Motivate Your Language Learners with These Passionate Writing Assignment Ideas

Motivating Language Learners with Passionate Writing Assignments


No Native Writers

“Not again”, the students whined. “Teacher, we don’t like to write. Especially not in English.”

Oh, how true, how very true.

It’s difficult enough to get your language learners to read – they don’t like doing THAT either. But with interesting, relative material they can usually be easily persuaded to breeze through short passages before expounding and commenting on them. Writing though, is a totally different matter. You see, while there can be native speakers of a language, there are NO native writers of a language. Everyone, native speaker or not, must learn to form sentences, then paragraphs and finally coherent expositions, compositions or articles, often to their dismay. An academic paper? Are you kidding me? It’s the area where learners of virtually every college major “cheat” (and plagiarize) the most extensively. How about a book? Again, even most native speakers of a language absolutely cringe at even the suggestion of attempting such a feat. Hey, I don’t exactly “chuckle with glee” about it either.

Motivating Your Language Learners to Write

Motivating your language learning students to write – and now in a foreign language – is indeed a challenge. That is, up until now. Here are some English as a second language classroom-tested writing assignment types that frequently tend to motivate learners to perform their best. As we’ll delve into further on in this article, your learners must be encouraged to write with “passion”. “What I did on my Summer Vacation” simply won’t cut it unless you had a hot date with a movie star. If so, then - Gosh, who was it? Tell me everything. I want details!

1. How - To or “Teaching” Writing Assignments

Everyone knows how to do or make something. Not only that, but they’re usually quite proud of their knowledge, skill or ability. They’ll require little encouragement to get the ball rolling to talk or write about it. Your language learning students should also feel free to attach an image or series, drawings or step-by-step illustrations to their piece too. This will add visual and graphic support to the text as well as increase the interest in their writing assignment.

2. Expound on a News Event

Any news or current event that stirs the fires of your language learners’ imaginations is ripe fodder for a writing assignment. Okay, so YOU may not be particularly enthralled by a daring bank heist, a new community center or a severe storm that destroys property and causes destruction locally. Your learners however, may be personally vested in such events and be able to weave a spell-binding composition related to such events. Imagine: “Teacher, there was that really bad storm last month that was in all the papers, but you know, it tore most of the roof off our house, so …” Sometimes the events may not exactly be positive ones, however, the learner can then elaborate of the effects and solutions to create an interesting, informative dialogue on the events.

3. Writing Up Reviews

Who hasn’t read, seen or experienced something that they truly loved, were stirred or moved by – or hated with a passion. That’s the key, you see – passion. With passion you can drive almost any endeavor in life from a hot date to a breakout career or from a cold shoulder to the departure from a negative lifestyle. So, let your English as a second language learners write about any topic they are truly passionate about. That is unless it’s taking drugs or the like, in which case I’d recommend a change of subject – and passions.

Make the Language Learning Writing Experience Engaging

Everyone, native speaker or not, must learn to form sentences, then paragraphs and finally coherent expositions, compositions or articles. Why not make the writing experience an engaging one for your English or other foreign language learners? You can quite easily do this by incorporating these writing assignment types into your language learning classes. We'll continue with more passionate writing assignment ideas in the next posts. Stay tuned ...


Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, author and speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 100 countries. Get your FREE E-book, “If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" by requesting the title at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com If you need a blogger or copywriter to promote your school, institution, service or business or an experienced writer and vibrant SEO content for your website, blog or newsletter. Then E-mail me for further information.

Writing Articles: Three Areas in Which Everyone is a Qualified Expert

Three of Your Expert Areas
In the companion article post to this one, “How to Write Articles about What You Know When You Don’t Know Anything”, we discussed possibilities in four article theme topic areas. There are three distinct areas however, where absolutely everyone is a hands-up, qualified expert. These are: your home and personal travels, your teaching and learning experiences, and any personal pleasures, pastimes or pet peeves that you may have.

• Home and Travels
Where have you lived, visited, vacationed or traveled to? What’s it like to live, work, travel or study abroad? Can you speak a foreign language? How did you learn to do it? What mistakes did you make? How did you manage living in South America, Asia, Africa or Europe? What did you eat and drink? How do you prepare meals from those places? What tips or advice do you have for others who’d like to follow in your footsteps?

• Teaching and Learning
Have you ever taught something to someone else? Have you then, ever learned something unique, different or special in some way that is interesting? You can expound on that at length and in detail, can’t you? Do you have pictures, photographs or videos of these things too? Can you go back and get pictures, photographs and videos?

• Pleasures, Pastimes or Pet Peeves
What really ticks you off? How could people learn to avoid doing things like that to others? Express your opinion with ways, tips and techniques to develop the needed knowledge and skills to be better. Whether social skills like meeting people, etiquette, self-improvement, over coming fears or bad habits, among many others, there are possibly thousands upon thousands of people wanting to know what you know. Tell them by writing about it.

So You REALLY Don’t Know Anything?
With these three topic areas and questions, you can’t possibly say, “I don’t know anything.” You’ve found out several areas that you are an “expert” in which would interest others enough for you to write about. Be sure to have a look at, “How to Write Articles about What You Know When You Don’t Know Anything”, if you haven’t already. Now get to writing.

Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, author and speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 100 countries. Get your FREE E-book,"If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" by requesting the title at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com Need a blogger or copywriter to promote your school, institution, service or business or an experienced writer and vibrant SEO content for your website, blog or newsletter? Then E-mail me for further information.

How to Write About What You Know When You Don’t Know Anything

Write About What You Know
What to write? Well, write about what you know. Right. How can I write, I don’t know anything? Really? I’ll bet you do know something. Not only that, but I’ll even bet that you’re a near expert on one or two topics too. “Oh no I’m not”, you say. So let’s just see about that. Here are four areas with questions to ask yourself that might just help you to find out what you are an expert in that would interest others enough for you to write articles about.

Here are Four Areas Where You May be an “Expert”

• Occupations
Where have you worked? What kinds of jobs have you done? Paid or not paid doesn’t matter, but length of time on the job might. If you’ve worked as a salesman, a cook, walked dogs, cared for other people’s children, made crafts, taught something to others or just generally lived and loved, you can talk – and write about it. Been living in a cave for years, you say? Then you’re an expert on caves and cave dwelling, living in the wilderness and in the dark.

• Hobby or Special Interests
What do you like to do? Can you paint, draw or create with your hands? Do you know cars, antiques or how to cook certain types of foods? Can you sew, knit, play music, sing or hum? How about fishing, hunting, bowling, other sports or photography? Do you dance, bird watch or garden? Have a good hand at raising earthworms, identifying butterflies and insects? Do you know about dogs, cats or other types of pets? Certainly there is something you like to do that you can talk and write articles about.

• Special Skills and Abilities
Have you learned or been specially trained to do something? Fix cars, tune motorcycles? Decorate cakes, make pies or rag dolls? Can you program or fix computers? Appliances or power tools? Do you know how to catch fish or make your own fishing lures? Can you tile a roof, make a bookcase or perhaps dance Salsa or Tango?

• Life Experiences
How about your life experiences? What have you done? What has happened to you, your family and friends over the years, that has truly had an impact on you? Can you tell others how to meet famous people? Find a good marriage partner? Care for an elderly sibling, spouse or parent? Buy a house or condo? Travel on the cheap? Do you know about credit ratings, bankruptcy and personal finance? Thousands of others may be waiting to know the information you have locked up in your heart and brain.

I Don’t Know Anything
After going through this quick list of potential topic areas and questions, certainly now you’ll no longer say, “I can’t write. I don’t know anything.” Hopefully by now, you’ve found out several areas that you are an “expert” in which would interest others enough for you to write about.


Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, author and speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 100 countries. Get your FREE E-book,"If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" by requesting the title at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com Need a blogger or copywriter to promote your school, institution, service or business or an experienced writer and vibrant SEO content for your website, blog or newsletter? Then E-mail me for further information.

Dramatically Improve Your Article Writing Almost Immediately Using These Five Easy Ways - Part 1

Is Your Writing Ready Yet?
You’ve chosen a topic, narrowed down the focus, perhaps drafted an outline to keep your writing organized and now you’re ready to write. How well the finished piece, whether an article, essay, paper, editorial, composition, report, letter, ad, blog posts or other copy in English “comes out” will depend on a few additional key aspects. If you don’t want editors ticked off, or your reader heading for the hills, you’ll need to consider these improvement aspects to fine tune the “details” of your writing.

How to Dramatically Improve
You can dramatically improve your article and other writing almost immediately in these five easy ways.

1. Use Spell Check
Sometimes, even most of the time, it isn’t your fault. The keys stick on the keyboard, you miss a key strike, you stumble over a frequently misspelled word or you simply make a mistake. We all do it. It’s no big deal, but it ticks off editors and readers alike when a string of misspellings mars our writing. On occasion, my computer software will change a word from what I’ve typed in to another, incorrect, one. Does that ever happen to you?

How to Avoid Bad Spelling
Bad spelling whether from a mistake or uncertainty is avoidable though. How? By using the spell check function in MS Word or other word processing software. Whenever those squiggly little red lines show up under a word, check the spelling option on your computer. Don’t forget, as a writer you should have a good dictionary or two on hand too. Sometimes, the computer will not “know” a perfectly good word like “blog”.

2. Use Grammar Check
Alright, so I’m a university level English language professor and a grammarian, but you don’t have to be. If you have gaps in your English grammar skills or knowledge (don’t we all), then don’t worry. There’s an easy cure. Use the spell check function of MS Word to keep an eye on things for you. Whenever those squiggly little green lines show up under a phrase or sentence, it’s time to look at the suggested correction or whip out your English grammar text reference. If you don’t have a good one then it’s time for a trip to your local bookstore. Capiche?

In part two of this two-part article, we’ll look at the use of relevant facts and quotes, statistics and references to boost the authority of your writing and provide an added measure of improvement to your articles.


Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, author and speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 80 countries. Get your FREE E-books,"If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" or "7 Techniques to Motivate Your English Language Learners and Make Your Classes More Dynamic" by requesting the title you want at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com

Part 2 Writing for Maximum Creativity: Think You're Creative? Try This!

Re-Tell a Tale

We're picking up from Peter Pan here. As English language teaching professionals and writers, let’s continue to show some creativity as we began in the first part of this series. How about a few twists in the plots to make the story less predictable? How about a unique twist or change in the ending, characters, intent, personality or plot? It’s been done before. So pick one, two or more, put your thinking (and writer) cap on, free your muse and allow your creativity full reign. Why should H.C. Anderson, Mother G., that Barrie fellow and those Grimm brothers have all the fun?

Cinderella

This one’s already been re-done a slew of times but they still haven’t gotten it right! Surely you can put in a couple of good plot twists, and a surprise ending that’ll keep readers on their toes. My Fairy Godmother grants me a “wish” and you think I’m gonna ask for clothes? Get outta here! I can think of a few other things to wish for under those conditions. Man, what Alfred Hitchcock could do with a plot like that! He’d have Cindy take care of her situation in some very “special” ways. How about you? What would YOU have Cindy do? My devious little mind is already puttering away with ideas for that “Stepmother” and her offal. (Pun intended - No, stop that!)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Now we all know that child protection services, civil rights act defenders, the ACLU, the NAACP, labor unions, Amnesty International, the FBI, CIA and a host of other government, religious and private agencies would have a field day with this one. This story would certainly be a challenge to work on. Let’s see, a comedy twist, change of venue, plot reversal, perhaps a ticklish murder mystery? (Has anyone seen or heard from “Sneezy” lately?) How about a “gangster” version called “Get Grumpy”. The English language teaching and learning possibilities boggle the mind. Why don’t you take a stab (pun intended) at this story?

What’ll it be then? Humor, mystery, adult, crime, science fiction, western, drama, weird, whimsy or even raw, stark naked terror strike your fancy? Come up with your own alternative fractured fairy tale version. It’ll not only be a challenge, and loads of fun, but an immeasurable boost to your creativity as you weave, cavort, shoot, stab, stumble, plot, whinny and twist your way through as yet uncharted territory – for you. Fractured fairy tale versions abound online (no peeking now!) but whip and work your muse to develop new strains of tired old themes. Let me know how you make out. (Oops, no pun intended)

Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. Now YOU too can live your dreams in paradise, find romance, high adventure and get paid while travelling for free. For more information on the lucrative, fascinating field of teaching English as a Foreign Language, get your copy of his no-cost, full multi-media, hypertext-linked pdf ebook, “If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here’s What You Need to Know” by sending an e-mail to lynchlarrym@gmail.com with "free ELT Ebook" in the subject line.

Have a question, request, or want to receive more information or to be added to his articles and information mailing list? Contact the author for prompt response.

Writing for Maximum Creativity: Think You're Creative? Try This!

Being As Creative As Possible
In Colombia or elsewhere, if you're teaching English as a foreign or second language you're going to have to be as creative as possible. For EFL teaching or learning, try these creative writing activities to give your class room sessions a true boost.

Re-Tell a Tale

An online survey was done to determine the most popular fairy tales of all time. You’re familiar with all the winners. They’re some of your and my favorites.

Showing Some Creativity

But let’s show some creativity shall we? How about a few twists in the plots to make the story less predictable? How about a unique twist or change in the ending, characters, intent, personality or plot? It’s been done before. For example, “Little Red Riding Hood, first published in 1697 by Charles Perrault as a warning to errant ladies in the court of Louis XIV, has undergone a series of metamorphoses including one by the Grimm Brothers in 1812, before arriving at its present-day version. So pick one, two or more, put your thinking (and writer) cap on, free your muse and allow your creativity full reign. Why should H.C. Anderson, Mother G., that Barrie fellow and those Grimm brothers have all the fun?

Little Red Riding Hood

Why was “Red” really on the way to Grandma’s? Or was it Grandma’s she was headed for? Who (or what) is the “wolf”? Why’s he set on “Red”? What really going on? Tell me why she couldn’t tell the difference between Grandma and the wolf – at 100 yards? Let the lion (or wolf) tamer out. Is “Red” an animal lover? Is she a “fox”? If so, what happens when “foxy” Red Riding Hood meets wolfie? What, pray tell, do we do about the wolf? You’re not gonna, (gulp!) KILL him are you? The SPCA might give you a problem about that.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Hey, what was “Goldie” doing in the woods anyway? And by herself too? Where did the bear family go? Excuse me, but the last time I checked, bears don’t eat porridge! So anyway, what DO you do with an intruder you catch in your house who’s already trashed the place? How about a quirky, fun or humorous ending here? Is it add-a-player time? Feeling peckish? There’s still some porridge left.

The Three Little Pigs

Give me a break! Pigs don’t live in houses, they live in a sty. Have you ever smelled one of those? I’m telling you – it’ll put you off ham and pork chops forever. Anyway, how come wolfie doesn’t wise up? Have you seen the commercial where he shows up at house number three with a bulldozer? By the way, is this wolf the same one who’s been bugging that red-headed girl? Didn’t we get rid of that hairy bugger in another story? Maybe he’s twins or another family member has dropped in? Well anyhow, YOU figure it out. I’m going to go have some porridge – oops! Wrong story. Sorry.

Peter Pan

Doesn’t anybody have a problem with a kid who doesn’t ever get out of the sixth grade? Why don’t they kill that crocodile? (Didn’t anybody see “Jaws”?) If you can fly, why stay on an island? Paris in the spring is nice, but in winter it’s the pits. That’s when I’d try Buenos Aires. How and what do those “boys” eat? And if Wendy’s the only girl around all those “lost boys”, I can see some problems coming up. What would happen if Peter took a wrong turn and wound up in Kabul, Amsterdam or the south Bronx? Yikes!

... to be continued in the next post ...

Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. Now YOU too can live your dreams in paradise, find romance, high adventure and get paid while travelling for free. For more information on the lucrative, fascinating field of teaching English as a Foreign Language, get your copy of his no-cost, full multi-media, hypertext-linked pdf ebook, “If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here’s What You Need to Know” by sending an e-mail with "free ELT Ebook" in the subject line.

Part 4: The English-Speaking ExPat’s Guide to Making Money Abroad

Part Four

Here, in this multi-part article series, we’ll take a look at several additional money-making abroad opportunities you can seek out or create for yourself while living in a foreign country or traveling extensively abroad. Wherever you may be and whatever is common to the country or region where you might be living and traveling, you can rest assured that there are many editors, web masters, site owners, publishing houses and others with available cash in hand, who are interested in seeing and knowing or experiencing more related to the area.

Photo: scene at the Santiago de Cali University in Cali, Colombia

More About Schools and Institutes
Let’s get back to schools and institutes again. Whether they have native English speaking teachers or not, there’s one thing they don’t have – and that’s enough authentic English language materials to work with. How does this benefit you? Plenty! You can write or prepare materials for the teachers and staff to use in classes. Create a menu from one or more of your favorite restaurants back home. Write it up use photos, drawings and images to dress it up a tad, and be sure to write descriptions of each dish, beverage and dessert; then print or publish it as an authentic menu (which, by the way, it is).

In addition, you can create simple games and puzzles that foreign language teachers will fight over. Word search puzzles, crosswords, coloring books, illustrated poems and nursery rhymes, riddles and tongue-twisters can all be written up, illustrated with your photos or graphics, then bound into a published or photo-copiable book you can sell in lots to kindergartens, primary and secondary schools and English language institutes at a tidy profit. These types of materials are cheap, quick and easy to produce. You’ll almost never run out of ideas, topics or themes to keep you cranking out an almost endless supply of highly sought-after materials. Walk into almost any large educational institution from primary to secondary schools through trade and technical schools, to even English or foreign language institutes and university language departments, with a selection of your custom-prepared materials and you’ll almost surely walk out with cash in hand and standing orders for more.

There’s More, Much More
In this multi-part article so far, we haven’t even come close to touching the tip of the iceberg yet when it comes to the cornucopia of money-making possibilities you have before you while living or traveling abroad. The only real limits to your possibilities are those that your imagination and creativity may have.


Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. Now YOU too can live your dreams in paradise, find romance, high adventure and get paid while travelling for free. For more information on how to get your copy of his full multi-media, hypertext-linked pdf ebook, “The English-Speaking Ex-Pat’s Guide to Making Money Abroad” by send an e-mail to lynchlarrym@gmail.com with "Making Money Abroad" in the subject line. Contact the author directly if you need professional, original content for your blog, newsletter, e-zine or website, want more information, have a comment or special request?

Picture Perfect: The English-Speaking ExPat’s Guide to Making Money Abroad

Additional Money-making Suggestions

Whether you’re a native-English-speaking ex-pat or not, there are still many more ways in which you can pick up some good, steady wads of cash while living in or extensively visiting a foreign country. This can be especially true if the local language of the country is a foreign one. Here are some additional money-making suggestions you might want to consider for establishing or boosting your overseas or travel-related income.

Photo: Ansel Adams, 1984 courtesy of www.jimalinderphotography.com/.../portraits.htm

Picture Perfect

Not only will English language rags and websites worldwide crave your local stories and cultural news, but they’ll pay good coin of the republic for pictures of it all too. Don’t think that just because you’re not an Ansel Adams or Margaret Bourke-White doesn’t mean that you can’t hawk images online and off. If you have even rudimentary photographic skills they can pay off quite handsomely. Photos of what, you ask? Everything and almost anything will be subject matter for you. Like we said, the clothes and fashions, the food, occupations that are new and unusual to you will likely be of interest to many others – who’ll have cash in hand to pay for them. For example, take a look at one stock photo website which accepts photos for sale worldwide at: http://www.hq-art.com/.

It’s almost a standing joke on me now, I hardly eat anything without taking a few photos of the food first. And not just my plate either. My dining companions usually don’t squawk too much about me taking a quick shot or two of their food either before they dive into it.

By the way, get photos of people eating their food too.

Other good photo-selling topics are recreation, festivals and holidays, architecture and unique-looking people shots of kinds. I have an increasing store of vendor, student and every-day life photos from around my corner of Latin America. Look at what kinds of photos appear in local newspapers and magazines. Take your own “versions” of these types of shots, and BINGO – you’ve got a saleable portfolio that editors in other lands may pay quite generously for.

Wherever you go, whatever you do in and around your new digs, get documentary, close-ups and “art” photos of it all too, from great to small – and then SELL them! Say, do you know what the Colombia-Ecuador dish “Yaguarlocro” looks and tastes like? See what I mean?

More About Schools and Institutes

Let’s get back to schools and institutes again. Whether they have native English speaking teachers or not, there’s one thing they don’t have – and that’s enough authentic English language materials to work with. How does this benefit you? Plenty! You can write or prepare materials for the teachers and staff to use in classes. Create a menu from one or more of your favorite restaurants back home. Write it up use photos, drawings and images to dress it up a tad, and be sure to write descriptions of each dish, beverage and dessert; then print or publish it as an authentic menu (which, by the way, it is).

In addition, you can create simple games and puzzles that foreign language teachers will fight over. Word search puzzles, crosswords, coloring books, illustrated poems and nursery rhymes, riddles and tongue-twisters can all be written up, illustrated with your photos or graphics, then bound into a published or photo-copiable book you can sell in lots to kindergartens, primary and secondary schools and English language institutes at a tidy profit. These types of materials are cheap, quick and easy to produce. You’ll almost never run out of ideas, topics or themes to keep you cranking out an almost endless supply of highly sought-after materials. Walk into a large educational institution with a selection of your custom-prepared materials and you’ll almost surely walk out with cash in hand and orders for more.

There’s More, Much More

In this multi-part article, we haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg yet when it comes to the cornucopia of money-making possibilities you have before you while living or traveling abroad. The only real limits to your possibilities are those that your imagination and creativity may have.

Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. Now YOU too can live your dreams in paradise, find romance, high adventure and get paid while travelling for free. For more information on how to get your copy of his full multi-media, hypertext-linked pdf ebook, “The English-Speaking Ex-Pat’s Guide to Making Money Abroad” by send an e-mail to lynchlarrym@gmail.com with "Making Money Abroad" in the subject line. Contact the author directly if you need professional, original content for your blog, newsletter, e-zine or website, want more information, have a comment or special request?

The English-Speaking ExPat’s Guide to Making Money Abroad: Can You Write?

In the first part of this series, we’ve been looking at a number of highly viable options that you – the English-speaking ex-pat can apply to not only survive, but even grow and prosper while living in or extensively visiting a foreign country or region. If you’re going to be abroad a year or more, you’re all set to cash in big time in numerous ways. However, if your time abroad is going to be limited to a few weeks or so on foreign soil, don’t despair – you can still get some useful, money-making mileage out of the trip, perhaps even for many months to come.

Can You Write?
Can you write fairly well too? Great. How about writing stories, poetry or short articles about your former home as well as your new one? Articles about your new home would be of interest to newspapers, magazines, websites and other periodicals back home. The “Jerkwater, USA Times” may well be interested in the local holidays, foods, clothing, customs and culture that now surround you. Local newspapers, magazines and periodicals in your new digs will appreciate you as a source of first-hand information about you hometown. What did you eat? What’s the food like? All Americans don’t live off of fast food like the world-renown hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries and apple pie we all know and love.

What foods and snacks do you miss? For me it’s the warm, soft pretzels sprinkled with salt and topped with mustard from Center City Philadelphia. The loaded-with-grease Philly cheese steaks cross my mind too often too. I can’t seem to get a really good knockwurst wrapped with a slice of fried bologna where I live now either. What are yours?

Don’t forget holidays, local festivals and typical celebrations from home either. They’re all fodder for lots of money-making venues. In Pennsylvania Dutch country we celebrated “Faschnahct Day” on Shrove Tuesday every spring. How about where you were from?

Can You Cook?
Not only do people want to know about your previous customs, habits, celebrations and food, but they’d like to taste it too. Don’t worry if you’re not a Pasquale Carpino. How about a small outdoor café in your front yard or breakfast nook in a portion of your living room? What about a portable stand that features a few of your hometown favorite snacks? If I made pretzels here, they’d likely sell like hotcakes since nobody else makes them. Heck, for that matter, almost nobody even knows what they are! Whatever your prime dishes are, I’ll be you could get a few decent recipes off the internet or from family or friends back home. What do you think?

One of my ex-pat co-workers who originally hails from Texas stunned the neighbors when she started to make old-fashioned corn dogs. No one had ever seen (or tasted) anything like them! She now has a flourishing food business from her house selling all manner of hometown-style goodies, sweets and snacks. Oh, and guess what? There’s no competition either, because nobody else knows how to make any of these foods. She’s effectively created and cornered the market.

What are the specialty foods, snacks and goodies where you hail from? Can you re-create local versions of them? If so, you just might have a top-notch money-making scheme on your hands. It’s all the better too if you and your family also like to eat them yourself.

In part three of this multi-part series we’ll look at several additional money-making opportunities you can seek out or create for yourself while living or traveling extensively abroad that have the potential to provide you with income, not only now, but for months or even years into the future.


Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. Now YOU too can live your dreams in paradise, find romance, high adventure and get paid while travelling for free. For more information on how to get your copy of his full multi-media, hypertext-linked pdf ebook, “The English-Speaking Ex-Pat’s Guide to Making Money Abroad” by send an e-mail to lynchlarrym@gmail.com with "Making Money Abroad" in the subject line. Contact the author directly if you need professional, original content for your blog, newsletter, e-zine or website, want more information, have a comment or special request?

Part 1 The English-Speaking Ex-Pat’s Guide to Making Money Abroad

Are You an Ex-Pat or Gap-Year Traveler?
So you’ve done it. You’ve decided to escape the rat race once and for all. Gone are 60-hour work weeks. Gone are the 5am wake-ups to brave a hard overnight snow and sub-freezing temperatures to get to an office where corporate back-stabbing and vile gossip flow like polluted drops from a leaking roof. Criticism and complains are squeezed forth like the juice from a bitter lemon. Forget making lemonade advice – you just got the freak out of the whole situation.

Or are you taking a year-long gap year break from your studies to refresh and revitalize your body and spirit before once again resuming the mind-altering plunge into academic life?

Could it be your imagination or does the air smell sweeter, the grass look greener and the food taste better in your new environs? Everything is new and interesting. You’re stimulated on every side. Life seems fresh and new again. Whatever it is, the die is cast. You have a new home. You may be working on a new language, making new friends, savoring new tastes and having a few financial problems with getting the steady income you’d envisioned. Extensive travel and expat living are most frequently life-altering experiences.

Without the family, professional and social networks you build after years growing up and living in your native land, suitable income streams can often be much harder to establish. You won’t qualify for “unemployment compensation” if there’s even such a thing in your new home. Sure you have your “main” occupation – you know, the one you studied in the university for, worked in for umpteen years or even retired from.

But many countries place an “embargo” on foreign nationals working in key, often high-paying, occupations. It promotes unemployment among their own citizens, they say. That’s absolute balderdash – but no matter. Let’s look at a number of highly viable options that you – the English-speaking ex-pat can apply to not only survive, but even grow and prosper.

Native English Speakers
If you’re a native English language speaker you have a mountain of options available to you right there, in more ways than you might think. What might those be? We’ll take a peek at some of them now.

Teaching English as a Foreign Language
This is large, broad category which encompasses several opportunities, so don’t pooh-pooh it just yet. Many people where you now live want to or need to communicate better in English for work, future employment, education and study, travel, romance and a myriad of other personal reasons. It can be as simple as you “conversing” informally with someone on a regular basis to allow them to improve their listening and speaking skills, up to more formal employment as an English teacher at a school, company or institute. There are more options than just these available however.

In the next of this multi-part post series we’ll look at several additional money-making opportunities you can seek out or create for yourself while living or traveling extensively abroad whether you teach English as a foreign language or not.

Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. Now YOU too can live your dreams in paradise, find romance, high adventure and get paid while travelling for free. For more information on the lucrative, fascinating field of teaching English as a Foreign Language, get your copy of his no-cost, full multi-media, hypertext-linked pdf ebook, “If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here’s What You Need to Know” by sending an e-mail to lynchlarrym@gmail.com with "Making Money Abroad" in the subject line. Contact the author directly if you need professional, original content for your blog, newsletter, e-zine or website, want more information, have a comment or special request.

Using Insightful Poetry in English as a Foreign Language Classes

The Poem Analyzed and Explained

In the post entitled, “A Perfect English Writing Lesson”, we looked at writing exercises which promoted production of authentic language in English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. An alternate writing exercise consisting of writing a poem about the city, region or country where the learner lives was also broached. The following poem was an example.


“The Feria de Cali”

Waves of December heat
are here to meet and greet
those “Gringos” who dare
our Feria to share,
while dancing to a Salsa beat.

Parades of slender, bronzed beauties abound,
as classic antique cars are found

In ten days the Feria ends
with sugar cane sweet tastes
and aguardiente-filled friends

You’ll sadly leave less heavy
than a pink and green ’57 Chevy.


Admittedly, Shakespeare it’s not, but the poetry writing process worked for the learners.
This poem is actually more insightful that it first appears though. It is based on featured activities of the annual Cali Festival held in Cali, Colombia.


Stanza Types

The stanzas shift between three verse grouping types.

Couplet – two lines that rhyme one after the other, as in this excerpt:

“Parades of slender, bronzed beauties abound,
as classic antique cars are found“

Tercet – three lines that can rhyme in different ways as in this excerpt:

“In ten days the Feria ends
with sugar cane sweet tastes
and aguardiente-filled friends”


The first stanza (poem paragraph) has a mixed rhyming pattern of AABBA where the first and second lines rhyme, the third and fourth lines rhyme and the last (fifth) line rhymes with the first and second lines.

The Cali Festival is held for ten days, from December 22nd to January 2nd. “Gringos” refers to the predominance of North American visitors to Colombia with Cali generally being referred to as the “Capital of Salsa music”. Beauty pageants are held throughout most of Colombia’s 32 departments prior to the November crowning of “Miss Colombia”. Beauty Queens then reign over a variety of events for the ensuing year. Miss Valle del Cauca presides over the festivities during Cali’s Festival and those of other towns in this department.

The region around Cali is known for its sugar cane fields. The juice from sugar cane is used to produce a clear, rum distillate called “aguardiente” or “hard water”. It takes notoriously little of this strong liquor to intoxicate even the sturdiest of souls. Finally, due to the free-flowing food and liquor most people pack on not less than a few “unwanted” pounds during the festival season.

If you’d like to brush up just a bit on your poetry writing skills, please see the two additional articles, “How to Evoke Imagery, Emotions and Ideas in Writing Poetry That Captures Your Readers Imagination2 and “How to Write Poems That Capture the Heart and Imagination of Your Readers” to help get you and your English language learners started.


Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. For more information on entering into or advancing in the fascinating field of ELT send for his no-cost pdf Ebook, “If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here’s What You Need to Know”, send an e-mail with "free ELT Ebook" in the subject line. For comments, questions, requests, to receive more information or to be added to his free TESOL articles and teaching materials mailing list, e-mail: lynchlarrym@gmail.com

A “Perfect” English Writing Lesson

Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking

If your English as a Foreign Language learners are anything like mine, then many of them don’t like to write in English. But since we wish to empower our foreign language learners with all four of the basic language skills, writing needs to be included in our class lessons. So, how can writing be introduced in such a way as to inspire interest and facility to our EFL classes - that is the question.

One approach that has worked for me is to have my EFL learners write a “travel” piece about the city, region or foreign country we are living in. This exercise is usually called something like, “A Perfect Day in Bogota”. For a longer written piece or an assignment, you could use, “Three Perfect Days in Barcelona” or “A Perfect Week in Quito” or wherever it is that you live.

Generally, learners love to brag about their city. By allowing them to boast about their favorite activities and places in the city, you can not only get them to write with enthusiasm, but glean some insight into their personal likes and preferences. I’ve even gotten more than a few “hot tips” on unique places or events that eventually panned out into some of my own haunts.


Procedure at a Glance

The learners write a description of their favorite local hotels, restaurants or places to eat, interesting sites to visit, unique slants on local festivals, holidays and other events. Preferred night clubs or discos, and types of music along with days and times to go, help to round out the writing.

Instead of insisting on a particular “format” or style, I’ve found it useful to allow a variety of expression in this area. Learners can use “bullet points”, narratives, essays or advert-style formats and writing. Depending on the level of the learners, I may precede the writing lesson with a class on order of adjectives, paragraph structure, the basic five-paragraph essay or a brief study and analysis of travel ads and travel articles or columns from an English language newspaper.


To Be or Not To Be

For a different type of approach, your English language learners could write a poem about their city, region or country. Often these prove to be both insightful and humorous.

Consider this slightly “tongue-in-cheek” example:


“The Feria de Cali”

Waves of December heat
are here to meet and greet
those “Gringos” who dare
our Feria to share,
while dancing to a Salsa beat.

Parades of slender, bronzed beauties abound,
as classic antique cars are found

In ten days the Feria ends
with sugar cane sweet tastes
and aguardiente-filled friends

You’ll sadly leave less heavy
than a pink and green ’57 Chevy.


Okay, so Shakespeare it’s not, but the poetry writing process worked for the learners.

The next time you’d like to “squeeze in” a bit more writing into your English class, try a variation of these ideas. You may be more than pleasantly surprised at the attitude of the learners and what they ultimately produce. Don’t forget to read aloud and post the more interesting examples. If you give the writing as an out-of-class assignment, your learners can include photos, graphics and perhaps “realia” in their writing as well.


Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. For more information on entering into or advancing in the fascinating field of ELT send for his no-cost pdf Ebook, “If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here’s What You Need to Know”, send an e-mail with "free ELT Ebook" in the subject line. For comments, questions, requests, to receive more information or to be added to his free TESOL articles and teaching materials mailing list, e-mail: lynchlarrym@gmail.com