ESL and the Super Bowl
Here’s a little lighthearted ESL relief courtesy of a Super Bowl commercial and YouTube…
Here’s a little lighthearted ESL relief courtesy of a Super Bowl commercial and YouTube…
If you’re new to job hunting in TEFL, it’s not always easy to know which job advertisements are worth pursuing, and which you should leave alone.
To help you with this, have a look at Katie’s Thoughts on a Job Post over at the TEFL Logue.
Katie has randomly chosen 6 job posts so far and dissected them for their real meaning, reading between the lines to show you what you could really expect if you took that job. A very valuable resource.
Has EFL been infiltrated by the evils of consumerism? Have a look at this entertaining article by Mike Guest in the Daily Yomiuri, in which he takes a light-hearted yet thought-provoking look at the idea that EFL textbooks do not just set out to teach our students English, but to indoctrinate in them consumer and corporate values!
He gives the example of a chapter about shopping. Advocates of the “enemy within” theory, he says, would suggest that such a chapter is designed not to provide useful phrases for students to use when buying their fruit and veg, but “rather to propagate the ‘Buy!’ consumerist agenda”.
Guest goes on to talk about whether language in general is “value-laden”. Does everything we say reflect a particular set of values that we hold, and is this therefore a justification to promote these values to our EFL students?! His view is that, for example, asking a group of students what kind of work they would do if they started work tomorrow, is not promoting any kind of social agenda or support for the value of the work ethic, it is simply addressing a topic.
Have a look at the article and tell us what you think. Has EFL been compromised by the enemy within?!…
In a post last month about using ipods to teach English, we said that it never takes long for imaginative teachers to find ways of using new technology in ESL teaching. Well, handheld computer gaming devices could soon be making their way into the classroom too.
Language experts, computer games designers and educational technologists from Nottingham University are teaming up to make language learning more fun for children. They are conducting research, funded by Sharp Laboratories of Europe, to teach grammar and vocabulary on handheld devices.
According to this report, the research, targeted at children living in Asia, aims to use mobile gaming technology to make language learning more engaging and enjoyable for kids.
What do you think about this project? Is this a significant step forward that will alter the way we teach, or just the latest craze? Post a comment below…
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…
According to this article on ShanghaiDaily.com, the vice chairman of China’s top legislature has said that English study in China is to blame for many of the mistakes found in Chinese publications in the last decade. Studying English, the argument runs, means that Chinese studies suffer.
The author of the article disagrees wholeheartedly, and blames the problem instead on an exam-oriented education system. English, the author suggests, is merely a scapegoat…
Do you live in China? Is the education system too exam-oriented, or is English to blame? Post a commment below…
The Korea Times reported last week that teachers are being refused jobs in private language schools in Korea because of their skin colour.
An American college graduate of mixed-race was, according to the article, told by a potential employer “I’m sorry but we only want white people. We want a native speaker that parents approve of”. The article highlights the similar case of a black American teacher who was told by 10 schools that he could not be hired because he was not white.
The owner of one English language school is quoted as saying that the parents are to blame, because they only want their children to be taught by white native speakers. The American teacher mentioned above says that “not only are [the parents and directors] racist, but they lie about it, deny it…”
According to the article, there is no legislation to protect against this discrimination, which means that skin colour often takes precedence over qualifications or experience when it comes to hiring teachers.
So, have you taught in Korea? Is this article a true reflection of the situation, or do you think it exaggerates the problem? 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…
If you’re thinking about getting qualified in TEFL this year and want to know what a TEFL training course is really like, follow one of our TEFL course diaries.
There are currently 8 trainees on classroom-based and online courses around the world, keeping day-to-day accounts of their TEFL course experiences.
You can subscribe to the diaries by email or RSS, to keep up to date with the latest posts. These are the courses our current diarists are writing about…
If you’re taking a course this year and would like to enter the competition, you could win £400! Have a look here for more information.
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…
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