English (ESL) Weblog

In this video, Noam Chomsky talks about language at Google as part of the Authors@Google series.

In this question and answer session he discusses a number of topics, but the first is about universal grammar in which he provides an in-depth description of how his ideas on universal grammar have evolved over time.

Another interesting question he answers at the end of the session relates to the effect of email, instant messaging and the like on syntax and grammar (TXT Speak). Hear Chomsky's views on whether this is just a natural part of the evolution of language and how it's affecting our minds.

 

An Illinois, non-profit organisation called Innovations for Learning has released a handheld consul, like a Game Boy or Nintendo DS designed for education and targeted at kindergarten and elementary students. Despite its simplicity and lack of software, this device has a lot of potential for English language education.

Another training article. Something my trainees weren't doing very well -drilling. Not very exciting, but someone might find it useful.

I recently watched an inspiring talk given as part of the TED 2008 conference by Dave Eggers, a philanthropist and teacher-at-large (as they describe him). The talk shows ways in which dedicated one-to-one teaching can be provided to pupils who would not normally have access to this sort of personal tuition. What's more, the students seem to lap it up.

The successful and growing network of professionals volunteering their time to shine their light on local students of all ages is only part of the story. His novel approach to teaching and the way he makes learning fun should be an inspiration to all of us.

As Time puts it: "Many writers, having written a first best-seller, might see it as a nice way to start a career. He started a movement instead."

As an aside from my usual topics about using computers for language education, recently I am involved in a teacher training programme and would like to share an article I am working on to assist new teachers to plan a lesson.

As part of the course, trainees need to present evaluation lessons using a grammar based syllabus prepared with PPP.

I hope this will be interesting to other teacher trainers and helpful to trainees, and I would like to hear your comments and criticisms.

Lexxica provides resources to determine how much vocabulary a student knows and find gaps in their knowledge. They also claim to be able to accurately assess which words a student already knows.

The site is difficult to navigate and prone to crash. If all goes well, try the V-Check to find out how vocabulary you know (works for native speakers, too) and V-Admin to process your data. There are also flash games, free graded texts and flash cards.

I would be interested if other members here tried it and posted comments.

Lexxica: URL - http://www.lexxica.com/
 

Since the end of 2004, we have recorded how many entries we have in some of the sections of our site, which means that we can see how much new content we have created since then.

In 2007, we put the Language Articles, Teaching Articles and PDF Lesson Plans into databases and currently have 26, 31 and 116 entries respectively. These sections are growing fast as we have an additional contributor, Alex Case, who has been adding a lot, which we're very grateful for. There are a further 14 articles in the Members' Area.

In 2007, traffic continued to grow fast, so thank you to all of you for using the site. We hope that 2008 will see many improvements and additions.

We have added a number of lessons for different levels and articles about Christmas and how it can be taught and used in the classroom. There will be more to follow in the next few days, so please check the What's New page for updates.

Are you thinking about teaching abroad? If you are, then this article might help you out. The first thing I've got to say to you is not to allow yourself to be swayed by your emotions or the romantic notion of living in a foreign country. Employers count on this to hook you to come over and likely stay in unsatisfactory working and living conditions. Working for a dud of an employer and living in poor housing isn't a rosy picture, which can happen to you. I don't want to burst your bubble but teaching abroad is peppered with difficulties and challenges. It doesn't have to be a trying process, which prompted me to write this piece. If you think things through carefully and do some planning and your homework you can minimize potential problems and pitfalls. One more thing, don't assume that it's an easy way to make money because it isn't. When you factor in the start up costs and your day-to-day living expenses, you might find yourself no further ahead if you just stayed home.

I've just found the following video in which Steven Pinker looks at language, and the way it expresses the workings of our minds. By analysing common sentences and words, he shows us how, in what we say and how we say it, we're communicating much more than we realise.