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Grammar & Usage

Stay up-to-date with ELT trends and ideas with articles from experts and teachers in the field.

Articles

Perhaps the most commonly asked question in English is this: &quot;How are you?&quot;

In North America, this question is often used as a greeting. As such, the person who asks the question does not always wait for or expect an answer. In fact, they may not even blink an eye&nbsp;if you give a classic answer like &quot;I&#39;m fine, thank you&quot; or &quot;I&#39;ve been better.&quot;

However, when you&#39;re in a&nbsp;conversation with a friend, classmate, teacher, neighbor, or coworker, your interlocutor may be genuinely interested in your state of being at the time. Yet many people struggle with their answer because they want to be grammatically correct&mdash;they don&#39;t know whether they should use &quot;good&quot; or &quot;well&quot; if things are going okay, or &quot;bad&quot; or &quot;badly&quot; if&nbsp;things have taken a downward turn.&nbsp;

When thinking about your answer, you may first want&nbsp;to consider&nbsp;these points:

<ul>
	<li>&quot;Good&quot; and &quot;bad&quot; are adjectives and can&nbsp;modify nouns or pronouns. When you&#39;re describing people or things, use &quot;good&quot; or &quot;bad.&quot;</li>
	<li>&quot;Well&quot; and &quot;badly&quot; are adverbs and can modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. When you&#39;re describing the quality of how something is done, use the adverbs &quot;well&quot; and &quot;badly.&quot;</li>
	<li>However, as&nbsp;with so many areas of&nbsp;English grammar, there&#39;s an exception. When talking about health, &quot;well&quot; can be used as an adjective.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

<h2>So&hellip;is it &quot;I feel good&quot; or &quot;I feel well&quot;? 
&quot;I am good&quot; or &quot;I am well&quot;?</h2>

Actually, both words are correct in each sentence, though their meanings differ&nbsp;somewhat. We use &quot;well&quot; to describe our physical well-being, whereas we use &quot;good&quot; to describe our mood or disposition.

Since &quot;badly,&quot; unlike &quot;well,&quot; can only be used as an adverb, the correct word to use in these two sentences is &quot;bad&quot;: &quot;I feel bad.&quot; &quot;I am bad.&quot; But, at this point, you may be asking why we can&#39;t use an adverb, especially in the &quot;feel&quot; sentence. The answer has to do with linking verbs.

<h2>What are linking verbs?</h2>

Linking verbs are verbs that do not show any action. Many grammarians call them &quot;states of being&quot; verbs. Rather than showing action, they connect the subject to&nbsp;information&nbsp;that further identifies, describes, or renames it. In other words, they connect the subject to its complement. A linking verb tells you what the subject is, not what it does.

<h3>Common Linking Verbs:</h3>

<ul>
	<li>all forms of the Be verb (when used as the main verb, not as an auxiliary)</li>
	<li>5&nbsp;verbs&nbsp;related to the senses (taste, feel, sound, look, smell)</li>
	<li>verbs such as seem, grow, become, turn, etc.</li>
</ul>

Linking verbs are followed by adjectives, not adverbs. Here are some examples:

<ul>
	<li>The pie smells delicious.</li>
	<li>The coffee tastes bitter.</li>
	<li>The band&nbsp;sounded good.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>The teacher became angry when the students laughed at him.</li>
	<li>Marcos seems sad today.</li>
	<li>Amir feels bad about his mistake.</li>
	<li>Suyin has been absent for three days. She must feel sick.</li>
</ul>

Notice in the last example that &quot;feel&quot; is followed by the adjective &quot;sick&quot; because it is describing how Suyin is. However, feel, along with taste and smell, is not always considered a linking verb.&nbsp;If you have a cold and a stuffy nose, you may say &quot;I smell badly.&quot; However, if you say &quot;I smell bad,&quot; you should probably take a shower. Likewise, if you feel bad, you are either sick or you have regret or remorse. If you feel badly, on the other hand, you have lost the ability to feel. Unless you are numb, you don&#39;t feel badly.

So, back to our original question: How are you? As previously noted, &quot;I am good&quot; is not only an acceptable answer, but also a correct one. But, as soon as you change the verb to a non-linking verb in your response, you must choose well: &quot;I am doing well.&quot; (The main verb is do in this sentence, which is not a linking verb.) If you say &quot;I am doing good,&quot; you are commenting on your philanthropy.

One final note: Don&rsquo;t use an&nbsp;adjective when you need an adverb to describe how something happened or the manner of it.

<ul>
	<li>The plane landed safely. (not safe)</li>
	<li>People drove more carefully (not more careful) during the rainstorm than they normally do.</li>
	<li>She plays the piano really well. (not good)</li>
</ul>

Hopefully, you can now answer the question &quot;How are you?&quot; with confidence. We welcome your comments below.

Good Vs. Well 

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Last month, my fellow editor, Tanya, and I attended the annual conference hosted by ACES: The Society for Editing. This year&#39;s conference was called Refine &amp; Refresh, and it was chock-full of enlightening and informative sessions.&nbsp;The topics ranged from the importance of fact-checking to the history of dictionaries to the need for inclusive language&mdash;a subject that Tanya will delve into in an upcoming blog post.

When I first glanced at the schedule, one session title immediately grabbed my attention: Grammar Saves Lives. Jennifer Rowe, an award-winning professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, did not disappoint with her lively presentation, which included tips to avoid the &quot;pesky pitfalls of modern grammar.&quot; As one participant noted in the chat, the session was &quot;delightfully nerdy.&quot;

While admitting that the session title was somewhat hyperbolic, Jennifer made her case with this simple example: &quot;Let&#39;s eat, Grandpa.&quot; vs. &quot;Let&#39;s eat Grandpa.&quot; If we use a comma denoting direct address, we&#39;re talking to Grandpa and are perhaps getting ready to enjoy a nice meal together. However, if we omit the comma, we are cannibals. Hence, grammar saves lives!

Jennifer focused on areas of grammar that trip up even the most language-obsessed people. Two points that she covered&nbsp;struck me as real potential hazards.

<h2>Tricky Subject&ndash;Verb Agreement</h2>

Sometimes words between a noun or pronoun and the verb cause confusion. If the subject is followed by a prepositional&nbsp;phrase, you should ignore the prepositional phrase when you are deciding the verb&#39;s number. In the following two examples, the subjects are singular (Brady; the new tree). Hence, the verbs are also singular (is; was). The intervening phrases do not affect the verbs&#39; number.

<ul>
	<li>Brady, in addition to other players, is ready for the season.</li>
	<li>The new tree, along with the bushes, was planted yesterday.</li>
</ul>

The next two examples pertain to gerunds. While gerunds often have objects, it is important to keep in mind that the gerund is the subject of the sentence&mdash;not the object&mdash;and the verb is always singular.

<ul>
	<li>Learning grammar basics is necessary.</li>
	<li>Spitting watermelon seeds entertains children for hours.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Confusing Subjective &amp;&nbsp;Objective Case</h2>

In English, nouns take the same form in the subjective and objective cases. Pronouns, on the other hand, change form depending on whether they are functioning as a subject or as an object. The only exception is the pronoun &quot;it,&quot; which remains the same.

<ul>
	<li>The room [subject] is cold.</li>
	<li>She walked into the room [object].</li>
</ul>

Compare the sentences above with the following sentences, which contain pronouns.

<ul>
	<li>We [subject] laughed during the movie.</li>
	<li>The teacher told us [object] to be quiet.</li>
</ul>

Seems straightforward, right? Yet many of us use the subjective case of the first person pronoun&nbsp;when we should use the objective case in certain instances. Most of us were taught that the polite and proper thing to do when including ourselves in a list of two or more people is to place ourselves at the end of the list. For whatever reason, when nouns or pronouns precede the singular pronoun in such cases, the tendency is often to use &quot;I,&quot; even if the objective case is called for.

Barack Obama, who is known for his great oratorial skills, is guilty of making this grammatical error, as demonstrated in the following examples.

✗ What a warm greeting you have given Michelle and I.

✗ It is our daughters who keep Michelle and I grounded.

However, if Obama had removed &quot;Michelle&quot; from the two sentences, he would have instinctively used &quot;me.&quot; When in doubt, remove the nouns and/or pronouns that come before the first person pronoun, and it will be obvious whether to choose &quot;I&quot; or &quot;me.&quot;

Do you struggle with these two areas of grammar? Are there others that cause you to make mistakes?&nbsp;Please share in the comments section below.

&nbsp;

Grammar Saves Lives

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This past Tuesday night, people in the United States and around the world were sitting on the edge of their seats as they waited for the results of the US presidential election. Predictions about the outcome were flying around social media, and emotions were running high. As the night dragged on into Wednesday morning and it became clear that neither candidate would be able to claim victory anytime soon, President Trump tweeted: 
 
&quot;We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed!&quot;

Mr. Trump&#39;s critics were quick to spot a spelling mistake in his tweet. Can you?

Of course, the problem lies with the word &quot;Poles.&quot; When capitalized and pluralized, it refers to people from Poland or to the North and South Poles. If you ignored Mr. Trump&#39;s use of capitalization, you could have mistaken it to mean long, thin, round pieces of wood or metal. Or perhaps you wondered why he was talking about fishing rods, though undoubtedly you used the context to figure out that he was referring to places where people vote, that is, &quot;polls.&quot;

Words like &quot;poll&quot; and &quot;pole&quot; are called homophones. Homophones are words that are&nbsp;pronounced the same but have different spellings and meanings. Some common homophones include one/won, eye/I, their/there/they&#39;re, flour/flower, and hour/our. These words are tricky, and it&#39;s not unusual to find usage errors in text messages, internet articles, and even presidential tweets. They are a source of confusion for native speakers, so it&#39;s no wonder that our students mix them up a lot.

Here are 3 methods that I have found particularly helpful when teaching homophones:

<ol>
	<li>Dictating sentences that include homophones</li>
	<li>Providing sentences with blanks where students must choose the correct homophone</li>
	<li>Having students keep a list of homophones as they come across them in a vocabulary notebook</li>
</ol>

&nbsp;

Those Pesky Homophones

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As the United States celebrates <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/93/lessons/3390">National Hispanic Heritage Month</a> (September 15&ndash;October 15), we here at ESL Library thought it would be a good time to reflect on the term &quot;Hispanic.&quot; Approximately&nbsp;60 million Hispanic people live in the US, making them the&nbsp;largest minority group in the country, yet many people are unsure&nbsp;who falls into this category.

Since first appearing on the US Census in 1970, the term &quot;Hispanic&quot;&nbsp;has been in common usage in the United States.&nbsp;The word &quot;Hispanic&quot; derives from the Latin &quot;Hispanicus.&quot; &quot;Hispanicus&quot; was used during the Roman Empire to refer to people living in Hispania, which is now known as the Iberian Peninsula and includes modern-day Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.

Nowadays, &quot;Hispanic&quot; is generally used to describe native Spanish speakers or descendants of Spanish speakers who live in the United States. (Rarely are people outside of the US referred to as Hispanic even though they may live in a Spanish-speaking country and be a native Spanish speaker.) The term is often thought to denote race, but the people who make up the Hispanic population can belong to any racial group, including white, Black, Indigenous, and Asian. As such, the term &quot;Hispanic&quot; should perhaps be considered an ethnonym, meaning that it applies to an ethnic group;&nbsp;however, this terminology&nbsp;is also problematic since it only pertains to one element of ethnicity&mdash;language.

Hispanics come from&nbsp;a large number of countries and diverse cultural backgrounds.&nbsp;Thus, it is not surprising that members of this population do not always see themselves as fitting into this broad category. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2011, only 24% of the Hispanic population identified with this term. On the other hand, 51% preferred to be identified with their country of origin. This is perhaps to be expected, given that the term &quot;Hispanic&quot; is generally used only in the US&nbsp;and not in immigrants&#39; native countries.

The term &quot;Hispanic&quot; is often used interchangeably with &quot;Latino.&quot; In fact, since 2010, they have appeared in tandem on the US Census. While there is some overlap between the two, &quot;Latino&quot; is mainly a geographic term that refers to anyone from a Latin American country colonized by Spain, Portugal, or France.

Admittedly, all of this can get a bit confusing. After all, someone from Spain is Hispanic, but not Latino; someone from Brazil is Latino, but not Hispanic; and someone from Venezuela is both Hispanic and Latino.

Are you or is someone you know from a Spanish-speaking country? Does the term &quot;Hispanic&quot; resonate with you? We would welcome your comments.

&nbsp;

Defining "Hispanic"

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Recently, I went back to my ESL classroom to collect my teaching materials and close out the spring semester. This was the first time I had been to the physical classroom after more than three months of online teaching. I was a bit taken&nbsp;by surprise by how many emotions and thoughts arose during this brief visit. As we begin summer and ultimately look toward classes in the fall, I&#39;d like to take a moment to share a few reflections about English teaching during this time.

Entering the classroom, what struck me the most was how the chairs and tables were arranged. It was if we had all just left class. And I realized how much I missed being with my students. The classroom is such a part of our lives during the semester. As members of a class, we share both a learning and a social experience, and we count on the encouraging regularity of class and one another&#39;s presence. Let&#39;s start by acknowledging this: Online learning cannot double as the physical classroom. Although we can offer <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/virtual-icebreakers">virtual icebreakers</a> and have <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-to-keep-students-motivated-during-distance-learning">strategies to keep students engaged</a>, there are always going to be limitations&nbsp;to what can be done socially online.

Yet&nbsp;the opposite is also true. As I tidied the room and gathered my possessions, I also noticed the clunky audiovisual equipment&mdash;an old CD player, scratched CDs I had from a holiday lesson, and a moody DVD player. Although weak in social interactions, the online classroom offers possibilities for incorporating videos, music, and other digital content that the physical classroom cannnot equal. This is the strength of the virtual setting. And teaching to this strength is probably the best way to make online learning more enjoyable&mdash;and perhaps to create greater engagement and a sense of shared experience.

As I closed the door behind me, my mind turned toward the future. What will next fall look like? Will we teach online or return to the classroom? Will it be a mixture of settings? The last several months have been challenging, and they have required creative approaches to teaching in new ways. We have learned a lot about managing online classes. We have learned to value things about the physical classroom that we sometimes took for granted. Regardless of what the next semester looks like, I am determined to retain some aspects of online learning, even as a complement to the physical classroom, and to continue to seek creative ways to nurture a sense of classroom community&mdash;both online and in person.

ESL Teaching—Past, Present & Future

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Learn how to make the most of your Ellii subscription with tips from our publishing team.

Teaching with Ellii

In the wake of protests sparked by George Floyd&rsquo;s killing, monuments to Confederate leaders are being toppled and removed across the southern United States. In my hometown of Richmond, Virginia, the massive General Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue has become the center of ongoing demonstrations. The site is now adorned with tributes to people of color who have lost their lives at the hands of police. At the base of the statue, someone has posted a sign with the following anonymous&nbsp;poem:

<div class="whiteBox">
Dream like Martin

Lead like Harriet

Fight like Malcom

Think like Garvey

Write like Maya

Build like Madam C. J.

Speak like Frederick

Educate like W. E. B.

Believe like Thurgood

Challenge like Rosa

Inspire like Obama
</div>

Perhaps you too have seen this poem on T-shirts, bumper stickers, journal covers, or social media&nbsp;posts.

Though the names of the Black activists mentioned in the poem are familiar to many Americans, they may not be as well known to English language learners. In this time of heightened awareness of <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/70/lessons">social justice</a> issues, students may value learning more about historical Black leaders who have made a difference in the fight for equality. This poem provides an ideal approach to this&nbsp;subject.

After sharing the poem with your students, in groups or individually, have them choose an activist to learn more about by going online and conducting a search. You can guide their research with the following&nbsp;questions:

<ol>
	<li>When did this person live?</li>
	<li>What is he/she famous for?</li>
	<li>What do you think is his/her greatest accomplishment?</li>
	<li>What do you think is the most interesting fact about this person?</li>
	<li>What character traits did/does this person have?</li>
	<li>Find one quote by this person and share it with the class.</li>
</ol>

If you would like to ease into the project as a class, ESL&nbsp;Library features lessons on several of the figures noted in the poem. In our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/80/lessons">Famous People</a> section, you will find lessons on Martin Luther King Jr. (<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/80/lessons/2566">Low‑Intermediate</a> and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/80/lessons/1324">Intermediate</a>), <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/80/lessons/3185">Harriet Tubman</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/80/lessons/1375">Maya Angelou</a>. In <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/83/lessons">Easy Readers</a>, we have a lesson&nbsp;about&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/83/lessons/1490">Rosa Parks</a>, and in our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/84/lessons">American Presidents</a> category, we have three lessons about Barack Obama (<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/84/lessons/1969">Beginner</a>, <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/84/lessons/1967">Low&nbsp;Intermediate</a>, and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/84/lessons/1504">High&nbsp;Intermediate &ndash;&nbsp;Advanced</a>).

After students have had time to complete their research, give them the opportunity to present their findings. They can give a short <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/124/resources/3029">oral presentation</a> or write up their research in essay&nbsp;form.

Black Lives Matter Mini-Research Project

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Find useful resources and tips for teaching English with interactive apps and sites.

EdTech

<blockquote>
&ldquo;We learn geology the morning after the&nbsp;earthquake.&rdquo;

&mdash;Ralph Waldo Emerson
</blockquote>

Metaphorically speaking, I suspect we all feel as if we&rsquo;ve taken a crash course in geology after the current earthquake struck earlier this year. For many of us, both teachers and students, we approached this crash course in &ldquo;geology&rdquo; (aka, distance learning) with both excitement and trepidation. We were eager to succeed in our new endeavor&nbsp;but also realized how much we had to learn about this new&nbsp;&ldquo;science.&rdquo;

The technical challenges came&nbsp;first:

<ul>
	<li>How to navigate a virtual&nbsp;platform</li>
	<li>How to make students comfortable online (see our earlier post on <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/virtual-icebreakers">5&nbsp;Virtual&nbsp;Icebreakers</a>)</li>
	<li>How to assign online homework (see our <a href="https://help.ellii.com/article/122-how-to-assign-digital-homework">Help Doc</a> that explains how to assign ESL&nbsp;Library&rsquo;s digital&nbsp;tasks)</li>
</ul>

These were the basic skills for online instruction. In my case, my students and I tackled them with a mixture of trial, error, and (on our good days) humor. We are now fairly connected and comfortable with the online framework&mdash;at least we generally know what to&nbsp;expect.

But now, many weeks later, I am discovering a new set of challenges in my&nbsp;classes:

<ul>
	<li>How to keep students&nbsp;motivated</li>
	<li>How to encourage student&nbsp;attendance</li>
</ul>

Let&rsquo;s face it&mdash;keeping students motivated and engaged through distance learning is sometimes hard. Add a pandemic to the mix, and this challenge can feel overwhelming, if not impossible. Yet teachers are given the task to do just that. As my own students&rsquo; attendance to our class&rsquo;s Zoom meeting became erratic&mdash;and during some weeks, rather sparse&mdash;I&nbsp; had to reconsider my online teaching methods. I&rsquo;d like to share a few of my observations about the importance of relevance, flexibility, and&nbsp;feedback.

<h2>Relevance</h2>

Perhaps you&rsquo;ve opened your textbook to the unit that is slated for this week on the syllabus only to find that it concerns travel: Did you take a vacation last year? Where did you go? How did you get there? There is nothing wrong with the lesson&mdash;it teaches valuable question-and-answer structures&mdash;but it falls flat. Students may not be interested in talking about last year&rsquo;s travels; they are preoccupied with this year&rsquo;s&nbsp;problems.

Our lives have been affected by the pandemic in unexpected ways. Many students have found themselves unemployed and under tremendous stress, wondering how they will pay the bills. In many cases, they are suddenly responsible for homeschooling their children, and their schedules have been&nbsp;upended.

An English class can be a break from these concerns, but it also needs to acknowledge that these events are all taking place. The class needs to connect to students&rsquo; current lives. Here at ESL&nbsp;Library, we have been working hard to keep students engaged with relevant materials in a number of our lesson categories: <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/feelings-coronavirus">Expressing Feelings During the Coronavirus Outbreak</a> (blog post); <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/113/lessons/3249">COVID‑19</a> (Word Bank);&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/95/lessons/3247">The Coronavirus (COVID‑19)</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/95/lessons/3302">Contact Tracing</a> (Health Matters); and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/72/lessons/3238">Pandemics</a>, <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/72/lessons/3250">Social Distancing</a>, and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/72/lessons/3285">Scams</a> (Discussion Starters). You can also find a lesson about the <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/82/lessons/3286">World Health Organization</a> in our Famous Things&nbsp;section.

Of course, everything in class doesn&rsquo;t need to be about the pandemic, but acknowledging it in some way in every class will validate students&rsquo; feelings as they navigate this&nbsp;crisis.

<h2>Flexibility</h2>

If you teach adults like I do, you have no doubt found that just finding a time to hold a class session is tough now that students&rsquo; lives have been upended. Suddenly, the hours between 9 and 11&nbsp;am on Mondays and Wednesdays might no longer belong to students for their own&nbsp;education.

Changing class times is not always possible, but to insist that 9 to 11&nbsp;am on Mondays and Wednesdays is the only time for class is to ignore one of the advantages of distance learning:&nbsp;flexibility.

My solution has been to adapt my class times in two&nbsp;ways:

<ul>
	<li>First, instead of teaching one class for two hours, I teach the same (shorter) class twice. Two hours is a long time for a single online class, and the shorter class keeps students fresher and more engaged. More importantly, though, offering two times for the class gives students slightly more flexibility to fit their class into their current situation. This solution is not available in all educational systems, but it is worth exploring when&nbsp;possible.</li>
	<li>Second, I have begun carving out some time from scheduled classes in order to offer a new weekly or biweekly class session at odd times. This might be 30&nbsp;minutes in late afternoon or early evening or on a different morning. In these cases, this session is not the same as a regular class&mdash;it focuses on only one language&nbsp;skill.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Feedback</h2>

Many of us can relate to this experience: You&rsquo;re the one speaking in an online gathering, and you finish what you have to say. You pause and expect someone to respond, but there is just silence. It is disconcerting. Others might be listening, but we want confirmation. We need a&nbsp;response.

This need for a response is true for teaching and learning online as a whole, not just in a single virtual conversation. But more than in physical classrooms, teachers in virtual classrooms need to be deliberate in acknowledging students&rsquo; work and in giving direct and prompt feedback. If students do not sense that their assignments are being read&mdash;if the feedback loop is not overtly completed&mdash;their motivation will quickly decline. Fortunately, you can now leave comments on all scorable digital task types on ESL&nbsp;Library&rsquo;s digital platform. (Learn more about this feature&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/how-to-leave-comments-on-student-homework">here</a>.)

We welcome your own reflections on ways to increase student motivation. Remember that motivation is not for students alone. Teacher motivation is equally important. If I look at what keeps me motivated as a teacher, it is the effort to make connections and to foster students in connecting to a new language and a new culture&mdash;no matter what the circumstances, whether in the physical or the virtual&nbsp;classroom.

<blockquote>
&ldquo;Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do&nbsp;it.&rdquo;

&mdash;Dwight D. Eisenhower
</blockquote>

How to Keep Students Motivated During Distance Learning

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As we have all learned over recent weeks, digital platforms and video conference rooms are&nbsp;tremendous resources for teachers and students who are separated by distance. If you are like me, you have also discovered how different, and even strange, teaching and learning can be in a virtual classroom. Inevitably, there are bumps along the way.&nbsp;Students might hesitate to speak up, wondering if their microphones work&mdash;or leave their microphones accidentally on mute. There may be feedback that makes it difficult to hear someone speak. A teacher might wonder about the overall level of class engagement&nbsp;as some students master the technology more quickly than others. And the list goes on...

In my virtual classes, I&#39;ve taken three steps to create an environment that works:

<ol>
	<li>Offer simple tips around the use of video, the mute button, any chat functions, etc.</li>
	<li>Practice these tips myself and be willing to pause the class to help students with technical difficulties. I have my own technical difficulties too, which are great teaching moments&mdash;and may provide humor.</li>
	<li>Use virtual icebreakers.</li>
</ol>

Of these steps, I&#39;ve found&nbsp;that the third is the most valuable. While the first two steps increase&nbsp;the technical comfort of students, virtual icebreakers are key to increasing their&nbsp;social comfort, which is essential for virtual settings. Furthermore, studies have shown that if participants don&#39;t speak in the first five minutes of a meeting, they probably won&#39;t speak in the meeting at all. (Here&#39;s an interesting article from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/first-5-minutes-of-a-meeting-matter-the-most-2019-6">Business Insider</a> that explains the importance of early engagement.)&nbsp;

In an online ESL classroom, virtual&nbsp;icebreakers allow students to warm up to the technology as well as to greet each other and socialize. It also allows late-coming students to enter without missing out on&nbsp;the main lesson. And, in an ESL classroom, virtual icebreakers can also have an instructional component. Below are a few of my favorites.

<h2>1. COVID Names</h2>

This icebreaker is especailly valuable for sharing feelings during this difficult time. (To help your students with vocabulary, have them check out our previous post&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/feelings-coronavirus">Expressing Feelings During the Coronavirus Outbreak</a>.) This icebreaker&nbsp;also practices&nbsp;food words.

To make a COVID name, tell students to&nbsp;choose an adjective that describes how they&#39;re feeling and combine it with the last thing that they ate: Hopeful Soup, Unhappy Strawberries, Bored Ham and Cheese, Anxious Oatmeal, etc. Offer your own COVID name first.

In my classes, this has prompted laughter, but also honest sharing. For advanced classes, this icebreaker can be more challenging if students try not to repeat adjectives that have already been used, but rather use synonyms.

<h2>2. Questions &amp; Answers</h2>

This icebreaker is straightforward: Ask the class a non-sensitive&nbsp;personal question, such as &quot;What color is your kitchen?&quot; During COVID-19, I find that students engage with questions that evoke more relaxed times, such as &quot;What was your best vacation?&quot; or &quot;What is your favorite meal to share with friends?&quot;

As a more challenging instructional follow-up for more advanced classes, give students an answer and have them form questions, Jeopardy-style (e.g.,&nbsp;&quot;Midnight.&quot; / &quot;What time did you go to bed last night?&quot;).

<h2>3. Trivia</h2>

This icebreaker works best if your virtual meeting platform has a chat function that accompanies audio. A function that allows virtual hand-raising also works. Ask students a trivia question and have them offer answers by chat or by raising&nbsp;their hands.

To increase instructional value, use trivia from previous lessons or students&#39; location. For example:&nbsp;&quot;Which Canadian city has hosted the Summer Olympics?&quot; (Montreal) or &quot;Which&nbsp;US state contains the Grand Canyon?&quot; (Arizona)

If you wish, you can make it a contest and award points for correct answers. From an ice-breaking standpoint, though, remember the goal is to increase social interaction and comfort.

<h2>4. Thumbs-Up or Thumbs-Down?</h2>

For this icebreaker, students should choose a view that allows the entire class to be seen at once. They can also use a voting function if one is available in the virtual tool. Students take turns stating something they like/dislike or something they&#39;ve done. For example, &quot;I like shrimp.&quot; or &quot;I&#39;ve visited Washington, DC.&quot; Classmates indicate their similarity or difference with the person by showing a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down (or by using the voting function).

To personalize the activity even more, challenge students to offer an activity or accomplishment that they think is rare or unique about themselves, and see if anyone shares it. For example, &quot;I cleaned out my refrigerator last night.&quot; or &quot;I was born on February 29.&quot;

<h2>5. Sharing</h2>

This is my favorite icebreaker, especially for small classes, but it is really nothing more than having a conversation. Too often in this time of social distancing, we do not have opportunities for casual conversation.

Ask students about their families&nbsp;or what they have recently done. Share the same about yourself. Talk about what you miss during this time of social distancing or what you are looking forward to doing again when the situation passes. Share that you are glad to be in class today and express your appreciation for students&#39; participation. Compare notes about the best methods for buying groceries. Joke about wearing your pajamas.

There are countless ways to adapt these ideas. If you have a suggestion or have had success with a different icebreaker, please add it to&nbsp;Comments below&mdash;and, remember, we&#39;re all in this together.&nbsp;&nbsp;

5 Virtual Icebreakers

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<h1>Language Fossilization and Why It&nbsp;Matters</h1>

The term fossilization in language learning refers to errors that a non-native speaker makes so often in the target language they become ingrained over time. There are many reasons why fossilization occurs, most notably first language interference (which includes the use of false cognates) and the overgeneralization of&nbsp;rules.

Here are some common examples of fossilized&nbsp;speech:

<ul>
	<li>My sister has 15&nbsp;years.</li>
	<li>He study English at&nbsp;school.</li>
	<li>I am work at Walmart.</li>
	<li>The apple are on the table.</li>
	<li>Ben play computer games&nbsp;yesterday.</li>
</ul>

Because the speaker has repeated the same mistakes again and again, the inaccuracies may sound correct to his or her own ears. Furthermore, the speaker often isn&rsquo;t aware that he or she is making the errors since they rarely hinder communication or impede meaning; the speaker&rsquo;s interlocutors aren&rsquo;t inclined to stop a conversation to point out a grammatical blunder or a pronunciation misstep when doing so would risk a break in the flow of the&nbsp;interaction.

Despite the fact that fossilization doesn&rsquo;t prevent learners from being understood, it can have some very real negative consequences. Perhaps most importantly, fossilization can make non-native speakers seem less educated and/or less fluent than they actually are.

Of course, the best way to ensure that fossilization doesn&rsquo;t take hold in your students&rsquo; language use is prevention. If you teach beginners, you can stress accuracy from Day&nbsp;1 and nip any potential problems in the bud. But, as we all know, you aren&rsquo;t always going to be your students&rsquo; first exposure to&nbsp;English.

However, there are strategies that you can use to help your students overcome fossilized speech patterns by raising their awareness of frequent&nbsp;errors.

<h2>Strategy #1</h2>

Record students&rsquo; speech. Have students listen to a short clip of themselves speaking and see if they can detect their errors. If they are unable to hear their errors, ask them to transcribe their speech as they listen and then make corrections. <a href="https://soundcloud.com" target="_blank">SoundCloud</a> and <a href="https://voicethread.com" target="_blank">VoiceThread</a> are excellent online tools for this&nbsp;exercise.

<h2>Strategy #2</h2>

Encourage students to peer edit. Put students into pairs. Give one student in each pair a set of open-ended questions to ask their partner. (Try <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/105/resources/3089">Conversation Questions</a> in our Resources section.) As the interviewee answers each question, have the interviewer jot down errors. Before the next question is asked, have the interviewer share what he or she&nbsp;noticed.

<h2>Strategy #3</h2>

Write five correct and five incorrect sentences in random order on the board. Have students divide the sentences into two groups (Correct and&nbsp;Incorrect).

<h2>Strategy #4</h2>

Point out errors that you have noticed students make repeatedly. Then ask them to keep a journal of instances when they notice themselves making those errors that you have&nbsp;identified.

<h2>Strategy #5</h2>

Feign incomprehension. When students make a fossilized error, pretend that you don&rsquo;t understand what they are saying. Ask them to rephrase it using the correct word or&nbsp;structure.

<h2>Strategy #6</h2>

Have students analyze why they are making the mistake. (E.g., can they figure out why they use &ldquo;say&rdquo; in a sentence when &ldquo;tell&rdquo; is called&nbsp;for?)

6 Strategies to Help Students Overcome Fossilized Speech Patterns

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More student participation and less teacher talk. This simple principle can be hard to put into practice. Students may be eager to improve their speaking skills, but find it intimidating to speak in front of the whole class, especially those who are shy or lack confidence in their language ability. And in mixed-level classes, more advanced students may dominate opportunities for communicative learning. Even the mechanics of pairing students and forming groups can sometimes be&nbsp;challenging.

But the advantages of having students work in pairs or small groups are worth the effort. Here at ESL&nbsp;Library, we strive to incorporate group and pair work activities into our lessons. These activities allow learners to practice speaking in a relaxed environment. As an added bonus, group and pair work strengthens the sense of community in the&nbsp;classroom.

There are times when it works best to have students of the same ability work together (e.g., if you are giving different versions of the same material based on level) or have students from the same country collaborate (e.g., when they are preparing a presentation about a custom in their culture). But, for the times when you want to randomly partner or group students (such as at the beginning of the term), here are a few quick and fun&nbsp;suggestions.

<h1>Ways to Group Students</h1>

<ol>
	<li>Have students line up in the alphabetical order of their favorite animal, food, restaurant, etc. Then pair or group them with their neighbor(s) in&nbsp;line.</li>
	<li>Have students line up in numerical order, based on their house or apartment number, birthdate, month and year they moved to this country, and so on. Then count them&nbsp;off.</li>
	<li>Ask students to form groups according to clothing: everyone who&rsquo;s wearing sneakers, jeans, a necklace, a red shirt,&nbsp;etc.</li>
	<li>Distribute index cards and ask students to write down information about themselves (what time they went to bed the night before, how many siblings they have, the season they were born in, etc.). When students walk around the class looking for matches, don&#39;t allow them to show their cards to each other. Instead, have them practice forming questions (e.g., What time did you go to bed last night?, How many brothers and sisters do you have?, What season were you born&nbsp;in?).</li>
	<li>Play a modified version of musical chairs in which there is the same number of chairs as there are students. Play a song and have students mingle and practice making small talk with their classmates as if they were at a party. Stop the music and have students grab a seat. Pair them with their new&nbsp;neighbors.</li>
	<li>Create a set of index cards with synonyms&mdash;matching pairs (e.g., yell / shout) if students are going to be working with a single partner or matching sets (e.g., kind / thoughtful / considerate) if they will be working in groups. Just make sure you tell students ahead of time the number of group members they should be looking for. After each student is given a card, have them walk around the classroom looking for their classmate(s) whose card(s) matches&nbsp;theirs.</li>
	<li>When you want to divide your class into two teams, ask students to cross their arms. Put all the folks who crossed their left am over their right arm on one team and those who put their right arm over their left on the other team. Believe it or not, the two ways of crossing arms are split fairly evenly across the population, no matter what language you speak or country you come&nbsp;from.</li>
	<li>There are also some great online tools for sorting students. Here are three of my favorites: <a href="http://www.aschool.us/random/random-pair.php">Random Group Creator</a>, <a href="http://www.classdojo.com/toolkit/groupmaker">Class Dojo</a>, and <a href="https://www.superteachertools.us/instantclassroom/#.XiCVsmRKhFR">Super Teacher&nbsp;Tools</a>.</li>
</ol>

If you have any other ideas for pairing or grouping students, please share them&nbsp;below!

8 Ways to Randomly Pair & Group Students

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Discover what's new or coming soon, including upcoming lessons and resources and product feature updates. 

Announcements

<blockquote>
Update: Oct 22, 2021

We now have <a href="https://ellii.com/collections/casas-competencies">CASAS Competencies Collections</a>!
</blockquote>

<h1>Locating CASAS Materials</h1>

Does your program use CASAS (Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System) to measure student achievement? Do your students&rsquo; pretest scores drive your curriculum? Is your class struggling with a particular CASAS competency? If so, Ellii (formerly ESL Library) is here to&nbsp;help!

We have recently introduced tagging for materials that match up to CASAS competencies so that you can easily find them. Using our new filter, simply type in the specific competency that your students need work on in the Search bar and a list of related lessons and resources will pop up. For example, if the&nbsp;majority of your students missed test items pertaining to CASAS Competency&nbsp;0.1.4 (greetings, introductions, thanking, and apologizing), you can type in that tag number and your search will currently produce 12 results. (We are always adding new material, so continue checking back.) It&rsquo;s that&nbsp;easy!

<img alt="Screenshot of search results on ESL Library for CASAS Competency 0.1.4" class="hasBorder" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/139/content_Screenshot_CASAS.png" />

<h1>Background on CASAS</h1>

For teachers unfamiliar with <a href="https://www.casas.org/" target="_blank">CASAS</a>, this assessment system is widely used in adult ESL programs in the United States. Schools can choose to administer a reading test, a listening test, or both for placement purposes and for measuring student progress. Because post‑test results are often a factor in determining program funding, the stakes can be quite high for all involved&mdash;administrators, instructors, and test‑takers. Fortunately, Ellii&nbsp;can help prepare students for the post‑test and alleviate some of the stress related to the&nbsp;process.

How to Find Content Aligned with CASAS Competencies on Ellii

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<blockquote>
Somebody hit my car, and they didn&rsquo;t even leave a&nbsp;note!
</blockquote>

In this sentence, we can see what grammarians call the singular&nbsp;&ldquo;they.&rdquo;

Instances of the singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; can be found in literary works dating back to the 14th century. (Literary greats such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Austen, and Thackeray employed it.) Nonetheless, subsequent generations of grammarians have frowned upon its use, especially in written language. For example, just within the last decade, an article in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/01/singular-their-affront-good-writing/319329/">The Atlantic</a> declared: &quot;The singular &lsquo;they&rsquo; must be&nbsp;stopped.&nbsp;&hellip; It&rsquo;s everywhere, proliferating like fruit flies &rsquo;round a bowl of rotten&nbsp;bananas.&quot;

Putting aside grammatical rights and wrongs for a moment, if the word is &ldquo;everywhere,&rdquo; then surely it will be encountered by English‑language learners. These days, this is even more likely, since the use of singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; is growing in a second sense&mdash;as a way to be more inclusive of individuals who identify as&nbsp;non‑binary.

In this post, I&rsquo;d like briefly to review the singular &ldquo;they&rdquo;&mdash;in both its classic and its contemporary uses&mdash;and provide a few thoughts about presenting it to English‑language learners. In my experience, questions about the singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; arise mostly in high-intermediate and advanced classes. (At lower levels, students are often more focused on what is being said than how it is being said, and the introduction of this grammar oddity may cause&nbsp;confusion.)

Students who learn to recognize and use the singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; will be in good company. A growing number of style authorities are allowing the use of singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; for its non‑assumptive qualities. The <a href="https://www.americandialect.org/2015-word-of-the-year-is-singular-they">American Dialect Society</a> named it the 2015 Word of the Year&mdash;the same year that the Washington Post admitted it to its style guide. The Chicago Manual of Style followed suit in 2017, and the American Psychological Association (APA) endorsed the singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; in&nbsp;2019.

<h1>Use #1</h1>

<h4>For Unspecified, Unknown, or General&nbsp;Antecedents</h4>

<blockquote>
A doctor should always be honest with their&nbsp;patients.

Whoever left their backpack on the bleachers needs to come and get it before the gym is locked up for the&nbsp;night.

If someone wants a ticket, they should get to the game&nbsp;early.
</blockquote>

In this use, the gender of the antecedent is unknown. &ldquo;They&rdquo; is used to avoid making assumptions about the antecedent&rsquo;s sex. Hence, it is often referred to as a gender‑neutral pronoun. Most native speakers use the pronoun in this way on a daily basis without giving it much&nbsp;thought.

I have found that the best way to introduce this use of the singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; is first to provide students with examples and then have them come up with their own sentences. Once students catch on to the use of the singular &ldquo;they,&rdquo; I ask them to jot down instances they come across in either spoken or written English in authentic utterances or texts outside of the classroom. This works especially well as a supplemental journaling activity or as a show‑and‑tell for the next class. Once they are introduced to the grammar, students are usually surprised at how frequently they encounter it beyond the&nbsp;classroom.

<h1>Use #2</h1>

<h4>For People Who Use They/Them Pronouns</h4>

<blockquote>
Emma takes cream in their&nbsp;coffee.

Madison has finished their essay and would like to read it to the&nbsp;class.

Jack didn&rsquo;t know about the meeting, so they didn&rsquo;t&nbsp;attend.
</blockquote>

In this use, the antecedent of the pronoun is known, but the assumption is that the person who is being referred to doesn&rsquo;t identify as male or female and has indicated their preference to use &ldquo;they&rdquo; rather than &ldquo;he&rdquo; or &ldquo;she&rdquo; as their pronoun.

This use of singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; expresses inclusivity. In September 2019, <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/nonbinary-they-is-in-the-dictionary">Merriam‑Webster</a> enumerated the following criteria for adding this gender-fluid pronoun to its dictionary: &ldquo;meaningful use, sustained use, and widespread&nbsp;use.&rdquo;

Although the entry of &ldquo;they&rdquo; was accompanied by 530 other new entries, for the non-binary community, its significance cannot be overlooked, as members of this community see its addition as validating and liberating. Interestingly, Merriam‑Webster also expanded its definition of the word &ldquo;inclusive&rdquo; to specify &ldquo;allowing and accommodating people who have historically been excluded (as because of their race, gender, sexuality, and&nbsp;ability).&rdquo;

Depending on students&rsquo; backgrounds, this use of the singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; may or may not be the norm (or even acceptable) in their cultures. However, in many social contexts, it is becoming more commonplace to include a pronoun of choice when you introduce yourself, especially on university campuses. I encountered this recently in a local coffeeshop, where I met a server wearing a nametag indicating her name and chosen&nbsp;pronoun.

The singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; is one of several different pronoun options in such introductions. If you are comfortable, demonstrate for your students the various possibilities. Write or say&nbsp;aloud:

<blockquote>
Hi, I&rsquo;m Lee. I use she/her/hers pronouns. What&rsquo;s your&nbsp;name?

Hi, I&rsquo;m Lee. I use he/him/his pronouns. What&rsquo;s your&nbsp;name?

Hi, I&rsquo;m Lee. I use they/them/their pronouns. What&rsquo;s your name?
</blockquote>

Here, the main goal is to have students understand what the speaker means and enable them to respect this choice. To extend the activity, encourage a class discussion on why or why not it would be appropriate to ask someone about their gender identification. But make sure you know your audience! If your students seem uncomfortable, it may be best to move on to another&nbsp;topic.

Obviously, English usage continues to evolve. The lessons we teach students today may not fully reflect our usage tomorrow. As a teacher, your best bet is always to remain curious and open‑minded, striving to address the language students will encounter beyond the classroom as well as in grammar&nbsp;books.

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Ann Dickson