Thursday, January 30, 2014

American Slang

I've found that most ESL students like to learn one way of saying something, this is most likely because they are afraid of making mistakes. I try to get my students to loosen up a bit and try out some new phrases.  It's a work in progress, but yesterday I received a few books in the mail that might very well help me accomplish this mission.  They are Conversational American English from McGraw-Hill and 101 American English Idioms from McGraw-Hill.  I just received them both and so I intend to try them out in my classes next week. Both books are full of funny sayings that we use on a daily basis in the States.  I hope the students will like learning something other than Business English. 

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Gerunds after prepositions

There are these awful things in the English language called gerunds.  This crazy verb form with -ing on the end that drives most learners of the English language absolutely crazy.  I know, they're horrible, almost as bad as the present perfect tense.  They  can be mastered though, so don't give up just yet.  Here's a link to a page that has a really good explanation for the whole situation and it's  fairly straight forward and easy to understand.  http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-gerunds_2.htm


If you happen to be one of my students and want to try your luck on a little quiz try this one. http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/structures/gerund_prepositions.htm 


Another good practice for the preposition and gerund form is a fill in the blank exercise which you can find here:  http://homepage.bnv-bamberg.de/englischinteraktiv/gerund-preposition.htm There is one for younger students on this site and the instructions are in German. http://www.kico4u.de/english/uebungen/8klasse/gerundnachadjpraep.htm  If you are interested in joining a forum for learning English you can try this one, but remember that you need to register to see the reason your answers are wrong, if you get any wrong. http://www.tolearnenglish.com/exercises/exercise-english-2/exercise-english-82507.php
Here's another explanation page that has more than just gerunds after prepositions on it.  http://www.grammar-test.englet.com/preposition-with-gerund and if you are an advanced student and need a little help in understanding gerunds, here's a link to Grammar Girl.  She'll help you out, for sure. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/what-is-a-gerund Okay, so you've read Grammar Girl's explanation and you're ready to give it a go, so try this http://www.seattlecentral.edu/faculty/dloos/Grammar/gerunds_infinitives/gerunds_after_prepositions_exercises1-4.htm and  yes, it's an American English site. :)  Are you still not sure about the whole situation and just want to practice one more time? I understand, so try this one.  http://www.world-english.org/gerundprep.htm 


As a teacher, I've found the best way to help students get the hang of this form is by sheer repetition.  Give loads of examples and start asking questions using these forms.  If the students are new to the game, then answer your own questions and write it out before you ask the questions of them.  In the end they will have to make a list and memorize the verbs which require the gerund form, but in the mean time you can make it a little competition to see who can get the most correct.  I took the form and made cards out of them and asked students to come up with their own examples, then if they use it correctly they keep the card.  The student with the most cards at the end wins the game.  If you have a larger class you can make more than one set of cards and put the students in groups to do this.  I hope it helps and makes it a little fun.



Thursday, January 23, 2014

Simple Past versus Present Perfect

There's one tense in English that is a complete nightmare for native German speakers.  I understand why, I can speak German, too.  So in order to help those who are struggling through the murky waters of the past tenses, here's a little video (Yes! It's in German!) that may help to clear things up.  At least I hope so.  Here's the link: http://www.sofatutor.com/englisch/videos/simple-past-and-present-perfect?sofatutor_campaign=YouTube+Englisch&sofatutor_content=English%3A+Simple+Past+and+Present+Perfect&sofatutor_medium=VideoSeed&sofatutor_partner=youtube.com




For teacher's there are a ton of resources out there to help students practice the difference, because no matter how many times you explain it, the best way for them to learn is by doing.  I've collected tons of different explanations, worksheets and games and as soon as I figure out how to upload files to Blogger I'll put them up.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Spelling is difficult

A lot of ESL students have difficulties with spelling.  The differences between American and British English are no help.  I tell my students that as long as the word is spelled correctly in one of the two languages, it doesn't matter.  Normally they are learning it for work and, let's be honest, most people outside of the States and Great Britain don't speak English as their native language and may not know the differences themselves. 


Here's a short quiz students can take to check some commonly misspelled words.  http://a4esl.org/q/j/ck/mc-spelling.html   On a similar site you can find a lot of games to play online, which would be fun for young and old alike. http://www.manythings.org/cts/


Another question which arises in this area is, of course, should I correct students' mistakes?  Well, I don't always do this, especially in very low levels.  My reasoning is this; when I was learning German I often felt completely overwhelmed simply with pronunciation, so trying to spell the words and get everything grammatically correct was simply out of the question.  It took me a while before I could do everything simultaneously.  So, I keep this in mind when teaching beginners.  If the word could be confused (i.e. their, they're, there) I correct them and we normally have a good laugh about how messed up the English language is.  You can find more on this topic here http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/faq1.htm#2.  There is also a link for students to practice spelling by playing games on the site.


So here's a little note to students.  You can find rules and help with spelling here http://www.really-learn-english.com/how-to-improve-your-spelling.html


I'm still looking for a pdf to post for students with all of the rules and as soon as I find something I'll definitely post it.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Gerunds and Infinitives

I found some worksheets at Boggle's World http://bogglesworldesl.com/new_year_worksheets.htm that have to do with New Year's resolutions.  They looked fun and the students I used them with really liked the activities and talking about their plans for the new year.  One question came up pretty quickly though and it related to those wonderful things called gerunds.  I was well prepared for the question, though. Therefore, I taught a very brief lesson on it explaining that there are some verb forms that require a gerund to follow.  I promised them that we would work more with the form.  Now I'm on a search for a way to reduce their anxiety about saying something wrong and making it fun in the process.


Here's what I've found so far.  There's a cool explanation and short exercise here: http://deckedoutenglish.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/about-me-gerund-practice-warm-up/


There is also help with this topic on the ESL Library blog: http://www.esl-library.com/blog/2013/02/21/gerunds-and-infinitives-helpful-teaching-tips/


If you're only looking for a way to practice what you have already taught, then there are a lot of exercises and games on this website: http://www.eltbase.com/vtr_refs.php?id=37&filter=print


Another idea is to have students who have access to the internet in the classroom go here http://www.eslgamesworld.com/members/games/grammar/En%20garde/gerunds%20infinitive/gerunds%20or%20infinitive.html  and play the game online.  You can set it up for one or two players.


These are only a few ideas that I have at the moment.  I hope you find them helpful, too.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Podcasts for ESL students (American English)

I have a student who only has class once a week for one hour and struggles coming up with the time to listen/ read something in English outside of class.  This is a very common problem for working professionals.  I've tried to motivate him to read newspaper articles in English, but it's often difficult to find articles which are both interesting and short enough to be feasible. 

So what's the solution?  My current solution (this may change later!) is to suggest downloading and listening to podcasts.  It's easy to spend an hour or so perusing the net in order to find one or two that appeal to students' tastes.  I did this while learning German and it helped me tremendously.  Aside from the fact that the man doing the podcast was Austrian, with a strong accent, and I now live in Germany, it was fun for me to listen to all of his stories and explanations of vocabulary.

Here's a good one I found just a few minutes ago.  If you pay a few dollars a month you can even get the printout of the podcast and follow along.  Here's the link: http://culips.com/ and yes, it's American English!  (No offence to all the British English learners out there, it's just hard to find resources in American English.)

Here's yet another one http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/index.shtml .  It also has worksheets and transcripts, if you're willing to sign up and pay monthly. 

There's something out there for everyone, so just spend a little time online looking and listening.  Good luck and have fun!