Blog & Teach

This long week has been really fruitful. Our colleagues and I have been dealing with potential issues that might raise difficulties in our lessons.

One the most recurring issues is the difficulties learners have when they must speak in public, or, in other words, when they must speak in English.

Spoken English is the big issue, we could say. Historically, most teaching approaches were based on the written language, bot reading skills and grammar acquisition were paramount if learners were supposed to “succeed” in a language course. Of course, that did not account for succeeding with the use of the language they learnt when they had to use it in real-life situations. There are many adults who have undergone years of English lessons and who are not able to ask for help in English if they get lost in the middle of Seattle. This approach given in ELT classrooms has proved to be a reason why this happens.

With time, new generations of teachers have come to the classrooms, and many of them have given a different approach to lessons: learning through songs, TPR, role-play activities… Listening skills have been enhanced widely without neglecting reading and writing skills. But speaking is still down there… why?

Most of the times we try to encourage our students to speak by asking questions in class, or asking them to work in pairs and role-play. If they are not confident, progress will be scarce.

We might want to step further into more compelling drills that place students in a situation where they must use spoken English: Sketches to be played in front of the class, with dialogues created either by teacher or students; short talks given by students on topics assigned by the teacher; short sketches recorded with a videocamera, either depicting a story or simulating a news broadcast, giving a weather forecast or even explaining a cooking recipe!

Accuracy is important, style is also desirable, but the ability to communicate meaningfully is the real target!!

photo credit: Wayne Large via photopin cc

It’s been a busy week in the course. We’ve talked about social bookmarking, listening skills and CALL. Thats’s a lot of food for thought!

photo credit: Frederick Md Publicity via photopin cc

Nowadays, knowledge in the Internet is being spread and disseminated via different channels (blogs, professional websites, forums…), but probably the most effective way to share this knowledge is through social bookmarking, which has become a paramount element in this big world of Internet. Users can build their own framework of sources of information out of different types of platform. Pure social bookmarking platforms like delicio.us or diigo let you create lists of favourite sites and store these lists in a referring library. The big issue is called tagging. Bookmark libraries can become massive lists really hard to manage. Tagging resources with relevant terms related help us search for the sites we need according to our needs (Secondary education, listening, ICT, interactives, edugames…). We only need to type the tags and the site will display those links that contain the tags we requested.

Other ways to share knowledge are sites such as Symbaloo (site where favourites are organised in visual libraries -webmixes- containing links of the same field or topic; Scoop.it is a service where users can build a page with brief posts where they mention a website or a resource, with an image, the link and a description. In most cases Scoop.it provides with a possible descriptive text that can  be edited. Tagging is also paramount when we want to find our “scoops” within the page.

photo credit: Fey Ilyas via photopin cc

This week we have also analysed the approach given to listening and speaking skills through CALL. The issue has moved between the use of speech analysis software, more focused on prosody, phonetics a more scientific approach of the learners pronunciation, and the use of websites whose main goal is to help students improve their listening skills through the comprehension of real English and “lab” recordings. Many websites offer scores of recordings covering different subjects and levels. Improving our listening skills through songs is also extremely relevant, and our old ways with the cassette or CD player have been replaced by websites where we can read the transcript as we watch/listen to the song and even do fill-in-the-gap exercises (Lyrics training, Batlyrics).

We could conclude that all these different approaches make up for the feeling that ICT in language learning is here to stay!

When teachers start to think on their next school year, there are a couple of things that quickly come to their minds: What to do and how to do it.

There are many ways to find how. Nowadays, we can find resources and ideas in a massive list of sources: Doing searches in search engines (google and many other), following tweets related to ELT, or ELT blogs. We can also follow curated sites ELT-related (Through Scoop.it, for example, or delicio.us referitories.

Workshops give us ideas on methodology and innovative approaches… experienced teacher trainers and colleagues provide with lots of fresh ideas on how to achieve our goals and how to do it in a motivating way…

But all these ideas, suggestions, tools and experiences would probably be worthless if we did not know why, where, and when to use them. That cannot be achieved if we don’t know what we want to achieve, what we want our students to learn.

Those so called didactic goals have dramatically evolved along the years. Time ago we had many professionals whose main goal was to ensure that students can take in as much grammar as possible… I suffered that in my childhood French lessons. later on, we moved into reading… we wanted our students to be able to read English texts… big deal! When it came to speaking, many of those students were not able to ask how to get to the nearest tube station in London.

Fortunately, things evolved and teachers began to realise that the only way to say that students succeed in learning a language is when they are able to use it in a communicative way. Most (I repeat… “most”, not “all”) teachers try to elicit our students speaking and listening abilities… and that has become a key element in the goals of today’s ELT.

In order to establish clear outlines about the previously mentioned “WHAT”, once we assume this communicative approach is paramount, we must be able to establish those goals, those objectives that will allow us to set the pace for a proficient achievement in our students’ learning process.

The ABCD model has turned out to be a good example of how to set those objectives as we prepare our schedule for our groups. The guidelines and information we find in Penn State Learning Design Community Hub page give us a clear overview of this approach on the Audience, Behaviour, Condition and Degree elements that make up for the ABCD Objective definition methodology.

We must also consider the adoption of the “Competential” approach used by many other colleagues. It is really valid when it comes to establishing communicative goals, as it sets the objectives that define the skills and abilities a student must achieve when he/she becomes competent in the use of a foreign language. The competential approach could be very well related to the establishment of degrees of linguistic skills by language users as seen in CEFR in Europe or ILR in the U.S.

What, how… interrogative elements for a single answer… our students’ success.

photo credit: Foxtongue via photopin cc

I’ve just started my course at the University of Oregon’s American English Institute. I’m thrilled by the idea of sharing experiences, ideas and feelings with colleagues across the world… be welcome!

I’m sure we’ll all gain a lot out of this professional event!!

2012 is round the corner, and after considering possibilities (time dedication, target hit, availability…), we’ll be moving activity to Scoop it. Blog & Teach will remain a s a blog for reflection on some issues concerning its original purpose (the use of new technologies in the ESL classroom), but most posts regarding new applications and resources will be published at Scoop.it/2-0-tools-and-esl, a site with quicker posts with more accessible resources. There you will find new posts on how to use new technologies in the classroom, especially in our English lessons. We’ll be also posting on new uses of mobile devices and its software, as well as the use of 2.0 applications. Feel welcome to enter and make the best of it!!!

I want to thank you all for your sympathy and your visits… see you in Scoop.it!

This article from la Vanguardia dwells on the permanent issue of using English in the classroom… why should it still be an issue? If we deprive our students of one of the possibilities to increase their imput of English language (In most cases the most relevant), what are our expectations as professionals? I still learn about cases where the teacher constantly uses his/her native language to teach… English. Sometimes they justify themselves by saying many/some/most/a few students do not understand… and they will stay like that if we don’t give them the chance to get in contact with the language!!! And even though those students had those problems of understanding… what about the rest of the class who eventually understands what the teacher is saying. I don’t understand what process these pseudoprofessionals have undergone which does not let them see the plain truth: Oral imput is paramount in the communicative language acquisition process. Of course I say “communicative”! If we only try to teach them how to differenciate past perfect from simple past and how to say all irregular verbs by heart (nice drill to help them find their way in the middle of London), then why bother?

Still so much to do!!!

Here’s a nice strip from Educacontic with a good suggestion for those who would like to know how to put some things together in ICT and ESL:

1- Search the Net
2- Create a Podcast channel
3- Digital narration / Storytelling
4- Create a classroom blog
5- Put all these things together

These are probably some of the most popular ICT tasks and projects that teachers do with their students… it’s really important to consider 5 as a step forward towards a deeper involvement with ICT… this will surely rise as a richer and more engaging project for students… and teachers!

Posting will become scarce in the following weeks… summetime has come!
Here’s my last post, just to show you that we still must work really hard if we want this country of ours to show some reasonable level in the use of English… and still harder if we want it to show some style and good taste!!
Bon estiu!!

Memrise is a new application to improve our vocabulary skills. It has a very clear interface and encourages students to take up the challenge of learning new vocabulary through memorisation as words keep coming out on the screen in a caroussel…

Those words we learn and practise start as seeds…

…and these seed grow as we practise them and show our knowledge…

Students earn points and are ranked in a social network interface… really catchy!! There are different languages available.

We can add new words and mnemotecnic rules to help other people learn the words.

The BBC has a very good website where ELT students can check about their doubts when it comes to understanding grammar issues: Grammar Challenge

Grammar issues appear listed and with just one click you find a page where an ELT specialist gives you a clear explanation on the grammatical point you need to understand, as well as clear written examples. Explanations can be downloaded as mp3 files so that students can listen to them on the go. It is quite suitable for intermediate/advanced students.
There is also a teacher’s section with ideas to get the best of this website in class.