02 January 2015 / by Radmila Gurkova

Always look ahead, look at the future of English teaching education! Happy 2015!

A new year has just begun, bringing us 365 possibilities for our brand new resolutions to come true! New wishes, new dreams!

Looking back at what we’ve achieved in our “teenage” organization (12 years now from our foundations!), we cannot feel more mature, more certain about the route we’ve chosen. We started with a few but firm convictions to change education in English in Spain and these beliefs are sill the fuel that keeps our engines moving to more global goals and achievements. We started as a small group of like-minded teachers, but we are now more than 800 professionals all over the world and growing! Building together the future of English teaching education has been exciting and rewarding. A challenge that we’ve decided to take hand in hand with those who care about English learning, with those who believe in quality education as a sum of everyone’s experiences.

Our wishes and dreams, which are also our resolutions for the New Year, are to go beyond the boundaries of any country and condition and make English learning and teaching a profession that everyone, who believes has a teacher inside, can develop successfully from any part of the planet.

Our list is short but generous, and it is our present for those who love English. Here are our three resolutions for the 2015.

For creative souls, teachers to have a voice and see how their ideas make English teaching education evolve. If you think you have a voice because you participate in forums, wait to see what we can do with your ideas and opinions. We have created a community of teachers who gather together regularly to share their experiences and express their concerns about English teaching education. After hearing their ideas, we implement them through our activities and we next analyse the outcome. We keep what we like and we keep improving what still needs developing until we reach consensus. What was yesterday a single idea of a single teacher can be today a shared practice by hundreds of teachers worldwide.

For vocational teachers, we’ve created a platform with ready to go classes designed for their students. If you think you have good materials at hand only because there are thousands of pages in the Internet you can choose from, wait to see our platform, which has always the right class selection for your students. More than a data base for activities that you have to browse, read, evaluate, select and adapt, we offer you ready to go classes based on carefully prepared syllabi with aims, objectives and activities that you can prepare with one glance only and that contain all the visuals that you need for class usage. If you have a tablet, a laptop or a smart phone, you will have all you need for your classes without wasting a minute of your time to look for it. Simply because it will be there for you.

For globetrotters and adventurers, we have developed a teachers’ mobility and job creation initiative using a system that works. Getting a job and being successful in the English teaching profession is the best wish we can have for all our teachers. Don’t wait to be called for a job, create a job and become your own boss in English teaching education. Hand in hand with OxbridgeTEFL, you can take this profession with you wherever your adventured soul takes you and start working with no initial investment but your own time.

What do you need to become successful in the English teaching education area? A nice cosy place to gather with students and our system to provide you with classes and an app for student management. If you think you are your best manager, we believe we can offer you the best educational project and the best student management system ever created for English teachers.

Three wishes, three objectives that will become a reality in 2015! Your voice to matter wherever you go, whoever you teach, whatever your aims are. If you have a mobile device with you, you’ll have OxbridgeTEFL as a travel mate in your journey in English teaching education.

We can’t wait to share our world with you! Happy 2015!

 

12

June 2014
What makes a good ESL teacher. Preparation
by Radmila Gurkova
What are the qualities that make a good ESL teacher? When asked at a job interview what makes a good ESL teachers, candidates often praise personal traits such as patience, creativity, knowledge, skills, empathy, experience… But what if you have just finished your TEFL course and are not that experienced yet. Does that mean y...

30

May 2014
FM - Unifying format criteria for TEFL activities. The cherry on the cake!
by Radmila Gurkova
On debate: We need to unify format criteria when creating TEFL activities in order to create the perfect activity. The teachers creating activities and the ones correcting them have to use the same criteria. We agreed to: Creating st...

30

May 2014
TEFL classes by videoconference for elementary level students.
by Radmila Gurkova
TEFL classes by videoconference are often related to high level students. How should our teaching change in order to grant successful and exciting learning experience to our students? On debate: Elementary level stu...

16

May 2014
ESL activity lab. Creating functional beginners material - I play!
by Radmila Gurkova
The purpose of this piece of ESL activity belonging to our activities section for beginners is to introduce the verb 'play'. The previous ESL activity included the verb 'like' as well as 'play' so we removed the verb to like in order to simplify the activity. We introduced 4 Sports which all add something different to the ESL...

13

May 2014
ESL activities for beginners - a new ESL activity is born
by Radmila Gurkova
If you think these faces are too serious and concentrated, you are about right. The guys you are seeing in the picture, part of our Oxbridge TEFL teacher team in Madrid, are deeply engaged in creating ESL activities for beginners. Four teachers. One activity. An ESL activity for beginner learners of English t...

08

May 2014
How to teach beginners English as a foreign language- I want, I don't want
by Radmila Gurkova
How to teach beginners English as a foreign language in the target language only is sometimes a headache for ESL teachers. As it turned out, teaching the function I WANT in English without translating is not that easy. Students tend to confuse its meaning with I LIKE because this structure appears in similar contexts. How to teach beginners I...

20

March 2014
My favorite ESL class
by Radmila Gurkova
We asked different teachers about their favorite ESL class. We wanted them to explain what makes a great ESL class really memorable. We often hear teachers complaining about certain students and classes that were difficult. It's much more productive and rewarding to hear about TEFL teacher's favorite class...

14

March 2014
Positive learning environment: Learn from sports and apply to ESL classes to create the best environment for your students
by Radmila Gurkova
What is the best learning environment and how can we create a positive learning environment in our ESL classes? What can we learn from sports about positive learning environments? ...

07

March 2014
How to teach pronunciation through ESL activities. Say it clearer, not louder
by Radmila Gurkova
The OxbridgeTEFL community launched the project of how to teach pronunciation through ESL activities as a result of the necessity of creating specific tools -apart from the usual work on pronunciation through vocabulary activities- that would target Spanish learners' pronunciation. What moved us ...

27

February 2014
My Top 5 Reasons to do a TEFL course: featuring India Boddy
by Radmila Gurkova
Maki...