What Do You Teach?

Does it matter? Well, yes, I suppose it does, but not in the way you might think. Until now, my answer has always been "algebra". And then I wait for the inevitable comment: "Oh, I was never any good at math!", or even "Yuck, I hate math!" At least they know that algebra is a branch of mathematics. However, this is not the kind of conversation starter that makes either party feel comfortable. In fact, it is often a conversation stopper. Check out the pie chart, third from the top on this blog.

Why is English so !@#$% hard?

I have heard it said that English is one of the hardest languages to learn. I have also heard people say that it really isn't. This week I came across at least two reasons that it is. One of the reasons is that English grammar differs from that of other languages in many ways. The website from the Frankfurt International School explains some of the ways. For instance, German, which is on the same branch of the same family as English, has differences in verb tenses and verb placement in sentences, as well as differences in punctuation and pronunciation. Unrelated languages have many more differences.

What's in Your Approach

My "aha!" moment this week was about approaches to teaching. I was reminded that there is more than one way to guide one's students to learning a new language, or just about anything. As a math teacher, I nearly always used a deductive approach, but as a language teacher, it seems that an inductive approach may lead students to be able to not only learn about a new language, but to actually acquire it. Acquiring a new language means that a person can use it more like a native speaker, instead of having to translate from their first language. In the past, I have heard this referred to as thinking in the second language.

We All Need a Little Grammar Sometime

I thought I had a pretty good grasp of English grammar. After all, I always get 100% on those Facebook quizzes. They like to tell me I could be an English professor! It turns out that in a more rigorous test, I'm not quite there yet. Specifically, I seem to have trouble identifying the various types of conditional sentences (first, second, third) and their verb forms. Fortunately, I found a resource that explains it well and includes plenty of practice.

My "aha!" moment is coming to me in pieces, and I think I now have first conditional and second conditional internalized. Still working on third conditional, but I'm almost there. (If I hadn't taken this course, I wouldn't have cared about conditional sentences.)

Growing and Learning

Today is the last day of the TESL Reading and Vocabulary Course (the Grammar course starts next week). The final assignment is a lesson plan for a two hour class. I chose a task-based lesson on how to find necessities for oneself, items for the home and gifts for another person in one trip to the mall using a mall website.  I also included reading the return policy on receipts to determine if and when items can be returned. I based several of the in-class activities on the LINC 3 Classroom Activities by moresettlement.org (search LINC 3 Lesson Plans)

CF Polo Park Shopping Mall

Vocabulary Exercise with Word Cards

It's the end of week 3, Unit 3 of the TESL Teaching In Practice - Reading and Vocabulary course through U of Manitoba Extended Education. This activity uses a Task-based lesson plan from Citizenship and Immigration Canada and is inspired by the discussion in the "Which Words are Worth the Worry?" video. The lesson plan is presented as a cloze exercise for myself and a small group of peers. We completed the exercise using a shared Google doc, but I do not yet have permission from the group members to share it here. 

The assignment here is to develop a vocabulary lesson based on the above lesson plan.

I would have the students do this vocabulary activity before playing the Nutrition Facts snap game in the lesson plan.

Adapting a Reading Exercise

Today I writing for an assignment in week 2, Unit 2 of the TESL Teaching In Practice - Reading and Vocabulary course through U of Manitoba Extended Education. Here I will discuss how I would adapt a reading exercise published by the British Council on their Learn English Teens website. The exercise is called Reading Skills Practice: Foreign Exchange Emails. The exercise can be done interactively on the website or downloaded as a PDF worksheet. I will work with the downloaded worksheet.

The British Council material is copyrighted, so I must be careful to adhere to the instructors' Fair Use guidelines published by the University. If I was going to use the exercise as-is, I could share the above link with my students and have them complete the exercise online. However, since I need to adapt the exercise and make some changes to the PDF copy, the guidelines allow me to do that because this single exercise is part of a larger set (less than 10%) on the British Council website. Even after making changes, I would  give credit to the original source by including their web address and the copyright notice.

Back on the other side of the desk

I'm partway through my first week as a student in the TESL: Reading and Vocabulary course through U of Manitoba Extended Education. It has been a busy week, as about half of my study time has been taken up in getting back up to speed in using all the forms of communication required in taking an online course. I took an Introduction to Teaching Online course at Butler Community College about three years ago when I was teaching there, and last used their platform (Canvas) about two years ago, when I taught my last math class at Butler. It was not an online course, but all instructors were required to use the platform to communicate grades to students and to upload final grades to the college system.