TESL Malaysia » Ideas

Teacher, Y U NO TEACH GRAMMAR?

Chuah Kee Man — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:58:30 +0000

I considered myself lucky (though some would say I am crazy) to be given the chance to teach English language to several groups of foreign students at a local university. Not because I get to know students from different countries, but it allows me to cope with diverse challenges in English language teaching. The students that I have taught thus far, are mainly with low proficiency level since their country of origin does not have proper English language education due to several political and social issues. Some are keen learners, some are simply lost (perhaps due to cultural shock). Yet, I tried my very best to ensure they can at least communicate sufficiently in English.

In was not long ago, one student came to me during the first week of class and asked this question “Teacher, why you no teach grammar?”. It’s pretty hard for me to justify my teaching methodology to her, so I answered “Well, you are learning it every second in my classes“. Not convinced, she showed me a thick book on English grammar and asked me to check the exercises that she did after class. I checked for her but told her that it’s good to do exercises but there is limited room for improvement if she does not practise those “rules” in context. She was still a bit pessimistic since in her country, everything needs to be memorised and the learning environment is rigid.

However, after spending several weeks with me, she noted improvements in her use of the language, particularly in speaking and writing. The same with other students. To me, while it is possible to highlight the sets of English grammar rules (e.g. the difference between adjectives and adverbs), it is always good to embed them according to skills and context. In teaching the students how to write a specific academic genre, for instance, students are explicitly told to focus on certain sets of language features salient in that genre. This is better than forcing them to do pages and pages of grammar exercises without knowing its proper use in context. The same with vocabulary. Highlighting list of words commonly used for a context helps students to practise them properly. Of course, it can always be mixed-and-matched with other activities in the classroom in order to engage the learners.

A lot of patience is needed when teaching beginning learners, particularly when the motivation to learn is low and they come from diverse countries. I am deeply humbled by some of their comments upon completing the intensive course with me, not their “thank you” or compliments, but the way they convert their thoughts into comprehensible English sentences when talking to me by the end of the course. Some may not be sufficiently ready for undergraduate studies but they have improved from perhaps a level of Primary 3 English to Form 3. They just need more time and hard work.

“Y U NO Teach Grammar” or not, U Cannot Give Up on Them!

Well, I think many of you out there may have similar experience, and I would love to hear your stories too.

ASPIRE Model for Academic Writing

Chuah Kee Man — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:18:35 +0000

Writing academic essays can be rather difficult as it requires some necessary “skills” in ensuring a piece of work remains “academic”. I would like to share a simple model (or guide) that would help you write academically. Of course, this is not “the” model that would transform you into a proficient academic writer overnight. It still takes a lot of practices to be good in academic writing. Reading more academic articles would also help.

ASPIRE for academic writing

Academic Voice
Scholarly Citations
Precise Descriptions
In-depth Elaborations
Reduce clichés/redundancies
Effective Structure

Details on this can be obtained in the following slideshow:

You can also download the slides from My SlideShare Page

Win A BlackBerry Smartphone in TESLMalaysia.com 1Word 1Malaysia Challenge 2011

TESLMalaysia Admin — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 05:53:32 +0000

Now, here’s your chance to win a BlackBerry smartphone! In conjunction with Malaysia Day, TESLMalaysia.com will run the 1Word 1Malaysia Challenge 2011. The contest is simple, think of ONE word that you think best describes Malaysia. Then provide a short a description why the word is the best! It’s all up to your creativity! Oh yeah, it has to be a valid English word (exists in major dictionaries, not a self-coined word).

Before that, read the following terms and conditions:

This contest is open to all Malaysians age 15 years old and above.
TESLMalaysia admin team members are not allowed to participate.
You must Like our Facebook Page in order to qualify.
This contest runs from 9 September 2011 to 9 October 2011 (ends at 11.59p.m., GMT+8)
The winners will be announced on 20 October 2011.
You can submit a maximum of 3 entries per person.
Your entries must be original.
You also agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any applicable laws.
The entries will be judged by TESLMalaysia’s appointed judges (consisting 4 lecturers from local universities).
The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence in regard of the decision will be entertained.

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THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.

The Winners

After receiving more than 350 entries, here are the lucky winners!! The winners are chosen by our selected judges and their decision is final. An interesting note is that the word “home” is the most popular word, followed by “beautiful” and “harmony”. Of course selecting the word is one thing, but the description or explanation given is the decisive factor. Anyway congratulations to all winners and thank you all for participating. We’ll have another round of contest coming in January 2012! Watch out!

Worksheet on Guided Writing – The Benefits of The Internet

Chuah Kee Man — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 04:45:23 +0000

Process writing approach can be a good way to help beginners in producing an essay. It gives students a systematic structure in organising their ideas. This is a simple worksheet that shows how the process writing approach is used in teaching students guided writing. The topic for the worksheet is The Benefits of The Internet. Teachers can modify it to fit other scopes or topics. The key is to give students proper scaffolding before allowing them to write independently. Repetition of this approach (with different topics) would help students to at least learn how to organise their points and elaborations properly. Teachers should guide them in terms of language accuracy as well.

Of course, hopefully your students do not attempt what Calvin is doing as shown in the comic strip below. Haha.

The Worksheet

You can download the worksheet here.

Teaching Present Perfect Tense using U2′s Song (Sung by David Cook)

Chuah Kee Man — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:58:48 +0000

Using pop song’s lyrics to teach tenses can be a good way to start a grammar lesson especially for beginners. Instead of going straight to the rules, enjoying a song while identifying the pattern could test students’ listening skill as well. I am sharing a simple lesson using U2′s song “I still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” to teach students present perfect tense since the usage is repeated in the lyrics.

The version that I am using is sung by David Cook, the American Idol (just to lure students’ interest). You can always get other versions as well including U2′s original version.

The PowerPoint slideshow is available here:

Happy Trying!

Note: You can download the PowerPoint presentation here.

Top 1000 Words in Academic and Business Writing

TESLMalaysia Admin — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:20:40 +0000

Teaching students to read and write academic texts may be a daunting task and often makes teachers unsure of where to start. Well, if you are teaching average (and below) students, then you might want to start ‘drilling’ them with the most common words used in academic writing. Of course, drilling here means meaningful drill, with the correct usage.

To help you figure out the most common words, Vocabulary.com has listed the Top 1000 words appearing on business and academic writing, which are obtained from their corpus of billions of words from edited sources. 1000 may seem to be a big figure, but it is not when you divide it by 10 words per day. You’ll probably make your students master all these words in 100 days.

Vocabulary.com also list the words with its meaning and you can click each word to get further descriptions of the word!

Click Here for the Top 1000 Words List

And if you’re looking for other lists, feel free to browse through this useful website. It serves as a good self-learning website for students too.

Teaching Idiomatic Expressions Using Comic Strips

TESLMalaysia Admin — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:06:13 +0000

While it may be culturally-biased, some comic strips can be greatly utilised as a source of motivation for English language learners. I recently discovered a creative teacher (Mr. Frank Degenaar) teaching in Brazil who have compiled a great list of comic strips for the teaching of idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs. He updates his blog almost every day with new comic strips plus explanation on the expression used.

One example from his blog is:

You may want to visit his blog (Natively Speaking Comics) to explore his collection of useful comic strips.

10 Best YouTube Channels for English Language Teachers

Chuah Kee Man — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:02:04 +0000

There are indeed vast amount of YouTube videos which can be used in the English language classrooms but teachers might not have the time to go through all of them. Students perhaps spend more time watching videos on YouTube than television these days. Here are 10 best YouTube channels for English language teachers, not only to be used as a teaching material but as a guidance to improve their teaching methodology.

These channels contain videos of good quality for English language teaching. Of course, teachers still need to make sure that the videos are suitable with the lesson or tasks.

1. Mr.Duncan’s Learning English

2. BBC Learning English

3. RebeccaESL

4. EFL Jack

5. Pod English

6. EnglishClass101

7. Private English Portal

8. LinguaSpectrum’s English Lessons

9. JenniferESL

10. Learn English with Joe Deveto

Bonus: Let’s Talk Fluent English

If you have other recommended links, please share it here or via our Facebook page.

Useful Resources for Teaching “Catch Us if You Can” (Form 5 Novel)

TESLMalaysia Admin — Tue, 17 May 2011 12:44:58 +0000

Listed as one of the Form 5 novels for the KBSM Literature Component, Catch us if You Can by Catherine MacPhail (Perlis,Kelantan,Kedah, Penang and Perak) is one interesting story about Rory and his grandfather, Granda. The story portrays how Rory acted as his grandpa’s carer and their journey (of escape) is full of surprise betrayals and unexpected friends. Here are some useful resources that teachers could use in teaching the novel.

Teaching Guides

1. Teaching Guide by Pearson Education

This booklet by Pearson Education contains teachers’ guide in teaching the novel with several given worksheets and assessment criteria.

2. Form 5 Catch Us if You Can Manual

This document was vastly uploaded on Scribd.com but the original source is from Curriculum Development Centre with panel of writers (teachers from various schools.)

Set-Induction Ideas

1. Using “The Dave Clark Five-Catch Us If You Can” song to introduce the title of the story before going into other details.

2. Scavenger Hunt – Operation Catch Me If You Can.

About Catherine MacPhail

1. Catherine’s Official Page

2. Catherine’s Biography

Recreation as a Learning Tool

TESLMalaysia Admin — Tue, 17 May 2011 06:35:17 +0000

Education does not happen only in the classroom. While ESL instructors provide the information and context of the English language, that alone may not always be effective for some students. Rather than continuing to simply provide them information in hopes they will permanently retain it, they need an opportunity to use their newly acquired English-speaking skills in the real world. This can be accomplished through an incorporation of social learning into any ESL curriculum.

Humans are social beings that rely on each other for useful information and ideas to help improve daily activities. The social learning theory explains that people learn by observing others’ behavior and cultures and apply them to their own lives. Having the desire to fit in with a group, particularly an entire culture, reinforces the need to pay close attention and model after the observed behaviors. Successfully performing certain acceptable behaviors or speaking a language correctly improves self-efficacy and confidence to continue using and improving those behaviors.

Therefore, by exposing students who are learning English to a world outside the classroom, they have the chance to interact with other people in a variety of social settings. Building confidence in their English speaking skills will build their eagerness to learn more. The goal of this method is, ideally, when they are done with school, they can go out on their own and thrive in an English-speaking society and communicate effectively in person, on the phone, and through email and social networks.

This is especially important for young ESL students. Children are more likely to learn in an interactive, social environment. A curriculum containing fun and conversational activities will allow them to absorb more information and model the behaviors of other children whom are already fluent in English. Once children have demonstrated the capacity to hold a basic conversation in the classroom, bring them to the park and allow them to play with other children. Social interaction while playing on the park’s playground equipment will help them develop their social skills and confidence in speaking English, not to mention their vocabulary.

Teaching another language to anyone of any age can prove to be quite a challenge. This is why some schools provide international foreign exchange programs to expose students of a variety of ages to new languages and cultures. These opportunities continuously prove to give students a better understanding of other cultures and social norms while allowing them to speak in a language outside their primary language.

This is why social interaction is so important. Though the classroom is an essential tool for helping students learn, exposure to the world they live in is even more essential for helping students understand. Incorporating location based social activities in any ESL curriculum will achieve greater results in the classroom and increase the likelihood that students will be set for life once they set out into the world on their own.

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