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Discussion Forum for teachers. 1. I just learned from a Spanish speaking ELL that the one thing that she had the most problems with when first encountering an ESL environement was understading sarcasm. This young lady is a close friend of my daughter and I have been in close contact with her for at least a year. When she told me this, I immediately thought of all the sarcastic things I have said to her and was afraid that I might have come acroos as rude or misleading when all I was really doing was joking around. So I asked people that are bilingual speaking adults at my work place if they knew what sarcasm was when they started learning the English language. To my surprise 5 out of 5 of my bilingual co-workers agreed that sarcasm was something that they didn't understand when they first were immersed into an ESL classroom.

How in the world do you explain sarcasm to a ESL? Have you taught what sarcasm is to your students? If so how? What kind of teaching strategies could you use when explaining sarcasm?

2. There are many tools one can use in order to teach the ESL student reading comprehension. One popular way is the use of graphic novels.

What are your thoughts on using graphic novels to teach the ESL student reading comprehension? Good, bad, or ugly? Have you used graphic novels before to teach reading comprehension? If so did your students respond positively or negatively?