ESL Basics

This is a guest post from Andrea's brother Josh who is the author of our Business English Blog for Teacher Week.

This post is in response to a video I saw on TED.com a while ago (see below), and it's importance and relevance to the TESOL community. Being a business person who is influenced by the TESOL world, this video gave me chills the first time I saw it because of the world-wide implications presented. The crazy thing is that the world-wide implications of the expansion of English don't end with the language, they end with revolution, innovation, and our future.

I can't view this video and think that the work we are doing with ESLBasics.com is worthless. The work we are doing (and all TESOL/TEFL Teachers) is changing the world, and if we don't see it now, the next generation will. 

I used "The Miracle Eraser" today to clean off my dusty chalkboard, and have come to one solid conclusion: no one knows what the word miracle means anymore. When I first reached for this "miracle" of an eraser, I thought, "Wow! A miracle eraser! I wonder what it does!" My thoughts soon raced to an eraser that could vacuum up all chalk particles within a 12 foot radius. I conjured up visions of swiping the miracle felt block over my green board, only to discover it had left an azure blue stripe in its wake. Perhaps this eraser could fuse chalk dust back together into solid pieces of chalk, so not to waste any precious resources. 

In the end, it was a pretty good eraser. It got the job done without leaving massive stripes of chalk puke. Overall, a satisfactory day for an eraser. But it was not miracle, to be sure. 

This is a guest post from Andrea's brother Josh who is the author of our Business English Blog for Teacher Week.

Adding in a Business English lesson to your normal ESL class may not be commonplace in your classroom, but it can be a fun way to break down some language barriers with a simple lesson on business principles. One idea for a Business English activity can include the concept of supply and demand. Supply and demand can be very complex depending on who you ask, but at it's foundation, it's simple math combined with necessity. 

One exercise you can do is to give everyone in your classroom monopoly money, or fake money of some kind. Then host an auction! Bring in several items (food, drinks, coupons for extra credit, games, etc.) with varying degrees of value and have the students bid on the products. Also, tell the students that they can share money to "go-in" or "pool" their money together to purchase some of the larger gifts.

Without needing to "explain" anything in English, you have just demonstrated several business principles, including supply and demand, transactions, an auction, market value, and more. Now that your students have acquired an understanding of the business concepts through firsthand experience, easily reinforce the new vocabulary and concepts they used to define their experience. Most teachers today know that experience influences language comprehension and usage more than rote memorization ever can. So do your students a favor -- cut the boring talks and give them an experience they can hold on to.