Teaching ESL

I found the slides for the presentation on second-language learning by Professor Phil Hubbard, of the Stanford School of Education. The presentation was prepared for TECC: Technology Education Connecting Cultures, which holds summer workshops teaching English to rural Chinese students and teachers.

It's a great resource, because it's a summary of all these linguistic principles, backed by a lot of research. There are also ideas for interactive lesson plans that apply the principles in a smart way. The basic point (and my linguistics professor would be proud of me for this) is that language is USE. You really only learn language when it's meaningful to you, when you have to learn it to accomplish your goals. I'm going to be much quicker to pick up what "boîte de réception" means if every time I click on it I see my inbox, than if I try to memorize it from a list of computer-related vocabulary. Therefore, lessons should focus on actual communication, rather than just reading or trying to engrave grammar rules into your memory. One of the great ideas I found particularly memorable was Total Body Response, where you get the students to comply with your directions using their whole bodies (ie stand up, walk over to the door), which just makes the language much more real and applicable.

I can't wait to try this!