And do they know the Earth is round?

I was in the car listening to the radio tonight. During the news I heard Bennett, the Minister of Education, talk about his new English program. "Children in Israel need to learn spoken English... The ability to have a conversation in English is a necessity today... Our children will know how to speak English and not be afraid to open their mouths when they're overseas."  Later I heard other speakers discussing the program "A student can do a 5-point Bagrut in English and still not be able to speak." "Children need to speak a language before they learn to read it."

Bennett's quotes made the headlines, the interviewers sounded interested, but I think I've heard this before. Oh, right, I said it yesterday when I presented my English group to parents. And in the past to school principals. My motto "English is not just a subject in school, English is a language" basically sums it up. No, I'm not Galileo. Plenty of other people have discovered, researched and said all these things.  But now the top bureaucrat of education wants English to be taught as a language. This could get interesting.

The obvious question is - Will anything really change? Written English is so much simpler to teach. Students do exercises from a book and memorize vocabulary lists. Teachers prepare them for tests and then test them on the material they prepared. Tests can be graded quickly with numbers that go into a computer to be compared. Everyone can see which students are smarter and which schools are better. 

Now Bennett is talking about extra time for spoken English, debate clubs, oral exams. In other words noise, disagreements (maybe even political), no objective standards and all that extra time and effort! Teachers will need to learn new skills, and no one will be able to measure their success with standardized test scores. 

They will only have the satisfaction of hearing their students speak English and knowing that they made a difference in their lives.

What can we learn from Trump? (non-political)

This is not a political post.

The sages teach us "Who is wise? He who can learn from anyone." So I'm just trying to prove how smart I am.

Today an English teacher shared the following article about Trump's numerous spelling errors: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/shoker-rediculous-chocker-trump-attaks-and-dishoners-english-with-ever-dummer-spellings/2017/02/07/9556faf4-ed58-11e6-9662-6eedf1627882_story.html?utm_term=.1ca5f72dbd3f

Another teacher asked how we can use this to teach our students something. I began to write an answer, then realized that I have enough ideas for a blog post.

1. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Many students are afraid to speak or even write because they may make a mistake. Before these students can learn anything we must create a safe atmosphere where mistakes are an acceptable and necessary part of learning. If the President of the United States can't spell but isn't afraid to send out messages that will be seen by the whole world, no one should be afraid to make mistakes in our classrooms. See what I wrote about this in my previous post What if I make a mistake? 
2. Pretend the mistakes are intentional. Years ago, a teacher I was working with showed me a test she was about to give to her class. She suddenly realized that there were spelling errors in the text (the test had been prepared by another teacher) and she wasn't sure what to do. I suggested that she use them. Tell the class that there are some mistakes in the text, and that they will receive a bonus for each one they find. Double bonus if they know the correct spelling.
3. Find different options. When Trump said that Ted Cruz is a chocker, did he mean joker, choker, shocker or something else? Honer is probably honor, but what else could it be?
4. Come up with some definitions for Trump's new words. For example: unpresidented - never been done by a president, Bobby Night - a night when everyone dresses up as Bobby.
5. Have a debate.  How important is spelling? Should spelling be a necessary qualification for public office? Has social media made spelling errors more acceptable?

Do you have any other ideas?

Have you been teaching your students too much grammar?

After packing up my materials at the ETAI conference last week, I had time to hear some of Leo Selivan's presentation on learning language, which emphasized mainly that language is produced in chunks and that grammar must be acquired rather than learned. Most of what he said matched my own experience and the methods I use, but it's always nice to be backed up by a reputable authority. Speaking of methods, this is a good time to mention my book English is Fun in Rhythm.

"Speaking of methods" - How would a non-English speaker learn a phrase like that? "How would"? Why not "How could" or "How should"? I could keep going, but I shouldn't so I won't (not wouldn't). Since English is my native language I know which word is correct even if I can't explain why. I learned by being exposed to language in spoken and written form all around me from the day I was born.

Now let's go back to our EFL students. They also learned their native languages by constant exposure, and probably speak correctly. Young children seem to be able to figure out the rules by themselves. So exposure to authentic language is the key to producing proper language structures. How can we provide this exposure to learners of a foreign language? Songs (back to my website), drama in the classroom and on stage, computer research, magazines, books, movies. Talk about subjects that interest them and they will learn vocabulary that interests them.

In our discussion after the presentation we tried to come up with songs with "can". I had trouble thinking on the spot so I'm going to list a few now.

Dancing Queen (You can dance, you can jive..), ABBA

We Can Work It Out, The Beatles

I Can Be Your Hero, Enrique Iglesias

Any song you choose will have some useful language chunks. Teach them the language they need to communicate and learning becomes relevant.