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The United Nations dedicates a day every year to one of the organization&rsquo;s six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. The purpose? To celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity, and promote the equal use of these languages throughout the organization.

<a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/english-language-day" target="_blank">English Language Day</a> is observed on April 23, which is also considered to be the birthday and date of death of William Shakespeare. His works serve as the first recorded use of more than 1,700 words in the English language, many of which were invented by the playwright himself.

In the spirit of celebrating the history, culture, and achievements of English, here&rsquo;s a list of interesting facts about the language to share with students, including relevant activity ideas for the classroom. Be sure to also check out our&nbsp;new Famous Things lesson on <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/82/lessons/3591">The English Language</a>&nbsp;(includes a video you can also view at the end of this post)!

<hr />
<h3>1. English is the only language that capitalizes first-person pronouns</h3>

But nobody really knows why. The capital &ldquo;I&rdquo; first made an appearance in Old and Middle English. Then, the word for &ldquo;I&rsquo; was closer to its German cousin, &ldquo;ich,&rdquo;&nbsp;which was often spelled &ldquo;ic.&rdquo; As pronunciation changed over time, so did the spelling, and the &ldquo;c&rdquo; was eventually dropped. The new word &ldquo;i&rdquo; was left lowercase until the 1300s when it appeared slightly taller in Chaucer&#39;s&nbsp;The Canterbury Tales.

The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03wwln-guestsafire-t.html" target="_blank">New York Times Magazine</a> explains that, at first, distinctions were made between graphic marks denoting an &ldquo;I&rdquo; at the beginning of a sentence and first-person pronouns in mid-sentence. This is common in other languages, like French or Spanish, where personal pronouns are also capitalized when they open a sentence. In English, however, these variations were eventually dropped, leaving the all-purpose capital &ldquo;I.&rdquo;

According to <a href="https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/whycapitali/" target="_blank">Thesaurus.com</a>, historians now offer two reasons for the continuation of this capitalization: it gives added weight to the pronoun used to describe the individual writer,&nbsp;and because &ldquo;I&rdquo; is the only single-letter pronoun in English.

Activity Idea:&nbsp; 
It&rsquo;s common nowadays for people not to capitalize &ldquo;I&rdquo; in informal writing, such as texts or emails. Why is that? Divide students into groups and have them debate the question.

<hr />
<h3>2. English has &quot;ghost words&quot; and &quot;nothing articles&quot;</h3>

Do you know what a &ldquo;<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/dord-a-ghost-word" target="_blank">dord</a>&rdquo; is? What about&nbsp;an &ldquo;abacot&rdquo;? These are examples of &ldquo;ghost words,&rdquo;&nbsp;a term first coined in 1886 by philologist Walter Skeat to describe &ldquo;words which have no real existence.&rdquo;

According to the publication&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/69880/7-fake-words-ended-dictionary" target="_blank">Mental Floss</a>, &ldquo;abacot&rdquo; was first printed in the second edition of Holinshed&rsquo;s Chronicles (1587) and then made its way into Spelman&rsquo;s Glossarium (1664). It took almost 300 years for the then-editor of the Oxford English Dictionary to discover that the word was actually a misspelling of &ldquo;bycoket,&rdquo;&nbsp;a cap or kind of headwear. By then, &ldquo;abacot&rdquo; had taken on a meaning of its own, referring to the stately caps worn by the ancient Kings of England.

&ldquo;Ghost words&rdquo; are not to be confused with &ldquo;Nihilartikel,&rdquo;&nbsp;which translates from the Latin and German to mean &ldquo;nothing articles.&rdquo;&nbsp;These are deliberately phony words employed by lexicographers to catch out potential plagiarists.&nbsp;

Activity Idea: 
Let students play lexicographers for the day! Divide the class into pairs or groups and have each come up with their own made-up English word and definition for a new class dictionary. Display each group&rsquo;s word to the class and have the other students guess what each means.

<hr />
<h3>3.&nbsp;The longest word in English is 45-letters long!</h3>

If <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/origin-supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" target="_blank">supercalifragilisticexpialidocious</a>&nbsp;first came to mind, you&rsquo;re not far off, but the word popularized by the 1964 Mary Poppins&nbsp;film is only 34 letters long. The longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary is <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" target="_blank">pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis</a>―a chronic lung disease more commonly referred to as silicosis.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.rd.com/article/shakespeares-longest-word/" target="_blank">Honorificabilitudinitatibus</a>, at 27 letters, is the longest word in English that features alternating consonants and vowels, and the longest word to appear in Shakespeare&rsquo;s works (Love&rsquo;s Labour&rsquo;s Lost, Act V, Scene I).

The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F0JWhHRa8s&amp;t=2s" target="_blank">chemical name</a> for titin is the longest chemical name in English at 189,819 letters long, although it is disputed as to whether this counts as an actual word or not. If said aloud, it would take more than three&nbsp;hours to pronounce correctly.

Activity Idea: 
Now that students know the longest word in English, test their general knowledge with a fun superlative quiz! Prepare questions such as&nbsp;&ldquo;What is the tallest mountain in the world?&rdquo; or&nbsp;&ldquo;Which country has the smallest population?&rdquo; and have them compete in teams for the winning answers.

<hr />
<h3>4. English is full of fun things like pangrams and palindromes</h3>

Wassamassaw is the name of a swamp in South Carolina, US. It is also an example of a palindrome―a word, phrase, or verse that reads the same backwards as it does forwards. The word, &ldquo;palindrome&rdquo; comes from the Greek roots &quot;palin,&quot; meaning &ldquo;back,&rdquo;&nbsp;and &quot;dromos,&quot; meaning &ldquo;running.&rdquo;

The longest English palindrome is the onomatopoeic &ldquo;tattarrattat,&rdquo;&nbsp;first coined by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) to imitate the sound of one knocking on a door. Other examples of single-word palindromes include wow, racecar, kayak, and level.&nbsp;

Here are some examples of multi-word palindromes:

<ul>
	<li>Was it a cat I saw?</li>
	<li>No lemon, no melon.</li>
	<li>A man, a plan, a canal―Panama!</li>
</ul>

A pangram is a sentence or phrase in which all 26 letters of the English alphabet appear at least once. If each letter only appears once, it is called a &ldquo;perfect pangram.&rdquo;&nbsp;The word comes from the Greek root &ldquo;pan,&rdquo;&nbsp;meaning &ldquo;all,&rdquo;&nbsp;and &ldquo;gram,&rdquo;&nbsp;meaning &ldquo;something written or recorded.&rdquo; 
 
&ldquo;The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog&rdquo; is a well-known example, but here are a few more:

<ul>
	<li>The five boxing wizards jump quickly.</li>
	<li>Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes.</li>
	<li>The lazy major was fixing Cupid&rsquo;s broken quiver.</li>
</ul>

Activity Idea: 
Print free <a href="https://www.madlibs.com/printables/" target="_blank">Mad Lib cards</a>, or create your own, and have students see how many of the blanks they can fill in using only single-word palindromes.

<hr />
<h3>5. English is the official language of air travel</h3>

Language barriers and miscommunications have caused some of the deadliest accidents in aviation history. That is why, in 2008, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) declared English as the standardized language of air travel.&nbsp;

Pilots, flight crews, and air traffic controllers must now pass an English language proficiency test to work in aviation. <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/55677/what-universal-language-skies" target="_blank">Mental Floss</a> explains that applicants are required to know appropriate terminology, understand instructions in English over radio, and develop an accent that is &ldquo;intelligible to the aeronautical community.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Aviation English, as it is now known, consists of roughly 300 terms that are a combination of professional jargon and plain English.

Activity Idea: 
Review the dialogues from our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/122/lessons/2787" target="_blank">At the Airport: Part 1</a> and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/122/lessons/2788" target="_blank">Part 2</a> lessons with students, then divide the class into air travellers and airport workers for roleplay practice. For added fun, organize some props for students to use, such as boarding passes, rubber stamps, clipboards, and passports.

<hr />
<h3>6. English has over 160 different dialects</h3>

English is recognized as an official language in 67 countries, and for every place that it is spoken, there are different ways to speak it. As of January 2021, the International Dialects of English Archive has 1,570 samples in their <a href="https://www.dialectsarchive.com/" target="_blank">collection</a>.

In the UK alone, there are roughly 40 different dialects, including Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, and Essex. The US has roughly 30 of its own dialects, including Pennsylvania Dutch, Appalachian English, and Ozark English.

Activity Idea: 
Display maps, posters, or flags around the classroom to represent different regions or countries. Read out different words or phrases from different dialects, or use a free <a href="https://sounds.bl.uk/Sound-Maps/Accents-and-Dialects" target="_blank">sound map</a>, and have students walk around and decide which region or country they would hear it in.

<hr />
<h3>7. The English language is constantly evolving</h3>

<a href="https://www.rd.com/article/how-words-get-added-to-the-dictionary/" target="_blank">Reader&rsquo;s Digest</a> reports that more than 1,000 new words are added to the English dictionary every year. In January 2021, alone, Merriam-Webster added <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/new-words-in-the-dictionary" target="_blank">520 new words</a>, including cancel culture, hard pass, ASMR, flex, reaction GIF, and second gentleman.

As globalization expands, the amount of loan words&nbsp;in English increases. The advent of the internet is responsible for many new additions&nbsp;too, as are other new inventions and technologies. As&nbsp;the world continues to evolve, old words take on new meanings.

Activity Idea: 
Divide the class into pairs or groups and assign each a year. Have students use Merriam-Webster&rsquo;s free, online <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/" target="_blank">Time Traveler</a> tool to look up the words that first appeared in that year and present their findings to the class.&nbsp;

<hr />
<h3>Video: The English Language</h3>

<div class="videoWrapper"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="564" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/539835565" width="640"></iframe></div>

<hr />
English may be one of the most difficult languages to learn, but its many complexities and oddities make it one of the most interesting&nbsp;too. What about the English language fascinates you and your students?

7 Interesting Things about English

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While attending this year&rsquo;s TESOL sessions, I noticed two contrasting themes: the increased use of media and tech in the classroom, and the challenges of teaching students in homes or schools with little to no technological access.

Media is a powerful tool for English teachers as it targets all kinds of language learners. A music video, for example, can stimulate visual learners with its imagery, auditory learners with its sounds, and kinesthetic learners who are free to emulate the movements they see.

Students interact with different kinds of media in their daily lives, making learning with it more relatable and fun. A lesson on ordering food, for instance, becomes far more engaging when you include real menus from a popular restaurant or have students use a food delivery app. In this way, media also lends authenticity to a classroom setting.

The traditional classroom as we once understood it, though, is no more.

Modern language teachers are navigating new educational landscapes: in-person teaching, hybrid models, online lessons, and also considering&nbsp;the importance of creating more inclusive and culturally conscious classrooms.

This got me thinking: As we rise to meet these new challenges in education, how do we adapt the use of media for new classrooms?

I&rsquo;ve shared some media activities below that I&rsquo;ve used with students, and I&rsquo;ve included suggestions on how they can be modified for online or low-tech teaching.

<hr />
<h2>1. Character redub</h2>

Media used: Video 
Language targets: Listening, speaking, writing, vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, slang, idioms, colloquial language 
 
In this group activity, students choose a scene from a movie (or TV show) to redub. Each group member will play a different character in the scene and must listen to, write down, and learn to say those lines. When each group is ready, the scene is played for the rest of the class and each group voices their respective parts out loud.

Online version: Choose a video clip that is available online or can be downloaded and shared. Students can voice their character live in class while the video is played on a shared screen, or you can have them record the audio in advance either with a cell phone or free online voice recorder. 
 
Low-tech version: If watching a movie in class is not possible, ask students to choose something they&rsquo;ve already seen and take a guess at the original lines. This free collection of <a href="https://imsdb.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">movie scripts</a> might spark some ideas!

<hr />
<h2>2. Mood board match</h2>

Media used: Photographs 
Language targets: Vocabulary, grammar, writing, spelling 
 
In this individual, pair, or group activity, students review new vocabulary by creating a mood board to match a given word or phrase.

A mood board is a board covered with images, materials, and pieces of text to convey a particular theme or concept. This works especially well for adjectives and abstract nouns.

Once the mood boards are complete, display them in class and have students decide which words or phrases belong to each board. 
 
Online version: Have students take their own photos with a cell phone or camera, or use an online board like <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/esllibrary/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a> to curate images from the web. 
 
Low-tech version: Bring in some magazines and newspapers for students to cut up, or have them draw pictures instead.

<hr />
<h2>3. Flashcards up!</h2>

Media used: Flashcards 
Language targets: Vocabulary, grammar, listening, speaking, reading, spelling

In this group or class activity based on a popular app, students take turns holding up a blind flashcard and guessing which word or phrase it contains based on verbal descriptions given by other students. Students earn a point each time they correctly identify a word in rounds of 30 seconds or more, depending on the level of the class. 
 
Online version: Create your own <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_sets" target="_blank">Flashcard Set</a>, present it to the class on a shared screen, and have students type their name in the chat if they can identify the word. Whoever types their name first has a chance to say the word. If correct, they earn a point; if not, another student tries for the point. 
 
Low-tech version: Print ready-made <a href="https://ellii.com/flashcard_genres" target="_blank">Flashcards</a> or have students design their own as a prior class activity.

<hr />
<h2>4. What&#39;s on the menu?</h2>

Media used: Restaurant or take-out menus 
Language targets: Reading, speaking, listening, vocabulary, spelling, grammar 
 
In this pair or group activity, students read menu descriptions of different food and drink items and decide which restaurant or take-out menu they belong to. Teachers hang up the different menus as posters (with select descriptions removed beforehand) and students walk around and decide what matches where.&nbsp; 
 
Online version: Prepare a list of descriptions from popular restaurants or fast-food menus that are available online. Have students use a search engine (e.g., Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.) to try and find which menus each description belongs to. 
 
Low-tech version: Cover the food and drink descriptions on different menus with washi tape, sticky notes, or whiteout before photocopying. Remove and make a second photocopy to use for cutting up the descriptions.&nbsp;

<hr />
<h2>5. Where&#39;s Panda?</h2>

Media used: Maps 
Language targets: Grammar, speaking, listening, reading, vocabulary, pronunciation 
 
In this class activity, students discover the hidden locations of a character named Panda (you can use any popular character or create a class mascot as a prior activity).

Students are divided into two groups. Students in Group A take turns reading out directions to students in Group B, who take turns following the directions on a map. After several rounds, the groups swap.&nbsp; 
 
Online version: Create a shareable Google Map and divide students into pairs or small groups. Give each pair or group the same directions and have them save the location they find on the map using a designated color or symbol. Whichever group is closest to the right location wins the round. 
 
Low-tech version: Use a projector to display a map on the board and give students magnets to show locations, or use photocopied maps with tokens from an old board game.

<hr />
I hope these examples will be useful or inspire your own creativity. With a bit of out-of-the-box thinking, almost any activity can be adapted to suit online or low-tech classrooms. There are also dozens of examples of media that can be used with students&mdash;I&rsquo;ve included a few lists below.&nbsp;

<table align="center">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<th>Online</th>
			<td>
			<ul dir="ltr">
				<li>websites</li>
				<li>software</li>
				<li>databases</li>
				<li>audiobooks</li>
				<li>e-books</li>
				<li>e-mags</li>
				<li>emails</li>
				<li>podcasts</li>
				<li>social media</li>
				<li>digital video</li>
				<li>digital audio</li>
				<li>gifs</li>
				<li>blogs and&nbsp;vlogs</li>
				<li>holograms</li>
				<li>video games</li>
				<li>virtual reality (VR)</li>
				<li>non-fungible tokens (NFTs)&nbsp;</li>
			</ul>
			</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th>Traditional</th>
			<td>
			<ul>
				<li>television</li>
				<li>movies</li>
				<li>radio</li>
				<li>books</li>
				<li>newspapers</li>
				<li>magazine</li>
				<li>photographs</li>
				<li>brochures</li>
				<li>digests</li>
				<li>newsletters</li>
				<li>handbills</li>
				<li>playbills</li>
				<li>flashcards</li>
				<li>business cards</li>
				<li>board games</li>
				<li>menus</li>
				<li>maps</li>
				<li>how-to guides</li>
				<li>flyers</li>
				<li>leaflets</li>
			</ul>
			</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th>Out-of-home</th>
			<td>
			<ul>
				<li>billboards</li>
				<li>wallscapes</li>
				<li>placards</li>
				<li>posters</li>
				<li>signage</li>
				<li>realia (coffee cups, pizza boxes, shopping bags, bus tickets, etc.)</li>
				<li>projections</li>
				<li>pop-up installations</li>
				<li>wrapped vehicles</li>
			</ul>
			</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

How do you use media in the classroom? How have you adapted the use of media for online or low-tech classrooms? What kinds of media do you wish to see on Ellii? We&rsquo;d love to hear your thoughts!

&nbsp;

Adaptive Media Activities for Every Classroom

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<div class="white-box">
This article is part of a series of posts highlighting education systems around the world. With this article, we hope to raise awareness of&nbsp;both the needs of the students and the challenges of running an English language program online. We also hope to share heartwarming and inspiring success stories with our community of teachers around the&nbsp;world.
</div>

In 2003, Lisa Herb, an attorney, traveled to Mongolia.

While her husband worked as a wildlife biologist, Lisa volunteered with women&rsquo;s rights organizations. As a lawyer and an English speaker, she was able to help these advocacy groups with their communications and with researching domestic violence legislation.

In 2005, Lisa came back to the United States. She wanted to continue volunteering with international women&rsquo;s rights groups, but she couldn&rsquo;t find an organization that provided long-distance support for women.

Later that year, she founded <a href="http://aiwr.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">Alliance for International Women&rsquo;s Rights (AIWR)</a>.

AIWR empowers women through two programs: an English program and a mentor program.

In the English program, a student is matched with a trained English teacher. The student and teacher meet one-on-one over Skype twice a week for a three-month period.

Similarly, in the mentor program, a mentee is matched with a mentor who has expertise in the subject matter relevant to the mentee&rsquo;s work.

Today, AIWR primarily focuses its&nbsp;efforts in Afghanistan.

&ldquo;There was an intense need and desire,&rdquo; Lisa explained. &ldquo;We asked ourselves: How can we make the biggest impact?&rdquo;

In many rural places in Afghanistan, it&#39;s extremely hard for women to get an education and to participate in public life. Many cannot access the internet or English learning materials. Some are not allowed to work with male teachers. Some can&rsquo;t even go out in public without a male escort.

&ldquo;The services we provide are the only means to access English learning resources,&rdquo; said Lisa.

Before COVID-19, one of the biggest challenges was the lack of reliable internet in rural Afghanistan.

It&rsquo;s not uncommon for a Skype video to stop working and to have to resort to just messaging back and forth or for the electricity to go out completely during a one-on-one session. And even though AIWR operates its educational and mentorship programs online, it was not immune to the impacts of COVID-19 either.

Due to the pandemic, some internet cafes in Afghanistan that were available for women to use at designated hours had to shut down, meaning that many students and mentees could not access the internet at all.

Despite the technology challenges, AIWR has had a tremendous impact. In the last 15 years, it&#39;s reached over 500 students and mentees. Past students have used their English language training to obtain scholarships and visas to study abroad, and past mentees have used their training to find employment and become leaders in their own communities.

&ldquo;These women gain choice over their lives,&rdquo; said Lisa. &ldquo;They gain agency. Then&nbsp;they use the skills to pay it forward.&rdquo;

AIWR is a volunteer-run organization. When asked how the average person can help, Lisa said they always need more trained English teachers and that donations are always welcome. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a labor of love.&rdquo;

To learn more about AIWR, to make a donation, and/or to volunteer, visit their website at <a href="http://aiwr.org/" nofollow="" noreferrer="" rel="noopener" target="_blank">aiwr.org</a>.

Building an Alliance for International Women’s Rights

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<div class="white-box">
This post is part of a series of articles highlighting education systems around the world. With this article, we hope to&nbsp;raise awareness of&nbsp;both the needs of the students and the challenges of running a school in a refugee camp. We also hope to share heartwarming and inspiring success stories with our community of teachers around the world.
</div>

Since 2016, thousands of adults and children seeking asylum from conflict, violence, and poverty in the Middle East have been stuck living in overcrowded and unsanitary refugee camps in Greece.

These asylum seekers lack access to basic necessities like nutrition, hygiene, and education.

As a response to the inhumane conditions that refugees were forced to endure on the Greek island of Chios, volunteers with Be Aware and Share provided educational services to children, teenagers, and young adults.

In 2018, <a href="http://www.actionforeducation.org" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Action for Education (AFE)</a> took over the educational initiatives started by Be Aware and Share and expanded their educational programs to the Greek island of Samos.

<img alt="Action for Education" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/1369/content_150466299_534067220892126_1740422451005985831_n.jpg" />

Jokin, a volunteer ESL teacher with AFE on the island of Samos, describes the crisis.

<blockquote>
&quot;Thousands of people have no access to basic needs or social support. The conditions are challenging in refugee camps. Today, Action for Education still provides informal educational programs and activities to refugee children, teenagers, and young adults, but they also provide food, tea, showers, reliable internet, and charging stations. At a deeper level, they provide a safe space, a routine, and emotional support.&quot;

&mdash;Jokin
</blockquote>

<img alt="Action for Education" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/1370/content_151527278_413940946574718_3084410115408861054_n.jpg" />

&quot;It&#39;s a small footprint, but it goes deep. It goes beyond the education,&rdquo; said Jokin. &ldquo;It makes a big difference.&quot;

A typical day (before COVID-19)&nbsp;of teaching for Jokin begins by setting up the classroom. At 10:00 am, their educational centers open and students begin to arrive.

With the help of a translator, Jokin teaches the young refugees how to read, write, speak, and understand English. In between classes, he helps facilitate different activities like ping pong or foosball and workshops on creative writing or mental health education.

During the school day, each student is also provided with a meal.

<img alt="Action for Education" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/1371/content_150902436_2749366395378032_7438118220288573021_n.jpg" />

Janyar, a past student with Action for Education, describes his time at Banana House, one of AFE&rsquo;s learning centers.

<blockquote>
&quot;My time at Banana House was great! I learned a lot. The most important thing for me was the educational support. I studied two different languages, Greek and English, which allowed me to navigate through my stay in Samos. The teaching was very helpful. Not only because the teachers were great and knew how to engage with the students, but because it meant a safe environment.&quot;

&mdash;Janyar
</blockquote>

Khaled, another past student with AFE, also describes his time at Banana House.

<blockquote>
&quot;It was very useful for me. I learned a lot. Banana House helped me feel comfortable and safe. I made new friends and learned some vocabulary of other languages, not just English. I learned about different cultures and traditions by interacting with people from different countries.&quot;

&mdash;Khaled
</blockquote>

Like many organizations, AFE is not immune to the negative impacts of COVID-19.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Greece went into lockdown and AFE switched from teaching in person to teaching online classes.

In June of 2020, they were able to reopen and implemented many safety measures like smaller class sizes, offering classes outside, staggered class times, temperature checks, and masking.

In the fall, Greece went back into lockdown and AFE went back to teaching online. They then started planning how to reopen at the end of February 2021 with the same safety measures they had implemented in the summer.

<img alt="Action for Education" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/1372/content_150341428_726882981356524_8790419457362210428_n.png" />

While it was challenging to provide an online education due to the limited and inconsistent Wi-Fi in the camps, Jokin says &ldquo;the biggest challenge is still the situation itself.&rdquo;

With the poor living conditions in the camps and the tensions between locals and refugees, &quot;there are just so many needs that are not being covered.&rdquo;

AFE relies on individual donations to run their educational programs and social services.

When asked how the average person can help, Jokin says they appreciate donations and volunteers, but that it&rsquo;s also important to raise awareness&mdash;to be aware and make others aware that this is happening.

To learn more about Action for Education and/or to make a donation, visit their website at <a href="https://www.actionforeducation.org" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">actionforeducation.org</a>.&nbsp;

Taking Action for Education

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

Announcements

We want to hear your stories about why you love ESL Library and how you use it with your students. Watch the video below and leave us a one-minute video or text response sharing your experience. We can&#39;t wait to collect your responses and share them with our hardworking team and teachers around the world!

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<hr />

Tell the World How Much You Love ESL Library

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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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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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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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People often describe language as being alive, and I couldn&rsquo;t agree more with this description. Language adapts and evolves at an impressive rate. As language teachers, we strive to stay on top of these changes so that we&rsquo;re teaching our students best practices in English. Last week I had the chance to attend a webinar on current language trends, and I thought I&rsquo;d share some of the fascinating highlights with&nbsp;you.

The webinar, called &ldquo;What&rsquo;s New in Style,&rdquo; was hosted by the brilliant <a href="http://markalleneditorial.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mark Allen</a> and put on by <a href="https://aceseditors.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Aces</a>, the American Society for Editing. Allen covered recent updates and trends in three major North American style guides, including The Chicago Manual of Style (used primarily for publishing), The Associated Press Stylebook (used for journalism and corporate communication), and The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (used for education and psychology). ESL Library&rsquo;s editors and writers follow The Chicago Manual of Style for the most part (though we do have an in-house style guide as well), so this session was of great interest to&nbsp;us.

<h1>Singular &ldquo;They&rdquo;</h1>

Did you know that singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; was not only voted the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/merriam-webster-they-word-year.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">word of the year</a> by Merriam‑Webster, but also the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/04/singular-they-voted-word-of-the-decade-by-us-linguists" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">word of the decade</a> by linguists? Allen began the webinar by discussing how all three style guides treat singular&nbsp;&ldquo;they.&rdquo;

The most notable update was that The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, the last of the three guides withholding acceptance, now accepts singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; if rewriting the sentence makes it awkward or unclear. While The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), The Associated Press Stylebook (AP), and The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) all state that rewording to avoid singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; is best (e.g., using a plural noun or restructuring so a pronoun isn&rsquo;t necessary), they do accept it as a gender‑neutral pronoun. The three guides also recommend using &ldquo;they&rdquo; if you don&rsquo;t know which gender someone prefers (and definitely using &ldquo;they&rdquo; if someone has stated that &ldquo;they&rdquo; is their preferred&nbsp;pronoun).

At ESL&nbsp;Library, singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; is an important issue. Our editor Ann recently blogged about <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/the-two-uses-of-the-singular-they" target="_blank">The Two Uses of the Singular &ldquo;They&rdquo;</a>, and I also blogged about singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/the-great-debate-over-the-third-person-singular-pronoun-he-she-or-they" target="_blank">way back in 2012</a>. How do we reflect current usage while not confusing our students with conflicting grammar rules? As English teachers, we have a duty to teach our students about best usage, especially when it involves inclusivity. But teaching students grammar that seems illogical isn&rsquo;t something all teachers want to get into, especially with lower‑level students. For this reason, the writers and editors at ESL&nbsp;Library avoid singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; so that teachers can choose to teach it only if they think their students can handle&nbsp;it.

In my personal opinion, I think it&rsquo;s important to teach all uses of a word to higher‑level students&mdash;I&rsquo;ve always found singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; to be a great discussion point! For lower levels, though, I tended to avoid teaching it unless it came up in class. Do you teach singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; in class? We&rsquo;d love to hear your opinion in the comments section&nbsp;below!

Besides singular &ldquo;they,&rdquo; what else is new in the English language, according to the major North American style&nbsp;guides?

<h1>What&rsquo;s New in&nbsp;CMOS?</h1>

<ul>
	<li>Use email, not&nbsp;e‑mail.</li>
	<li>Use internet, not&nbsp;Internet.</li>
	<li>Don&rsquo;t use a colon if a sentence is grammatically correct without&nbsp;it.</li>
	<li>Don&rsquo;t use a comma before too or&nbsp;either.</li>
	<li>Using adverbs (including hopefully) to modify a sentence is&nbsp;fine.</li>
	<li>Decision‑making is always&nbsp;hyphenated.</li>
	<li>Use italics for emphasis, not boldface or&nbsp;underscore.</li>
	<li>Video game titles are italicized (like movie&nbsp;titles).</li>
	<li>Capitalize Generation in Generation&nbsp;X.</li>
	<li>Capitalize the first word in a numbered&nbsp;list.</li>
	<li>Don&rsquo;t capitalize the first word in a bulleted list unless it&rsquo;s a complete&nbsp;sentence.</li>
</ul>

<h1>What&rsquo;s New in&nbsp;AP?</h1>

<ul>
	<li>Use %, not percent or&nbsp;percentage.</li>
	<li>Use a singular verb with data, not a plural&nbsp;one.</li>
	<li>It is now acceptable to use constructions with split&nbsp;infinitives.</li>
	<li>Use a slash, not a hyphen, in constructions such as and/or and either/or.</li>
	<li>Don&rsquo;t use hyphens if the meaning is clear without them.</li>
	<li>Don&rsquo;t hyphenate ethnicities. Use African American, not African‑American.*</li>
</ul>

*Wondering why using a hyphen for an ethnicity is frowned upon? Allen shared this&nbsp;convincing argument during his&nbsp;presentation:

<blockquote>
&ldquo;&hellip;those hyphens serve to divide even as they are meant to connect. Their use in racial and ethnic identifiers can connote an otherness, a sense that people of color are somehow not full citizens or fully American: part American, sure, but also something not&nbsp;American.&rdquo;

&mdash;Henry Fuhrman, Conscious Style Guide, January&nbsp;23,&nbsp;2018
</blockquote>

<h1>What&rsquo;s New in&nbsp;APA?</h1>

<ul>
	<li>Singular &ldquo;they&rdquo; is now&nbsp;acceptable.</li>
	<li>Always use one space after a&nbsp;period.</li>
	<li>Use quotation marks, not italics, around examples (for accessibility&mdash;some people have difficulty reading&nbsp;italics).</li>
	<li>Bulleted lists without punctuation are now&nbsp;acceptable.</li>
</ul>

Allen concluded his presentation with some handy links, including ones to <a href="https://aceseditors.org/news/2020/singular-they-continues-to-be-the-focus-of-language-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">his own blog post on singular &ldquo;they&rdquo;</a> and <a href="https://ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/CMS_list.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CMOS&rsquo;s hyphenation&nbsp;table</a>.