How can English teachers make difficult listening activities easier without removing the challenge completely?

In this episode of How to English TEFL Podcast, Gav and Em discuss practical ways to support learners during listening tasks. They explore checking the order of comprehension questions, slowing recordings down, dividing audio into manageable chunks and using transcripts effectively.

They also consider how teachers can meet different needs within the same class. What should you do when learners have contrasting interests or want different amounts of error correction? Em suggests becoming a “super-duper micro teacher” by explaining how and why you are supporting each learner differently.

Elsewhere, Gav and Em discuss whether students should watch English-language films and series with subtitles, why learners sometimes prefer Google Translate to describing an unfamiliar word and how teachers can build trust when English expressions conflict with a student’s first language.

There is also a quick grammar activity practising could have and couldn’t have, accompanied by a suspicious number of muffins. Finally, they consider why students stop attending English lessons before discovering where Em should teach abroad.

Drawing on their real classroom experiences, Gav and Em offer practical advice, honest reflection and a few reminders that even experienced teachers sometimes get caught out by their materials.

Transcription with audio:
https://share.descript.com/view/gJVPmQ7Pkb7

Quiz of the Week:
Where Should You Teach Abroad?
https://www.internationalteflacademy.com/where-should-you-teach-abroad-quiz

If you find the show useful, you can send us a thanks at https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod

Visit https://howtoenglishpod.com for practical English teaching ideas and resources ready to use.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome to How to English
01:15 Why teachers should check question order
03:50 How to make difficult listening tasks easier
05:40 Teaching learners with different needs and interests
09:20 Repeating activities with former students
12:52 Should learners watch programmes with subtitles?
14:56 Support the podcast on Ko-fi
15:32 Should students Google unfamiliar words?
20:12 Building trust and explaining formal email language
23:29 Teaching could have and couldn’t have
27:19 Why do students stop attending English lessons?
31:14 Quiz of the Week: Where should Em teach abroad?
36:25 Outro

Check out this rerun of an earlier episode – now fully transcribed! Transcription with audio here: https://share.descript.com/view/B8agj8I7FpA Buy Gav & Em a coffee here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod⁠⁠

How can learners move beyond “You should” when giving advice in English? And when should a teacher correct an error immediately rather than wait until later?

Gav and Em share practical TEFL activities for teaching advice and indirect questions while exploring the quick classroom decisions teachers make during speaking practice. Gav demonstrates two adaptable activities that encourage learners to use phrases such as “If I were you…” “Have you considered…?” and “Why don’t you…?”

They also discuss how to manage a distracted student who repeats a question how to prevent one learner’s long answer from taking over an activity and why interrupting an apparent error too quickly can sometimes confuse everyone.

Elsewhere Em explains how she combines online English teaching with travelling. She covers budgeting transport accommodation reliable Wi-Fi and the importance of finding a quiet workspace. Gav and Em also wonder why some learners appear more fluent and confident after taking a break from lessons.

Whether you teach English online or in person this episode offers realistic activities and an honest look at classroom management error correction and speaking practice drawn from Gav and Em’s own teaching experience.

If you find the show useful, you can send us a thanks at https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod

Visit https://howtoenglishpod.com for practical teaching ideas and resources ready to use.

Listen to the transcription with audio:
https://share.descript.com/view/gSGUbRMEL93

References

Indirect questions activity:
New English File Intermediate 2006 Unit 6A page 188

Giving advice sentence starters:
700 Classroom Activities Macmillan 2003

Chapters

00:00 Welcome to the episode
00:52 Using students’ holidays for speaking practice
01:54 Bringing different groups together for a catch-up lesson
03:04 How to teach online while travelling
07:20 Can a break improve a learner’s English?
10:09 Teaching alternatives to “You should”
14:10 Support the podcast on Ko-fi
14:40 What would Gav do with a distracted student?
19:08 Correcting pronouns without interrupting too quickly
23:00 Giving learners a choice of activities
24:08 Quiz of the Week: guessing problems from advice
30:00 Useful phrases for giving advice
31:24 Outro

Check out this rerun of an earlier episode – now fully transcribed! Transcription with audio here: https://share.descript.com/view/mgYK8REjRRR⁠⁠ Buy Gav & Em a coffee here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod⁠⁠

Are you taking an English exam? Do you need some tips on passing it? Have you taught TOEFL, IELTS, or the Cambridge exams? Have a listen to Gav & Em break down, and sum up the ins and outs of these exams. Featuring Dino (Koaching) from Udemy - an exam essay writing expert. Welcome followers. This week Gav & Em discuss the topic of learner levels. From beginners to proficiency, what are the differences, challenges and rewards of both teaching and learning at these levels? Buy Gav & Em a coffee here: ⁠https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod⁠ And visit all the shows with transcriptions here: ⁠http://www.howtoenglishpod.com/

How can revision help learners remember vocabulary, and what can teachers do when students arrive tired or lessons begin to feel repetitive?

In this episode, Gav and Em share practical English teaching and learning tips drawn from their own classrooms. They explore how conversations, personal connections, emotional responses and simple keywords can make new vocabulary more memorable. They also consider whether teaching easily confused words together can create unnecessary problems.

What should you do when students have no energy? Gav and Em discuss starting slowly, using your own enthusiasm, introducing music or video, getting learners moving and adapting online lessons so students become active participants again.

You’ll also hear how random discussion questions can freshen up long-running courses and give learners more autonomy. Em’s attempt to elicit the words columns and rows leads instead to “pillars and paddles” and a useful conversation about when elicitation works, when it fails and when teachers should simply provide the answer.

The episode finishes with a classroom-friendly Family Feud quiz. It demonstrates how survey questions can generate vocabulary, synonyms, collocations and practice with phrasal verbs such as break down.

If you find the show useful, you can send us a thanks at https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod

Visit https://howtoenglishpod.com for practical teaching ideas and resources ready to use.

Transcription with audio:
https://share.descript.com/view/gt5XCBSPQOU

Quiz of the Week:
Family Feud questions for classroom games
https://hobbylark.com/party-games/list-of-family-feud-questions

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and introduction
00:57 Why revision helps students remember vocabulary
02:16 Revisiting and eliciting previously taught words
04:05 How conversation and personal connections support memory
07:55 What to do when students are tired
09:12 Using videos music and movement to raise energy
11:35 Helping low-energy students connect in class
13:18 Support How to English TEFL Podcast
13:52 How to freshen up long-running courses
14:20 Using random questions to create speaking activities
16:58 The vocabulary grid activity
18:24 Pillars and paddles versus columns and rows
19:30 When elicitation confuses learners
20:28 Typing clues and using donkey bridges
22:25 Why vocabulary explanations should stay simple
23:20 How to explain the word pipe
25:52 Explaining awe flimflam crestfallen and frustrated
30:21 Quiz of the Week Family Feud
32:52 Classroom quiz round one Kitchen liquids
34:47 Classroom quiz round two Things that break down
37:30 Classroom quiz round three Another word for book
39:39 Extending quiz answers into vocabulary practice
40:50 Final thoughts and goodbye

Check out this rerun of an earlier episode – now fully transcribed! Transcription with audio here:

Are you a teacher with a CELTA qualification? Are you thinking about taking the CELTA training course? Does your teacher have a CELTA or another teaching qualification? Whatever your certificate, listen to Gav and Em discuss their experiences of studying in another country to become teachers.

How can English teachers get quiet students talking, cope with connection problems and turn unexpected language questions into useful lessons?

In this episode of How to English TEFL Podcast, Gav and Em share practical ideas drawn from their own classrooms. Em explores modern hotel job titles such as housekeeper, cleaner and porter, while Gav introduces The Chaos, the famous poem packed with irregular English spellings and pronunciation challenges. They discuss whether teachers should plan on Friday night, at the weekend or in batches during the working week, and compare Em’s structured planning with Gav’s lighter, emergent approach.

You’ll also hear Gav demonstrate how to build a conversation from a simple answer about tea. He mixes easy yes-or-no questions with open questions, follows the learner’s answers and shows genuine interest to help a reluctant speaker gain confidence. Then Em demonstrates what to do when audio freezes or an online student cannot connect, including using the chat, reconnecting, changing devices or networks and involving the rest of a group.

There are also quick revision activities for much and many, countable and uncountable nouns, and since and for. In the Quiz of the Week, Gav and Em compare PPP, grammar translation, the Communicative Approach, the Natural Approach, the Audiolingual Method, submersion, the Silent Way and Total Physical Response. They also explain how Cuisenaire rods can represent syllables and word stress in pronunciation work.

If you find the show useful, you can send us a thanks at https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod

Visit https://howtoenglishpod.com for practical teaching ideas and resources ready to use.

Transcription with audio:

https://share.descript.com/view/LwpUrmfzpY2

Resource:

Teaching Methods Quiz

https://www.tefl.net/quizzes/methods.php

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and post-lesson reflections

01:41 How to teach modern hotel staff vocabulary

05:16 Using The Chaos to practise English pronunciation

08:18 When should teachers plan their lessons?

13:13 Support the podcast on Ko-fi

13:41 How to get a quiet student talking

18:24 How to handle connection problems in online lessons

22:54 Quick grammar revision with much many since and for

26:02 Teaching methods quiz and Cuisenaire rods

36:14 Outro

What should an English teacher do when the right word simply will not come to mind? Gav and Em explore this familiar classroom problem and share practical ways to respond without panicking or inventing an answer.

Drawing on their real teaching experiences, they test their ability to recall unexpectedly specific vocabulary including carabiners, coots, pulleys and jousting lances. They also discuss how teachers can explain easily confused words such as own and owe without making the explanation even more confusing.

When learners introduce an unexpected topic such as art, should you explore it immediately or prepare a more structured lesson for next time? Gav and Em compare their different approaches and explain how online resources can help teachers turn a learner’s interests into a spontaneous English lesson.

The conversation also tackles error correction. What should you do when a learner apologises after every mistake? How can you stop a group repeatedly confusing who and which? And can that sometimes replace who when referring to people? Gav’s proposed solution leads to a discussion of relative pronouns and Gotye’s Somebody That I Used to Know.

Finally, Gav demonstrates a Blankety Blank-inspired activity that practises vocabulary, grammar, word forms and sentence structure. It is a flexible speaking game that can be adapted for one-to-one lessons or groups.

If you find the show useful, you can send us a thanks at https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod

Visit https://howtoenglishpod.com for practical teaching ideas and resources ready to use.

Transcription with audio:
https://share.descript.com/view/TpJwg1yMqTy

Resources and references:

The Chaos pronunciation poem:
https://ncf.idallen.com/english.html

Gav’s Blankety Blank worksheet:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cz1ne0gjcvm484qjwlz4r/blankety-blank.pdf?rlkey=ig83tlg368w3r1zf2bfdn8dzu&dl=0

Blankety Blank television show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quZbRX9p8Z0&list=PLpFRxWf1dy8bOICHWC17Ax8j3VMvs1_dh

Grammarly on who and that:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/who-vs-that/

Gotye – Somebody That I Used to Know:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
00:19 Who are Gav and Em?
01:35 When should online teachers update their computers?
02:38 What can teachers do when they cannot remember a word?
14:28 Support How to English
14:59 How can teachers explain own and owe clearly?
17:18 Turning a learner’s interest in art into a lesson
20:42 Should learners apologise when they make mistakes?
23:11 Teaching who which where and that
29:20 Blankety Blank vocabulary and grammar game
37:48 Outro

Check out this rerun of an earlier episode – now fully transcribed! Transcription with audio here: https://share.descript.com/view/Cjd6JIV1Ojq⁠ Buy Gav & Em a coffee here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod⁠⁠

Here's the second part of Making Mistakes for both students and teachers. Gav & Em review last week's episode then go on to discuss student's errors. Listen out for tips and tricks to improve your teaching or learning skills in the classroom with How to English. Buy them a coffee here: ⁠https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpod⁠ And visit all the shows with transcriptions here: ⁠http://www.howtoenglishpod.com/