Accent: A Source of discrimination?

A question I have often heard is whether employers can discriminate or not employ people based on their accent. We all have accents, but are they valid reasons why companies can legally or ethically choose not to hire people based on their pronunciation. Share you ideas on this topic because I am sure there are language learners that have some concern related to this issue.

Randall

Job or Family: You Decide

Listen and write your opinion on this topic.

English Only Policy in the Classroom

One of the greatest challenges as a teacher is to motivate students to use the language as much as possible in the classroom, and this is true both in the students' home country as well as overseas. In fact, although many students go overseas to study English, they often still use their native language with other students, and then really wonder why they aren't making progress in learning English. It doesn't take a math teacher to figure out why: If you attend English classes for four hours and then use your native language for the other twenty (or as many hours are you are awake), then it is impossible to learn English. Just being in the country is not enough, and unfortunately, the students' parents just assume their children are learning the language naturally.

Therefore, how can teachers and students encourage each other to use English more instead of falling back on the native language? Should the teacher reward or penalize students when they don't speak English? How about having students pay money each time they slip into their native language? Please share your ideas.

Randall

Poetry: How does this relate to you?

Listen and explain how the poem relates to language learning and culture.

Average English Class Size

My recently polled visitors on the average class size of English classes in their high schools, and interestingly enough, 37% of classes average over 30 students. In fact, 11% of classes have more than 50 students. The question I have is to what extent this has an impact of learning and ideas on what teachers can do to improve learning despite the numbers. In other words, teachers have little choice as to the numbers of students in their classes, so what can they do in such situations? Share your ideas.

Randall

Time Travel: Where would you go?

Time travel isn't possible, but IF you had the opportunity to go back in time, when and where would you go and why? Personally, I enjoy family history research, and I would probably go back almost 100 years ago to visit with a great-grandmother who died without people knowing much about her. I probably would go back to that time period, interview her, and find out as much as possible about her life so I could share this with my own posterity. Our lives and those of your ancestors are very much connected, and we can learn so much from their experiences. So, how about you? Where would you go and why? Share your ideas. Randall

Music Videos: Learning English Online

One way to improve your listening comprehension skills is to combine watching music videos with the lyrics to the songs. One important element of music videos is that learners can watch the visual cues or clues in the videos to help them piece together some of the meaning. Then, if you read the lyrics of the song before watching, you have music, words, and pictures to help the learner. One site to watch videos is http://www.launch.com/. Do you have any suggetions or comments on music and English learning?

Randall