Big Day - TESL and TED

It is 3:32 a.m. and I can't sleep. I was asleep but then I woke up and now I can't get back to sleep. So you are stuck with me. 

My daughter Morgan and I are staying at the Sheraton Center in Toronto for a few days at the big TESL Ontario Conference. We have a booth for the book English is Stupid and we have several teacher materials for sale like posters and flashcards... things that go with the book. When I have to disappear to make a speech or lead a workshop, Morgan mans the booth. Yesterday I had 2 hours in the Dominion Ballroom. That was great. 

For the first hour I talked about how English occurs for learners in a presentation called Why Doncha Juspea Kinglish. Part of the answer is embedded in the question. In a phenomenon known as - linking - native English speakers consistently shuffle sounds around in order to start all words with consonants. (not at the beginning of sentence but the rest of the time). We don't know we do it and we do it all the time. Linking isn't slang or sloppy English it is the easiest way for humans to talk. The upshot for learners is they can't reconcile words they have studied with the words that they hear and the title of the talk is a literal example. 

The presentation was inspired by a student I taught many years ago. Manuel was 40 +, from South America, he was a doctor in his country. He was a fantastic student with a brilliant mind. Although it was unlikely at his age he would ever learn enough English to practice medicine again, he was committed to working in his field in some capacity. He was in my intermediate class for a few months and quickly advanced into the higher levels.  The year after Manuel was in my class I ran into him outside the library. We chatted for a while, school was going well but there was no job yet...I was disheartened by our conversation. Broken-hearted actually. Manuel didn't speak any better or differently than he did when he stepped into my classroom the year before. He had passed all his speaking tests but the bottom line was - he couldn't speak English any better than the first day he arrived in Canada. He was smart, hardworking and enrolled full-time in English class - Why couldn't he speak English? If I could answer that for Manuel, it would help a lot of people. Eventually I figured out why they don't just speak English, and what to do about it. There are 1.5 billion people in the world today using English as a Second Language, me and the other 180 teachers in the Dominion Ballroom today are the only one who knows how to fix their speaking. We are going to be very busy:)

The second hour I did a workshop on the English Phonetic Alphabet with some in-class exercises. It is absolutely critical for students to have a functional sound alphabet for learning to speak English because spelling is so random. The English Phonetic Alphabet (EPA) uses regular keyboard symbols and down-home common sense which no other phonetic alphabet has employed before so EPA is gaining popularity fast.  

It was a great day. Morgan and I talked to hundreds of people and sold lots of stuff. We ran out of posters and Vowel Cards (there are more at the office). After the show we kicked back, swam in the pool, hit the Irish Pub and when we finally got back to our room I fired up my laptop and there was a message from Mark Mulholland. He posted my spot on TEDxOakville from October 1, 2010. Please forward the link to anyone you think might be interested.  

http://tedxoakville.com/judy-thompson-three-secrets-you-need-to-know-about-spoken-english/

It was a big day.

I fell asleep because I was so tired but I didn’t stay asleep, I was too excited. It is 4:02 now and I’ll have to go back to sleep soon - it’s another big tomorrow.