The profound growth and development of digital multimedia has fostered an expansion of interdependence, wherein our lives and spaces are beginning to overlap with those geographically far away. Intercultural communication has become prevalent and, to some degree, a routine part of our everyday lives. Globalization The concept of “globalization” has been around for centuries due…
Author: Aric Lim
Online Synchronous Live Session Tools: A Guide for Educators
As educational institutions settle into the new normal, some teachers have had difficulty adjusting to online classes. This new normal in education requires several integral parts to maintain the educational framework and the effectiveness of content modality to ensure student learning is facilitated. Synchronous live classes are often an essential element in online classes, but…
The Art of Asking Questions: An Open-Ended Guide to Enhancing Learning
Questions are essential components of a learning environment. The inquiries you present to your students may make or break the environment you have carefully designed and crafted. Due to this fragile nature of questions, it is always important that we, as educators, find ways to ask the right questions that may invite productive discourse among…
The Advantages of Online Learning
Online learning has been a subject of debate for a couple of years now with regards to its efficacy and validity as a medium for education. The issues with online learning revolve around the ideas of lesson adaptability, computer literacy, time management, and motivation. These issues are indeed valid and are raised by several institutions…
Tools to Get Started on an ESL Career
As our world is currently facing a pandemic, a lot of people are financially taking a hit. This “new norm” of ours presents a very precarious situation to a lot of individuals living on daily wages. Since a lot of people, at least in the Philippines, are currently not receiving any pay as mid-level companies…
When Should You Correct Your Students?
One of the looming questions an ESL instructor faces is: “When should we correct our students?” To be honest, the answer I will give you is probably the same as many other instructors’: “It depends.” There are a lot of factors when it comes to the idea of “it depends.” As a communication specialist, I…
Multimedia Tools for ESL Instruction
As the future generations are becoming more and more technologically savvy, educators generally are finding it increasingly challenging to cope with the demand for multimedia instruction. These mediums can be quite complicated, but, with a little practice and dedication of time on your part, these platforms can actually be really effective for conducting classes. Why…
Effective Intercultural Communication
There is no hard-coded rule for an effective intercultural communication practice. There will always be room to improve as an instructor. Cultural sensitivity is one of the core aspects, but is not the entirety of the battle. Teaching ESL would entail you, the instructor, to face students of different nationalities. New teachers find this a…
Using Bloom’s Taxonomy as an ESL Framework
Since there has been an incremental increase in the projected number of ESL students, there is a need for a structure in terms of pedagogy. Teaching ESL can be quite a challenge, especially for instructors who are not related to the educational field. However, Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a simple, albeit comprehensive, structure when it comes…