Ebaby! Blog

Yesterday, my boss came to observe my class. It is such an interesting experience to observe another teacher and, of course, it can be stressful and exciting to be observed. I am always worried when people observe my classes because you never know what they are looking for. How do you know they will appreciate your curriculum? And how does anyone know when they have witnessed “the perfect class?”

Each teacher has such a different view that it is difficult to judge someone openly. Luckily, my boss used my definition of the perfect classroom in his observation. He used my teaching philosopy to make a rubric and then graded my class. I was held to my own standards for the perfect teacher. And he thought I did well. (As did I. )

But in most cases, we go into observations with our own thoughts on what should be happening. We use our own teaching philosophy to grade other teachers. This really doesn’t seem fair. Without the ability to read something or have them explain their rationale, it can be hard to appreciate other teachers’ methods. On the other hand, I have never walked away from an observation without learning something.

To end this post, I thought I would put in a picture of a great teacher, Anne Sullivan. She taught Helen Keller when she was just a child. She would tutor Helen throughout her school years.

I wonder, if we would have known she was doing something so extraordinary if we had sat in on one of her lessons.

My students are not only from all around the world, but they all immigrated to the US at different times. Some have been here for years, while others just got here. So I was a little worried when I gave my students a list of American celebrities and politicians for a discussion activity.

I wanted groups of four to practice present perfect by doing a mock interview with a celebrity. They could ask some great “Have you ever thought/done/gone….?” questions in present perfect. But the activity hinged upon the group members all knowing and being interested in the same celebrity.

Out of my long list, I was shocked to find that Brad and Angela were the most popular couple to interview. I mean really, are Brad Pitt and Angelina that well-known and that interesting? Well, my students thought so. They were so excited to play movie-stars and ask really personal questions. Like, “Angelina, why haven’t you ever been pregnant?” The student playing Angelina had a good answer: “I haven’t had enough time. I am a busy woman!”

So their pop culture knowledge is a little outdated. Angelina has had a child, but it is important to notice that the students had something to say. They were really interested and engaged. I had honestly thought that people would interview politicians, like Hillary and Obama. But it was really hilarious to see my students get into the celebrity gossip.

It goes to show that we can never quite predict what our students will find interesting!

This week one of my coworkers shared a great grouping activity with me. I love this activity because dividing students up into groups can be so complicated. But sometimes all you need is a nice random grouping of students for an activity.

• Begin by selecting a subskill or theme, like simple past or pronunciation.
• Decide the size of the group, for example, groups of 3-4.
• Make words or sentences that deal with the theme. Words or sentence should clearly sort into groups.
• In class, tell students the theme and the size of group.
• Have students walk around and share their words or sentences.
• Students try to find a similarity in order to form the correct sized group.

Here is a specific example: This week, we were working on simple past. I wanted to make groups of three. I started by writing 3 sentences with one simple past grammar mistake in each. Then, I wrote 3 more sentences with 2 mistakes in each. And so on until I had enough for my class. During class, I gave each student a sentence. I had them read their sentences to themselves first and told them that they would be divided into groups of three. I told them to find the similarity in the sentences. I gave them a hint that the similarity had to do with simple past grammar. I gave students time to walk around and share their sentences. I gave them hints if they need it. At the end of the activity, they had found people with the same number of mistakes in their sentences. They were in perfect groups of three and they had already practiced simple past.

Here is another example for vocabulary: To divide your class into four groups, you could give each student a word (a noun, adjective, verb and adverb) and have students try to figure out what factor would divide the class into four groups. Give them hints and they should be able to realize that the form of the word is the important feature.

No matter what you choose to do, this activity is great for a number of reasons. Firstly, it easily divides students into groups. The groups can be random (if you hand-out the words/sentences randomly or the teacher can select the groups by assigning each student a specific word/sentence. Secondly, it is a good activity to prepare students for any type of group work. It gets them thinking and working with others. I loved this idea! It is so great to have nice colleagues to share ideas with. If any of you have classroom ideas, blog about them and give me a link. I would love to hear your classroom ideas too.

Next week is the start of a new semester at my university. I am excited to teach a new class on academic vocabulary and meet new students. But I am also a little worried because I need to write a syllabus and that can be an unpleasant experience! A syllabus is an outline of the course. It gives students an understanding of the teacher’s expectations and of the course’s schedule. It shows how you plan to build the course.

I don’t like writing syllabi because it seems like too much planning. I am always a little hesitant to schedule out ten weeks of class before I meet the students. I would like my class to be dynamic and student-centered, but how do you write that into a syllabus. My question to you is: How do you manage to keep class time flexible AND give students a firm plan for the course in a syllabus?

I think, I have developed one strategy. I am going to supply an outline for the course as if it were a one-hour course. (The course is actually two hours long.) That way every class time, I have an hour to deal with student generated topics and problems. This will require work throughout the term to develop more materials and assignments, but I think it makes for a better class.

Maybe some teacher have a better way of outlining a course. To me though, it seems impossible to outline the entire course before the course begins. Still, I remember being a student and I had some great teachers who did just that. So if you plan your entire course before you start class, can you give me some tips?

How do you measure a students’ learning? and is that the same measure of their success? At the community college where I teach, the students are given three exams to determine their language ability. A reading test, a writing test, and a grammar test. My students have improved immensely over the last three months, in all four facets of the language: reading, writing, listening and speaking. But my boss told me that the students were not going to pass. It happens quite frequently that half the class fails; it simply isn’t always possible to improve that much in one term. I wonder how that affects students in our program. How does that make them feel? I think, It leaves them feeling unsuccessful. When we know they have not only worked hard, but have been very successful. It feels wrong to fail them because of the test scores. So I am left asking myself, why do we test them on so much material? Why do we test them on more than they can learn in a term?

The answer might just be: Because its easy. Because the tests are already made. Because tests don’t really matter. I find myself leaning towards the third answer. I hope that our program is not changing the tests because they feel the tests don’t matter. Personally, I think that the test scores aren’t very meaningful because they do not look at all aspects of language growth. They do not evaluate listing and speaking skills. At the same time, the people that my students interact with (there bosses, for example) are most likely judging their language ability on their speaking and listening skills.

So I wonder, what makes a good test? Is it an easy to grade multiple choice test? Or is it something more rooted in the students’ whole language ability?

Writing can be hard, even for me a native English speaker and ESL teacher. But once ESL students become comfortable with writing in English, it is important to introduce some common structures in English writing.

Traditionally in English, an essay states the main idea in the first paragraph and each paragraph that follows supports the main idea. While this rigid structure is not always followed, students should understand that normally they should structure their writing in that manner.

ESL teachers, especially native English speakers, may not consider teaching essay organization, but some cultures value other essay structures. There is a great video clip about a nonnative English speaker, Pablo Zapata, and his problems with the very direct manner of English essay writing.

Some students may have a hard time transitioning to this style of writing, but once their language is intelligible, it is a necessity. English readers have certain expectations about how writing should be organized, especially in academics. As teacher, we should give our students the skills to meet readers’ expectations.

I live in Portland, Oregon and at the university in my town, like most US university, exchange students need to take the TOEFL exam before they can take classes. And they need to get a high score, a score of 197 or higher. The TOEFL exam has three parts: reading, writing and listening.

In my ESL class, students learn to read, write, and listen to English. But I wonder, do my students know enough to pass the TOEFL exam? At Portland State University, students need to get 197 points on the computer-based TOEFL test before they can go to school there. I always wonder, if I am teaching my students enough. The only way to know if my students are going to do well on the TOEFL is to work on their reading, writing and listening skills and practice answering questions like those on the TOEFL exam.

For some students, the best thing to do is to take a TOEFL prep class. I have never taught one of those, but maybe some other English teachers on English, Baby! have.

All I know is that the TOEFL test is hard and that it takes a lot of practice to get a good score on the TOEFL. Can any teachers give me some help on preparing my students? I think a good place to start would be to get a TOEFL practice exam and have the students do it.

On English, baby! we sell practice exams written by the real TOEFL test writers. The exams are just like the actual test. So students can take the practice test and see if their score is high enough to study at Portland State University.

It is a well known fact that ESL and EFL students cannot learn English in an overly emotional environment. In essence, students’ emotions stop them from learning. Learning another languge requires so much of an individual that there just isn’t enough energy or brain power to process new language and overwhelming emotions, like fear and sadness.

But what about the ESL teacher? Being an ESL teacher is an emotional job. For me, there are only so many emotions I can deal with and still be an effective teacher. Students often come to me with their problems. As their ESL teacher, I am supposed to help them learn the language and transition into a new society. But, sometimes there just isn’t enough of me. Lately, my own personal troubles have stopped me from being the best teacher and the best support system for my students.

I guess, I would love some advise from experienced teachers. Or maybe there just isn’t a solution. Maybe you can’t be a great teacher, if you are too emotionally invested. Just like students who can’t learn, teachers can’t teach when their feelings aren’t under control. How do you control your emotions?

Sure, sometimes ESL classes are scary and uncomfortable. Students are worried about making mistakes and teachers are forced to be the language police. Still, teachers and students can be friends and the ESL classroom can be a really fun and entertaining place — a place where friends meet.

I really try to make my students feel comfortable. I don’t force them to do too many things and I try hard to keep the class exciting. But how do you know if students are comfortable?

Well, this week my students showed me, how much they love the class, their fellow students and ME. I was so surprised. Yesterday, on Valentine’s Day, two of the students got gifts for everyone. We all got balloons , candles, picture frames, candy, chocolate and a personal card. I was so impressed that they got everyone presents.

Both students were from Mexico. I found out the in Mexico Valentine’s day is celebrated on the same day (February 14th), but it is called “Dia del Amor y la Amistad.” That translates to “Day of Love and Friendship.”

On the “Day of Love and Friendship,” my two students from Mexico celebrated the friendships they have in class. They wanted to show their friends how much they loved them. I was just so happy to included as one of their friends. I felt so lucky! And I was excited that they had made friends in the ESL class.

I wonder how teachers can encourage friendships in class. Do you have any ideas? I often have students work together, but what else is important to developing a safe and friendly ESL classroom atmosphere?

Are they learning? It sometimes seems like students aren’t learning. Or even worse that they are simply forgetting everything that they learned. It is important to remember that language learning is not linear.

Students create a complex interlanguage, while learning English. An interlanguage is a mental construct– a language that only exists in the learner’s head. The interlangauge may be similar in ways to a student’s native languages (L1) and the target language (L2), but it is in many ways different. The diagram below from www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/jeilms/vol14/duran.htm illustrates how interlanguage is similar and different from the student’s native and target language. In the diagram Language A and L1=native language and Language B and L2=English

Many language educators may be very aware of interlanguage. Students’ interlanguage is individual and may follow completely different rules than their native language or English. Interlanguage rules are also more fluid and dynamic than normal language rules. Students’ perception of how past tense is made, for example, may be ever changing and developing.

This happened in my English class. The students “learned” simple past several months ago. They successfully completed two tests on the subject and used simple past correctly in classroom discussions, but NO ONE remembers it now. Sure they know some irregular verbs, but they don’t know how to ask questions or negate sentences.

Before I or any other teacher get too frustrated, we need to remember that language learning is not a simple progression from knowing one language to knowing a second language. Students are going to be constantly adjusting their interlanguage rules and sometimes that will make them perform more accurately and other times it will make them perform less accurate.

How can we as teachers overcome the frustration of learners’ mistakes?

I think, we need to remember that they are creating a complex interlanguage. And their interlangauge will become more and more like English, but it takes time. And it is not linear!