The ESL/Training Life

Advice for Students: All Levels

Now that the semester is over, many of you are thinking of anything except ESL. And who can blame you, after months and months of stress and effort? For sure, summer is a time to relax, and pursue other goals. But it’s not the time to forget what you have worked so hard to learn. So often in the fall, I find that the first thing I have to do is help students regain the level of ability they had at the end of the spring semester. Let this not be you. Instead, take a few easy steps known to safeguard your learning investment.

1. Manage Your Time

Find ten or fifteen minutes a day. If you have kids, this can be tough; here are some possibilities:

- When waiting for meat at the delicatessen
- When sitting on a bus

• - When watching your kids play at the park or at the beach
  - When you would normally be watching soap operas
  - When you are stuck in traffic
  - When you are folding clothes
  - When you are waiting for a service rep on the phone
  - When you are standing in line to register at a doctor, dentist, or college registrar
  - When accompanying your kids to watch the buzziest kids movie
  - When you would normally be watching TV or surfing the Net at night
  - Get up fifteen minutes early
  
  I used to do this ages ago when teaching myself Nepali. I reviewed vocabulary while shopping, and when speaking to shopkeepers would translate my sentences into Nepali. It works!
  
  2. Set Your Goals Realistically
  
  You studied for four months or so. Don’t try to re-master everything in a week or two. Here are some detailed tips for various ESL subject areas:
  
  Granmar/Conversation. For grammar classes, work through your textbook/workbook a few pages at a time. Re-do the exercises. Hand-copy dialogues. Review them or memorize them. If you have tapes/CDs, listen to them regularly. This will all help you retain what you have learned and prevent memory decay. Review all the little things that are so hard to master, like prepositions, articles, and irregular verbs.
  
  Reading. Review your texts again. If you had a reader, read through the essays again to make sure you continue to understand their grammar and vocabulary. If you read a novel, read through it again, to make certain that you do not lose what you worked so hard to gain. Just fifteen minutes a day!
  
  Writing. Writing is the hardest language skill to acquire. Don’t make it worse by forgetting what you learned this semester! Preserve your writing skills in three ways:
  
• Re-write old essays, including comments and corrections from your teacher. Consistently doing this will help you overcome bad habits and build new ones.
• Keep a journal, and write about anything you like for fifteen minutes a day. It’s a liberating feeling, and gives you excellent practice. Don’t just keep a diary, where you only write about the day’s events. Keep a journal where you write about anything on your mind. You will enjoy this more. I did this in college when studying Russian, and found it tremendously helpful.
• Copy writing that you like and that seems useful for your goals. Focus on professionally useful writing, not literature. This is immensely helpful. And of course this is also a great way to improve your reading and vocabulary.
  
  Writing will never improve without serious practice. The summer is an excellent time for this.
  
  3. Be realistic
  
  There will be days when life gets in the way. But work consistently at review, using small units of time, and you will find yourself better prepared for the fall. And, most satisfying, you will not lose what you worked so hard (and spent so much) to gain!
  
  See you in September…

I recently came across this post by Dustin Javorsky regarding the ESL industry in Thailand:

http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/73/Teaching_ESL_In_Thailand.html

It's interesting because he discerns a common problem affecting the industry: locals taking it over and treating it like any other cashcow business, trying to satisfy customers with any foreign face they can throw in a classroom. Ahh, the good times in Taiwan which this evokes! Dustin's solution is regulation. This idea is only as good as the regulators and the enforcers. Personally, I favor it because it's great for the ESL teachers. After all, when the supply of a service is regulated/controlled/decreased, the demand inevitably escalates. For the remaining teachers this brings on higher rates and better gigs. What's not to like?

Exploring Content 1 and 2, Lorraine C. Smith, Pearson Longman, ISBN 0-13-140198-X

Printed in 2004 and readily orderable, EC 1 and 2 are outstanding high-end readers for students working towards academic ends.

They are outstanding because they focus on what people actually read in college: textbooks. Ten chapters in each book each cover topics such as the origin of life, the power of social influence, ancient Egyptian art, and geocentrism. Each chapter has an introductory reading and a main reading, differing mainly in length and complexity. There are abundant pre-reading activities. The post-reading activities are excellent, ranging from analyzing dictionary entries to word roots to teasing out one of several possible readings for a word. Content questions are similarly well-thought-out.

For students contemplating or entering college, these two books give an excellent survey of the types of reading and language characteristic of college textbooks. Readers will absolutely be better prepared for academic success after reading EC 1 and 2. Furthermore, any high-end reader will find these chapters exciting and rewarding.

My main recommendation for Ms. Smith is to include more on finance, economics, business management, and MIS in a third edition, since these are such common majors among foreign students in the US (as opposed to art history and Egyptian religion, for example). Otherwise, I can only say I wish I had been able to find material like this when I was studying Chinese and Russian.

Recommendation: Outstanding

ESL Classics 06: Reply Requested, Richard Yorkey, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201100-78-9

Reply Requested is an exceptional book for conversation and discussion. It is comprised of 30 chapters (130 pages), with each chapter built around a letter to Ann Landers.

Here’s how the book works its magic: we have the letter, comprehension questions, discussion questions, and then a review of relevant grammar or function formations (how to complain, how to indirectly ask a question, etc.). Then we have a roleplay based on the situation in the letter, exploring one or more possible outcomes. Only after all this do we have Ann Landers’ original response and discussion questions based on this.

The 30 chapters cover questions of etiquette (what to do when you find a bug in fruit at a formal dinner), complaints (gluttonous babysitters), and difficult situations (a bride whose husband insists on watching TV late at night). The situations are all interesting, and allow for cultural exploration. The roleplays allow practice for new language. The book has worked well with pairs and small groups, and even in some one-on-ones. It is entertaining, practical, and well-designed for classroom work. What’s not to like? For intermediates and above, Reply Requested is an excellent resource. Too bad it’s out of print!

All too often discussion topics become a backdoor for someone’s agenda, like peace studies, missionary work, or feminism. These topics here help the student explore the cultural world, not reach my perception of it. Right on! A classic!

Note that this basic format (letters, notes, discussion, and roleplay) could be done for many, many types of subject matter (American business etiquette for example). Also, note that this format is eminently transferable to other languages. You could have exactly the same style of book based on letters in Chinese, Japanese, French, or whatever. It’s a universally applicable textbook design.

Recommendation: A great book, just crying out for an update!

ESL Classics 05: Speaking Naturally, Bruce Tillit and Mary Newton Bruder, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-271-304.

This classic appeared in 1985, and copies are available used for as little as $1.65. Buy them!

Even after they have (fairly) mastered grammar and vocabulary and pronunciation, students remain baffled by what to say in various situations. “How do I disagree?” “How do I negotiate?” “How do I ask someone out for a date?” are the kinds of questions few current books address very deeply. Back in 1985, we had the answer: Speaking Naturally.

This book, less than 100 pages in length, has eleven chapters. Each chapter focuses on one type of interaction: invitations, apologizing, expressing anger and conflict, controlling a conversation, etc. This is great stuff!

Then, with each chapter, there are two or three dialogues showing the forms in use in formal/informal situations. This is followed by a brief discussion of when and how to use these functions; this is mainly cultural. Then we see the many expressive options listed along an axis from very formal to very casual. For interrupting a conversation, for example, we have:

· Pardon me, but…
· Pardon the interruption, but…
· I’m sorry to interrupt, but…
· I don’t want to interrupt you, but…
· I hate to interrupt, but…
· I’m sorry, but…
· Excuse me, but…
· Oh, were you in the middle of something?
· Am I interrupting?

You can see the spectrum of formality it covers.

After presenting the acquisition targets, there are pair work activities, starting with fill-in-the-blanks, and going to structured dialogues and free-form roleplays. The design is very logical. Intuitive, even.

For years my students found this information immensely helpful. Any high-intermediate and above student would benefit from this. It is useful in professional, personal, and public situations.

Recommendation: Classic: few books are as well-organized and on-target as Speaking Naturally. I wish I had this for languages I have studied, like Chinese and Russian. ESL students have all the luck!

Values Clarification, Sidney Simon, Leland Howe, and Howard Kitschenbaum, Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-67095-2

This book was never intended as an ESL text, let’s be upfront about that. It’s intended as the “classic guide to discovering your truest feelings, beliefs, and goals”. So why is this an ESL classic?

Let me count the ways! It is superb for upper-intermediate/advanced discussions. Plus, it is excellent for community-building and ice-breaking. It includes an exceptionally wide variety of content formats, from imaginative lists of interview questions to roleplays to group discussions to what-would-you-dos to brainstorms to pattern searches to time management to discussion of what students have in their wallets/purses.
There are very few grammatical limitations to the use of any of these (real/unreal conditionals aside).

The variety means the content is nearly inexhaustible in any given class. Its open-ended nature means that students at many levels can benefit from it. My students have benefited from Values Clarification for more than fifteen years, in pairs, in small groups, and as entire classes. Classic! This is despite the fact that I have never used it for “values clarification”, which has its own agenda. It is a great tool.

Recommendation: Very classy, very classic.

ESL Classics 03: Conversation Gambits, Eric Keller and Sylvia T. Warner, Language Teaching Publications, ISBN 0-906717-59-0

Beyond grammar and vocabulary and pronunciation, a final frontier for students is often knowing how to respond in ways that go beyond these. Conversation Gambits is an excellent such fill-in-the-gaps text. It goes where many other functionally-oriented books do not. The “gambits” are phrases, short sentences, and expressions which help support a conversational intent (an example follows). Its 96 pages include three types: opening, linking, and responding.

For example, #31 is “Correcting Yourself”. Here is the material to learn:

· What I mean is…
· What I meant was…
· Let me put it another way.
· What I’m saying is…
· What I’m trying to say is…
· Don’t misunderstand me.
· If I said that, I didn’t mean to….
· Let me rephrase what I just said.

We practice and learn this by making extreme statements (almost a dozen are included), and then responding to a challenge by correcting ourselves. This can be done one-on-one, in pairs, or even in small groups. I used this extensively in Taiwan with high-level clients, with great success.

Other gambits include “putting the record straight”, “saying ‘no’ tactfully”, “being sympathetic”, and interview language. These are all very useful situations to study, and few other resources cover so many so well. So, they are very useful, the approach is very practical, the activities are easily done well in class, and few other books cover this so well. Sounds like a classic to me!

Recommendation: How did this ever go out of print?

Even the highest-level clients of mine in Taiwan (some of them C-level executives and business owners) were unsure what to say in certain situations in English. How to negotiate. How to disagree. How to talk through an hour of charts. How to get a meeting back on track. Etc. That is to say, even with good vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, they were unsure _how_ to say some things. This was an often desperate need for these professionals. For years I found these books of the Longman Business English Skills series to be fabulous resources for them:

Presenting Facts and Figures, David Kerridge, ISBN 0-582-09307-4 (intermediate)
Socializing, Mark Ellis and Nina O’Driscoll, ISBN 0-582-85259-5 (intermediate)
Negotiating, Philip O’Connor, Adrian Pilbeam, and Fiona Scott-Barrett, ISBN 0-582-06443-0 (advanced)
Giving Presentations, Mark Ellis and Nina O’Driscoll, ISBN 0-582-06441-4 (advanced)
Meetings and Discussions, Nina O’Driscoll and Adrian Pilbeam, ISBN 0-582-09305-8 (intermediate)

Let’s take a closer look at how these work. For example, Meetings and Discussions has eight chapters:

· Starting and Controlling Meetings
· Presenting and Supporting Opinions
· Balancing Points of View
· Making Suggestions
· Presenting Alternatives
· Accepting and Rejecting Ideas and Proposals
· Building Up Arguments
· Summarizing and Concluding

This covers everything you need for the average business meeting, except describing how you like your coffee! Each book approaches its task in a similarly systematic, comprehensive way. This is what even advanced learners often lack. This series of books excels in empowering them. Presenting Facts and Figures is especially good for one of the most difficult tasks: explaining sales figures and forecasts, and analyzing the meaning of raw data.

The dialogues, often a continuing story arc across more than one chapter, are rewarding. I remember one client, a product manager in Taiwan, who loved to read between the lines of the characters and their dialogue, telling me what they “really meant”. How many audiocassette materials have you ever seen elicit that intense a response?

Each book came with a cassette valuable in itself for high-end business listening comprehension. I used these for years with high-level corporate professionals, and they found them great! They helped me help product managers, medical managers, and general managers to the next level in their careers, and they will help your clients too. Oh, wait, they’re out of print! Perhaps some day someone will reprint them; they hardly need updating!

Why are they classics? Because they retain their great value, and nothing better has come along (that I have seen). I wish I had materials like this for Chinese and Russian.

Recommendation: Pray that Longman reprints them.

In the decades since ESL first emerged as a distinct discipline with its own agendas and vision, many, many resources have come and gone. It's heart-breaking how many outstanding books are out off print by the time we have mastered them! They deserved better! In this series of blog entries, I reclaim them from the attic. For more than a decade, my clients benefited from them, and I believe they still have much to offer for your students as well. Read my comments, form your own conclusion, and then good luck trying to find them. Maybe some can be reprinted...

First on our via dolorosa is an outstanding book for improving pronunciation:

English Pronunciation Exercises for Chinese Students, Harriette Gordon Grate, Prentice Hall Regents, ISBN 8487-0058-9.

Don’t be misled by the title. This text may have been intended for Chinese students, but ESL learners from many backgrounds will find these exercises valuable.

Let me explain why. Here’s an example from pages 14-15, covering [l/r] in final position. First: numerous pairs: pale/pair, snail/snare, mall/more, etc., in an 18x6 chart. Dozens of these! Then exercises with three dozen sentences like these:

I fear they will feel Cecile’s sincere.
Eagle is eager to help poor Poole.
I’ll hire Neal as an engineer.

Which are arranged to match the chart’s pairs.

That’s just [l/r] in final position! Besides this, there are 111 others, including [s/sh] (sin/shin) and the two [th] sounds: (thus/thud, teethe/teeth, and clothe/cloth, for example). I have used this effectively with Chinese and non-Chinese learners. These would be maddening if done for extended periods, but these are perfect for warm-up in conversation classes, and for references in focusing on discrete student problems as they are spotted. And the material is so well-organized, that when a particular need emerges, you can quickly turn to the right page, and help students make progress.

Anyone teaching pronunciation at any point would find these exercises valuable. It is simple, well-organized, easy to use, and fills a definite need. Sounds like a classic to me!

Recommendation: Must-have for pronunciation work, and not just for Chinese speakers!

Engaging Writing, by Mary Fitzpatrick (Pearson Longman, ISBN 0-13-140889-5) is intended for high-intermediate to advanced ESL writers trying to break out into mainstream composition classes (and there are a lot of them!). It follows the traditional layout of most such books, of almost any writing level: an example essay to discuss, some explanation, and some practice. The rhetorical strategies (which begin with exposition, continue on to cause-and-effect, and end with argumentation) are familiar as well.

So what makes Engaging Writing stand out in a well-populated field? In many respects this book does the same thing as every other writing textbook in this category. However, the pre-writing sections in each chapter are admirably clear and easy to use. These are a strength. Many students will benefit from the numerous “Review and Revise” boxes, each focusing on one editing task. Also, additional resources in Engaging Writing include generous appendices with grammatical resources, ideal as references for students.

Some aspects of the book are more puzzling, such as its focus on its intended audience. Engaging Writing posits itself as an “academic writing” text. Yet there are few instances of such writing in the book itself; it would have made sense to have included more examples of academic and professional writing as sample essays. The book’s first sample writing is by Anne Frank (thus a translation, and a dubious candidate for emulation) and describes rummaging for a lost pen. Yet is this the kind of writing we expect our students to produce at the high-intermediate/advanced level?

Also, the transition from paragraph to essay is unannounced, even though this represents a quantum leap of complexity for students, in terms of opportunity for development, and the need for greater structural control.

Conclusion: Average

Years and years ago, there were few books on ESL writing. I remember back in the mid-80s teaching secretaries and businesspeople mainly by editing their own writing. Good times! Fortunately, the ESL market has expanded to serve these folks as well, and there are now some good resources for them. Lin Lougheed’s Business Correspondence (Pearson Longman, ISBN 0-13-089792-1) is definitely one of them.

The book is short, coming in at under 150 pages, and is built around different types of daily business-related writing, such as job applications, seeking services, following up, providing and seeking information, working with customers and vendors, writing claims and adjustments, and others. Models are given and explained, and business language is reviewed as well. It is very practical in orientation.

The book succeeds at condensing many business writing requirements into effective formulas and forms. There are many practices in editing and error detection. And for much business writing this is entirely appropriate, especially for immigrants breaking into the US job market or foreign learners planning on working in English-speaking environments.

This will be useful for anyone outside the US teaching secretaries, new managers, and college students. It will be similarly helpful for anyone inside the US teaching immigrants looking to get (or get back) into the business world.

Conclusion: Very practical, good value.

Book Review: Making Business Decisions, by Francis Boyd, Pearson Longman, ISBN 0-201-59281-9. Book (and cassette!)

This is a great book with the makings of a classic for high-end Business English students. Its ten chapters are comprised of case studies; students read through them and related materials, discuss them, and then meet for a decision. Business culture and tips for negotiation (gambits, really) are also covered. The cases include adapting to the Japanese market, making ethical decisions, negotiating international trade agreements, and more. The content is quite strong here. And since there is a tape, it’s also excellent for business-oriented listening comprehension.

For Gen 1.5 and for high-end students, this is a great resource. ESLers in distant lands teaching business folks would find this a godsend, for small groups or larger classes. It could be used to good effect for one-on-one classes, though the case study discussions would have to be adapted. In fact, I wish I had been able to find more books like this during my 20 years in Asia.

Conclusion: Highly recommended

Welcome. I have been in the ESL world for most of my adult life, mostly in Asia, and recently in the US. In this blog, I'll be sharing resources and ideas, and reflecting on the community and other training fields. In addition, I will also be reviewing new and classic books in the ESL field. And I've seen many!

Check back every now and then, and feel free to share your own thoughts.