Practicing Interview Skills, Staging a Mock Job Interview and Self Evaluation

Finding work is not always an easy thing, particularly in an uncertain economy such as that of the United States. But how does one get a job? Research, self-nomination, and persistence are common paths that lead to job interviews.  Our students, naturally, find the prospect of interviewing for a competitive job an intimidating prospect. We can reduce their justified anxiety by teaching a...

Read More

Search and Share Speaking Activities Can Flip English Classrooms and Become Complete EFL Class Lessons

  “Education is a kind of continuing dialogue and a dialogue assumes, in the nature of the case, different points of view.” ~Robert Hutchins (1899-1977), educator and philosopher How can we create more speaking opportunities for students in our English classes? Why not ask students to select articles, charts, and videos that they would like to share with classmates on particular...

Read More

Conversation Tip #9: Ask questions

Questions keep the conversation flowing Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons”Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” -Voltaire (1694-1778) French Enlightenment WriterAsking questions always generates more conversation; after all, an answer always follows. As mentioned before, asking questions provides a quick way to find common interests with people. Questions like “What is...

Read More

Search and Share exercises enhance learning resources

Explore with Search and Share worksheets Photo Source: Photo taken by Nicola Sapiens De Mitri “In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it.” -John Archibald Wheeler (1911-2008) American theoretical physicist We live in a world full of wonderful resources from books to television to the internet. These resources remain invaluable to encourage our students to immerse...

Read More

How do you teach the difference between “a” and “the” during conversation class?

Helping English language learners distinguish articles remains important in advanced ESL and English conversation classes “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” ―Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) Dutch painter Does it make sense to emphasize the difference between articles (a, an, the) in an English conversation class? Perhaps. Context matters. Conversation class should...

Read More

“English in Los Angeles” inspires conversation with splashes of color

Source: Amazon Piera Fumagalli fuses vocabulary, grammar and idioms with LA “People cut themselves off from their ties of the old life when they come to Los Angeles. They are looking for a place where they can be free, where they can do things they couldn’t do anywhere else.” ―Tom Bradley (1917-1998) Former Mayor of Los Angeles Do you have a California dream? What about a Los...

Read More