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?
Holidays are almost over, and a new schoolyear is around the corner. I’ll be ready to post new ideas and thoughts that may help you in your lessons.
Here’s a video for a start: Vicki Davis, a teacher in Georgia, USA, talks about the way she uses new media and new 2.0 applications in her classroom. It’s a short video from Edutopia, really worth watching. She’s not an English teacher, but she shows us the way into using all those tools and applications in our lessons. I would specially point out what she says about teaching these new tools: Sometimes she’s learning from her students as she’s teaching. This give-and-take concept can’t be neglected nowadays when it comes to building new projects. We can’t expect our students to ellicit everything out of inspiration or sheer practice, many things will still be in the teacher’s hands, but we can’t escape the fact that the future of project work in education and knowledge acquisition will be also based upon the process whereby teachers and students share the experience of learning.
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!!
This video from the Escapist portraits the negative effects of a too-game-biased environment. Everybody talks abouts games in education (I do!!!), games in everyday life, serious games, alternate reality games… maybe it’s time to stop and see the drawbacks as well! No need to mention that it is only a warning to over-users!! Games are a wonderful tool for our job!
Ed Tech Ideas has published a very interesting post which we could easily turn into a very good activity for the English classroom.
Starting out with a very nice poster on student bullying in the U.S., some questions are placed, as well as some advice to students… very clear statements that can be easily discussed in class. Try to elicit other ideas and opinions out of the data which appear in the graphic poster. Data are shown really clear and can be easily understood.
The Guardian have produced an interactive timeline showing the most relevant milestones which have arisen in the Middle East uprisings. A good tool to work time in English, and, of course, to foster oral skills… students can describe the “path” followed by events in these countries where people have risen against dictatorships in the last months.
You can navigate through time and see the different relevant events by country and category: People’s protests, political moves, regime changes and international responses.
Use it in class, or pass it to social science teachers who want to use English in their lessons.
I’m sure you all agree that this does not mean we must get rid of all values we’ve been usin for years… effort, ambition to improve… sense of achievement… they will always be relevant in any learning process which wants to be successful
If you think we must use our classrooms to spread the idea of a different approach towards our environment, have a look at this site
The Story of Stuff is basically a 20-minute videoclip where Annie Leonard shows how we are deteriorating our planet. Clear animations and a very good narrative for a cross-curricular approach. The only drawback is the absence of transcript. It shows the process of overuse of our natural resources, their transformation into products and their latter change into pure rubbish which increasingly fills our planet. Specially adequate for advanced/Batxillerat students.
Let’s forget this is an ELT blog for a while. This video from Matt Harding shows us the plain truth: The world is full of good people who are always ready to start dancing when they hear the simple beating of a rythm. Dance is in our souls, and when we take out our inner child and start moving, jumping and swinging to the rythm of music, we take the best of ourselves. This is just a tribute from a simple language teacher, to all those teachers of the most important language across boundaries: Dance
Visit Matt’s webpage Where the hell is Matt? This website offers different possibilities for us teachers. It is worth reading the section “About Matt” after you have watched the video with your students. It tells Matt’s story… really interesting, and easy to read. In the section “Journal”, a blog shows different articles concerning Matt’s project… his travels, his meetings…
Use this website to talk about values, about friendship, peace, music, dance, life… I knew we would end up saying we could use it in our lessons!
