Maybe an interesting discussion topic - comparing the American man code to what's expected in other cultures. This list is extensive and some things are jokes and/or too dirty for most ESL classes but pick say 10 or 15 of them and I think you have a good start. Students can then compare the American rules with expectations in their culture.
You may exaggerate any anecdote told to your friends by 50% without recrimination, beyond that anyone within earshot is allowed to yell out "bullshit!". (exception: when trying to pick up a girl, the allowable exaggeration is 400%)
Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.
Before dating a buddy's ex you are required to ask his permission.
The minimum amount of time you have to wait for another man is 5 minutes. The maximum is 6 minutes. For a girl, you are required to wait 10 minutes for every point of hotness she scores on the classic 1-10 scale (divided by 2).
When using a urinal in a public restroom, a buffer zone of at least one urinal will exist at all times.
A man shall never help another man apply sun tan oil.
Friends don’t let friends wear speedos. Ever. Case closed.
No man shall ever watch any of the following programs on TV: Figure skating, Men's gymnastics
No man will ever willingly watch a movie in which the main theme is dancing, and if a man shall happen to view such a movie it is only acceptable if its with a girlfriend.
If you've known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is off limits forever! Unless you actually marry her.
When questioned by a friend's girlfriend, you need not and should not provide any information as to his whereabouts. You are even permitted to deny his very existence.
Here's a nice little engagement video I plan to show my conversation students so that they can compare Korean engagements with American ones. I understand that in Korea the diamond ring is not an essential part of the engagement (though it is becoming more common).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB47fee5TUI
This is a short, but great YouTube video for generating some discussion or setting up a roleplay based on cultural differences. These guys are Americans on a show called FightQuest. They go to foreign countries and learn a fighting style and then compete.
In this short clip they talk about wearing a speedo in France (as well as some weird fighting uniform that kind of looks like a wrestler's singlet) but even better is their discussion of how Korean guys are "touchy-feely". No doubt the Korean martial arts master who put his hand on the American's thigh or lap seemed a bit gay to the American men.
Public speaking tips:
The importance of short sentences:
Biden-Palin debate - voice and tone.
Public speaking advice - some funny, some serious (some slang).
Just an idea. Play this video and ask students to describe the action:
Vocabulary: pit bull, bumper, patrol car, cop car, police car, reverse, let go, pull, tear, rip, attack
Interesting article here arguing that the International Olympics Committee should "make sure that some of this money can go directly to the athletes."
In other words, athletes from the USA have an advantage thanks to a $25,000 cash prize for winning a gold. The argument is that other athletes have to go home and work real jobs while athletes from richer countries just train all day. The less training time an athlete has the less even the playing field.
And the $25k seems generous, but in Korea a gold medal winner gets about double that plus a monthly salary for life even if she stops representing her country:
In addition, her annuity score rises from 24 to 114, meaning that she receives a monthly annuity equivalent to one million Won ($862 USD). Kim has been receiving a monthly annuity equivalent to 300,000 Won with the 24 points she earned through one victory at the World Figure Skating Championships, where she earned 20 points, and two third-place finishes, which earned her two points each.
Also worth noting is that I have seen websites (starting from 2008) saying that the US does not reward Olympic medal winners. This could be bad information circulating the web or they may have been a change in 2008.
This question was posted on a message board I like for football fans so it is authentic in the sense that it was asked by an American to other Americans he felt some kind of bond with:
Let me preface this by saying this is not me. One of the younger folks today got fired due to their response to a Manager at the firm for which we provide their commercial advertising campaign work. Supposedly, one of the managers there made a remark to him that he did not care for and rather than report it back to me or another leader of our team, they directly answered the client back by stating that they will never be spoken to that way again and there was a curse word or two used. The client complained to our project leader about it and the employee was confronted. It is company policy to be professional at all times and if something is said or done that is not appreciated, to report it to management and it will be taken care of, which normally it is. Basically, the employee stated that thery didn't trust that we would do anything and thus, they took action on their own. They were terminated immediately for insubordination.Keep this in mind, from what I found out, what the client said was not harassing or illegal in nature, but it certainly was not nice, unprofessioanl and uncalled for. That being said, this firm does pay us a lot of money for our services and they are demanding. In the economy today, you definitely don't want to lose clients and thus, I figured our company was simply covering their asses as other bidders have inquired about the client. This person was a hard worker and produced good work and effort. So, I was not pleased that they were fired. I figured a warning or whatever would have been enough. Do you think my company went overboard? I know in the end, it's about protecting the company's pocket, but I'm not sure I like how our firm handled this one. And no, we're doing okay and were lucky to not have layoffs.
Lyrics:
Hey honey have you gained some weight in your rear-end?
That dress you wear reminds me of my old girlfriend
And where'd you get those shoes? I think they're pretty lame
Would you stop talking 'cause I'm trying to watch the game
If you're a man who wants to live a long and happy life
These are the things you don't say to your wife
I planned a hunting trip next week on your birthday
I didn't ask you 'cause I knew it'd be OK
Go make some dinner while I watch this fishing show
I taped it over our old wedding video
If you're a man who wants to live a long and happy life
These are the things you don't say to your wife
Your cooking is OK but not like mother makes
The diamond in the ring I bought you is a fake
Your eyes look puffy dear, are you feeling ill?
Happy anniversary I bought you a treadmill
If you're a man who wants to live a long and happy life
These are the things you don't say to your wife
If your a man who doesn't want to get killed with a knife
These are the things you don't say to your wife
Now how good of an example are these two? Good article here. What 2 styles are represented?
"They both sound conversational in totally different styles," Goman tells WebMD. "Palin's style says, 'I'm just like you.' Her colloquialisms, such as 'doggone-it,' were effective for that message." Biden's style, Goman says, sent a different message: "I'm knowledgeable and passionate. I'm not intimidating, but I'm vice presidential."The article goes on to evaluate speech pattern, tone of voice, posture, gesture (you don't see all the gestures in this shortened video of course), and facial expression. It's a crical view that talks about what they did well and what should have been better. Certainly things can be improved but this video shows that public speaking can be conversational and that each speaker can find his/her own style.
This scene contains lots of curses but the idea is for students to watch without sound. First they describe what's happening and then they create their own dialogue (3 characters = Chris the angry guy, Gino the guy who almost went in front of Chris, and the clerk).
This one might be usable but it does contain "eat shit"...
This is the same scene only longer. It contains "motherf*cker" which I am much less comfortable with in my classroom. I may do the longer scene with no sound and again have students explain what's going on and create a dialogue.
Here's the video that goes with this lesson: Raiders of the Lost Ark passive voice
They cut out the first few minutes and you miss the donkey being tied up and Indy whipping the gun out of the guy's hand. But if you haven't got the movie itself...
This is the middle 7 minutes from the season 3 episode, "The One Where No One's Ready". I use the phone conversation that starts at around 5:00 to about 6:50.
There's nothing wrong with playing from the beginning to give students more context. The whole episode is on Youtube divided into 3 parts. However much of the stuff won't actually help build context so you could just set the scene verbally.
Anyway the conversation is Monica talking to Michelle (after Monica calls Michelle and hangs up on her to check if Richard was seeing someone else - Monica had heard a message from a woman after beeping into Richard's answering machine and wanted to make sure it was his daughter Michelle rather than a new girlfriend. Then when she talks to Michelle, Michelle seems to be threatening to tell her father, Richard, Monica's ex, that Monica beeped into Richard's answering machine and listened to his messages.
Anyway, filling in the missing conversation bits is extremely tough, especially in the middle where Monica wanders off and students have to fill in both speakers' lines.
This is for advanced speakers.
In this article the author complains that the "Empowerment Experiment" - in which black Americans give all their business to other blacks - is being applauded while if whites decided to go only to white businesses they would be branded as racist.
The counter argument is that black Americans don't have the power to be racist in American society: "By definition, racism is the capacity/power to translate prejudice/bigotry into custom, policy or law. Black people have not had the predisposition or the power to oppress White people in this country. Hence the notion of "Black racism" is a contradiction in terms."
Possible discussion questions:
Is it acceptable for black Americans, white Americans, Korean Americans, or any other group to support "their kind"?
When minorities support minorities does this in some way "level the playing field"?
What would you call it if whites decided to "buy white" (give their business to other whites)?
Is black racism a contradiction?
The Sopranos scenes made for an interesting class. The scenes themselves were pretty surprising. Once I made it clear that I wanted students to be as detailed as possible in their descriptions and that the point was to stretch their vocbularies and use language like 'what do you call it when..." the language production was pretty good. I modeled descriptions of course.
Anyway here are a few more (not from the Sopranos though). The first is a wedding reception garter removal thing which doesn't happen in Korea and probably some other countries so it may interest your students.
The second is a drinking game, which will probably entertain college students. I always called it beer pong and never knew it had another name:
Just for fun, here's a Sopranos one:
Here's a link to Don't Cry by Guns n Roses.
Here's a link to some simple vocab matching and cloze exercises
Here's a link to an online vocab & cloze class.
One neat speaking activity is to have students design ads for whatever products they choose. I like to show some scenes from the movie Crazy People to get them in the mood to be creative and funny. I ask that they make their ads too honest, hopefully making them funny.
The first two are TV commercials:
These are the poster ads that students can design in class. The Jaguar one around 1:10 may be too extreme for some classes:
I'd use the Bare Naked Ladies' song, "If I Had a Million Dollars":
Sometimes Youtube disables music so make sure it's working before busting this out in class.
Most Youtube videos of this song have some improv when they talk about the tree fort and/or the Kraft dinner (macaroni & cheese as Americans like me say) so while you could use something like this, any lyrics you print out won't match that little part of the song:
This article on Shingate might be interesting for a debate or discussion class. Dongguk University is suing Yale for $50 million - they blame Yale for their hiring of a Korean professor who said she was a graduate but actually never studied there.
Yale did send Dongguk a fax saying that she had graduated there but I'm not sure what else Dongguk did or did not do. For example, in Korea schools often don't check references...
We should have some interesting culture-related discussions going on. Feel free to have your students join in.
1. Give students this and two minutes to decide in groups or pairs if the kid below is guily of plagiarism:
My kid's sentence:2. Inform students that this is clearly plagiarism and ask them to determine an appropriate punishment in their groups.
He intentionally heightened the implausibility when the characters contradict each other a myriad of times making it even harder to identify the difference between perception and realitySparkNotes:
He intentionally heightens this impossibility when his characters contradict themselves several times in the collection of stories, rendering the truth of any statement suspect.My kid claims he didnt plagiarize - what do you think?
3. Tell them about the true punishment in an American high school - the student got a zero for the entire 2.5 page paper even though that was the only offending sentence. Students need to know that this is standard in American high schools. Ask a few students to comment on this.
4. Tell students that in university the consequences for the same offense would be far more severe. Here are some actual quotes, advice people gave the kid's dad (I used copy and paste, so check the spelling before composing a handout for your students):
Talk to him and explain about citing information and how important it is. My friend got suspended for three semesters up at Dartmouth for not citing an idea. He's lucky he got caught now. The penalties are much worse in college.Teacher needs to discuss the last one. It came from a lawyer who actually suggested suing the school district! Tell students the argument won't work with you because you are teaching them right now: Plagiarize one sentence and you get a zero. Do it twice and fail the course (or whatever your rules are).This will teach him a great lesson and he's lucky he got caught early. My friend got caught plagarizing at UCLA and he got thrown out.
He is being done a favor, being taught what is plagerism early on. That he denies it is plagarism is troubling. You need to have a serious talk with him that what he did is completely unacceptable, even if he got away with it many times in the past. Once he gets to college, the consequences will be much more severe.
He should be made to understand that changing a few words doesn't make the sentence his own.
Your son plagiarized. I hope this doesn't affect his college admissions. He really has no other choice but to admit it and try to make amends with the teacher. Hopefully colleges don't need to hear about this offense.
The only argument I can see that might save your son, is that this teacher failed to properly instruct the class what constitutes plagiarism. Your son was left to fend for himself,did the best he could with such limited instruction and the school should consider reprimanding this delinquent teacher.
So at a meeting today, a teacher who was trained at SIT mentioned a very cool way to check comprehension. Have students check comprehension in pairs. This is a great way to make the class less teacher led for a minute and in a teacher training program like SMU-TESOL students get practice asking comprehension check questions which is extra useful for them.
It occured to me that the 2006 summer vacation plan travel writing contest is perfect for giving students a writing task with an authentic context.
They have an audience: entries get published on www.travel-plan-idea.com which gets thousands of visitors daily.
They have something to write about: even if they haven't traveled, they can come up with a vacation plan for their own country.
They have a reason to write: 1,000 dollars in prizes from 500.00 for first place, to 250 for second, to 150 for third, to 50.00 each for the two honorable mentions.
They have a meaning focus: The contest entries are evaluated on content, not grammar.
1. The vacation plan includes a daily itinerary: 0-10 points6. They have models: other contest entries can be found on the 2006 Summer vacation plan page.
2. The vacation plan discusses possible accommodations: 0-10 points
3. The vacation itinerary includes detailed information on activities (e.g. the attractions of a museum, the best hiking trail, the best restaurants, must see architecture, etc.): 0-20 points
4. The vacation itinerary estimates the cost of activities (e.g. museum admission price, cost for dinner in a recommended restaurant, etc.): 1-5 points
5. The vacation itinerary generated discussion on www.travel-plan-idea.com (readers left comments regarding the vacation plan): 1-5 points
Now the deadline is May 17, but if you or your students want to submit vacation plans (each person can submit more than one), I'll be looking forward to reading them and sharing them with travelers.
I've prepared a reading for my students on soccer and football and their roles in American culture. The focus is football's popularity thanks to being "macho" and soccer's image as a "girl's sport".
For American football I'm using excerpts from this article written by a professional football player recalling football and Thanksgiving from his childhood. (http://www.nfl.com/features/thanksgiving/jim_kelly)
For soccer I'm using excerpts from an article from a British guy that focuses too much on World politics for my purposes. I've taken the ecerpts that stick to my desired focus on sports culture. (http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20020602)
A couple more intercultural communication roleplays, these btween a Korean and an American in a business context. However the roleplays are appropriate outside of business English clases as I mself used them with my college students:
Eating in Korea
Personal questions
I just thought I'd share a worksheet I'm doing with my students tomorrow. It asks them to examine some common English expressions for the cultural values they reflect and then compare those cultural values to Korea.
A useful way to understand a culture is by examining the expressions people use in everyday conversation. These common expressions, after all, reflect what most people in a given society believe in or value. With your partner, discuss what these expressions suggest about American culture. From peacecorps.gov/wws/culturematters/ch2/thethingswesay.html
Example:
He thinks he's better than so and so.
She's always putting on airs.
That person should be cut down to size.
It's gone to his head.
Value/belief:______Egalitarianism
1. Talk is cheap.
2. Put your money where your mouth is.
3. He's all talk and no action.
Value/belief:
4. She's always beating around the bush.
5. Tell it like it is.
6. Straight talk, straight answer, straight shooter: that's what we need.
Value/belief:
7. She did something with her life.
8. Nice guys finish last.
Value/belief:
9. Every cloud has a silver lining.
10. Look on the bright side.
11. Tomorrow is another day.
Value/belief:
12. Where there's a will there's a way.
Value/belief:
13. Stand on your own two feet.
Value/belief:
14. Don't judge a book by its cover.
15. All that glitters isn't gold.
Value/belief:
16. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Value/belief:
After checking your answers with the class, would you say that the same values/beliefs are highly valued in Korean culture? Support your answers with examples from Korean culture (for example, Korean expressions – use Korean and translate into English). Your comparison/contrast of these values/beliefs will be submitted for a grade.
1-3: Americans value action and doing over talking, especially if it's talking instead of action.
4-6: Directness
7-8: Emphasis on accomplishment, achieving things, in addition to being a good person.
9-11: Optimism.
12: Self determination.
13: Self-reliance, independence.
14-15: Don't judge or be fooled by appearances; look beneath the surface.
16: Risk-taking, experimentation.
I'm going to share an email I recently received and my attempt to answer it. I have referred the questioner to this web page, so if you have some additional advice to offer just leave a comment below. The recent email I received:
hey I happen to come across your site, and I had some questions of my own. My parents have just adopted a sister for me and I want to teach her English. I just finished freshmen class and I really don't know how to teach her English I guess I am not the teaching type . I need some quick lessons that she would understand. I take about two hour out of my time to teach her, she is a real fast learner and a great student but I guess I am a tutor. so please reply and if you can make up some easy lessons for me. Thanks!I don't teach one on one so I don't have any lessons for you, but I am positive that you can find worksheets and discussion topics online. I would ahve your sister do worksheets on her own time and then give them to you for feedback (not traditional corrections like right and wrong necessarily but a discussion of why each answer was chosen and if there's a choice that would occur more naturally to a native speaker) and handle discussion topics in your two hour class sessions. During the discussion you would try to help your sister express herself by offering to teach her useful vocabulary and grammatical structures (useful being what she needs to convey her message). And good luck!
I found an interesting paragraph organization information sheet, but everything was explained to the students. I prefer my students learn more activley so I took the answers away and made it more suitable for my Elementary English Composition class. Students will work in pairs to identify problems in paragraphs:
Paragraph organization worksheet adapted by James Trotta from http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/paragraphs.htm
Most paragraphs start with a controlling idea or claim, which it then explains, develops, or supports with evidence. Paragraph sprawl occurs when digressions are introduced into an otherwise focused and unified discussion. Digressions and deviations often come in the form of irrelevant details or shifts in focus.
Identify the controlling idea of this paragraph and then find 2 irrelevant details.
When I was growing up, one of the places I enjoyed most was the cherry tree in the back yard. Behind the yard was an alley and then more houses. Every summer when the cherries began to ripen, I used to spend hours high in the tree, picking and eating the sweet, sun-warmed cherries. My mother always worried about my falling out of the tree, but I never did. But I had some competition for the cherries — flocks of birds that enjoyed them as much as I did and would perch all over the tree, devouring the fruit whenever I wasn't there. I used to wonder why the grown-ups never ate any of the cherries; but actually when the birds and I had finished, there weren't many left.
Topic Sentences
All three paragraphs start out well with a topic sentence. A topic sentence is a sentence whose main idea or claim controls the rest of the paragraph; the body of a paragraph explains, develops or supports with evidence the topic sentence's main idea or claim. The topic sentence is usually the first sentence of a paragraph, but not necessarily. It may come, for example, after a transition sentence.
Topic sentences are not the only way to organize a paragraph, and not all paragraphs need a topic sentence. For example, paragraphs that describe, narrate, or detail the steps in an experiment do not usually need topic sentences. Topic sentences are useful, however, in paragraphs that analyze and argue. Topic sentences help writers develop a main idea or claim for their paragraphs, and, perhaps most importantly, they help these writers stay focused and keep paragraphs manageable.
Identify the topic of this paragraph and then find 2 shifts in focus.
1It is a fact that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime. 2Statistics show that in states with capital punishment, murder rates are the same or almost the same as in states without capital punishment. 3It is also true that it is more expensive to put a person on death row than in life imprisonment because of the costs of maximum security. 4Unfortunately, capital punishment has been used unjustly. 5Statistics show that every execution is of a man and that nine out of ten are black. 6So prejudice shows right through.
Is the following paragraph better or worse? Why? Compare each sentence 1, each sentence 2, etc.
1The punishment of criminals has always been a problem for society. 2Citizens have had to decide whether offenders such as first-degree murderers should be killed in a gas chamber, imprisoned for life, or rehabilitated and given a second chance in society. 3Many citizens argue that serious criminals should be executed. 4They believe that killing criminals will set an example for others and also rid society of a cumbersome burden. 5Other citizens say that no one has the right to take a life and that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime. 6They believe that society as well as the criminal is responsible for the crimes and that killing the criminal does not solve the problems of either society or the criminal.
These are some web pages with info that will be useful for my American History students - those of you teaching other academic content-based courses may also find help:
Top ten ways to listen to boring lectures
Taking notes in history class
Why study history?
Studying history
The proper attitude for studying history
History of women in America
Courtship in colonial America
Sponsored by Free Classifieds, a good place to advertise stuff you want to sell.
This might not be a good news article for in class discussion, but it's so crazy I had to share: Girls sued for delivering cookies starts like this:
Cookie Delivery Sparks $900 Medical BillAnother article about the cookie incident, this one with a picture, starts like this:DURANGO, Colo. (AP) - Two teenage girls who surprised their neighbors with homemade cookies late one night were ordered to pay nearly $900 in medical bills for a woman who says she was so startled that she had to go to the hospital.
Two teenage girls decided one summer's evening to skip a dance where there might be cursing and drinking to stay home and bake cookies for their neighbors.Big mistake.
They were sued, successfully, for an unauthorized cookie drop on one porch.
It's hard to get students to use speech acts correctly but this is one of the main topics in my upcoming speech "Teaching world standard English: sociocultural considerations".
I found an interesting lesson idea on teaching students to give compliments at http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~eli/teachers/activities/tesl2/cs/ethno/complimenting.htm and a more in depth lesson plan at http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/pragmatics/ishihara.htm. The last one is one chapter of a brilliant online resource for teaching pragmatics: http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/pragmatics.htm.
http://www.wordsurfing.co.uk/123547/index.html has some inofrmation on vocabulary assessment and development. Teachers can download materials to use with their students or students can go to a testing center in Budapest.
Speaking of vocabulary assessment and development, my English vocabulary message board has had a few more successes since the last time I wrote about message board instructions. Here's a thread started by one of my students for extra credit about the word obstacle's meaning & use. And then here's a thread started by another student for homework: match - meanings & uses.
A colleague of mine and I are going to prepare some instructions on how to get the most out of your students' posts but in the meantime, feel free to send your students to the site and tell me about any problems/successes.
The final week of class I helped students develop comparison contrast essays. They were highly motivated because this essay was their final exam grade or 25% of their grade for the course. They showed me their writing, and I told them the parts I thought they could improve. They went and improved it and showed me again. I said OK or made more suggestions. By the end of the final day of class, I had given out all perfect scores, even though one essay wasn't quite where I thought it needed to be (it had been written by a student who had proabbly been placed a level too high and who really struggled to keep up). I was happy to see all those essays written just the way I like them and students were happy too (maybe more about their grades and the end of the course but I think they were happy about their essays too).
Online florist deliveries: Online florist discount pricing with nationwide flower delivery.
In Interactions 2, chapter 4 the writing task is to write a personal anecdote. Students begin by exchanging stories about experiences that taught them some sort of lesson, then read an example, then look at how to decide which details are worth including, and finally get to work on their own anecdotes. Of course, writing an anecdote for me isn't very inspiring when students could just tell me in person...
I sent students to ESL go.com's "say hi" forum to read some messages and find pen pals in other countries. Each student took a few minutes to read the introductions and find someone interesting. Now they have a more inspiring audience - an interesting person in another country - for their anecdotes.
The theory is at the beginning. The lesson idea is at the end.
Nishida (1999) cites Gudykunst who stated that:
Effective (intercultural) communication is moderated by our ability to mindfully manage our anxiety and reduce our uncertainty about ourselves and the people with whom we are communicating. (1993, p.38).
(a) Interactants in intercultural communication may not share the PSI schemas of each other's cultures;
(b) uncertainty and anxiety may be the resultant psychological states when strangers (both sojourners and immigrants) do not have appropriate schemas of the host culture; and
(c) information-seeking behavior of strangers is not limited to gaining data about the other interactant, but can be found in the situations where they try to acquire the PSI schemas of the host culture... (p.769).
Another movie involving Japan is Japanese Story about an Australian geologist and a Japanese business person; their cultural misunderstandings impede romance for a time but are overcome (at least until it is revealed that the business person is married). Books and articles are an even richer source of information. "Conversational Ball Games" in Select Readings is a chapter about cultural issues involved in participating in conversation and my students always find discussing differences between Eastern and Western style conversations interesting.
A relevant web site is www2.andrews.edu/~tidwell/pubs/culture.htm which includes an intersting story:
An American friend of mine lived for many years in the Philippines before moving to Japan. When he returned to the Philippines for a visit, a close friend remarked that he had become cold and unfriendly. Why? When he greeted his Filipino friends, he briefly bowed and then shook hands, in keeping with the customs of Japan. But they expected him to embrace them and chat with his arm around their shoulders, as was customary in their culture. Since he didn't, he was labeled as unfriendly!
In conclusion, by showing learners how cultural misunderstandings arise and how they can be dealt with, teachers prepare students to use English as an international language.
Kim, J. (2002). Teaching Culture in the English as a Foreign Language Classroom. The Korea TESOL Journal (5) 1. 27-39.
Nishida, H. (1999). A cognitive approach to intercultural communication based on schema theory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 23 (5), 753-777.
A friend who sometimes comments here at ESL-blog gave me an idea a few years back: cut out a bunch of faces from magazines and use them in class. Students are divided into teams. I always use two teams, but there could be more. Each team gets one face and writes a description of it. Then all the faces go in one pile (I have about 15 white men that I use), the team reads its description; the other decides which face is being described.
I've done it a bunch of times; it always works well. I've done it with high beginners, intermediate students, upper intermediate students. It seems like there's always more "face vocabulary" to learn, no matter what level students are. And students are just about always successful determining which face is being described. Maybe it takes them two guesses, but no one goes home discouraged. With an advanced class I followed with the same activity using apples instead of faces. Students thought it would be too hard but they got it (there were 5 apples I think).
I recently found two listening activities that work well with it. They can be used as a warmer for the activitiy, or the activitty could be a warmer for the two listenings. I tried it both ways and they both worked. The one thing I didn't try was one listening before and one after. Next time. Anyway, the listenings are 49-50 (photocopy the faces on 50) and 55 (photocopy the faces) of Teaching Listening Comprehension by Penny Ur.
I've recently used chapters from two books to get my EAP students (I'm teaching content-based EAP classes: American History and Sociocultural traditions; Sociology of American Cities) talking about differences between academics in Korea and America. America because my university sends exchange students to America, but not other English speaking countries. And because I'm American and know about academics in America.
I use is "Conversational Ball Games" from Lee and Gunderson (2001). This article talks about the author's experience with Japanese conversational styles and how they differ drastically from Western styles.
I always ask the question about Korean conversational styles, and I always get different answers. It seems that younger students use Western styles more while older students come closer to Japanese style conversations.
At least, that's what they say. Before doing this article, I notice that students are very conscious of whose turn it is to speak, and that they take pretty long turns. We talk about how turns in English are usually quite short and that anyone can take a turn at any time (as long as they have something to say).
Another one of the things I'm focusing on is the ability to listen to lectures and take effective notes. To get students thinking about lectures in American colleges and how they differ from lectures in Korea, I put together a handout based on chapter 4 of Lewis and Reinders (2003).
It talks about what professors think the point of giving lecture is. We discuss in class differences and similarities in lecturing styles and aims. There's also practical advice about how lectures are organized and that sort of thing.
Both of these chapters are ways to broach cultural differences and how they affect language use. I've been reading a ton of stuff about sociolinguistics for my masters, and they say how cultural differences are so important. What I haven't found much of is practical advice for teachers to introduce students to cultural differences that affect language use.
Certainly this would be easier with homogenous class with a teacher who knows the students' culture pretty well, but instead of talking so much about the importance of socilinguistic competence, why don't sociolinguists spend more time researching how to develop this competence?
Lee, L. & Gundersen, E. (2001) Select Readings: Intermediate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, M. & Reinders, H. (2003). Study Skills for Speakers of English as a Second Language. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Last time I wrote about the listening from p.83 of Penny Ur's book (the one about the weather).
I thought I had put together a clever lesson about the weather, and I thought that weather forecast listening was pretty clever. So I tried it again with a slightly more advanced class. The vocabulary part went well again. The listening bombed again. I thought it would be fun, but I have two classes full of students who say it's a bad activity. I guess I won't be using that one anymore.
I got to thinking about why I was doing it anyway. First I had them listening to weather conditions. That's a real-life task and students didn't mind doing it. Then I read the incorrect version the book suggested and had students listen for the differences. As far as I know, Penny Ur and I are the only two people who like that activity (at least I guess she likes it; she put it in her book).
One of the problems with the task is that it has no real life equivalent. I was doing it with my students for fun, not because they needed that kind of listening practice. When it wasn't fun, it still didn't give them the type of practice they needed. It was a waste of time.
I began teaching a new class this semester, an EAP content-based class called "Sociology of American Cities". Instead of a formal needs analysis, I asked these questions (it's only an 8 student class so we just made a circle and discussed the answers to my questions). Here are the questions. I hope they help you because I felt that things went very well. We got to know each other and break the ice a bit and I got my needs analysis. And in case you were wondering we all introduced ourselves before we did the questions.
Sociology
How much do you know about sociology? How many sociology courses have you taken? Have you studied urban sociology?
Have you been to America? Have you been to any American cities? What cities have you been to (in Korea and abroad)? What do you like and dislike about the cities you've been to?
What are some differences between rural life and city life? Which aspects of each do you like?
Academic English
Look at the goals on the syllabus and rate them in order of importance (1-8).
The midterm and final projects will be a presentation and an essay; what do you know about academic writing and making speeches? What do you need to know?
This course is based on learning English through studying the sociology of American cities; why do you want to learn English (be specific- for work, travel, the TOEFL, make friends, etc.)?
Considering why you want to learn English what do you want to study most? (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation - speaking, listening, reading, writing).
Naturally, this course will present a lot of academic English like listening to lectures and reading academic papers. Have you listened to English lectures before? Have you read English papers before? How do you take notes? How do you make sure you understand the content? How do you help yourself understand the English?
This course will be conducted entirely in English. Does this make you nervous? How can you avoid speaking Korean in class?
Do you know each other? Are you comfortable speaking to each other in English? Are you comfortable speaking to me in English? What can we do to make speaking in English more comfortable?
A Christmas board game: http://www.onestopenglish.com/News/Magazine/Vocab/worksheets/xmas_speaking_b.pdf and lesson plan: http://www.onestopenglish.com/News/Magazine/Vocab/worksheets/xmas_speaking.pdf
Some Christmas discussion questions: http://www.eslgo.com/resources/sa/discussion/christmas.html
Printable Christmas vocabulary worksheet: http://www.englishpage.com/holidays/christmasprintable.html