Category Archives: Vocabulary

Uncovering linguistic layers

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Hana Tichá

From time to time a student composing an essay asks: “Shall I write in the street or on the street?”  As I don’t want to disturb the others by long lectures on prepositions, I usually say: “You can use both. Just … Continue reading →

Posted in Corpora, Grammar, Linguistic issues, Uncategorized, Vocabulary | 2 Comments

Disappointed

Posted on November 5, 2016 by Hana Tichá

Apparently, my blog has recently turned into a diary where I’ve been recording and sharing some of my corpora-related observations. Here’s another anecdote in the series of posts: Yesterday, in class, we dealt with adjectives of feeling and emotions and … Continue reading →

Posted in Corpora, Grammar, Linguistic issues, Technology, Vocabulary | Leave a comment

A flood of conversation

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Hana Tichá

If you need your students to practise speaking about a specific topic, here’s a simple idea you may use in class. Let’s say you want your learners to talk about natural disasters. What a great topic to start the new … Continue reading →

Posted in Dogme teaching, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | 10 Comments

The ‘shush’ tweak and lexical priming

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Hana Tichá

Did I tell you how much I love the define-and-guess-the-word activities with the ‘shush’ tweak? The tweak lies in the rule that whenever a student guesses the word (or an expression, idiom, picture, movie, etc.), they are never allowed to … Continue reading →

Posted in Dogme teaching, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | 2 Comments

Everyone is a genius.

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Hana Tichá

I must admit that the older I get, the more I appreciate simplicity and spontaneity in language teaching. It makes me very happy when a beautiful, meaningful lesson grows out of something seemingly trivial or when an impromptu action leads to something … Continue reading →

Posted in Classroom management, Dogme teaching, Education, Grammar, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | 7 Comments

A lion or a squirrel?

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Hana Tichá

When I think of dogme, what first springs to mind is the type of teaching where, ideally, all the resources and the content of the lesson are provided by the students. Although I’m by no means a pure Dogmetist, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Classroom management, Dogme teaching, Grammar, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Vocabulary | 3 Comments

C’mon, let’s speak

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Hana Tichá

In this post, I’d like to share a couple of speaking activities I recently tried out with some of my classes. I believe that the activities are worth sharing because they generated a lot of genuine conversation as well as … Continue reading →

Posted in Classroom management, Dogme teaching, Grammar, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Uncategorized, Vocabulary | 8 Comments

Mindfulness Blog Challenge

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Hana Tichá

I’m proud to announce that I’ve recently taken part in The Mindfulness Summit, a not-for-profit project with a mission to make mindfulness mainstream. Now, what is mindfulness and why am I writing about it on an ELT blog? In a nutshell, … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog challenges, Blogging, Dogme teaching, Speaking, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | 2 Comments

Google Fight

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Hana Tichá

A couple of days ago I came across a post by Svetlana Kandybovich, in which she shares some great ideas for using Google in an L2 classroom. One of the tips I particularly liked was Googlefight, a website that allows users to compare … Continue reading →

Posted in Corpora, Teaching ideas, Technology, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Dream Reader

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Hana Tichá

This post is not about books or extensive reading, as the title and the image might imply. It is about another useful teaching/learning resource I’ve recently learned about and used in class.    A few days ago, on his A … Continue reading →

Posted in Reading, Teaching ideas, Trying out something new, Vocabulary | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments