Spelling Matters

The word "matters" has a double meaning here. (However, matter actually has more than two meanings or uses.) One meaning in this post is that spelling is important (i.e., matters is used as a verb to mean it has significance or importance).  The other refers to the topic of this essay, Spelling Matters (i.e., issues, problems or difficulties).

Convincing students that spelling is important in English is a daily song and dance, especially in writing classes. Why do I care that students learn to spell words correctly? With word checkers built into Word software, why should anyone care?

Amazingly, many tests of English (the Cambridge Exams, IELTS (International English Language Testing System), SAT writing, AP writing, and so on) require test-takers to write by hand. Even if you take the internet-based TOEFL exam, there is no spell-checker on the test computers. In other words, the test candidate must demonstrate his/her skill in writing in English without a dictionary or spell-checking device on the computer. They are not allowed to bring any electronic equipment (e.g., cell phones, iPods, etc.) into the testing area. One letter can create a huge or embarrassing difference in meaning or perception: "mad vs. made," "sit" vs. "set," "to" vs. "too," "read" vs. "red," and on and on. Whether you are a native or a non-native speaker of English, mastery of spelling is a mountain we must all climb to become literate communicators.

I, like many others, fall into the group of educators that believes that spelling counts. Last year Loewenstein wrote a thought-provoking blog post for Edutopia which posed the question "What would happen if you were to eliminate subjects in your classroom?" That is, instead of labeling what students learn in school as "spelling," "reading," "writing," "math," and "science," why don't we focus on projects-based learning, which integrates all the skills that students need to communicate in the real world? 

While I'm not sure that eliminating the label "spelling" as a topic or subject of concern in school would make it any less of a pain for poor spellers, developing the habit of correct spelling does make a lot of sense. Similarly, it makes sense to learn how to add and subtract correctly. That means not being sloppy or lazy whenever you make any kind of financial transaction. When you enter an amount to withdraw from or depost to your checking account at the ATM, don't you pay attention to how many zeros you type in? The ATM doesn't have a checker for you? In the same way, sending an e-mail message to a work colleague can have a very strong negative or confusing effect if you misspell a word or leave words out. If you spell a word that exists in English, a spell checker isn't going to catch a mistake, so you can easily confuse a reader.

In a previous post, I published a photograph of a headline of the wrong word choice printed in the San Diego Union Tribune. However, when I searched for a link to the newspaper's online version, the headline had already been changed. My only proof of this public gaffe is the photograph. While this error was not a simple spelling error, it highlights the significance of word choice and word form as well as spelling. Living in a society with a written language system necessitates being careful about spelling and the words we choose to express ourselves. Words matter, and so do their spellings.  

The Fancier the House, the Fancier the Words to Describe It

One of the areas of greatest interest to me in teaching ESL is vocabulary.  English is an incredibly rich language with the largest lexicon of any language in the world, and everyday people everywhere are affected by words, especially printed words.

Last year Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a brief article about a study on the language used by real estate agents to describe property.  One of the interesting findings was that the more expensive the house, the greater the number of characters were spent on describing the property.  Another way to look at it is that the fancier the house, the longer are the words (or the more words) used to describe it.  Just look at any real estate section of the newspaper!

Read some descriptions of mansions or luxury homes in San Diego and compare a $1,000,000 home with a $400,000 house. You can use the Word Count Tool to see if you can observe the pattern highlighted in WSJ. My observation just now is that I experienced a negative reaction when I compared a million dollar home with one for less than half that price because the description of the two houses, in this case, did not differ at all in number of characters. In fact, I had the feeling described below.

If there isn't a lot written about the million dollar home, a prospective buyer might suspect that it has a major drawback or shortcoming. In fact, Mark Liberman (Linguistics professor at University of Pennsylvania) is quoted in the article saying, "Given that all the descriptions of better properties are full of these empty-enthusiasm words, it might be interpreted by readers as an indication of problems if they're absent."  

We are definitely influenced by words, so it's good to be aware of all the power - indeed, 'empty-enthusiasm' words - wielded by marketers in every realm of sales.

Luxury apartments for monkeys at San Diego Zoo

Here are some popular high-end words for million dollar homes or to make a less costly house sound like a wonderful buy: exquisite finishes, luxuries/luxurious, expansive, gleaming hardwood floors, sea-view terraces, remodeled/updated to perfection, stunning.  If you want to grow your vocabulary of rich language, it's all around you. You can even find it by checking out real estate listings!  

Build Vocabulary with Signs

Here's a link to Picturing English for a look at a way to raise your vocabulary to an advanced level, even if you're a native speaker! Wherever you stop along the road or highway, keep your eyes open for signs full of new words. If you find a cool sign, please send it on to me here at Many Englishes or Picturing English.  I'll post it for all.  Enjoy the rest stop!  

Can "doodling" or texting while listening in class help students to remember better?

I'm not a psychologist, so my thoughts here are just "doodlings." I wrote this post as a reflection on an uncontrolled experiment in my listening classroom.  I teach an intermediate level English class to foreign students in a 10-week intensive English program. It focuses on teaching listening skills for academic purposes.

After a year of teaching this course (our textbook is Listening Power 3), I find that one of the most difficult tasks for students is getting accustomed to taking notes. There is a challenging unit at the end of our textbook focused on taking notes and using shorthand techniques, but note-taking is not the primary focus of the course. However, because I have taught iBT Listening preparation classes for many years, I know that without notes, students will have difficulty recalling support points and details, for example. In order to insure that students really focus when listening, I now make them have a pencil and paper in hand.  They learn that they must practice some form of note-taking. They earn points or credit for making any attempt at writing while listening. For jottings of any nature, they get an automatic 5 points. I even had a Saudi student (who was actually a very good listener) who wrote her notes in Arabic, so I had no idea if the notes were on the topic. She explained that she wrote English words using Arabic script - i.e., she transliterated the listening. Did this activity help my student comprehend better? Perhaps.

Recently, I watched a short TED talk about doodling. To my delight, it seemed to support my mission. Consequently, I now back up my emphasis on note-taking or, now, some kind of doodling while listening with observations by business entrepreneur and TED speaker Sunni Brown.  She redefines doodling as "to make spontaneous marks to help you think" and found that "people retain more information from doodling." A quick Google search yielded more material on the topic, including a recent TV interview with Ms. Brown.

The school where I teach - like many others like it - has a policy of no cell phone use in class unless sanctioned by the instructor. Students often use their cell phones as dictionaries, but what if we asked them to use their cell phones to write or take notes? They would most likely have to use abbreviations, and maybe they'd have fun trying to figure out ways to do that and to read back their notes. Has anyone tried this?

This is a thinking-out-loud post. If you have any thoughts or reflections, please feel welcome to comment.

Do you have time? Or, do you have the time?

What is the difference between the two expressions in the title above?  For an example of what can happen when you confuse these two expressions, please read this post at my sister blog.  I have used the example in listening and vocabulary classes in addition to dedicated grammar classes. When students think that articles are not significant, it might help them to pay more attention if they have a clear image of how one little word like "the" created an embarrassing misunderstanding.

No Shortcuts to Competence in Vocabulary

A while ago (12/13/12), an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (paper version) grabbed my attention.  The title was "Vocabulary Declines, with Unspeakable Results." The article by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. can be viewed at the above google-cache link (although I don't know for how long).

The reason I read the article was that, just the day before it was printed, I had had a conversation with a high-intermediate TOEFL student who wondered why our English language school doesn't place students by level according to a vocabulary score.  I didn't have a good answer to his question.  How important is vocabulary to mastery of English?  Can we rate an ESL student's ability level by the vocabulary that (s)he can command in reading, listening, speaking, and writing?  How would we create a measurement/scale for that?  Do test-makers rate every word used in their exam by level?

The focus of the Hirsch article is on native speakers of English - on the American educational system and how it fails to equip its public-school students with appropriate academic and formal vocabulary so that they can function as well-spoken adults.  Hirsch points out that "Vocabulary building is a slow process that requires students to have enough familiarity with the context to understand unfamiliar words.  Substance, not skill, develops vocabulary and reading ability - there are no shortcuts." 

I totally agree with Hirsch that there are "no shortcuts" to learning vocabulary.  It is unlikely that a student can quickly grow his/her lexicon without simultaneously expanding her/his knowledge of various subjects.  In other words, vocabulary is best learned and remembered within a subject or topical context.

Some readers may disagree with the view that "all verbal tests are, at bottom, vocabulary tests." However, as Hirsch says, research has "shown that ...verbally weighted scores are good predictors of income level.  Words are twice as important as math scores..."  My students can attest that what holds them back the most in achieving the scores that they need on the IELTS or iBT (TOEFL) is a lack of vocabulary. The TOEFL is designed to test a non-native speaker's ability to comprehend and use language that would allow them to function in an American college.

How can we teachers ensure that students are well equipped vocabulary-wise for college and university or for the business world.  Will studying vocabulary lists work?  When a test asks a student to figure out the "gist" or general meaning of a reading or listening passage on the iBT, can a student consistently choose the correct answer if (s)he is totally unfamiliar with the topic being discussed or written about. The test-makers (ETS) claim that all the information a student needs to correctly answer a question on the iBT is contained in the reading or listening passage.  They do not need to be knowledgeable about any particular subject matter.   

Recently, one of my students (Chinese) in a low intermediate preparatory iBT writing class scored 40 out of 120 points on the iBT.  He was very ashamed that he got a "0" on the listening part of the exam. He said that he had no familiarity with what the speakers were talking about, so he couldn't guess enough answers to score even a few points out of the 30 possible for the listening section. I was somewhat incredulous that he scored so low, too, because he was very good at recognizing individual spoken words and to orally give synonyms for the majority of vocabulary words that we had learned from a list in our textbook.  What went wrong when he had to listen to lectures and conversations in English where all the vocabulary was contextualized?  (It is important to note that he had trained for listening and speaking for the iBT, but, according to the student, the topics covered in the listening passages on the exam had not been covered in his practice sessions.)  Is there any way to ensure that all potential academic topics discussed on the iBT can be covered in a ten-week preparatory course? 

The WSJ article and my own observations of ESL students continue to reinforce the notion that much more attention needs to be given to vocabulary development both in public schools and ESL programs.  For teachers, this means that we must be more creative and attentive to the multiple meanings of single words in both common, everyday speech and in more restricted academic contexts. Teaching a love of words could go a long ways toward making students delight rather than cringe at the thought of learning vocabulary.  

Intermediate Level Connectors Chat Board

As with other board games that I have put up on this blog, I hope that this one will be useful to both teachers and students.  I used it recently with an intermediate group of ESL learners in a TOEFL writing preparatory class (they learned how to write independent task essays).  Along with vocabulary building activities, the students had the chance to orally practice using connectors (conjunctions) with the assistance of the attached game board and the comparative word chat board.

You can use a die or not (it will go faster using dice and game pieces).  However, I wanted my students to do a lot of practice, and it was highly successful making the students alternate turns.  They did not finish the whole board, but got a lot of practice after 20-30 minutes.  Happily, they remained engaged until I stopped them because they were challenged creating their own sentences that linked words or ideas from the comparative chat board and used the conjunction that came up next on the board.  The partner could choose any pair of words on the comparative chat board. I was able to monitor students and spot-checked to ensure that they knew how to punctuate coordinating (the FANBOYS) and subordinating conjunctions (e.g., when, because, while, before, after) and conjunctive adverbs (e.g., however, therefore, first, second, finally).

This board is designed for lower intermediate level students.  In the future, I will post my more advanced level game connectors board along with some other ideas for how to use it.  Meanwhile, I hope that you'll find this one useful.

Weather Idioms and Sayings

We don't have many bad weather days in Southern California when we can use an expression like "It's raining cats and dogs." There is even disagreement about whether we should teach this outdated expression even though everyone understands it.  Nevertheless, as teachers of English to non-native speakers, our students should also be aware of common expressions that contain weather language relating to everyday life.  These expressions are what we call idioms. To figure out the meaning of an idiom, you have to go beyond a dictionary definition of each individual word.

Here are some weather idioms that you might find fun to use. Lately have you been feeling snowed under? I've been very busy too, so I haven't had as much time as before to post exercises or lesson plans for you.  Now that I've added another post, however, I feel energized.

Some people think that we only have sunny days in San Diego, but actually we do experience differences in weather. You might think I'm full of hot air, but I'm serious.  We do get big rain storms here in San Diego, usually in January and February.  Here are some questions with weather idioms (with online links to definitions), which you can use as writing or chatting prompts.

1. Do you believe that "Every cloud has a silver lining"?  Explain this saying.

2. Describe the last time that you were snowed under.

3. Have you ever had a fair weather friend?  Describe that friend.

4. Do you believe the saying, "When it rains, it pours"?  Why/why not?

5. What is something that is a breeze for you?  Why do you think it is a breeze?

6. When you have an argument, do you usually let it blow over?  Why/why not?

7. What do you sometimes blow hot and cold about?

8. Describe a time when you were on cloud nine.

9. Has anyone ever stolen your thunder?  What happened?

10. What helps you recover fast when you feel under the weather?

Test your Knowledge of Arabic in English

What I love about teaching English is that it keeps me perpetually interested in learning more about it, especially about its vocabulary.  Take the word giraffe.  The giraffe is not a native animal of the Middle East, yet the word is of Arabic origin. Alcohol, too, comes from Arabic even though it is a drink today forbidden to faithful Moslems. Before I began teaching English to Arabic speakers, I had never given much thought to words in my language that might have Arabic roots.  For those readers who wonder what words they know that come from Arabic, here is a link (another crossword puzzle!) for you. The answer to number one across is in this post. Good luck!

Test Your Knowledge of Spanish in English

Here's another crossword puzzle!  You can test yourself to see how many Spanish words you know in English.  If you're like me, you probably didn't know that all of these words have roots in español.  Have fun!

NB:  Because this online crossword puzzlemaker has a limit of 25 letters and spaces for the clues, the definitions are very short or terse.

Jeopardy Game with Homographs (words that look the same but have multiple meanings)

For those teachers and students looking for more activities and ways to learn words with multiple meanings, this is a site which has 25 words in a jeopardy game-like format.  Two people can compete against each other, or you can play by yourself, trying to beat your top score.  The game gives you two definitions, and you have to type in the one word that fits both meanings. The 1000 point words can be challenging, but the game seems geared primariy for intermediate rather than advanced level students.  Have fun!  See if you can get a perfect score!

Test Your Knowledge of French in English (c)

By the end of last year, I had created three online crossword puzzles focusing on French words that are commonly used in English.  This is the third crossword puzzle.  There may be one or two repeats of words found in the previous crosswords, but you can see if you remember them here.  Good luck - and have fun with vocabulary!

The first link (a) is to my blogpost so that you understand how to use this online crossword puzzle site.  The other links take you directly to the crossword puzzle.  Have fun reviewing more French words in English!  Here are the links to the posts for all three crosswords, focusing on French in English (a), (b), and (c) = the most recent!

P.S.  I am aware that in one of the crossword puzzles, I used entree to mean the first course, and in another, I used it to mean the main course.  If you eat at a French restaurant in the USA, it could be the first meaning.  If you eat at a French restaurant here which has adopted the English meaning, it refers to the main course.  To avoid confusion, some restaurants avoid the French word completely, calling the first course, appetizers, and the main course, main course (what else?).

Some Tips on Writing (Blogging) Well

I haven't written about blogging for a while, but my daughter has sent me a link to a great site for copywriters.  I am passing along this link about several common writing mistakes because I am sure that you want to avoid these errors.  They are errors that ESL and English instructors everywhere try to avoid making themselves and try to get their students to avoid making.  Sometimes my ESL students seem unconvinced that the rules I teach are ones that native speakers need to follow, too.  Maybe these tips and this site will reinforce my lessons or yours.

"P" is for Polyseme

I've been talking about polysemes in my intermediate classes. Some might say that it is too big of a word for this level, but when I was a low-level student in Spanish, French, and Japanese, I recall being undaunted by big words.  The concept was what was important.

I want students to know that English has a huge number of words that, on the surface, look very simple, but have multiple meanings.  They are polysemes (n) or polysemous (adj).  There are other words that I could introduce to them, such as homophones, homonyms, homographs, but mostly what I want them to know is that there are words that look identical and have more than one meaning.

Try this little game to discover some simple and common polysemes (e.g., homographs).  Also, if you haven't seen "'R' is for Range", it is a previous post that examines the word "RANGE" for its multiple uses and meanings.

Online Vocabulary Quiz #4

To Intermediate Vocabulary Students:
Finally, I succeeded in putting together another online quiz for you to practice before tomorrow!  Yay!
Also, I eliminated extra credit vocabulary as you were tested on this in the previous quiz.  As always, you can do this online quiz as many times as you like.  It is set to change the order of questions every time.  In that way, each time you test yourself, it will feel like a new quiz.  Good luck!  Have fun!  You're welcome. ;-)

If you have any questions or problems with the online quiz, you can post your comments below.

Test Your Knowledge of French in English (b)

Here is another challenging crossword puzzle for advanced level students of English with some knowledge of French.  The words in the crossword are found in an English dictionary but come from French.  Remember that with this online puzzle maker, there are no spaces, accent marks, or other punctuation allowed either in the target word or the definition.

This is another way to develop and reinforce vocabulary, and I hope you have fun with it.  If you're a teacher, you can also use the site to create your own fun quizzes.  Let me know how you do!

Online Teacher Aides to the Rescue

Are you a creative teacher who wants to customize an integrated language arts or math lesson?  Then, you need to check out Lesson Writer and NiceNet.  These are free websites that allow teachers to create lesson plans using their own materials or using articles they find online.  And for teachers who are assessment conscious - who isn't these days?, there is a truly convenient Easy TestMaker.  All you have to do for any of these sites is sign up with a valid e-mail and create a password.  Voilà!

Here's an example of a page (downloaded first as a pdf) that I transferred to a Word Document, so that I could join it up to other test pages created in Word.  TestMaker is a huge timesaver.  You can do multiple choice, cloze, true-false, and matching tests, format into a single column or multiple colums as you like.  It will create an answer key for you, too.

On the other hand, if you're having one of those days when your mind is on hold and you just want someone to hand you a lesson, check out Teachers First.  These lessons are primarily designed for K-12 students, but there's endless material for ESL instructors here.  Again, this is a free website.

The V(owel)-C(onsonant)-silent "e" Rule

One of the most frustrating features of English is pronunciation because it isn't clearly related to spelling. There doesn't seem to be any logic to spelling and pronunciation - no matter if you're a native speaker or a non-native speaker of English. So, are there any rules that we teachers can pass on to our students about how to say unfamiliar words?

The simplest rule that most native speakers follow - even if they don't consciously know it's a rule - is the (V)owel - (C)onsonant - Silent ("e") pronunciation pattern V-C-e at the end of a word.  The easiest way to illustrate is with words: gate, late, mate, state, fate, date, rate, relate, debate and so on. In these words, the "a" in the "-ate" part sounds like [e] in the phonetic alphabet, "e" sounds like [i], "i" sounds like [ay], "o" like [oʊ], and "u" like [yu], with a "y" sound in front of the "u", as in "cute" [kyut] or without the "y" sound, as in "dude" [dud] or "flute" [flut].

kite       vote       cute           complete
trite       dote       mute          delete
cite        tote       flute           compete

bite       mode     fume          

mite      pole       perfume       
site        mole      assume          
lime      sole        crude              
mime     hope     attitude        
crime     cope     dude
fine       dope      rule
wine      mope    mule
line        rode      cube
         
As you can see, there are a lot more words ending in -aCe, -iCe, -oCe, and -uCe than -eCe.  I suspect that that probably means there are alternate spellings for the long "e" sound in English. And, of course, remember that the above "rule" (V-C-e) is only a rule of thumb.  In other words, there are several exceptions to the rule, such as the irregular past participles, done and gone, whose "o's" are pronounced differently in each word and differently from lone, which does follow the rule.  

"A" is for "Achieve"

Vocabulary is still one of the areas where most students are weak, so I often put up posts here on this topic. I am always searching for ways to enhance student and teacher performance. Unfortunately, there is no one, sure-fire method to improve vocabulary. Repeated exposures to the target vocabulary is a basic strategy. The adage "Use it, or lose it!" applies very well.

English Central is a site that offers video reinforcement of vocabulary. Scroll down the "A" page and look for "achieve." A window will pop up that gives you that word in various forms, the pronunciation and definition of the word, and other forms of "achieve." To the right of the word is an embedded screen which, when clicked on, will open up a stream of video clips with the target word in context. The catch is that you must register to see the sample videos. The basic free membership allows you partial access to the site. The paid membership will get you full access. So far, however, the free membership has been more than adequate for practicing and building a lexicon on a variety of themes or topics. The few extra minutes it takes to register are worth it. Some people went to a lot of trouble to assemble all this material, so we should definitely use it.

Correct Use of English

A comment at another site caused me to rethink how important it is to get students to use "correct" English and which structures to fight for and which to accept. This video is a reading on the topic of the English language and the ways in which it is used today (a commentary delivered by the British actor and writer Stephen Fry).

I have been in the position of having taught students the difference between "less" for amounts (non-count nouns) and "fewer" for countable nouns and of being asked why the supermarket check-out sign says, "10 items or less." Hmmm... good point.... Good observation of the use of English in the "real" world! Maybe there's a sign-posting rule that says, "Whenever possible, use a one-syllable word" (even though the two-syllable word "fewer" is, in this case, more grammatically correct).

Unlike Stephen Fry, I still sometimes cringe when I hear someone on NPR (National Public Radio) say, "There's lots of people who ...." There IS lots of people...? Am I being pedantic if I tell my students that the correct expression is "There ARE lots of people who..."? We English teachers certainly have to choose our battles, don't we?

With all my students, I tend to say, "If you follow the grammar rule, you usually can't go wrong. However, language IS a living thing, and it's constantly changing as it is used by people around the world." That's about all I can say when I encounter text-messages, e-mail, Facebook comments, advertisements, signs and so on that break the rules I've struggled to teach. I do, nevertheless, appreciate the fact that my native language is quickly evolving as it spreads from neighborhood to neighborhood around the globe. Now, that's pretty exciting!