Even a small gesture like talking about the weather is enough to get a conversation going. See this post for some expressions. You could also mention the current weather and add a tag question to get someone’s response…
…or ask a direction question:
Linguist and author, Guy Deutscher, in a New York Times article titled Does Your Language Shape How You Think? wrote about new research that reveals our native language’s influence on thoughts:
When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world.
If you have difficulty with a certain concept in English, take some time to research a few ways your own language is shaping your thoughts. I see these problems arise most often when advanced level students revert to translation to convey meaning, but run into a wall when the meaning isn’t clear to the listener.
Maybe you’re having trouble translating. You might be trying to translate a concept that isn’t prominent in the minds of English speakers. Time (verb tenses) and space (prepositions and geographic locations) are common conceptual differences among languages. How are your perceptions similar or different to the native speakers’ perceptions? Is this affecting mutual understanding between you and your listeners?
Some ideas on how to use news articles in lessons are:
Upstairs and downstairs have an -s ending, but they actually refer to one location: another floor of the building. If stairs, upstairs, or downstairs is the subject, the verb should agree with a singular noun.
If the word stair appears first in a compound word, it will not take an -s.
If there is just one stair, call it a step (not a stair). If there is one or a few steps, use the:
Here’s an activity you can use to practice the difference between the Past Simple and the Past Progressive. Remember: use the past simple if the action happened once in the past; use the past progressive if the action happened over a period of time in the past.
Past Simple and the Past Progressive
This activity is also available in PDF.
I have always interpreted this song as it might pertain to students learning English, especially the younger ones.
I am posting this song for those of us who need an uplifting start to one of the last weekends of summer as the new school year looms in the near distance. Sometimes you have a blank page before you, but you have an assignment to complete. Where does your inspiration come from?
Open up the dirty window, feel the rain on your skin…are just a few of the suggestions from Natasha Bedingfield as she explains that this upcoming year or school year is the beginning of whatever you want your life to be.
If you like studying English in non-traditional ways, I recommend going back to the lyrics of the song and listen for the variety of verb tenses presented here. How many can you hear? The song also contains the passive voice, complex sentences, and English phrases that you adopt as your own:
If you really want to challenge yourself, go back and read the lyrics and count the missing apostrophes!
Have a great weekend!
Tongue twisters are not ideal to use in an ESL class.
Picture yourself trying to communicate in a new language. It can be intimidating speaking with correct grammar or using the right pronunciation of a word (is it sheep or seep, or jeep?). Maybe you’ve been misunderstood or laughed at. That’s not very fun.
Then your teacher hands you a sheet with funny phrases that have only the most difficult sounds in this language. Now, the teacher wants you to say them!!!??
Any research on good teaching practices would advise against creating uncomfortable situations for students, and using tongue twisters in an ESL class qualifies. Not only can they make students distressed, they are linguistically confusing. Hearing the differences in sounds is hard because some sounds that exist in English don’t exist in other languages. Not only that, but it also provides occasions for students to involuntarily recreate errors, solidifying the very sounds they may wish to eventually correct.
Now, I’m not a total fuddy duddy, and have been known to use tongue twisters myself. They’re fun…what can I say? There is, however, a time and a place to appropriately use tongue twisters.
When you have a class who might enjoy the word play, here are a few tongue twister links.
Often, students’ first response to hearing a phrase or a sentence that they don’t understand is to ask the speaker, “Can you repeat that?” The English learner hopes that by hearing the phrase again, they will understand it. Not only is this technique ineffective (most of the time), it is also usually not the phrase that a native English speaker would use when they can’t understand another English speaker.
Usually the problem of understanding comes from speed, vocabulary knowledge, expressions and idioms knowledge, or missing a key grammar component (such as verb tense, subject, or quantity). This list of phrases identifies the origin of the error, so you can find a more appropriate phrase to use during your next conversation.
Is it a speed problem? If so, say,
Is it a loudness problem (a noisy room/party/social situation)? If so, say,
Is it a phrase problem? If so, say,
If it’s a key grammar component, consider using who, what, and how many in your request for more information. Put the stress on those question words when you use them:
In early stages of English learning, your job is to get the basics of the grammar, learn a few phrases to get by, and pick up some everyday vocabulary. You’re not really expected to say much at first. Just listen and study. However, it’s really tempting to stay in this stage of learning.
Why not? There are so many benefits:
There is a limit, though. Some people stay at this level, and never move up. If you are in the first stage for more than 3-5 months, it’s time to think about moving on to the next stage where you start producing short sentences.
Don’t worry about perfection!
Students want to produce perfect sentences with grammatical accuracy. When you do, you actually make communication worse!
Here’s a tip:
When someone asks what you did this weekend, don’t spend 5 minutes in silence creating the perfect sentence. To really communicate, have a quick, common response so your listener will know you’re engaged. Your only job is to show interest in communicating…and you do this by responding.
When using the word “manners” meaning etiquette, it is plural. Some expressions you might see “manners” in context are:
Have a discussion about different acceptable manners in your ESL classes. The cultural differences among countries and regions are great conversation topics.
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