Author Archives: Bob Doherty

How Do I Incorporate Exercise Into Classroom Activities?

Traditionally, Japanese people ate meals of rice, grilled fish, miso soup, and pickles, which gave them a caloric deficit and created their slender frames. Nowadays, there is no shortage of Western food available in Japan to help fill them out … Continue reading

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How Do I Teach Tag Questions and Accusatory Questions?

You enjoy tag questions, don’t you? You study or teach English, don’t you? The above two sentences are two examples of tag questions. Tag questions are often used to elicit a confirmation from another party. The grammar employed involves positive … Continue reading

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When Do I Use “A” and When Do I Use “The”?

One of the more difficult aspects of English are the articles, and not just the ones found in newspapers. Using “a” and “the” take years for most English natives to fully grasp, and much longer for those attempting to gain … Continue reading

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How Do I Explain the Difference Between Green Tea and Japanese Tea?

Oftentimes, vocabulary used for foods can be confusing, using different words to refer to the same thing i.e. soda and pop, EZ-Cheez and Easy-Cheese, Quesadillas and tortilla melts This is confusing for non-native speakers who assume that everything only has … Continue reading

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How Do I Convince a Student to Stop Taking Lessons?

As any seasoned veteran teacher can attest, some students reach a point where they are no longer capable of learning. Specialized compartments in their brains, for whatever reason, fill up and do not accept any new knowledge. In these cases, … Continue reading

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How Do I Make the Student Pronounce the “TH” Sound?

It’s a question that many teachers ask themselves and each other; how can I make the students pronounce the “TH” sound so frequently found in English? Luckily, the answer is quite simple, but the road to that answer is long … Continue reading

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What Do I Do If a CD Is Scratched and I Need To Perform a Listening Activity?

We are teaching the best lesson of our lives, engaging the student and filling their brain full of English, when suddenly a listening activity occurs. Since CDs are rarely replaced, years of usage take their toll and result in CDs … Continue reading

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School Update: 2012-10-31

Last week we had the misfortune of having a student with a colostomy bag enter our English school, and despite my best efforts, we were unable to succeed in dissuading him from learning English. Older students often have difficulty in … Continue reading

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How Do I Build Student Willpower?

Learning English is often a matter of willpower, with the weak-willed failing quickly and the strong-willed eventually failing much later. To build willpower in the classroom, the teacher must take on the role of leader by establishing themselves as the … Continue reading

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How Do I Teach the Difference Between Jail and Prison?

Most students have not been through the legal system and have yet to experience the difference between jail and prison firsthand. The differences are many, but can be summarized rather easily. Although not exclusive, jails are for light-skinned people and … Continue reading

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