Words Used by Native English Speakers

One of my ESL students gave me a topical Chinese medicine for sore muscles. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to read the directions, but my student assured me that the directions were also written in English. Indeed, they were.

In fact, the directions were very well written in perfect English. My experience with products made in non-English speaking countries is that the directions are often a little "off." The grammar or spelling or word choice is usually off.

I was impressed by the very clear and grammatically correct English used for the directions. The one thing that was a clear sign (to me at least) that the directions were not written by a native speaker was the use of the word "sportive." The directions said something like, "for use on sore muscles caused by sportive injuries." Yes, sportive is a legitimate word. And any native English speaker will understand the use of this word. However, a native speaker is going to use the word "sports" in this instance.

Word choice is often one of the things that my advanced English language learners are particularly interested in. They want to know how the "natives" speak. Teaching this type of vocabulary is often a lot easier for native English tutors than for English tutors whose first language is not English.

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"There" vs. "Over There"

I hear many ESL speakers use "over there" when "there" sounds like the better option to me. If I hear it consistently from a student (or even from a friend whose native language is not English), I will try to offer a correction or suggestion.

My difficulty with this particular choice of words is that I myself do not have a clear handle on the reason(s) that one choice should be made over the other. I haven't seen this explained in any of the ESL textbooks I use for my ESL students or for my own reference. It's one of those slight differences that I can discern as a native speaker. I know in the particular situation which is better, but I can't give a generalization of why one is better. So I've just had to try to give examples of when to use which.

If I find something definitive or if you have any suggestions for me, I'll be sure to offer them here.

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Lexis and ESL

When I was attending my TESOL certification course, I heard the word "lexis" in a different context. This word was used to represent the list of words that the ESL or EFL learner must be taught in order to fully understand significant parts of the lesson.

For example, in doing a reading lesson, the teacher has to pick out the words that are essential to understanding the story and review these words before the student reads the reading passage.

The ESL teacher's experience should help to guide him or her in deciding which words to pick out. The decision will be made based upon the level of the students, the teacher's knowledge about the students, and (here's the one where you'll always get it right) the words that the ESL/EFL teacher can see are necessary to understand the story. Don't worry if you find that the students already know the vocabulary. This makes it even easier. Just be sure to have your "lexis list" before the lesson and make sure that you can easily explain the definitions.

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