Project Success is a new six-level, four-skills series for adults and young adults that includes a strong focus on workplace skills and 21st century challenges. This highly engaging video-based program models key competencies in realistic settings, with many opportunities for students to practice the competency in pairs and groups. Watch this video vignette to get a taste of the New Project Success!
(excerpt from Project Success Intro, Unit 4)
Sandra Heyer
One way to extend the lessons in True Stories Behind the Songs and More True Stories Behind the Songs is to follow up each unit with a supplemental song that connects to the theme of the unit, plus an activity to go with the supplemental song. Each month I’ll share a song-based activity that has worked well with my beginning and high-beginning students. This month, let’s look at some examples of song choices and Writing New Song Lyrics.
How to Write New Song Lyrics in 4 Easy Steps:
Step 1: Choose a song that is easy to sing and copy the lyrics from the Internet.
Step 2: Students listen to the song while reading the lyrics.
Step 3: Working individually, in small groups, or as a class, students personalize the lyrics to fit their own experiences, replacing some words in the song with new words, or replacing an entire verse with a new verse.
Step 4: The class sings the song with the new lyrics. Continue reading
Sandra HeyerOne way to extend the lessons in True Stories Behind the Songs and More True Stories Behind the Songs is to follow up each unit with a supplemental song that connects to the theme of the unit, plus an activity to go with the supplemental song. Each month I’ll share a song-based activity that has worked well with my beginning and high-beginning students.
This month, let’s look at some examples of song choices and the targeted cloze exercise. Continue reading
Marjorie Fuchs and Irene Schoenberg
The Role of Corpus Linguistics in Focus on Grammar
The field of English language teaching has seen many trends come and go. Total Physical Response, The Silent Way, and The Natural Approach are just a few of the methods that have held the spotlight before disappearing or joining the supporting cast of strategies that experienced teachers use. Many have criticized our field for adopting the latest trends while dropping all that came before. However, the Focus on Grammar series has always taken a balanced approach, keeping what is tried and true while incorporating what is new and effective. To that end, Focus on Grammar has taken into account the findings of corpus linguistics, while never losing sight of what is pedagogically sound and useful.
Corpus linguistics is a field of linguistics which studies large samples of naturally occurring language in order to better understand how the language is used. Computers have made it possible to examine and analyze millions of language samples. We now have information about the frequency of use of vocabulary and structures, the words that typically occur with different structures, and the language of different genres. The results are interesting and important for anyone involved in language teaching. Continue reading
 Joyce Cain |
As finals approach at the close of each semester, I ask my intermediate to advanced writing students to review all of the feedback they have received throughout the course. They go through every one of their essay, short-write, and summary assignments to tally the grammar correction symbols that I have marked.
