Random Quote
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
"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
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
---- Robert Copeland
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
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
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
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
---- John Ciardi
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
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
KOTESOL 2009 - going?
Next weekend is the annual KOTESOL international conference. As usual I will be attending and have arranged a dinner out with several people that I only get to see once a year at this conference on Saturday evening.
Are you going? vote in the poll and leave a comment.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Oct 15, 2009 at 07:06 PM
Public_Service_Announcement | Conferences | Random_Ramblings | Polling_Station |
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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 |
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KOTESOL Int’l conference 2009 pre-registration
The KOTESOL International conference 2009 is just around the corner and pre-registration has been open for awhile now. If you’re going you’ll want to pre-register before October 5 in order to avoid line-ups and also save a little money.
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.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Sep 15, 2009 at 07:38 PM
Public_Service_Announcement | Conferences | KOTESOL |
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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 |
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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.
