It's Good for Well-Being!

Last week, I assigned my class a speaking presentation. Of course, they were horrified. ("You mean, I have to get up in front of my peers and talk about something for three to five minutes in English?! And, oh, God, you'll be listening to my enunciation? And I need to have correct grammar?? And organization?? And transitions???!!!") This is generally the point where their heads explode. But I don't mind. After all, I am ostensibly training them for life in an (Western) English-speaking university, where giving presentations is an important part of many classes, especially in business and commerce, the areas in which many of my students plan on majoring.

So, yes, presentations are an ugly, yet compulsory part of my class.

In the past, the quality of my students' presentations has been entirely underwhelming. In past semesters, I've assigned a general topic, such as "my favourite childhood memory" or "an object that is special to me", but these get really old really fast. So this term, I tried something new. I told them they could choose their topic, as long as it was persuasive; I called it the "persuasion presentation." Of course, when I first introduced it to them, they were lost. Then we started brainstorming where/when/how people try to convince others of something. We thought of advertisements, politicians, religion,  and education, among other things. The point was to show them that persuasion was everywhere. I then modeled my own persuasive presentation, which was "why you should go for a polar bear swim." I organized it with a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. My main points were that you should go for a polar bear dip because it was good for your health, and because it was an integral part of Canadian culture. (BS, yes, but it didn't have to be necessarily true, as long as it was well-organized and fit the objectives).

Well, after my model presentation, one of my students, R, decided abruptly that he wanted to change his topic to be fictional, like mine. Now, this student doesn't make waves in class. He's one of my two Koreans, quiet, respectful, and motivated. He's also a good five years older than most of the other students, which gives him a maturity that some of the others lack. When I asked him what he wanted to do for a topic, he proudly answered, with a big grin, "why you should drink your own pee!!!" My response was along the lines of "double-yew tee eff," but he was persistent, even the next day, after I told him to go home and think about it. (All the other students were set on doing "real" topics, like why studying in a western university is better, why playing sports everyday is good, why renting a house is better than homestay, and even why you should eat tuna, etc...). But no, R wanted to talk about the merits of drinking your own pee. So, I relented.

On the day of the presentation, he set up his image (only two students took my advice and included an image with their presentations; the other student's image was of a can of tuna), and proceeded to launch into this amazingly well-organized, well-supported presentation, full of details, transitions, lecture language, etc... in short, everything I had told my students I expected of them. His image was hilarious, and I have included it here. His main points were as follows, and they correspond to his image accordingly: new research in the field of urine therapy, nutritional information, health benefits, and last, how it increases your lifespan. ("Do you know how old these people are? They're sixty years old!!! Drinking your pee can make you live to 120!"). It was especially funny because he appears so normal and straight-laced. Verdict: best student presentation ever!

(Later, when I told some of my co-workers about it, one said, "Hey, did you know that in Mongolia, drinking your mother's pee is believed to have amazing health benefits?")

This is what democracy looks like!

The other day, I did a little discussion activity with my class. We started off by talking about Egypt and what was going on there (thanks, BreakingNewsEnglish, for the pre-made lesson). We brainstormed together about reasons that might cause people to demonstrate in the streets (war, crime, poverty, corruption, etc). We did some vocabulary, some listening, and then I asked them what would cause them to protest, so they talked in small groups for a little bit.

One of my Chinese students, as he was talking, was searching for a word: "what do you say when the government/media tells you one thing, but you know they only give you some information, and some of that information is missing or false?" My response: "censorship." He then proceeded to tell me that the formula for Chinese news, or CCTV, was as follows: one third talks about the Chinese leadership and how hard they've been working, the second third talks about how happy the Chinese people are, and the final third finishes by describing how unhappy the rest of the world is. The other Chinese students generally concurred.

We then talked a little about the history of pro-democracy rallies and demonstrations in their countries. It was a very interesting class because my students are from China (Tiananmen), Korea (Gwangju), and Iraq (need I say more).

I was surprised. Often, when I try to talk about current events in class, the students don't really seem to care, but they were surprisingly engaged and focused.

Say What?

One important aspect of English-language education that often gets overlooked is, I believe, pronunciation. I have met many students of English who are, for the most part, quite fluent, even able to get through a master's program in an English-speaking university, but who constantly struggle to make themselves understood to native-English speakers. This is true not only of students, but of professors in universities, as well. Not only is it frustrating for both speaker and listener, but, it may also make the non-native speakers question their language abilities and doubt themselves.

I think the problem is easily solved, but it requires explicit instruction. The vast majority of students are not able to pick up the correct pronunciation by simply listening and emulating a native speaker. In addition, in all languages, there are specific aspects of an ESL student's first language that cause difficulty when learning English, and these must be acknowledged and understood.
Here are a few common pronunciation problems for Korean speakers when they are learning English, because I'm too lazy to write them all out myself.

One of the most important differences between English and many languages is that it is a stress-timed language, as opposed to a syllable-timed language (such as French and Japanese). Syllable-timed languages give equal weight to each syllable in a word, whereas English (and German, Russian, and Mandarin) are stressed-timed languages, in which certain syllables and certain content words (such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) must be stressed. Alongside the stress, of course, must be taught the unstress (the schwa - the most common sound in the English language). English teachers need to focus on word and sentence stress/unstress patterns (which I am not going to define or describe further, since voluminous amounts of information exist already on the topic, and there is no need for me to repeat it here). Just know that as a teacher, you need to be aware of it, and of the addition interference or difficulties that your students may have based on their first language.

Teaching American English Pronunciation, by Peter Avery and Susan Erlich, is a book I would not teach without.

And here are some techniques for teaching pronunciation.

Here's yet another good site to get you started.