English Teaching professional blog from Michelle Ocriciano

In these tough and unprecedented times, many teachers are also faced with adapting to new online teaching challenges - and some of us are feeling anxious and overwhelmed. Here, Michelle Ocriciano shares some simple techniques for dealing with anxiety.

I only truly understood the importance of feedback and counselling when I started teaching IELTS classes. Some learners would panic, even cry, during their speaking practice, so I knew I had to provide something more than just corrective feedback …

When Michelle Ocriciano first moved to Australia she realized that her students kept saying ‘But English here is very different, right?’. Find out about different varieties of English, and its use as a lingua franca, and enjoy all the resources!

Language teaching is a particularly demanding subject and can drain teachers emotionally. Teachers are often concerned about students’ wellbeing, but tend to neglect their own. After the holidays in December, January is often seen as a good time to reflect, make some New Year’s resolutions and map out the year ahead or new term. So, if one of your resolutions is to take better care of yourself (or should be!), read Michelle Ocriciano’s straightforward tips on how to improve teachers’ wellbeing.

When Michelle Ocriciano (one of our new bloggers for English Teaching Professional) started teaching, she had a 5-year degree in Linguistics and teaching, and thought she could conquer the world. She felt that she basically knew two things very well: 1) language teaching is social and 2) knowledge of how language works is essential. But the fact is that she still had many questions, and the more she taught, the more those questions bothered her. Read on to find out what Michelle discovered about the way students really learn.