Random Quote
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
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
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
This may be the most interesting blog theme I've ever seen. http://eflgeek.com/index.php Definitely in my top 5 at least.
---- Steve Dembo
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
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
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
---- Robert Copeland
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
---- John Ciardi
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Presentations Textbooks
The past couple of semesters my university has switched our program focus from 4 skills to presentation skills. In this time I’ve used a couple of textbooks aimed at teaching presentation skills to non-native speakers. While no textbook is perfect I’ve noticed that none of the books I’ve looked at teach anything about using note cards when presenting. This seems to me to be a glaring omission.
Using note cards (or the notes field in PowerPoint) is essential to giving an effective presentation especially for non-native speakers. When they don’t do this one of two things happens. First they will bring a script and just read from it, despite being told not to read. Second they’ll memorize the entire speech, but then forget it and spend their time looking at the ceiling while trying to remember.
I have prepared a couple of lessons around the principles including a sample presentation and note cards for students too look at and will be testing them out this coming week. But really I fail to see why this is not included in commercial textbooks. Students can have the best organization, transitions and visuals, but if do not use note cards they will end up having no body language or eye contact due to the negative effects of reading and memorization. The result is a boring, forgetful and wasted presentation.
I don’t teach, nor allow, PowerPoint with my lower level students but with intermediate and above I do teach it. It’s more about teaching them what not to do – i.e. flashy transitions, multiple fonts, multiple styles, poor contrast etcetera. One thing that every presenter should be using is presenter view. This allows you to see the current slide, upcoming slides and the notes field all on one space – on your laptop screen while on the projector the audience sees the regular presentation view.
here is a screenshot (click for full size):
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Oct 31, 2009 at 10:02 AM
Teaching | teaching_application |
|
6 Things About Multiple Intelligences
Yesterday on twitter I saw a tweet by @cotterhue that directed me to this post titled Six Things About Multiple Intelligences You Might Not Know. This is definitely worth reading especially if you haven’t thought critically about the theory of multiple intelligences.
In a nutshell here are the six
- Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory is not a theory in the scientific sense.
- The Intelligences do not exist in any measurable way.
- Gardner has substantially more supporters in the world of education than in the world of psychology.
- Gardner is horrified by some of the practical applications of his ideas that he has witnessed in classrooms.
- In a conversation about MI if you hear certain expressions, such as Rinvolucri (and others), run away
- ‘Multiple Intelligences theory’, ‘neuro-linguistic programming’, ‘brain gym’, ‘shamanism’, ‘psychodrama’ and ‘life coaching’ are not related in any way.
Sitting Down
About 10 days ago I hurt my leg exercising and now it’s really painful to walk. I went to see a doctor twice and got some pills and an injection each time. the injection did wonders, but only lasted one day. Basically I was told to do nothing for one week and everything will be fine. However, it’s pretty much impossible for me to do that unless I take a week off of work – good luck on me doing that.
Anyhow the subway ride to school involved a lot of stairs and a long transfer which is stressing my leg enough. On top of that there is a really large hill on campus. My office and classes are of course on the very top. The hill is the real killer for the leg.
Anyhow last week I did my regular stuff, took the subway, walked the hill and taught my classes. The thing is when I teach my classes I never sit down. I’m standing the whole time – I move around, talk to students, gesture wildly and essentially ensure that the class is awake and paying attention. End of class and even more so end of day, I could barely move. It felt like I had a knife twisting in my hip joint.
What does this have to do with teaching you ask? I’m coming to that – this is not a plea for sympathy – really. Anyhow yesterday I had one class and the pain was really bothering me so I decided to sit down and teach the class. I was really uncomfortable with that (though my leg was feeling much better). It didn’t feel natural to teach sitting down.
Again today my leg was really bothering me. I actually took a taxi up the hill to ease the pain. I also decided to try teaching sitting down again figuring maybe I would get used to it. Additionally today I have 6 hours of classes in a row and if there is any day I need to sit down it’s Tuesdays.
I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t sit down and teach. I have no idea how people can sit and teach. I know some teachers at my university do this as I see them in the classroom when I walk by sitting and teaching. But even with a fairly debilitating injury I still couldn’t teach sitting down. I see no advantage to it and it makes me feel lazy, passive and like I’m not doing my job correctly.
I’m sure that if I had a class with only a few students, maybe less than 6, I would sit down to encourage familiarity and build up a good atmosphere. However my classes all have 18-25 students and that’s just not possible.
What’s your stance on sitting in the classroom?
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Sep 22, 2009 at 09:31 PM
Teaching | teaching_application |
|
Swimming as Metaphor for Studying English
“The 400m individual swimming medley has been an Olympic competition since the 1964 Summer Olympics, Tokyo, Japan.”
(Wikipedia online)
A new metaphor
There have been many metaphors describing the difficulties of studying English in Japan over the years: studying English is like learning to ride a bicycle; like learning to play a musical instrument; or like learning how to cook. In various ways, these metaphors all highlighted the need for practice, perseverance and patience. One old adage went, “Imagine being taught, in explicit details, how to play the flute but never actually touching it” or “Imagine being allowed to touch the flute and practice the fingering, but never actually blowing into it.” This picture was painted to argue that learners must use English in order to improve at English. Now, a new swimming metaphor offers an almost perfect parallel analogy of what it is like for Japanese to try to learn English in the Japanese context: a context where the educational system handicaps learners way beyond anything that would be advocated or even tolerated in sports, but is completely accepted as the norm in our junior and senior high school English classes.
Can you imagine an individual medley swimmer who has to swim the four different strokes in a competition, but never practices one or two of those strokes prior to the event? Imagine that they worked very hard on the breaststroke and the backstroke but never practiced the butterfly stroke, the crawl, or even making turns at the end of each length. It defies common sense and almost totally handicaps the swimmer’s chance of success when the time comes for them to perform. It goes without saying that if one wishes to compete in the individual swimming medley, and not feel like a complete failure, then you must practice all four strokes, the start, the turns and some overall mental “image” training tied to confidence and success. Obviously, the same can be said for studying English, and the large number of students who feel like failures at English, those who are not prepared when the time comes to perform, are simply victims of a national self-imposed handicap that is both unnecessary and without reason.
Read the rest of this post
Steven Herder inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Sep 10, 2009 at 06:38 AM
Teaching | Guest Author |
|
Life English
This semester I’m teaching a course titled “Life English”. No course goals, guidelines or information was given only the title and that it’s two hours once a week. A couple of weeks ago on facebook I posted a status update something along the lines of “Life English, whose life? my life, your life, a transgender lesbian sadomasochists life, a preachers life, a billionaire retirees life? throw a dog a bone”
To some extent I still feel that way, but I did a level assessment this past week and also got a couple of ideas from the students of what they want from the course. Hopefully it goes a little better. In any case I’m going to focus on language skills that get used in real life, rather than on textbook produced stuff.
This weeks lesson is based on a Breaking News English lesson Facial Expressions are not Universal I’m not using only the BNE handout, but rather using it as a springboard to focus on non-verbal communication. I’ve created additional handouts that focus on interpreting facial expressions, smilies, and internet acronyms.
The greater focus of the lesson is on the last two as I feel that these are potentially the most useful for students living in Korea who wish to use the internet to exercise their language skills. Joining, or lurking in, English internet communities it is very useful to know what the various smilies mean especially since English smilies and Korean smilies are different – I’m referring to text based smilies and not graphical.
For those interested in chatting via twitter, msn, or other chat rooms it’s also important to understand what all the internet acronyms mean. I did some reasearch and found a great list that is actually to help parents know what their kids are typing on the computer. I took about 20 of these and turned it into an exercise. I’m sure students will like to know what b4n or iwkwm means when they start chatting with native speakers.
The MPAA is Freaking Insane!
Ars Technica reports that MPAA: teachers should videotape monitors, not rip DVDs.
Basically the MPAA thinks that having teachers record a video using a camcorder videoing a tv is a good way to not pirate. Isnt’ this essentially the same thing as a cam version of a current release movie? They suck, so why would a teacher show an inferior product in the classroom that requires more work to produce than just ripping a clip from a DVD.
Watch the video below for an example of the whole convoluted mess.
MPAA shows how to videorecord a TV set from timothy vollmer on Vimeo.
After how many years the MPAA and RIAA still haven’t gotten it and now they’re going after underfunded schools with overworked teachers. Unbelievable.
7 Open Source E-Learning Applications
Web Resources Depot posted up a list of 7 Open Source E-Learning Applications. Other than Moodle, Claroline and Sakai were the only two I’ve heard of before.
Do any readers have experience using any of these e-learning platforms? I’ve been using Moodle since around version 1.3. It’s been great, but in the last while I’ve started to think that it’s a little bloated and that the community support pretty much stinks. Support at Moodle used to be top notch but over the past couple of years as Moodle has grown.
I’m curious what others think of Moodle or the other platforms listed – What do you see as the pros and cons of each? Also if you like something other than Moodle, do you know if there is a migration script available so that it would be easy to migrate moodle courses over to another system?
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Apr 24, 2009 at 07:26 AM
Teaching | Moodle | teaching_application |
|
Inspiration for a song
Today my students did their first graded presentations for my presentation skills class. The students in this class are all native like or near native speakers. The assignment was a 5 minute presentation which the student could choose a topic from a list of about 30.
Several students did the topic “having a hobby is good for my life”. Yeah I know it’s a bit of a fluff topic, but the point is to get students talking and also not to focus on content so much as their presentation – body language, eye contact, organization etcetera..
One student wrote about how he enjoys composing songs. He took 30 seconds of his alloted time to sing part of a song that he wrote two weeks ago after my class on overcoming fear in presentations. The song title is “The Embrace” and is about the need to embrace fear. Anyhow, it was rather interesting to find out that one of my lessons inspired a song.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Apr 3, 2009 at 03:51 PM
Random_Ramblings | Teaching |
|
Moodle Grading
I’m in the midst of planning for the upcoming spring semester starting on Monday, though I actually start on Tuesday since Mondays are my day off. While setting up my homework for the first week in moodle I discovered that there is a new rating option.
Average (default)The mean of all the ratings given to posts in that forum. This is especially useful with peer grading when there are a lot of ratings being made.
I won’t be using this for the first homework, but have definite uses for it in the future. I love peer evaluation, but dislike aggregating all the scores. This will make things so much easier for me in the future.
I’m not sure if this has been in Moodle for a while or is new. I just upgraded last week, but haven’t really changed the way I grade things for a long time so it’s possible this has been around. Anyhow if it’s new to you, check it out.
Foreign(ers’) in Seoul?
If you have lived in South Korea for more than a few years you will have noticed that the country and the Seoul metro region in particular are becoming increasingly diverse. If you only just arrived in Seoul and don’t think it’s very diverse, just ask someone who has been here a few years. This just doesn’t mean more tourists, but also large numbers of migrant workers, Korean-Chinese, marriage migrants, international students and, of course, English teachers. Let’s be clear, Seoul is hardly a New York, Toronto, London, Dubai or Singapore, but its increasing diversity is making a big difference. From a wider range of restaurants, public festivals celebrating different cultural backgrounds, new churches and mosques, a wider range of languages to be heard and, of course, the different sorts of people you will meet.
Read the rest of this post
Francis Collins inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Feb 9, 2009 at 04:59 PM
Random_Ramblings | Teaching | Guest Author |
|
TEFL authors who blog
Alex Case has posted an entry titled: Clash of the TEFL heavyweight bloggers where he links to four published authors who also blog; unfortunately the last two are unfamiliar to me.
Alex then goes on:
So, where does that leave us humble English teachers who blog and are just starting to enjoy being a medium-sized fish in a tiny pond? Is it all over now the big boys are moving in?? Will we have to get a real job and start publishing real books to start getting noticed???
Well I’ve been blogging for 5 years come the End of January so I haven’t exactly just started - however when I did first start there were less than 20 EFL/ESL bloggers that I could find. In that time the ESL/EFL blogging field has grown enormously. At one point for about 2.5 years my blog was the #1 search result in google for a number of terms as well has having a page rank of 7. Unfortunately my ranking at search results have gone down. I blame that on my reduced blogging frequency and the rapid growth of high quality teacher bloggers out there.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Jan 1, 2009 at 02:22 PM
Random_Ramblings | Teaching | useful_web_sites |
|
How to Make Google Your English Teacher
Google is a very popular search engine, but did you know that it could also serve as a Tutor?
Google is a very popular search engine, but did you know that it could also serve as a Tutor? Click here to download a 5-page guide, or scroll down to preview a few tips from the guide itself.
Enjoy…
Read the rest of this post
englishcafe inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Dec 16, 2008 at 03:59 AM
About_Language | Teaching | teaching_application | useful_web_sites |
|
Children’s Education Subsidized
Starting next month my childrens education is going to be subsidized by my employer. As far as I know this is the first time a university has provided funding for foreign employees’ children’s education. The support is not nearly enough to pay for a foreign school, but it will nicely cover daycare expenses for my son.
My daughter doesn’t receive any money but that’s because elementary school is free, though if I were to stick around through middle & highschool that is subsidized as well. It also appears that university is full covered for four years - I can’t see myself being in Korea that long so that’s not an issue.
Anyhow it’s nice to see the suppport.
ESL Stand-up Comedy
Brian Aylward is a comedian who performs at clubs around Asia.
the first 2-3 minutes is really funny - watch the video.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Nov 13, 2008 at 07:57 PM
Random_Ramblings | Video | Teaching |
|
Book Review: Moodle 1.9
A while back I was approached by Packt Publishing to review Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development: A complete guide to successful learning using Moodle 1.9, by William H. Rice IV. I was approached to review this book due to my semi-regular blogging about Moodle as well as my extensive experience using it as a teacher of English as a Second Language.
Moodle 1.9 E-learning Course Development is a book that achieves its goal of being a complete guide to successful learning with Moodle. This book will definitely be useful for newbies as well as experienced users such as myself. Rice takes the reader through a tour of Moodle in the first chapter that serves as an excellent summary of its capabilities as well as a roadmap for the rest of the book. A friend who is a newbie to Moodle visited my house and read the first third of the book and expressed how helpful it was just reading it. He was very impressed and bought the book.
I would highly recommend any teacher or site administrator new to Moodle to read this book.To get the maximum benefit out of this book it would be best for the reader to have access to a Moodle installation, preferably as an administrator. However, if you only have teacher access this book will still be highly useful. For those curious about what Moodle has to offer but without access to a Moodle site this book will provide you with the insight you are looking for to decide if Moodle will meet your needs.
Read the rest of this post
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Nov 5, 2008 at 10:37 AM
Teaching | Moodle | Book_Gigilo | Book Reviews |
|
EFL Classroom 2.0 blog
David Deublebeis is now blogging at the EFL Classroom 2.0 blog. I strongly recommend that you subscribe to his feed - I expect great things from this blog.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Oct 29, 2008 at 02:26 PM
Teaching | useful_web_sites |
|
Quality Education, Qualified Teachers
Phil Owen, KOTESOL President, wrote the following peice for the Korea Times. I’ve copied the entire piece here as I feel it is worth it. ATTENTION Phil: if you want to guest author here, feel free to do so.
There is a general assumption that one of the problems with English education in Korea is the poor quality of English teachers. Is this true? How do we decide who is a ``quality teacher?’’ How do we define ``qualified?’‘
article continues in the extended entry.
Read the rest of this post
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Oct 18, 2008 at 09:11 AM
Teaching | ESL_in_the_News | teaching_application |
|
Web 2.0
My latest article for the Korea Herald is now out and it is on web 2.0 in the classroom. Read it at the Korea Herald site or look in the extended entry.
Hope you find it useful. I know there are many many more sites that could be introduced but due to space constraints I had to limit myself.
My Last Column
This is also my final column for the Korea Herald. I notified my editor when I submited this lasted column. I’m just too busy to continue writing this column. I’ll be watching the Expat Living section to see who my replacement is and I’m sure I’ll be linking to it in the future.
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.
Read the rest of this post
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Sep 4, 2008 at 07:59 PM
Teaching | KH Column | useful_web_sites |
|
100 pushups
Today is the first day of the second semester, so back to work for me. The web design business is doing pretty well, since I’ve got about 3 clients backed up.
Today will be a quick meet the students and a 4 minute level test to see how many students I can kick out of my class and move them to the advanced class. Real lessons will start from day 2 this week. In other news, my university finally got around to giving us a raise after three years, so morale is much improved.
Finally, I’ve decided to take the 100 pushup challenge. I took the strength test on Friday and I’m in column three (the most difficult). I did my pushups for day one this morning and will work on day 2, come Wednesday.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Sep 1, 2008 at 07:00 AM
Random_Ramblings | Teaching |
|
