BTS Industriel -- Listening exercises & Discussion About Obligations

Last week's lesson went pretty well, so I thought I would give it a little share. Our subject of the day was obligation, so we focused mostly on the phrases, "you must + verb", "you have to" and "you mustn't" or "you can't".

My second-year BTS students here in France started out by listening to this text, between ESL-Lab's Randall and his daughter. I liked this text because it talks about possibility (can/can't) and obligation (you have to). I prepared this grid to help the students with the listening exercise:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday

The students were asked to listen to the script and write the daughter's obligations and activities in the grid with times, if possible. What is confusing is that the daughter starts off by asking if she can go see the movie on Wednesday so students immediately start to write "Go to the movies" on Wednesday, only to find out that her father says no. As the dad and the daughter discuss what needs to be done and negotiate the daughter's freedom, have your students write as many possibilities as they can hear. Then discuss it as a group, writing down the different obligations and explaining the ones they missed (maybe even listening to the tricky parts again) to give them something to visualize. I also took a moment to point out that they are American, and we know this because they talk about "movies" and "soccer", and not "cinema" and "football". 

Next, we continued with the theme of obligation by looking at some warning signs. 

I started out by asking the class where they could see these kinds of signs. Then, I had the students volunteer to make sentences. For example, where it says, "Danger: no smoking", a student would say something like, "you mustn't smoke at school," or "it's forbidden to smoke in public places." We continued onward practicing the "you mustn't" and "you can't" structures until all signs had been discussed.

Next, the students listened to this short text  about which rules you have to follow when you visit a national park. The woman talks about 4 rules which I had the students write down, and she ends the audio by talking about the consequences. Once students had identified the four rules and the consequences, we moved on to our speaking exercise. 

In groups of three, I gave the students one of the following places: 

The City Zoo

A Textile Factory

A Pharmacy

The Public Hospital

ABC Construction Site

GoodFoods Supermarket

A Hair Salon

A Shopping Mall 

I asked the groups to prepare ten rules that either employees, customers or visitors (depending on the place) have to follow, and then to think of appropriate consequences. They had about 20 minutes to brainstorm and write their ideas while I walked around and answered questions, and once everybody had finished they presented group by group, sharing their rules and consequences. 

Infographic lesson plan: Modals, futures & probability

On Sunday night as I was browsing for topics for this week's lessons with my professional adult ESL students here in France, I found the following infographic on the BBC website.


Original can be found here

I absolutely love infographics. I love them even more when they present a topic that I can cover in English class. There are so many possibilities for using the one I've posted here but I'll share my lesson plan with you which reviews modals & futures for talking about probability, likelihood and chance.

I did a 30-second review of modal verbs and the near future/distant future with my groups because these are topics we previously covered. Then I handed out the infographic and a "cheat sheet" introducing some expressions that I wanted them to try to use during the lesson including degree of probability and chance when giving their opinion.

After a few seconds, my adults started laughing a little bit to themselves. After everybody had showed some sign of comprehension, I started asking questions.

"What do you find funnny?"
"What do you find scary?"
"Does anything seem possible/impossible?"
"Do you agree/disagree with ...?"

And then the discussion started.

My advantage here that others might not have is that my students are western, and we work at a web agency. These topics are right up their alleys -- a bit sci-fi, a bit nerdy, some inspiring a dream or provoking an emotional reaction -- it was very easy to get them talking about these subjects. If your students work in a different field, you might try a generic Google search for infographics and try to see if something could fit their interests and needs. This one is just a perfect mix of grammar revision, discussion, and new vocabulary -- I was so pleased to find it!

Here's the "cheat sheet" I handed out to help facilitate the conversation:

Expressions for talking about likelihood and probability:

In general:

It could happen/ It might happen

If it happens, then…

It’s possible that…

There’s a chance…

Most likely (use of adverbs):

It’s extremely likely that…

It’s very possible that…

Least likely (use of adverbs):

It is highly unlikely that…

It’s nearly impossible that…

It will never happen

It could never happen

It should never happen

Future tenses:

1.        The near future : Planned & programmed (Present continuous or “going to”)

a.       I’m going to dance class tomorrow night.

b.      I’m pitching a proposal to a client on Thursday afternoon.

2.       The distant future: Uncertain, unplanned (Will)

a.       Maybe I will go to Spain on vacation this summer, or maybe I won’t.

3.       A snap decision: no time to think (will)

a.       The phone is ringing! Can you help me? – I’ll get it.

b.      I’m going to drop these boxes. Can you give me a hand? – I’ll help you.

Around the World -- Grammar game

Yesterday I posted the rules to my game called "Circle of Death" which is a variation on a drinking game, adapted to a classroom, for a more advanced/confident English speaker. Today I'll post the rules to a modified version that I created to accompany a group of pre-intermediate and intermediate adult ESL learners here in France.

I call this version "Around the World" and it requires the exact same set up as "Circle of Death".
As always, it's a good idea to have plenty of print outs of the rules for the participants and a full deck of cards with jokers.

Around the World Grammar Game

Rules:

Sit in a circle, each player draws a card and completes the corresponding action one at a time.

Evens – Questions on the right

Odds – Questions on the left

Correct answer = +5 points

Incorrect answer = - 5 points

2's : Ask a question to the person on your right using a “do”

3's : Ask a question to the person on your left using “to be” .

4's : Ask a question to the person on your right using “did”.

5's : Ask a question to the person on your left using “was” or “were”.

6's : Ask a question to the person on your right using the future tense.

7's : Ask a question to the person on your left using “if”.

8's : Ask a question of your choice to the person of your choice.

(Now for some fun..)

9's : You are the rule master. You can make any rule for the table to follow. You get 10 points.

10's : Stand up and mime an animal. The first person to guess correctly gets 10 points.

Jacks : “Categories” – Choose a category and each player must say a word in the category. The first player who can't think of a word in the category loses 10 points.

Queens: “7's” : Going in a circle, each player must count by 7 (7..14..21..etc) and the first player to make a mistake loses 10 points.

Kings: “Truth?” Ask the player of your choice a truthful question. (+5 for asking correctly and +5 for answering correctly) 

Aces: The teacher makes a rule for all of the players to follow. (points vary depending on the rule)

Joker: You can choose to add ten points to your score or to subtract ten points from the player of your choice. 

Business Topics: Pitches

One thing I've observed time and time again working with professionals in France is very often they are lacking the tone of voice communicating emotion and passion when giving presentations or speeches. I have sat through more presentations than I can count that droned on and on, with no accentuation or punctuation. Often these are sales presentations, presenting a bid for tender, pre-sales or answering a RFP, and putting myself in the potential client's shoes makes me want to take a long walk off of a short cliff! Alas, it is my job to push on through these presentations, fix the mistakes, and push them out the door -- in the short term, there isn't very much that I can do. Long-term though, we've got a plan of attack that has been in place since just before December that is very nicely progressing, and that plan is "perfecting the pitch".

The first step: we talked about the "bones" of a pitch -- what is is? I think the first thing you need to do when working on presentations in a foreign language (okay... and maybe in your native language too...) is to ask yourself why? Why am I taking the time to give this presentation or speech? What is my objective? So with a pitch, we always identify that the objective is to be convincing.

The second step: We brainstorm our jobs and our teams. While brainstorming, we look to answer these questions:

-- Who are we?
-- Why are we important?
-- How will we be successful?

The third step: We give three or four arguments supporting any of the strong, positive adjectives we have thrown around when answering the questions. If a student says that their team is amazing, I make them follow it up: because...?

We practice linking with "because", "thanks to", and regular relative pronouns like "which", "that", and "who" to show a direct path between their statement and the example supporting it.

The first lesson was spent talking about pitches, brainstorming and presenting their ideas.

The second lesson was more interactive and less "business-y" :
Students wrote everyday nouns (mostly objects but concepts/ideas are OK depending on how advanced the group was) on little pieces of paper. We mixed all the papers up and students each chose one piece of paper. They took 5-10 minutes to plan a pitch to convince the others in the group of the value of their object.
The audience played the role of an uninformed audience, as if they were hearing about the product for the first time in their lives.

This was a lot of fun and the exercise could be repeated multiple times over the hour. I like for the students to come up with the nouns on their own because it allows them to use vocabulary that they have learned in class or outside class, to learn words from each other that they might not know before, and to be creative with their ideas.

The third lesson steered back towards business. I prompted the students to present a new "best practice" to their company, and the other students in the group took the role of a hostile/uninterested or even aggressive audience. This was a lot of fun.

Here are the prompts I gave:

--You want a new desk.

--You need a new chair.

--You want to recruit an assistant for your department.

--You want to start a “nap time” policy from 2 to 4 pm.

--You think you deserve a raise.

--You think the work day should begin later in the morning.

--You think lunch time should be shorter.

--You think the bosses need to share more of the “wealth”.

--You think it’s more efficient to work from home.

--You think men and women should have separate open spaces.

--You want the company to open a child care center in the building. 

--You want the company to open a canteen in the building.

--You think the company should move to a “no email” policy. 

Again, they had about 5-10 minutes to prepare their argument and present to the class. After their pitches, they had to face their difficult audience. As a group we discussed with points in each pitch were strong and valid, and which ones needed to be more expressive, better linked to the argument, etc. I asked each student if they were convinced and if so, by which point? It made for an interesting debrief.

The fourth lesson on this theme was still about general business topics but dealt more with presenting in general rather than concentrating on a short pitch. Working in pairs, students were faced with a challenging business problem and had to brainstorm solutions. After finding a solution to the difficult subject, they had to practice presenting these by putting forward the most positive aspects possible and speaking optimistically. They were also asked to lead a discussion at the end of their presentation to gauge the degree to which their audience was following.

Here are the prompts from this lesson:

1) Your company has just merged with a company of equal size. All new employees from the merger will be transferred to your site. You have to present a plan to the existing staff to tell them how you are going to fit all the new workers in.

Things to think about:

What can you say to make this sound more positive?

What can you say to motivate people to get “on board” with your idea?

2) The current system for filtering incoming CVs is not working. Qualified potential employees are going unnoticed and the staff turnover is very high. Anybody can receive a CV and do with it as they please. Some departments make appointments to meet with applicants when they have no need to hire somebody. All departments are over budget.

Things to think about:

How can you stay positive?

What solutions can you pitch?

3) Your company currently has offices in New York City that manage administrative operations and not production. The Board of Directors has decided that they will be relocated to your country. There are 30 staff members and only 10 can be relocated. The ten that are relocated will require training and assistance in their new country and the other 20 staff members will need an unemployment (severance) package. The Board wants you to present a report on this idea.

Things to think about: 

How can you stay positive?

What solutions can you pitch? 

The fifth lesson hasn't taken place yet but I'm going to test it out next week and see how it goes. The objective of the lesson will be how to put forward a feature of a product. First we will practice the "five-second" pitch where I will give them words, concepts, ideas, places, and they will give me a one-sentence explanation that highlights the value of the given word. For example: Pizza: It's a delicious Italian meal that will fill the whole family's stomachs. Done. We'll do a few rounds of this exercise as a warm up and then move on.

Next, students will be given every day nouns (this time proposed by me, and not by their peers for simplicity's sake) where they will have to add a feature of their choice and pitch the advantages of their add-on to the group. I will also use a sand timer to make sure that their presentations are short and sweet, focusing on the timing of a pitch and the impact of each word they choose. As always, the goal is to speak positively and simply which isn't always easy when working with groups of experts!

The final lesson hasn't been outlined yet but it will more than likely be up to the students to pitch a professional subject of their choice to the audience of their choosing. They will have the time that it takes for an elevator to climb the building and the possibility of using whatever they have on them to make their pitch. We will incorporate all aspects of the lessons leading up to this moment and I'm really looking forward to seeing how they'll do.

My next unit will be about spontaneity and improvisation so stay tuned for more useful speaking exercises!

Why I Quit the BTS Job

I think the title says it all. Yesterday, I didn't go back to the difficult job that I've been complaining about for two weeks. I stewed over it all week and all weekend and finally made my decision late Sunday night. I sent out my email on Monday morning announcing my resignation.

Yesterday when the time came around for me to be "in class" (if we can even call it that), I didn't even feel a hint of regret. There would have only been two reasons to continue: 1) Really, really hard up for cash, or 2) Desperate to work on classroom management.

I will admit that I have reached a level in my life where I can "pick & choose" the kind of people that I want to work with, but also the kinds of jobs where I can teach in my way. This job was neither one or the other, which is why my resignation included two key points:

1) I firmly believe in pedagogy -- giving students texts and asking them to memorize vocabulary is not, in any way, shape, or form, a good exercise in pedagogy for language learning. They can read texts at home until they are blue in the face. They shouldn't use class time for reading, translating, and memorization without context or student-perceived of value (finding their own meaning, understanding and importance for what is being instructed). If I can't teach them in my way, in a way that encourages them experiment and assimilate the language, then all (in my opinion), is lost. We are both wasting our time.

2) I am not a babysitter, nor am I the police. Oh good god, I am so far from my babysitting and policing years that it is not even funny. I now enjoy the luxury of teaching real adults -- people who have personal motivation and investment in what I am teaching. People who respect my work. People who listen. People who try. I do not need to go back to the teenager who hates me just because he hates English. To all of that, I say a big, resounding "bye bye"!

Onward and upward.

So what will I do instead? You know I get bored easily -- I've already got other projects.
I will work with some new adult clients AND I will go back to real university. I will teach students who have received a B1 on their BULATS exam and as a reward are put in a "fun class". That's even what the administration has been calling it. When meeting the head of the languages department, he asked me if I thought I would be able to produce a TV show with them and I replied fervently that nothing would make me happier. I'm full of ideas, of creativity, of energy... it should be a positive experience unlike the soul-sucking 3 hours of class I subjected myself to.

I feel bad for the students who wanted to be there and wanted to work, but at the same time those are the kinds of learners who will go out and do the work on their own. Having me there shouting at their classmates won't help them at all.

I'm looking forward to talking about my creative endeavors with my new students and my new professionals at the beginning of January. Here's to hoping 2013 will be another positive year of teaching.

Adults and Second Conditional

Getting back into the swing of my normal life after my stressful Monday afternoons is always nice. This morning I had a group of my professional students that started out as "true beginners" who are now well on their way to being pre-intermediate learners. Because we had already talked about the simple past, the future, and modal verbs for giving advice/making suggestions, I thought it would be a good idea to head into the conditionals. We talked about the first conditional a few weeks ago and last week we started the second conditional by having the students ask each other what they would do in a variety of student-generated ridiculous situations.

To bring it back around to professional themes today, I created an exercise where they would have to use both first and second conditional structures for giving each other advice (and refusing advice) to deal with troublesome office situations.

Here are the scenarios I put together this morning. We only made it through discussing three of them before time was already up! They gave each other good advice and did a good job using the first conditional to reply with a "yes but if I do that, then...will happen" reply.

Without further ado, a professionals-oriented mash-up of 1st and 2nd conditional tenses for ESL learners in the Western world:

1)     My boss is blackmailing my colleague.  What would you do?
(But if I do that, then he will … )

      2)  I’m working with a client who is completely racist. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

3) My client said he preferred to work with me “under the table”. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

 4) Two co-workers are having an affair. His wife is a friend of mine. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

 5) I suspect my deskmate is an alcoholic. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

6)   I discovered bad business practices at my company. I should have a promotion next month. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then will …)

7) I haven’t had a raise (an increase in my salary) in three years but I have a lot of new responsibilities. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then…)

 8) My colleague is late to work every morning. He should have a promotion next month. Maybe if I tell my boss, I will have the promotion instead. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then …)

 9)  My manager and I don’t get along. I love my job and my team but it is very difficult to work with him. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then …)

 10) I think my colleague is secretly working for the competition. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then…) 

Upper-intermediate/Advanced Talk Session

At my "real" job in the web world, I host Talk Sessions twice a week during lunch. The Tuesday group is my upper-intermediate/advanced level, and my Thursday group is my pre-intermediate/intermediate group. Both groups do similar exercises but at their own level which I think is particularly cool from a teacher's perspective because it cuts down on planning time. This is something that I always strive to do -- find one central topic that can be expanded or reduced depending on the level. It was the same strategy I used when teaching little kids and it adapted very nicely to adults.

A few weeks ago, I came across some silly riddles on the internet, sort of "Whodunnit?" kind of scenarios. The answers were always the most ridiculous yet obvious scenario imaginable, but before they found the answers/were given the answers, they spent a lot of time talking it out using language for putting forth an idea,  making a suggestion, agreeing and disagreeing, and dispelling each other's ideas based on the facts. I found it to be a constructive lesson because we were able to use a wide range of vocabulary and expressions and in the end everybody was laughing. As I've said before, laughter is a key element and because these are "talk" sessions, they are meant to be fun.

I found them online.. not sure who to credit because variations of them exist everywhere. I'll just make it clear that I didn't invent any of these scenarios, but I did very much enjoy using them.

Without further ado...

1. A man in a lift

A man lives on the tenth floor of a building. Every day he takes the elevator to go down to the

ground floor to go to work or to go shopping. When he returns he takes the elevator to the

seventh floor and walks up the stairs to reach his apartment on the tenth floor. He hates walking

so why does he do it?

02. A man walks into a bar

A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and

points it at the man. The man says thank you and leaves. Why?

03. Dead man in a field

A man is lying dead in a field. Next to him there is an unopened package. There aren’t any

animals in the field. How did he die?

04. Anthony and Cleopatra

Anthony and Cleopatra are lying dead on the floor of a villa in Egypt. Nearby is a broken

bowl. There is no mark on either of their bodies and they were not poisoned. How did they

die?

05. A carrot, some coal and a scarf

Five pieces of coal, a carrot and a scarf are lying on the lawn. Nobody put them on the

lawn but there is a perfectly logical reason why they are there. What is it?

06. Two sons

A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same

year. But they were not twins. How could this be possible?

07. A woman pushing a car

A woman was pushing her car. She stopped pushing when she reached a hotel and then

realized she was bankrupt. Why?

08. Heaven

A man died and went to Heaven. He saw thousands of people there all naked and young. He saw

a couple and he immediately recognized them as Adam and Eve. How did he know?

09. Friday

A man rode into town on Friday. He stayed for three nights and then left on Friday. Explain.

10. Manhole covers

Why is it better to have round manhole covers than square ones?

11. Sudden realization

A man was walking downstairs in a building when the lights went out. Suddenly he realised that

his wife had just died. How?

12. The blind beggar

A blind beggar had a brother who died. What relation was the blind beggar to the brother who

died? (Brother is not the answer).

13. Another dead body

The dead  body of a man was found in the middle of a burnt forest. He was wearing only

swimming trunks, a snorkel and diving mask. What had happened?

14. Mystery suicide

One stormy night, a person switches on the TV and watches the news. The person leaves the

room in a rush, runs up the stairs and turns on the light. Then the person commits suicide. Why?

Mad Gabs: Pronunciation and listening practice

Last Thursday I taught what must have been one of my most successful "talk sessions" ever. For my students, a talk session is where a large group (up to 15 people) of a similar level get together to do just that: talk. I facilitate the conversation, I interject questions when things start to go dry, or I orchestrate games or debates. This week with a group of upper-intermediate to advanced students, I decided to take the talk to a new level and concentrate on pronunciation.

There is a great board game that I remembered playing back in America called "Mad Gabs". Basically you have a card with what looks like nonsense written on it and you have to read it out loud until you figure out what you are saying. To take a really simple example, "Bri Tinys Pears" would be, as you probably guessed, "Britney Spears".

My objective was to force the students to stop depending on the written words in front of their face and to open their ears. I wanted to put everybody on an equal playing field by getting everybody just outside of their "comfort zone" rather than having one or two students with more confidence guessing all of the answers.

The way I set the game up was by having students read phrases off of a paper that were written how they sound and not how they should be spelled. Words ran into each other -- "aryagona getta kupa kofy" -- to get them thinking about where we put liasons in speech. Depending on where the native English speaker is from liasons can happen almost anywhere so this is tricky, but making students aware is the first step.

After everybody had read a phrase and was sufficiently relaxed/prepared, we started the game. I made it into an individual competition rather than a team or partners exercise by having each student read a phrase and the first person to guess it correctly was awarded the point. It took a lot of coaxing -- "you are doing great, repeat it again please" -- to get them into it, but by the end of the hour we were all laughing and they truly couldn't get enough of it. I have already decided that I will try this tomorrow with a slightly lower level of students to test how it will go, and that this will be a game my higher level students will play again in the future.

Here are the "warm up" phrases that I had the students read: 

Shwist Art Nao
Dywanna gedda koghy?
Eyve taleve
Ahye Gonaseim Biforee Gos?
Shizbin Promo Tidd
Shewiz Let
Didjego Winto Theofiz

And without further ado, the Mad Gabs printables that I found here: 

Isle of View

Easel Aid Ease Man

Eye Pillow Fizz Sigh

Of Lions Quarrel

Downed Rink Hand Arrive

Dew Wino Hue

Sea Can’t Higher Dove Fit

Ape Hand Hub Hair

Pretty Shack Scent

Dant Sir

Ail huck each arm

Brit Knees Peers

Black Beer Herd

Bon Knee Ankle Hide

By Chore Dung

Abe An An Appeal

Abe Autumn Lisp Hit

Abe Ax Tree Tally

Abe Hum Pen Thin Height

Ago Tidy Yeah

Ahems Hand Which

Ace Date Tough Gay Hoss

Ace Heck Hunch Ants

Ace Kits Offer in Hick

Ace Leap Lesson Height

Ace Lie Soap Eye

 Ace Nose Dorm

Ace Pea Ding Tea Kit

 Ache Hand He Eye Pull

Ache Hick Kin Tub Hut

Ache How Cue Later

Ache Leans Hurt

Ache Off Cores

Ache Up Puck Off He

Acre Hill Uh

 Age High Knees West Want

 Aged Who Woe

Agree Nap Hull

 Backed Ooze Queer Won

Bagged Who Thief Huge Her

Baldy Gull

Aid Are Crank Loud

Aid Arrive Her Slice Sins

Aid Hay Huff Ache Asian

Bee Way Rough Thud Hog

Bet Relate Thin Heifer

Aid Inn Hearse Owl Add

Aim Adder Rough Open Yen

Monk Ease

 Can Grew

Cause Mid Ticks Urge Jury

 Aim Hiker Owes Cope

Aim Honey Bag Care Runt He

Aim Other Ranch Howled

Aim Us Key To

Aim Who Vi


Stumped as to what they could be? Read them out loud as you'd have your students do until you find the answers! I'll post the answers next time so that you can test how you did.

This is only a selection of the phrases Wuzzles and Puzzles had available, so feel free to check out their site to get more. To make it more adapted to a particular group  you could even go as far as to make your own with key expressions and vocabulary words for their jobs/needs. I could have included something like "Gew Gull Anna Lit Tics" for my favorite web analyst, for example.


Thinking about giving it a try? Print off the list, cut them apart and let the games begin.
How do you practice pronunciation and listening with your students?

Pronunciation: Common Mistakes by French Speakers

The French are famous for their cheezy accent when speaking English. More times than I can count, students have come to me telling me that they want to work on their accents. The hardest phonetic sounds are R's, the "th", and vowels at the beginning of a word.

"R" is often pronounced like "Air" instead of a pirate's "Arrrrgh" or a tiger's "RrrrrRrrr". I know I must look absolutely ridiculous when I'm teaching but making a pirate scowl or a tiger growl usually gets people laughing, no matter their age.

The "TH" is just plain and simply ignored. I try to get my adults to put their tongues between their teeth when practicing this sound, but they just feel ridiculous. The more comfortable they are with you the more they'll dare to be embarrassed, but more likely than not, this is a sound I will be repeating for years and years to come -- until classroom teachers finally decide that they'll teach people how to say it correctly while they are still small, and not to say just a simple "T", a "Z" or a "D", as one poor primary school classroom teacher said.

Vowel sounds at the beginning of a word are tricky because a lot of people will put a mysterious, breathy "h", turning "ate" into "hate" and "apple" into "happle". I've observed this for long enough to have figured out that they just plain and simply don't hear it, which makes it hard to correct it.
So if they can't hear it, then what sense can you evoke to make them aware of the mistake they are making?

I have my students put their hand under their mouth and practice saying different words with breathy h's and non-breathy h's (think "horse" verses "hour") and then practice saying words that begin with pure vowels (apple, earth, orange, etc.).  When they feel their hot breath on their hands, they will realize what a breathy "h" feels like. Then, if they say "hate" instead of "ate", they will plain and simply feel their mistake. This requires practice and repetition, but it's a simple reminder just putting your hand as the teacher under your own mouth to remind them of breathy or non-breathy "h" sounds at the beginning of words.

What sounds have you mistakenly heard your students making and how did you go about fixing them?

Who Am I?

ESL by Amber -- but who is this Amber character?

In short : American. Mother. Sister. Daughter. Friend. Teacher. Coach. Trainer. Instructor. Translater  Interpreter. 26 years old. Lives in Roubaix, France.

When my fifth year of teaching came to and end and I still had the desire to be a teacher, I realized that in short, I had "made it". The first five years are the make-it-or-break-it years for teachers, especially when you live in a foreign country. Lots of people fall into this job because it's something they can do in their foreign country while they are learning the language or while they are in transition. I am not one of those people. Teaching was a deliberate choice for me, even more so teaching language.
I can proudly say that in my sixth year of teaching, I am a "young veteran" of ESL in France, and that after six years in this country, a year of which I have been teaching independently, I still love teaching, but I love pedagogy even more.

So I'm a teacher. But who do I teach?

I teach babies. I teach toddlers and little kids. I teach big kids. I teach adults that think they are big kids but behave like little kids. I teach the serious, the laid-back, the old souls and the young at heart. It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, smart or struggling... in short, I just teach.

I spent a year teaching primary school and a year teaching preschool. I spent four years teaching in a private business school parallel to teaching adults in companies. I've spent the last year specializing in English coaching and training for Web and IT professionals, from back/front end developers to designers, from SEO project managers to web analysts, from the big boss to the secretary -- I've taught them all. My clients at the moment are web agencies full of dynamic individuals who need to use English for their jobs... but that doesn't mean that's all. I go through life with my "teacher hat" on -- if people ask me questions, I answer them. If there's any opportunity to teach somebody something, I take it.

But how do I do it?

With a carefully planned schedule and an open heart and mind, that's how! More specifically though, I use the direct method. That means that my learners and I speak English, or the target language, 100% of the time that we are together from the first day of their classes to the last day, whether we are in the classroom or in front of the coffee machine. They learn through speaking, through making mistakes, and being corrected first by their peers, then by me. They learn through prompts which encourage them to speak on their level, about a variety of subjects that have meaning to the student. They speak within their learning zone by building on prior knowledge. We learn together by correcting eachother, asking questions, and motivating each other. 

For my students and I, confidence, trust and security are the key elements to creating a positive environment for fostering learning. 

Okay. Is that all?

No. I also teach teachers. I pride myself in my network of education professionals because just like our students, we can also learn from each other! I believe in sharing my experiences and explaining the difficulties I've come up against and how I managed. Most of all, I believe in learning from our mistakes, testing out new ideas and concepts, and encouragement, encouragement, encouragement.

The majority of the adults I work with come to me with excuses -- "sorry for my bad accent!" "Excuse me for my weak vocabulary!" "Oh, this would be easier in French!" -- afraid to make mistakes or be laughed at. In my lessons, we laugh with each other and we learn and grow together.

But what makes me different?

I like best practices. I like learning from the people I teach. I want to create a user-friendly, ergonomic method of education. I want to create social learning where different teachers share ideas and can adapt them to whatever audience they may have. I want to promote a method of learning that will encourage and foster open, positive communication.

So why the blog?

I'm doing this for two reasons:
1) Every year I meet new teachers. They always have the same issues -- classroom management, not enough direction, boring resources, difficult age levels, misunderstanding of cultural norms. If I can share and encourage others to share their experiences with these issues, then we can all be more efficient and reduce the time it takes to adapt to a new group and get the learning started faster.

2) Every year I see new (old) resources. The same books and the same lessons over... and over... and over. I haven't found a single textbook that is tailored to my students' needs. I make a lot of my own stuff and I'm sure other teachers do too. Why not share it, why not adapt it, and why not use it? After all, nobody ever said that they wanted to "get rich teaching". We can't make a fortune off of this stuff, so why not "get rich" in experience instead? How can we do that? Well, first of all... by sharing!

So that's why I'm here. I'm here to share, to exchange experiences, and to grow as a teacher, a learner, and a human being. I'm here to give, and maybe to take. To ask you questions, and to answer yours. I'm here to motivate you to find a passion for learning and teaching, and to hopefully contribute something to your life, no matter how small.

Happy learning, happy discovery, and most of all, happy teaching.

Amber