TED AS TRENDS IN ENGLISH TO DEBATE

Maria Semenovskaya¹, Anna Gornostaeva^2
1Ms., Moscow State Linguistic University, RUSSIA, maria.semenovskaya@gmail.com
²Dr., Moscow State Linguistic University, RUSSIA, anngornostaeva@yandex.ru


Abstract

Nowadays, with lots of good course books with engaging contents and up-to-date digital resources, do teachers need to create materials of their own? The answer is certainly yes as teachers need to tailor the syllabus to the needs of the class. The best way is to use authentic materials such as newspapers, magazines, videos, even leaflets. Video is undoubtedly the most powerful medium in teaching as it grabs students' attention and sparks curiosity. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is a non-profit organization, which runs conferences of different types with the most interesting people as speakers sharing cutting-edge ideas. It is a great source for teachers of English as they can easily find a talk to lead in or round off the topic in the course book. However, English language teachers do not need only ideas to inspire the class, but first of all they look for new vocabulary and examples of grammar patterns studied to enhance their students’ command of English. They choose the items which seem beneficial. Here the problem arises as speakers at TED are from all over the world and may be non-native speakers as well as the majority of educators are non-natives and teach English in EFL and ESL classrooms. Either of them use the vocabulary of their choice but the frequency of usage may be low. As for the grammar one can find examples which are different from classical grammar of English. Whether we should consider such cases as a new trend in English is debatable. On the other hand, this is the way how a language changes. The paper gives examples of difficult cases and may be interesting for a wide audience. 

Keywords: TED, video, grammar patterns, vocabulary, teaching materials, authentic materials, ESL, EFL.