Category: News

Immigrants and Natives Learning L2 – While kids head back to school this month, some adults are also hitting the books and creating relationships through culture and language.

For 19 years, the Educate Ya language exchange program in Portland has helped hundreds of immigrants reach their goals of becoming bilingual. The program helps both new immigrants looking for ways to better their future, as well as native-English speakers looking to learn Spanish and a new culture.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Katu.

Paper

Sociologists typically assume that immigrants’ acquisition of English as a second language follows the opportunities and motivations to become proficient in English, while many linguists argue that second language acquisition may be governed by maturational constraints, possibly biologically based, that are tied to the age at onset of language learning.

In this article, I use U.S. census data to investigate the relationship between age at onset of second language learning and levels of English language proficiency among foreign-born adults in the United States. The overarching conclusion is that proficiency in a second language among adults is strongly related to age at immigration. Part of that relationship is attributable to social and demographic considerations tied to age at entry into a new country, and part may be attributable to maturational constraints. 

Learn more about this topic by reading this article in this link.

After reading “Immigrants and Natives Learning L2”, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

Tasked with schoolwork help – Since her daughters’ school closed for the coronavirus outbreak, Mariana Luna has been thrust into the role of their primary educator, like millions of parents across the U.S.

But each day, before she can go over their schoolwork, her 9-year-old first has to help her understand what the assignments say. A Spanish speaker originally from Mexico, Luna uses Google Translate on her phone and, when she gets stuck, asks her daughter to translate instructions and emails from teachers.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Wjactv.

After reading “Tasked with schoolwork help”, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

Online learning poses challenge – As schools prepare for the start of Term 2, staff at low-decile schools say many of their students will miss out on learning online because they don’t have access to a device or the internet at home.

The Ministry of Education is scrambling to get enough resources to students, and is preparing for the possibility of distance learning to continue well after the lockdown ends. Learn more about this topic by reading this article on RNZ. 

After reading “Online learning poses challenge”, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

Exposure to languages help you to learn  – Learning a new language is a multi-step, often multi-year process: Listen to new sounds, read new word structures, speak in different patterns or inflections.

But the chances of picking up that new language — even unintentionally — may be better if you’re exposed to a variety of languages, not just your native tongue.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Washington. 

After reading “Exposure to languages help you to learn”, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

Difficult languages for English speakers – Learning a second language is a growing interest for people these days, whether it’s for business communication, traveling, making friends, a career interest or even just for fun.

But learning a second or even a third language opens us up to opportunities to view the world in new ways and there are a lot of words in languages other than English that encapsulate certain emotions or situations in a syllable or two that cannot be expressed fully in English.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Daily Collegian. 

After reading “Difficult languages for English speakers”, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

Education is a way of life – Instead of teaching full-time, Mayzlina has worked as a substitute teacher at various New Haven schools, including Wilbur Cross High School, and taught English as a second language. She said her students often call her “the best teacher in the world.” According to Mayzlina, she succeeds because she fosters a healthy sense of competition in her students.  “I encourage students to study, and that’s why they love me so much,” Mayzlina said. “I treat them like they are my own kids. I will encourage them, and they will be on top.”

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on The Southern News. 

After reading “Education is a way of life”, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

The implementation of effective distance learning was destined to be a work in progress. Now, the process has taken on greater urgency due to the closure of local schools because of the coronavirus. The task remains daunting, especially as the time at home turns into months. The fallout of not having that personal daily contact with her students – including missing assignments – is becoming real for many teachers.  Ann Borba teaches sixth-grade language arts and social studies at Oak Grove Middle School in Concord.

Borba emphasized that nobody sent home packets with the students. “We have been using technology.”

The school did have a checkout for Chromebooks, with many students and their parents picking them up. In addition, the vice principal told parents about a wireless provider that was giving two months’ service free.

The learning resources Borba set up for her students include EDpuzzle, Quizizz, YouTube, Newsela, Scholastic and Ducksters. The school’s principal created a HyperDoc for the school’s remote learning plan, which also has tips for health, welfare, counseling, mindfulness and links to supportive websites.

“We try to make the learning pertinent and accessible,” Borba said.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Pioneer Publishers.

After reading “Teachers keep doing what they do best” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

Language is a reflection of culture

There’s a certain wilderness to innate thought that we will never be able to capture. This is because our own thought has been tamed and civilized by language. Our thought has become structured, formed by the sounds and shapes of words.

Language seems so intimate to us and visceral to our life experiences. Indeed, it is hard to differentiate language from thought. They seem so interchangeable, but they are not. There’s a difference between what is innate to us and what is not, between what is universal and what is learned.

Language is learned. It gives voice to our thoughts. It is a liberator, allowing our thoughts and feelings to escape the vicinities where they were concocted, felt and communicated to the world. We take language to be our own but we forget that it never was, and even as it releases our minds from inner silence, it constricts our thoughts to the molds of a particular language’s grammar logic and sentence structure. Learned rules that are not your own.

Language is a building block. It might seem the most infantile building block, but it is one nonetheless. The untrained brain, that is, the mind without language, is but the map of a virgin rainforest, untouched by humans and living by its own rhythm. A language of its own, we might like to say, except it has none. It is the absence of language; nothing about it is learned.

What do these blocks build up to? Culture. Language is the collective brain of an entire people, and as a young infant learns a language, she becomes one more link in that particular network of human ingenuity.

French is subtle. Its tones and accentuations are soft and smooth, like the creamy pastries and soups its cuisine is celebrated for. Its flow is legato, like simmering melodies or the brushstrokes of a lily pad pond on an impressionist canvas.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Daily Trojan.

After reading “Language is a reflection of culture” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

Don’t Register For IELTS Until You Read This 

IELTS is an acronym for International English Language Testing System and is an international standardized test of English language proficiency for non-native English language speakers. The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is the world’s most popular English language proficiency test for higher education and global migration. IELTS is jointly managed by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and Cambridge.

There are four distinct parts of the IELTS exam. The total test time is 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Three of the sections (Listening, Reading, and Writing) are completed in one sitting. The final section, Speaking, may be completed on the same day or up to seven days before or after the other sections.

All test takers take the same Listening and Speaking tests. The Reading and Writing sections differ depending on whether the test taker is taking the Academic or General IELTS exam.

Let’s look at the four modules in more detail.
Listening
The Listening module has four sections with ten questions in each.

Sections 1 and 2 are typical social situations. Sections 3 and 4 are education and training situations (such as a discussion between two university students).

During this section, test takers listen to a recording and then must answer questions based on what they’ve heard.

Reading
The Reading module has three sections. Test takers will read three texts, which may come from books, journals, magazines, newspapers, or other forms of media. After reading the text, test takers must answer multiple-choice and short answer questions.

Writing
The Writing module is comprised of two tasks. For the first task, test takers must write at least 150 words in 20 minutes. For the second task, test takers must write at least 250 words in 40 minutes. The tasks and topics vary depending on whether the test taker is taking the Academic or General Training Exam.

Speaking
The Speaking module is a face-to-face interview during which the test taker sits with an examiner and has a conversation. The module has three different sections:

Introduction: The test taker answers about his or her home, family, work, studies, hobbies, interests, reasons for taking IELTS exam as well as other general topics.

Long Turn: The test taker is given a task card about a particular topic. The test taker has one minute to prepare to talk about the topic, then they must give a two-minute speech about the topic.

Discussions: The examiner and test taker engage in a more in-depth discussion about the topics covered during the long turn section.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Modern Ghana.

After reading “Don’t Register For IELTS Until You Read This” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.