Nonverbal Communication Guide for Visitors to the U.S.

Physical Contact

Compared to other people in the world, Americans don’t touch one another very much in everyday life. Researchers classify groups of people like this as “low touchers”. However, how much a person touches others depends on the individual. You may meet Americans who will never touch you, even though they like you a lot. You may meet others who touch you often, especially on the shoulders and arms, but such touches don’t always mean they feel close to you. For acquaintances and superiors, such as a professor or boss, a simple handshake is most common. Good friends may exchange hugs, kisses, or even friendly punches.

Gestures and Movements

A smile is a universal sign of greeting, and most Americans smile a lot. They are also used to giving and receiving direct eye contact and feel uncomfortable if you don’t look at their eyes when having a conversation. Most Americans show they are interested in what you are saying by nodding and smiling as they listen. Some may lean forward and touch your hands or arms. These gestures and movements carry very important messages.

Distance

Many Americans feel uncomfortable standing or sitting very close to others, especially when having a conversation. Even when they are talking with close friends and family members, most Americans stay about one meter away from one another. If you come closer, Americans may feel threatened and begin to back away. This may give you the mistaken impression that Americans don’t like you, but actually, they are just following one of the conventions of their culture.

How to Improve Your English

Learning English (or any language for that matter) is a process. You are continually improving your English and following ‘How to’ describes a strategy to make sure that you continue to improve effectively.

  

Here’s How:

1. Remember that learning a language is a gradual process – it does not happen overnight.
2. Define your learning objectives early: What do you want to learn and why?
3. Make learning a habit. Try to learn something every day. It is much better to study (or read, or listen to English news, etc.) 10 minutes each day than to study for 2 hours once a week.
4. Remember to make learning a habit! If you study each day for 10 minutes English will be constantly in your head. If you study once a week, English will not be as present in your mind.
5. Choose your materials well. You will need reading, grammar, writing, speaking and listening materials.
6. Vary your learning routine. It is best to do different things each day to help keep the various relationships between each area active. In other words, don’t just study grammar.
7. Find friends to study and speak with. Learning English together can be very encouraging.
8. Choose listening and reading materials that relate to what you are interested in. Being interested in the subject will make learning more enjoyable – thus more effective.
9. Relate grammar to practical usage. Grammar by itself does not help you USE the language. You should practice what you are learning by employing it actively.
10. Move you mouth! Understanding something doesn’t mean the muscles of your mouth can produce the sounds. Practice speaking what you are learning aloud. Is may seem strange, but is very effective.
11. Be patient with yourself. Remember learning is a process – speaking a language well takes time. It is not a computer that is either on or off!
12. Communicate! There is nothing like communicating in English and being successful. Grammar exercises are good – having your friend on the other side of the world understand your email is fantastic!
13.  Use the Internet. The Internet is the most exciting, unlimited English resource that anyone could imagine and it is right at your finger tips.

Tips:

   

1. Remember the English Learning is a process
2. Be patient with yourself
3. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

 What you need:

• Time – lots of it!
• Patience
• Discipline
• Reference materials

What makes good teaching and good teachers

Last week my MYP 2 students who are in intermediate level were asked to compose a text considering the following issue: “What makes good teaching (or teachers)”.

The results were awesome. Therefore, I decided dedicating a post here to expose their production (of the ones who wanted, of course). Students may be posting their essays here throughout the following weeks. 

I guess it’s a nice way to assess our students and to see how they understand the practice of those who are mostly inclined to help them develop their minds: the teachers!

Enjoy!

People(s) vs. Person(s)

The words people and person derive from different Latin roots, the former from populum, referring to the people in the sense of the populace, the latter from persona, “an actor’s mask; a character in a play” and which in the English form person came to refer to an individual human being.

In Victorian times, the pseudo-rule grew up that the plural of person is persons when a specific, countable number of individuals is meant, but that people should be used when the number is large or indefinite.

The plural form peoples logically refers to more than one community or nation, although down the centuries some writers have been chary of it, and in the nineteenth century one described its use as “uncouth”.

Source: http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/people.htm

As these nouns are commonly misused, let’s go for some definitions and examples:

PEOPLE

Noun: peoples  

1.   The human beings of a particular nation, community or ethnic group
"the indigenous peoples of Australia"

Noun: people  

1.   (plural) any group of human beings (men, women or children) collectively
"old people"; "there were at least 200 people in the audience"

 

2.   The body of citizens of a state or country

"the Spanish people";

 

3.   Members of a family line

"his people have been farmers for generations"; "are your people still alive?"

 

4.   The common people generally

"power to the people";

Verb: people  

1.   Fill with people

"Stalin wanted to people the empty steppes"

PERSON

Noun: person (people,persons)

  1.   A human being

"there was too much for one person to do";

2.   A human body (usually including the clothing)

"a weapon was hidden on his person" 

3.   A grammatical category used in the classification of pronouns, possessive determiners, and verb forms according to whether they indicate the speaker, the addressee, or a third party
"stop talking about yourself in the third person"

Source: www.wordwebonline.com

Punctuation Marks

Punctuation marks are symbols are vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences.

For example:

1) "woman, without her man, is nothing"

2) "woman: without her, man is nothing"

Both sentences have greatly different meanings.

The rules of punctuation vary with language, location, register and time and are constantly evolving. Certain aspects of punctuation are stylistic and are thus the author's (or editor's) choice. Tachygraphic language forms, such as those used in online chat and text messages, may have wildly different rules.

Below you'll find the most commonly used in both English and Portuguese languages.

What about other punctuation marks? 

caret ( ^ )
apostrophe ( ' )

tilde ( ~ ) 

backstick ( ` ) = crase according to Google translator

acute accent ( ' ) = acento agudo

underscore ( _ )

ellipsis ( …, ..., . . . )

guillemets ( « » )

quotation marks ( ‘ ’, “ ” )

slash/stroke ( / )

ampersand ( & )

at sign ( @ )

asterisk ( * )

backslash ( \ )

copyright symbol ( © )

degree ( ° )

inverted exclamation mark ( ¡ )

inverted question mark ( ¿ )

number sign/pound/hash ( # )

percent ( %, ‰, ‱ )

prime ( ′, ″, ‴ )

registered trademark ( ® )

service mark ( ℠ )

sound recording copyright ( ℗ )

trademark ( ™ )