By Bonnie Nicholas
The #CdnELTchat team hosted a fast-paced chat on November 19; the topic was Out & About: LGBTQIA2+ Learners & Teachers. We were thrilled to welcome Tyson Seburn (@seburnt) as our guest moderator for this chat, and we thank him for sharing his expertise and insights. Participants discussed questions under the headings of barriers, key points, teaching, materials, support, and change.
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by Bonnie Nicholas
On November 5, 2019, the #CdnELTchat team was happy to welcome Sandhya Ghai (@GhaiSandhya) of Mosaic BC (@mosaicbc) as our guest moderator for a discussion of Intercultural Fluency in the LINC Classroom. This chat was a follow-up to Sandhya’s Tutela webinar on the same topic. (Tutela members can log in to view the recorded webinar.) Thanks to Diane Ramanathan (@ramdiane), Tutela Community Coordinator, for facilitating this partnership between Tutela and #CdnELTchat.
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When you hear a newscaster say, “The hurricane has WENT from Hawaii to Osaka overnight,” perhaps, like me, you yell, “That’s GONE from Hawaii, you knucklehead!” Nevertheless, you have understood that knucklehead perfectly despite the grammatical error. There is no ambiguity in his meaning.
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Are you interested in an authentic, integrated-skills activity that can be adapted to any level, incorporated into any theme, and prepared in less than 10 minutes?
The activity is storytelling and it’s a universal feature of all human cultures.
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Does grammar make you nervous? Do you wonder if you know enough to be able to help your students with their grammar? Let’s take pronouns, for example. Can you explain when to use who or whom? You and I or You and me? You can Google these issues fairly easily and find helpful explanations, or you can find good ESL grammar exercises and worksheets online, or you can use a good textbook.
The bigger question is what grammar should we teach?
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As your students become more fluent in their new language, it’s a good idea to start focusing on more complex forms of writing. Essays are a great way for ESL students to practice researching, organizing information, and clearly representing their ideas. However, writing an essay in a second language can be difficult, so your students are going to need some help. Continue reading
I imagine we’ve all had classes in which one or two students dominate the room. Maybe they ask questions at every turn or monopolize discussions, not leaving room for others to speak. Making room for everyone in the classroom without alienating these students can be a difficult task. Here are some methods that can be used to keep a balanced classroom: Continue reading
The topic for this post has been on my mind for a while. It is more of a question arising out of my experience with multi-modal text, specifically students’ work when transducing words to image. Perhaps you can help me answer the question:
Whose images should students be required to produce when asked to analyze the author’s writing: The visualization of what they read or what the author intended?
I ask because I have found that controlling what students visualize while reading might be just as controversial as asking students to think in English. Continue reading
Recently, I tried a campus familiarization activity with my students. In the past terms, students sat at their desks and looked at a map to identify services and their associated locations on a worksheet. Throughout the term students asked me, or each other, where different campus resources were located. It was obvious that they did not take in the campus resources information.
My challenge was to improve this learning activity. Reaching into my technology bag of tricks, I was looking for a technology that would improve this learning task. Continue reading
Have you ever explained a task to your students, checked to make sure they understood, and then let them go to work – only to realize as they stared blankly at their work, that they actually didn’t understand? In my first years of teaching, I was so puzzled by students telling me they understood when they clearly didn’t. Even when I would ask directly, “Do you understand?” the answer I was given was often “Yes, teacher” before it became clear that the opposite was true. This was frustrating! It seemed so obvious Continue reading