September 2009
1 post
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A Glorious Failure
This is the last post on this blog. It’s been an interesting journey, but ultimately didn’t achieve what I wanted it to. A failure, then, in some ways. But a learning experience nonetheless. Why didn’t it work as I’d hoped?
I think the best way to put it is that it wasn’t organic. From the outset, I tried to put together a group of people to participate in the...
August 2009
1 post
3 tags
Summer reflections part one - speaking
The first semester is far enough gone to look back on with an objective eye, and the second semester is fast approaching. Time to look back on what worked and what didn’t, and to figure out where to go next.
The first thing I want to fix is the assessments for my oral communications classes. For the non-English majors, I want to do the following things.
1. Use the language and skills we...
July 2009
1 post
4 tags
WatchXtranormal and the Perils of Technology
This is the winner of the class oscar ceremony, best movie and best script categories. (Click through to see it in xtranormal). OK, so it’s not David Mamet, but it’s actually quite witty…and by two sweet girls, rather than dirty boys.
From script writing and practice (one 90 minute class), through the movie making process (about two...
June 2009
3 posts
2 tags
Student blogging notes part two
Two thirds of the way in to the semester, and how are things moving? Well, I’ve learnt that these blogs can become unwieldy, and that different teachers have different ideas of the directions they want to go. The initial idea of posting extra material has proved unsatisfactory. Aside from video links (for example, we showed “The Meatrix” in class when we were working on our food...
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Metaphors for teaching and learning
We have a mini-plenary at the end of most classes in which I throw the students a slightly left-field question based on the theme of the class (for example, if we were looking at “Family” the question might be “What would your family think if they watched you in class?”). But at mid-semester we do a broader reflection to assess progress and attitudes to learning in general....
May 2009
4 posts
1 tag
Autonomy and Vocabulary (part two)
As I explained in an earlier post (http://teacherdevelopment.tumblr.com/post/90787284/teaching-and-learning-vocabulary) one of my little projects this year was to innovate the way students learnt vocabulary (you’ll notice I didn’t say the way I TEACH vocabulary…). Previously, I felt they were just memorizing lists in order to regurgitate them on test day. This year, I require...
2 tags
Dream Sequence
1. Divide students into groups A and B.
2. Group A watch “Soup” whilst group B just listen.
3. Each student writes as much as they can remember about what they saw or heard in ninety seconds (or so).
4. Group B watch “Casserole” whilst group A just listen.
5. Each student writes as much as they can remember about what they saw or heard in ninety...
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April 2009
11 posts
3 tags
Student blogging - (long) notes so far.
I’ve set up a tumblr for my advanced oral communication class; two weeks in, what am I thinking?
My main purpose was to share videos and links, something tumblr is well suited for. Our class is themed and we cover about five themes in a fourteen week semester. Last year, I used a lot of newspaper articles and youtube videos in class but a) photocopying / dvd conversion was a pain in the...
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Assessing Speaking
I teach a number of oral communications classes, and I’m fortunate enough to have freedom to set my own assessments (to a well thought out set of class aims). So what to do?
With higher level classes, which tend to hang around themes, we do presentations. I like the fact they have to go off and research (and we work hard on finding alternatives to wikipedia and analysing the sources). I...
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To Comment or Not to Comment: Blogging to Confirm... →
I think comments are vital, otherwise I might as well write in my moleskine journal. However, I absolutely agree with his concerns about confirmation bias in comments. Thinking about my flickr account, I get so many comments which say “nice”, then go and do the same elsewhere. Inevitable really, that users tend to gravitate towards likeminded people and confirm one anothers...
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Is language acquisition a good analogy for teacher... →
Very smart…. I like this analogy very much indeed ; )
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adVancEducation →
Click on the title. Great blog… there is an awful lot of interesting reading on here. Why is there so much to know, and why is my brain so small? I`m off home to watch zombie movies….
Actually, though, it doesn’t matter that my brain is small, as long as I know lots of other people who can keep other stuff in their brains. This is known as connectivism, the teenage son (in my...
3 tags
classroom 2.0 →
I`ve just joined classroom 2.0 (click the title to link). Apparently, it`s a “ning”, a bit like facebook but for specific groups. Strangely, this log is in an RSS feed on my ning front page…everything is interconnected and chasing itself. Please be careful not to get sucked into a technological black hole and bump into your own mother like Marty McFly. Ah, I remember web 2.0, it...
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Which Platform? →
It`s interesting how people promote and defend their particular platforms of choice. This is the discussion that arose on another teacher forum (a very good one, actually) on which I was promoting this enterprise (click the title to see how it unfolds). I felt that tumblr in particular would work - and in many ways I still do, but I wonder if it might have been easier to network amongst existing...
1 tag
March 2009
5 posts
mobile phone test
You can also email your posts to tumblr, using the unique address on your dashboard.
1 tag
teaching and learning vocabulary
I teach classes mostly focusing on reading and oral communication, sometimes to english majors and sometimes not. Last year was my first full time at my university, and most of the year was spent figuring out how things work. It went fairly smoothly, and I was able to try out a few new things in the second semester. However, I am very excited about this year as I now have a better understanding of...
Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy →
Something to consider in trying to get an online teacher development group up and running
; P
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Why Tumblr?
It is simple and versatile. You can easily embed videos, pictures, links, photos or just write your own text. Of course, you can do all this with conventional blogs, but I have found them to be a bit fiddlier. With tumblr, you can install a button in your bookmarks, and as soon as you read something interesting on line, stick it straight on your blog.
You can also post through a unique email...
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How I got "here"
I started teaching about ten years ago now, in a large chain school in Japan. After a week’s training, off I went to my first school… managed to survive my first year and went off to Australia to get my CELTA. Then I went back to Japan and with my incredible qualifications and extensive experience (!) was promoted to head trainer. It was a great job in many ways, and I spent a lot of...
February 2009
2 posts
3 tags
The Extensive Reading Foundation
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January 2009
15 posts
TEFL.net » TEFL Articles » 15 tips for people... →
Take Time To Talk To Your Child About Whatever... →
latest educational research….
Training videos | Teaching English | British... →
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Key Concepts in ELT →
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Free Range Studios →
marvellous videos for teaching with a social conscience
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A lecture about English
peetypassion:
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day.”In English,” he said, “A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”
A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”
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WatchSteven Pinker on language and thought | Video on TED.com
$trictly 4 my T.E.A.C.H.E.R.Z →
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HOW CAN WEB 2.0 HELP TEACHERS DEVELOP? →
It's the teachers, stupid!
sweetmojo:
Malcolm Gladwell’s story on teachers in the New Yorker is right on. It is very difficult to predict a person’s success in many fields. The key is to put together a process that will assess, support, and review new folks in a given job. The downside to this uncertainty are the stakes:
Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will...
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Read a million words →
Six Things →
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Pidgins that won't easily be holed | Education |... →