Patrick Mcilhargey

In the last ten years, I have noticed the shrinking vocabulary of post-secondary students. Some of the problem,in part,comes from the telecommunications bubble that many young people live in (facebook anyone?) Another problem is that there are fewer students who gain information from print (books, newsmagazines, newspapers). I usually survey my class to see who reads what. Few read anything of substance. I'm considering using a vocabulary survey at the beginning of the class to see where the class is as far as basic vocabulary then see where to go. There are some who need remedial work! Any other suggestions… >>>

I have a night class populated with mostly adult learners at a local community college. Since it is a once-a-week class, its length (4 hours) is daunting. The students come to class on overload and extremely tired as many of them work a full day. We were told in the previous section about "changing a learning focus every 50 minutes." I follow that rule of thumb, but I also include a 10-minute break that comes with the change. That schedule is followed "religiously" if I could use that word. The students are surprisingly fresh at the end of class. I… >>>