For those of you that have a good level in English, or are teaching English, this
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Moses Supposes his Toeses are Roses
For those of you that have a good level in English, or are teaching English, this
Monday, November 27, 2006
Throw away your English cassettes
If you want to hear what my Birmingham accent sounds like, I found this interview with one of Birmaingham's most famous sons, Ozzy Osbourne. Yes Brum is the capital of heavy metal, with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin coming from the region. This will be hard work to understand but give it a try. Click on the link:
Ozzy Osbourne interview
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Getting used to the right accent
Even more disturbing is the lack of material for American English. I don't know if it's different in the States, but the only courses that are based on American English I've seen are produced by Oxford University Press! Even if I don't like to admit it, American English is the English that dominates the international community.
The English phonemes that are given in the international Phonetic alphabet seem to based on received pronunciation too. I believe this because of the discussions I've had with American colleagues who pronounce a lot of sounds differently to me and agree that some of their sounds are not represented in the IPA.
Admittedly, Headway Intermediate does have a "guess my accent" exercise, where six people describe their capital city. As a native speaker, though, I can tell you that I couldn't recognise the Australian accent, the Irish speaker speaks so slowly it sounds nothing like the Irish people I know, the Scotsman has an incredibly posh Edinburgh accent that wouldn't be understood in Glasgow, and the Londoner has a RP accent that makes him sound more like Tony Blair than a "real" Londoner. I know that Cockney isn't the only London accent, but it would be worth using it in listening materials.
There is a good book for American English called "Great Ideas". Unfortunately it is 25 years old and sounds and looks a little dated. I use the cassette on its own just for listening practice.
Ask your students where they will be using their English skills and you will get a variety of answers. Among the people I'm currently working with, I hear the need to communicate in English with Arabs from the middle east, to attend meetings with Italian colleagues, to negotiate contract with Russians, in fact, just about every nationality except native British or Americans!
Have a look on the net for interviews in MP3 format that you can burn to CD and play to your students. If you can think of a famous person with an accent that your students will need to understand, you should be able to find something to download.
I'll do some research myself and post any useful links to the blog.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Things we should teach our students but don't
On a more serious note, I've never seen the expression, "I could do with..." in a coursebook. Try translating that word for word into your students' language!
Regional variations can also cause problems: The English use the word "uncanny" to describe something unexplainable, "an uncanny knack" or "an uncanny resemblance". But in Scotland and the North East, the opposite "canny" means "good", "pretty", "nice" or just about anything positive.
I have at times caught myself explaining things that really shouldn't be explained, like why we say "once", "twice" but "three times". I've wasted time telling them that in the past people used to say "thrice". Worse still, how about killing a few seconds by telling them that O'clock means "of the clock" or that "you" is a formal address, like "vous" in French and that the intimate form, like "tu" was "thou". Now that's something they are going to use everyday! Maybe this pretentious nonsense comes from being fed up with correcting "I live in Marseille since ten years".
Going back to "ay up me duck" (my Brummy equivalent is "alright our kid?"), "me" is in fact "my". Students really ought to be able to understand crucial survival phrases like, "where's me tea?"
"Tea" is another good example. Only the rich had time on their hands for "teatime", whilst for most working class families "tea" means "evening meal" or "dinner". When I was at school, the women who served the food at lunch time were called "dinner ladies". I bet there isn't a region in Britain that calls them "lunch ladies"!
any more suggestions?
Sunday, November 19, 2006
We're teaching, but are you learning?
Personally, I don't really like being treated like a walking dictionary. What job satisfaction do I get from telling people how to say a word in English? If my learners already had a reasonable vocabulary, I could then help them to get their structure right. My own language learning experience backs this up, although we all learn differently. I hated going to class, and hated even more doing grammar exercises from the book I had bought. But I liked watching TV, and I liked reading my daughter's books, and I liked chatting to people I met. And you know what? The biggest compliment I know is when people say to me: "if I could speak English as well you speak French, I would be really happy". I must be doing something right, then...
Friday, November 17, 2006
teaching "real" English
By doing this, your students are going to have a big shock if eventually they get to try out their English in real-world situations, that is, outside the classroom. For English speakers who are not EFL professionals are not so considerate toward non-native speakers. They will continue at their normal pace and expect everyone to keep up. So if your students are used to y o u ...s p e a k i n g ...s l o w l y... a n d ... d e l i b e r a t e l y ... l i k e ... t h i s...they won’t have a cat-in-hell’s chance of understanding the New York taxi driver or the Scottish barman they meet on their travels.
So is it better to babble on in your normal voice? I thought about this when a student of mine had a fairly typical grammar problem with the “to” infinitive. She would regularly say, “*I want go”, forgetting the particle. I decided that since corrections didn’t seem to work, I would show her what it sounds in “real” English: “I wanna go”. In the real world, native speakers don’t pay any attention to the fact that the little word “to” belongs to the following verb, and routinely attach it to “want” so it becomes “wanna”. If you taught your students “wanna” first, they would simply add the verb they want and forget about the grammar rules. The advantage of this is that they will at the same time be practising spoken English the way natives use it.
I have the advantage as a language teacher to have two small children who are learning my language, English, and their mother’s, French. It is nothing short of miraculous that my daughter can understand, at the age of three, when I say “what are you going to do?”; because what actually comes out of my mouth is more like “watcha gonna do?” Only when she learns to read will she realise that there are actually six words in the question and not three. But that’s of little importance to her while she’s mastering the spoken word, and it should be the same for your students.
Only rarely do adults say that they need writing skills more than speaking, and yet we still put too much emphasis on the written word. It’s time for language teachers to teach English in a way that is best going to serve their students in life, and not treat language as a purely academic exercise.
The All-Blacks are in France
Yes, they are the only team to wear black and so never have to wear away colours, but that's not where the name comes from. Apparently, when they first visited England in the nineteen thirties, everybody thought that this bunch of sheep farmers were going to get slaughtered by the UK teams. To everyone's surprise, they inflicted a humiliating defeat on the English(serves 'em right!).
A journalist for one of the major British newspapers wrote about the match with the headline, "All Backs", meaning that the whole team were "backs", the position that requires all the skills needed in Rugby. Of course, when the article went to be typeset, the person responsible concluded that it must have been an error and inserted an "l" to make it "All-Blacks". And thus the legend was born.
I have no idea if this story is true or not, but a little research on the net should yield either a confirmation or a denial, but whatever the case, it's interesting to see how new words and phrases can develop unintentionally, sometimes just because of a simple typing mistake.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
What's your learner style?
visual
Images are really important to the visual learner. These learners have trouble paying attention to someone talking - they would rather see a picture or a diagram. If this is you, invest in some coloured pens for note taking and devise a system that works for you. Perhaps negatives in red, questions in blue etc. Mind maps are the ideal way for you to record information. Have a look at my mind map pages to see some examples.
auditory
Of course, your ears are the most important asset in language learning, and so everyone needs to cultivate their auditory learning capacities. If you prefer listening to reading, love music and are generally sensitive to the sounds around you, then you are an auditory learner. Get as much listening material as you can, radio, films, CD's etc. The internet is a good source of listening - just look for Radio stations in the language you are learning.
Kinesthetic
Are you a "touchy-feely" person? Do you like to touch people when you are talking to them? Do you fiddle with objects while talking or thinking, eg, pens, paper, twisting paper clips etc? Then you are probably a kinesthetic learner. Your world is more tactile than others, you like doing things more than talking about them. You would be advised to have some flashcards that you can handle while revising vocabulary, and playing board games in your target language would be useful.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Using the internet
When learning vocabulary and expressions, though, a single dictionary definition can be a bit limited. Here's what I do when I want to fully understand a word or phrase that I've come across, but am little uncertain as to its use:
Simple type the word or phrase into google in speech marks (guillemets ""). Google will pull up not only dictionary definitions but examples of the word or phrase in various contexts - something that is essential in language acqisition. Have a look a five or more of these references and you will have a good idea of how a native speaker uses it.
Try it out: do a search for "brown nosing"; "takes the biscuit" "parrot-fashion" and see what results you get!
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
English people learning French
It's quite entertaining to watch these people humiliate themselves for the television, while not making any real progress in French. Their attitude is typically English: this is hard, I don't want to do it, why can't everybody just speak English, my teachers are going about it the wrong way, etc.
The football manager was starting as a complete beginner and found it really hard to get to grips with his pronunciation and remembering new vocabulary. In the programme, however, his teacher was quite hard on him for not putting together complete sentences. She keeps telling him to use verbs! On this point, I'm afraid I have to take sides with Big Ron, the football manager. In one scene he attends a local football match to help the team with their tactics. Using the limited vocabulary he has, he succeeds in getting his ideas across, the team adopts his tactics and score a goal.
Big Ron has achieved the ultimate goal in language learning - communicating ideas. He didn't use any verbs, and he didn't make a coherent sentence, but he succeeded nevertheless. As 90% of communication is non-verbal - facial expressions, gestures, body language, intonation - producing a well-formed sentence is of little importance, while a good vocabulary is essential.
Monday, November 13, 2006
The English Only Rule in the Classroom
This is something that has caused me a lot of concern, too. English-only is the ideal, to be sure, but is it really possible? More importantly, is it really beneficial for the students? If your intention is to use a communicative approach in your lessons, how long will you be able to keep up the English-only rule when you have a group of beginners or low elementaries in front of you? I'm afraid that in a lot of classes the English-only rule is only maintained by avoiding real communication and replacing it with grammar exercises or other activities that involve giving the students handouts and telling them to read the instructions. It's a very brave teacher indeed who can go empty-handed into an elementary lesson and try to facilitate learning in a natural, communicative way.
Personally, I believe that translations are necessary and useful for adult learners. while child-like learning has many advantages, there is no risk of first language(L1) interference, it's drawbacks are also numerous:
It's very slow: a lot of time can be spent defining a new word, when a one-word translation would have been sufficient
It could insult your learner's intelligence: I have often drawn pictures, gesticulated wildy, played all kinds of games in order to avoid translating, only to be asked, "so what is it in French?" If the students know you can speak their language, it's hard to pretend that you don't.
If you have a class for an hour and half once a week, it's unrealistic to expect to do everything in English, students need quick, clear explanations before moving on. On the contrary, if you are teaching in an English-speaking country, not only will you have international classes where translation is impossible, but also your learners have the opportunity to put into practice every day new language they acquire, thus accelerating the assimilation process. In no way is it necessary to use L1 in those circumstances.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Onestop English.com
If you are a teacher or a learner of English I strongly advise you NOT to pay for anything on the net. The net is all about sharing information - freely. Some of the worksheets on onestop were quite good, but some of them absolutely appalling. Why on Earth would I want to pay for a worksheet that asks students to write in the spaces the past simple of half a dozen irregular verbs. Is that teaching? Why not tell your students to invest in a half-decent dictionary or grammar book, so that you can concentrate on helping them to learn something. I did actually spend money on a site called handoutsonline.com and was hugely disappointed with the shabby worksheets produced by lovers of Microsoft clip art.
The best feature on onestop English was probably the Guardian Weekly reading lessons. Here again, the net is chock-full of articles that you can use in class. It doesn't take a genius to prepare a reading article like the ones found on onestopenglish.com. You simply choose a few words from your chosen text that you think your students might not be familiar with, write a definition for each one and instruct your learners to match them up. Then ask a few comprehension questions and finish off with a discussion about the rights and wrongs of this particular subjet.
The communication technology available nowadays means that virtually all artificial language teaching resources are obsolete. We now have the marvelous opportunity to use materials that come from the real world and might actually be of interest to our students, unlike the total crap found in bestsellers like "Headway".
More thoughts on teaching the present progressive
Would you call it the gerund? No, because the gerund is the noun derived from a verb, not a verb itself. Here we have a completely different discussion, and another lesson to prepare. You probably do a free time/interests lesson where you ask the question “what do you like doing?”. Your students have the opportunity to practise real gerunds, as in sentences like, “I like playing football, going skiing, painting, reading, shopping...”
You, of course, as a serious ESL professional, know that in a sentence like “I am having a shower”, the “-ing” verb is actually the present participle. How sure are you about that?
participles or adjectives?
If I say, “I am tired”, I know that “am” is the verb and that “tired” is obviously an adjective, given that “to be” is a verb of state, and an adjective is used to add detail to a noun, in this case a pronoun, “I”. But tired is also the past participle of the verb “to tire”. Just as past participles can be used as adjectives, so can present participles: The match was tiring, this film is boring” etc. Expressions like “running water” or “travelling salesman” contain “-ing” adjectives.
When saying “I am” we are invariably talking about a present state, so what’s the difference between “I am tired”, and “I am working”? To say “I am working” also indicates my present state, even if technically speaking “working” is the present participle, not an adjective. Interestingly, in French there is no present progressive tense, they use an adjectival phrase which translates, “I am in the process of to work”. A fine line indeed between adjectives and participles!
All these thoughts have led me to believe that they should not discussed with your students, being indeed pointless grammatical debate that will not help them one little bit to communicate more effectively. Instead of trying to have your students build sentences from pre-defined parts, i.e. aux + verb+ing = present progressive = something happening now why not make a mind map of all the possible things we could say starting with “I am”. After all, “I am English” is a present, just like “I am working”. You could brainstorm emotions, physical condition, nationalities, age, jobs, and what is happening now. This way, rather than focussing on meaningless grammatical structure, you are giving your students functional language that they can use outside the classroom.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
teaching using cartoon storyboards
My favourite story is "the choking doberman". It is a very popular urban legend that you can find all over the net. I draw the scenes of the girl finding her dog choking up till the burglar being arrested, with his hand bleeding. It's fun seeing whether the students can guess what happened to the burglar.
You can tell your students to use only present tenses, which are good for storytelling, or in the past as a grammar review. You will find at the end that they will probably need to use difficult grammar like the past perfect, "in the end, the vet realised that the dog had bitten two of the burglar's fingers off"
Look for other urban legends on the net for story ideas.
teaching present tenses
Perhaps you begin with a miming game: “can you guess what I am doing?” After miming the action, you elicit the form, “I am drinking a cup of tea”. This type of activity is generally a very good way to present this new tense.
My problem, however, is the “modelling” part of the lesson. As we were taught in our ESL training, a good lesson should be structured according using the formula “elicit, model and drill”. I can’t help feeling that as I was never taught that the present progressive is formed using the auxiliary, be, with verb plus –ing ending when I was a child, then there’s really no point in teaching it to adult learners of English.
Once you have started trying to explain structure, you will find yourself getting deeper and deeper into meaningless discussions about grammar. Most of your learners will already have some knowledge of English grammar, not all of it correct, from their school years. As their teachers were probably non-native English speakers, the information given was probably at best incomplete, if not totally misleading. Perhaps the word “gerund” may enter the discussion. As an English teaching professional, do you really know what a gerund is? What is the best way of explaining it to your students? If your lesson is on the present progressive tense, then you have let yourself get way off track, for the –ing verb is not a gerund, it’s the present participle.
As I’ve already said, when I was three years old and getting to grips with my mother tongue, English, I had no idea what a gerund or a present participle was. I just used them. So teachers, give your students a healthy amount of active communication, and keep the grammar as a necessary, but not overwhelming, sideline to your lessons.