Second I was hoping to get reinspired to write like I did in the past. However that has not happened and I don’t see anything changing in the future. I do have things to write, but most of it is negative and I am not interested in putting the effort necessary to write it – especially in light of the Korean laws on libel and slander (even if it’s true, if it damages someones reputation you can be sued and will lose).

I’ve also been planning my move back to Canada in Summer 2011 and once there I will not be teaching English but doing web development. Once I made that decision last year, a switch inside my mind flipped and I 100% lost the drive to blog about language teaching.

This is my final post on the EFL Geek. The domain here will expire in 1 year and 2 months (April 2011) and when it does this blog will disappear. I am willing to sell the domain if anyone is interested in purchasing it – make me an offer and it’s yours. I will not however sell the content.

I would like to thank all my commenters and readers for dropping by and visiting.

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):

In a nutshell here are the six

1. Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory is not a theory in the scientific sense.
2. The Intelligences do not exist in any measurable way.
3. Gardner has substantially more supporters in the world of education than in the world of psychology.
4. Gardner is horrified by some of the practical applications of his ideas that he has witnessed in classrooms.
5. In a conversation about MI if you hear certain expressions, such as Rinvolucri (and others), run away
6. ‘Multiple Intelligences theory’, ‘neuro-linguistic programming’, ‘brain gym’, ‘shamanism’, ‘psychodrama’ and ‘life coaching’ are not related in any way.

Are you going? vote in the poll and leave a comment.

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?

Invited speakers included David Nunan, Rod Ellis, Kathleen Bailey and Scott Thornbury among others. I’m not sure why the conference site doesn’t have bios and pics like it has in previous years. This year you get to try and read a conference poster that is only available in low res – good luck with that.

Anyhow I’ll be there and pre-registering shortly.

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.

Has learning English been hijacked by university entrance exams?

If the goal is to learn English – and this may be a dubious assumption – then learners must consider the metaphor above when it comes to studying English. If the goal is not ultimately to learn English, then we have all collectively been hijacked by the university entrance system. Students spend six years of their lives studying “grammar for grammar’s sake,” culminating in a test that contains some of the most obsolete English that one will ever encounter. This is not stated to disrespect the efforts of many educators who put a great deal of time into creating these tests, it simply recognizes that it has become necessary to have more and more unreasonable testing expectations and rarely used forms of English included in order to create a normal distribution of scores. Have junior and senior high school teachers been beaten into submission, thrown in the towel, held up the white flag and given up even pretending to want their students to learn English?

The honne and tatemae of English textbooks

MEXT (equivalent to the ministry of education here in Japan) recently released its new approach to English education for the next 10 years. It is the government’s attempt to steer English language education in a progressive direction. They have analyzed the approach up until now, evaluated the successes and failures, and have decided to take a more holistic interwoven approach to English language education.

Speaking with a seasoned textbook writer who is also a high school JTE, I asked, “How do publishers in Japan balance the obvious contradiction between the new MEXT policy and preparation for university entrance exams?” Without missing a beat, she replied, “Do you know honne (what we really think) and tatemae (what we say to appease other)?” She elaborated that writers must pay “lip service” to the MEXT guidelines in describing a new textbook, but that the real intention is that 99% of the text design must be geared towards university entrance exam preparation.

Back to the metaphor

I wonder if I even need to spell this out at this point? To be successful in just about any agreed upon way of measuring success with English includes: communicative competence, being able to exchange meaning, or having the capability of using language. One must take a balanced, multi-pronged approach to learning English. If there were four swimming strokes and three other big considerations for the individual medley swimmer, the same can be said of the English learner: grammar, vocabulary, input (reading and listening), and output (writing and speaking) are all integral parts of the whole that is necessary to learn English. Sidestepping of any of these parts will result in students who are at a distinct disadvantage compared to those who take a balanced approach to learning English. This is now the case when comparing Japanese learners with other EFL learners. This is why Japan, the country, and Japanese people must be frustrated out of their minds with the terrible return on investment they get in English education.

Simple is usually right because simple is best

If students simply took a balanced approach to English instead of the yakudoku (grammar-translation) approach, they would be much further ahead than they are today. The only people who have survived the grammar-translation approach to learning English are, in fact, now teaching today’s junior and senior high school classes. Currently, everything taught in the classroom is just a slightly different shade of grammar or translation instruction: reading is intensive (one page per class), writing is limited to one-sentence constructions, and listening and speaking opportunities are either negligible or contrived. Fluency practice does not exist, unless the never-ending barrage of test taking could be construed as some form of “fluency”.

Yet another audacity of hope

If only more teachers could muster the courage to admit the farcical nature of the current approach, and also have the audacity to consider taking a new approach, an entire generation of young learners would quickly jump onboard: we see this over and over where in classes where a minority of enlightened Japanese and native speaking teachers have decided to treat English as a live, unscripted entity; a communication tool that brings people together and can make the human experience a more meaningful process.

A call to discuss

Is there some reason that Japan should voluntarily handicap itself against the rest of the world in learning English? If you were the coach of the swim team, could you imagine ignoring the butterfly stroke, or not practicing turns or starts? Do you think you would be forgiven your approach? Now, imagine if you were an English teacher in Japan, what would you do?

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.