Thinking in a Second Language -- Part 2

 In April I described, and linked to, a wonderful video, How To Think in English by Rachel Smith. (10-1/2 minutes)

In the course of  researching "Placeholder Words" I ran across two, similar videos by the ever-creative Bob the Canadian: 

5 Brain Games to Help You Learn to Think in English! -- Only 6-1/2 minutes long, this is not as comprehensive as Rachel's video but presents great exercises from Bob's unique point of view.

10 Fun & Crazy Ways to Practice English When You Are By Yourself -- Just over 11 minutes. Most of these exercises keeping your mind rolling in English with no time for your native tongue.

Bob expands on Rachel's idea of thinking in English just before bed so as to dream in the language. If your phone has the ability, record a summary of your day, then set the recording to be your alarm for the next morning.

One of the crazy activities is simply copying a story, a traditional writing exercise popular with the French and others.  However Bob made a great modification.  You read a sentence from the book (or article) in one place and run to another location to write it down.  That way, you have to keep the words in your head for several seconds while travelling!  

Since Bob demonstrated, using a long table, outside on a windy day, you will see that the challenge can involve physical exercise, too.

What to Say When You Don't Know the Word

Very early, an ESL student needs to learn the simple expression, "Ummmmm..." so that the other person will fill in the rest of the sentence.  This facilitates conversations wonderfully!  Equally handy are placeholder words such as "thingamajig", "gadget", "whatshisname", "doodad" and so on.  

I found an entertaining beginning level video on "Camping in English", incorporating lots and lots of "stuff". This gave me a great basis for a "What to Say When You Don't Know the Word" lesson.  Having creating the lesson in Edpuzzle, I've posted it on my Portfolio page.

Lots of Free Online Meetups for Practicing English!

I've known about Meetup.com for a number of years and have used it in the past to find computer groups. However I only recently realized that it's a wonderful place for ESL learners to find free groups with whom to practice English! 

 Search on "English Conversation" or "ESL" or similar to find "Events Near You". These days, since almost all meetings are online, "nearby" is meaningless. Although one can search by day, distance, subject category, and type (online vs in-person), I just searched on the word "English". 

 As of this moment, I see that the Denver Public Library's "Online English Conversation Group (Beginners)", being held tomorrow at 12:00 PM MDT, has 6 attendees signed up so far. Per the Details, this is "Free, no registration required." (Meetings with limited attendance list how many slots are left open.)

Tomorrow there's a "*FREE* Online International Meetup in English" whose organizer appears to be in LA but whose attendees appear to be from all over the world. Forty-one people have signed up! The event runs all afternoon, though, with sub-groups getting together for 45 minute sessions. I'd like to see how the host handles that in Zoom.

There are specialized groups speaking in Japanese and English, Spanish and English, and so on. You should be able to find something which is right for you. But if not, start your own group!  That is easy to do, also.

A Blast from the Past - New in the Present

I hadn't thought about the Voice of America since the Cold War ended. But they're still broadcasting US News and World News. These days though, their audio casts are online and they present news stories online via videos. Most important for ESL teachers, they have added a huge Learning English component to their website.

Not only do they convert their news stories into lessons for intermediate and advanced students, but they offer two entire series of beginning classes: "Let's Learn English - Level 1" and "Let's Learn English - Level 2". In addition they have video channels for grammar, punctuation, idioms and more.

If you are a student studying Enlish on your own, this site actually offers a free, online, person-to-person speaking opportunity under their "Talk2Us" menu. Of course they post past events. At present, the group meets meets at 15:00 UTC time on Mondays and at 13:00 UTC time on Wednesdays and Fridays. To join, sign up for a date at https://talk2usvoa.eventbrite.com.

If you are a teacher who has exhausted TedTalks and YouTube searching for your student's favorite topic, see if you can find it in VOA's huge library.

New EdPuzzle

What a rainy, drippy, Memorial Day weekend! Denverites headed for the mountains in droves but I enjoyed a "staycation". I took the opporunity to add complete do-it-yourself touches to an EdPuzzle lesson I'd created earlier as part of a videoed sample ESL lesson. It is now on the Portfolio Page under "Lesson:Job and Business Phrasal Verbs" and includes a Google Docs vocabulary and transcript.