An Effective Lesson on “Affect” and “Effect”

How do you know when an article lends itself well to a language lesson? I look for engaging topics that will tap into existing knowledge and expand on it. I think about the language contextualized within the text and consider its usefulness for the learners I’m currently working with. Sometimes, I don’t have the opportunity to use an article immediately, but I’ll set it aside along with my thoughts on how to use it. This practice reassures me that I have lesson ideas in reserve.

Recently, I came across an online article from Scientific American about the effects a language has on the speaker’s ability to make decisions about the future. In the comment section, other readers had posted remarks about the reporter’s word choice in the headline How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health. Some questioned the correctness of “affects.” Should it be “effects”? I actually agree with the word choice, but because those two words are easily confused, I think a look at the headline formatted as a an exercise item would be a nice lead-in for an advanced lesson with adult learners: How Your Language (Affects / Effects) Your Wealth and Health. You can allow students to consult dictionary entries on affect and effect and ask them to decide which verb is needed.

If Step 1 in this lesson is to think about the correct word choice in the headline, then the Step 2 is to make a prediction. Based on the headline, what will this article talk about? Your questioning may follow this line of thought: “How does the grammar in your native language differ from English? Do those differences force you to think different ways when you speak these two languages? How can the structure of a particular language make you see life a certain way?”

Step 3 moves into the actual article, and after the third paragraph you can introduce the noun effect by asking, “What are the effects of delaying gratification according to the report?” According to Keith Chen of Yale Business School, we can attain our desired outcomes when we learn how to resist the temptation of immediate gratification.

The article goes on to give examples of how speakers are affected by future verb forms (e.g., will or be going to in English) or the lack thereof. If you challenge students to identify these examples as Step 4, you will be able to contextualize the use of affected as part of a passive construction.

As Step 5, you can have students read the final paragraph on page 1 as a word gap, omitting affect and effect and all their related word forms. The task of completing the text will reinforce their understanding of the different meanings and highlight collocations, such as the effect of (something) on (another thing). Indeed, it is interesting to ponder why language has such a strong effect on people’s savings rates.

The article is a bit lengthy, so I would recommend covering page 1 in class and encouraging students to read page 2 at home. As part of the lesson, Step 6 could be to have students create short class surveys in order to see if their own ability to save money confirms or refutes the findings reported in the article.

Note: Scientific American has a Photocopying Permission Request Form.

Scratching Our Heads over Idioms and Common Sayings

I find that students love to ask about idioms and common sayings they come across. Idioms especially lend themselves to fun lessons, but where exactly should they fit in? How should we teach them?

Idioms are common in conversation and they appear quite often in the news, so encounters with them outside class are inevitable online and offline. However, students need to be cautioned about idiomatic expressions. Some believe that using a lot of idioms will help their speech sound more natural. The danger, however, in overloading one’s speech with idiomatic expressions is that it can backfire and make one sound unnatural. Who colors each and every sentence with an idiom? And do you really use a proverb in every conversation? No. Otherwise you might come off sounding like the narrator reading the moral to the story.

Furthermore, students need to understand the importance of appropriacy when learning this kind of vocabulary. Many idioms are informal. Stating a proverb can be interpreted as advice or judgment, neither of which may be welcomed in certain relationships.  Our students need multiple encounters with idioms and proverbs to understand when to use them and with whom to use them.

“Multiple encounters” does not mean overloading our lessons with common expressions. I recall having to teach from a textbook on idioms in the past, and it presented long lists of expressions. What I found was that none of the fabricated contexts could recreate an authentic encounter. Students struggled to retain the language because of the sheer amount, and they also failed to grasp all the nuances without further instruction or supplemental materials. Idioms and proverbs are likely best learned through natural encounters, for instance, as part of song or film you are using for listening practice or within the headline of an article you are using for reading and discussion.

In  my YouTube videos, I’ve experimented with different approaches to teaching common idioms and sayings. My practice is generally to limit one tutorial to three key expressions. Any more could lead to information overload. Also, when possible, I include conversation with a guest speaker. In an upcoming lesson on idioms, I have no guest speaker, but I fully exploit my context by filming on location and connecting each expression to an activity.

Want a hint where I filmed my upcoming vocabulary lesson? Read this old posting.

Click here for ideas for providing communicative and controlled practice with idioms.

Having a Conversation: An activity to practice advanced collocations

Questions from students lately are confirming the importance of collocations. To meet the need for more practice with collocations, I offer my Have a Conversation_handout. I have upper level students in mind for this activity. Please see the suggested variation.

Question of the Century: How Are We Teaching Students to Say What Year It Is?

I don’t often use the poll feature on my blog, but today I am definitely going to put it to good use. Please help me determine what the trend is among ELTs. Are you teaching your students to say it’s “two thousand twelve” or “twenty-twelve”?

If you vote, please also comment and let me know which part of the world you are writing from. Perhaps we’ll see a trend that is related to geography.

I spent some time this morning reading other blogs, polls, and discussion boards that addressed this topic, but none drew the opinions of those who are teaching English as a second or foreign language. Do we treat this question as a grammar or vocabulary topic? Does pronunciation come into play, since there might be a preference for easier rhythm and alliteration?

We began this century by saying ”two thousand.” We continued to be in agreement in the single digits all the way up to 2009 (“two thousand nine”), but Americans at least have made different choices as speakers since 2010. Around me I heard both “two thousand ten” and “twenty-ten.” But why the switch? We usually refer to 1901 as “nineteen-oh-one,” so why didn’t we start with “twenty-oh-one” back in 2001? We initiated a new speaking pattern in the 21st century. Is it only tradition that prompts us to return to the practice of splitting the four-digit year into a two-number reading?

Personally, I have continued with the “two thousand” pattern. I will soon post a lesson on YouTube teaching beginners how to read dates (Lesson 40). I am using my preferred practice, but noting ”twenty-something” as an alternative. In my opinion, both readings are acceptable. It’s a matter of speaking style. My one fear is that perhaps I’m dating myself. The preference for “twenty-something” may become the norm. In twenty years, if my videos are still being watched, young folk might find my speaking style old-fashioned. Teachers in 2032 may have to add an explanatory note: “Jennifer is a teacher from an older generation. She uses the acceptable but outdated practice of saying two thousand when she says the year.”

Storyline: A different kind of vocabulary activity

Click here to listen to this post.

I’ve been working with an advanced student for quite some time now. His vocabulary is quite impressive, but he sometimes fails to use the high-level words with the appropriate grammar. One activity I’ve started to use in our lessons makes use of a learner’s dictionary. I want to encourage his use of this resource because a learner’s dictionary offers collocations and good model sentences.

The basic idea is to make use of examples for two different key words taken directly from the dictionary and challenge the student to link those ideas into one narrative. I call the activity Storyline. I definitely see variations of this activity in the classroom. I’d love to hear how it works in group setting, so please take a look at my Storyline_handout and let me know how the students liked it!

Walk the Dog: A speaking activity

Problem-solving tasks can help generate group discussion. If you add in the element of role play, the conversation can become even more engaging. My activity called Walk the Dog requires small groups of students to assume the roles of neighbors and figure out who is able to help walk the dog since its owner is too sick to do the task today. Certain expressions related to social etiquette can easily be worked in, such as It’s no problem at all. I’m happy to help. The role cards will target work-related vocabulary from Lesson 4 in my series English for Professionals: full-time, part-time, flexible schedule, time off, sick day, and personal day.

Enjoy!

Using Less Common Collocations

Have you ever caught yourself saying something that immediately stopped you in your mental tracks? One second the words are out, and in the next second you question, “Did I just say that?” The slightly odd phrase gets highlighted by the Grammar Check and Vocabulary Check in your head (we teachers have these automatic functions, you know), and your self-analysis has one aim: to see if you committed some kind of gross error.

Oh my! Is that possible? Could a teacher possibly utter something non-standard? Of course, it’s possible. We’re human and we’re part of the everyday world, so like other speakers of English we can be influenced by patterns we’re exposed to and sometimes we deviate from the norm. I suppose what makes us different from others who use non-standard phrasing is that we are usually more sensitive to the distinction between standard and non-standard English. Furthermore, we must accept the responsibility of keeping our deviations from the norm to a minimum when serving as a model for our students.

In my August 31 recording for the activity Truths, the phrase “last evening” tumbled out of my mouth. In the effort to keep the recording smooth and natural-sounding, I pushed on to the end and then listened to the playback. Hm, I thought. Should I redo that? Isn’t it more common to say “last night” or maybe even “yesterday evening”? I seized the opportunity to have a learning moment and did a bit of research. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English confirms the correctness of last night and  yesterday evening. I also checked the frequency of all these phrases through Phras.In to see if I was out in left field and standing all alone there. English speakers on the Internet have created 122 million hits for “last night”, a bit over 3 million for “yesterday evening”, and only 88,300 hits for “last evening”. Okay, I thought, I said an uncommon phrase, but I clearly didn’t invent it either. For now, I’ve decided to keep “last evening” in the previous post and see if it sparks any kind of comment. So far it hasn’t. (That may change after this post!)

Coincidentally, a student recently asked about a phrase I used in an old video lesson of mine on the present perfect. In my on-camera talk I mentioned that I had already been to the doctor’s two times that year. “Why didn’t you say ‘twice’?” asked the student. “I was taught that only ‘twice’ and ‘once’ are correct. ‘Two times’ and ‘one time’ are incorrect, aren’t they?” This particular question stumped me more than my query about ”last evening”. I feel that there are contexts in which either alternative is possible (once/ twice OR one time/ two times) and contexts in which only one is possible. For example, we say “once in a lifetime” and “once bitten, twice shy”.  We cannot substitute “one time” or “two times”. However, in my statement about going to the doctor’s, I’d argue it’s acceptable to say “twice” or “two times”.

Should we teach the hard-and-fast rule that once and twice are preferred to one time and two times in standard English? Is use of one time and two times more typical of informal English? Possibly, but I wouldn’t correct a student for using one time or two times unless the phrases were idiomatic and substitution wasn’t possible. Also, we cannot use once and twice as modifiers as we do in phrases such as “two-time winner” or “one-time password”.

What are your thoughts on using less common collocations?

Yada Yada and Other Examples of Reduplication

It happens to many advanced learners of English. They’ve put in countless hours to reach their current level, they know a lot of words from the AWL, and they are quite articulate when expressing their thoughts. But a single silly-sounding word throws them off as they watch a TV show or join a fast-paced, animated conversation among native speakers. You know which words I mean: nitty-gritty, helter-skelter, yada yada, and the like. The repetitive sounds catch their ears, the new word perplexes them, and they must try to use the context to figure out the meaning. Can they always do that? Yes, but not always with accuracy, especially because the moment of exposure is fleeting, and there may be no chance of going back to that point of the conversation.

How can we teachers help students handle this particular challenge? One suggestion is to periodically choose an example of reduplication from The Phrase Finder and create a picture-based example.  Post it and ask students to discern the meaning. Model (using Microsoft Clip Art):

 

Harold was very busy when I called him at work. He had no time to chitchat.

Make a point of reviewing the words you’ve presented. Challenge students to create new examples with photos of their choice. Share these new examples on a classroom wall or online.

To give your students a headstart, please consider using my Yada yada yada_handout. I’ve selected ten common examples of reduplication and formatted them into a short and hopefully memorable activity. Enjoy!

Collocation Links: a vocabulary activity

Please click to listen to my 4.26.11 blog intro.

I’ve suggested different vocabulary activities with collocations in the past. I’d like to offer one more called Collocation Links. Students will be socializing with one another using individually assigned collocations. As they interact and form connections, they will work towards building a group. You might think of it as redefining the term social network for the vocabulary classrom. Enjoy!

Click here to view and print out the Collactions Links_handout.

This post along with the Collocation Links activity was created to supplement my video lesson on commuting in the new series “English for Professionals”.

Mastering Multiple Meanings

The problem: I’m sure we’ve all had a student come to us and ask about multiple meanings of a word: ”I thought tend meant that’s what someone usually does. ‘I tend to stay up late.’ But yesterday I saw tend to your business in a magazine. What does that mean?” Sound familiar? As we know, multiple meanings provide an additional challenge in vocabulary study.

The solution: Don’t avoid the issue. Face it and work with it. It’s helpful to address and and give practice with multiple meanings, but I believe the key is to limit the number of meanings you present at one time and to make practice meaningful. Then there will be a greater chance that students will actually remember everything studied.

Step-by-step practice: In Vocabulary Power, each chapter has a short section called Same Word, Different Meaning which presents three words, each with two possible meanings. Students are given the definitions, model sentences, and the chance to reflect by matching the correct definitions to the model sentences. If you do not have this series, you can still recreate this presentation and practice with the help of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English online. Simply select three words with multiple meanings and note the definitions and the model sentence for each meaning. Suggestions (taken from Vocabualry Power 2, Chapter 18): exclude, govern, tend.

After students study the definitions and the models provided, you can help them generate conversation questions that are similar in structure to the model sentences. For example, in Chapter 18 of Vocabulary Power 2 two meanings of tend are presented: (1) to be likely to do a particular thing and (2) to take care of someone or something. The model sentences are: (1) I don’t like to read books by that author. His stories tend to be a little too unrealistic. (2) My aunt asked me to tend the store while she ran to the bank.  Possible questions: Do you tend to be (logical, emotional, realistic…)? Do you know how to tend (a fire, a garden…)? Write the questions on the board and number them.

Next, assign each student a question and have them walk around the room asking their assigned questions. (If possible, create the same number of questions as there are students.) When the question-answer period is over, have students recall their question, the key word in their question, and the meaning of that word.