To teach or not to teach ... 'bad' words

Recently, I viewed a very funny video about the many meanings of 'shit.' Although I have taught such common four letter words in the past, I wondered how my colleagues and friends (native English speakers and non-native English speakers) would respond to a query about teaching 'shit' to my intermediate-level adult students at a community college. Out of 10 people who responded via FB or email, not one of them waivered. They all said, "Yes, you should teach bad words." One even said that it is my 'responsibility' to teach them.

Here's the video. The performer is Finnish and definitely has a great sense of American English. I don't know if he was a comedian in his native country, but he definitely tickles my funny bone.

What do you think?  I did show this video to my students, and most of them (a dozen) enjoyed it. However, a few didn't seem to 'get' it. When you explain humor, it somehow kills it, so I had a brief follow-up reaction/reflection talk, advising caution (especially to the young adult males in my class) when attempting to use this kind of language with native speakers.

I agree it IS my responsibility as an instructor of English to non-native speakers to teach them awareness and self-consciousness when using four-letter words that can be seen as obscene or irreverent. I also want them to understand that context is extremely important - how powerful a definite or indefinite article is in changing the meaning of an expression. As a student of many foreign languages (Spanish, French, Quechua, Japanese, Arabic, Lingala), I find it easy to put myself in the position of my students. I would want to know these words in other languages I have studied to greater or smaller degrees, so that I might understand if someone is insulting or complimenting me.  It is up to each student to take what I've chosen to give, store it in memory, or throw it away.  

Teaching and Mindset Part 2

Teachers also need to get into a growth mindset. That is, we need to focus on our own growth and learning. Sometimes, we are made aware of other strategies for teaching students which are more 'fun' and incorporate more technology. I have done this with my college ESOL students. I get 'stretched' technologically and learn to teach a different skill (beyond English!).

However, after trying out new strategies, I sometimes realize (= learn) that I may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.  I am constantly being torn between doing what my gut instincts tell me to do, such as drill students and do choral pronunciation exercises, not as a steady diet but intermittently. Yet, I know that by current California standards of project-based learning, someone overseeing me for one class session might view such an activity as very old-fashioned or 'old school.'  If they asked me why I did it, however, there would be many sound reasons (pun intended) based on what I've learned from psycholinguistics and from my own personal journeys sampling or studying several foreign languages (Spanish, French, Quechua, Japanese, Arabic, Lingala, German).

The following Op-Ed article last spring from the Opinion section of the Wall Street Journal (May 13-14, 2017 (Saturday and Sunday), page A11, titled "A Polymath Mastered Math - and So Can You" by James Taranto, who interviewed Barbara Oakley) caught my attention as it forced me to rethink some ideas that I'd been forcing myself to give up. My insides were telling me that many of my students had not done the hard foundation-building labor (often repetitious and drill-like) to control English's many irregular verbs and our variety of tenses. Many were not even aware that there were so many identifiable grammatical structures in English. As a long-term ESOL instructor (nearly 20 years), I have recently been informed that grammar can be 'picked up' in the context of reading, by noticing how writers write. That may work for native speakers much better than it works for non-native speakers because native speakers already have some language intuition, but I often hear from my immigrant students that they want more instruction in grammar, not just passive learning.

What struck me a few years ago in 2016 was that some former Swiss students who came back to the U.S.A. to visit - and reconnected with their former ESL instructor (me) - had not lost much of their English skills from eight years earlier. How was it possible that former students who had not been in the USA for nearly a decade nor been required to use English in their jobs could still produce such coherent and accurate English? How could they still correctly form a question in English and ask if they were using correct grammatical construction (they were! - e.g., present perfect, simple past, conditional, and so on)?  Could it be that they drilled it years before we met and drilled again before the Cambridge Exam? They memorized and practiced English for an expensive test that would mean the difference between getting a raise or moving up the job ladder by proving their overall comprehension of the language.

In the Wall Street journal article, the author of Mindshift (Oakley) says, with respect to learning math and science that "The way you learn intensively for a language is very similar to learning well in math and science." Although some believe that practice and repetition kill creativity, Oakley says, "One mistake we make in the school system is we emphasize understanding. But if you don't build those neural circuits with practice, it'll all slip away. You can understand up the wazoo, but it'll just disappear if you're not practicing with it" (quoted by Taranto in WSJ, 5/13/17).

Ms. Oakley comments that "many, if not most," of her engineering colleagues "are from countries that have educational systems completely antithetical to [ours]. In places like China and India, 'practice and repetition and rote and memorization are really important parts of education.'" Oakley also points out that our Western approaches can enhance creativity, but that "Asian approaches ... build solid foundations in the most difficult disciplines like math and science."

This article resonated with my instincts and thoughts about language learning. My own long journey with foreign languages has definitely impacted my English teaching strategies. Now, I am rethinking my own mindset. Is it fixed, or can I continue to grow and change - the same as I ask of my students?

Teaching and Practicing Growth Mindset and Political Correctness

Since 2015, I've been starting my Advanced ESOL Reading and Writing class with some readings about mindset and a TED video by Carol Dweck.  Why?  I have been frustrated with students who arrive in my class from their previous classes believing that they are "A" students, so everything that they do should have an "A" grade attached to it. First, where does this fixation on grades come from? While adult immigrant students earn credits for their ESOL community college classes, the grades do not impact their college transcripts. In other words, if they do well enough in their ESOL classes to move up to Basic Skills Writing courses, a grade of "C" or better in ESOL will not affect their chances of getting into a four-year degree-granting institution. Second, when there is nothing to lose by earning a passing level grade of "C," why is there still an obsession with grades? Third, if students are supposed to complete certain skills by the time they arrive at the highest level, why are a third of them arriving in the last "advanced" level course without what I expect are the requisite skills? Why do we ESOL professors feel pressured and compelled to move students on to the next level - to pass them because they're immigrants and can't be expected to be as skilled in English as a native speaker? Interestingly, in a class discussion about language and literacy across the world, one of my students said that she thought a big difference between her country (Colombia) and the USA is that in Colombia if a student doesn't reach the required level of skill in Spanish, for example, (s)he will have to repeat the class. No ifs, ands, or buts. They might even have to repeat it twice; it is the same for mathematics and science classes at the middle school level. In that way, it actually means something when students complete middle school. If they don't pass, then they can't go on to high school.

This is a point I need to explore further. There are 'triage' or two-tier apprenticeship vs. academic-track systems in Europe where students who don't have high enough scores on level tests get filtered out as pre-teens or teenagers into so-called apprentice programs (where the focus is on learning blue-collar skills and office/clerical skills for service-oriented professions) rather than academic or science-oriented careers.

When I got exposed to Brainology and the work of Carol Dweck in 2015, I had little idea how well it would work to help my students focus on learning and growing their minds. The concept of the fixed and growth mindsets was revolutionary to me and to my non-native Englsh-speaking adult population. In addition, it was empowering for me and for some of my students.  Since January 2015, I've had a handful of ESOL students who knew they were not going to pass my class who stayed in my course beyond the withdraw deadline (10 weeks of 16 week semester) because they decided that they could improve their essay writing, do advanced-level readings, participate in reading circle discussions or debates, build their knowledge of more advanced grammar structures, and be better prepared to repeat the class the next semester. One student who did this wrote in her portfolio reflection that it was one of the best experiences she had had in ESOL because she wasn't worried about her grade. Instead, she was focused on learning. Wow!

I have continued to use the growth mindset and find that it has worked for me and transformed my way of communicating to my students. This approach to teaching doesn't protect students from getting "D's" in my classes; it means, in my view, that they're not yet ready for the next level. (See Dweck above). I also share my own educational flops in my long journey through a four-year degree at UCLA and two master's degree programs (anthropology and TESOL). I let them know that I don't equate grades with intelligence because when I suffered from "D" grades, I know that I didn't suddenly get dumber. I was over-extended (working, commuting by bus over two hours per day, and emotionally stressed and depressed over a broken relationship). These were not excuses; other factors overpowered my ability to focus on classwork.

Praising effort over grades does not mean that a student should pass a class because they worked hard. Many of my students were hard workers, but they knew that they had not achieved the learning outcomes. Their English "muscles" were not strong enough to perform at the level of a college freshman.

Is it easy not to pass a hard-working ESOL student? No, of course not. However, I wish the previous professor had conveyed the same message to his/her students so that I wouldn't have had to deflate egos and overcome the bad attitudes of students who came with fixed mindsets - and saw anything as difficult as an attempt on the instructor's part to show/prove that they were not very smart. Some students told me that they "knew" all the grammar and passed at an "A" level in the previous course, yet they didn't know basic irregular verb forms (e.g., teach -> "teached") or how to use present perfect or simple past nor did they know that modal verbs are not followed by past tense verb forms (e.g., should "went"). On top of that, several of these same students complained that I should spend more time on basic grammar even though "grammar" was supposedly what "they already knew."

This is not a rant, but a suggestion that adult-level ESOL instructors use concepts from elementary school curricula to enhance their approach to teaching, in general. The Brainology reading for 5th graders in the public school was not too simple for advanced-level ESOL students.  A side benefit one semester was the revelation that one of my students connected to her son because he had studied the same reading. My adult ESOL student was fearful of going back to school, but as her children were out of kindergarten, her husband encouraged her to go to college and to seek a career outside the home. Learning to write in academic English was her first big step.

Just as the debate still sizzles in public schools, I have found that some of my colleagues teaching college-level ESOL courses are caught in a battle over what our purpose is. Is it to help students reach a level of English fluency and accuracy that will allow them to communicate well in a work or business context to colleagues and employees, or is it to equip our students with enough language to be functional, comprehensible, and "good enough" - assuming that they will improve over time with exposure to native English-language speakers?

I am torn between treating my students as I would want to be treated in a foreign country, studying in an academic setting, alongside native-born students.  Would I want to be passed along because it was viewed as not PC (politically correct) to fail me and force me to repeat a course until I had reached a more functional level in the target language in which I needed to express myself? If I continued on in a foreign environment and obtained a degree there, would my degree be worth the same as the native-born student's?  Are we cheapening the value of a UCSD degree by taking on so many non-natives who don't command the language into our degree programs?  Was the professor forced to pass me along because I was foreign-born and working hard to acculturate and learn the local language? Does it degrade the value of a degree from UCLA or UCSD if a non-native speaker receives a degree from one of these prestigious universities and is incomprehensible in English outside of a classroom context? When we discovered that President George W. Bush graduated from Yale University, did we not pause to wonder whether the standards of Yale were as high as we once thought them to be?

Now, in February 2018, I am still puzzled and asking many of the same questions.

Reading Circles - Part Deux

Now that I am in the midst of a new semester, I am doing some reflection on how the advanced level reading and writing course went in the spring. In particular, this reflection is tied to the Reading Circle experiment (see earlier posts 1 , 2). I plan to continue using the reading or literature circles based on several positive reflections from student portfolios last semester.

Here are a few examples of some of the comments. Several students did not mention the reading circles specifically, so these comments represent a biased sample where "circles" were specifically mentioned. Those that referred to the reading circles in their reflections said they were "an excellent idea" (MGA, 2015), "the best experience" (NT, 2015), and "a useful method." Some of the reasons they thought the circles were a positive experience is that they had specific roles to play which varied every two or three weeks. They had to learn how to think about the reading and hear alternative views and understandings of the work. According to one student, activities affected other reading experiences: "it helped me a lot in understanding the bottom line of the book that I am reading..." (JQN, 2015).

One huge benefit of the reading circle was that it helped to build a community in the classroom, a sense of responsibility for playing a role in their small groups. What made it work successfully in this classroom was the participation by 99% of the students. Without preparation, when a student was called on to contribute to their circle, they knew that they were failing their classmates - not the instructor. Each role counted since a "circle" was made up of five students, each playing a different role. In addition, a few students commented that they learned about different cultures through these discussions since one of the roles was "Connector." Often, students used this role to comment about how their experience growing up in another culture was very different from what was being described in an American context.

Another theme from the students who liked the reading circles was the feeling of empowerment that they gained from having others listen to their interpretation of a reading as a summarizer, discussion leader, or connector. Students didn't feel overwhelmed by trying to learn every new or unknown word and started learning how to infer meanings from context. They could count on one member of the circle explaining at least five new words from the article, and students could always discuss difficult vocabulary amongst themselves.

A final advantage and positive outcome of using Reading Circles was the opportunity to conduct formative assessments. When the students are involved in student-led discussions on the same readings, they face each other. This leaves the instructor free to move around the room and observe whether students are doing some critical thinking and learning to discuss ideas in English. At the end of the group activity, the instructor can merge vocabulary that came from the reading - put it on the board in its various forms (noun, verb, adverb, adjective). In this way, the whole class developed a common vocabulary list.

Is "just" a female word?

It has been many months since I took the time to write a think-piece here. One of my 2015 New Year's resolutions was to save my blog. However, instead, I worked on activating my Picturing English and my Mbote from San Diego (travel and wildlife observations) blogs. I also began a new career path, working in a community college.

A while ago, I ran across this article about Words to Eliminate from your Vocabulary but I never took the time to fully reflect on it here. "Just" and "that" were on the elimination list. Subsequently, I noticed another article re-posted on LinkedIn about the use of "just" in speaking - about how women tend to use it more and how it weakens whatever we express. After Ellen Leanse published results of her informal survey comparing the usage of "just" by men and women in a business context, the idea that women mark themselves as weaker or more tentative when speakking has gone viral.  More significantly to me, I realize that I am one of those women who regularly uses "just." Consequently, now every time I write or hear myself say "just," I remove the word or remind myself to avoid it in the future.

Of course, there has been a backlash to this view. After doing a little "googling" around, I have decided not to throw out all my justs.  Last month an alternative view was published. The article is long because the writer substantiates claims with citations and the research of academics. Krissy Eliot has published another fascinating examination of how women's speech is scrutinized and depicted in American culture. (Watch the video, at least.)

Men's speech is the standard to which my speech is compared. That is definitely something I need to think about before I automatically remove all justs - and you know which "just" I'm talking about, right? (There are many meanings of just, but the one I'm writing about isn't well defined at Merriam-Webster.) 

NB:  As always, I welcome my readers thoughts on any post. I also express my apologies to anyone who has been a follower and stopped visiting me regularly. This year I have only added about four new posts here, most of which have been directed toward ESOL teaching with lesson materials and thoughts about how to be more effective in the classroom. I feel liberated writing again about our many Englishes!

"G" and "H"

By the way, don't forget to check out some Picturing English.    "G" is for get, and "H" is for head. 

Organizers for Teaching Connectors

I have been meaning for some time to make these graphic organizers available to all here at Many Englishes. I have several versions of these two on connectors, but these are the most recent ones that I have distributed to my classes. One organizer focuses on coordinating conjunctions and transitions or conjunctive adverbs. I usually teach the usage of the FANBOYS and transition words together.  The other organizer focuses on a small array of subordinating conjunctions (which I encourage students to expand upon as they encounter other subordinators). Subordinating conjunctions which require more explanation of meanings, punctuation, and usage (especially the prepositional forms) are taught separately.

Many readers of this blog are familiar with my Intermediate Connectors Game Board which is a fun way (with some dice) for students to practice conjunctions orally. Here is another way using sentence strips that works well for a high intermediate+ level class. You can print the sentence strips on heavy paper or on colored paper. You need to cut between words where there is space (e.g., between conjunction and subject + verb, cut around the commas and periods. Students need to figure out what makes since. The words are all in capital letters so as not to give the students a clue about where to put a connector (at the beginning of a sentence or in the middle).  Please make comments if you have any questions or suggestions about other ways to improve the activity. I usually place a set of the strips inside a large envelope and put students in groups of four or five to sort and work together. You can do the activity more than once and make it a race to see which group remembers the sentences and puts the words together quickly and accurately.

Making Connections in English

In the spring semester, I was pleasantly surprised to find out from my strongest students that what they enjoyed most in the first few weeks of our advanced ESOL reading and writing class was learning how to use connectors or conjunctions.  Even though this grammatical structure came at the end of their textbook, I introduced it at the beginning of our course. Because connectors are the glue with which words, sentences, and paragraphs stick together, it is worthwhile to reinforce conjunctions and transition words often throughout a semester or quarter. Having some variety of games for 10 to 15 minute reviews definitely helps. Most advanced level students believe that they already know how to use conjunctions very well.

It is easy to formatively assess how well students "know" grammatical structures of English, by starting the fall semester with a review session. Divide your class into groups of four or five students and ask them to list and define what parts of speech, functions of parts of speech, phrase, and clause (independent/dependent) mean.  Using SV to indicate to students "subject" and "verb" or a "clause" leads me to ask the class to define and give several examples of simple, compound, and complex sentences. The letters SV are often used in grammar books, so their use as representations for a clause are usually familiar to advanced level students.

By reading and sometimes clapping or walking in front of the class (taking one plodding step, for example, for each simple sentence), an instructor can illustrate why, as writers and speakers, we should use a range of connectors. Sometimes, to be emphatic, we might use a string of the same simple structure as in, "I love your smile. I love your voice. I love your soul." That would definitely have an impact on me!  However, if we don't use any conjunctions to connect sentences in a writing, I show how it starts to be monotonous for a reader by clapping as I read. Da da dadum; da da dadum; da da dadum, and on and on.

Because of my background in anthropology, I always try to give students strategies for learning in general by being aware of their human biological roots. For most of our history, language was spoken. Whatever students learn for written discourse can be used in speech. There is a connection between fluent and accurate speech and fluent and accurate writing. Some students seem to be better at writing because they are familiar with a lot of vocabulary and grammar structures, but they are shy about mispronouncing words. Thus, their speech lags behind. Other students are fluent in speaking because they are focused on communicating and not on the accuracy of their grammar or making pronunciation errors. They often have more difficulty at the advanced level correcting their grammar and vocabulary errors in writing because they already have well-developed habits of expressing themselves and making themselves understood in speech.

Native speakers of any language make allowances for non-native speakers. In addition, since there is so much redundancy in language, even if you only know infinitive forms of a verb, for example, you can get around very well without knowing tenses.  Many non-native speakers of English in this country who learn to communicate through immersion never master the correct academic forms of my language. That is why it is easier for a teacher to train a beginning-level student than an advanced-level student. Beginners see progress every day whereas advanced-level students sometimes feel that they are going backwards or marching in place. In fact, sometimes advanced students DO have to go backwards and relearn what they mislearned earlier.

One way to make students aware of connectors at an advanced level is to have them come up with the various types of types of sentences in a formulaic representation. If they have difficulty, you can guide them to come up with the forms.  Then have the class work in groups and put different types of sentences on the board. Ask them to share a range of connectors, too.

Your whiteboard might look like this:
SV. SV. SV. SV.  I like hamburgers. I don't like hot dogs. I like sweets.

SV, and SV.         SV, so SV.          SV, but SV.
I like hamburgers, and I like sweets. I like hamburgers, but I don't like hot dogs.  

SV because SV.   SV although SV.   SV while SV.
I like hamburgers because they are tasty. I like sweets although they are not good for my teeth. 

First, SV.             Second, SV.           Third, SV.
First, I heat the grill.  Second, I make the hamburger patties. Third, I put the patties on the hot grill. 

Along with a review of parts of speech, this is probably enough for a first meeting of class. It serves several purposes: (1) it helps the instructor to know what the students know and don't know; (2) the instructor and students start to get to know each other and to speak with each other in English; (3) the students start to see that they have a foundation to build on.  They build social and cognitive connections in English.

Reading or Literature Circles

Because of previous success at Reading Circles, I am going to institute them this semester in my ESOL Reading and Writing class (which also includes a fair amount of grammar instruction). I will report back here in the summer about the experience.

In the past, in a small IEP (Intensive English Language Program), I was very pleased with the results of this activity. It is nothing revolutionary although it does require carefully choosen reading material. Given class time limits. it is important to give a reading to students, with the understanding that they read it in advance. They are also assigned various roles to play in the circle (e.g., discussion leader, summarizer, wordmaster, passage finder, and connector). For the discussions to be productive and enlightening, students need to be prepared to play their roles.

The largest class I've done a literature circle with is one that had 15 high-intermediate students. They were divided into three reading circles of five students, with each student playing a different role. If you have numbers that cannot be divided into groups of five, you can have extra wordmasters, connectors, or passage finders, or you can form a smaller circle with the participants playing two roles each. If you have less than ten students, you can eliminate one or two of the roles (e.g., summarizer). For the first 10 - 15 minutes of a 1.5 hour session, discussion leaders pair up to draft some general questions to put to their respective groups. All the other role players can pair up for the first quarter hour, too.

Afterwards, the pairs or groups split up to play their roles in separate circles. The outcome has been very positive. Students function independently in circles, allowing the teacher to 'observe' and informally assess the students' ability to use the language of meetings (i.e., agree/disagree, clarify, ask for more information, and so on) and 'elevated' vocabulary.

Below are some links to sites I have used for this activity, including role-playing organizers and some language of meetings. I have also attached a few reading recommendations for high-intermediate to advanced-level ESOL students.

This is a new resource for me, but the worksheets are well designed with a self-assessment area at the bottom for students to rate their own participation. Because my class is not a literature class, I use magazine articles, short stories, and excerpts for reading material. There are many short story links that I will encourage my students to explore on their own this semester. This one looked very good. You can find other links at this site. Finally, it is important to know your class if you decide to do a circle activity regularly. See my notes below. You might also like to revisit my post on Reading Circles for Cambridge Advanced English test preparation.

NB: A literature or reading circle only works well/effectively with a class of motivated students. Students who just want to sit and listen to others speak and do not read in advance will be unable to contribute to the activity. Also, students who have strong aural skills but are weak at reading (but don't like to do homework) may be able to pick up on the general topic of a reading and divert a discussion away from specific analysis of the reading. These students are detractors for the well-prepared students and should be pulled from the table as soon as it becomes apparent to the instructor that they have not prepared. They should lose points for lack of participation in that activity.

Was that a choice or a yes/no question?

Sometimes students have great difficulty understanding the importance of intonation when speaking. When a question has an "or" in the middle of it between two nouns, is the speaker asking you to choose between the two nouns, or is the speaker simply asking a yes/no question?

By changing the intonation of these two questions, a native speaker can differentiate between these two types of question. Can you say the questions below using two different intonations so that the meanings are different? 

Do you want to go to a movie or watch TV? (Choice)

Do you want to go to a movie or watch TV? (Yes/No)

In the choice question, the answer should be either "a movie" or "TV." However, in the Yes/No question above, the response should be "yes" or "no." Listen to the following videos to get an idea of what a choice question sounds like and how it is different from a "yes/no" question in intonation. The most important concept to keep in mind is the rising and falling intonation.

In a choice question, the voice goes up on the first choice and falls on the second choice as illustrated below.
                                 Q:  Do you want to go to a movie ⤴ or watch TV ⤵ ?

                                 A:  I'd like to watch a movie.

However, in a yes/no question, the voice goes up at the end of the question.
                                 Q:  Do you want to go to a movie or watch TV ⤴ ? 
                                  A: Yes. Let's do something relaxing.

If you have problems understanding the difference between the two types of question, listen to the examples and practice. Then practice some more. You should also record yourself using a device like Vocaroo.com. Try to approximate the pronunciation of the people in the videos. Have fun!

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.  

Spanish words that have no English equivalence

As an ESL (English as a second language) instructor, I often tell my students to avoid using translating dictionaries and to try understanding new English words by learning synonyms, paying attention to context, and by listening to or reading lots of examples from native speakers.

The Huffington Post recently came out with a list of Spanish words for which there may be no single comparable English word.  Since I'm not bilingual, I can only trust that the translations to English are as close as possible to the meaning of the words in Spanish. As with English, the main problem of providing a single definition for these Spanish words is that other meanings are possible, e.g., sobremesa (could be a tablecloth or dessert). The most common usage of a word is usually the only one provided in paperback translating dictionaries. Even when searching online for definitions in English, there are many dictionaries and definitions to choose from. Language is very much a reflection of culture (previously touched on here), so it's not surprising that there may be no single word equivalence between languages. Translation always requires interpretation of one culture's vocabulary into the standard of another. If Facebook is any indicator of how far we have to go with translating apps, we still have a looong way to go with non-European languages such as Arabic, Korean, and Japanese.  

Teaching Sarcasm in English

When teaching intermediate-level students how to become better listeners, we often advise them to listen for differences in intonation or word choice that might signal meanings that are different from the dictionary definition of the words themselves. Learning to make inferences or to infer meaning from the way people express themselves in a foreign language can be daunting.

Some of my students who don't recognize the word sarcasm have difficulties understanding it from a written definition, so besides using examples from their textbook, Listening Power 3, I offer them some free online examples linked to my wiki. It is helpful for students to be able to listen to audio tracks or video examples outside of class.

The first one here is from the BBC's Learning English website. It gives a student some insight into English or British culture and a few audio examples of what sarcasm sounds like. The next is a link to a popular American TV series called The Big Bang Theory (TBBT). In this segment of an episode, one of the main characters Sheldon is trying to learn what sarcasm is. This video clip reinforces the explanation given by the BBC.

Personally, I'm not a fan of sarcasm as it was not part of my personal background. I didn't encounter it much until I was in high school. As explained in the BBC Learning English track, not every culture uses sarcasm as a form of humor. When dealing with non-native speakers, especially, but also with native speakers of English who you don't know well, be careful about using sarcasm. If the person you are interacting with doesn't know that you're being ironic or sarcastic, (s)he could misunderstand you and be hurt by your words. Sarcasm when aimed at a person unfamiliar with this form of communication can feel like an insult or a put down.

Word Forms Matter

Last year, UCSD psychology professor Christopher Bryan reported a fascinating finding about word forms and behavior. In an experiment exploring adults' responses to the verb use of "cheat" and the noun form of cheat referring to the person who cheats or "cheater," Dr. Bryan found that when people were directed "not to cheat" or advised "please don't cheat," they were more likely to cheat than if they were advised "not to be a cheater." Here is a link to the abstract of the research report. 

More recently, in a collaborative study, Professor Bryan worked with a team focusing on word choice and effects on behavior in young children. Similarly, experimenters were able to get child subjects to help more often by asking them to be "helpers" rather than to "help." Findings such as this lead me to believe that we need to be more attentive than before to the word choices and more specifically, word forms, that we use to promote ethical behavior in our students. It would be interesting to know if the same effects apply to non-native speakers of a language as to native speakers. 

The meanings of "date"

As part of my series of posts about WMMs (words with multiple meanings), I am now adding to my sister blog, Picturing English. There, whenever possible, I will provide photos, drawings, or clipart to illustrate the multiple meanings of a word. This provides a language learner with another way to acquire vocabulary so that it sticks to her/his long-term memory.

In the classroom, I often act out words. Former students have told me that a word "stuck" because of my "act" or visual illustration of it. Ultimately, that's the goal of language teachers - getting the language to stick!

Most of the words or expressions that I remember from Spanish, French, Japanese, and Quechua classes taken decades ago are those that are associated in my mind with events or images of people or a context in which I used or understood the language. I have no memories of words that I wrote on a page or a flashcard - even though I did use those tools for studying and improving my foreign language skills. Maybe those methods work best for short-term memory building.

Language and Thought ("Futured" and "Futureless" Languages)

Back in the 20th century before laptops, smart phones, and the Internet dominated student lives, I took my first course in anthropology. Since that time, I have been fascinated by the concept of cultural relativism and Benjamin Lee Whorf's linguistic relativism (or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), which views language as a cultural construct that shapes our thoughts and the way in which we view the world.

The academic debate about the influence of language on thought goes back at least a few centuries, and the discussion continues to pop up and to cause me to reflect on my English teaching practices.Students are often confused when they try to translate English into their own language or when they seek a word in English from their native tongue. Sometimes there isn't an equivalent concept, term, or item that exists in both languages. Most translating dictionaries do not show the range of usages of a single word in another language, so how far should I go in explaining to students that when they enter another language, their thinking and behavior might change?

Last year, I ran across this TED blog post and talk which made me pause to think more globally about human language, the English I teach, the vocabulary that enters American English from other languages, and the grammatical rules that continue to be broken and change as my American English becomes a species of English.

The findings of Keith Chen presented in this TED talk are provocative. (The published paper related to the talk is accessible here for free.) Chen's long-term research and surveys provide some compelling evidence to support the view that something basic like the existence of a future tense or lack of one can result in noticeable and measurable differences in behavior. Patterns of saving, for example, are correlated with the existence of a future tense. Wow!

Another Reason Why Grammar Matters

Recently Wall Street Journal (WJ) published an interesting analysis by Redfin and Grammarly on the effects of spelling and grammatical errors on real estate listings. Apparently, "typos and missing commas can slow sales and drag down prices" (WSJ, M12, Friday May 9, 2014).

One of the VPs (vice presidents) at Redfin infers that potential buyers view a realtor who is attentive to the details in his/her real estate listings as someone who will also handle sales carefully. By the same token, a sloppily written listing could signal a "potentially sloppy transaction" (WSJ, M12, May 9, 2014).

For English teachers searching for real-life examples of why grammar matters, this is a great instance of the impact good or poor grammar can have on people's lives in real economic terms.

"Beat It," "Eat It," and "West Side Story"

To teach students the concept of parody along with count and noncount nouns, students first listened to a young Michael Jackson singing and dancing to "Beat It " (1982) Then they watched Weird Al Yankovic in a video parody called "Eat It" (1984).  Students examined the lyrics (or words) to Weird Al's song, examining nouns for countability. It was difficult at times to understand the food references without knowing brand names such as Captain Crunch, Raisin Bran, and Spam.  Much more could have been done with this song in a literature or reading class, and I hope I'll have a chance to try the materials again with another high intermediate or advanced level group.

***You can also go back in movie history and watch an excerpt from "West Side Story" (1961) which the Michael Jackson dance video seems to parody.  There are other excerpts which seem relevant to "Beat It", such as the scene where Tony tries to break up the fight between two gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The scene parallels Michael Jackson's role in "Beat It," except Michael, of course, is able to get the two gangs to dance out their hostility.  

Funny Translations from Chinese to English

The hardest thing to convey to students, especially lower level ESL students, is not to use a translating dictionary to write in English. Here are some very funny examples of signs (you may need to click on the replay button for Gallery after you get to the first photo) that obviously don't say what was meant. Most (all?) of them are apparently mistranslations or literal translations from Chinese to English. We hope that no one was injured by following some of the directions.

Even though there may be some pretty good translating programs online, creating signs are a challenge even to native speakers. To avoid this kind of comedic representation of English, it is essential to have a native speaker of English or a bilingual bi-cultural speaker of Chinese and English verify the spelling and meanings of signs before they go up in public. I have no doubt that Americans translate to other languages in the same fashion as the Chinese. As I pointed out here, we don't even make signs very comprehensible to our own people.

I hope that we can, however, all enjoy the many colorful Englishes used around the world and appreciate the effort that non-native speakers of English (who far outnumber us native speakers of English!) make to apply or master our tongue.

Pronunciation of Minimal Pairs /p/ and /b/ (initial and final positions)

When teaching pronunciation to intermediate level students, you have to find some balance between giving them the information they need to produce certain sounds and finding a fun way to practice those sounds a lot in class. Here are some of the resources that I used and created to help my students, primarily Arabic speakers, distinguish between /p/ and /b/ in both initial and final position.

A game that was fun and successful is a variation on Go Fish, where students try to match cards with identical words written on them. That is, instead of asking if someone has any "Queens", the student asks a partner if (s)he has the word "PUB." If the student asked has the card with "PUB" written on it, (s)he gives the card to the student asking questions.  If the student being asked does not have the word, "PUB", the other student must draw a card from stack of cards that were not passed out.  Below is a photo of some of the cards I made up. I printed the words on an Avery label sheets. I stuck the words on old playing cards. You can often get these as give-aways from local casinos. Students liked playing with cards that looked like actual playing cards.

I used words from this minimal pair list. Students had a chance to practice the words on the list two days earlier. As with all card games, there is some time investment on the part of the teacher making them, but once she has the game(s), she can use it (them) repeatedly.  I also made another set of Go Fish cards using the images and words from this site (= a very useful site with lots of written and visual materials put together by a speech pathologist). Finally, you can have students practice pronouncing the sounds outside of class with YouTube video links, such as this one.  More advanced level students can also practice learning all the sounds of English using the phonemic alphabet.

***
It is also possible to use these same cards to do vowel contrasts (e.g., "cap" and "cup").  When students had played a few round of Go Fish, they also could play a game of Concentration or Memory using the same cards or a subset of the cards. I also showed my students a link to an audio version of Concentration for practicing pronunciation.