How often do you eat breakfast with a swiss army knife?

I’m guessing that the answer is “never”, but I’d love to hear otherwise in the comments

We most often use specific tools for specific functions.

That’s one of the secrets behind Edulang’s greatest successes in materials developing. One of our most specific E-learning tools for grammar and vocabulary has been a huge hit, and when it came out, in less than a year, we had tens of thousands of learners throughout the world.  So cool!

Gramster I and II and Vocabster have evolved quite a bit since their release and they are now finally available on the net with our very unique pay what you want approach and of course, half of everyone’s contribution goes to the charity Room to Read.

There’s something for every level:  Beginner, False Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, covering everything you could imagine (see full list of 80 topics below), designed in a pedagogically-sound manner by an EFL PhD, and sprinkled with unique texts like…

(wish Panda was available for the “unusual pet” question on line 6…)

Within every activity, each question offers hints and immediate feedback… love the faces:

The exercises are fun, and even I learned a bit while checking them out… the domain facebook.com cost 250,000 !!! … not expensive in the long run for them as last year they paid 42X that much for FB.com (which isn’t even in use) !!!!

Check it out, and share with someone who will benefit, by clicking here!

CHEERS!

-brad

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ADDITIONAL INFO for those not yet convinced

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Grammster 1

Gramster 2

BENEFITS

• Focuses primarily on the uses of grammar
• Presents meanings before rules
• Learners understand the grammar in action before studying the rules
• Uses real-life texts to present the grammar — not sentences
• Prepares learners before they read the texts
• Encourages self-correction
• Provides clear and simple explanations of the grammar rules
• Practises grammar in context
• Integrates feedback to help learners understand and learn from any errors
• Uses humour
• Gives extensive advice on how to learn English.
• Provides extensive opportunities to use the grammar of each section
• Provides carefully graded practice tasks sequenced for increasing difficulty
• Includes tests at the end of each level which integrate all grammar points
• Covers all main grammar points for each level

Vocabster

BENEFITS

• Presents and then practices more than 90 vocabulary topics
• Explains and practices more than 30 words for each vocabulary topic
• Focuses on all the essential vocabulary areas needed from beginners to advanced
• Makes the words easier to learn by dividing each vocabulary area into groups according to their main meanings
• Uses clear, simple definitions to help learners understand the meaning
• Illustrates more than 300 new words with clear pictures
• Includes modern and up-to-date 21st century lexis (such as text messages)
• Practises the vocabulary in sentences and in semi-authentic texts
• Gives opportunities to use new words in sentences and in texts
• Gives ideas for how best to learn new words
• Uses humour
• Provides feedback to help learners learn from their mistakes
• Tests understanding at the end of each level

How often do you seek your students’ feedback: each semester, weekly, after each class?

In the same vein of thought, when I blogged about the four key factors affecting the business of ELT elearning, one of my main points addressed “collaboration”, and how “materials improvement can now occur in collaboration with teachers and learners which is revolutionary for small companies like Edulang”.

Here’s a perfect example:  this past month I’ve been collaborating with a group of software engineering students at SUPINFO, a well-known school in France.

Yohan, one of the group leaders, and a number of his classmates used English Addicts and Test Simulator for a few weeks and they then sent us a number of powerpoints sharing their feedback in detailed notes/screen captures. They were constructive, pointing out what they felt to be our strengths, and then underlining other areas where they felt we could improve, citing both their expertise as English learners and Software developers.

Feedback is precious and we should be proactive about seeking it out, both as teachers, learners, materials developers… heck, everyone!  And finally, thanks again to the SUPINFO students again for their time and reflections.

Long live the 21st century and collaboration!!!

The Great Debate:  to L1 or not to L1

Have you ever tried banning L1 in your classroom?

I’ll be the first to admit it.  Yes, I’ve tried, and often these efforts were fruitless… ok, not even often… 90% of the time.  Sometimes with a very small group it can work, but as many of us teach in larger monolingual classrooms (One of the classic “Ten things I think I know” via Ken Wilson), the directive effort of only using L2 rarely works.

So… what’s the trick to getting them to speak more English?

I’m writing this post as last a teacher-friend wrote me for advice on the subject, saying that she was tired of having to plead yet again “‘English, please.”  Been there before?

I started digging around the blogosphere, and found a nice post on one teacher’s success (Joe McVeigh) though his post explores “class chemistry” and ponders why only one of four classes ended up “speaking only English in class”.

Another post that immediately came to mind was Henrick Oprea‘s “L1: To use or not to use” which has not only a brilliant exploration on the subject, but a fine exchange in the comments (where I tried to play the devil’s advocate and finally ceded partially)  ;-) My driving point was from a learner perspective (my own):

“when we let go of our native tongue and try to swim in a foreign language… that effort… that searching… it’s something I feel is missing in many classrooms”

So, again, how do we get there? Especially if… (from comments in same post)

“The classroom is no natural setting at all… no matter how hard we try to recreate an authentic environment in the classroom, it’ll never cease to be a classroom. Activities may be planned to simulate real life situations, but they’ll always be activities”

So, this is where YOU come in.  We all have amazing experiences of failures and successes and I’d like you to share a story or an approach that helped motivate your students to speak more L2 in the classroom.

Gimme yer best!

…and I promise I’ll share mine after the

comments thread starts lookin’ pretty.

-Brad

When a site doesn’t work on the web, you often see a bland 404 error page like this:

…though some sites have a bit of style and have fun with “errors”

And this one most of you may have seen before.  Can ya guess it?

(You can find forty more great 404s here, and sixty more here)

I’ve yet to hear of a Edulang user report a 404, which is certainly something we can be proud of!  Recently we even did a presentation on Test Simulator TOEIC® and TOEFL® where we revealed very specific figures:

It’s at this point that I’d like to tip my hat to the development team at Edulang that has done a WONDERFUL job of making high quality pedagogical materials more attractive, but ALSO building very stable elearning applications!

You rock, guys!

-Brad

Today’s post will be another in the fine series of …

I recently crossed paths with Shaune Peebles after he started using Test Simulator TOEIC® in class, and our expat discussions about teaching in China, living in Europe and Edulang’s apps have been quite enjoyable, so I asked Shaune if he’d like to share a bit more here. Hence, without further ado…

One of the most important and time-consuming parts of my week is lesson prep.

For me, it’s important to have quality, practical, and, if possible, unique materials to give to my students.  While I agree with the necessity of textbooks in certain situations, I’ve always felt that there’s more that I can do than just the standard “turn to page blah-blah-blah in your textbook and we can begin with…”

I currently work at a bank in Milan, and last June, I started a TOEIC® course with 9 students, in part because we had to follow an exam format, but also because after a year or so of just talking about the government and the EU economy, we were all feeling like it was time to start following something a little more structured (even though there are LOTS of different political/economic topics to discuss in Italy).

We decided to use TOEIC® instead of some of the other test structures because, first and foremost, it was the best fit for my students’ needs.  I had some experience with both TOEIC® and TOEFL® test preparation, and as I think is often the case for a teacher when developing a course, the materials available play a big part in the direction(s) I can go.

The bank provided us with a ‘fat’ TOEIC® textbook, which I made some good use of initially.  I managed to find some other materials online to use for exercises, but spent more time during the first half of the course using news articles and videos, and reviewing things like phrasal verbs, vocabulary, and hoping that enough of a variety of collocations would come up that the students could remember when it came time for the exam.

Quite honestly, I found that the textbook we had was more on the ‘easy’ side of the difficulty spectrum.  What was difficult was finding materials that were still going to be relevant to all of my students for their TOEIC® prep, but also challenging enough that they would see a decent increase in their score from last year.  I picked up another book of practice tests, but they were all a bit easier than I wanted, and making 45 pages of photocopies for each student was becoming a bit of a nightmare (and a waste).

So, after about 8 months of this kind of structure, (which was working well enough, I suppose) I stumbled across a link to the Edulang page from a site I often use and have contributed to in the past (The English Blog).  It had a bit of a write-up on the “pay what you want” feature, as well as a few comments about the 3 simulation tests.  I signed up for a student account right away (I’ll admit, I’m cheap, I paid the minimum; BUT I just signed up for the TOEFL and podcast packs and paid more, so my conscience is clear(er)), and started looking for ways to use the materials in my lessons.

What worked really well for me was this; in my one-to-one lessons, I used the simulation tests in practice mode.  Sitting with the student, listening to the audio (repeatedly when necessary) and discussing whatever we needed, and then going through each of the reading sections, all the while keeping an eye on their actual test strategies (time management, scanning, etc.)

For the lower level students, particularly with parts 1 and 2, I started with just 3 or 4 questions at a time, then discussed the ones they had trouble with, while with the higher level I was doing 10 or 15 questions; the idea being to work on their concentration, and to understand a bit of the rhythm.  I still had them mark everything on a TOEIC®-style answer sheet that I found, so they could stay in the habit of using it while preparing for their test.

For the reading section, we did everything online; for part 5 I took things a step further and actually started timing them using my phone, keeping each question to around 30 seconds.  It helped for them to be able to see how much time they were using, and thereby eating away at time they would need for part 7.

What I found with these online tests is that they were actually closer to the difficult side of the spectrum, which I thought was perfect for our practice.  There were lots of collocations, which led to some great discussion, and the ability to do everything on my laptop in front of them was certainly a bonus.

My students had their exam last week on Friday, and after they finished, they ALL told me the same thing; the test was easier than what we had been at with the simulations, and having that kind of directed practice (hopefully) made a huge difference.  Fingers crossed when the results come in next week…

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Shaune Peebles comes from Alberta, Canada and began teaching English at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guangzhou, China in 2005.  In 2008 he moved to Milan, Italy where he started teaching business English in various banks, universities, government and commercial institutions.  He also spends a lot of time creating didactic content for online/podcast and corporate use.  He has a cat named Dexter, and his favorite color is blue.

Today, April 26th, at 7:30PM Paris-Madrid time (check your time here), I’ll be giving a webinar thanks to Maria (@MJGSM) and the Spanish Education Community “Internet en el Aula“.

Feel free to check out the slides which explain in greater detail what I’ll be covering, but in general I’ll be exploring how the internet and elearning is changing our profession, seeking on-the-ground experiences from those that attend, and finally I’ll be presenting Edulang’s pay what you want program, our thoughts on changes within ELT and a quick summary of the applications we’ve developed.

Here’s the WizIQ link and hope to see you at 7:30 (or whatever time that is for you!)

Hope to see you there!  -Brad

The internet is flattening the world in ways we never could have imagined 10 years ago, and especially for those of us in the publishing and Education arenas.  I was blown away by a recent article by John Biggs that spoke specifically to this evolution where he challenged the monopoly of the “goliaths” with this very simple truth:

“We are, after all, just talking bits shipped to devices and $1,000 made in 1,000 ninety-nine cent increments is the same as $1,000 made in one-hundred $10 increments.”

If we look at ELT publishing specifically, most of the current “standards” for testing one’s English are produced by not-for-profit companies, and I’m certainly not the first to question why they are selling their tests at such a high price if they are “non-profit”, above all as they move onto the internet where if anything prices should be dropping significantly.  And to add to this, let’s not forget that their clients are students and job seekers who need these tests to apply to international schools or get a good job.  I agree 100% with the TechCrunch article… their days are numbered.

In September, Edulang will release another certificate like the ECE (Edulang Certificate of English), however this time – to even the playing ground for students applying to universities abroad – we will have a TOEFL® score equivalence.  This 100% online-from-anywhere test will be pay what you want, and we will invite teachers from all over the world to participate and correct the writing and speaking elements to the test for the compensation they feel they deserve (to be established individually).

I feel another ELT grassroots revolution coming on and I would love to have you on board!

Do you know what UX/UI stands for?

No… it’s not another buzz word, or ELT jargon just invented

I didn’t know either until I started hanging around cool geeky web designers!  UX is an acronym for “user experience”, and UI is “user interface” and both have a huge impact on how learners process the applications in front of them, and hence how well they learn.  Changes that are very subtle can actually have a HUGE impact…

So, today, I’d love your input on the spice that we’re thinking of changing in the UI on English Addicts.  Please click on the 2 pics below to see actual screen size (different than how they seem reduced to fit here) and the lil’ hint is we’re talking uppercase/lowercase and font.

Tell me which you prefer, which you think your students might prefer, OR even take it into class and ask them (as one stalwart supporter has already done).  Any other feedback on the UI is very, very welcome as well!

THANKS!  -brad

NUMBER ONE:

NUMBER TWO:

Why do we do, what we do?

Very simple question, very difficult answer as it reaches back into our own personal histories, cultural histories and the events that have collided throughout to bring us to today.  And, everyday we make choices as teachers, parents, humans that take us down a new historical path…

How do you feel about your path today?  Settled, longing, confused, connected?

Most of us will agree that the 21^st century is an exciting time to be alive, and also a confusing one as environmental, modern family issues and economic trials might ‘unsettle’ us a bit more than 50 or 100 years ago.  I firmly believe that students, teachers, schools and publishers that are successful in the next 20 years will succeed because they embrace these challenges, are up front and honest about them, and in some way contribute to our global health in leaping over them.

To feel less unsettled, people need to connect, to participate in a positive direction.

How are you connecting?  Share what you’re proud to be a part of, and of course this is where I’m so excited about my team’s personal efforts alongside Room to Read and our Pay What You Want approach… but when I write those words, they’re just words.

What is beyond those words?  Amazing feats and impressive numbers.

In 10 years, Room to Read has  built 10,000 libraries with 100,000 books taken out every week and 1,000,000 hours in the last year volunteered all over the world within Room to Read’s organization.  Amazing.  That generosity is settling.  That community is enriching, and that is the direction that all of my team at Edulang is so excited about contributing to.

Oh… and there are others that are excited about our new direction too.

So how many of these 15 flags, do you recognize (this time)?

Join us in embracing the 21st century in this globally-oriented healthy direction.  Spread the word, and share directly with those who will benefit.

oh… and I am definitely interested to see how many flags you knew

(I only got 8 this time)

-Brad

Image courtesy of Linda Spashett via Wikicommons

One of the coolest things about our new Pay What You Want program is the great number of new learners coming in, and the wonderful feedback we’ve been getting… like this cute little video from a French family thanking us!!!  #LOVEit

The family explained that these two young brothers are training for tennis competitions, attending school, and also want to add English on the side.  They needed something easily accessible, interesting, and with pedagogical tasks they could do on a quick, regular basis.

Of course we’re happy they chose English Addicts and it was nice to know that the parents said they could just leave their children to their efforts, as, after a week of guiding them, they became 100% autonomous.

Seeing this video made me wonder how Non-native English-teaching parents are sharing language with their children… and what about their local friends who might not master English as well, but know how valuable English has become for their children’s future?

What are your thoughts?

What are you or your friends doing?

Who’s going online?

Excited to hear how it is for you and your families.  —Cheers, Brad

Take 20 seconds and just look…

What do you see in these clouds ?

How often do we do the same in the classroom?

Both, to really look, but also to “read into” what we see?

Do you see your students for who they are today… or are you perceiving them more through the memory of who they were the last class, or on the last exam?

Do you have favorites?  Which ones and why?

When tossing out a question in class, I’ve noticed that I can fall into a pattern of leaning on certain students when no one else voices their opinion outright.

Do you too?

One of my favorite etymologies is “habit”, coming from Latin habere- “to hold”, hence “to occupy” (habitat)- but also moving into Old French as “habit“, and later “habille“, meaning “appearance” and finally in modern French, “clothes”. Just like clothes, we wear our habits everyday, and though it might not be easy, we do have the choice of what to wear each morning.

What habits might you want to change in your teaching?

And what habits have you developed that have been truly beneficial for you and your students?

A reflective post indeed, and I await your thoughts with a smile

Today’s post is an interview I did with one of our recent Pay-What-You-Want sponsors from Mexico, Guillermo Rueda.  I always send out emails to our new learners and Guillermo and I very quickly established a good rapport, so I felt like asking him a few questions here for the benefit of all.  And off we go!

So, Guillermo, where are you from and how long have you been studying English?

I´m from Mexico and I have taken English lessons for about 5 years discontinuosly.

Do you use English very often in your day-to-day life. If so how and when?

I dont use English very often, but I´m looking forward to get a job where I could use it every day. That´s why I practice by my own every time I can.

How did you hear about Edulang?

I was looking for websites which could helped me to improve my english skills in order to get a good grade in the TOEIC® exam. So that´s how I found Edulang on the web.

What did you find most challenging about the TOEIC?

The grammar section is the most dificult part for me. Additionally, the fact that is a timed test makes it really interesting.

Do you mind if we ask how well you did?

Not at all, I got 930 points. Since I studied very hard I tought I was going to get about 850 points, but as you can see I did a lot better than I expected. I´m really glad about that.

(((  WOW!  )))

How did Test Simulator help you prepare for your test. What do you think was the greatest advantage to preparing this way?

I only had 2 weeks before the TOEIC® exam and I really wanted to be sure that I was going to get a good grade, so at that time I started to use the Test simulator. The simulator helped me to get the confidence that I needed since It gives a similar enviroment to the test. The greatest advantage was that I had the chance to measure my skills before the exam and to work harder where it was needed.

Anything you might suggest we should improve upon?

In general, the Test simulator is a good tool to improve skills and to get confidence before the exam. I think the timer in the exam mode could be reviewed in order to give exactly the same time as in the TOEIC® exam.

(We’ll take a look at that immediately. Thanks Guillermo!)

What do you think of our pay-what-you-want program? How did it feel to contribute?

This is a very interesting program, because I had never heard about something like that before and I tought it was to good to be true, so I send a couple of e-mails to make sure I got it right and so it was (yes, I remember how surprised AND supportive you were).

Since part of the price of the Test Simulator is for charity I didn´t hesitate to buy the program in a fair price. So at the end everything worked out very well, I got a good grade, I contributed to charity and hopefully to expand a business. It was a win-win situation!.

It is win-win indeed, Guillermo, and I really appreciate you taking the time to tell us about your test preparations, how we helped and wish you the best with your job search that will let you excel with the English you’ve worked hard to acquire!

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Guillermo Rueda is a post-graduate student who has been studying English for 5 years now and looking for a job in Logistics in Mexico. He currently lives in Veracruz, Mexico and enjoys jogging, reading, surfing the web and watching sports in his down time.

Nearly 50 responded to last week’s survey which is awesome.  THANKS!!! If you haven’t I’d still love to hear from you as it’s always fun to know who’s reading.

Results below, but first two “blog challenge” asides as it is my fav cup of tea.

1) PLN inspiration is a post n small challenge of sorts from Phil Wade.  Check it out and see if there’s a blog you’d like to JING about.  I’m twirling my thumbs thinking of whose blog I might introduce (though Phil’s introduced a chain letter effect to it so I might have to wait my turn)…

2) Larry Ferlazzo gave me a nice tip of the hat last week and launched a challenge on what might this animal say photos.  Here’s my contribution.  Merci 4 the fun idea, Larry.  Great for class giggles and exploring new language!

AND without further ado, the survey results:

THANKS again… and what do you think that chicken would say?

Ever wonder who reads your blog?

I do, and I’d love to know more!!!

Obviously I know who comments, but for each person that comments there are probably 10 who stop by and don’t leave one.  Now… I don’t know about you but I’m really curious to know who actually reads what I blog.

So, here we go, feel free to share a bit more about who you are!  4 questions is all I’m asking and in return, I give you the photo below for a Friday giggle…

Fair trade?

Ever since I was little I wanted to travel and learn as many languages as I could, and I’ve definitely moved forward in that adventure over the past 15 years.  Wonderful journées

I’m currently in China for a week interpreting for my family business (violins), and it’s such a pleasure to be surrounded by this language and culture again.

If you didn’t already know I lived here for 3 years and really, really enjoyed it and soaked up quite a bit of Mandarin, learning enough to communicate and certainly crack a few jokes; it’s a very unique rapport to have with Chinese folks that don’t speak English, and who 99% of the time have almost never ever chatted with a foreigner before… so it amounts to fun conversations, and often a bit of basketball too

BUT, I wasn’t a “studious” learner and even if I can write text messages and emails in Chinese, I could never translate our website, for example.  For that, luckily I have a friend here whose English is great and with whom I’ve been collaborating to bring my team’s efforts to China.  Edulang in 中文  coming very soon with special thanks to Sudan!

And if you haven’t caught it our Japanese version of Edulang.com, please do think of someone you might know in Japan who could be interested in checking it out and sharing.  Our Test Simulator app should be the “steal of the century” there for $1 and more if folks want to contribute to our efforts and Room to Read.

I think it’s so cool to see me smiling with some Japanese to the right courtesy of Misako’s wonderful translation (THANKS AGAIN MISAKO!!!).

Just a quick post to say “ni hao” from China and to wonder for a moment at how small the world has become in such a short time.  Never would I have imagined myself communicating with thousands of people the world over, almost every day, and learning so much.

Ain’t it amazing?

Today’s post is from a conversation I had with Mikaël Cabon, a journalist from the same region as Edulang, and an English learner who’s giving it his all with English Addicts.  So, without further ado….

So Mikaël, you are a French Journalist. What area in journalism are you most passionate about?

First, news is a passion for me. I have read many newspapers and magazines for ages. I wrote my first one when I was ten years old on a white paper, recto-verso, and printed quite a few. Second, I think that I am an average but attentive and honest professional. And in our society I believe everyone should choose what they are good at, more than what could make them richer. I write about economics for some newspapers, on and off line, and animate a few blogs and radio broadcasting. I also teach marketing and “culture générale” in some universities. In my mind, it’s the same job : share knowledge with people. Like Francis Bacon said : ““Knowledge is power”.

How often do you read or write in English for your work?

Almost never. Sometimes I interview foreigners in France in English. But it’s hard for me to explain myself in English with the same level as in french. I remembered that one day I interviewed a dutch entreprenor. At the end of our conversation, I was exhausted.

Do you think that’s typical for a French journalist these days? How about 20 years ago, or what do you think might be the future of English in French journalism in say 20 years from now?

Big question. Average level improve for sure. More than foreign langages I think that journalist have to be able to write, ask, take pictures, make videos or whatever, to do more than one job like twenty years ago.

The future of the journalism and the medias are not necessarly the same. Journalism is a job, sometimes a part-time job for some of us. Medias are an economic sector with different rules.

What was your experience like learning English in French public school?

I’ve learned more watching Television Series with English subtitles and learning with English Addicts than in 12 years of study at school.  After 4 years in middle school, three in high school, and 5 years of English study at the university, I was not comfortable expressing myself in English.  I think there’s a grave problem with the foreign language instruction in the French schools.  If I could do it again I would probably want to go abroad for a year.

Although I am curious of foreign societies, I didn’t make enough efforts in the past to venture out. These days I am reading a book about Japan Society, Courrier International, a french newspaper that translate international newspaper articles every week, and I’m trying to learn Chinese every week at the Institut Confucius in Brest (how hard it is !)…

For my two daughters, I wanna a different situation. The oldest, Poème, ten years old, learns English ten hours by week in Sainte Annes’s College in Brest, and the youngest, Venise, nine years old, will follow the same way. Both are learning  Chinese too. Without emphasis, it’s a political decision. According to me, France is a great country with great people, when they want to be it. With globalization, English dominates the world. It’s a danger for all of us, for the 6.000 different languages on earth (and for Klingon too), for our culture, because the standardization, and for English first langage people too, as globish is not English. Because I want that my daughters will be good citizens who do their best for french society, I hope they would be able to speak other langages and see the world and other people with humanism and without doubts or fears. For me Babel Tower scandal is a shame and a heavy ball and chain, for my daughters, i hope it would be a chance to learn. Polyglotism is a chance, but you can live without, open mind is a treasure.

This past year you wrote about English Addicts on your blog to share with your readers. How long had you been using the application before you shared it online?

About six months. It’s a great pleasure for me to study english with this application. It’s because I can testify that my level improve with English Addicts that I share this news all over the world on my blog More of that : I bought three licences. One for me and two for some of my friends.

How often do you use English Addicts?

It depends on my work planning. Some weeks, I use EA five times. I need about twenty minutes to finish the exercises. I try to make them in the morning.

Have you noticed a change in your ability? In what way?

Yes. My level increases for sure. I’m a learning turtle in foreigns langages. Step by step, I understand more and more words. I understand about 90% of the sentences of the reports. The next stage for me is improving my level in speaking and writing. A strong challenge.

What’s something you really enjoy about the application?

Two things. The extreme variety of exercises and the themes of the reports. My tailor is not rich but my “English Addicts reports” are.  I learn listening to many things about science, education, economy…. it’s great

Anything you’d love to see in a future version?

Maybe a better reporting of my schedules with my strenghts and my weaknesses. And perhaps an app for kids.

What do you think of our new pay what you want program?

It’s an innovative and modern price offer. Some music band did that before with success. I paraphrase Andrew Lewis, an US blogger : “if you don’t pay for a service, you are not a consumer, you are the product”.  Truthful sentence. I gave some euros for your app because you need earning money to continue, I need improving my english level, so I must pay something. This syllogism is easy to understand.  To improve “ton anglais” ? English Addicts, what else!

THANKS MIKAEL and “bonne continuation” with all of your projects

Mikaël Cabon works for a number of French magazines as well as contributing to lobbying and economy blogs. He also teaches Marketing at a local university and runs a small publishing company. His two daughters are the sunshine of his life and when the moon is shining, he writes novels. Mikaël is an English Addicts fan since 2010.  To catch more of what Mikaël is up to, check out:

wanted a goofy pic for the big event... um... yeah...

As this is my 100th blog post, I can’t think of anyway better of celebrating it than by

THANKING YOU !!!

In the past year we’ve gone on quite a few journées; I just checked and we’ve totalled up 2039 comments while dancing all over etymology, teaching English, supreme language geekness, Edulang’s efforts, and a fair amount of fun in between.  I’ve discovered so much about teaching from our online ELT community, just as I feel I’ve learned so much about myself AND again…

I HAVE YOU TO THANK FOR THAT, DEAR READER!!!

wherever you are

analytics are sooooo cool

I also want to take this moment to extend a special MERCI to those individuals who have been instrumental in helping me and Edulang get the word out about our “Pay What You Want” initiative.  Our mission is to even the playing field by providing anyone and everyone with quality English-learning materials, and we know that that’s an enormous challenge and one that takes the support from a larger community.

So, I want to personally thank these early-adopters who have gone that extra mile to get the good word out.

A big 谢谢 (thanks) to Phil Wade for his continuous support, feedback and for sharing with the readers here his great post on “Why I couldn’t live without English Addicts“

Thanks to Barbara Sakamoto for her column on Socially Responsible ELT where she shared Edulang’s efforts alongside another great post-tsunami ELT movement called ELT for Tohoku.

Big thanks to Sylvia Guinan who has started using English Addicts with her online teaching and wrote a wonderful piece which really got to the heart of why we’re doing what we’re doing:  Why you should flip your classroom with Edulang philanthropy

Danke to my online sis and sweetheart of a sweetheart, Vicky Loras who has consistently helped us get the word out and mentions our efforts in two different posts on her blog!

A huge gracìas to Maria Jesus Garcia who shared our efforts on an Educator’s site in Spain and let me work on my spanish to share Edulang’s efforts in this podcast.

A good twitter buddy, Cherry, put me in contact with a few inspiring Educators in India and Albert Prayan was kind enough to share his thoughts on our applications here and on the British Council site as well.

A big thanks as well to Misako Yoke who has dedicated a number of hours to translating our site into Japanese because she identifies with our cause, but also because she’s just a wonderfully generous person.  THANK YOU MISAKO!!!

Michael Griffin has also helped with translations and has been a firm supporter, and is just all-around good guy who’s now launching #KELTchat for English teachers in Korea or anywhere really.  Don’t miss out on Mike’s activity!

I also want to thank Jeffrey Hill, who recently wrote two posts about our pay want you want initiative for English Addicts and Test Simulator, and since I’ve already talked to a number of new Edulang learners who said they heard about us for the first time through his posts!

There are many, many others who have been helpful in many ways, and you know who you are, and of course, a big thanks to you as well.

SO… how should we celebrate this milestone?

Accepting suggestions now below in the comments

Today’s post comes from none other than the pedagogical inspiration for English Addicts and one of its lesson writers for over 8 years now, Dr. Paul Brett.  In this post he will explain how the jungles of Venezuela and his 30-year path in ELT helped define English Addict’s creation.  ENJOY !!!   -Brad

My path to English Addicts started in an unusual place … one where the Rivers Caroni and Orinoco meet, two day’s drive from the Brazilian border, a day’s drive from the fantastical table-top mountains and jungle of the Gran Sabana, half a day from the palm-treed Caribbean beaches and where I had mango trees and iguana’s salsaing in my back garden, and also where I took my first ever class into a computer room for an English class.

It seems many moons ago (and it was!), but that moment was to shape a passion, direction and a career. The location sounds more exotic than it actually was, as Puerto Ordaz, or Cuidad Guyana, (strangely schizophrenic with two names, and there is San Felix too – but that is another story!), was a new city built to diversify from Venezuela’s main source of wealth oil, into aluminum production, powered by the hydro-electricity afforded by the Orinoco.  Teaching English at the British Council center there, was immensely rewarding and the city had attracted people from all over South America.

Quite bizarrely looking back, the British Council had chosen this teaching center as being one of its first to be furnished with a computer room – and had shipped us 10 BBC Micros (I truly hope you are not old enough to remember them!?) – with accompanying five and half inch floppy discs with language learning programs on. Rudimentary these black and white programs may have been, but what I experienced astounded me.

It was during that class that I witnessed the very early capacity and potential of the computer to engage, and engage is the key word, learners. What did I see which shaped a quest to maximize the computer to learning, well, the ability to go at one’s own pace, to choose with what, when and how one interacted, the power and delight of feedback, the challenge provided by comprehending, and the endless capacity to enchant. This is just to mention a few, and notwithstanding the rudimentary nature of the available programs. The computer work was part of a teaching sequence, but the class were engaged, liberated from the learning pace orchestrated by me, working at and receiving feedback on their own errors, discussing together things they did not understand, were being motivated by receiving correct answers and did not want to leave the activity or the room!

The Black Country, where I now lead the use of computers across my University, and for all subjects – seems far far removed from the rhythm and beat, youth, innocence and ebullience of that early time in Venezuela, but these insights and beliefs still guide my working day.

Obviously the computing world has changed dramatically since those days, and whereas I was the only native-speaker source for those students, instant access to English in use now comes via the web, as does full video rich entertainment. Alongside this our understandings of how best to support language learning development and apply these to the power of the variety of computer and web capabilities has increased. Key amongst these are the approaches embodied in English Addicts and its underlying format – harnessing the very best of language learning understandings and the affordances of the web. English Addicts uses as its core authentic spoken English, not language invented just so that people can learn language. In doing so it provides the variety of different accents used in English across the world.

Designing the original structure of English Addicts (and using my PhD research to inform it) with its preparation stage, guided and supported active listening activities and then a recycling of language stage, and finally drilling down to use of dictation to develop access to individual words and sounds as they change in speech, was an exciting time in my career, and its structure continues to evolve. English Addicts remains a unique learning package due to its approach. It is a delight to write English Addicts lessons and my favorite, rather predictably is always the last one I have written.

Best applications of computers and the web to learning will continue, and over the years I have been over-awed by the successes and the research findings of Professor Sugata Mitra.  If you have not heard about his work, I highly recommend it and the Hole-in-the-Wall project with children in poor districts of New Dehli India, has been replicated many times, demonstrating that children in groups, with access to the internet can teach themselves, even to talk like native speakers – see at 4 minutes in the video as he is an entertaining speaker too. It also apparently inspired the novel on which the movie Slumdog Millionaires was based!

Right I better get on to this week’s lesson, but when I have finished I am off to meet my friends and suffer (again) watching my favorite football team.

————————————————————————————————————————————————

Dr. P. Brett is currently Head of Blended Learning at University of Wolverhampton in the UK. He leads the institution’s implementation of technologies to support learning, and researches and publishes in this area. In his early career he taught EFL in Venezuela, Dubai and the UK. In 2010 he was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for his contribution to Higher Education. He is one of the authors who contribute English Addicts lessons.

Today we heard that news that Encyclopedia Britannica would no longer be printing its tomes…

WHY and HOW did we arrive here???

From wiktionary comes the etymology of “Standard” from Old french “estandart“ which meant “gathering place” and that’s what a standard is… the place that PEOPLE gather. For 225 some years people gathered around Encyclopedia Britannica and about 20 years ago they started gathering around Encarta, the Microsoft version of a CD-ROM encyclopedia because of a nicer price, convenience, and certainly a “cool factor” as well.

Then came along Wikipedia in the past decade and now free, crowd-sourced, international, non-commercial content is encyclopedia king, and hence the new standard to gather around, so after 244 years the Encyclopedia Britannica is no longer printing new tomes.

Again, an important question is: who determines the standard?

There was a very hard academic push against Wikipedia for awhile, but that’s evolved as the people chose it as a standard (not universities or schools or the government, not top-down).

Another, important question:  why?

Convenience, Quality, Ethics, Price, and because it’s where we gathered.

Since Edulang launched its own English Standard last week, I’ve bumped up against a lot of tough and interesting discussions all over the net. Specifically, one correspondent on reddit said: “Consumers don’t decide; it’s the employers and institutions that decide which certificate they want to see.”

I mostly disagreed:

On linked-in someone said our certificate was a joke and that he could copy it “right now”.

(I have a gut feeling he didn’t actually even take a look at the test itself)

I responded:

I appreciate the devil’s advocate point-of-view but I don’t think that you could copy this idea. We have PhDs who developed the material, and a team of senior engineers developing both the back office and front house design.

The investment to make even a poor copy of this is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and the reality is that this is a very stiff market with big powerful educational publishers dominating it (as they have for decades now), however they’re slow to change which leaves space for smaller nimble organizations like our own to bring about a new standard.

I finished my last post with a question of whether “our democratization in fair price and convenience” was about to establish another standard in the ELT industry?. As I answered last time: I leave that up to you and to your students to decide, and hope you gather around our new offer as I think it’s a beautiful way of leveling the playing field.

Please keep me posted on the revolution   Cheers, Brad

Ever think of how expensive the international “standardized” English tests are?

Some cost well over $200, require students to travel to specific centers on a fixed date and above all to stress out as they’re in an unknown environment trying to establish their “English value” for potential studies abroad or a better job.  Phew….

And what about those students that don’t have $200?

These issues have been on our mind at Edulang, and we’ve decided to do something about it.

This week we’re launching the Edulang Certificate of English.  It is within any student’s budgets as it only costs $10 and will be able to precisely evaluate their level of English. Furthermore, as it’s 100% online, learners can take it within the comfort of their home at anytime 24/7.  Just like our pay what you want offer, we hope this opens the range of opportunities to ALL English-language learners across the world, not just those that are well-off.

The Edulang Certificate of English gives an immediate TOEIC® test equivalence and the test-takers can choose to order a formal diploma certified by our team after completing the exam.

A question many will of course ask is:  if it’s at home, then how can you know if their brother or mother or cousin aren’t helping them get a better score? Our solution is through webcam monitoring, and we have a system in place to certify whether they were indeed the only one taking the test and present throughout.

Will our democratization in fair pricing and convenience start another revolution in the ELT industry?

I leave that up to you and to your students to decide… and of course, I’ll be doing my best to get the word out, so if our new direction rings true to your ear, please share this with all that might be interested and wish us “bonne chance” as we launch the Edulang Certificate of English!!!

-Cheers, Brad

In the modern world where many of our day-to-day products come from all four corners of the world, a tough, yet fair question to ask is “Is it possible to have a quality product at low cost with an ethical footprint?”

DEPENDS…

Of course, this question is also valid for Education, especially these days as the game is changing very quickly with the rise in digitalization and online learning; nowadays anyone can develop materials and teach them from anywhere, which begs the question:

The cost may be low, but what about the human process behind it and the real quality?

DEPENDS…

I don’t know that we can make sweeping generalizations, but I do know that our industry is changing fast and the way and where teachers work is changing quickly too.  With so much movement, it’s important to stop and take a real look at the human impact to these changes. For what it’s worth, I’m proud that our little team at Edulang is excelling beyond what many other players in the game have been or are doing as far as quality and ethics goes.  And to that end, I’d like to share just a bit more of how I see it here.

1) LOW COST

Our clients pay what they want and can have a year of English learning at one dollar.  The only thing lower is free, and really, as the expression goes “nothing’s free in life”.

2) ETHICAL

Lowering the cost of our applications to a minimum of a dollar makes them available to everyone.

Above that amount, each person is able to add a contribution depending on how they value the fruits of our labor and fifty percent of that goes to Room to Read.

We pay our authors well.  Our team internally is well compensated too, and no, we’re not outsourcing development as some actors do.

HOW IS THIS ALL POSSIBLE?

We want to change the rules of the game.  We feel that elearning can be inexpensive for many and don’t think it’s anywhere near comparable to the hourly wage of a trained teacher (though others in the industry seem to think so and want to charge so).

We are courageous.  Our team has often taken a step out on the limb because we know that we have to as a small publisher.  Taking risk also gives us great opportunities.

There are 500 million English learners out there and most of them have access to the internet and a $1 barrier is within the reach of all.   Thanks to the magic of the cloud, it doesn’t cost us an extreme amount more to serve 10,000 clients or 1 million,  so our costs of developing quality materials remains the same whether we have 10,000 or 1,000,000 clients.

By changing the game, by democratizing online learning, we have the possibility to make a real impact and that, above all, is what drives our team.  I must say it’s a nice direction to be involved in.

We just hit our 100 day mark for the Pay What You Want program, and learners have joined us from all over…  here are 15 at random.  Just for fun, I wonder many flags you recognize?  (feel free to give your honest answer below in the comments)  ;-)

Exciting times because many of these countries above are brand new for us.  Our new offers lowers all the barriers and we’re very happy to see our products put to good use all over the globe.

A FEW STATS to keep you in the loop with how it’s going:

*  91% of participants contributed beyond the $1 fee amount.

*  Students paid a dollar, 10 dollars, 30 dollars and upwards.

*  A number of teachers paid 20, 30 or even above 150 dollars for each student license to teach their various classes.

It is my honor to welcome a first guest post by none other than Phil Wade.  I’ve been crossing paths with Phil on twitter and the blogosphere the past few months and it’s been a true pleasure.  He offered to share his take on the use of English Addicts in a number of different contexts so without further ado, I give you Phil!  ——————

I’ve been interested in teaching with the news since I began my EFL journey. The only problem has been finding suitable materials at the right level and regularly updated. For years I used photocopied texts but my students have always preferred and needed audios.

This year I have faced some new teaching challenges in the form of in-house and telephone corporate 121 students and computing engineers learning almost entirely online. One particular corporate student asked to discuss news topics every lesson while in the group classes we do weekly topical debates. Thus, I set to work looking for suitable material. Thanks to some great ideas and guidance from my PLN via my EFL Experiments blog post, I felt confident that I could start integrating listening into my classes via my mobile phone or on laptops.

It was at this point that I rediscovered English Addicts. My previous boss was their number 1 fan and would run round the university on Fridays telling everyone to use the free lesson. At the time I didn’t have much computer lab access (because the same boss hogged it to use English addicts with all her classes) so had only tried the odd lesson or podcast but my students had always enjoyed the audio exercises.

Now I use EA with 1 CEO in every lesson. I give him a choice of EA lessons for the next class and he chooses whatever he wants. He doesn’t have time to do all the exercises so he just listens to the podcasts in his car or ‘second office’ as he calls it. We then discuss the topic and I explain some of the vocab.

With my group classes they all listen to the podcasts in class at the beginning and complete a vocab exercise (either the EA one or my own). We then discuss the topic and debate the main issue. For homework I encourage students to complete the other exercises and suggest another related lesson.

Advantages of using EA

Every week day there is a new lesson and the variety of topics is huge.

Everything you need for a lesson is there thanks to the great discussion teaching ideas.

It saves A LOT of time. Students select the topic, I listen to it, check the vocab exercises and discussion ideas and then think about what would or could work in my class. I write down a list of possible activities and then depending on how things go I select them.

The lessons are levelled and the easy ones are not condescending and baby-level like some other sites.

It is very flexible so students can do the lesson before class, in the class alone or in a group or you can even control it from the front.

You can search by type of level and accent:

Since the ‘Pay what you want’ deal EA has become affordable to everyone and is a perfect match for modern techie students. The podcasts are also available via iTunes so even idevice users can listen to them. Now there’s no excuse not to give EA a go.

<Brad interjects> “Once again, A big MERCI to Phil!!!!

Feel free to shoot Phil any questions in the comments below

and I’d love to hear about other teachers using EA as well.

Hit me up anytime with a Q at Brad at Edulang.com”

CHEERS!

———————————————————————————————————————————————————- Phil Wade is from northern England and first came to France at age 10 and has been a regular visitor ever since. He started teaching English while studying for a BA (hons) and later went on to study a PGCE, the CELTA, DELTA and the MA TESOL, as well as becoming a qualified Cambridge examiner. His career has taken him around Europe and to Asia teaching in language schools, universities and in companies. He is currently a freelance teacher, trainer and materials writer in La Réunion and also contributes regular articles and ideas to TESOL France. You can check out Phil’s fantastic blogs here:

http://eflthoughtsandreflections.wordpress.com/

http://debatediscussion.blogspot.com/

If you didn’t catch the first part of my recent learning language blog challenge, check ‘er out, and since then I’ve loved reading Ceci, Sandy, Nina, James, Elinda, Naomi, Shikha, Ann, Ty, Louise, Christos, Tyson, Chris, Stephen, Rebecca, Larisa and Icha’s stories and can’t wait to hear yours

Ever hear someone say our language-learning skills peak at age twelve?

Brother-in-law and my two nephews... they're not quite 12 but sponges o' knowledge

There’s certainly some biological truth to it, but might it also be the case that adults not only lose a touch of  brain plasticity, but also the wonder, ease, and social interaction that children employ to learn a language?  I think so.  Actually, I know so as I tackled one of the “world’s toughest languages” in my late 20s and I believe it was this child-like “how” that enabled me to learn well.  In the end, my age had very little to do with it and I’ll try to explain why here…

How I learned Chinese

I arrived in Beijing in 2006 with an iPod app with hundreds of phrases in Mandarin and not a single word I’d learned.  Eventually it did help to count to 100 and how to say “please”, “thank you” and “where is the bus”, but that won’t get ya too far, will it?

I spent a total of maybe 12 hours in a classroom.  It just didn’t work for me at that point.  I needed to guide my own path and be more independent, go at my pace.  I learned from conversation and had biweekly lessons with a tutor.  I would ask how to say this, that, and this and then I would use those expressions in day-to-day conversations.  Pedagogically speaking it was a very lexical approach.

Of course anyone will agree that an “immersion” experience is the way to go, but that doesn’t necessarily mean living in the country; it means “immersing” yourself in the language.  I’ve seen tons of expats in China who didn’t speak more than a few phrases after years of living there, just as I’ve seen Chinese students who spoke beautiful English never having left their native land.

I’m a pretty out-going chap and I know that made all the difference in this immersive approach.  As I love joking around, for every question/answer I learned, I always had a number of silly responses.  This also led to new vocabulary as the conversation was never the same. Since the average Chinese person doesn’t speak any English, my interactions almost always happened in Chinese and that “need” determined a lot of my success too, but so did the fact that I had many Chinese friends and spent LOTS of time with them.

I would hang with this fella a few times a week as he made his bread and sweets.

This was one of the guys that took care of security at the building where I lived.  Every time I bumped into him, we’d chat for a few minutes and he’d always teach me a new expression.

Here was a man who sold musical instruments and with whom I’d talk and drink tea every week.

There was a local hiking group and I jumped right in.  Of course, I didn’t understand a lot of conversation at first, but anytime someone would talk one-on-one with me, we’d normally get somewhere and I’d learn something new, practice something old.

I was of course teaching English while I was there and exchanges with my students helped too as I could ask them questions in English and they’d give me more insightful responses than I could expect from a non-English speaker.

I think it’s important to note that I really would talk to anyone which shows two things:  how much I love language and social interaction, and also how open Chinese are to talking to a foreigner… easiest interations I’ve EVER had!  Doing the same in a European country seems much more challenging to me.

Learning Chinese was intense, above all those first few months.  I’d often not understand much, but just listening was key and I’ve always been someone who can sit around a table and listen to a language and watch social interaction regardless of whether I understand much or not. So much to observe!

I’d listen and pick out patterns, inflections (TONES are so tough, but doable) and I’d hear and repeat that language in my mind.  This focus on input reminds me of Krashen’s research and also one of Edulang’s apps (English Addicts) which focuses heavily on the listening component as a means of language acquisition.  I did try a few podcasts in Chinese too, but they weren’t authentic materials and there wasn’t much personalization available (unlike EA).  More than anything it’s a question of exposure, exposure, exposure which takes time and dedication.

Which makes me come back to my first question: is it that many adults don’t have the time or patience to learn a language?

For me, it took a year to start to be comfortable in basic conversation.  After 2 years I was much more confident and after living in China for 3 years I was very solid in “household Chinese”.  If I had had a full-time job, kids and a busy life, there’s no way I would’ve been able to learn Chinese.  Time.  Investment.  There’s no way of learning a language without that, but if you’re enjoying it… time flies and it doesn’t feel like an ounce of work.

Well, I could go on forever about Chinese and my “how”, but we’ll save that for another time. Again, I’d love to hear your story.  Take up the challenge and tell us ‘how and why’ you learned a foreign language.  Come on… ya know ya want to

Why and How are always the most interesting questions… aren’t they?

On Tuesday I posted the “#1 reason to learn a foreign language“, and honestly, I posted it not so much because I believe there is a #1 reason but to engender discussion, disagreement, or to maybe even inspire a bit of devil’s advocate à la Chia Suan Chong.  For what it’s worth, sometimes I like stepping a bit out on the edge to shake things up in the hopes that when all settles we’ve all learned a bit more.

So, let’s shake things up with our different stories as there is no single why, or how to learn a language, though we’ll all have different thoughts on what they may be.

I challenge you to blog a story of your language learning, be it a success or a story about what didn’t work for you OR for your students if you’d like.

I’ll start

Image courtesy of Setreset via Wikipedia Commons

My language journey can be traced back to my very early days, though it was not then that I started learning; that was just when I started wanting to learn.

Let’s drift back 25 years, and sail from my current home in Paris over the Altantic, past Boston and New York and Washington…finally getting towards the “Mid-West” and  plopping down among the corn fields of South-Eastern Ohio.

There we can see a mini Brad playing with a few buddies, and fuming with envy.  Why? My childhood neighbors, little Tommy and Jimmy grew up in a bilingual environment. Sometimes amongst themselves, or especially when we were at their house, these two little boys would employ a “secret” language of which I understood nothing.  Well… nothing besides “A Yung Ay See O (hello)” and “Kim Chi”, a preserved vegetable that is heaven to some and torture to others.  Me = Heaven.

Korean, their secret language was the coolest spy toy a little boy could imagine.  I had to have it.  NOW, zip back 15 years and plop back down in the southern France among the Alps and there I am, sitting in a French high school without a single person I know.

Why?

To explore, both others and myself, to have an adventure, to accomplish what none of my classmates had: to become fluent in a foreign language… but somewhere in the Freudian background there was also this childhood story that drove me towards language in an envy-spy-adventurous way.  We all have a past that lives forward with us; it is an amazing and complicated bond to understand and to unravel, but I have no doubt that my days with Tommy and Jimmy set me off on a journey that took me to France and on many other language adventures since.

So that’s my why(s), and for my HOW… let’s go with how I learned Chinese which I think is worth another post altogether cuz it’s a good story.  In the meantime, I look forward to hearing some of your whys and hows.

BON WEEKEND!!!!

To step into another culture’s shoes, and thus see yours from another perspective.

Of course it can increase job prospects, and yes, it increases other cognitive functions and prevents senility.  It does makes travelling more fun, and it can open a window into other literatures in their original form… oh yes, and I also believe it can improve our understanding and appreciation of our own native language.

But more than anything, as we continue to live in an ever-increasing international society, we’ll need to be able to see outside of our own perspective and to be able to understand each other as best as we can… which is not easy to do if we don’t have the habit of putting ourselves into others’ shoes.

Or do you think there’s a greater reason to learn a foreign language?

Think I’ll ask my students and also wonder what yours would say!

No.

Not today.

Especially not as it’s historically been taught in most schools.

But, mastering the language isn’t the goal, either.

To master anything takes dedication and time… 10,000 hours according to Malcolm Gladwell.

Many international learners need to achieve an adequate level of English for their future careers, but also for potential intercultural interactions and enhanced access to the WWW. In the presentation I mentioned a week ago, I was surprised to hear Stephen Krashen say that our job as teachers was to get students to the “intermediate” level.

Does that happen in many public schools?

It didn’t for the majority of foreign language students I studied with in high school (or college).  Nor did it for the group of first-year university students to whom I’m teaching English these days.  All of these groups mentioned had 6+ years of language instruction, hence probably between 500-2000 hours total.

That’s probably more than enough time to achieve an intermediate level if a correct pedagogy is applied.  So, I guess the issue I’m getting at is two-fold: are schools applying proven pedagogical approaches, and two, if we teachers are only there to get students to an intermediate level, then where should we be guiding them to move beyond that?

Reading the newspapers, pleasure reading like comics (as suggested by Krashen), listening to international news, podcasts, elearning, movies, series… subtitles, no subtitles…

This has been on my mind recently as I’m teaching a typical college course this semester:  18 students for 12 classes over 3 months and  2 hours each class.  24 hours total.  What do you do with one day?  Of course we have objectives, but if anything my main objective is to share how enjoyable learning a language can be (and its benefits) so that they become self-motivated to move beyond the level they may obtain in our class.

Shouldn’t that be a first priority for us?

What does this sign mean to you?

Do you often add it to your tweets, sms, or quick messages to friends, family, acquaintances?  Why?  If you took it off would it change the message?

On a lazy, sunny, snowy afternoon in Paris I joined 55 others from around the world to listen to Chia Suan Chong share her thoughts and research on Politeness and Pragmatics in ELF. Chia did a marvelous job of interacting, polling, asking us questions and listening to feedback. It was a fine example of how webinars can be great for professional development and I thank the Besig team for making it available to us all.

I finished the presentation with two strong take-aways.  One, that politeness is truly complex and VERY subjective, and two that it thus lives embedded in our cultures and languages, and knowing one without the other really doesn’t give you a full picture.  Or, as I read on another blog this weekend “learning the code, but not how to use it to make beautiful melodies” will result in failed intercultural communication.

Maybe I’ll write a book about it one day (even if I’d be far from the first to do so), but for today, I would like to tip my hat to Chia and to add a bit of etymological enquiry as to whom the model for “propriety” in European culture was (where propriety comes from those having property according to etymonline).

Comes from polire in Latin and gives us polish— as in to get rid of the dust and make clean.  A well-polished individual, a polished resume, a polished literary style is becoming of a sophisticated…

From French gentil, (13thcentury) meaning one of noble birth, and in modern French it means nice, a cousin to the English word gentle.  Funny that all gentlemen were originally…

From Latin, nobilis meaning “well-known, famous, of noble birth” and hence the noble families of Rome of that time.  Of the same origin but from greek comes gnostic (or agnostic), those who “know“.  Of course nobles knew how to be…

So, the Nobles behaved courteously at court… which means they were…

Con = with, and sidus=constellation, hence considerare in Latin meant “to look at closely, observe,” and etymonline says perhaps even literally “to observe the stars”.  This makes sense to me as those who are most considerate are those who are most aware of their surrounding, context and treat all with…

or re-spect… where spect means “to look/see” as in spectacles.  Hence,  they re-look, or are, again, very aware of the situation, above all if there is an opportunity to be…

Those who are considerate and respectful are obviously aware of their surroundings and it might be because they have a higher perspective… from atop their horses!!!  Yes, the noble gentlemen who rode a “cheval” (horse in french) were those who chivalrous.  Interesting enough this word disappeared from both French and English in the 1600s and only came back into use thanks to late 18c English romantic writers.

By the way, what’s the opposite of polite?

VULGAR… or in Latin, vulgaris: “of or pertaining to the common people“

Take-away?

1) Our ideas of politeness come from our upbringing, which comes from our family history, which comes from our cultural history, which amazingly is still visible in our language.

2) Cross a border and it’s often not the same, so we then have to pay close attention, and yes, “When in Rome…”

3) Treat your students courteously with re-look, as if they were gentle Roman noblemen and women gazing at the stars on top of their polished horses.

Every now and again I hear someone say something along these lines:   “oh yeah, well, everyone’ll be speaking Chinese in…“.  As I’ve been down that path, I thought I’d share the insider story and why I have a hard time ever seeing that happen.  So, without further ado, 4 reasons why I don’t think Chinese will be the next lingua franca:

1) Most everyone will share a language, but it won’t be Chinese.

a) It will be (or rather, it is) English.  English hasn’t been crowned the lingua franca, and it never will be, and maybe the reason for that is that there is no longer a symbolic head to be crowned.  That’s the magic of what English has become:  international.  It has grown far beyond national borders, and well past its native speakers.

b) On Tuesday I enjoyed listening to Stephen Krashen speak at an IATEFL and EVO online presentation.  Beyond the many ESL insights he shared, he also quipped:  “In the US, everyone thinks Mandarin is going to take over, but no, not even close.  I think this is a fantasy.  English is still so far ahead”. Dr. Krashen did also mention that drinking multiple cups of coffee, becoming bilingual and reading can help delay senility.  Good to know!

c) Become bilingual because it’s wonderful (and because it’s good for proper aging!).  For what it’s worth, there’s been another interesting NY Times article floating around this week which poses the question:  “English is global, so why learn Arabic?” centering around increasing international job competition for the majority of monolingual US citizens.  I do think it’s beneficial and important that native speakers of English venture outside of their linguistic comfort zone, but that’s a whole ‘nutha issue.

2) The Chinese are all learning English

Upon returning from Shanghai this past year I saw this:

Nuff said…

3) If the Chinese speak English, then what need is there to learn Chinese?

Of course, for scholastic reasons it’s important.  For cultural exchange.  For fun, but bottom line, if two speakers who don’t share a native language in common are communicating, they will almost always choose the language which is most comfortable for both parties.  I can’t imagine how students around the world will ever learn enough Mandarin to match the Chinese level of English.

More importantly, it would probably be those international student’s third or fourth language, and considering the amount of time required to master Chinese, is it really worth the necessary investment of time? (unless of course they’re a big language geek like me who can’t seem to get enough).  Here’s another blogger’s interesting take on the subject (5 reasons why learning Chinese might be a waste of your time), but in the end, one language will be the common language and if the Chinese speak better English than the the rest of the world speaks Chinese, then English it will be.  No?

The international scales have tipped towards English, and I can’t see it tipping back for this final and probably most significant reason…

4) Chinese is an enormous linguistic challenge

a) Been there, done that… still doing that because it really is a lifelong journey.  I just answered a question on Quora comparing the difficulty of learning Chinese with that of French, Spanish and Italian.  BIG difference.

b) The most famous foreigner in China is DaShan, (大山, “big mountain”) a Canadian who has appeared on Chinese television since the late 80s and speaks “impeccable Mandarin”.  Here’s his take on Quora on “how long it takes a foreigner to become fluent in Chinese”:

“Fluent” is a relative concept. I would summarize:

2 years to lie on your resume and hope no Chinese speaker interviews you for a job (because 2 years is enough to bullshit your way through a situation in front of non-speakers). 5 years for basic fluency, but with difficulty. 10 years to feel comfortable in the language. One lifetime is not enough to attain the level of a native speaker, unless you start before the age of 10. (I was 19)

c) I’m really enjoying reading a book called “Babel No More” by Michael Erard exploring language superlearners (hyperpolyglots) and how we can make sense of their linguistic feats.  The author traces the history of one of the world’s greatest known polyglot, Mezzofanti, an Italian cardinal who supposedly had 70+ languages under his belt. However, when the master of languages started learning Chinese characters, “he suffered a nervous breakdown and lost every language he knew except his mother tongue, Bolognese”.  Ok… anecdotal at best, I know… and don’t worry, Mezzofanti got this hard-earned languages back and did tackle spoken Chinese later. 

Yeah, it’s tough… which reminds me of a fun post I pulled together last year in June: What’s the hardest language in the world is the wrong question.

CONCLUSION:

I agree with Stephen Krashen.  ;-)  This is a fantasy whipped up for a bit of controversial conversation, but really it doesn’t have much founding at all, kind of like that question we saw in November: “Is English Really Dying again?”.  I think there will certainly be a surge in learners of Chinese around the world and more power to them.  I continue to love my journey down the path of Chinese, however, I just can’t ever seeing it become a lingua franca.  There’s only so much that can be expected linguistically of the students of the world, and English has the upper hand and why would that change?

So… whaddya think?

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