Archive for the ‘Error correction’ Category

Like “Japanese English”, “Korean English” is often used not to refer to a variety of English (like Singlish or Indian English) but to the use of English in the Korean language, including some words and expressions that were created in Korea from English and other European roots and don’t exist outside Korea. As I am using this meaning of “Konglish”, the expressions below are neither wrong English nor a variety of English but simply a category of Korean vocabulary similar to “French” expressions like “cul de sac” in English. The reasons for including them on a blog about English teaching are:
1. Korean people speaking English sometimes think they are used in other countries, and so they are an important source for error correction (in a recent Pre-Intermediate class of mine doing The Alibi Game, almost all the vocabulary mistakes were ones that were in this list), as long as it doesn’t make the students paranoid about using the vast majority of English phrases in Korean that have more or less the same meaning
2. It’s the one part of the Korean language that is interesting and accessible to people who will never even come here, including people who are teaching Korean students in other countries
3. This list took me hours, and until I manage to work out how to make some fun worksheets out of this, putting them on the blog makes me feel it wasn’t a complete waste of time…

Sorry about the uncharacteristically serious intro, but I was accused of being a racist (!) for doing a similar list of Japanese English, and have only just got over the trauma of that enough to do this with a new language and to use that list to label ones that are the same in Japanese (as well as other languages in the few cases I know) below:

• accel- accelerator- same in Japanese
• accessory- jewellery
• agree! – I agree
• all ri (from “all right”) - only used when backing up a car - same in Japanese
• American coffee- (more…)

I have to fly away from my Yahoo BB internet connection now, and I may be some time. So while I am gone from cyberspace, you all have a chance to read the over 200 articles I’ve written elsewhere- starting with this month’s supply:

15 easy ways to bring change into the classroom

15 ways of dealing with students who pause before they speak

15 ways of dealing with pre-experience Business English and ESP students

15 ways to boost your teaching and lesson planning creativity

15 places to start getting published

15 ways to correct spoken errors

15 ways to bring lucky chances into your classroom and lesson planning

Done already? Well, I’m sure you’ve all been good and read the entire list of articles etc in the September list further down this page already, so the extra homework for the keen this month will be having a look at:

TEFLtastic articles (reorganised a bit to have more links to articles elsewhere on the same topics)

and

TEFLtastic worksheets (ditto)

15 fun ways of using pre-school storybooks

15 ways of preparing for ELT management

15 variations on a grammar auction

15 common complaints about TEFL workshops (and how to respond to them)

15 things to find out about a TEFL certificate course

15 criteria of a good needs analysis

How’s that for a minimalist blog post! To make up for the lack of text, here are even more links:

157 articles and worksheets of mine on UsingEnglish.com

onestopenglish.com (the Macmillan website, where you usually have to pay to see most of my stuff but which has some kind of special offer on at the moment)

New stuff in August, for those who have recently joined us (welcome!)

And brand new worksheets etc actually on TEFLtastic:

Business English rotating revision board game

Complaints sentence expansion game

Dealing with complaints guess the situation

Dealing with complaints pairwork- Amusing and odd excuses

Email and internet abbreviations

Email language definitions game

Email rules business meeting

Formal and informal email errors

Telephone and email spot the difference pairwork

“Punishment“- Passive voice and tense review

Table manners Present Simple and Continuous mimes

Describing people workshop

English for Telephoning/ Negotiating double book review

It was a quiet month (if you don’t count the sound of the cicadas), but that will just give you the chance to read all of them for once, starting with a new series of “well balanced…” articles on Usingenglish.com:

A well balanced use of L1 in class

A well balanced use of error correction

And back here in TEFL.netland

15 ways to prepare for the CELTA etc

15 ways to do needs analysis

Academic Vocabulary in Use review

And not one of mine but edited by me

Imagine That (Mental Imagery in the EFL Classroom) review by Darren Elliot

If that isn’t enough for you (and how could it be?), you could have a look at the same post for July, my newly updated list of links to my stuff, or my newly updated worksheet pages with links to stuff by category.

Finally, if you like any of my stuff, you’ll love ELTgames.com, from the ever fab Jon Marks- it is a lesson to all the rest of us about what a truly professional TEFL internet could be.

BIELT- The British Institute of English Language Teaching, set up with the goals of establishing a framework of professional qualifications and a professional code of practice. It failed.

BULATS- EFL testing euphemism for “bollocks”

Cloze- (more…)

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…