These four walls…

There's a whole world outside. Trust me, you're not trapped! / Photo by Tim Pearce on flickr

This might come across as cliché to those of you who read this blog. I mean, one of the best things about blogs and twitter is that we are able to find people who are willing to share. This is the main advantage I can see in this “new” media. Many teachers do tell me that they can’t see why they should be on twitter, or that there’s no time to waste with it. I can even understand the time issue – I myself have been struggling with time this semester – and I do try my best to listen to and understand the reasons why people think this world of twitter and blogs is nothing but a fad and a waste of time. However, there’s one thing I cannot put up with – people who can’t listen to what others have to say. And it gets worse than that… but this is not a rant; a praise it is supposed to be. A praise to twitter, blogs and what it has got to offer to teachers.

This week, as I was teaching a lesson on approaches and methods in ELT to a group of post-graduation students, we finally got to the point of discussing The Lexical Approach and Dogme. This is the second time I teach this course, but it somehow feels different. A couple of years ago, when I first taught it, I wasn’t that involved with twitter and blogs, and the fact that I’ve joined this group has made a difference in the discussions I hold with the students. Someone said that these two tools have leveled the play field in the world of ELT. It certainly helped me to go beyond the world of academics and authors that I used to read before. Thornbury, Harmer, Puchta, Nunan, Ur, Meddings, and Brown (to name but a few) are still required reading, if you ask me. However, there are just so many other great people out there who can now be heard regardless of a publishing contract that it’s made our lives a lot easier. We can now read what Karenne Sylvester, Jason Renshaw, Shelly Terrell, Cecília Coelho, Willy Cardoso, Mike Harrison, David Warr, Dave Dodgson, Sabrina de Vita, Richard Whiteside, Sara Hannam, and many other people that know what they’re saying and whose posts are consistently good, have got to say. Maybe they were already part of your readings, but I only started reading these people after joining twitterville. Those were the days when publishers and editors chose who we had to read. But it’s done a lot more than merely allowing content to be spread and commented on.

On April 26, while I was talking to my students about Dogme and teaching unplugged, I couldn’t help but remember some of the activities that had been shared online by some of the bloggers I read. Among these activities, I briefly demonstrated Jason’s The Wandrous Whiteboard Challenge. Obviously, it generated some discussion in class and we started coming to some conclusions. “Oh, if only I could get Jason to participate in this class…” did cross my mind. However, as this was something that had sprung up out of a class discussion and I hadn’t really planned to have such a long discussion about these activities. A whole bunch of coincidences happened at this point. First, I had already talked to my students about both #eltchat and #breltchat. Second, it was a student’s birthday, and her friend had asked me if we could have a short break as she had bought a cake. During this short break, some of the students asked me again about twitter, and when I opened my tweetdeck, I saw that Jason had just tweeted something. I immediately tweeted him back, telling him that we were discussing one of his activities. Jason asked which activity we were discussing and this is what followed:

@hoprea Great to hear! If they want to ask me any questions… I'd be happy to help.—
Jason Renshaw (@englishraven) April 27, 2011

We ended up having a fantastic skype session, as Jason was really kind to make an impromptu appearance in our class. This was absolutely amazing, as students had the chance to ask questions to the person who actually had written the text. If I could get Luke and Scott to skype while we were discussing about Dogme, Richards and Rodgers to talk about approaches and methods, and Harmer to discuss CLT, my job would pretty much be to bring the computer to class and call them on skype.

The four walls of any classroom have been brought down. Those were the days when the teacher was supposed to be the only one who knew everything in class. We can now share the load – it’s much easier to do what we preach. Get students to learn, not memorise. Get them to discuss points, to reflect. Invite other people to enrich the discussion. I was fortunate enough to have the chance to invite the person whose activity I was discussing at that very moment, and one whose knowledge I learned to respect. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The four walls around us no longer exist, but only as long as you don’t want them to exist. If your co-workers are not willing to discuss ELT issues in a way that fosters growth, never mind. Twitter has become the largest staffroom ever. Oh, and everyone there is willing to share, learn, and discuss. I’m sure you can learn how to use it effectively, and, once you do, you won’t regret it.

La Pasión Turca – Guest post by Fiona Mauchline

I don’t think I’ll ever cease to be blown away by twitter and what all the connections we can make there. Even though I can’t put my finger on the exact moment I met Fiona Mauchline on twitter, I certainly remember the moment her thoughts called my attention. If I’m not mistaken, after one or two innocent tweets with another tweep, the discussion got momentum and, as it usually happens on twitter, a whole bunch of tweeps came onboard to join the discussion, and Fiona was one of these. At that very moment, I knew it would be a great chance for me to have a guest post here, as she was certainly making me do some thinking. She’s also the author of two blogs, macappella and blood, sweat, and gazpacho. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her post, and I do hope you all enjoy it too – oh, and Fiona, I’ll definitely have you back for part 2!! It was definitely worth the while! Now, without further ado, here it comes!!

La Pasión Turca

or

Holes in the Wall and Postman knocked twice.

At the recent ISTEK conference, Scott Thornbury gave a plenary session listing the six most significant influences on or sources of inspiration for his own professional development and direction. As is becoming the norm for these events, Twitter was a-flutter with tweets during the plenary, and while many merely passed on the birdsong, some chirped in less dulcit, more sceptical tones.

Of course, a good plenary will always provoke anti as well as pro opinions – the worst thing that can happen to you in a talk is to provoke no opinions whatsoever – but as I read the tweets, I couldn’t help but feel that some people were either simplifying to the extreme or slightly missing the point, in relation to two of the ‘influences’. Since then, I have found myself pondering those tweets and what it was that made me feel uneasy, sense that those tweeting weren’t looking closely enough. I have found myself pulling over into lay-bys to take notes and chewing my pen in coffee bars. This post is the result of those ponderings and, as such, is totally non-empirical, but if you don’t mind that and a couple of spoilers, read on.

Part I: Holes in the Wall (of dissent)

First there was The Wall; then the Hole-in-the-Wall... / Photo by TofflerAnn on flickr

In 1999, Professor Sugata Mitra, now of Newcastle University in the UK, carried out the first of a series of experiments he called the Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiments whereby he literally made a hole in a wall in a rundown urban district in New Delhi, India, and installed a kiosk containing a computer. He also installed hidden cameras nearby and waited and watched what happened. Local children crowded round to teach themselves to use the computer and the internet, with no external ‘bothering’ by teachers. Mitra called this Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). With the success of this initial experiment, other hole-in-the-wall computers were installed in India and, latterly, in Cambodia, and the results were similar. As a by-note, these experiments were also the original inspiration for the scriptwriter of Slumdog Millionaire… However… What Scott said he had drawn from these experiments was the fact that children – or learners – do actually have an innate desire to learn and will both absorb information and be motivated to learn if the circumstances are right. These experiments also favour learner-centred learning and put a huge question mark over the role of Teacher as generally perceived by The Establishment. In fact, they show that a teacher – or at least an adult Teacher is not always necessary.

But the tweets went out ‘Ah but they worked because it was all about technology’ ‘It was using computers that made the experiments work’ ‘How curious that S Thornbury should be inspired by experiments showing that computers help education’. And this is where I beg to differ.

Professor Sugata Mitra works in Educational Technology, yes. That is his current field and he was using those experiments to find out if using computers and the internet is something that kids can learn for themselves. Rather like Chomsky might try to find out of we have grammar hard-wired into our brains. That was his ‘agenda’, if we can overlook the negative connotations of that phrase.

However, Sugata Mitra is not a Mr, he’s not a research students or a Microsoft employee, he’s a Professor, and a polymath at that. He has also worked in other scientific fields, and what brought about his interest in computer networks was his work on neural networks and cognitive science. By the time he carried out his HIW experiment, he had also being studying learning styles as well as learning devices for years. So it’s fair to say that he probably based his experiments on rather more than a desire to find out/show how cool computers are in their ability to teach children to, um, use computers (NB not to teach them languages). And personally I think the  conclusions that can be drawn from the experiments are multiple. The following are my own.

In terms of showing the virtues of technology per se, the bottom line is that the HIW experiments proved that use of computers and the internet is easily self-taught (backed up by the fact that even I’ve managed it) or semi-peer taught (peer-teaching was also highly influential in the children’s success), which, in turn, suggests that overt teacher-led teaching of internet/computer use in schools is a waste of time as, given the right environment, kids will teach it to themselves. This should ideally result in an effect on school time-tabling… It also means that we can get on with our jobs as language teachers and have little responsibility, moral or otherwise, for teaching IT, which in turn means that doing IT (pun intended) or not doesn’t much matter, as you aren’t intrinsically smarter, more professional etc. either way. It simply indicates different teaching styles, different choices, different preferences, underlying characteristics of being human.

It also means that, despite what many of us ‘older’ (ie more aged) language teaching types may think, technology will only add a WOW factor to our teaching in areas where access to computer/internet use is rare; in other areas, children will be self-taught from an early age and furthermore will simply ‘do IT’ without much thought. Technology will not make a class memorable just because. We should only use technology in class where it’s fully justified (and sometimes it is), not because we think it’s ‘gonna be cool’. T’ain’t what you use, it’s the way that you use it, to paraphrase an old jazz number. Common sense to many, unfathomable to a few.

However, on the other hand and nevertheless…

to my mind, Sugata Mitra’s experiments showed a lot more than a couple of characteristics of technology. What the children were actually doing rather than what they were using is more significant in terms of implications to language learning. Without any reference to Mitra’s conclusions, here are mine (largely drawn up while sitting in the car) with some implications as I see them.

You too can smell the Kingdom of the Gnomes!

The HIW experiments were about kinaesthetic-visual learning. Much teacher-fronted teaching is aimed at ears, which is pointless in a society where children find listening harder and harder. In many cases we actually need to sharpen students’ listening skills before we can start. The HIW experiments were based on, essentially, hitting keys in a trial & error way, reading instructions on the screen and then clicking on the appropriate thing, watching other children using the computers, and working together. Children learn to use video consoles in the same way, so perhaps it’s not news in the area of children-using-technology, but the kinaesthetic-visual combination is also behind the huge success of the scratch & sniff Geronimo Stilton books which have seen many 8-10 year-olds start reading for pleasure, expanding vocabulary and improving literacy. Not just black words on a white page, these books incorporate words written in a way that makes their meaning clear, and include scratch & sniff pages to appeal to/revolt the senses. The books are fun, and they work. So perhaps language teaching should pay even more attention to this combination, using more mechanical, visual, and sensory stimuli to enhance learning, and making the teacher’s voice/presence less intrusive, more of another resource or back-up system on hand for support. Personally, I have worked a lot with this idea, particularly with under 8s and over 13s, with wonderful results, and others I know who have also worked with it say the same.

We also succumbed...

Secondly, what children in the HIW experiments were doing was a type of puzzle-solving, an activity which is intrinsically motivating (think of the popularity of Sudokus, crosswords, illusionists etc) and forms the basis of much of our learning in life. I noticed last December at our town’s Christmas Market that the stall you could hardly get near was one selling wooden puzzles. In particular, boys and men would stand mesmerised trying to rebuild a town, release a bottle or fit all the pieces back together. At this ‘hands on’ stall, the concentration was total, the sense of satisfaction great and, I suspect, the sales figures impressive. So if problem-solving has such a pull, whether in middle-class Spain or less salubrious areas of New Delhi, why not incorporate more into language teaching? Yes, many ELT materials nowadays do (although the grammar box still refuses to relinquish its grip) and some teachers do, but there is still too little of it and too much spoon-feeding. Yes, educational software is good for problem-solving, but it is not unique.

Thirdly, as well as learning from the screen and from trial and error, the children learnt from each other. Peers replaced adult teachers. This has always been the case, for example when kids get together to kick a ball around or to build a kite/tree-house/den/go-cart. The implications here are clear – group/team work, peer-teaching/correction. Again, the teacher’s role in the language classroom should be reviewed and this idea of group constructed knowledge embedded in teacher training not only for us CELTA/DELTA types but across the board.

Finally, the HIW experiments strike me as being somewhat rooted in behaviourism – as much of human learning is – in a ‘get it wrong, it doesn’t work; get it right, yippee’ sort of way. So my final implication is that children should be allowed to get it wrong and not be penalised during the learning process, simply encouraged to try again until they get it right (‘right’ meaning ‘get their message across, achieve communication’ at early stages – polishing can come as they develop and become used to reworking, to trying again, rather than to being demotivated by red pen and numbers). Rewards should be as significant if not more so than penalties. A sense of ‘you’ve won the key to the next stage’ would replicate the computer experiment observations and what keeps kids on those pesky video games for hours This, of course, means reviewing how we deal with errors and feedback.

Now I’ve far outstayed my welcome, but there was another ‘big idea’ that got a volley of tweets and, indeed, is still causing ripples and waves, so I shall leave Part II of La Pasión Turca (dangerously called Postman (always) knocked twice) for another day…. if Henrick will have me back!

The author of this post!

I live in Cáceres in Spain, a beautiful and inspiring sort of place to live, and I’m a teacher, trainer, writer. mother and life-enjoyer. Although I originally trained as a translator and interpreter, I’ve been in ELT since the late 80s and, as a person who trained when Headway was just out, I now tend to teach dogme and am co-moderator of the Dogme web group. I’m big into visualisation, sensory stimuli for the imagination, motivating even the ‘grottiest’ of teens, learner-generated materials and a heap of other things, many of which are not related to teaching, but I give workshops on the ones that are ELT related. I’ve also written coursebooks and other ELT materials.

Some thoughts on my blog as a word cloud

Coming back to the blogosphere after a rough beginning of year has been, well, tough! To be honest, ever since I joined the cause I knew it would be pretty much impossible for me to read every single post with all the care and attention they truly deserve, and despite all the learning that the experience has led me to, there are times when your life beyond the computer/Internet does not give you enough time to do the things you both enjoy and profit from. Anyone, I’ve read a couple of interesting posts recently, and decided to participate in David’s mini-challenge. It consists of creating a word-cloud from your blog and then doing a brief analysis of it. I used wordle, and this is what I got:

My blog according to Wordle

Apparently, I’ve been writing a lot about students and language. The words writing and tests were also quite big on the cloud, maybe because I’ve written two recent posts on these topics. However, I guess I’ll look at this from a different perspective and try to give meaning to the way the words appeared together, shall I?

The first thing I noticed was the position of the words L1, English, far, big, and things. When looking at this, I thought about the fact that, yes, learning a foreign does open doors (excuse me for the cliché), it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. If Google and other companies are finally able to perfect online text and voice translators, why would anyone care to go through the hardships of learning a foreign language, say, in 15 years’ time? I guess the answer is that learning other language apart from your L1 allows you to do far bigger things and accomplish a lot more by the simple fact that learning a foreign language, in my humble opinion, does broaden the mind.

The second bit that called my attention was this one on the right that puts the words grammar, reason, and testing together. First, I’m not against tests and I see a good reason for them in the language classroom. However, if the only reason for testing is grammar in some kind of an order, this is likely to fail flat and not allow for learning opportunities. Tests have got to allow for learning opportunities. Otherwise, we’re just pretending to be testing learners, and they’re just pretending they’ve learned the subject for the test. Assessment is a lot different from testing, and teaching is a lot bigger than both.

This was a rather interesting one and I guess pretty much all words are important, so I’ll just talk about it instead of pointing out the words. I guess speaking too much is one of the first problems one faces as a language teacher. there are, of course, times when it’s OK to forget about Teacher Talking Time (TTT) if you know what exactly you’re doing and depending on your approach to language learning. It also seems acceptable, at least for certain levels, to speak a bit more. If you want to teach well, just don’t forget you’re not alone in the classroom and always remember to take your students into account.

Following the train of thought from the snapshot above, it’s only clear to say what good teachers do, or at least should do: help learners. And if you’re in teacher-training, you should get your teachers to help their learners, which will, in turn, change them into good teachers. Got it?!

This is also rather interesting. In spite of my personal interest in pronunciation, it’s not just about having a pretty accent. Learning involves many different things, such as grammar, vocabulary, pragmatics, speaking, listening, and reading. Learning, however, also needs writing. It’s not just about writing, obviously. Nevertheless, I truly believe that pronunciation is not the only thing that is neglected in out teaching (for many different reasons), but so is writing. Perhaps we could also look at it more carefully, huh?!

As a dogmeist, I couldn’t leave aside the bit of the cloud that deals with conversation. In a way, if we give our students a chance to talk and really communicate, it might be a lot easier for them to learn the language. Nevertheless, teachers cannot lose sight of the fact that mere conversation isn’t enough – learning has got to be the main point of the activities if we want our students to succeed and come across as independent users of the language.

This last bit I’ve chosen to analyse might be a note to myself. Even though I’ve been feeling like writing more often, perhaps my writing isn’t exactly good. Has it actually gone bad? Has it ever been good? I mean, maybe it’s time I started changing the focus of the blog and the posts, which might perhaps help me improve on my reflections on teaching and learning. Or, you know what, maybe the blog should keep on as it was conceived – a place where I can share my views, hear other people’s voices on the matter, and finally be able to learn a tad more about what I was thinking. To be honest, I don’t expect it to be good or bad, as long as it was worth your time reading up to this point. And if you happen to have the time to leave a comment, or go through some of the old posts of mine I linked to throughout the post, even better!

Cheers!!

Care to join me?

Even though things have been a lot quieter than I wanted them to be, I’ve been doing lots of thinking lately. There are many posts yet to come in response to other blog posts I’ve read, and a couple of extra material on the way. This semester’s been particularly busy as I’ve taken up some new responsibilities, and I’m still getting used to the new workload. It’s all falling into place, and I hope I’ll soon be able to resume my writing on the blog.

If we all contribute our piece to the puzzle, we'll get there much faster. // Photo by Bruce Guenter

However, I’m writing this quick blog post as a call for collaboration. Last year I wrote a post asking for the same thing. A couple of teachers responded to it and we even started planning things, but it never took off. Regardless of this unsuccessful experience, I asked my students to create a wiki page on topics of their interest and, closer to the end of the year, I was joined by a teacher in Atlanta and we could actually put our students to work together. It was a wonderful experience for students, albeit short.

Nevertheless, it was enough to give me some practice and also to spot some problems that came up and think of strategies to solve them. This year, I again call for the collaboration of teachers interested in getting their EFL/ESL learners to collaborate with our class in Brazil. I’m trying to keep things simple, and they seem to be working all right. I’ll also introduce new tools for students to work with as time goes by and more people join in. The idea is for learners to practise using English in an authentic and meaningful environment.

Our learners are from all different levels – A1 to B2 in the CEF, or beginners to upper-intermediate – and they have been told they are to work together to get their message across. Anyway, in case you are interested in joining, pay a visit to our wiki: http://crossculturalelt.wikispaces.com and send me an email (henrick.oprea@gmail.com) or a message on FaceBook.

Teachers who join are free to work in any way that suits his or her needs, be it for assessing students or simply giving them a chance to talk to people from different cultures. They may also choose to help me with the organisation of the wiki and the tasks or not – no need to worry about extra work on our already over-worked lives!

Once you join, I’ll also ask you for the logo of your school to add to the main page.

The power of two

There are two different kinds of PLNs, as I see it. First, there’s the virtual PLN, the one you create through your visits to other educators’ blogs and engaging conversations on Twitter, blogs, or Skype to name but a few. This is a PLN which is filled with teachers who are willing to share, grow, learn, and keep an open mind to all that’s new and everything that might enhance your students’ learning. It’s an active space, and it’s open 24/7. The second kind of PLN is your real one, made of teachers who work with you in your school. The good side of this PLN is that it shows you you that, sometimes, the world you live in is still not ready for all those changes that so many educators worldwide have been talking about. They understand your context, and they face exactly the same difficulties you have to face. That could even be called the ‘keeping-it-real PLN’.

However, one thing that usually strikes me as odd is how often I hear people from my virtual PLN complain about the lack of interest and willingness to change from those present in their real PLN. I’ve already heard a couple of times that it would be wonderful to have all of those people from your virtual PLN working together in the same school, aiming at providing their learners nothing but the very best. This would be a place where people wouldn’t fear making mistakes, and mistakes might as well happen. However, no mistake would be made owing to lack of action. Things would always be going forward.

If this ideal school existed, perhaps change in education would come at a much faster rate. If there are people who are also as committed as you are working with you, it’s always easier to make things happen. If, on the other hand, there is no one interested in joining you and helping you in your physical surroundings, things get much tougher. Fortunately, the distance between the virtual and the real PLN is getting smaller by the day. Thanks to technology, it’s now possible to get your students to interact with students whose teachers aren’t that afraid of attempting to get things done. Sometimes it’s easier to get two classes from two different continents to collaborate than to get two neighbouring classes to do so.

That’s one of the things that most people realise once they join the world of blogs and twitter, to begin with. They learn that there are other people who are also interested in bringing about change. There are other educators who are 100% sure they’ve still got a lot to learn, and they find other educators who think just the same way. Working alone is pretty hard, but the power of two has something magical about it. If you’re working together with people who also share your principles and, despite being snowed under with work, still manage to make time for sharing and learning, you know that’s the right place to be in.

Nevertheless, sometimes our co-workers and members of the keeping-it-real PLN need a little push. They’ve all got it inside themselves – this ideal towards learning and helping students thrive. It may have been forgotten somewhere because of the treatment that’s been dispensed to educators for many, many years, but it’s there. If we all work together and give this little push, we’ll find out we’re not alone anymore. The power of two will make it a lot easier for you to do what you want to do. Mind you, this doesn’t mean you all have got to agree on everything; it only means there are at least two people willing to shift gears and get things evolving at a faster pace.

Why join a teachers association?

A while ago, I wrote a post about what had brought me back to twitter. As we’re on this subject matter, another post I wrote was on the effect of PLNs on my professional growth. I’ve also written something about my fond memories of Braz-TESOL conventions and how much I treasured them. That’s all fine, and I do believe all those things, namely twitter, PLNs, and conventions do add a lot to my professional life. But how so? And, even more important than that, why bother?

How does being the member of a community help?

Even though this is not the most important question, the answers to this question are just too many to be written in a single blog post. Pretty much all posts you can find on this blog were the result of some sort of interaction I had with other teachers, students, or just people who weren’t even in the field of education. When you join a community and become an active member of it, you’re allowing yourself the chance to reflect on lots of things you believe in. However, you must always keep an open mind as this activity is bound to show you ways of thinking you couldn’t probably fathom before.

Photo by Ian Sane

A lot comes from online communities, building your PLN, sharing and contributing with like-minded people as well as people who disagree with you, but know how to do so reasonably and also in attempt to get something out of the discussion. When we’re online, we also have the chance to interact with people from different countries a lot more easier than you can do face-to-face. However, I always feel there’s something missing in the online component of interaction.

Despite all the benefits that arose from Web 2.0, it’s still hard to beat the atmosphere from a face-to-face convention. Having had the chance to attend the last Braz-TESOL national convention with more than 1200 teachers from all over Brazil and all over the world, I can certainly assure you that the things you experience in such a convention are a lot more intense than what you usually get online. It’s like one thing complements the other.

Finally, joining a teachers association, online or face-to-face, is helpful because it puts you together with people who, just like you, believe that teaching means acknowledging you must constantly be learning. Teachers who are members of a teachers association are willing to share information, experiences, and anecdotes that might help other teachers. Members of these associations aren’t selfish and believe that the ones who benefit the most of such exchange of information are they themselves. Oh, really? But why is that?

Why should I join a teachers association?

I believe that sharing what I know with others and listening to what they’ve got to say, and trying out new things in class is done with the sole purpose of helping learners. I usually tell my students that teachers should care a lot less about their teaching and a lot more about their students’ learning. This means teachers should learn how to truly listen to their students. In language teaching, I very much agree with the idea of working with language that’s produced by learners themselves as this is more often than not a lot more personal and meaningful to learners than a pre-fabricated chunk of language used to show a point. If you’ve paid a visit to this blog before, you probably know what I mean by this.

That’s fine, but what’s this got to do with joining a teachers association? In a nutshell, the better the teachers are, the better students will be. If you believe you’re a fantastic teacher but you don’t share what you do in class, you’re likely to have to start from scratch every semester or year. I honestly can’t think of an educational setting in which students only have one teacher. This means that the better our peers are, the easier our job will be every new semester or year. Instead of having to teach students from scratch, you can just continue what had been done in previous semesters. Now, if that happens, and if you believe you’re such “a fantastic teacher, like, the best teacher in the world ever”, how much do you think you can accomplish if you haven’t got to worry about teaching your students the basics, or things they should have learned long before they were your students?

If we accept that teachers who join teachers associations as teachers who are always willing to seek what’s best for their learners, then it’s likely that students who have been the students of teachers who participate in such associations are better prepared than students whose teachers do not take part in such associations. And the better prepared our students are, the easier our job is. Would you agree with that?

Where to go now? Well, if you’re reading this and you’re an English teacher in Brazil, you could start by clicking here (or on the image below).

Professional development? Why don't you join Braz-TESOL?

Collaborative project

A while ago, I published a post asking for EFL/ESL teacher whether they’d like to join in a cross-cultural exchange project. We actually managed to get a good group of committed teachers who were willing to take it further. We moved from a wiki to a ning, and more and more teachers joined it. However, I believe there were just so many teachers involved that it was hard for me to keep track of it. Unfortunately, that didn’t really work out the way I thought it would when I wrote that post. You see, it outgrew the idea of a cross-cultural exchange project for students learning English and became a cross-cultural exchange project period. Wonderful, yes! But, again, not what I had in mind. Nevertheless, I haven’t given up on the idea – having a space for English Language Learners to collaborate and have another space to learn English in a more meaningful, authentic environment.

So, we’ve piloted a project on a wiki with some of of our students. You can check the results by clicking here or on the image below:

First of all, the students would be thrilled to see on the little globe in the main page that their work has been seen by people from different countries. If you could even send them a message on this wallwisher, I’d be very grateful.

Second, and I daresay most importantly, I’d like to invite teachers who may be willing to have this kind of project run in collaboration with our students. As I said, this has been piloted in the first semester, but now it’s time for it to become a tool for interaction instead of a “mere” tool for information sharing. I’ve already created a wiki called http://crossculturalelt.wikispaces.com, and there are some guidelines already on the other wiki, which had been created for teachers: http://crossculturalelt-teachers.wikispaces.com/

If anyone is interested in joining, please let me know by comments, tweets, or even by filling out this form. We have run the project with student from their very first semester studying English to students preparing to a CAE exam. All students from all levels are welcome.

Hidden gems – The blogosphere revisited

A while ago, Darren wrote a post claiming that theres a vast pool of human knowledge that’s been neglected. On his post he asked us to revisit some of the blogs we usually visit and find some #hiddengems (twitter hashtag) to make the topic active again. Even though when I commented I said I was going to do my homework, this doesn’t feel like homework. I can still remember a couple of blogposts from my early days here, and I just need to spot them again. Here goes:

1. On books, publishers & teachers – This is a post by Gavin Dudeney and he puts forth some interesting ideas regarding, well, books and publishers. I’ve already had the chance to talk to some people about such ideas, and most seem to find them quite sound. I wonder whether publishing houses think the same…

2. None for the teacher, none for the students? – Jim Burke talks about his experience with blogs and using blogs with students. There’s also a file to download with some guidelines so you can do the same thing with your students.

3. Thoughts on assessment 1: a response – Greg Thompson writes about rethinking school and other educational matters on his blog. His blog posts are always thought-provoking and insightful. This piece is one I like for two reasons: his sound ideas and arguments, and also because this was the first post written in response to one of my posts. It certainly was responsible for truly making me feel part of the blogosphere. I don’t think I ever got to thank Greg properly, so here it is! I hope he’s still following my blog.

4. Highly qualified teachers: who’s paying for it? – I really enjoy the personal tone Mary Beth Hertz puts in her blog posts. In this particular piece, she writes about teacher qualification and makes us think about something we all know – teacher’s pay checks. I’ve had the chance to meet many teachers who said they wouldn’t bother improving because they wouldn’t be recognised for their efforts and if they’re not going to be paid more, why should they spend more on qualification… people who have found themselves in any profession will go out of their way to do what it takes to become better professionals. This is what MB has done.

5. Thank you so much! – Nick Jaworski‘s blog has been on my blogroll from the very beginning. This post is a good example of how joining the blogosphere and interacting online can help in one’s growth. If only more people could understand that spending time on blogs and twitter (to name but a few) isn’t a waste of time…

So, these are my #hiddengems. I hope you’ll also benefit from any of these posts.

The local and the “foreigner”

A short while ago there’s been a discussion on the blogosphere related to the treatment given to foreign speakers in detriment to local teachers. I’ve read lots of blog posts in that area and chose not to say anything for myriad reasons. The most important reason is that I haven’t been to any of the conferences that people were talking about. As a matter of fact, it’s been a while since I last could attend a major ELT conference. The last big conference I attended was the national Braz-TESOL in 2006, when I was the Master of Ceremonies together with a very good friend of mine. We had to make sure all was ready for plenary speakers and even our workshop was cut short from a 90-minute hands-on workshop to a 45-minute hands-on (???) talk. But that was not an issue. In that conference, all were treated equally and all parties were open to all (as far as I know, at least). Needless to say, arrangements were made to host foreigners, but nothing particularly special. I had the chance to meet and take pictures with lots of people I’ve always admired in the profession and whose faces I used to replace with book covers, if you know what I mean.

However, I don’t want to discuss that here. What made me think about writing this post was a short period of time I spent with some former teachers of mine this afternoon. Just like I hold some of the people I met in very high esteem, like Scott Thornbury, Penny Ur, Luke Prodromou, and many others I had the chance to meet and briefly talk to, I’ve also always held my own teachers in very high esteem. This afternoon I was in the teachers room when two of these high-school teachers started discussing assessment. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay until the end of the discussion, but it was a lot of fun for me to be there listening to them. Actually, this was the highlight of the afternoon. I really haven’t got the chance to sit and talk to people like H.D. Brown, Jeremy Harmer, Scott Thornbury, Ken Wilson, Luke Prodromou, Luke Meddings, Lindsay Clanfield, Penny Ur and others who are considered the big names of ELT. At least nowadays I have the chance to follow them on twitter and read their blogs, interact a little bit here and there, but because of all this media revolution, I’ve also got to know lots of other people I’d be dying to meet in person and sit and talk to. I could go on and on saying names, as they are the vast majority of my PLN and the ones I’ve learned a lot from whereas the names I mentioned above were the ones I knew (among others) before I joined social media. But what about the other people? What about the ones right next to you? Just like I’ve learned a lot from the people whose names I deliberately (as this truly illustrates the arguments I’ve put forth) chose not to mention, the same seems to happen outside web 2.0.

I’m fortunate enough to work very closely to my primary and secondary school teachers. These are people who have been working in the field for more than 25 years, and even though they haven’t written any methodology books in any of their area, they’ve still got so much to teach us. Many times I’ve sat down next to them on purpose to exchange ideas about teaching. If they had taught me a lot when they were my teachers, you can’t imagine how much more they teach me nowadays. I’ve been thinking a lot about this and the fact that nowadays it’s just so easy to get in touch with people overseas that some people end up overlooking those who are right next to them. There are many people who aren’t on the blogosphere due to lack of time or maybe because they simply don’t feel the need to be here, nor do they feel the need to join twitter. Some people may say they’re passing out on a great opportunity to learn more, but a 2-minute conversation with them will easily show they haven’t stopped in time and keep learning their own way. And the best thing: they’re right there. It’s very easy to talk to them over a cup of coffee.

I’ve already felt like one of those who are “taken for granted” for being a ‘local’. For instance, sometime we take our staff to workshops which take place in Brasília. And sometimes all the presenters do is repeat, to a much simpler extent, what had been discussed over the course of a week during our training sessions. However, this time teachers leave the lecture saying they were impressed and that what was said was particularly clever and that now they’d give it all a try. Well, to be perfectly honest, I guess it’s better that someone can instill this on them. If they need a foreigner to do so, fine by me. And this seems to be true of many different areas. For example, a friend of mine is a wonderful musician. He used to be invited to play in all sorts of festivals in Brasília and nearby cities when he lived in São Paulo. However, as he had lived in Brasília for a long time, he moved back to Brasília. Suddenly, all of those invitations disappeared. When I talked to him, he said he’d heard from music producers that now he was a local musician, and as such, it wasn’t that appealing to invite him. When he moved back to SP, all those invitations magically popped up. Weird, huh?! And this very afternoon, I had a talk with one of my former teachers whose wife is an artisan. She’d been advised to do something outside Brasília as this would help her work locally. Call me naïve, but I guess the idea of the available local versus the foreign expert is slightly more complicated than I thought.

Shall I do a Shelly here? I hope she doesn’t mind…

Challenge: Find a local #hiddengem and share some thoughts on education, teaching, learning and what have you. How much do you think you can learn?

It’s Worth Taking a Look at This Blog – Continuing the movement

I have to say that being mentioned by Jason Renshaw (English Raven) on his 10-blog list for the “It’s Worth Taking a Look at This Blog” movement (shall I call it that???) truly made me feel elated. His blog and all the ones he mentioned are part of my daily reading, which is why I was both surprised and very happy to be on his list.

But what is this all about? Well, to be honest, I couldn’t really put it any better than Jason, so I hope he doesn’t mind my borrowing of his words to explain this:

This is a new and really positive initiative sweeping the ELT blogosphere at the moment. Basically, if someone tags you in their list of 10 recommend teaching blogs, you then come up with your own list of 10 other blogs YOU’D be willing to recommend, paste the logo above into your post, link back to the person/blog that initially tagged you.

I’ve been thinking about which blogs I’d like to recommend on a post – all of the blogs on my blogroll are blogs I recommend, and also the ones on my Google Reader bundle. I guess sometimes I simply add a blog to my RSS reader and forget to add them to the blogroll list. Anyway, after spending a long time having a look at Jason’s list and some others, I thought of coming up with a list of blogs I enjoy reading which are about ELT and that hadn’t been mentioned that often. I found out that was going to be really hard to do, so I took another look at my Google Reader list and these are the blogs I chose to highlight:

1. Karenne Sylvester - kalinagoenglish – For some reason, Karenne’s blog has motivated me to start my own blog and it was through her lists and comments that I discovered many of the bloggers and tweeps I now follow and learn from.
2. Shelly Terrel – Teacher Reboot Camp – Just like Karenne, Shelly is also to blame for my starting this blog and coming back to twitter.
3. Sean Banville – Sean Banville’s blog – Sean is the place to go if you’re looking for a nice read, and definitely the place to go if you’re looking for any kind of lesson you want. All of his blogs are great. I really wonder how he finds the time to do all that.
4. Jim Burke – The English Teacher’s Companion – What can I say… I really enjoy his style and he’s alsways got something interesting to say.
5. Teacher Training Unplugged – It’s no surprise to anyone who reads this blog that I’m a Dogme-ist. I thought going with Luke’s and/or Scott’s blogs would just be too obvious.
6. Vicki Hollett – Learning to speak ‘Merican – I first visited Vicki’s blog because of the her posts on the differences between American and British English. I then realised how much I was missing out for not visiting it sooner.
7. Nick Jaworski – Turkish TEFL – I started following Nick’s blog a while ago. I really like it that he speaks his mind and also soundly supports his views. Lots of interesting things there as well.
8. Susi Pucci – Making Connections – I first visited her blog after a comment she made here and never stopped reading her stuff.
9. Ms. Flecha – My Life Untranslated – Another blog I’ve only recently found out about due to Twitter. I haven’t got a lot to say but I’ve enjoyed all posts I’ve read so far.
10. Jeffrey Hill – The English Blog – Lots and lots of ideas to adapt and use in the classroom.

This has been a nice experience and I found out I’ve been following way too many good blogs to come up wit a list of only ten. It’s taken me a long while to come up with this list, but I hope you also enjoy the blogs I mentioned. This is in no way a comprehensive list.

If you’ve been nominated anywhere, keep the ball rolling. I’ve started following many interesting people on Twitter because of #teachertuesday and #followfriday, so I’m curious to see where this project is headed. I’ll ‘plagiarise’ Jason again to explain the next steps (Jason, if you ever come to Brasília I’ll buy you a beer for having done that. Deal?):

If you are tagged by somebody as part of the project, here’s what you should do next:

1) Insert the picture above into your blog with a link back to the blog that nominated you;
2) Compile a list of ten blogs you feel are worth reading and;
3) Tell the bloggers you have nominated that you have tagged them.