(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.) *
Advice from academic instructors: Give your ESL / ELL / International students practice writing short paragraph answers to test questions.
Academic instructors report that these types of questions tend to cause problems for our students:
(True story.) It’s the September of 1985, the year that Stevie Wonder released an international hit song. I’m on campus in Japan and happen to run into a couple of my students from spring term, Yuki and Hana.
“How was your summer?” I ask.
“Wonderful! I went to Europe with my family,” Yuki says.
“That’s great! How about you Hana?”
“Interesting. I had a part-time lover,” Hana answers.
Both Yuki and I look astonished and laughingly ask simultaneously, “You had a what?!!”
“I had a part-time lover. … Oh, no, I mean I had a part-time job!” Hana replies with some embarrassment when she realizes what she had said.
She then explains how she had often heard Stevie Wonder’s “Part-Time Lover” during the summer.
Hana’s automatic response to my question demonstrated the power of listening input. Since then, I’ve found ways to tap into it’s potential in helping student internalize grammar concepts and new vocabulary, and even how to write paragraphs and essays.
(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)
After reading Curry’s essays, I often came away feeling especially good. This kind of surprised me because she wasn’t among the top writers in my class. Her grammar tended to breakdown at times, and her sentence style could be a bit simple. And yet, there was something special about her papers.
(This posting includes handouts which you are welcome to use with your students.)
See • Reading Units: Reading for Insights (Introduction) for an introduction to these reading units.
Article & Study Guide for Proximity: The Most Important Factor in Making a Friendship is How Close You Are Physically (and excerpts)
Common Sense Teaching ESL 