Random Quote
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
"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
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
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
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
---- John Ciardi
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
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
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
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
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
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
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
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
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
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
---- Robert Copeland
Attitude
It is really surprising how much attitude makes a difference in the way a class runs. This semester I have three freshmen classes which I teach the exact same lesson to. In Korea university freshmen English classes are arranged by majors. This means that in a class of 25 students maybe 2-3 students who failed the first time will be from different majors. All other students attend classes together all day. The three majors that I am teaching this semester are Urban Planning, Business, and Music.
In my experience different majors will generally have different levels of English ability. Engineers and Business students tend to be the strongest and students in the arts tend to be the weakest, in particular the fine arts. I’m not sure why this is, but it has proven true over the past 5.5 years of university teaching at 3 different universities. I generally don’t have problems dealing with lower English ability as I can change the pace of the lesson, change the goals of a particular activity etc. The problem lies with attitude - the rest is in the extended entry.
For the most part my classes run very well and I have a high personal satisfaction as well as good student evaluations. Occasionally, I get a poor evaluation, but I can usually pin that on one particular incident in class that I handled poorly or perhaps on one student. The occasional lesson will also run poorly for a number of reasons; new activity, poor presentation, students tired, bad weather, a full moon or some other anomaly.
This semester I’m having no problems with my business and engineering students, nor with my medical sophomores, nor with the advanced class. However the Music students are probably the worst group of students I have ever had the experience to teach in my life. I’ve heard bad things about music students from many teachers in different universities. At my last university the other teachers did not like teaching them but the class of music majors I taught was my favorite that semester. This time around it is a completely different story; I dread going into the classroom.
This has been meeting twice a week for six weeks and still half of the students cannot show up on time. In my other classes I’ve had maybe two to three lates total over the semester. Additionally half of the students don’t bring their materials or even a pen! The past four classes in a row at least one student has come 40 minutes late without books or a pen. When I told these students that they were absent they wondered why since they had come to class. One of the girls even had the nerve to come 40 minutes late without books, sit down and proceed to put on makeup.
To remedy this I’ve tried a number of different things which didn’t work and in retrospect were poor reactions. I lectured the class and sent them home early. I lectured the class, sent them home early with extra homework, I’ve cancelled the rest of the activities and whipped out six pages copied from a grammar book and did that for two hours. I’ve also started having a daily quiz at the beginning of class which if you are late for results in a zero. Any suggestions on how to approach this would be very helpful.
My music students are the most apathetic, unmotivated, demoralizing group you could possibly imagine. In contrast my other classes students are 99% on time and always have their materials and books. In class they are generally excited and very active and ask questions. I look forward to teaching my other classes but am not happy on Tuesdays and Fridays due to music. Fortunately after music class on both days I have the advanced class which is going very well despite their being a broad range of abilities.
There are two students, in the advanced class, who are only lower intermediate but are struggling through their first novels at this point and doing well. I’ve told them for their second novels that I’ll help them choose something much easier. I’m probably going to head to the bookstore and find something targeting first or second year middle school students. The other students are reading and writing interesting blog entries about their books and personal lives. Overall a very satisfying class to teach.
gordsellar wrote 418 words on Wednesday Apr 5, 2006 at 12:04 AM
Man, this REALLY takes me back to my own Music-Majors classes. Oh, the horror. It was a pack of girls with one boy. There were maybe two decent students, one of them the one boy, and the rest were awful. One reason, I think, was that the musicians often have a sense of entitlement: “I’m special, I can sing, and nothing matters more than music, especially not your silly English.” Frankly, I think a lot of the voice majors ought to learn German or Italian instead, as that is the stuff they really need to be able to pronounce properly as singers.
There was another reason that apathy is so powerful among them: the critical mass of apathy. Apathy in one person is just pathetic. In three, it can be dangerous to a class; but in seven or eight, it’s often fatal. Even the most energetic teacher, even the brightest students, even the best of settings cannot break the spell that apathy among the academic losers creates. In that horrific music class I mentioned above, there was one voice-major who, only a year before, in a small, bright, happy group of music majors, excelled and led the class. But among these apathetic kids, she was another lump on the log.
(Losers might sound harsh, by the way, but when I was a music student, I still worked hard at my required electives, even when I wasn’t 100% interested. I was willing to give Shakespeare and Geology and Henry James and World Religions and Sociology a chance, even just for the sake of getting my grades up and getting scholarship money… and the more I did it, the more I was interested in everything and did better in other courses and felt, well, more educated.)
My reaction, in the end, was to start locking the door five minutes into class—people later than that disrupted the class for others and wasted their time and money, as well as missing an important part of the lesson so that they could flouder about for the rest of the hour. I also started kicking people out for not toeing the line: not bringing a book or pen, not performing the exercise when others were, putting on makeup in class, and so on. It didn’t work, except in the indirect way that other students got to hearing about me as the guy who makes people learn but at the cost of having to try damned hard. Which in itself is not a bad thing.
Sean. wrote 84 words on Wednesday Apr 5, 2006 at 06:48 AM
Gord I was toying with the idea of locking the door and based on your “success” I’ll probably start that. This Friday is my last real class for two weeks since I have mid-terms coming. one lesson is the written mid-term and the oral exams take three lessons.
I’m hoping to have a fresh start after mid-terms and will suggest to the class that we start fresh after the exams. I’m not sure that they will care, but I figure it’s worth a try.
gordsellar wrote 275 words on Wednesday Apr 5, 2006 at 09:06 AM
Wait, is it toeing or towing the line? I never quite figured that one out.
Locking the door is one solution. Assigning workbook homework and making completion a prerequisite for attendance is another. But frankly, I think in the end what got me through was just remembering that, yeah, this is a crappy group of students who don’t even belong in a University, let alone in a college English course; then, I started just treating them like college students, and hit them where it really hurt: the grade.
Half that class deservedly failed, and only one student got above a B (and I think only three or four were above C). When they whined about their midterms, I told them that I was grading them fairly, and in fair comparison to the other classes I had that semester, they were hands down the worst in attitude, participation, attendance, and every other measure. I gave them opportunities thereafter to try, and they didn’t take them. The final exams were not far different from the midterms, with one exception: a couple of girls ended up speaking quite well on the final exam. When I asked them why the fact they could speak English decently was such a shock to me at the end of semester, they replied, “Well, I couldn’t speak English in front of them.”
Which has got to be one of the most profound arguments against the idea that levelling can be effectively done while keeping students with their department major peers. (Which, anyway, is so closed-world, hobbled, and contrary to the idea of a liberal education which is so central to undegraduate studies. *sigh*)
Brig wrote 265 words on Wednesday Apr 5, 2006 at 05:54 PM
Taught in a uni for a couple of years in Korea. Brings back many memories.
I think maybe the music students have to do English and may have no motivation? Although, it is important to you, maybe have a little more empathy for them - they see no need for English in their lives, which is OK they are adults it is their choice - don’t take it personally. My only issue was if they interrupted other students’ learning.
When you are lecturing them remember , they may not understand what you are saying. It is important not to lose your temper and not expect everyone to be thrilled about learning English.
Forget “Dead Poet’s Society” stay positive and focus on the students that are interested. Koreans do not retain respect for you if you lose your emotional control.
These students may respond well to teaching English through song . eg Grammar Raps ( Publisher scholastic) Jazz Chants by Carolyn Graham and Grammar with Song - photocopiable activities for Elem to Int by Cambride University Press. Music students will love it !!! Get them singing, standing up and rapping , get rythm sticks etc. Koreans love singing - the only problem is they cannot be served alcohol in class, to remove their speaking inhibitions. Rememeber lots of pair work , inofrmation gap activities etc - it is a more secure environment to communicate. Make sure there is a lot of humour - it relaxes everyone.
Hope something here helps ! Good luck !
I allowed a speaking test to be an original song in English.
gordsellar wrote 617 words on Wednesday Apr 5, 2006 at 06:41 PM
Brig,
That’s all well and good, and maybe it’ll work for the EFL Geek’s current class. But the class I was talking about, which by the way was at my previous school, behaved ridiculously and they all knew it. They smirked at one anothers’ behaviour sometimes.
It wasn’t as if I expected the world: I expected students who would participate in exercises that I spent a lot of time working on and preparing, and to which most of my other classes responded pretty well. And I wasn’t the only one: a lot of other professors reported the same problems at the same uni.
Part of the problem was that inhibitions multiply when people are forced to do language study with the same people they study everything else with. They didn’t want to muck up a sentence, just as they didn’t want to muck up an aria. On top of that, the bulk of their language education experience had the sole effect of intimidating them and making them afraid to speak at all.
Most of the time, the bar was lowered so far that I felt it was even unfair to students in other departments, but the music kids often failed even to bother to try for that level of schievement. Worse, they mostly waltzed into the classroom with this very smarmy attitude that was much less, “I don’t need English,” but more, “This English crap is beneath me and I’m going to make this class as painful as possible.” I mean, there were people who were refusing to say even “Here” in English during attendance, or to say “Hello,” in English. Pair work and gaps and all I tried, but when a class has decided “F*ck this,” there’s something nothing for it. And sometimes classes do decide it here, even with a good teacher. (Which is what my other 6 out of 7 classes categorized me as according to their feedback that semester, for what it’s worth.)
Some people think that University teaching is a joke here. And at some Universities it may be… hell, in fact, sometimes it is; but the more that professors simply settle for that, the bigger the disservice they do to not only their students but to the quality of education here in general. I, for one, can’t see how singing an English pop song is a valid exam for an English Conversation course, since, ahem, it in involves no actual conversation. It’sd a substitute, and the deeper message it sends isn’t, “You can do this,” but instead, “I know you can’t do this, so I’m going to let you off easy by letting you memorize a song and sing it for me.” Not that singing a pop song in a foreign language is easy, actually, but it’s just not a demonstration of acquisition of the skills of my class, which were to be able to better understand and produce rudimentary English sentences interactively with another person.
I agree that it’d be better if the course wasn’t required for all students; but since it is, what good does it do them to contribute to the clamour of voices telling them they cannot succeed in speaking even rudimentary English when, in fact, with just a wee bit of effort, they can? This isn’t Dead Poets’ Society, it’s just a case of, “Look, try and you’ll be shocked that it’s actually more possible than you thought.” And as for understanding that they couldn’t understand my lectures—I actually lectured them about their behaviour in Korean. Which goes to show you that with a little effort, it is possible.
Nothing personal, Brig, and I’m not trying to be hoity-toity about it, but I just vehemently disagree.
Sean. wrote 191 words on Wednesday Apr 5, 2006 at 06:57 PM
Brigs,
I have done most of what you talked about re: music with my students, but they didn’t care. My music students didn’t “love it” they just didn’t care - they are apethetic in general. It’s their attitude not their ability that is bothering me. I’m not sure where the “Dead Poets Society” comment came from - I do not see myself as a Keating or even a great teacher. I see myself as a good teacher who pushes his students as hard as they can take it - I don’t accept attitude though.
If it’s a case of low language skills then I scale back my expectations regarding language use and production in class, but I still expect a minimum amount of respect and proper behavior on the part of my students.
I agree with Gord and would never use singing a song as a test of English. That’s just testing memorization and not communicative competence in any way. Anyhow, if I don’t see improvement soon I will be applying for permission to not curve this class and will give the majority of the students Ds with a few Cs.
Nathan wrote 28 words on Wednesday Apr 5, 2006 at 07:51 PM
And I thought my music majors were bad! I think Gord Sellar’s advice is quite good, although of course I’ve never encountered these problems at the university level.
Tim wrote 967 words on Wednesday Apr 5, 2006 at 08:07 PM
I had a Multimedia class like that. I used a combination of carrot and the stick. The stick was admonishing them a couple of times, and also locking the door after 10 minutes. The carrot was trying to do things that I thought were relevant to them - so I did photoblog activity with them, as well as pop songs with mp3 files that they uploaded to the class homepage. In this connection, my office mate just mentioned that it might be an idea to use as many activities related to music as possible - grammar chants, jazz chants, songs and the like. When in Rome…
I think it is important to change the class content and style if needed - this is difficult if they have bought a course book but it is a farce in educational terms to keep using material that is not motivating or is in some way inappropriate. My philosophy is to teach to the students, and not to the content (ie content must serve students and not vice versa).
Also, when attitude is a problem because there is no intrinsic motivation, educational games and tasks can sometimes be good because they have a built-in goal, so such students are pushed to achieve something by the structure of the activity - but of course these need to be carefully selected so that they are appropriate and not assuming more learning autonomy than is present. I am thinking of more tightly structured games and activities such as information gap activities and competitive games and the like (I prefer to use cooperative activities but sometimes have to be pragmatic and acknowledge the power of competition, especially in Korea!).
Because I had to acknowledge that part of the attitude problem was born of anxiety and an ignorance of how to learn, I also invited in a graduate student to help communicate with them. He helped to motivate the students during group work and translated some important things into Korean for me. This was a desparate measure as I usually try to use as little English in the class as possible.
However, the main thing I did was to completely change the structure of the course. There were two 50 minute classes a week, and I knew that many teachers realize how impossible it is to get any real learning happening in a class like this and just start to “go through the motions” and kind of give up on achieving anything much. This is an understandable reaction, but not one I was willing to have - I kept reminding myself that I am a teacher and I never want to give up on a class.
So I split the class up into two sections - a low level and a medium level class; each group only came once a week. I figured that my students could actually learn more in half the time if the learning atmosphere was better. The medium class was perhaps only about one quarter of the class at first. I warned the students that the low level group were borderline fails and if they didn’t change they might not pass the course. I told the “medium” group that their level was between C and B.
This had an immediate effect on the class. I began getting a change in student behavior - the students actually wanted to join the higher lever class, and some of them would come up to me and ask to move. When I saw that students were making a consistent effort over 1 to 2 weeks, I gradually allowed some students to go up a level. By the end of the semester, the proportion was almost 50%-50%.
I don’t pretend that this completely transformed the students - many of them didn’t change much at all. But a number did, and I think it was because they could see that I really wanted them to learn and wasn’t giving up on them. When I have a really difficult class, my attitude is that if I can reach and be there for even one student, that is a small victory, because that one student should never suffer as a result of his classmates’ apathy.
In the end, I failed one third of the class, which is the highest I have ever failed by a long way, but given the absolute apathy that I encountered at the beginning I actually felt the semester had turned out better than I had expected it to. I didn’t get pleasure out of giving Fs but I also was determined that in this situation at least the apathetic students would get a grade that truly reflected their efforts in class. There is so much pressure in Korea to have no educational standards in grading but I refused to compromise in such a bad situation as this.
I didn’t ask anyone whether I could change the classes from two to one per week - I just did it. I decided that learning values had to come first and not institutional regulations, and I knew that if I needed to I could justify my decisions taken on the grounds of a strong pedagogy. In fact, nobody complained and the issue was never raised with me.
Anyway EFL Geek, every situation is different of course and these ideas may not help but I just thought I would share them just in case, and just to show you that you are not alone in having a class that you dread to enter. I think most teachers have had such a terrible class at least once and IMHO the important thing is not to give up, but to be prepared to make radical changes if they are necessary. Of course I know that this is easier said than done.
gordsellar wrote 106 words on Wednesday Apr 5, 2006 at 09:08 PM
Tim, that sounds like a great idea—the levels thing. There’s a recent post on Creating Passionate Users about how level-up effects might be applicable in training/education.
Creating Passionate Users::What Can We Learn From Game Developers?
I want to add that I wouldn’t even have to do something like what I described where I’m working now. The previous employer, I was told near the end of my stay, was a Uni that took students even if they hadn’t sat (let alone scored well on) the Korean equivalent of the SAT. Which tells you something about the expected (and manifest) quality of many—not all, but many—of the students.
leo wrote 363 words on Thursday Apr 6, 2006 at 02:18 AM
Hi there
I have not read the comments above ,but so eager to leave a comments again , I really enjoyed your way of describing things in Classroom it was so vivid for me
Korea And China are all belonging to Asia ,so I AM wondering that if there are some similarities between these two coutries ,maybe there is one thing in Common that is students are generally Hardworking , are kinda passionate of learning English right ? of course there are bad students everywhere
but coz of the pressure which students are facing in China or Asia ,most of students would learn Engilsh due to the external motivation like getting a high score ,or entering a good college ,I don’t know exactly the situation there in Korea ,but I know that is the case here inChina
I am wondering that if you have ever heard of DWS systemback in States ,you could fine some informations about DWS in my website
http://www.tcsol.com.cn ,that website is blocked here in China I hope you could get access to DWS in Korea
there are two kinds of Motivation ,one is External another is Internal one ,I ALWAYS want my students to take the iniitiative to study ENglish instead of asked to do so ,
for example ,you could teach students that it is not right thing to Break the Red LIght rule when you are walking on the street ,there are two results ,one is students do the right thing coz they were asked to not break the rule , secondly is more about internal motivation
that is to say students do the right things simply coz it is the right thing to do ,like DOn’t talk back to teachers in Classes ,bring the book to the classroom when eflgeek teach
anyway be sure to write back eflgeek , I really would like to hear about your comments on this topic
if you would like to know more about my experiments on DWS( Discipline without Stress ) in China , you could stop by my website , and I have some DWS pics I use in my classroom there
thank you for great post !
Leo
leo wrote 300 words on Thursday Apr 6, 2006 at 02:34 AM
combination of carrot and the stick
Wow People are really talking this issue I love this EFLGEEK i FOUND that most of people would leave really good insighful comments on your site here I REALLY enjoy reading them
anyway TIM I AM so happy that you mentioned The Carrot and stick
But , it is not working everytime when you are relying on this
My reason is this , they are using Rewards system I am against Using any rewards to motive students or punishments to punish students for whateer they did in your classroom
Coz it only make students feel good or bad coz you are trigger their’s External Motivation system ,I am so happy that you also use Level system , but not that kinda of level you are using in your classroom
it will not be working until every students are really internal motivated
I would suggest that using a different kinda of level system which what we called RRS
Raise Responsiblity system
what i HAVE been using in my teaching for last 3 years
and the result is amazing
we have 4 levels instead of 2 ,and we called it social hirechies ,
1 A Anachy level As the name shows ,it means very bad classroom
2 B Bossing ,students would boss each other also very bad classroom
3 C Cooperation ,studens will cooperate with you but the motivation is stillvery low coz it is from External they do what you expect them to do
4 Democracy level
students would do the right thing coz it is the right thing to do
If you are interested to find more about how I use these 4 levels to work here in China you can stop by my website
http://www.tcsol.com.cn
when you can
keep up good job
Leo
Sean. wrote 339 words on Thursday Apr 6, 2006 at 09:14 AM
Tim,
one of my colleagues suggested a similar thing to the leveling you did but slightly different. She suggested that I split the class in four, effectively having classes of six students, and teach each group for only one hour. This way with the smaller group individual students would feel more pressure to perfom and could not hide in the crowd. I’m not sure if I should do this or not for a couple of reasons; one I’m not sure what the department would say if they found out and two I don’t really want to reward the students for bad behaviour by reducing thier class time.
As I mentioned in a previous comment, I think I’m going to try to start the class fresh after the break and implement a few sticks with some carrots to get the behavior I am looking for. One thing I will do is let them know that currently half of the class is geared towards failing with the current maximum grade being a C and let them know that if they start participating they can still get a good grade.
Leo,
I looked at your DWS category and found that it is an acronym meaning Discipline Without Stress/punishments/rewards. But not much information given, though I did see there is a google group. I’m not really into google or yahoo groups but someone might be interested. Anyhow maybe you could write a more detailed explanation with application examples on your blog. I’m sure that would be interesting.
I am aware of the differences between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and that is one of the focuses of many of my lessons. I spend a good portion of my class trying to build learner autonomy and awareness of how to learn a language. However with this class it is clear that I am not getting through and will probably switch to more game-like activities.
RRS (raising responsibility system) sounds very intersting. Can you direct me to some academic articles discussing the effectiveness of this procedure?
leo wrote 283 words on Saturday Apr 8, 2006 at 06:17 AM
if you visited my blog ,and you did !( Thank you ) ,You could find that I titled my blog ” A DWS version of TEFL ......IN China .”
Hi EFL geek ,I did create the Google group , but I am not really using that one ,sorry for that , but thank you for putting the url on your blog ,maybe someone is interested ,tks again
about RRS of course I will put more things in my blog to talk about that in depth when I find my hats, actually RRS is the same with DWS ,but for some reason ,it changed to DWS now
I am wondering one thing , I know you are teaching at Korea as A efl teacher am I right ? sofar I have talked DWS or RRS to many EFL teachers here ,a lot of them are very interested but many of them thought that it is impossible or unnecessary ( I am not using USELESS) to use DWS when you are just a foreign teacher ( I donot have bad meaning when I say foreign teacher ) , if you are really interested in DWS I would really encourage you to try it out in your own teaching ,you could be the first one to use DWS as a foreign teacher outside of USA ,
tKS so much for leaving a comments there in my blog ,and solove my problem but unfortunetly I am using touchnet browers and IE too ,but anyway ,Tks so much for your comments I was asking for a geek ,and you are a really Geek
I will try to blog more about DWS or RRS
I promise
Thank you
Leo
leo wrote 453 words on Saturday Apr 8, 2006 at 02:50 PM
I am here to propose a cooperation project ,I don’t know if you are interested or not ,
Korea Japan and taiwan and Mainland China are main Destinations now for EFL teacher to go abroad to teach , especially China is really expanding very big now , so many EFL teacher are crowding into China now
therefore we can see a lot of EFL website mostly Blogs are emmerging too , and previously I remember you asked a question about how can a efl teacher use RSS to facilatite students to read eachother’s blog ,it gave me the inspriration of creating something similar for efl teacher in the whole world
maybe someone else has done this before I don’t know
we could organise all RSS feed OF each EFL blog(not only the famous ones like ESLcafe )actually when blog are getting very commercial it lost its original favour( personal opinion ) ,
and we don’t ask the reader to use RSS for themselves ,but we use something like BLOG broadcast ( it is a Chinglish ) ,and we invite all the efl or esl bloggers , with their permission , we could easily organised the different Blogs into Different topic
and people who are new who want to increase their Blog trffic they could also apply to us to join us , especially I am also very interested in the using blogs in teaching ( that is what i am doing now )
we can also create a specific section for Student blogger ,they don’t have to know how to use RSS or other things ,they can easily get access to their calssmates Blogs ,and leave a comments there ,
by doing this we create a place for not only efl teachers but also students ,of course since you are at Korean and I am at China ,we could also try to blog something about efl in Korean and in China
I am sure that there are some people are doing this ,but we are doing this in different way , we provide personal perspective ,and insights ,and by doing this we can also make efl blog better ,why ? coz people will take more seriously when more people are reading their blog ,
anyway it is just a idea ,you can email when u can
tks
Leo in China
here is a link in Chinese it basically same thing what i AM talking about but in Chinese
http://blog.yam.com/huayuwen/
and they use Flag feature in it it is quite interesting and COOL !
Check that out ,but it is in Chinese and even tradtional Chinese ! but I think you could get afeeling that what i AM talking about
have a good day