English Teaching professional blog from Chia Suan Chong

A confusing conversation in her local petrol station one day led Chia Suan Chong to explore the factors that can cause misunderstanding, from possible expectations of her non-native appearance to the regional variations of language use. She soon realised that sometimes having the right words still isn’t enough.

Some say that our classrooms should feature 70% of student talking time and only 30% of teacher talking time. But how can we get students talking for the majority of their time in the classroom if we don’t know how to listen? Chia Suan Chong, our ETp blogger, explores how listening to students can encourage them to communicate and offer ten tips to help teachers become better listeners.

Much of what we do in the language classroom is categorised as a focus on accuracy or a focus on fluency. We should either be correcting our students’ grammar usage, or helping them get rid of those gaps in between utterances. But is the development of communicative competence and the work on communication skills also part of a focus on fluency? Or are they different things? Chia Suan Chong explores.

With so many joining in the decluttering movement sparked by Marie Kondo and her new TV series, Chia Suan Chong considers how she can use her method to declutter her study, reorganise her books and papers, and make space for new thoughts and ideas.

As we approach the beginning of a new year, our personal stock-take of the previous year can sometimes be full of regrets, doubts and self-criticism. Chia Suan Chong, our ETp blogger, offers us eight important questions we can ask ourselves to help us give ourselves credit for the things we’ve done, no matter how small they may seem.

What is impostor syndrome and why do many teachers suffer from it? As teachers, we are sometimes expected to be experts in so many areas that it is easy to feel like frauds. But sometimes, severe feelings of inadequacy can impact negatively on our careers and our lives. Chia Suan Chong, our ETp blogger, explores how we can start dealing with it.

Who are we when we speak a foreign language? Is proficiency measured by how successfully we can transfer our personalities from our first language? How might the different cultural conventions change the way we present ourselves when speaking in the foreign language? Chia Suan Chong, our ETp resident blogger, considers these questions in her latest blogpost.

The way we build relationships with some might mean the relationship goes awry, or even ends up catastrophic in others. How can we help our learners interact in English successfully and build solid relationships with the different people that they will meet? Our resident ETp blogger, Chia Suan Chong, explores the different issues that we should be discussing with our students.

Chia Suan Chong looks at the type of books that are most recommended for newly qualified teachers and those embarking on a teacher training course. Of course, this core set of books can be complemented by other supplementary titles that course providers might recommend to enrich the teacher training experience and which are pertinent to the teaching context.

The results of Chia Suan Chong's crowdsourcing question on social media get her thinking about language and how we see the world. 

In the final part of this blog series, Chia Suan Chong considers how we can get to know our students and understand them better when dealing with challenging students.

We’ve all had the experience of that student whom we found difficult to deal with. Chia Suan Chong looks at five ways to deal with challenging students.

Aside from bettering our work-life balance, socialising with colleagues can be good for innovative thinking and professional development. Chia Suan Chong looks at five simple ways we can increase opportunities for socialising with our colleagues.

What do we do with the limited time our students have in our classrooms? What do we prioritise? What do we consider more important? Chia Suan Chong urges teachers to consider ELF when making those decisions.

Students come and go and our work continues. It's so easy for each class to blend into one another and for us to be repeating the same old stuff again and again. So how can we show our students that they are not just another class for us? Chia Suan Chong explores.