Taboo, Taboo

Today's tip comes from brand new Literacy Network Tutor, Marjorie Matthews. In pre-service training last week she talked about her experience using the board game "Taboo" to build vocabulary and descriptive speaking skills. I asked her to write it up as a tip for you and she kindly obliged.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, "Taboo" is a word game that challenges players to guess what word is on a card that a player called the giver is holding. He or she gives clues but must not use any of taboo words also on the card. For instance, one card may have a word like tobacco but the giver would be fobidden to use the words smoke, cigarette, chew, cigar or pipe to describe it. It stimulates learners to find ways to work around a vocabulary gap, How much fun is it? Boatloads. Here's how Marjorie does it:

It had occurred to me that the game Taboo could be a fun way for my Saudi friends to learn some new words, so I took the game to their home. We did not "play" the game, but used the cards. First we talked about the meaning of the word "taboo." Then we went through some of the cards one by one. The word at the top of each card has five words underneath that are all closely related and act as clues to the meaning.

So either they would look at the "clues" and try to guess at the meaning of the word, or I would explain the meaning and they and I would discuss how the five clue words relate. Sometimes this got into culture, for example, the word tuxedo was followed by formal, prom, jacket, rent and wear, and we talked about prom (a uniquely American thing.) The word bench was followed by sit, play, judge, seat, and park.

After we played, I noticed that my learner used some of the words, which had been new words for him. He had written a story about walking by Lake Mendota, and didn't know the word bench, and replaced "wooden chairs" in his essay with benches. I think they enjoyed learning new words this way. It is always nice to try to think of new ideas and approaches to make learning fun. Pictionary cards might work too - except they have unrelated words, which don't act as clues.

Kudos and a big thank-you to Marjorie Matthews, This Week's Favorite Tutor!

On-Line Dictionary

Here is something new for you: an on-line dictionary for learners of English. Merriam Webster's Learner's Dictionary (click here for a link to the site) holds 3,000 of the most essential words a learner needs to get by as a second-language speaker. It also has audio of the word being read aloud. This can also be helpful for the native speaker who needs help figuring out the connection between how a word is written and how it sounds.

Users may look up any word they need and save it to their personal dictionary for future reference. There are several very nice things about this idea. First, there are some words a reader just keeps coming back to. For instance, I can't tell you how many times I have had to look up the word inchoate. It sometimes takes several repetitions to get a word down pat. And second, a learner can see his or her personal lexicon grow over time. Words can be added or removed from the learner's dictionary with the click of a button. Within a minute I had a personal dictionary that included the literal meanings of the words truth, bend and whopper, but also included the phrases to bend the truth and to tell a whopper. Mastering idioms like these two helps a second language learner sound more natural. Besides, it brings a lot of fun to language learning.
Additionally, the website will read aloud any words you ask it to. I like this idea for both ESL and basic literacy learners and for that matter, for tutors who need to settle arguments about how words are pronounced. I found, for instance, a good example for the pronunciation of the nearly unspellable words inchoate and ophthalmology.

New Resources in Literacy Network's Library

I’m writing to inform you of some of the good things that have come to Literacy Network. These resources live in our library. Some will go out for one-month loan and some are free for the taking. Let’s run down what you will find next time you visit our library.

• News For You – This news weekly, printed by New Readers Press, comes tailored for beginning readers of English. Both English Second Language and Adult Basic Literacy learners will find up-to-date stories about the issues of the day. This week’s issue addresses national health care legislation and France’s cultural issues with immigrants, as well as human interest stories. All of its content is written at about a third grade level, easy enough for most beginners to follow but still informative. We get 50 copies per week, so anyone who needs one should be able to find a copy on the library's check-in table.
• Hands-On English – A bimonthly publication for English second language tutors and teachers has helpful techniques and games. Each issue also has a reproducible multi-level dictation. You will find it in a white binder on the check-in table .
• Patterns In Spelling – This old standby teaches spelling using word families in a way that organizes and makes sense of English spelling. It is great for both ESL and ABE. A grant from New Readers Press has made it possible for us to buy updated copies to replace worn ones in our library.
• Future Intro, English for Results – We have books one through five in this series. Each one comes with an audio cassette to give learners something to practice with between lessons.
• English for Everyday Activities Audio CDs – Clear-voiced models read the descriptions of activities pictured in the books of the same title. They include getting on the bus, making a salad or cleaning the house. The pleasant voices are accompanied sometimes with dialog and sound effects, such as vacuum cleaners or someone saying ‘Yecch, this cucumber is mushy!’ When you hear everything read together it has the pleasant effect of someone reading a bedtime story.
  

Please come down and see what you can use. Thanks for teaching someone.

Onset and Rime But No Ancient Mariner

Onset and rime is a common practice in teaching people to read with phonics. It helps students learn to blend the sounds by giving them the first sound, such as /h/ and then blending on short endings, such as ug, um, un, ub to make hug, hum, hun and so on. You can find books in the Literacy Network library that practice it, including Focus on Phonics (Gail Rice, New Readers Press, 1979) and Patterns In Spelling (Tim Brown & Deborah Knight, New Readers Press, 1990). These time-tested resources can be found in local libraries as well. They are appropriately aimed at adult learners.

You may find other resources as well, some of them pitched at a younger audience. Many of us also remember 'The Electric Company' TV show from the 1970s. They frequently featured videos of people blending sounds. Lisa Hepburn, Madison Public Schools Resource Teacher described them as 'the ones with the profiles of people's heads and the word chunks flying visibly out of their mouths.' I like Lisa's description but would have more simply called it a multi-sensory approach to onset-rime practice. Here’s a link that will take you to ten such videos: www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=electric+company+blending&aq=f.

An internet search for resources in onset-rime practice will turn up loads of material, much of which is aimed at children. If you choose to use 'Electric Company' skits exactly as you find them, consider your learner's style of learning. Ask yourself whether he or she would enjoy working with them or would find them too childish. And ask your learner, too. Even if you do not use them in class, watching them can give you a feel for how to make onset-rime practice light, rhythmic and fun.

A few weeks back I gave everyone the Literacy Network's delicious.com link which now has 72 bookmarks. I have put together a collection of five helpful websites with games, worksheets and general information for teaching onset-rime and other phonics skills for grown-ups:

http://delicious.com/Literacy_Network/onset-rime.

I hope you find them useful.

Pronunciation and Phonetics

Today’s Tutor Tip comes courtesy of ESL tutor Ellie Keyser. Ellie writes,

I just wanted to let you know of a website (you may already know of it) that I
used in my Spanish phonetics class in college, but it also applies to the
English…for phonetics null At this site, you are able to not only hear, but also
see the vocal sounds and how words and sounds in English are pronounced,
including the placement of the tongue, lips, teeth, which can be quite different
than in Spanish.

Visit the site by clicking this link. It impressed me to watch a sagittal plane view of the mouth making a particular sound—such as an /r/—hear the sound simultaneously, and then read step-by-step descriptions of how to produce the sound. Better still, you can also see a frontal view of a real human face while someone pronounces it. Not only were the demonstrations and explanations very precise and clear, it was wonderfully fun to watch, especially when it was making the trilling Spanish ‘rr’ sound. You have to see it to fully appreciate it.
Some of the text can muddy the picture for a non-linguist, for instance this gem, describing tongue placement for the /l/ sound: ‘The tongue tip and a portion of the tongue blade contact the alveolar ridge at midline.’ But the pictures, diagrams, animations and sound more than make up for the confusing jargon. You may either use the site during lessons if you meet at a place with internet access, or use the pictures and descriptions to help you explain to your learner how sounds are produced in your own words. Translating the sentence above into layman’s language, you might say, ‘The point of your tongue touches the top of your mouth just behind your teeth.’ There is an explanation of the jargon on the front page, called ‘an interactive diagram of the articulatory anatomy.’
Special thanks to Ellie Keyser, My Favorite Tutor This Week. Thanks also to the University of Iowa for creating this site. And thanks to you for helping someone with the English language.