a Collection of general ideas for the ESL classroom

- Reverse Charades (acupuncture, party, wrestling, bank unicorn, pyramid) - no talking, just group acting and one guesser
- What's Yours Like? - all but one person know what the thing is, everyone gives an answer except the guesser(s)
- place yourselves on a map on the floor across the room
- Human Computer (Pronunciation)
- Conversation Circle
    + Skim, Convo Circle, then Detail reading
- matching of L1 and L2 new sentences
- Creation Computer
- introduce emotional language early (Interjections!)
- have an empty chair in the center, students may join and leave at will, always leaving one empty chair for conversation
- use the experiential learning cycle
- use realiia
- put on a small TED talk as a class
- have students research and present an issue within their society
- school/classroom newspaper
- Just use the words "it is isn't it not as" and see what sentences you can make
- draw a picture of using L1 vs. L2
- Community blackboard to get initial students input
- Jeopardy on the board with index cards
- Use page 108-109 from bell hook's Teaching to Transgress for a class activity: Whose excitement and responsibility should we find in the classroom?

an Overview of the English Question asking system

Here is my handout with a summary of the English Question System.

NOTES:

1. What is important for students to notice with regard to the form dimension
 of the Form/Meaning/Use framework? 

  - Uninverted questions can have a variety of functions.
     o One of these, for Wh- questions, is to ‘echo’ the question in order to be sure that one heard what was said by the original speaker.
  - Negative questions assume the form of the answer will be positive.
     o The word ‘not’ can either be contracted and added to the auxiliary verb before the subject, or left uncontracted and placed after the subject. (e.g. Isn’t he coming? vs. Is he not coming?)
     o Note for students: In these negative sentences, “amn’t I” is incorrect; “aren’t I” should be used. (Apparently "ain't" is related to this non-form.)
  - Inversion is the major challenge for students. It should be emphasized with new learners, but the other forms should be dealt with in detail with more advanced learners.

2. What should students know with regard to the way questions are used and how people answer YES/NO questions and tag questions in particular? 

- Learners need to know that there are short answers to yes / no questions and how to form them in different circumstances. (Larsen-Freeman and Celce-Marie, The Grammar Book, 212)

*The information in the black box is partially incorrect; tag questions and alternative questions are actually asking a question though the degree of uncertainty seems lower.

An Overview of the English Tense-Aspect System and Its Problem Areas

 Here is a Prezi that works through the differences among the various tenses and aspects of the English grammar system. it includes a summary of major problem areas as well. Below I have extracted a couple of the key thoughts from it. Quotations refer to the second edition of The Grammar Book.

 Bull's Framework makes a valuable contribution to this discussion because it clarifies that errors will typically occur along one of the axises of the appropriate tense. So, while we may often hear present simple and the past simple confused, it would be quite unlikely to find the present simple confused with the past perfect. To speak in The Grammar Book's terms, these are 'boundary problems'; we need clarity at the edges where things get murkiest.

 Related to the chart shown above, Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman note that the bulk of the 'traffic' of our tense usage is located in the upper left corner. To the extent that this is true, we can expect to find the greater number of our boundary problems occurring there. We may assume, however, that similar errors lurk in the other less-trafficked, and thus less-practiced borderlands.

a collection of ESL Writing and Speaking Resources

Here are a few writing and speaking activities that I have collected:

Writing Activities (or Activity Types)
- Jigsaw readings with jigsaw writing responses being read by students
- Have students write in a project over the course of the semester... one topic, building a set of research and/or personal thought on the topic.
- Multi-genre writing - acrostic poem, limericks, diamante poems, biographical and character sketches, a letter to me in the future, newspaper style

- a writing needs assessment
- Ping Pong Word Association
- Cubing - described here
- writing a fairy tale
- research paper
- journal entries
- publish a magazine/newspaper
- class blog
- Plagiarism and Patchwriting: Purdue OWL “Summary, Plagiarism, and Quotation in Context” site, and OWL “Anonymous Paraphrasing”
- videos on writing strategies BBC / VOA

Speaking Activities (or Activity Types)
- Information gap & Jigsaw activities (Thornbury 56) - using "tango seating" - shoulders touching, facing opposite directions
- Role plays and simulations
- Contact assignments - interviewing outsiders
- video production by students on their cell phones, based on a script they write and have checked
- Missing Bag lesson - baby items, father items
- Speaking Needs assessment

a collection of ESL Listening Activities and Resources

What makes listening successful?- What to change: task, text, # of times
- hearing emotion and irony
- - teaching the layers of meaning
- can transcripts help in showing the layers?

Activities
- Watch 3 trailers pick the correct movie

from Helgesen
- dictate a short story, then have sts use a cloze activity to fill in the story as they imagined it with words for the boxes, while other missing words are supplied as they are heard
- Listen and raise your hands when you hear specific info
- What do I want to know? words I expect to hear?
- complete cloze activities first, then listen for correctness
- choose between types of conversation (dr. and patient, or not) and then write key words that show how you knew)("What are they talking about?" "What words give you hints")
- put main ideas on the board with distracters
- on the board: Order of the events, they listen and put them in order (extra for distracter)
- Find pictures of the situation on the web and have sts identify the best match
- have sts draw the situation with as many details as possible
-watch for emotions, how do speakers feel? how do you know?

from Penny Ur
- listening with gaps that students fill in; (silent listening with a video?)
- guessing definitions (person, place, thing, action) that the teacher gives

from Jack Richards
- identifying differences between a spoken and written text
- pair readings of the conversation audio previously heard

Wheatley comments that "people are literally clamoring for attention" (pg 90) while also relating a story of a teacher who spent the time listening to a student who had begun shouting at her. She also relates how it took some time for the student to realize that the teacher was really willing to listen since it had been so long since anyone had listened to him. This seems to me to be another salient point: people often do not expect to be listened to, or maybe just as accurately, they do not expect to be heard. A friend noted a while back that most people are only the 3-4 questions (of the right sort) from breaking down in tears about their own story, even to a stranger. We need to learn listening again, everywhere and often.

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.