Constructive Ideas For Education

Here are things you need to know before you get a job as a Home Based or Virtual ESL Teacher:

1. First of all, you need a Skype

A lot of people use this as a source of communication over the internet. Now, it is only used in online education and online marketing. I have been using Skype for teaching my students during the class.

2. Get a PowerGramo.

This powerful software can record both video and audio Skype calls. I use this to share audio with my students during Skype calls. Sample of audio shared through PowerGramo are song or mini activities.

3. ESL Books

Teachers and students should have the same books on their hand or on their computer during the class. You need English books to be able to teach you students. I use PDF or JPEG book files during my class.

You can buy these books at your nearest book store or you can get them at amazon or eBay. The books vary and depend upon what the student would like to learn. It also varies upon the school or company you work in. Almost all online schools provide you with their company books. Here are some books I have been using:

a. Let’s Go (level: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

b. Side by Side (level: 1, 2, 3, 4)

c. American Headway Books

d. Express Yourself Books

e. Talk Talk Talk Books

4. Lesson Plan and a Notebook

Every Teacher should have lesson plans. You need to have a guide on what you will be teaching your students. This is very important because it helps you be occupied with the different lessons you will need to be teaching.

You need to have a notebook where you will record your students’ information. Your students’ would like that you remember their names, birthdays, and special things about them. You also need a notebook to write down your next topic, page, or your students’ evaluation. I use excel to record the page, homework, quizzes, and interesting about the student.

5. Get a headset

You need this to be able to teach students. So you can both speak and hear each other during the class. Get a very good headset with noise cancellation. You also need something that isn’t irritating your ears.

I use Philips for my headset.

6. Get a web camera

Like a headset, you need a web cam. Mostly all students would like to see the face of their teacher and at the same time you will be seeing them too. This is very useful in making the class alive. You connect more with your students when you have this.

I use Note-i and A4tech for my web camera.

7. Internet Connection

You will need an internet connection when you work online. A fast internet connection is needed to be able to make Skype calls. You will need to have a minimum connection speed of about 1Mbps. Wi-Fi and Broadband connections are not stabled so get a wired internet connection.

I have a stable connection and a wired internet connection with a minimum speed of 1Mbps.

8. A Computer

You will not be able to teach without a computer. You will need to have a reliable personal computer or laptop. You should have a computer which is not below Pentium4, a minimum memory of 1Gb and 120Gb of disk drive. Knowing the right requirements will help you have a fast connection while you teach.

I use a personal computer with Windows 7 Ultimate, an IntelCore i3 with 4Gb installed memory and a 500Gb disk drive.

9. A quiet environment

You will need a quiet room where no outside noises can be heard. Dog barks or the sound of cars passing are not good when you teach. Your students might leave the class and look for another teacher who has a quiet background. It depends upon your students, but most of the time they like it quiet. I have a peaceful environment but a lot of dogs around the neighborhood. I manage to make my office a quiet environment by simply covering my windows with a mattress. I also stacked Styrofoam around the corner. You really need to invest when you want to provide a quality teaching class.

10. One more thing – A Teaching attitude

You must be patient. This is a very important attitude you must have when teaching English to students. You must understand that students have different levels in learning. You must also be culturally sensitive. Respect in once culture is very helpful.

I make my class as cheerful as possible. I respect my students and I care for them.

I hope for the best! Have Fun!

Summer may still seem like a far way off, but your final exams are coming faster than you think. While you’re putting the finishing touches on your assignments and studying for tests, you should also be thinking about what you’ll be doing this summer. If you don’t have a job or internship lined up yet, don’t panic. These steps will help you find a job or internship that will enhance your resume and your educational experience.

Step 1: Work on Your Resume

When is the last time you took a look at your resume? A well-written, concise, and professional-looking resume is crucial to finding a meaningful summer job or internship. After you’ve completed your first draft, take your resume to your college’s career center and receive feedback. Competition is stiff even for internships and part time jobs, so make sure your resume is the best it can be before sending it to any potential employers.

Step 2: Write a Great Cover Letter

A cover letter is never optional. You should write a tailored cover letter for each position, but you can have a template to work from that will help you along the way. Write a cover letter for a job you’re interested in and take it to your college’s career center. The adviser should be able to tell you what you need to change or add to your letter to get yourself noticed.

Step 3: Start Networking

After you’ve worked on your resume and cover letter you should start talking to anyone and everyone about job or internship opportunities. Talk to your family, friends, and professors and see if they know anyone looking for summer help. Networking is one of the most effective ways of landing a job, so make sure you speak to everyone you can.

Step 4: Start an Online Search

There are literally dozens of job websites that have internship and employment opportunities for students. While there is a lot of competition on these sites, they are still great resources for finding work. Do a daily online search for opportunities in your area, and try to apply as soon as you see a position you’re interested in.

Step 5: Consider an Unpaid or Volunteer Position

Paid opportunities have the most competition, but that doesn’t mean they will offer a better experience to list on your resume. Be open to taking an unpaid internship or volunteer position. These experiences will often teach you more than paid opportunities, which means you’ll gain more skills you can use in the future.

Summer may be a time of relaxation for college students, but it is also a time to explore your chosen field and gain experience for your future. Take advantage of your summer without classes to find a job or meaningful internship and you’ll be better prepared to enter the workforce after you graduate.

One of the factors that indicate success in ESL classrooms is the proficiency of students in oral communication. Whether the ESL class is for basic, intermediate or advanced learners, the ability of students to articulate simple to complex ideas in English can be verified, assessed, and improved using various ESL techniques. Once students become comfortable using the basic approaches of communicating meaning in English, they can start participating in English conversations, whether through orchestrated scenarios or in real life encounters.

In any linguistic context, the process of conversation involves listening, the mental formulation of meaning and speaking. Each participant in a conversation has to perform all three tasks in order to remain an active and relevant player in the encounter. Because these tasks are by no means easy to perform for most non-native speakers, the experience of successfully participating in a complete session provides much pleasure, excitement and satisfaction among ESL/EFL students. Often, there is some sort of eureka moment when an idea expressed in English is correctly apprehended by the student and when a specific idea students are trying to convey in foreign language is articulated correctly and clearly understood by a native English speaker. Likewise, teachers of English as a second or foreign language whose students have developed conversational skills are adequately affirmed in terms of their profession as well as the learning strategies and techniques that they adopt.

Hindrances that prevent full involvement in conversations

Getting learners to develop conversational skills in English is riddled with challenges, however. The fact is, the various forms of oral discourses–light conversation, role-plays, debates, topic discussions and recitations–are seen with dread and apprehension by many students. This results to a considerable timidity or hesitation among students to proactively articulate their thoughts in English. A number of factors have been identified to cause or reinforce learners’ reluctance to speak in English. These include–

1. The topic is irrelevant or totally foreign to the learner.

2. The learner does not have an opinion or anything to articulate about the subject.

3. The learner does not know how to correctly articulate an idea and is fearful of making mistakes and ridiculed by the class or the conversation partner.

4. The learner is intimidated by the higher level of proficiency exhibited by other learners. The possibility of being compared to more articulate learners results to a nagging reluctance to participate even when the learner has valid ideas about the topic.

5. The learner is conscious about and ashamed of the peculiar accent he or she exhibits when speaking in English.

Getting these common hindrances out of the way is the first major step a competent ESL/EFL educator should take. For learners to develop acceptable proficiencies in oral English communication, any roadblock that prevents an active, meaningful participation in oral discourses should be addressed. Here are some logical, common sense approaches in doing so:

1. ESL/EFL educators should be aware of the socio-cultural contexts they are teaching in. Aligning lesson plans that make use of highly relevant and familiar topics (common Thai dish ingredients or street foods, Korean television series, and unique Bornean wildlife, for examples) will help learners to easily form ideas and opinions that they need to express in English.

2. To facilitate a better learning environment, English teachers should make it a point to get to know their students individually as much as possible. In smaller classes, getting to know students’ hobbies or interests may help yield valuable conversation topics. This may not be possible in much bigger classes, however. One way to circumvent cases wherein students are not able to form meaningful ideas or opinions about a topic is to assign them fixed, pre-fabricated roles or opinions. This way, learners can focus on language production skills instead of forming viewpoints or drawing from their own personal experiences.

3. Creating an open, tolerant, and socially constructive classroom is critical in fostering collaborative learning. At the beginning of the course, the ESL/EFL educator should already have established that mistakes will inevitably occur and that there is no reason to be ashamed of them. The teacher may also opt to give due credit to risk takers even when they commit mistakes. This is an opportunity to correct mistakes and encourage other learners to participate.

4. In some learning scenarios, competition is a strong motivation for success. In others, however, collaborative techniques that wholly benefit the group are better utilized.

5. Exhibiting accents is a normal manifestation in second or foreign language articulation. Educators and linguists differ on how they regard this phenomenon, however. On one hand, the spread of English around the world has transformed it into a global language such that no single ethno-linguistic group can now really claim it as its own. The British and the Aussies have their respective accents. Why would accents that indicate a Japanese or Filipino speaker be viewed as incorrect when the meaning conveyed is apprehensible to any English speaker? After all, linguists believe that language is organic and continually evolving, with different groups assimilating a particular language and imbuing it with their own characteristic nuances and accents. On the other hand, there are educators who maintain that encouraging the use of a neutral English accent is the best course to take in the long run, especially in global communication. Because some English variants and pidgin forms are difficult to comprehend quickly, neutral accents are preferable when significantly distinct socio-linguistic groups are communicating in English. Hence, educators should constructively teach the globally acceptable way of speaking in English without marginalizing the specific English variant characteristic of the locale they are teaching in.

Effective aids to English conversations

Speaking and listening exercises are still, by far, the most effective way of improving conversational skills. However, any hindrance that prevents learners from fully participating in these exercises should immediately be addressed by the ESL/EFL teacher as explained previously. Using conversation cue cards that are used in role playing sessions may also help learners become less apprehensive about participating.

Transitional exercises that teach learners on how to listen and speak about relevant everyday encounters should be an integral part of the course on conversational English. Talking about the weather, buying groceries, meeting a new acquaintance, a job interview and offering to rent an apartment are just some of the scenarios wherein potentially useful English conversation exercises may be initiated.

As these scenarios are familiar, students will more likely participate in communicating their thoughts. Once educators have familiarized and made learners comfortable with speaking and listening exercises, the class may proceed to more complex activities. These include formal debates on different relevant topics. When conducting debates, remember that it is more important for students to focus on how to articulate than to concentrate on how they really feel about a subject.

To help learners develop a neutral English accent, teachers should advise them to 1) observe and imitate the mouth movements of competent English speakers; 2) use the dictionary to learn correct pronunciations; 3) listen to audio books in English; 4) read English books or magazines aloud; and 5) record their English conversations and oral readings to identify common mistakes and have these rectified.

Finally, in addition to classroom activities, ESL/EFL teachers may encourage their students to visit online portals that offer live English conversations to second or foreign language learners. Most of these are paid services but other websites do offer free audio records of different situational dialogues. These audio records can be good practice aids to help students improve their English conversational skills.

To run a global business successfully, effective communication with foreign customers is a must. This is where translation companies step in – to help you get your message across to the customers in such a way that they end up purchasing your products.

Businesses are no longer limited by geographical boundaries, thanks to globalization. If you too are all set to take on the international market, it is crucial that you understand foreign business policies. Moreover, most people fully understand the message only in their local language and it is better to promote your businesses in the native language of the country. When it comes to marketing, pinning down tag-lines in the regional language is the hardest part. Hiring a translation service to carry out the job is the commonsense choice. However, choosing a proficient service is quite different from just choosing a service, so it is best to be informed before hiring one.

The Need for an Efficient Translator

As a business owner ready to expand your business on foreign ground, you must have an idea of the importance of marketing in local languages. Often quite a simple translation can turn out wrong and undermine your marketing campaign. Translating languages is not a task to be approached casually. Moreover, an unprofessional translation can have negative impact on your business. For instance, the famous KFC tag-line, ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ was translated into Chinese as ‘Eat Your Finger Off’. The other example, ‘Come Alive With Pepsi Generation’ was displayed on billboards throughout Taiwan as ‘Pepsi Will Bring Your Ancestors back From The Dead’.

Role of Language Translator

Though all the companies employ professionals who possess similar academic background, mastery of the language is what distinguishes them from one another. In addition to that, a grasp of theory and a degree of creativity are necessary for a linguist to deliver a precise translation. Various translation companies use advanced tools to arrive at the right translation while saving time. The tools can indeed interpret the source language into the one required. But the real need is to deliver the final document in harmony with the source language in terms of expressions.

Going International

Since the translation company will be playing a crucial role in your marketing campaign, it is imperative that you find the right one. It must be capable of delivering translated content which enables you to interact with your new customers the same way you do with existing ones. Use of terminology and anecdotes they are familiar with is important to build trust. You are set to break ground in the new marketplace. It’s important to employ a company that understands both your business and your customers. You can avoid embarrassing situations like those mentioned above by choosing the right company.

Unsurpassed Services

Searching for a reliable company is not difficult; you can find one over the Internet. You have to ensure that the translation services provided by the certain company are of high quality and that the charges are reasonable. While requesting a quotation, check whether they charge per word or per document. When you are getting any commercial, legal or technical documents translated, ensure that the company follows confidentiality terms. Merely choosing a company that charges lower fees is not a great option; you must take into account other factors including the reputation of the company. Whether you desire creative, legal or technical translation services, the final translation delivered by the company must have crystal-clear messages for the customers.

The concept of distinguishing between objects that can and cannot be counted does not exist in many languages and this results in severe bafflement when speakers of those languages write in English.

Examples of mass and count nouns:

Count nouns:

• A pencil: three pencils
• A frog: three frogs
• A minister: three ministers.

Mass nouns are uncomfortable with numbers:

• A confusion: three confusions (No. “How much confusion”)
• An air: three airs (No, “How much air”)
• A misery: three miseries (No, “How much misery”)
• A research: three researches (No, “How much research”)

Many nouns can be both count and mass nouns, often with different meanings.

Paper:

• How much paper? (24 reams, boxes, rolls of paper)
• How many papers? (He published three papers on invertebrate alcoholism last year)

Oil:

• How much oil? (one quart)
• How many oils? (olive oil, corn oil, linseed oil – three oils.)

Mystery:

• Much mystery surrounds the case of the giant rat of Sumatra.
• There are probably many more mysteries set in English country houses than murders in all of Yorkshire.

Thought:

• Not much thought has been given to making cats amphibious.
• Did Rupert have any thoughts about wearing gaudy socks in the parade?

The Web Searching Solution

When in doubt about the countability of a noun, one could just compare the result count from a search for “much [noun]“to that from a search for “many [noun]s”. The search, “many confusions”yielded 55,900, while “much confusion”produced 774,000. While searching “how much”with most countable nouns will reveal clearly that the noun does not function as a mass noun (“how much pencil”, “how much bicycle”, “how much flagpole”), this process is not always reliable because, as demonstrated above, some nouns can be both countable and non-countable. The respective counts of “many thoughts”and “much thought”do not differ greatly. In these cases, a targeted search and an examination of context is probably best.

Frequently the excerpts Google presents are perfectly adequate for understanding usage and there is no need to visit the pages found as demonstrated in the following excerpts from the first page of results of a search restricted to academic sites in the UK.

Searched: site:ac.uk/ “many thoughts are”

Within a given conceptual space, many thoughts are possible, only some of which may have been actually thought.As many thoughts are in my mind: As wavelets o’er thee roam;: As many wounds are in my heart: As thou hast flakes of foam. But if heaven’s constellations

One problem of this work is that too many thoughts are embedded in a single character-mind. It is often difficult to identify to whom each thought…

Searched: site:ac.uk/ “much thought is”

…much thought is already being given to the social and economic implications of these changes.Much thought is given to the dating and composition of Weissenburg’s cartulary, which is put in the context of Louis the German’s attempts to acquire…

…But modern versions of RTM assume that much thought is not grounded in mental images. The classic contemporary treatment maintains, instead, …

The resultant phrases reveal clearly how the word is used in context.

Remember, mass nouns do not take indefinite articles and are quantified by:

“how much [noun]“or “how little [noun]“and “more [noun] “, “less [noun], all that [noun] or the amount of [noun]“

while countable nouns use:

“how many [noun]s”or “how few [noun]s”, “more [noun]s”, “fewer [noun]s”or the quantity of [noun]s.

Note that the comparative form “more”is used with both countable and non-countable nouns. Purists maintain that “fewer”should always be the comparative form used with countable nouns but the use of “less”in these contexts is increasing: “Oatmeal has less calories than granola”. When searched, the count was: “less calories”, 491,000 and “fewer calories”, 6,060,000. It will be interesting to see how these numbers change over time.

There are some sticky areas however. Some count nouns, when used in plural, and particularly when large quantities are discussed, tend to be treated as mass nouns. Phrases such as “the amount of lentils”(460,000,000) tend to compete well with the more correct “the quantity of lentils”(475,000,000). With more abstract nouns, this is even more evident.

“quantity of resources” 463,000″number of resources” 8,770,000

“amount of resources” 11,500,000

A short collection of mass nouns:

(Be sure to look up any you don’t know)

• acrimony
• adulation
• advice
• air
• aluminum
• applause
• apostasy
• approbation
• avarice
• badinage
• beer
• biology
• blood
• boating
• cacography
• cake
• casuistry
• celerity
• cheese
• cloth
• dancing
• disdain
• dust
• economics
• electricity
• equipment
• experience
• fatuity
• fealty
• flour
• flummery
• food
• furniture
• glass
• graffiti
• grass
• hair
• harm
• heat
• history
• hockey
• homework
• housework
• ice
• information
• insouciance
• knowledge
• leather
• logorrhea
• luggage
• mathematics
• meat
• mentation
• metal
• milk
• money
• militancy
• music
• oxygen
• photography
• plastic
• poetry
• pollution
• porcelain
• probity
• publicity
• rancor
• reading
• research
• reticence
• revulsion
• rice
• rodomontade
• rubbish
• sand
• sedulity
• smoking
• soap
• soccer
• software
• subservience
• steel
• sugar
• sunshine
• temerity
• traffic
• transportation
• travel
• water
• weather
• wine
• wood
• wool

Count and Mass Noun Usage

Mass nouns can usually be made countable by adding a count noun:

Mass noun: furniture

Count noun: piece of furniture

Mass noun: paper

Count noun: sheet of paper

Mass noun: research

Count noun: research paper

The use of count nouns as mass nouns can be intended for comic effect through the incongruity of the usage:

It’s 49 feet tall; how much flagpole do we really need?A tandem? What’s he doing with that much bicycle?

If one prefers to avoid this effect, reference to size or quantity solves the problem: How large a flagpole? How big a bicycle? How long a piece of construction grade gingerbread?

Use the searching technique above to determine mass or count-noun usage in the following.

Count Nouns and Mass Nouns Playsheet

Circle and fix the errors.

1. When dealing with a furniture of this size, Rupert had to agree that the word “manana” conveyed far too exigent a sense of urgency.
2. There was too much barrel of fermented applesauce for Hermione to deal with but less golf balls than the minimum required for the sleepover.
3. It wasn’t me whom the assistant vice principal accused of impertinence after he saw so much of his bulletins, printed in the local newspaper with appropriate grammar corrections.
4. Rupert saw the curate and me mixing all that anchovy into the nougat.
5. Who do you think is responsible for putting so much toads into the library garden?
6. Whom should we make clean up all those peanut shells, tapioca, and horse droppings in the cafeteria after the Polo Club’s cavalcade of ethnic indigenous cuisines?
7. There’s too much reason for not letting Mrs. Drookle’s second grade class reenact the Boston Tea Party at the Main Street fountain.
8. There’s too much puce finger paint and Brillo pads to hide convincingly behind the irregularly eructative model volcano.
9. There’s not enough volcano to hide even a small equipment.
10. Acrimonies abound in the field. Invertebrate alcoholisms seem to inspire many rancors.

Answers

1. Problem: “Furniture” is a mass noun. Search “much furniture” and “many furnitures” for the count. Correction: “When dealing with a piece of furniture of this size…”
2. Problem: barrel is a count noun. Search “much barrel” and “many barrels”. Correction: the barrel contained too much fermented applesauce…” Problem: Golf ball is a count noun and “less” should be used only with mass nouns. It should be replaced with “fewer”.
3. Problem: “bulletin” is a count noun. Search “much bulletin” and “many bulletins” for the count. Correction: “so many of his bulletins”.
4. Problem: “anchovy” is a count noun. Search “much anchovy” and “many anchovies”. Correction: “mixing all those anchovies” Note that the discrete fish can easily become a mass for culinary purposes and that usage may not be uncommon.
5. Problem: “toad” is a count noun. Search “much toads” many “toads”. Correction: “So many toads”.
6. Problem: “tapioca” is a mass noun listed with count nouns. Search “much tapioca” and “many tapiocas”. Correction: “Whom should we make clean up all that tapioca and all those peanut shells, and horse droppings?
7. Problem: “reason” is, in this context, a count noun. Search “many reasons” and “much reason”. Correction: “There are too many reasons for…”.
8. Problem: “Brillo pads” are countable. Search “much pad” and “many pads”. Correction “There’s too much puce finger paint and too many Brillo pads”.
9. Problem: “volcano” is countable. Search “much volcano” and “many volcanoes”. Problem: “equipment” is a mass noun: Search “much equipment” and “many equipments”. Correction: “The volcano’s not big enough to hide even a little equipment.
10. Problem: “acrimony”, “alcoholism” and “rancor” are mass nouns. Search them. Correction: “Acrimony abounds in the field. Invertebrate alcoholism seems to inspire much rancor.”