There are countless languages spoken around the world, and you only have to take your pick! When it comes to learning languages, you can always opt to do it the traditional way – find a school or a teacher / tutor to guide you. However, with the opportunities that technology offers, there is a more convenient alternative for adult learning: language apps for your mobile device. With these apps, you can learn at your own pace by engaging in self-tutoring. Here are some language apps to consider.

English-Thai Talking Travel Phrasebook

http://itunes.apple.com/app/english-thai-talking-travel/id331546303

This app is labeled as a phrasebook, which means it might not be a comprehensive language-learning tool. Still, it gives you thousands of useful phrases, both in English and in Thai. The big plus is that the app makes use of a narrative voice using a local accent. That should make you passable in basic conversational Thai easily! This app is a good start to getting a grasp of the Thai language. If you want a really effective method, you might want to learn Thai in Bangkok instead. The immersive nature of this endeavor, coupled with the head start the app gives you, will turn you into a fluent speaker in no time at all.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-french-tutor/id313895919?mt=8

French is such a beautiful language, and one can’t help but be enthralled when hearing it spoken. You, too, can learn to speak French on your own with this language app. It is highly acclaimed, not only because it is free, but it also gives native speaker audio. On top of that, you get quizzes and games to help you sharpen your French skills.

Babbel Language Apps

http://www.babbel.com/mobile

Babbel has made a name for itself over the years, and with good reason. They have provided high quality language learning tools which have proven to be effective. They have a wide variety of languages available for the iPad, iPhone/iPod Touch, and Android devices. Take your pick!

Lonely Planet Travel Guides, Phrasebooks, and Maps

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lonely-planet-travel-guides/id317165182?mt=8

Everyone knows about Lonely Planet, and if you are learning a language because of an impending trip, this app should already be on your device! The app includes phrasebooks for over 25 languages, which cover phonetic, text, and audio translations. Of course, the city guides will help you a lot as well.

Jack Lauder is an “app-aholic” and is always looking for new apps to use on his devices. He also likes traveling when he can, hence his desire to pick up new languages.

I am pretty sure that you as an English teacher have lots and lots of handouts and supplemental materials on your shelves or on your computer that you might have used successfully during your classes. Why not to refresh them? Teacher books and various English internet sites or forums can provide you endless material that can be easily understood and adapted to your own classes. You will feel a whole lot better if you break the usual pattern and introduce new ideas and exercises which will definitely motivate your students to prepare for classes more often.

How to motivate yourself and your students?

1. Try to find about your students needs as much as possible. Sometimes as a teacher you are still considered to be inaccessible or rigid, who must be obeyed and never to be asked. Encourage them to talk about themselves, to ask questions whenever they are get stucked, find out about their true motivational drive and work out the really important topics you have to learn together.
2. Games, games and games. In ninety percent of the cases any type of games will help you put your students into ease to start the class in a more relaxed way. Splitting them into groups to compete with one another surprisingly works well with adults too, and motivates them to do their best. It can be a good idea to carry some games with you that you can just include at any stage of the class if you feel they are too tired or nervous to do anything sensible.
3. If you have the opportunity, utilize the internet and its limitless resources. Surfing the net is one of the most favored pastime activities nowadays, so by suggesting useful pages, videos or anything else online there is a bigger chance that your students will get back to the page in question. And with it English of course.
4. Last but not least sometimes give yourself a break. It is not rare that a long conversation with your group will motivate both of you by understanding and getting to know one another better. Sometimes it is years that you spend together so a good relationship is inevitable.

How do you make your students motivated? Do you find it difficult sometimes? If you can tell me any positive or negative experience I would be glad to discuss it.

About an author: Gyöngyvér Pénzes is a private and corporate English teacher who has been teaching more than twelve years in Budapest and in the neighbouring cities. In her free time she enjoys pursuing outdoor sports and orgazinig trips or Children’s camp. She is also keen on photography and travelling. You can get in touch with her on MyEnglishTeacher.eu http://www.myenglishteacher.eu/profile/81/ – English teacher search website, where you also can start learning English.

If you are serious about the task to learn Thai in Bangkok then hiring a private tutor will definitely be a step in the right direction. A tutor will help you with your Thai and give you great pointers that will aid you in learning faster and mastering the intricacies of the language.

Below are some tips on how to choose a tutor that will help you learn Thai in Bangkok:

• You should meet up with your tutor. Make an online search for “Thai language tutor” or look at the classifieds. You’ll definitely see a lot of tutors offering their services. But how do you know if your tutor is legit and can actually help you? It is imperative that you meet up with your prospects. As previously mentioned, communication is important. Talking to them will allow you to ask them about their qualifications and their experience. Equally important, you can get a feel if you can establish a good rapport and communication with the tutor, which is a crucial aspect of tutoring.
• Ask relevant questions. When you meet with your prospective tutor don’t hesitate to ask questions. Remember, you are hiring the tutor so you have the right to ask questions (you need to get your money’s worth). Ask them about their experience teaching Thai. You can also ask them about their own tutoring program. Will she be following her own curriculum or base it on an existing one? You can ask for their certifications and qualifications to assure you of their competence.
• Ask for referrals. You’re hiring a tutor to teach you Thai at the Language Express – it’s only natural to ask about their effectiveness as a tutor. By talking to the tutor’s previous students, you’ll also get an idea how he is as a teacher. Legitimate tutors won’t be offended by this request.
• Ask about the program. Ask specifically about your tutoring sessions. For example, how long will it take for you to get to a certain skill level in Thai. This question is important because you can’t just keep paying a tutor without seeing progress in yourself.These are just some tips that will help you in choosing a good tutor for when you learn Thai in Bangkok.

Alex has been living in Bangkok for the past five years. He learned Thai out of necessity and can now converse with the locals.

Some 30 minutes and several breakdowns later, we would have enough copies for the class. Needless to say, education technology has come a long way.

Here are five innovations that will really help to raise the bar for education:

1. Educational Software. According to the Education World website, grade school and middle school teachers love to use educational software like Kidspiration, Inspiration, Garage Band, Art Rage, and even more advanced applications like Microsoft Excel. These teachers claim that the software often helps students to put together projects and special activities. In addition, using educational software increases students’ comfort level in using computers and teaches younger students basic computer skills like how to create documents and share files.

2. Educational Websites. Educational websites like Fun Brain or Brain Pop are fun for students and help them to learn new and sometimes complicated concepts. The great thing about educational websites is that students can visit them from home if they did a project that sparked their interest from school. Websites like these teach younger kids how to use the Internet safely, too.

3. Game-based Learning. While many classrooms are already practicing the act of using board games and card games to teach, as the website Educause points out, the real advances will take place in the next few years as teachers start using more online multiplayer games for teaching purposes, fostering greater teamwork and problem-solving among students. Future games will also be able to more effectively simulate real-life scenarios, making it easier for students to understand some concepts that would be hard to explain.

4. Smart Boards. These interactive, Internet-capable, dry-erase style boards allows teachers to create more dynamic board presentations and save them, so that they can instantly put them back up when a student has a question about a previous day’s (or week’s) lesson. More importantly, kids think they’re really cool and tend to pay more attention when teachers use them.

5. EBooks. Schools in general have always spent a lot of money on books, not to mention having killed a lot of trees to make them. With the arrival of eBooks, digital copies of books that can be downloaded from the Internet, a school can simply purchase the license for an eBook and share files with all of the students and teachers who need to read the book. The cost comes down, more trees are saved, and the kids generally enjoy reading the homework more. Modern eBook readers even allow you to take notes and look up key terms while reading.

Schools have come a long ways since the days of ditto machines and pounding out erasers, and the technology continues to change every day. With the variety of tools available like educational software, websites, eBooks, games and smart boards, students today can expect to be taught more efficiently and probably have more fun learning.

As a private tutor I am constantly looking for ways to engage and excite my students. I am going to share 5 tips on how to make learning fun that any parent, teacher, or student can implement.

1. Playing games is very effective in engaging students of all ages.
For example, if you are a Language Arts instructor, you can create crosswords for students based on their vocabulary words. Games like Jeopardy and other competitive activities are also great tools.

2.One of the best techniques in keeping a student engaged is relating the material to their interests.
I’ll try taking the student’s interests and infusing them into math problems. For example, I’ll give a student who likes videogames a scenario where they must solve the algebraic equation to determine how many videogames and accessories they can purchase.

3. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Even if you aren’t a great artist, having a visual medium allows students another way to process the information and can help engage the learner. For example, I’ll draw skiers on a mountain slope to help students understand undefined and zero slope.

4.Relating the material to the real world.
As a geometry tutor in New York City, I am lucky to be surrounded by amazing architecture. Many of these architectural wonders make good use of geometry.

Many times, I’ll walk outside with a student and we’ll identify elements of geometry used in certain buildings and bridges. This really helps the learner understand how the material applies to real-life scenarios. It also makes teaching fun for the instructor too!

5. Use mnemonic devices for material that requires rote memorization.
This is a very effective tool for instructors trying to make memorization more fun. For example, science teachers may use ROYGBIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) to describe the order of the colors of the visible light spectrum.

Implementing these five tips can help make learning fun for both the student and the teacher! Remember, the textbook is only one tool in your kit-use your imagination to make the content more engaging!

As a private tutor in NYC, my students and I have fun implementing the above 5 points.