Archive for the ‘English for study abroad’ Category

Here’s another nice one for Business English classes, study abroad classes and others. You can also turn it into a board game. I could too, of course, but quite frankly I think I’ve done enough for one week… 

Politeness competition- Negotiations/ Requests/ Complaints/ Problems
With your partner(s), take turns trying to say the following things as politely as possible. You can repeat what your partner says as long as you add something to make it more polite. You can try as many times as you like. The person with the most polite final version gets 1 point. (Hint: Longer sentences are often politer)

Give me that pen

I want a cup of tea

Sit down

etc…

Full version here:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-politeness-competition-game-requests-indirect-language/

First of all, just because it’s funny, here’s a native speaker who wouldn’t pass the IELTS Speaking Part Three:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

To make sure your students aren’t reduced to such levels of incoherence, here is a whole stack of IELTS speaking materials:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets/efl-exam-worksheets-ielts/

I’ve also got a whole stack of Part Two and Part Three exam questions on various topics if that is of interest to anyone. Just put a request in the comments box and I’ll put them up:

Here are some game-like resources for teenagers and adults who are going to travel and/ or are working in the travel industry:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-accomodation-rules-guessing-game-modals-travel-english/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-air-travel-mimes-collocations/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-travel-english-what-are-you-going-to-do-future-household-vocab/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-travel-english-compound-nouns-blackjack/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-air-travel-compound-nouns-articles-dominoes/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-travel-advice-country-guessing-game-modals-culture-uk-auz-nz/

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=58025&docid=153941

All tried and tested, but feedback still gratefully received

The rainy season (tsuyu) is completely screwed this year. In fact, every year since I got to Japan I’ve been told that “The weather this year is strange”, same as “The cherry blossom this year is early/late”. This may well be true, but I think it is much more a case of the Japanese wanting the weather to be as predictable as the train timetable. At times the whole country seems set up to make sure there are no surprises- I wonder how many Japanese people would be able to tell that Radiohead are being sarcastic in the “No Surprises” song (but then again, how many Americans thought The One I Love by REM was a love song??)

And the same most assuredly goes for lessons. With anything less than a year of careful learner training, skipping around in the textbook is likely to cause something between a mild flurry and complete panic depending on the age of the students.

Primary school students are generally fine for the first few years, taking surprises and new stuff as all part of the fun. Then the Japanese education system gets to work and the idea of skipping reading the instructions and just doing what your teacher says brings on increasing incomprehension and stress. One theory has it that the Japanese establishment has decided to keep kanji (Chinese characters) mainly because learning it means learning this unquestioning approach. The good news is that as my teenage college students are learning to cope with all this new and unexpected stuff in class, I really think I am teaching them a skill they are going to need when they get to Australia, NZ and the UK.

Teaching (college student) teenagers again despite my best efforts to avoid it, there is one factor in the classroom that stands out more than other kinds of classes and, subtly or sometimes not so subtly, affects the classroom dynamic of almost every class. This certain something would, however, under no circumstances get a mention if my lesson was observed and is not written about in any books on teaching English I have ever seen. This is the totally taboo TEFL teaching factor X.

In this case, the X factor we are supposed to ignore manifests itself as a couple of starry eyed girls who are working hard in my class for reasons not connected to my lesson plans, whilst others no doubt perk up and do their homework much more for the blond teacher in their British culture class- and not due to his skills in using pairwork. And many of them are specifically planning to use their language skills to get a western boyfriend when they live abroad next year- you won’t see that written on your average needs analysis interview form!

Another more extreme example was a Belgian female student that picked up on every mistake a Brazilian student made after she saw us chatting outside the school gates. On the other side of the coin, I’ve had several very shy students who would most certainly come out of their shell a bit more if there were no people of the other sex in the class at all. I can think of one particular one-to-one student who I really wanted to tell my boss to find a female teacher for, but somehow felt it was something I couldn’t say.

Of course, I am not the first teacher to notice this and it does in fact get mentioned- by lecherous teachers who’ve had a few too many down the gaijin (ex-pat) pub. Which is one reason why the rest of us try our best to blank the whole factor out. But surely, if my female students want to be able to mix with their British counterparts in Liverpool or Folkestone on a Saturday night (ｇod help them) they are going to need to be able to say they “fancy someone”. In fact, if they want to bond with some of their British female sisters they are going to need to be able to mention specific pieces of body vocabulary that I will certainly not be mentioning near my students! But if I knew of a vocab book of slang that filled in the holes in my classroom syllabus I guess I could approach it that way?? I guess what I am thinking of is an all-female discussion class once a term or a book like “Taboos and Issues”, but with the topics chosen by what the students will need to be aware of and able to talk about rather than what teachers want them to be aware of.

As far as tackling difficult stuff in the classroom goes, slang for vomiting (you should see their faces when they click what a “pavement pizza” is) is about as far as I go, and probably further than my boss would like me to…

Other reasons to tackle this subject: differences in dating culture and personal safety when they go abroad. The most satisfying moment in the classroom is when you help a student understand something they had completely eluded them before and they will always wonder have they ever lived without- my best one being when one Russian student in London found out that “come up for a coffee” is very different from “would you like a cup of tea?”. We never learnt the story behind the look of shock and sudden comprehension on her face…

One other connected unmentioned taboo: some schools in Japan (not mine), only employ male teachers because they know it keeps the main housewife/ OL (”office lady”) customers happy. Whether they have to pretend to be single like members of a boy band I am not sure…

Comments? Advice? Disbelief that a 19 year old could fancy me? Write it all below:

Great question in my senmongakko (private college) class today: “Teacher, I still don’t understand what Scotland means”

I chose to take that as a geographical and political question rather than a philosophical one (Does anyone really, deep down, understand what Scotland means??).

Not sure I managed to answer the question however you take it, seeing as the student had never heard of my closest examples (The Vatican, Monaco) and pre-handover Okinawa (when it was 100% occupied by the Americans until 1972 rather than 45% occupied it is now) isn’t the best of comparisons. Any metaphors spring to mind?

The issue this brings up is a common lack of Japanese knowledge about the outside world. This is more understandable than the Spanish lack of knowledge about the outside world, seeing as there are 115 million Japanese working for companies of world impact living on an isolated island. It’s also not as bad as the Chinese students I had ten years ago who of all the famous people I could think of to explain job vocabulary had only heard of Bill Clinton, and mainly for his bad taste in women… But the problem does remain, and this particular class will be studying abroad next year and are not going to widen their circle of friends when they meet the statement “I am from Argentina” with a blank stare (about 30% of the class had no idea such a country existed). I’ve mentioned the theoretical friend-losing encounter and we’ve done stuff with maps. Have also done an unintentional Basil Fawlty impression when I found out how little they knew.

Looking for other ideas to try out the next few weeks like getting them to plan a trip round the world (We are going to visit…) and using a worksheet I’ve made up with famous products they have to guess the origin of (Louis Vuitton is French etc- should be a hit!) and will let you know how they go.