Compelling Conversations » Easy English Times

Do You Use Newspapers in Your English Class Yet?

Eric Roth — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 01:47:33 +0000

Newspapers tell us the news, and inform us about how today is different from yesterday. They provide us with some clues and some information to help us better understand our rapidly changing world. They arrive at our homes, on our laptops, and in our libraries.

But what about our English classrooms? How often do you use newspapers in your ESL classes?

Newspapers allow students to expand their vocabulary, follow current events, and deepen their understanding of our rapidly changing world. As a former journalist, teaching English with newspapers and magazines seems absolutely natural. My standard homework requires students to select, read, summarize, and evaluate an article of their choice and bring to class for a discussion.

Students provide the basic background information:
Title author
publication date
length # of sources:
List five new or important vocabulary words:

The ESL students also make some judgments:
What’s a key quote?
What’s the main idea? Why?

Finally, students answer three other questions:
What did you learn in this article?
Why did you choose the article?
How would rate the article on a scale of 1-10? Why?

Students pursue their own interests – with some guidance – and develop a stronger English vocabulary that they want and need for their personal and academic development. Naturally, they bring in topics and articles, in English and from the internet, from around the world. This regular homework activity creates an engaging, informative classroom atmosphere while allowing students to “create” some course content.

Many ESL and EFL teachers, however, often feel reluctant to use newspapers. Sometimes teachers feel that newspapers distract from their textbooks; sometimes it adds elements of uncertainty. I suspect, however, that many English teachers also don’t quite know how to effectively deploy newspapers in their classrooms. The newspapers in classroom movement remains more of an ideal than common practice in the United States.

American newspapers would like to change that fact. The New York Times wants ESL teachers to add their quality international paper to the curriculum. Here’s an excellent 4-page primer outlining 10 Ways to Support English Language Learners with the New York Times . And despite the descriptive headline, the informative article actually outlines over 25 activities and provides links to dozens of exceptional educational resources for both students and teachers. Students can find archival photographs to write postcards from the past, research their birthdays in history, find tourist information on their hometowns for oral presentations, and compare and contrast how different countries approach global problems. Worksheets have been developed for an online vocabulary log, understanding prepositions, and a problem-solution organizer.

Bottomline: This exceptional, flexible teacher’s resource makes using newspapers much easier for novice English teachers and time-starved experience ESL instructors.

Can all English classrooms use newspapers? No. Yet many low level and intermediate classes can use Easy English Times, USA Today, or the local English paper and focus on simpler, shorter headlines and articles. High intermediate and advanced students, however, can – and I would suggest should – try to read serious newspaper such as The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times.

So let’s help our students and bring newspapers into our classrooms.
Our students, after all, want to understand their world – in English!

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/10-ways-to-support-english-language-learning-with-the-new-york-times/

Do you teach lower level English students? See these tips from the American literacy newspaper Easy English Times for beginner students)

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What is Your American Dream?

Eric Roth — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:24:51 +0000

What is your American Dream? This remains one of my favorite questions to ask new immigrants and American citizens.

I asked that question, followed by, “why” in a regular column for Easy English Times this month. I gave the last words to Toni Morrison, the Nobel-Prize winning author. “The function of freedom is to free somebody else.”

Easy English Times, published in California, ran an ESL conversation activity that concluded with that question, is a monthly newspaper written in simple English for these immigrants and future citizens. My co-author Toni Aberson and I have contributed a monthly column called “Instant Activity: Conversation” for the last 16 months. The editor adapts materials from our book Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics for beginning and intermediate students.

While the Easy English Times website remains a work in progress, it contains a number of fine features for English teachers and tutors in adult education programs, including literacy and ESL. (Unfortunately, it doesn’t include a summary of the previous Conversation Activity columns yet).

You can check out the collection of free crossword puzzles and reading comprehension activities for each back issue of Easy English Times:
http://www.easyenglishtimes.com/monthly.html

The Easy English Times editors have also put together a solid EET recommends list of selective ESL resources (including Compelling Conversations):

http://www.easyenglishtimes.com/links.html

While Easy English Times remains relatively unknown outside California, the paper has earned an excellent reputation among CATESOL members, many California adult learners, and literacy instructors nationwide. (The editor and publisher of Easy English Times always give popular workshops at CATESOL regional and state conferences.)

Finally, subscription is $10 per year for each student per classroom inside the United States, and $15 per year for international English language learning students. Details here:
https://easyengl.securesites.com/subscribe.html?Category=newspapers

This thin, quality newspaper focuses on a vital niche in the newspaper world: America’s often overlooked and sometimes demonized new immigrants and adult education students. I’m proud to have been working with Easy English Times for over a year. Check it out!

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Reading Pleasures and Tastes Adapted for Easy English Times Column

Chimayo Press — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:47:49 +0000

Easy English Times, an adult education newspaper for English language learners published in California, adapts a chapter from Compelling Conversations each month. The editors selected “Reading Pleasures”, one of my favorite chapters, to run in their November-December issue. Since Easy English Times focuses on the needs of beginning and intermediate ESL students, the editor selects the most accessible sections and adds dictionary definitions, creating a satisfying instant conversation activity.

Here is the Easy English Times Instant Activity for November-December.
Instant activity: Conversation
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Reading pleasures and tastes

The activities below come from a book for English as a second language learners by Eric Roth and Toni Aberson. The title is “Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics.” (See ad on this page.)

Exchanging views: Reading is a solitary* activity, yet it can bring people together in conversation. Interview your partner and exchange reading experiences.

1. What are some books that you have read and enjoyed?
2. Have you ever re-read a book? Which? Why? How many times?
3. Do you have a library card? Do you like to browse* in bookstores?
4. Have you ever been in a book club? What kinds of books do/did you read in the book club?
5. Did your mother or other family member read to you as a child? Did you have a favorite story? What was it?
6. Where did you first learn to read? At home? At school?
7. What were your favorite books as a child? Who was your favorite author? Why?
8. As a teenager, did you have any favorite books, comics, or magazines? Can you describe them?
9. Which magazines or newspapers do you scan now*? Why?
10. Who are some famous writers from your country?
11. Can you think of some movies that are adapted from novels?
12. Do you prefer reading fiction or non-fiction? Why?
13. Do you have a favorite writer or poet? Who?
14. Did you have to memorize any poems in school? Which?
15. Have your read any good biographies? Memoirs*? Self-help books?
16. Are you reading a book now? What is it? Can you describe it?
17. Do you think books and magazines make good gifts? Why?
18. What book are you planning to read in the near future?

Quotations: Memorize your favorite quotation and author’s name. Share it with someone.
1. “Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.” –Richard Steele (1672-1729), Irish writer
2. “No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting*.” –Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), British author/critic
3. “The pleasure of all reading is doubled* when one lives with another who shares the same books.” –Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), short story writer and poet
4. “However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act upon them?” –Buddha (563-483 BC), founder of Buddhism
5. “Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them all.” –Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), essayist
6. “I would rather be poor in a cottage* full of books than a king without the desire to read.” –Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859), historian
7. “A book should serve as the ax* for the frozen sea within us.” –Franz Kafka (1883-1924), novelist
8. “Any book that helps a child to form the habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.” –Maya Angelou (1928-), American poet
9. “A truly great book should be read in youth*, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.” –Robertson Davies (1913-1995), Canadian novelist

On your own: Bring in a book which is important to you. Show the book to the class. Tell them the author, the title, and the reason why this book is important to you.

VOCABULARY HELP*
ax – An ax is a tool for cutting wood.
browse – If you browse in a store, you look at things in a casual way, in the hope that you might find something you like.
cottage – A cottage is a small house, usually in the country.
doubled – When something doubles or when you doubled it, it becomes twice as great in number, amount, or size.
essays – Essays are short pieces of writing on a particular subject.
lasting – You can use lasting to describe a situation, result, or agreement that continues to exist or have an effect for a very long time.
memoirs – A person’s memoirs are a written account of the people who they have known and events that they remember.
scan – When you scan written material, you look through it quickly in order to find important or interesting information.
solitary – A solitary activity is one that you do alone.
youth – Someone’s youth is the period of their life during which they are a child, before they are a fully mature adult.

*Definitions from the Collins COBUILD Intermediate Dictionary of American English, published by Heinle, a part of Cengage Learning © 2008 and the Newbury House Dictionary of American English 4th edition, by Rideout. © 2004 Monroe Allen Publishers. Heinle, a part of Cengage Learning enjoys an exclusive license with respect to the copyright and all the exclusive rights comprised in the copyright in the work and all revisions thereof.
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I love these monthly columns because they keep me connected to adult education and my decade of teaching immigrants and refugees in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The atmosphere in those classrooms, where everyone volunteered and no one worried about grades, is something quite special. We were just adults sharing our experiences, insights, and languages.

Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create Compelling Conversations.
Visit www.CompellingConversations.com

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Enjoying Easy English Times and Exploring the EET Website

Eric Roth — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:14:09 +0000

“In every curving beach, in every grain of sand, there is the story of the earth.”

Rachel Carson (1907-1964), biologist and environmentalist

The mailman brought the “Summer Fun” issue of Easy English Times yesterday, and it made me smile. It’s another wonderful issue of ESL student essays, teaching tips, and classroom exercises for English language learners. The editors also generously added seven photographs to the monthly “instant activity: conversation” column written by Toni Aberson and myself. This month’s topic is Enjoying the Beach. The beautifully illustrated excerpt from Compelling Conversations, modified for beginning and intermediate ESL student readers should be popular. The column also inspired me to take a long walk on Santa Monica beach with my dog to celebrate.

The summer issue also lead me to revisit the Easy English Times website. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include the entire current and past issues so the conversation column isn’t online. The clean website, although in need of an update, includes several valuable chunks of information for ESL educators and people teaching in adult literacy and prisons.

The section titled Immigration Issues features first person essays from immigrants and refugees and an evocative photo essay by Betty Malmgren that documents the intense passions and political symbols used at immigration protest marches. Malmgren deserves credit for showing both sides of this heated and very American debate in a fair, nuanced manner. I’m also fond of the section titled internet resources which includes archived columns from Andrea Uram for teachers of beginning ESL students and Susan Gaer’s columns on using the internet in ESL classrooms.

Yet my favorite part of the Easy English Times website remains student writing

where you can read first person stories from immigrants and refugees who have created new lives in the United States for themselves and their families. This short essays and poems, written by adult ESL students living and working across the country, provide a riveting glimpse into our often troubled world. The range and diversity of writers and writings is quite impressive. I can’t help but be moved and proud to be an English teacher while reading this section.

Website visitors can request a free copy of Easy English Times newspaper, and subscribers can access the entire adult education newspaper online for $15. It’s a good buy, especially for American ESL teachers working with beginning and intermediate adult ESL students. In a far better world, there would be fewer refugees from wars, famines, and persecution – and more than enough money to buy class sets of this ESL newspaper for more adult schools.

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