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Improving ‘Speech Marks’

Pamela J. Sharpe offers tips to help students prepare for the speaking section of the internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (iBT TOEFL)

Speaking Strategy 1: Stay Positive and Confident
Before our students are asked to record their responses to questions on the six speaking tasks of the iBT TOEFL, they will be asked to speak into the microphone to adjust the volume.
They will be asked a very easy question, for example: Describe a town that you know well. This is their opportunity not only to adjust the volume of the microphone but also to adjust their attitudes. It is important that they sound confident, even if they do not feel confident.
To do this, they need to have a plan. This is how I prepare my students to stay positive and confident on the TOEFL Speaking section. I invite other educators to share this list with their students.

Take deep breaths
Before the Speaking section begins, I train my students to breathe in and out at least three times.
As they breathe in, they affirm their success in their minds. I tell them to hear themselves saying “I am ready” as they breathe in and “I feel confident” as they breathe out.

Smile
It helps to smile at the computer screen. It will make students feel better and it will exercise the muscles around their mouths. I teach my students to smile until they begin speaking for Task 1.

Speak up
A shy whisper does not sound very confident, and even though the raters are not supposed to be influenced by the quality of students’ voices, of course the raters have to hear them in order to evaluate them. A confident voice can make the difference when the raters are deciding between a lower and a higher number.

Keep going
If students think that they have not scored well on Task 1, it helps to train them not to look back. They should try to do their best on Task 2. We practice concentrating on the current task by saying a mental “No” to negative thoughts about past test items.

Speaking Strategy 2: Improve Your General Accent
Many teachers try to help students improve their accents by focusing on the smallest part of speaking—individual sounds. They will take their students through all of the sounds in English, one sound at a time. That can be very helpful if students are having difficulty understanding or saying a few specific sounds, but they
probably do not need to spend their time on every one. I give my students some very different advice. I encourage them to focus on the largest part of accent—the way that the whole message sounds. How can they do that? I choose a few of the following techniques to help them improve their general accents. These techniques are based on research and have helped millions of students. Educators will be surprised how much they will help their students!

Be an actor
Part of the accent problem is that we do not sound like ourselves when we speak a foreign language. By taking a role in a play, we become someone else—someone with a perfect accent in English. Find a play in English and have students read it aloud. Be sure that they act the parts! Encourage them to get into the roles. This is a tried and true technique. In fact, several teaching methods include it as a central part of the approach.

Imitate
English-speaking people who speak students’ languages have accents. They pronounce certain sounds differently, and they have a different rhythm when they speak. I suggest that educators tell their students to pretend that they are English speakers who are trying to speak the students’ languages. When students imitate English speakers in their native languages, they begin to use improved English accents!

Sing in English
One can hear how singers from Britain and Australia often sound like Americans when they sing, but they have British or Australian accents when they are interviewed on television.
Singing produces a neutral accent, which sounds more like an American accent because of the rhythm of the words. Another reason that singing helps improve accent is because we are using the left side of the brain for speech and the right side of the brain for the music.
Speech pathologists have been using this technique to help people with speech disorders like stuttering for many years, and it works for foreign accents, too. I invite educators to sing along with their classes, choosing vocalists who have good accents in English. When we sing, we are helping them to use both sides of their brains.

Listen
One of the best ways to improve accent is for students to listen to an accent that they would like to have. Books on tape provide excellent models. I tell my students that men should choose books that are narrated by men and women should choose books that are narrated by women. Many books are free online.

Read aloud
I listen with my students to a model speaker who is reading a story or narrating a nonfiction work. The first time they listen, I do not pause the audio. The second time, I pause the recording for them to repeat sentences, words, or phrases. They try to sound like the model speaker.

Record yourself
Most of us do not like to listen to our own voices, but recording and listening to ourselves is helpful, especially if we compare our recording with a native speaker’s recording. I require that my students record themselves when they complete the practice activities and model tests for each of the speaking strategies and test sections in their TOEFL preparation books.

Speaking Strategy 3: Join a Conversation Exchange
Many websites are available to facilitate conversation exchanges for students who are learning a language. Students can easily find English-speaking partners who want to learn their languages and are willing to Skype. Often, the conversation partners exchange 30 minutes of conversation in English for 30 minutes of conversation in students’ languages. This arrangement is usually available at no cost. Here are some suggestions that help my students to focus on the TOEFL Speaking section when they are talking with their conversation partners.

Find a conversation partner
There are a number of websites to explore. Most exchanges are free. I tell my students to keep looking until they find partners whom they feel comfortable talking with and who are willing to exchange conversation in English for conversation in their languages at no cost. Why not suggest that students check out the sites listed at the end of this article?

Share your goals
It is important that students let their conversation partners know why they need help. If students explain the purpose of the TOEFL and why they are taking it, their conversation partners are more likely to get on board with their TOEFL goals.

Listen to Speaking test answers
I have my students use the Speaking section of the TOEFL model tests in their preparation books with their partners. For example, they might ask their partners the following question from one of the tests: Some people think that getting a degree online is a good idea; other people think that it is better to attend a traditional college where you can study on campus. Which do you think is better and why? To simulate a test, they should ask their partners to think about an answer for 15 seconds and then speak for 45 seconds.
They should always time the answers. I remind them to use prompts from all six tasks for the Speaking questions.

Speaking Strategy 4: Practice Listening and Speaking with Background Noise
Our students should expect that the TOEFL Speaking section will be very noisy. They will hear other people speaking while they are listening to the questions, and they will be speaking at the same time as others taking the TOEFL. Although they will be given earphones, they will still be able to hear a lot of extraneous noise through their headsets.

Expect noise
When we know that something is going to happen, even if it is unpleasant, we can prepare mentally for it. If students are told that they should expect noise, they will be prepared, and they will be less likely to panic.

Learn to focus in a noisy environment
If students practice in a quiet environment, they will not have the same challenges that they will face on the TOEFL. I tell my students to turn on the radio to a talk show or turn on the television to a news channel so that they have background noise while they are taking their model tests on their computers. Some of my students’ conversation partners take them to restaurants to practice speaking tasks. Focusing in a noisy environment is a skill that students must learn in order to succeed on the Speaking section.
Speak up
The TOEFL is a high-stakes examination for students. Shy or soft-spoken students need encouragement to speak up. They have to speak up to hear themselves over the noise of other people speaking. Although students are not competing with other test takers, they do
have to be able to focus, and that may require them to compete for volume. This is not the time to be polite. Their futures are on the line, and they have to speak up for themselves.

Pamela J. Sharpe, PhD, is an internationally known expert on test preparation. She has been on the faculty at the University of Florida, the University of Texas at Austin, the Ohio State University, and Northern Arizona University.
She has received many awards for teaching. She was founding director of the American Language Institute at the University of Toledo, a Fulbright Scholar in Latin America, and a popular mentor of ESL teachers on interactive television networks.
She is the author of more than twelve books. Her Barron’s books on the TOEFL (including Barron’s TOEFL iBT, Barron’s Practice Exercises for the TOEFL, Barron’s TOEFL Test Strategies and Tips, and Barron’s Pass Key to the TOEFL iBT) are best sellers and have helped millions of students. Visit her website at www.teflprep.com or email her at [email protected].

Court Seeks to Restore Ukrainian in Crimea


From 2013 to 2016, the number of students in Crimea in classes with Ukrainian as the language of instruction dropped from 13,589 to just 371 in 2016, according to a report by the Crimean Human Rights Group, an independent organization, citing data from Crimea’s Education Ministry (http://crimeahrg.org/situatsiya-s-dostupom-k-obrazovaniyu-na-rodnom-yazyike-v-kryimu/).
Human Rights Watch, a well-respected, nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization, spoke to parents who said that officials of the schools their children attend pressured them not to enroll their children in classes with Ukrainian as the language of instruction and then cut those classes from the curriculum because there allegedly were not enough pupils.
The issue of school instruction in Ukrainian language in Crimea reached. Last month, the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial arm of the United Nations, issued an injunction on a case filed by Ukraine claiming that, among other abuses, Russia was “systematically discriminating against and mistreating the Crimean Tatar and ethnic Ukrainian communities in Crimea, in furtherance of a state policy of cultural erasure of disfavored groups perceived to be opponents of the occupation regime,” “suppressing Ukrainian language education relied on by ethnic Ukrainians,” and “suppressing Crimean Tatar language education and the community’s educational institutions.”
The court noted that such restrictions could “lead to irreparable prejudice to the rights of ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea” and ordered Russia—unanimously—to “ensure the availability of education in the Ukrainian language.” A final ruling on the case is expected in the next few months, but it remains to be seen what effect any orders will have.

Indigenous Children the Focus in New Animated Series

Australia’s National Indigenous Television channel (NITV) has launched a new animated series that brings Indigenous issues to the forefront in a novel way for children by having the main characters be Indigenous siblings. NITV states on their website, “In an Australian first, NITV presents Little J and Big Cuz, a contemporary children’s animation series offering a proud and positive view of Aboriginal Australia and the opportunities for learning within it, to young Indigenous kids as they prepare for school.”
Many Aboriginal children grow up without seeing accurate representations of themselves in the media surrounding them because of the lack of programming. The show Little J and Big Cuz aims not only to let Aboriginal children see themselves in a positive light on screen but also to normalize Indigenous culture for non-Aboriginal children.
While the program is currently being broadcasted in English, it will be translated into six Indigenous languages, according to Huffington Post Australia. Iconic Australian voice actors like Miranda Tapsell, Deborah Mailman, Aaron Fa’Aoso, Ursula Yovich, and Ningali Lawford-Wolf will be featured on the show. Deborah Mailman told Huffington Post, “These episodes will be done in language, so that means they will reach further into remote areas.”
According to NITV, the show is part of a larger strategy created by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) that combines written, visual, and interactive teacher and family resource material to be used in classrooms and at home to create conversations about Indigenous life and issues and to encourage engagement.
The show will air weekly on NITV from Monday, May 1, at 4:00 p.m.

Quebec French Tests Challenged

Quebec’s Ministry of Immigration, Diversity, and Inclusiveness has been accused of using French test results as an excuse to violate the constitutional rights of more than 500 international students.
Fo Niemi, director of the Montreal-based Centre for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR), claimed most of the students whose French skills are being questioned come from China, India, or the Middle East. “We’re asking whether there are practices of profiling willingly or unintentionally based on race, language, and national origin of these students,” he said.
CRARR’s investigation is based on letters the students received from the ministry alleging that they “provided information or a document that is false or misleading regarding [their] level of knowledge of the French language.”
Concordia University’s student union held a legal clinic for international students trying to gain permanent resident status in Canada.
The school’s student union held the clinic because hundreds of students have had their French-language proficiency certificates rejected, and they are being accused of filing false declarations about their knowledge of French.
The students all completed a government-approved language and vocational course called the Programme d’expérience québécoise (PEQ), graduates of which can apply for a certificate of selection of Quebec (CSQ), a fast track toward permanent residency in the province.
Last November, the Ministry of Immigration started calling students to review their French but would not confirm the reason why. At the same time, Quebec’s anticorruption squad began investigating two of the province’s largest English school boards.
More than 500 CSQ applicants who took the program have been accused of providing false or misleading information about their French skills, and more than 300 have had their applications rejected after their French was tested.
Those who fail the test may have to wait five years to reapply for permanent residency.
Niemi has called on Quebec’s ombudsman to investigate.

Hong Kong Asked to Prove Mandarin Instruction Works

Hong Kong’s Audit Commission has asked the Education Bureau to prove the effectiveness of using Standard Mandarin (or Putonghua) as the medium of instruction in Chinese language classes before making it mandatory for all elementary and high schools in the city.
According to the latest report by the commission on the bureau’s HK$8 billion Language Fund, the bureau spent HK$225 million in 2007 to fund 160 schools participating in a trial scheme using Putonghua to teach Chinese. However, the commission found that only four schools participating in the scheme were selected for a 2012 study on its effectiveness.
In the end, the study could not provide clear conclusions on whether it would be more effective to teach Chinese in Putonghua or in Hong Kong’s dominant Cantonese language, but it recommended the government provide more resources and support to help promote the scheme.
“It has been more than 16 years since the government adopted the long-term vision of using [Putonghua to teach Chinese] for all schools,” the commission said in the report. “Further research that provides more conclusive findings is needed.”
The bureau admitted that the scale and method of the study were limited and said the manager of the fund would improve the design of future assessment studies to include more schools.
It added that it would continue communicating with different schools and institutions to increase teachers’ confidence and ability to use Putonghua to teach Chinese.

Calls to Promote and Protect Arabic

In Abu Dhabi, Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, told the Federal National Council (FNC)-the legislature of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)- that he supported initiatives aimed at promoting Arabic language in UAE society.
The FNC adopted a motion to re-issue legislation and rules necessary for protecting the Arabic language. Concerned over the lack of use of Arabic and students’ poor skills in the language, Hamad Al Rahoumi, a member from Dubai, demanded that a law be enacted to mandate the use of Arabic in federal, local, and private workplaces.
Shaikh Nahyan agreed to the House’s demands that all recommendations to promote the use of Arabic, especially concerning development of Arabic language curricula and teaching methods, be implemented.
Shaikh Nahyan, who chairs the Arabic Language Advisory Council responsible for supporting efforts to implement the initiatives made in the Arabic Language Charter, said efforts would be made to achieve a comprehensive change to teaching methods in public and private schools to enhance the standing of Arabic as a language of culture, science, and civilization.
In 2012, Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, announced wide-ranging initiatives to promote the use of Arabic, including the setting up of an Arabic Language Charter and the formation of an international committee of experts to promote Arabic as the language of science and technology.
Meanwhile in Israel, where one in five citizens’ mother tongue is Arabic, human rights groups are warning that Arabic speakers are increasingly fearful of using it in public as hostility has mounted towards the language from both officials and the Jewish public.
The warning comes as lawyers have threatened the municipality ofTel Aviv, Israel’s largest city, with a contempt of court action for failing to include Arabic on most of the city’s public signs—14 years after the Israeli supreme court ordered it to do so.
According to the leaders of Israel’s large Arab minority, Tel Aviv’s policy reflects a more widespread antagonism towards Arabic, despite its official status as the country’s second language.Arabic, rather than Hebrew, is the mother tongue 1.7 million Israeli citizens.
According to Jamal Zahalka, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, few public bodies produced documents or materials in Arabic, and many companies and public institutions warned workers not to speak Arabic with other staff or customers.
“The hostile attitude of official bodies, including municipalities like Tel Aviv, encourages a general climate that treats Arabic as an alien and despised language,” Zahalka told the Al Jazeera news network. “How can one expect anything else when the Israeli parliament itself refuses to give proper recognition to Arabic?”
Zahalka noted that over the past few years there had been a slew of private bills from members of Israel’s ruling parties to downgrade Arabic’s status, adding that it was only a matter of time before one succeeded. Growing concern about the status of Arabic follows research showing that many Israelis hold extremely negative views of the language.
A survey released in December, found that while 17% of Jewish citizens claimed to understand Arabic, that figure fell to just 1% when they were asked to read a book. The same survey found that half of Israelis of western heritage wanted Arabic scrapped as an official language, while the figure rose even higher—to 60%—among those whose families originated from Arab countries.
According to another recent survey, one in four Arab Israeli citizens struggle to read Hebrew.

Study Suggests Repetition Works and Works

According to a new study focusing on language acquisition in the brain, even short repetitive exposure to new words induces a rapid neural response increase that suggests memory building.

The University of Helsinki’s Lilli Kimppa studied neural response dynamics to new words over brief exposure and measured the neural activation of Finnish-speaking volunteers with electroencephalography (EEG) during auditory tasks in which existing Finnish words and non-words, with Finnish and non-native phonology, were repeated.

“Unlike with existing words, new words showed a neural response enhancement between the early and late stages of exposure on the left frontal and temporal cortices, which was interpreted as the build-up of neural memory circuits. The magnitude of this neural enhancement also correlated with how well the participants remembered the new words afterwards,” Kimppa says.

To examine the effect of attention, the words were presented for about 30 minutes in two conditions: participants were either passively exposed to the spoken words in the background, or they listened to the speech. Similar neural enhancement to new words was observed in both listening conditions.

Kimppa also noticed that the response enhancement to new non-native words was greater in participants who had learned more foreign languages at an early age, implying greater flexibility of such brains to acquire speech with different phonology.

Conversely, later language learners dsipalyed stronger neural increase to new words with Finnish phonology. “Their brains had apparently become more tuned to the native language,” Kimppa states.

In her doctoral dissertation, Kimppa also studied rapid neural word learning among 9-12 year-old dyslexic and normally-reading children.

“Control children exhibited a response increase to a new word within the first six minutes of passive perceptual exposure. Children with dyslexia, however, did not show such neural enhancement during the entire 11-minute session. This suggests deficient rapid word learning abilities of the brain in dyslexia compared to non-affected peers. Dyslexics possibly need even more repetition or different kinds of learning strategies to show the neural effect,” Kimppa says.

The dissertation is available here.

Kazakhstan Spells Out Script Swap

Astana, the modern capital of Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayev has announced a timeline to switch the country’s writing system over from the Cyrillic to the Latin script with full implementation occurring by 2025.

According to the state-owned “Egemen Kazakhstan” newspaper, Nazarbayev has asked the government to start “preparatory work” and “create a schedule for the switch” with the first deadline looming at the end of this year. “By the end of 2017, after consultation with academics and representatives of the public, a single standard for the new Kazakh alphabet and script should be developed,” wrote the President, adding that as of 2018, educators need to be trained and ready to teach the new alphabet and publishers would need to to be able to provide suitable textbooks.

The move is part of Nazarbayev’s push for modernization and a drive for expanded international recognition for the Central Asian nation that formed part of the Soviet Union until gaining independence in 1991. He has rejected suggestions that the script change would result in making many Kazakhstanis effectively illiterate.

Nazarbayev described the use of the Cyrillic script as “political,” noting that the Latin alphabet had been used from 1929 until 1940, while prior to 1929, the Arabic script had been used.

President Nazarbayev uses Russian alongside Kazakh in his speeches, and the language of the country’s giant neighbor has official status.

Kazakh belongs to the family of Turkic languages, whereas Russian is Slavic. Other countries with Turkic languages, such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan, currently use the Latin alphabet.

Summer Literacy Resources

Language Magazine explores different methods and resources for students to keep up with their studies over the summer in fun ways.

 

Start With a Book

To ward off the learning loss that many children experience over the summer, Start With a Book (www.startwithabook.org) offers parents, caregivers, summer program staff, and librarians lots of engaging ideas for getting young kids hooked on reading, talking, exploring, and learning all summer long. The free resources on Start With a Book build on what young children already like—dinosaurs, inventions, detectives, animals, superheroes, and music—24 kid-friendly themes in all. Each theme features recommended fiction and nonfiction books, along with hands-on activities that encourage conversation and active learning, and educational apps and websites to deepen the learning around a topic. The site also offers ideas and activities to stretch writing muscles in the summer, and tips for parents on reading aloud and building fluency skills. Parents can sign up for weekly text messages (in English or Spanish), filled with fun, easy-to-do activities that build reading, writing, and thinking skills. Start With a Book is a summer reading initiative of Reading Rockets — a national, award-winning early literacy project of WETA Public Broadcasting. Reading Rockets offers additional resources on summer learning loss and activities for teachers to help families get ready for summer and to launch students to fun, enriching summertime experiences.
iREAD
Since 1981, iREAD has developed summer reading programs with the mission of providing high quality, low-cost resources, and products that enable local library staff to motivate children, young adults, and adults to read.
The iREAD 2017 theme, Reading by Design, is inspired by the creativity of authors, illustrators, builders, inventors, artists, architects, and everyone who makes our world a more interesting, livable, accessible, and beautiful place. The idea is to inspire readers to explore their own creativity and design new worlds for themselves and for all of us.
The benefits of summer reading are clear. National research finds that students who participate in library summer reading programs scored higher on reading achievement tests at the beginning of the next school year than those who did not participate. The iREAD mission is to provide libraries with the tools to bridge this summer gap, while inspiring literacy and life-long learning.
iREAD programming includes activities, graphics, crafts, reading lists, incentives, and much more for children, teens, and adults.
As a coordinated, self-supporting effort developed by the Illinois Library Association and librarians, every purchase from iREAD helps to promote and assist the great work of libraries.
Easyread
Easyread is a leading online intervention for struggling readers age 6+ that uses research-proven visual phonics to stop children guessing and start them decoding. Optimized for highly visual learners, Easyread’s one-of-a-kind approach works through 15 minute daily lessons full of targeted games, literacy exercises, and leveled stories. Easyread begins by building phonemic awareness and blending ability, then moves on to fluency, comprehension and spelling. The program adapts to each learner’s ability through an extensive dashboard of progress tracking, viewable by program facilitators at any time.
And best of all, children love it – parents and educators tell us it’s the first time the child has actually asked to do something educational, even after years of struggling academically!
Published by DM Education, the program has been running for nearly a decade, with 99.4% of parents/teachers satisfied with the outcomes they see (.06% of members take our unconditional refund guarantee annually). Bilingual learners and ESL students with a good verbal proficiency in English who struggle to read at grade level tend to improve after 3-6 months of daily lessons.
ABC Mouse
ABCmouse’s Early Learning Academy is a comprehensive digital learning resource for preschool through 2nd grade. To date, more than 10 million children have completed more than two billion learning activities on the site.
The curriculum contains more than 8,500 learning activities that encompass reading and language arts, math, science, health, social studies, art, and music. It offers more than 800 digital books, including 100+ Stepped Readers, that help children build vocabulary, decode, and practice comprehension strategies. Large-scale research studies have shown that it helps children make significant gains in early literacy and math skills.
ABCmouse for Schools complements this curriculum by offering teacher support and implementation services to schools and school districts.
This offering includes onboarding and implementation services, usage reports and training, and teacher and family engagement support. It also includes year-round home access for all students, promoting 3rd grade readiness and combating the summer slide.
Over the summer, children can use ABCmouse to practice what they’ve learned and continue to progress along the Step-by-Step Learning Path.

Write Brain Books
Lower income youth are still losing more than two months in reading achievement, and face slimmer chances of completing high school and college, when they are not offered enriching summer learning experiences.
Write Brain Books are richly illustrated, wordless books with lines on the pages. Students of all ages collaboratively and independently author original stories, receiving hardcover & softcover copies of their published books. Their summer programs help students overcome learning loss with project-based, disguised learning programs that are fun, engaging, and self-esteem boosting.
Packages are customizable to any summer program length and budgetary needs.

Senate Votes to Roll Back ESSA

Despite a passionate appeal by Senator Elizabeth Warren, the U.S. Senate has voted in favor of rolling back critical regulations of the ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) by a narrow margin of 50 to 49. This is the same bill that passed with the bipartisan support of 85 senators less than 18 months ago.
“Today’s repeal undermines important civil rights protections under ESSA that NCLR and other civil rights groups have worked so hard to secure for Latino students, English learners and other underserved children,” said NCLR (National Council of La Raza) President and CEO Janet Murguía.
As states are still developing their ESSA plans, rolling back accountability regulations will bring chaos to the process. The regulations provided states, districts and other stakeholders with critical information, clarity and support for drafting state plans and systems that hold schools responsible for the success of each child. Without the regulations, states now lack guidance on how to best serve all children.
The narrow margin of one vote indicates that many senators believe these regulations are important for ensuring a fair education system. Senator Elizabeth Warren gave an impassioned speech about the importance of ESSA regulations. Senators Patty Murray (D–Wash.), Robert Menendez (D–N.J.) and Rob Portman (R–Ohio)—who broke with his party’s ranks to vote against the rollback—were also ardent champions of the guidelines.
“Our affiliate organizations across the United States will continue ensuring that schools and districts are implementing plans that serve all kids well,” Murguía continued. “NCLR will continue working with partner groups and stakeholders to ensure that we are advocating for an education system that’s fair to all of our nation’s children. We urge President Trump to take into account what is in their best interests and veto the legislation.”
Correction: Colorado Senate Embraces Seal of Biliteracy (March, 2017) The margin of victory in the Colorado Senate was 30-5, not 35-0, as reported.

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