Author: Nicole

It will come as no surprise that most students who manage to study abroad are not underpriviledged. However, while finances may have been seen as the main determiner for whether someone is able to study abroad, a new German study suggests that the reality of the situation is more complex than that. In a nutshell, the study found that students who studied a foreign language as a kid or who participated in exchange programs were more likely to see the benefit of doing post secondary studies abroad.

Read more in the Times Higher Education

Used to and would are dynamic verbs that can be used to talk about ‘past habits’. In a new song called “Hotline Bling”, does the singer say …

1. “You used to call me on my cell phone.”

or

1. “You would call me on my cell phone.”

If you chose option “a”, you are right. However, is there any difference between them?

The Past

Modal verbs have many characteristics that distinguish them from other types of verbs. Most modals (such as “would” for the sake of this post) can be used in association with the past, as well as being used to talk about hypothetical situations with a present or future time reference. But let’s stick to the past.

Used to, according to the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, is a semi-modal (also called a “periphrastic modal” or “quasi-modal” because it functions like a modal verb and can usually be paraphrased with a modal”).

The Classroom

When teaching a lesson on past habits, ‘Used to’ is preferable to ‘would’. Because most coursebooks only deal with ‘used to’, I believed it meant that this structure was more frequent. This is also reflected in the classroom, when we expect our students to spend the entire production stage of a lesson talking about past habits only using ‘used to’. This reminds me of a conversation I had with Luke Meddings and Ken Lackman at a TESL Toronto conference, when we talked about the irrational desire to control the language our students use in class. How can one only use ‘used to’ when talking about past habits? “We can also use would”, someone would say.

What does Corpora tells us?

‘Would’ is used three times more often than ‘used to’ when describing past habits. But why do coursebooks almost never discuss this? Why do we limit the language students can use in the classroom?

‘Used to’ is a conversation starter. We normally switch to would when we continue describing the past habit in question.

“She used to call me on my cell phone. We would talk for hours. We would talk about all kinds of things …”

So, should we sing the above song lyric as: “You would call me on my cell phone”?

References

“Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA).” Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Web. 31 Oct. 2015.

Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Leech, G. N. (2002). Longman student grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow, Essex: Longman.

Yes, pictures tell no lies: what you see above is the “face with tears of joy” emoji and it was chosen as the word of the year for 2015. This emoji is obviously not a word, but it was chosen because the good people at Oxford felt that it best reflected the ethos, mood and preoccupations of 2015. Apparently this was the most popular of all emojis this year (in our opinion, proof that everyone feels the need to be overenthusiastic in social media… the smiley face is just insulting nowadays), making up 20% of emojis used in the UK and 17% in the US.

While undoubtedly popular, an emoji is not a word and call us purists, but we think this is all very silly. Anywa, it is interesting and could be a fun debate over the water cooler. Acutal words or terms that made it into the short list were: sharing economy, they, on fleek, ad blocker, refugee, Brexil, dark web and lumbersexual.

If you are unsure about any of the meanings, would like to read more about why Oxford chose this emoji as their word of the year, would like to watch some slightly odd videos, take an emoji quiz or learn about the history of the emoji, visit their site.

On November 24th, the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) released its annual report on the state of international education in Canada. It found that 2014 saw an 83% increase in international students over the past deacae and a 10% increase over the past year. We were not surprised to see the largest nationality group, but we were suprised to see the two fastest growing nationality groups as well as the province that is growing fastest in attracting international students. Would you be surprised? Can you guess?

To find out (and more), visit CBIE’s website.

Statistics Canada recently released a study on the regional differences on educational outcomes of immigrant children. What stands out in this study is that children who came to Canada before the age of 15 had higher high school and university completion rathes than third- or higer- generation Canadians.

Get some more (but not too many) stats!

The point has been made that many students tend to ghetto-ise themselves, especially when it comes to Chinese studying in the USA. An interesting acticle looking at ways of diffusing this problem, including strategies for success, proactive language practice and fostering belonging can be found in the Academica Forum. We recommend a read.

Integration can keep international students out of “ghettos”.

In an interesting article in the Chronical of Higher Education, contributor Kentaro Toyama argues that there should be limits to the extent gamification is used in higher education. First, he acknowledges that education has always had some game elements – marks being one of them. He also sees advantages to the “ramped up” gamification that is happening now. However, he makes the argument that not everything should be gamified as it is important for students to develop intrinsic motivation. He makes the very interesting point that gamification proponents argue that this is what today’s “digital native” students are used to and therefore they must be given it in higher education lest they become bored. The author argues that this is similar to being addicted to meth – users find life off meth boring. However, in the case of meth addicts, our reaction is to get them off meth, not to enable them through further supply. The author asks why we do not have the same response to our digital-loving students.

 

Read the acticle and continue the discussion with your friends and colleagues!

The UK has been, and still is, the first destination for international students learning English. However, as with many things in life, the devil is in the details. What is interesting is that the UK leads for short-term stays. Not surprisingly, most of the students are European, but this presents a problem for the UK as there has not been much growth in the European market. When you look at long-term study stints, the US becomes the most popular destination; this can be attributed to the strength of pathways programs. The UK is also losing market share to Canada and Australia, which have both been growing for the past few years.

If you are a geeky, ESL-admin type such as ourselves, check out English UK’s report (there are some nice infographics too).