I’m sure as language teachers that this thought goes through our head a fair bit. It’s not a difficult decision for most languages since there is the standard. And yes, while there are varying dialects and accents, there is typically the one golden standard that we can revert to. Let our students fall back on if they want to work their new tongue in a familiar and intelligible style.
The problem here is that English doesn’t have this golden standard. There are just too many standards to count. The powerhouses are British English (BE) and General American English (GAE), with some others gaining popularity and credibility – Canadian English, Australian English, Irish English, and so on. On top of these we also have the concept of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) that has some momentum thanks to linguists. Click here to read more.. »
Nothing too technical here… this is just a short post about how to trick yourself into learning. I’m sure you’ve heard countless times before how you should learn in context… but it can be a little vague at times right? So… in laymans terms.. the mythical in context beast is one that pretty much means “try to live in your language”
By that I mean your target language should become part of your everyday life and routine. And what are some ways to do this? Watch tv, read a book, listen to the radio, go to the local market, etc.. One of my favourites though is cooking… and this is where the digesting part comes in. Click here to read more.. »
I’m sure if you’ve been a teacher for any length of time you will have stumbled more than once at creating a valid and reliable test for your classroom. The question is, why are we always struggling along attempting to reinvent the wheel? Countless people before us have researched and implemented successful assessments for the classroom… the problem is, many of these are for the L1 setting.
If you’re following me, I’m talking about tests like Informal Prose Inventory (IPI), Early Names and Names Tests, St Lucia Graded Word Reading Test and so on and so forth. Assuming you’re familiar with any of these then you’ll know they tend to focus on reading skill primarily. And correct me if I’m wrong… but our L2 students still read don’t they? Click here to read more.. »
As a teacher it is ultimately up to us to decide what our students should be learning… but on the other hand, it’s also up to the student to let the their teachers know what they could be learning. This is where needs analysis comes into play.
Teachers aren’t mind readers as much as we pretend to be and we will quite often need a kick in the right direction when it comes to understanding our students’ wants and needs. This is particularly the case when it comes to English for Specific Purpose (ESP) classes. It’s fine to teach engineering English, but which engineering? This is one of the things we need to find out and getting that information doesn’t need to be a complicated process. Click here to read more.. »
As Nayoung and I have just had our first baby boy – Leon Jaewoo – I may as well do a write up on multilingual children and the common methods surrounding the raising of them. Obviously, we would love for our boy to grow up as a coordinate bilingual of English and Korean… but how are we going to do it? Click here to read more.. »
