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| By Jarrod Armour |
07/27/10 |
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Switzerland lies at the heart of Europe, and is an exciting crossroads of cultures and languages. The Swiss speak French, German, or Italian depending on their region, and a small minority speak a language based on Latin called Romansch. While being situated in the Alps in Western Europe, Switzerland stands out from its neighbors in many ways. |
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| EFL Overseas |
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| 06/09/10 |
 It would appear that the spread of English language is only limited by the number of people willing to teach it, and a quick look at any job site will pull up hundreds of available positions; however, finding the right job means asking the right questions. Most offers will be legitimate, with no int... |
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| 05/09/10 |
 Once I applied to a job I found on an ESL website. I had taught in Asia for almost three years and wanted to find a job in Latin America. Brazil looked interesting, and there was an opportunity. The recruiter responded and told me that, to be hired, I would have to pay the company eight hundred doll... |
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| 04/22/10 |
 The culture that we come from shapes our identity; it shapes our expectations and beliefs and teaches us cues with which to facilitate communication. These can be things that once seemed obvious to us, but in a foreign country, can suddenly feel alien. When we can no longer rely on these cues while ... |
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| 03/22/10 |
 In 1999, when the owner of the teacher training school that I attended asked me whether I’d be interested in working in the UAE, I replied, “What’s that? A company?” Back then, the United Arab Emirates was not so well-known to North Americans, but all that has changed over the past decade. |
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| 01/17/10 |
 Now that you know the process of getting hired in Buenos Aires and all of the various different bureaucratic steps involved, I'm going to go over how to be successful and what it is like to teach in Buenos Aires. |
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| 01/11/10 |
 It all began with a poster for JET ( The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme) in my university's Asian Studies department. Suddenly it was 10 months, one interview, and 4 overstuffed suitcases later and there I was, sitting in coach on the 10-hour flight to Tokyo. And when I first laid eyes on my ... |
| ESL USA |
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| 05/30/10 |
 The controversy surrounding Arizona's new immigration law enforcement may impact non-native teachers in the classroom. The state's Department of Education recently started telling individual school districts that teachers with accented or grammatically incorrect English would need to be reassigned f... |
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| 07/15/09 |
| As someone who has worked with foreign students and as part of a foreign exchange program, I have a good appreciation of how incredibly difficult it is for a sponsor to find good host families for international students coming to the United States. In fact, housing matters are generally the most cha... |
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| 04/26/09 |
 This year’s annual CATESOL conference in Pasadena in mid-April hosted two workshops centered on generation 1.5, those students, who, in many cases, have been living in the U.S. since an early age, are not necessarily fluent in their “home” language, yet don’t exhibit English skills commonly thought ... |
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| 04/13/09 |
 The US has an enormous English as a Second Language industry, with language schools in all of the major American cities. Many classes in the U.S. are immersion programs comprised of multilingual groups of adult students, an interesting challenge that can inspire creative teaching. |
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| 04/02/09 |
| Living in the United States with the express purpose of studying English is on the minds of many ESL (English as a Second Language) students around the world. English continues to blossom as the global language of business, academia, and communication, drawing more and more learners to language scho... |
| TESOL |
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| 07/14/09 |
| The CALL Interest Section of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) offers language teachers world-wide the opportunity to participate in the Electronic Village Online (EVO), a professional development project and virtual extension of the TESOL 2010 Convention in Boston. Th... |
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| 05/09/09 |
| Warming up the crowd at the 40th annual mid-April annual CATESOL conference with examples of English “bloopers,” from the likes of politicians and newspapers, educator H. Douglas Brown shared a San Francisco Chronicle headline that read, “For molesting kids, man is sentenced to English lessons,” and... |
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| 05/02/09 |
| California Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (CATESOL) www.catesol.org is an organization that offers support to Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages throughout California and Nevada in the USA. It was founded in 1969 and is a nonprofit organization open to anyone conc... |
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| 04/20/09 |
| Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL, or often called English as a Second Language, ESL) can be a highly rewarding career, offering you the opportunity to live and work abroad. There is also a strong industry in English language instruction here in the United States and in other En... |
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| 04/12/09 |
| Incorporated in 1966, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL), is a global association for English language teaching professionals headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, USA. TESOL encompasses a network of approximately 60,000 educators worldwide, consisting of more than 14,... |
| Professional Development |
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| 05/31/09 |
| Sometimes with the learner-centered approach to teaching, we teachers may forget that we must still maintain control of the class in order to assure that each student gets his or her fair share of the learning experience. For instance, what to do about the cute couple, young man and young woman, in ... |
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| 05/27/09 |
| What is Concept Checking? Concept checking is a technique used by the teacher during the lesson that involves the language learner in the process of discovering and understanding language. It often follows on from eliciting (see Eliciting), but can also be used whenever new words/ terms/ concepts h... |
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| 05/21/09 |
| What is Eliciting? Synonyms: searching, drawing out, discovering, realizing, understanding. Eliciting is a technique used by the teacher during the lesson that involves the language learner in the process of discovering and understanding language. Anything in the lesson can be elicited: vocabulary... |
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| 04/24/09 |
| You’ve got what you think is a great activity for your ESL students. You prepare them to do it. You’re enthusiastic and motivated about your class. And then—your students don’t take to it. |
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| 04/16/09 |
| A common issue that teachers have to deal with is how to correct student errors. No-one likes being corrected; however, the school and the parents often demand it, and students themselves will complain that a teacher doesn’t correct them enough. So how can you create a win-win situation? |
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| 04/08/09 |
| There are many ways to give feedback on your learners’ written work. The most important guideline, however, is to consider just how much to correct. Low-level learners may become demoralized by over-correction. Using a red pen to excessively mark up a paper that the learner has struggled to produce,... |
| News |
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| 06/18/10 |
 Personal computing, communication, and entertainment devices have become an indispensible part of modern life, certainly including the teaching and traveling lifestyle. Tens of thousands of these devices and accessories appear in the market so ESLFocus has narrowed down the choices to an even dozen... |
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| 04/23/09 |
 Despite its great influence on the energy that drives all of Western life, Saudi Arabia remains something of an enigma. The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), named after its benefactor, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, is an ambitious, multi-billion dollar, 36,000,000 square... |
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| 04/20/09 |
 Instigating a debate sure to raise partisan hackles in a time of immigration rights controversy and immigration reform, Arizona now finds itself about to receive a ruling on the general issue of State's rights versus the federal mandate that state education must include English language training. A... |
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| 04/17/09 |
| On April 15th of this year, Rosetta Stone went public with an IPO of some $115M. Today the Wall Street Journal reports that with a rise in price of 40%, the offering has become the second most successful such offering of the year. |
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| 04/15/09 |
| ESL leader Rosetta Stone has filed an initial public offering (IPO) for nearly $115M. Rosetta Stone (NYSE: RST) filed with the SEC for 6.25 million of common stock at $18.00 per share. |
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| 04/01/09 |
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| Travel |
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| 04/22/10 |
 Among capitals in Brasil, Belem has one of the lowest percentages of green space per capita, although it is located at the entrance to the Amazon, which contains one-third the world's tropical rainforests. It was a challenging spectacle that took place in Belem, the ninth version of the World Socia... |
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| 02/22/10 |
 In a small, dusty village where the merciless sun cooks the land to a scorching 110 degrees by noon, I hear "Sister! Sister!" and see two grinning girls running up to me, their eyes shining and happy. Stretching their skinny arms out, they reach up for my hands and lead me away, carrying my cement-e... |
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| 02/04/10 |
 Early on in my college career, the thought appealed to me. I could go to Europe and live in the same streets my great-grandparents grew up in. I could go to South America and finally conquer Spanish. I had too many notions of where to go and what to do. One day, sitting in an Art History lecture, I ... |
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| 10/14/09 |
 Ancient ruins… A magnificent city of stone nestled in the mountains of Southern Peru… Machu Picchu. The gateway to Machu Picchu is Cusco, one of the preeminent tourist destinations in the world, and with good reason. There is much more than archaeological treasures to be experienced in Cusco however... |
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| 07/20/09 |
 The fortunate few who visit Iran will experience bustling cities, phenomenal Islamic architecture, colorful tile work and well-preserved ancient ruins. Combine booming youth culture, tea and hookahs under the stars, friendly, open people, and beautiful gardens for a once in a lifetime trip. The mos... |
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| 06/29/09 |
 You've seen ESLFocus.com's "Might See's". Quirky, unexpected, or just unusual describes our previous foray into ten places to entertain the adventuresome traveler. The following get our nod for round two: See one or see more than one of the next ten if you can. |
| Arts |
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| 03/31/10 |
 Duccio Nacci, photographer, husband and father of three,was born and raised in the heart of Tuscany, in the gemstone town of San Gimignano which was founded as a village in the by the Etruscans in the third century. Perched on the top of a hill overlooking valleys below, postcard San Gimignano has b... |
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| 03/21/10 |
 From the Scheramitova airport, with the self-proclaimed taxi drivers noisily vying for passengers, to the potholed highway, causing our bus to swerve precariously into on-coming traffic as we headed 180 kilometers east, I was already taking mental notes that would eventually make it into my book. Ot... |
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| 05/22/09 |
 A three-year-old girl sits on a window-ledge at the battery-recycling shop where she works. Her eyes stare blankly at the camera, showing no hope or happiness. This is just one of the dozens of startling images in David Elliot Cohen’s new book “What Matters.” |
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| 03/28/09 |
 Tinariwen -- meaning “Empty Spaces" in the Saharan Language of Tamashek -- hold the honor of being the first band of the Tuareg people to use electric guitars in their music and in their music they seek to stand up as the champions of their people against the injustices of the Malian government. |
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| 03/23/09 |
 Very few folk bands have the raw energy and power in their music or the ability to make people dance like an Ibiza nightclub than the Hungarian band Besh o droM, meaning, "ride the road" - just like horses in the Lovari gypsy dialect of Central Europe. |
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| 03/04/09 |
 To combine the music of the many different cultures in Los Angeles might not be the easiest job for musicians. Gaining their respect -- while performing political activism -- isn't either.
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| 07/01/10 |
 In early June I went with my friend and her family on a trip to Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. There we visited China's famous Bingmayong, the terracotta soldiers and horses. The Terracotta Army, discovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well, was built in 210 B.C. by the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huan... |
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| 05/30/10 |
 It is 5:06 AM and my alarm clock goes off. The sun fails to shine through my bedroom window, as Chicago remains in darkness. I climb out of bed, feed my dog, shower, and plug in the coffee maker. As I get ready, I keep a close eye on the clock, as I have to be ready to teach my Indonesian students a... |
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| 05/10/10 |
 Dominica is the closest thing to Eden on earth that I have ever seen. It is billed the nature island as a result of its largely undeveloped natural landscape that is carved by 365 rivers and home to some of the best diving in the world. The lush green beauty and varied vistas are at times literally ... |
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| 04/22/10 |
| This is the first in a series of short articles on English pronunciation and the teaching of English pronunciation to non-native speakers. This first article in the series concerns what I view as one of the most important aspects of English pronunciation, one that receives the least structured atten... |
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| 04/21/10 |
| California’s 41st Annual CATESOL State Conferenceis taking place this weekend, April 22-25 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. This is a site easily accessible from the San Jose International Airport, with a shuttle available to ferry conference-goers back and forth. The theme of this year’s gathe... |
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| 03/29/10 |
 The spring semester is well under way, yet it's still cold here in Beijing and doesn't feel much like spring. A few weeks ago I celebrated my first Chunjie, Spring Festival, in China. This year Chunjie started on February 14th, the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, and ended 15 days later on ... |
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