How do you help your ESL students recognize their errors in speaking English? What techniques do you use to make their mistakes “psychologically real” to them?
One technique I’ve found effective may seem rather counter-intuitive: encourage them!
While I have never consciously “celebrated” mistakes, I do consistently encourage students to make “good mistakes”, defined as natural errors that we can learn from, so we can continue to improve and new, different, and better mistakes. Creating a classroom atmosphere of tolerance, understanding, and constructive criticism remains a constant challenge.
Yet modern technologies, such as video cameras and smart phones, make video recordings of English language learners an accessible, affordable option. As 21st century English teachers, we can deploy some practical tools in our ESL and EFL classrooms. Videotaping English students certainly helps here since they can watch their own presentations or discussions. Sometimes having students transcribe their own speech yields surprises, but often you don’t even need to resort to such rigorous examination. Students can often see where they have made verb tense errors, searched for vocabulary, or used the wrong word form on their own. Uploading videos to a class website encourages self-awareness and reflection. Seeing, in this case, is often believing.
Further, videotaping student presentations makes our classrooms more democratic since our students can speak – and share their words with friends and relatives beyond the classroom if they choose. Sometimes English language learners, recognizing that they can share their work outside the classroom and reach core peer audiences, will practice more than usual. As ESL students step up their game and perform for the camera, they sometimes make fewer mistakes – and excel!
And if students, as usual, do make mistakes? Let’s call that a learning opportunity. “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, ” advised legendary Sony Chairman Akio Morita. “But make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.” While learning English requires us to be more understanding and patient of “good mistakes”, this quote emphasizes the value of making mistakes – outside and inside our English classrooms.
How many good mistakes must English students make on the road to English fluency? I have no idea, but students will get to their linguistic destination sooner if they start more making good mistakes in our English classes today. Staying silent out of fear of making mistakes almost guarantees students will never become fluent English speakers.
The videotape allows our students to see – and learn – from that bad mistake too.
Speaking skills – especially in stressful situations – matter.
Most quality Business English and VESL (Vocational English as a Second Language) programs provide extensive training and practice in both short and long job interviews. Job interviews are stressful – especially for English language learners. In fact, many adult, community college, and university ESL programs also include mock job interviews in the curriculum so ESL students can learn how to better answer simple and difficult questions. After all, many career experts recommend native speakers practice and practice again for these high-stakes interviews. It behooves English language learners to practice, practice, and practice some more for job interviews.
During these difficult economic times, however, Business English trainers, advanced ESL (English as a Second Language), teachers and VESL (Vocational English as a Second Language) job coordinators should focus on an even wider range of interviewing skills. Many people have to interview co-workers, customers, strangers, and even more senior professionals at work. Speaking skills – in particular interview skills – matter.
Informational interviews – where future professionals ask questions to working professionals that hold a desirable position – achieves this goal – and a few more. Informational interviews deserve far more attention in English language programs, but especially in Business English programs and VESL classes since informational interviews provide practical opportunities to develop business contacts and remain a savvy job hunting tactic.
A common practice in the United States in many white-collar professions, informational interviews allow students (or individuals seeking a career change) to meet more successful and senior professionals in a field. From scheduling an appointment and preparing questions to collecting information on common business practices, this professional exercise tests the fluency and language skills. Informational interviews also expand their personal network of valuable business contacts. Sometimes these 20-30 minute interviews, often at offices, offer surprising insights into the typical work experiences and best workplace practices. Topics can range from the biographic to industry trends. Best of all, informational interviews can also lead to job leads, internships, and even new jobs.
This real world assignment can work with high-intermediate and advanced Business English clients. In fact, asking clients or students to find, research, and conduct an informational interview requires a certain level of fluency and confidence – outside the classroom. This challenging, authentic class assignment requires English language learners to perform a vital workplace skill, respond in real time to a potential supervisor, and ask appropriate questions.
What are appropriate questions? Here are a few classic informational interview questions:
How did you first enter the field? Why?
How has the industry changed since you began your career?
Can you describe a typical day at work?
What are some trends that you are watching?
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
What question should I have asked that I didn’t ask today?
These simple questions often provide illuminating glimpses into the professional lives of successful professionals.
I recommend requiring a “trip report” or a presentation to show the results of the informational interview with fellow Business English students,. This reflective exercise requires students to concisely summarize their interview. Learning how to conduct an informational interview is a crucial skill that they can use over and over again during their business careers. Many graduate programs strongly recommend (and sometime mandate) their students conduct regular informational interviews.
From my perspective, adding information interviews to Business English classes and VESL programs seems extraordinarily sensible. It also qualifies as an effective use of precious instructional time. Practical and popular, this multidimensional assignment consistently engages students and provides surprising insights in a university setting. I’ve been requiring informational interviews for several years in my university courses for both native and non-native English speakers. Students consistently rate the informational interview highest among the course assignments – and often praise it on course evaluations.
Therefore, I’m quite confident that quality Business English and VESL programs can clearly benefit from adding this real-world, authentic task to their curriculum too.
Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create Compelling Conversations – in English!
www.CompellingConversations.com
How can you encourage your advanced ESL students to develop their speaking skills and tap their interest in our rapidly changing world? Create compelling classroom assignments that respect their intelligence, engage their curiosity, and model great speaking skills. Let your students be hunters, gathers, and presenters of new information to their classmates!
Adding a homework assignment that requires ESL students to go the “ideas worth sharing” website at www.TED.com accomplishes all these goals. For the last four years, I have asked both college and international graduate students to select a short TED.com video, watch it, and prepare to share their impressions in class. Since many students have evolving English language skills and the course is an advanced oral skills class, they just take notes. What’s the title? Where was the lecture given? Who gave the lecture? Date? How did they open the presentation? Was their a significant quote? What sources were orally cited? How would they rate the video on a scale of 1-5? Why did they choose this TED video? Why do they recommend we watch it too?
Students will often watch several TED videos before choosing a favorite one. This advanced ESL homework assignment seems to capture their imagination as they explore the TED website. The next day, students discuss the TED video that they selected in small groups of four. Afterwards, I ask for “brave volunteers” to share their impressions – i.e., review – with the class. Usually everyone wants to present so we extend the lesson to a second class where I videotape all the presentations. The class sessions are always illuminating, engaging, and surprising as I learn more about students, their interests, our evolving world, and their English language speaking skills. This democratic speaking skills activity creates an atmosphere where “everybody is a student, and everybody is a teacher.” Result: the entire class creates compelling classroom conversations!
As the old American cereal commercial used to say, “try it – you’ll like it” – at least with more advanced English students!
“How can rural Chinese students develop their listening and speaking skills with very limited opportunities to speak with actual native speakers in person?”
This question remains the billion person question! English language learners across Asia – in China, Thailand, and Vietnam – and the entire globe – confront this profound problem. As somebody who has only taught English for a limited time in a developing Asian country and has never had the pleasure of teaching English in China, I have to admit that I am not completely sure. I will, however, try to answer to the best of my ability.
Clearly, this challenging question illuminates both the deep desire of many Chinese to speak with native speakers – and often hope to sound like native speakers. At the same time, many experienced EFL teachers and linguists often emphasize that students need “realistic expectations” for themselves, and English language learners don’t need to sound like native speakers to speak with native speakers. The rarity of native speakers may also indicate some official ambivalence about closing societies opening up. The good news, of course, remains that advanced technology, provides dozens of options that simply didn’t exist 50 years ago for English language students.
As English teachers working in China are keenly aware, China remains a relatively closed society where officials maintain a strict censorship policy. Surveys often place China among the ten least internet friendly nations. In this context, it’s almost impossible to disassociate English from some broader cultural associations and ambitions. A few older Chinese officials may even still view the presence of native English speakers with some suspicion in more remote, backward rural areas.
Yet during both the successful Beijing Olympics and Shanghai World Expo, the national Chinese government strongly promoted the study of conversational English so more Chinese could help international tourists feel comfortable in China. The exponential growth of English, as the lingua franca of the business world, across the major cities of China has been amazing in the last decade. The Chinese government has clearly endorsed the widespread learning of English among children and adults in both urban and rural areas. The opportunity, however, to actually hold conversations in English often remains limited.
So what is to be done? We can’t let the ideal become the enemy of the good. English language learners have many choices today to hear excellent examples of English spoken. Students can listen to podcasts and available quality English language radio programs, speak English on Skype with English tutors, and watch hundreds of fine American, British, and Australian films. Many of my Chinese students tell me that they joined conversation programs like English Corner to practice simple conversation, and some language schools have afterschool English clubs. Bolder students might try forming friendships with native-English speakers on social media sites. Today a billion people who have never personally seen a native English speaker can still listen to the authentic voices of native-speakers in more ways than ever before… even if there’s not a single native speaker in town.
I also suggest EFL teachers create speaking opportunities both in class – in small groups or pairs – and consider adding speaking elements to homework assignments. Fluency, after all, requires practice and speaking English – even to a fellow Chinese, non-native speaker – will develop their evolving English speaking skills. Practice may not make perfect, but it will push students to make real progress.
Let’s help English students get into the habit of asking and answering questions – to the best of their ability – about topics they care about in English class everyday. How? Focus on student interests. I’ve had considerable success, for instance, using Being Yourself from Compelling Conversations with intermediate and advanced students because so many students find themselves fascinating.
Bottomline: adding short, meaningful conversation exercises to every English class should help EFL students gain the confidence and experience they need to hold real conversations. English students may not have a chance to speak with a native speaker today, but we can help make sure they can create a real conversation when they talk with native speakers tomorrow… or the year after tomorrow.
Yet I’m confronting this billion-person question from the perspective of an American college professor who has taught dozens of Chinese students at an elite university. What advice do other English teachers, especially teachers who have taught in rural, relatively isolated areas with few native speakers, have? Are there some low-tech solutions that I’ve overlooked? How would you answer this billion-person question?
Fluency requires practice. Our students also know that speaking English can be both satisfying and stressful. Therefore, we require speaking activities in class – and strongly suggest ways to speak more out of class. Our students want to be fluent, but they often hesitate to practice their speaking skills. Many students do not want to risk making mistakes, being misunderstood, and feeling awkward. Some prefer to silently take notes, and speak as little as possible in their English classes. We have all probably faced this situation.
Yet, as far as I know, there is no magical shortcut to fluency except practice. Our English students must practice speaking – in pairs and in small groups – even if it feels awkward. “Practice makes perfect” goes a popular proverb. Although perfection seems like a dubious ideal, practice certainly makes progress. And our students want to make meaningful progress in their speaking skills and gain greater fluency.
That’s why creating a comfortable class atmosphere remains essential. One effective way to reduce grade anxiety or classroom stress is to clearly emphasize that some activities will focus more on fluency” and other speaking activities will focus more on “accuracy”. For instance, including one casual fluency activity per class helps students simply exchange ideas and engage in low risk, safe communication between themselves.
Speaking exercises can be added across the ESL curriculum. You can often drop a short communicative exercise even in acadenuc writing classes. Fluency, after all, requires practice. Casual, ungraded classroom conversations also increase student confidence and create a more lively ESL classroom.
Asking students to reflect and share their experiences as an English learner can often lead to fascinating conversations and compelling essays. Here’s a favorite fluency activity called Learning English that I’ve used with both intermediate and advanced ESL students in both oral skills and writing classes. When I taught advanced ESL at Santa Monica Community College, I often used Learning English to introduce their first essay. Students often responded with enthusiasm. Perhaps your English students will too.
What is a clarifying question? What do you mean? Can you be more specific? Can you give us some examples? What do you exactly mean?
Sometimes our English students need help asking questions, especially critical questions that allow them to clarify concepts and better participate in conversations. One crucial skill that needs to be explicitly taught – after being informally modeled in class discussions – is asking for clarification. In fact, I consider the ability to ask appropriate follow-up questions a vital life skill.
Here are some simple questions that students can, and often should, ask to collect more information. I often encourage students to make a general statement or bold claim, and support their opinion with some reason. Proverbs and advertising slogans are great for this purpose.
Sunshine promises happiness.
Just do it.
Laugh and be well.
Bad luck can’t last forever.
You create your own luck.
Be bold.
Yet these absolute statements require qualification and clarification, especially in the context of an academic discussion or intense conversation. Therefore, it’s natural to ask some practical clarifying questions in a friendly, open-minded way.
Here are some useful examples of common clarification questions:
What does that mean?
Can you be more specific?
Why do you think that?
How did you reach that conclusion?
Can you share some examples?
To what extent, does that saying apply here?
What do you really mean?
Can you clarify that for me?
How does that statement apply to….?
Can you spin that concept out for us?
What are the implications of that statement?
What are you implying?
We can also ask questions to confirm information or paraphrase.
Are you saying that….
Are you claiming….
Do you mean ….
So you are saying…
Do you want me to…
This simple exercise is also quite helpful when teaching hedging language and formal definitions to add precision. Since I primary teach graduate students who must participate in classroom discussions and answer questions after giving presentations, I consider this ability a vital skill for intermediate and advanced English language learners.
How do you clarify information? What questions do you ask as follow-up questions when you feel confused? What questions do you teach your students to use to collect more details or verify information? Why?
