Why do English learners still travel to physical classrooms? After all, they can get plenty of information, practice grammar drills and even listen to graded lectures online. Perhaps the answer lies in something that computers cannot provide: a safe space to learn and practice conversation. Conversation is actually […]
Two audio articles in one unit explore psychology in different ways.
While traveling for a sabbatical, Alice has had a chance to talk to students and teachers at various language programs across the U.S. This post was inspired by an encounter she had with a student at a community college program in the northeast. Riata suddenly had hives. The […]
Yesterday, I went on a beautiful fall walk with a friend who happens to be a personal trainer. I told her I like to jog slowly. She scolded me and said I needed to push myself. It is not enough to just jog around the track, she said. […]
Along with our newest feature, downloadable, graded texts, we’ve been doing some research on extensive reading, and it turns out that in many programs, fluency reading is an ESOL underdog. It’s quite valuable, but we do not do enough of it. To start, much research supports the notion […]
If reading exists on a continuum, then intensive reading occupies the end where students work heavily on reading skills. Intensive lessons generally include much frontloading in the form of vocabulary work and schema building. Next, while students read, they work on additional skills such as scanning for the […]
Most Americans are not comfortable with silence. We tend to dive in and fill awkward pauses with anything that comes to mind. Our intention is usually sincere. We want to avoid the pain of failing to fill conversational space. However, awkward pauses are bound to come up when […]
What is pragmatics? Like the highways, roads, and trails that guide our travel, language-oriented patterns scaffold our conversations. The existence of patterns does not mean there is not variation. Every time we get on a freeway literally or figuratively, it’s a new experience because we bring a different mood […]
As language teachers, we often have our students write sentences to practice the grammar they are learning. This is a sound approach, as it can help students to both internalize the structure and use it to express their own ideas. Unfortunately, while their sentences are often complete, the […]
For native speakers, a writing process that starts with a plan and ends with sentence-level editing makes sense. However, nonnative writers have different challenges, especially at the introductory level. Fortunately, process writing is not set in stone. We can adapt it to suit our students’ needs. The first […]
English Endeavors 