Joe McVeigh

The December 2011 TESOL Quarterly contains a wonderful study by Dilin Liu analyzing the frequency of phrasal verbs across several corpora. This is a really useful article for teachers and materials writers, with lots of great information in it and a valuable companion to his 2003 corpus study on the most common spoken American English idioms.

Some of the findings are fairly predictable and confirm what we already think we know about phrasal verbs (sometimes known as two-word verbs.) You won’t be surprised to learn that some of the most frequently used phrasal verbs are go on, pick up, come back, go back, and find out.

But, as a teacher who lives in the United States, but has also spent time in the United Kingdom, I was fascinated by the differences found in the frequency of some verbs that are common in American English, but not in British English and vice versa. For instance, Americans use the following terms much more frequently than the British: grow up, figure out, show up, check out, pull out, and reach out.

On the other hand, these expressions were more commonly used in British English: carry on, fill in, hand over, sort out, and pass on. One of the big differences, of course, is that while Americans fill out a form, the British fill in a form.

There are implications here for the classroom. If we are wondering which expressions are most useful for our students, this research can help us know how often the phrasal verbs are likely to be encountered. If you are a subscriber to TESOL Quarterly you can see the full article here by entering your user name and password.

So come on! Pick up a copy of this article and find out which phrasal verbs are most common. This way you won’t need to look them up each time, and you can more easily point out to your students the most useful ones.

How much time do you spend preparing your lessons in advance? Are you a planner? Or do you like to let the lesson take its own course?

As a young student teacher I learned how to carefully plan my lessons. I would write out exactly what I planned to do during each part of the fifty-minute class: how I would warm-up the students, introduce new language, have students practice the language, and then probably a productive activity. In one column I would lay out the time, in another the portion of the text or the handouts that I would use, and additional notes in a third column. My master teacher remarked that I had occasional problems with timing. I was one of those teachers who would happily go off on an a semi-related tangent, just because the students and I thought it was interesting, and then belatedly notice that much of the class had passed without us focusing on the key parts of the lesson!

Later in my teaching career, I did less planning. I would go in  with only a rough outline, jotted down on a piece of paper, of what I hoped to accomplish in a given class. If I hadn’t taught the course before, or if the material was particularly difficult, then I might put some extra time and effort into planning, but otherwise, I felt that as long as I knew the material, my students, the course, and my teaching style, and I could put it all together without needing a detailed plan. Perhaps this is a question of experience? But I think that these classes came out pretty well.

What about you? Are you a planner? Do you usually “wing it?” What is the right balance for you between planning and being a free spirit in the classroom?

Have you ever taught a class that just never seemed to come together? Or one in which the students all worked together really well? Do you think that classes have their own personalities?

I first learned about the concept of class chemistry as a student teacher. My master teacher, a wonderful woman named Martha Bean, commented on one of the classes that I was helping with: “They haven’t quite gelled yet,” she said. By which she meant that they hadn’t yet gotten to the point where they could work well together and open up to each other.

Now this was in the context of an intensive English language program in Los Angeles. We were about two weeks into the new term. We saw our twenty-year old students every day for about an hour. Martha knew that, with a little time and a little direction on the part of the teacher, that the students in the class would find their way. And eventually, they did. But that isn’t always the case.

And I’m still not sure about the mystery of class chemistry. Ten years later I was in my final term of teaching in that same intensive English program. I thought of myself as a pretty experienced teacher by then. I was teaching four different groups of students. One of them had the best “chemistry” of any class I’ve ever taught. There were fifteen students who spoke fifteen different languages. They encouraged each other. They spoke only English in class. They did their homework. They were cheerful and helpful to me and to each other. At the same time, I was teaching another group of students. This was certainly one of the worst classes I ever had. The students were uncooperative, didn’t want to speak English in class, and interacted with each other only when forced to do so.

Of course, I was the same teacher, wasn’t I? To this day, I’m not sure exactly how I might have behaved differently with the two groups. Did I cause that difference in chemistry? I don’t think so. And what if I had been observed teaching one class or the other? I think that the observer would have come to very different conclusions about my effectiveness as a teacher depending on which class they saw.

What experiences have you had with class chemistry? Have you found that certain behaviors on your part improve the way the students interact? Please share your ideas in the comments section below or join the conversation on the TESOL Blog.

I’m delighted to announce that my latest ESL textbook, coauthored with Jenny Bixby is now available. It is the introductory level of Q: Skills for Success, the Reading/Writing strand.  Like our other book in the Q series, this level has entertaining readings, solid vocabulary-building activities, and a wonderful graphic feel, with loads of photos to help beginning learners grasp new concepts. Learn more about the book at the Oxford University Press website or you can preview the entire text here. I’ll be speaking on topics related to this book at upcoming  conferences including New York TESOL, Northern New England TESOL, TESOL Arabia in Dubai, and TESOL in Philadelphia.

I am not good at remembering names and faces. In the small town where I live,  I am constantly running into people and trying to recall if I know them from my son’s school or from musical theater or from church or just where we might have met.

So you can imagine the difficulty I have remembering the names of my students.  I know that for some people this isn’t a big deal, but I have always struggled with it.  So in case you are as forgetful as I am, here’s what I do to help learn student names at the beginning of a term.

 Since my students are above high school age, it doesn’t work to require them to sit in particular seats. So, as I take attendance on the first day, I note which students are sitting where by making an instant seating chart on the fly.  Then, while I have students engaged in activities, I make a few notes about the students next to their names.  I might make a comment about a student’s appearance: “wears glasses,” “big earrings,” short blonde hair.” I might note that they remind me of someone else that I know. Or I might write down something about their voice or movements to help me remember them.

 If I have a class of students from many different countries, I’ll make a note of where they’re from. If the particular student name is a new one for me, I may make a note about the gender.

 One thing that I avoid is making notes about clothing. Students are rarely so obliging as to wear the same thing to class every day, and “blue jeans” is not very useful for distinguishing one student from another!

 At the second class meeting, I test myself. I’ll look at the student names and try to remember which student is which as I call their names. To reinforce the names further, I walk around the class and use each student’s name as I hand out papers to them.  Also over the next few days, I refine my names “cheat sheet” as needed. I try to find distinctions between students that I have trouble telling apart or focus on students whose names I have difficulty remembering. Sometimes, as I commute to work, I’ll review the names of the students and try to visualize them, so that I know who I might have missed.

 Sooner or later, I’ve got everyone’s name memorized and connected to their face.  Am I alone in this difficulty?  What tips or techniques do you have for remembering the names of new students? Leave your comment here or join the discussion on the TESOL Blog.

We’ve been having a heat wave in Vermont, in the northeastern United States where I live. The temperature has reached 95° F (35° C). It’s actually hotter here than it was in Saudi Arabia when I visited in the spring. It got me thinking about the effect of heat and other discomforts on our classes and how we approach them.

ESL classes in the U.S. are often “at the bottom of the totem pole”—that is, at the lowest level of importance—in a university setting. The result is that sometimes we end up teaching in classrooms that no one else wants.

When I worked at an intensive English program in Los Angeles, I got to teach in some of the following less-than-wonderful classrooms: [Read the rest of this post on the TESOL Blog.]

One of my most memorable teachers was a high school English teacher. Thomas Donovan had been teaching for nearly forty years and was in his sixties when I had him as a 14-year-old student. He was what today we would call “old school.” That is, he was very traditional in the way that he taught.   Read more of this post on the TESOL Blog.

A recent thread on the TESOL English as a Foreign Language Interest Section e-list discussion group raised the issue of teaching conversation in the EFL classroom. I came up with the following list of useful books for those interested in teaching speaking.

Folse, K. S. (2006) The art of teaching speaking: Research and pedagogy for ESL/EFL classroom. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Keith Folse gives an overview of teaching L2 conversation and presents fundamental factors for planning and teaching a conversation class. After outlining some of the research on teaching the spoken language he presents 20 brief case studies of what a conversation class might look like, followed by a list of 20 successful activities and 10 unsuccessful activities. There is a section on the assessment of speaking and a number of helpful appendices.

Zelman, N.E. (2009) Conversation inspirations (3rd. ed.). Brattleboro, VT: Pro Lingua Associates.
This classic resource has been around for 25 years now. Nancy Zelman presents 2400  conversation topics including role plays, interviews, talks, group creativity, and discussions. Each section is preceded by a description of suggested procedures for the teacher. There are also suggestions for the teacher on how to monitor conversations between students and how to offer correction. Many of the situations and issues are designed to be somewhat controversial in order to inspire discussion, but this is intended as a teacher resource book, so the teacher can choose which topics to use and which to omit.

Bailey, K. M. & Savage, L. (Eds.). (1994). New ways in teaching speaking. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
This is a “cook book” of recipe ideas for ways to teach speaking. The activities are divided into activities for fluency, accuracy, pronunciation, and for speaking in specific contexts such as oral presentations or English for academic purposes. Each “recipe” follows a similar pattern: first it explains the level for which the activity is intended, then the goals or aims of the activity are briefly outlines. The estimated time that the activity will take is listed as is the preparation time. Then the necessary resources to complete the activity are set out.  The procedure for the activity is listed in a step-by-step manner. Finally some caveats (warnings) and options are given and there are often references and further reading on the topic if you would like to explore it in greater depth.

Ur. P. (1981). Discussions that work: Task-centred fluency practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Another old chestnut. Ur begins with general principles about discussions and describes the factors involved in a good discussion, then focuses on the task that students are required to do and discusses the organization of the lesson. She then lists a number of practical examples including brainstorming activities, organizing activities, and activities composed of different types of discussions.

Underhill, N. (1987). Testing spoken language: A handbook or oral testing techniques. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
It is hard to teach the spoken language without thinking about assessment. Nic Underhill outlines the basic ideas behind testing spoken language in this slim and readable book.  The book is quite practical and describes test types and elicitation techniques, then talks about different types of marking systems. A brief section at the end describes some of the basics of test evaluation such as reliability and different types of validity.

A recent discussion on TESOL’s e-list for the Teacher Education Interest Section provoked some interest in helping novice (and more experienced) teachers find jobs in our profession. Some of the conversation centered around how long a resume should be or in what order. Doesn’t seem to me that it much matters. The point is to get your foot in the door and come across as a knowledgeable and experience professional. You can download a handout from this page on How to Get Hired at an IEP. The presentation was given years ago, but the advice is still good. Let me know if it is helpful or if you disagree!

I’m just back from performing a program review for a couple of intensive English programs in Saudi Arabia. Lots of grist for the intercultural communication mill. Major issues in student motivation and finding the appropriate materials for the curriculum, as well. I’ve got to hand it to teachers who are able to teach over there long term. Yes, the money is good and the workload is not intense, but the climate, the cultural differences, and lack of curricular flexibility sure make it a challenge!