Why state the obvious? Why take turns asking questions? Why ask follow up questions?
Common sense and social skills don’t seem to be universal. Conversation skills remain a vital soft skill that many scientists, engineers, shy people, and English language learners struggle to master. A key technique is just asking simple questions to keep a conversation moving forward.
Asking follow up questions can provide clarity and allow our conversation partners to elaborate on details. English teachers, especially when reviewing fluency skills, can introduce common phrases to help ESL and EFL students improve their fluency. Use these simple phrases to go beyond hello and create better conversations.
And?
So?
Where?
When?
How?
Why?
Meaning?
You can also encourage your conversation partner with simple phrases.
Go on!
Tell me more!
Sounds interesting.
Smiling and nodding your head also indicate interest and encourage your conversation partner. Yet asking follow up questions and turn taking remain key elements of a natural, satisfying conversation. Everyone in a conversation should both be and feel included, and asking questions remains essential in both superficial and deep conversations. English teachers can gently remind their ESL students of this technique as part of fluency.
My recent trip to Vietnam to meet English teachers and lead a professional development seminar at the American-Pacific University, Vietnam lead to many wonderful moments and a few surprising conversations.
Teaching English in developing countries always poses challenges, and Vietnam falls into that category. Lt me share a few selective details to provide a brief introduction to education atmosphere for English teachers who prefer a communicative approach to grammar drill and kill tasks. Consider the gap between a traditional teacher-centered education philosophy and modern student-centered approaches for teaching English.
- An English language magazine cover story proclaimed: “Let Students Ask Questions.” The two-page article presented the idea of students – even college students – asking classroom questions as an overdue reform.
-Vietnam, the world’s fasting growing economy, has embarked on a rapid expansion of English language classes. The official government ministry of Education and Training has even adopted a new slogan: Friendly School; Active Students. This new slogan presumably indicates that the old approach was something else!
- Several APU high school seniors, in long interviews, indicated that they were forbidden from even talking in their old public high school English classes. These same students informed me that English class in the public high school ranged between 50-70 students. Sometimes the English instructor was believed to be unable to actually speak English. As a result, the class focused extensively on grammar and fill in the blanket tests.
- A few APU students expressed gratitude that they could have actual classroom discussions because this was a new educational experience for them. “We ask questions, and the teacher responds,” laughed one senior. Imagine the possibilities!
These few glimpses into Vietnam’s evolving education system indicate an increasingly awareness that communication skills matter. They also confirm that students, parents, and teachers want better schools and more communicative English language classes.
So let me repeat two favorite themes. Good schools cultivate student curiosity, and English lessons should allow students to display their experiences and perceptions. Further, students who have been forced to take years of English class should be able to speak English – and I literally mean speak English. Conversation skills are not a bonus for excellent students; they remain an essential life skill for international students, entrepreneurs, and immigrants. Therefore, English teachers can and must allow students time and opportunity to develop their speaking skills in class. Why is this still controversial in 2009?
Illiteracy, the inability to turn abstract symbols called letters into meaningful words, should be a vanishing problem. Unfortunately, in the United States, adult illiteracy remains quite widespread.
How many American adults can’t even read this blog? How many American adults can’t read a simple newspaper article, understand warning labels, or write an effective complaint letter? Can’t read? Take a guess. Five million adults? Ten million adults? Twelve million adults?
According to a new federal study just released, an estimated 32 million American adults remain functionally illiterate in 2009.
Greg Toppo told part of the depressing story yesterday in an excellent, concise USA TODAY frontpage article. Title? Literacy Study: 1 in 7 U.S. adults are unable to read this story. “A long-awaited federal study finds that an estimated 32 million adults in the USA — about one in seven — are saddled with such low literacy skills that it would be tough for them to read anything more challenging than a children’s picture book.”
Is the situation improving? NO! “From 1992 to 2003, it shows, the USA added about 23 million adults to its population; in that period, an estimated 3.6 million more joined the ranks of adults with low literacy skills.” A U.S. Education Department expert explains. “”They really cannot read … paragraphs (or) sentences that are connected,”
USA TODAY deserves credit for bringing more attention than usual to this avoidable tragedy. President John F. Kennedy famously noted that “a child miseducated is a child lost.” Those lost children have become adults!
So how can we explain these shocking (yet very familiar to experts) findings? How is this possible? Why is this awful situation tolerated? Please don’t tell me that there is a lack of money because the federal government just gave away – without conditions or even pretense of accountability – $350 BILLION dollars to wealthy banks and mega international corporations.
The American public education system is failing on multiple levels. Adult education remains the stepchild of public education. Underfunded, often overlooked, and seldom appreciated, adult education plays a vital role in teaching essential life skills – including reading and writing – to thousands. Thousands of adult educators work long hours in stressful jobs, often part-time without fulltime benefits, to help high school dropouts prepare for a GED and new immigrants learn English. Yet the gap between the objective educational needs and funding to provide a real first world education to these struggling adults remains huge.
“Only the educated are free,” noted Epictetus, a former slave and Greek stoic philosopher, over 2,000 years ago. How free are those 32 illiterate American adults?
Will President Obama address this widespread, documented crisis in public education? Perhaps.
The United States is wasting our capital resources! It’s long past time to invest in our own people, rebuild our inner cities, and recover the American dream. So will Obama reorganize our education system and direct billions needed to provide real universal public education?
Consider me, as so often, a sceptic.
Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create Compelling Conversations.
Visit www.CompellingConversations.com
What new English words will you learn in 2009? Which English words will you teach?
Do you have a way with words? Are you a lover of word trivia and origins? Are you an English teacher? If so, consider listening to the celebrated public radio show in 2009!
Forget forcing students to memorize boring vocabulary lists. Get your English students engaged in the story of English words, their origins, and multiple uses. Your English students will also learn those that vital academic world list – in context and with a vivid stories.
A Way with Words, another outstanding public radio show, is co-hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett (who writes an annual buzzwords of the year survey for the New York Times.) The hour long program examines the English language as the hosts answer listeners’ questions about intriguing aspects of the English language, including grammar, vocabulary, idioms, slang, dialects, speaking, and writing. Web visitors can also listen to episodes online, down MP3s, and subscribe to podcasts for free.
While the show is better for English teachers and writers than most English language learners or adult ESL students, listeners will gain a greater appreciation for and knowledge of our strange, fascinating language.
Features:
• Free downloads
• Thematic episodes accompanied by a reading text
• Discussion points
• All past episodes are archived chronologically for easy browsing
• Free subscriptions
Site URL: http://www.waywordradio.org/
Word mavens might also be interested in New York Times column on buzzwords:
As CNN and the other global news organizations rushed to tell the world, a 5.4 earthquake hit Los Angeles yesterday. The earth shook, people got scared, and fears of “the big one” entered the minds of millions. The shaking lasted for almost a minute, many pictures fell from walls and books left their shelves.
Yet nobody was killed, no bridges fell, and very few injuries were reported. This hometown earthquake was, in many ways, a non-event.
It was an earthquake, not a lifequake! We’re lucky!
A lifequake, as slang experts and blog readers know, is an event that suddenly changes your life. Being hit by a falling building, injured in a car accident, getting diagnosed with a terrible illness, or losing a job is a lifequake. The 5.4 earthquake spooked many Los Angeles residents, but it was only an earthquake. It wasn’t a lifequake.
Let’s hope that the next earthquake is just as harmless – and lifequakes stay far away!
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P.S. Yesterday’s earthquake reminds Los Angeles residents to prepare for emergencies. Adult schools usually have a mandated lesson on this life skill, but IEP and EFL students could benefit from reviewing safety procedures too.
PPS. The sound “ake” appears in many words in English.
Do English language learners, or English as a Second language students, learn better in sheltered programs? Should students receive some instruction in their native language – and if so, for how long? Are there clear differences to effectively write and speak fluently?
Teaching Language Learners: What the Research Does – and Does Not – Say , a 19- page article published in American Educator attempts to summarize current studies, detail the differences between studies, and introduce a more nuanced language to a very passionate debate. Claude Goldenberg, the author, writes in a clear, accessible style – and explains various bureaucratic jargon as he goes reviews the material. This article, written for American public education teachers in a union publication, deserves a large readership.
The article made numerous important points, including:
- a majority of ELL students are actually born in the United States (Why????);
- smaller class sizes matter;
- some intensive instruction in the primary language, for an unknown duration, helps improve target language abilities in writing;
- huge debate continues over best practices over duration and purpose of primary language instruction;
- teaching English language learners from countries with low literacy than teaching students who bring strong academic skills in their native language (shock, shock!)
- written skills remain far below national standards, especially in high school;
- oral skills often lack written skills in ESL/ELL students;
- students have difficulty moving from intermediate oral skills to achieving actual fluency;
- standard tests seldom test oral skills, leading to speaking skills being somewhat neglected in ESL/ELL classrooms.
Personally, I found the first two pages a bit annoying with its predictable complaints implying the impossibility of a second grader, particularly an ELL second grader, learning everything that is expected by state mandates. Yet when Goldenberg moved beyond the predictable “union” frame “our impossible job” and actually starting summarizing two major meta-studies of ELL practices,he provided a balanced, informative, and level-headed article filled with illuminating details.
As an adult educator, I also thought the article made a powerful argument for a huge expansion and deepening of adult education programs if a solid majority of ELL students are actually born in the United States. Why should millions of children born and raised in the United States be unable to speak English? If you believe that speaking English helps students live in the United States and language and culture are related, then this article provides a litany of troubling details about the state of ELL instruction and public education programs in general.
This sometimes ugly debate over language policy will probably heat up as McCain and Obama attempt to make distinctions in their immigration and education policies. Perhaps this article will help clarify the complicated issues that go beyond bumpersticker solutions.
