Hello everyone,
I don’t know how many times I have said to students, “It’s supposed to be hard!”
I think I will make a classroom poster of this great quote!
Happy Teaching! 
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2017/09/mondays-quote_25.html
One concern I heard at TESOL’s 2017 Convention was the decreasing size of English language programs in the United States. Whether it’s because of the turbulent politics on travel bans or a combination of other factors, many ESL teachers are losing their jobs. The good news is that the trend in the United States does not reflect the trend in other countries. It might be time to start considering teaching English abroad! Even if you are not facing job loss, teaching outside your home country may be just the opportunity to expand your skill set and reinvigorate your excitement about the field.
Finding Jobs
One of the first things to do is to find job openings. One place you can do that is TESOL’s own Online Career Center. Other popular websites include
These sites have job postings from all over the world. Even if a certain country is not of immediate interest to you, check out the job requirements, salary (if stated), and benefits just to get a sense of what is offered in different countries.
Public or Government vs. Private
You might notice in job postings whether a school is public or private. Note that “public” and “private” may not have the same meaning as they do in your home country. For example, in the United States, private schools tend to be associated with having more resources, higher pay, or better benefits. However, the opposite may be true in other countries; private schools may still seem to have better pay based on stated salaries, but the public schools may have benefits that would ultimately exceed the salary offered by private companies, such as better vacation, housing, and insurance options. Furthermore, working through a government-sponsored public school may help with the visa process.
Visas
Speaking of visas, some people like to travel to a country as a tourist to learn about the place and to see if they can find a job once in the country. Although this strategy does have benefits, be sure not to start working until you have the appropriate visa. Sometimes a company will hire you for a month or two with the promise that they will help you get the right visa, but then the company offers excuses about delayed payments. (For example, you cannot open a bank account in some countries using a tourist visa, and the company may use that as an excuse not to pay you.) One you realized that the company was not going to pay you, you would have no recourse other than to report the company because you would still on a tourist visa.
On the right visa, however, you can enjoy many benefits from teaching English abroad, including tax breaks and free housing. So, keep your eyes on the TESOL Blog for more suggestions on this topic. You can also check out the latest edition of TESOL Press’s More than a Native Speaker for a guide on planning, teaching, and living as an EFL teacher abroad.
from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/practical-considerations-for-teaching-english-abroad/
Hello, ESPers worldwide!
I have been thinking recently how ESP may be a good way to develop creativity. As I wrote in Marta Baffy’s profile, ESP project leaders seem to have expertise in multiple areas. Having expertise in multiple areas and being involved in problem-solving activities may lead to innovative solutions. In this post, I reflect on some of my own experiences.
A few days before writing this post, I received from a colleague a link to a TED Talk by mathematician and data scientist Cathy O’Neil titled “The Era of Blind Faith in Big Data Must End.” The talk was about algorithms. After watching it, I responded to my colleague:
It resonates of leadership and decision-making processes. The argument is to make such decision-making processes transparent. We can therefore see how such decision-making processes are being created as well as what the processes are creating (i.e., the vision).
In my response, I was drawing from the discourses of international relations and leadership in framing and extending the meaning of “algorithms” to include the various factors that influenced the creation of an algorithm. In my mind, decision-making processes reflect policy-making processes from the field of international relations in which I have a master’s degree. The term “vision” reflects leadership and my related doctoral research (Ph.D., linguistics) and curriculum development at my university.
Our educational backgrounds and areas of expertise not only influence how we communicate, but they also affect how we approach curriculum development (see Kirsten Schaetzel’s profile). As an example from my own experience, I teach business case studies in business English classes. In some classes, I replicate the experience that I had as a graduate student in which professors “cold call” in class and grade student responses. (The students do not know which of them will be called upon to answer the professor’s questions aloud in class (see Vince Ricci’s profile). On the other hand, I usually have the students work in groups and come up with the solutions to the case in class. This activity replicates what students in a master’s in business administration program would usually do outside of class (for the purpose of writing and submitting a case-study solution paper) in advance of a cold calling session.
I initially studied international relations and business administration in graduate school because of my involvement in ESP training at Sony. I had been training Sony managers and other employees for overseas assignments, and I believed at the time that I needed to obtain more training and experience in international business. However, in the field of ESP, I have also found that we do much of our learning on the job. In my ESP work now, I provide training to medical professionals, government officials, and company employees in various industries (e.g., steel, chemical, and advertising). In helping my students use English as a communication tool for their immediate needs, I learn more about the content of their fields.
For example, I was working with a medical doctor to prepare his PowerPoint presentation for an international conference. As an ESP practitioner, I was involved in helping him to edit his work. In addition, I acted as a speech/debate coach in attacking his ideas (e.g., see “ESP and the Power of Persuasion”) and improving his presentation delivery. One of my challenges was to learn quickly the discourse of his field so that I could better understand the content of his presentation and advise him how to communicate more effectively. In this connection, I needed him to explain to me certain technical terms.
By working with different learners in different industries, we learn different content. As a result, we learn to see the world from different perspectives. (I think of “metaphor” here because we learn to see and describe things “in other terms.”) It is from such multiple perspectives that we develop our creativity. The key is to gain expertise in multiple fields and to continue to be engaged in problem-solving activities, such as “How can we best teach our learners in this situation?”
Here’s a final example: After writing this post, I was thinking about one of the English for business communication (EBC) classes that I teach for undergraduates in Japan. An idea popped into my mind for uniting “interview skills” with “business case-study analysis” that will enable the students to more quickly understand and communicate the content of the business case studies in class. It felt to me like the discovery of a small but important improvement that brought together different parts of my previous experience, and this blog post triggered the idea.
Good luck with developing your creative genius through ESP!
All the best,
Kevin
from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/esp-for-developing-creativity/
Happy Thursday!
Here is a fun song to practice early advanced prepositions! Sing it to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or as a call back.
Have fun with it!
This 51-page collection of ELD and ESL songs and black lines are perfect for every classroom with second language learners. Open every lesson with a song or chant from this rich collection of ELD based lyrics and watch your students’ fluency grow. Volume I includes 22 songs/ chants, lesson ideas and activities that will raise the oral academic language of your students to new heights. The songs and chants are sung to familiar popular songs or the lyrics are used in call backs or chant style tunes. These lyrics provide a compelling way to begin your ELD lesson while targeting complex English Structures. You and your students will enjoy these engaging and memorable lyrics.
Songs and Chants for:
Possessive Pronouns
Reflexive Pronouns
Present Tense Questions
Regular Past Tense Verbs
Past Tense Questions
Present Perfect
Prepositions
Language levels included:
Beginning
Intermediate
Advanced
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-bit-closer.html
Hello everyone!💕
It is Friday and we have a great freebie for you today!
Tongue Twisters Sample Freebie
Tongue Twisters Pronunciation Made Fun!
This sample freebie from our full Tongue Twister pack 48-page pronunciation unit has everything you need to sample what our full pack offers to teach students the correct pronunciation necessary to be academically successful in English.
The full pack of Tongue Twisters – Pronunciation Made Fun contains 30 traditional tongue twisters to help elementary students master English pronunciation! Wall posters and game cards are provided for your students to practice the sounds of English with these engaging tongue twisters.
Click here for this great freebie!
In addition, our activities and ideas provide fun and interest so your students learn through hands-on experiences. This unit is ready to go to work for you!
Tongue Twisters – Pronunciation Made Fun has everything you need to teach students the correct pronunciation including black lines for the 30 traditional tongue twisters as wall posters, game/mobile cards and game boards
Each of the 30 tongue twisters has its own wall poster and game card. Practice English pronunciation with fun activities and game boards.
•WORD WALL CARDS
•GAME BOARDS
•GAME CARDS
Each tongue twister is printed on an individual wall poster (8 x 11 ½) and game/flash card. Simply copy, cut, and use.
Use this great English pronunciation package for kindergarten through 6th graders. Perfect for second language learners and speech students!
See all our great math and grammar games at www.funtoteach.com.
If you would like more great Tongue Twisters, download our complete pack!
Click here for this great freebie!
Happy Teaching! 
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2017/09/friday-freebie.html
🔨ELD Toolbox Booster🔨
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Happy Teaching!
Lori
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2017/09/toolbox-boostereld-make-and-take.html
present tense of verb ‘to lie’
I lie, or I am lying
you lie, or you are lying
he/she lies, or he/she is lying
we lie, or we are lying
they lie, or they are lying
past tense:
I lay, or I was lying, or I have lain
you lay, or you were lying, or you have lain
he/she lay, or he/she was lying, or he/she has lain
we lay, or we were lying, or we have lain
they lay, or they were lying, or they have lain
Whew!
Happy Teaching!
Lori
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2017/09/to-lie-just-for-fun.html
Hello everyone!
The definition of quote is to repeat someone else’s statement, phrases or thoughts.
Here is today’s!
Happy Teaching,
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2017/09/mondays-quote_11.html
Encourage students to talk about what it means to play fair. By sharing specific examples such as taking turns and waiting patiently while another player makes his or her move will set the tone in your classroom. Use students’ responses to form the basic ground rules around playing gameboards. Talk to your students about winning and losing. Give them the phrases to use at the end of the game…”congratulations on your win, but watch out next time, I am on your heels” or “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose as long as you have fun!”
Happy Teaching!from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2017/09/gameboards-fun-in-classroom.html
Hello, ESPers worldwide!
In the 35th ESP Project Leader Profile, we meet Kirsten Schaetzel, who was previously a program director at Georgetown Law School and is currently an ESL specialist at Emory University School of Law. (My thanks go again to ESP project leader, Stephen Horowitz, for recommending Kirsten!) In this profile, Kirsten describes leadership in ESP contexts as curricular decision making. Before reading Kirsten’s profile, I had read an article about decision making in international relations in the light of the behavioral revolution (Hafner-Burton, Haggard, Lake, & Victor, 2017). Accordingly, as I read Kirsten’s account of project leadership, I continued to ask myself, “Why do ESP project leaders make the decisions that we do?”
Kirsten’s bio describes her as follows:
Kirsten Schaetzel has been teaching English as a Second Language for over thirty years and has been working with international lawyers for the past nine years. She holds a doctorate in applied linguistics from Boston University (1993), a master’s in teaching English as a second language from the University of Illinois (1984), and a bachelor of arts in English literature with a secondary teaching certificate from Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois (1981). She lived in Asia for ten years and taught English at North-South University, Bangladesh; The University of Macau, China; and The National Institute of Education, Singapore.
Before working at the Georgetown Law Center and Emory University School of Law, her present position, she worked at the Center for Applied Linguistics at the Center for Adult English Language Acquisition. In this capacity, she worked with adult education programs. Her research interests include English for specific purposes, specifically English language materials for law students, and English for academic purposes. Her recent publications include “A Survey of Writing Instruction in Adult ESL Programs: Are Teaching Practices Meeting Adult Learner Needs?” in the Journal of Research and Practice for Adult Literacy, Secondary and Basic Education (Summer, 2017), with Rebeca Fernandez and Joy Kreeft Peyton, and “Teaching Writing to Adult Learners: Lessons from the Field” in the Journal of Literature and Art Studies, (October, 2016) with Joy Kreeft Peyton. She is currently working on a text for pre-law students with Marta Baffy.
She lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband, Tom, three Singaporean cats, a Labrador retriever, and her son, Nate, when his college is on break.
Kirsten’s bio illuminates various factors (educational background, professional and international experience, etc.) that could possibly influence her curriculum development decisions. She provides further insights into such factors in her interview responses below.
Kirsten Schaetzel
ESL Specialist
Emory University Law School
(1) Define leadership in your own words.
Leadership in an ESP setting, to me, is learning as much as possible about an English language environment and then using one’s expertise and experience to make the most promising curricular decisions. To get good information, on which to base decisions, it is important to talk with different stakeholders and, if possible, actually see how English is used. In working at a law school, and not ever having been a law student, it was important for me to talk with professors, students, administrators, and practicing lawyers about what English skills they feel are important. I also sat in on several law classes to observe how professors and students interact and to determine what “kinds” of English are used. Based on all this information, I made curricular decisions in designing an ESP program for law students. Similarly, when I was teaching English for Academic Purposes in Asia, it was important to examine the role of English not only at the institutions where I taught, but also in the wider society outside the university. Most of the students I taught were studying to be English teachers, and they needed classes that reflected English as it was being used in society. After observing the role of English in society and talking with professors and students, I made curricular decisions so that my English classes best reflected the role of English.
(2) Tell me an ESP project success story. Focus on your communication as a leader in the project. How did you communicate with stakeholders to make that project successful?
I would like to describe the curricular decisions I made in two projects based on the information I received from my observations and interviews: teaching English to law students and teaching English to pre-service teachers in Macau and Singapore.
After observing law classes and talking with professors, students, and administrators, I designed a curriculum to develop English language skills students need to do well. These include the ability to respond to questions in classes taught using the Socratic method, give presentations, facilitate and participate in seminar discussions, write according to academic English principles, and read academic material. I first used general academic English materials. Then, after three years, my supervisor asked that I try to make the course materials “more legal,” to “hide” the English in the law. So, I scoured law reviews and stories of lawyers and cases, creating materials as I went, and these materials formed the basis of my teaching. Though the students were not unhappy with the general materials, they were extremely happy with the legal materials. Since they were in the United States to study law, they were happiest learning about American law while improving their English.
Similarly, I changed the materials I was using after observing how English was used in Singapore and Macau. Through my observations and talks with professors, I noticed that English was being used to write both fiction and nonfiction in Asia. I wondered why English classes were using materials by authors who lived in the United Kingdom and the United States. If there were English materials set in Asia written by Asian authors, why weren’t we using these? They would not only provide good role models for student writers, but they would also be written from a social and cultural environment already familiar to students; therefore, students could work more on language without needing many explanations about society and culture. So, I incorporated writings by Catherine Lim, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Pat Wong, Philip Jayaretnam, Banana Yashimoto, Kishor Mahbubani, F. Soinil Jose, and others. Students were at first surprised that there were so many Asian writers writing in English. They enjoyed reading short stories, novels, and essays in English from their own countries.
So when making curricular decisions for ESP classes, it is important to consider the English that the students will be using in their study and lives. If it is possible to find materials that reflect the English language of the students’ worlds, then learning English will be easier, more enjoyable, and a journey that boosts students’ confidence.
After reading Kirsten’s informative and interesting profile for ESP professional development purposes, I reminded myself that from the stance of a linguist, I needed to ask, “How and why did Kirsten write her responses to the interview questions?” Discourse analytical approaches for content, narrative, and metaphor analyses could be used to gain deeper insights into her professional communication.
Do you have any questions or comments for Kirsten? Please feel free to contact her directly!
All the best,
Kevin
Reference
Hafner-Burton, E.M., Haggard, S., Lake, D.A., & Victor, D.G. (2017). The behavioral revolution and international relations. International Organization 71, Sup. 2017, pp. S1–S31.
from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/esp-project-leader-profile-kirsten-schaetzel/
Joel Jackson 