Total words: 159

In class today I did a mingling exercise where students filled in a weekly schedule of events that they wanted to invite someone to. Students invited and then either accepted or rejected the invitation. If they were rejected they were expected to propose an alternative, if accepted then negotiate a time and place with each other. I’ve done this lesson many times before and build up the language before starting.

This time however for the review section instead of just making notes of common errors, I walked around the classroom with my camera and recorded conversations. I then moved the video from my camera to the computer and we watched it as a class where students were encouraged to notice what they did correct and find mistakes if possible.

This went over really well in all three classes that I did it with. I will be doing this again in the future with this and other similar exercises.

Total words: 101

I’m teaching an advanced class yet again. This week one of my lessons from last semester was not very good. I needed to replace the second hour so I decided to add another TV show to the mix. This time I chose Corner Gas - A Canadian sit com that just got picked up by an American network. This show is funny, very unique, and I can guarantee that students have never seen it before.

The handout is in pdf format - Corner Gas Whataphobia. If you want an MSpublisher format send an email and I’ll get it to you.

Total words: 638

Not my greatest piece of writing, but my latest column for the Korea Herald is out. When I started writing this I searched my archives and was surprised to note that I had not previously written about icebreakers. For the record the article has been slightly re-ordered by my editor.

Korea Herald Readers
Welcome. Feel free to comment and leave your thoughts on this weeks column. If you would like to learn more about me visit my bio page. I have also been blogging at this site for 4 years so there are a lot of entries if you care to look through the archives. Some of my favorite or more popular entries are available on the classic entries page.

Total words: 67

curses to both Zenkimchi (for linking to) & A Geek in Korea for this mind bender of a language puzzle. I’m not good at these kind of puzzles so have a negative chance of cracking the code, but am looking forward to the solution so that I can use this with my students come the Spring semester.My guess is:

You can educate but you can’t teach

Total words: 286

I’ve spent a fair amount of time on a lesson utilizing Prison Break’s pilot episode. This lesson is for my English Communication summer course which is mostly 4th year students with a high English proficiency. The course is in a computer lab and the lesson utilizes this, but could easily be adapted for teaching in a regular classroom with a little work.

I’ve been thinking about a lesson that provided instructions for students on how best to use subtitles for language acquisition for some time. I finally have the opportunity to be able to teach it and hope the lesson works. I chose Prison Break as most of my students are familiar with the show, it’s current and very popular, and I also enjoy the show.

To prepare this lesson I ripped the pilot episode from DVD in four sections.  The first clip is 5:13 seconds long and has Korean subtitles, the second clip is 5:55 seconds long with no subtitles. The third clip is 7:17 seconds and has English subtitles. The final clip was ripped 3 times, one with English subs, one with no subs, and one with Korean subs - each being three minutes long. If you have access to the DVD you can easily rip with subtitles using Xilosoft’s DVD Ripper.

My lesson plan takes 3 hours to complete and students will only watch the first 21:20 seconds of the pilot - it’s available here: prison break lesson_plan (MS word) The student handout is available in here:
prison break. handout (PDF)if you would like the original MSpublisher file send me an email and I’ll pass it on.

Two articles of interest related to subtitles and ESL/EFL can be found here and here.

Total words: 412

Two years ago and at a previous university position I wrote about a proposal for a course titled Internet English. Well it looks like I will finally be able to teach a course approaching what this was supposed to be.

This summer, starting June 25, I have been asked to teach a course called English Communication Practice. No guidelines have been set, just that the students are expected to practice English communication. I’ve decided to interpret this loosely as communication is not strictly conversation. Communication is done through various media and modes including oral, written, and recorded (books, radio tv etc..).

Total words: 238

Next week is special listening week for my freshmen classes. During this week we don’t use the textbook but rather do a number of listening exercises and talk about how to improve listening and various resources including podcasts & audio books. I have a couple of activities from the past that I decided to scrap because I wasn’t satisfied with them. This semester I’m replacing them with a 25 minute lesson around a music video by Twisted Sister. 

Total words: 106

This is a lesson for advanced students on Internet Piracy. Using the website mentioned here, I have saved all the youtube videos to my harddrive so I don’t have to worry about lack of internet during class. I will be teaching this class today and hope it goes well. If anyone uses the lesson I would of course like to know how it goes for you.

piracy.pdf (393kb)

Enjoy
update
Too bloody difficult. It seems I’m going to have to adjust my expectations down for this class. They could do the discussions but the documentary (only 10 minutes) was too difficult even with two viewings.

Total words: 225

As mentioned previously I have been planning a lesson using Van Halen’s video Hot for Teacher. I’ve finished the lesson but am unsure of whether to proceed with teaching it. The order of the handout is not in the same order that I would be teaching it. The class is for advanced students and is all male. Feedback appreciated - the hand out is here in pdf format hot_for_teacher.pdf

for the record, this lesson is going to be taught 28 hours from now, quick feedback needed.
Update in the extended entry

Total words: 232

This semester I’m going to be teaching an advanced class of native/near-native speakers. This course is essentially a freshmen English replacement class. One of the assignments I’m going to do is going to utilize youtube videos. I haven’t exactly determined what I want to do, but the basic premise will be to have the students search a video of at least 3 minutes in length and explain to the class why they like the video and how this video is helpful for their English.

I know that this is a very vague assignment, but I’m still flushing out the idea. Actually I just started and wanted to get the idea down in writing. I will of course not restrict videos to youtube, googlevideo or other English video sites will be acceptable. One alternative would be to have the students make their own video and upload it to youtube to share with the world. I’m pretty sure that option would not be mandatory as I am not going to teach how to make a video or provide cameras to the class, but if they want to do that and have the know how, that would be fine with me.

Any reader suggestions are very welcome to help me flush out this idea. I’ve got plenty of time as I’m not planning on doing this assignment until the second half of the semester.