Search results for 'tag:Articles tag:Teaching English' matching tags 'Articles' and 'Teaching English'

Re: For those ESL teachers...

ICAL_Pete — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:30:09 GMT

We get this question asked almost every day here at ICAL by both native and non native English speakers.

Grammar is often perceived as a major obstacle by many English teachers. Not because they feel their English may be poor but because despite being able to speak and write English correctly they donât know what makes it correct and they cannot explain it to their students.

How many times have you been asked questions like: Why can I not say âI have an Italian new girlfriend.â You well know the correct sentence is âI have a new Italian girlfriendâ but apart from your instinct you have no other guidance as to why one is correct and the other isnât, and so the inevitable answer follows: Because thatâs not how we say it in English!

Ok, so you got away with that one but more questions like that are bound to pop up now and then. You should be prepared.

But this is just one aspect, of course. For more check the article in the ICALwiki at http://www.icalweb.com/wiki/index.php?title=Do_I_Need_to_know_Grammar%3F.

The ICALwiki also has a comprehensive and up-to-date online Grammar Guide, which you may find useful.

Hope this helps

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ICAL <URL in this member's profile>
Quality online teacher training since 1998

What (how?) does the writer feel about Zheng Jie's recent victory?

Hongkie — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 08:25:20 GMT

This is an extract from the exercise given by an tutorial centre teaching English.

"Based on the information of the above article, what does the writer feel about Zheng Jie's recent victory?"

1. Should we say "given in the above article" or "from the above article" instead of "of the above article"?

2. Should we ask "How does the writer feel" instead of "What does the writer feel"?

any better topic for writing a thesis

sebayanpendam — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:06:24 GMT

hi,

I'm a teacher in a local school in Malaysia. I teach english subject. my first degree was social science and diploma was tesl. english taught in my country is communicative. teaching english in a rural school is a great challenge.at the moment, i am considering to pursue my studies to a master's level. in fact i am waiting for a reply from a local university about my application. i chose to do tesl. the thing is i need to write a thesis and the topic i could think of at this point is 'using newspaper is an approach in teaching writing. in my opinion, a person can learn to write proper sentences by observing sentences constructed in an article. people can learn on how a good sentence is built around a newly-learnt verb. furthermore, newspapers contain various columns ranging from general news to sports from which students are able to read and learn how to write essays of different genre. Do you think that this topic has somewhat been written too often? could anyone give me advice on what topic i should write for my thesis or should i keep on with this topic?

thanks.

Re: teaching english for i.t

English Toolbox Co. — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:16:05 GMT

If you're teaching IT guys, they already find IT interesting! You should immerse yourself in their specialties, try to get a basic understanding of the software (or whatever else) they develop, and use any appropriate journals or articles written in English as course material. You should also examine their e-mail outbox for any mail they've written in English, and have the class review and correct it.

IT guys (and engineers in general) love to explain things, so have them go to the whiteboard and diagram something technical, then explain it in English. Then proceed to error correction, etc.

Re: A few questions regarding 'private English teachers'

Cool Breeze — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:08:38 GMT

WesternAmerican wrote:
Hi everybody.

1. I work as a private English teacher? Correct.
Is it correct? Natural? I'm not sure how do you refer to a student who gives private lessons to a student(usually just the student and his pupil).

2. I work as an English teacher in Junior High School or at Junior High School? Do I have to capitalize the 'Junior High School'?

1. You could also say: I give private lessons in English if you are a student and teaching English isn't your job.
2. Both correct. There's no need to capitalize the words even though it does sometimes happen. You could also add an article if you wanted to: I work as an English teacher in a junior high school.

Cheers
CB

What book for teaching English to French doctors

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 12:13:08 GMT

Hello!

I am looking for a good book which I could use to teach English to doctors in France which would rather emphasize the exchange with the patients than the reading or writing of articles.

Thanks a lot in advance for your suggestions

Luciana

Vernacular chauvinism

milky — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 16:56:56 GMT

A strange contradiction.

"Two reports appeared recently in my newspaper that left me bewildered. The first said the Karnataka government still hasn't decided to rescind its ban on English in primary schools despite huge popular pressure. The second â a Karnataka minister, after a busy visit to China, announced that "members of the standing committee of the Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress wanted the help of the Karnataka government in teaching English in its primary schools." This was in pursuit of its objective to make every Chinese literate in English by the 2008 Olympics."

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5675

Re: Learning and teaching English in Vietnam

nga_vn87 — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:40:20 GMT

I think the topic's subject should be changed into Teaching and learning in Vietnam, 'cause in my opinion, the teaching method directly leads to the study of the English language. Teaching and learning English in Vietnam has been causing a headache, I think so. I'm a Vietnamese, and I'm an English gifted student, so I can understand it all. You know, almost all students in Vietnam studying English say it is very difficult for them to communicate with foreigners. I have read an article about studying English in Vietnam. It said that a 10th grade student just can say: "Hello", and "Sorry, I can't understand what you say". The article included that it was due to the method almost all teachers applied in Vietnam: emphasizing English grammar and ignoring other skills like listening and speaking (while the main aim of studying English is communication) (I don't say that all English teachers do so, 'cause there are many of them very good at teaching the language). Furthermore, the teaching method is not approved by students themselves. They are young, and they need an English period full of joy and laughter (in games or discussions), not mere reading passages and questions, so that they can easily communicate with their friends and thus with foreigners. Vietnam is on its way to globalization, so, I hope that Learning and Teaching in Vietnam will someday be improved, and that Vietnamese students realize how important English is to their own future lives and careers!!!

Re: as mother, as wife, as hostess

paco2004 — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 02:31:38 GMT

Hello SFB

Yes you are right. I searched "as a profession" in OED and got 27 quotes but none for "as profession". So it must be "What do you do as a profession". Likewise, we may say "What do you do as a business/a calling/an occupation".

I parse "She teaches English as a profession" as "She teaches English as it (=teaching English) is a profession". On the other hand, I parse "She works as (a) teacher" as "She works as she is a teacher". It is a tradition of the French language to omit the indefinite article of a noun when the noun is used as an attribute of a personal subject. (EX) "Il est Ã©tudiant" (He is student) not "Il est un Ã©tudiant" (He is a student). I think it is the reason they sometimes omit "a" in "She works as a teacher" in English (English collocations were influenced by French various ways). In the case of "She teaches English as a profession", however, the phrase "a profession" is not working as an attribute of a personal subject. My guess is this would be the reason we cannot leave out "a" in "as a profession".

paco

[To moderators and other native speakers]

Please give us your tips.

Re: Please identify the subject and verb

paco2004 — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 02:55:23 GMT

Your question is quite intriguing. Professsor Okada, a linguist teaching English in a college in Osaka, gives a lecture on this matter. As the original article is written in Japanese, I'll summarize it with my poor English writing skill.

(Query 24) Why is the verb is not "are" but "is" in the following sentence?
"More than one of the students is going to study abroad".

(Okada's Answer)
English speakers say like the way as these (note o: correct, and x: incorrect).
[1] (o) More than one of the students is going to study abroad.
[2] (x) More than one of the students are going to study abroad.
[3] (o) Fewer than two of the students are going to study abroad.
[4] (x) Fewer than two of the students is going to study abroad.
"More than" or "fewer than" does not work as the ruler of the verb form. What rules the verb form is the noun phrase that comes after "more than" or "fewer than". That is, "one of the students" is the ruler in [1] and "two students" in [3].

As for the usage of fractions, English speakers say like:
[5] One third of the milk was spilled.
One third of the men were bachelors.
[7] Two thirds of the milk was spilled.
Two thirds of the men were bachelors.
The part ruling the verb form is not the fractional phrase ("one third of" or "two thirds of" ) but the form of the noun that follow the fractional phrase.

paco