ESL etc.

I am a huge David Foster Wallace fan, and I think this video adapted from a commencement speech he gave in 2005 is fantastic. I would especially considering showing it to my college- or grad-school-bound students. It’s a bit long, and it’s certainly not the easiest thing in the world to understand, but I love [...]

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Over the past several election cycles, I’ve become convinced that the only issue that truly matters is getting the money out of politics. Until we do that, no meaningful change is possible. Lawrence Lessig’s recent TED talk expresses this problem in clear and engaging terms. This talk would be difficult for most students, but it [...]

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I would like to start an environmental forum in TESOL. The purpose of this forum will be to bring together English language teachers, program administrators, and other English language professionals interested in environmental issues. We will use our network to share materials and other resources in a spirit of collaboration. We will also promote environmentally [...]

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This video is an effective way to visually communicate the wealth inequality in the US. I especially like the fact that it focuses so much on the difference between perception and reality. When I was teaching in China, I asked my class what percentage of Americans they thought was rich. The consensus was 80%. It [...]

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In this session, we talked about ideas for greening an English language program. I shared my own experiences, dividing my time between the areas of curriculum and resources. Here is the presentation I gave. Below, you can find links to the various materials I discussed. A good place to start is a project I undertook [...]

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Here are the materials from my TESOL presentation on giving international students the food-related language they need. My premise is that we focus on the language for expressing preference, describing cultural foods, and understanding recipes. In fact, these are not the most pressing food-related needs that our students have. I propose that food lessons should [...]

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So You Want to Save Water? is an infographic that shows the water used in producing various foods and other items. At the bottom of the graphic, they show how much water could be saved by switching various things. I was surprised to learn that swapping a cup of coffee for a cup of tea [...]

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100 Views of Climate Change is a website from Colorado State University that offers short and long videos on climate change, along with notes on books and articles and links to other resources. Finding specific resources is very easy. The site is broken into five sections: climate, nature, humans, action, and the big picture. Each [...]

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Joseph Henrich, Steven Heine and Ara Norenzayan recently published a paper on The Weirdest People in the World. Here, weird is an acronym meaning Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. Henrich et al question the conclusions reached by social science experiments conducted largely at American universities. They propose that many of the fundamental truths arrived [...]

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I’m working on a presentation for TESOL 2013 about providing students with the language they need to make food choices. My premise is that most lessons on food don’t do that. Typically, we focus on the language of expressing preference, while ignoring areas like allergies, religion and ethical beliefs. In my presentation, I’ll be sharing [...]

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