[Michael Lynch]

After a year of teaching and 7 months since getting a TEFL certificate from Gallery Teachers, I have found myself asking students to practice speaking as a way to improve their ability to understand native speakers with a variety of nationalities, accents and speech patterns. I look forward to being contradicted when I say that accent has *not* proven to be a significant obstacle to understanding. I´ll come back after another year and see if I still feel the same then.

[Michael Lynch]

It´s possible to travel and have very basic conversations with little knowledge of grammar, but to participate in life and not be an observer requires more.

[Michael Lynch]

I loved this module. I´ve been in sales for 30 years and would never approach a potential client without planning each step and this course and especially this module has helped me to apply the same principles.

[Michael Lynch]

I found this lesson perticularly useful. Although I have been gradually adding more of the techniques from previous modules to my classes, this module has brought it all together nicely.

[Michael Lynch]

Very useful module. I will use what I learned to improve my lesson planning in other modules.

[Michael Lynch]

I feel a lot more confident to give a grammar class and avoid the mistake of explaining.

[Michael Lynch]

Listening is my weakest skill, and is probably the most important for me to develop in my L2. Until this course, I did not consider it as something that I could actively improve on. I give presentations in my L2 and dread getting to the end when I have to ask for questions.

[Michael Lynch]

Not everyone reads books/articles in their L1. Personally, I read short articles and up to 240 characters in my L2.
Americans might struggle to read a book or article that is written specifically for an Irish audience so choice of material is important.
When I have a long text to read in my L2, I use google translate. 😬 😳

[Michael Lynch]

I think motivated — after that, willing enthusiastic participation makes the class more enjoyable.

[Michael Lynch]

Hi Gabi, I love your contribution to the webinars, thank you.

I follow an almost regular pattern for the class. Pre-teach the vocabulary, idioms and phrasal verbs before the students listen to the audio or watch the video. Over time, I teach connected speech, dropped vowels and plead with students to not get stressed by what they don´t understand but to relax and let the meaning become clear from context and because they already have an idea of the subject before we start. Students can get quite annoyed when they don´t understand and think it´s accent that blocked their understanding rather than other barriers.

[Michael Lynch]

it is one reason my L2 reading is still so weak and that was actually what I was trying to say. I read a lot in Portuguese, mostly short pieces and there really isn’t a good reason for using a translator apart from some specific technical phrases.

[Author]

Posts