Archive for the ‘Error correction’ Category

Hopefully it’s just Mayday bank holiday rather than my lack of effort TEFLtasticwise recently that has seen a sudden drop in my number of views, but if only to make myself feel better I thought I’d give a list of where I’ve been making much more effort elsewhere, with links:

TEFL.net Idea Thinktank

15 fun ways to switch students onto graded readers

15 fun gapfill tasks

15 fun job application practice tasks- CV writing, cover letter, interview practice, HR vocabulary etc.

TEFL.net articles

15 common misconceptions about Business English and ESP

15 cultural differences in the Japanese classroom

15 more cultural differences in the Japanese classroom

15 criteria for a good cultural training lesson

15 more criteria for good cultural training lesson

15 important cultural differences in the classroom

15 more important cultural differences in the classroom

Onestopenglish (Macmillan) articles

Motivating teachers whose Business English students miss class

UsingEnglish articles for teachers

Why your students overuse their dictionaries- with solutions

70 characteristics of a good grammar presentation- possibly the longest article on this subject ever!

Why your students don’t want to do pairwork- with solutions and some pondering about whether they might not sometimes be right

Why your students still make mistakes with grammar they know well- with solutions and a call to relax when there are no solutions

The advantages and disadvantages of peer observations- with how to exploit the advantages and avoid the disadvantages

Things to put in a Self-Access Centre or Student Library- with tips on how to do it on the cheap

Why do my students question me?- with solutions

Why your students have problems with listening comprehension- with solutions

UsingEnglish.com articles for students (teachers might also want to have a look at what I am writing about them)

Why does my teacher make me read silently?

Why doesn’t my teacher correct all my mistakes when I’m speaking?

Why does my teacher make me learn the phonemic script?

UsingEnglish photocopiable PDF worksheets

Travel English pairwork B and V

Business and technical English easily confused words

CAE Reading Part Two match the quotes

TEFLtastic worksheets (pain in the arse to print out but worth the effort)

English for job applications/ HR worksheets

Cultural training worksheets for EFL classes

Requests and offers functional language review

The Roots of Medical English LP and 4 worksheets

And that’s it for TEFL stuff. The other thing I’ve been busy with is my wedding speech for the day after tomorrow, which could well mean that May will be an even less busy month in TEFLtasticland. Anyone fancy writing a guest piece or feeding me a story to keep the 1700 viewers I get on a good day entertained until I get back into the flow? If so, try the “Contact me” link on the right…

Will get onto combining grammar mistakes and Xmas lessons in a bit, but first: 

I’ve become a bit of a cultural relativist in my old age, even accepting stuff that drives other people nuts like Japanese English, but this time of year seems to bring out the grumpy old traditionalist in me. The fact that there’s been quite a lot of telling about an English Xmas in my lessons could be just because Japanese students tend to love that kind of stuff (maybe because anything that mentions the rest of the world is an escape from Japanese reality at the same time as being a reinforcement of why Japan is different and special). What seems to reflect something deeper is the fact that I’ve found myself actually correcting them on the “errors”of how Xmas is done in Japan- several times on the same points to different classes! Apparently these are the things that happen in Japan that test my limits of acceptance of difference and stir as much deep discomfort in my soul as female circumcision or animal cruelty: (more…)

Stephen Fry gets heavy with the grammar correction (not recommended viewing for CELTA trainees!)

Room 101- Grammar Bullies (recommended viewing for 74 year old Applied Linguistics professors)

When I first came to Japan, I was confidently expecting not to understand a thing, having already heard how fiendishly difficult the language and its writing system were and having experienced how difficult the Japanese found speaking in English. From the moment I landed, I was pleasantly suprised how much English I saw and heard everywhere- but I quickly found that it was at least as difficult to understand ‘Japanese English’ as it was to work out how many syllables there were supposed to be in ‘Irrashaimase’. And there started a little obsession with Japanese English that hasn’t finished 4 years and two books on Japanese English later. Here are my excuses for my continued fascination:
· Understanding Japanese English can help you to communicate at least as much as the Japanese you find in the ‘Japanese for Busy People’ textbooks. In fact, up to 10% of words in everyday Japanese conversation are in some way derived from English (more…)

According the the IHT, font of all wisdom, the Chinese are asking people to dob each other in for making mistakes in English:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/22/opinion/edterril.php

I’ve always been a bit of a classroom discipline fascist, but even I think that is going a bit too far…

In other Japan or teaching related news, the British are soon going to be taking on the salaryman habit of reading rape manga on the train, apparently:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/21/arts/gnovel.php

Japanese Railways show that Anglo-American short termism hasn’t reached some parts of the economy yet, with a plan to introduce a new train by 2025 (by which year Virgin Trains in England are also planning to get today’s departure from London Euston to its destination in Glasgow):

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200708230070.html

Either that, or it was yet another quiet news day in Japan…

Meanwhile, in Malaysia Gwen Stefani does cover her body (but not her mouth, unfortunately) and her concert goes off without scandal:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/22/arts/peepthu.php

 The article doesn’t say, however, if she kept to the rules saying female performers may not “…jump, shout,…or throw things are the audience”. Made me wonder how ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) in Primary schools would cope under the same restrictions, but lack of time means I will have to keep that repressive fantasy to myself for the time being…

How to make writing fun seems to be a “popular” problem, so here is a list of links I promised someone on the TEFL.net forums:

 All good TEFLtastic writing fun:

www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-emailing-errors-team-game/

www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-megaform-interview-guessing-game-writing-and-speaking/

www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-business-chain-email-letter-writing-game-lower-level-version/

www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-business-chain-emails-letters-writing-game/

www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-business-email-or-telephone-guessing-game-lower-level-version/

www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-business-email-or-telephone-guessing-game/

www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/formal_letters_alex1.htm

www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=58082&docid=154413

www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=58025&docid=144605

And no so fun, but still useful:

www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-add-the-punctuation-writing-cae/

www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-letter-punctuation-practice-pre-int/

Many apologies that most of it is not in easy to use formats, I suggest cutting and pasting into Word or Wordpad or equivalent, making sure the pages stop where the dotted lines are, and then printing

And one more mention for the last post on fun writing tasks:

www.tefl.net/alexcase/archives/153

They avoid using the expression in this IHT article on the Japanese government policy on getting people to dress down for the summer, but I think it is a good opportunity to continue my occassional “Japanese English” series of posts:

Japanese English Compound Nouns Expressions

Which of these ‘Japanese English’ expressions would you find in the Oxford English Dictionary? Which wouldn’t you find but a native English speaker might guess the meaning of anyway? Which would definitely need explaining? How would you explain them?
Walkman/ Paper driver/ Salaryman/ Anime / A short short/ Hello work/ J-pop / Golden week/ Pair look/ Recruit suit/ Long seller/ Cosplay/  One man bus/ Karaoke/ A sayonara homerun 

Choose the correct explanation for what Japanese people mean when they use the Japanese English expressions below (the other explanations are what English native speakers might think the expressions mean the first time they hear them):
Cheek dance = people who are dancing very close/ a person who is moving their face as they swish water around in their mouth after they clean their teeth
High teens = young people who are taking drugs/ people who are between 15 and 19
A girl hunt = when men go out to pick up women/ the time women go out to look for men
No make = the time when you wear no lipstick etc./ a product that has no branding
Season off = a holiday that is very long/ the time when most people don’t take a holiday
A cutter = a knife that you use on paper / a person who takes out bad scenes from movies
A nighter = a baseball game that takes place after dark/ a person who spends all evening in a disco
High miss = a young lady who is tall/ an older lady who isn’t married
Home drama = a soap opera or a domestic accident
Easy order = a semi-tailored suit or a drive through take out restaurant
Health meter = bathroom scales or a blood pressure monitor
Free talking = a hands-free phone or an open discussion
A magic pen = a marker or something that writes with invisible ink
Non pro = being an amateur or being against something
To crank in = to start an old car or to start shooting a film
A meat shop = a pickup bar or a butcher’s
A plus driver = an elderly motorist or a Phillips screwdriver
A TV game=a quiz show that is on TV or a video game that you can play on your TV
A mini theatre= a cinema that seats few people or a home entertainment system

Business and technical English
Without using any words in the expressions, explain what any one of the Japanese English expressions below mean. When your partner thinks they know which one you are talking about, they will say the number of at that expression. Tell them if that was your intention.

1. cool biz
2. An OL
3. CM
4. salary loan
5. The dollar shock
6. The oil shock
7. Golden hour
8. Minus driver
9. Symbol mark
10. Excellent company
11. Base up
12. A Y shirt
13. Pocketable
14. Order made
15. Building money
16. An OB
17. Tunnel company
18. paper company
19. a one man president
20. main bank
21. Image up
22. Country risk
23. a non bank
24. image down
25. name value
26. minus image
27. cost down
28. level up

Answer key

Cheek dance = people who are dancing very close
High teens = people who are between 15 and 19
A girl hunt = when men go out to pick up women
No make = the time when you wear no lipstick etc
Season off = the time when most people don’t take a holiday
A cutter = a knife that you use on paper
A nighter = a baseball game that takes place after dark
High miss = an older lady who isn’t married
Home drama = a soap opera
Easy order = a semi-tailored suit
Health meter = bathroom scales
Free talking = an open discussion
A magic pen = a marker
Non pro = being an amateur
To crank in = to start shooting a film
A meat shop = a butcher’s
A plus driver = a Phillips screwdriver
A TV game= a video game that you can play on your TV
A mini theatre= a cinema that seats few people

1. cool biz: Dressing down for the summer
2. An OL: Office lady- a female office worker
3. CM: Commercial message: An ad
4. salary loan: A loan from a consumer loan company
5. The dollar shock: When the yen was revalued
6. The oil shock: When the price of all suddenly went up
7. Golden hour: prime time
8. Minus driver: a normal screwdriver
9. Symbol mark: a logo
10. Excellent company: a blue chip company
11. Base up: a pay rise to your or everyone’s basic pay
12. A Y shirt- a white shirt- a business shirt
13. Pocketable- portable/ fits in your pocket
14. Order made- custom made
15. Building money- making monet
16. An OB- old boy
17. Tunnel company- a paper company
18. paper company
19. a one man president- a manager who makes all the decisions on their own
20. main bank- …that your company does business with
21. Image up- improving your image
22. Country risk- a risky country to invest in
23. a non bank- other sources of credit
24. image down-
25. name value- the value of a brand name etc.
26. minus image
27. cost down- reducing costs
28. level up- improving the level

Trying to find fun stuff to practice emailling in class is one of the banes* of my life, so I think I deserve a little smugness on having come up with a new idea on how to do so. You can see the results on the page “Worksheet- Email error game” on the right. Click now! No, not later, now!

Was it good for you?

As an extra treat, will try to summarize what can make emailing lessons fun:

The fun emailing lessons magical formula

• Make it competitive
• Give time limits 
• Have teams
• Give points
• Make first reading tasks quick and easy
• Make writing tasks interactive (students read and respond to each others’ emails, e.g. deciding if the advice written in it is good or not)
• Cut it up into bits of paper, and if possible get them to shuffle them around
• Turn over the sheets during some of the activities to vary the interactions
• Test their memories, e.g. by having an email on the board that disappears word by word
• Test their logical powers, e.g. by asking them to solve a murder mystery where the clues are all emails
• Use pictures for the arty ones, such as covering emoticons
• Introduce language that is totally inappropriate for business emails too (e.g. What’s up dudes!!), to lighten things up and show them what they can’t do
• Get them moving, e.g. standing in a line in the same order as the cut up paragraphs of the email they are holding or showing thumbs up and thumbs down in response to emails you show them
• Er, that’s it…

Any more hints? Any requests? Am confident I can come up with at least one more fun lesson, or at least more confident about that than I am about ever working out how to give you access to said lessons in an easier to use format (Sorry!) 

*What on earth is a “bane”??

Looking back on my 12 years of teaching English, if it is not just old age speaking I could swear that the first couple of years after I did my initial certificate (CELTA) were a golden age for EFL textbooks. It’s not that they made your lessons any easier or taught the learners the language any better than the textbooks coming out now, but there was just a feeling in the air that books like Cutting Edge and Innovations were the beginning of a new wave of books that was going to fundamentally change the way we teach forever. You could call that period the Modernist Age of Textbooks.

But modernism leads inevitably, it seems, to post-modernism. Since those optimistic days the ELT publishing industry seems to have given up that radical mission as if changing the world was just a hippy dream. Not that the world of textbooks has entirely stood still, but even the most different-looking of the new bunch (e.g. Natural English) only concentrate on what we should teach rather than how we should teach it- which is strange, because the conclusions that lead people to look for new ways to teach have been backed up by more and more research and have gone from controversial to commonly accepted during that time.

The three most fundamental parts of our newly certain knowledge are: (more…)

“…researchers have also found, however, that the ability to understand the content and to function in (CLIL) classroom interaction does not ensure that students will continue to improve …in areas of accuracy on language… that does not usually interfere with meaning” Patsy.M.Lightbown and Nina Spada, in “How Languages are Learned 3rd Edition” (Oxford University Press)