What Does It Mean to Be Polite?

This month on YouTube I continue to explore topics that boost conversational skills, such as expressing surprise and giving compliments, and I find myself asking whether everyone has the same definition of polite. The concept of good manners can vary from culture to culture, and even from one social circle to another, people’s understanding of…

6 Tips for Teaching Conversational Expressions

I received a persistent request on YouTube for more lessons on conversation, so I decided to hold off on my plan to cover more modal verbs and offer a series of short videos in which I present and explain conversational expressions. Usually I offer such suggestions during my live lessons with private students because teachable…

How and Why We Sugarcoat Our Speech

An advanced student and I recently explored ways Americans soften their spoken speech. In the world of ESL, there’s a good amount of material on hedging devices for academic writing, but it’s been an interesting challenge to see how much of it can apply to conversation. The goal in any exchange is not just to…

Resources and Tips for Small Group Debates

In an older post, I shared one resource with debate topics and and suggested some possible classroom formats. My recent private students have prompted me to search for more questions we could discuss either one-on-one or in small groups. ProCon.org lives up to its tagline: “The leading resource for pros and cons of controversial issues.”…

The Key(s) to Unlocking Classroom Discussion

Click here to listen to today’s post. I once compared teaching to Tahitian dancing. I admit it was an unusual analogy, but it worked for me. Today I offer another one in response to a teacher’s request. This EFL teacher is faced with quiet groups of students and finds it challenging to get them talking…

Resolution Role Plays

If you’re able to share Episode 4 of The Jim & Jen Show with your students, you can use the video only in the classroom and encourage the completion of the whole lesson as self-study. My colleague Jim Stroud and I aimed to teach students polite ways to ask for clarification and express doubt about…

Teaching Practical Skills: Using the Phone in English

Phone skills are a necessity. Let’s face it. Even when one makes a phone call in his or her native language, there are plenty of reasons why misunderstandings and awkward moments can occur: a poor connection, a speaker who rambles, lack of etiquette… Dealing with these problems in a foreign language only adds to the…