TEFL blog - ESL in North America

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.

Carpentersville, a suburb of Chicago with 37,000 residents, voted this week to make English the only official language, despite the fact that 40% of the residents are Latino.

According to Trustee Judy Sigwalt, quoted in the Chicago Tribune, multiple languages are responsible for tearing her community – and country – apart.

Village President Bill Sarto, however, thinks that the measure will only succeed in painting Carpentersville as an unwelcoming community.

So who’s right? Should multilingual communities be encouraged or suppressed? Do they help to unite or divide? Have a look at the article and decide for yourself…

That’s the view of the Simplified Spelling Society, who protested outside the National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. This month.

The aim of the Society is to replace what they consider the nonsensical system of English spelling, which they see as being responsible for illiteracy and problems for kids at school, with a logical, phonetic system.

Steve Shives, however, disagrees with the idea, pointing to differences in pronunciation in different places. Who is to decide, he argues, the correct phonetic spelling of his home state, Maryland, which he has variously heard pronounced MARE-a-lund, MARE-lund and MARY-land. Is a British or an American pronunciation of “drawing”, or neither for that matter, the “correct” pronunciation. He also points to the embodiment of language and cultural history in the spelling of many words.

The solution, Steve suggests, is not to simplify spelling and “rob the language of its historical and cultural heritage”, despite the Simplified Spelling Society’s argument that this could free educators from spending large amounts of class time teaching spelling (and, incidentally, make competitions such as the National Spelling Bee redundant).

Steve instead sees a solution in spending more time on the essential skills of reading, writing and spelling: “Children…should be taught [these skills] …not as a chore, not as work, but as necessary and wonderful skills that will serve them the rest of their lives.”

What do you think?

Idaho has become the 29th US state to adopt English as its official language. 13 more states have legislation pending to do the same.

But isn’t English the official language everywhere in the US, I hear you ask? Have a look at this post to find out.

In this post in January we debated whether there is a place in writing today for abbreviated English of the type found in emails, text messages and chat rooms, or whether this is just a menace to ESL students and teachers.

Well, according to the Jamaica Observer, this type of English is becoming a problem in Jamaican schools, as it creeps into students’ essay writing. One teacher, quoted in the article, blames the problem on a lack of reading: “If you ask students to read a novel, the first thing they ask is ‘how many pages, Miss? Is it long?’ Everything is about instant gratification.”

What do you think? Would students use less chat room slang at school if they read more and watched less TV? Have a look at the article and post a comment below…

Here’s a little lighthearted ESL relief courtesy of a Super Bowl commercial and YouTube…

ESL students in Sevierville, Tennessee are using their new English language skills to do good deeds in the community, according to this article. After reading about Martin Luther King, the class has started a project called “100 Acts of Kindness” to fulfil his vision of harmony among people and races.

Each student keeps track of his or her good deeds and then reports back to the class. In this way they connect their English learning with their real lives and do some good at the same time.

What do you think about this project? Post a comment below…

If you were asked what the official language of the United States is, what would you say? I suspect that most non-Americans would say English. Well, you may be surprised to know that the US has no official language at national level.

And this, according to a recent poll, is not good enough for the majority of American people. 60% of Americans polled think that the government is not doing enough to protect English as the “common, unifying language of the United States.”

This has prompted a bill to be introduced in Congress to make English the official language. Newt Gingrich, a supporter of the bill, said that “the civilization will decay and the culture will collapse” without a common language, and 92% of those polled said that a common language was important to “maintain unity as a nation”.

Gingrich says that the proposal is pro-immigrant, and 78% of those polled think that the government should be doing more to help immigrants with English.

What do you think? Is a multi-lingual society a good or a bad thing? Does it hinder communication or promote multi-cultural values? Read the full story and post a comment below…

In a post at the end of last year, we looked at immigrant-advocacy groups across the US who are bringing the ESL classroom to the streets, for immigrant workers who cannot attend lessons in the classroom for financial or transportation reasons.

Well, the School on Wheels literacy program in Chicago is doing something similar, offering free ESL tutoring on a bus. The bus, which has been revamped into a classroom, visits different suburbs with immigrant populations each week on a rotating basis.

The program’s 325 participants receive one-on-one tuition from 280 volunteers, who themselves undergo two days of training.

The program was started in 1993 by a former elementary teacher, Sister Marybeth McDermott. She said that they simply “went into the neighborhoods and rang the doorbells and asked if they wanted English classes”.

Have a look at this article for the full story…

Adult ESL students at the Aiken County School District in South Carolina have been participating in a Christmas card writing scheme for American military personnel in Iraq. The project was started to help students with their writing skills, learn something about the culture and increase troops’ morale, according to the article.

What do you think about this project? Post a comment below…