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Workplace Communication Tip 3: Politely Make Suggestions Style matters – especially when we talk with our co-workers, consumers, patients, and supervisors. English language learners, immigrants, and far too many English speaking workers sometimes forget this basic principle of...

“Own only what you can always carry with you; know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), Russian writer and Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn, an exceptional writer of rare courage, died...

As CNN and the other global news organizations rushed to tell the world, a 5.4 earthquake hit Los Angeles yesterday. The earth shook, people got scared, and fears of “the big one” entered the minds of millions. The shaking lasted for almost a minute, many pictures fell from walls...

Class bookends, both beginnings and endings, deserve special attention. This truism becomes more important in short term summer English programs where ESL students have traveled thousands of miles to study English. As so often, I tend to learn by stumbling. Yet, over the years,...

Do English language learners, or English as a Second language students, learn better in sheltered programs? Should students receive some instruction in their native language – and if so, for how long? Are there clear differences to effectively write and speak fluently? Teaching...

A bright college student asked a simple vocabulary question that threw me this week. “What is the opposite of jealous“? What is the opposite of jealous? Generous? Selfless? Confident? I found myself discussing various possibilities with students adding in situations....

Yet funding for English language classes, especially for adults, remains quite limited. Government programs only help students learn rather basic English, often around 1200 essential words. Students can “pass” all their ESL classes and learn enough English to hold low-level jobs....

Earthquakes remain a concern for people living in many places, including my home in Southern California. This awareness, and fear of sudden shaking and buildings falling, enters into many conversations. I recently read a wonderful term and vocabulary word: lifequake. What does it...

“There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self… Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and...

Why do you recommend using classic quotations in ESL classrooms? “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. President and principal author of the Declaration of Independence Classic quotations,...