While browsing for more ideas for the TD session, I came across an online course on blogging in EFL classrooms, called rather appropriately "blogging for beginners". Unfortunately it is already in it's fourth week, but this week's task was to read and comment on a couple of articles, both of which I thought were really interesting.
The first article is called "Blogs and Pedagogy" and goes through some of the reasons why blogs can be a positive learning tool in the EFL classroom. There are also some quotes and comments at the end from people who have read the article.
The second article is called "Creating Passionate Users: Crash Course In Learning Theory". This may sound rather heavy and theoretical but it isn't in the slightest. In very readable language it talks through some of the principles of learning that I hope we all know and accept, such as :Learning is not a one-way "push" model, and gently suggest that using blogs in the classroom goes hand in hand with many of these principles. Very easy to read but I would say quite stimulating.
Have a look and post some comments on any thoughts you have.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
online stuff for classes
Don't know if any of you have come across and maybe used this already, but browsing the BBC website I came across a Panorama video that I thought was extremely useable. Follow the link below to get to the article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6241815.stm
and from there you can also watch the footage.
Basically the programme was about victims of crimes who refused to just give in, and fought back, generally successfully. It's a pretty short bit of footage, mostly from CCTV, and then there is a quiz they can do about how they would have behaved and whether watching the footage has changed their opinion. There's also a link to a transcript of the programme.
I thought it might be extremely useful for talking about hypothetical situations, especially using 2nd conditional.
Let me know what you think
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6241815.stm
and from there you can also watch the footage.
Basically the programme was about victims of crimes who refused to just give in, and fought back, generally successfully. It's a pretty short bit of footage, mostly from CCTV, and then there is a quiz they can do about how they would have behaved and whether watching the footage has changed their opinion. There's also a link to a transcript of the programme.
I thought it might be extremely useful for talking about hypothetical situations, especially using 2nd conditional.
Let me know what you think
blogs
I decided that rather than commenting on the initial post here, I would start a new strand about blogs per se.
One way of using blogs is for the teacher to be the author and to post things on the blog for students to check whenever they want. This can mean putting up ideas for tasks for them to do - even discussion questions you're going to talk about in class so they can think about them. You can post feedback on what they did in class including key vocabulary that came up and positive feedback on their performance. You can also post links to follow-up work or sites to look at to support what they talked about.
Take a look at the site below which was set up by a teacher of a Korean class, fairly low-level, focussing mainly on speaking. It may seem like a strange think to get students speaking more, but you should be able to see how it can give the students valuable feedback and give a bit of structure to the lessons.
Dorothy and Julia (and anyone else doing blog-based projects in the future) - you may find some of it really useful for picking out key vocabulary to pre-teach.
You may have to cut and paste the link into the browser - I just tried to add a link but it didn't come up in the blog so I'm editing the post to at least give you the website address
http://learningtospeak1b.wordpress.com
One way of using blogs is for the teacher to be the author and to post things on the blog for students to check whenever they want. This can mean putting up ideas for tasks for them to do - even discussion questions you're going to talk about in class so they can think about them. You can post feedback on what they did in class including key vocabulary that came up and positive feedback on their performance. You can also post links to follow-up work or sites to look at to support what they talked about.
Take a look at the site below which was set up by a teacher of a Korean class, fairly low-level, focussing mainly on speaking. It may seem like a strange think to get students speaking more, but you should be able to see how it can give the students valuable feedback and give a bit of structure to the lessons.
Dorothy and Julia (and anyone else doing blog-based projects in the future) - you may find some of it really useful for picking out key vocabulary to pre-teach.
You may have to cut and paste the link into the browser - I just tried to add a link but it didn't come up in the blog so I'm editing the post to at least give you the website address
http://learningtospeak1b.wordpress.com
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
New Book - Total English Advanced
For those of you that are familiar with Total English at the other levels, this will not prove a great revelation. It is basically more of the same at a higher level.
Organised thematically, with the language syllabus very overt (grammar and vocabulary), but with can do statements also in each unit which refer sometimes to the language covered and sometimes to the skills work
For example in unit 4 lesson 2 the grammar is future forms review and the can do statement is "talk about plans and arrangements". In Unit 6 lesson 2 the can do is "take notes from fluent connected speech" This isn't exactly rocket science but at least it gives you some idea of where the authors are coming from in terms what they see as the main focus of the material. Language is mostly taken out of the skills work in some way, and most sections of each unit involve use of all 4 skills. A separate writing bank at the end develops writing a little more deeply, although this only has 3 sections.
Having sounded rather luke-warm about it, I can say that it is a very user-friendly book and has some nice language content. Reference sections at the end of each unit give clear examples of usage and a box of key vocabulary, presented mostly within a phrase rather than in isolation to help with collocation.
Some very up-to-date thematic material such as Unit 2.2 on wikis - worth looking at if you don't know what a wiki is!
Possibly the most interesting piece of the book is the film bank with DVD containing 10 short (approx 5 min) films linked to the units in the book with worksheets which involve some reading and discussion as well as viewing. Unit 2, about Soho, might be useful in terms of familiarising students with London a little. Unit 10, Close Encounter, is a little cheesy, but introduces some good phrases for starting and maintaining conversation.
Overall I would say not a great book but worth having in the staff room . We got the students book free but will have to buy the rest (teachers book, work book with CD ROM, audio CD) Have a look and let me know what you think, and if you like it check out the other levels. But don't think of this as an advanced course book - more upper intermediate really.
Organised thematically, with the language syllabus very overt (grammar and vocabulary), but with can do statements also in each unit which refer sometimes to the language covered and sometimes to the skills work
For example in unit 4 lesson 2 the grammar is future forms review and the can do statement is "talk about plans and arrangements". In Unit 6 lesson 2 the can do is "take notes from fluent connected speech" This isn't exactly rocket science but at least it gives you some idea of where the authors are coming from in terms what they see as the main focus of the material. Language is mostly taken out of the skills work in some way, and most sections of each unit involve use of all 4 skills. A separate writing bank at the end develops writing a little more deeply, although this only has 3 sections.
Having sounded rather luke-warm about it, I can say that it is a very user-friendly book and has some nice language content. Reference sections at the end of each unit give clear examples of usage and a box of key vocabulary, presented mostly within a phrase rather than in isolation to help with collocation.
Some very up-to-date thematic material such as Unit 2.2 on wikis - worth looking at if you don't know what a wiki is!
Possibly the most interesting piece of the book is the film bank with DVD containing 10 short (approx 5 min) films linked to the units in the book with worksheets which involve some reading and discussion as well as viewing. Unit 2, about Soho, might be useful in terms of familiarising students with London a little. Unit 10, Close Encounter, is a little cheesy, but introduces some good phrases for starting and maintaining conversation.
Overall I would say not a great book but worth having in the staff room . We got the students book free but will have to buy the rest (teachers book, work book with CD ROM, audio CD) Have a look and let me know what you think, and if you like it check out the other levels. But don't think of this as an advanced course book - more upper intermediate really.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
geting started
I'm setting up this blog as a vehicle of communication between all of us on the topic of CPD - continuous professional development. It will be somewhere for you to share with other teachers on the staff things you have been doing in terms of CPD. At the moment anyone can read it and make comments but only the staff can write to it. If you want to, we can set up individual blogs for each of you that only you and I can see.
The advantage of this rather than just emails etc is that you can look at it any time you go online and an ongoing record is kept of what has been going on.
Add comments to postings as comments rather than a new posting so that they stay with the original post. But when talking about something else, start a new posting.
So what can you write about on the blog? Well, anything really that you think the rest of the staff would be interested in, but there a few ideas below:
- Something interesting that happens in class that is worth exploring over a period of time. Could be a student reaction or something you try out or anything really
- information about any classroom research you do
- write about any articles you read that you find interesting
- any thoughts you have about things we discuss in TD sessions
- reports on any training sessions you go to
- reports on any new books you look at or try out
- your own thought on any aspect of teaching you would like to share with the rest of us
- links to anything you see online that would be interesting for others to read
Just as a start, and ready for next week's TD session on using blogs as a classroom tool, I'm going to give you a link to an article on the British Council website.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/resources/blogging.shtml
Happy reading
The advantage of this rather than just emails etc is that you can look at it any time you go online and an ongoing record is kept of what has been going on.
Add comments to postings as comments rather than a new posting so that they stay with the original post. But when talking about something else, start a new posting.
So what can you write about on the blog? Well, anything really that you think the rest of the staff would be interested in, but there a few ideas below:
- Something interesting that happens in class that is worth exploring over a period of time. Could be a student reaction or something you try out or anything really
- information about any classroom research you do
- write about any articles you read that you find interesting
- any thoughts you have about things we discuss in TD sessions
- reports on any training sessions you go to
- reports on any new books you look at or try out
- your own thought on any aspect of teaching you would like to share with the rest of us
- links to anything you see online that would be interesting for others to read
Just as a start, and ready for next week's TD session on using blogs as a classroom tool, I'm going to give you a link to an article on the British Council website.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/resources/blogging.shtml
Happy reading
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