Learning Twigs

Wizard English Grids for classroom introductions

 

 
Creating and mixing some bubbles in that first class... Image: Nick Harris

 

 

 

Yet another application of my ol' favourite, the Wizard English Grid (a post with a downloadable version of the grid is available here), this time to facilitate classroom introductions in a way that cushions the potential stress for those first-time students, but also hopefully gathers a richer array of information about students and offers more targeted opportunities for spoken interaction.

 

 

 

Jason demonstrates how to apply the Wizard English Grid to facilitate "getting to know" style activities relevant to first classes or classroom introductions

 

 

 

Looking forward to using it again myself next week with some new classes, and hope some teachers out there feel it might be worth trying with their new groups as well.

 

 

:-D

 

 

                       

 

A writing coursebook: Can you read between the lines?

 

 
Image: bgblogging

 

 

I've been glancing through my writing coursebooks for tweens and teens, doing a bit of reminiscing -- about the years of writing instruction experience that preceded making the books, then the actual process of planning and writing them, and then the classroom experience actually using the coursebooks with learners.

 

Of all the strands I wrote for the Boost! Integrated Skills Series, I think the writing coursebooks were the ones I put the most thought, planning and passion into. They were also the books that -- for me personally -- were most called for in classroom settings (because writing is a genuine skill that needs work and some sort of incremental approach) and were actually really effective and popular with almost all the students I saw exposed to them.

 

But -- and I'm sure I'm certainly not the first coursebook writer to find him/herself pausing and scratching his/her head about this -- I've always wondered how much teachers realise about the planning, sequencing and delivery of skills in the books. I'm usually only called on to answer enquiries about specific skills or activities here or there, and almost never about the books' wider and integrated objectives.

 

So I'm going to toss out a bit of a challenge to my blog readers here...

 

Let's see, just based on the sort of "scope and sequence" information, how much teachers can immediately recognise or pick up about a writing coursebook's approach and overall objectives.

 

What follows is a list of the units and their basic skills foci across four levels. Let's see what you can observe about them (and how they relate to my intentions and objectives as the course designer and writer).

 

 

 

Level 1

Unit 1:  Sentences: Writing clearly with basic punctuation

Unit 2:  Paragraphs: Grouping text together around single topics

Unit 3:  Practical Texts: Writing simple letters and emails to friends

Unit 4:  Academic Texts: Brainstorming simple topical/opinion essays

Unit 5:  Sentences: Using titles and headings

Unit 6:  Paragraphs: Writing simple topic sentences for paragraphs

Unit 7:  Practical Texts: Making lists

Unit 8:  Academic Texts: Making a writing plan

Unit 9: Sentences: Combining similar sentences

Unit 10:  Paragraphs: Joining ideas together with formal and informal connections

Unit 11:  Practical Texts: Responding to an email or letter

Unit 12:  Academic Texts: Simple opinion essays responding to topics

 

 

Level 2

Unit 1:  Sentences: Using pronouns effectively

Unit 2:  Paragraphs: Writing an introductory paragraph

Unit 3:  Practical Texts: Making cards for special events

Unit 4:  Academic Texts: Brainstorming and planning a response to a topic

Unit 5:  Sentences: Writing descriptive sentences

Unit 6:  Paragraphs: Writing body paragraphs

Unit 7:  Practical Texts: Simple advertising texts

Unit 8:  Academic Texts: Writing simple descriptive essays

Unit 9:  Sentences: Writing facts and opinions

Unit 10:  Paragraphs: Writing a conclusion

Unit 11:  Practical Texts: Responding to articles or stories

Unit 12:  Academic Texts: Editing simple 4-paragraph essays

 

 

Level 3

Unit 1:  Sentences: Accurate tenses to indicate time

Unit 2:  Paragraphs: Writing interesting introductions

Unit 3:  Practical Texts: Writing a journal entry

Unit 4:  Academic Texts: Writing essays about personal experience

Unit 5:  Sentences: Comparing and contrasting

Unit 6:  Paragraphs: Writing paragraphs with main ideas and supporting details

Unit 7:  Practical Texts: Writing advertising notices

Unit 8:  Academic Texts: Writing simple compare and contrast essays

Unit 9:  Sentences: Writing simple instructions or advice

Unit 10:  Paragraphs: Writing effective conclusions

Unit 11:  Practical Texts: Writing a set of instructions

Unit 12:  Academic Texts: Writing a simple How-to essay

 

 

Level 4

Unit 1:  Sentences: Writing sentences to show cause/effect

Unit 2:  Paragraphs: Introducing new products or information

Unit 3:  Practical Texts: Writing explanatory letters or emails

Unit 4:  Academic Texts: Writing a 4-paragraph expository essay

Unit 5:  Sentences: Writing using the passive voice

Unit 6:  Paragraphs: Using synonyms and referents effectively

Unit 7:  Practical Texts: Making puzzles

Unit 8:  Academic Texts: Writing a 5-paragraph expository essay

Unit 9:  Sentences: Using set phrases and signpost language

Unit 10:  Paragraphs: Using topics, details and effective examples

Unit 11:  Practical Texts: Writing formal letters of application

Unit 12:  Academic Texts: Writing 5-paragraph argumentative essays

 

 

 

I've deliberately avoided showing units and pages here, because I'm most interested, just in terms of the overall "syllabus," what this represents to teachers and what they can see in the methodology involved.

 

It's not a test, by the way!

 

But this will be helpful to me personally in answering two questions that rather constantly keep coming back to me:

 

1. Do teachers really see/understand the planning and objectives and broader methodology underlying a coursebook approach?

2. Do teachers accept the "authority" and "credibility" of a coursebook too willingly or even blindly -- without putting a lot of critical thought into it?

 

 

                    

Anyway, let's see what you come up with!

 

                              

                           

:-D

 

 

                                     

 

YOUR place? YOUR space? Make sure you read the fine print...

 

 

 

I was initially impressed and positive when I first came across Pearson Longman's ELT Community site. Great interface, good discussion sections and ideas, and an intuitively user-friendly format.

 

I've since avoided it completely (and NOT because I have a personal gripe against one small wing of the overall company).

 

This section of the incredibly detailed Terms and Conditions page on the site not only turned me off, it actually got me a little bit angry (not least because it was tucked away far down an overall list of serious legal mumbo-jumbo):

           

 

By posting your comments or materials on the Interactive Areas and the Community, you grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, world-wide licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, publish, make available, distribute, include in other works, sub-license and display any content you submit to us in any format now known or later developed. By submitting material you acknowledge that you waive any moral rights you may have in it.

If you do not want to grant us these rights, please do not submit your comments or materials to us.

 

 

And this after a very lengthy and fastidious lecture about how users are permitted to use and prohibited from using the so-called "community" and its content...

 

You bet your bottom dollar I am not going to submit my comments or materials to you, Pearson.

 

 

Community?

"Your" place?

"Your" space?

 

 

I knew (from personal experience) that Pearson was pretty obsessed with profit, but actively luring in ELTers with the promise of their own community and then forcing them (quite possibly without their knowledge) to waive any moral rights to their own materials (which could then appear in commercial Pearson products)...? 

 

Not pretty. Not good.

 

                      

 

                                            

 

Raven Reboot: Wizard English Grids to create vocabulary learning resources

 

I was reviewing a recent post about vocabulary building resources (the "Wordwise" worksheet or workbook approach) and also browsing my Wizard English Grids category on the blog when I came across this post from a little over a year ago:

 

Wizard English Grids to create vocabulary learning resources

 

In a lot of ways, I think the screencast (and basic Wizard English Grid format) there represent probably my favourite and most practical approach to vocabulary building for EFL/ESL learners, so I thought it might be worth re-blogging!

 

 

 

[Aside]: I find the Wizard English Grid format to be the most flexible and creative of ANY resource I've ever designed, so as I prepare to start teaching new classes next week, I'm wondering about the reaction in the staff room... when my new colleagues see me doing a 10-week term's preparation in front of the photocopier reeling off a couple hundred copies of a 4 X 5 square blank grid!

 

 

:-D

 

                                            

                        

 

Some Twitter basics for teachers who are absolute beginners

                        

 
What a "personal learning network"(PLN) means to teachers based on a survey done by Caroline O'Bannon.

                                    

 

A couple of weeks ago I did an introductory ICT workshop for a group of local teachers here in Geelong Australia, and one of the things they expressed keen interest in was how to get on board with Twitter for continuing professional development.

 

I had this video introduction to Twitter (specifically with English Language Teachers in mind) prepared in advance, and the teachers seemed to like it. So time now to share it around even further - perhaps it could be something you recommend to teachers who are nervously interested in the idea of Twitter for professional development and building a PLN, but really feel they have absolutely no idea where to start...

                     

 

Get some basic tips about Twitter to help you start building a personal learning network with other teachers from around the world.

 

 

 

:-D

 

                               

 

 

Wizard English Grids for Emergent Language Development

                          

 
Image: Emma Cunningham

                          

 

In another of various modes of preparation I am going through before heading back to classroom teaching next week, I have dug out another application of the English Raven Wizard English Grid which I quite often turn to.

 

This application involves using a simple grid to help capture, correct, analyze, extend and/or enhance the emergent language that comes out in general classroom discussion.

 

The screencast below shows how I apply this in some detail.

 

Jason demonstrates how he uses 'Wizard English Grids' to select emergent language from classroom discussions, then correct, explain and enhance it in small ongoing sections.

 

 

Interestingly, I noticed after doing the screencast (which was very much done on the fly, much the same way as I would handle emergent language in a real classroom setting) that I might actually approach and explain some of the examples a little differently (through the benefit of hindsight). For example, I would probably like to explain the difference between "I live in..." and "I am living in..." in terms of the latter being potentially a temporary situation, which could also be favourably compared to something like "I am staying in/at/with..."

 

That realisation is helpful in terms of identifying another aspect of dealing with unplanned emergent language "on the spot" in the classroom.

 

Reflection later in or after the actual class will often present new ideas about ways to explain or explore aspects of particular types of emergent language (not to mention our ability as teachers to hit upon the most relevant or accurate characteristics, relationships or issues in application to both learner language and target language norms). These realisations create excellent additional teaching opportunities for follow up classes, but also strengthen our capacity to approach and negotiate emergent language in future teaching situations in general.

 

In any case, the highlights (or key characteristics) of this approach are:

- Learners' own production is used as the basis for language development opportunities

- There is emphasis on going beyond simple corrections to explanations and extensions

- These explanations and extensions are relatively simple and brief

- There is some effort to highlight meaning and use, as well as form

- There is a natural blur between the notions of "grammar" and "vocabulary"

- It assumes it could be beneficial to handle aspects of language in relatively small amounts in an ongoing fashion rather than all at once according to a "full on" pre-prepared grammar syllabus

- Learners as a group can potentially benefit from sharing and thinking about the emergent language that individual learners produce in class

- Regular application allows for recycling and awareness/analysis of language and language patterns from a variety of different, connected or interrelated angles

- Teachers cannot always expect themselves to be able to explain in graphic detail everything and anything about language patterns and rules

- Teachers can always potentially add something relevant and useful to students' awareness about the language they are producing

- Regular application improves a teacher's awareness about emergent language as well as relevant patterns and rules across a wider (and often unpredictable) range of target language features

- Learners notice (and generally tend to appreciate) that their own language is taking centre stage and is being explored in ways that will be helpful to them personally

 

                                   

 

So, there's one of several ways I "deal with" emergent language in my classrooms on an ongoing basis. 

 

Anyone else got some ideas of their own in terms of drawing on and working effectively with emergent language?

 

We're all ears...!

 

                                    

:-D

 

                                  

 

                 

 

Ambilingual? No such thing, really...

                         

 

Flying high in multiple languages (English, Korean and "Hannese")...

                              

Our little daughter Hannah is at that interesting stage (notice I didn't say 'age') where her baby babble is starting to shift and result in threads of more targeted and coherent communication. And being bilingual, these threads often come out in English, Korean or (more commonly) her own creative interpretation of both - weaving in and out and through each other. It's a beautiful thing to watch and listen to.

 

And just this morning, our 5-year-old son Jamie woke up and decided he'd like to start the day speaking Korean, commenting about the bruise on his knee from a bit of a football mishap at kindergarten yesterday, along with an enquiry (sometimes they sound more like an inquiry) about the status of his little sister's breakfast consumption.

 

Thus it was with more than a passing interest that I read an article that Barbara Sakamoto tweeted earlier today, titled Sacking an Ideal: The Evil Ambilingual.

 

As a father to bilingual children, everything explored in that article rings very true. The interpretation of "bilingual" there also reminded me poignantly of an interesting conversation I had with Jamie at bed time the other day. He was explaining to me that he could speak "Australian" and "Hanguk-mal" (Korean), his mother could speak "Hanguk-mal" and "Australian", his dad could speak "Australian" and "Hanguk-mal", and his little sister could only really speak "Hanna-talk" (but it had some "Hanguk-mal" and "Australian" in it).

 

His observations are even more interesting when you look at the specific order or sequence he listed the languages for each person in his family. He does indeed speak more English than Korean, while his mother is generally stronger in Korean than English; his father prefers English over Korean, while Hanna's language is evolving but generally exhibits more communication resembling Korean than English. He is actually spot on in his analysis.

 

But rather than calling ourselves parents of two bilingual children, I think it is more accurate (and useful) to think of us as a bilingual family. Both English and Korean are spoken in the home by all members of the family, though the amount and proportion can vary either by family member or any given day.

 

The article mentioned above (absolutely great reading for anyone experiencing a bilingual setting) is right on the money when it urges us to do away with the notion of the "perfectly balanced bilingual".

 

No such thing, really.

 

Just shifting tides and currents.

 

 

 

                                   

 

:-D

 

                                       

 

Grammar Grapple

                         

 
"C'mon Present Perfect Continuous - submit!" Image: icantcu

                            

 

The image above could be a little representative of how some learners feel about grammar in a second language (or even their first language!), but in a lot of ways I think "grapple" is also a good way to describe many teachers' mixed feelings about the role of grammar teaching in their overall instructional approach.

 

I got to thinking about this issue of grammar recently (okay, when do most teachers not ponder, wonder and wander on the issue of grammar teaching?) when reading Scott Thornbury's recent post about G is for Grammar McNuggets, but also as a result of thinking my way through some of the ways I handle (and soon intend to handle, given I am due back in classroom settings next week) emergent language during more or less unplugged lessons. I also found myself thinking about the way I had approached grammar in the specific strand of Boost! dedicated to this area.

 

In the midst of all these ruminations, I suddenly found myself putting on the learner's boots again, and out of the blue the example of "Wes" (in a longitudinal study by Schmidt, I think it was) came to mind. Wes was a fairly prominent example of a learner who Krashen might have termed a chronic under-user of the monitor... he was highly experimental, not much at all concerned with grammatical accuracy, and generally an enormous risk-taker during his communicative forays with native speakers.

 

This then turned my mind to my own experience as a second language learner, during my university days when I was learning Swedish.

 

And that's when a problem flag went up...

 

You see, I was taught Swedish in a bit of an old fashioned combination of the grammar translation and audio-lingual methods - at least, for most of the first year. I was drilled in grammar, in rather disproportionate amounts compared to the amount of accessible vocabulary I had at my disposal. I couldn't explain (in any sort of depth) how I felt about a movie, but I could reel off several perfect (and completely decontextualised) sentences using the past perfect passive. Our Australian Swedish instructor was a bit of a grammar fiend (though a really friendly and entertaining one) while the native Swedish instructors tended to avoid much in the way of grammar teaching and really worked on encouraging us to communicate. Which we tried our very best to avoid doing...

 

This is not unlike the situation we see with English language learners (and teachers) in many contexts today, and it is the sort of approach I myself have learned to dislike using in my classroom, no doubt like a lot of the other teachers out there reading this blog.

 

But the problem is... that method actually worked. For me, anyway. And for several other classmates, too.

 

After a couple of years of learning Swedish, and despite some huge holes in my vocabulary and communicative confidence, I had really strong grammar skills. The Swedes I met and talked to were invariably impressed -- partly because someone other than a Swede would bother to learn Swedish! -- but also because, as they often put it, my spoken and written Swedish came across as very "clean". Accurate. Not fluent yet error-ridden like the Swedish produced by exchange students who had spent a year there in Sweden, or some of the longer-term migrants.

 

And when I eventually moved to Sweden to live there for a year, I found the language sort of "fell" onto those bones the grammar had already formed. I used to think of it as flesh forming on and around a skeleton that was comprehensive and ready to support muscles and sinews. New words and expressions were easily sorted and put to use, based on that instinctive awareness about the grammar. With some tweaking and stumbles here and there, of course, but it was still a far cry from the Swedish being produced by the "immersion" based exchange students, which seemed to fly out and about in all sorts of weird chunks, often incomprehensible without further probing from the native speakers they were talking to.

 

But here's the thing that sort of bothers me the most... A close Swedish friend once told me that when I spoke or wrote Swedish, despite some holes and mistakes with some vocabulary here and there, I sounded educated. Proper. Well-spoken. Whereas some other speakers of Swedish (picking it up as they went by living in the context, whether migrant or visiting student) sounded, well - a little... dumb.

 

A little... dumb. Why?

 

According to my friend, these people did not use very accurate grammar when they spoke, and it made them sound less educated or less intelligent. He was remorseful and embarrassed as he admitted this impression, but said there it was. As he put it, these users of Swedish often managed to come across as comical, but very often in situations where they really weren't trying to be funny, and the "survivors" were the ones who didn't mind sounding funny even if they didn't intend to sound funny in front of people they hardly knew.

 

Now, we as teachers do not (I hope!) allow ourselves to form this impression of learners who can't yet speak English with perfect or even mildly accurate grammar. Right?

 

But what about other native speakers out there in the general community? When a foreigner says to them "Weekend... I go beach!" is it not at least partially true that at least some of these native speakers draw conclusions and make instinctive assumptions about a person who speaks like this (and not always the most obvious or kind one, namely: this person is a second language speaker!)?

 

I mean, it's all well and good for us as teachers to say "Good job, Tom - yes, you're going to the beach this weekend. Good on you! You're really communicating. I understand you!" when the average native speaker on the street might react with "that's nice..." (thinking "yes, go to beach, Tarzan meet, Jane like too banana!").

 

And is it not that very impression and feeling that many second language speakers most dread causing (and experiencing)? Schmidt's Wes not included, of course...

 

Could this account -- at least in part -- for some learners' rigid determination to master grammar, perhaps at all costs? And for those that don't intend or need to use English in real communicative settings, the looming shadow of the grammar-based school tests provides the rest of the impetus?

 

Essentially, do we have a right to deprive them of a classroom approach that really emphasises grammatical competence -- perhaps even at the expense of certain other aspects of language development -- if that's what they really want and that's what results in better social reactions from the general population of native speakers of the language?

 

I don't know...

 

What I do know is that I may need to question and probe my own feelings and presumptions about the way grammar is perceived and taught in my general teaching approach. Beyond all the "science" and political correctness about what is or isn't the most appropriate way to handle grammar, I need to remind myself that certain old-style attitudes and methods to grammar not only work (in some or many cases), but also work towards goals many learners really aspire to.

 

In the end, I'll probably settle (remembering some of those classmates from the Swedish class who loathed the grammar teaching and could never really seem to get a grip on it) for a sliding spot somewhere in the middle.

 

And continue to grapple with grammar...

 

                   

                 

:-)

 

 

                                   

 

Watch an ELT author "unplug" his own coursebook!

 

My most recent post on this blog presented some ideas about how to explore topical pathways that come up in casual classroom conversation, with a mind to pursuing an unplugged or emergent approach to our lessons.

 

In this follow up, I am going to present some thoughts and suggestions that might appeal to the sort of teacher who is interested in exploring an unplugged teaching approach, but nonetheless worries that this might result in lessons that are too unstructured and perhaps lack logical progression. For these teachers, one of the appealing things about coursebooks is there is a clear method and step-by-step progression to the units. The same teachers most probably found my recent Windows ("unplugged coursebook concept") horrifically vague and open! Like trying to make language lessons happen from a hermit's address book or something...

 

In any case, I am basically going to show you how I would "unplug" a coursebook unit that I have written and had published. The idea is that we take important aspects of the unit "method" but unplug the content, so that learners and teacher can bring their own interests and experiments to the unit.

 

Just to be clear, some time ago on this blog I presented some ideas about how an emergent or unplugged approach could be inserted into the Boost! Speaking unit format to create a sort of hybrid approach (meaning that alongside the pre-set coursebook content we could have a series of blank areas for learners to adapt the content to their own interests or even pursue a completely separate unit agenda -- of their own choosing -- alongside it).

 

What I am about to present goes much further than that. It retains quite a lot of the aspects of the Boost! Speaking unit format (creating a sort of method), but removes the content altogether. It is, in almost all relevent aspects, essentially Boost! Speaking Unplugged.

 

Here's a bit of a "before and after" illustration of what happens when we take our glossy 4-page coursebook unit with theme, topics, skills, content and language points all carefully pre-provided (above), and make an unplugged version of it to feature students' own dialogues and language practice (below):

 

 

 

                      

Here are downloadable versions of both official and "unplugged" units:

 

Download Boost! Speaking Level 2 Unit 1 (Official published version)

 

Download Boost Speaking Unplugged template

 

             

Okay, so how on earth could such an open unplugged unit possibly work?

 

If you've read this far, taken a look at the downloads and are interested in hearing about some of the "method" in my unplugged madness, hopefully the video below can shed more light on things for you. It is rather long, but I've gone into a lot of detail in places and supported many aspects with examples, so that teachers who are genuinely interested in pursuing a methodological but unplugged approach can see some of the fine detail involved. 

 

 

Jason demonstrates how the "plugged" approach in a coursebook like Boost! Speaking can be "unplugged" to create a unit framework that involves the learners in generating their own content and language practice

 

 

 

Funnily enough, I probably wouldn't even use print-based units like this for my unplugged classes. Everything showcased here could just as easily be facilitated through a lined notebook (saving a lot of photocopying time)! I've formatted the unplugged application in this way just to demonstrate very clearly how it might end up looking on paper.

 

And please remember that this is just an example method. I don't advocate a single, recycled method for every speaking/conversation class (even if my published coursebooks would appear to indicate otherwise...). Things need to be mixed up and applied in different ways and sequences, even if there is something to be said about a little consistency from one lesson to the next or even one week to the next.

 

For any teachers reading this post and watching the video who would like a more detailed and step-by-step explanation about how to use this unplugged version of Boost! Speaking, just let me know in the comments section below and I'll do my best to follow up in a later post.

 

On a final note, if anything at all has appealed to you in this post, next time you pick up or happen to be using a coursebook in class, take a deeper look at it...

 

Could you and your learners "unplug" it?

 

Would you dare?

 

                                 

:-D

 

                           

                   

Preparing to teach unplugged: Exploring topical pathways

                           

 

                                           

This is the first in a series of teaching tutorials or presentations I have planned for the blog, exploring how to approach language teaching from an unplugged (and by that I mean "unplugged" from a pre-set, pre-determined, linear approach) or emergent perspective.

 

For a lot of teachers that I meet and talk to, the intimidating thing about teaching unplugged is how to get started, how to make it happen, and what to do with it once the ball starts rolling.

 

This video will hopefully give you some ideas, based on what I have personally learned about preparing to teach unplugged.

 

 

A tutorial/presentation giving an overview of how to prepare for flowing discussions leading out of everyday topics, catering to emergent language, and following up with structured language application activities

 

 

In following video tutorials, I hope to provide some more specific ideas on how to approach (and develop) emergent language, and how to use our intial classroom conversations to lead into somewhat more structured approaches (ones that can be prepared for, even if the actual initial content is essentially coming from the learners themselves).

 

 

 

The "teaching unplugged" image used at the top of this post is adapted from an original by mm-j on Flickr. I love the original image's caption:

Suddenly, up ahead in the middle of the road there was a tree. I couldn't believe it, having driven the road many times before and never seen it.

This is not at all unlike the reaction of many teachers when they discover unplugged language teaching!

 

 

And don't forget to check out Teaching Unplugged by Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings (if you haven't already). A seriously excellent (and approachable) methodology book for language teachers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

:-D

 

 

                              

 

Wax and wane perhaps, but let's hope ELT blogging is alive and well...

                             

In a curious progression of blog posts earlier this month (and late last month), various ELT bloggers raised the prospect that ELT blogging might have peaked and was on the downslide. A fad, perhaps. A bit of a play with something new, which eased off when the players realised they still had real jobs to do...

 

I daresay those thoughts were a little premature (though to be honest I was one of the ones pondering the prospect as well!). I don't think the sun went down on ELT blogging over the past 3-4 months. It was more like a phase of the moon, waxing and then waning, but part of a cycle.

 

In essence, I think it was just a seasonal thing. Teachers went away or tried new things over the summer (in the Northern Hemisphere).

 

Stats on the Onestopblogs site seem to show the dip in activity has rounded out and is on the way back up:

 

 

 

And in terms of visitation (not just active posting), through the period July - September this year, my own blog shows a similar trend (remembering that I was posting consistently throughout that period):

 

 

So I think the signs of a healthy and growing ELT blogosphere are still there, and I really hope so (as I explained in a recent post about Why ELT needs us to keep blogging).

 

And for what it's worth, I find myself in fierce agreement with Shaun Wilden, who earlier this year expressed his opinion that (for him) it was now more a matter of reading blogs than reading or referring to books when it comes to staying up to date and finding new things to think about and explore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:-)

 

 

           

 

Imagine teaching classes with this tech tool... Mozilla's Seabird phone concept

                        

 

 

David Wicks put me onto this article from Paul Miller about the (completely fictional, just messing about with ideas) Mozilla Seabird phone concept.

 

Not sure how feasible some of these features are in the short-term future, but in terms of functionality, imagine being able to walk into class (or anywhere else you care to meet a group of learners, for that matter!) with one of these in your pocket... The things we could do!

 

The future for edtech often strikes me as being almost absurdly exciting.

 

 

:-)

 

                           

 

 

 

Someone thinks they Kno what digital textbooks ought to be like...

                       

 

 

Peter Williams, one of my valued Twitter contacts, put me onto this promotional video from Kno - a company that appears to have focussed itself on creating a tablet device with apps specifically geared to digital textbooks and learning.

 

It looks pretty impressive based on the promotional video, though I'm not sure how it can/will compete with regular tablet devices out there which ought to be able to produce something very similar through a program or app (and I have seen some of the big players out there spruiking tablets that will feature book-like dual screens). In other words, I think the future of good digital course material design lies with the material and apps themselves - not the physical 'carrier' devices per se.

 

From a language teaching perspective, I love the promo video because I think it really helps to showcase some of the fantastic interactive features that will enable digital textbooks to become much richer in terms of multimedia and personalisation. I can't see from the website whether this tablet and program supports voice and video recording, but they would definitely be features I would look for in a language learning based app or device.

 

Anyway, interesting to watch the evolution of digital textbooks. Exciting, too!

                                       

                       

:-)

                    

                           

 

 

New school, new classes... and avoiding temptation

 

 

How an ELT version of Neil Finn might contemplate the temptation of going into new classes with coursebooks and pre-made materials... as opposed to an emergent and unplugged approach.

 

 

After teaching English for almost two decades, it always surprises me how certain emotions and inclinations rise to the surface when I face the prospect of starting new classes at a new school with new colleagues.

 

On the one hand, there is a sense of "stage pressure" - a sort of nervousness about how I will be received. After those first few classes, what impression will the learners have? What will the other teachers think of their new colleague's approach to planning and teaching?

 

And then there are the real world pressures. With one child in kindergarten (and starting to prepare for his introduction to school), a wife with a busy school schedule of her own, and a little toddler that will need to be taken to and picked up from child care, it's almost like looking up at a cliff... How on earth can I juggle my schedule and be adequately prepared for my classes?

 

And I'm not even going to go into detail about taking time away from a rapidly growing and highly satisfying online teaching business to dedicate time to classroom teaching...

 

It's at a time like this, contemplating the massive challenges to my time and energy, that a certain sense of temptation begins to creep in.

 

Why not just use coursebooks? And/or, dedicate some hard work in advance and prepare a nice stash of ready-to-go activities and handouts? Get as much done as possible in advance. Make sure there is plenty of material, to keep the learners busy, and perhaps assure a new school management and teaching team that I am an organised and well prepared professional...

 

No one would blame me, right? I'm one of millions of over-busy and under-paid teachers around the world, slaving away trying to balance home and family responsibilities with a teaching job. Those publishers know how I feel and they're sooooo capable of helping me out, right? They're even kind enough to do a huge percentage of my planning and thinking for me (and the learners too - how brilliant is that?).

 

I find myself wading through thoughts like these each morning, and by the time I'm fully awake, have the kids busy with their breakfast, and finally have a good strong coffee to sip from, the 'real' teaching me begins to emerge.

 

Mine is an unplugged approach. I know how important it is to just sit down with a group of new learners and really get to know them first. I have decades worth of teaching experience that can be drawn on at any given juncture, a huge mental sack of tried and true activities that can be selected and put into action on the spot. It's not a matter of selecting and planning those activities in advance. It's about calling on them once the flow of communication in the classroom has started (however limited that flow might initially be) and the right activities can be applied for the right reasons and directions.

 

Half-way through that morning coffee, I re-evaluate that earlier panicky feeling about being adequately prepared and capable of making a good impression. Sure, I need to get a grip on the curriculum's learning goals and assessment criteria. But other than that, I'm more than ready to step into those classrooms...

 

Remember those other times you went with an unplugged approach? Remember how you doubted yourself in the week before starting the classes? Remember how they ended up starting so comfortably and just took off, organic and exciting and fresh from one day to the next? Remember the great outcomes at the end of term? Remember the sheer exhilaration of being in that room and negotiating each new path, each new fork in the path - or crossroad? Remember that awareness in your learners' eyes...?

 

I have a multimedia version of the first version of Windows almost ready to go (and classrooms with Interactive Whiteboards and Internet connection). The only serious photocopier time I'll need to put in involves running off a couple of hundred copies of my Wizard English Grid.

 

So yeah, once I manage to remind myself that the learners themselves will be generating most of the content and doing more of the legwork with the language, I realise it: I'm ready.

 

Despite, of course, that temptation to resort to a linear and pre-manufactured approach that will appear to save me time and perhaps make me look more professional...

 

                        

:-)

 

                                         

 

Supplementary Speaking Activities (Part IV): Pronunciation Activities

                             

This is the fourth in a series of five posts about ways to supplement your coursebooks or approach with extra (and hopefully innovating) speaking activities. I actually began this little series about this time last year, and only recently noticed that I hadn't finished it! Better late than never, as they say...

The first article in the series began by looking at a variety of different warm-up activities that focus particularly on speaking and interaction. The second showcased some ways we can creatively use speaking dialogue models that appear in our coursebooks. The third article looked at some of the ways in which speaking drills can be used and expanded based on content in coursebooks.

  

Here in this post I will present some activity ideas relative to pronunciation - something a lot of teachers ask about!

  

 

  

4. Pronunciation Activities

 

Many coursebooks feature pronunciation sections scattered through units of study. They tend to take the form of little boxes or charts. Here are two regular formats used in my own Boost! Speaking coursebook series:

 

 

 

 

Those samples are actually representative of my own general approach to speaking classes, where I look at dialogues or passages that have been used (or generated) in class and use elements from them to generate a chart somewhere on the whiteboard showcasing any or all of particular sounds, syllable stress, and sentence stress (along with some more specific tips when/where relevant). The first example there is more explicit and guided (an approach I may use with lower levels), whereas the second is more geared towards the learners finding and noticing the sounds, syllables and sentence stress elements on their own (usually for mid to higher levels).

 

Once I have mini-charts like this, it's great to apply some creativity and versatility to apply a variety of pronunciation activities that hopefully help the students to engage, notice and practice more.

 

Here are just a few ideas you might like to consider...

 

 

4.1. Correct the teacher

 

This activity is easy to set and apply, and can be applied to any of the possible three sections in a speaking pronunciation focus set (as per the chart examples I provided above). The basic idea is that (before and/or after initial listen and repeat practice) the teacher will deliver items from the sets and deliberately make a mistake with one or more of them. The students’ role is to spot the teacher’s mistake and correct it. This encourages more attention and noticing from the students and may have positive transfer to their own capacity to pronounce sounds, words and sentences well.

 

Sounds:

For this section, say the words and deliberately mispronounce the vowel, consonant, diphthong or digraph that has been highlighted in one or more of the words. This can begin with broad, very obvious deviations that are easy for the students to notice, then progressively move to more difficult to notice deviations requiring more subtle listening skill.

 

Words:

The deliberate mistake here can be delivered in one of two ways – by (1) delivering the word using the wrong number of syllables, and/or by (2) placing the stress for the word on the incorrect syllable.

 

Sentences:

The idea for sentences is to deliberately place stress on one or more words in the sentence that should be delivered without stress, or vice-versa (deliver what should be stressed words in the sentence without any stress). This may be difficult for students to spot at first, but as they get more practice with allocating word stress, the mistakes delivered by the teacher will progressively become more obvious.

At the sentence level, this kind of activity can be made gradually more challenging by incorporating other kinds of errors as well from the sound and word level perspective. For example, the teacher could deliver one or more errors in the sentence that feature a mistake with an individual sound, and/or incorrect number of syllables or incorrect placement of stress in a word, and/or incorrect selection of stressed versus unstressed words in the sentence as a whole.

 

 

  

4.2. Sound chains

 

Following listen/repeat application of the sounds section, each sound can then become the basis of a class "sound chain". Using the same sound, students take turns thinking of other words in English that feature that sound in the same way.

By way of example, if we hightlight the long "i" sound in words like hi, I'm, mine, and right, we could then ask students to think of and provide other words featuring the same sound (for example "shy", "sign", and "line"). To challenge the students more at slightly higher levels, we could also ask them to think of extra words that provide the same sound and the same spelling as per the examples given.

 

 

 

4.3. Leaping syllables

 

This activity caters to the words/syllables section of the pronunciation focus. Going around the room, students take turns saying each syllable represented in the words. If the syllable they are saying is stressed, the student should leap out of their chair and say it loudly as they say it (or do something else similarly dramatic or attention grabbing as befits their age/context, etc!).

 

Here’s how this activity might ‘look’ on paper for the words (colosseum, giant, arena, spectacular, gladiator and special):

 

Student 1:      co-

Student 2:      los-

Student 3:      (leaps out of chair) SE-

Student 4:      um

 

Student 5:      (leaps out of chair) GI-

Student 6:      ant

 

Student 7:      a-

Student 8:      (leaps out of chair) RE-

Student 9:      na

 

Student 10:   spec-

Student 11:   (leaps out of chair) TAC-

Student 12:   u-

Student 1:      lar

(Etc.)

 

The chain can continue going around the class for a considerable amount of time, as there are many syllables to cover and there is nothing wrong with continuing until the students are clearly handling the syllables and stressed syllable very confidently as a group.

 

This is a very visual, auditory and kinesthetic approach to presenting syllables, and will be great for getting students active and interested.

 

 

 

4.4. Leaping words

 

As per the leaping syllables activity above (4.3), except applied to the sentences section with the stressed words (rather than syllables) in each sentence becoming the leaping points.

 

Note that both leaping syllables and leaping words can be applied in pairs or small groups as well as a chain activity around the class. Reducing the number of participants results in more speaking and more practice for each learner, though the class application is a handy way of demonstrating and setting up the activity to start with.

 

 

 

4.5. Choral stress

 

This is similar to the leaping syllables and leaping words applications outlined above (4.3 and 4.4), but instead of a stressed syllable or stressed word being the cause for an individual “leap”, it becomes the impetus for the whole class to stand up and say that syllable or word together.

 

For example:

 

(Syllables in Words)

 

Student 1:      co-

Student 2:      los-

All students:  (leap out of chair) SE-

Student 3:      um

 

All students:  (leap out of chair) GI-

Student 4:      ant

 

Student 5:      a-

All students:  (leap out of chair) RE-

Student 9:      na

(Etc.)

 

 

(Words in Sentences)

 

Student 1:      It

Student 2:      was

Student 3:      a

All students:  (leap out of chair) GIFT

Student 4:      to

Student 5:      the

All students:  (leap out of chair) UNITED STATES

Student 6:      from

All students:  (leap out of chair) FRANCE

(Etc.)

 

Note that for large classes with limited space, it might not be such a good (or safe) idea to have them leaping out of their chairs like this (and adult learners may find it too childish for their tastes - though to be honest all adults I've used it with absolutely loved it!). By having all the students say the stressed elements together chorally, the effect can still be achieved!

 

 

 

4.6. Syllable echoes

 

Go around the room and have students take turns saying the words with correct syllable application. Then have every second student act as a syllable-based echo for the student that came before them. The job of the “echo” is to say another word in English that employs the same number of syllables and same syllable stress as the word from the list just stated.

 

For example:

 

Student 1:      na-tion-al

Student 2:      [echo] won-der-ful

 

Student 3:      at-trac-tion

Student 4:      [echo] pol-lu-tion

 

Student 5:      e-nor-mous

Student 6:      [echo] a-maz-ing

 

 

This might be slightly difficult at first (one way to scaffold initial applications is to just have students echo each other based on number of syllables – not number and stress), but is great for highlighting the role of syllables and stress in English words. After some initial practice, students will get better at quickly locating and applying words that have identical syllable number and stress patterns.

 

 

 

4.7. Syllable salad

 

Have the students write out the words from the word/syllables list on paper or cards using large bold letters. Then have them cut out each word, and then cut each word into sections based on syllable breaks. They could be allowed to color or otherwise highlight the stressed syllables.

 

Students then close their books (or other materials featuring the original content or input) and mix all the cut up syllable sections into a “salad”. The idea then is to select and reorganize the mixed together syllables to reconstruct the words that were featured in pronunciation chart. Once a certain time limit has expired or the students believe they have finished, they can refer back to their books/materials and see if the words they have constructed are correct both in terms of syllable selection and sequence, but also where the stressed (highlighted or colored) syllables were placed.

 

One thing that tends to become apparent (or comes naturally) to students is that it tends to be much easier to sort and reconstruct the syllables by actually saying the words and experimenting with them, which in turn has positive effects for later retention.

 

 

 

4.8. Sentence salad

 

As per syllable salad above (4.7), except in this case individual words are cut out separately instead of syllables.

 

A really challenging activity can be to take one of the sentences from the pronunciation focus and cut out not only words but then each syllable in each word. This could be quite demanding, but might work well with pair or small group work and could even be applied as a competition between two groups involving complete sentence reconstruction using the whiteboard or a large piece of paper attached to a classroom wall.

 

                 

 

 

Do you have other suggestions on ways to facilitate pronunciation practice in the TEFL classroom? This is only a small selection of ideas so far (the tried and true ones I tend to come back to regularly), so please feel free to go ahead and add any of your own ideas in the comments section!

 

All of the Supplementary Speaking Activities articles will be added to the Speaking Activities section of this blog, so if you'd like to see previous articles or want to know where to go to get the future ones, please check there first!

 

 

   

:-D

 

  

 

             

 

The Dude(ney) Abides

                      

 

English Raven and the Dude(ney) get together in Lygon St, Melbourne, yesterday for a "tweet up" and a little abiding over some red wine.

                               

 

Living near Melbourne after 10 years in the EFL world in Asia, there are relatively few chances to catch up (in person) with ELT professionals based in the Northern Hemisphere.

 

So when I heard Gavin Dudeney was going to be in town this week, as part of the whirlwind Digital Literacies tour going around Australia at the moment, I jumped at the chance to meet the gentleman in person and take him out to one of Melbourne's great dining strips.

 

We had a great chat, with a lot of laughs. He's a super professional in our field, and just a downright nice bloke.

 

'Nuff said, I reckon!

 

Thanks for swinging by our way, Gavin, and it was a genuine pleasure (I wanted to add "privilege", but I think Gavin might object to that - being the incredibly egalitarian and down to earth person he is) to meet you and get a chance for a casual chinwag.

 

Hope the last leg of the tour (on to Perth after Melbourne, having already done Gold Coast and Sydney) goes well, and that very looooooong trip home to Europe doesn't prove too exhausting.

 

 

(And please don't make it 13 years between visits Down Under next time, okay?)

 

                                         

:-)

 

                                          

                             

A "Word Wise" approach to vocabulary building and application

              

Found this gathering twigs at the back of the Raven's Nest and thought I ought to drag it out and make it available to teachers out there looking for materials and ideas for ongoing (and robust) vocabulary building for their students.

 

The material/approach is called "Word Wise" and I used to use it in printed workbook format for large numbers of students in various schools I managed (and taught) a couple of years ago.

 

The screencast below demonstrates some aspects of the materials and how you might like to use them.

 

 

 

 

And here are the downloadable versions if you're interested in trying them out!

 

Download Word Wise Workbook Template [PDF Version] 

Download Word Wise Workbook Template [Microsoft Word Version]

 

 

This is actually the "full throttle" approach I used with adults and generally learners from high elementary levels and up. I also have some simpler versions for lower level and/or younger classes, where we may not want to throw the full approach at them right away, and work them up through a series of layers.

 

As I mentioned in the screencast, I'm also working on a couple of different online models for applying this approach - ones that don't require printing and photocopying!

 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

:-)

 

                              

 

Ever wanted to clone yourself to help teach a class more effectively?

                           

 
Despite some potential opinions to the contrary, today I discovered that two ravens are actually much more effective than one... Image: Jim Culp

              

 

Taking risks can be occasionally hazardous, but I personally can't see the point of doing anything without experimenting and being willing to put yourself a little bit "out there" from time to time. Risk-taking has led me to some of my most intriguing and fulfilling discoveries about teaching and learning.

 

Risk-taking is also something I regularly employ in my professional development workshops and seminars. I've "come a gutsa" (as we say here in local parlance) a couple of times, but also found some absolute gems. Today, during an ICT development workshop I hosted for local teachers in my region, I found one of those gems.

 

In simple terms: I discovered a way to clone myself, and discovered what a boon this was for managing a room with 20 people attempting to learn new skills.

 

Knowing that this workshop was going to be all about ICT, I recalled from past experiences the situation whereby an instuctor faces a screen, tapping away at a keyboard and pointing to things on the screen, with the occasional fertive glance over the shoulder to see if the audience is "getting it" and how they might be responding to it. I wanted to avoid this and do things a little differently.

 

Hence, in preparation for the workshop, I used a screencasting tool to record detailed demonstrations with ongoing audio commentary of five different tech tools I thought it would be useful to showcase to my participants. I loaded them up into a Facebook groups page made especially for the workshop, but also downloaded them onto USB sticks as a back up in case the technology on the day decided to go astray (so to speak).

 

Now, these screencasts weren't set up in a way to entirely replace an on-the-spot live presenter, nor even to comprise the bulk of what would happen during the workshop. But I did reflect on this approach and wonder if I was taking too much of a risk... Was this going to come across as a guy just presenting training videos? Is this what people would want in a face-to-face seminar setting?

 

Anyway, I decided to go with it. During the workshop proper, I ran everything off the Facebook group page. Following some discussion, as a group we would select a tool to look at in a little more detail, and I then played the screencast.

 

As the participants watched the audio-visual demonstration of the tool on the screen, I stood off to the side, facing the audience. When I saw their reactions to different parts of the screencast, I would pause it to do a variety of things (explain a point in simpler terms, add some additional information, field a question or comments the participants had at that stage of the presentation). I also occasionally paused when I realised I'd missed something in the original screencast, or could have said it somewhat better.

 

The effect was amazing!

 

There were, in many ways, two Jasons running the workshop together. One in the pre-recorded screencast explaining and demonstrating particular tech tools, the other supporting and observing the audience, ready to negotiate what was being presented to make it more comprehensible and relevant to them.

 

The "screencast Jason" remained on track, organised and logical in progression. The "in the room here and now" Jason stayed in tune with his audience, highly interactive and responsive (I like to imagine, anyway!).

 

Towards the end of the seminar, one lady jumped, laughed and said she was startled when I abruptly paused one of the screencasts. She explained that the voiceover on the screencast sounded so clear and natural, she'd actually thought it was me there standing next the screen talking in real time (hence when I moved and the voice kept going she found herself doing a bit of a double take!). This no doubt had something to do with the sound recording quality as well as the audio system in the workshop room, but I think it also stemmed from the way I actually make my screencasts. I don't over-plan them or script them in any way. I record them generally with one take and speak very naturally - complete with pauses, recasts, ums and ahs (and even the occasional error that I need to fix on the spot while I'm recording).

 

A lot of the participants commented after the workshop and told me they found the delivery - incorporating screencasts - particularly appealing. I found myself enjoying the workshop a whole lot more as well. With all the "heavy lifting" having already been done in advance through the recorded screencasts, I discovered that I was much more relaxed in the actual room, and much more capable of responding to the audience's reactions and queries, as they happened in real time. I also found that I had valuable breathing space to think ahead a little, consider where the workshop might go next, based on the ongoing reactions of the participants.

 

Of course, the other benefit of screencasts is that they can be viewed after the workshop proper as a review and reference resource - something that is particularly useful when you are presenting what might appear to be complicated skills oriented around using technology.

 

In addition to the obvious value screencasts have for online/distance learning applications, a lot of teachers have been commenting of late about how fabulous they can be for giving oral and visual feedback to students for their written work. And rightly so.

 

But I think I have now found another potentially useful application...

 

Screencasts can be used to think our way through and present content, language patterns, vocabulary, tasks, etc. and record them in advance. These can then be played in class, with the "recorded" us presenting material and content, while the other "here and now" us focuses a lot more on the students themselves, monitoring their reactions to the content, interrupting it to enhance the delivery, and making a variety of decisions on ways to weave content and activities together for on the spot classroom application. Those screencasts then represent a core of material that is brilliant for private review purposes.

 

It's something I look forward to experimenting with more when I return to classroom teaching in October!

 

So, um, look forward to seeing and working with you in class, English Raven.

You too, English Raven - see you there!

 

                       

                   

:-)

                 

                      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some edtech tools for ELT: Voxopop, Lefora and Screenr

                 

I'm doing a hands-on workshop tomorrow for teachers and service providers in my local area on ways to use ICT to connect more with learners and create more dynamic management and language practice tools.

 

To that end, I've prepared some screencasts of some of my very favourite edtech tools and thought it natural to share them here on the blog as well.

 

 

First up is Voxopop, which I personally think is THE best tool out there for creating online recorded discussions which YOU can set up easily and which your learners can access easily and use in ways to really maximise spoken English practice. The screencast below gives you some examples of my own Talkgroups, how to join, how to record and edit, and how to set up your own Talkgroups for your learners.

 

 

A larger HD version of this tutorial is available on YouTube here.

 

 

Next is Lefora, a really attractive and easy to use forum tool which in some ways is something of a blend of a forum and a blog. I've been using this for years to manage and apply online language tasks as part of both blended and fully online programs. The video below shows some of the features and set up considerations, examples of how to post media-rich topics and respond to learners' submissions, and how Lefora can be used to track the contributions and activity of individual learners.

 

 

A larger HD version of this tutorial is available on YouTube here.

 

 

Finally, I have an example here of how to use Screenr to do make screencasts. In this particular example I am demonstrating how to use it with something like Google Maps to explain an excursion meeting place, drawing on not only a street map but also the satellite view and Streetview application. Of course, this is only one of endless possible applications for a screencast! 

 

 

A larger HD version of this tutorial is available on YouTube here.

 

 

 

These video tutorials are going to be added to one I've already made about using Gmail and Google Video/Voice and a Facebook Groups page I have created to showcase how students' familiarity with Facebook can be drawn on to create a very active and helpful targeted social network.

 

 

Anyway, I hope those screencast tutorials give you some tools to think about and try with your classes!

            

               

Wish me luck for the workshop tomorrow morning :-)

              

                  

                                   

- J

                   

                             

 

Out of the virtual nest and into the classroom

                              

 

Image: Dave Van den Eynde

                                  

 

Well, it's been more than 18 months now since I returned to Australia after close to 10 years abroad working as an EFL teacher.

 

To be quite frank, the local ESL teaching sector here in Australia was rather unattractive when I arrived home, and I can't say it has gotten much better! Full-time jobs are scarce, wages are abominably low, and I'm often left with the impression that ELT Down Under is a rather insular affair by world standards.

 

Considering some of those things, I avoided local ELT and worked hard on developing my online teaching business. Over the past year in particular, the online 'school' has become a roaring success - to the point that it is actually sustainable and rewarding on both financial and educational innovation fronts.

 

But now it looks like I'm headed back to classroom teaching - as a result of some of the motivation and goals explained in my recent Change we can be leaves in post.

 

After a third kind offer from a local provider of English programs to migrants and refugees, I realised I miss the classroom like crazy, and really miss "teacher talk" around a teaching staff room. I also got the sense that, with Australia's rather perilous position at the moment with international students, it probably wouldn't be a great idea to keep saying "thanks, but no thanks" to offers like this. They may dry up considerably over the next couple of years...

 

It's interesting to me personally that I haven't decided to do this for the wage, which is - with all due respect to my soon-to-be-employer - rather paltry. I make more than enough now from online teaching to actually give myself the luxury of spending some time in a physical classroom with learners again. I'm sure for a lot of teachers out there, the opposite relationship may be a whole lot more applicable!

 

I'm going into very modern classrooms with great tech resources, which was definitely an incentive. I'm really looking forward to going on with a variety of blended learning initiatives I first started using in Korea as a university teacher a couple of years ago - but now in a setting with mixed nationalities and different learning objectives.

 

The approach also appears to be very loose/open, and this makes it a very fertile environment for me to go on with some of my initiatives in unplugged language teaching.

 

I'm also taking this opportunity to upgrade/refresh some of my teaching qualifications (which are more than a decade old now and could do with some fresh shoots). To teach locally, there are some new little pieces of paper required, some of them annoying at first glance - but I've always figured that you get out of training and qualifications what you put in. I'll be trying my best to make "glass half full" the governing perspective on my part.

 

So, some changes of scene and some new challenges for the Raven...

 

Can't wait!

 

See you in front of the whiteboard, shall I?

 

 

:-)

 

 

                        

            

 

 

Looking forward to some Touchable Dreams...

 

Touchable Dreams, a seamless fusion of poetry and music from Steve Bingham and Jeremy Harmer, is now available on CD!

 

 

Most readers of this blog would already be (very) familiar with the name Jeremy Harmer. He has, of course, been one of the most significant contributors of resources, guidance and encouragement to teachers of English as a Foreign Language all over the world.

 

Well, Jeremy is also a lover of music and poetry, and for a while now he has been teaming up with the enormously talented Steve Bingham to perform a unique blending of poetry and music which they - for want of any particular word for this 'genre' I can think of - call "Touchable Dreams".

 

I was fortunate enough to tune in to an interview Jeremy and Steve did with a local radio station in Cambridge some time ago, and it included a live performance of sorts which totally mesmerised me... Being a lover of all kinds of music and to some extent poetry as well, I found the claim "The words frame the music, the music illuminates the words. And when they happen together, the effect is spellbinding..." not only true, but also something of a vast understatement!

   

 

   

 

So, unsurprisingly, I was delighted and excited when I found out that Steve and Jeremy had finally managed to get a set of recordings onto CD, titled "Touchable Dreams" (find out about the release here). Even better: the CD is very reasonably priced and is available for shipping worldwide!

 

You can hear the title track "Touchable Dreams" on the main CD store/promo page - definitely worth a listen.

 

I've purchased three limited editions of the CD (also incredibly reasonably priced) - one for us and two for some relatives I know will love them - and can't wait for them to arrive!

 

 

Great work Steve and Jeremy, and congratulations on a really fantastic and innovative work of art.

 

 

On a closing note, check out this fantastic video of Steve performing his version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Wonderful stuff!

 

 

 

 

 

 

:-)

 

 

My new unplugged coursebook series: Windows

 

Windows is a coursebook concept drawing on potentially ambiguous pictures as a starting point for unplugged language teaching.

 

  

Well, as you might expect from any quality coursebook production, my new series Windows was a long time in the making... a whole morning in fact.

The first "level (?)" (titled "Some Won") has been completed and is available below for you to download and use in your classes - if you are interested, that is.

Here is a quick preview of some of the content in the book:

But before I refer you to the downloads, an important correction to what I've already typed is in order...

It's only "my" series insofar as I've given it a name (and a "level (?)" name) and chosen and sequenced some pictures. You could use it this way if you like, or re-name it, retain only the images that you think will appeal to you and your class, and replace any or all them with images of your own.

Even better, distribute the Word file to your learners and have them pick, choose, edit and adapt as they please (this would be the most genuine approach to making it a truly unplugged coursebook!).

You won't see any unit or page numbers in the book. That's because it is hoped you will zip around it in an order you and your class decide suits you from one day to the next, leaving out completely the pages that don't really appeal, and hopefully adding a lot of new ones.

If you're looking at this post and material and wondering what in the blazes I'm talking about (but yet find it intriguing...), let me know and I will be happy to follow up with some posts about how I would use this resource to create (or start, rather) various lessons within an unplugged language learning course framework.

For those who would like to go completely paperless with a resource like this, I do have plans to create a powerpoint version that allows you to present the pictures in one menu and then move to individual slides for each of them. The rest of the lesson would then, of course, unfold in the social and interactive space of your classroom proper, perhaps supported with notebooks for students to write in, collect information, and engage in collaborative tasks.

Oh, and I'm also already working on the second and third "levels (?)" - tentatively titled at this stage "You Too" and "Sea Three"...

Please note that this is a Creative Commons style work, featuring images sourced from Flickr where creative commons use and distribution was indicated by the image owners concerned. I have gone to lengths to ensure that ownership is indicated for every image, along with a direct link to the source of the file on the Flickr website. Please, if you do any of your own editing with the MS Word Version of the work below, ensure that you feature a reference to the owners of any images as well as a URL link back to the original source.

Anyway, hope you enjoy Windows Level (?) Some Won - or better, hope you enjoy totally hacking it to create a cool unplugged language teaching framework for your own classrooms!

Okay, here come the downloads. Feel free to mess around with the Word version if you want to create your own or distribute it to your students so that they can tinker with the content.

Download "Windows - Some Won" - by Jason Renshaw [PDF Version]

Download "Windows - Some Won" - by Jason Renshaw [MS Word Version]

Unplug your teaching and get your learners switched on!

:-)

   

[Late edit!] And don't forget to check out Teaching Unplugged by Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings! It could change your (teaching) life...

 

The beauty of Sam's Bush Journey

  

When Sam visits a waterhole in the bush with his Nanna, he's grumpy about all the mosquitoes there. Later - in a dream that might not be a dream in the usual sense - he finds the waterhole a much more attractive place...

One of the many stunningly vivid and beautiful illustrations in Sam's Bush Journey - illustrated by the sublimely talented Bronwyn Bancroft. 
  

  

When I was in grade 1 at school, I once took home a book that featured a series of myth-oriented stories from the Aboriginal Dreamtime. I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, but it was vividly illustrated and had me spellbound on the loungeroom couch for hours.

A giant death-breathing dingo chased a pair of brothers across deserts and through mighty river gorges... I think they managed to trick it into following them into a very narrow pass between two hills, where it got jammed and began to howl furiously.

As dusk fell, spidery crab-like shadow figures emerged out of cracks in cliffs and boulders, so thin that they were virtually invisible when viewed side-on and apparently they were/are very vulnerable to even the slightest breeze (which could snap their necks)...

A rainbow serpent appeared at some point, big enough to fill the entire sky, and saved somebody who was in a pretty nasty spot of bother.

I'll admit it scared the living you-know-what out of me at the time, but it also fascinated me and got my imagination going in ways I hadn't known were possible up until that point in time.

I've always wanted my children (being Australian) to learn as much as possible about Australian Indigenous culture, stories and art. One of the things I really love about Aboriginal Dreamtime storytelling is that it rarely sanitises stories in the name of being more 'child friendly'. Like the landscape itself, these stories are pretty up front, with as many easy to grasp morals as there are mysterious shadows trailing away into dark places.

Remembering my own experience reading a brilliantly illustrated story from this genre, I was happy to stumble upon Sam's Bush Journey (by Sally Morgan and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, illustrated by Bronwyn Bancroft) in a bookshop in the National Gallery of Victoria in Federation Square in Melbourne when we visited there as a family over the weekend.   

Another of Bronwyn's illustrations from Sam's Bush Journey - showing Sam (in a sort of dream state) discovering a hollow gum tree to shelter in when he gets caught in a thunderstorm out in the bush. 
 

 

Jamie (my son) and I have been reading it at bedtime, and he absolutely loves it. The story itself is fantastic (there's an excellent summary and review of it here), especially in terms of blending the modern reality of the Australian child with the culture and oral wisdom associated with Indigenous elders.

But the pictures... The pictures!

They are absolutely stunning, and the samples I've pasted in here (from the illustrator's own site) really don't do the actual book versions anywhere near enough justice.

I love the fact that there are so many things in the pictures that I can't directly explain to Jamie when he asks me about them ("Who are those shadows between the trees?" "What's this green thing along the bottom? Is it grass? Is it a giant caterpillar, or... a snake?") - they are things we have to hypothesize about together (and his young eyes see so many possibilities that mine have forgotten to learn to entertain).

These pictures have also started to fire up the little artist in our son. He loves to draw, and this style of illustration is relatively easy for a child to model and copy from. I can see it in his eyes. He looks at the illustrations in Sam's Bush Journey and his eyes turn into dark saucers, drinking it all in. It's a vague itch for him at the moment, but I have seen this progression before and I know (in very general terms) where it's headed...

Jamie also reminded me that I haven't read a story to his kindergarten class for a few weeks now, and Sam's Bush Journey could be just the trick to take in and read this week.

How could any dad say no?

 

Sam's Bush Journey it shall be, then!

   

  

:-)

 

A freemium rainbow model for online language education...

An increasing number of teachers and developers have been asking me how I 'manage' to teach English online. I have in the past presented various posts related to my approach to online language teaching (for example, Taking your teaching online - what to teach and how to find your students and Introducing my new (kind of) coursebook series...), and recently on Gavin Dudeney's blog I presented some thoughts on how an online freemium model for expert teachers might take shape.

Also, on a recent post about three kinds of language teacher, I lamented the fact that so many teachers who make it to expert/educator level are inevitably forced out of the classroom or even out of the field altogether. I honestly believe that online teaching presents a new and much more rewarding avenue for those expert teachers, if they can work hard on developing the tech skills required to go it alone and avoid all the 'middle men' between learners and teachers who take massive chunks of revenue on the one hand, and control and - to some extent - manipulate access and opportunities on the other.

For my part, as someone who has been lucky enough to find a route around the schools and the publishers, I'm pretty keen to share this knowledge and encourage as many great teachers as possible to have a crack at achieving freedom, excellence and actual income. Considering the fact that I've also reduced the cost of language education for my online students by the same degree I've actually increased my own personal earnings and satisfaction, I think this is an important win-win scenario worth sharing and developing as widely as possibly. A win-win scenario for the only two participants in this game I really care about: teachers and learners.

So, here it is, folks - my fremium rainbow model for online language education. Please note that I said "a", not "the". It is a model, and hopefully one of many that will emerge and work for teachers and learners online.

   

I've presented the model in this way because it sort of demonstrates a couple of things about the 'layering' involved in a good effective fremium approach, but also the fact that the main mode most teachers automatically assume or aim for in online language teaching (getting on skype and teaching live classes 1-1) is actually - in my experience - the least realistic and sustainable mode for going about it.

So, let me attempt to take you through the layers of this rainbow, starting from the bottom and outer (A) and working our way up and inwards to (E).

 

A. Free/Exchange

Yes, this is all the free stuff I offer, but to just think of it as "free" I think is an unhelpful simplification. It's more of a sort of bartering system in a lot of ways - an exchange that involves dialogue but also assistance from both sides of the equation.

I regularly post video tutorials on YouTube and a section of my main website has regularly updated screencasts. I have a free forum (5000 members and counting!) with whole practice tests available, linked to simple to use recording and writing facilities for visitors to practice their speaking and writing skills.

But I also visit and contribute to a variety of online forums where students go to discuss English or English tests. I maintain a Facebook page where more than a thousand students have gathered to see my resources and recommendations, but also to chat about their experiences or occasional questions they may have.

All of these efforts feature links back to my regular pay-for products on a website, but, more importantly (as I discovered quite by accident, actually) they feature my name and - well, me. Basically, this online social media presence has generated a bit of a "brand" - and I'm still somewhat surprised that the top search query leading to visits to my main site and pay-for services is actually Jason Renshaw.

I have literally thousands of students contact me now saying that these materials and tutorials and interactive snippets of advice have helped them improve drastically and even pass really important tests. Realistically, the vast majority of such students never needed all that much additional help to start with, and weren't really in the category who might be characterised as needing or wanting to "pay" for some basic help. Strange as it might sound, I actually find it pleasing that I'm not talking independent students who don't need a lot of in-depth or personalised help into paying me for something.

Now, of course all of these online students are getting this help for free - but by "free" I am strictly referring to the concept of money. Looking a little deeper, what becomes apparent is that there is a sort of exchange of goods and services happening here - a "barter", if you will.

What I get out of the "free" arrangement is an in-depth awareness of the needs and inclinations of online students. I also get "currency" in the form of recommendations and links, and the sort of traffic that earns my main sites valuable PageRank and hence invaluable search engine listings. I also earn credibility, by being a real person online who (evidently) knows what he's talking about, can teach things clearly, and really does help students improve. And the somewhat behind the scenes network of personal recommendations and testimonials, while often hard to measure, appears to be incredibly powerful.

So the "free/exchange" layer reaches very far and basically incorporates a "give and take" win-win arrangement. Personally I think it is really important to understand and explore it from that sort of angle (rather than just assuming it's all about giveaways).

 

B. Pay/Content access

Beneath the free/exchange layer, we have my first (and mildest) "pay for" level. Basically, this involves giving subscribers access to the entire bank of practice materials and recorded tutorials I've produced, which is much vaster than that offered freely and publicly, but also presented in a much more organised and professional format. The material is constantly being added to or edited to improve it.

This caters to two basic sorts of online students: (1) those who have seen all the free/exchange stuff and find it a good indication of what they could get with a basic pay-for subscription, and (2) those who have tried all the free stuff but have come to a decision they need more detail and more information.

The subscription fee here is very low. Basically, for the students who used to go out and pay $70+ for a TOEFL preparation book (not all of which they actually needed) can get even more content, more practice tasks, more tutorials (in a variety of formats: text, audio and video) through my online product for between $15 and $30 per month.

This, again, is mainly for independent students who can take the content, decide what to draw and learn from it, and incorporate it into their own study plan and learning approach. Based on subscription figures, this is a sector within the online learning population that is increasing rapidly.

There is still some regular interaction with these students, usually through the public/free facilities already mentioned above for (A). Hence, it creates a very productive loop between and across the "free" and most basic "pay for" services. But generally speaking, these subscriptions are for good, comprehensive and well-organised content - not for live interactive teaching.

 

C. Pay/Content access + online practice + checking

Our next layer (the green one, between the "lighter" and "heavier" colours in our freemium rainbow) offers all the content and material already featured in (B) above, but adds to it the opportunity to record or write a number of responses to the practice tasks, and have these checked by me once per week. This is in the form of quick scores connected to a clear set of scoring rubrics.

This is for the students who have tried doing things pretty much all on their own, but figure they need some simple feedback and indications as to their progress. There are less of these subscribers than the "content access" ones, but it does appear to attract the people who genuinely need this sort of help. There is also the very real (and I think usually underestimated) appeal of being able to share performances with other students from around the world and learn from each other's examples.

Obviously, as a teacher the amount of time I need to dedicate to this is small per student, but potentially vast across a large number of subscribers. The recording and writing is managed through a simple but asynchronous system that allows me to schedule all of this checking for certain days of the week, maximising my time and efficiency.

Fees are - of course - higher than for the simple content access subscription, but still enormously cheap compared to 1-1 teaching either online or in face to face learning settings. Technology has allowed me to gather and respond to these recordings and submissions in ways that cheat time and distance. Essentially, for what a one hour live 1-1 session would normally cost these learners, they can access and apply 20 times more practice - according to their own time and preferences - across a period of a month.

And in this case, the content and pre-recorded tutorials are now thrown in for free.

 

D. Pay/Content access + online practice + personal feedback

This is the first of what I usually think of as "optional extra" or "premium" services. Basically, learners who want it add it on as an extra - at any time - to what they have already subscribed for in (B) or (C) above. They can now choose specific tasks, submit them to me, and get in-depth personalised feedback and suggestions from me. They pay a set (small) fee for each task, but it is limited in scope. Obviously, if they want several tasks checked and given the 'royal treatment' from the teacher, they are going to have to be willing to pay for the time this involves.

This service is also asynchronous, but has a quick turnaround time (24-48 hours).

Only a small proportion of subscribers decide to buy this kind of service. While price will inevitably be an issue for some, it does appear to me that most of my users figure out that they are already getting everything they need with the subscription layers further out. This targeted and personal service helps students who just can't manage, who really need the extra help, while guaranteeing that I - as a professional at what I know and do - get paid a reasonable fee for the time and attention I am giving to a single student.

 

E. Pay/Content access + online practice + personal tutoring through live 1-1 lessons

This is the innermost layer in my freemium rainbow. It is the absolute royal treatment, for students who are either (A) fussy and demand 1-1 attention in real time from a teacher, and/or (B) have tried the previous layers and just need some live attention to help hone it all and find out as an individual what they really need to focus on.

The proportion of subscribers for this is very small. This reflects - at least to some degree - that many online language learners out there are not willing or able to pay a teacher $35 for an hour's 1-1 class according to a schedule that suits the learner. But it also reflects the fact that, if the outer layers have been effective and have helped students develop sufficiently more or less on their own, most of them don't really need to have a teacher hold their hand through a personal lesson. Such students are also not forking out a premium from the outset to find out that there is a lot of learning and application they can be doing for themselves, on their own.

Another positive side effect of only offering this premium service to people who have already subscribed for the access or basic practice layers is that teachers and learners almost never arrive in the live online lesson 'cold' - so to speak. As a teacher, I've already developed some awareness of their performance and learning needs through the basic practice applications. We can start the lesson with a clear roadmap of what it might be better to start focussing on right from the outset.

Oh, and let me tell you, managing to keep the number of live 1-1 classes to a minimum is very important for the online teacher out there who still wants to have a life and be able to pay the rent!

 

So there it is, the English Raven Fremium Rainbow model. It's certainly working well for me. It could (perhaps with some adaptions) work really well for you, too.

And the really cool thing?

 

This is just the beginning...

 

:-)

  

Pondering a more interactive approach to digital course materials

   

Instead of seeing digital as just a new medium for the 'same old coursebook stuff', I really feel we need to look at how digital course materials can overcome limitations in scope and linearity in progression.

Image credits: Stuart Richards

   

Sooner or later, a great deal of what we currently consider to be course materials are going to be delivered in digital format.

Saying that this doesn't apply to many places now isn't really an excuse for the rather lame way most publishers appear to be picturing and handling the transition to digital delivery of learning materials.

Simply finding ways to convert coursebooks (as they currently exist) into digital format just doesn't cut it, in my opinion. Even finding ways to convert the coursebooks and then add a variety of rich interactive media applications around them isn't really maximising our chances to do this whole pre-made coursework material thing in much more exciting and more learner-friendly ways.

Coursebooks, as we currently know them (and in this teacher-writer's opinion), suffer from two major weaknesses:

 

A. They are limited in thematic and topical scope.

This is partly because of the limits of producing material on dead trees that need to be glued together and carted about. There is only so much material we can fit in a given book, after all. It is also in no small measure due to the fact that publishers now look for a one-size-that-fits-all approach to their coursebooks, so that their product can be sold in as many different contexts as possible. The inevitable effect of this is that only so many unit topics in a given coursebook are going to feel relevant or interesting to the learners, and the rest have to be tolerated and/or enhanced through the skills of very adaptable teachers. Even then, the relevance or interest needs to be coaxed or manufactured after the fact, rather than before (or because of) it.

 

B. They are extremely linear in their approach.

You know the story: the coursebook becomes the syllabus and the schedule. We start at unit 1 and progress through unit 12, take a test, and hopefully this particular 'level' is completed. Learners' (and, for that matter, teachers') specific needs and goals become subordinated to the scope and sequence pages of the coursebook.

What interests me personally is that I think this is where digital materials can make enormous inroads - so long as we are willing and ready to totally re-think our approach to how the materials are made, how they are presented, and how they are then used.

Here are (just some of) the things that I think need to happen (and why).

 

1. Instead of 12 units to one level in a coursebook, there need to be something more like 100 or even more units for that particular level, and the units themselves will need to have variations according to specific skills and/or mixed level.

Because we are no longer limited by dead trees, there is technically no limit to how much material we can provide for any given level of a course. Not all of it will end up being used, of course - in fact, for any given class there is every chance that a large proportion of the material won't be used.

But if we are starting to approach our materials more as a resource bank rather than paper between bookends, this represents fantastic opportunities to find more of the sorts of content (and skills applications) that our learners are more genuinely interested in and need.

This of course would have important ramifications on the 'authorship' side of things. Materials of this nature would need a whole team of writers rather than a sole author or very small group of authors. But it would also allow for certain ELT writers to develop specialisations that allow them to contribute materials to several projects (possibly even on the go).

 

2. Our resource bank of materials needs to be searchable and scalable.

A digital interface will need something similar to a basic search box application, allowing a teacher (or independent learners - see more below) to punch in all/any information (probably in sequences) like topical focus, relevant skills practice, high/medium/low level application, group versus independent study, specific test task types, etc.

I'll attempt a hypothetical example here, shall I ...?

After a bit of good old-fashioned open conversation with the class, the teacher notices that two different topical streams appear to have emerged - one about a recent sporting event, the other about local shopping. The teacher goes to his digital search fields, and provides information like broad level (say, level 2), topic (sport), skills practice sought (speaking/listening), level adjustment (mid), application type (small groupwork), and perhaps test task type (PET - if that is what the learners are taking at the end of this particular course).

The program then scans all the available units and sections of units and comes up with a menu of suggested materials/activities. The teacher gets half the class working on this material, and then does a similar search for materials relevant to shopping (or else handles each topic stream for the whole class separately). There is also the option of doing this in "live time" in class, or for a teacher to set it up between classes in a manner more similar to the current way of preparing classes.

The capacity to meet (or come close to meeting) all of this criteria will depend, of course, on the scope and layering of the materials mentioned in (1) above. But it sure as hell does a much better job of taking in and trying to match classroom interests and needs than our current coursebook format.

 

3. Our course system needs to be interactive, expandable and recordable

What we want is the capacity to monitor and 'record' the units and parts of units we are using, building an ongoing portfolio of coursework that learners and teachers can refer to for review or assessment purposes. A sophisticated system would actually generate options for homework (to be sent to the students electronically) and build a bank of test or assessment items, based on what is being selected and covered in class.

Beyond that (and admittedly, this is getting a bit ambitious), the digital medium and evolving tech tools should allow us to have students writing and recording responses directly 'into' (or 'onto' or 'out of') the materials. So learners could hit 'record' on their screens and have their practice with a partner recorded (which they could then listen to and perhaps re-record). In the case where learners are working with the materials from a single classroom screen, it might be an option to have a wireless mic that the teacher carries around and uses to 'listen in on' what students are doing. The same technology could be used to atually record what the teacher is saying and doing on an IWB as part of the lesson, which is then available to teacher and learners after the lesson for review purposes (and a much richer one, at that).

Some of these ideas are perhaps straying more into the realm of edtech tools for teaching in general, but that is sort of my point, too. I think the next generation of digital course materials need to be able to integrate classroom activity into the overall experience, even if it is in a series of optional formats. Teachers less comfortable with the influence of tech might just want to call materials up on the screen, while enthusiastic edtech teachers may want to go much further beyond that and create a very rich interactive course experience where the materials are just the starting point.

I also think that there needs to be the capacity for teachers to find, build and add their own material to the system - perhaps by accessing a series of interactive templates, for example - letting them become much more involved in the overall process of targeting and delivering interesting and relevant material to students.

Well, there are some ideas and suggestions, in any case!

We may not be 'quite there' in terms of some of the tools to make these things happen (but surely we're not very far away?), but I think the most crucial things we all need to start thinking about are the ways we actually perceive course materials, how they're written and adapted, how they can be accessed, and what they could do for our classrooms in digital and edtech tool-enhanced formats.

Getting rid of content limitations (in terms of scope and variety) and linearity in the next generation of (digital) language education materials has got to be a priority.

Otherwise, we're just scanning old photographs and presenting them on CDs or online in photo albums, don't you think?

:-)

   

 

  

A challenge to teachers: Trying upside down and inside out

 

The greatest revelations about teaching and learning often only emerge when we are willing to turn almost everything completely on its head.  Image credits: random letters
 

   

New term. New season. New teaching year.

Time to try to do a few things a little differently, don't you think?

For an average day of teaching, here's how it usually works...

You come in a little early and you plan your lessons for the day. You may have even planned them the day before, or the week before, or even before you started the new term.

(Sorry, a quick pause here to chuckle about a teacher I knew who would come in at the start of each new term and loudly announce he'd planned the entire 12-week term in advance, right down to the smallest detail. His daily prep time would be dedicated to watching sports channels on the Internet. He was extremely thorough in his planning - I'll grant him that - but I felt sorry for him. Felt sorry for his learners as well!)

Having done your planning, you then go ahead and forge through your teaching day.

At the end of it, you go home and try not to think about teaching at all until the next day.

And so the cycle goes...

Well, this works for a lot of people. But it prevents them from seeing other things that might work as well. Stuff that might even be more interesting and more effective...

So, if the process and cycle I just described above applies to you, I would like to lay a challenge at your feet. The chance to try things differently.

And the challenge is:

 

Do that whole process completely in reverse.

Just try it for a day. See what happens.

I mean, instead of coming in to work, planning your lessons, and then teaching those lessons... come in to work (without planning), teach your lessons, and then plan those lessons (that have already happened).

That's right: I'm asking you to go into every class for a day with absolutely nothing planned, teach those classes, and then at the end of the day write up your lesson plans for those classes (after the fact, so to speak).

Yes, I know it sounds more than a little barmy...

But here's the thing... By turning your planning and teaching process upside down, you may just succeed in taking your teaching/learning process into more of an inside out style (as opposed to outside in).

Oh, I can assure you it's a wee bit frightening at first, but it's also full of all sorts of interesting surprises.

Give the upside down inside out challenge a whirl, and let us know how it all pans out for you and your learners!

:-)

  

Some edtech reading for the weekend!

   

  

Well, a little reading and viewing that I've been doing today that you might like to check out and think about over your weekend!

In the first of two articles I found in today's The Age newspaper, How the Internet makes us dumb is an interesting read about what some experts believe to be dangers to our brains and the way we think based on increasing use of (and dependence on) the Internet. While I generally don't subscribe to alarmist-style 'research' that paints Internet use as a straight path to hell (for our brains and capacity to communicate with fellow human beings), there were some points made in this article that got me thinking a bit - especially in terms of the 'depth' issue.

After I posted a link to this article on Twitter, someone in my PLN posted a link to this article in the New York Times from Steven Pinker: Mind over mass media, and I think it makes for a very interesting alternative perspective to the "Internet makes us dumb" argument.

Another Twitter colleague, Dayle Major, also pointed me towards fascinating article about the effects of e-readers on our brains: The Future of Reading and why printed books may actually be more helpful on this front.

Also in The Age today, I found this article called Talkin' 'bout the (digital) generation, which explores some of the assumptions being made about the so-called 'digital natives' generation and what it means for them in terms of shopping, work and basic socialising. I like the writer's eventual point that "Technology magnifies existing human behaviours and tendencies" (rather than automatically creating new and until now never seen before behaviours) and his recommendation that we "wait to see whether this generation grows out of some of its in-built proclivities before pronouncing it a separate species, warped by technology."

And last but certainly not least, if you haven't watched it yet then I highly recommend you check out the fascinating TED Talk from Sugata Mitra, where he talks about The child-driven education and his real-life experiments with giving children self-supervised access to the web. This is a brilliant demonstration of Mitra's final conclusion that "education is a self organising system where learning is an emergent phenomenon." Also, his use (and naming) of the "granny cloud" is amazing!

  

  

Hope that gives you something education and technology related to chew on a bit over the weekend!

   

:-)

Enhancing social opportunities for CALD learners through ICT

 

Strength in diversity... so long as we can find ways to bring the different tiles together. ICT can play a significant role here.  Image credits: Stephanie Asher
 

I mentioned in my recent post Change we can be leaves in that one of my goals for the remainder of this year was to get more involved in ELT in my local context.

Well, an opportunity to do just that has already come up, with the AMEP providers in Geelong (where my wife happens to be a student) inviting me to do a workshop for local teachers and service providers to migrants and refugees, with emphasis on opportunities to develop and make the most of ICT.

After a pleasant and productive meeting with some of the senior AMEP staff on Monday, a needs analysis was established and my workshop given some targeted direction. The following title and abstract emerged:

   

Enhancing social opportunities for CALD learners through ICT

Moving to a new country as a migrant or refugee can be a daunting experience. Feelings of isolation, confusion, inadequacy, and/or exclusion can be common, which in turn can have a significant impact on health and longer term integration into mainstream society. Beyond what we (currently) do in face-to-face settings, ICT can help to enhance and build exciting new bridges between teachers and service providers and their CALD (Culturally And Linguistically Diverse) clients. Additionally, ICT can facilitate more social support and independent learning opportunities amongst CALD clients themselves.

This workshop will look at some of the challenges facing CALD clients and how simple and accessible ICT tools can be found and used to enhance social and learning opportunities. No particular background experience or training with ICT is assumed, but an open mind and willingness to get hands on and try things out will be essential!
 

   

   

Based on the meetings and this title and abstract, the workshop has been given approval and is due to go ahead later this month. In fact, teachers and service providers have already started booking places to attend, which is very encouraging!

In any case, I'd like to extend an invitation to my broader PLN (across many borders and through windows always open) to comment on the idea and focus of this workshop.

 

Pretend you are going to attend... what would you like to see covered?

Which ICT tools out there (bearing in mind that we are talking about people with fairly basic experience with ICT) do you think could meet the goals of the workshop?

Any other suggestions?

Cheers!

  

:-)

Why ELT needs us to to keep blogging

 

Despite the increasing popularity of things like Twitter and Facebook for connecting and sharing information, it is the blogosphere that helps us to anchor resources and more sustained discussion.  Image credits: Caffeinehit

 

The Alex Case (which has yet to be solved by senior ELT investigators, despite some very interesting leads) recently raised the question about whether the TEFL blogging boom is coming to an end.

Alex is on the right track when he points the (questioning) finger at things like Twitter, as I did a little while ago (along with pointing out the surging role of Facebook for resource sharing and discussion). Undoubtedly, with multiple streams of social media now happening - a lot more of it on the fly - it makes sense that you can only split the ELT pie so many ways before information and discussion begin to slow down on one or more of the various platforms. 

We also have to remember, of course, that a lot of the ELT blogosphere went on holiday over the summer, so it will be interesting to compare blogging output and reception from September - November this year to the relative explosion we saw this time last year.

However, the point I generally want to make here is that a Twitter or Facebook-like invasion of ELT resource sharing and topical discussion - at the expense of blog posts and comments - would most probably be a bad thing.

You see, without good blog posts to start with, a lot of what we see being passed around and discussed on the social networking sites would become a whole lot shallower. The activity on those platforms represents feathers shooting past in a strong wind, and they are close to useless if they aren't anchored in some way. I've had some great discussions about ELT on both Facebook and Twitter, but I'm buggered if I can remember a whole lot about them or where they went. I certainly can't relocate them in any sure way.

I made a similar case about the importance of blogging in my recent post Boomerangs: No blog post ever really goes to waste. One of the key points I made there was about the relative thirst search engines have for blog posts, which of course means that people out there looking for something a year after you post something could quite easily stumble on it with a targeted query on one of the major search engines.

And even if search engines allowed people to find relevant discussions on Facebook or Twitter, there is no guarantee (at all, really) that it will be all that legible or useful. When I experimented recently with removing the comments option on this blog (and then quite promptly turned them back on), the most common response from readers was that blogs are still the place for deeper, more reflective (and more useful) discussion that can be followed and learned from in a logical fashion.

So I dearly hope that the TEFL/ELT blogging boom continues. It is a better medium for advancing what we do and think as teachers, and it potentially contributes to a very rich resource base for future teachers as well.

Remembering, of course, that quality of content and value of discussion are very much in the screen of the beholder...

:-)

  

 

Raven Reboot: Finding and using the cracks in curricular concrete

   

I'm not sure it's really the done thing to go reposting (or referencing) your own past blog posts, but considering how many teachers are heading back to new terms and new classes (and also considering the fact I think it is possibly one of my most important posts), I hope you won't mind me rebooting this post from earlier this year:

To innovate within concrete, start with the cracks

Looking at a new syllabus and/or set of textbooks you need to use in class, I think this issue of finding and exploiting cracks is especially relevant.

Hope you think so too!

:-)

 

Good language study habits? Let's think about what we think we know...

   

"The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time..."  Image credits: Tati

  

I just read a very interesting article in The New York Times titled Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits. A great read which I thoroughly recommend.

Here are a couple of summarised points from the article (based on what appears to be fairly reliable research) that I personally found interesting to think about as a language teacher.

- Alternation of study location improves retention (or, outside variation in context enriches information and makes it easier to remember)

 

- Studying distinct but related skills in one sitting is more beneficial than focusing intensely on one skill at a time

 

- There is a huge contrast between the popularity of so-called "learning styles" (visual, auditory, etc.) and any credible evidence for its utility

 

- Common threads linking different teaching styles to constructive learning environments have not yet been conclusively identified

 

- Outside variation in context enriches information and makes it much easier to remember

 

- Mixed sets of problems or tasks can result in skills and recall that are twice as effective as approaches focusing on repeated use of single-type tasks

 

- The speed and manner in which our "neural suitcases" are packed has a direct impact on how well and how long the suitcase manages to hold its contents

 

- Forgetting can be a friend of learning, offering opportunities to relearn something and strenghten that awareness about it

 

- Practice tests and quizzes can be very effective tools for learning, as they don't just measure knowledge but actually change it

 

- "The more mental sweat it takes to dig [something] out, the more securely it will be subsequently anchored"

 

  

What do you think? Is there anything here that challenges your own experience or beliefs about language teaching?

  

   

:-)

  

  

(Going back to) teaching English with technology

   

 

You could be forgiven for feeling slightly sorry for anyone who dares to go out on a limb and write a book about teaching English with technology. Inevitably, certain portions of it are likely to be well out of date before the book even hits the bookshop shelf.

 

However, if you are the sort of teacher who uses technology a lot, a particular caveat you may not be aware of (in application to yourself) is that you may have gone too far beyond certain basics to be of any practical help to learners (and potentially other teachers) who have very low tech skills and/or very little experience with technology in the classroom.

 

I discovered this for myself today when I started putting together some notes and ideas for a PD workshop I've been asked to do for teachers and service providers dealing with CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) learners in my local region. Two of the things I had to grapple with immediately were:

 

(1) How to be of practical help to teachers with very limited experience with technology

and

(2) How to be of practical help to teachers of learners who may have little or even no experience with technology, not to mention very little in the way of formal education (for example, refugees from certain contexts)

   

I've been using technology with or alongside my teaching for more than a decade. I now work full-time as a fully online-based language teacher. My learners are, generally speaking, pretty good at embracing and using technology for their study.

 

The task in front of me felt a little bit like asking a Formula One racing car driver to give a practical session to people looking to obtain their first learner's permits. I could almost see their eyes 10 minutes into the workshop: "Why don't you go hop in your nice flash racing car and do a couple more practice laps around the Monaco circuit, big shot... And no, we won't be there to watch you."

 

Well, I decided that I needed to get back to basics. I rummaged around in one of many boxes crammed with teaching resource books that I hadn't gotten around to unpacking since our most recent move to a new house, and fished out How to Teach English with Technology by Gavin Dudeney and Nicky Hockly. This is part of the excellent series of teacher resource books edited by Jeremy Harmer, titled - as you might expect - the How to ... series.

 

Now, How to Teach English with Technology was published in 2007, with publisher dithering probably accounting for another 1-2 years between time of actual writing and appearance on bookshelves. Hence, at best, I might expect the content from this book to date from about 2006. Four years is a long time in the edtech multiverse, and it is interesting to note that towards the end of the book there is some general information about Web 2.0 and things like MySpace, but nothing really about things like Facebook or Twitter. This is what I was alluding to at the start of the post about edtech books potentially become obsolete before they've even wriggled their way out of the publishing process...

 

However, a glance through the beginning of the book revealed a couple of instant answers to the two quandaries I mentioned earlier...

 

How to use technology with learners with low tech skills and perhaps low levels of formal education?

 

Start with basic word processing activities. Then move on to basic email. From there, move into things involving basic websites...

 

This makes perfect sense.

 

And this book has entire sections dedicated to those and other aspects of ICT, all written in plain, approachable language, with highly practical recommendations for activities. One section (or layer) of ICT for language education flows quite nicely into the next. Without being prescriptive, How to Teach English with Technology presents an approachable sort of road map.

 

A road map even a Formula One driver could learn a lot from.

 

And certainly one that people looking to obtain their learner's permit could look at and approach with only a slight amount of initial panic.

 

So for me personally, it's turning out to be quite fun to chew a bit on my own caveat, and look at teaching with technology from an entirely fresh (perhaps even 'innocent'?) angle.

 

My thanks to Gavin and Nicky for this great resource book - which is no doubt going to be a real boon for a group of local teachers and their learners.

 

And I'd also like to send the authors a note of congratulations.

For writing a book about teaching with technology that is already more than 4 years old, slightly pre-dates the relative explosion of Web 2.0 (in terms of social media and education circles, at least), and yet remains incredibly useful and highly relevant.

 

Well done!

 

 

:-)

 

 

   

For learners, the best compliments are usually complements

                       

 

To really compliment your students' efforts, focus on complementing them. Participation is the best form of praise.  Image credits: MorBCN

                                 

A comment from Karenne Sylvester on Facebook - in response to a visitor's comment on a recent post of mine, reminded me that I've been meaning to write a blog post playing on the subtle difference between compliment and complement for some time.

 

Addressing the situation of a learner using a smartphone to answer a question about vocabulary during class, Karenne indicated that she thought a teacher should "complement his ingenuity..."

 

Now, I'm going to ignore the potential that this was a typo on Karenne's part (and I'm not at all sure it was a typo - she's a very smart cookie is that Sylvester!), because I like her comment exactly as it is (and means).

 

In other words, instead of trying to always compliment our learners when they do or say things that we find ourselves approving or admiring - through things like overt praise - I think it is far more complimentary to focus on complementing their efforts.

 

That is, add to what they've said or done. Continue it. Keep the ball rolling.

 

Showing the learners that what they've said or done is completely (or even only partially, in some cases) comprehensible and something you feel naturally inclined to respond to in a genuinely communicative fashion is by far and away the most effective way to create a sense of validation.

 

This says:

"I understand you. You can use this language. I'm interested in what you're saying. Let's keep going with it. This is natural. Welcome to the 'club' - we're using the same language here and we are communicating. You're doing it!"

Rather than: 

"I approve of your effort here. Nice performance."

 

The teacher's participation here isn't just better than praise, it is praise, of the very best kind. 

 

It demonstrates what I think is one of the primary principles of good language teaching:

SHOW AND DON'T TELL.

 

This process of complementing can actually encourage the learners to compliment themselves, internally, privately: "Phew! See that...? You're talking (or writing), dude! This bloody confounded sh#t of a langauge thing isn't as hard or as bad as I thought it was..."

 

And when that happens, your learners are on a pretty good wicket when it comes to developing internal crteria for good language performance and a basic but powerful source of intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) motivation.

 

So yeah: COMPLEMENT in order to compliment!

 

 

:-)

             

                        

             

 

Guest post by Ceri Jones: What's your approach called? Mine's called 'SLIL'

 

Ceri Jones is a freelance ELT teacher, teacher trainer, and materials writer based in Cádiz in Spain. Based on my recent post What's your approach called? Mine's called 'EmLT', Ceri kindly offered to write a guest post here on English Raven explaining her own approach, called 'SLIL': Student and Language Integrated Learning.

To my absolute joy, Ceri has written an account of her approach that makes mine look like a slogan on a cereal packet! So get yourself a cup of something, sit back and enjoy the read about SLIL!

                      

                                  

 

What's your approach called? Mine's called 'SLIL': Student and Language Integrated Learning

Guest post by Ceri Jones

                   

It started off as a glib message on twitter, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense, and this was my first attempt to unpack what I thought I might have meant:

 

“SLIL -an interface between the student's system of self and language as a means of expressing and extending it”

 

But that was altogether too dense, a kind of jargon-laden slogan that might actually turn out to be saying nothing at all. So, encouraged by members of my twitter PLN  (special thanks to Jason and Cecilia Coelho), I’m giving it more thought. And the thinking starts with trying to identify where my interest and passion for language teaching lies.  

 

It’s double edged, it’s both the learners and the language that fascinate me, and the way the two interact. On the S side (the people, the learners) it’s also the way different people learn – or sometimes feel that they’re failing to learn – and the role that language and language learning plays in their lives. On the L side of the equation, it’s the way language works and shifts and changes. The way we try to pin it down but can never quite get there. The way we play with it. The way we sometimes master it, and how it sometimes slips right through our fingers.

 

So having identified the source of my own personal interest, the next thing to explore is how this impacts on my approach to teaching. It’s quite difficult to pin it down in a few words, but I’m going to have a go.

 

When I teach I try to open a dialogue between the students and the language they’re learning, I try to help them learn to make the language their own, to make it part of their identity, so that what we’re working with is their language, not some external, alien “thing” (for want of a better word!). At the moment I’m particularly interested in working out ways to help students create positive L2 images, and to use these images to motivate their learning and push their language limits. I think this is where the “I” comes in – language and learner integrating in the same self system.

 

I also try and train students to notice how the language works, to spot and question patterns and forms, to draw parallels and links with their L1, both linguistic and socio-cultural. This means that at some point in all lessons, we’ll stop and look at the minutiae of an expression, or word or form, pause and explore it, before going back to the big picture of the lesson as a whole. I guess this is the first “L”. And in training the students to notice, to be aware of, and hopefully interested in, the relationships between form and meaning, I hope this means that the second “L” is not something that only goes on in class, but extends well beyond both the classroom and the course. 

 

Which brings me to the “S”. Whatever type of class it might be, 1 to 1, large groups, YLs, exams, BE, the students and their worlds, perceptions and needs are the starting point. And lessons, tasks and materials are structured (or manipulated in the case of e.g. coursebooks) so that the students have a chance to express and communicate things that are personally important and relevant to them. Nothing new there at all, of course, but I try also to be aware of potential “death by personalization” i.e. of too many activities based on the details of students’ day-to-day lives (what you had for breakfast, what you did at the weekend) that don’t necessarily engage on any more than a very superficial level. I think personal engagement is the most important element for me in any kind of teaching – and maximizing this is always the biggest challenge for me as a teacher.

 

Thank you, Jason, for giving me a space to think those thoughts through. I hope they make sense!

          

               

 

                         

 

Thank you so much for this excellent account of SLIL, Ceri! Certainly makes sense to me, and just as importantly, it is something I think we can all take something from...

                     

                             

Would you like to have a go at naming and describing your own approach to language teaching?

 

In addition to this great contribution from Ceri, Marisa Pavan in Argentina has described her 'FlexiMoti' approach over on her own blog - also very much worth a gander!

So why not dedicate some space on your blog to your very own "what's your approach called?" post (or posts!)?

Or, alternatively, you're welcome to have it featured here on English Raven as a guest post. This feathered friend would love to have you pop by the nest! Contact me directly via Twitter at @englishraven!

 

 

:-)

 

               

 

 

ELT Materials Design and Use (Part 1) - a visual tutorial covering some basics

                   

Nothing really rocket science here, but if it gives some teachers some ideas on how to go about designing basic ELT materials for the classes, then it was worth it!

                            

 

 

                                     

This is the first part of what will hopefully become a series of visual tutorials on ideas for ELT materials design.

Hope you like(d) it!

                     

                   

:-)

                 

                         

 

"Most of our classrooms were built under the assumption that information is scarce and hard to find..."

                    

"There is something in the air, and it is nothing less than the digital artifacts of over one billion people and computers networked together collectively producing over 2,000 gigabytes of new information per second. While most of our classrooms were built under the assumption that information is scarce and hard to find, nearly the entire body of human knowledge now flows through and around these rooms in one form or another, ready to be accessed by laptops, cellphones, and iPods. Classrooms built to re-enforce the top-down authoritative knowledge of the teacher are now enveloped by a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where knowledge is made, not found, and authority is continuously negotiated through discussion and participation."

                        

                       

This comes from an article I read today by Michael Wesch, titled From Knowledgable to Knowledge-able: Learning in New Media Environments.

                   

An outstanding read, with very clear insights into what it means to have digitial access to virtually unlimited information, and how this challenges the traditional set-up and expectations of our current classrooms.

                           

:-)

                                

                  

 

Change we can be leaves in

  

We might not have the influence or resources to change whole trees, but we can always contribute new leaves. New growth. Every single little sequence of growth counts. Image credits: Darren Hester

   

   

It's the start of a new season for most of us, and no doubt the start of a new term or semester for many as well.

It's the perfect time - before things get too cluttered - to think about what you're going to change about your teaching.

And you know what? It's also a good time to think about what you might be able to contribute to education - where you are, locally, as well further afield.

Many readers might see a comment like that and think "Yeah, sure - only problem is that I don't really have anything to contribute. I can't change anything..."

This reaction is a sad one which leads me to believe we suffer from something very close to clinical depression in certain areas of education. Depression is a serious illness. In education, depression encompasses that feeling of insignificance and irrelevance. Powerlessness.

No teacher should feel like that.

But every teacher has the chance to do something to prevent feeling like that as well.

  

Like a lot of other teachers (I suspect), I'm a big believer in change and making changes, but I often end up aspiring to changes that are too ambitious or unrealistic (leading to a bit of a crash), and then in reaction to that only really trying for changes that are pragmatic but in the end somewhat fail-safe.

Striking a realistic balance between ambitious and realistic change is a challenge.

   

But in any case, here are three changes I am aiming for this term/season...

One is local, and the other two are international.

   

 

Change 1: I'm going to get more involved in ELT and ICT locally

I live in the smallish city of Geelong, 90 kilometres or so south west of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. There is a vibrant community of migrants and refugees here, and while they are generally well catered to by local language learning initiatives, there is a lot seriously lacking.

I've generally (up to this point, only having returned to Australia 18 months ago) ignored what is happening in ELT locally. Time to change that. I'm not sure exactly what I can offer, but I can start by finding out what people feel is needed.

I've been approached to help local ELTers here improve their ICT skills. There's a good start, perhaps.

As the husband of a migrant in this area, I really feel that migrants' sense of isolation and helplessness isn't really understood all that well here. Local meetings and events? What about the enormous potential of social media to help migrants, not only in this area but right across the country, connect and build and benefit from a social network that is supportive and inclusive? 

There's nothing in the way of a local English language teachers association. As a past president of a provincial TESOL chapter in Korea, and a national coordinator of a SIG, there may be something I can offer on that front as well.

There may be too many leaves here to consider all at once, and some of them might be a little too big to handle in a single season. But I hope I can explore and add at least one small leaf to the local tree here...

 

 

Change 2: I'm going to launch an innovative online extensive reading resource for children that will be 100% accessible for free

It's called World Adventure Kids, and I've already blogged about it a bit here. But the main change is that I'm going to ensure it remains an open and 100% free resource for teachers and their younger learners globally to access and enjoy. Oh, and the other change is that I'm actually going to really bloody finish it and launch it this time!

Is it going to cause changes to planetary orbits? Of course not. But it's something I can offer up, and hopefully something a lot of young people will enjoy and learn from. 

 

 

Change 3: I'm going to travel to Japan in November and attend JALT 2010 as a professional listener

I haven't actually attended any sort of major ELT conference for a good 18 months or so. However, more importantly, it occurred to me recently - having just had two workshop proposals at JALT 2010 rejected based on a very silly error on my part - that it has been several years since I attended a conference purely as an audience member and not a presenter.

That led to some reflective thinking: what - I only go to a conference if I can be a presenter at it?

If so, something's gone quite wrong with that overall picture...

So, while this is a fairly major change for me and a potentially miniscule one for anyone else in the ELT world, I am going to attend JALT 2010, I am going to pay my own way 100%, and I am going to go there purely to listen to others.

I'm sure I'll pick up loads of new insights and ideas and benefit (personally) from it enormously. And on the 'contribution' side of things, it's one more attendee in several presenters' workshops, I guess, but they're all potentially leaves in the bigger (treeish) scheme of things, right?

  

   

So there are three changes I'm aiming for this season. By contributing outwards, there's no doubt in my mind that there will be a lot of nourishment inwards as well.

It will be interesting to blog about this sort of topic again in December - and see what's gone down!

   

And how about you?

What leaves do you think you might be able to offer this season?

There are always at least a couple you might be able to spare...

Think about it. Tweet about it. Blog about it.

  

Most importantly... do it and be it!

  

:-)

   

  

What's your approach called? Mine's called 'EmLT'

  

I'm sure most teachers out there would be dissuaded (and rightfully so) from committing themselves to being followers or practitioners of any particular language teaching method. There are plenty, however, who might call themselves fans or believers in certain kinds of approaches to what they do.

That's fine, but what IS your general approach to teaching and learning, then?

Does it have a name? Is that name of your own design or did somebody else come up with it?

It can be a fun and motivating process to try and name your approach using terminology you devise (for) yourself.

Don't worry! You are not joining a political party. You can drop or change the name and nature of your general approach whenever you feel the need.

Okay, so here's mine...

I call it EmLT - Emergent Language Teaching

Basically, my approach has a strong foundation in emergentism. I believe that everything starts within the learner - not just the language but also the motivation, the interests, and the potential talents and strengths. And when learners get together in a classroom environment, there is a certain emergentism of a social or group-based nature as well.

The art of my EmLT, if compared to different types of sculpture, is the type which focuses on sculpting an already existing block. The challenge is, in words very similar to master sculptor Michelangelo himself, to "free the human from the stone" and create a unique piece of art - one that can't really be replicated or mass-produced.

Note that this philosophy is very different to cast sculpture, which involves pouring liquid metal into a pre-made mold. A process which allows mass production of identical sculptures. A process (quite accurately) described as a manufacturing process.

It will come as little surprise to some readers that my EmLT has a lot in common with (and also potentially owes a lot to) Dogme ELT or 'Teaching Unplugged.' In all fairness to myself, this instinctive belief in emergentism started in me long before I'd ever heard of Dogme ELT, but also in fairness to Dogme, it was Dogme that helped me identify and hone certain beliefs and understanding in relation to my own teaching approach.

However, my EmLT is somewhat looser and more flexible than Dogme ELT as it has generally (so far) been described and discussed among ELTers. For example, I think EmLT potentially works as well with coursebooks as without (in other words, it doesn't necessarily need to be materials "lite"). It also has a looser interpretation of "conversation driven."

And, while the two share a strong belief that language and language learning is an emergent process,my  EmLT sees emergentism as counting for far more than "just" language and communication. Perhaps Dogme ELT does as well, but just hasn't managed to describe or quantify that in a lot of detail yet. Correction: perhaps I haven't looked deeply enough into Dogme ELT yet to recognise and understand those broader implications of emergentism.

If Dogme ELT could be viewed as a continuum of sorts (with 'strong' and 'weak' directions), then I would place my EmLT in the mid-to-strong section.

And if Dogme ELT could be viewed as a socio-political philosophy (something I suspect Thornbury and Meddings might rather object to!), I would describe my EmLT as "Moderate with some occasional forays to the Left"!

In any case, my EmLT is an emerging concept and set of accompanying beliefs and experiments. You see, I also see teachers as emergent learners.

It's fun to explore. It's fun to make it mine.

Hey, I've even started a brand new category here on the blog (EmLT - Emergent Language Teaching) so that I can explore the ideas more and share them. 

  

   

So there you have it. I might officially call myself a proponent of EmLT. That's what my approach is called.

 

What's yours called?

And once you've found a name for it (if you haven't already), don't you think it's about time we all heard a bit about it?

 

:-)