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EWJ English with Jennifer - Education & Personal Development
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TESOL 2025 Gems: Ideas Worth Considering – English with Jennifer
In this post, I'll share brief convention takeaways with the hope that at least few of these gems will get the wheels in your head spinning. Each session or talk mentioned likely deserves the space to be highlighted separately, but I'll be stringing them together in one digestible post.1. Cynthia L. Z. DeRoma of Yale…
Raising Awareness about Register – English with Jennifer
Inspired by Colin Ward's academic presentation on Enriching Vocabulary through Genre at TESOL 2025, I decided to call attention to register at my monthly YouTube livestream. Having the ability to share my full screen allowed me to prepare texts in advance for students to read with me. I decided to focus on a product I…
TESOL 2025 Highlight: The Power of AI-Integrated Framework – English with Jennifer
Time passes quickly at a typical TESOL session, and presenters always do their best to provide valuable information to serve other teachers. Looking back on TESOL 2025, if I were handing out awards, I’d give one to John Liang of NYU Shanghai for packing in a huge amount of helpful information in the allotted time.…
TESOL 2025 Highlight: A Fresh Approach to Vocabulary in Context – English with Jennifer
This year I attended a few TESOL sessions on vocabulary, and I especially valued the ideas presented by Colin Ward of Lone Star College. It took me a while to make the connection, but I shouldn’t have been surprised by the quality takeaways because I had previously highlighted Colin’s session on “hidden grammars” back in…
TESOL 2025 Highlight: How Storytelling Empowers Both Teachers and Learners – English with Jennifer
I thought about titling this post “How I Got My Facebook Page Back from Hackers,” but it might have led everyone to think I was merely sharing an update on my social media woes. I do intend to tell you how exactly the hacking story ended, but I need to back up and pave the…
A Digital Nomad Who Coaches Teachers: An Interview with Stefy Vaclavikova – English with Jennifer
The field of ESL has changed greatly over the past decade or so. Opportunities online have exploded, and this means that teachers can shape their careers in ways not imagined when I was first starting out in the 1990s. Our expanding field presents challenges for us to navigate. Our personal networks and professional associations can…
TESOL 2025 Highlights: Listening and Pronunciation on Instagram and Beyond – English with Jennifer
TESOL 2025 was a wonderful experience, and I was thrilled to connect with so many teachers in Long Beach, CA. After many years of online interaction, Ivan Crespo and I finally met in person to co-present on the last day. Our teaching tip session promised to Boost Listening and Pronunciation Skills on Instagram and Beyond.…
Story-Driven Language Learning: An Interview with Joey Poulshock – English with Jennifer
The field of ESL attracts those who take more than a casual interest in other cultures. To different degrees, our careers involve international travel. A smaller number of teachers make a long-term commitment and teach abroad for years. What are the joys? What are the challenges? Since the internet remains accessible no matter where we…
16 TESOL Convention Tips: Get the most out of it! – English with Jennifer
If you're like me, you're starting to get into conference preparation mode. The annual TESOL convention will be held next week in Long Beach, California. From packing a few days' worth of clothing to selecting sessions in advance, we participants have a to-do list. Are you on top of it? Don't worry if you answered…
Subject-Verb Agreement Errors We All Might Miss – English with Jennifer
Oops! I missed my own mistake while writing a sentence during a livestream. Thankfully, I caught it afterwards, and I've pinned a comment with the correction and explanation. Guess what it was! Subject-verb agreement. This is what my fingers originally typed: Significant changes in your lifestyle requires a positive attitude.Do you see it? The prepositional…
Knowing That THAT Is Not always That Important – English with Jennifer
Advanced students can usually construct sentences well. One challenge, however, can be to write both clearly and concisely, so it's helpful to know what tends to contribute to wordiness. Overloading a sentence with prepositional phrases, for example, will do the trick. (See a related YouTube lesson.) Another culprit is the word "that." Knowing when it's…
The Courage, Responsiveness & Passion of Author Betty Azar (Part 2) – English with Jennifer
This is the second part of my exclusive interview with grammar legend Betty Azar. Enjoy! (Jump back to Part 1 if you didn't read that yet.)About BettyBetty Azar taught ESL at Iowa State University, 1965-1968, then at St. Louis University, 1968-1981. 1981 proved to be a significant year: Betty’s first book was published, Understanding and…
The Courage, Responsiveness & Passion of Author Betty Azar (Part 1) – English with Jennifer
How do I find the words to introduce someone whose work I’ve admired for years and whose impact on English language instruction spans decades? I was giddy like a child on Christmas morning when Betty Azar accepted my invitation to give an interview. I bubbled with delight at the chance to establish a real connection…
30 Questions You Should Answer – English with Jennifer
Even if you've only dipped a toe in the world of personal development, you may know about the Wheel of Life, a form of self-assessment. As I understand, it was created by Paul J. Meyers, and it's been used by life coaches for decades. I first learned about it from my Russian teacher, who introduced…
Coming Soon: An Exclusive Interview with Betty Azar! – English with Jennifer
I’m dancing with excitement, and my heart is singing with joy because I’ll have the honor of sharing an exclusive two-part interview with the grammar legend Betty Azar! What would you ask someone who has helped shape our field and positively impacted the learning of millions worldwide? Imagine my delight at putting together a list…
Student Stumper 59: Except vs. Except For – English with Jennifer
QUESTION: What's the difference between "except" and "except for"?ANSWER: In many cases, they're interchangeable. They both express the idea that someone or something is not included. We use these words to present exceptions. Dictionaries identify them as prepositions and conjunctions, and there seem to be common tendencies.Both can be followed by a noun or pronoun.…
Word Order: Using All the Tools In One’s Toolkit – English with Jennifer
Sometimes we need to remind our students how much they've learned and then guide them to apply it.Recently, I suggested alternative wording to a student who was scripting a conversation about New Year's resolutions. In response to a question about future plans, one speaker said something to this effect: "Becoming fully fluent in conversation is…
The Courage to Make Life-Changing Decisions: An Interview with Ivan Crespo – English with Jennifer
What is it like to attend grad school later in life? What if it also means moving your entire family abroad? Is being online in 2025 worth it? These are some of the questions I asked my colleague, Ivan Crespo, who was among the first English teachers to welcome me on Instagram when I first…
Empowered by Word Parts: Common Suffixes – English with Jennifer
Knowledge of suffixes truly empowers learners. Not only do they gain more insight into the meaning and the grammar (i.e., what part of speech the word likely is), but recognition of a suffix also helps with pronunciation and word stress. As a follow up to the previous post on common prefixes, here's a set of…
Empowered by Word Parts: Common Prefixes – English with Jennifer
More than one viewer has asked me to provide additional lessons on words parts. Now that short-form videos are in demand, it's easier to meet this request. I'll be posting some mini lessons to target one word part at a time. What about the students we work with on a regular basis? I mainly teach…
December 2024 Holiday Wishes – English with Jennifer
May your finals days of 2024 be peaceful, merry, and bright! I send my best wishes to you and yours for an absolutely fabulous year in 2025. Thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope you'll be back to enjoy more insights, activities, and tips. I'll resume posting in January. See you then. Happy…
Are We on the Right Track for 2025? – English with Jennifer
Today I heard a life coach talk about the need to celebrate the effort and not necessarily the outcome. That felt reassuring. I didn't hit every goal this year, but I can definitely say I put in the effort to jump as high as possible. In fact, I posted my own positive affirmation recently on…
Should We Accept or Reject Auto Dubbing? – English with Jennifer
AI-powered tools are gaining steam, and amidst the excitement over what's becoming possible, I certainly hope we prioritize questions regarding purpose and control. Here I mean "we" as human beings. People need to be able to select and modify how such tools are being applied. What's the context? Who exactly is the user? What are…
Punctuation Is the Packaging – English with Jennifer
At the December livestream, I found myself telling YouTuber viewers the importance of gaining familiarity with standard use of punctuation marks. Of course, they have use of Microsoft Editor, Grammarly, or whatever AI tool they prefer, but having the knowledge inside of them is ideal. The external resources are there to help us all proofread,…
Feeling Abundant and Grateful – English with Jennifer
The holiday season is just about to begin here in the U.S. Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not, I hope the final weeks of 2024 are peaceful and beautiful for you and all your loved ones. May your tables be bountiful, may your homes be full of love and laughter, and may your lessons ring…
Comparatives: Not as Good as My Phone! – English with Jennifer
A surefire way to get people talking is to ask about their phones. What do they like? What don't they like? Do they want a newer phone? Why or why not? And you're almost certain to hit a hot button if you ask which is better, an iPhone or Android!This topic lends itself to practice…
Forging Her Path as an English Language Specialist: An Interview with Sara Davila – English with Jennifer
At a TESOL convention, you usually meet people with “Teacher” or some other variation on their name badge. Do you ever wonder what exactly a consultant in our field might do? Sit back and dig into a rich, detailed interview with Sara Davila, an English Language Specialist, GSE Ambassador, and Learning Alchemist. Think you might…
When Navigating Grammar: Practice Reducing Adverb Clauses – English with Jennifer
Finding focused practice is not as much of a challenge as coming up with meaningful practice for advanced students. Workbook-like exercises are plentiful. If you're search of creative and meaningful practice with reduced adverb clauses, take a look at my handout. I offer two sets of practice items. One task requires learners to decide if…
Catching On to Reduced Clauses – English with Jennifer
Many advanced students have seen and practiced both adverb and adjective (relative) clauses. They've even developed some confidence using reduced clauses. One challenge is recognizing the clauses and phrases in use. Making sense of the grammar they encounter is key if they aim to reproduce such structures in their own speech. With this goal in…
Weird and Wacky Errors with Relative Clauses – English with Jennifer
In a recent search for a ghost story that I could read aloud with my students, I came across a couple of tales that were appropriate for children. The language was simplistic, which was perfect for the task I had in mind. I boldfaced high frequency words and then challenged students to find synonyms. We…
Teaching Fluency with Flair: An Interview with Jason R. Levine – English with Jennifer
We teachers are a creative bunch, and we all have our gifts, but I've never known another teacher with a flair for rhythm and rhyme like Jason R. Levine. His dynamic style energizes any classroom and engages even the most reluctant learners. Jason has twenty-five years of experience as an English teacher, teacher trainer, and…
Pumpkins Out the Wazoo: Zippy Synonyms – English with Jennifer
Teaching students to avoid repetition in their writing and reach beyond common word choices takes time and plenty of practice. When I get to work with students long-term, I start showing them the tools I've turned to myself when I need to elevate my wording. Thesaurus.com is still handy and reliable. Today I showed one…
What I’d Really Like to Do Is (to) Get a Massage – English with Jennifer
My advanced Patreon students recently practiced wh-clefts by completing such statements as, "What I like most about where I live is ____." The completions led to a closer look at what pieces of grammar can actually be the focal point of these clefts.1. Often it's a noun or noun phrase that follows the wh-cleft.a. What…
Student Stumper 58: “Responsible people” vs. “People responsible” – English with Jennifer
QUESTION: If adjectives are supposed to go before nouns, why do I see the phrase "the people responsible"?ANSWER: Every so-called grammar rule has an exception. You could hold the view that rules are sometimes bent and even broken, or you can accept that there different patterns, and certain ones dominate under a set of circumstances.…
The Mix-Up: So do I VS. I do too – English with Jennifer
Agreeing with "so do I" and similar structures is a topic I've had to review with high intermediate and even some advanced students. They've all seen the structures before, but additional practice is needed to boost accuracy. Sometimes a full review of the various patterns is called for, so we go over subject-verb inversion with…
This Teacher Is Slaying It in the Soccer World: An Interview with Matt Slade – English with Jennifer
Each teacher has his or her own story. There’s often overlap, especially in terms of the kinds of interests and experiences that originally shaped our desire to teach, yet the number of different possible paths within ESL is amazing. Our passion to help language learners unites us, and our varied experiences makes our field so…
When We Use WILL with a Present Meaning – English with Jennifer
Happy September! What better way to start off than with a grammar post? Have you ever thought about how we use "will" to refer to the present? It's quite an odd concept, and I grouped it among weird grammar topics in a recent video. We almost always explain that "will" helps us express the future,…
What to Do This Summer – English with Jennifer
What will you do this summer? I'm going to continue working, but I'm making time for summer fun. I've started to play the popular game of Spike Ball, and I'm getting a little better at it. My children are patient with me. I also practiced patience when showing my son some of the moves I…
Still Feeling the Sunshine from TESOL in Tampa – English with Jennifer
It's been three months since I returned from TESOL 2024, and every week since then, I've been sharing convention highlights. I'm grateful for the new connections formed and all the valuable takeaway, some of which I'm already applying to my own teaching. Just before I left the Convention Center on March 23, I attended the…
Teaching Students How to Paraphrase with AI Tools – English with Jennifer
On the last day of TESOL 2024, I squeezed in a couple more sessions on AI technology. Kaitlin Decker and Dilafruz Vosieva of Arizona State University led a helpful Teaching Tip on Using AI Tools to Teach Paraphrasing in ESL Classrooms. The presenters encourage teachers to view ChatGPT as a tool to improve students' writing…