Teacher Discussion Forums

Stromfi wrote: If we use "themselves" in the original sentence, shouldn't we change the subject and the verbs ? "People who think too much of themselves, are never admired by others." rahter than "A person who thinks to much of themselves, is never admired by others." That is the solution I was taug...

Have you ever tried minimal pair Bingo? Make a bingo card including words where just one sound is different. The differing sounds should be sounds that you are focusing on. For example, cheek, chick, check, pin, pen, meet, mitt, met, etc work well when you're doing front vowels. There is a phonetic ...

The only thing I can say is try to make it authentic. Choose texts that would actually need to be translated for some reason, perhaps English literature so that Chinese people could enjoy it, relevant current events from a newspaper, or a menu for a restaurant? Or, depending on your students' profic...

There's at least one more--

God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her, and guide her
Through the night with a light from above
From the mountains, to the praries
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home
God bless America, my home sweet home.

TB

Thanks for the good ideas, everyone!

Why do you ask?

The more I learn about reading, the more important I think it is for my adult students to do reading for pleasure, either on thier own or during class time. The problem, of course, is that there aren't many books written to adult audiences that are written on a level that they can read. I'm especial...

Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow, EH and Sally. I would not want to limit a student by telling them what they can't do. I guess I don't have enough experience with special needs students yet. . . Of the few students like this in ESL programs I have seen, none of them was getting the ...

It helps me to think of them as patterns or families, rather than rules. Spelling rules have a lot to do with syllable structure. Open syllables (CV) take long vowels. Closed syllables (CVC) generally take short vowels, unless marked for a long vowel sound. Marking usually takes the form of multiple...

You might try Pronunciation Matters by Henrichsen et al. It has minimal pairs involving word stress, intonation, and consonant clusters, though not the other things you describe. The authors put each minimal pair in context by writing a story around each one.

In some regions of the U.S. (and I'm sure in other regions worldwide),
the following construction is common:
This car needs washed.

I know you all will be just as excited as I was recently to learn that this construction is supposed to originate from Pittsburg, PA.

Not authentic, but. . . I was so sick I couldn't get out of bed let alone walk to the bank. David doesn't know arithmetic let alone algebra. Melinda can barely afford pinto beans let alone beef. Randy can't cook a grilled cheese sandwich let alone Thanksgiving dinner. Prof. Smith wouldn't accept you...

What I have learned about disabilities is that they are extremely complicated and each student is unique. My experience with students with disabilities is that getting the academic skills in thier first language is hard enough for them that they should really avoid emigrating or studying other langu...

Do any of you guys use any sort of technology for teaching pronunciation that shows pictures of sound waves? I've seen something like it on the Rosetta Stone software--a native recording is played with the sound wave shown, and then you record your own voice to see if you can match the wave. Later y...

Can anybody recommend some good free websites for practicing pronunciation?

Or some software that is relatively inexpensive?