Revising the ESL Curriculum and Finding Solace with Quotes

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are,” advised President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt. These words of solace often comfort me when I stress myself out trying to cram too much material into lessons.
How can I cover everything that I want in a single semester? It’s just impossible. For every new activity, I must let an old one go. If I add a Youtube homework assignment, than I should eliminate another homework assignment to maintain the balance. For instance, I asked every student to find and review a YouTube video on interview skills so I had to cut the assignment where students found and summarize an article on job hunting skills.
By the way, the international graduate English students found and reviewed a wonderful collection of smart, informative, current, and funny videos. Then I combined into a single email for the entire class with one of my own selections. On their own time and initiative, students watched many of the videos leading to the best mock job interviews that I’ve seen at the intermediate speaking skill level yet. Again, a democratic classroom atmosphere often creates a far more interesting and effective classroom.
As I continue to plan, adjust, and readjust assignments, I once again find solace in these words. Yet these continual curriculum revisions remain voluntary tasks in pursuit of excellence. “A problem,” noted Duke Ellington, “is a chance for you to do your best.”

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Make Change Your Friend: Lesson for ESL class

How do you close an excellent ESL summer class that has shared experiences, insights, and laughs for a short month?

Class bookends, both beginnings and endings, deserve special attention. This teaching proverb becomes more important in short term summer English programs where ESL students have traveled thousands of miles to study English.

As so often, I tend to learn by stumbling. Yet, over the years, I’ve developed a rather effective last class ESL lecture around a simple theme: Make Change Your Friend.

Working in an Intensive English Program (IEP) during the summer provides many satisfactions., but sometimes it feels like the course ends just when you have finally begun to really know your students. The students, often college age and less focused on grades than regular university students, come to study English, but also to enjoy themselves in Southern California. The classes tend to more relaxed, looser, and casual than my usual teaching situations, but more goal-focused and academic than adult education classes filled with working immigrants. The students, often unused to choosing their own readings and talking with an interested instructor, appreciate the personal feedback. Many students are also on their first trip to California and the United States, and have had rather disappointing experiences with rigid educational institutions back in their native countries.

Therefore, many students enter their last class feeling rather down. Vacation is almost over. Few exude excitement about returning home. How do you change that atmosphere to emphasize the positive and provide an exceptional last ESL class?

What are you looking forward to? That's the question I ask on the attendance sheet.

Next, the lesson begins with a review of changes in their own lives over the last 10 years, and small personal chit-chats with each student. I tend to focus, just a bit, on the present perfect as they write 5 questions to ask their conversation partner and classmates. Most students are in college, but a few are working professionals a bit older. Studying - and living in - Southern California has usually been a very pleasant experience. Looking back on the last day seems natural. The mood tends to be a bit downbeat as students realize that the month has flown by very quickly. We have shared many laughs together.

By zooming out a bit more, we shift the conversation to changes - social, economic, or cultural - in our native countries over the last 10 years. The students usually provide a wide range of examples. Sometimes we also indicate how we would like our countries and cultures to change.

We soon shift to technological changes - and students share their experiences with different technologies. Of course, technology continues to improve - providing an optimistic twist. Computers are faster, video editing easier, and cell phones better. The evidence for material progress seems overwhelming.

Taking this theme a bit further, I note how the many uses of medical technology. People can live longer, new hearts installed, even limbs restored. From implants to cosmetic surgery, medical devices are changing our experience as humans. Are humans changing too? We live in fantastic times - unlike any previous generation.

I proceed to review themes from previous class readings and discussions from healthy relationships and elections to changes in human reproduction and evolving definitions of marriage. With a nod toward the great science fiction film Blade Runner, I ask “what makes humans human?” Let’s be humane as long as we human, as a Roman stoic philosopher advised.

Finally, quoting former President Clinton, I urge them to embrace change. “Make change your friend,” advised Clinton to worried Americans in 1992 during his campaign. Change continues to accelerate. You can’t stop it. Make it your friend. Find a wave that you want to ride, and catch it. Make change your friend.

Then, students write down three ways they can make change their friend. It’s a positive, look forward conclusion to a short English program. Soon class ends, students snap pictures with digital cameras, and exchange emails.

We make change our friend - even if the change is ending a wonderful, educational vacation. Students say goodbye to their American Language Center friends at UCLA Extension, and bravely face the future. Their English teachers feel satisfied - and bittersweet. It’s been fun.

The journey of life continues. Make change your friend.

What do you on your last lesson?

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Volume Matters

Speaking too loud can be annoying and push people away. Speaking too softly, however, can be an even larger obstacle to simple communication and a satisfying conversation.

During classroom discussions in English class, some students to will boldly speak their mind. Other students tend to hold back, offer only the safest comments, and other share their wit. One overlooked, essential quality to speech in class, however, is volume. Students must speak loud enough that their fellow students can hear them - whether seated in the front or back row.
One can, however, sympathize with the timid English students who speak softer than ideal in a large classroom.

Being inaudible, however, in personal conversations remains a far more serious problem - especially for English as a Second Language (ESL) students.

Student conferences, especially with shy students worried about their grade or academic performance, can often be a bit awkward for both the professor and student. ESL (English as a Second Language) students, sometimes insecure about their pronunciation or vocabulary, can feel particularly anxious. ESL and other English teachers have to find ways to reduce student anxiety, provide a safe place for English students to speak, provide feedback on student work, and uphold academic standards. (Adult education, by the way, would be greatly improved if ESL teachers had more opportunities for student conferences.)

In general, I find student conferences very productive and satisfying because you get a chance to really work with a college student on their writings and assignments. I often feel that I learn as much as I teach in these 20-30 minute student conferences.

Sometimes, however, I have awkward conferences. If the student has plagiarized, then this can’t be avoided. Those moments, which I dread, can not be avoided. So it goes.

Yet sometimes, as occurred last semester, an ESL (English as a Second Language) student is so shy, so timid, and so unsure that they speak so softly that I can’t even hear. Sometimes I lean forward and ask them to please speak a bit louder. If a student continues in the same low volume, I might apologize for my poor hearing and again request they speak up. What does one do on the third request?

“Please speak a bit louder so I can hear you.”

Was this too direct? I wanted to say, “If I can’t hear you, you will be misunderstood. I want to understand you. Speak up!!”

Patience, this time, paid off. The student raised her voice to an audible level, and replied, “okay.”

“Good to hear you,” I replied. We proceeded to have a productive end of semester conference.

English and ESL teachers at all levels, from elementary school and high school to adult school and university, need to emphasize the importance of student speech being comprehensible. That includes speaking loud enough that conversation partners, classmates, and instructors can hear.

Bottomline: students must speak up in conversations, conferences, and class discussions. Volume matters.


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Let's Encourage English Students to Make Good Mistakes"

How can English language teachers create a rigorous, tolerant, and focused classroom atmosphere?

One effective technique is encouraging English students, especially ESL students, to “make good mistakes” as they expand their vocabulary, experiment with new sentence structures, and use English more in their daily lives. A good mistake, as I explain on the first day of class, is a logical error that makes sense, but just happens to be wrong. For example, a young boy might think 2+2= 22. You can see the logic, but the answer is wrong. The student needs to know that 2+2=4. But you can also acknowledge that “22″ is a good mistake. Some teachers might consider this mistake a 'systems error' or 'category confusion.'

Far too many ESL students, especially in countries that still worship standardized exams, have created psychological barriers to experimenting in English. These English language learners often want to avoid making any mistakes, and prefer to remain silent in conversation class to expanding their verbal skills. The ESL teacher, therefore, has to directly confront this trend or learned behavior. You can’t learn to speak a new language without making mistakes.

So I encourage English students, in both conversation and writing classes, to make good mistakes. Take chances. Try something new. Stretch your learning muscles. And make good mistakes. A good mistake is also a mistake that we acknowledge and learn from and avoid repeating. A good mistake is not a good mistake if you’ve made it ten times before in a class or on previous papers. Students usually understand, relax a bit, and proceed to experiment a bit more in our crazy, confusing, and misspelled English language.

Our goal, I sometimes joke on that first day, is to make many good mistakes, learn from these good mistakes, and move forward to make new, different, and even better good mistakes.” We usually realize this goal in our English classes!

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Do you ask questions on your attendance sheet in ESL class?

What makes you smile? Can you recommend a good movie? What's your favorite song? How do you prepare for a test? How do you relax? Do you have a favorite English word?

Can you turn a bureaucratic requirement into a communication tool to express personal ideas and build classroom community? Absolutely.

Taking attendance remains a vital part of our teaching duties. Some schools even require student signatures to prevent fraud and inflated student numbers or covering for weak students. When faced with this situation years ago, I started adding simple questions to the attendance sheets. What's your favorite month? How will you revise your paper? What's your favorite sports team? What are you grateful for?

Students appreciate the opportunity to express their ideas and perceptions, and learn more about their classmates. The questions also help build a better classroom atmosphere and provide ice-breakers for students to talk with each other during break. Finally, this extra line turns a boring procedure into an educational tool that works for administrators, teachers, and students.

I consider that a win-win-win situation. What's not to like? As an old American TV commercial used to say, "try it - you'll like it."

Visit my website www.compellingconversations.com for free conversation materials, teaching tips for ESL/EFL classrooms, and information on an innovative conversation book for advanced ESL classes.

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Excellent ESL Teaching resources at TESOL convention

Time flies. Or, as the Romans used to say, "tempus fugit."

Five days after the TESOl convention in New York City ended, I'm finally having a chance to sort through the numerous books, doublecheck website leads, and evaluate materials that I picked up. Sometimes "the eyes are too hungry", and I went a bit overboard in collecting ESL materials and resources for advanced English language learners. Of course, English teachers love books, new curriculum materials, and free ESL materials. I also have the excuse of working as a consultant for a workplace ESL program so I went hunting for some particular products for healthcare workers.

Here is a short list of promising materials:

VSOE ideas from TESOL convention

American Speech Sounds program for Healthcare workers. Also www.eslrules.com has powerful training materials for focused workshops for non-native English speakers working in hospital, clinics, and across the medical field.

- software and textbook designed for foreign doctors and nurses

- great reviews from professional journals (medical, language)

2. Effective Practices in Workplace Language Training (TESOL)
3. Getting Ahead in the US (Living Language) – videotape/textbook series
4. New Citizenship DVD for future naturalization tests. This free DVD, perfect for adult educators, confirms that the new citizenship test will only require a "high beginning" level of ESL to qualify for American citizenship. Personally, I consider this an absurdly low standard that implies new American citizens can speak worse English than at least a half a billion English speakers outside of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
   Of course, low standards have many fans in the world of adult education and with many immigrant groups. More on this topic later.
5. The Center for Applied Linguistics www.cal.org continues to offer wider and deeper variety of resources for ESL teachers, especially for adult education.
6. I had several fascinating conversations about various English competency tests and their possible use in the workplace. The TOEIC test, on its merits, seems the strongest by far. Unfortunately, this test - used by millions in the workplace worldwide - has become almost forbidden due to lawsuits claiming discrimination in the United States. What does this mean? Millions of applicants and employees in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, France, Germany, and other non-English speaking countries have taken this test of English skills. Why? Because English has become a global language and competency in English has become an essential workplace skill.
   
7. But not in the United States! So-called labor and civil rights activists have promoted the concept that requiring English proficiency, as tested by the TOEIC, is discrimination unless the ad explicitly states "English skills required." This strange situation means that American workers can, and so often do , speak at a lower level than educated workers in Asia and Europe. What's wrong with this picture!!!
8. Software programs continue to become stronger day by day, minute by minute. English language learners, international ESL students, and adult ESL educators have more choices than ever. I will spend a solid chunk of time researching these language programs during my summer break. So far, however, it's clear that www.openbookenglish.com and www.spokenskills.com offer great values for administrators, teachers, and students. ESL teachers will also find www.lessonwriter.com a wonderful, innovative, and time-saving site.

More later, but I must return to a large pile of research reports that need grading!

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Listening to Student Fears About Crime in ESL Classrooms

How often do English students fear being cheated, robbed, or even physically attacked? How many have been victims of crime? How often are student experiences and fears of crime acknowledged in our English classrooms?

Outraged by some exceptionally disturbing murders of students around Los Angeles, the United States, and the world, I’ve chosen the chapter “Crime and Punishment” as the conversation sample. We need to hear student fears, understand their experiences, give them a chance to reflect, and speak in our classrooms. Students have many stories and insights to share - and they often need the vocabulary to effectively communicate. Sometimes we share a sense of disappointment. Yet we often also can also share resources, provide additional information, and review safety tips.

Few topics engage students more than candid discussions and writings about crime. From bribery, scams, and kickbacks to stolen bikes, violent fights, and hit and run accidents, students have stories to share and classmates can learn from experiences. Ask students to suggest suggestions for safer schools, safer communities, and safer trips. You will hear a range of ideas from the practical and polite to wild, crazy, and rude. Lively classroom discussions can lead to poignant, personal problem-solution essays.
An experienced teacher should be able to hear the fear, acknowledge the threats, and help students confront a real problem facing far too many English language learners around the world.

Do international students sometimes have an exaggerated sense of danger in American cities? Sometimes. Are schools immune to the violence, crime, and chaos of surrounding areas? Certainly not. Will ignoring fears and crimes make them go away? Never.

Let’s provide English language learners, whether adult students or college students, both the place and time to reflect on laws, crimes, and the search for justice.

I hope that the conversation lesson called “Crime and Punishment” inspires compelling conversations in classrooms. Please visit www.compellingconversations.com , look over the material, and see if it works in your ESL classroom.

PS. Every school that I have taught in - from inner city high schools and urban adult schools to world famous community colleges and private universities - has had students attacked, robbed, and even murdered during my time teaching there. For worse or for better, this experience has influenced my sensitivity to student fears and concerns about crime in the United States.