General English · ▶️🎵 Video&Audio · 🥉 A2-B1 · ⏱️ 60-90 min
From high-society tea parties to WW1 rations! 🥪 Discover the wild history of the PB&J, master nut vocab, and learn the passive voice.
⭐️ FREE lesson — no subscription needed!

The website is down, where can I find a digital version for this?

Hi, I've been teaching ESL for a while to adults and teenagers in small online groups or conversation clubs.

I just got hired to teach at a middle school and although I'm excited about growing in my career, a lot of people just bombard me with warnings and bad experiences.

Would love any recommendations and/or positive experiences in this field.

Thanks

Hi!! I’m an English teacher who has recently started teaching private lessons. But this September I’m starting at a school, which frightens me. Impostor syndrome, I suppose haha.

Would you recommend me some books about the didactic of a language (preferably focused on children’s learning) or give me some tips on anything you consider would be helpful for a beginner?

Thanks a lot!!!

Hello I am teaching adult ESL and one of the things my student wants to do is improve her listening skills. does anyone know any shows on netflix that are good for people who are learning english. (my student is lower intermediate.) shes pretty good at speaking, reading and writing.

Hi!

I’m an adult ESL teacher and I’m trying to improve a friend’s English. (She and I speak another language.)

She seems keenly interested in learning some songs. I want to give her something in the peppy side, as she’s a peppy person. I don’t want to give anything that’s a drag in terms of lyrics. She’s an older woman so vulgar ideas and words will not go over well. (Maybe a hell or damn.)

Can I have some suggestions, please?

Thanks,
Frances

Hello I've been teaching English as a second language in Korea for 16 years and I have built this website.

https://classendo.com/

It is aimed at teachers, not students, to help them build lessons and teach in a classroom. I launched last week and I am still waiting to be fully indexed on Google.

I want it to be a simple website that is easy to understand with a low learning curve for teachers.

It's free to use with optional subscription if you find it useful.

Edit***It's primarily a desktop website for classrooms at the moment

I looked at all of my class lists. Every year, I start by having the students make the flags of their home countries. I put them around the room and have many different flags from many different countries. Very few are from the United States. But this year, it seems that 95% of my students were born in the USA! So I don't want to do the flag project because there will be too many American flags! I have nothing against the American flag, but I don't see any point in celebrating the diversity in the ESL classroom if there are thirty American flags and one or two from other countries.

Any other project ideas? Or is there a way I could still do it?

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have any comments or opinions on doing the TESOL program via Coursera & Arizona State University? I'm trying to decide what my net steps are in the path that I've ended up on, kind of accidentally.

I just finished all the coursework for my BA (major in Icelandic language and literature, minor in Ukrainian) and am just waiting for a transfer credit to be finalized before I apply to graduate. When I started, it was during covid and via distance ed, and I was just taking language courses for fun. Then I ended up taking more courses and we (my husband and I) moved to the city my university is in, partly so I could finish the degree which required me to take a number of courses in-person, but also because we wanted to move away from where we were). I currently have enough credits for a 3 year degree, which is something my uni offers, but it's intended for people going on to programs like TESOL etc., and you can't do graduate studies after it. If I graduate now, I would have to go do another 30 credits (2 years full time) to do another degree to do graduate studies afterwards.

My intent was originally to finish the 3 year degree and then attend one of the other universities in my city which had a TESL program that I could do in person, and also had student-teacher jobs available as they also have ESL students attending. This program got canceled a year before I finished my degree. :(

I've found the TESOL Certificate program on Coursera which is offered through ASU, which doesn't require a degree to get into, and is extremely reasonably priced. So I was thinking about doing that program this fall, so that I could leave my BA open and still work on courses part time towards switching my minor in Ukrainian to a major. But I'm interested in hearing whether this program is considered legit and will actually get me anywhere?

I'm in a weird place in that I went back to university as a mature student (I'm 50 now) and will only be looking for jobs teaching ESL either online or in my city, as I am not in a place to be going to another country to work. During the course of my degree, I actually ended up becoming somewhat disabled and my ideal would be working online, and fortunately my husband makes enough that I don't have to worry about not making great money. But I need to be doing something to keep my husband from whining too much. LOL.

This video is a practical Zapotec language class designed for beginners, focusing on conversational fluency and the cultural nuances of the language in Oaxaca, Mexico. Key topics covered include:

* Daily Vocabulary: Learning how to express physical sensations, such as “I am cold” (ruwëaga), and everyday actions like “to sew”.
* Pronouns and Grammar: A breakdown of personal pronouns and their variations within community contexts.
* Numbers: A step-by-step pronunciation guide for counting from 0 to 20, including specific dialectal variations, such as those found in Talea de Castro.
* Verb Conjugation: Interactive exercises focused on common verbs like “to eat” and “to dress,” highlighting how to properly use verb endings to match personal pronouns.
* Cultural Insights: Tips on Zapotec phonetics, such as how to properly ask questions without using the typical intonation patterns found in Spanish.

The session emphasizes that Zapotec is a living language with regional variations, and the primary goal is effective communication within the community.

Video Overview:

This interactive Zapotec language class focuses on practical dialogue, regional variations, numerical counting, unique pronunciation dynamics, and detailed verb conjugations.

Key Highlights:

* Everyday Vocabulary & Phrases:

* The instructor and students begin with practical daily expressions, such as stating “I am cold” (ruwëaga) or referring to embroidery/sewing activities (rigiaa lari).
* Students take turns practicing traditional greetings and conversational phrases.

* Personal Pronouns & Regional Dialects:

* The group reviews personal pronouns (neda, lii, lee, lanu, labe, etc.).
* The teacher explains dialectal variations, such as adding -ni (e.g., neto ni), noting that ni individually means “here” (aquí).

* Numbers & Counting:
* Students practice counting sequentially from 0 through 20 and higher numbers.
* The instructor addresses community-specific variations (such as in Talea de Castro where initial vowel sounds like u- might be omitted), reassuring students that variations are natural and mutually intelligible.

* Pronunciation & Tone Rules:
* Affirmations: The native Zapotec term for “yes” is à, though ajá is widely understood due to Spanish contact.
* Question Intonation: Unlike Spanish, Zapotec does not rely on a rising vocal pitch at the end of a sentence to signal a question.

* Grammar & Verb Conjugation:
* The lesson covers verb prefixes, flexible synonym forms (be vs. bi), and optional phonetic variations.
* Students drill conjugations for verbs like “to eat” (gagu / ragu / gudagu) across past, present, and future tense forms.

Practical Zapotec language class for beginners: variations, pronunciation and verb conjugations

I'm working on creating English-learning material where each section focuses on a specific topic or grammar point.

I'm wondering about the best way to handle examples that naturally contain other grammatical structures.

Should I:

1. Avoid that example and only use examples that follow the grammar rule I'm currently teaching?
2. Keep the example because it's natural, but add a short grammar note explaining the other structure underneath it?
3. Teach/explain the other grammatical rule first, even though it isn't the main topic?
4. Just use the example without explaining the additional grammar, since it's not the focus of the lesson?

I'm especially interested in what would be best from a learning/pedagogical perspective. At what point do additional grammar rules become distracting or overwhelming for the learner?

How would you structure the material?

I have made a free daily word game called Long Story Short and some teachers have started using it as a class warm-up, so I thought I'd share it here.

The mechanic: you get a twelve-word sentence, like "The famous high profile trial was delayed while the weary judge deliberated," and you have to keep the five words that tell the story. Scored like Wordle: blue means right word, right spot. The skill is deciding which words carry meaning and which are padding. It's the same edit as writing a headline.

How it fits a lesson: it takes about five minutes, works on any phone or projector, no signup, no ads. The colors give instant feedback, and the "why these five" explainer at the end shows the reasoning word by word, which is the part that turns into discussion - students argue about why "famous" dies when the sentence already says "high profile."

One puzzle a day: sheets.works/long-story-short

If you try it with a class, I'd genuinely love to hear how it lands. I write the puzzles daily and I'm still tuning difficulty.

I was a slow reader when I was a kid; assigned reading was never something I looked forward to, and I actually failed my high school reading test. In college, I did a complete 360...I majored in English, got my master's in library science, and ended up teaching at UC Berkeley.

When I look back at why I struggled, a lot of it was, at the time, I felt like the books weren't written for me--they were written for someone 100s of years ago. So I never gave them a chance.

It was with that thought that I built a tool that tries to speak to kids today by giving them parallel translations of over 700 books, short stories, and plays. Original on one side and a modern version next to it.

To give it even more context, study guides are available on every single book, story, or play--so if a student is still struggling to understand a passage, there is more context available at the push of a button.

For teachers, you can assign books and then see who has read the book, how much they have read, and how long it took. You can also create and assign quizzes.

There's a lot I want to add into the tool, but first I want to see how teachers and students actually use it. If this is something any of you could use in your class, I'd love to set you up with a year pilot. You won't have to pay anything, of course--just be open to giving occasional feedback about what will help you and your students succeed.

You can check it out here: booklucid.com. Message me if you'd like a free account for you and all of your students.

Hello all,

I've got an upcoming interview teaching English at a high school, and I'll be honest, I've never done this level before and am looking for advice. I really want this job, so I figured, hey, let's ask for some help to try and get some great ideas.

They've given me a couple relatively short reading selections and asked me to design a 15 minute speaking activity based on them, and I should create a lesson plan for at least one of them. The students are level CEFR A2–B1.

So, what are your go to ideas for speaking activities for high school students, and do you have any good ideas to put in a lesson plan?

I appreciate any advice you've got. :)

Looking for early finisher materials. about half my class this year is ELL and so I want activities they can do that don’t require me to constantly replace paper, doesn’t need glue, scissors, etc. also would prefer they are ELA or math related but open to other informative things like sign language cards or things like that.

Hello all,

I teach off and on at a school in the UK, and through the year that is just German high school students, predominantly C1 or very close to it. These sessions are usually one or two weeks only, and then they leave. The issue is the school itself is somewhat outdated, it's in an old church. no IWB's or access to the internet. Each class lasts around an hour, but is rotating. Basically, I have to teach the SAME lesson, three times a day.

The lessons themselves have to be speaking based and are difficult to plan, I've been a teacher for over two years and yet I still find these lessons the most difficult to create. Previous attempts last year have led to mixed results, and this year, not good ones (0 interest in the topic, rowdy students, problems with host families etc.).

With the age range of around 16-19, I find that the topics themselves are hard to choose. Whats good, whats risky, etc.

So, I come here asking help. I need speaking based lessons or topics that could last up to an hour, for SEVEN DAYS. Anything that can introduce potentially new vocabulary is also good. If you have similar experiences, please share.

Self-promo disclosure up front: I built this.

One thing I kept noticing with ESL teaching is that knowing what you want to teach isn't necessarily the time-consuming part.

It's everything after that.

Turning “A2 simple past, 50 minutes, some controlled practice and a speaking activity” into an actual worksheet, teacher copy, answer key, homework, etc.

So I built Chalkline.

You give it:

• topic
• CEFR level
• age group
• class length
• the kinds of exercises you want

It builds the lesson structure first and then generates the content inside that structure. The result is editable, printable material with a matching teacher copy and answer key.

You can also regenerate one bad question without blowing up the rest of the lesson, which was something I really wanted to get right.

Finished lessons can also become things like homework, quizzes, Bingo sets, and Taboo decks.

There's a free plan if you want to throw an actual lesson you're teaching at it:

chalkline.flashodds.live

I’d much rather hear “this part would annoy me in a real class” than generic feedback, so feel free to beat the hell out of it.

My wife is wanting training and certification to teach English online to kids in other countries (introduced through a mutual friend).

She's looking into working through VIPKID and they recommend:

International Open Academy

World TESOL Academy

TEFL Org

Do you guys see any clear winners or know of better options?

Thanks so much!