The TEFLer is a fortnightly EFL teachers' companion, written by Simon Pearlman

How do you feel about your classes being observed? Does it make your stomach churn? Or maybe you're excited and interested in what might come out of it? So much depends on how it's presented to us and even the most experienced and confident teachers’ knees can turn to jelly at the mere thought of it.

The TEFLer is a companion for teachers of English, written by Simon Pearlman

You can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

You can take a student to class but you can't make them think.

We really want and need our students to think. If we can get them thinking, we can get them engaged and engagement most surely leads to learning.

Managing in TEFL is a companion for language school leaders written by Simon Pearlman

The learning never stops, does it? We learn from our colleagues, from our students and their families, of course, as well as all the people we work around on a regular basis. With these immediate circles, we're always listening, watching, always learning . And what about our circles beyond the immediate? We can learn so much from further afield, from people in different places, different spaces both in and outside our own profession. Lets take a look at our “circles beyond”.

The TEFLer is an English teacher’s companion written by Simon Pearlman

It’s the middle of October already! We’ve probably spent the best part of a month with our students by now. Hopefully things are progressing as they should but maybe there are some wobbly wheels too. How can we deal with the problems that are emerging in our classes?

Managing in TEFL is a companion for language school leaders written by Simon Pearlman.

We're a few weeks into the academic year, we're getting a feel about how the teaching team are doing. There are a few teething troubles, there always are, they'll mostly sort themselves out, won’t they?. A couple of teachers look a bit out of sorts, how can we approach this? How can we help?

The TEFLer is a fortnightly companion for teachers of English, written by Simon Pearlman.

The initial adrenaline of the new academic year has probably faded somewhat and many of us are left with a feeling of overwhelm; too many students to remember, too many classes to plan and not enough time for us. Is this it for the rest of the year? What can we do about it? How can we help our students and ourselves have a better time of it? Read on for ideas about how to help ourselves more.

You might be getting into the year now and the initial rush might have died down but we’re still stretched and, possibly, stressed. There are new teachers, new students, our antenna is up and probably on full alert. How do we help or hinder the work going on around us?