 Hello everybody! Is anyone there? So while I'm waiting for more people to join, let me know if you can hear me clearly and see me clearly. Okay? So, when you're joining, please let me know if you hear me. Well, hello, hello. Welcome to the weekly live session. We're just about to start, but we need to wait for some more people to join us. And while we're waiting, please let me know if you hear me clearly and see me clearly. So, there is a chat box you can use for interaction with myself. So, please leave me a comment if you see me clearly and hear me clearly so that I know that everything works smooth. Okay? And today's live session will be devoted to some new trends in EFL teaching. Last week I took part in a teaching conference and I learned a lot of interesting facts about EFL teaching. So, I figured out I can share this with you. And today we will primarily talk about trends which are devoted to avoiding grammar as a center of your teaching experience. Hello, Margaret. Thank you for commenting and welcome everyone. Before we start, let me introduce myself. My name is Lisa. I work with ITTT and I'm also a non-native EFL teacher. I used to teach in China several years ago, but since last year I've been teaching online primarily. So, this is probably the most interesting mode of teaching for myself. That's why I try to share my experience on a weekly basis and I usually give some pieces of information related to online teaching and stuff like that. So, if you find anything related to online teaching, please check out my previous sessions. And with ITTT we also create a lot of useful information related to different types of teaching. We also talk about teaching abroad and we discuss different countries. So, if you need to learn more about it, please check out our social media. Okay, and now let me expand on today's topic a little bit more. Hello everyone. Thanks for joining me today and right now let's just start today's topic. So, as I have already mentioned, we will talk about some new trends in EFL teaching. And the first one, which I consider the most interesting, is a smart approach. I believe you heard about this approach in terms of time management and self-organization, but in the teaching conference I participated in last week. This approach was referred to building a course syllabus, which is quite interesting. And I figured out that it is something really applicable to teaching in general, because we as teachers must be as specific as it is possible. And if you look at these key points on this slide, you can also see that specific is the key feature of building a course syllabus. So, when we plan our lessons in advance, we need to set some specific goals. We need to select some specific themes to cover with our students. So, that's why it's the first feature to include in the process of building a course syllabus. Then it should be as measurable as it is possible, because when students don't see a particular amount of themes of grammar structures, they don't clearly understand what is it about and what they will learn throughout the course. So, that's also something to include when you build your course. And it is also important to mention how many lessons will you have per week, for example. How many themes will you cover and things like that. And the next problem would be setting unrealistic goals. I've seen so many advertisements, like you will learn English in three months with this course. Do you think it's reasonable? Like, do you think someone can do that in these few months? So, these kinds of advertisements would be unrealistic and courses like that. I feel like they are just useless. So, that's why when you start planning your course or just teaching in general, it is important to talk with your students about setting realistic goals. And then your course should be relevant, because your students will also need to be able to communicate in English in specific situations. And when students don't know about such situations in advance, they basically lose motivation of learning English in general. And the last key point would be that your course syllabus must be timely. So, it's probably a great idea to set a specific period of time in order to cover some course material. So, this would be the first trend I noticed. And now I would like you to tell me, like, to give me a feedback on this approach. Do you think it's reasonable to use it in TEFL teaching or you would probably choose something else? So, let me know in the comments down below. And I will share some of your answers with the other participants. And also, thanks a lot, guys, for joining me today. I hope today's session will be useful and interesting to you. And if you need any other information on teaching, you should definitely check out our social media and join some other live sessions. So, what do you think about smart approach to build a course syllabus? Would you try to use this smart approach? Let me know. And while you are giving some feedback, I'll show you an example of a one week program built on the basis of this smart approach. So, for example, you can focus on such things as vocabulary, speaking, grammar and listening and reading. It's usually like that, but this way it would be more precise in terms of this approach. So, basically, you share with your student on a weekly basis what vocabulary you will cover, what speaking skills will they learn, what grammar points will be discussed during the lessons and what skills will be trained in terms of listening and reading. And here is Margaret's response. She says that it is reasonable for learning any language and I agree. And, yeah, it's really important to share your plans with the students, because this way they will know how to plan their life and their English learning as well. And let's come to the second problem, which is actually the second trend in TEFL teaching. I believe this trend has been lasting for several years already because grammar based lessons are so dull and boring. That's why teachers try to find some new strategies in order to make lessons more interesting and fascinating to students. And if you look at this slide, you can see several ideas and I would like you to think what is more appropriate, building strong communicative skills or teaching to speak without mistakes. So, this idea would be related to our teaching goals. So, when teachers plan a course syllabus, they try to focus on something related to building strong speaking abilities. And that's why it is so closely connected to grammar. It used to be really important to drill grammar in order to speak without mistakes. But nowadays, we as teachers must pay attention to building strong communicative skills and put them in the first place. And as for teaching to speak without mistakes, it is also quite important, but on the higher levels. For example, if your students are A1, A2 levels, building strong communicative skills would be much more necessary for them than speaking without mistakes. What do you think? Hello, guys. Nice to see you today. Thanks for joining. Today we are talking about some new trends in EFL teaching. Thanks for joining. And I hope you will take part in today's conversation. Share your thoughts in the comments box and I will show them during the live session. So, the next point which I found interesting as well is that teaching grammar should be replaced with teaching lexical units. So, what I mean is that we used to teach grammar through different tables and schemes. But nowadays, well, this approach is a little bit old-fashioned. That is why we should switch from teaching grammatical structures to teaching grammar as lexical phrases, as phrases. It means that we think of grammar as chanks. Okay, so Margaret asks if A1, A2 should be function-based. Yes, it seems like that. So, when we talk about some grammar skills, we need to focus on some specific situations and functions of grammar structures we teach. And if we teach through chanks, for example, we need to show students how these phrases can be implemented in speaking situationally. And what functions those phrases will have in your speech. Yeah, something like that. So, we switch from explaining rules to a more communicative way of instruction. And I believe this idea is easier for younger students. And as far as I know, according to the recent scientific research, human brain develops up until 25 years. And well, basically, people cannot structure logical information up until 25 years. So that is why it is more important to work on communication and soft skills rather than some logic and more precise skills like explaining rules and stuff like that. And let me show you the last idea, which fascinates me most. It is interactive learning. When we talk about teaching, recently, we all had to switch to online education. And this brand will be more and more applicable in the real classroom and in the homeschooling. So it is quite important to implement some important tools like these ones on the slide. I chose several apps which are really helpful to make your lessons interactive and interesting for students. So if you, for example, work online mostly, you can work with interactive whiteboards. You can help your students learn vocabulary faster with Quizlet or WordWall. And for some students, it is really important to learn through games so you can build your own games with learning apps. And basically, if you need to structure the whole course, you can try Progress Me, which is a really, really interesting platform which has different materials inside. You can just use their materials or add your own ones and build the whole course for your students. And we also share our ITTT TEFL resources. We also have a lot of useful information on our website. I will share this presentation after the session and you will be able to click on all of these links and see the contents. Interactive learning will be even more in demand in the future years. So we as teachers also have to adjust to this mode of education. So that is pretty much of the trends I found and I would like to hear from you. So what do you think is important for future of TEFL? Which things will be important in future? Let me know in the comments section and I will also share it with the rest of the participants. So what things are important for either online teaching or in-class teaching? Let me know what you think and now I would like to draw your attention to this QR code here in the right corner of the screen. So if you scan it, you will get a 30% off of any ITTT courses. You can get this discount right now or you can also use this link. I'll share in the comments section. So if you want to get this incentive, feel free to copy it and you will be able to get a 30% discount of any ITTT TEFL courses. And yeah, guys, I would like to know what things you consider important for your TEFL teaching and what ideas can be useful in future. I hope that you can communicate with me a little bit because I feel pretty nervous right now. It's always hard to talk about such difficult things as today, but still I hope we can have a small chat. So let me know what you think and if we move forward, I would like to also discuss some other ideas. Like if you have any questions on TEFL teaching or maybe working abroad, working online, please let me know in the comments as well. Thanks guys. Thank you for your support. Yeah, I should say I am that student who was told not to make mistakes. That's why when I talk in front of the public, I feel so intimidated. And I'm like a perfect example that it's better to teach communicative skills and confidence rather than speaking without mistakes because it's extremely difficult to fix these problems when you grow older. And it's just something that makes you feel so depressed. I think it's something really important to discuss as well during this session as well. And I can see that there are some people who take TEFL right now, who take TEFL course right now. And that's really great to know because TEFL teaching is not just delivering English classes based on your English learning experience if you're a non-native English teacher. But it's also about knowing how to motivate students, how to organize your lessons and so on and so forth. But if you're, if you wasn't trained as a professional teacher, it's a great idea to take a course. Okay, Margaret, that's great to know that you have already bought a course and it's better to start early because if you postpone, it gets so difficult to start. Like, I usually find myself being stuck with some online courses if I don't begin right after buying those courses. Okay, Moses, I hope I pronounced your name correctly, asks me about my teaching, my experience of finding my first job as a non-native speaker. So it's actually was pretty easy. I was a student at that time. I wasn't an English teacher. I studied at university at the linguistics department. So I studied English linguistics and some friends of my mother asked me to tutor their children. So that's basically how I started teaching at the first stage of my career. But later on, when I finished university, I found it quite difficult in terms of preparing for lessons and working for different groups of students. So I decided to take a TEFL course. Just because I wasn't a real teacher. So I took a TEFL course and then I started looking for jobs around the world. And my friend from university mentioned that it was possible to work in China. And I just decided that it was the best opportunity and the best option for myself as an English graduate. So I found an agency at that time and the agency was in China. They found a position in a kindergarten that suited myself and that's how I moved to China at that time. Unfortunately, things changed since like 2016. And nowadays it's more difficult to find jobs abroad due to the current situation. But it is still possible. But what is really important here is being determined and showing that you are interested in teaching career and that you are like a professional. And what I try to do constantly is working on my English because I'm still a non-native speaker. So right now I'm taking classes for CPE preparation. Last year I passed IELTS. What else? So I also visit different conferences and this way I think I build my perfect resume that will help me in future as a teacher. So something like that. So when you look for teaching positions around the world or online, you should also think of your self-development. And don't underestimate online courses, I don't know, some mock tests, mock courses. It's really important to learn from different resources. Okay, thanks for this question. And yeah, the same idea. It's difficult to get a job as a non-native teacher. Yes, I agree with you. But probably it's the matter of creating your resume. Think of some ways to enhance it and it should be a great start. What else can I suggest you is try to find a job in your country as well. Because that's what I did when I came back from China to Russia. There are a lot of teachers all over the world and there are also a lot of jobs all over the world. But there are still students who would prefer working with the teacher who can speak their local language. I can see that such teachers are still in great demand in my country. Although it is really easy to find native speakers and work with a native speaker online or even in a real classroom. But still there are those students who would prefer to speak the same language as the teacher. Okay, so don't worry if you can't find your job easily. You will definitely do that if you show your interest and if you keep doing your work proactively. Okay, so and the same question. I believe I have already answered this question. But my first job was before TEFL course. But then I decided to start TEFL in order to be more involved into this sphere. And with TEFL it was easier to find a better position. Okay, and when I worked in China, my first job was in a public kindergarten. It was like semi-public, half public, half some owned by some person. But I needed to go from one classroom to another classroom. And I had various types of learners and there were a lot of students in one classroom. It was quite difficult for me even after being trained to work with different learners. But the next year in China I found another position in a bilingual kindergarten. And there I worked with one in the same classroom on a daily basis. I was like a head teacher, a head English teacher of my classroom. I also had a head Chinese teacher and we cooperated. And there were just 15 students in the classroom. And it was much easier to organize my work with them. So something like that. If you guys have any other questions, please let me know. If you don't have any further concerns, I believe that is all I wanted to cover today. So I would like to finish the session here. And let me just remind you that if you scan this QR code, you can get a 30% discount to any courses. And yeah, here you go. So there is a question in Russian. This person, I hope I can pronounce your name correctly. They asked me about my contact. And actually guys, you can direct message me on Facebook. This is my Facebook. So if you have any questions related to English teaching, online teaching, TEFL, working abroad, you can direct message me on Facebook. And I will try my best to help you if you have any questions. But I should also mention that we at ITTT share different materials on our various social media. And if you have any questions and if you need any guidance, you can also direct message us on Facebook or Instagram, for example. And our managers will try their best to assist you. So that is all for today. I hope you found the session informative. And if you still have any questions, you can contact myself or you can contact our ITTT web page. So thank you guys for today's session. And I'll see you next week. And have a good day today. Bye-bye.