Learning Twigs

Teaching is... Mobility and Mirth

 

Image: Trey Ratcliff

 

 

 

One of my current teaching colleagues is a bloke by the name of Brendan.

 

If you were to spend as little as ten minutes in our staffroom, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if you came to the quick conclusion that Brendan and I are like chalk and cheese.

 

Brendan teaches Numeracy. I teach Literacy.

 

Brendan claims to be a bit of an old-fashioned teacher, preferring to teach mainly from the front of the class to students in rows facing a whiteboard. I tend to teach from the back or middle of the classroom, very seldomly using the whiteboard.

 

Brendan does meticulous preparation in advance and guides the learners through very carefully and professionally designed workbooks with a clear sequence (that he has made himself). He spends a lot of time in front of the photocopier. I do a lot of exploring in advance and present taskwork fully online, with a very flexible sequence and very open to direct negotiation with the learners. I spend absolutely no time in front of the photocopier (excluding the times I find Brendan perched there and stop by for a chat).

 

Brendan's desk is invariably so neat and tidy you could quite possibly eat off it. My desk usually looks like the lair of the Abominable Paperman.

 

Brendan seems to be able to turn his teaching mode on and off like a switch. When he reads this and realises I wrote it at home after work, he'll be thinking of smart ways to tell me I need to find a hobby...

 

Chalk and cheese?

Perhaps not.

 

This week, as we tie up the academic year, I had some groups of learners review and 'assess' all of their teachers via an open writing task. Given the different approaches and methods Brendan and I have, one might expect the learners to have very different reactions to us as teachers. In fact, reading the learners' assessments, I was surprised to see just how similar the comments were about us.

 

"Knows what he is talking about..."

"Very good at explaining things in different ways to help me understand..."

"Enjoys a good laugh, which makes the classroom a fun place to be..."

 

 

That was the general gist of many of the comments directed towards both Brendan and I, and this similarity was pronounced when compared to the comments other teachers received (not to detract from a wide range of positive feedback those teachers received, but the recurrence of three very similar comments for two teachers in particular was what struck me).

 

Based on this very limited sample, one could be forgiven for beginning to form the idea that, irrespective of methods, approaches and materials (and their mode or sequence of delivery), what learners really warm to in their teachers is:

 

• Strong awareness of their subject matter
• The ability to adapt and explain things in different ways for different learners
• A good sense of humour

 

 

These basic principles might seem to be self-evident to many readers, and to be honest they're not really anything new to me either. However, seeing this assessment applied to two very different teachers and teaching approaches certainly begins to increase the salience of them as essential teaching priorities.

 

It makes me think about the pre-service teacher education programs obsessed with documented lesson planning, regurgitation of discrete techniques and 'methodology', and teachers awarded salaries based on years of teaching 'experience' and the impressiveness of their 'qualifications' paper draw...

 

I don't think many learners give a fat rat's posterior about those things. Most, in my opinion and experience, want a teacher who knows what he/she is talking about and can apply it with both mobility and mirth.

 

Beyond those essentials, perhaps things like methods, styles and materials are purely peripheral?

 

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Open (Source) English <-> Turn the Page

 

 

Open Sauce Downloads:

 

Open English - Turn the Page (PDF)

Open English - Turn the Page (MS Word 2007)

Open English - Turn the Page (Compatible)

 

 

Application ideas:

 

 

 

 

Get some more open sauce to spice up your teaching options in the Open Source English section of the blog!

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Teaching Materials Design Masterclass 12: Summer unplugged (going 'materials lite')

 

 

 

 

If you're wondering how I managed to jump from Materials Design Masterclass 8 (last week's entry) to 12, take a look at this post from late October where I incorporated Masterclasses 9, 10 and 11 into a Halloween Materials offering (the one I invited you to wrap your pumpkin's laughing gear around).

 

This particular tutorial (and my last in this series for the year, most probably) explores the notion of teaching unplugged alongside materials design. You might be thinking that sounds a bit like taking a vegan smorgasbord to a meat lovers association dinner, but personally I've always seen a role for smart materials design in a 'materials lite' paradigm like Dogme.

 

For those who have been following the Materials Design Masterclasses, I hope you've learned something new and useful along the way. Remember that all 12 tutorials are permanently available on a dedicated portal over on the English Raven main site.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

;-D

 

 

Teaching is... Turning Corners

 

Image: Trey Ratcliff

 

 

 

I'm sure I'm not the first teacher who finds him/herself pausing from time to time to ask the question: Why do I do this? What keeps me in this profession?

 

It's certainly not the pay, is it? And the hours? For the dedicated and passionate teacher, the hours slip away into a stream, but when you stop to tally up those hours it can be a bit frightening to see how much of your life is given over to your 'work.'

 

Amongst a host of other rationales, I think one of the things that keeps me passionate about my profession is the sense of overcoming adversity. Wading through streams of can't and won't and emerging on the other side to find the negative suffix has disappeared and been replaced with an emphatic exclamation mark.

 

In essence, nothing fires me up more about my job than the sensation of having turned corners.

 

As the academic year peters out in my current (and new this year) teaching role and I struggle to cope with the exhaustion, there comes that warm glow as I contemplate the corners that have been turned.

 

I think about groups of learners approaching the Literacy classroom with expressions ranging from loathing to (much worse) complete indifference back in June, who last week walked in with friendly greetings, happy to be there and even happier knowing that not only have they passed Literacy but actually passed it quite well.

 

I think about those individuals who, in June (halfway through the year), did not have a single VCAL Literacy Outcome marked on their trackers, but now have 16-20 outcomes completed and a Year 12 High School pass as a result.

 

It is, I have to very selfishly admit, pleasing to contemplate that this time last year, of the failed students well over 60% of them didn't pass on account of a fail for Literacy, whereas this year the figure is going to be more like about 10%. 

 

Grades and bean counting aside, one of the most pleasing things about this year has been the transition in so many students from 'I want to be anywhere but here in this classroom' to 'I like being here'...

 

Watching learners turn major corners is probably the most exhilarating part of being a teacher, and knowing you played a facilitative role in that ought to (quite rightly) lead to a sense of genuine satisfaction and pride. Their corners as learners are linked ineluctably to our own as teachers.

 

There are always other corners to turn, however, and I sure as hell know what some of my more pressing ones are for next year. Some of the hardest yards have already been completed and that makes new challenges that little bit more exciting and interesting... Successful foundations mean that building can commence; survival and 'basic needs' have given way to more of a sense of aspiration.

 

That's why turning corners (and recognising that they've been turned) is so important. These become the catalysts and sources of energy we need to overcome the next obstacles, slip through or around other adversities, identify and chart a course towards turning those next corners.

 

 

I'm sure you've managed to turn at least a few corners this year... What were they?

 

And, just as importantly, which corners are you going to try and turn next?

 

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Open (Source) English <-> Think Deeply

 

 

 

Open English - Think Deeply (PDF)

Open English - Think Deeply (MS Word 2007)

Open English - Think Deeply (Compatible)

 

 

 

 

 

More of this sort of stuff in the Open (Source) English section of the blog.

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Teaching Materials Design Masterclass 8: The Bamboo Mega-Tutorial (making a full top-quality resource)

 

 

 

The eighth instalment in the Teaching Materials Design Masterclass Series really throws the gauntlet down and showcases a rather long list of design skills integrated with content writing and presentation considerations.

 

At close to an hour in length, it is not for the faint-hearted... But for those blog visitors who have been following the Masterclass series so far and have a genuine passion for professional materials design I think there is nice full spread meal to chew on here.

 

Here's the final product of the tutorial in terms of the materials themselves:

Download Bamboo worksheet

 

 

And here are the hows and whys in terms of building and design:

 

 

 

 

If this all feels a bit too much for you at this stage, you might like to check out some of the earlier (and shorter and simpler) tutorials in the series at the link here.

 

 

Oh, and I've just noticed that this year's Edublog Awards have opened for nominations (hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge).

 

If you've liked the Teaching Materials Design Masterclass series and/or the Open (Source) English materials and video tutorials I've featured this year, or anything else on this blog for that matter, perhaps you'll consider doing me the almighty favour of a nomination for this year's awards :-)))

 

 

Happy teaching (and designing)!

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Teaching is... Accountability

 

Image: Trey Ratcliff

 

 

 

Outcomes. It's a word we hear and supposedly consider a lot in our profession as teachers. Results is another (related) one.

 

When outcomes and/or results fall short of reasonable expectations, whose fault is it?

 

Given that the classroom space encompasses both teachers and learners, the idea of accountability can be a slippery one. From the teacher's perspective, I'm constantly amazed by how far to either end of the spectrum teachers' explanations for 'failed' educational experiences tend to range.

 

At one end, I hear this:

Those students only have themselves to blame... I prepared everything well, made sure the instructions were clear, gave them more than enough time to complete work, and I was always available to help if they were willing to ask for it. They chose to do almost nothing, and the result speaks for itself...

I often refer to this as the 'attack is the best form of defense' approach.

 

And at the other end?

This is all my fault. I haven't tried hard enough to find the materials and activities that will interest them. Learning this is tough enough for them as it is without having to try and make things work with an inexperienced teacher like me. I haven't used the right methods. The failure of this group is totally down to my failure as a teacher...

This is the 'humble to the point of ridiculous' approach.

 

If you've found yourself saying anything that comes close to either of those interpretations, I would urge you to rethink your reflective practice. Neither of them can ever be completely true, and certainly neither of them turn out to be very effective in terms of turning a teaching/learning dilemma around.

 

There's also the view that a school or set of regulations are wholly to blame. Perhaps it is the (unhelpful) attitudes and expectations of parents. But again, I don't think they can ever be really wholly to blame and I don't think a focus on 'fixing' them will by itself create any miracle solutions.

 

The hardest (but I think most accurate) way to look at it is that the classroom is a shared space and experience. Relative success or failure is likewise something to be viewed and acted upon as a shared accountability.

 

Help the learners see where, when, why and how they might have let themselves down in the learning process, hand in hand with a good hard look at your own teaching. Be willing to criticize the school and the regulators and even the parents, but not without coming to the table with potential solutions and evidence of efforts to try and facilitate them.

 

And... if you're the sort of teacher who automatically responds with something along the lines of 'but that's their issue to sort out -- not my responsibility!' then just try pulling your head out of your own posterior for a moment or two, would you?

 

You're supposed to be a teacher.

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Teaching Materials Design Masterclass 7: Setting up a bricks n' bubble background

 

 

 

 

JUST in case you were getting a bit sick and tired of background and header/footer style used in many of the previous tutorials, this week's Teaching Materials Design Masterclass takes a bit of a turn and looks at a different design concept that might be good for some variety and/or could be a little more attractive to younger learners.

 

The tutorial here shows you how to built a 'textured' header and footer with a curved 'bubble' window covering the main part of the page. Some variations on that are demonstrated a little later in the video as well, hopefully presenting you with even more design options to consider.

 

This is tutorial seven in the series, so if you'd like to learn more I encourage you to check out the full bank of materials design lessons over on the English Raven site here.

 

 

Happy designing!

 

 

;-D

 

 

Teaching is... Aspiration

 

Image: Trey Ratcliff

 

 

 

Aspiration is a great word to bear in mind when it comes to teaching.

 

The first and most obvious application refers to basically wanting to succeed at what you do. Personally I think it is important to see this in the plural sense; the aspirations you have for yourself as a teacher are more often than not bound up in the aspirations you have for your learners, and of course the aspirations they have for themselves.

 

Well, I think they should be.

 

If it's more about you and less about your learners and the overall learning space, you've probably slipped along the synonym scale (and across parts of speech) to land somewhere around the word ambitious. 

 

Why would I prefer a word like aspiration over ambition, then?

 

Aspiration also refers to breathing (as a general action) but also to the idea of releasing a breath. Aspiration is therefore a fundamental part of living; we might even interpret breathing and individual breaths as essential criteria for the success involved in just being...

 

Likewise, without breath, speech and talk are (in most instances) impossible.

 

I've occasionally worked with teachers who thought they were talking, but were pretty much just making inarticulate vowel sounds deep in their throats that only they could really interpret. Okay, so maybe I've been one of them myself at various times in my teaching career...and perhaps the talk ('career'?) has sometimes slipped more into the ambitious stable than the aspiration landscape.

 

In any case, I think it's vitally important to find and give breath to your teaching/learning aspirations.

 

Give them life... and articulation.

 

 

 

;-D

 

 

Teaching Materials Design Masterclass 6: 1:3 design principle for flexible teaching methodology

 

 

 

 

Here is the sixth tutorial in the Teaching Materials Design Masterclass series, and here we look at how 1:3 design (see last week's tutorial for more information on that, or use the link above to access all the previous tutorials) creates a simple template for you to experiment with different sorts of teaching methodology and a variety of different practice or extension applications.

 

This tutorial isn't so much about technical aspects of building or designing something; it looks more at the interesting interface between your teaching methods and the materials used to express or facilitate those methods.

 

Next week's tutorial will introduce a new kind of background option, one that might be more appropriate for younger learners or just as an alternative way of presenting your material.

 

Hope you're enjoying and getting something out of the materials design series so far -- see you same time next week!

 

 

;-D

 

 

Materials design & teaching methodology: Wrap your pumpkin's laughing gear around this!

 

 

 

Waaaay back on October 2nd, I launched a Halloween lesson materials design challenge here on the blog. I offered up some initial materials and sound files in open source format (for those who wanted a starting point) and challenged teachers to finish, adapt or replace it according to their preferences.

 

There are some excellent contributions there from teachers, and if you're looking for some great materials for Halloween I suggest you check them out in the comments thread for that post.

 

Just to follow up from that challenge, I did of course complete the templates myself and create a full Halloween lesson resource, and here are the open source files for it if you are interested in checking it out:

 

 

Halloween 1 worksheet JR (PDF Version with embedded sound files)

Halloween 1 worksheet JR (MS Word 2007 version)

Halloween 1 worksheet JR (Open/compatible version)

 

 

Note that the PDF version has the sound files embedded in the actual document; if you want to use the sound files for either the MS Word or open/compatible versions, they are available for download back on the original Halloween materials challenge post here.

 

 

Blog visitors may be satisfied with just that if they are simply looking for free, ready-to-use stuff to download and use for Halloween...

 

For those of you interested in the actual design process and the underlying teaching methodology principles, however, you're in for a bit of a treat (and tricks--hopefully of the more helpful sort!).

 

 

I'm bringing forward three of my teaching materials design video tutorials (I'm up to tutorial number 5 in the weekly release schedule here on the blog, but what you see below constitutes tutorials 9, 10 and 11 in the series) to show you not only how I made these Halloween materials, but why I've made them the way they are. So basically there is a blend of practical design techniques and teaching methodology principles.

 

 

Tutorial 9 (below) shows how I set up the basic template (using a design made earlier) and developed the first page of the handout, focussing on the Halloween notice and follow up prompts. The last third of the tutorial explains in detail why I've left so many gaps on the page...

 

 

 

Tutorial 10 demonstrates how I developed the second page of the handout, featuring a listening text to complement the Halloween invitation notice on the first page. Again, the design stuff is followed up with my teaching methodology rationale(s), for those who find such detail of interest...

 

 

 

Tutorial 11 is shorter and more targeted, demonstrating basically how I've managed to embed sound files into the PDF version of the Halloween materials using Adobe Acrobat. Having embedded sound files can be great when you want to send materials to students electronically and/or don't have an actual Internet connection working at the time of access.

 

 

 

 

There is more than an hour of materials design demonstrations and tips just on this individual post; and given that (apparently) blog readers aren't interested in anything that can't be absorbed in less than 3 minutes, I'm not sure how much of an audience it will have! If you do watch these tutorials and get something from them, then thank you and I hope they prove useful in improving your materials design skill set.

 

 

P.S. If you are/were wondering what the heck 'Wrap your pumpkin's laughing gear around this' implies... The pumpkin simply refers to the theme of Halloween, but the rest of the line comes from Australian 'ocker' slang meaning 'try (eating) this: it's good!'

('Laughing gear' = mouth)

('Wrap your laughing gear around ___' = try/eat ___)

 

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Teaching is... Channels

 

Image: Trey Ratcliff

 

 

 

Once upon a time (and I hear it does still happen from time to time in some households), families used to have to negotiate over what to watch on a single television set, based on what was offered on a limited number of channels at predetermined times.

 

Today, like never else before, in so many places there are more channels than anyone could have dreamed possible only 10-15 years ago, and so many ways (and times) to access them. Learners all have their preferred channels (and I'm sure you appreciate I'm no longer strictly referring to television stations), and most of them quite like to flick between channels at will. 

 

I've been thinking about my own teaching a lot lately, and fumbling about looking for new simple terms to describe it. One that has popped up consistently in relation to the way I do things in my current teaching role is 'decentralised.'

 

I very rarely teach from the front of the classroom anymore, unless it is to point out a resource or answer a question that has manifested itself in a way than makes it clear more than a couple of students in the room are interested in hearing the/an answer.

 

The family forced to watch the same program at a particular time on a single device no longer applies...

 

Most of the time, I'm at the back of the class where I can get a good vantage point and see the screens of all my learners, as well as how and why they are interacting with other classmates. That or sitting down next to this student or that, amongst the learners, and not necessarily in order to monitor or mentor. And, just as often, off to the side at my own monitor dealing with the endless tracking and administration side of things, letting the learners come to me when they're ready to present finished work and get feedback and direction for what to tackle next. 

 

Likewise, it is reasonably rare for my learners to all be working on the same task (or on the same stage of a task) at the one time. Very often, what started as one general task for all the learners will have been negotiated and adapted and sculpted in a dozen different ways to match the tracks of a dozen different train systems.

 

I think this decentralising process is crucial when it comes to harnessing the momentum of so many individualised channels. I can't exactly put my finger on why, but the word 'harness' feels much more important than 'cater to.'

 

I'll admit: it can be hard work. Hard work making the transition to the multi-channel classroom, that is. There are times where you feel like you're trying to manage a traffic crossing in peak hour when the traffic lights have gone on the blink.

 

And let's be honest: it has taken both two decades of teaching experience and the advent of various teaching/learning technologies and paradigms to facilitate such a transition (or evolution?) on my part.

 

Once you're there, however, things become (surprisingly?) much easier and smoother. A lot of it depends on preparation (width over depth -- they can learn how and where to dive for themselves when the preparation has been effective), how well you 'know your stuff' (and therefore how much closer to the ends of your fingertips it is on demand), the relationships and rapport you've developed with learners, the independent confidence you've managed to foster in them, and a feel for classroom and learner rhythm.

 

I've gone back to the teacher-at-the-front thing a few times recently, just to recall what it was like and what I (and my students) might be missing. On the positive side, it was sort of nice to be the centre of attention and knowledge again. It was nice, in some ways, to see certain students shine and allow less able members of the group to ride on the single central current of the whole-class approach.

 

Most of the time, however, I bored (or else 'irrelevanced') myself to death or became vaguely disgusted at the notion of making myself--or a limited number of other students--the fun, funny, charismatic, 'go-to' central performer. No matter how good the performance was, or how well I managed to elicit and draw the students into the process, I saw at least a couple of learners effectively tuning out.

 

After these occasional sorties into what is (quite frankly) starting to feel like antiquated teaching methodology, I quickly get back to individualised channels again. Learners tuning out then becomes more of a matter of helping someone here or there readjust a set--not necessarily the physical tangible sort--and/or look more laterally across the program offerings.

 

And before you jump to the conclusion that the multi-channel decentralised approach results in a room full of learners all cut off from each other and engrossed in their own silent individualised worlds, let me just say this...

 

The shared conversation is still there, and it is a whole lot richer and more democratic than it ever was before. There is more peer sharing and helping. There is more learning.

 

It's also infinitely more enjoyable, once you can retrain yourself (if necessary) to embrace the spontaneous and unpredictable (but increasingly--for me--predictably relevant and motivating).

 

 

;-D

 

 

Open (Source) English <-> On the Money

 

 

 

Well, hope this is reasonably on the money for someone out there looking for some fresh new 'open' ideas and materials!

 

Here are some of my ideas and suggestions on how you might use this resource:

 

 

 

 

And here are those open source downloads for those who want them!

 

Open English - On the Money (PDF)

Open English - On the Money (MS Word 2007)

Open English - On the Money (Compatible)

 

 

Remember there is a variety of other Open Source English resources with accompanying video tutorials/ideas in the Open English section of the blog.

 

Hope you feel a little richer...

 

 

- JR

 

 

 

Teaching Materials Design Masterclass 5: The Cappuccino Chat (1:3 design with dialogue content)

 

 

 

If you've been following the materials design masterclass videos patiently and learning new things, then I thank you and congratulate you... and now you've got a little reward: a tutorial that works with actual learning content!

 

See full size version of The Cappuccino Chat lesson material

 

Tutorial 5 here follows on from all the skills built up over tutorials 1-4 and shows you how to plan some content oriented around a short dialogue ('The Cappuccino Chat') and apply it in a professional format using the '1:3 design principle.'

 

 

 

 

 

Tutorial 6 will be along soon enough, but for now remember that all of these tutorials are available over in the English Raven Materials Design section of my main site for your viewing pleasure/torture.

 

 

;-D

 

 

Teaching is... Stepping up

 

Image: Trey Ratcliff

 

 

 

I was running a reading activity with a class of students last week (around the topic of workplace bullying -- you can see the materials here) and experimenting with a more open format that took away most of the usual scaffolding and asked the students to address the main VCAL 'reading for self expression' outcome elements on their own.

 

It went really well, perhaps surprisingly well. However, there were certain students (happily a relatively small number) who asked me for help and they found my 'help' somewhat disappointing or not in line with their hopes. My assistance was offered only in terms of simplified follow up questions to the main prompts, or questions about which parts of the reading text they thought might best answer their problem. For some of these students, what they meant by 'help' was "can you please do this for me?" and I perhaps turned out to be frustratingly slippery.

 

The suggestion that they try to complete all the elements and then show me and ask for help as a follow up was also a little frustrating for them. Doing it all on your own first (even if it turns out to be wrong -- a process the teacher was emphasizing as being far from wrong) certainly doesn't align well with the hopes of students who want a whole section delivered to them on a plate.

 

I can't do it / I don't want to do it / I couldn't be bothered doing it / I'm scared of doing it and failing = you can help me by doing all or at least most of it for me and/or my initial lack of comfort and confidence with this excuses me from giving it any of my effort. No matter that this was all about reading -- them reading (not me) -- and that the VCAL requirements for Intermediate and Senior emphasize independent application of the tasks. 

 

I don't really blame the students when this sort of thing happens. In most cases, what I am looking at is a tragic inability (or unwillingness) to just step up and 'have a crack.' It is often a result, in my opinion, of sustained periods of schooling where the less able students were simply ignored in the back corners of the classroom space, or 'helped' by applying the pedagogical equivalent of an infant's bib and plastic bowl and spoon.

 

Interestingly enough, when I draw the line in the sand on this one and force the students to have a punt on their own, they almost always come up with (at least some of) the goods. I've had what were considered seriously struggling students surprise the hell out of themselves when they get three or four things right out of five, when their initial impression was that they would be lucky to get one of them right. And the things that were wrong? Much easier to explain and show them how to do it the right way when there is already something there on the paper/screen to work with.

 

And when learners go through this experience once or twice, that willingness to 'have a crack' at something gradually improves with subsequent tasks.

 

This to me is a fundamental priority in teaching and learning: creating that willingness to step up and just try something.

 

Over many years of teaching and watching colleagues, I've noticed an almost uncanny correlation between students' willingness to step up and the same inclination in their teachers. The teacher who is unwilling to step up, try different approaches and tools, see things differently, challenge themselves or the results of their classroom instruction, etc., is very often the teacher who ends up instinctively applying a one-eyed approach that ignores the struggling students, and/or resorts to micro-managing and spoon feeding said struggling students.

 

What we really want and need is for a classroom culture that views stepping up as a fundamental core value. 

 

If we want them to step up, we have to step up.

 

Simple as that, really. 

 

 

;-D

 

 

Open (Source) English <-> Turn Right

 

 

 

 

It's Thursday, which on the English Raven blog means Open (Source) English time... This is the third set of materials, and hopefully the video below explains all you need to know about it:

 

 

 

 

 

Downloads, anybody?

Open English: Turn Right (PDF)

Open English: Turn Right (MS Word 2007)

Open English: Turn Right (Compatible)

 

 

If you like this at all, remember there are other resources similar to this in the Open English section of the blog.

 

Happy driving!

 

 

- Mr. Raven

 

                                    

Teaching Materials Design Masterclass 4: The 1:3 design principle (content/input + 3 applications)

 

 

 

 

The teaching materials design masterclass continues here on English Raven!

 

Tutorial 4 (here) looks at one of my basic design principles for teaching materials: the 1:3 design principle. In essence, that means (1) major space for content/input and the rest of the space divided into (3) sections each with a different learning application or extension.

 

In addition to demonstrating and explaining the 1:3 principle, this tutorial includes a quick application and review of the skills showcased in tutorials 1-3. Remember you can head over to the materials design section of English Raven if you want to watch any of the previous or future tutorials.

 

Next week: Tutorial 5 continues the concept of the 1:3 design principle, but showcases how to start producing actual content and how it can slot into the 1:3 design (and why...). Watch what is possible with a simple conversation oriented around ordering a cappuccino...!

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Teaching is... Perspective

 

Image: Trey Ratcliff

 

 

 

I ran a recent poll on my English Raven Facebook page eliciting responses to the question 'As a teacher of English, what is the one question you find yourself returning to time and time again?'

 

The most common responses supported the notion of pursuing autonomy/independence in learners and making stuff interesting and 'talkworthy', but there was also a huge range of other questions teachers were asking themselves.

 

One of them came from Wade Nichols, co-writer of several of the teacher's guides in my Boost! Integrated Skills Series, and he said something along the lines of "Am I seeing this the way my learners might see it?"

 

I think Wade's question was a very important one. It reminded me of the two very different perspectives you get of the glass pyramid at the Louvre depending on whether you're outside/next to it or inside/under it. It's the exact same structure, of course, but our view of it can be vastly different based on where we stand in relation to it.

 

As teachers, I think we tend to see the pyramid from the outside. It's glass, which allows us to see in to some extent, but it doesn't mean we get all (or even much) of the learners' perspective(s). 

 

So how do we get in/under the teaching/learning dynamic to get a feel for how things look from the learners' perspective?

 

Well, we can begin by asking them, of course. I constantly chat with my learners about their feelings and impressions in relation to what is happening not only in my course but also their overall educational experience. I also try to facilitate more detailed and reflective feedback, as with the recent blog post I featured here. Generally speaking, writing topics and journal entry tasks can be a very rich field from which to see life and learning through the learners' eyes.

 

That's not without its weaknesses, however. Learners, on account of second language limitations, cultural norms or general difficulties with expressing themselves, cannot always get across what they 'see' and feel with the level of clarity we need for it be fully informative.

 

Another method I've used is to basically position myself physically in the classroom so as to get something close to the same angle the learners receive. I've done this by taking a seat in different parts of the classroom, amongst or alongside the actual learners. I've also video recorded myself (for example, here). I have to admit, this physical positioning has been really informative in terms of seeing the classroom from the in/under perspective.

 

The most effective technique of all, however, is to take on the learner role for real. If you're teaching a second language, learn another second language. If you are teaching a particular subject, enroll yourself in a different subject.

 

Of course, your perception here will be overwhelmingly influenced by your age and current situation (which might be very different to your students') but I do think this experience married with the recollections you can dig up of taking classes as a teenager and child can be quite powerful.

 

The pyramid at the Louvre begins to tip upside down and you find yourself sliding down into it. The teaching/learning dynamic starts to take on a completely different feel based on the reverse perspective.

 

But there must be other ways as well. Have you tried or can you think of any that you think might work to better inform us of how things look, sound, feel, taste and smell from the learners' perspective?

 

;-D

 

 

Open (Source) English <-> Take a Seat

 

 

 

Time now for the second addition to the Open (Source) English collection and apologies in advance if it does come across as being somewhat clinical...

 

Here's the Raven take on what this material could be about and how you might use it in a classroom:

 

 

 

 

 

And here are the downloads:

 

Open English: Take a Seat (PDF)

Open English: Take a Seat (MS Word 2007)

Open English: Take a Seat (Compatible)

 

 

Be sure to let me know how the materials work (or don't work!) for you and your learners, remembering of course that it is up to you (and them) to make them work...

 

This, previous and all future Open English materials can be found in the Open English section/category of the blog. Be sure to share!

 

 

- Raven Out

 

                            

Teaching Materials Design Masterclass 3: Pretty as a button (making activity sequence markers)

 

 

 

 

It's Wednesday, and that means teaching materials design tutorial here on English Raven... Here is the third lesson in my series, showcasing how you can make those pretty buttons ('activity sequence markers' -- think A, B, C, or 1, 2, 3, etc.) for the different parts of your material. 

 

Tutorial 4 will appear this time next week, and it looks at my basic '1:3 design' principle (basically, the idea of (1) content/input plus (3) applications or extensions of that content/input).

 

Remember that all of the tutorials are available over on the English Raven site in the special materials design/development section, so if you want to see previous or upcoming tutorials that's the place to head!

 

 

;-D

 

 

Frustrated with Teaching in Japan?

 

 

 

 

This video popped up in the 'suggestions' when I uploaded my most recent Open English video (not sure the connection is all that strong, but it's always nice to find surprises...).

 

It's a little over a year old now, but I thought it was an excellent example of reflective teaching and taking a questioning approach to what we do, why, and how. It's also always great to meet a teacher who genuinely cares and isn't afraid to share his/her experiences and questions.

 

Having taught in North East Asia, I can honestly say that a lot of this young lady's concerns are pretty common to that region (and from what I hear filtering through various streams on the Internet, it's just as common in parts of Europe as well).

 

What advice would you give this person?

 

 

;-D

 

 

Teaching is... Knowing when (not) to use a navigation device

 

Image: Trey Ratcliff

 

 

 

We've all seen those GPS-fed navigation devices to help us get around in our cars. There's a good chance that if you don't have one in your car, you know at least one other person who does.

 

Let's face it: they can be devilishly useful. I can recall using one each time I had to drive in Seoul, Korea. Living at the other end of the peninsula in a much smaller city, on the rare occasions I had to drive up to and around in such a sprawling and convoluted megametropolis, I have to admit that the driving navigator was a godsend.

 

But I've met people who have become so dependent on their navigator that they admit they're not willing to drive anywhere without it, even if it is just a couple of kilometres from their homes.

 

That to me is a pretty poignant example of a very useful tool becoming a bane to our own pragmatic competence.

 

The situation with teaching is rather similar.

 

Heading into very new and unknown teaching/learning situations can benefit from some sort of navigation device (by which I mean a potential range of things: coursebook content, a very carefully structured curriculum, immaculate lesson planning, following the directions of a teaching colleague, etc.), for those of us who find the unknown just that little bit too daunting or happen to be under certain kinds of time or performance pressure.

 

But if you're unwilling to leave the staffroom without said 'device', even to teach a very familiar group of learners, then I think it is time to reconsider just how much help you're getting from it. 

 

You'll never learn to see past the tip of your teaching nose if you allow yourself to become progressively blind with dependence on things that do all of your thinking for you.

 

Getting lost from time to time is all part of the precious process of developing an innate sense of direction.

 

So go on, you... If it doesn't appear to be life/career threatening:

GET LOST!

 

See what you find.

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Do multiple choice questions epitomise the industrialisation of education?

 

Image: COCOEN

 

 

There is, of course, a solid rationale behind using multiple choice questions in educational materials designed to 'measure' what students 'know'. Actually, the description that accompanies the image above on Flickr is a reasonably good summary of some of the most important issues multiple choice questions address.

 

Over many years in education as a teacher and materials writer, I've used more than my fair share of multiple choice questions. It's what many teachers expect. My Boost! series has thousands of them (especially in the reading and grammar strands). I have folders with hundreds of tests I've designed for schools over the years, and multiple choice is a mainstay of the overall approach in many of them. An online reading program I acted as consultant to specifically asked me to format comprehension questions predominantly in mutliple choice format. The relationship with that company petered out when I refused to make the so-called writing section of their program all pre-set and multiple choice...

 

However, looking over some recent projects I've been involved in, I am seeing a huge demise in multiple choice questions. My online Trade-Lit program uses them very sparingly indeed, and mostly as a way to mix up the task work a little. I've been working on an online reading program for the English Raven site, and looking over the initial design I realised there are almost no multiple choice applications at all.

 

I've come to the realisation that they are just a very second rate means of facilitating and checking comprehension and critical thinking, no matter how scientifically you look at and apply them. They can never compare to short answer and open-ended questions, and reliance on them seriously blinds a teacher to what is really going on in students' heads and how to best address their cognitive and learning needs.

 

Admittedly, there is an exception to this rule: when students create their own multiple choice questions in response to a task or text. This can be a wonderful way for them to really think their way through content, analyse it and learn at a deeper level. But clearly this is a very different application we are talking about.

 

I also don't entirely subscribe to the view that pre-provided multiple choice questions save time for teachers. Sure, it can be much quicker to mark a test or task using multiple choice. But is that our job? Just marking tests? Allocating scores? I'm under the impression (and feel free to correct me if you disagree) that our job is to educate and really get to know what our students need in the way of strategies and tasks. Multiple choice is a dangerously enticing shortcut across a corner of a forest for a park ranger whose job it (technically) is to know the overall forest rather more comprehensively.

 

And anyway, these days I find myself reading and marking those short answer and open-ended questions at a speed not all that much slower than the time needed to sort through multiple choice answers. The difference is that the former inform me a lot more and in the longer run I think this enhances my understanding of learners and my ability to help them progress. Compared to the multiple choice application, overall I think this is saving me time.

 

Those arguments of mine all might sound fine, but we all know multiple choice will remain with us. The reason for that is very simple. Multiple choice removes the time required for analysis and thinking. It speeds things up and makes it all more convenient. Time is money. Multiple choice saves time and therefore ensures certain stakeholders make more money.

 

Personally, I believe multiple choice questions epitomise the extent to which education has become industrialised in the pursuit of monetary profit. I also believe the extent to which teachers become addicted to it embodies--to some extent--how much we are losing out as well-rounded, receptive and generally aware educators.

 

Avoiding the multiple choice temptation for Trade-Lit is fine, because it is a small program made for a small group of teachers. However, I feel a little grim when I contemplate the English Raven online reading program prospect. Just what percentage of schools and teachers am I potentially missing out on by refusing to use multiple choice and auto-correct options (that is, by making a program that requires teachers to actually check and think about the students' responses)? Such a program still represents the opportunity for profit, in my opinion. Profit more of the learning and not monetary kind, perhaps. But still: mouths need to be fed (and not just in my kitchen) and it can be a hard ask to stick to your principles.

 

 

So what's your take on the multiple choice questions issue?

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

The 'Hard Talk' interview with an unplugged language teacher

 

 

 

If you're wondering what all these mentions of 'dogme' and 'teaching unplugged' around the blogtwittersphere refer to, I think the interview below (from the IATEFL 2011 conference) is both an outstanding overview of the concept and a brilliant probing of it from an interviewer quite good at playing devil's advocate:

 

 

 

 

 

That fellow doing an admirable job in the firing line is Anthony Gaughan from Teacher Training Unplugged, and the example he gives of a relatively inexperienced teacher experimenting with unplugged teaching techniques in a wonderfully principled and descriptive way refers to Dale Coulter, whose blog Language Moments - Reflections on Language and Teaching has become one of my regular go-tos for some serious inspiration. 

 

The interview and the blogs here are highly recommended.

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Teaching is... Currents

 

Image: Trey Ratcliff

 

 

 

Try to resist the temptation to subscribe to the baloney that positive and negative currents in a learning environment all start with the teacher. It's arrogant or in many cases just plain unfair to pin this on one individual in a group environment.

 

Whenever you step into a classroom, there is a current already there. Sometimes it is slow and subtle; other times it is obvious and in an almighty rush. It may be going in a positive or negative direction (relative to the potential for learning and development). It is often slightly invisible, moving beneath a very still and reflective surface.

 

So much of effective teaching has to do with currents. Which way is it going? Toss some leaves in and see which way they dart. Or meander.

 

If it is heading in the right direction, then dive right in and see where it goes.

 

Bear in mind, however, that there are group currents and individual movements within that current. Not everyone is moving in the central flow, with least hindrance and maximum speed. Avoid the temptation of spending all of your time in the middle where the current moves most effortlessly and conveniently. Don't turn a blind eye to those little eddies forming up and getting caught hard against the banks.

 

And beware the attraction of speed. The beauty of a stream is what and how it passes through, not where it ends up.

 

When it is (apparently) heading in the wrong direction, the challenge is to bridge it. It's heading left and you'd like to see it move right. Getting over to the other side of the current effectively reverses the relative direction of its flow. What was left is now right.

 

Learning something is (too) hard. Learning something is boring. Learning something is useless.

 

Bridge those currents and start with things that are easy, interesting and practical. Smash through whatever curricular cardboard you need to in order to make it happen. Sometimes you only need to facilitate one of those elements (ease, interest or practical relevance) and the bridge is built; you're on other side and the current has reversed.

 

Tip: Relationships and rapport make for outstanding bridge building materials.

 

Put your boat in. Off you go, then.

 

 

Patch up that curriculum stuff later.

It's only cardboard, after all.

Recyclable.

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

 

The English Raven Halloween lesson materials design challenge!

 

 

 

October has arrived, and that means Halloween is very close. Experimenting with some of my own Halloween materials, a sudden thought came to me: How great would it be to see how different members of my PLN in different parts of the world use the same basic core input/ content but adapt, extend, abolish in whatever way suits their own teaching beliefs/and or the educational culture in which they are working?

 

The idea of the English Raven Halloween Lesson Material Design Challenge (as you can see, it took a while to get the idea out of my mouth!) was thus born... Find out more by watching the video I prepared for the challenge:

 

 

 

 

So, are you up for it? I hope so!

 

Remember that you can change any of the existing content and add and extend with your own activities in whatever ways work best for you and your learners.

 

Post your customised Halloween lesson material on your blog or site, then leave a link here on this page to the location of your efforts (so that we can all find it and give it a squiz).

 

 

I'm genuinely excited at the prospect of so many different versions of the basic template and core content...

 

Templates with content/input for you to download and work with...

Download Halloween 1 worksheet template (MS Word)

Download Halloween 1 worksheet template (MS Word Compatible)

 

Oh... and if you're interested in having some audio files to go along with the input/content already in the templates, here they are (right click and select "save as" if you want to save the files to your own computer):

 

Halloween_Track1

Halloween_Track2

 

 

Look forward to seeing some of your work and hearing from you!

 

 

;-D

 

 

[LATE ADD]: Just an idea, but you might like to try screencasting your lesson material! Try a tool like Screenr (free, allows you to sign in with your Twitter account), where you can present your material on the screen and explain it with accompanying audio. You could then post a direct link to the screencast here on the blog, or embed it as a video on your own blog. Give it a try, you'll love the results!

 

                            

A preview of bam!boo!

 

 

 

Thank you very much to all the teachers out there who posted kind comments of appreciation and encouragement on the recent materials design tutorial I uploaded here.

 

The snapshot above comes from Tutorial 8 in the series, which I have nick-named the Bamboo Mega-Tutorial. It basically demonstrates how to make something that looks just like the material you can see above (but hopefully you'll have something more exciting and inspiring than bamboo to showcase...), from blank page to finished product.

 

Don't for a minute think that smooth professional formatting of materials is the exclusive domain of the big publishers. You can make stuff of this quality, too... if you're willing to put in the time and learn (and have fun experimenting).

 

Tutorials from the ER Teaching Materials Design Masterclass series will be posted here every Wednesday over the next couple of months, so keep your screens peeled!

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Teaching Materials Design Masterclass 1: Head to toe...

 

 

 

 

I've been meaning to get around to these for a while, ever since Barbara Sakamoto and James Taylor asked me for tutorials on the subject (I'll assume they were almost half serious!) and so many visitors to the blog and site were kind enough to leave compliments about how professional they felt some of my materials to be in terms of formatting and presentation.

 

So here it is: the first English Raven materials design masterclass!

 

This one looks at one of the beginning steps in setting up a professional looking document: creating headers and footers. It works with Microsoft Word, which I assume many people have access to (and for those who don't, hopefully the basic actions and principles can be somewhat instructive).

 

I'll try to post new tutorials every week or so for those who are interested enough to want to learn from  (or, just as likely -- and welcome -- critique) them.

 

For those who want to get more stuck into these sorts of skills NOW, you might like to check out the new materials design section of the main website. There are three full tutorials up there at the time of writing this post, with many more planned.

 

Oh, and if you think the formatting and ideas here are pretty plain crappy, by all means comment to that effect. I could well be deluding myself about my materials design prowess, and it would be nice for the readership to see the different perspective!

 

 

;-D

 

 

Is this a grammar teaching gaffe?

 

 

Yesterday, I released a special online version of my GrammarGolf card game application. This is something I trialled and used extensively with younger learners as a classroom teacher, and based on the exciting levels of engagement and awareness it generated, I was looking forward to making a multi-media version for the English Raven site.

 

However, even as I am aware of the activity's strengths based on my own experiences, I also knew this was something of a risk; dare I feel happy about a teaching application that I know probably won't get that much uptake?

 

See, here's the thing... I got Mrs. Raven to try it out. Being an advanced learner herself (Certificate IV level in the local parlance), I wanted her impressions and feedback.

 

Surprise surprise: she didn't like it very much. And not really because, despite her advanced level, she got more than a few of the sentence options wrong!

 

"Why have more than one possible answer?"

"Why aren't the mistake options explained?"

"How am I supposed to understand why I got it wrong?"

 

 

Mrs. R has, in my opinion, voiced criticisms of GrammarGolf that I think will be shared by a very large number of learners.

 

I don't want to give too much away here, but this is NOT the way younger students generally react to the GrammarGolf application. And... that is precisely one of the reasons why I think it can be such an important learning tool.

 

Now, from a teaching perspective, I think there will be another serious objection. The sentences are not contextualised at all! Oh my goodness... there goes the neighbourhood. And absurdly enough, I am absolutely fine with this as well.

 

So here is my question to you:

 

Do you think GrammarGolf is a grammar teaching gaffe? Why or why not?

If not, why do you think I purposely avoid giving detailed explanations and emphasize the idea of 'have a swing, and if you miss, swing again!'? Why on earth would I think that sentences without communicative context could possibly be useful?

 

Is this Raven a teaching emperor with no clothes, or just a straight up moron???

 

 

;-D

 

 

 

Education and the limitations of flower pots

 

 

 

This was an interesting learning experience for English Raven Jnr and myself. A bit of a case of all the intentions being good, but over-enthusiasm actually clouded our judgement.

 

The flower pot in the picture above was our Spring Project, started months ago by selecting a range of seeds that benefit from a late winter/early autumn planting. There are actually four separate flower varieties planted there, in neat little sections so that each variety got an even quarter of the pot in which to grow and thrive (and wow us in early spring).

 

The little pale blue flowers on the far right were the first to bud and bloom. They've been struggling ever since, but it looks like they might make it...

 

The colourful, explosive flowers on the far left were the last to bud and bloom, and boy are they impressive.

 

Between those two extremes are (were?) the two varieties in the middle. They began to bloom not long after the first lot on the right, and they were beautiful. Vivid purple for one lot and gorgeous crimson and gold for the other lot. 

 

And then they just (if you'll forgive local parlance) 'carked it'...

 

There are lessons in this for a dad who knows next to nothing about plants and gardening.

 

And there are lessons for the educator, too. As in, the scope of the environment and the amount of possible nutrients in it can be limited; packing in as many educational priorities and strains as possible means that, in the end, some will feed off the resources the others need and not all will make it through. The result can be lopsided, disappointing and infinitely less pretty.

 

Plant your seeds so that they complement each other and don't overwhelm the available space to grow.

 

That, and/or avoid the flower pot (and the special pre-prepared and packaged soil) altogether... concentrate on a nurturing a broader garden.

 

 

There's my 'deep' post for the week...

 

 

:-D

 

 

 

Watch Raven Play...

 

 

 

I've been a tad... well, productive, I guess!

 

All of the above is now available for free access and use in the new e-Learning section of the revamped (and revamping) English Raven website.

 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

:-D

 

 

 

Is Master Samurai Brent allowed in your classroom?

 

 

 

 

Well, he's actually listed as Master Samuri Brent and exhibits more of the traits of an overly ambitious Australian pre-teen ninja/gym member than anything else...

 

Anyway, as it turns out, Master Samurai Brent is now 16 years of age (he was 12-13 when he made this video) and one of my new students. Between literacy tasks on Trade-Lit, he was on YouTube looking for a new music track to play through his headphones while he went on to complete the next literacy task, and he recalled this video he'd made years before. He asked me politely if he could show it to me.

 

I watched it and absolutely howled with laughter. A few of the other fellows came over to see it as well, and some laughs were had all round.

 

In the aftermath I found out quite a lot of interesting information about Master Samurai Brent, like who the various family members in the video were and how the scene where he does a flying kick off the garden retaining wall actually resulted in him breaking his leg!

 

But mostly, I just got to know this young person a lot better. And he got to know that he has a teacher who is willing to get to know him, via windows he can choose and contribute.

 

 

Some people ask me what it is I do that seems to make teenagers comfortable, cooperative and productive in my classroom. I'm not entirely sure what it is that makes things work, but I daresay a little time and room for appearances like Master Samurai Brent makes a difference.

 

Is Master Samurai Brent (or your local version of him) welcome in your classroom?

 

I think he should be.

 

 

:-)

 

 

 

Which teacher are you: coming or going?

 

Image: MorBCN

 

 

For the sake of hypothesis, I'd like to ask you a question. And present you with an interesting choice.

 

You're teaching English to children who are aged about 10-11. They've been at this English caper for about four or five years already, and have a pretty good level. Let's say they're a bit beyond Cambridge YLE Flyers level, and somewhere in the vicinity of mid-PET (or getting reasonably close to pre-Intermediate).

 

You're on the hunt for some new ideas and materials to use with these kids, and you roll around to good ol' English Raven's site and you see two versions of an extended teaching/learning endeavour. We'll assume for now that both versions basically match the existing language level and learning needs of your students (in terms of the linguistic demands). 

 

Version A is a fully scripted out adventure story, complete with excellent pictures, audio files to accompany each passage of text, review questions with answer keys, and quizzes to help you with overall assessment. Oh, and a bunch of supplementary activity ideas.

 

Version B is the same adventure story, but almost none of the content has been provided--just the pictures. The general idea is that the learners, with assistance from the teacher, make the story up as they go, either as a class or in groups or--for those who prefer it--individually. There are prompts to help things along, as well as extensive teacher notes explaining ways to facilitate the story and to help the learners make it their own.

 

Please forgive me here, but I don't want any fence-sitting. It's not a crime to prefer one of these versions over the other (and yes, I know, they both have their positives and negatives).

 

In essence, which of them appeals to you and excites you in terms of what it could achieve in your classroom with these pre-Intermediate learners of English aged 10-11? Version A or Version B?

 

In some ways, I might dare to label Version A as the preference of the teacher who is coming (to the learners with planned and controlled input, first and foremost), while Version B is the tool of choice for the teacher who is going (with the learners away into new and mostly unplanned territory, working more or less from output). 

 

So, remembering again that this is not about judging either kind of teacher, which teacher are you: the one who is coming or the one who is going? What is your instinct telling you?

 

 

Would absolutely love to read your responses to this!

 

 

:-)

 

 

 

Let's Go (back ten years to see how far and how quickly we have come)

 

 

 

I'm not sure if this is a sign of (or a coping device to try and avoid) a mid-life crisis, but I seem to be a bit preoccupied this week with how things were a decade ago. Or perhaps, as I continue to dig up and revamp material from the English Raven website, I just continue to find it staggering how far back in history ten years ago now appears to be.

 

The picture above shows a listening test I developed in 2001. It was an ambitious exercise in some ways, because the school I was managing at the time was using Barb Sakamoto's excellent Let's Go series and I wanted to combine the Let's Go content with the Cambridge Young Learners of English test formats. What I did was draw on the themes, vocabulary and functional language in all six levels of Let's Go and apply them as listening tests which mirrored the sections and applications in Cambridge YLE Starters, Movers and Flyers sample tests.

 

Even the scripts I developed for the tests mirrored exactly the style and methodology used in the Cambridge YLE tests:

 

 

TN: Hello and welcome to this Listening Test for Let’s Go 4 Units 1-4.  Please listen carefully to the instructions and try to answer all questions on this test paper.  Good Luck!

Part One.  Look at the picture and listen to the example.

M: Today is Wednesday.  What was Ted doing yesterday?

W:– He was playing basketball.

M:— Oh, yes.  I see him now.

 

TN: Can you see Ted playing basketball yesterday?  Can you see the line going from Ted’s name to the picture?  Now listen and draw lines from the other names to the pictures.

W: What about Ted’s friend David?  What was he doing yesterday?

M: He was catching butterflies.  He caught a lot!

W: Really?  That must have been fun! Mmm, can you see Tracy?

M:— Yes, she’s right there.  She was feeding ducks yesterday at the lake.

W:– Right. What about Tim?  Was he taking pictures with his new camera yesterday?

M:— Yes, he was!  And can you see Sam?  Was he playing catch yesterday?

W:– No, he wasn’t.  He was picking up trash with his friend Sunny.  The park was so dirty yesterday!

M:— Right!  I can see that.  That just leaves Chris.  What was he up to yesterday?

W:– He was playing catch, of course.  Can’t you see him there?

M:— Oh yes, now I see him!

 

 

But of course, a script is useless without a sound track... How did we produce them?

 

That's right: myself and two other teachers stayed behind after school one night and recorded them all... on a cassette recorder that looked very much like the one you can see at the top of this page. Hold down the RECORD and PLAY buttons at the same time. Remember? Then use your master tape to record onto all the other tapes, one after another...

 

This was only ten years ago.

 

iPods and MP3 players weren't around then. Phones, while definitely quite small and very mobile, weren't taking pictures or recording things yet (much less taking 1 hour high quality video and connecting us to the Internet).

 

Today I had a teenager making assembly instructions for a catapult, and he couldn't access his CAD drawings. We popped out of the literacy classroom into the workshop, took a variety of different angle and close up photographs of his catapult with my Samsung Galaxy S, which I sent directly from the phone to his school email address. He had his assembly instructions done by the end of the class, complete with high quality photographs.

 

This evening, based on a quick request from yesterday on Facebook, I joined Marisa Constantinides and her YL teacher trainees in Athens via Skype for a brief video link up to discuss ELT materials design for young learners of English. As easy and convenient as glancing out the window, really.

 

 

 

 

Not long after that, I left the screencasting tool on and left the room while my son played my newly minted When-Who-What-Where card game online. The resulting video shows his screen actions, plays his voice and also the recorded voice files I had uploaded into the game. And I can show it all to you here (a fascinating example of child language experimentation and thinking out loud, I must add), basically with a flick of a (code embed) switch:

 

 

 

 

 

As I look at what we are doing today (and the relative ease involved) and compare it to me sitting at a table with a cassette recorder that (now) looks like a big black fridge, it really does hit me between the eyes that technology (and access to technology) has absolutely exploded over the past decade. To look back at 2001 and for it to feel like ancient history is exciting but eerie and even a little unnerving.   

 

In ten years from now, will that screencast above and the Skype session and my Samsung Galaxy S seem as crusty and clunky as the old cassette recorder appears to us now?

 

The mind boggles.

 

 

;-)

 

 

 

Did you enjoy the weather? Well wait until you try the food!

 

 

 

My thanks to all the people who commented here on the blog and also on Facebook and Twitter about the English Raven -- English Raven Junior collaboration on weather and seasons vocabulary. As promised, our next installment is ready to hit the web waves and I can tell you now: if you thought the weather was good, wait until you try the food!

 

English Raven Junior was in class form for this latest video; here are some tidbits for you to watch/listen out for:

• Find out why, according to ER Jnr, hamburgers can be bad for you
• Listen for the correlations between 'unhealthy-like' and 'healthy-don't like'
• Why do you think the onion is depicted with a tear in its eye?
• We call them capsicums here, while others call them peppers; ER Jnr has a suggestion along the lines of a compromise
• Ever seen a chicken hanging from a palm tree?

 

In any case, I'm delighted with how these vids are turning out, and wish I'd had access to them when I was teaching English to little children. They're completely unscripted and beautifully enhanced with a real child's world view of things. They're real -- something we see and hear so little of in English language learning materials where pretty much everything is carefully staged.

 

I think they're also precious as ELT materials because while a central lexical direction is presented, it is wonderfully enhanced with all the peripheral language and comments. Even if children don't quite understand everything they hear, I think the targeted vocabulary will be very salient and there is enough use of recasting, follow up questions, intonation and emphasis to create excellent initial exposure to the language in natural use.

 

And most importantly of all: they can be pretty bloody funny. Kids everywhere love funny.

 

So get on over and see English Raven Jnr strut his stuff with food vocabulary!

 

 

:-)

 

 

 

Why I'm starting to quite like "bottled" digital lesson content

 

Image: Mukumbura

 

 

About this time last year, I wrote a blog post called Ever wanted to clone yourself to help teach a class more effectively? and referred to the power of screencasting when it comes to sort of pre-planning and pre-delivering lesson content. The basic idea: you pre-record the main chunky content stuff in your lesson (drawing on the audio and visual aspects of screencasting to enhance the delivery) and play it in class, leaving you more freedom to monitor and respond to students as the content is delivered.

 

If you'd asked me five years ago whether this was a particularly good idea, I probably wouldn't have been all that receptive to the idea. Nothing can replace the live on the spot performance of good teaching in a classroom with all its spontaneity and adaptation to audience of the moment, I would have argued.

 

Today I might argue something similar but with the observation that some things can enhance (not necessarily replace) the performance and effectiveness of the live "in the room" teacher. This is based on some extensive classroom experimentation, the surprising success of my online TOEFL school (which has no live or "in the same room" teaching at all), and some more recent observations of an online literacy program I have been developing for a blended learning approach in a technical college for senior secondary school students. 

 

Here are some of the things I have noticed about "bottling" certain parts of lessons and presenting them through online screencasts (in classrooms where each student has access to a computer):

 

• Every student gets individualised access to the content, and by adding interactive elements (for example, requiring students to report or respond to the screencasted material) it becomes much more feasible to check how much of the content is actually being taken in;
• Five in ten students need no more than the screencast to "get it" and can then move on to the next task, effectively allowing them to learn at their own pace;
• Three in ten students get most of the screencasted material, but may need the occasional quick follow up or confirmation to proceed with confidence;
• Two in ten students have problems with the content and need more active assistance from the teacher (which has become much more feasible on account of another five in ten already moving ahead and another three in ten assisted on through it with a minimal amount of assistance);
• Students are much more willing to assist peers who get stuck or need help compared to the group teaching/learning scene;
• Students can replay and review the content at will, right there in the classroom or over in the school library or at home (or during a road trip with their 3G iPad, as a student informed me last Friday);
• More content is delivered and more take up of skills occurs, in most instances, than in the traditional one-teacher-teaching-to-a-group scenario;
• The teacher becomes less of a performer to an audience and more of a conversational facilitator and aide, creating a much less formal atmosphere in the classroom;
• Every student has something to focus on, at his/her own pace, which majorly reduces the chance of classroom distractions and disruptions;
• The teacher is able to prepare a lot in advance, which helps him to relax and move more with the flow (including adaptation and contextualisation) in the classroom itself.

 

 

Personally, I love teaching to groups and having the learners all seated in a circle or U with a shared 'stage' for the teaching and learning. I'm not about to suggest this is ineffective or needs to be shelved.

 

However, observational experience on my part is starting to present some powerful evidence that "bottling" (and learners pouring for themselves) certain parts of lessons is a really effective approach to education.

 

All of this ran through my head this morning as I was working on a new batch of LEAP Speaking material for the English Raven website. I began to wonder if it might not be a valuable addition to provide screencast versions of the materials that teachers could play in class and/or allow students to access for review or private study at home. 

 

Remember that I'm not suggesting for a moment that pre-recorded and pre-formatted lesson material replace the in-the-room-live-here-and-now teacher... any more than it already does through things like coursebooks, of course.

 

But I do think digital bottling can be something that really enhances what we're able to achieve in a classroom, and what learners are able to achieve on their own.

 

 

What do you think?

 

 

:-)

 

 

 

 

Never ask students to do something you aren't willing to do yourself...

... and that includes things like doing recorded presentations that make you squirm and feel a bit dorky!






The "interview" above was done as a model for students to consider before trying their own recorded presentations on the topic of Top Tools of Your Trade. By talking about 'teaching tools' I was able to speak genuinely but also avoid giving any of our particular trade groups an unfair advantage over the others. For example, if I'd done this interview with one of our carpentry teachers, the plumbing and electrical students would have cried foul (as the model would have basically given the carpentry group something to copy not just in terms of organisation and delivery but also actual content).

I also quite deliberately did some things a little poorly in this talk, to give students the chance to discover/notice both positives and negatives in the example given. There's no clear indication at the start of the talk in terms of specific topic, focus and purpose. Three main topics would have been better than four, for example, given that I managed to talk at length about all of them. I repeat myself a little too much. There's no 'wrap up' conclusion to help the listener to walk away with a clear reminder of what I covered. The volume could have been better. You get the drift...

However, I would like to offer thanks to my talented and infinitely patient (if not particularly energetic) interviewer: the handle of the second draw on the filing cabinet across from my desk. I had to make it look like an interview, after all, and there wasn't anybody about in the staff room!


Getting back to the title of this post, I do think it is really important to put ourselves through the same sorts of tasks that we ask learners to try. Doing this interview with the filing cabinet reminded me of a lot of the discomfort of doing a formal presentation of some sort (and a recorded one at that); that gives me valuable insights into the learners' potential feelings about this task and what I might be able to do to help them through it.

Like bringing that filing cabinet along to class to help with the interview questions, for instance...




:D

Applied #Literacy as integrated and integrous

 

 

Image: Werner Kunz

 

 

I stumbled upon a neat way to apply literacy today in our applied learning context, thanks mainly to the initiative of a colleague responsible for teaching technology and design to our students.

 

We are in the middle of writing mid-term reports for our learners, and this teacher thought it would be an interesting exercise to have his students compose their own reports (about themselves) in relation to their performance and learning in his subject. He initially did this to create a comparison with his own assessments of the learners, but as we were to later discuss and ponder, this turned out to be a brilliant way to have the students reflect on their own performance in a much more salient way. Our students are fairly unlikely to read or take on board the formal reports written by their teachers, but when they do them for themselves there is much more likelihood of real reflection and uptake.

 

This in itself was something I thought of as being 'blogworthy'; it is a great example of what I like to call 'integrous teaching' -- a process that facilitates and promotes learner integrity.

 

The learners completed a paragraph about themselves addressing 3-4 key points suggested by the technology and design teacher in relation to performance in that particular subject. This teacher then approached me to see what we could do with this work  in terms of facilitating extensions into literacy development. I was happy to give this a shot, and the initial integrous activity then became an integrated one (from subject to literacy skills).

 

Based on the initial paragraphs of about 100 words, I had the learners extend them to about 300 words basically by identifying the key ideas and thoughts, turning these into topic sentences for independent paragraphs and then 'growing' each paragraph to include supporting details and examples. They were then shown how to add short introductions and conclusions, along with signpost language to create progression and cohesion across the body paragraphs.

 

This created a 3-4 draft process (relatively untaxing based on the electronic format of their texts) which was precious in terms of meeting our VCAL literacy outcomes but also developing and applying real literacy skills in a fairly logical and organic fashion. From single paragraph 100-word accounts we had grown 4-paragraph essays of about 300 words in length and it was interesting how much easier for the learners this was compared to the 'traditional' approach of planning out a full essay in advance.

 

Aside from the literacy skills perspective here, I think this was really valuable from the integrous and reflective angles as well. By visualising and describing actual behaviours and experiences to support their initial assessments of themselves, it forced them to not only rationalise them but also genuinely notice their own performance.

 

This application across two teachers and two subjects was particularly fruitful. Like so many of my better teaching experiences, it sprang out of someone else's initial application and then grew in a very collaborative way. Cheers Robin!

 

The really juicy thing to consider is how this could be extended and reapplied across other subjects and tasks as well. For now and the future, I think I'd like to bear in mind those two terms 'integrated' and 'integrous'; I think there's a tremendous amount of potential mileage there for the applied literacy teacher.

 

 

=D

 

                                                                          

The notion of 'wepth' in social media (and the Facebook X-factor)

 

 

Image: Kaafoor

 

 

I'm working with a new crew of colleagues at the moment, and some of the things I'm being asked about (when it comes to this whole 'social media thing') include beautifully simplistic questions like "so why the blog?" and "what exactly is twitter for?"

 

Having become very accustomed to (what I call) edublogging and edutweeting, I find such questions refreshing and thought-provoking.

 

The most common response I give -- beyond just the notions of connecting with other educators around the world (twitter) and engaging in reflective practice (blogging) -- is that using the different forms of social media is all about achieving both width and depth. Integrating the two results in what I like to call wepth.

 

I mean, it's great to have the width of something like Twitter, and the thousands of educators it can put you in touch with, but it becomes pretty feather-light (and perhaps even pointless) 'touching' if there is nothing of substance to connect to.

 

Likewise, it can be a wonderfully therapeutic thing to blog about your experiences and thoughts, going into a reasonable amount of detail both in the posts and the discussions that can end up attaching themselves to them, but without a reasonably wide potential audience a lot of excellent reflective practice can end up feeling pretty lonely.

 

Hence the notion that you can achieve wepth by maintaining a wide network on Twitter and referring to your own and others' blog posts, which in turn become the fodder for more extensive reading and discussion on specific discoveries or issues.

 

However, I've started to question my own theory here...

 

First of all, I don't think Twitter automatically excludes depth and nor does blogging necessarily avoid width. Picking and choosing your contacts carefully on Twitter results, at least to some degree, in a kind of depth because you are targeting your network (for me it tends to be educators and writers). And with blogging, the public nature of it and relatively rapid pick up from search engine spiders mean that you are achieving a certain width by making your posts accessible to a range of readers whom you might not have actively targeted.

 

Perhaps, with things like blogging and Twitter, wepth ends up working both ways or in a variety of ways. I think, however, it would be fair to say that overall wepth is limited when one or the other is excluded from the overall package.

 

What has started to fascinate me is the way that Facebook has come marching along and taken big meaty bites out of both blogging and Twitter.

 

As comment threads on blog posts diminish and interaction on Twitter heads more along the lines of basic link-sharing and updates, we see more of those behaviours (commentary and discussion, informal interaction) becoming the staple of Facebook.

 

A recent post on this blog received more 'likes' on Facebook than it did 'retweets' on Twitter, and there were about twenty times as many comments/interactions for it on Facebook than we saw in the blog's own comment thread. And it certainly wasn't an isolated example; looking at blog/Twitter/Facebook activity over a period of about 6-12 months, this appears to be the direction in which things are heading.

 

Is it possible that Facebook's format/approach is achieving something closer to the wepth many of us appear to be looking for?

 

If so, can we reconcile this with the uncomfortable thought that (for better wepth) all we need is more Facebook friends and less concern about our own privacy and content?

 

 

Mmmm.

 

 

=D

 

                                                         

If you teach writing...

 

 

Image: Gep Pascual

 

 

... but don't do much of any sort of writing on a reasonably regular basis yourself (and school reports and comments on students' essays can't really count here), I figure you have basically two options -- not at all mutually exclusive -- to redress this potentially distressing situation:

 

1. Get to it, start writing regularly and make sure you experience at least as many writing genres and outcomes (and word counts) as you expect your students to tackle;

 

2. Be willing to negotiate the writing curriculum with your learners, at every stage and every layer.

 

 

I'm not going to feel comfortable or committed to learning something like automotive skills from someone who has never actually fixed a car (or only fixed one decades ago as a contrived demonstration activity) and figures, on account of his/her shinier and more spectacularly emblazoned overalls, that I have no right to venture some opinions of my own about what may or may not need to happen under the bonnet.

 

Are you?

 

 

=D

 

             

(Ouch! Twisted my bloody ankle getting down off my soapbox!)

                       

                                

The Librarian

 

 

Image: chotda

 

There is certainly a lot of talk about the place concerning the Internet and access to content, and while that is all absolutely interesting and exciting, I got an avid reminder of the relative value of (physical) libraries and librarians today.

 

A wonderful librarian by the name of Jan helped me find more (and better quality) resources for a range of specialized subjects in 45 minutes this morning than I'd been able to come up with scouring the Internet on my own over a period of more than two weeks.

 

She also made me feel very welcome there, and that this was a nice place to come to for information and help.

 

Let's face it: even the supposedly all-powerful Internet doesn't often leave you with the same impression (or such an excellent use of limited time)!

 

If you haven't visited a library for a while, do so. If you haven't chatted with a librarian for some time, give it a whirl.

 

You might be surprised...

 

 

=D

 

                                       

A League of Extraordinary Colleagues

 

 

Image: wilhei55

 

 

Have you ever had one of those rare Fridays when you actually go home feeling more positive and 'charged up' than you did coming into work on Monday morning -- and not (just) because you have the weekend to look forward to?

 

I had one of those Fridays yesterday. It also came with a poignant reminder of what actually contributed to making an average teaching day go so smoothly and so well.

 

For me it began with the realisation in the morning session that some of my learners are actually starting to go online and submit writing tasks to me during their own time at home, without any prompting (or even necessity) whatsoever. That may not sound like anything grand in your neck of the teaching woods, but in mine it is like witnessing a genuine miracle.

 

Attached to that was the discovery that several learners are requesting, in other teachers' classes, when they have finished their designated work or can't participate in that subject for some reason (for example, physical injuries preventing gym work), to go on the computer and do some more English. For vocational students preparing for the 'hard' trades, this is another small miracle that has me hopping for joy.

 

But the biggest celebration of the day came when I took our most 'complex' (I'm reserving the description 'difficult' for other aspects of my work from now on...) group of learners for the first time, the group we would normally split into two groups to make them more manageable (but couldn't yesterday on account of some scheduling challenges), and got every one of them doing solid literacy work for 80 minutes straight, in something very close to a pleasant and positive spirit.

 

I was totally pumped after that, I can tell you. I'd seen that group lurking on the schedule for Friday afternoon and been quite frankly dreading it all week long. To have the class go so well and see them produce so much quality work... These are the moments teachers wait weeks, months or even years for.

 

BUT!

 

On my way home from work, as I started stretching and warming up the muscles in my shoulder to help me give myself a whopping big and very self-indulgent pat on the back, I had a bit of a deeper think about just what exactly it was that made this teaching day go so well.

 

First of all, I've been extremely lucky in a new teaching role to have a boss and a fellow literacy teacher who have been really receptive and encouraging with regards to my digital endeavours with our curriculum and classroom application approach. It's not often you can walk into a new job and have supervisors and subject colleagues who are so immediately ready to take on your (new, sometimes quite revolutionary) ideas and let you run with them.

 

Then there have been the teachers in other subjects who have been open to letting our students go online and do English work once they have finished (or somehow been precluded from) the set tasks in that subject. That has been a powerful example that I've in turn been encouraged to follow. For example, I've been letting certain students go on to do design and technology tasks during my class if they're reasonably up to speed with the literacy task workload, and/or have important work due in those other subjects. I think when an overall curriculum is facilitated in this way across teachers and subjects, the flexibility and cohesion start to kick a lot of positive goals.

 

With the 'complex' group of learners I referred to (and had such success with), during the week in the lead up to that class I had at least six different colleagues gently feed me information about the class and certain students. That allowed me to basically walk in with the teacher's equivalent of a geological map of the group. I knew who to separate, who would need help, and who would need help to avoid themselves (so to speak).

 

Prior to my class (after lunch), this group had Maths/Numeracy. They played up an absolute treat in that lesson, and the Numeracy teacher gave many of them a reminder about why they were there and how they were to conduct themselves by keeping them behind to complete all their unfinished work during the lunch break. In many ways, he took the brunt of a lot of negative energy, took the edge off it, and had a state of mind in place before these kids walked through my classroom door.

 

And then there was the colleague -- our PE/Health and Wellbeing teacher -- who offered to swap classrooms with me on the day, so that I would have a better room for effective classroom management. Being in a smaller room with computers around the walls made a huge difference to my ability to monitor and move around, help individual students without losing sight/track of the overall group.

 

But this colleague went further than that. He indicated he would be taking his group to the gym about halfway through the lesson. If I had any particularly rowdy learners who obviously had too much physical energy for their own good (and certainly more than usually works well with literacy activities on a Friday afternoon), I could always send them down to join his group in the gym. Certainly made for a positive alternative to confrontations and isolating students in the corridor.

 

In the end I never needed to resort to that option. But it was very encouraging and helpful to know it was there. Halfway through the lesson, the teacher actually appeared (discretely) in the doorway of my classroom, just to see how I was doing and whether I was going to need that option. No words were needed. Just an appraising look, my thumbs up, an encouraging nod, and then he was gone.

 

 

So yeah, I had a really great day.

Thanks, of course, to many of my own initiatives.

But mostly, I think, thanks to being part of what I like to think of as A League of Extraordinary Colleagues.

 

 

It's important to think about what goes well for you, but just as important is noticing and remembering how much of it came about thanks to outstanding colleagues. The simple little things add up.

 

At the end of the day: how can we in turn create days like the one I had yesterday, for other teachers?

 

 

=D

 

                                    

The Negotiator

 

 

Negotiating with learners should never reach this point, if at all possible...

Image: Andrew Becraft

 

 

 

It's a volatile situation.

 

Jim's fortified himself in the back corner of the classroom. He's taken hostages -- a good half dozen classmates -- and he's threatening them with distraction and possibly worse (like a virus, whereby they start to develop Jim's feelings about learning on an ongoing basis; the pedagogical equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome).

 

The teacher stands near the doorway to the classroom, looking relieved now that a few co-teachers and the head teacher herself has arrived.

 

Negotiations are well under way. Jim's being encouraged to surrender, through the megaphone of authority wielded by the head teacher. In her other hand she grips the shiny black barrel of suspension; she hasn't pointed it at Jim yet, but she will if she has to. Parents will be notified either way.

 

 

Rewind. Three weeks earlier...

 

Jim's looking down at the writing task. The word count stipulated has filled him with a sense of woe, and the 10 pointers outlining elements to appear in his report swim like black sharks in a milky bottomless sea.

 

Jim's despair is acute, almost like a knife. He wasn't ready for this surprise. He's been doing well all through the preceding class time, getting answers down to questions, receiving moderate praise from the teacher. He's not all that keen on reading and writing, but he appears to be holding his own.

 

Until now. Until this.

 

Screw it. Can't do it.

 

The teacher eventually appears over his shoulder, offers to help. But nothing the teacher says really seems to help at all. Jim tries to give it a bit of a go, trying his best to take on board the seemingly irrelevant advice, but it's just not happening.

 

"Can I write about something else?"

"No, unfortunately. But if you just... (assortment of Greek, Latin and Swahili drifts past Jim's ears)."

 

A little later: "Could I just, you know, change some parts of it a bit, to make it a bit simpler? I mean, I think I could maybe still write 400 words, but --"

"Look, I understand it's a bit hard, but no -- you really have to do it this way. That's the way everyone has to do it. So bear with me, Jim. You need to think about... (more Greek, Latin and Swahili)."

 

Eventually the teacher takes Jim's silence to be agreement or acceptance, and his baffled (frayed around the edges with frustration) look to be one of thoughtful deliberation. That's if he actually took a proper look at Jim's face. He wanders off towards another student's bowed head.

 

 

 

Tragically, the laws of this particular realm did in fact allow for (and even encourage) plenty of scope for task adaptation and personalisation. It isn't always the case, but in this instance there was actually more than one potential path through the forest.

 

 

The all-important negotiator just arrived three weeks too late, dressed in the wrong clothes, trying to measure temperature with a metre ruler.

 

 

 

=D

 

                                                                      

 

writing (r)evolutions

 

 

Image: Neil Girling

 

 

Is it truly so surprising and remarkable that the current generation of teenagers, finally given genuine purposes to write for genuine audiences of peers in something close to real time (but without our direct involvement or interference), are seeding what is possibly the greatest (r)evolution ever known in the written forms of our languages?

 

It oughtn't be (surprising), really.

 

The real question, perhaps, is how long we will continue to insist that they scratch away at five paragraph essays, the same way we had to, for no other audience besides a teacher, in styles the vast majority of us never saw come to practical fruition in our daily lives.

 

It has never been a more interesting and challenging time to be a teacher of literacy than now.

 

 

=D

 

                                           

A super simple demonstration of how to get started on Twitter (for educators)

 

 

 

I'm starting to meet a lot of educators who want to get started on Twitter, but aren't really sure how to do so. The screencast above is a super simple demonstration that begins at the very start and progresses step by step through the processes of signing up, setting up a profile and starting to find relevant people to connect with.

 

I recommend watching the full-screen version (just click on the four little arrows that appear at the bottom right of the video there). Oh, and also click on the HD option (also at bottom right) which will render a high definition version for you to view on the fullscreen presentation.

 

Having watched the screencast after making it, I would add that the advice I give for setting up a bio doesn't necessarily suit everyone. As in, I recommend being open and frank and informative about your line of work and even where you work, but many educators actually keep this information limited to profession and general location. That's up to you really, and how inclined you are to watch your p's and q's whilst tweeting!

 

But I do think a profile pic and informative bio are absolutely essential if you're an educator and really want to connect with other educators.

 

A little later, I hope to do a follow up screencast demonstrating how to actually use Twitter effectively and productively. In the meantime, if you've successfully set up a Twitter account and want something to go on with, there is a tutorial I produced here last year which also demonstrates some of the basics but featured the older version of the Twitter interface. That one also demonstrates things like responding to tweets, retweeting, etc.

 

Hope this helps any of those educator-tweet novices out there!

 

 

=D

 

                                    

 

How to achieve the educator's big 'O'

 

 

Image: Jeremy Atkinson

 

 

I'm talking about OPTIMISM, of course.

 

I found an article today that talked about essential ways to view optimism and stay optimistic for entrepreneurs involved in small business. Given that most of the great educators I have known have generally had some sort of entrepreneurial spirit, I found the following list of seven tips for optimism surprisingly relevant to teaching as well:

 

1. Imagine the future

2. Expect good results

3. Find the upside

4. Self-reflection

5. Revel in others' success

6. Beware optimistic illusions

7. The right frame of reference

 

 

You can read about these seven tips in more detail in the original article here.

 

What do you think?

Do these sum up many of the ways we can maintain optimism as educators?

What would you add to the list? 

 

 

=D

 

                                            

 

Facebook and YouTube in the classroom: Bane or Boon?

 

 

Image: Rego Korosi

 

 

I've just completed my second full week of teaching literacy to what could only be described as 'challenging' learners: 16-17 year-old (mostly male) students enrolled in an 'applied' variation of the regular high school certificate which incorporates preparation for trades.

 

I wanted a challenge in taking on a new role like this, and I certainly got one: these lads can be really tough going. And literacy, in comparison to the more hands-on subjects they take, is by far and away their least favourite subject.

 

The classroom we teach literacy in has computers on every desk with full access to the Internet. That includes things like YouTube and Facebook. I've heard about and seen this issue of access to these sites discussed robustly in several places, and I might as well confess here and now: I have no major problems with my learners having reasonably unlimited access to these sites whilst taking my literacy classes.

 

Do these sites distract them from their regular work? Absolutely.

 

Would removal of access to these sites result in less distraction from their regular work? I seriously doubt it.

 

In essence, the kids I teach don't appear to be any more or less distracted from their work than my mates and I were in high school way back in the dim dark days before computers and World Wide Web in classrooms. In that respect, things like Facebook and YouTube appear to be easy scapegoats for people who want something to blame for the lack of attention and engagement on the part of students.

 

While I will freely admit that I really do wish there was some way to have my learners focus more on their set coursework, I think FB and YT represent far more benefits for the literacy classroom than disadvantages.

 

First, for YouTube, I love the fact that my students can listen to music while they do their work. Nine times out of ten, this is what they are using YouTube for in my classroom (with one headphone in). I often listen to music while I'm writing -- I'm doing so right now, in fact. If this makes them relaxed and comfortable, I'm all for it. I quite often like their selections, too!

 

Sure, occasionally there is the stupid clip being shown around and chortled at, but it doesn't usually get out of hand. No more than any other disruptive behaviour (like gossip or anecdotes) I can remember from my own school days. Most of the kids I teach, for all their roughness, seem to know there are boundaries when it comes to this kind of media in the classroom. Most don't appear interested in testing or stretching them too much.

 

And Facebook...

 

This one fascinates me. Almost all of my learners have it open in the toolbar and check on it regularly between tasks. They don't 'stay on' there for very long at a time, unless there is some sort of major commotion in the FB world involving their social circle(s).

 

But beyond FB not being a constant or unacceptably prolonged source of distraction, one of the reasons I don't mind it being there is because... well it IS literacy!

 

Oh, I fully realise it isn't the sort of literacy the powers that be set out in our official literacy outcomes. But I've come to the curious realisation that my learners are actually quite literate and brilliantly effective communicators online - just not in the ways that a rapidly aging previous generation expects or mandates from a postion of qualification/gatekeeping power.

 

In many ways, the 'literacy' my teenagers exhibit in FB represents an L1 (first or native language) while the literacy I'm expected to teach them is an L2 (second language). Just as when I used to teach English as a second language (and I realised how advantageous it was to learn more about my students' native languages), in this role I'm seeing how important it is to know more about the learners' native literacy before I attempt to teach them the 'other' one (the one that determines whether they graduate or not).

 

I might even go so far as to suggest that a literacy teacher who mercilessly bans something like Facebook in their class is acting rather like the second language teacher who zealously ignores and never allows the learners' first language into the classroom.

 

 

But getting back to the central issue of 'distraction', essentially I think it really comes down to how engaging your classroom activities are -- irrespective of subject. I recently (and informally) calculated that my classes went from 40-90% of class time 'off-task' to more like 10-30% off-task.

 

What caused that change?

 

It had nothing to do with access to YouTube and Facebook (or lack thereof). That stayed constant.

 

That change and massive improvement in time on-task came about when I brought in activities more relevant to their specific trades and interests, broke writing tasks down into manageable 10-15 minute activities (instead of tasks lasting for hours or even days), integrated the tasks with things like video, and made almost everything screen- and online-based (removing the requirement for extensive writing on paper).

 

And all the while, those regular forays back onto Facebook help me to continue to get to know my students as young people. People who 'speak' a different kind of native literacy to my own.

 

A literacy I need to learn (about) if I'm to ever have a chance of teaching them mine. 

 

 

=D

 

                                                        

 

The last hurrah (for now) - Part 2: Guest post about a teaching unplugged workshop

 

 

Is this the final raven appearance in an ELT workshop? A snapshot of my ‘teaching unplugged’ workshop (thanks very much to Daniel Craig for the pic!) at the KOTESOL National Conference in Daejeon, Korea, on May 14. Two of the participants very kindly agreed to write the guest post that follows.

 

 

 

As promised in my previous ‘the last hurrah’ post, here is the follow up account of my workshop on teaching unplugged. Somehow, if feels appropriate that the final post on this blog (at least for some time to come) not only focuses on the concept of teaching unplugged, but is written in the form of a guest post from two of the participants in the workshop.

 

Leanne Priestley and Kevin Arnold are two Brits teaching English to adults in a private language academy in Korea. Interestingly enough, they are working at the same chain school company I first started my time in Korea with all those years ago! I had already connected with Leanne and Kevin via Twitter prior to the conference, and at the event itself enjoyed a great chat with them and a number of other teachers over lunch.

 

Leanne and Kevin represent, to me, all that can be great about teachers and teaching. They are friendly, polite, down-to-earth, sensitive to their local context while looking for the very best ways to innovate and create positive change. They also have that absolutely essential ingredient for making the teaching/learning elixir actually work: MOTIVATION!

 

 

 

They attended my workshop on teaching unplugged in the afternoon, and in follow up correspondence very kindly indicated they would be happy to write this guest post about what they experienced and thought (think) of teaching unplugged.

 

So, over to you Leanne and Kevin!

 

 

 

 

A Workshop on Teaching Unplugged

by Leanne Priestley and Kevin Arnold

 

 

When we were first asked to write this guest post, it was terrifying but we saw it as an exciting new challenge as this is our first one, ever. We hope it’ll give others an idea of how Jason’s workshop at the National KOTESOL Conference in Daejeon, South Korea on May 14^th helped two (and many, many more) ELT teachers.

 

Jason ended his plenary with an image that has now, for us at least, become synonymous with what his workshop was about. That image was of a plug, unplugged.

 

 
 

 

We’ve been very intrigued for a while by teaching unplugged, and were pleased to have the opportunity to find out more. And it didn’t disappoint! The workshop, all 90 minutes of it, although we honestly never even noticed the time, was thoroughly enjoyable and informative.

 

Our particular workshop began very simply with the question “Have you heard of teaching unplugged?” A few hands went up. Initially we hesitated. Should we put our hands up or not? After all we weren’t entirely too sure what it is, or isn’t for that matter.

 

The ‘lesson’ part of the workshop then began with Jason asking someone to leave. This was our very first introduction to the world of unplugged teaching and gathering content directly from the learners, which involved removing a learner from the classroom! A very intriguing technique, that was for sure.

 

Two participants, one now outside the room and one inside, chatted on the phone, while the rest of us listened to this one-sided conversation and wrote down as much of it as we could. The participant returned, and the part of the conversation we had heard was elicited and written on the board. Working in pairs with this emergent language, we guessed what the other side of the conversation might have been.  Now we had our content/material for the rest of the session and there still wasn’t a course-book (or handout) in sight. After each pair had completed their own version of the call, a few groups role-played what they had produced.  Needless to say there were some interesting variations.  As a group we talked about these variations and what made each conversation unique. This was followed by brainstorming some further activities which could be used to continue working with this material.  The ideas just kept coming, and we couldn’t help but smile, as this was why we were there – to exchange ideas.

 

The second half of our workshop took us in another direction. We were introduced to ‘live-reading’.

 

 

 

The quote in the picture was created with just a few simple questions – “Where are we? Why are we here?” Throughout the activity all the questions were very simple, but more importantly thought provoking, including “Are you sure?” and “Do we need this?” This was then followed by, as Jason calls it ‘Going, going, gone, (in)’ – a technique of reducing the text to mere lines to show where words once were.  A technique we’ve already borrowed, since experiencing it firsthand and seeing how affective it can be. We can’t get that passage out of our heads!

 

 

If we were now asked “Have you heard of teaching unplugged?” Neither of us would hesitate to raise our hands. We won’t pretend for a second to know as much as we’d like to about this particular methodology, but we now have a better understanding. Thanks Jason for giving us this glimpse into the unplugged world and helping us discover a few new things.

 

One question still remains “How well can it work in Korea?” The only place this can be answered is in the classrooms of Korea. Korean classrooms are traditionally teacher centred and book based. So with our new-found confidence, techniques and ideas neither of us can wait to give it a go. The good thing is we’re pretty sure we’re not going to be the only ones in Korea trying it out. There was genuine excitement in the room about it and we look forward to hearing about other people’s experiences.

 

 

Thanks also to KOTESOL Daejeon for providing an opportunity for so many great people to come together and exchange ideas in Korea.

 

And once again thanks Jason for inviting us to write this guest post. All the best in the future with your new challenge.

 

 

 

No, thank YOU Leanne and Kevin! To your excellent account here, I would just like to add (from the presenter/facilitator point of view) how truly energising the workshop was based on all the creative contributions of the participants. The two 'students' who performed the impromptu telephone conversation were brilliant, and the follow up variations and teaching/learning suggestions from all the other participants were outstanding - much better than any quick list I could come up with on my own.

 

This was an absolutely fantastic way to finish up (this particular stint?) for me in ELT. Thanks so much to Leanne, Kevin and all the other wonderful people who contributed to the workshop.

 

And... erm, Leanne and Kevin? Methinks it's high time for you two to get that ELT blog happening!!!

 

 

 

:-D

 

 

                                          

The last hurrah (for now) - Part 1

 

I know I have already announced the winding up of this blog in another post, but given I have just returned from an appearance at a major conference in Korea this past weekend, I thought it would be a waste not to post about that as a nice way to tie things up. I've divided this finale into two posts - one here to feature a plenary talk about ways ahead for ELT materials design (as well as a follow up interview), and another to follow soon in the way of a guest post from participants in the unplugged teaching workshop I facilitated at the event.

 

The KOTESOL National Conference 2011 was a fabulous event all round and definitely worth the trip. My sincere thanks and appreciation to the organisers and participants!

 

Here is the recorded version of the plenary talk:

 

 

 

And here is the follow up interview with the gifted Jeff Lebow from Koreabridge.net (among other things, I talk in detail about my decision to move away from ELT and try something new):

 

 

 

Stay tuned for Part 2 and the guest post about teaching unplugged!

 

Cheers,

 

- Jason

 

 

Teaching unplugged: Two bubbly generalisations to be careful of

 

 

Image: Jeff Kubina

 

 

It's been a while since I added to my ongoing exploration of teaching unplugged, but this particular post is both a reaction to some things I saw mentioned in yesterday's ELTChat about Dogme (unplugged) language teaching and the culmination of almost six months of pondering two issues in particular. One at either end of the unplugged teaching continuum, if I could put it that way (and because I wanted to avoid mentioning things like fences).

 

At one end of the continuum, or debate, there is Jeremy Harmer's frequent (and often passionate) assertion something along these lines: Students have been using coursebooks to effectively learn the language for years! Evidence!

 

And at the other end has been Luke Meddings' frequent assertion that unplugged teaching works so well because it makes the students' own (real) lives the central focus of the lessons and the language that flows out of them.

 

I won't go so far as to say that both of these esteemed ELT experts are wrong. But I do think, in both cases, that these are generalisations that stretch a little too thinly, and given the audience(s) these gentlemen have, these generalisations could even be a little unhelpful (if left as they are). I've been thinking about both assertions for quite some time now (probably because I see Jeremy and Luke saying the same things again and again!).

 

 

Beginning with Mr. Harmer and the notion that millions of students have been effectively learning languages thanks to coursebooks for a very long time now, I just don't think that argument holds much water. I've been thinking over all the classroom experiences I've had, the conversations with successful learners, the conversations with teachers, and even my own language learning experiences. When it comes to the 'elixir' or just basic foundation of what appears to have made language learning effective, coursebooks are one of the last things that are mentioned, if they are mentioned at all. Rather like classroom wallpaper or furniture, come to think of it...

 

People recall great teachers, great friends/co-learners, cozy environments, pinpointed moments where motivation seemed to sort of catch fire, lucky experiences or friendships with proficient target language users, songs and movies... and a variety of other things. But I can't actually ever recall any teacher or learner reporting that great progress was made on account of a particular coursebook, or even coursebooks in general.

 

In fact, in the environments where so many of the above factors were noticeably absent, and the learners were primarily dependent on the 'safety net' of good 'aggregations of principled learning material written by experts' (read: coursebooks), not only have so many learners emerged from it with a depressingly and even tragically low ability to really use the language, they actually intensely dislike learning the language and are all too aware that they have used up a rather large portion of their life coming to these painful realisations.

 

I totally understand that Jeremy hasn't been stating for a moment that just coursebooks on their own guarantee effective learning. But to combat the idea of unplugged teaching with the notions that most students are learning (more or less effectively), that coursebooks have always been there (and have thus been effective to more or less extent), and that coursebooks represent a safety mechanism against teachers who don't know what they are about... It's at once too convenient and based on (at best) rather circumstantial evidence.

 

I personally think a rather huge portion of the English language learners out there are learning bugger all, over a long period of time, and while coursebooks aren't necessarily the cause of ineffective teaching and learning, they've done a pretty good job of both encouraging a lot of people to think (and try) a lot less and covering up 'progress' that ranges from substandard to downright mediocre.

 

Feel free to disagree, by all means. :-)

 

 

But now let's move on to Mr. Meddings and the other bubble of potential trouble. The idea that unplugged teaching is all about (and works so well on account of) making students' own lives the central focus of the language learning experience.

 

Not long after I really got into the swing of teaching unplugged and making so much of the content and conversation about learners' own lives and situations, I recalled English Raven the language learner (in high school learning Japanese and later in university learning Swedish, Icelandic and German; and still later learning Korean with a 1:1 tutor).

 

Sitting in foreign language classrooms, about the last thing that particular raven wanted to do was talk in depth about himself, his own life and personal inclinations. Some of the other students did, of course, and the raven made a mental note to try and avoid running into those students at random outside the classroom. Unless it was the pub, of course...

 

Admittedly, in some classes with the right teacher, right topical focus, right amount of confident proficiency with the language and right mix of familiar people around me, I might be happy to contribute some of 'my own life' to the lesson mix. But this was an exception, I guess, and not the norm.

 

As a teacher, teaching unplugged, I saw that many of my students were similar to that shy, rather private raven. It occurred to me that unplugged lessons could focus on the personal and the 'real life', so long as the shy or private students were happy to play the part of happy and cooperative audience or bystander.

 

Later I came to the conclusion that unplugged teaching can be about the learners' own lives, if they so choose, but the most important thing is to make it about what they are interested in talking about and learning and bringing to the classroom environment. And for a lot of students out there, their own lives and happenings in their own lives don't often meet that criteria.

 

Again, feel free to disagree. :-)

 

 

 

To be fair, I'm sure Jeremy and Luke would be inclined to say I've deliberately misinterpreted or glossed their statements. I guess I have, at least to some extent.

 

But in both cases, at either end of the unplugged teaching discussion, I think there are some generalisations being used on a regular basis, and they're a bit too bubbly.

 

 

:-)