Compelling Conversations

Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics for ESL learners and teachers

Posts Tagged educational philosophy

How democratic is your ESL classroom?

Oct 27

Posted by Chimayo Press in CATESOL, Compelling Conversations, Teaching matters, academic matters, adult education, conversation starters, democratic classroom, teaching tips | 1 Comment

Who gets to speak in class? Whose ideas count? Who chooses the assignments? How do students receive feedback? Do students have a chance to conference with their instructors? Can YouTube be a valuable source for homework assignment? Do you want your students to become self-directed – or autotelic – in their studies?

Here’s a quick checklist that ESL teachers that I created for a recent CATESOL workshop called “Techniques for a More Democratic Classroom”. My core assumption remains that giving students more opportunities to literally speak, write, and share their insights leads to a more engaging, dynamic, and valuable classroom experience.  I will write more on this topic in a few days, but here are some questions to consider.

  1. Who do you currently teach? How would you describe the students?
  1. What are some of their personal interests?
  1. How can student interests be better incorporated into the curriculum?
  1. Which assignments do students currently choose? Which seems most successful? Why?
  2. What are some benefits of greater student participation?
  3. What are some risks of greater student participation?
  4. Do you want to increase the number of choices students make?
  5. What critical language skills can be taught by tapping into their interests?
  6. How can you tweak current material to better individualize instruction?
  7. What internet resources can you use to augment the current curriculum?
  8. Which exercises or activities do you find most successful in your classroom?
  9. What decisions do you keep as your prerogative as the instructor?
  10. Will your students become self-directed learners?
  11. How can you encourage that possibility?
  12. How can you create a more democratic classroom?
  13. What are some obstacles to a more democratic classroom?
  14. How does technology encourage a more democratic classroom?

“Education is a kind of continuing dialogue and a dialogue assumes, in the nature of the case, different points of view.”   Robert Hutchins (1899-1977), former President of University of Chicago and educational philosopher

Do you agree? Disagree? Why? Feel free to let me know.

I’ll post an article in a few days outlining some of my thoughts and sharing some materials.

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Learning by Doing and Good Mistakes in English classes

Jun 15

Posted by Eric Roth in Uncategorized | No Comments

How can English language teachers create a rigorous, tolerant, and focused classroom atmosphere?

One effective technique is encouraging English students, especially ESL students, to “learn by doing” and “make good mistakes” as they expand their vocabulary, experiment with new sentence structures, and use English more in their daily lives. A good mistake, as I explain on the first day of class, is a logical error that makes sense, but just happens to be wrong. For example, a young boy might think 2+2= 22. You can see the logic, but the answer is wrong. The student needs to know that 2+2=4. But you can also acknowledge that “22″ is a good mistake. Some teachers might consider this mistake a systems error or category confusion.

Far too many ESL students, especially in countries that worship standardized exams, have created psychological barriers to experimenting in English. These students often want to avoid making any mistakes, and prefer to remain silent in conversation class to expanding their verbal skills. The ESL teacher, therefore, has to directly confront this trend or learned behavior. You can’t learn to speak a new language without making mistakes.

So I encourage English students, in both conversation and writing classes, to make good mistakes. Take chances. Try something new. Stretch your learning muscles. And make good mistakes. A good mistake is also a mistake that we acknowledge and learn from and avoid repeating. A good mistake is not a good mistake if you’ve made it ten times before in a class or on previous papers. Students usually understand, relax a bit, and proceed to experiment a bit more in our crazy, confusing, and misspelled English language.

Our goal, I sometimes joke on that first day, is to make many good mistakes, learn from these good mistakes, and move forward to make new, different, and even better good mistakes.” We usually realize this goal in our English classes!

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Make time for conversations – in and outside of English classrooms

Jun 15

Posted by Eric Roth in Uncategorized | No Comments

The art of conversation, once considered the sign of a civilized individual, seems less common today.  Yet I treasure the moments of sharing experiences, collecting news, and exchanging ideas.  I make a point of knowing my neighbors, allowing casual greetings to become long conversations, and making time to explore the feelings and perceptions of friends and relatives in depth. These natural conversations provide information, encouragement, laughs, and pleasure. 

Life today often seems very hectic. Who has time for long lunches and civilized conversations? Yet accepting this notion cheats us and denies our responsibility for our choices. We can choose to watch television programs, play computer games, or listen to the radio rather than talk to relatives and friends.  It’s a choice.

The internet, a modern wonder, provides another way to find ideas, explore possibilities, and connect with friends. Many find surfing the internet easier, even better than having actual conversations. Sometimes international students also feel too shy to speak to the people next to them. Many Americans, it seems to me, have forgotten how to hold good, deep conversations, or even a friendly chat on the phone.  I suspect this lack of real communication lessens their daily joy. 

 Of course, adult students, immigrant workers, and other people learning English as a second, third, or fourth language face even more barriers to a satisfying conversation in English. First, English remains a confusing, difficult, and strange language. It’s easy to feel uncomfortable when speaking in this new tongue.

What questions do I ask? How can I keep a conversation going? What vocabulary words are needed? How do I show agreement, or disagreement, in a lively, yet polite way? How can I share my experiences in a clear manner? How can I have better, more engaging conversations in English?

             Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics addresses these issues for both native and non-native speakers. The focus is on learning by doing, and making good mistakes. (Good mistakes, by the way, are natural mistakes that help us learn so we can make different and better “good mistakes” next time.)  Each of the 45 chapters includes 30 or more questions, 10 or more targeted vocabulary words, a few proverbs, and 10 or more quotations. Although designed for advanced students, intermediate ESL students will find plenty of material to use and can benefit from exposure to the new words, phrases, and questions.

             Each chapter focuses on a promising conversation topic. The questions allow the reader to practice exchanging experiences and ideas in a natural style. You can add questions, skip questions, and move on to related topics. Each chapter begins with easier questions and moves on to questions that are more abstract.

    Both native English speakers and English language learners will find the questions allow one to share experiences, exchange insights, and reflect on life. The questions are conversation starters, and not scripts to follow. The goal remains to create a real dialogue, increase your understanding of your classmates, and gently push you toward using a richer vocabulary in your English conversations. Further, the engaging material allows ESL students to recycle material and use the questions outside of English language classrooms. Students learn by doing, and discover they can create compelling conversations in English!

Click here for a sample chapter on Studying English. Enjoy!

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Visit www.CompellingConversations.com 

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English Language Teaching Tip #12: Ask a Question on Your Attendance Sheet

Jun 15

Posted by Eric Roth in Uncategorized | No Comments

Can you recommend a good movie? What’s your favorite song? What’s your favorite color? How do you prepare for a test? How do you relax? Do you have a favorite English word?

Can you turn a bureaucratic requirement into a communication tool to express personal ideas and build classroom community? Absolutely.

Taking attendance remains a vital part of our teaching duties. Some schools even require student signatures to prevent fraud and inflated student numbers or covering for weak students. When faced with this situation years ago, I started adding simple questions to the attendance sheets. What’s your favorite month? What’s your favorite sports team? What are you grateful for? How will you revise your last paper to make it better?

Students appreciate the opportunity to express their ideas and perceptions, and learn more about their classmates. The questions also help build a better classroom atmosphere and provide ice-breakers for students to talk with each other during break. Finally, this extra line turns a boring procedure into an educational tool that works for administrators, teachers, and students. What’s not to like? 

As an old American TV commercial used to say, “try it – you’ll like it.”

 Visit my website www.compellingconversations.com for free conversation materials, teaching tips for ESL/EFL classrooms, and links to excellent websites to learn English.

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ESL classes should include more conversation activities!

Jun 15

Posted by Eric Roth in Uncategorized | No Comments

Conversation remains a vital social skill for our English students. Naturally, immigrants and international students want to fully participate in their schools, their jobs, and their communities. Speaking clearly in English allows individuals to express their life experiences, insights, and perceptions in fluent conversations – both inside and outside classrooms. Limited English fluency, in contrast, often causes additional stress. “Speech is civilization itself,” wrote Thomas Mann, the great 20th century German novelist.”It is silence which isolates.”

Therefore, conversation skills deserve far greater attention in English language classrooms for academic, social, and cultural reasons. Conversation skills also require practice, practice, and more practice. So let’s give our students more chances to express themselves, share their experiences, and develop their discussion skills in our English language classrooms – especially our high intermediate and advanced students. Teachers need to create encouraging, yet rigorous, classroom atmospheres where students can learn by doing.

Speaking skills, I’d suggest, deserve at least as much attention as grammar in our classrooms. Do students who know grammar, but can’t hold a conversation really speak English?
Conversation skills often matter more at work, at school, at parties, and at home. Whether ESL students seek better work opportunities, higher  grades, or closer relations with native English speakers, our students also want to become fluent in English. So let’s meet both our students needs and wishes, and add more conversation activities and allocate more time to  speaking skills in our ESL classes.

“English saved my life.”
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), English novelist born in Poland

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Do you teach the difference between “a” and “the” in conversation class?

Jun 15

Posted by Eric Roth in Uncategorized | No Comments

Does teaching articles (a, an, the) make sense in a conversation class?

Perhaps. Context matters.

Conversation class should encourage English students to express their ideas, practice familiar words and syntax, and develop greater confidence in effectively communicating in English. Content remains king. Given how little most of our ESL students speak English outside of classes, we need to provide many speaking opportunities for them to develop greater fluency.
Starting from these assumptions, I generally prefer indirect correction of student errors during conversation class. I often circle around a class, listen in, join small discussion groups, and make a few notes. If I hear some grammatical error, I usually demonstrate correct language – but without explicitly or publicly correcting the student.

This indirect correction – modeling the correct syntax – seems especially important with adult students with limited academic backgrounds.  I prefer encouraging these sometimes reluctant, shy and often insecure students to insisting on perfect grammar.

Yet article errors matter in English, and provide what native speakers consider significant information. Just as some languages divide nouns or adjectives into masculine and feminine, English highlights the difference between a definite (or known) member of a group and an indefinite (or unknown) member of a group. Article errors are also very common among English language learners– both international graduate students and wealthy immigrants who have lived in the United States for 20 years.

After collecting overheard student errors during conversation lessons, I tend to pick one “good mistake” and give several examples when the class comes back for a general discussion. It is here, more for college students and future college students, that I remind students of the differences between articles “a”, “an” and “the”. Because I teach in the United States, I often pick examples from current events to make the general grammar point before focusing on the precise errors made in class.

One example that I often use comes from the Iraq war. Some Iraqi citizens believe Islam be a source – one of many sources – for Iraq’s laws and constitution. Other Iraqi citizens believe Islam should it be the one and only source for Iraq’s laws and constitution. Another group of  Iraqi citizens, and apparently a small minority, believe Islam should play no official role in Iraq’s laws and constitution. This explanation helps students understand the importance of and distinctions between “a” and “the”, connect a grammar point to current events, and provides memorable examples.  

Finally, I’m also far more likely to spend precious class time on this advanced grammar point with current college students or academic ESL classes than with typical adult education classes. Students planning to take standardized exams like the TOEFL or TOEIC have far more need for this type of focused attention on grammar. I tend to tailor my approach to error correction, in both conversation and writing classes, to student needs. Minimum wage workers, street vendors, and elderly immigrants learning English in their spare time have less immediate need for extended grammar points in a conversation class. Or so it seems to me.

Context, as so often in teaching English, matters. 

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Why not create a culturally sensitive version that can be used worldwide?

Jun 15

Posted by Eric Roth in Uncategorized | No Comments

Many English teachers have asked if I plan a “culturally sensitive” version so Compelling Conversations can be used in more countries.

For instance, China censors not only their classrooms, but has created a great electronic fallwall so its citizens can not find information on Tibet, Taiwan, democracy, or free speech. China’s educational leaders, perhaps the most important market for many English language programs and books, simply wants “harmonious communication”, not discord, goes the argument. Likewise, Saudi Arabia – where women are banned from driving, Islam reigns as the one and only religious faith, and free speech is forbidden – wants books where relations between men and women go unasked. Why not accommodate the local rulers and pander to the prejudices of the powers to be? Sales will surely increase.

No doubt, sales would increase. Yet I prefer not to censor myself or support local tyrants. Consider me a “live and let live, speak and let speak” teacher. As Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence declared, “resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” Asking simple questions and sharing personal experiences, without worrying about what some government official might think, seems reasonable. Freedom is still a good idea.

Originally written for immigrants and refugees coming into the United States, Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics allows students to share, candidly, their personal stories. Some fled to avoid persecution, some escaped civil wars and economic poverty, and some sought more free to just be themselves and create a new, usually better life.

I’m even a bit flattered that my tiny little website is blocked by a few governments addicted to censorship and trying to stop their citizens from asking questions. My book simply asks over 1400 questions, shares a few hundred proverbs, and demonstrates how brilliant women and men have disagreed on many issues through out history.

Conversation matters, especially during times of war and hysteria. I’m trying to help English language learners develop their conversation skills, reflect on their experiences, and exchange insights with other fellow human beings. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes powerful people abuse their authority. Sometimes little people suffer because of the mistakes and decisions of the more powerful. If some government or authority feels that these questions are too dangerous, uncomfortable, or impolite, than so be it.

Asking questions and simple conversation help us clarify and understand our world. I’m perfectly comfortable with every question that is asked in this book, and emphasize many times that students can just decline to respond if they feel less comfortable. (Learning how to say “no” is also a good conversation skill to master!) Yet it’s a very different situation for a student – an individual – to choose to pass over a question and for a censor to block a website, ban a book, or prohibit a question. I prefer to treat all adults as adults.

Sorry for the long rant, but that’s why I have declined to create a “censor’s version” that would eliminate questions of elections, corruption, women’s rights, or double standards. Freedom, including the freedom to ask simple questions, still seems like a good idea to me.

What about you?

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Visit www.compellingconversations.com

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