45 ways to fortify your TEFL class

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If you feel your English language class is in need of some reinvigoration, here are forty-five suggestions which might do the trick.

This is a compendium of ideas and techniques which can help fortify any TEFL class. Some are my adoptions and adaptations of existing techniques, and some are my original ideas. It is an eclectic assortment ranging from general lesson organization to the minutiae of classroom management. There is no particular sequence, and suggestions can be read in any order.

Below you can find supplementary information to augment each idea, and a place for any comments (anonymously if you wish).

Concise descriptions accompany each suggestion, with examples where appropriate, spiced by anecdotes from the backstories.

Every class, every student and every teacher is different, and there can be no one-size-fits-all strategy. So each of the forty-five ways is flexible and versatile, allowing you to add, subtract, adapt and expand to suit your particular situation, your students’ needs, and your personal preferences.

There’s nothing new under the sun, and many teachers are bound to have had some similar thoughts and ideas, but the bottom line is all 45 fortify my TEFL classes, and I hope they work for you too.

Why 45? There is no deep or mysterious reason, it just fortuitously happens to sound like ‘fortify’, and is equal to the number of suggestions.

Otherwise the only unique property of the number 45 is that it is the sum of all the decimal digits (ie 0+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9).

45 is the atomic number of rhodium.

A 45th wedding anniversary is known as a sapphire wedding.

A ’45’ is a term commonly used for a vinyl record, a ‘single’ which typically carried one song on each side, and spun on a turntable at a speed of 45 revolutions per minute.

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