http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/word-family-framework What is the Word Family Framework (WFF)? The WFF is a searchable resource for teachers and learners of English that consists of over 22,000 vocabulary items arranged according to six levels aligned to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).. Start using the Word Family Framework What can the WFF be used for? The WFF can be used by institutions, teachers and learners to construct target vocabularies for individual learning, syllabus and lesson […]
Author: Francesca Hulin
Hi, I've been a professor of ESL at Yuba College since 2003. In that capacity, I teach our advanced writing courses and VESL-related courses; i.e., Computer Skills for ESL and English for Employment. Prior to Yuba College, I have lived and taught in The Czech Republic, Turkey, Kuwait, and England. My interests are sports such as skiing, hiking, biking, and traveling for long periods to anywhere I have not been.
Showing versus Telling – Building Support
This lesson illustrates to students how to write “telling” versus “showing” paragraphs. That is, student are shown the difference between a paragraph that merely states reasons rather than develops them through explanation, examples, or specific details. The lesson proceeds as follows after discussing components of a paragraph from previous lessons: Project on the screen the first model of a “telling” paragraph. Read the paragraph aloud and then ask students to complete the comprehension questions following. […]
Smart Phones and You – Research Results
This unit/module focuses on the negative effects that smart phones are playing in our life in terms of memory and our attention via an article entitled “How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds,” by Nicholas Carr, October 6, 2017. The article is rather lengthy so best to do this towards the end of the semester than at the beginning. With that in mind, the unit/module focuses on teaching students how to relay research results in a […]
Sentence Structures – Five basic
This lesson entails familiarizing our students with some of the basic sentence structures in English – especially where word order is concerned. See handout attached to begin and later expand this lesson to other English structures. The lesson entails beginning with the basic subject-verb structure and ending with subject-verb-noun structure shown on the handout. The instructor writes the first structure and ask students from the various language-groups represented in the class to come to the […]
Summary Writing
Summary writing is challenging at best for native speakers let along English language learners who often resort to copying huge amounts of text from the original source feeling they can’t paraphrase due to their lack of vocabulary. Last semester and again now this semester actively, I started a new practice of asking students to focus on using the ten survival words in their summary and limiting the number of sentences they could use. This has […]
Listening – Gerunds
This is a listening exercise – fill in the blanks with the gerunds you hear. The exercise uses the song “That’s Important to Me” by Joey and Rory who sing about the values and related norms important to them. This activity follows a reading entitled “The Influence of Culture” in Chapter 2, The Power of the Group in Academic Encounters 3, Reading/Writing 2nd ed. by Jessica Williams, Kristine Brown and Susan Hood. It extends the […]
English for Employment Syllabus
The attached is a syllabus for an English for Employment course for intermediate students and above. The course entails career exploration by examining interests and skills and related career fields and academic requirements. The as American education system as well as the Yuba College general education requirements leading to an associates degree, certificate and/or transfer are also covered. See syllabus: << 259SyllabiS2018 – SAMPLE SYLLABUS >> As the syllabus shows, we also explore reading job […]
Your Dream Job
Before students can decide on a career of study, it is important to take them through some initial steps to explore their interests and preferred working environments as well as what types of skills they already have and what fields these may be useful. The attached handout is the written segment of this lesson leading to a writing assignment expressing all these preferences in a well-developed paragraph. Being able to state what we want is […]
Reading Demonstration – comprehension and vocabulary in context
Reading Demonstration – Importance of Context in Comprehension This reading demonstration was taken from Dimensions of Literacy, by Stephen B. Kucer (page. 142, Table 6.2). The purpose of the exercise is to help students examine their own reading process and strategies used to gain meaning. Use this as an opportunity to discuss and share out reading strategies used by your students and share you own. Distribute the reading to students asking them to […]
Introduction to PowerPoint (MS2013 – but works with 2016)
This lesson is an introduction to PowerPoint 2013 for purposes of having students prepare a PowerPoint presentation about themselves (see last two pages of this lesson). The lesson is set up to teach students most of the functions they will need by creating two practice slides about a Vacation to Tahoe. There are both written directions and screen/slide shots of the steps to assist students who experience difficulty reading the instructions to be able to […]