Learn English with Teacher Joe

Would you like to live in a city that is cloudy more than 300 days a year and has many snowstorms every winter? Neither do I! That is why I left my hometown, Rochester. I have to say that Rochester has many good points. It’s quiet, making it a good place to raise a family. I, however, have no interest in raising a family! There are few traffic jams there, even during the so-called “rush hour”. And there’s lots of nature - beautiful parks, a canal and a river running through the city, with Lake Ontario and several beaches to the north. But in the end, Rochester is simply too cold for me.

Since leaving Rochester, I have lived in Paris, France (as a student), in Osaka, Japan, briefly in San Jose, Costa Rica, and now in Beijing, China. I’ve enjoyed all of these places but the best city for me, at least right now, is Beijing. Here’s why:

First of all, there are plenty of jobs for me in Beijing! I have worked in a university, in a high school, in several companies both big and small, and I am now working in one of the fastest-growing private schools for adults who want to learn English. Second, there are lots of things here that I enjoy doing, including visiting historical sites, listening to live music on the weekends, or eating delicious - and cheap! - Chinese food.

My absolute favorite place in the whole world is Hawaii, but it’s far too expensive for me to live there now. Someday I DO hope to live in a warmer location, someplace with a beach. In the coming year I hope to visit the south of China in search of a warm place near the beach where I can live in the future. But for me, right now, Beijing is the best place to live.

How about you? What do you think is the best city to live in? Write your opinion in the comment box below. I’m looking foward to reading your thoughts!

I have mentioned in previous blog posts that I believe it is important to learn sentences. As I often say to my students, “words are knowledge but sentences are fluency”. Knowledge is certainly important, but our main goal in learning a language is to speak fluently, so sentences should be our focus rather than learning vocabulary.

The big question, then, is how can we learn sentences, especially when we have trouble. When I was learning how to teach, my professor taught us an interesting technique for helping students learn long sentences. I describe this technique, called “Backwards Recitation“, in an article which you can read by clicking here.  When my students struggle in class, I use this technique, and it really seems to help. Please read my article and tell me what you think…

My favorite season, summer, is coming to a close. We’re getting a bit more rain in Beijing and the evenings are turning quite cool. It’s comfortable for now, but I hate the thought of another cold winter coming. Still, there are some good points to the fall season. I remember as a child, growing up in western New York State, all the leaves changed to different shades of red and yellow. It was almost magical to see the colors everywhere. I was reminded of this recently when I read a quote by the French writer Albert Camus who wrote: “Autumn is a second spring, when every leaf is a flower“.

Thinking back to those days, autumn seemed almost perfect! But then I found another quote, by the English writer P.D. James. She wrote: ”It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life“. Yes, when I think back the reality of my childhood, there weren’t that many truly perfect autumn days! And in my hometown, autumn can be terribly cold!

But I have spent most of the last 20 years (wow, that sounds like a lot!) in Japan and China, where fall IS the best season of the year. Here in Asia, I have not seen as many colorful leaves as back home, maybe because I’ve lived in big cities with fewer trees, but the weather is very mild. I was reminded of this by reading a quote by Samuel Butler: “Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits“. I’m pretty sure Butler was talking about people more than the seasons, but it applies to what I see outside everyday.

How about you? What is your favorite season? Why? Have you lived in different countries or in different climates before? What is your ideal climate? Leave a comment to join the conversation!

Sunday was the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. I saw no full moon because it was raining in the evening, and I did not eat any traditional “moon cakes” either. I did, however, get to see various athletic events of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games at the Bird’s Nest. I saw several gold medal races including both wheelchair racing and among athletes with artificial legs. It was both impressive and inspirational to see these athletes overcome their disabilities in such a dramatic way. The one-legged sprinters, in spite of having an artificial leg, can run almost as fast as the best athletes of the main Olympic Games, and they can run MUCH faster then I can! Now, if they can be so dedicated and so strong in the face of adversity, they anyone can be.

 Check out the Paralympics (click here) and also watch some videos (do a search on You Tube) to see what I mean. I found the wheelchair basketball, floor volleyball and football for the seeing-impaired, which I watched on TV, to be especially entertaining. Check out your own country’s athletes and give them your support! 

Some readers have asked me about my new job. Yes, I am still teaching English. My new students are adults working in Beijing. They are highly motivated so every day, though busy, is also very interesting. The best thing for me is that my students really appreciate my lessons.

One unique feature of my school (better called a “learning center”, actually) is that there are many clubs and activities where students can practice English in a variety of situations. We have cooking clubs, a karaoke club for singing songs, a photography club, a philosophy club, and even a poker club!

 I think some of you know that I am a member of a public speaking club called Toastmasters. To help the more advanced students, I plan to start a new Toastmasters club in our schools soon. One idea I have is to write some articles giving all kinds of practical advice for becoming a better public speaker. I would hope to write these articles especially for non-native English speakers, but the advice would be appropriate for anyone who wants to give better speeches and presentations.

 What do you think about such articles? Good idea or not?

Okay, I finally got to see Olympic events this weekend. In my new job I have Sunday and Monday off. On Sunday, I went to Chaoyang Park and saw two quarterfinal matches of Women’s Beach Volleyball. Two tall, beautiful Chinese women in bikinis beat two tall beautiful American women in bikinis, setting up an all-Chinese semi-final. That guarantees a Chinese team will win at least a silver medal for the first time in the history of beach volleyball. After that match, I watched two tall, beautiful Brazilian women in bikinis defeat two tall Australian women in bikinis in the other quarterfinal match. I think I’m becoming a fan of women’s beach volleyball!

On Monday, I saw boxing quarterfinals in the Workers Gymnasium not too far from my apartment. I was surprised to find the stadium barely half full at the beginning. When the Chinese Super Heavyweight easily won his bout with a smaller Kazakhstan opponent, only about a third of the stadium was full. I think boxing is much more interesting on TV anyway. It’s so hard to see the punches as they happen. Olympic boxing now uses a computerized system so we can see the five judges points come up on the scoreboard as they make their decisions about what is a good hit and what is not. Unfortunately for the spectators, when they look up to see the scoreboard, to check if a punch was really a successful punch, they miss what comes next. On TV you not only get the commentators explanation, you can get instant replays, in slow motion even.

A friend of mine here in Beijing has a blog and wrote an interesting post on his Chinese students’ reaction to the Games. You can read Matt’s post here. He is a very thoughtful writer, so be sure to read to the very end of his post.

Hi Everybody,

The Olympics have finally come to Beijing! I watched the opening ceremony on a large-screen TV in one of Beijing’s biggest parks. It was quite spectacular. China has already won two gold medals, in weightlifting and shooting. The games are off to a great start.

I just remembered that I made a list of some Olympic vocabulary (click here to see the article) about a month ago. I think some things could have been better. For example, I wrote that running sports are refered to as “track and field”, which is the usual expression in the U.S., but they are more often called “athletics” in the Olympics. I will have to change that in future versions.

Let me know if the article was useful for you or not. If you have any other suggestions, including words or expressions to include, please let me know. We can discuss all kinds of improvements in the comments section, if there is interest.

This week we talked about reading and writing with our students. I did some writing exercises in a couple of classes, but in my current school I never know who will show up to class, so it’s hard to build on previous classes. I gave them some advice on organizing our writing and we practiced writing clear sentences that focus on successful communication. I then remembered my old suggestion for a very common way to organize written paragraphs (click here to read) which is very general advice but you can use it in so many situations.

It’s too bad we did not have enough time to discuss writing in detail. I have no idea what I will be required to teach next week, but if I have a chance to continue with writing, I will certainly do it, even if it’s just one small exercise. It takes quite a bit of attention to write well, but anyone who tries can succeed. If you want to know all of the best advice I give to students, click here now!

I think I promised this video to students a long time ago. It’s an example of how to learn natural English rhythm and pronunciation using a song. Click on the link below to watch the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRHGFyfAXes

Please let me know what you think!

I was teaching a pronunciation class in my new job yesterday and some idioms were included in the lesson. Another teacher told me that she accidentally found some sayings on a website with MY PICTURE on it, which reminded me that I made some lessons for students a few years ago. So, after teaching my students the textbook idioms, I went to my old page:  http://www.teacherjoe.us/Wisdom.html  and students could learn a few more expressions. They could also listen to all of my pages on their own time. For me, I was happy that the audio worked! If you’re interested in improving your pronunciation as well as learning some good “conversation starters”, go to that page and try for yourself.