Teacher’s

Guide
by Annglish
 Foreword
Dear Fellow Teacher!
I am Anna Gandrabura, the founder of English For IT and Annglish. I have over 13
years of experience in teaching all levels from elementary to advanced. I got my CELTA
certification in Teaching House, New York, I also hold a University of Oregon diploma.
I have taken multiple courses and workshops at Stanford University on public speaking,
management, etc. Currently I am conducting my own workshops
all over the world.

I founded my own English language school aged 21 and have been teaching
at tech companies worldwide ever since then.

Over the years I have accumulated many learnings which I want to share with you.
That is why I have decided to leverage my experience of both learning and teaching
English and put it all together in a guide.

In this guide you will find:

how to prepare and conduct more interactive
and conversation-based lessons
how to upgrade you English
list of resources where you can get modern
authentic materials for crafting lessons
overview of CELTA: what it is, how to teach in accordance with
CELTA guidelines and who actually needs that certification

The guide will aid you in preparing and conducting lessons as well as developing
yourself as a professional.

My goal here is to create a knowledge sharing community of English teachers,

where everyone could find support and motivation to become a better professional
as well as share their knowledge and even become a mentor.

Join the Teacher’s Community in Telegram where you can ask questions, share your
favorite activities, talk about tough issues, etc.

And most importantly, never stop learning!

"All of life is a constant education."

— Eleanor Roosevelt
 As an English teacher, I have been using traditional textbooks
for many years. While I still like to use them as a basis for
my group lessons as the textbook helps keep your course
structured, I have noticed one big issue: textbooks don’t teach
actual conversational English no matter how good they are.
Not to mention that they tend to age quite badly and rapidly.

What’s the solution to this?

Use relevant, modern and authentic materials to help students

develop an “English” mindset and help them build essential
language skills

Immerse yourself and your students in the real English-speaking

environment and make your lessons more conversation-oriented

Both of these goals can be accomplished by leveraging

web resources and mixing in a few practices.

How to make your lessons more interactive?

Use warm-ups

Warmups are essential for getting your students into the right mood for the lesson.
After the usual small talk and before checking the homework / diving into the topic
on the agenda, consider small conversation-based activities that you can incorporate
into the beginning of all your lessons to get your students warmed up and thinking
English right out of the gate.

Minute quiz

Students need to give the correct answer to a question that has to do with the English
language. The challenge may be connected to the topic you had covered in the previous
lesson or it may be something completely unrelated. It’s a good way to revise material
or learn something new right at the start of the lesson.

What is the difference between “I never asked him any

questions” and “I have never asked him any questions”?

“I started drinking a lot more coffee.” There is a good word that

you can use here instead of “a lot” in informal speech. What is it?
(Answer: “way”)

You probably have heard about a British band called “The Who”.
Their name is actually a self-aware joke because it contains
a clever wordplay. Can you tell me what it is?
 Question of the day

It’s as simple as that. Just give your students a question they need to answer as if they’re
being interviewed (answering just “yes” or “no” is not an option) and give them about 1-2
minutes to speak. It’s a bit more structured than usual small talk plus it will help students
build up their confidence and fluency. (Additionally, if they ever plan on taking IELTS, they
will have a much easier time passing the speaking test after this activity.)

the point of this activity is not to get a precise answer to the question but to have
the students think on their feet and use English in spontaneous “real-life” situations

if the students aren’t confident enough to speak on their own, encourage them
by saying something like “Tell me more” or asking a follow-up question

Did you try any interesting foods recently?

If you could choose to listen to one song for the rest of your life,
what would it be?

What always brightens your mood?

Which one skill do you most admire in people?

What is one thing you learned this week (however small it is)?

Jokes

This will work well with upper levels and just people who enjoy somewhat corny humor.
A question-answer type joke will work best for this. Give the students some time to come
up with their own answer to the questions, then tell them the actual one.

Additionally, you can also ask the students to rate these jokes
on a scale from 1 to 10 (or from god-awful to absolutely hilarious)

Q: Why did the scarecrow keep getting promoted?

A: He was outstanding in his field.

You can find more examples here

 Riddles

Asking students to solve actual problems in English is a good way for them to naturally
acquire the language plus there’s a lot of useful vocabulary that can be taught here.

You are standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk one mile
south, one mile west and one mile north. You end up exactly
where you started. Where are you?
North Pole

Blank slate

This game is centered around completing collocations. Give your students a part
of a phrase (e.g. ___________ house) and ask them to fill in the gap. You get a point
if your answer coincides with that of one or more players (for example if two players
give the answer “on the house”).

You can read more about the game here

Make these warm-ups a constant part of your lessons. It will be something your students
will get used to and will be looking forward to. It’s good to mix these activities up every
so often just so they don’t get too predictable/repetitive

Use the opportunity to teach students something new (vocabulary, cultural aspects etc.)
during these activities. For instance, if their reply to a riddle is “I don’t know” - use that
as an opportunity to teach new phrases like “I have no idea”, “I haven’t got a clue, etc.”

How to craft interactive lessons

Use articles

1. Highlight all the interesting words and expressions using a highlighter browser
extension. Ask the students to read the article and translate the highlighted words
(additionally, they can make up sentences with them.) Come up with a few
thought-provoking questions to the article and discuss these questions in class.

2. Remove some words from the article and have students fill in the gaps
based on the context (give them hints if needed).
 Example from the Verge:

Right now, the weather is still a bit r_______ (rough), and it's not
c______(clear) if conditions will ultimately look good enough to
light the engine when the countdown clock runs out

3. Remove the headline / subheadlines from the article and have students
come up with their own

4. Have students read the article at home and write a digest of it for the class

Use TV shows

You can craft an entire lesson based on an episode of a TV show with vocabulary,
grammar and speaking focus like this one based on the show “Silicon Valley”.
You can also take out the grammar portion and make it solely vocabulary-focused
like this one based on “The Simpsons”.

You can also play the episode right in class without asking students to watch
the show at home. In such a case, you’ll have to pre-teach important grammar
and make the experience more interactive by pausing the video and asking comprehension
questions about what happened so far / what is going to happen
next. There’s an approximate example of how you can do that on Youtube.

Use youtube videos

The same formula can be applied here as with TV shows, however, youtube videos have
one glorious feature that TV shows don’t and that is the comments. Obviously, youtube
commenters’ grammar is not always perfect but there is still a lot to learn nonetheless.

Encourage your students to check out the comments to every video they watch
(or maybe even write one) and pick up new words from them. Additionally, you can also
create activities around youtube comments. For instance, you can show students a few
comments before or after you watch the video and ask their opinion on which one has
the most upvotes.
 My Top 4 favorite speaking activities

Impromptu Speaking Club Watch video View instructions

How do you make toast? Watch video View instructions

Activity that trains communication and teamwork skills

Winner / loser Watch video View instructions

This activity focuses on discussing negative and positive experiences

Interactive presentations Watch video Find materials

Using additional speaking activities:

Quizzes (students can take them at home and discuss their results
or work in teams to complete them in class)

Wheel of fortune (it’s modifiable). I use it to practice vocabulary.

During the lessons I add new words/phrases to it, then at the end of the lesson
or in the beginning of the next one I spin the wheel and have students come
up with their own sentences using this new vocabulary. The students love it!
It’s an easy and effective way to learn new vocabulary.

This is the wheel I have created for one of my groups.

Just check out this cool vocabulary!

Use it to teach grammar. (For instance, if you’re teaching the topic of

“Present Perfect and Past Simple”, add choices such as “did”, “when”,
More activity ideas

“last month”, “recently” etc. and have students come up with

sentences/questions)

Use it to revise vocabulary (add definitions of the words you’ve learned

before, have the students spin the wheel and guess the word)

Use it to practice conversations (add situations to practice a certain

topic. For instance, if the topic is “Shopping” one of the situations can
be “You bought a new sweater only to realize it’s two sizes too small.
You brought it back to the store in hopes to return it. Explain your
problem to the shop assistant and work out a deal.”
Jeopardy (a fun and interactive way to conduct revisions)

Taboo (great way to practice vocabulary in conversation, can be adapted for all levels)

Youtube. You can steal ideas for speaking activities from here too!
All you need to do is find a game show which can be adapted for a speaking exercise.
I recommend this one (the participants are asked to “sell” a certain item to the judge)
or this one (centered around quotations) or this one (where participants need to figure
out whether someone is telling the truth or lying).

Random Questions

This is another one of my favorite quick speaking activities. Just share your screen with
the students and have them answer random questions. It’s fun, easy and always
brings up a heated discussion.

You can use it as a warm-up or a wrap-up to your lesson. Or you can run it the whole
lesson. Depends on the class and the level.

How to constantly upgrade

your own level of English

Get on social media

How do you make sure your language proficiency is up-to-date?

You need to constantly observe how English is used in real life by real people
and social media apps are great for that. Twitter, Instagram, Quora, Reddit
and even the aforementioned youtube comments are all your best friends.

Subscribe to newsletters

Subscribe to a few newsletters to stay updated on everything that’s going

on in the world (this will also help you generate authentic materials for your
lessons.) You don’t need to go overboard and subscribe to 20 different resources
which you won’t have time to read (3-7 will do). I recommend Wired, Medium,
Business Insider, Restofworld and Feedpost (the last one is a gamechanger,
it allows you to select a multitude of resources you want to receive updates from,
turn on the email alerts and start receiving fresh articles, blog posts and podcasts
from your favorite websites all in one place.)

Lean into your hobby (in English)

No matter what your hobby is, there is content around it. Watch tutorials, take
courses, listen to podcasts that concern your favorite pastime and very soon
you’ll notice how many useful expressions,
My hobby is yoga,
words, etc. you’ve been able
I use youtube videos
to remind yourself of / learn. for my home yoga
practice in English

Learn a new skill (...in English)

The process here is a bit different. Rather than learning about a familiar topic,
you will have to step out of your comfort zone and learn about something you
are less familiar with. This will significantly expand your horizons and also help
you relate to your students better since you will be placing yourself in the
student’s shoes. So, if you’ve always wanted to learn Photoshop or video editing,
go ahead and go on a tutorial binge. (You will also encounter great instructional
phrases you can teach to your students such as “The next thing you want to do”,
“Now we’re ready to jump into…” etc.)

As an English teacher you could use some graphic design skills. That’s
what I did back in the day. I took a presentation design course to learn
how to create professional presentations for my lessons.

Your other choice could be photography, social media management,

blogging, video editing. Just make sure it's in English :)

Diversify your sources

Make sure you’re well-versed in all aspects of the language. If the only English
content you consume for fun is sitcom, go ahead and listen to a business podcast.
If you’re only watching Ted Talks on youtube, watch some comedy or a vlog.
Also, make sure you’re consuming both formal (lectures, presentation, news etc.)
and informal (easy-going streams, silly videos) content - it all adds up.

I listen to these podcasts: The Daily

Psychology in 10 minutes The Tim Ferriss Show
This American Life The Mentors
 Practice full immersion

Finally, be sure to immerse yourself in the English language and culture as much
as possible and encourage your students to do the same. You need to become
a sponge soaking up all sorts of content. Switch all of your devices to English,
check out English websites (e-commerce, corporate, educational, etc.), entertain
yourself in English, build a personal project in English - the sky's the limit.

Join the community of like-minded people.

You don’t have to go abroad to get this immersion experience.

Use meetup.com to attend meetups in NY for free! Just register there,
pick NYC as your location and choose the meetups of your preference.

When I am in NYC I go to ToastMasters club to practice public speaking.

Now, they have meetings online! No difference!
Try it. They meet every week.

Overview of CELTA

I took my CELTA in New York in 2015. It was a fantastic experience for

me in many ways, although quite pricey. In my video I am sharing
everything I know about CELTA as well as its pros and cons for
non-native speaking teaching of English.

Watch video

If you have any questions regarding CELTA, drop them in

Teacher’s Guide chat. I’ll be happy to address them.

Teaching specific courses

If you are planning to teach specific courses like English for IT, make sure you learn
about IT first so that you can deliver the best value to your students. Consider two of
my English For Tech and Effective Communication Course as a part of your teacher
development.
 My favorite resources

Articles & newsletters

wired.com/newsletter feedspot.com
restofworld.org businessinsider.com
form.cnn.com/newsletters medium.com

Warm-up activities and games

Jokes Riddles
Quizzes Wheel of fortune
Jeopardy Taboo

Random questions generators

randomwordgenerator.com conversationstarters.com
Google Feud (game about completing Google searches)

Speaking practice

english4it.online/communication thebreakfast.com (iOS only)

meetup.com

Podcasts

The Daily Psychology in 10 minutes

The Tim Ferriss Show This American Life
The Mentors

TV shows and youtube-based lessons

Silicon Valley (show about tech and business)

The Simpsons (no introduction needed)
How I met your mother (sitcom)
The Purge
 “Educating the mind without educating
the hearts is no education at all.”
— Aristotle

I have created this Teacher’s guide with passion

and belief that it will help you grow as a teacher.

Take care of your mind and heart.

Make sure you keep in touch.

Yours,
Anna Gandrabura.

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Afterword