Musings of Ms. Volatyle» Musings of Ms. Volatyle

September 23rd, 2009

ESL Contracts: To Go or Not to Go

So what do you do once you’ve finished your TESOL or TEFL course?

Hell man, I’m gonna get a job in China/France/Haiti/Brazil and I’m gonna be gone while you guys clean up the mess around here!!

Uhmm.. wait. Did you sign your contract yet? Did you get the figures right? Are you sure you’re going to have the weekend off? Just some of the questions that your daddy might ask when you’re trampolining and telling him all about your new job.

So what are the loopholes you should look out for in ESL contracts? What are the benefits you must insist on? Find out.. Read More…

No Comments | In: ESL Musings | tags: CELTA, ESL, ESL contract, ESL jobs, ESL schools, questions about ESL contract, tesol. | #

September 19th, 2009

Definite and Indefinite Articles

There are two main articles in the English language – a and the. A variant to the first article is an, which is used before words that begin with vowels.

Articles are used before nouns, and just like adjectives (also used before nouns), articles also modify nouns.

Know what modify means? It means ‘to change’ in some way or another.

Let’s look at an example,

I saw a cat. I saw an otter.

I saw the cat.

In the first sentence, I’m referring to a cat that I saw. It may have been any cat. I’m not being specific.

In the second sentence, I’m referring to a particular cat that I saw. I’m being specific.

That’s why a and an are called indefinite articles. And the is called a definite article.

There is a corresponding ESL lesson plan on articles on the blog. Check it out, if you’re an ESL teacher and looking for a nudge of inspiration

No Comments | In: Super Simple Grammar Girl | tags: articles, definite articles, grammar articles, indefinite articles. | #

September 15th, 2009

Project Write Well: ESL Tips for Good Writing

Most ESL students (and their parents) lay an inordinate amount of emphasis on conversational skills and gloss over the need to learn how to write. It’s true that conversational skills are the most important ones to teach. If immersed in an English speaking environment, students pick up conversational skills sooner or later (which is why I don’t think using L1 during lessons is a smart move). But once the student is past the stage of grappling for words, it becomes quite important to focus on writing skills.

Since English is a non-phonetic language, there is often no correlation between the way words are written and spelled. And if you thought that’s the hardest bit to learn about writing well, think again. With the multitude of writing style sheets floating around in this world, it can be incredibly hard for students to even realize what they’re up against when they embark out on ‘Project Write Well’.

September 13th, 2009

ESL Lesson Plan: A, An, The

This is a lesson plan for teaching articles that was requested by a reader. Articles are possibly the simplest, yet the most most arbitrary grammar rules to learn. Most languages apart from English do not have articles, and I know most ESL students are completely flummoxed by their need. But well, strange is the English language

Presenting a lesson on articles is not the most difficult of things, anticipating your particular students’ problems is. Considering that there are no articles in Latin, Sanskrit or Persian – the mai-baap (roots) of many modern languages – English teachers, at least the ones interested in etymological mysteries, may wonder where the articles in English language crept up from. I haven’t found a meaningful explanation yet, so if you can give me a clue, fire away in the Comments section.

August 24th, 2009

ESL Lesson Plan: Reading and Cooperation-related Vocabulary

I have been waiting to write this post since the day I presented this lesson. Not because it was a spectacular lesson or even a horrible one, but because presenting it was a lesson in itself. This was the last of all the lessons I taught during the CELTA course at St. Giles International.

One would’ve thought that the month-long somewhat rigorous course would have taught all us CELTAtians enough that we needed to know before we venture out into the world of ESL teaching. umm… apparently not.

Have you ever been in a situation when everything, and I mean Everything, goes against you? You think the heavens have conspired against you and after a series of mishaps/catastrophes, you begin to give up hope in all that is joyous and wonderful in this world. Presenting the last lesson on the last full working day of the CELTA course should have been a thrilling experience. All the ragda was over. No more stressing over lesson plans and assignments, no more rising at unearthly 6 o’clocks, no more late nights, no more no-beer nights!

August 20th, 2009

ESL Lesson Plan: Present Perfect Tense and Present Perfect Continuous Tense

This had to be among the most challenging of all the lessons I presented while I was a CELTA trainee. But it was the one lesson that helped me develop a solid understanding of all the tenses. In fact, just last week, when I had to explain the differences between perfect tenses in the present, past, and future to a new student, I was able to do it without once referring to a grammar book. Aaah, score! You can download the lesson plan at the bottom of this post.

The differences in the usage of present perfect tense and present perfect continuous tense are so many that it can sometimes be daunting for both the ESL tutor and ESL student. In fact, though native English speakers can almost always use the correct tenses during speech, they often fumble while constructing written sentences using these tenses. A lot of writers try to do without these tenses as much as possible, which really constricts their writing.

August 18th, 2009

ESL Lesson Plan: Writing formal letters

This was among the last of the lessons I presented during the month-long CELTA course. I was the first in my group to teach a writing lesson, so I had had no exposure to these before. And the tutors did an input session on writing lessons the morning of, so my afternoon class could not have benefited much from it

Yet, this was also among the best lessons I presented, if I may say so. I think this was primarily because I relied on my own common sense (rather than resorting to looking for sample plans.. ) and my experience as a journalist in outlining the basic rules of succint writing. At the very least, the attached lesson plan is a good guide to teaching letter writing.

I decided to teach cover letter writing to my group of upper intermediate ESL students because a lot of them had told me they would soon be applying for jobs. Once I started analyzing the form of the cover letter, I found that it could easily be divided into the same categories as any decent journalistic report/story – who, what, why, where, when, how.

August 16th, 2009

CELTA Assignment: Language Skills Task

The third assignment we did during CELTA was also fun. We had the choice of doing the assignment on either Reading Skills or Listening Skills. Since we also needed to reproduce the materials for the assignment, everyone obviously chose to do it on Reading Skills. Much easier to just copy, paste text from somewhere than get listening material. I wonder why they even give us a choice.. haha!

We also had the choice of picking reading material straight from the book or choosing an authentic text (text that has actually been published – online or on paper – and not been graded to the reading level of the ESL students). I definitely wanted to an authentic text.. I was bored to death with the awfully boring stuff in the ESL textbooks, and I thought students must find authentic texts more interesting, even though it can be more challenging and may contain words they haven’t come across.

August 15th, 2009

CELTA Assignment: Focus on the Learner

So here’s the second in the series of CELTA assignments I decided to post on this blog. It almost seems like the number of posts in the CELTA category are going to exceed the total number of other posts in different categories! Shame, considering I started this blog more than two years ago. Stupid internet addiction has overtaken life, sigh.. I barely write anymore, I should I should. Promise to write more beginning next month (am harboring a huge secret inside me that’s just waiting to burst out.. when I can’t hold it in any longer, I’ll write it down here).

Oops, I did it again.. the digressions – I think I would really make a fantastic stream of consciousness writer, considering my stream of consciousness carries me away ever so often. Virginia Woolf, my mai-baap.. he he!

Anyway, so this assignment, the second we had to do during the month-long course, was a hundred times more interesting than the first, which if you’ve seen it, you’d know was dry as a rehab doll This assignment, which our trainers called ‘Focus on the Learner’ was more my style, i.e. journalistic.

August 14th, 2009

CELTA Assignment: Language Analysis

Now I know every CELTA center sets its own assignments for its CELTA trainees but I don’t think they are vastly different from center-to-center. For one, Fernanda, the Brazilian woman who was at St. Giles International in San Fran with us showed us a bunch of assignments that her friend did at the Sao Paolo center, and they weren’t so different.

You can download this assignment with the link below. I haven’t posted it here for two reasons – it’s a really long assignment (like 5 pages in MS Word), and I’m too lazy to post it here!!

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