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):

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Oct 31, 2009 at 10:02 AM
Teaching | teaching_application | |

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?

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Sep 22, 2009 at 09:31 PM
Teaching | teaching_application | |

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?

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Apr 24, 2009 at 07:26 AM
Teaching | Moodle | teaching_application | |

The following is reprinted from KOTESOL’s English Connection Magazine with permission:

What is the problem?

I have university classes of around 25 students each, and see them for about two and a half hours a week, a situation similar to many teachers in Korea. Not much time for learning by any standard. We work hard to create a positive English-focused class community in school driven by more than mere external motivation. I believe that many of us to a large degree achieve it. However, what happens when our students leave the classroom? Simply put: life happens- while students certainly aren’t alone outside of the school, they are largely alone in their language learning. Even with the best of intentions, and the best of in-class communities, a focus on English interaction tends to dissipate in the absence of a framework which naturally integrates English into communication (as is done so in the classroom).
My goal for my own classes is simple: double the amount of time they spend each week in an English community. I turn to technological solutions, but not without some hesitance.

What is often wrong with Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)?

Despite writing a tech column, I can think of nothing worse than tech for tech’s sake. Too often it only serves to confuse and further divide teachers and students- an add-on that is tacked on to the program artificially and no more connects students together than more traditional paper-based solutions. Instead of doing regular homework alone they are doing homework online…and still alone. The question is one of whether we can find ways to use technology to make larger English interaction (beyond that with the homework itself) a natural part of students’ weekly cycle.

What can be done?

One solution, but by no means the only one, is to use the Ning social networking platform (ning.com) to replicate your classes online. What is it? The easiest comparison would be to say that Ning is like Facebook or Cyworld, only owned and controlled by the teacher, all for free- a walled garden vs. an open world approach.

Why does it work?

At its core, Ning works because, like other social networking platforms, recreating human interaction is one of its key functions. That this functionality can also be used to facilitate the same sort of group and pair activities we do in our classes is a grand side-effect. Our role then as the teacher it to figure out how to use the various features (blogs, forums, videos, etc.) to place a snowball at the top of the hill and release- letting it accumulate conversations and feedback as it gathers momentum. When students log in they are never alone. They do their homework but just of of the corner of their eyes they can see others in their class working alongside them. Human curiosity leads to peripheral persuasion; they click to see what others are doing, what they are up to, and even just to say hello. We are taking social networking, an activity most of them already spend hours doing for fun, and embracing its potential for near-peer modeling, student-to-student feedback loops and group collaboration.

What is the result?

On a quantifiable level, in my own classes student feedback has improved across the board. More importantly, the level of student output (writing, speech and feedback generation) has increased dramatically- seeming to indicate that given the proper framework English community can succeed outside the classroom walls. What is not quantifiable is the overall better sense of togetherness my classes are experiencing. They are no longer just seeing each other twice a week in an English environment, but also whenever they log onto the network, and that appears to have lead to a much richer development of their second language personas.

Where can I learn more?

Explaining something like Ning is always better done by showing rather than telling. To aid this I’ve put up a large number of screencasts that will walk you through the various steps of creating a Ning network for your classes at joshuawdavies.com/ning, as well as links to my own Ning networks to use as examples. I hope you’ll join me there, as well as on education.ning.com (a site for educators using Ning) to continue this conversation.

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Joshua Davies inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Dec 30, 2008 at 11:46 AM
useful_web_sites | KOTESOL | teaching_application | |

Gord Sellar has a long peice up about recent success he has had in an academic writing class he teaches. It’s a good read so head over there, read it and leave him a comment.

Gord also offers a solid peice of advice as well as the source he got it from for getting to students to understand why we cite and how it enhances writing.

As usual when I point readers to Gords site, I need to point out that Gord doesn’t often write about teaching, but when he does it’s well worth reading so you should subscribe to his site (I don’t post about his posts every time after all) or you’ll be missing out on some gems.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Dec 27, 2008 at 05:36 PM
Learning_Strategies | teaching_application | |

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…

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englishcafe inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Dec 16, 2008 at 03:59 AM
About_Language | Teaching | teaching_application | useful_web_sites | |

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.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Oct 18, 2008 at 09:11 AM
Teaching | ESL_in_the_News | teaching_application | |

My latest article for the Korea Herald is now out and it is on using video in the classroom. Read it at the Korea Herald site or look in the extended entry.

I have previously posted several entries with materials for download on this blog. You can find them below.

• Smallville Pilot
• Smallville - Metamorphosis
• Lost Pilot
• Corner Gas
• Prison Break

There might be more, but I can’t remember everything I’ve written on this blog in the last 4.5 years. If you find these useful, please leave a comment and let me know.

At the bottom of the article I’ve included a reader question - the first on the column, if you can help out, why not leave a comment.

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.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Jul 22, 2008 at 01:43 PM
Teaching | KH Column | teaching_application | Readers_Questions | |

Many teachers either give presentations to faculty, at conferences or teach a presentations skills class - I know I’ve done all of the above. Make a Presentation like Al Gore is a good resource for a summary of what needs to be done.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Jun 20, 2008 at 03:18 PM
useful_web_sites | teaching_application | |

UK teacher posts about how twitter has helped him with his classroom. Not as a classroom application but to help him connect with teachers around the world.

Jonathon writes:

After working pretty much alone for the last three years online, the chance to get an idea of what is going on in MFL classrooms around the world, especially in the UK has been wonderful. Twitter has allowed me this chance by being able to see what interests other people. It’s something like staff-room eavesdropping but hey, we all know how useful that can be.

Thanks to Twitter’s users (in particular Jose Picardo) I came across Animoto which is a great site allowing users to submit music with images to create video. Animoto then does the rest for you, turning it into a half-decent slideshow.

I’m also unfamiliar with animoto, but you can learn more about what Jonathon did with it by reading his post. I’ve also been using twitter for a very short time and have found several interesting resources from the people I follow. About half of the people I follow are EFL teachers and the other half are in web design. Twitter is interesting, but also potentially a waste of time - filter what you read and write is my motto. Anyhow go check out Jonathons post for more information.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday May 2, 2008 at 11:31 AM
Teaching | teaching_application | useful_web_sites | |

Over the mid term exam period I set up a survey in my moodle course for advanced students using the excellent third party module feedback. In the survey I asked students to rate the various activities we had done during the semester as well as a couple of other questions to get a feeling for how the students liked my class. I’ve made a couple of adjustments for the second half of the semester.

What I found most interesting was the responses related to the activities we did during the semester. Students consistently ranked activities I made myself much higher than ones from teacher resource books. I’ve included screenshots (in the extended entry) of the survey results where I’ve highlighted in yellow the activities I did myself.

Do I think this means I make better materials than can purchased commercially? Yes and No. I make better materials for my teaching style and my students. With the materials I develop they are 100% tailored to my class and students. Many of the materials I created are available on this blog if you do a search for them. However with commercial materials they are designed to please everyone and quite often end up being less than excellent but better than okay.

Looking at the survey results makes me want to create more personalized material for my students but the amount of time necessary to make quality materials is alot and thus I am required to use my own material to mostly supplement. Any thoughts or comments? What is your experience with personally created material vs commercial?

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Apr 30, 2008 at 12:29 PM
Teaching | Moodle | teaching_application | |

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.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Apr 29, 2008 at 04:07 PM
Teaching | Lesson_Plans | teaching_application | |

Langwitches shares a powerpoint presentation created by another teacher on why tech is important for teachers.

I wanted to share, but also highlight for my own sake, the following PowerPoint that was created by datruss on Slideshare.net.

I like the point this presentation makes. Teachers can continue to:

  * teach the way educational institutions have taught for the last 100 years
  * ignore new tools that will bring the world to their students
  * tell themselves that materials they have used successfully in the past will continue to engage and challenge digital natives

but they have to realize that they are placing themselves and their students at a disadvantage.

It is not about using the latest and greatest technology tools. It is about the way we think about learning and teaching that is undergoing a revolution.

It is not about using “insert newest technology…” to lecture, visualize or document a lesson, if the lesson stayed the same, No matter when (on a time line) teachers lived and used corresponding technology tools, learning always depended on the way teachers were able to connect with their students’ world and previous knowledge . If the learning outcome stays unchanged from the learning that occurred without the tech tool, then the “new” technology merely is a glorified (and usually more expensive) version of the traditional one used in the past.

We need to shift the focus off the technology and emphasize the way it can affect the teachers’ teaching style and ultimately the students’ learning. IMHO, today’s students’ learning is influenced by multimedia, interactiveness, connecting, communicating, and creating. if technology can allow us to do that, then we can reach our students in a whole new way and on a different level than ever before.

See the slideshow below

| View | Upload your own

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Apr 28, 2008 at 09:45 AM
Teaching | teaching_application | |

This week I tried a relay race with my class and it worked really well. I’ve been reluctant to try this type of activity out as I thought it was lame, but last awhile ago I observed a class where this type of activity was done and students enjoyed it.

For the uninitiated a relay race is where information is pasted on the wall of the classroom or outside the door and one student from each group has to read it run back to their group and tell them what they read. Accuracy and speed are important as the first group to finish without mistakes is the winner.

I changed it a little by doing an audio race. I set my laptop up outside the classroom with some external speakers and ran a 17 second clip on loop. It’s a short conversation that I took out of one of the English Firsthand books. In my opinion this worked better than having information taped on the wall. When reporting the information students were focusing on details, spellling, and grammar. There was a lot of student negotiation over the accuracy of the runners reports.

The relay race has definitely been added to my basket of regularly used activities. If you want to use the audio I did you can download it here.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Apr 11, 2008 at 02:44 PM
teaching_application | |

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.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Mar 4, 2008 at 05:23 PM
Teaching | KH Column | Lesson_Plans | teaching_application | |

Gall is Google Assisted Language Learning and there’s an article about it in the referreed journal Language Learning and Technology. The full text is available and if you want to keep it or print it (with proper pagination) there is also a pdf available.

hat tip to the ELT World forums.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Feb 9, 2008 at 07:41 AM
Public_Service_Announcement | teaching_application | |

This is my second column for the Korea Herald. I took a short post I wrote almost four years ago and expanded it for this column. My original word count for this submission was 600 words and my first draft was a little long at 687 words though I managed to cut it down to 564 words when my word count dropped to 500. To read the final version visit the Korea Herald or to read the longer original version go to the extended entry. I’m sure the second draft is tighter, but in the first draft I get to talk about more things. Korea Herald version with different headline Tools of the EFL Trade - available online now, in print tomorrow morning.

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.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Jan 29, 2008 at 06:40 PM
KH Column | teaching_application | |

Do you remember choose your own adventure books? Now something similar is available one the internet and the potential uses for language teaching are very very obvious. Go read the article at CBC, Neverending story: Protagonize.com pushes the limits of interactive fiction and then visit the Protaganize web site. I just woke up and found this so haven’t had time to explore yet.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Jan 10, 2008 at 05:49 AM
Teaching | teaching_application | useful_web_sites | |

I’ve come to be quite a fan of the one to one lesson. I like that when you teach a “group” of one, it’s easier to adapt the overall content of the class to the student’s needs and interests.  There’s just more flexibility when you don’t have to balance the needs of a dozen learners.

I think EFL Geek himself hit the nail on the head about a possible downside of one to one’s when he commented on my blog that one to one students often expect to set the agenda even though they know nothing about language acquisition.  If a student wants to pay for a class with me and do nothing but chat, and politely resists my efforts to hover around some useful language or structure by going off topic all the time, I can live with that.  But it’s no good when they resist my direction and then feel disappointed at a lack of progress.  Fortunately, I think my ability to trick people into learning – and to politely but authoritatively direct the lesson - is increasing with practice. 

I have to admit though that the main reason I like one to ones is that they make it possible to interact with people who I would just never cross paths with in my regular life.

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Katie inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Aug 6, 2007 at 06:26 AM
Teaching | teaching_application | Guest Author | |

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.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Jul 4, 2007 at 12:10 PM
Teaching | Lesson_Plans | teaching_application | |