How To Write an Essay

How To Write an Essay

There are many ways to write an essay. However, the standard essay form follows the same basic patterns as discussed in this 'how to'.

Here's How:

1. Select the topic of your essay.
2. Choose the central idea, or thesis, of your essay. For example: Information technology has revolutionized the way we work.
3. Outline your essay into introductory, body and summary paragraphs.
4. The introductory paragraph begins with an interesting sentence. For example: Home workers have grown from 150,000 to over 12 million in the past 5 years thanks to the wonders of the computer.
5. After this first sentence, add your thesis statement from above.
6. Use one sentence to introduce every body paragraph to follow. For example: The Internet has made this possible by extending the office into the home.
7. Finish the introductory paragraph with a short summary or goal statement. For example: Technological innovation has thus made the traditional workplace obsolete.
8. In each of the body paragraphs (usually two or three) the ideas first presented in the introductory paragraph are developed.
9. Develop your body paragraphs by giving detailed information and examples. For example: When the Internet was first introduced it was used primarily by scientists, now it is common in every classroom.
10. Body paragraphs should develop the central idea and finish with a summary of that idea. There should be at least two examples or facts in each body paragraph to support the central idea.
11. The summary paragraph summarizes your essay and is often a reverse of the introductory paragrah.
12. Begin the summary paragrah by quickly restating the principal ideas of your body paragraphs. For example: The Internet in the home, benefits and ease of use of modern computer systems...
13. The penultimate sentence should restate your basic thesis of the essay. For example: We have now passed from the industrial revolution to the information revolution.
14. Your final statement can be a future prediction based on what you have shown in the essay. For example: The next step: The complete disappearance of the workplace.

Tips:

• Use strong verbs and avoid modals to state your opinion. It is better to write: The workplace has evolved than The workplace seems to have evolved
• Do not apologize for what you are saying. An essay is about your opinion.
• Do not translate from your mother tongue. It will quickly get you into trouble!

What You Need:

• Computer or Typewriter
• Dictionary
• Thesaurus

Using English Games With ESL and EFL Language Learners

Using English Games With ESL and EFL Language Learners

An EFL learner is someone who is learning English but does not live in an English speaking country while an ESL learner does live in an English speaking country. Both types of English language learner have a lot in common, and benefit from the use of games in the classroom, but sensitivity to the different circumstances and goals of each group should be used in selecting and presenting the games.

EFL Learners

EFL learners will generally have similar backgrounds, but varied motivations. They are usually stable as regards to income, residence, and schedules. They are also usually literate in their first language. They may be learning English as a foreign language for a hobby or for their work. Aside from those studying for academic requirements, there is less emphasis on writing and literacy in English, and more on verbal communication. Academic EFL students will often want to focus on tests and test practice. When selecting games for EFL classes select according to students' interests.

For EFL learners who will be taking exams check if the test has a speaking component and if it does games can be very helpful in preparing for this. If speaking is not tested in the exam focus on English games that will support listening, skimming, reading, and writing skills. These students genuinely enjoy language games that are both relevant and still a break from the drudgery of exam prep. Quiz games and trivia games based on English vocabulary and grammar rules are excellent ways to work on exam topics while injecting some fun into the class.

Occasionally both EFL and ESL learners may pin you down for specifics of how a game is supposed to help them prepare for a test, so it is a good idea to have a prepared answer detailing exactly what the game is re-enforcing. This has actually happened on more than one occasion with European University students.

A particular German student was quite offended at the idea of playing games during class time, until she was shown the list of questions to be covered, and informed that many of them were taken directly from the same test practice books she would have used on her own. This EFL student became very enthusiastic about the weekly quiz competitions, and passed her Cambridge exams with flying colours.

For those who study English as a hobby, or conversational English, almost any speaking or listening game will be of interest. Rhythmic chants, songs, and rhyming games are a lot of fun with these students. You can also work in some reading and writing painlessly, by playing build-a-sentence or build-a-story games and then having them actually write up the sentence or story they have just composed.

163 games and activities are included in the English Language Games Digital Book for adults.

Business students will appreciate games as a relief from the grind of daily work, but you will have greatest success if you connect them to the goals of the course and business situations in which the students hope to use their English. Role-plays and skits can be especially helpful with advanced business students, as they often bring out aspects of cross cultural communication that are taken for granted and not mentioned in books.

A Japanese student taking part in a mock board meeting once stopped the game in the middle because he couldn’t believe that it was accurately portraying how the meeting would be run. The dynamics of business meetings in the U.S. and Japan were so different that this student simply couldn’t believe it. A colleague who had been stationed at an American branch of the company was able to assure him that the role-play was, in fact, true to a U.S. style of business meeting. Later, this role-play turned out to be one of the most highly rated parts of the training seminar.

ESL Learners

ESL classes are marked by the diversity of cultures and backgrounds of the students. The economic resources of ESL learners are often, but not always, quite low. Schedules may be problematic due to appointments with immigration, and family responsibilities and long work hours. ESL students may have come from highly traumatic situations such as fleeing from war, poverty or persecution. Families may not be complete. Recent deaths may make certain topics difficult, or it may simply be that some members of the family were forced to stay behind due to financial limitations. Work hours may be long and hard. Students will often arrive at class exhausted, especially if it is a night class.

When selecting games for ESL classes, one must take a much wider look at how the students came to be there, and what English they need to survive · When ESL students come from traumatic situations and directly into your class, games can relieve stress, and allow them to laugh and have fun at a time when there may not be a lot to laugh about.

Be sensitive to your students’ experiences – Don’t play family games with refugees from a war zone, for example. You will probably have more than one dissolve into tears or ask to leave the room. That may seem like an extreme example, but it actually happened to a teacher with a class that turned out to be mainly comprised of Bosnian refugees.

Even without a war, students with refugee status, or those who have had to struggle to reach a new country, will often have suffered many hardships. For these students, board games that help with vocabulary and grammar are great ways to start out, since they don’t require players to touch on emotionally charged issues, and they cover basics that these ESL learners need to focus on.

Be aware of the variety of cultures in your class and how comfortable they are with each other. You might well have members from each side of a conflict in your class. Games can break the ice, relieve tension, and provide a structured venue for interaction between students from cultures that don’t traditionally get along. For example, Korean and Chinese students often view Japanese students with hostility. Arab Christians and Muslims can create tension in a class, as can Pakistani and Indian students. These are groups that have long standing histories of conflict.

Stick to games like “Find someone who…,” board games, and team games like charades and Pictionary at first. These games have clear boundaries and objectives that keep hostility to a minimum while maximizing student interactions. Games with more improvisation, like role-plays, debates, and ‘murder mysteries’ are riskier, so wait until you know your students well before you try one of these.

Language games are a great way to show recently arrived ESL learners that certain activities, like mixing genders in the same class, are acceptable in their new country, where it might not have been in their old.

Ultimately, both ESL and EFL students want to learn English, and using games will help them to achieve these goals with more fun, laughter, and ease than any workbook or lecture ever could. All it takes is a little forethought, a wide variety of games to choose from, and sensitivity to the needs and experiences of the students. 

Using English Games With ESL and EFL Language Learners

Using English Games With ESL and EFL Language Learners

An EFL learner is someone who is learning English but does not live in an English speaking country while an ESL learner does live in an English speaking country. Both types of English language learner have a lot in common, and benefit from the use of games in the classroom, but sensitivity to the different circumstances and goals of each group should be used in selecting and presenting the games.

EFL Learners

EFL learners will generally have similar backgrounds, but varied motivations. They are usually stable as regards to income, residence, and schedules. They are also usually literate in their first language. They may be learning English as a foreign language for a hobby or for their work. Aside from those studying for academic requirements, there is less emphasis on writing and literacy in English, and more on verbal communication. Academic EFL students will often want to focus on tests and test practice. When selecting games for EFL classes select according to students' interests.

For EFL learners who will be taking exams check if the test has a speaking component and if it does games can be very helpful in preparing for this. If speaking is not tested in the exam focus on English games that will support listening, skimming, reading, and writing skills. These students genuinely enjoy language games that are both relevant and still a break from the drudgery of exam prep. Quiz games and trivia games based on English vocabulary and grammar rules are excellent ways to work on exam topics while injecting some fun into the class.

Occasionally both EFL and ESL learners may pin you down for specifics of how a game is supposed to help them prepare for a test, so it is a good idea to have a prepared answer detailing exactly what the game is re-enforcing. This has actually happened on more than one occasion with European University students.

A particular German student was quite offended at the idea of playing games during class time, until she was shown the list of questions to be covered, and informed that many of them were taken directly from the same test practice books she would have used on her own. This EFL student became very enthusiastic about the weekly quiz competitions, and passed her Cambridge exams with flying colours.

For those who study English as a hobby, or conversational English, almost any speaking or listening game will be of interest. Rhythmic chants, songs, and rhyming games are a lot of fun with these students. You can also work in some reading and writing painlessly, by playing build-a-sentence or build-a-story games and then having them actually write up the sentence or story they have just composed.

163 games and activities are included in the English Language Games Digital Book for adults.

Business students will appreciate games as a relief from the grind of daily work, but you will have greatest success if you connect them to the goals of the course and business situations in which the students hope to use their English. Role-plays and skits can be especially helpful with advanced business students, as they often bring out aspects of cross cultural communication that are taken for granted and not mentioned in books.

A Japanese student taking part in a mock board meeting once stopped the game in the middle because he couldn’t believe that it was accurately portraying how the meeting would be run. The dynamics of business meetings in the U.S. and Japan were so different that this student simply couldn’t believe it. A colleague who had been stationed at an American branch of the company was able to assure him that the role-play was, in fact, true to a U.S. style of business meeting. Later, this role-play turned out to be one of the most highly rated parts of the training seminar.

ESL Learners

ESL classes are marked by the diversity of cultures and backgrounds of the students. The economic resources of ESL learners are often, but not always, quite low. Schedules may be problematic due to appointments with immigration, and family responsibilities and long work hours. ESL students may have come from highly traumatic situations such as fleeing from war, poverty or persecution. Families may not be complete. Recent deaths may make certain topics difficult, or it may simply be that some members of the family were forced to stay behind due to financial limitations. Work hours may be long and hard. Students will often arrive at class exhausted, especially if it is a night class.

When selecting games for ESL classes, one must take a much wider look at how the students came to be there, and what English they need to survive · When ESL students come from traumatic situations and directly into your class, games can relieve stress, and allow them to laugh and have fun at a time when there may not be a lot to laugh about.

Be sensitive to your students’ experiences – Don’t play family games with refugees from a war zone, for example. You will probably have more than one dissolve into tears or ask to leave the room. That may seem like an extreme example, but it actually happened to a teacher with a class that turned out to be mainly comprised of Bosnian refugees.

Even without a war, students with refugee status, or those who have had to struggle to reach a new country, will often have suffered many hardships. For these students, board games that help with vocabulary and grammar are great ways to start out, since they don’t require players to touch on emotionally charged issues, and they cover basics that these ESL learners need to focus on.

Be aware of the variety of cultures in your class and how comfortable they are with each other. You might well have members from each side of a conflict in your class. Games can break the ice, relieve tension, and provide a structured venue for interaction between students from cultures that don’t traditionally get along. For example, Korean and Chinese students often view Japanese students with hostility. Arab Christians and Muslims can create tension in a class, as can Pakistani and Indian students. These are groups that have long standing histories of conflict.

Stick to games like “Find someone who…,” board games, and team games like charades and Pictionary at first. These games have clear boundaries and objectives that keep hostility to a minimum while maximizing student interactions. Games with more improvisation, like role-plays, debates, and ‘murder mysteries’ are riskier, so wait until you know your students well before you try one of these.

Language games are a great way to show recently arrived ESL learners that certain activities, like mixing genders in the same class, are acceptable in their new country, where it might not have been in their old.

Ultimately, both ESL and EFL students want to learn English, and using games will help them to achieve these goals with more fun, laughter, and ease than any workbook or lecture ever could. All it takes is a little forethought, a wide variety of games to choose from, and sensitivity to the needs and experiences of the students. 

Teaching ESL Preschool

Teaching ESL Preschool

A lot more difficult than I had planned...

As a mother of three I know the importance of story-telling from a very young age. Children are eager to listen and to participate in the stories, they have such imagination! It's no surprise that I would use stories in my preschool classes, but teaching English as a Second Language is not easy when you have twenty minutes to teach 25 three-year-olds or thirty five-year-olds...how to keep their attention and make classes fun became a lot more difficult than I had originally imagined.

I came across this wonderful resource...  

Looking through the internet for ideas I came across this wonderful resource for teaching ESL to young children while making it fun. It's called ESL Preschool Games and Stores for Ages 3 to 5 by Shelley Vernon. It was as if someone had read my mind! Not only are there easy, creative stories for the children to enjoy, there are flashcards, games and ideas to pre-teach the vocabulary, a guide on how to actually present the stories and post-story ideas to reinforce what they have already learned.

I can't believe how easy preparing has become!

I can't believe how easy preparing for my classes has become! After printing and laminating the flashcards and bingo boards once, I have a full set of ESL resources at my fingertips for a lifetime. Shelley gives ideas on how to vary the games depending on the size of the class, available space and even the mood the children are in! This is so important for me, I teach 5 three-year-old classes of around 25 students each (twenty minutes), and 5 five-year-old classes of 30 students each (twenty-five minutes). Some days just getting them to settle down and pay attention takes up most of the class time!

But all children love stories, the trick is to get them interested in what you do with the stories and letting them participate. Here's where Shelley's stories saved me time and effort.

They are looking forward to my classes..

The stories are presented in an order which allow for revision of what has already been taught without becoming tedious. My children love them! When I walk into a class the first thing they ask is if there will be a story that day. The fact that they are looking forward to my classes because they enjoy them so much is proof of what a wonderful resource this is. Before, I would take different stories to read to them, but after the third or fourth time they would say "You already read that" or "Again?" With these stories I can bring the same story back to the class, but the children don't know how we're going to work the story or which game we're going to play.

And the games are great, Shelley's ideas take most classroom scenarios into consideration, even how to ensure the classes don't get out of control with the forfeits. I don't have anyone to help me in my classes (as large as they are), but with these ideas I can play games with the children and keep the classes controlled while teaching them basic concepts like waiting their turn or following rules. How cool is that?

As a teacher I like to have little surprises up my sleeve..

As a teacher I like to have little surprises up my sleeve to keep the children guessing, that way they're never bored or tired of the same type of class. With this resource I have found that I can think ahead several classes using the same story but focussing on different concepts and ways to make it fun for the children. Plus, I always have several ideas ready in case the one I was planning to use that day didn't fit the "mood" of the class. This way I am more confident that I am prepared for whatever I am going to find in the class when I walk in, whether they're in a run-around kind of mood or more calm and quiet.

I would definitely recommend this resource to anyone..

I would definitely recommend this resource to anyone who works with children. In fact, I use them with my own children (who are bilingual Spanish/English) using more complex language and structures. Children have so much imagination as it is, so we teachers can use that to our advantage to make our job easier. These stories and games show you how to do just that, making teaching easier for us and more enjoyable for them. 

The Five Golden Rules of Good Classroom Management

The Five Golden Rules of Good Classroom Management  

Are you an ESL teacher with classroom management problems? I hope not, but if you are reading this, it might be the case. Have you got a handful of troublemakers who wear you out? Or has the whole class taken over and you find it hard to teach anything?

This article proposes 6 golden rules for good classroom management to help you create your plan or strategy with your young students learning English.

Why the classroom management problem in the first place?

Firstly let's look at reasons why the children might be misbehaving. Are they bored? Does learning English not engage them? Are they fed up with sitting at their desks? Do some of them have behaviour problems such as ADD and disrupt the class for others? Maybe the children find English hard and do not think they can learn it so they hide their lack of confidence behind an excuse of misbehaviour. Maybe the naughty child just thinks that the teacher does not like him or her. Or maybe the children are not motivated to be good because they are never praised when they are well behaved.

One thing is for sure; you must be the boss, because, like a young puppy that will try to become pack leader, if you are not in charge then the children will be. And that's the last thing you want! Some newly qualified ESL teachers go out into the classrooms today like so many sacrificial lambs! They want to be nice, fun and friendly, but they fail to establish class management rules and boundaries from day one and the children stampede right over them. This can be a bit of a shock!

There are many techniques and strategies for good classroom management and ultimately you have to develop your own personal style that fits with your philosophy in life and that is also effective. In addition you must comply with the rules of the establishment you work in. If your school or institution has rules that you do not agree with and you cannot change them then look for another job! The school should be your ally not your foe.

The Only REAL Classroom Management Solution

Rather than a plan, strategy or technique, the vital key to good classroom management comes from the ESL teacher's attitude and decision to earn the love and respect of your students. Think about it, if students like you and respect you they will naturally behave well and pay attention because they want to please you. So how can an ESL teacher make this happen?

Good Classroom Management Rule 1

Be a mentor not a friend and earn the children's trust by being firm, fair and consistent.

Save yourself the humiliation of trying to be the students' best buddy, they will probably laugh at you behind your back. Rather be their mentor, a model for them to copy, not only in terms of learning English but also in terms of how you expect them to behave. You are someone they can trust and come to for help. Err on the side of being strict, especially at first. It is harder to become strict if you have been casual and lenient.

The children will trust you if you are consistent, clear in establishing the rules from day one and consistent in applying them. Refuse to go on teaching until your rules are applied. If you are inconsistent, if you yell at the children or lose your cool, suddenly punish a child unexpectedly, put them down, be sarcastic or embarrass them, they will know that they cannot trust you.

Good Classroom Management Rule 2

Show your EFL / ESL pupils that you care about them.

At the same time as being firm and fair in class find opportunities to talk to your ESL students informally outside of class time – for example sharing a walk over to the canteen or down a corridor. When you get the chance ask the children how they are, what sports they like, who their favourite band is at the moment and so on. The children will feel special because you have taken some of your time to speak to them. If the children feel that you know them, you know what they like, what they can't wait to do when they get home and so on, they will truly feel that you care about them. Now tell me, seriously, how much more likely are they to behave when class time comes round? In fact they could even feel embarrassed for playing you up!

Another way to communicate that you care is to look at your pupils, make eye contact and smile at them. If you have some ESL pupils you do not like in your class put yourself in their shoes and do whatever it takes to replace your negative feelings with feelings of compassion for that student.

Good Classroom Management Rule 3

Get closer to your EFL / ESL pupils

Never spend a full class up at the board or at the front, behind your barrier of a desk. Instead, perhaps during an ESL writing task, take some time to sit in next to different students and ask them how they are, ask them if they have anything in particular they would like to ask you that they have not understood, or just tell them that they are doing well and put a couple of ticks on their work.

Good Classroom Management Rule 4

Praise and encourage good behaviour.

Children respond far better to praise than criticism, which only makes them shrivel up inside and feel worthless. Never ever, ever use destructive criticism. Far too many human beings have a lack of self-love, as it is, without propagating it further in the classroom. There is so much good that you can do as an ESL teacher by increasing your pupils' self-esteem through praise and encouragement.

If you listen to a rather shocking number of parents, they spend their whole time telling their children to stop doing this or stop doing that, and the whole dialogue is negative. Be conscious and make sure you do not fall into that trap. Focus on the positive in order to draw more attention to it and apply the universal law of "you attract what you focus on".

Make sure you give plenty of praise and encouragement to ESL students who are well behaved. For example, give out tasks to students who are being good, thank them for being well behaved or for doing something quietly. If children are vying to get your attention say; "I'm picking Sarah because she has been so good today".

If a student is being naughty avoid using his or her name. Children love the sound of their own names – it means they are getting attention. If Johnny is talking say, "I'm listening to Sarah now".

Rewarding students is all part of the process. This does not mean taking them out to pizza. I personally am against rewarding ESL students in this way. To me it belittles the teacher to have to resort to such things, not to mention the fact that ESL teachers are usually not properly paid for the work they do without having to spend part of their salary on bribes for the children.

Instead use ideas that confer responsibility or distinction on the pupil such as: verbal or written praise, a positive note to take home to parents, a star on the work, displaying a particular student's work on the wall, being given a seat of honour, being named the student of the day or week, being given a special responsibility such as running an errand for the teacher, doing the role-call, helping the teacher with a class activity, collecting or giving out materials, leading a group activity or tutoring another student.

Good Classroom Management Rule 5

Make your teaching style interesting and varied.

Tap into all the different ESL learning styles so that you reach all students in your class. Just standing there talking at the board is not going to interest many children anyway, but aside from that, you'll miss the children who mainly learn from tactile and kinaesthetic experience. By using a wide variety of ESL classroom games you will by default dabble in auditory, visual, kinaesthetic and tactile skills and thus engage all your pupils at least some of the time.

The other advantage to ESL classroom games is that they engage and motivate the children. It's obvious; if a child is enjoying the learning process then he or she is FAR more likely to pay attention! It important though to choose appropriate games for your class size and classroom configuration.

Summary of the Golden Rules for Good ESL Classroom Management

These six golden rules will ensure that your ESL pupils trust you because they know what your rules are and that you will apply them. Your pupils will like you because you show them you care by taking time to talk to them and by getting close to them physically. They will like you because you make them feel good about themselves and learning English through your encouragement and enthusiasm. Finally they will respect you for your stimulating teaching through the use of ESL games, ESL stories, songs or ESL plays that tap into all learning styles.

ESL Multilevel Activities

ESL Multilevel Activities

All ESL classes have multilevel students to a degree, but in general the students are close enough to each other that they can all benefit from the same activity. When we refer to teaching an ESL multilevel class, therefore, we are referring to a class where the students are so far apart in language skills that a single game or activity cannot be given to all students.

Obviously, this can be a planning nightmare and a lot of extra work for the ESL teacher. The good news is though, that even extreme differences in language levels can be successfully managed so that all the students progress. There are ways to organize the classroom to handle teaching multilevel ESL classes and strategies and activities that work across various levels.

ESL Multilevel Class Sizes

In deciding on how a plan for organizing the class, it is important to consider the number of students, and the range of levels. Small classes of 3 – 9 students generally lend themselves to different approaches than classes of 10, 15, or 20 students.

For a small class, you can often split your time and efforts effectively between the individual students. Once you know your students, it is easy to frame your discussions so that more difficult questions are addressed to your more advanced students.

Drama is an ideal multilevel activity which lends itself well to small groups. Here the lead roles can be given to the more advanced students. Advanced students can be in charge of creating scripts and giving out roles as well as acting to increase their involvement and motivation.

ESL Multilevel Activity 1 - Buddy Reading

For larger classes there are other options, and these multilevel ESL activities also work for the smaller groups too. For writing and reading, students pair up for buddy reading, and peer editing. Buddy reading involves one student reading and the "buddy" helping to make sure that the reader is pronouncing the words correctly. The buddy also asks questions after the reading to check comprehension.

You will need to model this for the group first, but with adults it is often a very easy multilevel activity for them to pick up since it is similar to studying together outside of class. Higher level students are able to monitor lower level students, and interestingly, having lower level students monitoring higher level students often works to help the higher level students become more aware of fossilized errors that they are making.

ESL Multilevel Activity 2 - Peer Editing

Similarly, peer editing allows students to look at each other's work and make corrections and comments at their own levels. Pre-writing and rough drafts can be done independently. Advanced ESL students can be encouraged to write more and with greater grammatical complexity. Peer editing is then done as a last step before writing the final draft. Students can be encouraged to discuss content as well as grammar and punctuation.

Games are, of course, the ultimate ESL multilevel activity. The beauty of games is that they are generally excellent for encouraging meaningful interaction between students even with very different levels of English. By taking time to pre-teach any necessary vocabulary and grammar, all students will be able to participate in the games together. Examples of multilevel ESL games that work well are Jigsaw Reading, Name the Thing, and How It's Made – these ESL games and more are all in my book of games for teens and adults.

ESL Multilevel Activity 3 - Jigsaw Reading

Jigsaw reading is quick to prepare. You simply select a reading, pre-teach the vocabulary and grammar, preferably with games, and divide the reading into parts. Each student reads their part of the article or story silently to themselves. Advanced students should be given longer and more challenging passages, and lower level students the short, simpler parts. After reading, you can have the student either write a summary of the article or story, or give it orally. Finally, working together, the students try to reconstruct the article in the correct order, and check it against the original article.

ESL Multilevel Activity 4 - Name the Thing

Name the Thing requires picture cards. Have the students work in pairs, and lay out for each pair a set of three or four pictures of similar, but not identical items, such as four similar cars. One person holds a matching picture of one of the items displayed on the table, and uses this as a reference for answering questions asked by the other students. These students ask questions to narrow down their choices and pick the correct matching picture. The more advanced students can do the questioning, as this is harder than coming up with answers. A tip for this game is to first demonstrate it at the front of the class and then ask students to each collect a set of pictures for the game to play at the next lesson. The teacher can then keep the best of those sets for future use.

All these games are included in the English Language Games Book for teens and adults with 163 games and activities!

ESL Multilevel Activity 5 - How it's Made

How It's Made simply requires directions on assembling something. It is always fun to do peanut butter sandwiches or some other simple food, and actually bring in the ingredients to practice with. Each student is given one step in the process, and they must discuss their step with the others and decide where they fit in. It can also be done with blocks or a simple puzzle or model Lego. Give the more advanced students more steps and/or more complex instructions. The beginners have something simple, like putting the wheels on the Lego car. You can actually photocopy the instructions that come with the model – making them a bit bigger, and cut them up, giving out a paragraph or two per student. It's best to have one model to every three or four students to allow for plenty of speaking practise.

How It's Made Variant: Another way to play this if you have no instructions to hand is to simply have a rule where a student cannot move any piece without saying something. If a student wants to pick up a piece off the table and try it to see if it fits on the model or in the puzzle, or stick it with another piece, he or she MUST say something in English.

For example, using a puzzle with a picture that includes some red flowers: advanced students give a running commentary of their actions, "I'm just going to see if this small red piece fits on here... it looks like it might be part of a flower. Oh no, it doesn't fit". Whereas a beginner might say, "I think this is a flower", or "it fits/it doesn't fit". Alternatively you can have students practise and repeat any kind of sentence or grammar that you are learning, and it does not have to be related to the theme of the puzzle or model at all. So a beginner could say "I like pears" and this will give them the right to try a piece on the model or puzzle. If working with several groups they can race each other to see who finishes first.

Multilevel Classroom Organization

There are two types of classroom organization that I have found especially effective with large, multilevel classrooms of 10-20 students: the "whole-group-to-leveled groups" approach, and the "small groups with centers" model. Both have their strong points and there is nothing to say that they can't be combined.

a. Using the "Whole-group-to-leveled groups"

The "whole-group-to-leveled-groups" approach is quite a mouthful, but is fairly simple to implement. The idea is that you do a short introductory activity with the entire class, and then break the students up into leveled groups for student-to-student practice. This works really well when the gap between students is at the upper end of the scale, from intermediate to advanced, for example. It's also the best choice if you don't have a lot of classroom resources. In this case, you differentiate the levels by how you group the students, and what practice activity you give them. Often, the activities are simply variations on themes, with the lower level versions being more scaffolded than the upper.

ESL Multilevel Activity 6 - Using an Article

Let's say you have a low intermediate group, an intermediate group and an advanced group working on reading non-fiction articles. Non-fiction often has fairly difficult academic vocabulary. For the whole group part of the lesson, you would read an example article to the class, demonstrating how to preview the article by looking at the title, sub-titles, and illustrations; asking for predictions about the content of the text; and going over key vocabulary.

After the article has been read together as a class, you could break the students into their three leveled groups. Each group would get an activity to assess their understanding of the article and these activities would be level appropriate. The advanced group might be asked to write about their opinion of the content or debate elements of the article. The intermediate group might be asked to answer a multiple choice quiz or answer simple content-based questions, while the low intermediate group might be asked to do a fill in the blank exercise based on sentences from the article with vocabulary they've just learned. Each groups works on their own level using the same article.

Tip for Multilevel Activity 6: To help preparation for the teacher and increase the class involvement let the class do the prep work: First read the article together as described above. Next set homework for the most advanced students to prepare a multiple choice questionnaire about the article. Let the intermediates prepare a fill in the blanks. The beginners can have vocabulary to learn. Students hand in their work for marking, or do peer marking in class. Then in a future lesson the multiple choice questions are given to the intermediates and the fill in the blanks are given to the beginners. The teacher only has to give one or two thought-provoking questions to the advanced students to discuss or write about.

If there is time, the lesson can close with a whole group activity. Games that allow for players to use language at their own comfort level are great for this. With larger groups like this team games and relay games are especially fun.

b. Teaching Multilevel Classes Using the Small Groups and Centers Model

The "small groups and centers" model is based on the principles of Guided Reading. The idea is to prepare a twenty – thirty minute lesson for each level. While you are teaching one small group at a given level, the other groups are doing independent work at centers. You have to pre-stock the centers with appropriate activities, and plan multiple lessons, but since the activities can often be more than once, and the lessons are short, it is still a manageable choice for multilevel ESL classrooms.

Let's say you are doing a unit on houses for a class with beginners, intermediates, and upper intermediates or advanced. You can divide the class time into three equal parts and have a group lesson table and two activity centers. While one group is at the lesson table with the teacher, the other two groups are each at a center. Two of the best kinds of centers to have are a gaming center and a listening center. The gaming center can be stocked with a variety of ESL board games, role-plays, brain-teasers, and charades. Students will interact at their own level within the structures of the game.

ESL Gaming Center

ESL Strategy games like Battleship, where players have to figure out where the opponent has hidden his fleet and bomb it before his own is bombed makes a great center game from my book of games. Pictionary, where the players try to guess words from each other's drawings is another old standby. Alternatively, you could have role-play cards for students to choose from and act out, and even tape if you have the equipment. You can then review the tapes as a class at the end of the week, and hand out a best actor award!

ESL Listening Center

The listening center, consisting of a CD or tape playing with multiple headphone, allows students to listen and read along to stories or non-fiction articles, and then complete a response activity – like a journal entry answering a comprehension question, or drawing a picture of a scene that they heard about in the story.

Within the above models for classroom organization there are some ESL strategies that can be employed to help the work go more smoothly across levels.

• Use whole-class ESL games to build classroom unity. This way students that don't normally work in the same group can get to know each other and benefit from each other's experiences.
• Use lots of gestures to back up your spoken words so that lower level students can follow as well as advanced students. For common classroom instructions you should come up with consistent signs that are used all the time and all the students have practiced.
• When teaching new words or tenses, don't just teach vocabulary, but also teach the most common sentence structures these specialized words will appear in. For example: "fall - fell - fallen – Yesterday I fell in a hole". By teaching common sentence structures, all the students at each level will be able to make sentences using the vocabulary and it will encourage correct usage in context, rather than learning a list of words in isolation.
• Always have extra ESL activities for the "fast finishers" - those advanced students that might be rushing a bit because they think it is too easy.
• Create models and scaffolded ESL exercises for any writing practice, so that lower levels aren't left floundering. For more advanced students, simply do the same exercise with less structure given and more independence in the writing.

Finally, remember that every ESL class needs multilevel activities to a degree. If you happen to be one of those teachers that has an ESL class where the gap is wider than average, don't panic! With a little forethought and planning, you will be more than up to facing the challenge. 

How to Improve your English via the Internet

How to Improve your English via the Internet

Here are some tips to improving English both in how your learn and via the internet.

• Remember that learning a language is a gradual process - it does not happen overnight.
• Define your learning objectives early: What do you want to learn and why? - Take this quiz to find out what kind of English learner you are.
• Make learning a habit. Try to learn something every day. It is much better to study (or read, or listen to English news, etc.) 10 minutes each day than to study for 2 hours once a week. - Take the English tip of the day newlsetter to help you.
• Choose your materials well. You will need reading, grammar, writing, speaking and listening materials - Beginners can use this starting English guide, intermediate to advanced learners can use this continue learning English guide.
• Vary your learning routine. It is best to do different things each day to help keep the various relationships between each area active. In other words, don't just study grammar.
• Find friends to study and speak with. Learning English together can be very encouraging. - Soziety can help you find friends to speak English over the inernet.
• Choose listening and reading materials that relate to what you are interested in. Being interested in the subject will make learning more enjoyable - thus more effective.
• Relate grammar to practical usage. Grammar by itself does not help you USE the language. You should practice what you are learning by employing it actively.
• Move your mouth! Understanding something doesn't mean the muscles of your mouth can produce the sounds. Practice speaking what you are learning aloud. It may seem strange, but it is very effective.
• Be patient with yourself. Remember learning is a process - speaking a language well takes time. It is not a computer that is either on or off!
• Communicate! There is nothing like communicating in English and being successful. Grammar exercises are good - having your friend on the other side of the world understand your email is fantastic!
• Use the Internet. The Internet is the most exciting, unlimited English resource that anyone could imagine and it is right at your finger tips.
• Be patient with yourself.
• Practice, practice, practice 
  

The Hows and Whys of Teaching Pronunciation

The Hows and Whys of Teaching Pronunciation

Teaching English pronunciation is an area of language teaching that many English teachers avoid. While there are many textbooks and instruction manuals available, as well as books on the theories and methodologies of language teaching there is comparatively little on learning pronunciation.

Why? Is it because we don't need to teach pronunciation or because it cannot be taught?

Certainly, we need to teach pronunciation. There is a big difference between a ship and a sheep and a pear and a bear! When teaching any language as a foreign or second language, our first goal for our students is basic communication, and that can't happen if no one can understand what they are saying.

How NOT to Teach Pronunciation

When teachers decide to focus on pronunciation practise many of them make the mistake of trying to teach pronunciation along with introducing vocabulary. This can work with students who have a "good ear," or who perhaps speak a related language. However it can be hit and miss with students whose mother tongue has no relation to the target language.

This brings us back to the question of whether pronunciation can be effectively taught at all? The answer is yes, of course it can be taught, it's just that the way many textbooks tell us to teach it is actually one of the least effective.

Most textbooks will have you drill pronunciation with repetition of the vocabulary. Some of the better ones will have you work on it with spelling, which is an important skill, especially in English with its many irregularities and exceptions. Very few will start you and your students where you need to start, however, and that is at the level of the phoneme.

Start with Phonemes (but not necessarily phonetic script)

The dictionary defines "phoneme" as "any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another, for example p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat." This definition highlights one of the key reasons that we must, as language teachers, start our pronunciation instruction at the level of the phoneme. If a phoneme is a "perceptually distinct unit of sound" then we have to realize that before students can consistently produce a given phoneme, they must be able to hear it. Thus the first lessons in pronunciation should involve your students listening and identifying, rather than speaking.

Introduce your phonemes in contrasting pairs like /t/ and /d/. Repeat the phonemes in words as well as in isolation and ask the students to identify them. In order to visually represent the differences they are listening for, you may want to draw pronunciation diagrams for each sound showing the placement of the tongue and lips.

You might also consider teaching your students the necessary symbols from the phonetic alphabet, because although T and D are written differently in English, the TH in "there" and the TH in "thanks" are written exactly the same, despite the difference in pronunciation. This isn't essential, and really works best with adults rather than children, but it is worth it for any students who are highly visual or analytical learners.

You can play all sorts of matching games with this material to make the drills more fun and less stressful. You can have students play with nonsense sounds and focus on the tiny differences between contrasted phonemic pairs, the key being to get them to hear the phoneme.

All these games are included in the English Language Games Digital Book for adults with 163 games and activities!

From Recognition of Phonemes to Practise

Once they can hear and identify a phoneme, it's time to practice accurate production of the sound. For this, pronunciation diagrams are useful. Your students need to be able to see where to put their lips and tongues in relation to their teeth. Most sounds are articulated inside your mouth and students have no idea what you are doing in order to produce that particular noise. If you have ever tried to teach a Japanese student how to say an American /r/, then you have experienced the frustration of trying to get a student to produce tongue movements they can't see. There are books out there with diagrams, and with a little practice you can probably produce sketches of them yourself. If you can't, get hold of a good reference book so that you can flip to the relevant pages. Your students will thank you for this insight into the mouth, especially since there is no danger of the embarrassment of bad breath with a drawing.

While this may sound time consuming and unnatural, you have to realize that you are in the process of reprogramming you students' brains, and it is going to take a while. New neural pathways have to be created to learn new facial movements and link them with meaning.

In the classroom, we are recreating an accelerated version of the infant's language learning experience. We are providing examples and stimulus through grammar and vocabulary lessons, but with pronunciation lessons we are also breaking down language to the point of babbling noises so that our students can play with the sounds, as infants do, and learn to distinguish meaningful sounds on an intuitive level while making use of more mature analytical skills that an infant doesn't have.

If you regularly take ten minutes of your lesson to do this kind of focused phonemic practice, your students articulation and perception of phonemes will see improvement after several weeks, and you will get them all to the point where you can practice pronunciation on a word or even a sentential level.

Pronunciation games for children can be found in this English Language Games for Children book: English Language Games for Children

Moving on to Pronunciation of Words

The progress will be more pronounced with younger students, but even adults will begin to give up fossilized pronunciation errors when reciting vocabulary words in isolation. It's time to make the next leap – correct pronunciation in the context of natural conversation. Make no mistake; this is a leap, not because it is more physically challenging, but because you are about to address a completely different set of barriers.

When we teach on the phonemic level, we are struggling to expand physical and neurological limitations. We are taking irrelevant noises and making them significant to our students, while trying to teach them a greater range of articulation with their mouths, tongues, and lips. But when we work on pronunciation at a lexical or sentential level, we are dealing with complex emotional, psychological, and cultural motivations that require their own kind of re-education.

Three Big Barriers to Good English Pronunciation

Anxiety, learned helplessness and cultural identity are the three biggest barriers to students' successful adoption of a second language. Not every student will have all of these problems, but it is a sure thing that all of them will have at least one of these problems to a greater or lesser extent. As English teachers we have to find ways to bring these problems to our students' attention in non-threatening ways, as well as suggest tools and strategies for dealing with them.

Anxiety is a fairly straightforward problem to discover. Students who feel a lot of anxiety in speaking are generally well aware of the situation and they know that it is impeding their progress. The impact on pronunciation specifically can be seen in their unwillingness to experiment with sounds, a general lack of fluency that makes it hard to blend sounds correctly, and poor control of the sentential elements of pronunciation, such as intonation and syllable stress. The best remedy for anxiety is highly structured, low- pressure practise. In other words – games.

Jazz chants, handclap rhymes, reader's theatre, and dialog practise from textbooks can all be helpful. Structure and repetition reduce the pressure on the students and allow them to focus on pronunciation and intonation. Classroom rituals, like starting the lesson with a set greeting and reading aloud a letter from the teacher are also excellent ways to integrate pronunciation practise into the rest of the lesson while reducing stress for the student. Rote phrases, drilled for correct pronunciation, will eventually be internalized and the correct pronunciation will improve overall pronunciation.

Learned helplessness is much harder to bring to a students attention, and may be difficult for the teacher to recognize. The term "learned helplessness" comes from psychology and refers to the reaction people and animals have to a hopeless situation. Basically, after trying something several times and consistently being unable to get a positive result, we shut down. We stop trying. If students are getting negative feedback on their English skills, especially pronunciation, and if they try to improve but feel they haven't, then they stop trying. You might think they are being lazy, but in fact they simply don't believe they can improve. They have already given up.

Luckily, once it is recognized, the fix is pretty easy: stay positive, praise frequently and specifically, and periodically tape students speaking so that they can hear the difference after a few months. If you can coax even a little progress out of a student, then tell the student exactly what they just did right (For example: The difference between your short /a/ and short /e/ were really clear that time! Let's do it again!). Tape the students reading or reciting a passage at the beginning of the year, then tape the same passage every couple of months. Play the tapes for you student and let them hear how much they have improved over the course of a few months. They will probably impress themselves, and you!

Finally, the question of cultural identity has to be dealt with. Students that don't want to be assimilated into an English speaking society aren't going to give up the things that mark them as different. An accent is a clear message about one's roots and history, and many people may be unwilling to completely give it up. As teachers, we need to ensure that students' can be easily understood by others, but we don't have to strive for some hypothetical Standard English pronunciation. In fact, we should highlight for our class that after a certain point, accents don't matter much at all.

Some fun activities that can help your students become more sensitive to the subject of accents are doing impersonations, listening to native regional accents and teaching you a phrase in their own language.

Impersonations can be done as a class. Students can impersonate famous people, like John Wayne or Nicholas Cage, or they can impersonate teachers – always a fun activity! The idea is to have them take on a whole different identity and try out the pronunciation that goes with it. Often, your students will produce the best English pronunciation of their lives when impersonating someone else. Be sure to tape them for this as well, since it proves that they can use English pronunciation in a conversation or monologue.

Get tapes and videos of English from other parts of the world than your own. Play or watch them, and have the students pick a few sentences out for you to repeat. Let the students see if they can hear the differences between your English and the English on the recording. Then have them try repeating the phrases in your accent and in the other accents. Its fun, it gets people laughing, and it helps students realize that there are many correct ways to pronounce English.

A third way to loosen a student's grip on accents is to have them teach you a phrase in their language for you to repeat with your own accent. See if you can get the students to imitate you afterwards. Silly as it sounds, this will give them a lot of insight into what the key phonemes in English are and how one's native language can interfere with one's target language. At some point in our childhood most of us have put on a ridiculous, heavy French or Spanish accent as we spoke English. It was usually to get a laugh out of the rest of the room. This is what you are trying to get your students to do in their own languages with an American (or other native English) accent. It is fun, and students come to realize that if they can sound American/British/Australia/Canadian/ or whatever in their own language they probably do it in English. In fact, there probably isn't anything funnier than listening to a Japanese student imitating an American trying to speak Japanese, then watching the grow amazed at the improvement of their pronunciation in English.

Teaching pronunciation properly can be fun, easy, and quite the learning experience for yourself and your students. Take a few ideas from here, a few from your textbook, and give it 10-15 minutes every class. With a little time, you will see quite a difference, not just in pronunciation, but in attitude and overall language skills

How to Study English Effectively

How to Study English Effectively

There are many ways to study English, but many students ask which is the most effective. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a single answer that is right for every student. However ... I can certainly give advice I some helpful guidelines as to how to study that should help.

Warming-up to Study English

Just as there are exercises to help you warm up before you play some basketball or other sport, there are exercises which can help you warm up to study English. Here are some simple exercises to help you warm up.

Study English I: Activating Your Vocabulary

Activate your vocabulary by thinking or speaking briefly about the subject you are about to work on. For example, if you are going to study English on topics that focuses on vacations, take a moment to think about your last vacation, what you did, what you enjoyed, etc. This simple exercise will help your brain warm-up to vocabulary that you are likely to encounter as you study English about this particular subject.

Study English II: Activating Your Grammar

Activate your grammar by thinking about the general grammar area before you begin to study. For example, if you are going to study English grammar focusing on the past, stop to think about what you did last weekend, where you went, etc. to help activate what you already understand about using the past. As with activating vocabulary, you'll help your brain bring up what it knows about the past simple in an easy way before you begin to focus on studying English grammar in detail.

Study English III: Singing a Song

Before class begins, or before you sit down to study English sing a song in English to yourself. Make sure to use a song that you understand and know very well. This short and fun exercise will help your brain focus on the English language in a relaxing manner. It's important to be relaxed when you study English! Singing a song also helps activate the creative side of your brain which can help you come up with more examples as your practice conversation or do some creative writing.

Study English IV: Typing e a Short Paragraph in English

If you going to study English at your desk, begin by typing a simple paragraph in English. You can type about your day, your hobbies, your friends, etc. Anything will do. Typing helps activate the kinetic part of your brain that helps improve learning through physical activity. I also recommend typing while you study your English grammar. This will help solidify your knowledge with movement.

Study English V: A Thousand Words ...

As the saying goes in English: A picture is worth a thousand words. Help activate the creative side of your brain by trying to describe a photo or other image. You can combine use this also to activate your vocabulary by choosing a picture that has something to do with the subject your are going to study in English.

Study English - Tips for Success

Here are some tips for success to help you as you study English.

Study English Every Day

It's important to study English every day. However, don't exaggerate! Study for thirty minutes every day instead of two hours once a week. Short, steady practice is much better for learning than long periods on an irregular basis. This habit of studying English every day will help keep English in your brain fresh.

Study English Using Different Methods to Learn

Don't just use one way to study English. Use a variety of methods which will help all the parts of your brain (multiple intelligences) help you. For example, if you are learning new vocabulary, create a word map, describe a picture, make a list and study that, type out the words five times. All of these methods together help to reinforce your learning.

Study English by Finding some Friends

There is nothing like having a few friends to study English together. You can practice the exercises together, have conversations together (in English!), and, as you study English together, help each other with exercises you may not understand.

Study English by Choosing Topics that Interest You

One of the most important things to do is to study English using topics that you like. This will help motivate you because you will also be learning about a topic you find interesting while you study English.

How To Improve Your English

Here's How:

1. Remember that learning a language is a gradual process - it does not happen overnight.
2. Define your learning objectives early: What do you want to learn and why?
3. Make learning a habit. Try to learn something every day. It is much better to study (or read, or listen to English news, etc.) 10 minutes each day than to study for 2 hours once a week.
4. Remember to make learning a habit! If you study each day for 10 minutes English will be constantly in your head. If you study once a week, English will not be as present in your mind.
5. Choose your materials well. You will need reading, grammar, writing, speaking and listening materials
6. Vary your learning routine. It is best to do different things each day to help keep the various relationships between each area active. In other words, don't just study grammar.
7. Find friends to study and speak with. Learning English together can be very encouraging.
8. Choose listening and reading materials that relate to what you are interested in. Being interested in the subject will make learning more enjoyable - thus more effective.
9. Relate grammar to practical usage. Grammar by itself does not help you USE the language. You should practice what you are learning by employing it actively.
10. Move your mouth! Understanding something doesn't mean the muscles of your mouth can produce the sounds. Practice speaking what you are learning aloud. It may seem strange, but it is very effective.
11. Be patient with yourself. Remember learning is a process - speaking a language well takes time. It is not a computer that is either on or off!
12. Communicate! There is nothing like communicating in English and being successful. Grammar exercises are good - having your friend on the other side of the world understand your email is fantastic!
13. Use the Internet. The Internet is the most exciting, unlimited English resource that anyone could imagine and it is right at your finger tips. 
    
14.