TEFL blog

We won’t be making any new posts in the TEFL blog for a while, but we’ll be back!

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The eslbase team

Kelli, blogging about her experiences teaching English in South America, wrote about the perils of teaching “regret” this week.  She quite rightly says that contexts and examples are the key.

It got me thinking about the number of times I’ve taught “regret” as one of those verbs that we use to show how meaning can change if you follow it with a gerund or an infinitive.

The other verbs usually grouped with it in this category are “stop”, “remember” and “try”.

So how can we explain the difference to our students between “I stopped smoking ” and “I stopped to smoke”, or “I regret to tell you” and “I regret telling you”?

Plenty of different examples in different contexts is definitely key.  I often use a text, usually a story (it doesn’t take long to come up with one containing a lot of examples contrasting use), and after some initial scene setting and text comprehension, start focusing on form and meaning of the different examples.

And it’s at this point that I find teachers diverge on what’s best - the question being how far to go in to the “first action”, “second action” aspect. For example:

“He stopped to smoke” - we can imagine someone walking down the street, stopping what she is doing and then lighting up. Chronologically, “stop” is clearly the first action” and “smoke” is the second.

“He stopped smoking” - well, here, we can imagine someone smoking a packet a day for 20 years, and then deciding to quit. “Smoke” is the first action chronologically, “stop” the second.

It’s the same thing with “remember” or “regret”…

“I remember buying the flowers” - first you buy them, then you remember the fact that you bought them.  “I remembered to buy the flowers” - first you remember that you have to do something, then you do it.

“I regret to tell you that you have failed the exam” - first you have a regret, then you tell the person. “I regret telling him that he failed” - first I told him, then I regretted this action.

…and so on.

The problem is that although this seems to make sense logically (and might therefore appeal to the theorists among your students, who like rules and clear, logical explanations), the contexts in which we set these examples differ quite widely - a man walking along the street and stopping to light up is difficult to contrast with the much more general and long-term context of someone quitting smoking.  Similarly, remembering to do something is about reminders; remembering doing something is about memory.

The other problem, of course, is that with “try”, the first action, second action trick doesn’t apply. “I tried to cook the lasagne” suggests that it was difficult, and might be followed by “but I couldn’t do it”, whereas “I tried cooking lasagne” suggests some kind of experiment and might be followed by “but I didn’t enjoy it”.

So, first action, second action, or not?  Tell us what you think…

Want to know if TEFL is for you?  The CareerSteer website has developed a test to see if you could teach English as a Foreign Language.  Answer six questions and you’ll be presented with an integrated report detailing exactly why you are or are not ready for a career in TEFL.

Have a go and tell us what you think with a comment below…

We’ve written a lot on the blog about ESL and immigration issues. Well, now the two have come together on film, with the February 12 DVD release of the award-winning ESL: English as a Second Language.

The synopsis on the film’s website describes it as the story of “two people from very different sides of the same culture”.  Director Youssef Delara says that his initial idea was to create an ESL classroom and follow the highs and lows of nine of its characters. Eventually, though, he decided to follow primarily two of them, an illegal immigrant in search of a better life, and a “second generation Latina forced to attend the class to work off community service hours”.

Have a look at the website for more, and if you’ve seen the film, why not tell us what you thought below…

A couple of upcoming conferences for you this week. The first is TESOL Chile’s 2007 conference, entitled “Winds of Change”, which focuses on the “innovations, changes and developments that are taking place in the teaching and learning of English in Chile and internationally”.

The keynote speakers are Diane Larsen-Freeman and Michael McCarthy, and the conference is being held at the University of La Serena from 5-7 October.

The second is KOTESOL’s International Conference, from 27-28 October at the Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul. The title is “Challenging Ourselves, Motivating Our Students, and aims for educators to share ideas and experience in a wide range of areas such as classroom management, ESP, CALL, materials design, motivation, and teacher training and development.

Taiwan’s first English language village has opened in Taiwan, where Taiwanese children go twice a week for English immersion classes.

The Happy English Village features themed classrooms: a bank, a hotel, an airport waiting room and a coffee bar amongst others, and attracts 120 students. It was the idea of a non-profit organisation called the King Car Education Foundation.

The idea came to General Director Morgan Sun after visiting similar immersion villages in Korea. Concerned about the relatively poor ranking of Taiwanese students on the IELTS exam, compared to Japanese, South Korean and Vietnamese students, he decided it was time for an immersion village in Taiwan.

He hopes that the emphasis on speaking with the volunteer foreign teachers at the village, will shift the emphasis away from rote-learning and exams in the Taiwanese education system, towards communicative learning through real-life experiences.

CamTESOL is organising its 4th conference from February 23-24 next year. The theme is “Building Bridges to the World”.

The conference is spearheaded by IDP Education, and includes the participation of classroom teachers and future teachers, administrators, publishers and ELT organisations, as well as interested Cambodian residents.  CamTESOL states as its aim to “increase the links between the ELT community in Cambodia and the international ELT community”.

David Nunan is scheduled to be the keynote speaker, and everyone working in ELT is invited to participate.

Sound interesting? Have a look at the CamTESOL website for more information.

If you teach young learners, you may have used CDRoms and interactive games in your classes.

Well, here’s a new one for you… Dots and Diamond and the case of the Missing Mummies. Dots and Diamond are a dog and cat detective team called in to the museum late at night to help solve the mystery of the missing mummies. Your job is to guide them through the museum, finding clues to help them in their quest. Along the way they learn a lot of new vocabulary and interesting information.

Have a try, see if you can solve the case, then see how much quicker your young learners can do it!

How’s this for an approach? The YWCA’s recently finished summer camp helped students to learn English while swimming, counting pennies and liquefying ingredients in a blender.

The idea was to integrate language skills with skills for survival in the USA for the children from Ethiopia, Laos, Lebanon, Mexico, South Korea and Vietnam attending the camp.

Swimming pool lessons included things which the children and their families really need to know, like how to tell which is the deep end and which is the shallow end, and what swimming costumes are appropriate for public pools.

Read more about the camp at the Chicago Courier News.

The winner of a teaching contest in Korea, secondary school English teacher Song Jung-sun, has said that a college admissions test is to blame for inefficient English language teaching in the country.

The focus on preparing students for the tests, which “emphasise only reading skills”, means that English education is only a “yardstick for student selection”, according to Song.

She also says that many parents do not trust the school teachers, and enrol their children in private language schools where high scores in the tests are the main aim. The governement should spend its money on educating Korean teachers, rather than increasing the number of foreign teachers in the country, she argues.

One reader’s comment on the article suggests instead that the fear of making mistakes as a result of the “face” aspect of Korean culture is the biggest inhibitor to learning.

Do you teach in Korea? Is English teaching inefficient? If so, what is to blame? Post a comment below…