• A More Effective Way to Mark Grammar Errors—and Develop Self-Editing Skills (updated)

Leave a reply

Cover codes in margin shot

(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)*

Because this technique gives students a chance to discover their own grammar errors, we’ve found that it greatly improves their self-editing skills. Those skills will continue to be valuable as students move beyond their ESL courses.

The difference may seem small, but it changes the student’s role. Instead of simply correcting errors the teacher has identified, the student has to find the error and figure out how to correct it. That’s what makes the technique so useful for developing self-editing skills.

Below is a description of the technique, along with a handout exercise that introduces students to it.

Continue reading →

• Short, High-Interest Articles for Extensive Reading: # 21: “Why You Think People Are Watching You (But They Aren’t!)”

Leave a reply

(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

My muscles are not big. So, I went to a gym to exercise. When I entered, I noticed three guys with big muscles standing together laughing. I was sure they were laughing at my small arm-muscles and I felt embarrassed. Later I wondered if they were really laughing at me or at some joke.

I recently read about a famous experiment that helped me understand my embarrassment. A researcher painted a brown scar that looked real on the cheek of a young woman named Maria and showed her the scar in a mirror. Then he told her to enter a small room and have a conversation with a young woman inside…..(See complete article below.)

(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see  • Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings”  Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: ESL Reading> Short, High Interest Articles for Extensive Readings

Here is the 21st article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also included are three optional exercises: True-False Questions; Paraphrasing Exercise; Reflection Exercise.

Continue reading →

• Teacher-Friendly Technique to Keep Conversation Items Current, Relevant and Personalized for Students

Leave a reply

Imagine that you are teaching an ESL Conversation class. It is July 1, 2026. You put students in groups of three and give each member a different list of discussion questions to ask each other while practicing a specific conversation technique.

Which of these questions do you think would be most current, relevant and interesting to answer today, July 1, 2026?
Do you like watching football (soccer)?
Which countries do you hope will be in the World Cup final this month?

Or which of these two would be most current, relevant:
Do you worry about money these days?
Next term, our college’s tuition will increase. Will this be a problem for you?

Or which of these two would be most current, relevant:
What is the best age to get married?
Did you hear that our classmate, Silvia, got engaged yesterday?

Obviously, the most current and relevant questions today would not be very interesting for students the very next term.

Here is the challenge: We want items to be current and most relevant, but we also want to be able to reuse the handouts every term without have to always update them.

Here is the good news: We can have both—no added workload and still have relevancy.

Here is how we can do that.

Continue reading →

• Effective and Ineffective Praise of Students for Motivation

Leave a reply

(This article was originally published in MET (Modern English Teaching) in the March/April 2026 issue.)  MET website

I realize now that I probably had been making a mistake over the past decade of teaching, according to research.

In my Advanced ESL Writing course, every term, I usually had one or two outstanding writers. I wanted to compliment those students at the end of the course with the hope that it could motivate them and give them a positive attitude going forward. On those students’ final essays, I often wrote. “You are a talented writer.” That was not a good idea. I recently learned why, and also, what kinds of compliments would be better.

Research has shown that complimenting students “appropriately” can motivate them and can strengthen our relationship with them.  However, certain types of compliments can unintentionally cause pressure on them.

In one study, after 117 undergraduates took a verbal reasoning test, they received one of three types of written feedback:

Continue reading →