Interesting or Interested?

I'm just loving Vicki Hollet's videos. Have you checked them out yet? I posted about the difference between American and British English here. 

Here's a great video on the difference between interesting and interested. It's a great example for the difference between adjectives ending in -ing and those ending in -ed. Who hasn't had a student write/say "I am very interesting" or "I am very boring"?? Of course we English teachers understand what they mean, but we definitely want to make sure students don't say "I'm boring" to new friends! How do you teach the difference?

Image via www.jaymug.com

Confession: I didn't know how to explain the difference between adjectives which ended in -ing and those ending in -ed until I went to grad school (Thanks, Dr. Spruiell)! Of course I now know -ing is used for describing other items and -ed describes how people feel. I don't think native English speakers can automatically understand this any better than non-native speakers. What do you think? Was I just behind the curve??

A Few Differences Between American and British English

Vicki Hollett, blogger of Learning to Speak 'Merican, has a great site called Simple English Videos. There are tons of great (and short videos) for learning English. These are wonderful mini-lessons and are a great addition to day's objective(s).

In one video, entitled How to Confuse an American, provides five differences between American and British English. Some of the ways include: zed, saying double plus a letter, and saying the day before the month in a date. I think this would be a great addition to a lesson on the differences between the two dialects students often learn. Many of my students learn British English in their home countries and get surprised by the differences when they arrive in the US.

Additionally, these videos have transcripts, so students can watch on their own and follow along by reading. Have you ever used these videos? What is the best way to incorporate videos in the classroom?

Special Olympics: Before Volunteering

As I mentioned in a previous post, my high-intermediate speaking and listening class volunteered at the Michigan Special Olympics. This was an assigned volunteer opportunity, and it was the first service learning component I have applied to my courses. I realize now that this was a huge undertaking for my first time implementing service learning. Most teachers usually start out with the soup kitchen or animal shelter; however, the Special Olympics were coming to town at the beginning of our summer term, and I couldn't let that learning opportunity pass me (and my students) by.

I will go into more detail about the actual day of volunteering in the second of this three part series; in this part, I would like to focus on what I did to prepare students for this experience. First, I asked students general questions about volunteering and their experience volunteering. Then I asked them if they've ever had experience with people with special needs. I had some questions written out for students to respond to in writing, then they shared them with a partner, and finally with the class (think, pair, share). Here are the questions I asked them, along with a few of their responses:
 
(1) Why do people volunteer?
-I think that it is a very active method to help others, but also can increase your self-confidence, social experience, and benefiting your English.
-To help other people and get experience
-People have the ability to help people in need
 
(2) Who does volunteering benefit?
-everybody can benefit from volunteering
-The volunteer might learn something different from volunteering, and some people can get help to get out of trouble.
-make a good community
 
(3) How could volunteering help international students?
-to offer them a job or to make them get to know the culture
-The volunteering can help international students to learn English, know new culture
-it can help them to practice their language

 

Next, I had the students watch a couple of videos and go to the Special Olympics website for homework. I asked them to watch these three videos:Champions Together, Different, and Unleashing the Human Spirit. Here are a few sample questions they were asked to consider, along with a few responses:
 
(1) What are the Special Olympics?
-Big event in sports for people with special needs
-In my opinion, the reason we organize special game is that we believe the people who is intellectual disabilities also need to be respected, they are a special group of people who need more special care
-health, education, sports
 
(2) Who participates?
-Everyone who is special needs who is over 8 years old
-People with intellectual disabilities, more than 4 million per year
 
(3) Who volunteers?
-Everyone can volunteer
 
(4) What do you think the goal of the Special Olympics is?
-Everyone want to make the people with special needs have happiness in their life because they need anybody to care for them
-Because it does a great job with disability people. "I like help people."They make them feel different.
-Because it benefits for every people in the word. Keep going.
 
As you can see, the students' responses about volunteering and the Special Olympics were thoughtful and reflective. They really took this assignment seriously and wanted to know how they could best help other people. It was also clear that they were interested in improving and practice their language skills in addition to helping others.  

I will post later in the week about the actual event itself and what students' responsibilities were. My final post about the Special Olympics will consider how to help students make the most of their volunteer experience through reflection.



Image via www.napavalleyspecialolympics.com

If you have any experience with ESL and service learning, I would love to hear your experiences and advice. I know many of my colleagues have implemented this into their courses, as well as many other instructors around the state of Michigan and around the US. Please share what you have done and any suggestions you have for making service learning a valuable experience for English Language Learners. 

 

P.S. What did you think about the videos? I'll admit I got a little teary-eyed! How inspiring the athletes are!

Summer Term

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last month. I finished up our Spring Term, and we're in full Summer Term-mode here at the CMU ELI. That means 4 hour classes and starting at 8 am. It also means field trips, great discussions, and getting to know each student very well. While sometimes I don't think I'll ever get the grading done, I'm mostly excited to hear and read my students' ideas about our themes this semester.

Image via Justintarte.com

I am teaching advanced beginning reading and writing and intermediate speaking and listening. Any advice or activity ideas for these skills and language levels? My speaking and listening class volunteered at the Michigan Special Olympics last week (more on that soon, I promise!), and I already have my reading and writing class on their second extensive reading book (we use these, and the students really enjoy them).


Here are a few great links I'd like to share:

Reading-Based Freewriting for English Language Learners --I'm going to try this on Thursday with my class!

This post on culturally appropriate writing is spot on!

Etymological Origins of Insults  is awesome. Which is your favorite? Chump and Schmuck are a couple of mine. Thanks Jeanine!

Flashcards online and on your smart phone is just brilliant. I recommend it for my students, and I use it for my Spanish learning.

Emperor Penguins in Antarctica and Summer in Antarctica-- to go along with Mosaic 1 Listening and Speaking textbook (Chapter 2)

And finally, Nouns and Verbs by School House rock for those beginning classes that always need a little spice!

Language Distance and Immigrants' Trouble Assimilating from The Atlantic

Did you guys see the post from The Atlantic, "Language Distance: The Reason Immigrants Have Trouble Assimilating"? 

Image via The Atlantic

It talks about the difficulty immigrants have assimilating and learning the target language when their native language is very far away from the language they're trying to learn. Think English and Vietnamese. On the other hand, immigrants tend to have an easier time when the languages are more similar. Think Spanish and Italian. Here is a chart showing close and far languages are:

Image via The Atlantic

And it is not only native language that affects ability to assimilate. The author, Olga Khazan, wrote, "How quickly immigrants learn to navigate their host countries plays a big role in how likely they are to thrive in their new homelands." This is pretty intuitive, right? If immigrants immerse themselves in the target language and culture, they will be more likely to thrive. She also wrote that age, literacy, and employment status must also be taken into consideration with ability to assimilate. 

While I don't teach English to community members, I believe it's important for all language teachers to have sensitivity to language learning and assimilation difficulties. Do you have experience with helping students assimilate? What difficulties have you come across?

Secrets for Adults ELLs, Part 2

I recently posted about secrets for adult ELLs, and the difficulty some students can have with immersing themselves in English when they have young families or spouses who don't speak English. I won't go into detail in this post; you can read the original post here. My original post was a reaction post to Alexandra Lowe's TESOL blog post, which discussed "secrets" adult language learners provided for other language learners. 

Image via TESOL.org

Alexandra recently posted a follow-up which provided some clarification about her original post about how students can increase their English exposure and use, even if they can't "run away" from their native languages. She wrote, "the advice was certainly not intended to discourage students from  speaking their L1 at home with their family. Rather, it is designed to encourage adult ESL students in the United States to resolve to speak English whenever they have an opportunity to interact with the English-speaking world around them." Because this is really what we ask our students to do, isn't it? We encourage them to speak English whenever they can because they already have enough exposure to their L1 (native language). They speak it with their spouse, parents, children and/or friends. Teachers should be encouraging them to use English in every other situation when they aren't communicating with loved ones. 

Alexandra elaborated on different ways adult learners can improve their language skills. These include: speaking to English customer-service representatives (rather than those who are Spanish-speaking); declining translators at their children's school meetings; inviting English speaking children (and their parents) over for play dates, which result in English practice for both children and parents; establishing ESL meet-ups for informal conversation practice with people who speak languages other than their L1. You can see her whole post and read all of the suggestions here. 

Image via http://union.unimelb.edu.au/clubs/let-s-talk-conversation-group

The last suggestion (group conversation meet-ups) reminds me of CMU's Conversation Partner Program. We set up students with native English speakers, but I like the idea of groups of students getting together to chat. I think it would be even more effective if the students set up the groups so that learners who have children can discuss with other parents. They could even bring their children if they cannot find babysitters. This option may be more effective and practical for students with families and spouses, especially if their spouses also want to practice speaking English. 

There are, of course, other ways for students to increase their exposure to English. They can join student clubs and volunteer. I think the lesson to take away is that it's essential for students to try to use the target language as much as possible, and it is essential for teachers to help students figure out ways to increase their English language use. Other suggestions for how students can increase their exposure to the target language?

Slash, Part 2.

Do any of you watch Parks and Recreation on NBC? I love it; and in last Thursday's episode Andy (supporting character) uses slash as a conjunction! Check it out witht the link below. It starts at 5:44 and ends about 6:02.

Parks and Recreation: Swing Vote

He's the "lead singer, slash song writer, slash t-shirt designer, slash nacho chef." Love it!