Help System - Find esl jobs, lesson plans, tips, games and activities, articles more easily.
Searching (catching teaching
resources with the teaching fish)
Navigating
Becoming a teachingfish.com member
Receiving the free teachingfish.com
collections
Submitting tips, articles, games,
etc. to teachingfish.com
Subscribe to our newsletter
Change your subscription details
Cancel your subscription
Using the online English Grammar
ESL Games and activities
The teachingfish.com job finder
MyTeachingfish
Updating your resumé
Closing job listings
If the answers to your questions are not found here
please do not hesitate to contact us. Please send an
e-mail to webmaster@teachingfish.com.
We will be happy to answer any questions that you might
have.
Searching
Searching or "Fishing" for documents on teachingfish.com
is designed to be simple yet powerful. The "search"
box near the upper right hand corner of the screen will
allow you to enter search terms (things to search for).
Then you click the "search" button and the
teaching fish will find as many documents as it can
that are relevant to the terms you enter in the box.
This search tool searches the entire teachingfish.com
database. As you get deeper into the site the search
tools become more specific to the areas in which they
are found. For example, if you are in the "articles"
section you will get search tools devoted to that section
alone. You'll still have full site search tools available,
but the "detailed" search tools can often
provide a faster way to make the "catch of the
day".
After your initial search the teaching fish will present
you with new search options to help you find what you
need if your first search didn't catch what you were
looking for. You can also get highly detailed search
tools on the home page for each section.
How to enter search terms
Use words longer than three letters
Find everything on the site or
within a given section
What does "relevant search"
mean?
I get an error when I type in a search
term and hit "enter" on my keyboard
Detailed search tools
Search tools at the bottom of each
tip, article, game/activity or grammar item
Make sure you look at all the results!
How to enter search terms
When you are entering your search term just use "natural
language". That is to say, enter a search term
as you would write it in a sentence. The "sentence"
doesn't need to be grammatically correct, but should
contain the words, concepts and categories of information
you are looking for. For example, here are a couple
of good search "phrases":
grammar games for teaching the present perfect
or
classroom management for young children
Notice that the search phrases don't have any punctuation,
quotation marks or capital letters. You don't need
them. You can enter as few or as many words in your
search term as you like. Try not to put too many
words in your search phrase, it waters down the
search.
Use words longer than three letters
The teaching fish is a pretty hard working little guy,
but he gets tired out searching our databases all the
time. That's why we've told him to ignore all search
words with three letters or less. So if you want to
find lots of goodies, use search words four letters
or more!
Find everything in all of
teachingfish or in a specific section
You can also find "everything" in a given
section of teachingfish.com. This is very useful if
you want to get an idea of just how many resources are
available in a given section. It is a "catch-all",
and may find what you are looking for without you having
to think of search phrases. You just select a section
(or "-all sections-") from the drop down menu
and then click the "go fish!" button. This
search will find ALL DOCUMENTS in the sections you specify.
If you select "-all sections-" you will be
presented with all of the documents available on teachingfish.com.
You can also enter a search term for a specific section
of teachingfish.com. This will bring up all the
documents for the specified section that "match"
your search phrase. This helps you to narrow down
your search.
Text searches are "relevant"
to the search phrase you enter
Text searches are ranked by percentage of "relevancy".
The teaching fish trys to guess how relevant the
"catch" is based on the words you entered
as compared to the words in the database. If you
enter a word into the search that is present in
more than 50% of the documents on teachingfish.com
the term will be ignored. The teaching fish assumes
that so many search results would not be "relevant"
enough for you. This means that the more specific
the words you are searching for the more specific
the search results will be. In most cases this helps
you get search results that are accurate to your
needs. If you wish to get around this, just select
the search "everything" option and you
will be sure to find "everything".
Error when I type in a search
term and hit "enter" on my keyboard
Some web browsers behave inconsistently when you press
the enter key on your keyboard to submit forms.
Just type in your search term and click the "go
fish" button. If you are still having problems,
please contact us.
The detailed search
tools on the section home pages
The final option is to go to each section individually
and search from there. The teaching fish has individual
search options for each category. Just go to one
of the main sections of teachingfish.com (click
one of the buttons at the top of the screen for
teaching tips, articles, games, grammar) and then
use the search this section tools that are available
on the home page for that section. These tools are
much more specific and detailed and may help you
find exactly what you are looking for in a hurry!
Search tools after each tip,
article, game/activity or grammar item
There are detailed search tools at the bottom of each
tip, article, game/activity or grammar item. The first
"box" has tools to search within a section.
That is to say, if you are in the grammar section you
can use this tool to search the grammar section only.
The second "box" is a full teachingfish.com
site search tool and it will help you to find things
all over the site. Take a look at the menus within
each of these tools. You'll find what you are looking
for pretty quickly if you do!
Make sure you look at all the
results
When more than five matches are "caught"
by the teaching fish they are broken down into pages
of results. You can navigate between the results pages
by using the links that appear below the results. If
you don't see these links it means the teaching fish
found five results or less so there is only one page
of results.
Navigating
Finding your way around the site
teachingfish.com has been designed to be easily
navigable. You can find most parts of the site by
clicking on the buttons and links at the top and
left of the screen. The buttons have "tooltips",
so if you leave your pointer over them for a few
seconds a helpful hint about that button will appear.
Going through the pages of tips, articles, games,
etc.
Many of the tips, articles, games, etc. have multiple
pages of content. To navigate through these pages of
content, just click on the next and previous buttons
that will appear at the bottom of the page. If there
is no previous button you are at the first page
and no previous button is required. Conversely, if you
are at the last page then the next button will
not be present.
Becoming a teachingfish.com
member
If you wish to become a teachingfish.com member
just click here. You will go
to the new member sign up page. Just fill in all the
required details and hit the submit button and you will
become a new teachingfish.com member. The required details
have red stars beside them. Membership has lots of priviledges.
You are eligible to recieve our extremenly helpful newsletter,
you can post messages in the discussion forums, you
can submit tips, articles, games, etc to teachingfish.com.
Submitting tips, articles, games, etc to teachingfish.com
is great because you will be able to recieve downloadable,
printable copies of our tips, articles, games, etc compendiums.
Receive free teachingfish.com
compendiums
The teachingfish.com compendiums are printable,
downloadable collections of all of our tips, articles,
games, etc. Once you are eligible to recieve them
you can download them to your own computer and read
them at your convenience. You don't even need to
be connected to the internet to read them! In order
to become eligible to receive the compendiums you
must contribute 2 tips or articles or games, etc.
to teachingfish.com. For example, if you want to
receive the entire collection of teachingfish.com
games you yourself must first submit 2 games to
the site. Once one of our editors looks over your
submission it will be added to the database and
you will be credited for your submission. We keep
track of all of your submissions. After an editor
authorizes your second submission you will be sent
instructions to access the collection. Your instructions
will be sent by e-mail so make sure that the e-mail
address in your member profile is correct and up
to date. Only teachingfish.com members are
allowed to submit content to the site. You do not
need to submit content or be a teachingfish.com
member to browse, view or print the content on our
site.
Submitting content to teachingfish.com
In order to receive our free collections of content
you yourself must submit a little in exchange. The
only thing you need to be careful about is making
sure you fill in all the fields on the content submission
form. We need all that information in order to make
it easy for out members to find your content and
share your ideas! So just make sure you fill in
all the fields and you'll be fine. You do not need
to submit content or be a teachingfish.com member
to browse, view or print the content on our site.
Subscribing, unsubscribing
or changing your subscription to the teachingfish.com
newsletter
The teachingfish.com newsletter has
a great deal to offer. Each week you will receive helpful
teaching tips, job listings, links to helpful articles
on teaching, games and more.
Subscribing
If you wish to subscribe
click here.
Change your subscription
You can change your subscription at any time. For example,
you may wish to change your subscription to the
text version of the newsletter. Or you may wish
to change it to the html version or change your
subscription email address. If you wish to
change your subscription please click here.
Cancel your subscription
If for any reason you wish to cancel your subscription
you may do so at any time. Please click
here to cancel your subscription.
Using the teachingfish online
English grammar
The teachingfish.com online English Grammar is a great
way to find easy to understand definitions and examples
of English grammar. This grammar is designed for
English Second Language teachers and learners with
an emphasis on practical usage. Grammar items are
cross-referenced to games and activities, teaching
tips and articles so everything is simple to find.
Look in the table of contents, browse through the
subject index or use the search tool below and have
the teaching fish catch what you are looking for!
You can also use the "grammar sections"
menu to view helpful grammar overviews and definitions.
Grammar Sections
The grammar sections are overviews of a particular
sort of grammar such as "present tenses"
or "determiners". Each section has a definition
that will help you to understand this particular
area of English grammar. Within each section definition
page you will also find links to specific grammar
items that are contained within that section. Browse
the sections for a birds' eye view of a given type
of English Grammar.
Grammar Pages
Each specific grammar item in the teachingfish.com
database has its own page. On that page you will find
clear definitions, examples and usage instructions.
You can navigate to these pages via several routes:
- The table of contents
- The subject index
- The grammar sections page
Go to the grammar home page
to access these tools.
Finding and using games and activities
When "fishing" for ESL games and activities
it is often a good idea to search by grammar / language
function. In the classroom we teachers often need to
reinforce a particular grammar concept or language function.
For this reason, games and activities are searchable
by language function and grammar concept. Just select
the appropriate grammar concept or language function
and then let the teaching fish do the rest.
Each specific game / activity in the teachingfish.com
database has its own page. On that page you will find
clear instructions, preparation notes, student language
levels, group sizes, materials requirements, etc..
Go to the games and activities
home page to see more.
The teachingfish job finder
The job finder is a free service offered to teachingfish.com
members. In fact, you don't even need to be a member
to see the jobs available through our service. If however,
you want to post a job or your resumé you will
need to be a member. Membership is free though, so you
need not worry.
Go to the job finder home page
to see more.
MyTeachingfish
MyTeachingfish is a personalised section of teachingfish.com
just for you. You can use it to edit and change your
member profile, organisation profile (if you are registered
as an organisation) and access all of your teachingfish
information.
As a regular member you can also access your resumé
through MyTeachingfish in order to update it. It is
here that you can set your resumé so that prospective
employers can "see" it, or you can set it
so that it is not shown.
As an organisation member you can also access your
job postings through MyTeachingfish in order to update
or close them.
Over time, MyTeachingfish will incorporate more and
more features. Planned for the next step is a personal
favorites feature which will allow our members to store
their favorite teaching tips, articles, games, job listings,
etc.
We will also conduct ongoing member polls to determine
which features will be the most useful to the most members.
So stay tuned, teachingfish.com is dedicated to providing
the best possible service to the ESL / EFL community.
Go to the MyTeachingfish
page to see more.
Job listings and resumés
If you wish to submit a job listing to our job finder
or post your resumé you simply go to the jobs
home page and follow the appropriate link. Once a job
listing has been submitted it can be "closed",
or removed from the job finder database by accessing
your organisation's "MyTeachingfish" page.
The link to MyTeachingfish is available at the top of
all pages on the site.
If you wish to edit your resumé, or stop it
from being shown to prospective employers you also go
to your "MyTeachingfish" page. Just click
on the link to edit your resumé and you will
be able to make all the changes you wish.
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Oct 6th 2008
