Author: Mohamed Ramadan

Seven Tips to Speak English Fluently

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You may have been studying English for many years but still feel that English is stuck in your mouth and you can’t express yourself freely to people. When it comes to talk, you may realize that your English is frozen and you don’t remember any word. You may think that your English level isn’t enough to speak fluently and you need more practice to increase your level from intermediate to advanced one.

Feeling stuck is frustrating and discouraging. Sometimes, you might lose confidence and give up. The good news is you can fix this problem. Here are some tips you can use to begin to move forward and avoid feeling stuck in your English.

1. Make English a part of your everyday life:

Practice English regularly, just for 10 or 15 minutes daily. Do something in English every day. For example, listen to different English podcasts every morning, read something in English before you go to sleep, watch something in English in your free time.

2. Read out loud and record yourself talking in English:

Read aloud to practice the pronunciation. You can also record yourself talking about what you understood. Record yourself talking in English and then you can see what you need to improve if it is grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation.

3. Engage in a conversational class:

Enroll in a class of English conversations to learn how to express yourself in each real-life situation. In this course you can learn new vocabulary and grammar and how to use them in conversations. Moreover, you will practice speaking and listening.

4. Watch series or movies in English without subtitles:

That way you will sharpen your listening skills plus you will get the real language that native speakers speak. In this case, there is a great chance to remember the spoken language because of your high concentration and desire to know what they are talking about in the movie.

5. Listen to music lyrics with their scripts:

It is fun for you and you can learn new words from lyrics of songs you love. These new words you learned are used in sentences so it is easier to remember them.

6. Use what you learn the same day:

If you learn a new word, a new phrase or some grammar, you should use it the same day. For example, you can write a comment on Facebook or an email, tell your friend or relative about it.

7. Communicate with a native speaker:

The best way to develop your confidence in English is to communicate with native speakers so they can help you practice authentic English.

Top Seven Things for EFL Teachers to Do During Summer Vacation

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It is your right after a lot of effort you did as a teacher to relax during summer vacation but it is also a chance to reflect on the previous year, prepare yourself for the coming year and develop your teaching skills. Here are the best seven things you can do in order to get the most benefit from the summer months.

1. Do Something for Yourself:

Start your summer vacation by doing something to recharge yourself and raise your enthusiasm. Go to the beach or on a series of picnics. Take care of your body by doing gym. Practice your hobbies individually or with your close friends. Recall your happy memories with your friends and relatives. Write down your dreams, ambitions and what you’ve achieved up till that point of time.

2. Keep Informed With Your Profession and Specialization:

Keep reading the news, latest publications, periodical journals, and educational magazines to know what’s happening in the field of education in general and in teaching EFL in particular. This up-to-date information could mean a big change in your tomorrow’s classroom practices. Write down your vision, opinion or comment on what’s going.

3. Inspire Yourself:

Remember that you are a professional person and you like your profession. Raise your positive attitude toward your job by reading about great educators and their success to make a difference in their surrounding world. Check out some inspirational books and movies. Plan to read and watch what can make you proud of being a teacher.

4. Reflect on Your Last Year’s Teaching Experiences:

Think back of your teaching experiences in the classroom and of how you were dealing with your various students. Write down aspects of success, what you did poorly and the challenges you encountered. Assess your classroom work. Look back at how you were teaching inside the classroom to see where you can increase your effectiveness and decrease time off task. Examine the lows and critically think about what you could do to avoid these situations in the next year.

5. Continue Learning About Your Profession and Specialization:

Set the goal of mastering teaching EFL by doing the following:

  • Enroll in EFL classes.
  • Pursue a Master degree in teaching EFL.
  • Attend seminars and workshops.
  • Read about the topics you teach.
  • Read about the latest trends in teaching EFL.
  • Attend online classes in EFL teaching.
  • Read online materials that renew your EFL knowledge.
  • Download and read e-books.

6. Volunteer at a Summer Programme:

Just because the school year ends, doesn’t mean students stop learning or you have to stop teaching. You can dedicate certain time weekly to help students in your community who are having difficulty with EFL. You can teach summer classes at your school, a nearby community college or at a summer program. Voluntary teaching adds value to students as well as to your experiences and ability to communicate with various children.

7. Plan for the Next Year:

You should use your summer to plan for the coming school year. It will free up much time when classes start. Start planning from your previous reflection and from your knowledge about what worked and what didn’t work with your students.  Think about your learning objectives (what you want the students to achieve at the end of the course you teach), plan effective and fun learning activities (something that will really capture your students’ attention), and come up with an assessment plan to implement throughout the course of the lessons. Brainstorm creative ways and activities to make this next year successful for your students and you.

Top 5 Characteristics of a Good Language Test

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A good language test should have a positive effect on learning and teaching. Such a test should aim at specifying areas of difficulties experienced by the class or the individual students so that additional practice and corrective exercises can be given.

A good language test should also measure students’ performance without setting “traps” for them. It should be developed well to provide an opportunity for students to show their ability to perform certain language tasks.

On the other side, the test should enable the teachers to find out which parts of the language program cause difficulty for the class. In this way, the teachers can evaluate the effectiveness of the syllabus as well as the methods and materials they are using.

Although language testing is a fundamental part of learning and teaching in school today, it is at any level a highly complex process because it must be based on theory as well as practice.

A written language test is a classic example of formal assessment where students should be aware of being tested for a reason. There are some various characteristics that should be taken into account when constructing and using a language test. These qualities should be addressed with high consideration in order for a language test to have the positive effect.

This article sheds some light on the top five characteristics of a good language test. In order to describe it as Good, a language test should be:

1. Reliable:

Reliability is consistency, dependence and trust. This means that the results of a reliable test should be dependable. They should be consistent (remain stable, should not be different when the test is used in different days).  A test that is called reliable yield similar results with similar group of students took the same test under identical conditions.

Thus reliability has three aspects:  reliability of the test itself, reliability of the way in which it has been marked, and reliability of the way in which it has been administered.

The three aspects of reliability are named: equivalence, stability and internal consistency (homogeneity).

The first aspect, equivalence, refers to the amount of agreement between two or more tests that are administered at nearly the same point in time.

Equivalence is measured through administering two parallel forms of the same test to the same group. This administration of the parallel forms occurs at the same time or following some time delay.

The second aspect of reliability, stability, is said to occur when similar scores are obtained with repeated testing with the same group of respondents. In other words, the scores are consistent from one time to the next. Stability is assessed through administering the same test to the same individuals under the same conditions after some period of time.

The third and last aspect of reliability is internal consistency (or homogeneity). Internal consistency concerns the extent to which items on the test are measuring the same thing.

There are three factors affect test reliability:

  1. The length of the test. longer tests produce more reliable results than very brief quizzes. In general, the more items on a test, the more reliable it is considered to be.
  2. The administration of the test which include the classroom setting (lighting, seating arrangements, acoustics, lack of intrusive noise etc.) and how the teacher manages the test administration.
  3. Affective status of students. Test anxiety can affect students’ test results.

2. Valid:

The term validity refers to whether or not the test measures what it claims to measure. On a test with high validity the items will be closely linked to the test’s intended focus. Unless a test is valid it serves no useful function.

One of the most important types of validity for teachers is content validity which means that the test assesses the course content and the outcomes using formats familiar to the students.

Content validity is the extent to which the selection of tasks in a test is representative of the larger set of tasks of which the test is assumed to be a sample. A test needs to be a representative sample of the teaching contents as defined and covered in the curriculum.

Like reliability there are also some factors which affect the validity of test scores.

Factors in the test:

  • Unclear directions to students to respond the test.
  • Difficulty of the reading vocabulary and sentence structure.
  • Too easy or too difficult test items.
  • Ambiguous statements in the test items.
  • Inappropriate test items for measuring a particular outcome.
  • Inadequate time provided to take the test.
  • Length of the test is too short.
  • Test items not arranged in order of difficulty.

Factors in test administration and scoring:

  • Unfair aid to individual students, who ask for help,
  • Cheating by students during testing.
  • Unreliable scoring of essay type answers.
  • Insufficient time to complete the test.
  • Adverse physical and psychological condition at the time of testing.

Factors related to students:

  • Test anxiety of the students.
  • Physical and Psychological state of the student,

3. Practical:

Practical test is the test that is developed and administered within the available time and with available resources. Based on this definition, practicality can be measured by the availability of the resources required to develop and conduct the test.

Practicality refers to the economy of time, effort and money in testing. Practical test should be easy to design, easy to administer, easy to mark and easy to interpret its results.

Traditionally, test practicality has referred to whether we have the resources to deliver the test that we design.

A test is practical when it:

  • is not too expensive,
  • stays with appropriate time constraints,
  • is relatively easy to administer, and
  • has a scoring/evaluation procedure that is specific and time efficient.

4. Discriminate:

All assessment is based on comparison, either between one student and another, or between students as they are now and as they were earlier. An important feature of a good test is its capacity to discriminate among the performance of different students or the same student in different points in time. The extent of the need to Discrimination varies according to the purpose of the test.

5. Authentic:

Authenticity means that the language response that students give in the test is appropriate to the language of communication.  The test items should be related to the usage of the target language.

Other definitions of authenticity are rather similar. The Dictionary of language testing, for instance, states that “a language test is said to be authentic when it mirrors as exactly as possible the content and skills under test”.  It defines authenticity as “the degree to which test materials and test conditions succeed in replicating those in the target situation”.

Authentic tests are an attempt to duplicate as closely as possible the circumstances of real-life situations. A growing commitment to a proficiency-based view of language learning and teaching makes authenticity in language assessment necessary.

In conclusion:

There is criticism toward most classroom language tests showed that they don’t assess students’ language competence or proficiency because most language teachers don’t have the ability to construct tests with the features mentioned above. This lack of ability deserves more attention from both teachers and supervisors.

A teacher should be trained on designing, developing and conducting the language tests that include the above characteristics and the feature of being valuable learning tools.

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Assessment Literacy – Information for Teachers Interested in Issues of Language Assessment

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Assessment procedures should be used to achieve three main purposes:

  1. Providing end-of-term grading or certification (summative evaluation)
  2. Providing information on the learner’s strengths and weaknesses (formative evaluation)
  3. Helping the teacher and/or learner to plan further work (integrative evaluation)

When assessing learning outcomes, the teacher should be concerned with four main decisions. These decisions relate to the following broad four questions:

  1. What to assess,
  2. When to assess,
  3. How to assess and
  4. How to use the information provided by the assessment process to support learning and to improve one’s own teaching.

Teachers can use tests and examinations to be aware of:

  • The learner’s competence or performance,
  • The student’s knowledge of culture of the native speaker of the language,
  • The ability to use language in realistic contexts.

When designing tests, teachers need to consider:

  • How valid the test is in terms of the aims and objectives of language learning,
  • How reliable the test is in terms of the grading procedures,
  • How practical the test is in terms of designing and administering it.

Ongoing assessment in the classroom is a must to provide a continuous picture of the learner’s ongoing progress and should be used both by the teacher and the learner. There are some important points the teacher should take into account when designing assessment tasks in the classroom. They are as follows:

  • Assessment procedures should be valid and appropriate to learning aims and objectives.
  • In-class activities should be used to monitor and assess learners’ participation and performance.
  • Assessment tasks should aim mainly at identifying strengths and areas for improvement in the learner’s performance.
  • There should be some assessment procedures to assess the learner’s ability to work independently and collaboratively.
  • The process and results of assessment should give helpful information for planning teaching and learning for individuals and groups.
  • Assessment of the learner’s performance and learning progress should be in the form of descriptive evaluation, which should be transparent and comprehensible to the learner, parents and others.
  • Reports, checklists, grades etc. can be used to chart and monitor the learner’s progress.
  • Assessment scales and a valid institutional/national/international grading system should be used in assessing the learner’s performance. Grades assigned for tests and examinations should use reliable and transparent procedures.

When assessing the learner’s language performance, the teacher should assess the learner’s ability to:

  • produce a spoken text according to criteria such as content, range, accuracy, fluency, appropriateness of usage, etc.
  • produce a written text according to criteria such as content, range, accuracy, cohesion and coherence, etc.
  • understand and interpret a spoken text such as listening for gist, specific or detailed information, implication, etc.
  • understand and interpret a written text such as reading for gist, specific or detailed information, implication, etc.
  • engage in spoken interaction according to criteria such as content, range, accuracy, fluency and conversational strategies.
  • engage in written interaction according to criteria such as content, range, accuracy and appropriateness of response, etc.

When assessing the learner’s awareness of language culture, the teacher should assess the learner’s:

  • knowledge of cultural facts, events etc. of the target language communities.
  • ability to make comparisons between their own and the culture of target language communities.
  • ability to respond and act appropriately in encounters with the target language culture.

When learners make common errors during assessment tasks, the teacher should:

  • analyze these errors and identify the processes that may cause them.
  • provide constructive feedback to learners concerning their errors.
  • deal with errors that occur in class in a way which supports learning processes and communication.
  • deal with errors that occur in spoken and written language in ways which support learning processes and do not undermine confidence and communication.

How to Teach Functional Langauge

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Most students struggle to communicate effectively in some social situations because most teachers focus overly on grammar and often neglect teaching students functional language.

The heart of functional language is understanding the implied social meaning of certain expressions. We use language mainly to perform some kind of communicative behavior like make a request, offer help, offer advice, give apology, … etc. The expressions that we use to achieve these functions are called functional exponents.

There are two basic ways of presenting a language function:

1. Inductive way:  

* Give the learners different examples of the function and ask students to identify it: E.g. “Any chance of a coffee?” What is the speaker’s intention here? What language or expressions did he use to express his intention?

2. Deductive way: 

* Present a situation in which the function is needed and ask students to respond to it. E.g. you dropped the vase and it broke down. What would you say?

The best way to teach language functions is in context, that’s in dialogues 

When focusing on dialogues that contain functional language, there are three things should be clear for students to help them think about and analyze the target language:

  1. The place where the dialogue is taking place.
  2. The relationship between the two speakers.
  3. What the speaker A / B wants to do or say.

Practical steps to teach a dialogue with some language functions:

1. Introduce the dialogue telling students the names of the speakers and present the difficult words if it is necessary.

2. Play the dialogue or read it as a whole then ask students about:

  • where the dialogue is taking place (to check understanding of the context)
  • the relationship between the two speakers (to check language appropriateness)

3. Divide the dialogue into mini dialogues; a stimulus and its response (functional expressions) and write them on the board.

4. Talk about the speakers’ intentions and give students the functional meaning.

5. Underline the key words in the expressions and highlight the form.

6. Draw students’ attention to the choice of particular words or structures to express certain meanings.

7. Ask students to say the expressions focusing on stress and intonation (pronunciation practice).

8. Ask students to practice the dialogue in public pairs (controlled oral practice)

9. Write a scrambled dialogue containing the functional language on the board asking students to rewrite it in the correct order (controlled written practice).

10. Create a real-life situation asking students to perform a dialogue using the target functional exponents (freer oral practice).

After that, you need to tell students that there are common functions in English. Write a list of them and ask students to match each function with its exponent (the way of expressing it).

E.g. 

1. Making suggestion. d a. I can’t make it tonight – sorry.
2. Inviting. h b. I’m afraid I was disappointed by the service.
3. Giving advice. e c. I should have left earlier.
4. Requesting. i d. We could order in a pizza.
5. Making apologies. g e. It’d pay to talk to the boss.
6. Refusing. a f. I’d go along with that.
7. Agreeing. f g. I’m really sorry about the vase.
8. Regretting. c h. Why don’t you come over tonight?
9. Offering. j i. Any chance of a coffee?
10. Complaining. b j. I’ll pay.

At last, you should tell students the following principles associated with functional language:

  • There are many functions in English, and there is also a wide variety of exponents that can be used to express each function.
  • One structure can have more than one functional meaning so it’s difficult to understand the meaning of an utterance out of context.
  • The kind of functional exponent that you use changes depending on how well you know the relationship between the two speakers.
  • Pronunciation, in particular sentence stress and intonation, has a key role to play in learning functional language so you should always practice it orally.
  • Functional exponents can often vary greatly depending on the structure so we should focus on grammatical form too.
  • Some functions can be indirect and subtle so you should know their meanings.

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Test Your English – Vocabulary & Grammar

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I invite you to join my group “Test Your English” on Edmodo to be aware of your level in English, vocabulary, grammar, functions and the four skills. It’s free to join the group and it takes under a minute to create an account on Edmodo.

Instructions to join this group:

  1. Visit www.edmodo.com from your mobile or computer.
    2. Click on the “Join a group” button and enter the code, z3jgwd.
  2. Follow the instructions to create a new account or login to your account to join “Test Your English” group on Edmodo.

Twelve Steps to Introduce the Present Perfect Tense for the First Time

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Most students who have learned English as a foreign language often use only three tenses: present, past and future. They rarely use the present perfect tense as it is one the tenses that is soon forgotten or replaced easily with simple past tense.

Students don’t realize the importance of present perfect tense. If they know this importance, they will try to master it. To ensure that your students will use this tense, you must teach it right. This article provides some clear steps that will help you teach the present perfect tense effectively.

* Introduce the present perfect tense with regular verbs:

1. Give examples in the simple past tense: e.g. yesterday, I received two emails. I visited my grandmother once… etc. then give the examples in the present perfect: e.g. I have received two emails today. I have visited my grandmother once this month.

2. Show students how the present perfect is formed: e.g. have/has + pp (= past participle) telling them that pp of regular verbs ends in “ed” just as in the simple past.

3. Explain when the present perfect is used by contrasting finished and unfinished time. Ask students: Is yesterday finished? (they should say: Yes, it’s finished). Then ask them: Is today finished? (they should say: No, it isn’t)

4. On the board, draw two columns. On the top of the left write: Yesterday, Last .. , 2000, etc. and write examples (only with regular verbs) that go with finished time. On the top of the right write: Today, This day, This week, This month, … etc. and write examples (only with regular verbs) that go with unfinished time.

5. Tell students the difference between the two tenses. E.g. Last month, I received two emails and “Last month is finished”. This month, I have received only two emails. But this month is not finished so I may receive more emails before the month is over.

6. Give more examples with regular verbs, in all persons and ask students to tell the difference.

* introduce the present perfect with irregular verbs:

7. Divide the board into three columns and write some irregular verbs in the first column, their simple past form in the second column, and finally the irregular past participle in the third one.

8. Give examples as you go over each verb: e.g. I’ve had two cups of tea today. I’ve read one book this week. I’ve met Ahmed once this month … etc. Make sure that students have a list of irregular verbs and then they can provide more examples with other irregular verbs from this list.

* introduce the negative form of the present perfect.

9. Say, “I saw my grandmother last week. I haven’t seen her this week.” And give more examples alternating between affirmative in simple past and negative form of present perfect. E.g. I went to Cairo last year, but I haven’t been there this year.

10. Write some affirmative statements in present perfect on the board and ask students to give their negative forms, and you can introduce the use of “yet” here.

* introduce the interrogative form of the present perfect:

11. Model questions with “have” and elicit from students: Yes, I have or No, I haven’t and then change the person using “has” eliciting from students: Yes, she has or No, she hasn’t.

12. continue with questions using question words and model these questions writing them on the board and making sure that you write questions in all persons both singular and plural. Make sure that students understand that if they answer questions with “when, where and why” referring to a specific time in the past, they need to use the simple past tense.

Naturally, students should be taught the other uses of the present perfect with already, just, ever, never, for, since, etc. In this article we covered only the best steps to follow to introduce the present perfect for the first time and contrast it with the simple past, i.e. the distinction between finished and unfinished time. Once students understand this distinction, they will be ready to understand everything else.

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Five Effective Strategies to Make Vocabulary Stick

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Many experiments demonstrated that vocabulary forgetting starts as soon as learning happens. So what can be done? Research shows that there are some effective strategies teachers can use to help make vocabulary learning stick. The following are the main five of them:

1. Use peer explanation:

Ask students to explain what they’ve learned to their classmates. They can pronounce the words and explain their meanings. This strategy can not only increase retention but make vocabulary learning permanent in the long-term memory. In addition, it encourages active learning and students’ engagement.

2. Recycle the key vocabulary:

Review important vocabulary throughout the school year. Re-expose students to the previous vocabulary and give them multiple opportunities to use them in new contexts. Research shows that students perform better in their exam when they are given a brief review of what was covered several weeks before.

3. Give frequent practice tests:

In addition to regular review of the previous vocabulary, frequent practice tests on vocabulary can boost their long-term retention. Frequent practice tests protect against stress that often impairs memory performance. You can use a quick quiz at the start of each lesson to test your students’ knowledge of the vocabulary taught in the previous lessons. It is an effective remedial plan for low achievers who often forget vocabulary quickly.

4. Use word mapping:

Write a key word on the board or on a wall sheet and ask students to write related words or phrases to it. When similar words are grouped together, students will remember them more often. In addition, their stock of vocabulary will increase. This approach is helpful for students when writing a paragraph on certain topic.

5. Combine text with images:

It’s often easier to remember words that have been presented with visual aids. Visual aids can not only attract students’ attention, but also they can facilitate and reinforce learning. It’s easier to remember what’s been read and seen.

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Question Types to Test Your Students’ English Skills

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As a teacher of English, you need to test your students’ English periodically to know to what extent they learned the language. Learning English should include mainly learning vocabulary and grammar. In addition, you should test their reading comprehension and writing skill. If you want your test to be complete and comprehensive, your test should include a listening activity and a speaking task. Here are some suggestions for the questions you may include in your test:

Vocabulary

To test knowledge of vocabulary, you can ask students to:

  1. Write words which relate to common topics such as family, work , school, jobs, …etc.
  2. Use the appropriate word from a list to fill in the space in a context.
  3. Match the words with their meanings.
  4. Choose the right word from certain options to complete a context.

Grammar

To test knowledge of grammar, you can ask students to:

  1. Choose the right word or phrase from certain options to complete a structure.
  2. Change a sentence from tense to another using a clue.
  3. Rearrange words to make a grammatically correct sentence.

Reading

To test reading skills, you can ask students to:

  1. Read for skimming to answer questions on the main points of a reading passage.
  2. Read carefully to answer some questions on details.
  3. Summarize a long reading passage in two or three sentences.
  4. Extract some information from a short text to fill in a table.
  5. Read a story and then put the main events in the right order.

Writing

To test writing skills, you can ask students to:

  1. Write accurately certain amount of words about certain topic using correct sentence structure, word order and connectors.
  2. Write different kinds of written texts like essay, letter, email, story, short paragraph, etc. following the rules of writing each kind.
  3. Use some given guided words to write about a certain topic.

Listening

To test listening skills, you can ask students to:

  1. Listen for specific information in listening texts.
  2. Listen to short dialogues and tell the meanings of some words in context.
  3. Follow a listening short text and show understanding by doing the instructions included in the text.

Speaking

To test speaking skills, you can ask students to:

  1. Speak clearly using appropriate stress and intonation.
  2. Pronounce words so that they can be understood.
  3. Describe pictures or other visual material connecting ideas together accurately and with a range of language.
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