Reflections of a Teacher and Learner

Some Observations on Observation

2012-02-08T20:41:00.001+02:00

It was 8.30pm on a slightly humid late spring evening. After an all too short tea break, students were returning to their seats and readying themselves for the final leg of a long day of work and evening classes. The teacher too was feeling the strain of the dreaded ‘split shift’ having done the morning/afternoon intensive courses and then the late evening slot as well.

Just as they were all ready to get back into reviewing the present continuous, a woman appeared at the door. “Sorry to interrupt, David,” said the DoS, for that is who she was, “but would you mind if I did that observation now? I know we said Wednesday morning but I’ve just remembered I have a meeting then.”

Not my old DoS obviously but Fringe fans will get the reference - Image by Godric Hufflepuff

Such an ‘unexpected’ change of plans was not entirely surprising. Our director had a habit of springing surprises such as this especially when, as was the case in this instance, it was an official observation (I was nearing the end of my contract period and we had to play the game of “let’s see if you’re good enough for a contract renewal and a pay rise”). Of course, I obliged (was there any other option?) and so began an observation that would make me a cynical critic of being ‘officially’ observed, a viewpoint that survives to this day.

Back in those days (this was about ten years ago), I was still very much in PPP mode and we were about to move into ‘practice’ mode having done the ‘presentation’ before the tea break. I had various flashcards of people engaged in different activities and, after eliciting the question What is he/she doing?, the students got on with the activity and I went around monitoring. I then boarded some errors I had noted and we went through them as a class and then they got on with some workbook activities. About halfway through the session, I noticed two students grinning widely and trying hard to supress their giggles. Intrigued I asked them what was going on. One of them pointed to the DoS at the back of the class and said “What is she doing?” to which his partner replied “She is sleeping!”

Sure enough, my observer was sat with her eyes closed and her head gently nodding forwards. “Oh dear!” I exclaimed, “Is my lesson really this boring?” (to be fair, it probably was!) which drew laughter from the whole class. At that point the DoS opened her eyes, smiled and then pretended to write something on her notepad (the page was clearly blank). We then got on with the lesson, moving into ‘production’ mode (probably a what is your husband/wife/family doing now? activity) while my boss dozed at the back of the class.

When the lesson was over, she said we would talk about the lesson when I had a break in my schedule the next day and off she went. When the feedback session came, I was curious to know what she had observed exactly through her slumber! The first thing she said was “you obviously have a good rapport with the class” referring, I assumed, to the little burst of laughter that had stirred her briefly from her sleep. “But the lesson was a little dry” she went on.

“What do you mean?” I enquired.

“It could have done with some visuals” she said. “The workbook exercises are useful of course but some pictures would have worked well for present continuous.”

“Or maybe some flashcards” I suggested, waiting to see what her reaction would be.

“Yes!” she answered. “We have plenty of those in the resource library you know.”

And so it went on. Why did I focus only on the affirmative structure? Why not negatives and interrogatives? (I did do those, while you were snoozing!) Why didn’t I wrap it up with a personalised activity? (Again, I did!) Too much time at the board - where was the monitoring and circulation? (Where was the alert observer?)

It struck me that she just had a list of standard observations to make and, no matter what, there would be a focus on what I should have done and what I failed to do. It has been the same with every observation I’ve ever had conducted by a DoS, HoD or Senior Teacher. One asks why there was no warmer, the other asks why you wasted five minutes at the start on a pointless activity. One says where were the concept questions, another asks why you kept on asking questions after every little instruction. One says your lesson was ‘dry’ (that’s an observer word I detest but that’s another rant for another post!), another says it was fun but lacking focus…. and so it goes on.

And we wonder why so many teachers are not keen on being observed! This kind of feedback, or rather the manner in which it is delivered, only serves to create an air of negativity with the observed going on the defensive. Stress, apprehension, worry and uncertainty are all feelings that seem to surface when it’s time for that ‘official’ visit to class. This is a shame as I believe observations can be a fantastic opportunity for development if handled in the right way.

My very first observation shortly after getting my first teaching job was in many ways the best one. My observer, a grumpy Scottish EFL veteran who had been assigned to be my ‘mentor’, simply went through the stages of the lesson he watched and asked me why I had decided to structure the lesson in that way and why I had chosen the activities that I did. The feedback was non-judgmental and really helped to draw out reflections in me by leaving some space for me to think.

So instead of ‘you should have done this’ isn’t it better to ask ‘why did you do what you did’? Rather than criticism and defence, shouldn’t the feedback be about reflection and realisation? And instead of imposing the observer’s view of how things should be done, wouldn’t it be better to seek to understand the teaching preferences of the observed?

Oh, and of course, isn’t it better to actually stay awake and pay attention to what’s going on rather than trotting out some standard criticisms that could be applied to virtually any teacher?

Or maybe I’m being over-dramatic. Please go ahead and share your experiences (positive and negative) of being observed and how you think it works/would work best.

Review: World Adventure Kids

2012-02-02T22:39:00.001+02:00

A few months back, I was excited to hear about the release of a new story book for kids learning English by Jason Renshaw (a.k.a. English Raven). Anyone who knows the Raven knows he has considerable talents when it comes to material development and design so I was curious to see what his new creation would be like. I was even more delighted when he offered me free access to the final product to trial with my kids and review. Unfortunately, work and study swamped me soon after so it’s only now that I’m getting round to reviewing the thing (apologies Jason) but this is a work that deserves some attention so better late than never!

The story book is called World Adventure Kids and the first thing that impressed me was the fact that you actually get two adventure stories in one: Doctor Darkleaf and Tomb of the Pharaoh.

Here’s the first thing that sets WAK aside - it’s a ‘choose your own adventure’ style book. You may have read something like this in your younger days (I know I read a few!) but the idea is simple: you read a paragraph or two and then you are presented with a choice and, depending on what you decide, you are directed to a specific page number. For example:

The book itself is in pdf format so when you make your choice, you click on the relevant blue box and jump directly to that page!

This format of storytelling has the advantage of putting the reader ‘in control’ of the story (and this is why such books are often called interactive fiction). Therefore, the story is told in the second person with use of ‘you’ really giving the feeling that the reader is inside the story. This increases reader engagement in a number of ways - at times you may be asked to make a decision about what to do next that effects the progression of the story (as in the example above), at other times you may be asked something based on what you have just read and be required to answer the question correctly. Make the right choice and you can move on through the story; make the wrong choice and you may have to go back or, even worse, start all over!

WAK exploits these ‘choose your own adventure’ features to the full. While reading, you can’t help but feel involved in the story and instructions to note things down should be heeded if you are to make the right choices later on! Several of the choices also act as a clever way of weaving comprehension questions into the story - rather than a boring post-chapter exercise, your students will most likely see them as an integral part of the story.

For me, a stand-out feature of WAK is that it is very well written. Books like this are not easy to put together so hats off to Jason for making the story flow even through the differing paths it can take. Furthermore, it is beautifully illustrated with colourful character portraits and atmospheric backdrops adding to the sense of engagement and involvement. Another masterstroke is that one of the main characters you interact with, the President of World Adventure Kids Golden Sky, is female. Boys will have already been drawn in by the adventure theme and girls will be drawn in by this strong lead character.

But that’s just what I think. The best people to give opinions about this book are the children it is aimed at so I distributed copies of the book to six of my students. I didn’t want to influence their feedback at all so I just asked them if they would be interested in reading it and that was that. The only thing I told them was that someone I knew had written it and wanted to know what kids thought of it. I also instructed them not to share the book with anyone as it was a review copy.

The first sign that the book was a hit came when I discovered that, despite my instructions, the pdf file had been passed on to other kids. It seems the six I had given it to had been overheard talking to each other about it and they were put under pressure to share! Anyway, they really got into the stories and, as I suspected, the girls were impressed with Golden Sky and all the kids, boys and girls alike, loved the stories.
They were very keen to share their ‘secret names’ (even though I pointed out that this defeated the point of having a secret name!) and they were also keen to discuss the different choices they had made and the consequences. It was great to see such excitement and discussion arising from a book they had read, even more so because it was a book they had read in English.

All of them said the book was as good as or better than the books they read in their English lessons. One thing that surprised them was when I revealed the author was in fact an English teacher himself. “Oh, I thought it was a real storybook” was how one boy put it! They also enjoyed being given a book just to read rather then to study. As one girl commented “I’m reading this just like a normal book.” Both reactions are very much in line with what Jason was aiming for - a story to be read and enjoyed instead of interrupted with vocabulary reviews, comprehension checks and grammar exercises.

That makes WAK markedly different to the majority of readers for kids learning English on the market today. I showed it to a colleague as well and he immediately expressed doubts about how useful it would be as a class text. “The students will all be in different places and at different stages at the same time” he said. “How can you build a lesson around that?” To me, that is exactly the kind of ‘approach’ to using readers with young learners of English that WAK is trying to change. Somewhere along the line, readers and stories have become nothing more than extended exercises with more of a focus on language than plot. With all the narrated recordings available or reading aloud going on, students don’t even have to read them anymore. WAK has a good crack at getting kids to actually sit down and read something in English. There would be nothing wrong with setting up a lesson in which kids read quietly (why should there be?) As a teacher, you could monitor and help kids when they are stuck or not sure what to do. Or why not let kids read the stories in small groups and discuss the options and arrive at a decision together?

The only real criticism to come from me and my students is to do with the pdf format. The internal links work well as you jump from one page to another but I did wonder as I looked at it before giving copies to my kids if they might have problems with it. Sure enough, a couple of them (not the majority I might add) reported that they ‘got lost’ due to clicking on the wrong button or going on to the next page instead of selecting one of the options. The other issue was that the clickable links did not work on the electronic device of choice for many of the kids, the iPad. That was a shame as reading something like this on a tablet device would be more relaxing and enjoyable than reading from a computer screen. Good news for Android tablet users though in the shape of Mantano Reader, which keeps all the links usable. Perhaps there is an iPad app that allows the same but the ones I have tried did not.

Anyway, technical issues aside, this is a great book and I would strongly recommend it for children learning English. It works well as a book for kids to read through on their own (as holiday reading or a book for ‘reading hour’ for example) and, with the right approach, it would work as a class reader as well. I think the ELT industry as a whole needs to shift away from the idea that everything needs to be guided, supported and littered with ‘concept checks’, ‘vocabulary development’ and ‘language focus’ segments - a text, story or reader can stand on its own as a work of fiction to be read for pleasure and enjoyment - World Adventure Kids lets your learners do just that!

And, saving the best for last, in a surprise announcement, Jason has made the whole book and additional resources available for FREE. If you wish to download a copy to share with your students (and I strongly recommend you do) or you want some more information (from the Raven’s mouth so to speak), go to the English Raven World Adventure Kids page - the adventure starts there!

Working on the Web with Kids (2) - We Love Blogging!

2012-01-30T22:51:00.001+02:00

My 5th graders started working with their wiki back in September. As I reported in the first post in this series, it’s been useful for them to engage with extra activities, have their work displayed digitally and discuss things. However, we have been limited to an extent by the restrictions put in place by the school - kids can only comment on pages, not edit or add content and no comments are allowed from anyone who is not a 5th grade English teacher or student at the school.

That’s unlikely to change and, even if we got permission to let the kids do more than just comment, pbworks isn’t exactly the most child-friendly site to get to grips with and I don’t really fancy teaching ten year-olds how to use it in a classroom with only one computer! So, I thought why not have this site for extra activities and displaying work and another site that allows the students to take a bit more control. After much persuasion and insistence on my part, the school finally gave the thumbs up to trial blogging with one class.

Image by tarop

We settled on the class that had been most active on the wiki so far and offered to set up a blog for them using Kidblog. I stressed to the kids that this was not compulsory and gave them the option of not taking part in the project if they didn’t want to. Only 2 out of 28 kids declined the offer and everyone else was very excited about what they deemed as ‘their own website’.

I had lots of ideas about introductory activities, both in class and using the blog itself, but in the end, I decided not to interfere too much. I wanted this to be a pressure-free place where they could write as and when they wanted too rather than feeling obliged to do it, which would quickly lead to them seeing it as just another form of writing task.

Instead, we just looked at some examples, such as Greta Sandler’s classes in Argentina, and talked about what the blog could be used for. We also talked about comments and how to use those to respond to posts meaningfully and ask questions (on the wiki, many exchanges of ‘hello everyone - how are you?’ - ‘fine & how are you?’ repeated several times had started to appear so I was keen to avoid that).

Once they started blogging, the first thing to strike me was that the posts were very short, often just a couple of sentences (“Hello world! I love basketball. I think it’s a great sport.” for example). My initial reaction was to go over these in class, point out ways the posts could be made longer and more informative… but, no, I reminded myself that this was their space and they needed time to get used to this new form of writing. Instead, I posed questions through the comments to try and get them to reveal more (“Do you play basketball? What’s your favourite NBA team? and so on). I also started making use of #comments4kids on Twitter to get some outside comments in.

My students loved getting comments from around the world and they were thrilled when I showed them a map on the class computer with all the countries we’d received comments from highlighted (unfortunately, kidblog doesn’t seem to allow users to embed things like Clustrmaps). That helped establish a purpose for using the blog (although they did still need some gentle encouragement to start replying to these ‘strangers’).

As always, there are unexpected results from doing these things with kids. One side effect of my attempt to get them to write more by posing questions was that they started to write posts consisting entirely of questions posed to their ‘international friends’!

Now, this class has been blogging for three months or so and I’m starting to see some positive effects. Some of them are using the blog to share stories they wrote in class, others are sharing accounts of things they did at the weekend or special events. Many of them are still using the blog even though they are now on holiday, which has been a pleasant surprise! Alas, some are not using the blog at all but, as I said earlier, I don’t want them to be pressured into using it.

The only complaint my little bloggers have had so far is a lack of comments from other kids. One kid asked me just before the holiday “why do only adults comment on our blog?” They were very happy when we got a few visitors from Dina Dobrou’s class in Greece but I know they would like more interaction with kids their own age from around the world.

So, if you have a class who blog or know any kids who would like to leave comments for us, please direct them to:

http://kidblog.org/e-blog/

And also share details of your class blogs in the comments box. Perhaps we can set up some kind of ‘virtual comment exchange’.

MA Reflections - Writing Assignments

2012-01-30T11:09:00.001+02:00

I did the course. I read the articles. I chose a topic to focus on. I discussed it with the tutor. I read around the subject. I kept notes of useful references. I swapped ideas with my course mates. I planned in detail. And still I spent an estimated 20+ hours just writing the damn thing!!

Focus on your education! Image by cityyear

Writing an assignment is hard work, no doubt about it. It can be very rewarding or it can be punishing and torturous - extended moments spend starting at the flicking cursor on the screen, rewriting a sentence several times until it sounds vaguely academic, your shoulders and neck aching from being sat at the computer too long…. and still 2,000 words to go!

So how can we avoid the above and make it more rewarding? My experience over the last couple of years has taught me the following (again, some of which I have done, some of which I learned the hard way that I should have done):

Set yourself a deadline before the deadline

Julian Edge, the now retired and very much missed tutor on my first course, offered a sage piece of advice as my course mates and I approached that first assignment date: “Don’t work to the submission deadline - tell yourself it is 2 weeks earlier and work to that deadline.” Two weeks might be a bit much but I believe it is important to aim to be finished with a few days to spare. That gives you time to check things in a much more relaxed manner and means those “I wish I had written that” moments instead become “ooh - I can still write that” moments. Besides, you never know what’s going to happen - some unexpected event (like suddenly being told you have to write report cards for each of your 180 students) may rob you of precious time right before the deadline. Better to be done or nearly done before that happens.

Read and re-read as you go

One eye-opener from doing a course like this after a decade of teaching is how the things I advise my students to do when writing absolutely do not come naturally to me! One thing I had to train myself to do, despite the fact that I always go on at my students about it, was to read what I had written and think about how it sounded and whether it could be improved or reworded. Doing this as you go (after each section or few paragraphs for example) can really help with clarifying things that perhaps came out in a muddle. I find it my constant self-editing usually helps keep me within the word limit as well.

Space your writing time out

Writing can actually take a lot longer than you expect. Many times, after more than an hour at the keyboard, I have looked back at what I’ve written and discovered that it amounts to just two or three hundred words. I find it’s better to plan for a ‘little and often’ approach - better to write 500 words per session over the course of a week than attempt 3,500 words in one weekend! Typing for an extended period of time is hard - it can give you headaches, a stiff neck and an ever-growing sense of despair. Writing a few hundred words each day, even if you have to force yourself to do it after a long and tiring day at work with another to come the next day, will ultimately cause you less stress than doing it all in one go.

Check your references carefully

One thing to be very careful about when editing - you may add a reference to an article that was not in your original list or you may delete one that was originally there. Make sure you check your references list at the end of the assignment several times - you may end up forgetting to list an article you referred very briefly or leaving in an article reference that you ended up deleting from the assignment otherwise! I also find it useful to do the reference list while writing the assignment - it can be a time-consuming task to rush through at the end if you are not careful!

Back everything up!

Keep your assignment Word file on a flash disk or external hard drive and maybe even online via a service like Dropbox. Do the same with any pdf articles and course notes you will or even might need as well. Back them up daily. Don’t let a virus, a malfunctioning hard drive, a wayward cup of coffee or a curious two-year old make your nightmares come true! If anything, just do it for peace of mind.

Leave a little time to relax

You need time to write an assignment but it should be quality time. Better to spend an hour working in a relaxed state than 3 or 4 hours when you feel tired, stressed and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. So, by all means make you assignment your priority but make a little time each day to do something for yourself as well - read a book, watch a favourite TV show, exercise, bake a cake (for me ) - if you make sure you don’t leave everything to the last minute, it should be easy.

Print it out and read it one last time

You’ve typed the concluding sentence of the concluding paragraph, checked the word count, ran the spell-checker and completed the reference list - ah, the relief! After weeks or worrying about it and hour upon hour sat at the computer typing, you’re all done, right?

Image by Gerard Stolk

What do you always tell your students? Read the whole thing again and check that it all makes sense! The best way to do this (or so I have found) is to print the whole thing out and read it away from the screen. Somehow, certain errors that the spell/grammar checker may not pick up or certain awkwardly phrased sentences stand out more when I read them from paper. It’s good to have enough time to wait a day or two before finishing and doing this final check as well - leave some space….

Of course, the next time I deal with any of the above, I’ll be doing it on a much larger dissertation scale. I’ll let you know how that goes but in the meantime please share your tips for tackling MA assignments and extended essays. I for one would love to get some different pointers!

MA Reflections - Preparing for Assignments

2012-01-29T21:45:00.001+02:00

This blog has been on the backburner recently while I tried to drag myself from the hell that is writing an assignment. For someone (like me) who embarks on an MA course after a long break from formal study, being asked to write assignments again can be a bit of a shock to the system. All that reading and getting your head round what you want to say can easily lead to thoughts of “Why am I doing this?” (or to put it another way, #whyamIdoingthis). Thankfully, I (just about!) got it all finished ahead of last Monday’s deadline but, after such an intense bout of writing, decided to take a break from the keyboard and leave the blog waiting for a few more days.

Almost burned out… Image by stonelucifer

So what better way to return than to share a few words of advice about preparing for MA assignments. Of course, this comes a little too late for those of you who were working to similar deadlines to me but it will hopefully come in handy for future reference. The list includes some things I did to make the process easier and some things I should have done - I’ll leave you to work out which is which!

Find out what your assignment is as soon as possible

“Well, duh!” you might think but this is an easy one to overlook. Some of my course tutors have been kind enough to include details of the assignment with the introductory materials of a course but others have not provided this information until later. The sooner you know the better as it allows your study to be more focused and gives you plenty of time to raise questions about any part of it you are not clear on, which neatly brings me to the next point…

Make sure you are aware of exactly what the assignment entails

We may often equate ‘assignment’ with ‘extended essay’ but that’s not always the case, especially if there is a practical application element to the course. There’s nothing worse than suddenly finding out (as I did part-way through a course in my first year) that you have to create a fully-functioning website which will be assessed together with your written work or that you have to design materials to be used for a computer lab or online lesson. Also, the written part of the assignment may ask you to focus on an aspect of your teaching, or provide a rationale for choosing a certain web tool or research method, or to reflect on your experiences during the course - all of which require a very different approach.

Start to look for inspiration everywhere

Once you know what your assignment is and exactly what you need to do, it’s best to never keep it far from your thoughts. An idea for how to approach the task may come while reading the literature, or it may come while your reading a blog post, or while you are in class, or while you are in the middle of watching a Quentin Tarantino film in the cinema (why Inglorious Basterds made me think of investigating how 9 year-olds engage in self-assessment, I’ll never know!) Make sure you have some way of noting it down as well.

Be prepared to change your mind and start over

Having said all that about getting a head start, it’s important not to commit yourself to one avenue without exploring other paths as well. Just as a moment of inspiration may come at any time, another better one may come later. The key thing is to have no fear of changing your mind. Last year as part of a course on Teacher Development, I spent a long time looking into action research in the language classroom with the assignment very much in mind only to abandon that and decide to investigate using a blog for self-development instead. Nearly a year on, that change of heart has had a heavy bearing on the direction my dissertation will take so it’s a good thing I was ready to try another path.

Make a note of useful articles (including page numbers!)

There’s nothing worse than thinking that you read something a while ago that would make a useful quote or be a useful reference for your article but then being unable to remember which article it was. Or maybe you will locate the article or book chapter only then to realise it is over 50 pages long and that little piece of insight that you’re looking for is buried in it somewhere. That’s why I always keep a note of articles, book chapters and page numbers that might be useful when it comes to assignment time as I read them (something like Evernote is great for this). In the end, many of them may be discarded when you actually come round to planning and writing but it saves a lot of time to have all those references to hand rather than be frantically searching for them and wondering whether you actually read or it was all a dream….

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

In my experience of distance learning, both as a student actually taking an online course and as a student learning about effectively leading one, it has surprised me how many learners seem shy about asking for help. Some people, it would seem, prefer to stay quiet rather than ask something that may seem like a basic question (the same is true for the classroom I suppose!) Don’t be. Ask your questions and state your worries either in the online forum or directly to your tutor by email. I’ve found the tutors at the University of Manchester are always happy to help and offer advice. Even better, if you ask on the online discussion boards, you often get great help from your course mates as well.

Plan on paper!

I don’t have a problem reading from the computer screen or from my iPad and, as I mentioned above, I make use of online discussion boards and Evernote to develop and keep track of my ideas. However, when it comes to planning an assignment, paper just works better for me. I think it’s the fact that I can spread it out on the table or floor and see how it is taking shape… It’s also nice to take a break from sitting at the computer for a while as well. Also, when you get to the writing up stage, referring to a piece of paper in your hand is easier than clicking between windows of different Word files, pdfs, the online forum and Evernote!

Of course, saying those things is easy but remembering to do all of them is not! You may be thinking that I have left something out and, you’re right, I have. There’s hardly any mention of actually writing the darn thing but that’s another story for another post…

Making an Impact in the Classroom… Literally!

2012-01-14T23:13:00.001+02:00

One of the (many) curiosities of teaching kids is the fact that for a short period of time you are one of the people they see and interact with in their daily lives but, once the school year is over, they may hardly ever see you again, except for the odd moment here and there in the corridor (if that). We learn to live with that fact and content ourselves with the thought that we have in some way made an impact on the learning of those children and maybe even on their lives. After all, that’s what being a teacher is all about, isn’t it?

A couple of weeks ago, I was having lunch during one of my trips up to the middle school when a girl from the 8th grade approached me.

“Teacher?” she said. “Do you remember me?”

It took a second or two to place her face and recall her name (no mean feat considering that she was 8 years old when in my class and I have taught over 300 other kids since!) but it soon all came back to me. I remembered that she was a good but quiet student who always worked hard. She seemed surprised that I remembered so much (my memory always seems to store names, faces, places and times well - a useful trick for any teacher!) and then said “my friends and I always talk about your lesson…”

“Ah,” I thought to myself, ignoring the minor error of ‘lesson’ instead of ‘lessons’. “No doubt they remember those breakthrough moments, the projects we did, the songs, the games and all the fun of our positive learning journey together.”

“….the lesson when the projection screen fell on your head!”

Image by Dell’s Pics

“Erm… what?!?” I said before another memory came back of one day when I pulled the projection screen down a bit too fast and the whole thing came of the wall whacking me over the top of the head in the process.

“When it happened, everybody went quiet but then you appeared from under the screen and said ‘ow!’ It was very funny!” Emergent teacher rather than emergent language then?

Anyway, we finished our chat and went back to our respective classes and I thought nothing more of it.

Until last Friday that is when I was in one of my classes in primary school. While the students were quietly reading a chapter of their book (yes, reading quietly - another off my ‘off the wall’ ideas that draws equal responses of derision and suspicion!), a pair of students called me over. “Do you know a boy called Berk?” they asked. That is the equivalent of asking somebody in an English speaking country if they know somebody called Steve so I asked for clarification.

“He says he was in your class… maybe 5 years ago,” they explained.

“Did he say which class?” I asked.

“He didn’t say the class,” came the reply “but he told us in one of your lessons the projector screen fell on your head! Is it true?”

Seriously? A year’s hard and productive work but all I remain known for is an accident involving a classroom fitting!!

Being philosophical, I suppose it is better to be remembered for something than not being remembered at all… even if it isn’t quite the impact I had hoped to make!

And at least I’m not alone - a quick look at Twitter last night revealed this little excerpt from a chat between Mike Harrison and one of my favourite new blog discoveries Phil Wade:

Well Mike and Phil, I can assure you that your students will remember you for a long time as a result!

Testing Times

2012-01-12T10:56:00.002+02:00

Digital Storytelling with Voicethread (and How to Do It Offline)

2012-01-08T21:14:00.001+02:00

As regular readers of this blog will know, I love doing things in class that are simple yet productive and full of student-generated content. It might be something like a drawing activity that leads into a whole series of other tasks, a couple of everyday items as the basis of discussion, or, as featured on my recent guest post on Teaching Village, a basic digital camcorder and some very creative young minds.

Another simple but effective web 2.0 tool I really like using is Voicethread. I love the interactivity it offers with different people able to leave messages on the same presentation slide as well as the option to combine images or text with audio or video comments. At the start of the school year, I was asked at work if I knew of any ways to make the activities we do for the school wiki more interactive and Voicethread was the first thing that came to mind. A crowd-sourced demo from my PLN and the suggestion that it could be used as practice for part of the Cambridge YLE Test speaking section was all it took to sell the idea.

“Great - do it” they said.

“Sure,” I replied. “Just get me some microphones, a webcam and user rights to upload from my class computer and we’re all set.”

(..pause..)

“Isn’t there a way to do it without all that?” they asked….

Luckily for them, I’m a resourceful guy and I found a way to make Voicethreads offline.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Cambridge YLE tests, one part of the speaking section is a sequence of 4 or 5 pictures. The examiner starts the story off and the student has to finish it off, following the sequence of the pictures. The problem with preparing for this in class is that you have to do it in pairs or small groups, it’s impossible to monitor everyone and they just don’t listen to each other (ok, so that’s three problems!) They have a lot to learn from listening to each other but one of the hardest things about working with kids is getting them to see that.

So, my idea was to record each group narrating their own version of the same picture story and add them all to a Voicethread. First of all, recording them in class leaves the other groups with no choice but to listen and secondly, we then have a nice collaborative record of work to put onto the wiki for kids and parents alike to listen to at home:

How did I do it with a so slow it’s almost dial-up class internet connection and no microphone? Simple really - I used the AudioBoo app on my iPad to make recordings offline in class. Later, I uploaded them then downloaded them to my laptop via iTunes and it was then just a matter of going to the Voicethread website and putting it all together. As I have an educator account, I used different ‘identities’ to group each class’s stories together and that was that.

Now it’s on the school wiki, they have the chance to listen to each other’s stories. The next step, now that I have introduced it in class, is to put up a Voicethread with just the pictures and get them to record their own stories from home! (Hmm, just had a thought - maybe I haven’t done myself any favours here. Had I said “there’s no way I can do it”, would the school have finally agreed to upgrade the class computers and the internet connection? …..)

Anyway, once again the presence of recording equipment and the promise of being showcased online worked wonders for motivating my students to produce some very creative stories (like the boys who decided the person who jumped out of the snowman in the second story was not the kids’ dad playing a joke but was in fact a hunter who wanted to kill them!)

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A Quick Plug for the Digital Storytelling for YLs EVO Session

If that has given you an idea or two for storytelling in the classroom, why not join me and a super group of EFL educators (namely Shelly Terrell, Barbara Sakamoto, Özge Karaoğlu, Esra Girgin, Jennifer Verschoor, Michelle Worgan, and Sabrina De Vita - I really did mean super group!!) for our EVO 2012 session entitled Digital Storytelling for Young Learners? We’ll be covering not only Voicethread but also many other simple but exciting and meaningful ways you can bring storytelling into your classroom via a variety of web 2.0 tools.

Registration is still open (but not for much longer!) - just join our Yahoo Group. You can also find out more information about our syllabus on our pbworks page and see some of the early introductions on our Posterous Space. Hope to see you there!

Food for Thought… and for Better Classroom Management

2011-12-14T16:06:00.001+02:00

Last year was a bit of a tough one for me. After a few years of generally well-behaved kids and easy-to-manage classes, I had quite a few challenging students and one ‘difficult’ class (who you may remember from post such as “Outdone by the Pink Elephant” and “Like Crossing the Alps…”

The best thing (in fact, the only thing) for any reflective teacher-blogger to do was to sit down and think about it all, what went wrong and what went right and what could be done differently next time. I blogged earlier in the year about some inspiration I had taken from other teachers’ sage advice on the web and I also wrote about the initial success of negotiating class rules with the kids but I was wary of the fact that such ideas often work out well in the beginning but fail to have a long-lasting effect so it was always my intention to return to the subject once we were well into the school year.

Mmmm… Classroom management!!

Image by @pysproblem81 via ELTpics

I’m pleased to say that, even though I face the ~~sheer horror~~ wonderful challenge of teaching that ‘difficult’ class again, things are still going well (not perfectly I hasten to add but better than last year at least). Of course, the fact that I know this class (and 3 of the other 5 I teach) and they know me from last year helps as does the fact that they are a year older and now carry the responsibility that comes with being in the 5th Grade (the last year of Primary education in Turkey before they move on to Middle School) but I feel there are also other factors, things that are different this year and thought I’d share them via this post.

More engaging content

I know I blog about the benefits of a dogme-style approach a lot but the fact remains that, for part of my teaching programme at least, I have to use the prescribed books. Among the books we use are three readers. Last year, we did an simplified version of The Wizard of Oz, which was quite frankly boring, and a written adaptation of the Wallace and Gromit adventure The Wrong Trousers, which didn’t translate to book format that well and was only saved by the fact that we watched the short film together with reading it. This year, the kids seemed reluctant to get started with the books, even more so when they realised there was no film or video to go with it. However, once we started reading, they really got into it and I have to credit the authors for that. The first book was entitled Alien Alert in Seattle, an original story published by Black Cat and it was a huge hit! The theme of aliens and UFOs visiting Earth got the boys hooked and the masterstroke of then making the lead character a teenage girl got the girls hooked. The mystery element of it all kept them all engaged and enthusiastic.

One boy in particular showed a remarkable turnaround. Last year, he was very disruptive in class, constantly trying to distract other students or wind me up and never prepared to do any work. With this book, he was so eager to read and genuinely interested in the plot as it unfolded. Suddenly, he was engaged, on task, asking questions and making a positive contribution to the lesson all the time. We have now moved onto another Black Cat title, Miami Police Files: The O'Neill Case, which has this boy and all his classmates gripped already.

Lead by example

“Don’t expect your students to do anything you’re not prepared to do yourself” - this is something I strongly believe in, whatever the teaching context. It always bugs me if teachers complain about students not doing homework while they also refuse to do any kind of professional development activity outside of school hours or if they take phone calls in the middle of the lesson but then get angry at students for chatting to each other. We can’t expect students to follow basic rules or maintain certain standards of behaviour if we are not prepared to do the same ourselves, can we?

With that in mind, I strive to ensure that I:

turn up for lessons and get everything ready before the bell rings;
have all the books and other materials I will need for the class;
listen carefully and don’t interrupt students when they are asking about or explaining something;
keep any promises I make;
and join in with the activities they do!

If I ask the kids to draw something, I will draw as well. If I ask them to write about their family or what they did at the weekend, I will write as well. They seem to really appreciate the fact that I am willing to do some of the tasks myself (especially writing) and it helps a great deal with giving examples to kids struggling for ideas or inspiration to those who are lacking confidence. It’s also useful as a check on the demands we place on kids sometimes - if I can’t write a paragraph in 5 minutes, I certainly shouldn’t be expecting them to!

Let them eat cake… literally!

When negotiating class rules at the start of the year, one class asked if they could eat and drink during the lesson. At first, I tried to talk them out of it as school rules state that no food or drink (even water!) should be consumed during class - but then I thought ‘why not?’ The fact that I was prepared to go against the general school rule went down very well with the kids and I was very impressed by the fact that it wasn’t just crisps and chocolate that they brought to class but fruit, nuts and other healthy snacks as well. I did make it clear, however, that despite the fact that they could eat in class, there would be no ‘pic n’ mix’ - in other words, if they want a rule allowing them to eat in class, they had to follow all of the other rules we decided on as well, such as “be ready at the start of the lesson” and “listen when someone is talking”. And it worked! I have this particular class for the last two hours on a Friday, usually the worst time of the week, but they are always on task and enthusiastic…. and well-nourished!

Here’s a thought…. In case of bad behaviour, I could still allow eating in class but insist they eat something like this:

Bugs can be food too… or so says Brad Patterson via ELTpics

If music be the food of classroom management, rock on…

Years ago when I was fresh off the plane from native-speaker land, I played music in class when my students were writing (I was teaching adults at the time). It helped contribute to a relaxed atmosphere and could lead to interesting discussions about music in general or particular artists and songs. I never thought of doing the same thing with kids though - maybe I thought they would get over-excited and forget about the task at hand or the school would frown upon it and tell me to stop…. This year, I thought “what the heck? If they don’t say anything about ‘picnic Fridays’, they won’t say anything about a song or two. So I suggested we played music when writing in class and the kids jumped at the idea. I only insisted that the songs be in English with non-offensive lyrics. I also said I didn’t want any teen-pop music and to my surprise, one boy asked ‘can we listen to AC/DC or Queen then?’ It seems that games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have given these ten year-olds a taste for classic rock, one I am more than happy to indulge! We now write to the sound of guitar riffs, thumping bass lines and screeching vocals. And, despite their age, we still have those interesting discussion about music and a deeper level of respect for each other’s tastes. The songs are also good for time management - ‘try to finish before the end of the next song!’

As I said in the beginning, the classroom management situation is by no means perfect and we still have issues and problems from time-to-time. However, the factors listed above have made things better this year, not to mention more relaxed, more engaging, more fun… and more nourishing!

Working on the Web with Kids (1) - Wiki-waki

2011-12-13T23:13:00.001+02:00

A major new addition to my list of responsibilities at the start of this year was to take over and revamp the 5th Graders pbworks site. It had first started a couple of years ago but hadn’t really gone anywhere with students and teachers alike seemingly unsure of exactly what to do with it. I blogged about this at the start of the year to get some of your ideas and promised an update about how it was going so here it is!

Image by Graham Stanley via ELTpics

So far, it has very much been a case of working within the limits set by my employers. For some reason, they don’t want the students to be able to edit or create their own pages meaning I have to find ways to get the students interacting on the wiki via the comments section only. With that in mind, we have been using the wiki in the following ways:

To support work done in class

The first flurry of pages and activities I made for the wiki were based on the reader we used at the start of the year, a story called Alien Alert in Seattle. I found the wiki to be a great way to provide follow-up activities after each chapter that we read in class. In some cases, this took the form of general questions or asking for opinions about the chapter, which the students answered via the comments. In other cases, I embedded exercises made with Hot Potatoes such as crosswords to review vocabulary or quick quizzes. The students were especially impressed with my idea of recording sound bites using AudioBoo and embedding them into a matching activity - a great way to get them more engaged in listening! (See here for an example)

One great thing about doing this was the fact that it freed up more class time to get on with actually reading the book. I also found that more kids were willingly doing these activities online than I had ever seen in class.

As a virtual ‘wall display’

Kids love having their work put on display in the corridor. The only problem is that apart from the kid who actually did the work, nobody ever looks at it! You might get the odd parent who wanders down the hall and has a look but that’s about it. Even though the kids aren’t allowed to edit pages themselves, I thought the wiki would provide a much more open space in which to display their work and so I have had the kids email me copies of their written work (also useful for getting them to re-write what they did in their notebooks after some feedback) or I have scanned their hand-made posters. We even went so far as to record some TV show role-plays! This has been a great way to ‘bring it home’ as they are easily able to show their work to their parents. I have also noticed a lot of comments coming from kids in other classes, which hardly ever happens with wall displays.

For discussion and chat

Without any prompting, many of the kids started to use their class page as a place to chat and ask questions, something I was very pleased to see. I have also created some activities designed to encourage chat and interaction on the wiki. I recently posted a “Truth or Lie: 5 Things About Me” video after piloting it here with my PLN - thanks guys!

(I now think this has been seriously misused as an introductory activity - it’s much more meaningful when you know someone enough to take an educated guess at what they might be lying about and maybe learn a new thing or two!)

This was a big hit - good authentic listening practice, lots of comments and speculation and plenty of questions. In class, that level of engagement from that many students would have been much harder to achieve.

On the whole, it has been a success so far with many kids (in my classes at least) accessing the wiki regularly and eagerly awaiting new tasks and new content. There have also been some issues and points raised by using the wiki, which are as follows:

The ‘digital native’ myth

I am now convinced more than ever that the whole ‘digital native’ idea is misplaced. These kids should be tech-savvy, completely at ease with registering, navigating the site and doing interactive activities, right? Wrong! So many kids had problems with registering for pbworks - many of them were thrown by the fact that they received an email inviting them to join rather than sending them a password - and many more had trouble with simple things like logging in, navigating the site and writing comments. I had to go over it several times in class and make some screencasted tutorial videos to help them along. And I’m supposed to be the ‘immigrant’ in this digital world!

Parent Problems

One obstacle has been the parents. Even though they signed permission forms, many kids tell me their parents won’t let them use the computer, even for school work, during the week. A few even say they aren’t allowed to use a computer at all! A couple of parents have also expressed concern about this new element to the English programme (there is no web component in the earlier grades) and have called the school to question its value and insist that it should have no bearing on the kids’ grades at the end of the year… I guess they didn’t read the letter sent with the permission form! This is only a minority of cases though - most parents seem happy to have their kids doing something ‘useful’ on the computer (or at least I assume so by their silence!)

“What about games teacher?”

All of the students were excited to hear about the wiki site early in the year. Most of them are still excited about it and engaged. However, there are a few who have lost their enthusiasm. I added a few games and funny videos in the beginning but it seems that is all they want - “more games please teacher!” and “more videos!” are their only comments about the wiki. The other activities such as questions about the readers or hot potato quizzes generally lead to interesting excuses: “I couldn’t do it because my computer isn’t working/ my internet connection is slow/ there was a power cut/ the dog ate my computer…” I guess the lesson to be learned is kids won’t be motivated just because something is delivered via computer or on the internet. Those who struggle to find motivation for regular classroom tasks will also have the same attitude to tasks on the wiki or in some other digital form.

Overall, it’s been a success so far. Most kids are active on the wiki and want to use it. They are starting to come to me with suggestions for things to put on the class pages and some kids are even doing extra projects and asking if I can make a page for them. There are the usual institutional restraints to wrestle with and parents/students yet to appreciate the value of what we are doing but as with many of the other issues we face in education, it’s all a matter of giving it time and trying to show them what it’s all about.

Another failure for the exam-based system

2011-12-12T14:18:00.001+02:00

Sarah* is in many ways an ideal student: she is hard-working in class and keen to participate without trying to dominate proceedings; she makes an effort to speak English both with me and with her class mates; she is always on task; and she is very creative, producing beautiful project work, informative writing and entertaining short stories. I always let her know what a good student she is and how well she is doing and we have a good rapport.

Imagine my surprise then when her mother came to see me this morning to say how she came home upset on Friday saying that there was no point in doing her homework (which she usually does with enthusiasm as soon as she gets home) because she was never going to be any good at English. Obviously, her family were shocked to see her like this as was I when I heard about it.

Why was Sarah so upset? Because of a test score…

Image by Megan Skelly

I teach on the ‘conversation’ programme at my school. Despite the title attached to it, we actually work on their writing skills, reading comprehension and preparation for the Cambridge Young Learner Exams. One of the biggest challenges of these lessons is getting the kids to take it seriously. They often see us as their secondary English teacher (they have a non-native speaker as a ‘grammar’ teacher) and, if you let them, they can treat the lessons as ‘free time’. In order to add more weight to our lessons, it is the opinion of some (not me I should add) the we must have some tests, not a full test as we only see the students for a few hours each week but a test nonetheless.

And so, 2 weeks ago, I had to give a 25 question listening test based on questions from the KET exam, even though the students are getting ready for the Flyers test, which is one level lower! Naturally, they found it quite hard and results were mixed. Sarah got 72%, much lower than the 90%+ she gets in tests in the grammar lesson. I have spoken to her since, reminding her that the test is only a small part of the final grade I will give. Her project work is excellent as is her effort in class and her contributions to our student wiki site so her average will be much higher. That made her feel better but I still feel that I should have never had to have this talk with her in the first place. She should have never had to feel like this in the first place.
So, do these tests ‘add weight’ to my lessons? Do they make the students take them more seriously? I hardly think so. I try hard to show kids the value of my lessons through the work we do in class and the opportunities we create to use and develop our skills in English and that is what makes them value my lessons. Throw in a test and it becomes all about the grade and the stress that comes with it - a hindrance more than a help…

What’s your take on this situation? Are tests good for motivating students? Or is it the teacher’s duty to make sure the kids are motivated anyway?

*not her real name

11 from ‘11 - (Almost) A Year in the Life of my Blog

2011-11-30T21:49:00.001+02:00

Much like fellow Englishman-in-Turkey Adam Simpson (aka the oxymoronic @yearinthelifeof), I have many blog posts I want to write at the moment but for one reason or another are still the electronic equivalent of scribbled notes. And again much like dear Adam, I’m pushing those awaiting posts even further down my list of things to do by taking up his latest challenge (he gets a bit tetchy if there’s a muted response to his challenges so I thought I should…. ;-) )

Image by c.e.b.

The premise is simple - shamelessly pat yourself on the back by selecting 11 of your favourite pieces of self-publishing from the year so far but hide the fact by claiming your are merely joining in with the fun of another blog challenge. As Adam says: “Everyone’s a winner” - that’s no lie!

And so, in no particular order, I picked:

Don’t just fill the gaps - try leaving some space…

One of my favourite posts of the year because, for me, it represented a kind of coming together of several thoughts and ideas that were floating around in my head and helped crystallise my thinking and my stance in regards to dogme and the role of pre-prepared materials in the young learner classroom. It’s also formed the basis of a recent series of workshop proposals so if you see me at a conference in 2012, I’ll most likely be expanding on some of the ideas here.

Caught in a trap - grades, motivation, holidays & the exam-driven system

A discussion on the downside of working in a heavily exam-driven system (I say ‘discussion’ even though this post got no comments whatsoever). Nothing much has changed since, nor is likely to. Nevertheless, it needed to be said.

Meet Pompiskotch

I waited several weeks to write this post just because it took several weeks for the cycle of lessons to come to an end. One simple drawing activity formed the basis of a really productive and creative series of lessons on the part of my students and there will be elements of this in future workshops as well.

My Story - “That’ll never work with kids”

“Dogme? Young Learners?” you may cry. “That’ll never work!” If there’s one thing I’ve grown to hate hearing during my career in the YL classroom (along with “Teacher! Mehmet is annoying me!”), it’s this phrase. It’s so often based on assumption rather than experience and it took me a long time to realise that. Thanks to Vicky Loras’ mega-blog challenge, I got to revisit the moment the realisation came about.

The Five Stages of Dogme

If you are still not convinced by the posts above, you are probably at Stage 3. ;-) This was a fun post to write and a humorous take on a PLN debate that just keeps on going. Although it was a tongue-in-cheek look at things, it has proven to be unerringly accurate as a recent textbook case (pun-intended) of Stage 2 blog post anger showed…

Heavy metal, hard rock & ELT

Another alternative look at the dogme-side of things, this time by drawing parallels with alternative forms of music. Is dogme the heavy metal of the ELT world? If so, does that make Thornbury and Meddings our answer to Page and Plant?

Cleaning out my closet - Were those really the ‘good old days’?

Of course, it wasn’t always like this. I’ve been down the ‘materials heavy’ route quite willingly. In fact, I even contributed to it on a local level at least back in the day. This post literally came out of the closet as a clear out led me to discover an old box of handmade hand-outs from the early days of my teaching career. Oh, how times change!

“I don’t know who I am anymore!” - A shared existential crisis (video post)

Times do indeed change but sometimes too much change only serves to perplex and confuse. Attempts to expand my horizons by developing a PLN, attending more conferences, giving workshops and doing an MA caused me to question the point I had come to in my career and where I was going with it all. I decided to capture it all on camera and the response from my PLN made me glad I did.

“Why am I doing this?” - The dark side of distance learning

Did someone say ‘MA’? I probably wouldn’t have considered a blog if I hadn’t started my Masters. While it has been a great learning experience, distance learning is not easy, something I reflect on here. For anyone considering doing an MA, I still say ‘go for it’ but at the same time, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

The Weird & Wonderful World of Webinars

One of the professional development highlights of the year was the 3rd Reform Symposium online conference. It was loved by all who attended but I noticed some feelings of awkwardness from some of the presenters who found the whole ‘webinar’ experience a bit strange. This represents my take on why webinars are actually pretty cool - much like the sea early on a summer’s morning. And much like that, “it’s lovely once you’re in!”

Metablognition

The whole point of all this blogging is to reflect and develop as a teacher and that is what this post explored. A blog post about blog posts (hence the title) and a nice consolidation of my thinking as a blogger and as an MA student.

Willing to share but not willing to pay for the privilege

This was the granddaddy of them all! One of my few ‘rant’ posts that seemed to ruffle feathers and kick up a hornet’s nest. More comments than any other post I’ve written with several post written elsewhere in reply. Got me some attention and some icy looks from conference organisers when I went to ISTEK a short time later (though not from Burcu of course!) The raging debate also drew quite a few people to my blog for the first time, such as Brad Patterson, which can only be a good thing. It was fun to be the ‘controversial one’ for a few days at least ;-)

So that’s my 11 from ‘11. What’s yours?

The Edublog Awards (#eddies11) - My nominations

2011-11-20T21:02:00.001+02:00

It’s that time of year again - the Edublog Awards 2011. Last year, as a newbie to the world of blogs and Twitter for professional development, I didn’t make any nominations (I was, however, very honoured to be shortlisted for the ‘Best New Blog’ award). This year, now that I’m more of an ‘old hand’, I thought I would try to pick out some of the best of the best. Here goes:

Best individual blog - An A-Z of ELT by Scott Thornbury

Every ELT professional’s Sunday dose of thought-provoking and insightful posts!

Best individual tweeter - @ShellTerrell

This was probably the easiest decision to make. No Twitter educator’s PLN is complete without Shelly!

Best group blog - Barbara Sakamoto’s Teaching Village

Not a ‘group blog’ in the strictest sense but Barbara’s regular guest posters from all around the world make this a must-read site for any EFL teacher/educator.

Best new blog - languagemoments by Dale Couter

This was a tough choice as I have also enjoyed the addition of Brad Patterson’s Journée in Language and Sandy Millin’s Blog to my blog roll over the last year. However, Dale’s insightful and reflective posts on how lessons unfold in his classroom won out in the end.

Best class blog - Our Blogging Adventure

Greta Sandler’s students are so lucky, not only because they have such a fantastic teacher but also because she is so committed to giving the chance to express themselves through blogging.

Best ed tech/resource sharing blog - Özge Karaoğlu’s Blog

I’ve heard about so many web2.0 tools for the first time via Özge’s blog that this was an easy choice.

Most influential blog post - “How did she get here in the first place?” by Vicky Loras and the subsequent challenge '”What’s your story?”

In this post, Vicky Loras told us the story of how she left build up a language school together with her sister in Greece but then was faced with the difficult decision to leave it all behind and move to a new life and new job in Switzerland. Her story is inspiring and it led to a blog challenge in which over 20 other great educators shared their stories as well.

Best Twitter hashtag - #ELTchat

Although I haven’t been able to join the chats much recently, ELTchat remains a great source of inspiration, not only through the weekly discussion topics but also through the blog posts shared and the teachers I have connected with.

Best teacher blog - www.mikejharrison.com

I’ve chosen Mike’s blog here because it is so consistently good, full of useful lesson ideas and first-hand in-class experiences. Thanks Mike!

Best free web tool - David Warr’s Language Plant Maker

I’m a big fan of Mr Warr’s Language Garden blog and the attractive ‘language plants’ he adds to each one, which really offer a different way to look at language. Imagine my delight then when he made the Language Plant Maker available for the world to grow their own.

By the way, while I’m mentioning David Warr, I will also mention that I think there should be a ‘Best Blog Commenter’ award, in which case I would nominate him (or perhaps Tyson Seburn) again.

Best educational use of audio/video/visual/podcast - iasku by Chiew Pang

Chiew’s video interview blog has been a great way to get to know ‘the educator behind the tweets’ on a deeper level.

Best open PD/unconference/webinar series - RSCON3

This summer’s conference was a great event and one I was proud and honoured to be a part of.

Lifetime achievement award - Jason Renshaw

For his unending commitment to his English Raven blog and resource website, his invaluable help and advice for designing educational materials and his fantastic new project World Adventure Kids.

Good luck to everyone - I hope you get the recognition you deserve!

This is Madness! This is Distance Learning?

2011-11-16T23:53:00.001+02:00

Image from FreeWallpapersHD

Several weeks ago, I was asked if I would be interested in taking part in a pilot distance learning project organised by the foundation I work for. We have schools in over 20 different cities in Turkey and, while the college I work at is very large, others are quite small by comparison. I was told the project would aim to make up for a shortfall in English teaching staff in some of the smaller schools by having online lessons a couple of hours a week with a teacher located at another school. After a few days of constantly changing news, it was finally decided that I would work with a school in the city of Isparta (hence the title of this post and the silly image! :))

As I have taken courses about teaching online as part of my MA, I was naturally interested. I was told that my knowledge gained from my studies was one of the reasons I had been approached in the first place and my input would be appreciated. And so, even though I will be busy with the final phase of my studies this year, I agreed to do it. I promptly revisited my notes, re-read articles and got thinking about the best way to go about things. I started to envisage a blended learning approach, supplementing the regular English programme with a combination of synchronous and asynchronous activities, utilising different web and conferencing tools.

However, it seems I got a bit ahead of myself. I was then told all the online lessons would be given synchronously but not with Adobe Connect or Elluminate. Instead, I would be simply using Skype. Essentially, I would just be ‘beamed in’ to their regular classroom with my webcam feed appearing on their projection screen. This immediately set alarm bells ringing about effective interaction, how to monitor, how to offer assistance to individual students and how to avoid completely teacher-fronted lessons…

The alarm bells rang louder when I was informed that a special room was being set up at my school with a webcam aimed at a board/projection screen. When I asked why, an “isn’t it obvious?” kind of answer came back - “how else are you going to do board work?” Luckily, at this point the voice of experience I was supposed to bring to the project was finally heard as I pointed out that I could make-do with Google docs as a virtual whiteboard instead - in fact, it would be much more effective.

I should point out at this stage that I am not in any way criticising the teaching staff or students I am working with. I had the pleasure of visiting Isparta ahead of setting these classes up and I was very impressed with the English department and the school in general. The kids, as ever, were lovely and full of energy and enthusiasm and the teachers were very willing to help and contribute ideas as to how to make the situation work best. It’s just that this is not what I expected at all when I was first told about the pilot project - rather than distance learning I feel that this is distance teaching (started to sound like Tony Gurr now!) as the students are in their normal environment and I am the one who is joining the class from a distance!

Anyway, we have to make the most of the situation and so today, I taught two classes like this:

It was a strange experience - not being able to move around affected the level of interaction I was able to achieve a great deal and, of course, monitoring was impossible (luckily, teachers were on hand in the classroom and they were a great help with such matters). There were also a few technical issues - every so often the sound quality would drop and getting kids up to the mike to speak directly to me took some time…

On the bright side, my Google doc idea worked well as they could see what I was typing and I could see what they were typing. It was also very useful for some error correction after one of our speaking activities was completed (done in the style of ‘Six of one’ from Teaching Unplugged, pp.64). In future sessions, I’ll be inviting the students to write and edit on it more.

I also had the advantage of being able to work from home - great for quick coffee refills and also for staged cameo appearances by my cat, who drew out a whole stream of unsolicited questions and real ‘want-to-know’ interactions. I did also notice that, while I was relaxed and comfortable at home, some of the students were very nervous about speaking in front of the camera! I tried my best to put them at ease with encouraging words and by mentioning a few things I remembered from when I met them face-to-face last month. I’m sure they will get used to it in time.

I hope two things will happen as a result of this pilot project: first, I hope that my employers will be open to suggestions for improving the programme either during the year or in the future - having the kids in a computer lab and using some dedicated conferencing software would be a start; and secondly, I hope the kids get a lot out of the experience. After all, it’s always all about them.

Meet Pompiskotch

2011-11-12T15:31:00.001+02:00

In this post, I would like to introduce you to somebody, somebody important for my students. This person has helped us learn new things, practice new language, write stories, play games and generally have fun in class. He has also appeared on our class wiki pages. Despite his somewhat strange appearance and questionable habits, he has been a great influence and a motivating factor for one group of my 5th Grade students. Without further ado, allow me to introduce Pompiskotch!

In case you’re wondering what’s going on, read on and I will explain. :)

In one of our first lessons this year, I asked my students to draw a picture of a person. I left all the details of age, appearance etc. up to them and just decided to go with what they produced. In that initial lesson, we then stuck all the pictures up on the wall and I asked each group to chose a picture, produce a description of the person (adding extra details such as name, background info, hobbies and so on as they saw fit) and then describe him/her with the other groups trying to guess which picture they had chosen.

That was a fun lesson but I thought ‘why stop there?’ The activity and the pictures created (Pompiskotch in particular) had been so well received, it seemed a shame to just consign them to a wall display before being binned. So, the next lesson, I asked the kids to write character profiles for the different pictures. During the writing session, I encouraged lots of ‘on the spot’ comments from group to group with the kids making suggestions not only for their own writing but also for what the other groups as well. There was a really nice buzz around the classroom in this lesson as the kids circulated, exchanges ideas and helped each other produce really nice pieces of writing.

Next up was an error correction session. Using their writing, I identified the most common errors and used them to create a paragraph to go with one of the class’ pictures. In groups, they proceeded to edit and correct the paragraph before we corrected it as a whole class using willyou.typewith.me on the projection screen. Following that, they were directed back to their own writing to edit it and correct some errors. These descriptions were then added to the pictures on the wall.

But again, why stop there? Next, we made audio recordings to go with their favourite pictures and put them together with scanned images on the class wiki page. this was a great way to bring what we had done in class home - in the literal and figurative sense - as the kids were able to show their parents what they had been doing at school and they were also so proud of having their work on the internet.

Student Art 2 (mp3)

Meet Pompiskotch!

As these students will take the Flyers exam later this year, I then used the pictures and recordings to make a matching exercise on Hot Potatoes - good preparation for the listening questions and much more engaging to do it with student-generated content than with sample questions from a practice book.

The pictures were also recycled as part of picture dictation and Pictogloss activities, with students choosing a random picture and describing it to a partner who had to listen and draw. This led to some fun comparisons between the originals and the recreated drawings!

By this point, we were 4 weeks into the school year and still getting a lot of use out these pictures. In syllabus terms, we were well behind schedule having barely touched our book. However, in real terms, we were way ahead of schedule having covered structures and vocabulary for describing people and things, describing present actions, talking about habits and routines, using past tenses to give background information and comparative forms. We had also made great progress in terms of the writing and speaking objectives for the semester as well as fitting in some exam practice!

Eventually, we moved on to other topics and other things but Pompiskotch and his friends keep coming back! In a recent lesson, we wrote short stories about close encounters with aliens and UFOs and Pompiskotch made an appearance in several of those. He also appeared in the scary stories we wrote for Halloween and the ‘what happened next?’ role plays we did after finishing a reader.

While Pompiskotch was the favourite, he was not the only character to play an important role in the early part of our school year. Here are some of the others (see if you can spot mine! ;))

To finish, here are links to some of the blog posts that played a direct or indirect role in the way these lessons developed:

Lesson skeleton: YLs and drawing by Dale Couter - a post with lots of great ideas
Present simple/Present Continuous by Sandy Millin - this post inspired the original lesson and then it all snowballed from there!
Welcome to earth by Anna Musielak - Anna’s guest post on my blog earlier this year really helped inspire me to ‘let it run’ and make these characters a regular feature of our lessons.
And it would be impossible to mention using student-generated art in class without mentioning Mike Harrison, who has plenty of great ideas for drawing on his blog.

My Story - “That’ll never work with kids”

2011-11-11T21:51:00.001+02:00

Several weeks ago, Vicky Loras, a Greek-Canadian English teacher in Switzerland and a must for any language teacher’s PLN, set a simple yet intriguing challenge on her blog. She asked us “What’s your story?” as an invitation to give some more background about ourselves as teachers. This is a great challenge as it naturally prompts some deep reflection to identify those factors that affect who we are and what we do (and if you haven’t done so already, you should check out Vicky’s post with links to all the other contributions at the end).

I am coming to this challenge a bit late - various things have forced this post and my blog in general to slow down recently - but it is definitely a challenge worth taking up so here I am. Over the last few weeks, I have thought a lot about what to write - the story of how and why I decided to enter the world of TEFL in the first place, what me me come to and stay in Turkey, how I ended up teaching kids, when I started to see this as my career and not just a way to live abroad or pay the bills…. All of these ‘moments’ have critical incidents attached to them and all have played an important role in defining the teacher I am today. However, I also realised that all of those aspects of my story focus on me and that’s not the kind of teacher I am these days (or at least, not the kind of teacher I think I am). Over the last few years, I have come to realise teaching is not about me - it’s about them, the people in the room, the students, the kids! So that is what this post is about, what ‘My Story’ is about - realising the kids I work with don’t ‘have a lot to learn’ but rather they have a lot to offer.

Sometimes, you just need to see things a little differently - Image by ecstaticist

“That’ll never work with kids”

During my first few years working with young learners, this phrase was one I heard over and over and often used myself as well. We would attend workshops, seminars and conferences, listen to ideas from experienced teachers, teacher trainers, ELT experts, publishers and so on but many of them would be dismissed afterwards as unsuitable for primary school children.

Common European Framework? Portfolios? Self-assessment? Critical thinking? Internet projects? Collaborative work? Authentic children’s stories? Minimising use of L1 in class? You name it, we said “that’ll never work with kids”. Even when people who were experienced primary school teachers ran workshops or gave presentations and clearly demonstrated things that would work with kids, something similar would be heard: “That’s all very well if you are working with classes of ten students in Japan but that’ll never work with our kids” (classes of 28-32 in Turkey in case you didn’t already know).

And for a long time, I believed it. I stuck to the book and made the decisions for my kids about what they would or wouldn’t be capable of. This didn’t sit easy with me however, and I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing. As often seems to be the case, it was an unplanned moment in class (actually, a moment that came around due to lack of planning!) that started the change. One day in class, there was a couple of minutes left before afternoon break with one more English lesson to go. We were near the end of a unit, which meant a language review was coming and after that there was one of the kids’ favourites - a cartoon strip-style story. To fill those minutes before break time, I decided to offer a choice - after break we can do the language review or read the story. I told them to think about it and tell me their collective decision when the lesson resumed.

Of course, there was an instant cry of ‘story!!’ from most of the class. Not from two girls though - instead, they came up to me and asked what would happen with the option that was not to be chosen. I informed them that whatever we didn’t do that day, we would do the next day. They then exchanged whispers, nodded and set about talking to their classmates

“We only have one lesson left today,” they said. “If we do the story now, Mr David will finish it quickly and tomorrow we’ll do the language review.” I was eavesdropping by this point, greatly intrigued. “But,” they continued “if we do the language review now, we can do the story tomorrow and maybe spend two lessons on it” (this took place in Turkish of course and I am now giving a paraphrased translation). They went round the class repeating to this to different groups of kids and, to my amazement, it worked! After break, the class said they wanted to do the language review and leave the story for the next day. Basically, a group of 8 year-olds had collectively gone against their initial instinct to save the more enjoyable activity for another day when they could get more out of it.

Choice then became a big part of our lessons - which activity to do next, how to do a certain activity, whether to do something individually or in groups… Suggestions from the students soon started to follow - “can I do this as a poster?”, “can we act the story instead of reading it?”, “can we write about an imaginary animal instead of a real one?” - these were all things they started to add to the lessons.

I then started to challenge some of the ideas that had been left in the seminar rooms with big “that’ll never work with kids” labels on them. We started to reflect on what we had done each day, what had been learned, what they had liked and what could have been better. We did more group work, peer checking and collaborative projects. We started to have ‘story time’ on Fridays with real children’s stories like The Gruffalo - if anything, they loved the fact that all they needed to do was listen to the story! No questions, no activities to do afterwards, just a story… I stopped using Turkish in class all together and found that I didn’t have increased problems with classroom management or connecting with kids. In fact, those things were easier than before! Most importantly of all, we started to focus less on what was in the next unit of the book and more on the kids in the room.

Now, I’m not one of those whose reaction to dogme ELT is to say “I’ve been doing that all along” (Stage 2 as it is known on the pages of this blog!) but when I did finally come across the concept, I was ready to explore how it would work with in my classes rather than just say “that’ll never work with kids”.

Come to think of it, there was a time when I always thought “I will never work with kids” (two ways to interpret that!) but that’s another story…. ;)

Steps towards my Thesis - Critical Reflection Through Blogging

2011-10-19T12:31:00.001+03:00

Much like my fellow Englishman in Turkey Adam Simpson, I have plenty I want to blog about at the moment but hardly any time. I’ve had some interesting moments in class and online with my students in the last few weeks but as I’m teaching a full schedule across two grades I’ve never taught before, working on student websites, setting up a distance learning programme with another branch of my school and pursuing my MA studies, there’s little time to write about it all.

This post is different, however, as it allows me to combine part of my study programme with my blog. At the moment, I’m doing a course entitled ‘Developing Researcher Competence’ (DRC), which aims (amongst other things) to get us to produce a pilot study ahead of doing the final thesis. After much umm-ing and ah-ing, I have decided to look into the use of blogs for teacher development. The course notes suggest opening up my chosen area to ‘other-interrogation’ so I thought who better to consult about blogging than the blogging community I’m a part of?

Image by Flavio Ferreira

At the moment, the broad topic I want to look at is:

Using a blog as an open reflective journal for teacher self-development

I’ve blogged about this before but the whole idea of using a blog as a space to reflect intrigues me. Blogs offer great value not only in the process of writing each post and the internal reflections that leads to (I have rethought and refined my thinking in the course of typing up this post) but also in the interaction that goes on between the writer and the readers. Personally, on several occasions, I have found the comments I receive have really helped shape or alter my thinking about the topic of the post as has the experience of reading other people’s posts on similar topics.

I would like to investigate how moments of ‘critical reflection’ come about (naturally, my focus is therefore on those blogs which describe and discuss lessons or moments of lessons and/or general thoughts about classroom practice) and I have the following questions in mind:

What inspires you to write posts?
What prompts those moments of reflection?
How important is the role of the audience for you?
Does the presence of an audience and the fact that anyone can find and read your blog affect what you write?
Do the comments made help you reflect on your practice on a deeper level?

My 'hunches' at this time are that most teachers get inspiration for their post either from moments in the classroom or other blog posts. The idea of sharing experiences and engaging in discussion is what drives people to use a blog to reflect in this way and the audience can both contribute to those moments of reflection and motivate further ones. However, I also believe that some bloggers may focus more on what their readers are likely to respond to or hold back from discussing some issues in a 'public' space...

Obviously there are a lot of questions there and I need to narrow my focus a little. Any thoughts or comment you have at this stage on my ideas so far (or anything I may have missed!) would be much appreciated.

As for the research itself, I am thinking of starting with a survey about the kinds of posts people write and what prompts them (this can easily be done online after all) before later requesting permission to analyse the posts and interaction taking place on a few specific blogs (and anyone who would be interested in participating in that research in the future, please let me know!)

I will also be doing a conference presentation next month on the broader theme of self-development through online means so your comments will be helpful for that as well.

Home-Grown Language Plants - David Warr’s Blog Challenge

2011-10-12T12:03:00.001+03:00

“I’m not really a career person. I’m a gardener, basically.” - George Harrison

For a long time now, one of my favourite blogs has been David Warr’s Language Garden, both for its though-provoking content and the creative ‘language plants’ which introduce/conclude each post with a visual re-working of a quote. It was with great excitement then that yesterday I saw David’s blog challenge to create a summary of a lesson we had done using his new Language Plant Maker. Having had a fun morning experimenting and creating, I’m ready to share my beginner’s gardening skills.

David’s challenge calls on us to reflect on a recent lesson in the style of an activity from Teaching Unplugged entitled “That was the lesson that was” (pp. 63 if you have the book). By chance, one of my lessons yesterday was based on another Teaching Unplugged idea “Good things, bad things” (pp. 52) so here are some language plants representing the language that emerged or was uncovered:

Rather than a single object, I started the lesson with two: a cola can and a carton of ayran (a Turkish yoghurt drink) and asked the students to write down a couple of sentences about them. This naturally led to comparative forms being used and you can see a representation of what they produced above. Beyond the basic ‘Cola is better than ayran’, I asked the class for their reasons, which led us to comparing noun forms with has + more/less…, something their coursebooks had never touched upon.

The discussion than moved into fast food in general and whether it was better to have it as a treat once in a while or avoid it all together. The following language emerged during the discussion:

All useful language (a lesson full of useful language, one might say ;)) which helped a group of ten year-olds get into a proper discussion. We also followed the Teaching Unplugged idea of moving to different ends of the classroom depending on our point of view, letting the ones who were undecided stay in the middle. Using the language from the images above, each group tried to persuade the undecided ones to join them - all in all, a great lesson!

And a great challenge to help me reflect on it! I will be using these plants in class tomorrow to review what we talked about. Thanks David - the challenge and the Plant Maker are both really appreciated.

The Truth About (5 Things About) Me

2011-10-04T23:00:00.001+03:00

It’s been a fun week of speculating, questioning and challenging people in my PLN as part of the ‘This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours’ blog challenge. Thanks to everyone who made their own video, voice recording or Voki - I feel like it has been a good way to get to know people better, even those who I (thought I) knew a lot about already. And if you haven’t joined in yet, you are still more than welcome to. ‘The more the merrier’ as they say.

Image by Thomas Hawk

Anyway, time to reveal the truth about me:

1. Despite a complete lack of musical talent, I have performed concerts with two different bands.

TRUE!! I first picked up a guitar at 16 but never really progressed beyond strumming a few chords. Nevertheless, I joined a group with a few friends who were talented enough to make up for my lack of talent. As we didn’t know anyone who had a bass guitar, I drop-tuned my guitar and strummed a few low notes and power chords. After arriving in Ankara, I took up the guitar again and this time even laid down a track or two with the help of a musically-minded friend with sound editing software. Our masterpiece was called ‘Achilles Went…’ and if I ever find the CD (it’s what I was looking for when I found those worksheets the other day), I will upload it for your listening pleasure.

Anyway, back to the concerts. I never performed live with my first group here in Turkey but I would perform with another group a few years later called ‘The Aluminium Company’, only this time I was on keyboards. Again, I got by with a few basic chords and riffs. Alas, since I quit that group, my musical career has been on hold…

2. Before becoming a teacher, my only other full-time job was at a Shell petrol station in the UK.

TRUE!! No series of exotic jobs as I backpacked around the globe for me! I graduated from university in the summer of 1999 and upon returning to the town where my parents lived, I got a temporary job at the local Shell station. That soon turned into a full-time job and 7 months there enabled me to save up enough to do my Trinity TESOL course in Barcelona in January of 2000. The rest, as they say, is history.
Of course, I had other jobs while at high school and uni but they were only weekend or part-time affairs such as the classic paper round, working in the kitchens at a Little Chef, waiting tables in a hotel and serving pints to the thirsty hordes of the Toon Army at St. James’ Park.

3. I am an avid stamp collector.

LIE!! Most of you saw right though me on this one (I really should work on my skills of deception). I was given a stamp album once when I was a child but it was never even opened I think!

4. I have never had a full-time teaching job anywhere other than Ankara, Turkey.

TRUE!! This was a pretty easy one to confirm from my blog posts I suppose… A long time ago, I used to fib and tell students I had taught in Barcelona instead of just doing my training there, but that was just to avoid being labelled as a ‘novice teacher’ before I’d even had a chance to teach them anything! (Around the same time, I was also adding a few years to my age for similar reasons - not long until I start doing the opposite )

5. I will be competing in the Istanbul Marathon next month.

LIE!! This didn’t seem to convince many of you either… Perhaps saying next month was pushing it a bit far! This is an ambition of mine though and I intend to run in this event soon, if not next year then the year after that…. or the year after that one

So, in the end, most of you saw right through me, as evidenced by the fact that the first guess was spot on. Keep looking out for more people joining the challenge and see if you can sus them out as easily as you did with me!

The Truth Revealed by Other Entrants in the Blog Challenge:

Truths and lies - Sandy Millin
Let the Truth Be Known! - Chiew Pang
Interrogation Over. You Win. - Tyson Seburn
The Truth - Fiona Price
The Truth is Out - Janet Bianchini
The Truth, and Nothing but the Truth! - Lesley

Cleaning out my closet - Were those really the ‘good old days’?

2011-10-03T00:22:00.001+03:00

While having a clear out or sorting through old boxes at home, have you ever come across a really embarrassing photo of yourself? You know the one I mean -a younger version of you with a particularly bad haircut (possibly a frizzy perm or a centre-parting), glasses so large they might have come from a fancy dress shop and a sweater with at least 8 different colours on it arranged in some hideous ‘pattern’… Well, I think I just had the teaching equivalent!

Today, while trying to clear some space in my study room, I came across a box full of old hand-outs buried at the back of a cupboard. These were all lovingly hand-crafted during my first teaching job here in Turkey at a dershane (language school for adults) - yes that’s right: hand-crafted as in written out by hand. Not a word processor in sight!

The first few I looked at were nothing special (just cuttings from various textbooks rearranged onto one photocopy page) but then I found some of my own creations - cringe worthy to say the least! Pages and pages of gap-fills, grammar questions of dubious accuracy and crappy illustrations!

I can only assume that I kept them thinking that my new job with young learners may only prove temporary and I may be back teaching adults before long. Or perhaps I thought they might be handy for one-to-one tuition… Who knows? Anyway, with on-demand computer access and a whole decade of teaching knowledge and experience to inform my efforts now, the only place they belong is in the recycling bin.

Nevertheless, I’ve decided to let a few live on through the pages of this blog. ‘Why?’ do I hear you ask? Three reasons really:

In light of Jason Renshaw’s recent excellent tutorials on how to make good quality materials, may these serve as an example of how NOT to make materials!
To show how far I’ve come since those novice days.
To demonstrate to all those Stage 2 dogme thinkers, that just because you used to teach in a school with no proper coursebooks and had to create your own teaching materials, it does NOT mean that you were ‘teaching dogme all along’.
OK, so make that 4 reasons - I thought it would be good for a laugh.

Here goes! (You may need to click on the images to see them clearly… then again, you may not want to!)

Introducing Your New Teacher

Me! With hair!

Funny that I should find this one after my recent ‘Truth or Lie?’ blog challenge. The premise was simple - the students ask me questions to fill the gaps before deciding what information is true and what was not. The truth is, I didn’t really need a hand-out for this!

What’s Going to Happen?

What’s going to happen? Your students are going to be very bored, that’s what’s going to happen! They are also going to finish this hand-out you wasted 20 pieces of paper on in about 2 minutes when you could have easily displayed the same ‘art’ skills on the board in a similar amount of time.

Multiple Meanings of Modals

This worksheet takes a tricky area for learners… and makes it harder! I seem to remember a couple of advanced classes really getting into the finer details on this one though (despite the stick figure illustrations!)

More Relative Clauses

‘Course 13’ at my old school was notorious for it’s heavy grammar content. I believe this hand-out was intended to alleviate the burden! Note my ‘made by Dave’ copyright claim in the top right-hand corner. ;)

Stative/Dynamic

A great worksheet to show how obsessed teachers and students alike were with grammar at my old school. Believe it or not, this was well-received in class!

“The Good Old Days”

Saving the best till last, I challenge anyone, native speaker or not to complete this one without one or two serious ‘wtf?’ pauses. This was designed for an advanced class but, unsurprisingly, even pushed them too far. These days, I might do something similar but most likely I would just tell the story, invite comments on it and then have the try to reconstruct the gapped text. Still (at the risk of giving the answers away), I like the sentiment that “they were told/taught to teach with ‘just/only a pen’, as they used to do.”

So, what is the secret to making great materials? Answer:

“You must find a way that works for you.”

Do you have any cringe-inducing materials lying around? Please do share!

This is My Truth (or is it?), Tell Me Yours - A Blog Challenge

2011-09-28T12:11:00.001+03:00

One of my favourite posts from this month of September is Extending Conversations from Dale Coulter’s languagemoments blog. I always enjoy Dale’s accounts of ‘dogme in action’ and this was no exception with a plethora of ideas for moving beyond/building on the conversation part of the lesson.

One activity he mentioned is a regular favourite of mine: “Telling lies, telling the truth”. The premise is simple - students write a few sentences on a given topic including a lie or two. The rest of the class then discuss which one(s) they think is the lie.

As the conversation on Dale’s post extended through the comments section, I mentioned how I use this as an introductory activity with a new class (I call it “5 things about me”). In my version, I ask the students to write 5 personal statements, 3 of which should be true and 2 of which should be lies. The class then try to deduce what the lies are.

To add a bit of fun, I encourage the students to put each other ‘on the spot’ with a few questions. If, for example, someone says “My favourite football team is Chelsea”, I get my students to ask “Who’s your favourite player?” or “Who did they play against last weekend?” in order to see if there’s any hesitation or contradiction. It’s a good light-hearted way for students to get to know each other and can lead to some funny moments such as I had in my new 6th grade class last week as one boy tried to feign hesitation when being interrogated to throw his classmates off!

It’s not just a ‘getting to know you activity’ though - it’s also a great way for students who have been in the same class for a long time to find out things they didn’t already know about each other and I’m also planning to bring it up with my 5th grade groups, even though they have been together in the same class since 1st grade and I was their teacher last year.

I’m planning to do it as an introductory activity on the 5th grade website I am currently working on and was thinking about recording my 5 facts as a video. After viewing, the students will have a week to ask me questions and discuss their opinions via the comments section before I reveal the answers (they will then make a page or a recording on the site in the same manner).

But I thought I should test it out first and that’s where my PLN comes in. I’ve interacted with many of you through this blog, other blogs, Twitter and even in person at conferences in the past year but how well do you really know me? Can you work out what they two lies are? I invite your questions, discussion and speculation in the comments box!

And then I saw Brad Patterson’s recent post in which he mentioned a lack of blog challenges recently so I thought ‘why not?’ Here’s the challenge:

Post a video, audio recording or just a regular post on your blog in which you state 5 facts about yourself - 3 truths and 2 lies.
Invite your PLN to quiz you and speculate on what the lies are!

Any takers? Oh, yes! There were! The following fine folks have been cheeky enough to tell us a couple of lies: ;)

Truths and Lies by Sandy Millin
Blog Challenge - This is my Truth! by Chiew Pang
Fact or Fiction: Video Challenge by Tara Benwell
Interrogate me by Tyson Seburn
Taking up Dave's Blog Challenge by Fiona Price
How good a liar am I? by Cecilia Lemos
Lies, damn lies and new classes by Adam Simpson
Blog Challenge: Truth or Lie? by Janet Bianchini
Rule no.1 - Shaun lies by Shaun Wilden
Why would you lie to me? Because it makes for a fun post! by Gloria M.
Blog Challenge: Truth or Lie? by Lesley

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I have now revealed all in this post. Scroll to the bottom and you'll find links to the 'confessional' posts of all of the abıve as well. ;)

Democracy in Action…. in Primary School English

2011-09-27T21:10:00.001+03:00

Prior to the start of the new school year, I blogged about some classroom management strategies I had found around the ELT blogosphere and my plans to draw on them once classes were underway. One of the strategies I wanted to implement was that of a ‘class contract’ negotiated between myself and the students. After much hard bargaining over the first couple of days of term, I made individual agreements with all of my classes, the details of which I will give in this post.

Just about sums up what I expect from my students :) - Image by JoeGray

I decided everything would be up for negotiation and told the kids as much. I started with a proposal that I could make 4 simple rules for them and they could then make 4 rules for me. Every class agreed it sounded like a fair deal and off we went. Each of my rules had to be ratified by the whole group and (luckily!) they were all accepted in each of my 6 classes. They were:

Be ready at the start of the lesson.
Listen when somebody (teacher or fellow student) is talking.
Mistakes are an important part of learning, not a funny one so don’t laugh at them.
Wait for the teacher to dismiss the class at the end of the lesson.

As far as I’m concerned, those rules cover most bases: The first and last ones are in response to issues last year when we on occasion lost over 5 minutes of class time due to students not being prepared for the lesson to begin or packing up when there were a couple of minutes still to go; the rule about listening covers interrupting and idle chit-chat at the back of the class; and hopefully the rule about reacting to mistakes will help create an environment where the kids feel secure enough to express themselves.

And then the fun began! I put them into groups (of 3 as per Mr Wilson’s post ;)) and ask them to come up with some rules for me. All of these rules were put on the board and discussed before they chose four of them to keep. During the discussions, negotiations and modifications could be made. I must admit to a bit of manipulation here as I pointed out that, for example, a rule saying no homework at all would mean I couldn’t allow them full access to the website I’m currently setting up as that would include homework tasks (clever, eh?)

It also served as a good language learning exercise as they were able to see the difference a single word could make in the meaning or emphasis of a sentence. For instance, they learned that “The teacher can only give us homework once a week” carried more weight than “the teacher can give us homework once a week”. They were also exposed to some useful if-clauses such as “we can play word games at the end of the lesson if we finish everything early” and “we can eat in class if we are careful not to make a mess”.

There were some more bizarre rules of course. In one class, by unanimous decision, I have to reward the best 3 students of the week with chocolate (I will keep a list of who I have rewarded to make sure everyone gets a treat at some point). And, apparently, in one class if the class average is above 95% on an English test, I have to sing to them (now I really dislike exams! I should be safe though - that particular class averaged around 85% on their tests last year)!

I’ve already seen early signs that it has had an effect on some classes. Several kids thanked me afterwards for letting them have some input and were happy to see that I returned the next day with the rules printed up on a poster for display in class. I also made sure that those classes who requested games (and chocolate!) got them at some point last week so they could see I intended to keep my part of the bargain. However, one class (the ‘pink elephant class’ - who else?) seemed to view the choosing of rules as just another in-class activity. They seemed surprised when I stuck up the poster with both my rules and their rules on it the next day and, to be honest, they haven’t done a good job so far of sticking to them - still work to be done there.

On the whole, it was a good way to start the year as the kids immediately got a say in the way the class will be run. It was all summed up for me perfectly by one boy in particular who, as we were negotiating the rules and discussing the importance of having a few rules in class, said:

“Good students, happy teacher, great lesson”

That was added to the bottom of all the class posters!

Back to School and Ready to Leap into the Unknown

2011-09-18T22:34:00.001+03:00

In less than 12 hours, I will (probably) be back in class for the first time in too long ready to start a new school year. It will be a different challenge this year as I teach 5th grade for the first time ever and also 6th grade for the first time in seven years!

Beyond that, I know nothing - yes, less than 12 hours to go and I don’t know which class I will be in at 8.30am tomorrow (or even if I have a class at that time at all)! The problem stems from the fact that 5th grade is part of Primary school and 6th grade is part of Middle school - the two buildings are at opposite ends of the campus and as of yet, a schedule that allows me enough time to move between classes has not been devised.

Taking a brave leap or acting like lemmings? Image by Roo Reynolds

And yet I feel strangely calm. A few years ago, I would have been stressing about it, wondering how I could be sufficiently prepared when I didn’t even know which class I would be in at what time. That would have been even worse if it was in a grade I hadn’t taught before.

If I’m honest, the night before school started used to be stressful even when I knew exactly what my timetable was. I would go over my lesson plan again and again, running through each stage of the lesson in my head. I would think about exactly what I would write on the board, even what colours I would use! I would check all my materials, books, photocopies, etc. several times. In short, I would be over-prepared and yet still stressed about it….

So, what has changed? Greater experience? More self-confidence as a teacher? Not really caring anymore? (Only joking about that last one, of course, but keep it in mind - we’ll return there momentarily.) Having sat on it for the last couple of hours, I think it is another of the benefits to come from embracing the principles of dogme. I now realise that I’m not helping anyone by being so prepared. Knowing exactly how my first day back at work will pan out to the minute detail of what will be said, written, handed out and when limits learning rather than facilitating it. Instead, I embrace the unknown and go to class ready to learn about my students and explore whichever of the infinite paths our first day journey could take comes up (the ‘space’ I was exploring earlier today). I know we will focus on rules and classroom management at some point but even that will be as student-centred as possible.

All of which brought me back to one of the things that bugs me about ELT and education in general. Many of us as teachers feel the need to be busy, to be prepared and to plan ahead without ever questioning why. We spent the period before school opens revising the syllabus, reviewing the materials, making new hand-outs, decorating classrooms and finding out who the ‘problem’ students are from the previous teacher. Part of this (in my opinion at least) stems from fear of ‘losing control’ of the class on day one and part of it stems from the desire to be seen to be a hard-working, committed, caring teacher. Many teachers feel, as I used to, that we should be doing something in order to be ready (perhaps a lingering feeling that I should be doing something is what has driven me to write this post….)

But, as I set out above, not filling my days in the run up to school opening with ‘busy work’ does not mean I care any less. Rather, it means that I go into class with an open mind ready to involve the students as much as possible. They will help me make a list of simple class rules and any decorating will be done by them. All the while, I’ll be getting to know the new kids and catching up with the ones who’ve been in my classes before.

So, whatever 8.30am tomorrow brings, I feel ready. Ready but not over-prepared….

Don’t just fill the gaps - try leaving some space…

2011-09-18T13:27:00.001+03:00

“5 years almost exclusively with native speakers and our students can not speak English well enough!”

This was the central focus of a meeting at work the other day - why are our students reluctant/unable to speak? They have an extensive English programme starting in kindergarten and continuing throughout their time in Primary school with native speakers either as their sole teacher or their ‘conversation’ teacher. However, when it comes to middle school and high school with oral proficiency exams, debate clubs etc., they are found wanting in their communicative skills.

Gaps - waiting to be filled or best left to grow? Image by Cr4nberry

Now, of course, there is a whole other debate about whether starting to learn a foreign language at pre-school age is beneficial in the long-run, not to mention the whole native/non-native speaker arguments. There are also unrealistic expectations from the parents to deal with (such as when I see one of my students out and about during the weekend and their mother and father say “Go on then - say something in English” and then frown as the child clams up). It should also not be forgotten that there are many success stories - many times over the last few years, I have engaged in conversations lasting 20-30 minutes with 3rd graders with no communication problems whatsoever.

However, I have also wondered many times why that success rate is not higher and what holds some kids back from developing their speaking skills and fluency. Various explanations were offered in the meeting - large class sizes, mixed-ability groups, lack of discipline, too much focus on written exams - along with suggestions of how to engage students more - drama activities, poster projects, lunchtime cross-curricular clubs - but the over-riding factor seemed to be lack of time. “Our syllabus is jam-packed already” and “we have so much material to cover” were phrases said repeatedly.

I had two thoughts during the meeting - first that the obvious solution to an over-loaded syllabus was to remove a couple of components, thus allowing for more time to be devoted to creative use of English and speaking practice, and secondly that ‘conversation’ will always be limited as long as the syllabus dictates that past simple can’t be learnt until these kids are nearing the end of 4th grade - over 5 years after most of them began learning English!

That evening, I decided to walk the last part of my journey home instead of the usual taxi-share and I was still pondering the problem. The walk and the air (I won’t say ‘fresh’ as I was walking along a busy road at the start of rush hour!) helped clear my head and get me thinking straight. A huge part of the problem stems from the over-reliance on materials, whether published or produced in-house: Whenever English hours are increased in a particular grade, the automatic reaction seems to be “let’s choose another book or reader then”; hand-outs are rolled out production-line style for ‘conversation’ classes; grammar and vocabulary practice activities fill up the English website. These kids are spending their English learning time filling gaps on worksheets and then we act surprised when they can’t speak very fluently!

Then I remembered a point Luke Meddings made in his ‘Six Sketches’ talk at ISTEK last April (I never take notes during talks as I believe that a really useful or profound idea will stick in my head and this was one of those). He showed us a painting of a coastal scene (I forget the title and the artist - a consequence of not taking notes I guess!) and told us the artist had used only a few tones of brown and blue (I think) and yet there was a white house visible near the sea. Luke told us the artist had created that part of the image by using no colours at all - he had just left some space on the canvas. However, without that space, the painting would not have been that striking at all.

And so it came to me - instead of trying to ‘fill gaps’ (whether on a worksheet or in our learners’ knowledge) all the time, we should be leaving some space, space in which our learners can explore, grow and develop. With no space, we run the risk that they feel pressured, closed in, claustrophobic even. And this is where dogme ELT has its great strength - instead of cramming the gaps with paper, it opens the space and lets the learners loose in it.

So let me finish with an example of one of the ways I let the learners explore the space rather than fill the gap. Take the classic information gap activity - students are divided into ‘A’ and ‘B’ and given incomplete sets of information. They have to pair up and ask each other questions to complete their copy of the worksheet. This may be information about a person, a place or a product but usually it’s all set our for them. They just think of the questions and write down the answers. This is called ‘communicative’ as there is a purpose to the activity but ask my students and they will tell you it’s just boring. The activity is quickly forgotten and the ‘A’ and ‘B’ worksheets may be found under the desk, on the floor or in the bin at the end of class.

After being introduced to teaching unplugged, my approach changed. My students instead start with a blank page in their notebook. They draw a person (or monster, alien, whatever character they wish) and then create a profile for him/her/it. I then put them into small groups and they ask each other about the characters they created and recreate their partners’ profiles in their own notebooks. We may even recreate the pictures as well by listening to a description and trying to draw it as accurately as possible. Essentially the activity is the same but the content is entirely student-generated, the level or personalisation is high and the student engagement is through the roof! The activity is a lot less controlled but a lot more language (spoken and written) is produced.

So I think the answer to the communication problem I described at the start of the post is simple - leave some space…. and watch our students grow!

Inspired by my PLN, No. 3 - Classroom Management

2011-09-15T13:54:00.001+03:00

As the new school year draws closer here in Turkey, I find myself in an unusual situation: for the first time, I will teach in the 5th grade (along with one 6th grade class but more on that in another post) and, also for the first time, I will be teaching classes I have worked with before.

On the one hand, this is a good thing as it means I can start the year in a different way. As there will be no need for ‘getting to know you’ activities and we can instead focus on catching up after the summer holiday and discussing expectations for the forthcoming year. On the other hand, it presents me with a problem as I will be working again with some ‘difficult’ students and classes (who you may remember me referring to previously in posts like this, this and this).

Looking for peace and quiet in class this year… - Image by kaneda99

I decided I would need to review my classroom management strategies in order to start the year on a positive and so I have revisited a number of blog posts written by wonderful members of my PLN which have really given me some great ideas:

Establishing the ground rules - written by Jo Budden on the Teaching English website. I will lay down a few ground rules on the first day and also give the students the chance to contribute some rules of their own in a form of ‘class contract’. All I will ask of them is that they are ready when the lesson begins, they don’t interrupt when somebody (teacher or student) is talking and they wait until I dismiss class before packing up and leaving. The rest is up to them!

When a “Good” Class Goes “Bad” (and Back to “Good” Again!) - this post by Larry Ferlazzo is one of my favourite ones and I especially like the ideas of having a secret sign agreed with an individual student to let them know when they are trying my patience and telling a student I will not call their parents immediately but rather after a week, in which time they have the chance to show me an improvement.

Ten ways to motivate the unmotivated… - a super heavyweight of a post from Ken Wilson packed with great ideas. I started to use more groups of three towards the end of last year and it worked well so this time I will be using more threesomes from the beginning. I’m sure my students will also enjoy the responsibility of presenting different units of material and I will also make a concerted effort to get them out of rows more often.

10 Classroom Management Ideas that Worked in my Classes - most of the ideas form Burcu Akyol’s blog are more suitable for kids younger than the ones I will teach but I intend to make use of student helpers, both to do some tasks during the class and to ensure the rules we have agreed on are followed, especially with regards to being ready for class on time. To do this, I will name 4 ‘captains’ per class with the names changing on a regular basis. I will also make use of the school wiki to praise good behaviour and work, hopefully motivating them to contribute more (see Part 2 of Burcu’s post).

Let’s see what the magic bag thinks - Aside from behaviour issues and kids lacking motivation, another classroom management issue I constantly have to deal with is those highly enthusiastic students who want to answer every question and help with every task. Although they are well-intentioned, they often end up dominating the class and/or getting frustrated when the teacher does not call on them. This year, I’m going to pinch Richard Whiteside’s idea of having all the students’ names on cards in a bag or box and drawing them out at random when reviewing answers or carrying out tasks- this way the ‘quiet’ ones get involved more, the ‘naughty’ ones don’t feel that they are being deliberately excluded and the ‘enthusiastic’ ones don’t get to dominate so much.

I’ll be posting again later in the year to let you know how it all went!

Voicethread: How do you use it with your students?

2011-09-13T10:44:00.001+03:00

Just a quick post - how do you use VoiceThread with your classes? Please leave your suggestions and help me demonstrate to my colleagues how this web 2.0 resource works. :)

Teachers in Turkey, No. 7 - “Why Do What We Do?” by Angela Collins

2011-09-10T15:36:00.001+03:00

After hosting six teachers so far we have something of a first in the Teachers in Turkey series as this teacher, Angela Collins is the first contributor who is NOT based in Istanbul. Instead, she works in the same city as me, Ankara. However, in that funny way the world works, while I have met four of my six guests from Istanbul in person, I have only ever interacted with Angela virtually.

In the post, she tells us why she works as an ‘international teacher’ and how that is distinct from being an ‘English teacher’.

I’m sitting in the London-Heathrow Airport in transit on my way back “home” and I wonder why I am doing this? I don’t have a husband to follow on a job somewhere. I don’t get paid a ton of money to do what I do (in fact, I often pay for my holiday flights out of my own pocket). I don’t get looked at as a high member of society. So why do I choose to go to a different country to do my job?

Perhaps I should have started by saying that my name is Angela Collins and I’m an international educator (sounds a little like alcoholics anonymous though, doesn’t it?). What that means is that I am a teacher who chooses to do her (or his, there are men who do this job too… rare breeds but they do exist) teaching in another country. I don’t choose to do it because I hate my own country (on the contrary, I am a fiercely proud Canadian). I choose to do it because I get to put the two things I LOVE to do together: travel and teach. I’ve had the distinct pleasure of teaching in several countries (including my own): South Korea, Oman, U.S.A. and now I am working and living in Turkey.

Now, I know what most of you are thinking. And the only reason I know this is because it’s what people always say to me when I tell them that I am an international teacher: “Oh, so you teach English….” Nope. I do teach IN English, but I am a fully certified, professional teacher who is capable of (and has) taught Kindergarten through to grade 12. I am currently teaching grade one in an international school that works of a very cool and unique bilingual system. I know some of my TESL and TEFL (those English teachers) might be irritated at my distinction from what they do, but I like to be recognized for what it is that I actually do. And I like them to be recognized for what it is that they do - which I did for one year and realized that I didn’t have the chops for… if you are a true professional in that position, it is VERY taxing on your time and brain, I have mad respect for TESL and TEFL teachers.

Angela Collins lives and works full time in Ankara, Turkey as a grade one teacher at Bilkent Laboratory and International School. She is now in her fourteenth year of full time teaching and has taught just about every age (Pre-K to Grade 12) and a myriad of subjects (PE, Art, English, Science and regular classroom instruction). She comes from an international background herself and seeks to continually grow personally and professionally through her international teaching experiences.

A wiki for 5th graders - your ideas please!

2011-09-07T00:09:00.001+03:00

Having just posted about the failure of one pbworks project, I’m set to start work on another! However, this time there is one big difference - rather than making a site for teachers to use, I’ve been asked to prepare one for the 5th grade students at my school. There is very little in the way of opportunities to bring technology into the classroom at my school so I’m keen to make sure the wiki is a success. The purpose of this post, therefore, is to sound out some ideas and hopefully get some more from you, the wonderful members of my PLN!

Reach for the sky - Image by Blue-Interface

But first, some background on the programme and what is expected….

What they (the school) want

A wiki set up on pbworks has been used over the last couple of years in the 5th grades. From what I gather (I haven’t worked with this grade group before), some activities (such as reading passages, true/false statements, quizzes etc.) were uploaded to the site every couple of weeks and set as ‘e-homework’. There was also a cross-curricular ‘Computers with English’ lesson once a month in which students could add work to the wiki. However, this had to be checked and approved before being added and the lesson itself would be given by a computer teacher rather than an English one. Beyond that, links were also posted to other sites the kids might like to look at in their own time.

There have been some problems though - only about half of the students were actually doing the homework tasks and even then, due to the sheer volume of kids we have (over 420 in the 5th grade alone so even half of them means more than 200), nobody wants to be lumbered with checking the answers!

So, I have been asked to make something ‘exciting and enticing’ so more students will be willing to do it but also something that does not put much pressure on the teachers to check and mark it. It should also complement the readers used and the preparation for the Flyers exam.

A few of my ideas

First of all, I think a change of attitude is needed from the school’s side. The belief that work can only be uploaded to the wiki after it has been checked defeats the whole point of a wiki, doesn’t it? If students are allowed to write directly to the wiki and then edit their work, it would allow for greater self-awareness of language errors and input from teachers and peers as well. That would also reduce the need for the teacher to ‘mark’ the work as the emphasis changes from product to process. If I can achieve that (big if!), the possibility for writing projects such as short stories would be created and could be used to increase motivation to write.

At the start of the school year, I thought an orientation-style activity getting each student to navigate the site and leave some comments on their class page or create their own personal page would be good. I might try using a screencasted video to demo this and then give them some instructions to follow.

As for the readers, I’m thinking of adding some quizzes, vocabulary exercises and summaries of the story so far (using Hot Potatoes for example) as well as creating some tasks similar to the reading/writing questions from the Flyers exam for practice.

I’d also like to go beyond just answering questions and writing tasks so I would like to include some web 2.0 tools such as Voicethread to get the students speaking and video embeds to create listening exercises. These could of course be thematically linked to the main content of the in-class syllabus such as the readers.

Some caveats

There are some limitations and issues to consider though. First and foremost, the options for working in class are limited to one computer and a projector. This means I can demonstrate new features on the site and show the activities I want them to do but there will be little chance of allowing students to work on their pages in class. They must do most of the work on their own at home.

We do have computer labs at school but these are very much the domain of the computer department and it would be difficult to get permission to enter the labs beyond the once-monthly ‘Computers with English’ class.

As for using pbworks, I have little choice in the matter. For whatever reason, all English departments in different branches of the school are required to use it so there’s no option to use Moodle, Kidsblog or anything else like that.

Also, the school wants a system in place to check not only who has logged on but also what they have done on the site. This may create a problem with embedded activities from other sites or servers. Would it be possible to implement some kind of tracker to record all that information automatically.

So, over to you. What would you do in my situation? What kind of activities that can be done from home would engage the kids and help them develop their language skills? All suggestions welcome!

If you want to see what the current site looks like, check it out here: www.tak5.pbworks.com

Why my PD wiki failed

2011-09-06T18:35:00.001+03:00

Those of you who have followed my blog for a while may remember me posting about a professional development wiki for the teachers at my school that I was trying to get off the ground this time last year. The idea initially came to me after last summer’s RSCON event as I was thinking how to share what I had learned. I thought a wiki would be an ideal way to introduce new web 2.0 tools to my colleagues whilst also creating an archive of lesson ideas and screencasted presentations to be accessed and viewed in the teacher’s own time.

Alas, one year on the website (The TED Teachers’ Network) is unused and hasn’t been added to or accessed for a long time. To be honest, I had forgotten about it until I saw a post on Martin Warter’s blog about a similar problem he had had with his school’s wiki for teachers. That got me thinking about why my attempt had failed - I think reflection of this kind is just as valuable as reflecting on what worked well, if not more so - and here’s what I came up with:

A broken network is no network at all - Image by evershedm

Miscommunication and misunderstanding

My first barrier came early on as I tried to explain the concept to fellow teachers and heads of department. It is easy to forget sometimes that not everybody is ‘computer literate’, both in the sense of not being familiar with various programmes and websites and also in the sense of not being familiar with the terminology. Some people had obviously never heard of a wiki before (even though one is used as part of the English programme in the 5th grades) and found the concept of editing pages and adding content difficult to get to grips with.

There was also some confusion over the distinction between a wiki and a blog, with many colleagues thinking the wiki page was a blog. Even after I had explained the distinction, the director of the school also informed me that such a website was unnecessary because a school blog already existed. Investigation revealed it did indeed exist but that was it and nobody knew about it - what’s the point of that?

Delays and red-tape

Once the misunderstandings were cleared up, the idea then suffered from a series of delays as ‘permission’ was required from various people in the school administration. At each stage, it would have to be explained all over again and it took months to get the official thumbs up when I expected it would take days.

In the meantime, everybody else forgot about it and my ideas to have a couple of workshop sessions to introduce the wiki and how it works fell to the wayside. By the time permission came, it felt like I was back to the beginning in terms of explaining the concept to my colleagues and trying to get them on-board.

Lack of interest

This was the real killer. We were into November by the time the green light was finally given and, with everyone into the full swing of Semester 1, nobody was really keen on attending any introductory sessions. Instead, I just set up accounts for everyone and screencasted a video on how to use the wiki. However, I soon noticed that several people never even confirmed their accounts or logged on once but never bothered again.

I continued to add new content for a while knowing that an email notification would go to everyone when edits were made or new pages were created, thinking that would get their attention. Unbelievably, I actually started to get complaints from my colleagues that the pbworks updates were flooding their inboxes. Particularly disheartening was when somebody asked me for help editing the settings on their account - it turned out they were only interested in disabling the email notifications…..

A few colleagues did view the wiki and a couple even added content but it was not working as I expected. One teacher came to me and asked where the downloadable materials were. When I explained the point of the wiki was to share lesson ideas and pool our collective resources, I was greeted with a funny look. “You mean we are supposed to add content?” was the puzzled question.

And that’s when I gave up…. I guess the truth is that rather than an alternative to weekend seminar days, some people would rather just not have any professional development. Perhaps my idea was too big and ambitious as well. Next time, I’ll go for something smaller…

Still, it was a good experience in that I got to learn how to use pbworks, make screencasts and embed various objects. My pages on Wordle and Quiz Generators are worth keeping online and I may reuse them in some other future project.

Google+: What does it add?

2011-09-05T21:41:00.001+03:00

Having been on Google+ for a couple of months now, I decided it was time to take stock of what, if anything, it has added to my online personal learning network and professional development experience. I’ve never been a fan of Facebook (although it has an annoying habit of popping up and joining the dots in all aspects of my personal, social and professional life) and Twitter seems to have become a bit ‘routine’ (and more difficult to manage) after the initial PD explosion so I approached Google+ with an open mind ready to see what it could add. The short answer is… not much.

About what my Google+ experience has amounted too - image by hgc

It all started out well…

At first, I was attracted by the idea of circles. Facebook had become a bit messy with a mix of family, friends and acquaintances (I know there are lists but I could never be bothered with setting them up) and my Twitter stream had become quite difficult to manage as the number of people I followed increased (and I again never got round to updating any lists. Google+’s circles seemed to offer an ideal situation - different circles for family, friends, colleagues etc. and even circles within those circles for people closer to me or people in different sectors of education.

However, that was just the ideal and it didn’t really work out that way. First of all, hardly any family or friends were using Google+ so there was nobody I could add to those circles. The people I connected to were just members of my PLN from Twitter. I then tried putting them into circles but it felt too much like labelling. ‘Should I put this person in EdTech or general ELT? Or both? Do I need to make a dogme circle?’ - these were all questions I started to ask myself until I decided just not to bother. One of the great things about connecting to educators through Twitter is that I’ve learned a lot from sharing and discussing with people from all walks of ELT and education. Break them down into separate groups and it feels as though something is lost….

And so, I ended up with just a couple of circles for ELT and Education. That was fine at first but then I started to get déja vu - I was seeing the same blog posts and website links appearing on Twitter, Facebook and then Google+ as well (with many of those also appearing in my RSS reader)! My own posts there were being +1’ed by the same people who were re-tweeting or pressing the ‘like’ button on Facebook. That’s why I gave up - Google+ may have a different look, a different feel and a different approach but it didn’t offer me anything different content-wise or contact-wise. Just like we say thinking ‘wow! That looks cool!’ or ‘this is new!’ isn’t enough when it comes to technology in the classroom, we also need to look a little deeper when it comes to our PLNs and social networking.

So, for now, Twitter (and I guess FB) are enough. Perhaps if (and it’s a big if) more people start to use Google+, then I could really make use of it as a way to bring all different aspects of my online life together while also keeping them apart. Until that happens, it will remain at +0.

All part of the (yearly) plan, more or less…

2011-09-04T02:06:00.001+03:00

Although it’s still a couple of weeks until kids in Turkey are sent back to school (for the first time in 3 months!!), I will be back to work on Monday as our preparation period for the year ahead begins. That preparation will (in theory at least) be centered around a new yearly plan that was drafted back in June at the end of the last school year. I, together with my 4th grade ‘conversation’ colleagues, was asked to do the drafting - an experience which from my point of view highlighted many of the failings of the pre-prepared textbook-based syllabus.

“I love it when a plan comes together…”

We were informed that a new ‘standardised plan’ would have to be used as a template, a standardised plan to be adopted by all the different year groups in every English department of every branch of the school I work for up and down the country. Any such sweeping standardisation is likely to be full of standard problems and difficulties and this was no exception. The school I work for has over 20 branches in different cities across the country and each one offers varying contact hours in the different year groups, depending on the number of English teachers and the size of the school, which also means very different programmes. Whereas one school may have a few hours a week with one coursebook used, another (mine for example) may have triple the hours with more than one coursebook and supplementary materials such as readers and project work. And yet, no matter if we teach 4 hours a week or 12, use one book or several, it all had to be fitted into the same template…

And so, we were handed a sample plan from another school to look at and a blank version to fill in. The whole thing was of course constructed around the idea of a book being used for the entire year with the first column titled ‘Topic’ in which we were instructed to write the title of the relevant unit. So far, so simple (if not particularly in line with my ‘emergent’ thoughts about what teaching and learning should be) but then the confusion began… The next column was named ‘aims’ followed by one labelled ‘objectives’. OK, now perhaps I’m not that well-versed in exploring subtle differences between synonyms but don’t those two words mean the same thing? The ‘objectives’ were broken down into the classic 4 skills (because of course, we should have regulated practice of each in every unit, shouldn’t we?) but for some reason the aims were not…. (I’m conscious of the fact that I’m ending lots of sentences with …. here but …. well, you know …. )

And then for the parts to really make the collective skin of all the dogmeists out there crawl - sections for ‘structures’ and ‘vocabulary’ to be covered in each unit. Even if I place a project not featured in the coursebook into a ‘slot’ in the syllabus, target structures and vocab have to be identified and written down… That really got me thinking about the nature of emergent language - how can we decide months in advance what the language used is to be? How can we predict/dictate the words that are to be used? More than ever, I believe that this has to come from the learner and the class, nowhere else.

Next up, my favourite column - ‘Methods & Techniques’. Yep, that’s right…. We are also to decide in advance which methods and techniques all of the teachers in that particular year group are to use. To make it even better, this part was already filled in and we were advised to leave it as it was. For each ‘topic’, the following was written:

Eclectic Method, Communicative approach, Ask&Answer, Repetition, Dictation, Pair work, Group work

Let’s start with ‘Eclectic Method’ (not even principled!) Is ‘eclectic’ even a method? Well, I suppose it at least allows for teachers to pretty much use whichever method they wish - “just being eclectic” is all we need to say!

And how exactly do ‘repetition’ and ‘dictation' fit in with a ‘communicative approach’? Are we really expected to do dictation every unit as well?

In the end, we just stormed through, got the columns filled in and the stamp of approval. That was the only way I could see to make it work - do what is officially required for the files and those fine folks in admin but when the classroom door is closed, forget about and let the real learning emerge….

One small victory - the programme I work on is now no longer called ‘conversation’ (which it really isn’t what with the prep for Cambridge exams, readers and writing practice). It shall now be known as the ‘language skills development’ programme and will complement the ‘grammar’ programme (which retains its old name….)

So, anyway, if somebody asks what’s going on, I’ll say I’m being eclectic…. And I’ll hope they haven’t read this particular post!

Teachers in Turkey, No. 6 - “On Teaching & Professional Development” by Didem Yeşil

2011-08-24T20:13:00.001+03:00

When I started this series, I promised to introduce you to a wide cross-section of English language educators working here in Turkey. After hearing from five people with a lifetime of experience between them, it’s time to hear from a ‘newer’ voice, provided to us by Didem Yeşil, who is just about to embark upon her second year as an English teacher.

In this post, Didem tells us about why she became a teacher and how her first year in the classroom changed her perspective when answering that question:

Who knows where the road will take us? Image by Martin Gommel

I first met David at ISTEK 2011 when we had a little chat right after his workshop. Soon after ISTEK, which was the biggest reason why I started to use Twitter actively, he was one of the first teachers who welcomed me on Twitter. Once again thanks to David, I got the opportunity to write my first guest post (actually my first blog post ever) on this great blog. So I owe David a big thank you for his support.

On Teaching and Professional Development

"Why did you become an English teacher?"

That was a very frequent question I was asked especially in job interviews right after I graduated from the university last year. The question was typically followed by an answer that I thought perfectly explained why I decided to become an English teacher. "I chose to be an English teacher because I love teaching and children, so I believe it is a perfect combination".

I thought "What other reasons would you need to be a teacher?" Well, to be honest, after one year of teaching experience, I can say the answer sounds like a total cliché now!

Soon after I really started teaching, I realized what would really keep me going in teaching was LEARNING in the first place, not teaching itself. However, the rest of it- my love of children- still holds true, thankfully :)

The next thing I came to realize is how eagerness to learn and professional development are closely linked to each other, and how the opposite could easily cause teacher burnout. It did not take me long either to see that "professional development" is such a buzzword nowadays and almost everyone has some piece of advice for teachers regarding professional development.

Now the real question is...

What does PD really mean to a beginning teacher like me? How do I relate to this commonly used concept as a teacher having a LOT to learn along the way?

The biggest learning opportunity for me is the kids themselves. They are truly amazing, inspiringly creative and more willing to learn than we might sometimes think. They just need to be given the access to learning and they always remind me of the fact that we have to give them more chance to take charge of their own learning. Like most other people of my generation, I came from an education system in Turkey where teacher-centeredness felt safer for most teachers since they did not like to risk their dominance in the classroom by letting students be in command of their own learning. So, I am aware that it definitely affects the way I teach from time to time (or most of the time), but I am LEARNING! I guess the key is to consciously evaluate all teaching and learning experiences and reflect on them.

Another thing that keeps me inspired is I have the chance to connect to other like-minded educators around the world mainly through Twitter. I am also lucky to be an "English" teacher because of the global nature of English having the power to connect people in a more global way. This way I learn incredibly a lot from others and it feels great to be in touch with all those great people!

For me, sharing is what makes PD and learning more meaningful. Share what you believe is valuable, go and observe other teachers, have someone observe you, ask questions, reflect, go to trainings, learn about technology and how to use it in your class, attend webinars and conferences whether it be online or face-to-face and share... Seek higher education opportunities, get together with open-minded and inspiring teachers and contribute to your team in the work place adding a positive value to it. Try to have at least one thing that you do best and feel happy about.

Learn and share because what you know will have a bigger effect around you and it is the only way to make a difference.

While all these happen, there will definitely be some people who may not be as willing to change as you are because they may not want to leave their comfort zones where they tend to stick to the practices they got used to. I do understand though, because change is much more powerful and compelling when it comes from within, not from outside, but I believe when you express it in the right time with the right attitude, others will eventually come to realize the power of "the better" having a greater potential to help your students learn.

Now going back to my earlier justification of why I became a teacher, all I can say now is that I guess I am a teacher because I feel learning is the integral part of my teaching. When you learn, you will share (ideally), when you share you will grow together, when you grow and make a difference, your students will benefit from this.

Maybe after some more time in teaching, my answer to the question "Why did you become an English teacher?" will be replaced by something different. Don't you also believe in this dynamic nature of teaching?

I'm Didem Yeşil. I studied English Language Teaching at Bogazici University in Istanbul and I have been working with young learners at a private school in Istanbul for a year now. I am interested in teaching young learners and using technology to make their learning experience more motivating and effective.

I am @didolores on Twitter.

Teachers in Turkey, No. 5 - “It WAS the worst of times, it IS the best of times…” by David Mearns

2011-08-20T09:31:00.002+03:00

The latest contribution to Teachers in Turkey comes from David Mearns, who, like our previous two guests Adam and Işıl, teaches prep classes in Istanbul, although his are high school prep classes rather than university ones. David was in attendance at my workshop at the ISTEK Conference last April and, while we both agree that traditional error-focused written feedback is not always the most effective way to help students, our alternative approaches are quite different. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend his session on video feedback so I’m very happy that he has written a post about it for us!

David’s post discusses how he managed to implement an extensive drive to include more technology in his classes and how the arrival of netbooks, IWBs and video feedback has impacted both his own work and that of his students. He has also kindly provided some videos of his students talking about their experiences with the new technology as well as an example of his feedback. Plenty of food for thought here and we look forward to your comments!

When considering where we are now at a crossroad for change in ELT, I am reminded of the opening line of a classic piece of English literature, A Tale of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens,

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope...

Dickens wrote this more than a hundred years ago with an aim to inform through narrative commentary about the terrible state of affairs with social deconstruct, authoritarian regimes, huge gaps between rich and poor and a general sense of little hope for the European peoples at that time. However, if we look at his narrative there seems little change in the general world scheme of things since that time, and it is with that I would like to parallel his observations into our world of ELT.

I believe that we have had the worst times, and the best times are upon us when we, as ESL educators and ELT practitioners have the opportunity to make serious and fundamental changes in our teaching practices to make a difference to the students we face every day and give them hope. I write of course about how better teaching practices and the embracing of ICT can help us all to move out of the Darkness and into the Light.
My allusion to Dickens nearly ends there, although always on my mind, so that I can give forth a reason to believe that we as progressive educators can move with the (best of) times and develop as tech-savvy teachers in order to engage our students in quality lessons that include the wonders of ICT and web 2.0 applications.

But before I can tell of my eureka moment, and how I changed my approach to teaching, I would first like to give some background to my own situation. I moved to Turkey in the Spring of 1996 with my CELTA firmly in hand hoping to change the way ‘foreign’ students adopted and learned English. I had the course books, the grammar books, the realia prepared in CELTA projects and, of course, the buzz-methodology at the time: Communicative Approach with the focus on the PPP paradigm of methodology as my main tools for the job. I felt good. I believed in myself that “I could not fail”(!) Well, in fairness, that self-confidence and over exuberance did bode me well for the first few years. But increasingly I could see that the method was flawed in many respects and that students more often than not baulked at its very core, since they had grown up in a school system that did not cater to such “whimsical” notions of pedagogy. Students became disengaged and disenchanted with my style, and more alarmingly for myself I became less and less of a teacher as I simply could not fully engage my students, thus becoming disengaged myself. I recall the five stages of grief to further illuminate my point: DENIAL, ANGER, NEGOTIATION, DEPRESSION and ACCEPTANCE. I was going to work stuck in variations of the first four states of mind and practice. The fourth stage ultimately taking over and making me a very unhappy teacher. It was not until the summer of 2007 that I finally came to the decision to change; it was either make the change or give up teaching for good. I enrolled in the Aston MSc TESOL Distance Learning programme, and it was then, throughout my R & D, that I saw the extraordinary opportunities for us as teachers to embrace the use of technology and start to make changes in our teaching practices.

By sheer definition of a distance e-Learning programme I was involved in working alone (for the most part since the Aston programme was set up in such a way that people enter at various times of the year and course, therefore, the collaboration for different modules at different times meant it was difficult to find study-pals), which, yes meant that I did feel very isolated and vulnerable (boohoo), but it also meant I had to dig deep and find the resolve to make it work (I know now that Aston has set up an Istanbul office to reduce this trauma). But it was who had chosen to make a change; I had decided I needed to be a better teacher, and I had realised that if it was going to work, I had to do it. This sense of ‘I’, autonomy and self-motivation can not be underestimated in the human framework. It is something for me that I have experienced and which has taught me that in order for students to do the best work they can, they have to want it themselves. Without it we are raging against an indestructible machine; thus it is imperative that we as teachers transfer the learning to them; instil in them the need for autonomy and ownership of their own progress and learning curve.

David at his Masters graduation - there is light at the end of the MA tunnel!

One of the most disheartening times was during the distance-learning written feedback that I received for research papers. Not having that one-to-one time with my advisor definitely tested my emotional construct and drive to continue. It was the best of times for me with what I was reading, researching and learning, but it was also the worst of times when I would receive lower grades that what I thought I had deserved for all the work I had put in (I recall waking at 5.30am on Xmas Day, 2009, to work on a draft paper due for the January deadline). In hindsight and on reflection, I know that what I went through both emotionally and pedagogically during those times has made me a stronger person, and, even more importantly, aware of what our students go through. However, it was with the type of feedback that I was receiving that led me to consider the idea of better feedback to students. Although what the advisors were writing was essentially true, I felt that the way it was presented, written and relayed to me had me feeling very negative (anger; denial) about my own ability. There was no denying these lecturers knew what they were talking about, but I couldn’t help but feel further isolated and vulnerable. In search of some sort of comfort, I noticed around the time that two UK academics, Billy Brick and Russell Stannard had been experimenting with Video Feedback using desktop recording software for giving feedback. I contacted them both and thanks to them I was hooked on technology as a means to engage students and reach out to students who were having a tough time getting to grips with their work. Video Feedback within the Writing process subsequently became the focus for my dissertation. I was now totally hooked on how much good technology could bring to the distance-learning paradigm.

An example of video feedback on written work provided by David

The school where I am now currently employed has a strong and clear vision for the future. The IT department is intent on getting to grips with technology for the classroom. So much so that it was decided to set up a pilot-program for the floundering Hazırlık (preparatory) program. I say floundering because of the lack of a properly structured curriculum that allowed students to develop and grow for the year that they were involved doing twenty hours of English a week. After much deliberation, we came up with one student - one netbook, and IWB for both classrooms, surround sound and projectors. This was supported by an online ESL software package that would allow me to use both e-learning and classic styles of teaching, in and out of the classroom. The time was extremely exciting and full of nervous energy. I went into the classroom in those first few days of semester one, 2010, with a passion I hadn’t felt for years. Could we make the Hazırlık students more engaged? Could we get them to further develop their English skills and learning curve? Would the investment and effort be rewarded with success and a fruitful learning environment? Well, the answer: Yes, and No! (at least at the beginning)

The initial feelings of dismay from the students still sticks clearly in my mind. They simply could not believe that they had been given a netbook that they were allowed to use in class at all times. They were in shock that a teacher and school would simply hand over the hardware, software and transfer of educational ITC-knowledge to them; students who had gone through a system where they had been criticized for failure, criticized for not learning and criticized for not wanting to participate. Other students passing the room with everyone involved busily on their netbooks was heard to say, “Yaa, Hazirliklar, şu eğitim, internet café gibi!” (Urgh! This prep program is more like an internet café). I instructed them on what was allowed and what was not, i.e. proceed with the work on your netbook and focus on the tasks in hand. First Mistake! I had naively assumed that since we were giving them this opportunity to work with technology, and full internet access that they would simply follow suit. THEY didn’t! I was increasingly finding that Facebook and other social interests were infiltrating their workspace. Even students who would normally be engaged anything up to 100% of the time in classwork would be directing their attention to the ‘fun’ part of the internet and not doing the ‘fun’ classwork I had assigned. After one month of this disappointment I called for a meeting with the administrators warning them of my observations and insisting we had to put in more structured policies and directives for the students. Note, dear colleagues, this is a major warning to those of you out there considering a switch to technology. Make sure you have all your bases covered. It is imperative that the students know what, why and how they are expected to use the technology. Of course, I warned them from day one what was expected, but teenagers as they are, rarely listen at the outset. So, please take my experience as a lesson, have the students gradually introduced to the concept, let them get their heads round it, and then further integrate the technology. For this year I aim to only give one period a day over to the netbooks for the first month until they see it is a benefit for their learning, not as an excuse to surf the net for their very different means, thus disengaging from the lessons: the very thing I was fighting against.

That was the downside. Now for the upside, and what an upside it is. Having watched and observed Hazırlık classes for fifteen years I have seen lack of interest, disengagement of all students, lethargy, boredom and of course serious discipline issues as a result. I can honestly say that apart from minimal discipline issues (and these would have happened no matter what, with the personalities concerned) all of the above were completely eradicated by the use of technology in the classroom. Not only were the netbooks an overwhelming success in getting students engaged for the whole year, but also with the daily use of the IWBs. Even if people reading this cannot get netbooks to the students, please fight to have IWBs in your classrooms. This is something that has so transformed the atmosphere and interactivity of my classes that observers have been amazed. I was probably observed twenty times this year as news filtered through that what ICT and IWB, netbooks and technology were doing to this student-demographic. Traditionally, Hazırlık has been viewed as a place that only the most robust of teachers can deal with. However, it is a place where those experienced teachers amongst us will do anything to avoid. I know, I was one of them. Even as an HoD, I remember allowing teachers to do whatever they had to do in order to survive. Now, it is different. Teachers now want to be a part of it. Teachers from primary through to high school are coming to observe the dynamic environment; administrators are walking away with smiles on their faces knowing that they have made the right choice to invest in the tec. Of course, I know that it takes a teacher with enthusiasm to drive such a program, and it also takes a teacher who knows a bit about the technology. But that should not put anyone off. It is there for us all to adopt and adapt to so that each year group can have the same experience as my Hazırlıkkers (sic). However, I must stress that it is no good for schools to simply buy in the equipment and hope for the best; believing that teachers will simply make the leap. It is imperative that substantial professional development workshops are put in place before the technology can even be remotely considered.

Feedback on the feedback from two of David’s students

It is with this final point that I come to the importance of getting it right, before you can get it right. I learned a lot from my experience last year of simply putting the equipment in place and software to boot, in the hope it would work. It didn’t! It took a readdressing of the issues after the initial month to set it right on track. This year, I will be implementing classic styles only with a leaning towards the technology (primarily in respect of netbooks) at the outset. On the other hand, I will be using the IWBs from day one. I will be using the ESL-software daily, but only for one hour until the students are used to the concept. I will be introducing Moodle, Edmodo and a wiki (to be called Wikilık), Triptico, Visual Thesaurus, and Video Feedback via Camtasia plus a plethora of wonderful ICT tools acquired via Twitter (btw, the greatest ELT platform that I have yet to find and use). I believe that with the experience of one year doing this at the classroom level, and still a novice for sure, I will continue to make changes in respect of further engaging my students and making them see how technology can make their learning experience a truly ‘fun’ one. Alluding one final time to Mr Dickens, I do strongly believe it is a time of hope for us all, and if we simply decide to make a personal change as teachers we can make a difference and accept that if we are to succeed it is entirely up to us to take us out of the dark and into the light.

Warmly
David Mearns MSc TESOL

More feedback on the use of technology from one of David’s students

David Mearns is originally from the north of Scotland and has spent the last 15 years in Turkey as an English teacher. He is married to a great woman from Izmir who has supported him through it all as he tries to convince people of the need for continuous change and personal growth.

David doesn’t have his own blog at present but he is considering it (and I think you’ll agree he definitely should get started!)

In the meantime, you can follow him on Twitter: @davidmearns

Teachers in Turkey, No. 4 - “One Thing I Did in Class” by Adam Simpson

2011-08-17T11:57:00.002+03:00

Guest number 4 in the Teachers in Turkey series is Adam Simpson, also known as @yearinthelifeof on Twitter. Adam is known as a guy who likes to do things differently so his contribution breaks away from the written format used so far and comes in the form of a video post, which is a format always welcome on this blog!

Please watch and listen as Adam talks us through one of those moments when a spur of the moment idea turns into an engaging and effective lesson:

Adam is the blogger behind the eclectic mess of ideas that is Year in the Life of an English Teacher . Now increasingly oxymoronically in its third year, his blog aims to share aspects of his day to day life with the unsuspecting and largely undeserving ELT community. He has lived and worked in Istanbul since the turn of the century.
Follow him on Twitter: @yearinthelifeof

The Weird & Wonderful World of Webinars

2011-08-14T23:00:00.001+03:00

Those of you who attended the recent Reform Symposium will no doubt be familiar with the words and phrases below. You may have even uttered some of the yourself. Even if you missed out on this extraordinary event (and if you did, shame on you - go and check out the archived recordings now!), you will have seen these words appear in your Twitter stream, in blog posts or somewhere else on the web:

These are all things I experienced as well….

…(except for the ‘watching in pyjamas bit - I always hear this one shouted out at the time of virtual conferences but I wonder if anyone actually does… I’ve only ever heard of one person appearing at a conference in pyjamas and that was at a face-to-face conference… And it was an American in Paris… But then again, I heard about another American based in Paris who ran through a major international conference in a panda suit! … Anyway, I digress…)

All of them true and deserved words for what was a fantastic event. However, while the attendees raved about the event, I noticed a different set of words and phrases being used to describe some people’s RSCON experience:

These were the words of some of the presenters, particularly those presenters who were giving a webinar for the first time. They cited the lack of a visible audience as the main reason as well as the manner in which interactivity was limited, both of which vastly reduced the sense of connecting with the audience (see these great reflections from Brad Patterson and Cecilia Lemos for example).

My feelings were somewhat different though. Granted, this was not my first online presentation - in addition to 3 virtual conferences in the last 9 months, I’ve also used Elluminate a few times during my MA studies - and, if anything, I felt more relaxed than when I do face-to-face presentations or workshops. I started to wonder why this was the case and after mulling it over, I came up with the following:

There’s no place like home

Any fan of sports will know that teams generally get better results when playing in their home stadium, just as athletes seem to go that extra yard when events like the Olympics are held in their own country. I think likewise for virtual conferences the fact that I can present from my own study in my own home (can’t get much more familiar than that!) helps a lot. If a case of the butterflies kicks in before the session, I can go and get myself a coffee, chat with my wife, play with my son or chill in front of the TV for a little while. At a conventional conference, on the other hand, it’s much harder to find a quiet place to relax for a while or some activity to take your mind off things. Oh, and the coffee is generally terrible!

The audience

Not having your audience right there physically with you can seem strange. Add to that the fact that anyone wishing to ask a question has to be given ‘microphone privileges’ and then usually fumbles through a ‘Can you hear me?’ or two and it can make for a disjointed, disconnected experience. However, this situation does offer some advantages. In any talk or workshop, there are always some people who look bored and disengaged (perhaps they have been ‘forced’ to attend on their precious day off, or they have been worn out by a long day of session after session, or that’s just their general demeanour) - this is especially a problem in workshops when you actually want them to get up and do something! Virtual conferences, meanwhile, generally seem to get a more willing audience of people who have heard through the PLN-vine and decided to join in ~~in their pyjamas~~ off their own back. Furthermore, if there’s anyone in your webinar who really doesn’t want to be there, they can just drop out without you even noticing (imagine how it would be if someone just got up an walked out of your workshop!). Or, if someone just wants to sit and listen without taking the mic or even clicking on a smiley or two, that’s fine as well.

And one more thing about the audience before moving on - in my three public webinars, I’ve had more familiar faces in attendance via my PLN than I have in any regular workshop I’ve ever given. Being amongst people you know and interact with on a regular basis always helps.

Interactions

Although you can never recreate the flow of interaction in a face-to-face setting during a webinar (at least not with current technology), there is still plenty that can be done to make sure the session isn’t all just one way presenting. First and foremost among these is the chat box. It is difficult as a presenter to keep up with the chat at times but it also provides something a face-to-face event cannot: flowing interaction among the audience. If you were in the middle of making a point in a conventional setting and everybody was chatting to each other or passing notes, I’m sure you’d get distracted by the noise and the movement (not to mention the sheer cheek!) However, in a webinar that chat can flow between the entire audience while the presenter is in full flow which makes for a rich experience.

As for the other tools, I’ve found that working in polls, questions with replies invited via chat or smileys and web tours at different stages in the session is invaluable. Just saying ‘click on the smiley face if you can hear me’ and ‘write in the chat where you are attending from’ isn’t enough. Bringing in a few different questions and activities throughout the talk is a good way to keep the interaction going.

“Accepting the void”

To conclude, I’ll steal a few words from Brad Patterson’s title. The simple fact is that presenting online is very much different from presenting a session at your local (or international) ELT conference. A big part of successfully negotiating the ‘void’ is to acknowledge it and accept it. Just like after a lesson or a face-to-face workshop, it’s always worth reflecting on what went well and what didn’t and using that to make improvements for next time. That way, as presenters, we can feel just the same way as our attendees (and maybe even say ‘I presented in my pyjamas!’….. or not….)

Teachers in Turkey, No. 3 - “#Why-am-I-doing-this??” by Işıl Boy

2011-08-10T20:41:00.001+03:00

This time, my Teacher in Turkey is Işıl Boy, who teaches university prep students in Istanbul. She is also on the same distance MA programme as I am with the University of Manchester. When she started a year ago, we first interacted through the MA ‘common room’ introductions thread and it was only later that we realised we had been connected via Twitter for some time already!

In this post, Işıl reflects on her decision to study for an MA as well as how she coped with the initial workload and juggling distance study with a full-time job. A must read for any current or prospective MA students!

First, I want to thank my dear course mate Dave for offering me to write a guest post on his insightful blog.

We are both doing our master's at the University of Manchester, Educational Technology and TESOL. It is a really great but demanding course. Last May, while I was working on my painful assignment, I saw Dave's hashtag: #whyamIdoingthis on twitter, which was explaining that he was also busy with his assignment, and had the same question in his mind. I must confess that it was relieving to see that you are not the only one suffering from assignments and questioning yourself! :-)

It takes three years to finish the course, which is not "free", and I am not fully sure if it is to be accredited by Y.O.K (Higher Education Council of Turkey) since it is a distance course. Currently, I am working for a state university, and the salary is not all that good. Honestly, I have no intention to apply for a foundation university or change my job, of course I cannot know what the future brings, but this is exactly the case now. Hence, I asked myself #whyamIdoingthis? If it were only for the love of educational technology, I also love playing tennis, riding horses and going out with my friends, which are all less painful...

Then, WHY?

On the day, I took the university entrance exam, I remember dragging my family to a study abroad fair and collecting information on master's degrees in the UK. An educational consultant told me she would always remember me since she hadn't seen someone asking for a master's course who is not even a university student. Then, I learned that I needed teaching experience to apply for the Masters in TESOL, and when I started working at Yildiz Technical University, it was too late since I had to leave my job to get a master's degree in the UK. I waited for five years after my graduation as I didn't want to get a master's degree just for its title but to learn something new and become a better teacher. Soon, I found about the MA course I am studying now, and it is the perfect choice for me, for I am a huge edtech addict. In a nutshell, the answer is, if life is a puzzle (which puzzles us a lot) a huge piece would be missing without it, and I wouldn't feel fulfilled like I am very much feeling now.

A Confession to Make

Most people claim that students feel very confused and lonely during the distance master's programmes. On the contrary, we were always in contact with our instructors and course mates, and got clear explanation, feedback and support all the time.

As for my confession, for the first two weeks I couldn't join the discussions, and managed to read only few articles. Then when I had a look at "library reading lists" there were "far too many" articles and books to read, which caused a real pain in my stomach! A week later, I read the thread about SFRE (Situation-Problem-Response-Evaluation) patterns which helped me to realise what almost all the students had already noticed! I looked for SFRE patterns everywhere and soon after I saw "the clickable TT headlines", which give explanation about the units, and the name of the articles to read, I had somehow missed! Thankfully, it wasn't too late, and I was able to keep up with reading.

There is also one thing I appreciate; in some master's courses only "theories" are taught, but through this course we have learnt about "theorising". It has been challenging to work full time and do a master's course at the same time. However, it has also been very helpful to learn lots of invaluable things and have the chance to put them "in action".

An advice for students: If you are on iPad, you can download "pdf-notes" app which allows taking notes and highlighting. Freely downloadable from here

Isil Boy is an EFL Instructor at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey. Having taken her BA in TEFL from Istanbul University, she started her Master’s Degree in Educational Technology and TESOL at the University Of Manchester. Having developed a heartfelt love for educational technology, she came to realize that in a highly tech-driven society, education and technology should go hand in hand. ICT in Education, Blended Learning and Second Life in Education are among her interests. She is also ‘English for Teachers’ (EFT) Course Contributor, ‘International Teacher Development Institute’ (iTDi) Associate.

Her Blog: www.isilboy.com

Her Ning Network: www.yildizprepschool.ning.com

Her Twitter ID: @isilboy

A blog I can call my own…

2011-08-08T23:20:00.002+03:00

The more observant of you may have noticed there have been a few changes around my blog recently.

Nothing to be afraid of… Image by busy.pochi

First of all, I’ve switched from using a BlogSpot.com address to my own url: (www.davedodgson.com). There were two reasons for this: first and foremost, I wanted to ‘move’ my blog to protect against any future knee-jerk decisions from the Turkish judicial system to ban BlogSpot here; secondly, I feel like this makes the blog more of my ‘own’ space on the web, something I can keep building and developing as I do the same in my career.

I’ve also added a few extra pages to the blog and linked them to the tab at the top of the page. Some of the pages highlight collections of posts on a similar theme such as ‘Teaching Young Learners’ and ‘My MA Studies’. I’ve also added a page featuring posts from my guest bloggers. Others are static pages to explain more about me and this blog to newcomers as well as to direct readers to my guest posts elsewhere and a summary of the various presentations and workshops I’ve done recently.

All of these pages are open to comment and I’d also appreciate your comments here to let me know what you think. Oh, and if you include my blog in your RSS feeds or auto-tweet it through Twitterfeed or some other service, I’d like to say two things: 1) Thanks! and 2) Please make sure you have updated the service with the new url to make sure it gets through.

#RSCON3: Feeding back and moving forward

2011-08-07T23:52:00.002+03:00

It’s been a week now since the Reform Symposium came to an end. Well, a week since it came to an end in a ‘live’ sense as all of the sessions are now archived and available to be viewed on the conference website. I’m sure I’ll be stretching out my enjoyment of this conference for a few days yet!

That for me is a great advantage of the online conference - the ability to view whenever you want, even if it’s after the event. On top of that, there is also the chance to share these great sessions with colleagues who were unaware of the conference when it took place or were too busy to attend.

This year’s event was a great one to attend and participate in. Last year’s Reform Symposium was my first online conference and I remember thinking how cool it was and how I would love to be involved in future versions. A year is a long time in professional development and this time I was not only able to present a session but I also moderated a few, which was a new experience for me. However, I was happy to help in any way I could.

In general, I came away from the conference with renewed energy to get back into the classroom when the new academic year starts here next month and lots of new ideas to try out. As I said in my contribution to Chiew Pang’s iasku special RSOCN review, this conference served as a good reminder that even though I work in language teaching, I am in fact an educator. Language teaching, and specifically ELT, often views itself as a separate discipline and the voices from the general education sector often go unheard or ignored. I enjoyed listening in on some talks from people who work in general education and I hope they got something out of the sessions given by ELTers as well.

As for my session on feedback and error correction, I think it went well. The topic seemed to be of interest to the participants and I tried a few different ways to make it interactive with a poll at the start and taking questions and comments on a sample piece of writing early on. I also tried a live demo of typewith.me to show how it could be used for an error correction activity which, while lacking the direct interaction of group work in class, was better than just talking about it.

In case you missed the session, here’s a link to the recording and here are the slides I used during the session:

No code written feedback & error correction in the language classroom

View more presentations from David Dodgson

If you watched my session, either live or from the archive, I’d love to hear your comments on how your experience on ‘the other side of the screen’ was. Feedback on my feedback session - please do so in the comments section.

The only negative thoughts I had about the whole weekend was that nagging feeling I often get when interacting with teachers online that we are in a way preaching to the converted. I generally find that teachers who are active online are already in the process of finding ways to improve and expand their experience. The ones who need to hear the words of the presenters the most and live the experience of an event like RSCON are the ones who were not there, either because they didn’t know or couldn’t be bothered.

The only thing to do is to let them know. I will be emailing several colleagues over the next couple of weeks with links to sessions I recommend they see before we go back to school. Hopefully, they will watch them and see what I saw, learn what I learned and be ready to move forward when September rolls around.

Teachers in Turkey, Part 2 - “The X Intersect of Language Teaching” by Aaron G. Myers

2011-08-04T16:16:00.001+03:00

The second post of the ‘teachers in Turkey’ series doesn’t come from a teacher as such but a language coach, Aaron G. Myers, who lives and works in Istanbul. I first interacted with Aaron through Twitter when he tried to access my blog but couldn’t due to BlogSpot being banned in Turkey at the time. Thankfully, the ban didn’t last long!

I asked Aaron to contribute to the series because I was interested to find out more about his work as a ‘coach’ and what that entailed. He replied with the following post in which he shares ideas for getting students to learn and think more independently. It’s a very interesting read with plenty of food for thought - please share your comments at the end!

X marks the spot - Image by pangalactic gargleblaster and the heart of gold

My experience in Turkey has been that of a language learner and as a language coach. As a learner, I have been able to pursue Turkish as an independent, self-directed learner and found it to be a rewarding and empowering experience. My Turkish is not yet where I want it to be, but I have the tools and the knowhow to get there. As a language coach, I have had the privilege of working with both Turkish nationals and expats to help them become independent language learners themselves. It is from these two perspectives that I write today.

I remember reading a parenting book a few years back that gave the illustration that as parents, we begin the journey of parenthood with complete control of and responsibility for our children. In the first year of our child’s life, they are dependent on us for everything. If we were to score the relationship of our control to our child’s independence, we would be at a 10 and they would be at 0. The goal of parenting then is to help our child grow and to one day be independent, i.e. employable, marriageable and responsible adults. And so we take steps over the course of their childhood to hand over more and more responsibility so that they might learn to be independent. We begin to move toward the X intersect. The X intersect is that place in childhood - somewhere between fourteen and eighteen - where our child moves from being mostly dependent to being mostly independent. It is also the place where we move from being “parent as boss” to being “parent as guide.” As parents we create safe ways for our kids to practice being independent so that they are prepared for the real world.

But what does parenting have to do with education? How does this have any relevance on the EFL classroom? My experience over the last few years has caused me to think that in teaching English, we ought to be working to bring our students to the X intersect - that place where they move from being mostly dependent learners to being mostly independent learners. Teachers in turn will need to move from being mostly “teacher as boss” to being mostly “teacher as guide.” In this way we can empower our students to become life long, independent language learners.

Before I explain what this might look like in a real classroom, it should be said that the age of students will in many ways dictate the level of independence to which we can bring them. Elementary age students will not be ready to be independent learners. College age students will. Somewhere in between those two is the place of the X intersect.

Level of language is also a factor to be considered. Krashen reminds us that “beginners are much better off in well-taught language classes. Good language classes will give the beginner the comprehensible input that the outside world will supply only very reluctantly.”^{^[1]} They need the teacher to be the boss, their main source of input and we cannot expect beginning English language learners to become independent language learners. They don’t yet have the necessary skills. But, as Krashen continues, “The goal of language classes is not to bring students to the highest levels of competence. The goal is to bring students to the intermediate level.”^{^[2]} Once students are at an intermediate level they will have the necessary language skills to access the opportunities available to learn the language.

Finally, it is important to understand is that this is a journey taken one step at a time. Just as we wouldn’t shove our eighteen year olds out the door having never given them the opportunity to learn responsibility and independent living, we shouldn’t think that we can make our students into independent learners over night. It will take time and patience. In Turkey, it has been my observation that the idea of independent learning is about as foreign as I am. Everything in the system conspires against this kind of thinking. Private language schools flourish because of this. Teachers are given a high level of respect. It is this respect, this place of prestige within Turkish society that makes teachers the most likely candidates to be able to effect any lasting change.

There are a few components that when implemented will lead to the X intersect. The first of course is that teachers need to continue to teach content, to give student’s comprehensible input and opportunities to learn the language. Students must be brought to the intermediate level. Slowly however, students need to be taught about comprehensible input and language acquisition and then given the tools, resources and knowledge to learn language on their own. Demonstrations of independent learning strategies, of how to access the Internet and tap into other resources will be important. Modelling and assisting will be invaluable parts of a typical lesson plan. In the end, success will be measured not by what happens inside the classroom, but rather by what happens outside the classroom and into the future as students take ownership of their learning and continue to progress long after they have left the teacher’s side.

Another component that fosters ownership and independent learning is the connection of learning to the here and now heart issues of the students. As language teachers we have a great advantage over the other disciplines. Biology teachers are restricted to the topic of biology. Math teachers follow the linear route from addition to multiplication. History teachers are stuck in history. Whether or not the students are particularly interested in biology or math or history doesn’t really matter. This is not to say that these subjects are somehow unimportant. My son isn’t particularly fond of math, but I am not particularly concerned with what he is fond of in this matter. He has to learn math. It is an important life skill.

As language teachers however, the world is our oyster - or rather our students’. There is no topic that excludes opportunities for language learning. Students with a teacher as guide can find podcasts, YouTube videos, movies, TV shows, games and much more in English. The 71,908 articles in the Simple English Wikipedia could be a great place to begin. Connecting our students’ English language development to their passions will go a long way in providing the motivation they need to become independent language learners. Speaking about life in general, Erwin McManus said, “We need to both aspire and accomplish. Without a vision for your life, without a sense of purpose, you will begin to die a slow death.” If we cannot help our students find vision and a sense of purpose for learning English, their quest to learn the language will almost certainly die a slow death.

As I have lived in Turkey, I have made it a habit to ask parents how their children are doing in English class. Unless they have the money for private schools, the response is usually the same. They feel their kids are learning very little. They wish there was something they could do. They feel trapped, knowing that English would open doors for their children but not knowing how to help them. The third component then is to also empower parents in the process. Give them hope that there is much they can do at home to help their kids. Make a handbook for parents. Give a one hour workshop. Make a list of online resources available. Make a website dedicated to presenting these resources with summaries of how to use them in their native language. These are a few small steps to help parents understand that it is not just the teacher’s job to teach their kids English.

If these three components - teaching how to learn language, connecting learning to real life and empowering parents - can be implemented, we will be well on our way to creating a classroom where the teacher moves slowly into the role of a language guide as students become independent self directed learners. If we can do this well, if we can move our students toward and through the X intersect, our legacy won’t be one of students who have learned some English. Our legacy will be one of students transformed and empowered to be life long, successful learners of English.

^{^[1]} Krashen, Steven. 2003. Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. (page 7)

^{^[2]} ibid

Written by Aaron Myers. Aaron believes everyone can learn another language. You just need a little help. That’s why he writes The Everyday Language Learner and why he has developed the free Ten Week Journey. He wants to get you started on the road to language learning and then give you the tools to keep going. Get started. Don't stop.

You can also follow Aaron on Twitter: @aarongmyers

Teachers in Turkey, Part 1 - “Teaching as a Career” by Eva Büyüksimkeşyan

2011-08-01T13:29:00.001+03:00

Welcome to the first post of what I hope will be an extensive guest series: “Teachers in Turkey”. Our first guest is Eva Büyüksimkeşyan, a name I’m sure will be familiar from Twitter and ELT conferences across Europe. I had the pleasure to meet Eva in person at ISTEK last April and I’m honoured such a great educator agreed to be a part of this series.

Eva’s post touches on something that I’m sure many of you will have experienced at some point in your teaching career: the perception that teaching is a ‘part-time’ job, the best feature of which is long summer holidays. Please read on and share your comments - both Eva and I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Teaching - the ideal career for a woman? A bit of an old-fashioned ,idea I think!

Image by kevindooley

Writing is not very easy in summer anymore as Istanbul is getting hotter and hotter each year and more humid. I brainstormed some ideas but wasn’t very sure what to write. It was difficult to concentrate on anything.

Until today....

I was at pool with kids and chatting with the ladies there and of course I told them ‘I’m a teacher’

Guess how the conversation continued....

An elderly lady told that teaching is the best job for a woman.

Any ideas why she said that?

She added ‘You have three months holiday and arrive home early and do the other stuff’

Do I?

Why does she think like that? She is not alone. That’s the common thought about teaching. It is kind of a part time job. It looks and sounds like that.

We know it is not.

But you know there are others who make them think teaching is a part time job.

I didn’t argue with them. Didn’t say anything but just mumbled ‘yeah I love teaching’

Maybe I should have argued...

Yes, I love teaching but not just because of long summer holidays, sudden snow breaks or because it enables me to be home with my kids when they return from school.

Teaching is the best job for me because it keeps me young, cheerful and energetic. It helps me share what I have. It helps me guide some young people. It makes me see how they achieve their goals and it enables me to learn something new every day. It ... I have loads of reasons why I love teaching, why it is a great job.

When do you think people will stop thinking about teaching as a kind of part time job for a woman which will enable her to bring her kids up and be a good wife?

Teaching is a career. A very serious profession but it hurts when a parent says ‘my daughter doesn’t like studying Mrs Buyuksimkesyan, I only want her to graduate from high school and who knows maybe she can become a teacher. That’s the best job for a girl, isn’t it?

No, it isn’t.

Please, please.... if you won’t work hard, try to make a difference or touch somebody’s life, don’t become a teacher. It requires enthusiasm, hard work and dedication.

Only if people see teachers who are working hard and trying to keep themselves updated, will others stop thinking like that.

Only if students realise how tough the teacher’s job is, will parents see the hard work.

But if we, the teachers, boast about the long summer holidays and I-don’t-care-what’s-going-around-the-world-I’m-just-waiting-for-my-retirement or I-am-looking-for –a –job-as-a-teacher-coz-I-decided-to-have-a-kid attitude changes then teaching will be perceived as a real job with career opportunities, travel chances, development options just like other jobs which are more considered as a profession.

Or maybe when the working conditions, payment, etc. becomes better ...

I'm Eva Büyüksimkeşyan, an EFL teacher and a blogger, working at the same school I had graduated from.(It was my dream and it came true) I'm trying to integrate technology in my teaching. I have started several collaborative projects with teachers from other countries.If you like you can also join the fun at http://celebr8uandmedigitally.wikispaces.com/ next year. I blog at evasimkesyan.edublogs.org and I'm evab2001 on twitter.

Announcing “Teachers in Turkey” - A Guest Blog Series

2011-07-31T01:13:00.001+03:00

“Sen Türk oldun artık.”

(You have become a Turk then).

This is a phrase I commonly hear these days when I meet people and tell them that I’ve been here for over 11 years, my wife is Turkish and we have a son. In many ways, it’s true. Although certain aspects of living here still startle me from time to time (I’ll never get used to the traffic for starters!), I’m sure there are many aspects of living in the UK that would be difficult to get accustomed to if I ever went back.

Image by Tolga “Musato”

This country has given me a lot over the years - a beautiful wife, an adorable son and a career as an English teacher, something I initially saw as a way to get a couple of years of ‘life experience’.

Turkey, like many countries these days, places a huge emphasis on learning English. A good command of the language can open doors to higher education and better career prospects. Unfortunately, that often means exams, exams and more exams and an education system driven by tests and grades.

As a result, teaching here can be a challenge. While schools, private colleges, evening courses and universities talk the talk of student-centred learning, collaboration, web 2.0 and a communicative approach, the very same institutions in practice often have much more ‘traditional’ expectations about learning and the expected roles of the teacher and the students.

Despite the restrictions I’ve often found myself working with during my time in Turkey, I am very optimistic about the future of language teaching and education in general here. Why? Because I have had the pleasure to work with and meet some of the most incredible teachers in this country who strive every day to do the best they can for their students while trying to make a difference in the schools they work in.

Well, I’m delighted to announce that I have persuaded a number of these wonderful teachers to contribute to a series I will be hosting on this blog over the coming weeks called “Teachers in Turkey”. There will be a wide variety of contributors from local teachers to native-speaker ones, kindergarten teachers to university ones, trainee teachers to teacher trainers and even a language coach! You will recognise some of the names from Twitter and the international EFL conference circuit I’m sure. Others will be new to you but they all have something to say and I hope you’ll find it useful.

First post comes on Monday!

Are you a Teacher in Turkey? Have I not approached you about joining in with this series yet? Then please, show your interest via the comments section and I’ll be in touch.

No Code - A Preview of my #RSCON3 Presentation

2011-07-24T14:54:00.001+03:00

Time flies when you’re taking it easy! I’ve been awoken from my summer of ‘unplugging’ in a non-educational sense to take part in the 3rd edition of the Reform Symposium online conference, which takes place from 29th-31st July.

Last year’s event was the first online conference I had ever attended and it was a truly inspiring event and I’m very happy to have the opportunity to present and promote the event this year.

Here’s a video preview I made for my session, which takes place at 5.30pm UTC (check out the global schedule for the time in your part of the world) on the last day of the conference, July 31st:

And here’s the official information:

In a few days, nearly 8000 educators from over 40 different countries are expected to attend a free 3 day virtual conference, The Reform Symposium, #RSCON3. This free award-nominated e-conference is going to take place on July 29-31st, 2011. Participants can attend this online conference from the comfort of their homes or anywhere that has Internet access. This amazing conference provides educators new or currently active on social networks the opportunity to connect with educators and professionals in the field of education worldwide. With over 12 Keynotes, 80 presenters, and 3 keynote panel discussions you are bound to be inspired!

View the schedule to plan which presentations you will attend!

Download the flyer to share with your school!

Watch this YouTube video of January 2011's conference!

See if your school will count this as continuing education credit!

Consider hosting a viewing party!

We would like to thank the incredible organizers- Shelly Terrell, Kelly Tenkely, Chris Rogers, Lisa Dabbs, Melissa Tran, Clive Elsmore, Mark Barnes, Ian Chia, Cecilia Lemos, Jerry Blumengarten, and Kyle Pace- and Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 and The Future of Education online communities for making this incredible conference possible.
We hope you can join us for this incredible professional development experience!

Heavy metal, hard rock & ELT

2011-07-17T23:19:00.001+03:00

Ask any decent musician what his/her influences are and you’ll get quite a wide variety of answers: different bands and performers past and present, different musical genres, mentors, managers etc., etc. In a similar way, this post has myriad influences starting with one of my recent favourites from Tyson Seburn’s blog about movies that have affected his approach to ELT and including the recent debate sparked by Gavin Dudeney’s questioning of the seemingly changing direction of Dogme ELT, which in turn evoked responses from Graham Stanley and Luke Meddings.

Anyway, onto the post. Last week, I had the pleasure of spending a few days in Istanbul with my wife, the main purpose of our visit being a concert given by two legendary names in heavy metal - Whitesnake and Judas Priest. While enjoying the music and taking in the show, I couldn’t help but start to see parallels with the world of ELT and particularly The Dogme Debate (signs of a further influence from one of Cecilia’s early works “Are you a teacher all the time?”)

Heavy Metal and ELT: the similarities are there if you look hard enough! Image by maistora

Watching Whitesnake in the late afternoon sunshine, I recalled what they were like in their 1980s peak: big hair, layered synths and tight trousers abound! However, this over-the-top look soon came to be seen as, well, over the top and by the time I started to develop a serious interest in music in the early 90s, there was a kickback. Bands like Nirvana, Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam appeared and gone were the perms, leopard-skin spandex and extravagant live shows. Instead, the performers on stage looked no different from the fans in their faded jeans and old t-shirts and the concerts were less about the show and more about the music.

It’s also worth noting that one of the most popular music shows on TV at the time was MTV Unplugged, for which artists would go ‘back to basics’ and strip their songs back to the bare bones of acoustic instruments (no need to spell out the parallel there I think!)

However, as time went on, views started to change. As the bands who shunned the extravagance of the previous decade started to grow in popularity, they also got accused of ‘selling-out’ due to their regular appearances on MTV and stadium-filling world tours (granted, Pearl Jam stopped making videos and tried to boycott Ticketmaster but you get the idea…) Some of the bands also started to diversify, incorporating different elements into the music and having to deal with questions like ‘but is this grunge?’ or ‘is this still part of the Seattle Sound?’ as a result. Sounds to me a lot like the questions being asked of Dogme and its relation to technology, published materials and so forth these days!

I think such questions stem from two different aspects of human nature: first, is the perceived need to classify and label things and judge them in comparison to what has gone before. This inevitably leads to unanswerable questions like ‘is this really punk?’, ‘what is Dogme?’ and ‘weren’t we doing this back in the 70s?’. Second, there always seems to be a ‘kickback’ against something as it grows in popularity. It may be cool when it’s underground and known only to a few of discerning taste but once everyone is doing it or at least knows about it, we worry it has become too ‘mainstream’, lost touch with its roots or alienated its followers.

Having said all that, I did enjoy Whitesnake performing a very understated show with nothing but their logo as a backdrop and their classic songs to entertain. I also enjoyed Judas Priest and their lasers, fireballs and outlandish costumes. I should also point out that I do not view heavy metal as the equivalent of the ELT coursebook! It was more the general 80s fascination with hair, make-up and extravagance that I was thinking of.

In fact, there are also parallels between heavy metal and unplugged ELT (I guess there are parallels to be drawn between just about anything depending on how you think about it)! Both are misunderstood by outsiders (here, I equate “that’s just loud noise” with “that’s just a conversation lesson”); both, despite initial misconceptions, require a lot of skill (comparing the guitar playing skills of the heavy metal greats with the ability of the dogme teacher to respond to emergent language) and, in the words of Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford: “the great thing about heavy metal/dogme ELT is that you can do what the fuck you want” (OK, I added the dogme ELT bit )

To conclude, there was one other event from the concert that reminded me of a major issue in ELT and education today. Earlier in the day, a Turkish heavy metal group Mezarkabul (known locally as Pentagram) took to the stage. Just as the lead singer had spoken of what a privilege it was to be on the same bill as two heavy metal giants, there was a noticeable drop in the volume of the music. The singer then informed us that an exam was taking place somewhere nearby and they had been asked to stop the gig until it was finished. By the time they got the all clear, their time slot had finished and they were unable to return to the stage, having performed just 4 songs. All of which goes to show, exams ruin everything!

The Very Latest in Ed Tech - The Teacher Silencer and Other Wacky 4th Grade Inventions!

2011-07-06T00:08:00.001+03:00

During the second semester at school, our reader was an adaptation of the Wallace and Gromit animation The Wrong Trousers. It was a fun read and one that teachers and kids alike could enjoy. My students especially liked Wallace’s crazy inventions such as the Getting Up in the Morning Machine (watch this video clip to see how it works) so there was only one thing to do as an end of book project: invent your own crazy machine!

To add an extra element of fun and challenge, I set up a poster competition with the best inventions from each class (as chosen by the students themselves) being put on display with certificates and prizes for the winners. The level of creativity shown by some of the kids was amazing (I’ve been working with young learners for long enough now that this shouldn’t surprise me anymore but nevertheless it still does!) and some of them really excelled with being given the freedom to let their imaginations run wild.

Here are some of the best ideas (sorry the pictures are not the clearest but I had to take mobile phone photos instead of scanning them. My personal favourite was the ‘Teacher Silencer’ (the girl who made it gave a very good accompanying presentation and assured me it was not designed to work on English teachers!) which was one of the winners alongside a contact lens that takes photos, an ear puller for unruly toddlers and a magic pen which helps you get top marks on tests and homework! Which one would have won your vote?

Caught on camera again - my interview for iasku

2011-06-21T18:16:00.000+03:00

I seen to be developing a fondness for video posts recently! After my recent ELT identity crisis, I was contacted by Chiew Pang, also known as @aClilToClimb on Twitter, and he asked if I would be interested in doing an interview for his new blog iasku.

If you haven't paid a visit to this blog yet, I strongly recommend that you do - not just because I'm on it (:-p), but also because I think it's a great idea and a simple way to get to know different people from various walks of ELT life a little bit better. Scott Thornbury and Barbara Sakamoto were the first two guests to be interviewed so I jumped at the chance to join such illustrious company.

So, if you would like to learn a bit more about my life before teaching, what led me down this career path, why I teach kids, what motivates me and my post-identity crisis thoughts, check out my interview via the link below:

Clipped from: iasku.wordpress.com (share this clip)

Chiew is a busy guy now managing three different blogs, all of which are recommended reading. After you look around iasku (and why not volunteer to be interviewed while you're at it?), check out his first blog a cLiL to cLiMB as well as his other new one The Dogme Diaries.

The Last Week of School, Part 2 - Saying goodbye

2011-06-21T00:59:00.001+03:00

My last post focused on the things we did in class in the last few lessons of the school year but today’s offering focuses on what is often the hardest part of working with kids: saying goodbye.

The sounds of silence… - Image by To Ga Wanderings

In effect, there were no lessons last Friday. Trying to do any would have been a waste of time anyway as even the hardest-working of students had completely shut down and many of them literally just came into school with their parents to pick up report cards and clear out lockers.

With the kids who were in class, I had the pleasure of just hanging out with them. Some had brought in games, some were reading books and some were passing the time on PSPs or iPhones. One girl had received a Samsung Galaxy Tab as a karne hediyesi (good report card present) so I showed her how to use it and transferred some games and apps over via Bluetooth. She produced a late contender for my favourite memory of the year as she proclaimed to her friends “Wow! Mr David has got so much to teach me!” to which one of her friends replied “Isn’t that his job?”. She very matter-of-factly said “but this is really useful stuff!”

I spent the rest of the time circulating and chatting to the kids about their holiday plans and about the school year. It was nice to just talk to them without any aims or thoughts about what kind of activity we could move onto based on what they were saying.

I’m not one who has a problem with kids playing computer games but one thing that has annoyed me in the past is when they don’t even look up from their portable consoles when the lesson is over and I’m saying goodbye. To counteract that this year, I spent the last few minutes in each class going round saying goodbye to each child individually. I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction as I got plenty of rib-cracking hugs, pleas for me to return as their teacher in 5th grade and even attempts to stop me from leaving the room. I’ve never had that level of reaction before even when saying goodbye to students I had many more contact hours per week with. I think the individual touch made the difference.

While working with kids can be frustrating and stressful at times, moments like these make it all worthwhile. It’s the memories of spending time with them and chatting with them last Friday that will stay longer than any others, for me at least!

The Last Week of School, Part 1 - Fun & games

2011-06-19T23:59:00.001+03:00

Last Friday marked the start of the summer holidays for schools across Turkey with kids now facing a 3 month stretch with no school until they return in mid-September (no such luck for us teachers though as our ‘seminar period’ now begins). As I mentioned in a recent post, one problem that stems from the exam-driven system here is that once all the tests are done, the kids lose all willingness to work and motivating them to do anything is a struggle. This post may come too late for teachers in Turkey but I thought I’d share some of the activities we did in my classes anyway in case those of you elsewhere with the last week of school still to come need them.

Where their minds were this past week! Image by @aClilToClimb via eltpics

Games

“Game! Please, teacher - game!” was the first thing I heard when entering classrooms last week (and the week before come to think of it). While I was happy to oblige, most word games are really just filler activities with a lifespan of 5-15 minutes so it was necessary to have a few ideas up my sleeve.

Actually, rather than up my sleeve, I had a few ideas on my blog as I revisited ‘Dogme Games - Just Unplug & Play’ and recycled some games we had played earlier in the year. If you click on the link to that post, you’ll also find links to more game ideas at the end and in the comments.

I also pinched a couple of ideas Nick Jaworski shared recently on his blog: ‘Bonk!’, which I adapted to ‘Angry Words’ due to the fact I was using a soft toy based on a popular mobile platform game about irate avian creatures, and ‘Vocabulary Tennis’, both of which were big hits.

Make you own quiz

Quiz time is always a hit just before the holidays. I find students enjoy being put to the test with either general knowledge questions or questions based on topics previously covered in class. Last year, I discovered a game generator called Fling the Teacher and used it to make a multi-choice quiz (see this post and screencast by David Duebelbeiss for more information). The kids loved it and I wanted to use again this year.

But, making the quizzes is time-consuming and they are often over very quickly so I decided I would be lazy instead of my students! I asked them to get into groups and write multi-choice questions to go in the quiz. We chose a theme (general knowledge, capital cities, sports and our recently finished reader The Wrong Trousers were popular choices), they wrote the questions on Post-Its, brought them to me at the front of the class and I typed them up on the computer. The next lesson, they then played the quiz of their own making and tried out some from my other classes too.

It’s always a good time for dogme

Some colleagues of mine were bemoaning the fact that the kids were no longer even feigning interest in regular lessons. “They don’t want to do the last unit” was one complaint. “They all say their books are at home” was another. I got the usual funny looks when I pointed out that if they didn’t have a coursebook at all, that wouldn’t be a problem.

However, games aside, one actual lesson I managed to do with no complaints from students and plenty of creative language use was lifted from the pages of Teaching Unplugged. As the kids minds were on their holidays with much discussion over where they were planning/hoping to go, I decided it was the perfect time to use the activity ‘Real’ world (pp. 50). We cleared a space in the middle of the class (always a bit chaotic with kids but necessary) to act as our ‘map’, identified north, south, east and west and marked Ankara and a couple of other well-known locations with small objects (depending on where the students in the group were going, the space either represented Turkey, Europe or the world). Rather than stand somewhere representing where they would like to visit, the students stood on spots marking where they were actually going.

They then asked each other yes/no questions to work out exactly ‘where’ they were standing. I was by the board at this point (or the ‘North Pole’ as one class put it) writing up prompts for questions they were struggling with. They came out with all sorts of questions (Are you near…?, Can you see….?, Is it hot? Are you staying in a hotel?) and really enjoyed it. With one class, we even had time to adapt another idea from the same book, Destination Unknown (pp. 51) as I had the students write short messages to each other from their locations describing their holidays (so in our case, it was Destination Known!)

Yes, that’s right - writing in the last week of school!!! If ever proof was needed that dogme is the way to go, I think this is it!

An #FF Tribute for @gret and her post ‘Dear Class…’

2011-06-17T22:35:00.003+03:00

Last week, you may have noticed Tyson Seburn tweeting his #FF recommendations in a slightly different way, on the hour (more or less) and individualised rather than a long list of names. He subsequently explained on his blog that he felt in this way his picks were more considered, meaningful and noticeable and this is something I have been trying to follow this week.

A few days later, Tara Benwell wrote a guest post on Tyson’s blog describing how she honours a member of the ELT blogging/Twitter community each Friday by highlighting a post from their archives with a summary and a recommendation to read it (you can see all the posts in the series here). She challenged her PLN to do the same and, always a sucker for a blog challenge, I decided to join in.

Of course, choosing a post from the thousands of wonderful ones out there isn’t easy! Rather than actively going out and searching for one (which would have led to too much time spent narrowing the field down), I thought I would let it come to me based on whatever was on my mind in the days running up to today and the choice presented itself to me literally moments ago:

Dear Class… from Greta Sandler’s blog About a Teacher

Clipped from: gret.wordpress.com (share this clip)

Why ‘Dear Class…’?
This is a really heartfelt post Greta wrote last December at the end of the school year in Argentina. It is written in the style of an open letter to the class she had just taught for the last time before they went on their summer holidays. This one came to my mind as today was the last day of the teaching year for me in Turkey and I said goodbye to a lot of students today. There were very touching moments and, while it was sad to see them go, the memories of today and this school year will stay with me for a long time. Greta’s post really sums all of that up beautifully.

Why Greta?
Another reason for making this special tribute to Greta was that just this week she returned to blogging for the first time in several months. Her posts are always a worthwhile read and really convey her passion and dedication as a teacher so this is to welcome her back. Also, Greta is a teacher I really admire and value in my PLN and I respect her highly as a teacher of young learners. We also have another connection beyond the age group we teach and that is a love for football and the best team in Argentina, San Lorenzo!

Welcome to Earth - Guest post by Anna Musielak

2011-06-16T22:42:00.001+03:00

I’m delighted to be able to welcome my first ever guest blogger to Reflections of a Teacher and Learner and who better to have than serial guest blogger Anna Musielak. I first connected with Anna after her presentation at TESOL France last November. Although I was not in attendance at that event, I heard so much about her workshop on drama there via the buzz on Twitter. Since then, she has provided me with the impetus and the ideas to use more drama in my classes (see this post) and now, through this guest post, she has given me more. Aliens are always a hit with my kids so I’m sure they will love the combination with drama!

Welcome to Earth

I love teaching kids – it's tough but so rewarding:) Children are not afraid to make fools of themselves, they love fun and they love goofing around. And if they can do it on an English lesson – they are more than happy to attend:) What's more, if our young learners treat English with pleasure, as their hobby, the process of learning comes naturally and the new material is acquired quicker.

The friendly alien

Some time ago I did a lesson with my 10-12 year-olds that we called "Welcome to Earth". The idea was very simple - every student got a finger puppet (I have various ones: animals, professions, fairy tale creatures) and had a couple of minutes (depending on the level) to think of the story behind this character, all the time using really easy constructions (name, hobby, age, address, likes and dislikes, family, favourite food etc). I have to add here that I really LOVE my finger puppets, they are my trustworthy props not only when I teach kids but also adults. More importantly, they are light and don't take up too much space:) I have a whole collection – some are even handmade;)

My daughters modelling some of our finger puppets

Students prepared their stories and I explained, that I was the alien from out of space (a friendly and knowledge- thirsty one) and wanted to learn everything about the new planet and its inhabitants.

Students were supposed to say something about themselves (they were in their roles of course). I was very inquisitive and had no idea what a pen/table/window/elephant/ballerina etc... were. When I was finally satisfied with their answers, it was my turn to be interviewed. They asked about my planet, its inhabitants and their customs (all the time using simple English: What's your name? Where do you live? What is your mum's name? Do you like...? What's your hobby? Can you fly? etc...). I tried to make up crazy and fun answers to surprise them and encourage them to keep asking questions. And of course, I was wearing antennae and alien's mask (for those not willing to dress up – you can just put a tag/sticker saying that you are an alien;))

Me in the role:)

Later on, as a follow up task, we made some (old school) posters using paper, glue, stickers, drawings, magazine cut outs, markers and lots of glitter (both girls and boys loved that – we had some girly pink stuff and some manly black glitter;)) Students were divided into groups - “the animals” made one poster, “the working people" another one, “the fairy tale creatures” a different one. The posters were supposed to encourage aliens to come and live on Earth.

We had various works – some posters were about hobbies, favourite food, important events, some about animals and their habitats, and some about „magic” creatures and fairy tales. My students really liked that idea, so a lot of following lessons were centred around “the friendly alien” topic. We wrote emails, designed alien costumes, created the alien's family, sent party invitations and so on. It became the main theme of our English lessons.

Look closer – did you know that twist is not for old people? ;)

Anna Musielak is a Polish teacher and teacher trainer holding a Ph.D. from Silesian University. She has worked at the military unit, at college, teaching British Literature and Culture and as methodology director in a private language school. She has also published articles on literature, culture and language teaching. At the moment she is working on workshops and teaching English to young learners and adults. She is interested in using drama, music and literature in ELT.

You can follow her on Twitter: @AnnaMusielak

She doesn’t have her own blog (though I strongly urge her to start one!!) but can be regularly found writing fantastic guest posts around the ELT blogosphere. Here are a few of those posts, well worth a read:

Using drama games to teach soldiers - guest post on Ken Wilson’s blog.
Drama warmers/fillers - guest post on Vladka Michalkova’s blog.
Using Songs - guest post on Eva Büyüksimkeşyan’s blog.
Party Mix: Engaging teenage learners - guest post for OUPELTGlobal.
Not a Drama Queen but a Drama Teacher- guest post on James Taylor’s blog.

“I don’t know who I am anymore!” - A shared existential crisis (video post)

2011-06-14T21:16:00.001+03:00

The other day on Twitter, I saw this message from my MA colleague Ed Russell:

After requesting some clarification, it turned out Ed was not, as I initially thought, thinking about his online PLN presence but his general place in the world of ELT..:

...to which one of my other MA colleagues, Isil Boy, replied…:

…an idea that I liked as I had been grappling with the same issue as Ed:

I was going to type up the post upon coming home from work today but it was such a lovely sunny evening that I decided to sit out on the balcony for a while. However, my mind was still on the issue so, having not done a video post for a while, I reached for my Galaxy Tab and produced the following:

Do you know who this man is? :p

So what do you think? As we become more experienced, pursue further study and start to present at conferences, do we need an area of specialisation? Or is it all just another form of labelling? As ever, comments are welcome and appreciated!

Positive Reflections: 5 things I’ve done better this year

2011-06-13T10:51:00.001+03:00

Yesterday’s post focused on one class I’ve struggled with this academic year and not had much success with so I thought I’d take a more positive stance in today’s post and respond to a challenge set by Mary Beth Hertz to end the year on a positive note. She suggested that teachers list and reflect on (is that a subjunctive? ) 5 things they had done better in class this year and so here is my list:

Image by Dricker94

1. More flexibility

I was much more willing to go with the flow of lessons this year, often diverging from the plan to respond to input or suggestions from the students. If I planned an pair work activity but they asked to do it individually, I said ‘sure, why not?’ or if they wanted to collaborate on something I had envisioned as a solo task, I said the same whereas in past year, I would have insisted on them doing it my way.

Likewise, when it came to the content of the lessons, I was constantly trying to create opportunities for students to generate their own input and ideas and make the lesson more personal for them. I also took advantage of unexpected events like kids showing me their collections or medals they had won or sharing some exciting news to completely abandon the lesson plan and see where we ended up - must be the budding dogmeist in me!

2. More variety

In a way, this is linked to the above point about being more flexible but I definitely made an effort to do different things in the classroom this year. Not just moving away from the coursebook whenever possible but also exploring things I hadn’t really tried before like drama activities, drawing activities, collaborative group projects and so on. I also included more challenging activities such as dictogloss on a regular basis and generally tried to make sure a we used a variety of tasks to offer the kids something different.

3. More patience

The classes I teach are large and very much mixed-ability and it can be frustrating when one or two kids are behind the rest of the class, either dragging their feet hoping they can stay lost in the crowd or struggling to do even the basic stuff or both. I have been guilty in the past of rushing these kids or putting pressure on them to catch up with the threat speaking to the class teacher or calling their parents if they don’t get the work done. I’ve made an effort over the last couple of years to be more accommodating of these kids and try to get to the root of why they are not doing their work or doing it very slowly. I give them more time, go over task instructions with them 1 to 1 after everyone else has started, pair them up with the helpful students in the class and avoid showing any frustration.

Has this resulted in them staying on task and getting more work done? Not always - nevertheless, it has made the lessons a lot less stressful both for them and for me. Several of the ‘weak’ students also started to show more of a willingness to participate, especially in speaking activities, which I hope will continue for them next year.

4. More mileage

As one of the tasks I was given this year was to improve students’ writing skills, I decided to take a quality over quantity approach. Rather than covering a high number of different writing tasks, we focused on a few but extended them so that the students could get more out of the process. This involved spending more time in the pre-task phase identifying the language they would need to complete the task, giving choices in exactly what they would write and establishing a system of peer checking and commenting. Our writing tasks did not end there: I also made sure my feedback was content-based encouraging them to develop their ideas and add more and I set up a regular system of using their language errors to make up a collaborative error correction task before directing them back to their own work to find their own mistakes. That whole series of activities often meant 4 class periods were devoted to working on one piece of writing but I found that to be more effective than rushing through 4 different tasks in the same amount of lesson time. I even delivered a workshop on it!

5. More sharing

This has been one of the best parts of the year for me: sharing ideas and collaborating with other teachers, both in my own school and through my virtual PLN. I’ve exchanged a lot of great ideas with my two colleagues in 4th Grade and we had a really good group dynamic. Through this blog and the blogs of others, I’ve been inspired to try out different things, reflect on my teaching practice and discuss ideas about education with great educators around the world. Time and distance are no longer barriers to professional development and that is one of the great wonders of the 21st Century!

That’s my list. What’s yours?

Like crossing the alps with (pink) elephants - My ‘difficult’ class

2011-06-12T20:52:00.001+03:00

Those of you who’ve been following my blog for a while may recall a post I did shortly after the beginning of the school year, entitled ‘Outdone by the Pink Elephant’. In that post, I was trying to solve the puzzle of why a class I was having trouble with behaviour wise seemed better when a new teacher who had been observing us (the ‘Pink Elephant’) did a practice lesson with them. Recently, Kirsten Hawkins (@lingliziya on Twitter) came across that post and asked if I would review how the rest of the year with them went and whether or not I had had any success in finding a way to work with them.

Well, as my time with this class is effectively over, here goes…

Another famous elephant-related struggle. Image from antmoose

Sticking with the elephant theme, at times me dealing with this class felt like Hannibal crossing the Alps complete with a drawn-out war off attrition and a stalemate neither side were happy with (but without the pitched battles and bloody massacres of course)! There were difficulties throughout the year, from dealing with one particular ‘challenging’ boy/class clown, to vicious fights in class to trying to get them settled down on Friday afternoons and, unfortunately, no permanent solution presented itself.

At times, we were kind of trapped in a circle: they would act up, I would try to keep them on track, they would ignore me, I would take names with the threat of passing them on to the class teacher, they would be sorry… only to start acting up all over again the following week!

I tried various things which either failed or had limited success. Putting them into groups was a bad idea as many of the kids had a mean competitive streak which would regularly boil over into heated rivalry or they would deliberately sabotage their group’s work if they didn’t get along with the others. Games also brought about similar results with far too much gloating over success or crying in the event of losing out.

Something that did work for a while in the second semester was the fact that there was a video to go with our reader, an adaptation of the Wallace & Gromit animation The Wrong Trousers. Promising them we would watch part of the video on Friday afternoon, dependent on good behaviour during the week, worked well. However, this was not ideal as in my other classes I was using the video in all sorts of different ways, often prior to reading, to maximise the learning potential. However, with this group, I was forced to always leave the video until after reading as a carrot on a stick to keep them focused, as a tool of control rather than learning. Similarly, there were other productive student-centred tasks and unplugged moments I was able to utilise in my other classes that I had to abandon or skip all together with this group because they got out of control too easily.

One of the problems, as I mentioned in my last post, is that they didn’t take my ‘conversation’ lessons seriously. With no official exam and (initially) no grade attached to my classes, they took the opportunity to relax and break free from the usual teacher-fronted lesson format a bit too far. Even later when it was decided I would give a grade based on their classwork, little changed. I spoke to one boy after a lesson about why he wasn’t writing anything in his notebook and reminded him that not completing any tasks set would result in a low grade. “What will your parents think about that?” I asked. “Nothing,” he replied. “I got 90% in my last English test so they are happy.” During another ‘little chat’ with a different boy, I was surprised when he said I was his favourite teacher. “Really?” I said. “So why do you act like this in my class?”. he thought for a second before replying “Ali is my best friend but I like punching him! You are my favourite teacher but I like annoying you!” - quite an attitude from a 10 year-old!

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. There were some lovely kids in that class who always worked hard, participated and treated me the same as they would any other teacher. I felt really sorry for them as they complained to me regularly that it was always the same group of kids who acted up in English, music, art, and other classes resulting in the whole class being labelled as ‘difficult’. I worked hard to let them know that I did not think that way and they appreciated that.

One big surprise was their level of performance when we did The Wizard of Oz in the theatre. The rehearsals were difficult, at times approaching complete chaos in the classroom, and yet they pulled it all together for the final show. Many other teachers commented that the two groups from this class were the best they had seen in the entire year group. They really enjoyed getting into roles and acting, so much so that I continued doing drama-based activities with them even after the show had finished, which were some of the best lessons we had together.

So, it was a difficult and challenging year and I can’t help but feel I never really ‘cracked it’ in terms of motivating them or enthusing them. What could I have done differently? Discipline wise, not much as we are told to keep problems contained within the classroom meaning there is very little support. Classroom management wise, I think I should have devoted more time to explaining what my lessons were about and establishing some ground rules. We had so much material to cover with the readers, our Fun For Movers book and Wizard of Oz preparations that I didn’t want to lose too much time early in the year. I now see that it would have been time well spent.

I also think routines would have helped - in trying to respond to the problems I faced early in the year, I chopped and changed things too often. With a set way to start and end the lesson and move between activities, I may have had more success in keeping them on task.

Their love for drama was connected to a desire to get up and move about. I think the opportunity to be a bit silly and show off to the rest of the class within the context of the lesson was something they enjoyed. I just wish I had discovered this earlier in the year and been able to exploit it more.

That was the most difficult class I’ve had in ten years of teaching. Although I could have done a few things differently, I also have to remind myself that there was only so much I could do. After all, I only saw them for 4 hours a week for one year of their school lives whereas they have been in a class together in since 1st grade. Several teachers have struggled with the same kids before me and I’m sure their teachers next year will too. Without an established system of support for teachers dealing with difficult classes, there is only so much we can do…. but that’s another post for another time.

Oh, and one more thing I could have done differently - I should have worn a suit more often of course!

Caught in a trap - grades, motivation, holidays & the exam-driven system

2011-06-11T23:30:00.003+03:00

On the way to work, there is a bank of recently installed speed traps suspended above the 4-lane highway. In Turkey, such a wide road is an invitation to floor the acceleration pedal and it used to be common to see cars, trucks and even public transportation flying along at speeds of 100 km/h and above. As this is a road used by a large number of school buses each day (shockingly also guilty of such routine speeding), the speed traps were a welcome deterrent, with drivers soon forced to slow down once the speeding tickets started to arrive in the mail.

Image by t0msk

Alas, the speed traps have only had limited success. You see, they were only installed in one place and so everyone now carefully stays within the official speed limit (70 km/h) starting about 150 metres before they get to the cameras but as soon as they pass them, it’s flat out on the accelerator again and the speed limit is ignored.

Whilst looking out of the window/tightly gripping onto the seat in front for balance on the teachers’ bus going to work this week, this sight of the traffic slowing down to observe the rules of the road for 30 seconds got me thinking of Aisha Ertuğrul’s recent post of Ken Wilson’s blog and the subsequent comments about the education system in Turkey. Large classes and a ‘sweep it under the carpet’ attitude to behaviour and discipline problems mean many kids do as they please in class with no fear of the consequences because there aren’t any. The only thing that keeps these kids in check are tests (speed traps) and report cards (speeding tickets). And so, like the cars on the road, they only worry about sticking to the rules when tests are coming up or final grades are about to be given.

The problem is, there are so many tests that even at Primary school level that is all the students (and their parents) care about. If they can go home and say they got 90% in the exam, it won’t matter that the teacher has called to say no homework has been handed in for weeks or books are always left at home or that there have been fights in class.

This has been a real struggle for me this year, my first year teaching ‘conversation and skills’ for four hours a week with each class. As the ‘grammar’ teacher was giving the tests, that was the lesson they cared about and mine (in the eyes of a few children at least) was like free time. Although I was against it in the beginning, it was only when the decision was made that they would receive and grade from me to be included on the report card that those kids started to take my lessons more seriously.

So, in a way, the grades motivate them to try a little harder and actually complete the tasks and projects I ask them to do, which is a good thing, right? Only, it causes a whole series of other problems, the main of which I’m experiencing now. With the holidays just a week away, the kids know that the grades have been handed in, the last exam has been done and the last performance in front of their parents has been made. As a result, last Monday I had several students in one class say they hadn’t got their notebooks or any other materials.Why? “Because exams are finished, teacher” they said.

On top of that, a lot of kids have been absent this week and many more will be absent next week. They take the view that the school year is pretty much over so why bother going to school? And their parents agree and let them stay at home! Of those kids who do come, their motivation to do anything resembling work is very low. “Game, game! Please teacher! Game!” are the words I heard at the start of virtually every class last week. Essentially, the last two weeks of school every year is wasted in this way. And that’s with a summer holiday that is already 3 months long.

The other problem with ‘slowing down just for the speed traps’ is that is often happens too late. Even though it is not compulsory, one of my tasks in class this year was to prepare the students to take the Cambridge Movers Test. That test took place this morning and last Monday I had kids who had consistently ‘forgotten’ their books and not completed the prep tasks all year suddenly ask me for help to get ready, the panic and stress evident in their voices and body language only serving to further my belief that this is not the age to be testing them.

So, what can be done? Not a lot without change from the top I’m afraid. This is the system in Turkey and these kids will be taking exams for the rest of their lives, to get into to university, to get jobs, to keep jobs… I just wish a school, any school (preferably my school!) would force change and scrap exams for younger kids, changing the system from the bottom up. Maybe then we would see more children motivated to learn for learning’s sake rather than to pass a test.

Oh and (I’m sure most of my colleagues would disagree with me on this one but…) make the summer holidays shorter as well! 3 months is a ridiculously long time to be away from school. A shorter summer break and more holidays throughout the year would serve kids and teachers alike much better!

The Five Stages of Dogme

2011-06-06T21:27:00.003+03:00

Having been an active tweeter and blogger for a round a year now, I’ve noticed that discussions around the phenomenon that is Dogme ELT (also known as Teaching Unplugged) seem to come round in frequent cycles. The pattern is the same: some event such as a conference or a particularly fiery blog post comes around and the whole ‘what is dogme?’ debate kicks off, usually including several more blog posts, an ELTchat session, a PLN challenge and finally a video by Scott Thornbury to sort all the mess out.

With each cycle, people new to the concept of dogme get caught in the debate and try to add their own personal perspective, consider how it might apply to their own context or just try to figure out what on earth everyone is getting so hot and bothered about. I have noticed similar patterns that seem to emerge and stages that each newbie to the teaching unplugged concept seems to go through and that prompted me to do some research and develop ‘The Five Stages of Dogme’ framework.

Please note that this research is entirely based on casual observation, hearsay and general assumption. Furthermore, the findings are reported in a tongue-in-cheek manner and bear no consequence or relevance to the real world of ELT or dogme itself. To avoid confusion, I would like to state that ‘The Five Stages of Dogme’ (also known as the Dodgson-Dross Model) are completely distinct from and in no way influenced by ‘The Five Stages of Grief’ (or Kübler-Ross Model), which is a completely different made-up framework of no particular use.

It’s unplugged - but doesn’t that mean it’s all going down the drain?

Image by tonyhall

1. Denial
This is the first stage encountered by the teacher who is hearing about dogme for the first time. The most sceptical of all will dismiss the idea of a conversation driven, materials light mode of teaching focused on emergent language as ludicrous, comfortable as they are in their carefully constructed fool-proof grammar-based syllabus world. The more open minded may experience some shock at this point having never before considered the possibility of moving away from the coursebook and their denial may be expressed in the form of “but it’s just not possible” or “aren’t we supposed to work with the coursebook?”

For teachers at this stage, careful guidance is required to ensure that they become open to the idea and don’t just dismiss it out of hand. Even then, most teachers will need some time to figure out exactly what dogme is and it is those stages we will look at next.

2. Anger/Confusion
Once they have gotten over the initial shock of discovering the concept of dogme, our newbie teachers follow one of two paths. The sceptics will exhort anti-dogme rhetoric in quite harsh terms labelling it as ‘irresponsible’, ‘cruel’ or ‘evil’ especially for new teachers who are yet to brainwashed in the coursebook ways and dismissing the unplugged practitioners themselves as charlatans who are merely ‘winging it’ and going into class unprepared and unplanned. They also label the dogmeists as ‘anti-coursebook’, ‘anti-technology’ (even if the sceptics are anti-technology themselves) and so on.

But not everyone is so sceptical. Once realising that maybe there is something to be said for this dogme stuff after all, rather than anger they experience some confusion and may be heard to say things like “so, dogme is just teaching without a coursebook”, “it’s just a conversation class then” or “that’s what I’ve been doing all along!” even when they clearly haven’t. These teachers need some time to explore the idea and dig beyond the surface.

3. Negotiating/Questioning
There then follows a period of ‘negotiation’ in which the teacher venturing into the unplugged world starts to ask questions about dogme in different contexts. “Could it work with beginners/young learners?” is usually a pretty common place to start often followed by “How could it work with exam classes?” or “What about business English?”

The sceptic, however, will not ask these questions with any desire to find the answers but more in the manner of “hah! Gotcha now - didn’t think of that one, did you?” When confronted by the eager answers of the dogmeists showing how teaching unplugged can meet a wide range of needs, they may revert to Stage 1 or Stage 2 in an attempt to regroup and think of some more specific or unique circumstances in which dogme is sure to not work. Once they have thought of asking whether or not dogme could possibly work with groups of 60+ kindergarten students forced to study for the TOEFL Junior exam (what would work in that situation?), they will come back.

The genuinely open-minded, on the other hand, will not just ask the question but seek the answers as well. They will analyse their context and look for ways an unplugged approach could work and whether or not it would improve the learning opportunities of their students. This makes them ready to move onto the next stage.

4. Depression/Experimentation
By this point, our sceptic may be thoroughly depressed as they realise those darned dogme doers just have an answer for everything. A period of self-doubt may follow in which they truly question the validity of the grammar-syllabus, the exam-based system and using celebrities to make texts more ‘fun’.

Our ever eager open-minded teacher is more likely to start dabbling with some actual dogme practice at this point, though it may take some time before they fully pull the plug. They may announce something along the lines of “I’m going to do a dogme lesson today!” as if declaring it aloud makes it so (in truth, they are most likely still doing a pre-prepared task and topic, just without the coursebook or hand-outs). There is the danger here that a muted response from their class may lead to some feelings of depression before the teacher bounces back for another attempt. Good feedback though leads to further experimentation and blogosphere discussion, which finally brings us to Stage 5….

5. Acceptance
After much soul searching, our sceptic may finally accept the inevitable and allow him/herself to be baptised in the waters of dogme with little resistance. There is always the possibility, of course, that the sceptic never reaches this stage and instead reverts to denial that such a thing could ever work. Our open-minded teacher will hopefully have indulged him/herself fully by this point and be ready to march on (with no excessive baggage weighing him/her down) and never look back!

It should be emphasised here that these 5 stages are very much rigid and will be passed through in this manner and order with no exceptions (except for those already noted). So, are you a dogme sceptic or ready to pull the plug on your coursebook dominated days? What stage of the model are you at? Please share your thoughts and comments below…

Please refer to this study as: Dodgson, D (2011). ‘The Five Stages of Dogme: Findings from a pointless study'. ROFL Journal

Suits you, Sir!

2011-06-05T22:07:00.001+03:00

The school I work at has quite a detailed dress code for teaching staff. Basically, we are expected to be smartly dressed at all times with male teachers expected to wear a suit, plain shirt and tie except in the warmer months when we are graciously exempted from having to wear jackets. This was quite a contrast to my first job teaching adults in a language school. No dress code existed there and it was often the students who were better dressed while the teachers strolled about in worn jeans and faded t-shirts!

In fact, one thing that put me off moving to my current school all those years ago (apart from having never worked with kids before) was the need to wear a suit and ‘shiny shoes’ every day. Nevertheless, I ‘suited up’ and went to work, having little choice in the matter it seemed.

Ooh! Image courtesy of dailymail.co.uk

It all seemed a bit formal though and I, together with most of my colleagues, was always looking for ways to bend the rules by wearing more comfy shoes, ‘smart-casual’ trousers, jumpers/sweaters and so on. After all, you will see and hear many people advising you to dress down and be prepared to get messy when working with kids so the less formal, the better, right?

Only this week, with warmer weather here, a jumper (even a sleeveless one) seemed too much but it was a bit too cool in the morning to go without a jacket so I donned a suit for the first time in ages. I then thought I should wear appropriate shoes to match and off I went. I wasn’t quite prepared though for the reaction I would get in my first class of the day:

“Ooooh!” said a student in my first class. “Very smart, teacher. Very nice!”

“Are we having a business meeting today?” joked another.

“Teacher, in this suit, you look very handsome” said another.

Then the best of all (for anyone who watched The Fast Show on BBC in the 90s at least): “What is yakışmak in English?” a boy asked. I told him we could use ‘suit’ as a verb and he said “Suits you, sir!”

But the strange thing was, after this initial burst of reaction, we started the lesson and the atmosphere was different somehow - the students were listening a lot more carefully than usual, taking turns, getting on with their work… quite unusual, especially as the summer holiday gets ever close! I asked why they were so keen and attentive and one boy proclaimed “You are wearing a suit so today’s lesson is very serious!”

It seemed me wearing a suit and dressing more formally had made some kind of impression on them. This was confirmed in the next class as there was a similar reaction when I walked in and then they got on with the lesson very studiously. I used the chance to chat with them about uniforms and appropriate dress for different circumstances. What surprised me was that these 10 year-olds were basically saying they thought a teacher should dress smartly. They also said that the more casually the teacher dresses, the more they feel they can ‘get away with things’.

So, maybe dressing less formally to seem more approachable is not actually the right way to go. Maybe that sends out the wrong signals about being less serious or more lax. Or perhaps it’s a cultural thing with the norm in Turkey for male teachers being smart suits. Anyway, I’ll suit up once again tomorrow and see if it has the same effect!

And what do you think? Should teachers dress smartly or casually? Do you have a dress code at work and do you agree with it? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Metablognition

2011-05-31T12:27:00.001+03:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging recently for a number of reasons: first and foremost, I did some research into blogs as a platform for self-development examining the extent to which they can facilitate reflective thinking; secondly, I also passed a year since I started this blog last month (first post was made on 28th April 2010) and I’ve been ‘reflecting on my reflections’ as it were.

Image by Mike Baird, flickr.bairdphotos.com

One question I’ve been pondering is why do I blog? After much consideration, I can only say there is no definitive reason. The things that prompt or inspire me to write a post vary greatly as does the nature of the posts themselves: it may come from some general thoughts about education and language teaching, it may be a response to another post on another blog, it may be an extension of an ELTchat session or it may be some random event from the wider world that just gets me thinking.

But most of all, my inspiration for blog posts comes from the classroom: reflecting on how lessons went or how I attempted to tackle a problem encountered or a challenging situation is what really helps me as a teacher. Add to that the comments, opinions, advice and support of those who take the time to read my posts and there is a potential for a deep, critical level of reflection.

One interesting thing I discovered in my research was stages that bloggers seem to go through over time and how I could identify the ways I had experienced something similar. First of all, many new teacher-bloggers seem to start by offering descriptive accounts of lessons. There is little in the way of explicit reflection here and this is often used as a criticism of journal and blog writing from a developmental standpoint. However, this can also be seen as a good place for teachers to start as they get used to the idea of writing about lessons and using a blog before later moving into more critical reflection (see Farrell, 1998). I see this in my older posts with accounts of what I did in class stage by stage, mainly focusing on successful moments (see Introducing Myself to New Classes or Pictogloss for examples of what I mean).

One of the most important stages is that of engaging in a community of practice. Blogging is not just about writing your own posts but reading the posts of others as well. This can prompt reflection on our own beliefs and experiences as teachers (see Cecilia’s recent post and comments for a perfect example of this) even if the context is completely different. One study I came across of pre-service English teachers in Hong Kong (Deng & Yuen, 2011) identified an important aspect of critical reflection that emerged as the research took place: blog-reading. When interviewing the participants, the value these teachers attached to being able to read the blogs of others was something that kept coming up again and again even though it wasn’t immediately apparent when analysing the posts and comments themselves. I’ve certainly learned a lot from other people’s blogs reading about their experiences, relating them to my own and getting some ideas for my own blog as well. So thanks to all of you (too numerous to mention) who have provided me with some great reading over the last year or so.

By reading and commenting on others blogs, teachers start to build connections and then feel more comfortable in talking about more difficult moments. They may start by asking for help or advice with challenging classes or students or when entering new territory. My first post like this was the one where I pondered why my ‘difficult’ class were better behaved when a teacher new to the school came to teach them for a day as part of his induction (‘Outdone by the Pink Elephant’). However, I was still not at a level of critical reflection as I was asking for explanations more than offering them.

It is when we start to give our opinions, justify our ideas, diagnose problems and offer solutions and evaluate what we do - both the positive and the negative - that we reach a point of critical reflection (that’s what I at least tried to do with my recent thoughts on our drama performances). Having described some of my experiences this year here on these blog pages and having read the blogs and experiences of others, I feel as though I can go into next year much better prepared to help my students get the most out of the learning experience. This is something I could simply not have achieved by writing a private journal or discussing things in the staffroom at school. There is some suggestion that the public nature of blogs makes it more likely that the teacher will hold back and not truly engage in critical reflection. I find the opposite to be true - being able to reach an audience of like-minded individuals regardless of geographical location, benefitting from their unique perspectives and sharing with them makes me more open and able to reflect on a deeper level.

I teach.

I blog.

I engage.

I reflect.

I grow.

What about you?

References

Deng, L. & Yuen, A.H.K. 2011. Towards a framework for educational uses of blogs. Computers and Education. 56: 441-451.

Farrell, T.S.C. 1998. ESL/EFL teacher development through journal writing. RELC Journal. 29/1: 92-109.