In an earlier article, I suggested that the selection of a "standard" English for teaching purposes was a bit arbitrary and that the "standards" selected frequently failed to be representative of the way that most native speakers actually speak English. I opined that it seemed somewhat disingenuous to expect learners of the language to struggle with mastering phonemes that many native speakers didn't bother with much themselves. This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Continue reading...

In this Wordshop article, Susan Ebbers considers how interest influences student learning. She focuses on a timely legal question sure to interest students and engage them in debate: whether Facebook "likes" count as free speech.  Continue reading...

It's important for students to keep their ism's straight — especially in social studies. You wouldn't want to confuse capitalism with communism, or internationalism with colonialism. This week's worksheet guides students to learn each of these 25 social studies ism's by looking up their base words on the Visual Thesaurus and right-clicking their way to examples of these ism's in action.  Continue reading...

"My students have been saying it correctly all the time, and I've been telling them that they were wrong," said Maria de Conceição. She had her head in her hands and, while not looking exactly disheartened, she did look somewhat perplexed. She was one of twenty Portuguese teachers of English who were showing pluck and determination by sitting through a twenty-five hour training course with me, and we had been looking at the alarming variety of ways of saying many high-frequency words in English.  Continue reading...

One way to help students grapple with more complex texts is to be more transparent about measurements of readability in the classroom. Reveal to students the readability of a text before reading it, and engage in meaningful discussions about what makes a text difficult.  Continue reading...

I have to admit that I have a problem in teaching the verb to get to English language learners. It's not just that it is a verb that has multiple meanings depending on context — around a dozen, I'd say. No, the bigger problem for me is that I haven't recovered from it being a prohibited item when I was a kid.  Continue reading...