Learning Twigs

Upcoming interview with Bob Stein (The Future of the Book) - add your questions here!

Well, I have some wonderful and exciting news: Bob Stein (one of the founders of the Institute for the Future of the Book and writer of the article A book is a place, which I posted about >> here << a few days ago) has agreed to an informal interview with me, to be published here on the English Raven blog!

It's going to be fun and intriguing to ask Bob about his thoughts on educational applications for the future books he has in mind, as well as what he figures this could mean for both authors and readers.

I'm putting together some questions to ask Bob, but I thought it would be even more interesting to open the field and let YOU contribute some questions for our discussion! What would you like to ask Bob? Post your questions here (I may not be able to ask all of them, but it will be helpful to identify some common threads of interest or concern).

              

Look forward to reading and discussing your questions! Remember, this is THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE!

           

:-)

          

             

What is your blog's "angle"?

I was recently perusing Burcu Akyol's outstanding EFL blog and I had a good read of the guest post there from Lindsay Clandfield about spreading your knowledge by starting a blog for fellow teachers.

The article describes six essential tips (Lindsay is very fond of the number 6, it seems - part of his beastly nature, no doubt!) for starting and maintaining a good blog. Given that I'm rather unsure of how well I am doing as a blogger, I had a careful read.

I seem to be doing reasonably well within five of his criteria (reading what's out there, being passionate about it, choosing a good platform, preparing material in advance, and having fun), but to my shock and horror, I realised I may be failing dismally on the second tip: thinking of my angle.

Lindsay describes this priority in these terms:

There are lots of reasons people blog, and no one reason is better than the other. However, people are more likely to visit and remember your blog if there is an angle, a certain hook to it. A few years ago, your hook could have simply been “An English teacher’s reflections” or “Thoughts on the English language” as there were not many of us out here in the blogosphere. That’s changing now. People are more likely to be drawn to something specific in your teaching context (e.g. the challenges of teaching senior learners, teaching English in a small town in North Korea) or about language (e.g. a blog about idioms, or new words, or typical errors). [See the whole article here]

   

So for me, and the English Raven blog - what is my angle? Where's the hook? What is there that is specific? I mean, Lindsay's advice is very sound, and glancing around my blog I felt like I was being slowly impaled by a sort of "six things" sense of perspective.

This blog has more angles than a badly drawn polyhedron that got stuck in a seriously cranky photocopier. One moment I'm blabbing about how to teach English or new materials I'm writing; in another instant I'm uploading videos of my son Jamie to showcase his thriving bilingualism (and/or young learner reading development), the next I'm doing a review of Teaching Unplugged, and then trying to impart advice to would-be ELT writers, then flapping away about Twitter, and solemnly introducing the idea of a book is a place, and - well, the list goes on.

I guess the truth is that I have far too many angles going on. And you know what? I'm perfectly happy with that. The various angles may not be heading anywhere all that fast (so there's no hook, I'm afraid), but they're well - heading off someplace... To me, a blog has been a very enjoyable way of unloading and exploring an overcrowded mind, and seeing which tendrils can be cast out to connect with other teachers/writers/bloggers out there.

I'm thinking of volunteering for a new guest post on Burcu's blog. My post will be "Tips for starting a blog for people with confused polyhedron-like thoughts" or "How to write a blog with 6+ angles." Only fair that we don't exclude those disorganised scatterbrains out there (like me) who don't have the demeanor for a nicely organised and cohesive blog with a definitive purpose or angle!

But Lindsay's advice is great, as is Burcu's blog - so get on over there and check them out!

Oh - and wait! I've just found something in Lindsay's article that may save me... He says: "Think outside the box!" and, more importantly:

That being said, if you write with a distinctive voice then people will come to see whatever you’ve written just for the pleasure of reading it.

How about: If you write with a distinctive but confused voice from one day to the next then people will come to see whatever you've written just for the confusion of being confused by it?

Oh well - if you're a polyhedron brain like me, welcome to the English Raven blog and enjoy your confusing adventure here, and rest assured I'll be just as happy to read your blog, too!

     

:-)

     

"Where the Wild Things Are" comes to film!

My son absolutely adores the picture book Where the Wild Things Are (by Maurice Sendak). It is an absolute classic, written way back in 1963.

Well, the exciting news is that an ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC movie adaptation of the storybook is currently in post-production and is due out in October this year. Here's a preview for you!

    

         

This looks absolutely sensational and - given the role of Maurice Sendak in the movie-making process - looks to be pretty true to the original story and look/feel (there were scenes from the film clip above that made me think immediately of certain pages in the book).

Despite being banned in many places in the 60s, this book/movie/story is one of the sure things to help kids get over their fear of monsters and see the potential for beauty in things that may not look all that pretty to start out with. It is also a masterpiece of raw imaginative power.

Don't miss the movie - and if you don't have the book yet, get it!

             

:-)

                 

    

Help choose the name of an innovative new English coursebook!

A good friend of mine, Marcos Benevides, is in the process of finishing up and launching a new coursebook with an interesting blend of "whodunit?" fiction and task-based learning.

I'm a big fan of Marcos, having used and admired his excellent Widgets coursebook (possibly one of the very first genuinely task-based approaches to English language learning put onto actual coursebook paper). Not only did Widgets actually work in my university practical English classes and the business English classes I was responsible for at a major Korean Heavy Industries company, it really inspired me in terms of things to think about in new coursebook approaches for teenagers and younger learners. Widgets was also launched at about the same time as my own Boost! series, at the same KOTESOL conference with the same publisher (Pearson Asia ELT) - so I got to meet Marcos, have a fun beer or two, and talk a lot about teaching English and making innovative coursebooks. He's definitely one of the nicer guys you'll meet in ELT - no bluster, no airs, really down-to-earth and friendly (and about 10 times smarter than I'll ever be!).

ANYWAY - Marcos has a new series coming out soon, as I mentioned, and he's come up with an interesting way to settle on a final name for it: he's going to ask teachers to decide!

Marcos has set up a very brief survey (I promise you - it takes less than a minute!) and I really hope you'll go over there and contribute your opinion to help Marcos come up with the best name for his new series.

:-)

What's on your ESL materials wishlist for the new school year?

Well, there are a lot of teachers starting to get ready for the new school year - busy busy busy!

I'm also getting busy, rapidly expanding English Raven's already vast cache of quality teaching ELT/ESL/EFL materials for children and teenagers. Top among the new additions at present is the World News for Kids! service, but I'm also looking for other ideas to expand English Raven's range and depth of materials.

So - are you a teacher with an ESL or ELT focus looking for new teaching materials for the new school year? Why don't you post a comment here and let me know some of the things you'd like to see added to the English Raven resource bank!

Oh - and yes - I do operate a pay-for membership policy, but if I like your post and your idea, I'll gladly give you membership and full access to the site for free!

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

~ Jason

 

:-)

 

 

World Adventure Kids!: the beginnings

 

If you've visited the front page of English Raven any time recently, you may have noticed the logo featured above - and perhaps even followed the link through to the introductory preview page for World Adventure Kids!

This is a rather ambitious publication I am embarking on, and I thought it might be interesting to comment about its background and ongoing development here on my blog. Later, these posts could make for interesting reading!

The concept of World Adventure Kids! has been in my mind as a writer and teacher for at least 10 years. However, as a type of genre and style of reading, it goes back much farther even - to when I was about 10 or 11 years old. At that time, some friends and I were getting right into the Choose Your Own Adventure reader-oriented fiction stories, where - basically - the book is written in the 2nd person, talking directly to the reader as the main character in the story, who then makes the important decisions on how the narrative turns at given points and what outcome is achieved. While CYOA was cool, we thought the Fighting Fantasy books - written in the same fashion but within a fantasy world with additional game rules (and, of course, plenty of monsters and sword and sorcery style swashbuckling) - were THE coolest set of books possible!

These books were (and no doubt still are) powerful for young readers. Becoming the main star of the narrative makes a young reader feel like they are flying, and being able to control what happens (for either good or bad outcomes) represents a challenge that totally absorbs the reader. Now, later - as an educator - something important that occurs to me is that these books were read by both girls (who generally were ready to read anything) and boys who technically "hated reading" or weren't considered to be all that gifted in the classroom. We were so into these books that a couple of friends and I even wrote our own version of one, with each person exploring a different adventure direction, and all the entries pulled back together to make one interactive story with multiple adventure options and endings. The compilation and editing job fell to me. It took forever to put it all together, but the result was - well, seriously COOL!

The Choose Your Own adventure style books were enormously popular in the 1980s, and then suffered a catastrophic decline in the early 90s with the advent of video games. It now appears they are starting to make a serious comeback - something I wasn't actually aware of some 3-4 years ago when I embarked on putting something like World Adventure Kids together.

You may be wondering (quite rightly) why I would develop and go ahead with World Adventure Kids if the original CYOA series are being revamped and re-released. Well, my approach to this genre is somewhat different, in a variety of ways:

• I wanted to make something that reflected the nature of the world today, and the world today's children will face in the future, making things like technology, global issues and the environment key issues.
• My background is in ELT (English Language Teaching), and I wanted to make a series that doesn't just talk to English-speaking children in western countries, but children anywhere in the world (the emphasis on teamwork with characters from different nationalities is fundamental in World Adventure Kids; I won't say that the books are culturally neutral - but I will claim that I've tried to write books in a way that is culturally respectful).
• In combination with the EFL/ESL angle, I wanted to make a series of books written in a way that caters to children who may not be expert or patient readers - I might even go so far as to say I wanted adventures and a reading style that could be considered "remedial" - especially in terms of getting struggling readers going (and just as importantly - keep them going!).

Of course, I also wanted to write a series of books that I would enjoy writing and reading myself! The 10-year-old boy in me still wants to go on amazing adventures all over the world, meeting other kids and solving mysteries and problems. Writing commercial coursebook materials over the past 3-4 years has definitely shown me that it's not all that enjoyable all that much of the time. In spoiling myself, and going back to what feels like more genuine writing - writing from the heart, and with the spark of imagination - I might end up with some books that kids will really enjoy reading! Hopefully, in being selfish, I'm actually going to end up doing a better job overall and entertain more readers in the long run...

Occupied as I was with other work and writing projects (you know, the kind of stuff that might actually help pay the bills), I had to be content with just musing about this project for several years. When it came time to actually put something down on paper, I did - several times over a period of about one year, with an equal number of trips to the wastepaper basket. For some reason, it just wouldn't work.

At about this time, my 20-book coursebook series with Pearson Longman (Boost! Integrated Skills Series) was really starting to take off, not just in Asia but in several regions around the world. Suddenly I had a willing audience of major publishers ready to listen to my ideas about new publication ideas... Under some pressure from one of these publishers to get the idea down properly on paper, I finally sat down and wrote a whole double-adventure kit in about three nights - and this time, it didn't just work, it really worked! 

As thrilled as I was with the final product, I re-read it yet again and realised that the ELT publishers I was being courted by probably wouldn't like it all that much. It was too innovative, too niche, not cookie-cutter enough, too sophistocated for the publishers to neatly package and sell with a big bang into an already highly competitive industry that was as cluttered with coursebooks and leveled readers as it was unwilling to ever try something genuinely new...

Still, the publishers wanted to see it, so I sent off my manuscripts and publication prospectus.

And... I was right! Despite ELT publishers telling me the concept and actual story were brilliant, fun, innovative, and definitely appealing to kids - it was too niche for their tastes, it couldn't be packaged up easily and sold as a coursebook series, it wouldn't be able to compete with the reading series already out there, etc. etc. I'll be fair to ELT publishers and concede that it's not easy for them to bring new innovations out into the market, and they are under enormous pressure to appeal to the company's bottom line and produce things that will sell well. I'll also be critical and say that new ideas and approaches don't often come out in teaching materials because major publishers - the entities best positioned and equipped to support such endeavours - won't try them. As one academic and coursebook writer said to me recently "no, they'll let some start-up go ahead and have all the ideas and take all the risks, and then they (the major publishers) will just copy them and claim it as their own new bandwagon..."

Well, I decided to take this as a sign and a direction rather than a cause for dejection. I decided to go ahead and produce World Adventure Kids! entirely on my own. I hired a fabulously talented illustrator named Declan Walsh, and got down to work. I created a careful level system and also an overall approach concept for this style of educational writing: IARA (Interactive Adventure Reading Approach), and then went over the storylines and text very carefully to make sure they provide an "even keel" for readers of different reading proficiencies and motivational interests. The results have been very exciting and now I even have a nice-looking preview page up on my site:

   

 

    

At this point, I am looking at both print and online versions of these reading materials, as the interactive nature of them works well with an online format. The first two adventure kits are going well, and will most likely be released in late October (this year) in online format, with print versions available not long after that.

I have to admit it is a little scary (there's a part of me that really wishes I'd done this sort of self-funded risk-taking adventure before I got married and had two children!), but it is also really exhilarating! World Adventure Kids are seriously cool, with really unique characters and action-packed Indiana-Jones-style adventures that address global issues. If nothing else, I know my own kids will have some fun and motivating things to read as they grow up! But more importantly, I am already proud of this work, irrespective of how well it does or how much money it makes me. I've added to my own education in terms of researching the themes, issues and contexts in the adventures, and had a lot of fun being a 10-year-old again...

  

To be continued!

 

:-)

     

Viewing a book as a place...

There has been a lot of talk in a lot of different circles about what the future holds for the humble old book, and it is a subject that seriously intrigues me. I have for some time now been contemplating and experimenting with ways to bring books into more of an online format and create more chances for readers to interact with content and each other.

One of the people I follow on Twitter, Darcy Moore, put me on to a really amazing article that appeared recently in Melbourne's The Age newspaper: A book is a place.

This article was written by Bob Stein, a media expert who has been watching and speculating on the development of books for more than 30 years. The main thrust of the article is that books, authors and readers appear to be evolving in a way that allows a book to be considered a sort of "place" (rather than a "thing"), where the writer can meet and interact with readers, and readers can interact with each other - alongside or as part of the content of the book. Of particular importance is Stein's notion that this meeting and interaction should take place alongside the actual text, on something akin to equal footing - not just as footnoted comments following below the text.

It really is mind boggling and exciting at the same time! Aside from the actual implications for reading and writing, this has spectacular potential for education, and Stein mentions this along with some actual examples of successful trials in educational settings.

Stein is one of the founders of the Institute for the Future of the Book, and helped create something called CommentPress - a specialised plugin for the WordPress blogging engine that "allows readers to comment paragraph by paragraph in the margins of a text."

Take a look at what they've come up with:

 

 

 

This example is of a speech by President Bush (The President's Address to the Nation), and as you can see, the text can be scrolled through while a comment box stays put just to the right - alongside the main text. This is where readers can reference paragraphs and leave thoughts and questions. Basically, it's a mini discussion thread that connects to the reading text by paragraph, but is accessible right next to the main text (rather than as a following or separate application) and positions reader input as being equally important as the original text itself.

In essence, it makes this text a place - for meeting and discussing, where writer and reader are both considered fundamental, but not in the stereotypical fashion we have become accustomed to.

A book is a place is a cracking read - make sure you read the whole article! It might change your perception of what books are (or can be). It has certainly got my brain ticking over...

 

:-)

 

Imaginative TPR in action - watch the masters!

My son Jamie's absolute favourite TV show is something called The Upside Down Show. Jamie is four years old, and after watching these episodes, he re-enacts the stories all day long and then talks about them at night before he goes to sleep. He LOVES these guys (whom he calls the "Upside Down Guys") - but so do his elder cousins, and so do we (his parents!).

Take a look at some snippets from shows below:

   

    

In a nutshell, this is TPR (Total Physical Response) the way it should be for children. It is full of action that is imaginative without bounds, and action wrapped up in natural (but entertaining) dialogue and functions. And it is just absolutely hilarious, no matter what age you are.

Goodness I wish I'd had access to this when I was teaching children aged 5-10!

Here is a little more information about the show, taken from the ABC Shop online:

The Upside Down Show is a new series for pre-schoolers that showcases the eye-popping physical comedy of the Umbilical Brothers - Shane Dundas and David Collins.

In both episodes, brothers Shane and David set out with much fanfare on a journey to a place they've never been. And, as it turns out, they've never been anywhere! It's all new to them, whether they're going to the movie theatre, the airport, or even on a picnic. Eventually the brothers find their way, but not before taking a few wrong turns...

That's because they live in an apartment with loads of doors and passageways that lead to unusual rooms but rarely to their desired destination.

At the beginning of each of the two episodes on this disc, the brothers hand the viewer an imaginary remote control that allows them to 'operate' Shane and David, fast forwarding, rewinding or pausing them. The remote also features a 'wild card' function allowing the viewers to wreak havoc on the brothers by turning them upside down, rotating them around and around, or simply making them itch or sneeze.

  

You can find more Upside Down Show episodes on YouTube (just do a search for "Upside Down Show"), but getting the actual DVDs would be an excellent investment for any YL educator or school - trust me!

  

:-)

Connect with children's book people at JacketFlap.com!

 

 

I recently stumbled upon this interesting site, called JacketFlap.com. It appears to be a place where you can not only find wonderful new books for children (they mention a database of over 900,000!), but also actually directly connect with authors, teachers, illustrators, publishers, editors - even librarians and parents!

Most of the members appear to be listed as writers, so it could well be a place where people are coming to try and get noticed and published - not sure... There are a lot of writers' blogs on the site, which made for an interesting read (as you go inside the actual life of some writers and read about the process of writing).

Checking the "About" page, I noticed they claim to be the world's largest database of information on children's book publishers. It does appear to be a great place to network with all sorts of people involved in the children's publishing industry, so it's worth checking out.

I signed up and found it easy to get a profile started, so I'll continue to explore and see how the networking side of things goes! 

:-)

 

Put faces and places to your tweets

I recently posted an article about Twitter for teachers, where I pointed out why it is a good idea for teachers to start tweeting (but also a few things to be wary of). I was pleasantly surprised by how many visits and the interest this post attracted, so I thought I would follow up with another little couple of tidbits I've picked up about using Twitter.

1. It's a good idea to use a real picture of your face in your profile:

 

As Tweets pop up, I realised it was nicer to see actual people's faces than logos or obscure pictures. It helps to make the messaging feel more personable, and reinforces the connection between actual people. Sure - for organisations and businesses, logos and brands are appropriate, but if you're using Twitter to connect as a person to other people, a picture of your face is probably going to have a better (and warmer) impact.

Based on this realisation, I changed my "naughty raven in a tree" avatar to a real picture of myself. I was surprised with the follow-up direct messages (DMs in Twitter parlance) thanking me for putting a picture of myself there - and hey, it makes a nice change to hear people say they're happy to see your face...

   

2. Use pictures of places to liven up your profile page and actual tweets

  

 

It's nice to see places that you can associate with people, so you might like to think about putting up a picture of your hometown or the region you come from (or even places you've been to or would like to go to!) as the background wallpaper on your Twitter profile page. This is something I personally enjoy about browsing other people's Twitter profile pages, as I get a sense of movement around the world and I like the connection of faces to places!

On the pictures/places front, I enjoy tweets from people in my network that include links to pictures of places/events they are at whilst tweeting. Ken Wilson has been a particularly good example of this: not only did he start a pretty interesting twitter exchange showcasing people's workplaces, but he's taken to also uploading some lovely pictures of places he's visiting on weekends, etc.

 

  

I also enjoyed a recent "live pic" on the scene from Burcu Akyol, who posted a picture from a romantic Turkish wedding she was attending at the time:

 

  

The most popular tool for doing this appears to be Twitpic, an application that allows you to upload pictures and post them directly into your Twitter posts.

I don't know about other people, but I like to see actual faces, and seeing some ongoing scenery (both for profile backgrounds and within Twitter posts themselves) makes for a more "scenic" and interesting Twitter experience.

:-)

Connect and develop as a teacher with the IATEFL YLT-SIG!

 

If you are teaching English to young learners (children) or teenagers, you really ought to consider joining IATEFL's YLT-SIG (Young Learners and Teenagers Special Interest Group).

They've been around for a long time, and are very active, with members from all over the world. I did some committee-level work with the SIG some years ago, and hadn't visited their Yahoo Discussion Group for quite a while - just did so recently and found myself in the midst of a very dynamic and busy discussion about Assessment!

As far as I can remember/tell, you can still join and take part in their Yahoo Discussion Group without needing to become a paid-up member, but official membership does bring a lot of perks, quality materials, and opportunities within a specialised segment of IATEFL's broader network of services and activities - so it's an investment worth considering for the professionals out there. 

Keep up the great work, YLT-SIG!

  

:-)

Reading techniques and activities to supplement English language learning textbooks

Do your English language learners find reading boring? Perhaps it's not just a matter of finding the sorts of reading texts that will catch their interest. It could be time to think about how you apply your reading texts in class and what you can add to make the overall reading class more dymamic and effective!

The video above (in addition to showcasing a pretty impressive "bad hair day") supplements a full page of detailed ideas on English Raven, called Activity ideas to supplement your reading textbooks.

While the advice presented here is possibly most apt for learners in the 9-15 age brackets (who already have some basic English under their belts), most or certainly many parts of it can be generalised to almost any kind of reading class.

:-)

Twitter for teachers - why you should start tweeting!

Englishraven's view of Twitter from the Tweetdeck!

I'm sure readers of this blog already know about the Twitter phenomenon, and many may already be proficient and copious twitterers. However, if you are a teacher and haven't joined in the tweet-fest yet, I'd like to urge you to give it a try.

Of course, everyone has their own reasons for joining Twitter, and everyone gets something slightly different out of it. For me, I joined Twitter some time ago as part of my usual dabble in new tech and social media things happening around me. I thought it was interesting, but potentially annoying - rather like the way Facebook rapidly (for me) transformed from something with potential into a right pain in the behind. When people started offering to knight me, or land vampire bites on me, and when my email started getting those ridiculous "compare" notifications, I began avoiding Facebook like the plague.

Thankfully, Twitter is quite different. It has the same connecting and networking qualities that Facebook has, without the peripheral temptations, distractions and constant sense of having your personal identity sharked all over the Internet in the name of innane dithering. Twitter's magic - quite aside from the obvious networking potential - is in its simplicity and relatively no-frills design and application.

For me personally (as a teacher and ELT materials designer), Twitter really began to appeal once I moved back from my 10-year stint in Korea to my home country of Australia. Fulfilling a long-held dream, my Korean wife and I settled in a small coastal town some distance outside Melbourne on Victoria's fabulous surf coast. Wonderful lifestyle change, and awesome spot for our two little kids, but quite suddenly I realised I had absolutely nobody to talk to about teaching, English language learning, etc. etc.! For ten years I'd been surrounded by schools, classrooms, learners, teaching colleagues, ELT events and conferences, and - in general - a very active public and social interest in learning English as a foreign or second language. Now, here in our new home town, it's all about the weather, the football, catch-of-the-day specials at the local Fish & Chips shop, and what's going on with the local kindergarten's Parent Council! Worthy conversation topics for sure, but the shock of being extracted from my old life in the thick of things in an EFL environment was pretty harsh.

So I've embraced Twitter with a vengeance, and while it isn't quite the same as before, it's often as good and in some ways even better when it comes to staying in touch with teaching and learning issues, meeting like-minded colleagues, and hearing about all the latest developments with teaching and technology.

So here are ten things I love about Twitter as a teacher and ELT materials designer:

1. You can "meet and tweet" with hundreds, thousands (if not tens of thousands - depends on your appetite!) of other teachers from all over the world.
2. These teachers can come from all walks of life, from all sorts of different teaching contexts, and from all sorts of disciplines (i.e., not just your own area of specialisation, but also related or entirely new teaching spheres).
3. You can listen to and interact with professionals from various spheres within the field - fellow teachers, teacher training specialists, authors, publishers, etc.- and at a very personable level (though you may end up "culled" from people's contact lists if they feel you are being too innane, or don't quite relish the same level of interpersonal contact, so watch out for that!).
4. You can stay very up-to-date with what is happening in your field, at a rate that far exceeds anything you experienced through website browsing or email correspondence.
5. You get a plethora of links and recommendations for materials and teaching ideas (just need to be careful of the distinction between plethora and imbroglio - see below...).
6. You can actually build and benefit from genuine relationships with people you meet on the Twitter network.
7. Teacher-Twitterers tend to be quite interested in technology, without needing to be experts, and this is good if you want to develop this side of your teaching skills and resources.
8. You can enjoy different kinds of participation - some people like to chat, others just to highlight resources, others to ask questions or challenge ideas (and you can choose how you participate or "listen" from day to day or mood to mood, so to speak).
9. You gain a good audience for your blog posts and web-based materials - so long as you're not just in Twitter to relentlessly promote yourself, as Twitterers tend to have a sensitive radar for that sort of thing.
10. You have a lot of control over what you are exposed to - it's relatively easy to switch other people in the network "on" or "off" depending on how valuable you personally find their comments and contributions.

There are probably a lot of other things I like about Twitter as a teacher, but those are the ones that come to mind first.

Of course, there are also some potential negatives to keep in mind:

1. Don't be tempted by the "Social Status" game often associated with Twitter in terms of how many followers you have versus how many people you yourself follow. It can seem like a bit of a popularity contest at times - if you let it. So don't let it!

2. There is a subtle "tweetiquette" involved with Twitter which involves a lot of "mutual grooming" - things like making sure you compliment people who compliment or recommend you, ensuring you "RT" (or Re-Tweet) appropriately, and promoting others through things like #teachertuesday and #followfriday. It can become quite tiring quite quickly, but you need to remember that this is an important way of introducing and confirming people on Twitter - sort of like making sure you introduce your friend when meeting someone else you know, or when someone admires your teaching idea acknowledging who gave it to you in the first place. That said, it requires careful balance. Don't go RTing and recommending people willy nilly or in a sycophantic fashion, as you may be falling prey to the risk I mentioned in (1) above. Be reciprocal but restrained, generous but genuine in the way you acknowledge fellow-Twitterers.

3. The amount of links and recommendations appearing on Twitter can be quite overwhelming at first, and finding the things that will really interest you can feel like you are trying to spot and hit a single tennis ball as one hundred others are launched over the net (mind the pun) at the same time (rf. the potential imbroglio I mentioned earlier). The "mutual grooming" factor can make this even worse, as several people in your contact network re-tweet the same resources at you and everyone else in their networks. My way of handling this is to basically only check out the links from contacts I've found to be the most reliable in terms of similar interests, and/or links that appear several times from different people (the more recommendations something gets, the greater the chance it might be of relevance or interest). Think of it as like being at a big international teaching conference or something, with hundreds of teachers moving and chatting around you, a huge list of options in the presentation schedule (some from teachers like yourself, some from ELT celebrities, some from academic experts, and others that are just straight up commercial), and the constant distraction represented by the publishers' stalls... Negotiating Twitter is rather similar - it can be a matter of focus or tuning out at times, and/or just seeing where things take you.

4. Twitter can become very addictive very quickly, as the real-time nature of it feels so much like being in several conversations at once that it feels like you just can't walk away while people are talking to you (and everyone else, of course!). Once you download something like Tweetdeck, it can become even more addictive as the "tweep" sound notifications come through your computer constantly, no matter what you are doing at the time. You need to be willing to switch Twitter on and off for set periods, or else get used to having it chirp away in the background while you get on with your other online jobs - dropping in from time to time to see what is happening or if there is anything worth checking out or contributing to. As one Twitterer recently commented (a little snidely), the entry message in Twitter ought to be changed from "What are you doing?" to "What are you supposed to be doing?"...   

So there are some basic pros and cons of Twitter from a teacher and materials writer perspective (you'll find many many more around the Internet from other people as well - and remember, I'm a bit of a beginner and not high up at all in the Twitterverse).

Later, I'll let you know whom I've been following on Twitter, and hopefully give you some ideas on like-minded and helpful people you yourself may like to follow.

And if you're interested in following me on Twitter, I'm right here!

:-)

Pondering homeschooling - pros and cons?

Since not long after our first child was born (Jamie - now four years old), I've pondered from time to time the option of homeschooling our kids instead of sending them to regular public school.

There are of course plenty of pros and cons with homeschooling, and here are some of each that I've contemplated up to this point:

PROS OF HOMESCHOOLING

• The chance to have a very hands-on role in my children's education

• Education that caters to my kids' particular interests, strengths and weaknesses

• Creating a bilingual learning environment for our kids (my wife is Korean and our kids have dual citizenship)

• Avoiding for my kids some of the things I particularly disliked about regular school - the sense of indoctrination, the pressure to conform, being a faceless number, and "keeping up with the Smiths"

• The chance to create a highly flexible and innovative learning program for my kids, drawing on things like collaborative technology

• Helping my kids "fly" in areas that particularly appeal to them

• Letting my kids become very independent in their own learning processes

• Being around my kids more often than my own parents were around me (I guess!)

• Possibly cheaper or more cost-effective than regular schooling?

CONS OF HOMESCHOOLING

• Finding the right amount of time to dedicate to it

• Maybe not enough "time out" from our own kids!

• Risk of passing on my own subject area deficiencies or dislikes

• Too much isolation from other children of the same age / not enough chances for them to socialize face to face (this is the hugest concern for my wife and I!)

• Are we as parents actually capable of educating our kids to the standards necessary for university entrance (and if the kids later decide they want to go to regular school, will they be at any disadvantage)?

• Perhaps a sense that there is not enough of a clear line between home for relaxing/playing and a place for learning (not sure this one counts so much)

• Social stigma? - Will our local community consider us to be anti-social weirdos?

Well, there are some of the ponderings I've gone through so far. I know there are a lot of websites and resources out there for homeschoolers, but for now I'd like to just invite comments from other netizens...

Do you homeschool your children? How is it going?

What have the pros and cons been for you and your children so far?

What do you make of the pros and cons I've come up with here in this blog post?

Any resources or links you'd recommend for other people considering homeschooling?

All comments warmly welcomed!

:-)

Great list of speaking games for false beginners from TEFL.net!

Alex Case (from TEFL.net and - more notoriously! - the TEFLtastic blog) recently posted an excellent list of very practical speaking games catering to false beginner learners of English.

In introducing the activities list, Alex points out that "Many teachers seem to think that using games in very low level classes is almost impossible, and the lack of photocopiable materials and game ideas for students under Elementary [level] in books and online reinforces this impression."

Very true indeed, and the great games/activities Alex posted there are abundant evidence that this is not the case at all.

Given that "false beginners" are pretty much the new standard of "general" beginners when it comes to learning English, these classroom ideas are particularly valuable.

Thanks Alex!

 

:-)

 

 

Becoming an ELT materials writer: where do I start? (Step 1)

Having a major teacher resource website and a series of 20 coursebooks published with one of the "Big 4" ELT publishers, a question I get a lot is - "hey, how did you become a writer? I've got some stuff, been using it in my classes, you see..."

My answer to this question is almost always: "Well then, obviously you already are a writer."

Most of the time, this response evokes a sense of amusement in the questioner, often tinged with a shade of politely restrained frustration - as if to say "don't patronize me... we both know you're a writer and I want to become a writer, and that's why I asked you the question, you knob!"

Well, I stand by my answer - because I still maintain it is true - while at the same time aknowledging that it may not be the answer people expect or hope for. Five years ago, I probably wouldn't have been willing to see myself as an "ELT writer", despite the fact that I'd already (by that stage) been writing ELT materials for 5+ years - materials that were being used in classrooms with real learners by myself and other teachers.

The problem appears to be with the basic expectation that becoming an ELT materials writer means being picked up by a publisher and having your materials bound in a nice cover, with your name on the front, taking pride of place next to successful coursebook series on the shelf of your nearest English education bookshop.

I strongly urge budding ELT materials writers out there to avoid this narrow interpretation of ELT writing success - 1) because the chances of a major ELT publisher taking you on are depressingly slim no matter how good you are (or think you are!); 2) major publishers are only one of several avenues to successful materials writing and dissemination; and 3) writing for major publishers can actually restrain your growth as a dynamic and innovative materials developer.

It's important to start somewhere, whatever it is you do in any walk of life, and if you've already started making good quality materials for your classes, you've made a perfect start.

So at the risk of sounding patronizing and dismissive, I hope readers are willing to embrace this initial definition as a realistic starting point:

Step 1: I write my own materials and use them in my own classes. I am an education materials writer.

If this applies to you, welcome to the field of educational materials design/writing! Maybe hold off at this early stage from telling everyone you meet that you're a writer, because you could be seen to be putting on airs or exaggerating - because of that narrow interpretation of writing success I mentioned earlier.

But tell yourself, and be proud of it! You've taken that first important step and gone from just consuming other people's materials to producing and using your own.

Enjoy this stage, because it's possibly the most enjoyable one! You can experiment very freely, and if your stuff is any good, you'll get immediate positive feedback from how the class works and how the learners themselves react to the materials. It's also the stage where stuff-ups don't really matter all that much - and experimenting inevitably involves plenty of stuff-ups. You and your learners will - at this stage - be pretty ready to forgive the mistakes, and that in turn gives you more confidence to experiment even more. Also, mistakes are as important (if not more important) than successes in helping you improve your work and produce good quality materials more consistently - so embrace your stuff-ups!

Go for your life! And you know what: I really DO envy you! Just writing for yourself and your learners is a wonderful and rewarding experience, full of freedom and discovery. If you don't progress (much) beyond this stage, know that you are already a success, and you may even be avoiding some frustration and pain in the future...

I intend to pursue a simple step-by-step process in explaining the path to ELT materials writing success, and the next important step is preparing the right materials in the right ways to facilitate other people using your materials as well.

More on that very soon!

  

:-)

Free Sentence Navigator kit download!

Here's a little bonus for my weblog visitors - free access to a complete Sentence Navigator kit download from the Member's section of EnglishRaven.com!

 

This is the second edition complete kit for Sentence Navigator Two, and you can download it instantly at the link below:

SENTENCE NAVIGATOR TWO

You can see the syllabus details and scope/sequence for Navigator Two at the link here, and there are teacher's notes and examples for the various activity types available here.

I wrote the Sentence Navigator series years ago, well before I started writing any sort of major commercial material. The idea was to bring a discovery and puzzle approach to basic level grammar and writing skills for kids. All four levels in the series became a very popular alternative to the boring (and often very difficult) grammar coursebooks used in the schools I taught at.

Interestingly enough, the Sentence Navigator materials still appear to be among the most popular downloads on the site!

You can see the scope and sequence for all four Sentence Navigator kits at this link, and if you are interested in accessing the other three kits, you'll need to consider the unthinkable and actually become an English Raven member (and yes, that costs money: US$20 per year - or approximately less than $2 per month!).

:-)

Back to the magic of teaching unplugged (Part 1)

Yesterday my copy of Teaching Unplugged (Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings) arrived. It's a brand new publication from Delta Publishing in what looks to be an exciting new line of teacher development books. I had to order my copy here in Australia through Delta's Melbourne-based distributor at the Bookery in Carlton.

Like probably most teachers, I've been interested in the basic idea of teaching "unplugged" (as in, with a minimum of peripheral materials or teaching aids - with the learners and teacher themselves being all that is essentially required for a language learning lesson to happen) ever since I first stepped into a classroom, but perhaps didn't quite realise it!

This is a brief introductory preview for a full review of Teaching Unplugged that I plan to add to the blog a little later. However, just at this point (having spent half a night sinking my teeth into this great book), I can't help but comment on what the concept of the book (and Thornbury's broader Dogme ELT) evokes in a teacher.

I recall my very first observation of a young learner English class in Korea (going back a good 10 years now...) - a group of little 5-6 year olds being taught by some Canadian bloke who had all of 4 months ELT experience at that point. I was especially curious (and attentive), because the observation was happening as a prelude to me taking over this particular class the very next day (I'd been in Korea for less than 24 hours, and I was about to start teaching YLs in little less than another 24 hours! ~ passes for "teacher training" in the South Korean ELT context). Most of the other teachers I'd observed had kids doing acrobat stunts off tables and chairs or else were attempting to glue the children's chins to their textbooks - but this guy... his kids were calm, happy and talkative.

I asked him how he managed to teach little kids with so little previous training or experience, and he said: "It's actually easier than you think. You bring in some paper and pencils, because the kids like to draw, and you just - well, you know - talk with them. Ask 'em stuff - they'll ask you some stuff, see where it goes." ELT (and in particular YL) specialists out there might be quick to state this is an oversimplification, but in fact it is a highly USEFL simplification that goes straight to the heart of enjoyable, effective and relevant language teaching! And note that he said "talk with them" - not "talk to them."

This was, and remains to this day, the best advice anyone has ever given me about how to teach English to children. The Canuck bloke involved was Dean Stafford, who has since become a lifetime close friend and colleague. He's gone somewhat beyond using paper and pencils as his whole lesson plan since then (he has a Pearson Longman coursebook coming out soon, and as I write this he's working his teaching wonders in public elementary school settings in Korea), but he's one of the most effective teachers I've ever seen in any classroom. I think that has a lot to do with the mentality he started out with.

In the years since then, I have to admit that the very best lessons that I can recall - and certainly the most interesting, entertaining, and interactive - usually involved little or no materials (and/or materials that were very open and blank - ready for the learners to turn into something). A lot of teachers go into a sort of induced panic if they are called on to teach a class with no coursebook or lesson plan. This is the rather detrimental effect of working in a profession that has become indoctrinated with the idea that coursebooks and detailed lesson plans are the bread and butter of professional and effective language course delivery. What teachers really need to know is that, when walking into a classroom, by being there and having learners to interact with and guide - all the essential ingredients of an effective lesson are already there in the room... if the teacher remembers to bring along the right mentality and philosophy.

If this sounds appealing to you, then this new book on teaching unplugged will be a revelation, a comfort, and an encouraging guiding influence. In adding to the already heavy corpus of teaching methodology and teacher development tomes, the refreshing thing about Teaching Unplugged is that it is relatively simple, very approachable, and positively reeks of common sense - you get a real sense of already knowing what this book is telling you (you just forgot it somewhere along the way)... which I'm sure was Thornbury and Meddings' goal from the start.

Part 2 of this book review, providing more detailed information about the content of the book and my reactions to it, will be along very soon!

:-)

Distributing and selling your ELT materials online!

Nik Peachey recently wrote an interesting and informative blog post on how you might go about selling your ELT materials online using something called Tagito. Basically, it's a facility that allows you to promote and sell individual downloads.

Learning about Tagito is interesting enough - and worth checking out - but I've also posted a fairly detailed response in the blog thread there about how I operate English Raven's pay-for materials: essentially, through a general subscription membership that allows people to access whatever they want from the site over a period of one year.

I've since checked back and seen some more interesting comments from other netizens, related to why they are or aren't willing to pay for online materials, or else explaining other options for selling material online. Something that caught my eye was the option of self-publishing using Lulu (looks great, but could be expensive if you're located outside the US).

It's an interesting discussion for any budding ELT materials writers out there wondering how they can generate a little extra coin for their hard work and creative efforts!

:-)

A test of speaking for English Language Teaching?

This time last year, I was juggling two ELT positions in Korea at the same time: visiting professor in the English Education department at Kyungpook National University (mainly responsible for training Korean secondary school English teachers), and Business English consultant/teacher for an outsourcing company working with Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction (one of Korea's BIG companies!).

It was always interesting to discover ways in which the two positions could overlap!

For the Doosan execs, one of the things I had to do was prepare them for the TOEIC speaking test. After many years of grappling with test-prep, I found the TOEIC speaking test to be refreshingly pragmatic and grounded in the real needs of learners and business settings. Still, as is my wont, I couldn't help finding ways to adapt the basic format to more closely target the situation and needs of my Doosan students (Korean managers and technicians specializing in everything from research and design to international sales and major project management). After creating my own version of the basic TOEIC speaking test for the students to practice with, I went ahead and designed a more targeted version for my Doosan learners - called TOEIC FLEX Speaking (HI): a flexible rendition of the TOEIC speaking test especially for Heavy Industries and Construction.

I was mightily pleased with the learners' response to this specialized version of the TOEIC, but also at just how easy it was to adapt and really target to the learners' real world needs and professional requirements. That was when it occured to me that this basic TOEIC speaking test format could be adapted for the professional needs of non-native English language teachers as well!

The result was the TOEIC FLEX Speaking ELT test - a much expanded and reinterpreted rendition of the basic TOEIC speaking test made especially for English Language Teachers, and ready to trial with the 20-odd students in my Methodology of Practical English Teaching course at Kyungpook National University! I now tentatively call this application the TSELT (Test of Speaking for English Language Teachers).

Making, applying, and following up on this specialized test was an amazing experience, full of new discoveries and revelations. You can peruse the full test here, but of equal or even more interest are the follow up applications that were experimented with following the actual test-taking.

Based on their experiences and impressions of the test, I had students give their opinions in a variety of quantitative and qualitative polls online. A full overview of the test syllabus, screenshots of the individual sections, plus quantitative and qualitative survey results can be seen at a glance in the following document:

Download KNU_TSELT_Presentation_handouts_Jason_Renshaw[1]

This was a handout accompanying a presentation I did on this topic/research at a regional teacher conference in Daegu not long after students took the test. Contrary to initial expectations, teachers saw the worth in this test and thought they'd gained a lot in taking it! Helps of course that it was applied informally and did not count whatsoever toward their final grades in my course...

The qualitative responses were collected in an online forum at the link here, and make for very interesting reading! The point made about this test being equally valid and challenging for NATIVE English language teachers is possibly the most intriguing!

Possibly even more interesting was the final follow-up application: I put the students into groups of 4 and had them go ahead and make their own new versions of the test, using new content within (what they figured were) the parameters of the test I'd already made and applied with them. Here is an example of a new version of the same test, made by a group of student teachers. The general point of this was to include the students in the process, take them inside test-design (to learn in a hands-on fashion about test validity and reliability), and reflect on the sorts of classroom challenges and speaking skills they'd need in their future teaching careers.

So far, this has been little more than an interesting experiment, exploring the idea of a reliable and useful measuring tool of non-native English language teachers' ability to not only speak English, but use it effectively while applying good basic teaching methodology in the classroom. To be honest, the process was more about taking these student teachers on a journey of discovery and professional critical thinking and self-reflection than anything else. The plan is to expand the basic format more and adapt it into a tool for teacher self-development, goal-setting and awareness - hopefully avoiding that word "TEST"!

For now, I'd be interested in anyone's reactions to this initial research, and I'll throw some carrot questions out there in the hope it provokes some opinions...

• Is it fair to "test" the speaking ability of English language teachers?
• Is it possible to actually test this ability reliably?
• Is it a good idea to go beyond basic everyday speaking ability and apply it to the professional occupation and settings most relevant to professional language teachers?
• Would non-experienced or non-trained native speaker teachers end up doing better on this test than trained and experienced non-native teachers with less speaking confidence?
• How many teachers out there would realistically be willing to use this tool (and test themselves) independently fo professional development purposes?
• What would you add to or take away from the test format as it currently stands?

Interested in hearing your thoughts!!!

:-)

WordAhead: online vocabulary learning resource

During my most recent twanderings on Twitter, I came across this fascinating online resource made by Faiza Khan in the States - called WordAhead.

It's a beautiful site with wonderful vocabulary cartoons for learners. Admittedly the word list varies from high intermediate to extremely advanced (quite a few words there I hadn't used for some time or couldn't actually recall!) - but more importantly, I love the concept.

Faiza also lets you install widgets featuring her videos and card games on your site or blog, so thanks Faiza - I shall!

Now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to my usual audience of teachers of children and teenagers (unless you have some exam prep going on for later teens), but I've posted it here because I love the concept!

Faiza, if you can make a version of this for younger learners with more basic vocabulary items, you'll be on a real winner - I assure you!

:-)

 

Who wrote your coursebook? Are they qualified?

Beyond the gleaming cover and the publisher's bold declaration that this is THE coursebook for you, integrating THE very best and newest aspects of teaching methodology, made especially for YOUR learners ("motivate!" will almost always appear there), you may also be the sort to glance and see who actually wrote this new bound up set of papers that is going to form the backbone of your ELT class curriculum.

Names can be very important in the English Language Teaching industry. Publishers create this and also feed off it, because a "big" name on a new textbook can have a massive impact on sales. By a "big" name, I refer mostly to those ESL/EFL VIPs that you often see headlining international conferences and appearing as a glowing or halo-crowned figure on promotional materials for special seminars organized by the publishers.

Unfortunately, these people can be rather unqualified when it comes to writing books for certain segments, or - an alternative way of looking at it - over-qualified to the point of being almost completely out of touch.

The best examples of this are textbook courses for children and teenagers written by ELT experts who have either never actually set foot in a classroom with these age groups, or haven't actually done so for an alarmingly long time. This can also happen in terms of contextual relevance - books written for Asian EFL contexts by language learning experts who have no personal experience of the challenges faced in classrooms in this part of the world. Given that books for younger learners/teens and the massive demand for coursebooks in Asia probably make up THE biggest slice of ELT title sales worldwide these days, these examples become particularly poignant.

Now, I don't mention all this to be unnecessarily inflammatory or provocative, but in essence, using a coursebook in an Asia-based younger learner classroom context - written by a bigwig ELT celebrity who rarely visits the area and hasn't actually taught children before (or for a very long period of time) - is rather like having a Nobel Prize-winning biologist (in England) make the best recommendations on how to set up, grow and then maintain your lovely little garden (on the rugged steppes of China).

By way of example, some years ago now there was a lot of excitement around the ELT traps when one of the very biggest ELT names put out a certain coursebook. Sales of this coursebook in Asia broke all sorts of records worldwide, and it certainly was a very zippy and glossy looking product that no doubt incorporated plenty of the methodology and research this famous figure was particularly well-known for. It even made some pretty big claims about being THE perfect coursebook for teenagers, and for teenagers in Asia in particular. Hey, I was taken in! I'd read this person's fantastic books on methodology, and they were great. I took a look, liked the general course structure and emphases, and incorporated it into the curriculum of the school I was managing in Korea at the time.

I really should have looked more closely at it and been more resistant to the hype and marketing plaudits, because the book was pretty darned awful. My teenage learners detested it (as much as I like anything that can encourage students to talk with real emotion, I'd rather it wasn't in the form of creative explanations about how their textbook could be set on fire or - well, other things...), and after a week or so of classes, the very presence of it on my teacher's desk used to fill me with dread. Oh, and don't worry - all those co-teachers I'd sold on using it as well were pretty quick to let me know this reaction wasn't limited to one teacher or one class of teenagers. As I found out (and not for the first time), the choices an academic coordinator makes at the start of a long spring term can really impact on how many invites you get to join the rest of the teachers out at the local restaurant or pub.

"On paper" the book was decent, and seemed to cross all the t's and dot all the i's. However, the methodology in practice was fussy, inflexible, at times bordering on dogmatic, and most often not all that well suited to Asian classrooms. The content did not appeal to the learners at all, and was rather similar to the effect a person in their late 30s or early 40s has when trying to engage teenagers with what they think is the current hip-talk. There were also other complications that the writer and publisher obviously didn't consider all that well. Non-native teachers found the teacher's notes baffling, and the page layout meant there was deceptively more to cover there than at first appeared (and in Korea, you do NOT skip over or leave sections of the textbook unfinished!). The book became a disappointment and something of a major burden for all concerned.

Now I'm usually the first to point out that books are supposed to help a teacher do their core job and not the other way around, and that good teachers can always find ways around non-relevant content or activities. Sure. But in Asia in particular, teachers and learners habitually place a huge amount of regard and trust in their core textbooks. If the book is a flop, it has much bigger consequences than in other (more eclectic) teaching contexts where teachers possibly have greater freedoms and students (and importantly - parents) may be more flexible with how coursebooks operate within a broader curriculum and learning goals. In Asia, for better or worse, the textbook usually IS the whole course. What was particularly disappointing with the publication mentioned here is that it was written by one of the biggest ELT experts EVER, and was promoted straight up by the publisher as being made ESPECIALLY for Asian teenagers. What was abundantly clear to me after that rather horrid experience was that the writer AND the publisher had not actually taught a class of teenage Asia-based students for a very long time (let's talk decades here) or quite possibly never before at all. Just because a book claims learners will "go for it!" doesn't mean they will or can based only on marketing hype and a big name on the front...

This could be rather unfairly pointing a critical finger at a very accomplished methodology and research expert working with a somewhat prestigious publisher, but I think not: they know what they are doing and ought to do it better. However, the real issue is teachers doing better research on their coursebooks and the people who wrote them. Just because the writer shakes people's hands warmly at conferences and entertains big crowds of adoring acolytes doesn't mean that textbook with their name on it is a dead-set winner for your context and classroom.

I write this post because you can expect more of the same on a grander scale when it comes to celebrity coursebooks in the future. The bigger publishers appear to be increasingly unwilling to look for, nurture and support local professionals in order to make age and context-appropriate coursebooks. They figure their well-paid "expert" editors (I could write another whole post on how little actual classroom experience many of these people have as well...) and hordes of sales/marketing staff can handle that side of things while the celebrity prepares some of the content and lends their all-important name to the cover.

So here are my final messages to teachers, VIP writers, and publishers:

• Teachers: Don't just refrain from judging a book my its cover: beware of instantly trusting or buying in a coursebook based on a big ELT expert name on the cover. Find out whether this person has actually taught the age groups the book is targeting (most of the bigger name ELT celebrities have never taught children or even haven't taught in Asia before, despite the book targeting that area of the world). Hey - they might have pulled off a fine coursebook, but there's every chance a local expert fresh from current or very recent ACTUAL classroom experience in your context will be able to come up with a better coursebook for you. Most importantly, really take a very close and careful look at whatever coursebook you mean to put in front of your learners, and remember that the names and publisher logo on the front are pretty much irrelevant.

• ELT VIP Budding Coursebook Writers: Of course you can make good textbooks (and yes, you'll sell so many more of them than you do methodology books), but if you're going to write a course for young Asian learners, do your already very well-earned reputation a favour, take 6 months off from the glory of the conference presentation track and book-signings, and actually go and teach in the environment you mean to write for. No - I don't mean just make some nice visits and have lots of pleasant video-recorded chats with teachers in that context (doing the research, so to speak) while sitting on a sort of celebrity throne at the back of a classroom, or else enjoying a salubrious time over local cuisine and making charmingly diplomatic compliments about the culture - get into the classroom and actually teach! Look into those learners' eyes, fight your way through grading and class reports at a desk made for a gnome symposium, and really experience what is going on in the places you intend to write for. And in case I make setting that up sound easier than it is, I can recommend some great little schools for you where I can assure you the owners, teachers and students have never even remotely heard of you (and if they have, I can organise some pretty creative disguises for you), and as the newest teacher you'll get the worst split schedule with the most "difficult" students and your desk will either be next to or actually in an already crowded broom closet. But trust me, you really will love it, and your coursebooks will be awesome!

• Publishers: Help organise a reasonable amount of genuine teaching time for the above-mentioned VIPs if you're going to have them write THE next miracle tome for English Language Learning success. Pay them a handsome advance that can later be deducted from their initial rounds of royalties... Also, make sure your expert editors are not just faithful hard workers that have worked their way up the convoluted and political corporate tree: either make sure they have actual classroom teaching experience or else organise for them to get it as part of their regular duties. Last but not least (and preferably), do more to find real teachers with real localised experience to write specific kinds of coursebooks for specific learner segments.

No doubt this will have potentially ruffled some feathers somewhere, so please be assured any apparent sarcasm was actually a feeble attempt at humour, and feel free to comment if you think anything I've written is untrue or unfair! One person's opinion can be another person's soapbox...

:-) 

Larry Ferlazzo's entire US History Curriculum for ELLs available online

I'm a big fan of Larry's, and to be honest, if you're here reading my blog, then you could probably be spending your time more effectively by being over at his blog and reading his stuff!

Anyway, Larry has exhibited his usual extraordinary generosity and recently provided public access to his entire online US History Curriculum for English language learners. Blogs (his and students'), lesson plans and materials - you name it, it's all there.

CBI (Content-based Learning) and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning - why do the Europeans have to name everything differently? CBI as a term has been around much longer and as far as anyone can tell basically means the exact same thing) are pretty popular movements in ELT these days, so I think Larry's curriculum and materials (and let's not forget his great ideas!) could become an amazing resource for teachers. Remember also that Larry's specific specialisation is with ESL, so you can expect this stuff to be much more teacher and student friendly than just regular mainstream history content.

Get on over there - and, um - yeah, remember that it's probably better to follow his blog than mine...

:-)

 

The one real reward you can rely on as a teacher...

If you're a language teacher - and especially a teacher of children or adolescents or young adults - there have probably been plenty of occasions (as you consider your ridiculously demanding schedule, comparatively meagre salary, and those exhausted headaches that follow marking duties) where you have wondered whether it was all worth it.

Well, promotions, better schedules and holidays, and the odd really "magic" class or smiling face can certainly help to ease the burden, but there is one true reward for teachers that never fails to brighten up my eyes and at the same time make me feel like a sleepy old tree in a garden full of rapidly thriving plants that I never sort of, well - noticed were growing so well...

That's when you meet or hear from a student years after you taught them.

I've had plenty of these moments, as I'm sure many teachers reading this have, too. Off the top of my head, there was the strapping young man who stopped me in the street in Korea, greeting me by name in flawless English that rang with self-confidence. I'd taught him four years previously as a high school student, and he was now really going places at a top-tier university in China. At first I didn't recognise him, but within seconds the eyes and the smile closed the gap in my cobwebby memory. When had this nice, shy, rather studious teenager with struggling English turned into this tall, confident and very well-spoken man of the world?

The younger the age of the student (when you taught them), the more profound the surprise and emotion when you meet them again later. I taught a little girl in Korea in kindergarten when she was about 4 or 5 years old (and I was a first year teacher without any real training at all in terms of teaching such young children). Five years later, I'd moved city and was managing a new private academy specialising mostly in upper primary and middle school age groups. This girl (now a 5th grader) walked into the academy with her mother, and asked for me by name (they'd moved to the same new city and her mother had heard I was managing a school there).

I was flattered that student and mother had remembered me (and had come to this school specifically based on my presence there), but beyond that I was simply floored to see how much she had grown up, and how that early promise she'd exhibited with English had really flourished. I remembered all the late night reading I'd done to learn more about how little kids learn, all the mornings going in extra early to make and laminate special games for them, etc. etc. bla. bla. - and well, sorry to sound misty, but I felt proud of both of us. I had to find an excuse to go back into the staffroom to hide the tears in my eyes.

There have been many other meetings "after the fact (of having taught a student)" like this, some predictable but many almost freakishly random. The Internet and Web 2.0 facilities like blogs, Twitter and Facebook have certainly increased the chances of students tracking you down if they remember you and want to find you. Just tonight I heard from an undergraduate student I'd taught at a university in Daegu, Korea, who has just made her way into a prestigious post-graduate international relations course at one of Korea's best universities. The warmth of her correspondence and the things she appeared to remember most really got me to thinking that - as teachers - it's often easy for us to forget the many faces and the countless lessons, but for them - the students - if you manage to make a good impression on them and turn on a light or two in their minds, they never forget you.

And if they do run into you or come along and find you - be prepared: these young people have the potential to make you feel better about yourself and the job you did/are doing than you ever thought imaginable! Not necessarily because you were a great teacher or a good person or whatever - but because the person standing there in front of you makes you realise that it was all very much worth it!

 

What about other teachers out there? Do you have any feel-good or gob-smacked stories about students you've run into many years after you were their teacher?

 

Looking for some good pictures and images to help you with your teaching?

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

Probably the best blog in the world for teachers of English as a second or foreign language!

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

 

 

Teaching English in English (or Teaching English through English) in South Korea

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

 

 

World News for Kids! arrives to English Raven

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