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School recently openened in Thailand and I find it's always a good time to brush up on classroom management skills and strategies. Many teachers establish rules and procedures at the beginning of the school year. They also try to be consistent in enforcing these rules and procedures.
I've included some powerpoint demonstrations that I've found very helpful in the past which you may download here:

Click Here to Download
You will need winrar to uncompress the files which can be found here: Winrar.
Also, be sure and post links to your classroom management resources here: Classroom Management Forum
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A site providing many role-plays for all levels from elementary to advanced. I recently reviewed this site and find it very helpful and a great timesaver. You can find hurndred's of role play dialouges to use in the classroom.
http://www.englishroleplay.com/
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This site contains over 100+ FREE ESL (English as a Second Language) language learning games for language teachers. The ESL material on this site can be freely printed for use in the classroom, or as supplementary material for group practice. The games are designed to be educational and useful for teaching young children and adult learners. Each activity is simple to implement, and fun to play either in pairs or in a classroom setting. They can be easily adapted to give emphasis to certain language structures, functions and grammar as needed. These activities reinforce and support classroom lessons, and provide on-the-spot language practice in different areas of reading, writing, listening and speaking (a welcomed relief from tedious textbook learning).
Click Here to Visit
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ESL TEFL TESOL Teaching Articles
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Ace The GMAT - Part 1
This post is specifically for highly self-motivated GMAT aspirants who dream of cracking the GMAT with 700+ scores. They understand that more and more test takers are getting adept at test taking and the competition is getting much stiffer. read more
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Tips on Planning Your Next School Outing
Are you a teacher's aide, teacher, or school administrator? Are you dreading the next school trip with your class - a long day, unruly students running everywhere, unhelpful museum staff or gallery attendants? read more
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ABCs of K12 Critical Thinking
Characteristics of Learning - Knowledge Transfer Learning is all about thinking. In order for knowledge to be acquired a certain level of thinking must take place. Those levels are also called the taxonomy of learning. read more
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K12 Project Based Learning - Five Best Resources
Project Based Learning (PBL) provides opportunities for students to collaborate on specific tasks to resolve one or more challenges. The effort is driven by asking questions that feed the investigative processes where students do... read more
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Turn Off Facebook Quizzes |
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If you're like me and think the quiz updates on Facebook are extremely annoying then follow these three steps:
1. You have to be a Firefox or Chrome user in order to turn off quizzes. If you are not, get Firefox or Chrome.
2. Install GreaseMonkey add-on to your Firefox (GreaseMetal for Chrome). RESTART YOUR BROWSER!
3. Click here to Install the Facebook Purity GreaseMonkey script.
Now you can enjoy Facebook!
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For those of us who have been teaching in Thailand for less than 6 years we must pass a test as required by the Teachers' Council of Thailand to obtain a teaching license. The test that has been adopted is called the Teaching Knowledge Test. An excellent article appeared in the Bangkok Post that explains the test (Thanks to E.P. for bringing this to our attention):
The Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT) from the University of Cambridge English for Speakers of Other Languages (Esol) examination is now part of Thailand's secondary schoolteacher development
STEVE GRAHAM
More than three years ago, the idea of TKT was being bantered around the education community with a certain amount of scepticism. Now, in Thailand, it seems it is here to stay.
Easier test for Thailand?
I was lucky enough to be involved with some of the meetings and presentations that took place in the early stages of the adoption of TKT in Thailand. When the idea of having Thai teachers of English take a universal test was first discussed, I was amazed at how afraid many people were.
The TKT tests "the candidates' knowledge of concepts related to language, language use and background to and practice of language teaching and learning". It does not test the teachers' practical skills that they would need to have in the classroom. It is a theory test.
Students and teachers in Thailand know all about multiple-choice questions, so there was an added bonus as the three modules contain multiple-choice questions 80 each. What really surprised me was that some representatives from Thailand's premier universities were asking questions like, "Could we have an easier test just for Thailand?"
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The Twitter phenomenom appears to be taking Thailand by storm. During the Red Shirt Protests we saw many people using Twitter to provide live updates. Best of Siam provides a live update of Thailand "Tweets" in the news section here:
Thailand Tweets
So what is Twiiter anyway? Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them.
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Thailand Daily News in English

Watch a live feed from TOC News
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One of the problems for any casual reader of the English language newspapers in Thailand is the low standard of journalism. There is significant manipulation of news stories to fit the newspapers political viewpoint, and little if any checks made of the facts. Many articles, in particular reports containing Government statistics and announcements by ministers, contain misleading or just plain incorrect data.
Newspapers also have a tendency to regurgitate the current rumours and gossip from Thai TV news channels as facts, especially when it supports their stance.
There are, however, some excellent online resources for current news from websites and blogs which maintain a standard of journalistic integrity you would never see from the mainstream press.
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