English Teaching Program, Materials
teaching English in Budapest, Hungary

Introduction

This section features my ELT Labs English Language Teaching Program and materials, made available for anyone to read, download or even implement. The methods and material used are not specific to Budapest or Hungary, but these are the topics that have been working best -- by my experience -- with the locals leaning English as a second or third language.

(not) Exclusively Budapest

Teaching ESL can be rather forgiving if the local culture has an affection for English language movies, music, other popular media, which in the case of Hungary is a given. While the city of Budapest is definately not the environment you'd call bilingual by any means, English language publications of the most popular events, music, booklets of festivals, local press and news in English can provide some really good basis for material to teach from. Not to mention that movie theaters have long held the tradition to show both dubbed and subtitled versions of English movies, and nearly all households have at least three different television stations with either UK or US English to listen to. A fairly large number of native English speaking youth is present in the capital at all times, thus in case the age group overlaps ( most of the time it does ) finding discussion partners at the most popular local venues and festivals is fairly easy. Mind you the word festival comes up a little often, in Hungary, and especially in Budapest, the city sees live music events from spring till late autumn, drawing the attention of a lot of tourists as well. There lies the hint, it's easy to find a place with matching interests and native English speaking people who are most of the time eager to talk to the locals (your students).

The Course Program, Materials to download

1.: Evaluating the level of Knowledge

And preparing a specific program for every student, with themes and topics of interest. Doing all this while the student(s) are probably expecting an interesting introduction, and exciting and/or effective lessons right from the start. Keeping up the interest in learning itself is vital, but so it the evaluation of just where the student's capabilities are, what their interests would be. Some ideas for playful and interesting methods to make the first impression both entertaining and useful.

2.: Generic topics, materials to teach from in the first 6 weeks
( click the title, or download in MS Word / WordPad .rtf )

While the material always needs to be customized to the interests of the individual or group learning the language, there are generic themes and topics that are vital in order to build up a proper English vocabulary, and also, in order for the students to get a hold of the contemporary culture, logic of the grammar. Logic and language have strong ties, posing difficulties when learning for the first time which are hard to overcome, especially for Hungarians whose language is a one of a kind tongue, not related to any of the neighboring countries'.

3.: CV Template, introduction excercise, work topic
( click the title to download in MS Word / WordPad .rtf )

4.: Formal Letter Template, writing excercise, communication
( click the title to download in MS Word / WordPad .rtf )