I just found out about My English Images - a newish and interesting resource site from an English teacher in Japan who also happens to be a very talented illustrator!
Pictures are really useful for helping language learners, and if great visuals from a teaching and learning and perspective are what you are looking for, this site is definitely worth a look!
~ Jason
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day (...for teaching ELL, ESL. & EFL)
This guy is just amazing. Every time I go to this blog I'm blown away by the references to new tools and ideas for teaching English.
Larry usually manages to post a link to something interesting every day, and he really does his research on it.
In particular, I recommend his websites of the month and websites of the year sections, which is where all Larry's daily work gets condensed down into the very best resources and links.
Thanks Larry - your blog is awesome!
~ Jason
I've just uploaded a page on English Raven that features a video and powerpoint display from a presentation I did in Seoul last year at the Pearson Amazing Minds Young Learners and Teenagers conference. The subject was TEE ~ Teaching English in English (or TETE ~ Teaching English through English, as it is often called) and how it related to current English education policy in South Korea.
You can see the video and powerpoint file in one screen at this link:
TEACHING ENGLISH IN/THROUGH ENGLISH
While this presentation was specific to current issues in Korea, if you are interested in the issue/concept of Teacing English in/through English, you will probably find this presentation of some interest irrespective of where in the world you happen to be teaching.
I am considering adding a whole section to English Raven dedicated to specific considerations and methodology for Teaching English in/through English, but for now I'll just see how much interest there is in the issue!
Best,
~ Jason
Well, I've finally gotten around to adding something to English Raven that I've been wanting to do for a long time (years, in fact) - and that is a hybrid online/print-based world news service geared to the interests of children.
And here it is, called (simply enough) WORLD NEWS for KIDS.
WNK, as you see it above, features an online page with four news stories, each representing a slightly different level of difficulty (dove, owl, eagle, and albatross - in that order). These levels generally correspond to the four levels in my Boost! Integrated Skills Series.
In addition to an eye-catching picture for each story, there are two listening files attached. The first is the basic news article, read out loud by myself. The second is something I call "News Extra" - a follow-up article which links to, adds to, or expands the general topic in some way.
Below the listening files is a link labeled "TALK ABOUT IT", which links to a special Voxopop page with an oral prompt related to the main article. Students can then record their own oral responses to the prompt, getting some valuable practice with speaking online and sharing their opinions worldwide.
That's about the extent of the online side of things, and also the general service as it is available 100% for free for teachers and learners around the world.
For those teachers who want to go a bit further, and use this online facility in combination with classroom-based worksheets and activities, there are special study kits available to English Raven Members. Each kit consists of eight PDF-formatted pages, beginning with the basic reading passage and finishing with a writing topic, working through a variety of other skills and activities on the way.
By way of example, here is an overview of the study kit for the second level (OWL), in application to the online news articles about sharks becoming extinct and the cruel fishing practice called "finning":
News article (reading) + Reading Skills
This features the written version of the article (with a simple URL archive link if students want to go back and listen to the article while they read it here in text). On the following page is a list of important vocabulary to be checked, and some reading comprehension questions. Two things you might find different from standard textbooks here... (1) vocabulary is listed and students are encouraged to use dictionaries to check up on their meanings (hey, this is what I used to have to do when learning a new language, and I'm tired of publishers and teachers asking me to figure out the meanings of the words for the learners in advance!); (2) not all of the reading comprehension questions are multiple choice (I'm tired of publishers or teachers asking me to use multiple choice all the time, so that kids can guess correct answers even if they have no idea what they've read/are reading!).
"News Extra" (Listening) + Talk Time
The "News Extra" is a listening gap-fill activity, featuring a follow-up article linked to the main reading article above. Following the listening are some simple true/false prompts to see how well students have understood essential points in the listening. Teachers can either read out the article or use the online news page provided (which features a pre-recorded version of the News Extra text).
On the next page is "Talk Time", a little innovation I'm quite proud of and excited about. This is a dialogue, linked thematically to the content that has been presented so far in the reading and listening materials. Basically, the same dialogue is presented on two cards (to be cut out separately), with highlighting for either an A or B speaker. The idea is to get two students up in front of the class and have them perform this short dialogue (drawing on the teacher if necessary for assistance), while the rest of the class listens to them. The speaking cards for the two performers then feature simple comprehension questions for them to ask to the class. In essence, students are performing the dialogue input (rather than the usual unrealistic replication on a CD) "live", and then actually hosting the comprehension check to see how well their classmates have understood them.
Class Discussion + Write an Email
"Class Discussion" provides some prompts related to the news article theme for students to answer for themselves and then ask to 1-3 classmates. Very much integrated skills and interaction - basically a version of the "Finding Out" application I've already written a lot about (and used a lot in classes for fantastic results!).
"Write an email" provides some sort of real-world input to which the students respond via email. They may be answering an email from a friend, or sending an email to a particular organisation or online application. The idea here is for realistic-feeling real-world style writing practice.
Write about it + Talk about it (+ Teacher notes)
A more open, semi-essay style writing task follows, with a general theme-related prompt to respond to. Below this, students are then encouraged to go online and respond to the same prompt orally (and they can use the writing task to help them speak if they want, as the same prompt is applied).
The final page in the kit has teacher notes, with answer keys and links to any online help that could be relevant to teaching the unit.
So there it is, World News for Kids, in online format and in printable study kits!
Enjoy,
~ Jason
Helen Lee, a student with Jason's RISE (Renshaw Internet School of English) program, makes the case that Korean moms and dads need to teach their children how to fish - rather than just giving them the fish...
According to the National Statistical Office, one out of three Koreans aged over 15 were jobless for the whole of last year. People who stayed employed for the whole year totaled 69.1% of 26.15 million, or 18.25 million. The rest held jobs for less than one year.
As the number shows, the problem of unemployment at young ages seems to be one of the severe headaches for Korean society.
In my opinion, there is a major reason why such high rate of unemployment among the young is inevitable. Although it is true that general employment number is reduced by the advent of machine manufacturing, the most crucial cause is in fact based on the general characteristic of young people’s attitudes these days. The generation has changed and the teenagers of today have grown up in the relatively prosperous environment compare to that of their parents’ adolescence.
In the past, many teenagers had to work to earn money and support their families but these days, the financial task is the responsibility of parents in a big way. Thus, teenagers naturally become accustomed to the easy way of life and this tendency makes them seek the easy route when they choose their future careers. As many Korean rich kids prefer to wear clothes with famous brand name, many Korean young people pursue their jobs based on company or profession ‘name value’ and generally avoid any physically demanding occupations. In addition, their pride that they have in being high educated with college diplomas does not allow them to feel satisfaction with the idea of work related to blue-collar jobs.
I think that we, as a country and as a society, must quickly take action to change this perception. For this, systemic alternative in the education options for the young is necessary. Korean students are pushed to focus on only their studies by the system of Korean education. It causes a shortage of working experience for the young and such shortage greatly narrow the range of possible future careers. Thus, the purpose of Korean education should not be stay locked in only academic pathway but try to expose students to the real world life and work as well. For this to happen, assigning certain time for part time jobs or career experiences in addition to the academic curriculum would be helpful to relieve the problem and to encourage the Korean teenagers to recognize the importance of perspiration.
Also, in order to improve this situation, parents’ attitudes toward their kids need to change in some ways. Most parents usually want their children to not go through the hardships that they themselves had to encounter during their adolescence. Thus, they have tried their best to raise kids in the best environment possible for as long as they could provide it. However, this way of education is to give the kids fishes. Korean parents need to change their way of education in order to teach their children how to fish. Although it can be hard for the parents to see their kids working or fighting unsupported against hardships, it is obvious that this way of teaching would greatly help their children to be strong and to open their eyes, breaking the set notion about demanding careers and setbacks.
The great number of unemployed young people is challenging problem for Korean society. It might even cause problems in the longer term. However, as long as the Korean education system and parents allow a little change and broader vision, I believe that the rate of jobless young people could be decreased. A balanced rate of participation in variety of career fields would in turn encourage Korean society at various levels and facilitate a stronger, more diverse economy overall.
Helen Lee (이가현) recently graduated from Kyoungbuk Foreign Language High School in South Korea. She comes from a small city called Haman in Gyeongnam province, and is currently preparing for business management studies at universities in the United States.
Helen's essay is a follow up to online interactive discussion about current national and global issues in English language news media.
Every now and then on the ELT calendar here in Korea, something genuinely special rolls along. I was lucky enough to be in Seoul last Wednesday to see Carolyn Graham present about songs, chants (and more) in relation to her picture dictionary series published with Pearson Longman. I count it as one of those "genuinely special" experiences.
Carolyn is 78 years old (I believe). Based on that I (respectfully) expected to be treated to some fascinating knowledge and experience from a figure who was already a veteran teacher in this industry before I was even born.
Well, I did get that, but a whole lot more. Here was a lady who could make a simple picture dictionary page truly come alive for younger learners.
With her examples of short jazz chant sequences and rhymes, she made the words turn into something really special. At times she would just break out into chants and songs as she was presenting, and it was infectious. I have to admit that Koreans are generally speaking a very musical bunch, but they're also often quite conservative and shy.
Not with Carolyn in the house! She had 300+ of these teachers spontaneously joining in chants and songs, and the effect left you wondering whether you were in a commercial ELT presentation or some sort of choir. But then again, you won't see a choir grooving away on stage like Carolyn does. And when she got a dozen or so Korean teachers up there to join her, the effect was - well - amazing.
Carolyn did show how easy it was to work with sets of words based on syllable counts, rhyme and lexical sets (including the role of apposition). But I think the most powerful impressions I was left with were (1) just how much can be done with simple picture dictionaries and younger learners, (2) how natural - even intrinsic - the role of music is with teaching children, and (3) how easy it is to incorporate chants and songs into your teaching - even if you don't consider yourself a "musical" teacher.
With a 31-month old child and a very "musical" wife, I found myself really wishing they could be there to see Carolyn in action. She was absolutely amazing. The day after the event I went straight to my local Kidari and purchased Carolyn's Young Children's Picture Dictionary for us to use and enjoy in my own family. Okay, it's not like seeing or hearing Carolyn in person, but it's the next best thing and I think we now have an essential resource for Jamie's English development. It's a great package, with the lovely layout of the pages, the very high-interest vocabulary selection sorted into themes little kids love, and the audio CD that comes with it.
And, just in case you're like me and think that your ability to sing and chant is rather similar to the effect of watching birds drop from the sky in despair and surrounding insects trying to cover non-existant ears, Carolyn's final message at the event was probably the most important.
A Korean teacher asked her "what if you can't sing well? how can we do this?" and Carolyn answered with utter conviction "the first thing is that you should never, NEVER think that... Never let anyone lead you to believe you can't sing. Singing basically comes from the heart. If you have a heart, you can sing." Well, words pretty much to that effect, anyway.
Personally, I think I cannot sing to save myself. But when I sing to or along with my child, he loves it. I'm inclined to think Carolyn could be absolutely right.
I am currently in the process of developing a fully Internet-based school of English - something that has been challenging but loads of fun as well (more details on that to be unveiled in the not-too-distant future...). This evening I got a chance to trial group-based video conferencing (something I'm calling [+] interTalk for the moment) with some of my online students, using the great browser-based conferencing service provided by TokBox.
Wow!!! It went down an absolute treat!
To the left you can see a screenshot of the conferencing session, featuring myself with my great students Soorim, Helen and Jeanie (all of them advanced level students in their late teens developing their English skills for Academic Purposes).
Once we got over a few very minor technical hitches (more to do with individual computers, mic settings - that sort of thing), we got down to the business of having an extended discussion focusing on news and topical issues.
Soorim and I presented and summarized articles we had read online representing issues we thought would be interesting for the group. We then took turns with a Q&A process to elicit more details and opinions about the articles, somebody summarizing the interactions, then follow-up discussion based around hypotheses and opinion-sharing.
The group handled the discussion process and technology involved really well, and I was so impressed to see/hear so much free-flowing discussion. These students also gave me a lot to think about through the questions and opinions they presented, and that is always a very stimulating experience for a language teacher. All up, the trial worked brilliantly and after an hour of in-depth talking face-to-face online, I think we all left the experience motivated and satisfied.
TokBox's video conferencing set up has marvelous potential. We did experience some hiccups in the form of time drag and sometimes some confusing echoes, but I'm really not sure how much that had to do with our individual computers and Internet connections. I did notice, for example, that when I took a couple of seconds to take a screenshot of us chatting in the conference room (to post here, as you can see!), my connection in the conference room slowed down tremendously as I quickly grappled with some copying and pasting into some image editing software. Once I'd shut that down, my connection to the other participants picked up noticeably.
The great thing about TokBox is that it is fully browser-based, something I've mentioned as a major plus elsewhere (see for example my post about Eyejot Video Mail). Having trialed what seems like hundreds of other audio and video applications for online teaching purposes, I now basically only ever really pay attention to services that allow me to link up with other users directly through an Internet browser-based service. I (and my computer dashboard) got sick to death of time and space consuming downloads and installations for other services (things like Sightspeed and Skype included), and my users appreciate access to services that don't require complicated (or for that matter compulsory) sign-ups, installations, and finnickly little free services that in effect force you to pay expensive fees for anything close to a useful and practical application.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not against paying for good applications and services. I'm perfectly willing to pay for them, if they are practical and easy to use. As a teacher with fee-paying students, I also don't mind making an investment in the necessary technology. But for the students themselves, they shouldn't be forced to go through brain-busting installation and sign-up procedures, or for that matter fork out money in expensive fees. I've already tried that with one service provider, and when it came time to forward on the costs as part of the students' fees, I realized the process had made online learning somewhat prohibitively expensive for my students.
In any case, for the moment TokBox appears to be offering online video calling, video mail and multiple person (up to 6 at a time) video conferencing free of charge. It looks really impressive, remembering of course that they are in Beta mode and still developing their services. At the moment, I find their video mail a little unwieldy compared to the polished service provided by Eyejot, but the live video calls and conferencing service direct out of an Internet browser (with only myself required to have an active membership) - that's some sweet stuff they've got going there. It certainly helped facilitate a great online group-based class with my learners tonight!
TokBox also has some cool "embed" features that make it great for integration into websites. You can, for example, embed your own personal Video Mail / Video Call service into a page on your site, where users can contact you live through a video call or leave you a video message.
The question now will be, when will TokBox move out of Beta mode and start requiring payment for their services? I sincerely hope they don't go the way of companies like Sightspeed, Webex or for that matter the Adobe-based conferencing set-up. There is some undisputed quality in those set-ups, but the prices they charge are so steep I doubt any users outside a major company set up will want to use them. These companies also need to recognize that smallish set ups like myself are willing to pay and sign up for certain services, but forcing our clients/students to do the same becomes prohibitive and frustrating.
And there's always another outfit on the rise out there ready to do the same basic things for a whole lot less...
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for TokBox - they so far have all the functions that could help make online education really rock. By all means slap me with a feasible charge for your services, but please, please, please! keep things open and accessible for the people I need to deal with online. In my case, they don't realistically have the budget, and in terms of English language learning - sometimes don't have quite the language or computer skills to handle complicated sign-up procedures.
South Korea, where I have been living and working for the past 8 years as an English Language Educator, is currently in the throes of new changes regarding its approaches to learning English.
The picture to the left shows Koreans lining up to get a place for the iBT test provided by ETS. It's a pretty good example of both the fervor and the problems associated with "making it" in English in this country.
Amongst other things, the newly elected President has created a transition committee whose sole focus is addressing the issue of English education here. Some pretty huge proposals have been put forward, including the hiring of thousands more teachers, regulating classrooms and teachers so that lessons are conducted completely in English, and introducing new testing procedures that move the emphasis away from grammar and reading to more productive skills like speaking and writing.
The lengthy article here from JoongAng Daily, gives an excellent overview of all that is happening and how people from all over the spectrum are reacting to it. It paints a picture that is to some degree shocking, but at the same time hints strongly that the necessary wheels are starting to go into motion to potentially create a brighter future for better, more realistic, and more accessible English in Korea.
It also quotes some pretty daunting statistics - which I've attempted to summaize and list here:
Interesting stuff, and surely interesting times ahead for English language teaching in Korea. Personally, I salute most of the changes proposed, and hope they can change the dismal "return on investment" for English language learning here as it currently stands.
Now it is mostly a matter of whether the government will actually implement these changes and programs, and then how teachers, schools, students and parents will react...
I recently re-commenced teaching advanced level students 1-1 online, for things like iBT preparation and interview and essay practice for students in the process of applying to universities in the United States. It has been a little while since I did online teaching, and it has been great putting to use all the new gadgets and programs that have developed and become available since the last time I was doing this sort of teaching.
One of these new "toys" has been Eyejot, which basically promotes itself as being browser-based Video Mail. This has been a real boon to my battery of online teaching tools, especially in terms of asynchronous task submissions that add a video angle to the already widely available online audio programs. Basically, using the easy code provided, I am able to place a video mail recorder on my students' web pages that allows them to record and send tasks to me pretty much instantly.
As you can see from the screen shot here (for one of my iBT TOEFL students), I can create a private page for a student that includes an i-frame based online iBT test, and next to it goes the Eyejot video task recorder. For the student, submitting a speaking task is as simple as hitting "reply", then activating the Macromedia Flash plug in, and then recording and sending. The student does not need to download any special programs or software, and is not required to go through the process of signing up for an Eyejot membership. In fact, the web-based recorder here has a 1-minute time limit (with a counter ticking down to zero) for recordings that I find ideal for test-prep style recordings (given they always have time limits of similar duration). Paid up Eyejot members (like myself, but not my students) can record messages of up to 5 minutes duration. In my situation that is ideal for then responding to my students' task submissions, as I can reply with a longer video mail giving them in-depth feedback, and it is delivered direct to their email.
Eyejot recently also added an upgrade that allows video mails to be embedded directly into webpages. This allows me to create an online speaking log for my students where they can scroll through the tasks they have submitted for review purposes. By providing the Eyejot recorder again on the same page, the student has the option of reviewing their own tasks and then re-recording them right there in the one place.
I got my Eyejot membership when their initial offer only cost US$15 per year, and it's since been raised to US$30, but it does represent excellent value considering the ease and reliability of the service. Compared to applications like Sightspeed, this is not only much cheaper, but also more practical. Sightspeed doesn't allow you to embed recordings, costs US$15 per month for any sort of practical functionality, requires membership for anyone to record messages back to you, requires a software download, and unless the person is willing to pay, they are limited to 30 seconds of recording time - which is pretty much useful only in terms of expressing how frustrated you feel. Even with the paid membership in Sightspeed, a member can only record messages of up to 3 minutes in duration. Eyejot, by comparison, allows anyone (with or without an Eyejot membership) to record messages to you directly from your own website for free for up to one minute, is fully browser-based (thus not requiring complicated installations), has the instant versatility of embedded videos, and a paid membership (at a fraction of the cost compared to Sightspeed) allows the option of recording messages of up to 5 minutes in length. From my (and my students') perspective, Eyejot's service absolutely creams things like Sightspeed, and even makes it a better option than things like Skype (which also involves a time-consuming and potentially complicated installation and doesn't have embed functions).
All in all, Eyejot has added a very convenient and stimulating resource to my online teaching options, and my students love it. I can't wait to see what other improvements they have in store in the not too distant future!
If you feel like trying out Eyejot yourself, right here on the blog, check out the video recorder below. So yeah, I forgot to mention - this is also a communication tool for things like blogs as well!
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