College Scholarships

Getting a college scholarship requires patience, hard work, and the qualifications for any financial aid that be available to you. However, a student needs to take responsibility for their actions that might put their future in jeopardy. Listen to my latest listening activity, called College Scholarships, that illustrates the affect that positive and negative affects of students' choices. Give it a try:

- http://esl-lab.com/scholarship/scholarshiprd1.htm

 Randall

ESL Courses: Bonus Points or Not?

So, what is the real value (or not) of teachers giving students bonus points or extra credit for their work in class? All too often, teachers give bonus points to students who do extra work, but the negative outcome can be that students' overall grade can be inflated, giving a distorted view of their real ability. For example, if students have to write an essay worth 100 points, and the teacher gives 10 bonus points simply because the students added a photo, the bonus points given would have absolutely nothing to do with the students' writing ability, especially if that wasn't an objective of the writing assignment.

Yes, it might help students psychologically, but it can give students the impression that they are doing better than they really are. Furthermore, if the content of one class builds on the other (e.g., going from beginning to intermediate writing), then advancing students from one class to the next will set the student up for failure because they aren't ready.

Being judiciously in awarding points will only benefit students in the long run.

Randall