a collection of ESL Reading Activities and Resources

- Have students identify genre by giving them 3-4 completely different types of texts and asking for probable sources

- Have students write before or while reading to express their expectations and discoveries.

- Have students compare passages from simplified (for EFLLs) and original versions of a text.
Start with a discussion of how the students think language may be simplified for a new learner. Discuss, at the end, the question, "What does the author of the simplified version assume that the readers are and are not familiar with in terms of (a) their literary and cultural competence, and (b) their linguistic competence?" (Cots, "Critical Discourse Analysis in EFL Teaching," 342-343)

- Have students write their own questions, make summaries, monitor their own comprehension and motivation, review common transitions

- For work on reading rate - practice identifying phrases among similar phrases, short warmer activities; reread same material in detail getting farther each time, timed;

- Do reference questions backwards - (identify all the referents to a particular antecedent using various colored pens)

Online Reading Resources

https://readtheory.org/ 

https://rewordify.com/ 

http://cueprompter.com/ - teleprompter, to encourage faster reading / skimming / scanning

https://www.online-utility.org/text/analyzer.jsp

http://cartozia.com/welcome-to-cartozia/ 

https://breakingnewsenglish.com/ 

https://www.elizabethclaire.com/products/easy-english-news-international-sales#een-scroll 

https://www.newsinlevels.com/# 

A Collection of Quotes on Learning and Teaching

We are so attuned to errors and so involved in ferreting them out that we tend to neglect to praise our students when they take a risk and get it wrong. Students are more likely to take risks if they see that risk-taking is noted and encouraged. So we should be on the lookout not only for what is correct but also for good attempts.

- Ann Raimes, "Errors: Windows into the Mind." College ESL, 1991.

We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. "The king died and then the queen died" is a story. "The king died, and then the queen died of grief" is a plot.

- E. M. Forster, The Aspects of a Novel. (1956).

As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another's voices, in recognizing one another's presence. 

- bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress

Each writer has its own audience (intended readers) that might be part of a discourse community in which there is a degree of shared understandings and knowledge. Your class (the actual readers) may not be part of that discourse community and so they will make very different meaning and will need scaffolding if they want to read it as part of a particular community of readers. This is something to consider as you teach—what is your role as a teacher in this dilemma?

 - Leslie Turpin

This activity from Scott Thornbury's post, "V is for Vocabulary teaching" seemed useful and enjoyable:

I picked out 8 words from the text that I wanted my pupils to learn. Then I had my pupils identifying the words in the text. Task 2 was a selecting task where the pupils had to underline the words that were typical for India. They shared their work with a partner, explaining their choices. As task 3 they were matching the words with an English description from a dictionary. They also found antonyms and synonyms. Task 4 was a sorting activity where the pupils had to decide whether the words were nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs. Finally, as a ranking and sequencing activity I had my pupils rank the words according to preference, to decide how important they thought knowing each word was. They discussed their ranking with a partner. (Mette B.)

TESOL Resources - Brainstorming & Online Collaborative Whiteboards

I am closing a professional (ESL) blog that I had, and I am going to transfer part of the posts here. Thus, the random splattering of resources.

Coggle is an online brainstorming / hierarchical organizing system.

Additional resources for online, whole class brainstorming include the following online whiteboards:
https://webwhiteboard.com/
https://awwapp.com/

SIT in the woods

  Sometimes the metaphorical words of the prophets are literally true. "He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul."

  As I continue my TESOL studies at SIT Graduate Institute in Vermont, I felt the need for some quiet and aloneness this morning and went for a walk. I have a conference presentation to prepare, but first some internal re-balancing was needed.

the beavers' home and their gnawed tree trunk
I missed the dam the first time I stood beside it but noticed it on my return. 

   A turtle friend, in the middle of the path, was the first creature to draw me into this less-humanized environment. 

  After that, there was a continual stream of critters and creatures proclaiming a beautiful world that does not require mechanical noises and busyness and digital connectedness to display its reflecting glory.  The splashing leaps of a deer from the pond, the sudden, unexpected twinkle of a goldfinch springing from spot to spot into the distance, the dew on the woven webs of spiders, and the fascination of seeing a bird which I couldn't identify - all these were restorative and quieting.

the bumblebee and its clover

the monarch in a momentary resting spot

  Nature with all her beauty is a gift, though the greater gift is the friendships and mentorship of the beautiful people from the far corners of the world who come to this school to learn and grow and share together. 

  To paraphrase David, it is certain that goodness and steadfast love will pursue me every day of my life until I dwell in the Lord's house forever.

the Scariest Sign in America (when driving at dusk)

  About ten miles outside of Denver, there is a sign. For an Elk Crossing. 

  I wanted to take an actual picture of it when we passed it on our trip, but we missed our chance... because we were frantically scanning the underbrush for elks. (I know, that's not the plural of elk.) Anyways, I used to drive a smallish Nissan Altima, or other similarly sized cars.  Imagine how one of these monstrous deer would shatter such my poor dear car if we were to smack one while they were 'crossing' the highway at 70mph. No bueno! 
 Thankfully, a friend loaned us an SUV this time, hoping it would help us surviving an elking, I think. Presumably it would have, but it didn't lower the residual stress any.

 Needless to say, I always have, and presumably always will, consider the Elk Crossing sign to be the scariest road sign in America... except for possibly, the Moose Crossing sign, which I have yet to see, thankfully.

Language Learners & Having a Voice

 From my grad reading for this week, I want to submit the following quotation for your consideration. 

Norton saw social identity as multiple, contradictory, and dynamic. To obtain the ‘right to speak’ learners need to be able to see themselves as legitimate speakers of the L2, not as defective communicators. They have to be prepared to challenge the subservient social identity that native speakers often thrust upon them and assert the right to communicate. 

(Emphasis mine)

Ellis, Rod. Understanding Second Language Acquisition 2nd Edition (Kindle Locations 707-709). OUP. 

  As a language learner and a language teacher, I find that challenge to be always significant. The non-native speaker of a language can easily have a sense of inferiority and illegitimacy in their speaking, especially if their audience does not demonstrate empathetic, active listening. However, this does not actually mean that their thoughts are less valid or less important to hear. Listen attentively to your non-native friends; speak your L2 with assurance to your native friends.

Interviewing: Story-hearing

  My current class for the MA in Teaching English that I am working on right now is about intercultural communication and its relevance in the English-language classroom. So, we are learning about interviewing to hear - really hear - culture. This is particularly interesting to me as I assigned a class of students to do interviews a few weeks ago. I wish I had had some of these resources to share with them then.

  Below are some comments by the late Greg Sharrow of the Vermont Folklife Center from an article called, "The Art of Interviewing."

...how can you know for sure what it is like to stand in someone else's shoes-until you ask? And when you ask, it is quite likely that your understanding of the world and the people in it will expand.

If, for example, you want to learn about a culture and the lives of people who share this culture, your challenge as a researcher is to understand that experience from an insider's point of view. [...] That means that whether something makes sense to you-or even strikes you as just plain wrong-is irrelevant.

Good questions are an important tool, certainly, but the outcome of an interview will ultimately depend on how well you draw a person out and empower them to show you the shape of their world as they know it. 

...your role as an active listener will shape the experience even more than the specific questions that you ask.

(emphases mine) 

 Some of Sharrow's comments on his approach reminded me of the approach that Malcolm Gladwell says he uses.

Emirgan Preserve Tulip Festival

 While we have been familiar with the Tulip Festival held at Emirgan Preserve ever since our family moved to Istanbul, we didn't visit it till last year. Four wasted Aprils! About a week ago, our family went for the second time. This year, there are 2,800,000 tulips of 192 varieties (source). Yes! Nearly 3 million tulips in one place!

 It is as impressive as it sounds. If you somehow aren't the sort of person who is impressed by fields of blooming flowers, all you would have had to do was look around at the people from all over the world coming to see it or the brides from all over the city who had come there for wedding or engagement pictures.

  The arrangements of tulips above and below have stirred vague thoughts about homogeneity and diversity in my mind, but I do not have time to formulate them now. So, be content to enjoy their the beauty. (Plan a visit any year in April!)

BONUS: On the ferry ride to and from the Emirgan Park, we also got to see the old Rumeli Fortress built by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror's generals. He used this fortress to gain control of the Bosphorus Straits; and 550+ years later, it is still a commanding presence. It is also very cool to explore from the inside.

The Critical Weakness of the Protestant Work Ethic

  My friend Mehmet Günenç recently gave me a copy of his short book, The History of Moral Philosophy (Ahlakın Felsefi Tarihi). In it, he traces the conceptual development of moral philosophy from Plato to Nietzsche; (he's a professor of philosophy). I haven't read the whole book yet, but one part I have read deals with the Protestant work ethic. His summary at the end of that section is insightful, although we would see some things differently. 

When we evaluate religion in terms such as much more intense work, individualism, independent retirement, or productivity, we will see a person who worships God through their profession. However, there is no hindrance for this person not to turn into the type of person who worships their profession. Their profession will be life for them, a field of action. They will exist for their profession. 

 (page 61; emphasis mine)

  The critical issue is a matter of worship. Who or what do we worship, and when does the true recipient of worship (God) get overshadowed in our hearts and actions and lives by the means with which we seek to honor and love and serve God. In other words, we must be always alert to the reality of our worship, not just to the confession that we acknowledge with our conscious thought.

I am attaching the original in case someone with a better grasp of philosophical Turkish wants to correct my understanding / translation of the text. 

a witness to beautiful

"Sometimes when you're surrounded by dirt, CJ, you're a better witness for what's beautiful."

CJ saw the perfect rainbow arcing over their soup kitchen. He wondered how his nana always found beautiful where he never even thought to look.

from Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Pena

  This is one of those kids books that has depth in the illustrations as well as the content. It was just given to us, and I like it much more than I expected to - knowing nothing about it till I picked it up. I'd highly recommend it.