Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies

by Michelle Maxom

"If you thought it would be easy to teach a language you've spoken all your life, then think again! It can be a huge challenge to learn how to break English down into digestible chunks, and impart information in a logical and intuitive way. But the thousands of people who teach English abroad can certainly testify to the huge popularity of this career, so if you've decided to take a TEFL course, if you're "on" a TEFL course and want some back-up, or even if you've already started teaching and need a helping hand, then look no further. Covering how to teach grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, to assessing students' performance, setting assignments and tests, and everything in between, this is a one-stop guide to one of the most enriching careers you can embark on. "Teaching English as a Foreign Language For Dummies" I - Getting started in TEFL Discovering The Wonderful World of TEFL What Do TEFL Teachers Actually Do? Going from Student to TEFL Courses, Qualifications and Jobs,Part II - Putting A Lesson Together Starting From the Planning the Lesson The Spotlight's on Giving a Presentation to the Class Holding the Reins and Letting Them Giving Students Practice Getting Your Red Pen Giving Correction & Feedback Be Materialistic! Using Course Books and Other Materials Who's the Boss Around here? Managing Your ClassroomPart III - How to Teach Skills Classes Taken as Teaching Reading Lessons Write or Wrong? Teaching Writing Lessons What Accent? Teaching Pronunciation Setting Their Tongues Speaking & Discussing In One Ear, Out The Learning to ListenPart IV - The Grammar You Need to Know And How To Teach It 

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Language, Teaching, Linguistics

403 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 21, 2009

Reviews

[Samar Almossa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I use it as a reference and I read what is relevant to my interests and needs in time. Very useful book.

[I wish I had eyeballs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is aimed towards native untrained teachers and doesn't have a whole lot of information, especially not expert information, moreso just advice.

[Otilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I am not planning to teach in the EFL around the world sort of scenario but in a secondary school, I found many things in here useful and fun. I do love her enthusiasm, energy and passion. There are many fun and imaginative things to steal from this book and try in a class.

I was a little shocked by the couple of strange typos I found in it, I wasn’t expecting that.

Overall though I would certainly recommend this for budding teachers like me. The grammar teaching part is very good, the game and activity ideas quite fun and engaging, as for the advice and other recommendations it was just pretty awesome to have read in general.

[Robert Day · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only thing that stopped me giving this one star was a couple of tables I liked. One gave a list of the order in which adjectives should be used in a sentence and the other listed all the tenses. The only reason I liked these is that I've never seen them elsewhere (yeah, I know: unbelievable, right? It even amazed a friend I have in India, who learned these things in school).

The reason I wanted to give one star is that this is the only book I've ever read in the Dummies series that had spelling mistakes and grammatical error (and lots of them, too). How frickin' ironic is that!

Don't read this book.

[Lino Matteo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The purpose is to get ideas to use for Teaching Business English to foreign entrepreneurs for non Dummies

Want to work with entrepreneurs from other countries.

An excellent resource to assist with this project

Always enjoy "The Fifth Wave" by Rich Tennant

Scanned but will come back to it as necessary

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read if you ever thought you wanted to travel the world teaching English. You learn the in and out and some of the downsides.

[Lenaïk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Attention, ce livre n'est pas destiné aux professionnels déjà en charge de classes. Par contre, très très bien pour un aspirant, surtout les mises en garde.

[MK · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) is an instructional guide for teachers, but it is also useful for students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL).

[PurplyCookie]

"TEFL is not about language as beauty; it’s about language as communication."

My objectives are to be familiar with all those areas that go into English language teaching – methodology, classroom procedures, techniques and aids, language awareness and testing.

I appreciate that the author tried to present the tried and tested path to solid TEFL courses since that is what I'm looking for. It is okay to have debates on methodologies but I do want something that has been substantiated.

I would say that I'm the ideal target audience for this book since I'm more interested in the mechanics of teaching than the methodology behind language learning. Most of the time I find a lot of TEFL/TESL books proclaiming to be the former but are actually the latter. This leads to a waste of my time and money.


More of Purplycookie’s Reviews @: http://www.goodreads.com/purplycookie


Book Details:

Title: Teaching English as a Foreign Language For Dummies
Author: Michelle Maxom
Reviewed By: Purplycookie

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

c 2009 (7) Curiosity caused me to pull this one off the shelf. Well put together and I can see it would be an additional tool for any TEFL candidates.