tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701907652546808992026-10-14T06:39:17.089-07:00Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger251125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-34246996692423690322019-02-01T15:59:00.000-08:002019-02-01T23:22:27.184-08:00

Now you may be looking at this photo and wondering what kind of real estate this is. Well, it's a hangout for monkeys (this is at the San Diego Zoo in San Diego, CA). Zoo architects put up structures that have the basic elements of a house even though these monkeys have probably never been in a human house. What do you see? A roof, different floors, a wooden frame with no windows, a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-30455515513543422262019-01-07T11:20:00.002-08:002019-02-01T23:17:00.742-08:00

Recently, I viewed a very funny video about the many meanings of 'shit.' Although I have taught such common four letter words in the past, I wondered how my colleagues and friends (native English speakers and non-native English speakers) would respond to a query about teaching 'shit' to my intermediate-level adult students at a community college. Out of 10 people who responded via FB or email,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-56520310372293043672018-10-05T09:43:00.000-07:002018-10-09T22:32:42.602-07:00

Have you ever thought that your use of pronouns might reflect your level of self-esteem and whether you belong or fit in a group?  Here is a link to a review of James Pennebaker's "The Secret Life of Pronouns." It came from brainpickings.org, which is a site you might want to subscribe to. (I think the name of the site captures the essence of it.) I often start my ESOL classes with a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-26867508201221937952018-07-13T15:23:00.001-07:002018-07-13T15:42:12.968-07:00

Teachers also need to get into a growth mindset. That is, we need to focus on our own growth and learning. Sometimes, we are made aware of other strategies for teaching students which are more 'fun' and incorporate more technology. I have done this with my college ESOL students. I get 'stretched' technologically and learn to teach a different skill (beyond English!). However, after trying out

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-77351805492900459192018-02-11T23:20:00.003-08:002018-05-01T21:34:36.776-07:00

Since 2015, I've been starting my Advanced ESOL Reading and Writing class with some readings about mindset and a TED video by Carol Dweck.  Why?  I have been frustrated with students who arrive in my class from their previous classes believing that they are "A" students, so everything that they do should have an "A" grade attached to it. First, where does this fixation on grades come

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-10182671283099286982015-09-11T16:37:00.002-07:002016-05-14T22:42:11.981-07:00

Now that I am in the midst of a new semester, I am doing some reflection on how the advanced level reading and writing course went in the spring. In particular, this reflection is tied to the Reading Circle experiment (see earlier posts 1 , 2). I plan to continue using the reading or literature circles based on several positive reflections from student portfolios last semester. Here are a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-25073478374697303702015-08-21T13:48:00.002-07:002016-05-11T16:54:59.682-07:00

It has been many months since I took the time to write a think-piece here. One of my 2015 New Year's resolutions was to save my blog. However, instead, I worked on activating my Picturing English and my Mbote from San Diego (travel and wildlife observations) blogs. I also began a new career path, working in a community college. A while ago, I ran across this article about Words to Eliminate from

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-2955834609691115002015-08-13T17:39:00.002-07:002015-08-18T10:20:09.291-07:00

By the way, don't forget to check out some Picturing English.    "G" is for get, and "H" is for head. 

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-45454661679649276952015-08-12T17:53:00.000-07:002016-05-14T22:44:39.064-07:00

I have been meaning for some time to make these graphic organizers available to all here at Many Englishes. I have several versions of these two on connectors, but these are the most recent ones that I have distributed to my classes. One organizer focuses on coordinating conjunctions and transitions or conjunctive adverbs. I usually teach the usage of the FANBOYS and transition words

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-18775110530210600282015-08-11T13:57:00.000-07:002016-05-14T22:43:53.876-07:00

In the spring semester, I was pleasantly surprised to find out from my strongest students that what they enjoyed most in the first few weeks of our advanced ESOL reading and writing class was learning how to use connectors or conjunctions.  Even though this grammatical structure came at the end of their textbook, I introduced it at the beginning of our course. Because connectors are the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-19660513998802372802015-01-23T20:53:00.002-08:002018-04-09T08:28:06.698-07:00

This activity uses role-playing cards (Big Town English card sets ) to get students to use certain grammatical structures (yes/no and wh- question forms + short answers) and a pronunciation rubric that focuses on clarity, accuracy, intonation, and fluency when speaking during a role play. The activity worked well for a low-intermediate class, but could also be adapted for higher level

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-65492274369424558052015-01-23T13:43:00.003-08:002015-01-23T13:43:35.073-08:00

Because of previous success at Reading Circles, I am going to institute them this semester in my ESOL Reading and Writing class (which also includes a fair amount of grammar instruction). I will report back here in the summer about the experience. In the past, in a small IEP (Intensive English Language Program), I was very pleased with the results of this activity. It is nothing revolutionary

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-47742798708246985242014-11-28T12:45:00.002-08:002014-12-19T14:45:37.021-08:00

As an English teacher - and one who teaches to non-native speakers of English, I am often struck by words that are seemingly "invented" by speakers every year.  I often wonder whether these words sometimes crop up as slips of the tongue. For example, years ago, I remember meeting and talking with a very distinguished French professor in social science (Professor Bruno Latour) while he was at

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-46743204202866985382014-09-21T00:11:00.002-07:002016-05-14T22:46:42.644-07:00

Sometimes students have great difficulty understanding the importance of intonation when speaking. When a question has an "or" in the middle of it between two nouns, is the speaker asking you to choose between the two nouns, or is the speaker simply asking a yes/no question? By changing the intonation of these two questions, a native speaker can differentiate between these two types of

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-53600418208821457662014-08-16T12:41:00.002-07:002014-08-16T12:52:20.567-07:00

The word "matters" has a double meaning here. (However, matter actually has more than two meanings or uses.) One meaning in this post is that spelling is important (i.e., matters is used as a verb to mean it has significance or importance).  The other refers to the topic of this essay, Spelling Matters (i.e., issues, problems or difficulties). Convincing

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-77148021486018943142014-07-25T16:24:00.003-07:002016-05-14T22:48:21.295-07:00

The big news for educators this year has been that the College Board is redoing its Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) by eliminating the writing requirement in 2016. Is this a good thing? Will this de-emphasis on writing have an effect on ETS's Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)? More than a decade ago, ETS (Educational Testing Service), which also makes the SAT, decided to create an

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-89772321195042707442014-07-04T16:09:00.001-07:002015-01-23T19:44:06.483-08:00

Recently I taught a course in high intermediate grammar. One of the SLOs (student learning objectives) was "Students will be able to ... produce in writing and speaking... [certain structures, such as present perfect with question formation and basic subject-verb agreement]." It is relatively straightforward to assess for grammatical structures in a writing assignment, but how does one

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-71895151073378243582014-06-09T08:14:00.004-07:002014-06-09T08:20:42.425-07:00

There's a new post at my sister blog Picturing English which has a link to a great video. It has been linked multiple times, but apparently is a creation of RadioLabs. You can also find this same video and a worksheet here at EFL Classroom 2.0 .  In the version at EFL Classroom 2.0, the owner of the site modified the original video slightly to eliminate what he considered images

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-2203652346973063582014-06-02T07:23:00.001-07:002016-05-14T22:46:05.749-07:00

As an ESL (English as a second language) instructor, I often tell my students to avoid using translating dictionaries and to try understanding new English words by learning synonyms, paying attention to context, and by listening to or reading lots of examples from native speakers. The Huffington Post recently came out with a list of Spanish words for which there may be no single comparable

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-36398033900710140072014-06-01T17:31:00.001-07:002014-06-02T08:15:47.353-07:00

When teaching intermediate-level students how to become better listeners, we often advise them to listen for differences in intonation or word choice that might signal meanings that are different from the dictionary definition of the words themselves. Learning to make inferences or to infer meaning from the way people express themselves in a foreign language can be daunting. Some

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-26861057518642785722014-05-26T11:12:00.000-07:002014-05-26T11:19:26.343-07:00

Last year, UCSD psychology professor Christopher Bryan reported a fascinating finding about word forms and behavior. In an experiment exploring adults' responses to the verb use of "cheat" and the noun form of cheat referring to the person who cheats or "cheater," Dr. Bryan found that when people were directed "not to cheat" or advised "please don't cheat," they were more likely to cheat than if

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-89449839248694255772014-05-25T11:18:00.000-07:002014-06-06T17:10:13.891-07:00

As part of my series of posts about WMMs (words with multiple meanings), I am now adding to my sister blog, Picturing English. There, whenever possible, I will provide photos, drawings, or clipart to illustrate the multiple meanings of a word. This provides a language learner with another way to acquire vocabulary so that it sticks to her/his long-term memory. In the classroom, I often act

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-32198466360708313882014-05-18T13:27:00.000-07:002014-05-18T13:27:10.134-07:00

Back in the 20th century before laptops, smart phones, and the Internet dominated student lives, I took my first course in anthropology. Since that time, I have been fascinated by the concept of cultural relativism and Benjamin Lee Whorf's linguistic relativism (or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), which views language as a cultural construct that shapes our thoughts and the way in which we view the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-44295811170979920192014-05-16T14:54:00.001-07:002016-05-14T22:49:06.666-07:00

Recently Wall Street Journal (WJ) published an interesting analysis by Redfin and Grammarly on the effects of spelling and grammatical errors on real estate listings. Apparently, "typos and missing commas can slow sales and drag down prices" (WSJ, M12, Friday May 9, 2014). One of the VPs (vice presidents) at Redfin infers that potential buyers view a realtor who is attentive to the details

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-770190765254680899.post-65208125260826928522014-05-14T15:16:00.002-07:002014-05-18T13:28:43.436-07:00

To teach students the concept of parody along with count and noncount nouns, students first listened to a young Michael Jackson singing and dancing to "Beat It " (1982) Then they watched Weird Al Yankovic in a video parody called "Eat It" (1984).  Students examined the lyrics (or words) to Weird Al's song, examining nouns for countability. It was difficult at times to

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0