The Internet Chat Room as a Learning Tool

 

During the recent conference at Bilkent University, an issue that was repeatedly mentioned was the dilemma of getting students to use language in real time situations. This article 1) discusses the implications of getting language learners to use internet chat rooms for language learning purposes, and 2) aims to prove that the author wasn’t asleep during the conference.

Advantages of Chat Rooms

Firstly, they allow learners to interact in an authentic context with native speakers without being restricted by location. In many ways, this is an unprecedented learning opportunity. Language students can use a chat room at any time to interact with any number of people anywhere in the world.

Secondly, Chat rooms can promote learner autonomy. This is primarily due to the fact that the teacher’s role is minimized. Transcripts are generated which are useful for studying the language used. Every line of conversation is recorded, and can be seen in full thereafter.
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Teachers and Inanimate Objects

PaperclipDon’t you just hate it when…

…you’ve just got your lesson ready and then you drop the box of paperclips all over the floor.

Of course, you might have been lucky enough to avoid this, but personally in 7 years of teaching I’m sure I must have done this at least 20 times. So, rather than just throw in the towel, I decided to take practical steps against those little annoyances that are produced not by other teachers (uncleaned boards) or students (“Teacher, I’ve done this grammar before”) but by the interaction between inanimate objects and myself.

First I’d like to get a few things off my chest. Don’t you just hate it when…

  1. You have the best prepared lesson ever and then you arrive in the classroom without any pens
  2. You have to cue a pron cassette
  3. Your pens run out half way through the lesson
  4. There are 25 pens in the room and none of them work
  5. You are cutting up a set of cards and one badly lined up guillotine cut ruins the whole pack
  6. You get to the listening in the lesson and the cassette recorder doesn’t work. After the class someone tells you, “Oh yer, that one hasn’t worked for weeks.”
  7. You can’t find the book you need
  8. You have to search the whole building just to find a hole punch
  9. The photocopier breaks down just before you reach it

…or is it just me?

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Teaching English to the Japanese When You Don’t Know Japanese

geishaYou’ve made a terrible decision. To successfully avoid the drudgery of a “real” job, you’ve gone off on the adventure of a lifetime, teaching English to students overseas in Japan. How hard can it be? You’ve been speaking English since birth! You can speak it quickly, in the dark, in a car, on a train, while eating green eggs and ham, and even in your sleep. There’s only one problem, really – you didn’t learn a single word of Japanese.

Before you resign yourself to eight weeks of playing Dora the Explorer videos and doing terrible mime in front of a group of bewildered Japanese students, take some time to familiarize yourself with some techniques for getting past the language barrier.

Start with introductions. Introducing yourself is a universal piece of language that your students will quickly pick up on, as there are no known cultures on earth that enjoy floundering around without knowing each other’s names. The Japanese word for “Nice to meet you” is “hajimemashite” (pronounced Ha-gee-may-maw-she-te), and saying that once will indicate to your students that you’re about to introduce yourself. Keep things simple. Start with “My name is _______”. Point to yourself, for good measure. When doing so, don’t point to your chest like your cultureless Western upbringing has conditioned you to do. When indicating themselves, the Japanese point to their noses; jabbing your finger into your chest repeatedly is only going to make your students think that they should perhaps be calling you a cardiologist. Point to your students expectantly, and ask “What is your name?” Continue to do this until your students pick up on what you’re trying to do, and fire their eighteen-syllable names at you in response.

Since you were heinously unprepared for this job by neglecting to learn the language, try to make up for that by at least having the foresight to bring some flashcards. Don’t bother with nouns like “tiger” and “rhinoceros” – the odds of an escaped African herbivore barreling down the streets of Tokyo are very slim at best. Instead, focus on the basics – colors, letters, numbers, common foods and body parts are all very good places to start. As punishment for not bothering with the effortless Japanese verb system, you will be acting out verbs for your student’s amusement. Japanese speakers frequently rely on the all-purpose “shimasu” (she-muss) verb that means “to do”, and the even more generic “desu” (dess) verb that translates to several variations of “is” and “am”, so the sooner you impart on your students that English likes to have lots and lots of different verbs for everything, the better off everyone will be.

A lot of time in your early lessons can be spent on proper pronunciation alone. Japanese does not have the letters “V” or “L” or many of the other consonant sounds we enjoy, so getting students to even recognize, let alone say, those sounds is a challenge. Japanese is a very flat, toneless language – by comparison, English is the mouth-breathing, nasally nerd of the language world, and teaching students to speak through their noses and place stress on their words is another skill that needs to be worked on. If your students are failing in their Fran Drescher impressions, start by getting them to hum and work the sound up into their noses. If they’re not finding it immensely uncomfortable, you’re not doing it right.

Sentence structure will be something to be worked on gradually. While we English speakers like our sentences to go “subject-verb-object”, the Japanese are very much insistent upon having it go “subject-object-verb”. Start with simple sentences, and use the flash cards and ridiculous actions to illustrate your point. The dog is brown. The cat is running. Be patient, and correct mistakes as you hear them; soon enough, your students will be much more bilingual than you are.

Following TEFL Certification, what are the next steps?

After completion of your certification to teach abroad (whether that TEFL, TESL, or TESOL course), what do you do next? If you’ve got aspirations to teach abroad, which you should considering you just shelled out a few hundred bucks to receive certification, you have to first decide a general timeline for when you want to teach. If you aren’t in a hurry to get into a different country to begin your international teaching career or if you’re eager to get out of North America as soon as possible and embark upon your next adventure, the steps getting there are identical.

Where do you want to teach?

Depending on your interests, goals, and desires, there are many different opportunities to teach abroad. For me, national histories and cultures were the main draw. For others it may be the geographical location, weather, landmarks/tourist sites, surrounding countries, language spoken, and a bevy of other items that may grab the attention of the aspiring teacher. Would you like to experience the nightlife of Rio de Janeiro, or would you care to experience the Chinese New Year, or feature the Kremlin in your backyard. While the last may have been an exaggeration, the point remains that the world is your playground to pick and choose where you desire to study.

Crafting your Resume

Tailor your resume to fit the position, like any other job you would apply for. Emphasize that you hold an international teaching certification along with any and all teaching experience in the United States. Even by substituting a few times at the local high school shows potential employers that you are not alien to the teaching process. And while the school system will certainly not be identical wherever you choose to teach, at least you have experienced standing in the front of a class and presenting a lesson plan.

Interview Prep

As with any interview, you’ll want to dress for success. Suit and tie, dress, and slacks should be fashioned regardless of the interview type. Some schools may be able to meet with you in person, talk to you on the phone, or conduct the interview via Skype. Speak clearly and concisely while demonstrating your desire to teach abroad and why you are qualified for the position over any possible competition. Be aware that your interviewer may be ESL themselves.

Passport/Visa

Dealing with legal issues that may arise from improper documentation can be an absolute damper on an otherwise wonderful adventure. Filing claims at an embassy, away from home, and out of your comfort zone is nerve-wracking and an absolute mess. Any and all of your plans can be put on hold for several weeks at a time until the matter is settled.

Preparation

Teaching English abroad can be a wonderful experience, but I’ve known many unprepared individuals going overseas to teach or travel who have not had such a positive experience. First and foremost, make sure your all travel documentation, visa, and passport are up-to-date and in proper order. After getting all the kinks ironed out in regards to deciding where you want to teach and completing your interview process, leave ample time to prepare your mind for traveling abroad. While teaching English in another country can be great, make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. It isn’t easy – the students you will be in control of pose a unique challenge for the simple fact that they do not speak the language you are most comfortable with. Oftentimes you could feel lost and sometimes alone out there, so try to make some contacts before heading over. Other than these minor qualms, enjoy your stay teaching abroad and be sure to share your experiences with others interested in the program!

Role Plays and Simulations

Hamlet

There is a difference between simulations (where students act out real-life situations, for example the student checks in at “the airport”, but students do play themselves) and role plays where students take on different characters. In a role play, for example, one student may be asked to take on the role of “an angry landowner” in a role play which is concerned with discussing the possible construction of a new road. Another may be asked to play the role of the “road company representative”. Role plays will thus require more “imagination” on the part of the student to be able to get “into” the role.

Some students will find being asked to play a different person in a role play quite liberating. Some students who are normally quite shy can open up considerably in a role play lesson. The teacher, though, must attempt to maintain the “pretend” part of the simulations and role plays: i.e. the students ARE in an airport and not the classroom. Teachers can aid this process by use of realia and other props. Students who don’t enter into the ‘fantasy world’ can ruin it for everyone else.
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A Language And Its Culture

S4C LogoA language cannot be separated from the culture in which it is embedded. Is this true? What implications does this have for the English language teacher?

There are strong links between the culture of a country and its language. Language is worn as a badge of ethnicity, a badge of cultural independence worldwide. The Welsh who were forced to wear “Welsh not” around their necks earlier last century for speaking Welsh in class were having not only their language suppressed but also the culture that came with it in the form of music, art, poetry and literature. The revised attitudes towards minority languages like Welsh have now improved and the introduction of S4C, the Welsh language television channel, is part of a wider process thanks to which the Welsh have the right to be more optimistic about their culture’s protection than they had any right to be a mere half century ago.
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Prescriptive Teaching in the ESL Classroom

Being prescriptivist means not only describing the system of language to the students but also insisting that the students conform to using only what the teacher uses or what is presented in a course book. Students would then have errors corrected which are not necessarily ungrammatical but may be considered “non-standard” by certain speakers even though a large number of native speakers may use the very same forms themselves.

The world of TEFL has changed a lot over the years. In days when English was taught as a fixed body of Latin-based rules (e.g. “never split the infinitive!”), there existed a prescriptivist attitude. The position of form-focussed teaching has changed as has, with equal importance, the position of English as a world language. It is not correct or even practical, with a constantly changing, living language, to draw a line in the sand and state “here and no further.”
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How To Do Listening in the ESL Classroom

Baby listeningWhat can be done at different stages of a listening activity to help our students?
It is helpful to divide a listening activity into three distinct stages: the pre-listening, the while-listening and the after-listening.

The pre-listening stage is vitally important if we want our students to get as much as possible out of the listening. Choice of listening is the first thing. We ourselves would not sit down and listen to a radio documentary on a subject we had no interest in and we should not expect our students to be any different. Teachers thus shouldn’t inflict on their students listenings they believe will be of little or no interest to their class as students are less likely to gain anything useful from it.

Once we have decided on a listening to use with our class, the next stage is to prepare them as much as possible. As in real life again, when we listen to something on TV, we are usually in the position where we know the subject area and can predict a lot of what is going to be said. In the class, we must try and prepare our students similarly.
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