ESL News: Teachers Uses New Method to Teach ESL

This article by Alla O. Schlate in the Tribuna Connecticut is about the use of recordings to help students to start to think, speak and express themselves in English. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Since I believe that language is more than just “plugging in the words of one language into the English slots” (J. McWhorter 2000) and that students must share ownership of the second language acquisition, I require that my students keep journals, starting with their reflections on my classes and then proceeding to insightful observations of their learning process. 

One example is a grammar course, “Recording Your Inner Voice: Think and Dream in English” for ESL students, in which I complement a learning centered syllabus based on the readings from S. Pinker and P. Bloom with interpretive dance, Kundalini meditations and other non-orthodox techniques. Students are required to think and “speak inside themselves” in English while outside the classroom and to reflect upon the process of their learning in the form of journals documenting every obstacle they came across when expressing themselves in English. (A major benchmark of success has been the moment the students begin dreaming in English, hence, the title.)

The rest of the article can be read here.