Monthly Archives: April 2021

• Missing WHO and WHICH/THAT: Common ESL Problem and Solution

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Cover missing who Shot

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

Sometimes I get the feeling that some of my ESL students (including advanced ones) believe that there are a limited number of “who” and “which” out there, and they are afraid of using them all up before they die.

The problem happens when students are trying to write more advanced styles with a dependent and independent clause in a sentence.

Some examples:

Mistake: The people are walking their dogs should keep them on a leash.
Correction: The people WHO are walking their dogs should keep them on a leash.

Mistake: I try to give money to charities help homeless people.
Correction: I try to give money to charities WHICH help homeless people. *

I’ve also notice that this mistake often happens when students start a sentence with “there”.

Mistake: There was an accident happened near my house.
Correction: There was an accident WHICH happened near my house. * 

* We could substitute the word THAT for WHICH in these sentences.

Solution: Helping students with this. (Handout included.)

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• Don’t Give Grades For These In Conversation Class. Do This Instead.

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Cover shot don't grade pron

A former ESL student of mine, Teddy, came to my office for a chat. I asked him how his classes were going, and he showed me the mid-term exam grade from his intermediate-level speaking class that his teacher had just given him. First Bad eval form  I asked him how he felt about it. He said that he was feeling discouraged because he really tries to be active in conversation, not only telling his ideas and opinions but also responding to and including other. So he felt that he deserved a much better score than a 72%, which was a failing grade.

Then I asked him, from looking at this grade form, what he thinks he’ll need to do to improve his grade.

Grade three techniques

He felt confident that he could ask more questions and try to respond to others more with rejoinders.

But about the pronunciation and grammar grades, he said that he wasn’t sure.

Revised Grade just pron gram

He imagined that he might have some problems with “L” and “R” sounds.  And he thought that the grammar score was low because he always makes mistakes with prepositions. So he planned to think more carefully about those when talking.

The problem and the fix

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