shattering paradise - or, the difference between an 'economic migrant' and an 'expat'

As Gaby Hinsliff writing in today's Guardian suggests, influencers have sold the world a fantasy Dubai – and now it’s gone in a puff of missile smoke:

The city was portrayed as an aspirational place to live, but now those who moved there are realising the precarity that comes with being an economic migrant.

Who could have guessed that living a few hundred miles as the drone flies from Tehran might have risks? Certainly not the anonymous hedge funder who fumed to the Financial Times that “the trade was not that you were getting exposed to geopolitics”.

But if it’s hard to sympathise with the super-rich, as they discover that there are some things money can’t buy, then they are not the only Britons trapped in the Gulf. The deal Dubai offered economic migrants – which is what Britons seeking a better life in the Gulf are, much as some will hate the label – was a kind of real-life Truman Show: a sunny, shiny, sterilised low-crime haven for anyone itching to get rich or stay that way, sustained by stiff penalties for anyone publicly shattering its illusions.

Today's London Standard points out that influencers in Dubai have been warned they face prison for posting material about the conflict with Iran.

And earlier in the week, the Daily Mail's Guy Adams looked at The inside story of how the hollow Dubai dream has come crashing down... as expats are sent mysterious menacing warnings from the UAE government which hint all might not be as well as it seems.

Here we are looking at the world of the 'expat' - and a decade ago, the BBC was considering the difference between an expat and an immigrant:

The word expat is loaded. It carries many connotations, preconceptions and assumptions about class, education and privilege — just as the terms foreign worker, immigrant and migrant call to mind a different set of assumptions.

But what makes one person an expat, and another a foreign worker or migrant? Often the former is used to describe educated, rich professionals working abroad, while those in less privileged positions — for example, a maid in the Gulf states or a construction worker in Asia — are deemed foreign workers or migrant workers. The classification matters, because such language can in some cases be used as a political tool or to dehumanise — as the debate around the word “migrant” suggests.

It's not just 'semantics', it's also a question of law: Expat vs Immigrant vs Migrant vs Refugee vs Asylee Defined | American Visa Law Group

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metaphors are easier to learn when put in context

The trouble with metaphors is that a lot gets lost in translation.

On the other hand, metaphor is everywhere - and is the stuff of language, whether it's the language of money... the language of religion... the language of love...

A lot of metaphors are also clichés - but, then, we all speak in clichés and as a language learner we want to know what people normally and regularly use. 

In the latest from Lexical Lab's regular blog by Hugh Dellar for teachers and students, we hear about Metaphors we live by: "a company is like a ship":

In their seminal 1980 book, Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff and Mark Johnson suggested that metaphors are a tool that allow us to use what we know about our physical and social environment to understand more – and to talk abut – abstract things like time, emotions, work and mental activity...

We could indeed go online and find lists of 25 metaphors about sailing and phrases and sayings that have a nautical origin - but, actually, having such language in an entertaining story-like piece means we are much more likely to understand it and so be able to remember it and use it!

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the lexical approach with the lexical lab

This blog is very keen on the lexical approach - which involves seeing language working in terms of chunking and which can really help us understand how to learn a language.

The excellent lexical lab has lots of online resources on offer - but the founders Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley also put on courses at their HQ: English Teacher Training in London - Upgrade Your Teaching Skills.

With more from their latest newsletter We made it through the longest month:

One of the things that has helped me get through this dreary days is looking forwards to brighter things to come – and I'm clearly not alone as we've already had our first few bookings for the TEACHING LEXICALLY course we'll be running in north London this summer. Over two weeks in July, we look at the theoretical view of language that underpins the lexical approach and then unpack the implications of this view for classroom practice.

And there's more in their newsletter, which looks further at the lexical approach and, following from that, the communicative approach:

Finally, here's an excellent overview of some of the most recent large-scale studies into the degree to which AI is helping or hindering education. A word of warning: it makes grim reading for the hardcore tech evangelists out there.

And here's a great video on the way Gen-Z online slang owes a huge debt to the linguistic creativity of Black America.

Oh, and here's a piece on the degree to which what are often thought of as 'Americanisms' have permeated everyday English here in the UK.

Finally, if you get a chance to watch this wonderful BBC drama, do so. It's based around a guy with chronic OCD who's opted to teach Philosophy in a prison. It's warm, human, hard-hitting, very funny and highly original.

Also, in light of the recent appalling events in Iran, this documentary about female singers inside the Islamic Republic seems particularly pertinent.

To finish, don't forget their great Blog.

Enjoy - as both teachers and learners of English!

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it's national storytelling week!

Next week is National Storytelling Week 2026!

In 2026, we will be celebrating National Storytelling Week from Monday 2 February to Sunday 8 February with FREE online events running on Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 February 2026. The events will be live-captioned Created by Society for Storytelling, this fantastic annual event is a joyful celebration of the power of sharing stories. Stories teach us about the world; they allow us to step into someone else’s shoes and feel empathy; they help us to relax and escape and they can help develop essential literacy skills.

And this year, they're making it musical:

Our research highlights that exploring stories through lyrics can be an effective way to re-engage young people with reading for enjoyment and writing for pleasure. Slightly more than 3 in 5 (60.7%) children and young people age 8-18 regularly read song lyrics digitally.

All of which can be adapted to the ESL/ESOL/TEFL classroom.

There are lots of things to discuss around storytelling...

Should we allow AI to make up stories for us [see: trurl's electronic bard vs chatgpt]

When it comes to new people among us, especially in our schools, should immigrants be encouraged to use their mother tongue?

When it comes to storytelling, it's often difficult to see what's next...; there are often specific themes, such as creating narratives around money and debt; some stories, such as blockbusters, don't have to be stupid; and look out for the political narratives...

Finally, beyond the UK and the school system, there are lots of writing activities for the ESL class and beyond...

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what is 'enshittification'?!

A recent piece in the New Yorker on The Age of Enshittification looked at an interesting word: “Enshittification” was named the word of the year by the American Dialect Society in 2023 and by Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary in 2024. The embrace of the term reflected a sense of collective frustration.

And a recent piece on this blog also looked at the term: 6-7 or parasocial or enshittification - what makes a good word of the year?: “The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”

Back to the very beginning and end of the New Yorker piece:

Sometimes a term is so apt, its meaning so clear and so relevant to our circumstances, that it becomes more than just a useful buzzword and grows to define an entire moment. “Enshittification,” coined by the prolific technology critic and author Cory Doctorow, is one of these. Doctorow came up with the phrase, in 2022, to describe how all the digital services that increasingly dominated our daily lives seemed to be getting worse at the same time. Google Search had become enshittified, showing ads and product links instead of relevant website results. TikTok had become enshittified, artificially “heating” specific videos so that some would go viral, inspiring copycats and goosing engagement while frustrating creators whose output didn’t get the same treatment. Twitter would soon become royally enshittified in its reincarnation as X, losing its status as a global town square, as it tipped into Muskian extremism and rewarded grifters and meme accounts over legitimate news sources. Spotify, iPhones, Adobe software, e-mail inboxes—it was hard to think of a platform or device that wasn’t seeing a decay in user experience. Wasn’t technology supposed to endlessly improve in the long run? ...

The book stops short of fully extrapolating enshittification to national politics, but the term is certainly also relevant in that realm. If the playbook Doctorow describes involves promising benefits to people only to erratically renege on, and degrade, existing services, then Donald Trump is the enshittifier-in-chief. Under his second Administration, scientific research, diplomacy, corporate watchdogging, and social services have all gotten worse. The beneficiary, of course, is largely Trump himself. Perhaps the worst outcome of enshittification is that it drives us to expect things to be bad, and to assume that they will only get worse.

Which is where the piece by the inventor of the word comes in, in a piece which Cory Doctorow wrote for the Guardian this week: Trump may be the beginning of the end for ‘enshittification’ – this is our chance to make tech good again - or: The US president is weaponising tech, but his tariffs and Brexit provide a surprising opportunity to gain back digital control of our lives:

We adopted laws – at the insistence of the US trade rep – that prohibit programmers from helping you alter the devices you own, in legal ways, if the manufacturer objects. This is one thing that leads to what I refer to as the enshittification of technology. There is only one reason the world isn’t bursting with wildly profitable products and projects that disenshittify the US’s defective products: its (former) trading partners were bullied into passing an “anti-circumvention” law that bans the kind of reverse-engineering that is the necessary prelude to modifying an existing product to make it work better for its users (at the expense of its manufacturer). But the Trump tariffs change all that. The old bargain – put your own tech sector in chains, expose your people to our plunder of their data and cash, and in return, the US won’t tariff your exports – is dead.

With lots more here:

Enshittification - Wikipedia

'Enshittification' is coming for absolutely everything | FT [February 2024]

What Is Enshittification? Definition, Effects, Mental Health Risk [November 2025]

What Does 'Enshittification' Mean And When Does It Happen? | HuffPost UK Life [November 2025]

Finally, for a look at this from two years ago when the term first came out, see this piece: Jay Doubleyou: controlling ai - part two: how chatgpt is ruining the internet:

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metaphor is everywhere - and is the stuff of language

Using metaphor is a very good way to communicate.

For example, in how to give a 3 minute presentation we learn that winning speakers made use of metaphor and other verbal illustrations to simplify a complex idea.

If we accept that we are by nature multilingual, then it's good to have an understanding of how metaphor works and that it is central to how in fact language works.

We live by metaphors, as in clichés, pragmatics and how we use language to connect us beyond the actual words used:

Metaphors We Live By - Wikipedia [metaphor is a tool that enables people to use what they know about their direct physical and social experiences to understand more abstract things like work, time, mental activity and feelings.] and Metaphors We Live By: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson - YouTube [Lakoff and Johnson argue that metaphors aren’t just poetry, but a fundamental part of our brain conceptual system. That is, they’re central to the way we perceive ourselves, others, and the world.]

It goes pretty deep, whether it's the language of money... the language of religion... the language of love...:

The Bible is peppered with the language of debt. Sin, forgiveness, reckoning, redemption - all of these words actually derive from the language of ancient finance. What's more, this seems to be true in all the great religious traditions - not just Judaism and Christianity, but Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam - all of their texts are filled with financial metaphors, many of which relate to issues surrounding debt... We tend to think of these religions as teaching us that we must repay our debts. But the truth is that the financial metaphors in religious texts are oddly ambivalent. The original translation of the Lord's Prayer from 1381 reads "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors". But do we forgive our debtors? Actually, most of us don't.

[There is in The Merchant of Venice] the ironic weight the actors gave to all the financial metaphors that Shakespeare deploys in the love plot. Bassanio’s pursuit of Portia is first announced as his scheme “to get clear of all the debts I owe”, because Portia is rich. He refers to Portia’s famed “worth”, and calls her a “rich” “gem”. He marvels: “Look on beauty, / And you shall see ’tis purchas’d by the weight.” And while Shylock demands the fulfilment of the “bond” that Antonio signed, the pledged lovers twitter happily about “love’s bonds”, and Graziano speaks of the “bargain” of their faith. At the end, Portia tells Antonio that he is going to be Bassanio’s “surety”, to guarantee his faithfulness.

Or, to look at a BBC piece on the words that help us understand the world: 

We use them so much in everyday language that we often don’t even notice them, but metaphors and similes help us think more deeply – and make sense of the world around us...

And here's a fascinating piece on The Ubiquity of Metaphor from the perspective of a behavioural scientists.

So, it's more than just a bit of 'fancy' or 'flowery' language: language is metaphor.

Let's look at some philosophy and whether someone can explain structuralism to me like I'm 5;

1: Levi-Strauss reckoned that the way we think about things has been set in place already by cultural factors (mainly language) - so the individual is almost a base through which ‘society’ does its work. Think about it like this - language existed before we were, and will continue after we will be gone, but we think through it and it constrains our understanding. The language allows understanding by contrasting together concepts, like dark:light. Would you understand dark if you didn't understand light? Then language goes one step further, and uses metaphor (or, if you like, myth) to allow even deeper understanding of something. So dark is to light as order is to chaos as Man is to Woman. You understand the first concept much more richly by linking it to your understanding of the other contrasts.

2: We actually understand things only through metaphors. Every word was once a metaphor - 'muscle' for example, came through the German word for 'mouse', because muscles looked like little animals moving under the skin. This extends up how we act out concepts. When we speak of 'knowledge', for instance, we understand it to be a 'space'. We 'shed light on that' or 'find common ground', or 'another perspective'. We therefore exchange knowledge freely, because everyone can stand in that space. Other cultures, for instance the Maori of New Zealand, understand knowledge to be a treasure. They therefore DON'T share knowledge except with (male) descendants, and don't particularly care if it's actually right or not, because it was a gift from their ancestors. See how this metaphor language stuff shapes society and understanding?

And let's look at the magazine Philosophy Now and A Gentle Introduction to Structuralism, Postmodernism And All That:

Structuralism arose on the continent, in particular in France, in the early 60s. The first ‘big name’ was Claude Lévi-Strauss, an anthropologist, who took on Jean-Paul Sartre, the leading French intellectual and philosopher of the time, and didn’t so much win, as went unanswered (which from Sartre’s point of view was worse). Here was France’s main philosopher, Sartre, who usually had something to say about everything, being attacked in Lévi-Strauss’ The Savage Mind, and yet not replying! The implication was that he couldn’t reply, and the intellectual mood began to move towards Lévi-Strauss’ intellectual position, which he called structuralism.

A simple explanation of structuralism is that it understands phenomena using the metaphor of language. That is, we can understand language as a system, or structure, which defines itself in terms of itself. There is no language ‘behind’ language with which we understand it, no metalanguage to explain what language means. Instead it is a self-referential system. Words explain words explain words (as in a dictionary), and meaning is present as a set of structures.

Helpful?!

To finish, here's something a bit strange(r)...

Going further, malaphors are when we get our metaphors mixed up [as in "it's not rocket surgery" instead of "it's not rocket science"!]

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6-7 or parasocial or enshittification - what makes a good word of the year?

How do we add new vocabulary in English dictionaries? 

The problem is that the UK does not have an official language - nor does it have an official dictionary.

So, it's really a matter of choice as to what is put into dictionaries - or, rather, a matter of choice of those out there who are using the English language.

Looking at the online dictionary.com, it asks and answers the question: How Does A Word Get Into The Dictionary?

This is one of the most common questions we get—and it’s a great one.

The answer involves one of the most misunderstood things about dictionaries, so let’s set the record straight: a word doesn’t become a “real word” when it’s added to the dictionary. It’s actually the other way around: we add words to the dictionary because they’re real—because they’re really used by real people in the real world.

In other words, our lexicographers add a word to the dictionary when they determine that:

• It’s a word that’s used by a lot of people.
• It’s used by those people in largely the same way.
• It’s likely to stick around.
• And it’s useful for a general audience.

All four of these points are important. Our lexicographers look for use not just by one person, but by a lot of people. Of course, many words have different shades of meaning for different people. But to be added to the dictionary, a word must have a shared meaning (that is, it must communicate a widely agreed-upon meaning from one person to the next). If everyone used a word in a completely different way, we wouldn’t be able to give it a definition, right?

But what about how dictionaries claiming that x is 'word of the year'?

It's probably about marketing: getting the name of the dictionary out there. And it works! 

The Daily Mail says the internet is divided as Dictionary.com unveils its 2025 word of the year - or as The Independent tells us, ‘6-7’ is named 2025 Word of the Year: Here’s what it means...

Alternatively, as reported in the E L Gazette, the Cambridge Dictionary names parasocial as the Word of the Year.

This social media and Gen Z/Alpha derived vocabulary was critiqued in last year's choice, as reported in the Guardian: ‘What many of us feel’: why ‘enshittification’ is Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year:

“The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”

Take your pick!

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Lexical Lab: learn languages with an online teacher through everyday english and common words, chunks, idioms, phrasal verbs, phrases and expressions used in spoken language

Experienced teachers Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley have put together an online learning and teacher-training platform: Language Learning and Teacher Development | Lexical Lab

As this intro video says, it "looks at everyday English and common words, chunks, idioms, phrasal verbs, phrases and expressions used in spoken English".

Yes, it's using the lexical approach to learning a language!

There are very positive opinions about the site and service: Lexicallab Reviews | Read Customer Service Reviews of lexicallab.com.

They've got a blog.

And they've got a mailing list.

Looking at more about Lexical Lab, we learn that:

We have written one five-level General English coursebook series: Innovations, which was nominated for ESU award and two ELTons, and one six-level series, Outcomes, which is now in its third edition and has received widespread acclaim.

As trainers and methodologists, we have been strongly influenced by lexical views of language and by practice derived from lexical approaches to language. This led us to write a methodology book, Teaching Lexically, part of Delta Publishing’s multi-award-winning teacher development series.

To finish, here's the Hugh Dellar Interview - Teaching Lexically, Lexical Approach LEGEND! - YouTube

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clichés, pragmatics and how we use language to connect us beyond the actual words used

What is the purpose of language? Do words carry meaning? Is language communication?

These are questions Michael Rosen looks at in his excellent weekly programme on BBC Radio 4 - and this week, it's: Word of Mouth - It's not what you say, it's how you say it - BBC Sounds

Michael Rosen on the linguistic comfort food of clichés, pragmatics and how we use language to connect us beyond the actual words used. Derek Bousfield explains how words do more than carry meaning: context governs what we say and how it’s understood. Dr Bousfield is Reader in Pragmatics and Communication and Co-Director of The Manchester Centre for Research in Linguistics and co-author of Talking in Clichés: The Use of Stock Phrases in Discourse and Communication.

They look at Pragmatics - how we say things beyond what they literally mean - for example "How are you?" is not asking about your health/problems: Jay Doubleyou: pragmatics: it ain't what you say it's the way that you say it

Language is not literal! Especially in conversation, which is guided by culture and context.

Language is non-direct - for example: "Why don't we have a coffee some time?" is not making a specific arrangement to meet. Another example: "We'll see how it goes" means I don't agree with you but I don't want to talk about it any more. 

The British love understatement or litotes - which are codes to build rapport.

There is the world of clichés - and comedians such as Peter Kay enjoy playing with them. We use them all the time to connect people -  and that "we are all on the same page", to use a cliché.

We live by metaphors: Metaphors We Live By - Wikipedia [metaphor is a tool that enables people to use what they know about their direct physical and social experiences to understand more abstract things like work, time, mental activity and feelings.] and Metaphors We Live By: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson - YouTube [Lakoff and Johnson argue that metaphors aren’t just poetry, but a fundamental part of our brain conceptual system. That is, they’re central to the way we perceive ourselves, others, and the world.]

A favourite example from Prof Bousfield is 'literally': Urban Dictionary: literally

And a favourite from Michael is 'the bottom line': BOTTOM LINE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary and What does ‘bottom-line’ mean here? : r/EnglishLearning

The word 'cliché' comes from French: Cliché - Wikipedia

To finish this look at the programme, here's Derek Bousfield's book: Talking in Clichés: The Use of Stock Phrases in Discourse and Communication: Amazon.co.uk: Bullo, Stella: 9781108458139: Books

For decades, social perspectives, and even academic studies of language, have considered clichés as a hackneyed, tired, lazy, unthinking and uninspiring form of communication. Authored by two established scholars in the fields of Systemic-Functional Linguistics and Discourse Studies and Pragmatics, this cutting-edge book comprehensively explores the perception and use of clichés in language from these complementary perspectives. It draws data from a variety of both written and spoken sources, to re-interrogate and re-imagine the nature, role and usage of clichés, identifying the innovative and creative ways in which the concepts are utilised in communication, interaction, and in self-presentation. 

Observing a rich, complex layering of usage, the authors deconstruct the many and varied ways in which clichés operate and are interdependently constructed; from the role they play in discourse in general, to their functions as argumentative strategies, as constructs of social cognition, as politeness strategies, and finally as markers of identity.

And here's a look or two at clichés:

What is a cliché? Check out this list of examples.

SUPER IMPORTANT EXPRESSIONS | Clichés in Spoken English - YouTube

See also:

Jay Doubleyou: pragmatics

Jay Doubleyou: juergen habermas: communicative rationality and deliberative democracy

Jay Doubleyou: ambiguity is everywhere in englsh

Jay Doubleyou: behaviourism >>> krashen... pinker... skinner... chomsky

Jay Doubleyou: small talk, phatic communication and the games people play

Jay Doubleyou: english is not transparent

Jay Doubleyou: writing with register: a lesson in using different levels of 'politeness'

Jay Doubleyou: what is 'politeness' and how can we teach it?

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algospeak: how social media influences the way we talk

As google AI tells us, in an easy definition of algorithms:

In simple terms, an algorithm is a set of step-by-step instructions for completing a task or solving a problem. These instructions are ordered and precise, like a recipe for baking a cake or the steps to making a peanut butter sandwich, and are used by computers and humans to achieve a specific outcome from a given input

Or, when it comes to algorithm: meaning in computer:

Sorting data: An algorithm can define the steps to sort a list of numbers in ascending order.

Finding a path: An algorithm can determine the shortest route on a map by calculating and comparing various paths.

Social media feeds: Algorithms in social media platforms analyze user data to recommend content, though these often involve heuristics (rules of thumb) rather than strictly correct solutions, as noted in Wikipedia.

What about algorithms and language?

Dale Shaw writes for the New World weekly magazine and has written a review of the new book  Algospeak, the language of the machine:

We invented algorithms to sort our words. Now the algorithms are teaching us how to speak

There is one meaning of this word Algospeak - Wikipedia:

In social media, algospeak is a self-censorship phenomenon in which users adopt coded expressions to evade automated content moderation.[1][2] It is used to discuss topics deemed sensitive to moderation algorithms while avoiding penalties such as shadow banning, downranking, or de-monetization of content

But it's also Algospeak (book) - Wikipedia:

Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language is a 2025 non-fiction book by linguist and content creator Adam Aleksic, known online as Etymology Nerd. It explores various linguistic phenomena on the internet, including algospeak, internet slang, and linguistic innovations driven by social media algorithms.[1][2][3]

The book primarily argues that the internet and social media are driving many of recent linguistic innovations, and even crossing over to the offline world.[4] The book covers how social media algorithms—the system that determines which content will be shown to the user—drive content creators to optimize their expression for greater reach.[1] Aleksic argues for an expanded definition of algospeak to encapsulate this new way of social media-influenced expression, going beyond its original definition of the use of coded expressions to evade automated content moderation.[1]

Here are a couple of book reviews (registration needed!

In ‘Algospeak,’ Adam Aleksic, a.k.a. Etymology Nerd, writes about the ways social media is changing language - The Washington Post

Two Savvy New Books Offer Hope For the Terminally Online - The New York Times

And here's a good list of more:

All Book Marks reviews for Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic Book Marks

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how to "delight in the seemingly arbitrary and confusing nature of phrasal verbs"

It is generally agreed among students and teachers alike that 'phrasal verbs' are a mean thing.

Ultimately, it's about chunks - or, as the name says, phrases. And not translating word for word!!!

Jay Doubleyou: what to do with prepositions

It doesn't have to be a matter of lists. We can make the teaching and learning of them much more fun.

Jay Doubleyou: funky phrasals with the bbc

And BBC Radio 4's programme looking at words has done just that [from 32 minutes in]:

"Our Eartoon (a cartoon for the ear) this week delights in the seemingly arbitrary and confusing nature of phrasal Verbs. This is the latest episode in our series by Stagedoor Johnny 'Richard Poynton' in which he offers an origin myth for the English Language."

The Verb - Boo Hewerdine, Fiona Benson, Alison Binney, Yvonne Lyon, Eartoon - BBC Sounds

Here's more fun:

How to Teach Phrasal Verbs to ESL Learners

ESL phrasal verbs: interactive games and activities for effective learning

To Be Verb Charades

Fun with Phrasal Verbs

10 short warm-ups to revise vocabulary | That is Evil!

Phrasal verbs – our top tips and favourite classroom activities – Collins

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umami taste

The subject of 'tastes' can make for a good lesson or two - at all levels:

80 Taste English ESL worksheets pdf & doc

ESL Food and Taste Activity Sheet [Teens, A2-B1] - Twinkl

Amazing world of food: Lesson 4: Our sense of taste | Lesson | Onestopenglish

Tastes | Learning English | Cambridge English

There are more than the tastes of sweet, sour, salty and bitter:

Umami has been variously translated from Japanese as yummy, deliciousness or a pleasant savoury taste, and was coined in 1908 by a chemist at Tokyo University called Kikunae Ikeda. He had noticed this particular taste in asparagus, tomatoes, cheese and meat, but it was strongest in dashi – that rich stock made from kombu (kelp) which is widely used as a flavour base in Japanese cooking. So he homed in on kombu, eventually pinpointing glutamate, an amino acid, as the source of savoury wonder. He then learned how to produce it in industrial quantities and patented the notorious flavour enhancer MSG.

Umami: why the fifth taste is so important | Food | The Guardian

What is Umami? | Everything about umami | Umami | The Ajinomoto Group Global Website - Eat Well, Live Well.

And apparently there is another taste!

8 Things To Know About Kokumi, The 'Sixth Taste'

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etymology can be fun!

Sometimes English doesn't make much sense!

Jay Doubleyou: why is english so different from other languages? part one: vocab

To help, though, it's good to have some idea about where words come from and how they are made up:

What teachers should know about English vocabulary

In other words, what's a word's etymology?

Etymology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Online Etymology Dictionary

But be careful:

Etymology is a study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time and Philology is a study of language in written historical sources

Etymology vs. Philology - What's the difference? | Ask Difference

We could take any word and play with it:

Jay Doubleyou: a history of the the word 'orange'

There's lots of interesting things around words - where they come from and where they are going:

Jay Doubleyou: how languages emerge, change, convey meaning and influence how we think

Here's a great place to go:

Online Etymology Dictionary

For example:

A Word or Two

Wicked Words | Columns

And it's quite good:

The Online Etymology Dictionary has been referenced by Oxford University's "Arts and Humanities Community Resource" catalog as "an excellent tool for those seeking the origins of words"[6] and cited in the Chicago Tribune as one of the "best resources for finding just the right word".[7] It is cited in academic work as a useful, though not definitive, reference for etymology.[8][9][10] In addition, it has been used as a data source for quantitative scholarly research.[11][12]

Etymonline - Wikipedia

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teaching sport in the esl/esol/tefl class

There are many different approaches teachers can take when 'doing sport' in the English classroom.

Here are some ideas and lesson plans.

...

using songs in the esl/esol/tefl classroom

We all love songs - and so they usually make a great resource in the language classroom.

There are lots of things in songs for the English learner:

Jay Doubleyou: conditionals in songs

Jay Doubleyou: singing songs to learn english

Jay Doubleyou: listening to song lyrics will help your pronunciation

Jay Doubleyou: modal verbs in song

And for the English teacher:

Jay Doubleyou: every song has its lesson plan

Jay Doubleyou: every song has its lesson plan - part two

The British Council has got some ideas:

How to use songs in the English language classroom | British Council

Using music and songs | TeachingEnglish | British Council

There are some good videos out there with more ideas:

5 ways to use songs to teach English - YouTube

12 fun activities you can do with pop songs in the ESL classroom - YouTube

Going beyond the conventional 'gap fill' exercise, here are some more activities suggested by Eleanor Spicer-Lundholm of the International Teacher Training Institute, Hastings, UK:

> Song in Strips: cut up the song into strips which the students need to put back together.

> Creative writing to Song: put some of the key words from the song on the board and ask the students to make them into a poem/email/short story in pairs; then share and share the 'original song'.

> Word partnerships to Song: put some of the key phrases on the board, but cut in half and in two columns, which the students have to put together in pairs; then play the song, with the students shouting out 'bingo' when they hear their collocation.

> Word order to Song: put all the words of a sentence, but mixed up, from a song on the board, which the students have to order in teams; then compare each team's sentences before playing the part of the song.

> Whoops! Find the mistakes: put up a 'wrong' version of sentences from the song where the students have to identify the 'mistakes' before listening and correcting.

> Mime to Song: standing in a circle, first the students listen to a line and copy the teacher's mime; then the students suggest mimes to further lines which the class agree to copy.

Here's a lesson plan from Fiona Aish at the Itafel - looking at teaching connected speech through songs:

> Play the first 2/3 lines from the song 2/3 times and get the students to write what they hear; confirm the correct version.

> Elicit from the students the stressed words and then the connected words; the students should try this in pairs with the following lines.

> Play the song's lines again, getting the students to tap the beat/rhythm; the students should then speak out... and sing the song (if they want!)

Finally, here's a list from OnTesol:

• put the verse in the right order;
• put the verbs in brackets in the correct tense/or, form of the verb (for example, gerund or infinitive);
• identify the past tenses in the song (or, any other tense or grammar topic, for example, conditionals, modal verbs, reported speech…);
• reorder the verses;
• reorder the letters;
• correct the words/mistake;
• question on the theme, the message or meaning of the song to encourage discussion;
• write to the protagonist and (give advice, or tell him what you think);
• write the story in the song.
• put the underlined words under the right column according to … (pronunciation, vocabulary related to any specific category, or a grammatical pattern);
• complete the blanks with the words in the box;
• choose the right word;
• answer the questions;
• match the verses;
• check the words that you hear

Using Songs with Adult ESL Students

Have fun!

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mind-mapping for creative writing

Mindmaps are a great way to generate ideas - especially for a writing task:

How to Use a Mind Map for Writing: A Step-by-Step Guide

Use the Mind Mapping Method for Your Book Ideas | Elite Authors

The E L Gazette looks at how this can be sharpened:

Brainstorming techniques improve creativity in writing tasks, especially with additional structured guidance, according to a study by Hyun-Ju Kim, Stewart Gray and Christopher Lange

Mapping SCAMPERing - E L Gazette

With some practical guidance here:

.SCAMPER Technique – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle... or Reinvent-EN - Netmind

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writing about your holiday in different registers

REGISTER: THE BASICS:

It's important to be able to handle different registers:

the way a speaker uses language differently in different circumstances. Think about the words you choose, your tone of voice, even your body language. You probably behave very differently chatting with a friend than you would at a formal dinner party or during a job interview.

What Is Register in Linguistics?

a variety of language used for a particular purpose or particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a public setting, an English speaker may be more likely to follow prescriptive norms for formal usage than in a casual setting, for example, by pronouncing words ending in -ing with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal (e.g., walking rather than walkin'), choosing words that are considered more "formal" (such as father vs. dad or child vs. kid), and refraining from using words considered nonstandard, such as ain't and y'all.

Register (sociolinguistics) - Wikipedia

With a little more here:

Jay Doubleyou: register

Jay Doubleyou: register: populism, culture wars and woke

Jay Doubleyou: learning to use the appropriate register @ fawlty towers

REGISTER: TRYING TO WRITE IN DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

Here are some ideas about making writing more nuanced:

Jay Doubleyou: writing with register: a lesson in using different levels of 'politeness'

Here are some more ideas around the theme of writing about your holiday:

1: Write a postcard to a friend

2: Write the same but to a great-aunt

3: Write a report to a local town council which is asking for input from tourists - in its consultation on its local tourism policy. Make use of the specific holiday experiences as outlined in your postcards, but put it in the language and format of an official report, giving your opinions and any recommendations.

4: Write an academic piece analysing the different aspects of holidaying in this part of the world. Again, make use of the examples referred to in the above pieces, but in an impersonal style with no personal opinions, with reference to statistical data and other academic studies.

5: Write in a highly subjective manner, following the stream of consciousness style of Virginia Wolfe's "To the Lighthouse", a story of a family on holiday, recounting in the same type of language the feelings and impressions when on holiday as it happens: To the Lighthouse - Wikipedia and To-the-Lighthouse-Etext-Edited.pdf

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youglish

Quite a useful tool for learning languages:

Improve your English pronunciation using YouTube

 - and not just English!

"dass Kann Ich Nicht" | Pronunciation of "dass Kann Ich Nicht" in German 

Here's a review:

What is YouGlish and How Does YouGlish Work?

By Luke Edwards

 published 10 November 2023

Youglish helps you improve word pronunciation with useful YouTube video guidance

YouGlish is a great resource for learning to correctly pronounce words. As the name suggests, this is setup for English speakers and uses YouTube to deliver those guidance videos. But it goes beyond that to many language options.

Crucially, this uses native speakers of the language from which the word originates. This means you can hear how that word is pronounced by someone who can speak it naturally in the local tongue.

Since this uses YouTube as its source, videos are super simple to access and can be played across a host of digital devices. 

YouGlish is a very valuable tool not only for individuals, but also for teachers with ELL and ESL students. 

You can narrow down your search by the word, by class, by phrase class, or by context. The tool also provides tips on how to improve English pronunciation – written below the video. This includes the phonetic pronunciation as well as suggestions of other words that help with pronunciation. 

What is YouGlish and how does YouGlish work? | Tech & Learning

And here's a look at how to use it:

YouGlish for the Classroom - YouTube

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using design in the esol classroom

What is 'design'?

to make or draw plans for something that will be produced:
    Who designed your website?

to intend for a particular purpose:
    This dictionary is designed for people using English in a business situation.

the way in which something is planned and made:
    I don't like the design of this control panel.

DESIGN | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary

Here's a useful framework:

Function & Form

Function relates to purpose. It answers the question, “why?” and defines the reasons you have to do something. Understanding function leads you to consider the necessary preconditions or assumptions for an activity and the desired outcomes. The 5 Whys is an excellent exercise for surfacing the function.

Form is the visible shape or configuration of something. It encompasses the methods and strategies. Form answers the questions of “what?” and “how?” After clarifying the function, form fills in the details and plan for how to realize the purpose.

Form or Function... - Everyday Design

For example:

Porsche Design staged by Hollywood - YouTube

Here's another approach:

Design Thinking is a term adapted from architecture and engineering and is often referred to as a “toolkit for innovation”. Its framework can be applied across a wide range of fields and its approach adapted to suit the needs of the user.

It involves 5 key stages – Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. This approach is most effective when addressing problems that are unknown or ill-defined. In the language learning classroom design thinking can help bridge the gap between creative problem solving and structured learning. It gives teachers additional tools to build understanding and provide students with frameworks for critical thinking and problem solving.

Design Thinking in the ESL Classroom | by Rishma Hansil | Medium

And here are some more suggestions:

Design Thinking Activities in the ESL Classroom | Express Publishing

Teacher's Corner: A Story of Design Thinking in the Classroom | American English

With a video:

How Design Thinking can be applied in language teaching? | Ms. ESL

There are very broad areas to look at:

ESOL: Speaking About Art - The Courtauld

And:

Jay Doubleyou: advertising

Jay Doubleyou: architecture

Jay Doubleyou: dismaland from banksy

Jay Doubleyou: land art

And check out these pages in the search facility:

Jay Doubleyou: design

Finally, back to design:

A design presentation | LearnEnglish

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poetry in the esol/efl classroom

To what extent can poetry be used in the English-as-a-Second/Foreign-Language classroom?

There are practical and engaging ways to do this:

Jay Doubleyou: spell check poem

Jay Doubleyou: short texts for fun dication

Here is more fun:

Jay Doubleyou: poetry as diagram

Jay Doubleyou: football and poetry

Jay Doubleyou: tree poetry

Jay Doubleyou: the bfg: malapropisms, spoonerisms and nonsense words

About the British:

Jay Doubleyou: the british - a poem

Jay Doubleyou: grayson perry and philip larkin on the british

Here are a couple of backwards poems:

Jay Doubleyou: refugees: a poem

Jay Doubleyou: backwards poems

But we have to be very sensitive:

Jay Doubleyou: "poetry in the classroom: some kids i taught and what they taught me": three years on

How to make a poem:

Jay Doubleyou: rhyme in english

Jay Doubleyou: limericks

The EL Gazette looked at the subject recently:

On Poetry: Benefits for students and implementation ideas for educators

Creativity in the classroom can come in a variety of ways. Teacher, Matthew Kloosterman, gives his best practice on how to incorporate poetry into teaching.

Connecting poetry, as a genre, to other texts being studied invites intertextuality and deeper reading for students. Poetry is also highly personable and offers an avenue for student agency. When students select their own poems for poetry study, it encourages even more personal connections to texts.

In this article I would like to share several ideas on how poetry can be implemented and why poetry is beneficial for students:

On Poetry: Benefits for students and implementation ideas for educators - E L Gazette

To finish: WOW!

Jay Doubleyou: kate tempest poet

Jay Doubleyou: performing poetry

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