Forget about foreign languages, sometimes you need a translator in your own language

Few days ago, I was talking to my best friend and we thought it was hilarious the fact that he keeps on changing people's names, towns names and so on. Then I remembered this SNL clip I watched a couple of years ago and we watched it together. It was so accurate describing his case that it seemed the SNL writers were spying on him. Minutes later, we started talking about my own mom and her way of sending text messages. I used to show him her texts and asked him if he knew what she meant. She was always fighting with her cell phone because it wouldn't write what she was thinking and the reason was that she refused to  wear her glasses to type. Once, one of my brothers texted her telling her to put her glasses on whenever sending a text so he could understand what she meant. Next step, she put her glasses on and typed asshole, asshole, asshole, asshole and so on, then she asked him: Now, do you get it? Excuse my French here, but it was necessary. My mom should have been on SNL to add this subtle touch. Anyway, here is this video showing us that communication is tough even when we all speak the same language. Don't pee your pants.

It's a wrap or is it a rap?

I was trying to figure out the topic for my last entry for my neverending IT assignement. I was thinking about kindly saying goodbye and see all the IT crew back in the classroom. When I was going to write the title I got confused with the words rap and wrap. I know the both of them are pronounced the same but I was not sure of which one I needed to use in my title. I asked google and it told me it was the latter, to wrap up meaning to finish.

Then I thought of the many times when I got the chance to see the word there instead of their or your instead of you're and finally it's instead of its, all of them used by native speakers.

You can check the most common mistakes in English language here and get a better picture of what I am trying to explain. Finally for me, this ESL assigment is a wrap.

On Procrastination

Breaking habits is sure a difficult matter. Even though I have spent almost 2 decades of my life going to school in different stages, yet I am still not able to get my homework before hand. I remember a friend of mine once told me this not only happens to me, she advised me to relax and procrastinate. By the time I did not know the expression or the meaning of it and she kindly explained to me what it meant. Procrastination means to postpone performing an activity.

 Every night from the past week, I have been staying up late to try to comply with all my assignments at school; whenever I sit in front of the computer monitor, I get this urge to stand up and make some pop corn, when it’s done, I take it with me to my working place and start eating as I surf the net looking for important information. When I am about to finish my popcorn bowl, which usually takes less that 5 minutes, I feel that I must drink something refreshing or I would die from thirst. I rush up to the kitchen and fix myself an iced soy milk frapuccino; I spend my time looking for the perfect spice for it, ummm, cinnamon. Go back to the computer and keep on eating and drinking. By then it looks like I’m ready to start my blog entries, but first I have to check my email account and see who’s online on msn. I could not do my homework without knowing that. I open up a word file and start typing, it seems like I have good ideas going on, and however, these ideas need some music to have more rhythm. Next step, I go back to youtube and begin looking for artists I used to listen to when I was a child. I get mesmerized by the way they dressed, rewind the clips make fun of bad lipsynking abilities and so on. It’s midnight already and I’m so tired. I look at my article and it is half way done, my eyelids are exhausted from all that hard work.

I tell you all of this so you get the picture of me doing the dreaded homework. Trust me , I do understand students because I know well my reality when it comes to doing assignments. Life is so ironic, when you have time to do your homework; there are a thousand other things to do. Watch this cartoon video, procrastination couldn’t have been better expressed. Enjoy.

Using Humor in the ESL Classroom

Today I started going back in my memories about what I thought was funny when I was a child, so I could find the English version and use it to ESL teaching purposes. The first clip that came to my mind was "The Three Stooges", the black and white version. Up to this day, they represent to me the epitome of funny and for that reason I will use this clip for an ESL activity.

Having gone through the video I found lots of expressions that could be used to introduce students to phrasal verbs. Before having students watch the video, choose the phrasal verbs that are featured in the video and make a list. Have the students look for the meaning in advance, make them find out the definitions for: clean up, hold on, pull something out, knock down. Then, make another list for metaphorical expressions such as: spick and span, bet busy, give someone room and take a chance and have them look the words up.

Present the video and discuss the different uses of the vocabulary that was studied in advance. I am going to give this a try, at least I think students are going to laugh their pants off watching the Three Stooges in action and listening to the sound effects.

English Word Stress

As I promised a few posts ago, I come back to the vital subject that is word stress in English. I found this friendly woman on youtube carefully explaining how words are stressed in English and using the US States to show how to put stress on words properly. Besides, there is a chance to practice along stressing the words as the video goes on. I cannot wait to use this with my ESL students.

My First Try at Looking for Better ESL Homework Activities

I truly cannot put into words how much I dread doing homework. I have said this in the past and I haven't changed my mind yet. Nevertheless, I am aware of the positive effects that assigning homework can bring to the table (the ESL table). Now, being back to school as a student and not being able to refuse doing my homework, I've come to terms with the fact that homework is necessary evil. Now it's time for me to explore the options to make it less painful and annoying. 

A long time ago, I took a few subjects related to translation. Those subjects were said to be the most difficult ones throughout the whole Modern Languages Degree, even if the amount of homework was rather heavy, I managed to turn it in on time and I did not feel as much aversion to doing it. The teacher followed a method that I really liked and that I've used until now. Every piece of material that was going to be translated was handed out to us in advanced and the only thing we had to do was documentation. Even though most of the times all f the subjects were new, going to another sources in advance to doing the actual homework gave me everytime this sensation of being relaxed, the barrier of being suddenly introduced to a topic was no longer there. ESL students can always profit from this approach; whenever introducing a new topic, make them do some casual research so they are acquainted with the subject and handle it even if it is in their own native language. This way the fear of speaking for not being able to talk about the subject will be gone.

I have found out throughout these years of teaching, or attempting to teach, that assigning loads of homework or leaving students to work alone on projects is almost useless. I enjoy taking sometime off the usual class to devote to practice in the classroom and do the homework together. That way I make sure students do the work by themselves regardless of the result. I get really angry when students get someone else to do their homework, even if I know that theiy mean well doing so. I tell them to bring as much material they want to about a previously set topic and then we do the homework in the classroom (a brochure, a short essay, etc).

When I was in college, the classes that I enjoyed the most were taught by teacher assistants, they were mostly very young people from French or English speaking countries. They did not have teach us grammar as a formal subject or any other subject. Homework did not exist either and they were some of the most rewarding lessons to me. Practice was mostly focused on speaking and the the center of the debate was always a very controversial topic. From my own experience, I get that homework does not have to be a punishment. We as teachers have the task of looking for current topics that motivate students and at the same time, we must always remind them that the responsibility of learning is on their shoulders.

The Same Old Paradox: Fear of Speaking in a Foreign Language

For the last couple of weeks, I have been going through my memories and I have condensed all the stages I went through college when learning my first foreign language; all of this to see how I can use my own experience to help my future students. When I first started I had some English knowledge and I knew nothing about any other foreign language, the others came after learning English. I made up my mind of going to Foreign Languages School for I innocently thought that learning languages would be less stressful than any other hardcore field related to science or technology. I pictured myself in my hippie fields discovering language through reading and speaking to people from all over the world, all of us smiling and bonding. Now recalling all the process, what all the stages had in common was fear and stress.

It is rather paradoxical that learning a foreign language could cause so much stress on an individual. Language is the result of society and being social, there should not be room for fear if we humans are social by nature. I used to have this teacher who was a native speaker and who was an excellent teacher, nevertheless, we were all so afraid of not understanding was she said and making mistakes in front of her. Now that I think of it, I realized that regardless of her outstanding knowlegde, she was not approachable to any of us. My sister, who took classes with her later, told me she reminded her character of Mrs. Trunchbull from the movie Matilda and having fear greatly interferes in the way a student performs in a foreign language. 

I cannot think of a better example to illustrate my fear of speaking in a foreign language about 6 years ago when I first went overseas. At the time I was 22 and I went to France for my internship. I remember being at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for 6 hours, starving to death and not being able to go buy a baguette for I was so scared of not being understood. Whenever I taught in the past, I have always told my students to be calm and relaxed. We all make mistakes, even in our native language. Any foreign language teacher must be understanding and to me assessing the students' progress must be done from many different angles. Not only what they can produce orally or in writing, learning a language is far more complex than what can be measured throughout production. We must be aware of Krashen's Comprehensible Input Theory, time is needed to store language and build up knowledge before students are able to successfully produce. Now it is my turn to make my ESL room more friendly and understanding now that I have the chance to make a change.

Rhythm and Stress in English

Now that the Phonetics and Phonology Module is approaching, I have spent some time in my mind trying to recall the basic concepts in this area and how their understanding can immensely improve the way we, Spanish speakers, utter sentences in English. When I first took Phonetics at college about 11 years ago, I discovered the nature of Spanish and we were explained the patterns in terms of the time needed to utter each syllable of any word. It turns out that in Spanish when a series of words are pronounced in a single utterance, each syllable will have the same length in terms of the time. That makes Spanish a syllable timed language, where each and every syllable will last about the same, making the rhythm really even. If I take the word Venezuela in Spanish, there are four syllables and the pattern is OOOO.

However, having understood this notion, we part to analyse stress in English, if I take the same word in English Venezuela, the pattern will be ooOo. A long time ago, a teacher of mine advised me, if you really want to sound like a native speaker, get acquainted with English vowels. English is defined as a stress timed language, not all syllables in a determined utterance have the same length when pronouncing them. First, there are two types of word categories in English: content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) the one that carry meaning and linking words (pronouns, prepositions, articles, conjuctions, etc) that are like the cement that glues together all the content bricks. Only content words carry stress in English, generally one syllable in a determined word will have a longer length, the other syllables will be weak and so will be the linking works sorrounding them. 

To exemplify this I will use a sentence. This time around a Stephen King's quote: 

"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work"

The colored words will not be stressed and the vowels used in them will be weak (they are all pronounced with a shwa /ə/). This means that these words will not affect the total time it takes to produce the sentence. Now, the syllables in bold letters are the ones that carry the stress and will be the strong ones in terms of duration, all the others, as the linking words, will be weak and will be pronounced with weak vowels or usually a shwa /ə/.

I will get back to these concepts later for they are really important to me. I must do some deeper research and freshen up these notions. I know that the important matter when learning a new language is communication and getting meaning accross, however, I am convinced that teachers can take huge advantage of these phenomena and improve the way we utter, breaking our syllable timed language style and using English stress timed rhythm; the students will be thankful in the future. Having said that, I have to keep on reading and practicing.

Teaching English through Literature

For those of you who have an idea of my personality, you must know by now how much I care for literature. Now that I am discovering all this new ESL world that was somehow hidden before I started these classes to become a proper English teacher, I have been trying to figure out a way of combining the use of literature to stimulate reading in my future ESL students and at the same time, I would like to make them fall in love with all the styles of writing, vocabulary and cultures that English language authors can offer.

I surfed the net looking for tips and recommendations on how to use texts in the ESL room. Fortunately, I came across a section at the British Council website giving pieces of advice on how to take advantage of literature to teach English. I had not realised of the guidelines that must be followed before using extracts of literature (poetry, novels, etc) in the classroom.

Before using any piece of literature, we as teachers must respect first of all copyrighting. Chosen texts must be free of any copyright limitations imposed on them. Then if we only choose texts that can be perfectly used for they are old enough to be free from any copyright issue, we can fall into this little problem: presenting only classics that could not be as interesting for students as contemporary literature. It is our task to look for ways to solve these issues. We also must take into consideration preparing students to face the texts before we hand them to them. It's our job to introduce the author, the context and the repercussions of the literature piece in the society and in English language so they are more comfortable with the reading. This way they will be more eager to reading the texts and will achieve the goals we have set with the activity.

I cannot wait to find the perfect activity to use a book I read a decade ago. It is called "Animal Farm" and it was written by George Orwell. This book addresses very serious political issues in the form of a fable and set for me a milestone in terms of politics and the extent of human ambition and power.

Expressing Anger in English

I found these expressions to convey anger in English and thought they could come up handy for an exercise for upper intermediate students. First, have your students go to your blog and read the expressions. Then post a list of possible situations that could push their buttons and ask them to find the correct expression that matches their feeling about the situation. For instance:

I.e: Imagine the situation: Someone is chewing with his/her mouth open next to you making loud noises. How would you feel?

Answer: I would be pissed.

Situations:

1.- You meet someone and that person starts telling you every detail of his/her life immediately.

2.- Someone makes screeching sounds on a board.

3.- Someone boring invites you to dinner at his/her house and you cannot decline the invitation.

4.- You have worked on a paper for a while then the power goes off and you lose all the information.

5.- Finally, you get to go to the beach and it rains.

6.- Losing your salary on a bet.

7.- Not being able to turn in your homework on time.

8.- Getting an uneven haircut.

9.- Not being able to remember phrasal verbs.

10.- Going out of the house and leaving the keys inside.

Creative Writing Activity

A couple of months ago, we were introduced in Linguistics Class to someone I did not know, his name was Steven Pinker. We watched a video where he discussed the mechanics of thinking and language. I personally found his notions very avant-garde for he stated that thinking was not only related to words. When we think the brain makes a series of very complex associations where images, sounds and concepts meet. Then, he exposed the human capability of thinking without words, which is a fact.

Today, I remembered this clip which I discovered a few years ago. This masterpiece is the result of combining the minds of two of the most powerful artists of the past century, Salvador Dali and Walt Disney. When it was first made, it was banned for children for its strong visuals concerning sex and other taboo issues (such religious notions). Then it was presented to the public, including me, and it is truly delightful.

I was thinking of using this clip to encourage students to work on creative writing. Before presenting the video, they could go through summarized biographies of the two artists and how they were pioneers in their own areas. After discussing their impact on art, they watch the sequences and the morphing characters in the story and try to recreate in their own words their story, what they think the images try to convey.

This could be a great exercise to stimulate thinking through music and a sequence of images that could be interpreted in so many levels of thinking and that could realted to every student in a very personal way and also discuss their current effect in art.

I found this quote in youtube and it could not be more suitable to describe Dali's genious "

I hope there's a heaven, so that Dali can be there. Who else would they have for an architect?"

Enjoy.

Teaching English to Little Kids

I found this video clip featuring the letters and examples of words in English. I like the fact that the song is really catchy and sweet. I imagine that it could be a hit when teaching English to little kids. It a great way to introduce the words and sounds of English to the little ones. According to the comments on youtube, this clip has been used before to do so and it has proved to be a success.

English Vowels

I loved these videos so much that I kept on posting them. This time around, this lady introduces the 12 different English vowels sounds. I find this subject particularly difficult to get it understood by students. The concept alone is terrifying, I got truly scared when I was told that there were 12 different ways to pronounce vowels in English and at first achiving this seemed almost an unattainable task.

In this video the foundations of the vowels sounds are explained in details. The length, the place in the mouth were they are produced and so on. When I have students in the future (hopefully soon) I'll have them practice vowels with this video. Thanks retro lady.

English Consonants

For this clip focuses on a subject that I absolutely adore, I decided to post it. In this video there's a review of all IPA English consonants. This lovely lady, who brings the retro vibe back, takes her time to carefully articulate the sounds and then gives examples of use of the phonemes. This link could come extremely handy to introduce students to all English consonants and have them practice before starting a lesson on Phonetics or helping them out to read the transcriptions on dictionaries.

Enjoy and don't get hypnotized by her calmness and soothing voicing powers.

When Words Make you Burst into Laughter

Thanks to my new best friend Twitter, or as I call my buddy "El Tuito"; I came across this file featuring three people who engage in a ramdom conversation while waiting for the bus. I clicked on the link and I laughed like crazy while listening to the conversation. It is true that there are so many words in our native language that are just hilarious, let along when you are learning a new one and there are lots of new combinations of sounds that make bizarre connections in your brain that bring the chuckles. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the vid.

The Day I Posted my First Entry in a Blog

Finally, a reason to celebrate. It's been a long time since I've been wanting to have my own blog. Actually, I opened an account two weeks ago for personal purposes and I still have no entries. I don't know why, I keep saying that's because I don't have the pictures I wanted to upload with the article but deep down I know that's not a strong reason. Usually, I truly hate being told to do any type of homework, I guess it takes me back to the time when my mom kept telling me to do stuff and I didn't want to do anything, but this time around, I quite liked the assignment.

Blogging for teaching English as a second language seems to be a wonderful starting point for those of us who are getting acquainted with it and need to grab and make use of all the tools that the web2.0 offers. Yesterday in our online class I mentioned that I was mainly scared of participating in these kinds of supporting networks just because I'm afraid I won't get the help I need or I won't find a community where I can fit in, not only because of my size, but for the proper ways to act and access these ESL teachers who are more experienced than me. Now, I have just seen it, my peers in class can help me out and I can help them back (if I'm capable of), so there's nothing to be afraid of.

I must admit that I love reading blogs, ever since I read Anna Frank's Diaries for the first time, I fell in love with getting to know people by their written lives and these pieces of writing have more meaning to me than litterature sometimes for they are real and have somehow a beating heart and real movement. Blogging could be as entertaining with many more advantages. Posting on daily basis or with regularity any kind of information provides a new way of keeping students up-to-date with the contents and recieve comments at any time. I could post a little article or reflection of my class and then have my students comment on it and have the much needed feedback that I want. Shy students can participate more and this could give me the advantage not only to know what level they have attained in grammar but knowing as well how well they organize their ideas.

I've been asked to express my opinions on the bad side of blogging and sincerely, I can't see any. Unless my students' comments state that I smell or that they hate me as a teacher which could really bring me mood down, but it wouldn't be the end of the world for maybe those are truthful statements. Let's think of the brighter future in ESL enlightened and lit by computer screens.