The ESL Library team had a great time at the TESOL 16 convention in Baltimore, Maryland! We were usually manning our booth or leading sessions of our own, but I had the chance to attend a wonderful session about getting learners to recognize patterns in language. These tips are too good not to pass on! Try them with your students and watch their inner linguists emerge.

Session Title:	Teaching Students to Think Like a Linguist
Presenters:	Jane Curtis & Susanne McLaughlin from Roosevelt University

Jane Curtis and Susanne McLaughlin started their wonderful session by reminding us what linguists do—they study language by looking at the structure, meaning, and context. They reminded us that language is systematic. It has rules for form, meaning, and use.

This is great news for English language learners who sometimes think our language is random and chaotic! In my experience, all learners like knowing the rules to minimize their own mistakes and better comprehend the language. But rather than simply teaching a rule to a student, the presenters challenged us to teach students to figure out the rules for themselves. This is far more rewarding and far more likely to be retained.

Jane and Susanne gave the "double consonant rule in past tense endings" as a prime example.

For lower-level learners, give students a list of base verbs and past endings, such as:

rip	ripped
wait	waited
stop	stopped
push	pushed

(See Jane and Susanne's presentation slides for the complete list)

Now ask students what they notice. When a student comes up with the correct rule (CVC syllable takes a double consonant), make it fun by calling it "(student's name)'s rule."

For higher-level students, take this basic rule a step further with a list like this:

listen	listened
repair	repaired
edit	edited
commit	committed

What will your students notice? (This might even stump native speakers!) After a while, one of your learners will notice that only stressed CVC syllables take a double consonant.

The presenters discussed how this methodology can be applied to other grammar points, such as gerunds/infinitives, commas with adjective clauses, and modals. (See their presentation for these other examples and worksheets.)

This way of thinking also goes beyond grammar! Jane and Susanne gave examples for other language targets, such as reading genres and speaking patterns. For example, the presenters suggested having students read through several short stories of a particular genre and getting them to notice the similar elements in that genre (e.g., settings, character types, the plot, the element of surprise. etc.).

The session ended with a summary of their main points and observations:

• grammar rules are not random
• students can learn to notice
• students can learn to discover, analyze, and generalize
• meaning matters

Jane and Susanne were kind enough to prepare a website with all the info from their presentation, including the slides, worksheets, and contact info: thinklikelinguists.wordpress.com

Will you try teaching your students to think like a linguist?