American Slang on Video

There is no final frontier to English because it keeps changing and growing. Slang keeps pushing the frontier outward. Teacher Jennifer Recio Lebedev describes slang as "like a pair of flip flops. They're comfortable and easy to put on...but not right for every situation." JenniferESL's videos on YouTube help learners understand spoken slang and know when to use it. They also make a pleasant, productive diversion in an ESL lesson. Watching the very brief lessons could also make useful homework assignments. Remember: homework can be anything that gives the learner a chance to hear, speak, read or write English between lessons. Thanks for helping someone by tutoring.

Livemocha: "The Rosetta Stone Meets Facebook"

No doubt you have all heard of the growing importance of social networking through the internet. In an age where friend has become a verb, it seems only logical that social networking would evolve to be useful for purposes beyond filling up free time. Recently Literacy Network Volunteer Kelley Burd-Huss told me about Livemocha.com, which does for language learning what many more expensive computer programs do, but does it for free. You or your learner can study English, Spanish or many other languages with the help of native speakers who are trying to learn your language. It's "Facebook Meets the Rosetta Stone," so to speak.

To get the experience of Livemocha for myself I signed up for Spanish lessons. The experience stretched both my mind and my email in box. The site ran me through an introductory lesson of fairly straightforward basics-telling time, using present tense and so on. But within minutes of completing it a dozen emails had come in from other Livemocha users in Colombia, Mexico and other places in the Spanish-speaking world, offering encouragement and criticism of my efforts. Clearly, the social networking aspect is a major factor in how it all works.

The website's welcome page says,

The best instruction begins when people teach and learn from each other...[P]eople from different parts of the world offer their help and perspective. Livemocha has the world's largest community of native speakers eager to help and learn from each other-and that's what makes Livemocha so addictive and effective.

The screen capture of my in box at right shows just a few of the reviews of my work from that native speaker community. Note that these six all came in within two minutes of each other. The messages came from native speakers of Spanish, offering encouragement like, "muy bien! continua asi" ("very good! keep it up") and words to that effect, as well as some helpful, practical criticism. Also coming in the original email blizzard were some offers of friendship. Within a couple hours of my signing up I had "friended" and was sharing text chat with Dessy, the screen name of my first Livem ocha learning partner. We talked about our difficulties learning languages and our goals for how to use them. Now, a month later, my in box continues to take in messages from people who want to learn English.

If I had been this popular in high school I might have gone to prom.

Eventually one can sign up for higher-level lessons that cost money. However, the cost for the service, for the learning and for the companionship is mostly time. Since participants get peer feedback on their lessons, good form requires one to reciprocate. Reviews can be very short, and one can choose to leave an "audio comment" in lieu of or in addition to writing. The site makes it clear that they expect participants to keep their comments constructive.

As for equipment, if you or your learner would like to participate it is a good idea to get your hands on an inexpensive microphone headset. You can find models at Comp USA starting at $7.00 and costing as much as $200. A set in the $15 range will generally perform quite well.

While I was writing this message the Livemocha site was up on my computer and I had my headset on from leaving an audio feedback. To my surprise some pleasant tones started playing in my ear and a pop-up window informed me that David in Brazil wanted to share text chat. It is possible to change your status when you log in to the site. If you prefer not to be interrupted by pop-ups, you can change it to "busy."

This site is free and not hard to use. For an introduction to the site or for practice tutors can visit Literacy Network's Mobile Learning Lab during its open hours Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:00 to 6:00. The public libraries, with their computers and high speed internet connections would make an excellent place for learners to practice between group classes or meetings with their tutors. Kudos to Kelley Burd-Huss, This Week's Favorite Tutor for her tip.

Using the Learner's First Language: Good Idea?

I had an exchange with a tutor with an interesting question about using the learner's first language during an English lesson. Julia Steege asked,

Because I can speak fluent Spanish sometimes I think it is easier for her when anything is slightly difficult to lapse back into Spanish. How do I deal with this? I want her to feel she can still use some Spanish, for clarification and sometimes to talk about our lives but I want to figure out better ways to challenge her to use only English

I thought it was a great question and wanted to share it with all of you. My answer is below:

Julia: Just a couple of thoughts related to your February tutor feedback .
One strategy used by a teacher of Ojibwa language in a Wisconsin reservation is very interesting. All classes are held exclusively in Ojibwa language. However, in her classroom hangs a rubber chicken. The chicken has a sign on it that says,
"FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY!" If a student can't say something in Ojibwa, he or she may grab the rubber chicken and hold it over their head while speaking English. After saying what needs to be said, the student hangs the chicken back on its hook. The unmitigated silliness of the rubber chicken gag gets learners off the hook, so to speak, when they can't express themselves. Perhaps you can have a policy like that, where one has to do commit some silly act in order to revert back to the first language.

An alternative idea would be to print three cards that say, "Temporary Spanish Pass" on them. Give them to her at the beginning of the lesson. They would give her three opportunities to lapse into Spanish, but after she has given you her three passes, tough luck, mi amiga. Another thought: get an egg timer and turn it over while you or she is speaking Spanish and turn it on its side when she finishes. She gets three minutes (or whatever is on the hourglass) of time to speak her first language during class. A chess clock would do an even better job, and I suppose that the iPhone has an app for that.

Whatever plan you come up with, stick with it. Be quick to show her that you understand her English, even when it's far from perfect. When you can't, though, you may resort to a bilingual dictionary.

Working With Advanced Learners

As it often does, the tip for today came from an exchange with a tutor who asked a question: How do I work with a learner with high abilities and expectations? Here is the exchange:

From: Kristina Antic

To: Brian Anderson

Brian,

My other learner's name is Rosalina, but her nickname is Jacqui. I actually also wanted to ask you for some advice. After meeting with Jacqui yesterday, her English appears to be already very advanced, though I think some focused work on the more complex grammar structures ... would improve it immensely.

What I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around is how to proceed and structure my lessons to best achieve her goal. The biggest goal she shared with me is to be able to write in English as well as she is able to write in Portuguese (she was involved in journalism in Brazil).

I get the sense that she has a strong desire for perfection and structure, and I really can appreciate this and want to help her - I just need some guidance as far as how to break down this goal into more achievable tasks/chunks we can work on each lesson that will move her toward her goal. Any thoughts/ideas you have would be much appreciated... thank you!

Kristina

Kristina:

Okay, good questions. The words that popped out most in your message were structure and focus. Since Jacqui wants to perfect her English writing, I can think of a few tactics to add structure to your lessons.

1. Find a book to work from, something that focuses on writing skills for the more academically advanced ESL learner. Here are a few I found in our library: Writing Talk by A.C. Winkler and J.R. McCuen. Voyager 8 , published by New Readers Press The Write Stuff by Jones and Evanson.
2. Give writing assignments that focus on specific topic areas and/or grammar skills. For instance, assign an essay where she answers the question: “What will I be doing this year? Next Year? In Five Years?” in order to focus on the future tense.
3. Focus on Grammar. You can borrow Understanding and Using English Grammar by Betty Schrampfer Azar to find exercises that work on more advanced topics.
4. Focus on one thing at a time. If it’s a grammar exercise, you only correct the grammar errors (but notice the other kinds for future lesson planning).

You can also search the blog and the links from delicious.com, which have a link in the signature line below my name. Hope this helps.

Speaking and Listening

Today we start with a resource for teaching listening skills. I had some fun today listening to podcasts. I visited the website eslpod.com where anyone can download files on a steadily growing number of subjects. Podcast Number 529 concerned insulting people, which promised to be interesting. It was. It featured a dialog in which a man and a woman were reacting to some rude behavior from teenagers. It taught idioms such as get on your nerves, give as good as you get and catch your attention. After the slow reading of the dialog, the moderator teaches all of the idioms. Finally the actors read the dialog at normal speed. The dialogs can be downloaded as MP3 files, burned onto CDs for between-lesson listening and, for the really technically endowed learner, loaded onto an iPod. For speaking skills we have a website full of conversation questions, the International TESL Journal. For instance, click here to see questions that can keep a conversation going on the topic of Christmas and the end of the calendar year. The first questions can be answered with a yes or no, such as these:

• Did it snow last year at Christmas?
• Did you believe in Santa Claus when you were a child?
• Did you enjoy last Christmas?

But they go on to be more open ended, for example:

• Where do you think Santa Claus is from?
• Where will you go on Christmas Day?
• Who do you expect to receive presents from?
• If you are not a Christian, does the intense focus on Christmas in the U.S. make you feel bad in any way (e.g., ignored, dismissed, angry, etc.)?

That last question makes me think that some of the questions may need a little reworking to sound more conversational. For instance, 'Did this year's Christmas bother you, with all the advertisements and noise?' The answers, though, may be surprising. Santa has many different names (Sinterklaas, Pére Noel, etc.) and a variety of origin stories. Other cultures have other holidays that celebrate generosity and human closeness. Wishing you great conversations and heaps of generosity, I and Literacy Network thank you for teaching someone.

Hello, ELLLO

English Listening Lesson Library, or ELLO.org, is an extraordinary website for teachers and learners who want a chance to hear natural but easy-to-understand conversation. Four tabs across the top take you to four different areas.
The Views tab has literally hundreds of stories of real people sharing personal experiences on hundreds of topics. Each story has a transcript you can follow along with. The home page holds the most recent stories, but you can search for other topics you don't see at first. I searched for some very ordinary terms, e.g. childcare, safety, movie, dating. Each of those searches turned up more stories than I had time to listen to.
Speakers take care to talk at a leisurely pace and use clear diction. When a speaker uses an idiomatic expression a link pops up in the transcript. Click on that and an audio player pops up to give a concise definition. Here is a screen-grab of that audio player:

It's easy to pause the story for a quick explanation of the new vocabulary term.

Mixer, according to the site, is " a listening activity that features six speakers. Each speaker answers the same question. Students can listen to the answers for fun or test their listening comprehension by answering the questions."

Game lets you test your listening comprehension by clicking on one of four pictures. I, a native speaker, made a few mistakes on that one. The fact that some of the people have Australian, French or other foreign accents adds a measure of difficulty to the challenge.

STeP resembles a Voice of America program in Special English. It features someone talking with careful English teacher diction about a topic. Listeners can participate in a timed comprehension quiz.

News features a cartoon newsreader who reads imaginary news stories. Her lips move and illustrations change behind her while she reads each piece. Interactive quizzes test what the listener has retained.

In most cases you can download the stories to your computer or iPod as MP3 files . I downloaded one three-minute file in less than half a minute. Tutors or teachers should be able to download these audio files and give them to their students on CDs as homework, or simply as something to listen to while they drive to work or do the dishes. I often assert that homework is anything that gets your learner exposure to English between lessons. For those who don't have ready access to a computer with broadband, the public libraries are a great option. Elllo is here, its fun, it's rich with stories. I hope you get a chance to look at it.