Total words: 124

The 31 day comment challenge is something that I’ve been meaning to write about and participate in since it started but I’m already 7 days behind. I first heard about it from Langwitches where there are already numerous posts about the activity.

The challenge is to essentially widen the range of comments and discussion in the edublogger arena - one of the keys to keeping your posts known is to tag them for technocrati with comment08 or include a link to that feed in your entry. There is also a list of participants on the wiki which will be a great source to find new blogs to follow - I’ll be adding my blog there and trying to participate as much as possible.

Total words: 223

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.

Total words: 304

Secrets of Those that Do the TEFL Hiring is both a thread on the ELT World forums and a post on the ELT World blog summarizing the thread. This is an informative read with perspectives from various people involved in hiring from around the globe.

I’ve been going to ELT World for a while now. The forums have a good mix of people from various countries and it doesn’t seem to be quite so vitriolic as Dave’s Cafe. There is also a little more professional talk, though that is not all - there’s still the chatty threads and fun things that one would expect from a message board.

The downside is that there are not enough regular posters. there are 3-5 new posts/threads a day in the busiest forums, but other forums haven’t seen a post since I started there. I really think that this forum has potential to be an excellent community and for ELT instructors world wide. However the admin has tried to copy Dave’s cafe by have forums for each specific country or region when there isn’t the user base to support this. If there were only 2-3 forums to start the users that are there would be more concentrated resulting in more new threads in the area of high traffic. This would draw in more users and eventually there would be a large enough user base to diversify and add more forums.

Despite the lack of focus, I am an active member there and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. If you are looking for a community with potential for growth and that is not over moderated and filled with negativity like Dave’s Cafe then I suggest you head over to the ELT World Forums and give them a boost. Also check out the affiliated blog.

Total words: 299

For the past few months I haven’t been commenting on or linking to other blogs very much. I’m not sure why, but instead of saving posts in order to comment/link to them later I’m going to try and get on it right away.

First off, Larry Ferlazzo has been doing some serious high quality ELT blogging for some time now and there are so many posts that i have failed to comment on or link to it’s a shame. Be sure to check out his archives. I submitted an entry to the Fourth ELL/ESL/EFL Carnival that Larry posted including this comment EFL Geek from Korea, who might be the “dean” of ESL/EFL bloggers. I don’t know about that, but I like the sound of it. Thanks Larry. Another recent entry is The Best Websites for Learning English Pronunciation

The Marmot (47 comments and counting) also links to an op/ed piece in the Korea times - Foreign Teachers need to be given a Stake in the System. I agree with the basic premise that foreign instructors need to be given a stake in the system, but the author shoots himself in the foot when he writes:

Candidates should be selected from the top 50 universities of English-speaking nations with a demonstrated ability to deliver knowledge in a confident, meticulous, and courteous manner.

The author has a B.A. in Sociology and an M.A. in Asian Studies, how does that qualify one to be a language teacher? Sure it meets the visa qualifications, but I would take a teacher with education and linguistics degree from an unknown university over a teacher with an unrelated degree from Harvard.

The Marmot (9 comments and counting) also links to an article stating that SMOE will send foreign instructors to a 2 month training program.

Total words: 142

Nanogong is a third party add-in for moodle that allows students to do audio homework directly inside moodle. If I can get some time this weekend I’ll install this and see if I can use it with my students.

Students can submit their voice and/or text message using a NanoGong recorder and the HTML editor as shown on the right. Once the message is submitted it can be changed or deleted later, provided that the message has not been locked by a teacher or an administrator.

A locked message means it cannot be changed or deleted by the student. The NanoGong activity only allows teachers and administrators to lock a message. For example a teacher may not want the student to change his/her message after the message is graded. Students can revisit the activity to check his grade and comments anytime.

Total words: 342

As they navigate the dating landscape, people often think to themselves, “What if my one true love is in another country? My ideal partner probably doesn’t even speak my language…”

Total words: 39

While doing some research online I came across the journal Reading in a Foreign Language, which is a refereed online journal. This site looks to be very valuable as there are PDFs of every issue back to 1983.

Total words: 241

It seems that Dave’s Cafe is not as popular as it once was.  Katie has the lowdown on the move to ELT World. I remember reading one other blog mentioning the same thing, but can’t find the link now.

In any case it doesn’t appear to have affected the Korea forums.
Katie said:

David is an EFL teacher in Turkey, and started the site as his contribution towards making EFL a better “place” for teachers. In an interview with TEFL News, he mentioned that he makes it a priority not to suspend members because they make unfavorable comments towards companies which pay to advertise on his site. There is an innovative solution to threads that get a bit out of hand – threads which might be closed or deleted elsewhere – and that is the Fight Club. In this corner of the site, those who are so inclined can argue to their hearts’ content. Making top bill at the Fight Club are a thread on Been banned from ESL Cafe and the Emerging story about TEFL International.

While there is a bit of apparently open discussion about the Café (and that is what I elected to focus on in this post), ELT World is not an anti-Café or anything like that. There is genuine discussion going on about a variety of topics, most of which have nothing to do with other EFL sites and much to do with teaching English

Total words: 64

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.

Total words: 326

In January I talked briefly about bubbleply. I am now using it after having rediscovered it. This semester I am teaching a course titled “Teaching English through the Internet” to English Education Majors. I originally thought the course was going to be internet oriented and general skills but just before the semester started found out that it was for the English Education department. I have since taken a new approach on my course.

I now introduce various web sites and resources to the students and have them use the sites. This is then followed up by a brief discussion about how they could be used in language education as well as some of the pedegogy behind my suggestions or usage. I have told the students that many of the sites introduced in the class will be oriented to adults since they are adults and I do not (re: never) teach children. I am aware that most of my students, teachers in training, will be teaching in public schools so I do try to find sites that can be used at all levels from grade school up to high school.

Anyhow on Wednesdays class this coming week we will be looking at bubblely which I feel has many different potential approaches in the classroom. Bubbleply takes a youtube video and allows you to add a variety of speech, thought, narration, or subtitle bubbles to it. clearly this gives the teacher opportunites to annotate a video, add English subtitles to aid in listening comprehension, add thought bubbles for comedy or even have students find a video of their own to bubblply for task based English use. My students will be finding their own youtube video to bubbleply and then adding it to their class blogs.

Enjoy the sample I prepared for them to watch on Wedesday. You can watch the original YouTube video here or just turn off the bubbles on the bubbleply player if you want.