Welcome!
Welcome to TESOL Help! Our goal is to help host families and volunteers facilitate TESOL educational goals for students, business professionals, refugees and immigrants who want to learn English. Unfortunately, both host families and volunteers are often overlooked and do not received proper training. The site tries to fill the gap by providing an overview of learning and teaching English for speakers of other languages as well as links to informative articles. The teachers' area contains
teaching tips and lesson plans based on the "ESA" (Engage, Study Activate) teaching method by Jeremy Harmer. These can be used
during "Talk Time", around the dinner table, or in a classroom.
First let's introduce you to a few common terms. The terms ESL (English as a Second Language), ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) all refer to the study of English by speakers of other languages. Which term is used generally depends upon the the native language of the population:
| TEFL | Teaching English as a Foreign Language. This acronym is used when English is taught in a country where it is not the native language. It is most commonly used in the European Union. |
| TESL | Teaching English as a Second Language. This acronym is used when English is taught to non-native speakers of English in a country where English is the native language. It is used primarily in the USA, Canada and Australia. |
| TESOL | Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. This acronym covers both of the above. It is used primarily in the UK, New Zealand and Ireland. |
Interested in learning more of the acryonyms associated with ESL? See acronymns for a more complete list.