Mina P. Shaughnessy, New York: Oxford University Press (1977) “… [T]he young men and women who were to be known as open admissions students fell into one of three groups: (1) those who met the traditional requirements for college work, who appeared from their tests and their school performance to be competent readers and writers…
A last speaker with no one to talk to exists in unspeakable solitude. Increasingly, as linguists recognize the magnitude of the modern language die-off and rush to catalog and decipher the most vulnerable tongues, they are confronting underlying questions about languages’ worth and utility. Does each language have boxed up within it some irreplaceable beneficial…
“Hvileløs is a Norwegian word for restless. But restless doesn’t come within a mile of being as restless as hvileløs, which evokes someone who is fitty restless — as restless as a bewildered bedbug. Norwegians have a word for that, too: forvirre veggelus. Which, again, is ten times as bewildered as your average American bewildered…
Txtng: The gr8 db8. David Crystal. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2008. p 52 Texting is typically between people who know each other well. Language “intimate and local,” and make[s] assumptions about prior knowledge.” “It is a basic principle of discourse analysis that the meaning of words cannot be grasped in isolation, but must take into…
Outliers: The Story of Success. Malcolm Gladwell. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Chapter Seven, The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes pp 177–223. He analyzes an account of a 1997 plane crash of Korean Air, one of several by that airline, to show how it was caused by cultural misunderstanding. One factor was mitigated…
The Brain That Changes Itself. Norman Doidge, MD. New York, Penguin Books: 2007. Use for GATESOL Presentation p 308: “Listening to an audio book leaves a different set of memories than reading does. A newscast heard on the radio is processed differently from the same words read in a newspaper.” 298: He writes of “the…
Dear Mr. Firsten: I teach English in Upshur County, West Virginia. In these parts, it’s very common for people to say things like I’m waiting on you and The dog just drug our braided rug outside instead of I’m waiting for you and The dog just dragged our braided rug outside. I don’t accept those…
The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning and Teaching Volume V- 2000 TESOL: Art and Craft by Henry Widdowson So TESOL practitioners, I suggest, are, as individuals in the particular circumstances of their own classrooms, acting as artists in the exercise of their craft. They are not scientists seeking to eliminate variety in the…
Students “out-word each other.” “Language is a vehicle to name and make real what we imagine.” April 30, 2010, Dr. Tricia Kress (U Mass, Boston) speaking at Language Learning and the Imagination Symposium, New Jersey City University Young Researchers Club, Urban HS, Boston __________ Lyn Thompson Lemaire (EFL) Not “Where did you spend your vacation?”…
ginna.allison@gmail.com 510.847.9991 Ginna Allison MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages personal narrative + digital tools + creative arts
While singing to each other after class today, Curtis and I made a discovery about Mr. Rogers: he’s the modal man. It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, A beautiful day for a neighbor, Would you be mine? Could you be mine? It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood, A neighborly day for a…
Berlin radio producer Jens Jarisch: “I always knew you could do in radio what you’d never dare in print: spread words, give ungrammatical clues, condense thoughts… I am quite surprised that … the message comes across undisturbed by wide omissions, in fact, that a story can be told without really telling it.” http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/library/258-hong-kong-song
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: How to Avoid a Terrible Work Situation as an English Teacher Abroad By AJ Hoge http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0503/teaching_english_abroad_the_good_the_bad_the_ugly.shtml “We’re not teaching another class until we get paid.” The teachers room boiled with angry foreigners. Korean staff ran to and fro in a panicked frenzy. Underlings scurried between the owner’s office…
This was on the office door of one of the professors.
Elka handed out this quote in class. “‘A’ inclines toward the unfamiliar… ‘The’ is anchored in the known; ‘a’ sets sail toward horizons unforeseen, undefined, undisclosed. Where ‘the’ entitles, ‘a’ unsettles. Preachers need ‘the’s’; poets need ‘a’s.’ ‘The’ meets its (already made) match, ‘a’ meets its (unmatched) maker. ‘The,’ by its very nature, is famous;…
From What Sticks? Language Teaching for Long-Term Retention by Scott Miles, Daegu-Haany University, Republic of Korea, March 27, 2010. Specifically vocab. Two important concepts: Spaced/interval repetition. [Behaviorist] For example, vocab-teaching in a 30-minute block. One 30-minute lesson vs. three spaced 10-minute lessons with repetition. The latter did about a third better on retention. Similar to…
Employment/Living Abroad links www.transitionsabroad.com/ http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/work/esl/index.shtml www.escapeartist.com http://www.eslbase.com/advice/ http://www.tefldaddy.com/ http://www.eslteachersboard.com/ Recruitment/job sites (fairly reputable, but read between the lines!) http://www.teachabroad.com/search.cfm http://www.teachingenglishtips.com/ www.eslcafe.com (go to their international job forums, some by country) http://www.tefl.com/ www.onestopenglish.com (go to teacher’s diaries) http://www.esljobfind.com/ http://www.tesol.net/jobs http://www.eslemployment.com/ http://www.eslcafe.com/joblist/ http://www.jobmonkey.com/ –some good articles on specific areas, too Black lists (schools with a lot of…
Teaching English in an Overseas School: All Your Questions Answered By Lovelyn Hunter Maybe you’ve just graduated from college and are still unsure about what you want to do. Maybe your nine-to-five-grind has grown tiresome, and you’re ready for a change. If you’re looking for adventure, you might want to consider teaching English abroad. ESL…
Professional Preparation: What makes a great teacher? What are your top 5 skills as a teacher? General Questions for working abroad: How long has the organization been in business? What is the organization’s mission? What are the in-class hours and out-of-class hours? What responsibilities will there be in addition to teaching? What training would I…
Ur, Penny. “Grammar Practice Activities: A Practical Guide for Teachers.” Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. What kind of text is it? Modular units and activities organized by grammar category. Part of a series of activity- and theme-based handbooks for language teachers. CD with PDFs of exercise handouts. Exercises for elementary to advanced students, children…
Some proverbs related to teaching that I came across at Wikiquote: The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. The teacher has not taught until the student has learned. Repetitio Mater Memoriae (Repetition is the mother of memory)
This is an article from Bronwyn Coltrane, Center for Applied Linguistics. (Download it. Working With Young English Language Learners: Some Considerations May 2003 In today’s preschool programs and primary school classrooms, teachers are working with an increasingly diverse population of young students, including many who come from homes where English is not spoken. According to…
I’m glad to see a textbook author with a great sense of subtle humor. Yet I still can’t make myself study. Dorothy Devney Richmond, writing in the Practice Makes Perfect series, is quite entertaining. In Spanish Verb Tenses (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1996) she has lots of fun hiding “Easter eggs” in the practice exercises. On…
Book given me by Molly… Ogulnick, Karen (Ed.), 2000. Language Crossings: Negotiating the Self in a Multicultural World. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University. No Language To Die In by Greta Hofmann Nemiroff p 15: On being first a speaker of German, then English, then French on Quebec: “I have spoken English almost as…
Here’s a good book that Genevieve told me about, when I told her I was reading Vanishing Voices. It’s a little more accessible than that: a journey through areas and peoples who are losing their languages. He begins in Aboriginal Australia, explores Manx and Yiddish, and then on to Welsh, that “should” be dead but…
“Sometimes I’ll call upon an attitude of some of my old teachers. If there’s a character of, say, a rather pompous man who lays down the law but is actually very amiable, I will think of a man called John Brantston. And say, ‘May I have a word with you?’ “Or a rather more steely…
Lonergan, Jack (1992). Video in Language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press. p 4: “The outstanding feature of video films is their ability to present complete communicative situations.” I note this because I’m interested in the idea of using audio instead of video. And while audio doesn’t present the physical visuals of a live or…
Hi guys. I think I’m done collecting accents now. It takes a long time, particularly the editing. I was gonna get more but I’m burned out. The files are too big to upload here but I can give them to you via Flash drive if you want. I edited all the clips down to under…
EL GAZETTE Online, December 2009 (Issue 359: p. 15) Magic of mnemonics Julia Robinson wonders if memory tricks work in learning a foreign language Several books promise miracle ways to improve your memory, but can these methods be applied to learning a foreign language – and do they actually work? Children’s author Karen Dolby thinks…
These are related to ESL in general, not to adult ed specifically. Songs http://www.musicalenglishlessons.com/index-ex.htm#articles http://www.esl-galaxy.com/music.htm http://www.esl-lounge.com/songstop.shtml Reading and Vocabulary Links http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Vocabulary/ http://www.esldesk.com/esl-links/ http://www.rong-chang.com/vocab.htm http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/vocabulary.html (independent study lab for students) http://www.englishclub.com/webguide/Vocabulary/ http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/vocabulary/vocabulary.html http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/programs.cfm (short stories to listen to) http://www.eslmania.com/students/reading_the_news/News_Stories.htm (news stories and vocab exercises for ESL) http://www.english-to-go.com/ (some free, some subscriber charge) www.handoutsonline.com (some free, some…
Rationale This is inspired by Alex’s opening presentation in LALP, which I loved; it was funny and engaging, and succeeded in more than just introducing himself to students. It also communicated that he has foibles, and is a member of the class rather than solely its leader. Genevieve also told me about her introductory exercise…
Vella, Jane (1994). Learning To Listen, Learning to Teach: The Power of Dialog in Educating Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers. 3–4: “A principle, the philosopher tells us, is the beginning of an action.” Her twelve principles of teaching adults across culture [all this is a direct quote]: Needs assessment: participation of the learners in…
Dell Hymes, Linguist With a Wide Net, Dies at 82 By Margalit Fox, November 22, 2009, The New York Times Dell H. Hymes, a prominent anthropologist, linguist and folklorist whose work mined the rich, often overlooked territory where language and culture intersect, died on Nov. 13 in Charlottesville, Va. He was 82 and lived in…
David Sedaris has written a lot of funny stuff about second-language-learning. Here’s this about avoidance: Living in France, he avoids natives whenever he can, since his linguistic inadequacies come into full bloom during live conversation. But if he were in prison, he postulates, then he’d have nowhere to hide. He imagines asking a fellow prisoner…
Derewianka, Beverly. Exploring How Texts Work. Victoria, Australia: Primary English Teaching Association, 2004. I borrowed Beverly’s copy. Here are notes I took, beginning with their page numbers. 3: “A functional approach looks at how language enables us to do things — to share information, to enquire, to express attitudes, to entertain, to argue, to get…
Social cartophraphy: Painting Ourselves on a Map Chiapas: Zapatista. 1994 was the Z uprising. Wanted a different education that respected their culture, their langauge: to have a central role in creating their language. So they wanted autonomous eduction (from gov’t) so refused books, money, teachers from gov’t; had to figure out how to produce those…
Snow, Marguerite Ann and Brinton, Donna M. (1997). Content-Based Classroom: Perspectives on Integrating Language and Content. White Plains, NY: Longman. Chapter 4: Moving from Comprehensible Input to “Learning to Learn” by Kate Kinsella. p 52-53: “A Rationale for Strategy Instruction” She talks about how some students get good at taking tests without comprehending. Some teachers…
Sarah lent me this book by LouAnn Johnson (Jossey-Bass, 2005). It’s about the teacher-woman on whom the movie Dangerous Minds is based. There are some useful teaching tips in it, some of which I’ll list here for reference: Consider what quality of teacher you’d like to be: super, excellent or good. Super means you dedicate…
“Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.” — James Joyce
I was just browsing YouTube looking for “linguistics humor” and found an amusing little skit by Fry and Laurie, and then this book trailer that I enjoyed. I’ll have to check out the book.
A few days ago I put this up on my wormlips blog, but it’s relevant here too. This will remind me that a sense humor should have a prominent place in my TESOL studies.
I don’t know if this belongs on my wormlips blog or here, so I’ll try this for now since it has application to my possible experience at SIT, from whom I still haven’t heard about my application status. It feels weird — dishonest, even — to be writing here when I have no idea if…
I was hoping I might hear from admissions yesterday, but no word. Because of the short time between now and the start of school and the massive amount of things I’d have to do first, I am particularly anxious about hearing the verdict. And what would I do if they said no? I won’t think…
This is one from the SIT recommended reading list. Published in 1963 by a white teacher in New Zealand, it describes her lifelong work in the classroom with Maori children and those of British descent. Most inspiring to me are her passion for teaching and her ability to accept cultural differences without judgment. That is,…
I stumbled by pure kismet upon an outstanding YouTube video of an ESL teacher helping her French student with pronunciation. The video’s appearance in my life, on the very day I put finishing touches on my SIT application, seems to be a mysterious sign, a good omen, possibly portending I will be admitted by SIT…
