Lesson Download: Terry Fox, Canadian Hero

The road at the bottom of our street has had the signs posted for days: SPECIAL EVENT.

The Terry Fox Run has been a part of my life since the early 80's, running in school runs and then, joining my sons in theirs. Stretching and warming up on the basketball courts at the front of the school—the principal shouting through a microphone that nobody could hear while the kids shook out their sillies and challenged each other to 100 laps. To me, hands down, Terry is the Great Canadian Hero, not least because he continues to inspire and motivate generation after generation of young Canadians.

I almost fell off my chair one spring when a class of Chinese students from the Maple Leaf school network in China out-fact-ed me on Terry Fox. Guess what: these kids have been running for Terry too. For years. For Terry. (For Cancer). In China.

Because the Maple Leaf schools use British Columbia's curriculum (a unique and special partnership), these middle and high school students not only knew about Terry, but deeply respected him. We had some fun that week! To you, Terry. Thank you.

An oldie-but-goodie blog post about Terry can be found here: Fiona's Other Blog and the ESL lesson I developed for that class can be downloaded here:



(Even if you aren't teaching ESL, it's a great blended-learning lesson that incorporates some very moving listenings from CBC and a YouTube video that will have you reaching for your tissue.)

Out of Office Reply

This month marks the four-year anniversary since I stepped foot in an ESL classroom. One day I was a teacher and then. Well, then I wasn't.

I felt sick one Friday afternoon.

So. There I was, not a teacher, but a patient. A scared, medically-illiterate newcomer patient who no one had time to teach. There was no time.

And then I was a recovering patient, in isolation at home for weeks and months, starting to walk again, trying to digest what I'd been through. Angry for what I had and had almost lost. Grateful for my life but mostly angry. Angry because the doctors had failed in their duty. Angry because the life I had known was altered forever. But mine isn't a story of loss or anger. Nor is it a story of new beginnings. It is a story of starting something fresh and different from a familiar foundation—seeing and doing from a new perspective.

When the anger fog cleared and my strength improved, I still wanted to teach, but, more than anything: I wanted to unite my students with their community. The missing link for me as an adult educator in a domestic ESL environment was that the wealth of cultural and global knowledge my students possessed and shared was locked behind the classroom door at the end of day. My students had so much to give to the community and no one was listening—or took the time to listen.

The safe, inspiring, creative space we had built together allowed so much. Confidence. Language acquisition. Skill development. Cross-cultural awareness (if you've never seen a true example of multicultural diplomacy and negotiation, just watch a group of students from 6 different countries/cultures/language groups complete a project together). I've said it before: the ESL classroom is the shiny pearl of the Great Canadian Multiculturalism Project. It is no accident.

But the Project isn't complete and that inspiring space lacking if it doesn't touch the wider community. As I write this, I think: I'm an evangelist. And that's o.k. You see, when the fog cleared, I decided to bring the stories of these gifted, brave, multi-faceted, skilled, educated "ESL students" to the community. I decided to help them speak and write their knowledge and experiences (in English, of course—I'm an ESL instructor for goodness sake!). I decided to take everything I knew and the incredibly massive amount of things I didn't know—graphic design, publishing, marketing, public relations...the list goes on—and create a new space beyond the classroom door. A space where newcomers and immigrants can say: Hey! I'm here, and this is my story, my background, my culture, my knowledge. And a space where those more established in Canada can say: Welcome! Let me tell you a bit about me, what I know, and about our community.

That awesome space is HERE! MAGAZINE* and I'm proud to say that not only has my classroom door burst wide open, but the students are leading the lesson. Just as it should be.

*launched in 2013 from the impossibly beautiful city of Victoria B.C., Canada

TOP 3 Lessons on the Blog

Everyone is doing the lists these days! There's even a name for them: LISTICLES!! Seriously. Article + List = Listicle. (For a very funny article about listicles, read this: The 3 Key Types of BuzzFeed Lists To Learn Before You Die) 

Eslenglish-fiona.blogspot.ca and @eslenglish have even been nominated for a list! Bab.la's TOP 100 Language Lovers and TOP 100 Language Twitterers (or something like that). Thank you Bab.la! I will post the voting link when it is available, so you can show me some love.

In the meantime, I've done some digging on my very own blog to create my own list: TOP 3 Lessons on the Blog. These are the three lessons most often viewed and/or downloaded BY YOU, in order of awesome (click to view or download):

#1: To regret or not to regret? 

#2: All About My Family Doctor

#3: At The Gym

Special Mention:

Most Popular New Category: Serious Girl Talk

Not sure what this list might tell us about the state of ESL but glad you're enjoying the lessons! Love to hear how it's going in your classroom—please leave a comment! Off to read more fascinating listicles, like maybe "40 Things That Will Make You Feel Old" or "25 Most Awkward Cat Sleeping Positions"....

Seriously. 

Lesson Download: Advanced Grammar with Definite and Indefinite Articles

Flashback to 2007! One of the first lessons I've created—hard to believe it was eight years ago. How much has changed in the classroom and in the world since then!

The format might be a bit dated, but grammar never goes out of style...Or does it?! A great review of articles to get your students' brains firing first thing. Most of the content is geared for higher levels but some of the speaking activities could be adapted for lower levels. As always, I would love to hear how the lesson worked for you and your learners!

Lesson Download: Sewing and Patterns 101

Designer entrepreneur Meaghan Smith is an amazingly talented woman! I was tickled pink when she agreed to be a word mentor and help me build a lesson introducing the basics of sewing and patterns. An audio interview with Meaghan is also embedded in the QR code and is well worth a listen (thanks to my hubby over at 29erradio.com!).

click on image or here for pdf download with answers!

Lesson Download: Families and Communication

I love this lesson not just because my beautiful mother is the hard-working family mediator introduced below but because it is a good reminder for all of us, English-language learners or otherwise, of the many definitions of "family" and the importance of word choice in fostering good communication and positive relationships. Thanks, Mom!

click here or on the image to view, download, or print the lesson (with answers)

families and communication

Lesson Download: Understanding Slang...?

Yes, another lazy lesson post...but a fun, lazy lesson post AND one with great QR audio built in—ready for scanning or clicking! This particular content makes me feel very old but grateful to have young folk around to tell me what's up. Totes rad!

Click on image or here for pdf download with answers!

p.s. this is from Here! Magazine's amazing Summer 2014 Issue, full of all things language, education and culture. PLUS almost every feature and column includes authentic QR audio to supplement the content. Great for listening and reading practice. Teachers: just pop it up on your classroom screen and let your students click or scan with their own devices! Learners: use your phone or tablet to listen along!  Full digital issue here.  

Lesson Download: At The Gym

You will probably be unsurprised to hear that launching a new magazine takes up a great deal of TIME. Loads and loads of time. Issue #2 - www.heremagazine.ca -  is winging its way all over Victoria B.C. Canada as I type this. Hurrah for the Here! team. The community feedback has been incredible!

So...please forgive me as I substitute a new blog post with a second Here! Magazine language lesson, created with personal trainer and word mentor, Sharon Jacobson. Images for Pinterest and viewing, link is to pdf download for personal or classroom use. Enjoy!  (p.s. check out the QR code for direct audio clip - sooooooooo cool.)

AT THE GYM - a beginner's workout

Click here for link to pdf download

Pronunciation and prejudice

The class was dynamic: the students young, engaged, goofy, courageous. They were Chinese high school students with excellent vocabularies and confidence to spare. I took to them instantly. Perhaps it was mutual.

I gave them fun tasks and then some challenging projects and they surpassed my expectations every time. But. 

The students often complained that nobody in the shops or restaurants, on the streets, or on campus understood them and their often simple requests. You see, outside of the classroom and beyond my protective #ELT net, my students' English accomplishments fell on deaf ears. Or, to re-phrase, their words fell on ears unaccustomed to their accents and, seemingly, reluctant to stretch a lobe familiar boundaries. For the untrained and impatient listener, these students were very difficult to understand. On the surface, it might even seem and feel like prejudice, much like when my mother-in-law pretends not to understand someone helping her out from a call centre halfway around the world. 

But let's face it. Pronunciation prejudice goes both ways and might be summed up thus:

1) Native listeners and speakers who can't be bothered to negotiate misplaced stress, an off-vowel, or a fumbled consonant cluster

and

2) English language learners who may have mastered the syntax, vocabulary, grammar, and meaning of an utterance but don't take honing their pronunciation seriously

Of course, when discussing "intelligibility", it is more complicated than that and ongoing research has resulted in a multitude of explanations, none of them mutually exclusive. 

I remember in my early teaching days, repeating to my students a theory I half-remembered from a lecture that suggested "stress misplacement" was the most significant cause of misunderstanding, or lack of intelligibility, between speaker and listener.  I hadn't ever bothered to source my assertions but I certainly had vats of empirical evidence in my own classroom and in my own life. However casually I tossed this theory out to my students, it seemed to make them seriously consider and invest in the pronunciation component of their language learning. Thanks to Dr. Google McLinguist, I have no trouble these days finding support for my then-flimsy pedagogy.

An example:

"some accounts of speech processing raise the possibility that the stressed syllable of a word provides the listener with a code that links directly to the representation of the word in the mind"

and in this paper's conclusions: 

"the consequences of misinterpreting even a small

number of content words can be extremely damaging to global understanding"

full paper here

In other words, what I had been saying to my students all along: "They don't understand you, despite your good grammar and natural vocabulary, because it's not how they expect to hear you say it".  The listener is already programmed. ESL teachers, on the other hand, have a certain listening flexibility after years of negotiating intelligibility and meaning with non-native speakers of various backgrounds.

I am obviously far from an expert in this field but the crux of it is this: we can't train all the listeners.  All the perfect grammar and stellar vocabulary in the world may just fall on deaf ears if we don't include or even emphasize pronunciation teaching and practice. With globalization, pronunciation teaching has become a bit of minefield of accents, dialects, and political correctness. Educators wonder what to teach and what to correct or accept. As with any other aspect of language learning, it is a delicate balance and an environment in which ultimately, the educator can only share his or her own experience and knowledge.

In the end, we want our students to be confident, to be successful, and to be heard. After all their hard work, that's the least we can give them. 

p.s. speaking of experts, the talented and brilliant Dr. Bill Acton of Trinity Western University has created an intuitive, effective haptic pronunciation program called, yup, "Acton Haptic". If you're like me and so-so at pronunciation teaching and not sure where to start, this all-inclusive video-based program does it all. Press play and you and your students learn together. Test run Acton Haptic here and read about Dr. Acton's research here.

All about my friends

So it's that day again. It's the Anti-White Day. Or the who-the-heck-is-Sadie-Hawkins Day. It's HEART day or pink-&-red-shirt day. It's I-wish-he-would-call-me-day or let's-go-have-fun-regardless day. Ok, it's also the day my husband proposed to me on an impromptu night away, rustling through his bag for a hidden ruby & diamond ring before asking me to never leave his side.  He confessed later: "I didn't want it to be on such a predictable day but it just seemed right". There was nothing predictable about his proposal and there hasn't been much predictable since.

Whatever love is in your life this St. Valentine's Day, 2013, there is always the love of our friends, be they our BFFs or partners-in-life. Or if we're lucky, both. Here's a Valentine lesson discussing and celebrating the many types of friendship. All from my words for women & girls, Serious Girl Talk Series. I know, totally awesome. You're welcome. Oh wait, and I stuck some of it on Pinterest too. Don't say I don't love you.

For ESL, intermediate +, reading, writing, grammar, speaking, pronunciation. Great quotations & stimulating discussion. My Valentine to you - hard-working teachers & learners.
 
And here's the issuu version for you ipadders:

An Insue by any other name

An ESL student phenomenon that has never ceased to surprise, dismay, and sometimes amuse me over the years is the student acquisition of the "English Name". 

It probably has its roots in the early communicative and the "when-you-walk-through-this-door-your-every-thought-breath-utterance-will-be-English" approaches, 

but sometimes it smacks of colonialism or something Saidian & "other"-associated. Whatever its beginnings, on some level, for better or for worse, it irks me. 

My class roster is a naturally changeable beast, typically from semester to semester and program to program, but also with the ebb and flow of immigration waves. When I first starting teaching more than 15 years ago, 90% of my adult ESL students were Japanese; now, in my western Canadian classroom, Saudi and Chinese students battle for top billing. I am, of course, thrilled to engage with any culture or language group. However, perhaps not every language group would say the same for me. 

Full disclosure: I S-U-C-K at pronouncing some of my students' names. My Chinese pronunciation in particular is shockingly mutilative. (hundreds of my former students are furiously nodding their heads up and down right now)

In the early days, I never questioned the Kings, Dragons, Roses, Jets, Felicias, Chastitys, Moons, or Suns but over the last few years I've made a point of trying to get to the origins of "the English name". Sometimes I'm told that their English teacher back home "assigned" it, or that it sounds like their 'real' name, or that it's their Christian name, 

(totally get it, Sister Rosa; one half of my Korean nun-pair one fabulous year. p.s. was sweating that dating & marriage unit until you told me you'd tried marijuana.)

or that they just wanted to switch it up in a new country. Sometimes it's obvious why when they cringe as I audibly butcher their names during the first roll call. 

But let me say this: your 'real' name is YOU! I want to know that you and what that name means in your language and what it meant to your parents and what you like or don't like about it. I want you to teach me and your classmates how to say it properly. 

I hate when a classmate of yours quietly asks me your name 8 weeks into the semester when I'm partnering you together for an activity. 

I want to hear your name in our classroom because I believe it makes you heard and seen in this new place and this new language in which you have so bravely chosen to learn, love, and succeed. 

So, my fellow educators and learners, let's make sure we build our classroom community from the ground up, starting with learning each other's names inside and out. Name collages? Name games? Red rover, red rover, I call Zhi Qiang over? Love to hear what you do to celebrate names in the classroom.

This is dedicated to Insue and to Jesse (which sounds nothing like Dae Kyeong, does it?)

Good name-changing advice from 'Philip "do-not-be-creative" Guo': How to choose an English name

Aw, hell, pick a random name with BarryfunEnglish: English Name Maker

Or ask yourself those deep name-changing questions @ English Gateway: What's In A Name?

Pin to Learn - Learn to Pin

It's true. I joined Pinterest about a month ago. I don't know why exactly. I don't bake and, while I like traveling and shopping, I don't seem to actually get to do either very often. But something about Pinterest seems like a natural fit for education and educational materials and well, I do both of those quite often. I have my "pin it" on my toolbar and am tickled when a cool infographic or resource crosses my web-path and *poof*, I can pin it to my board! Unfortunately, I've discovered my flash-based website coughs up not a single pin and yup, you guessed it, neither does my box.com-embedded lesson download on blogger. So, without further ado, I have converted my latest lesson to jpg, just so I can pin it for your viewing pleasure.  Oh, and you probably guessed this as well: It's a Pinterest project-based lesson. Happy pinning!

p.s. You are more than welcome to print and use but if you want the original copy, just email me and ask nicely! Oh, and of course, check my pinning-progress out on Pinterest. And...I love comments, so please do.

Lesson Download: "First Nations on Vancouver Island"

Enjoy & share this new lesson! Created for Camosun College International by yours truly. INTERMEDIATE + LEVEL.  Love your feedback too!

Email & laser tag: edtech baby steps to team-building

When Jax* told me her students didn't have her email address, I think my mouth dropped open a little. I might have spluttered something about maintaining boundaries and then went back to my marking. In the back of my mind, though, I was musing about dinosaurs and rotary phones.

Jax is an engaged, smart, witty, and hard working teacher. She's well-read, well-travelled, well-spoken and totally dedicated to her students. So why isn't she in email contact with them?

I have to confess I only started communicating with my students electronically about 2 and half years ago but I could never go back to the way it was before. For one, my students find it helpful - they can ask a quick question, send in their homework, or share something personal that they might not be able to say in class. For another, I find it helpful - it helps me stay organized, is easier for marking written assignments, and most of all, helps me get and keep my finger on the pulse of my class.

In an adult multicultural ESL classroom, one of the most difficult challenges is team-building, getting the students to work together in a way that benefits them all. By starting a term off with a collective, connective email, you set the stage for communication and collaboration. Mid-term? Laser tag. Trust me. You'll never use a rotary phone again.

No excuses - debunking email/DM myths:

I'm worried about protecting my privacy and my students' privacy!
There are many platforms and programs that conceal email addresses and other sensitive information.   You never have to use your personal email and your students sure won't use theirs.

It's not very professional to send emails to my students.
Almost every single communication is now acceptable via email. If you conduct yourself in writing as you would in the classroom, then it's up to you how professional you are.

It's so time-consuming. 
Limit the tasks and correspondence to what you can handle. Alert: students have lives too and don't spend every waking moment wanting to email or DM their teacher.

If email is your edtech-baby step, then it's time to take it.


*might be her real name, might not