Random Quote
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
---- Pablo Picasso
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
"It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'"
---- Sam Levenson
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
it's probably not a good idea to underestimate my ability to make an ass out of myself—just when I seem to have it under control, I'll turn around and surprise you.
---- Tenser said the Tensor
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
---- John Ciardi
Criminal Record Check Required
Starting December 1st new E2 visa (teaching visa) applicants will be required to submit a criminal record check. See IHT and Korea Timesone two for articles. The news actually came up over the weekend but due to being at the conference and other factors I was unable to blog it until now.
Now I support criminal record checks for teachers, I believe they are required in Canada an the U.S. for local teachers (but could be wrong). The problem here is that this measure is being introduced in a knee-jerk reactionary style due to the recent arrest of Christopher Paul Neil, an alleged pedophile who coincidentally did not have a criminal record and would have still been able to teach in Korea. This law goes into effect five weeks after being enacted. This leaves very little time for any sort of planning. Is this being applied to people renewing their visa or only to new applicants? Will the criminal record be kept on file? Currently degrees are verified everytime one gets a new visa or renews their current visa. Will everyone be required to resubmit criminal record checks each time they renew a visa? clearly this is unacceptable due to cost and red tape involved.
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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Oct 30, 2007 at 12:46 PM
Public_Service_Announcement | Teaching | ESL_in_the_News |
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review of koreanclass101
The EFL Geek described a new KSL class online and I am in the process of giving it a try. Koreanclass101 is growing and currently has ‘newbie lessons’, beginner lessons and a little more (the audioblog seems geared toward stronger Korean ability). The site offers free podcasts and additional paid material. When you sign up, you get a free week of access to the premium material, including transcripts and review.
I am about to game the system. I don’t recommend this, but I will soon sign up with a second email address (doesn’t everyone have a handful of email accounts these days?) for a further week of free access to the full service. My trivial excuses are: 1) I’m doing this for you -helping give you a better account of the services offered, and 2) I was busy that week - it was a bad time to explore the content.
A more serious reason is that I have not yet found my true level in the material offered. Again, I was busy. Perhaps a level test is needed (is ‘level test’ a Konglish term -it rolls naturally off my tongue but I’m not sure). I would even accept a sort of eye test: “Can you read and understand this line?” “How about this line?” There’s not much point in cheating on a level test, after all.
I don’t mind, and probably need, review. I am not a ‘newbie’ but, well, false beginners are always hard to place.
Anyway, the podcasts are clear and stand alone well. The documentation prints out in good format, but I don’t really like PDF files. I would prefer a simple ‘.txt’ file that I could store in my phone’s ebook folder and read while listening on the bus. That would be handier than paper in my situation.
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kwandongbrian inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Oct 30, 2007 at 11:55 AM
About_Language | Podcasting | Guest Author |
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KOTESOL 2007 - day two
On day two of the conference I ended up seeing a lot less presentations. The first presentation that I saw was on Extending Speaking Opportunities in the EFL context. This presentation focused on a Japanese universities use of something similar to an English Club, but with NS facilitators with the meetings set up at lunch time. It was interesting but not something that I would want to try. I saw the same speaker in the next hour talking about Book Report Forms for Graded Readers. This was a much more interesting presentation and I will be taking some of the ideas away and using them this semester with my Advanced class as they are about due to be finished their novels (not graded readers but the principle is still the same) During the discussion time I was asked by the OUP rep for my email and it looks like he’s interested in something I do with graded readers (regular freshmen and moodle). I also talked to him about the possibility of materials review and development - hope that pans out.
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Vygotsky
Kevin has a question about Vygotsky. If you can give him an answer please help out. I want to answer, but for some reason my brain is currently incapable of forming coherent thoughts. No I’m not hungover or drunk - I don’t drink.
KOTESOL 2007 - day one
I just got back from the KOTESOL conference today. I had a good run of presentations with no technical problems as has been this case in years past. However I did talk to one presenter who had loads of trouble so clearly KOTESOL still hasn’t ironed out all thier tech issues yet.
I started off the day by attending an Extensive Reading Colloquim with six speakers. I had time to listen to two of them; Marc Helgelson (who just happens to be one of the best presenters I have ever seen and always enjoy his presentations) and Tracy Waring. One other presenter I am friends with and didn’t need to see his presentation though it would have been worth going to. Hegelson gave an overview of extensive reading (ER) and various approaches to using graded readers in the EFL classroom. This was a good presentation especially if you are new to ER. Even though I know some I came away enriched. I then listened to Tracy Waring talk about how to choose extensive readers for your class. This was an interesting discussion and I especialy liked the chart that he provided that listed all the publishers and the how many books available and at what headword level they are available.
Both ER presentations gave some ideas of how to confirm that students have read the books. These ranged from the traditional book report to drawing a picture of a scene in the book, to how would you change the book if you were the author. Everything was excellent. One thing that I found interesting is that for extensive reading it is best for students to be reading at or below their current ability. I always thought it was best to be on target. But it was suggested that rather than Krashen’s approach of i+1 with extensive reading it should actually be i-1. The best part of the colloquim though were the tons of free samples available. participants were asked several times to go to the books and take copies. I walked away with six more graded readers for my personal library that I make available to students to borrow. I would have gotten more but the majority of the readers were for young learners.
There is more in the extended entry.
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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Oct 27, 2007 at 08:15 PM
Teaching | KOTESOL | Conferences |
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