MANY ENGLISHES

No Shortcuts to Competence in Vocabulary

2012-12-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

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Intermediate Level Connectors Chat Board

2012-12-16T18:46:00.000-08:00

As with other board games that I have put up on this blog, I hope that this one will be useful to both teachers and students. I used it recently with an intermediate group of ESL learners in a TOEFL writing preparatory class (they learned how to write independent task essays). Along with vocabulary building activities, the students had the chance to orally practice using connectors (

Weather Idioms and Sayings

2012-11-30T09:54:00.002-08:00

We don't have many bad weather days in Southern California when we can use an expression like "It's raining cats and dogs." There is even disagreement about whether we should teach this outdated expression even though everyone understands it. Nevertheless, as teachers of English to non-native speakers, our students should also be aware of common expressions that contain weather language

Test your Knowledge of Arabic in English

2012-11-25T20:59:00.000-08:00

What I love about teaching English is that it keeps me perpetually interested in learning more about it, especially about its vocabulary. Take the word giraffe. The giraffe is not a native animal of the Middle East, yet the word is of Arabic origin. Alcohol, too, comes from Arabic even though it is a drink today forbidden to faithful Moslems. Before I began teaching English to Arabic speakers,

Test Your Knowledge of Spanish in English

2012-09-05T16:48:00.001-07:00

Here's another crossword puzzle! You can test yourself to see how many Spanish words you know in English. If you're like me, you probably didn't know that all of these words have roots in español. Have fun! NB: Because this online crossword puzzlemaker has a limit of 25 letters and spaces for the clues, the definitions are very short or terse.

What's in a Name? (Hitler and the East Sea)

2012-08-31T07:24:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, there were names - names of people, of things, of feelings, of places.... It seems that my life as an ESL instructor is all about teaching "names" for everything, and even though my students and I seem to agree on the meaning of the names, when the "names" or words get translated, they often take on other meanings. Recently, I've become very focused on vocabulary - which is

Brain-based Strategies for Teaching English

2012-08-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Coming from biological anthropology, you can imagine my excitement at studying psycholinguistics for the second time this past spring. The first time I didn't learn much about how to teach using the concepts because it was a general course on the topic in psychology. I was a graduate student in anthropology, not a teacher. Three decades ago, we simply did not have the amount of information we

"Stairway to Heaven" - Rocking English!

2012-08-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Last year was the 40th anniversary of "Stairway to Heaven." Since I am always on the lookout for musical material for English language learners, I decided to post this for teachers and students. What seems to make this song a classic are the thought-provoking lyrics and the captivating guitar work. Many covers for "Stairway to Heaven" were presented here at NPR (National Public Radio) last

Jeopardy Game with Homographs (words that look the same but have multiple meanings)

2012-08-24T14:41:00.001-07:00

For those teachers and students looking for more activities and ways to learn words with multiple meanings, this is a site which has 25 words in a jeopardy game-like format. Two people can compete against each other, or you can play by yourself, trying to beat your top score. The game gives you two definitions, and you have to type in the one word that fits both meanings. The 1000 point words

Using Voicethread for Writing

2012-08-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

Hi Students/Teachers/English Language Learners: This is an example of a homework exercise using Voicethread. Read, look at the photo, and listen to the description of the speaker's car drive through Los Angeles on Highway 101.Write a response, or record a voice response to the quotation: "Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it." What are your thoughts? Using Voicethread, you can

The Logical Way to Teach English

2012-08-21T21:38:00.001-07:00

I'm not quite sure how I found this article online. Serendipity? It was written by a well-traveled Japanese professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Chuo University, and it's an opinion piece about teaching English using "logic." It is provocative and connects to my past roots in science studies. I have long been fascinated with how science researchers who are non-native

Test Your Knowledge of French in English (c)

2012-08-08T08:39:00.003-07:00

By the end of last year, I had created three online crossword puzzles focusing on French words that are commonly used in English. This is the third crossword puzzle. There may be one or two repeats of words found in the previous crosswords, but you can see if you remember them here. Good luck - and have fun with vocabulary! The first link (a) is to my blogpost so that you understand how to

"K" is for Kind

2012-08-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

How often have you used or heard the word "kind"? Does it always have the same meaning? Trying to find the words that are most useful in everyday English is important. A word like "kind" is deceptively simple. What I mean is that when students see this word, they think, "Yeah, I know that word. I know how to use it and what it means." Actually, if you think it's really easy, then you

"Teacher, teacher!"

2012-08-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

I've been teaching a long time now, but I feel sometimes like I've come full circle with my students calling me "Teacher" instead of by my name (first name as we do with adult students in our informal state of California, or with title, Ms./Mrs. O.). First, I went through a phase of requesting that students call me by my name. Then I read an article in an ESL newsletter suggesting that we

Verb + ing

2012-06-24T22:05:00.003-07:00

Recently I realized that telling students that prepositions are usually followed by nouns or gerunds (= verb+ing) confused them. Why? There are lots of structures in English that have the pattern of verb+ing. What are they? In addition to the gerund, we have the present participle that is used in the progressive tense (e.g., "I am singing a song now.") with the verb "to be." We also use it as

Addendum to "Spellbound by Spellbound"

2012-06-17T22:31:00.002-07:00

It is gratifying to see that many of my readers still come to visit an earlier post called "Spellbound by Spellbound" about the 1999 National Spelling Bee competition. Keeping a blog up to date is a challenge because some links go dead after a few years. Angela Arenivar, for example, changed her blog name, so I recently updated my link to her. Here is another link that tells the reader where

Some Tips on Writing (Blogging) Well

2012-06-17T22:03:00.001-07:00

I haven't written about blogging for a while, but my daughter has sent me a link to a great site for copywriters. I am passing along this link about several common writing mistakes because I am sure that you want to avoid these errors. They are errors that ESL and English instructors everywhere try to avoid making themselves and try to get their students to avoid making. Sometimes my ESL

"P" is for Polyseme

2012-05-16T15:21:00.024-07:00

I've been talking about polysemes in my intermediate classes. Some might say that it is too big of a word for this level, but when I was a low-level student in Spanish, French, and Japanese, I recall being undaunted by big words. The concept was what was important. I want students to know that English has a huge number of words that, on the surface, look very simple, but have multiple meanings.

Quizlet Vocabulary Practice

2012-05-05T14:45:00.008-07:00

Vocabulary students and teachers can practice vocabulary for free using this great application called Quizlet. Open the page and you will be taken to a list of vocabulary words that we have practiced this quarter. These are flash cards which will allow you to hear the pronunciation of the target words as well as definitions. There are also some matching and spelling games that are timed for

Pronunciation Tools

2012-04-25T23:00:00.008-07:00

If you have wondered where you can practice pronunciation and get some sort of feedback without paying for a tutor, there IS a site for you. It's called English Central. It is free to sign up. Then you will have access to lots of materials for practicing individual sounds. In addition, this site has numerous videos with scripts. The nice thing about the site is that you can choose your

What's a good sentence?

2012-04-18T23:12:00.057-07:00

Without a doubt, teaching writing at any level in any language is challenging. A primary reason for the difficulty is that most students want to SPEAK (not "write") English. The students that I've encountered over the years find writing a pain in the.... neck but a necessary pain to get admission into a university program or a high score on a language exam (e.g., iBT TOEFL, IELTS, FCE/CAE/CPE).

English is NOT enough

2012-04-07T08:55:00.008-07:00

Although my profession as an English language instructor is being sustained by millions of people who want to learn English, we native English speakers are becoming the minority. That is, since there isn't a lot of pressure here in the USA to learn a second language, we don't. However, there is lots of evidence from brain-based learning research suggesting that being multilingual is a brain

Language IS Power

2012-03-20T15:41:00.002-07:00

This is an old advertisement for learning a new language, but its message is still very effective. Isn't that why so many people are studying English? From my 12 years of teaching ESL, the reason they study is not from love of foreign languages. That's what makes the teachers' job challenging. Many language learners seem to think that if they just sit in a language class, they can absorb

Read Signs to Build Vocabulary

2012-03-19T11:04:00.011-07:00

There are many ways to continually add to your knowledge of English. Noticing and reading signs wherever you go is an easy way to do it. Not only do you expand your vocabulary, but you also learn something about local culture and values. These are some photos I took while roaming around Dana Point in Southern California. Yes, there were a lot of dog-walkers! Pictures definitely help a

Why is English Cool?

2012-03-10T06:54:00.059-08:00

English is my business. These days it seems like that's all that I think about and do - whether it's putting together a literature review for a graduate class in TESOL or teaching ESL in an IEP (Intensive English Program). I can't remember where I ran across the following reference. I believe it was a link from a Facebook friend. It comes from www.freerepublic.com although it's, in my view,