Tag: links

Foolish Utopianism in Teacher Development?

Marc Jones / / Uncategorized

img_1991Prologue

I was going to go to a conference relatively recently but at the last minute I decided not to because I hadn’t actually looked at the price. I thought that because it wasn’t the JALT (Inter?)national conference (nor was it a JALT event at all) that it might be relatively cheap, also seeing as it was at a university campus.
I nearly vomited in my mouth at the price when I saw it. Seeing it there, I hope the keynote presenters were paid for their time, especially seeing as it was unlikely that major publishers would have been paying for them.

1. Possibilities vs. Practicalities

I know that space with nice chairs and decent coffee doesn’t come for free but I also know that some of the teachers who give a damn about their CPD or lack of it can’t afford to pay the equivalent of US$200 to see someone give a talk or workshop that may (or may not) be useful for them in their context.
I’ve never really been that interested in any of the ‘name’ ELT people bar Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings because what seems to be the case at IATEFL is that facile reinforcement of (perhaps erroneous) beliefs is what draws the attention on the internet, with the exception of Silvana Richardson’s NNEST plenary and Russ Mayne’s Myths in ELT presentation. Geoff Jordan complains about the IATEFL palaver, with big names. To justify a large cost I suppose they need names, but why not cut the costs?
I’ve never been able to get to big conferences due to work but the ones I have made it to have been highly participatory and kind of grassroots. I have also loved many of the webinars I’ve attended and some stuff that might fly might be a hybrid of the two.

2. The Interzone of Cyberspace and Meatspace

Imagine 20-odd people gathered in a space with a mike, a projector, a webcam and several others watching online,  feeding questions for the speaker into a public Google document or Twitter hashtag. Imagine 20-odd others in another space in another country watching on a projector, while one of them has the familiar stomach-cramps related to their upcoming presentation-come-workshop.
Google already allows live streaming on YouTube and there are other providers, too. Electronic Village Online has already done web conferences. What about face-to-face with an electronic function? The live-tweeting phenomenon points in this direction, as people seem to want it.
You get to have the communal experience, with networking breaks, yet also have people presenting that you’d never see because they would never normally be able to make it due to time/money/family.

3. Outreach

What good is a conference when it is an echo chamber? Why preach to the choir? In Japan, we need chain eikaiwa teachers and dispatch agency ALTs to come and listen but, more importantly, make their voices heard. Do you know why there is little action research or exploratory practice done in eikaiwa? It isn’t the companies, because people could be taking notes on their regular students, and often do in the roll books. It’s because the teachers know that nobody outside is reaching out to them. Nobody gives a monkey’s. Yet these people do ditch the book, do try out-there things with their students from time to time. I know it would help more of them (as it helped me) to learn more about SLA without it seeming high handed. It would help them if they saw principles put into practice in a workshop. If they could hear people like themselves elsewhere, and also unlike them, with new ideas and alternative perspectives, it would help massively. If it were made accessible, through technology, at cultural centres or coworking spaces, this could easily happen.

4. What could this be like?

It could be like Lesson Jamming.
It could be like Edcamps.
It could be like Electronic Village Online, the ToBELTA web conference, iTDI’s summer webinar season.
It could be like JALT Saitama’s Nakasendo, or Michinohe MEES linked to different locations, available on mobile phones and laptops and projectors and TVs.
If you are interested, message me on Twitter.

Advancing to What Exactly?

Marc Jones / / Pedagogy, Reflection

monkey_tricks
I was reading a post by Geoffrey Jordan about whether he should accept an advanced learner for an immersion course, and it got me thinking about the same topic, rather deeply.
I believe in learner-centred teaching, learner autonomy. None of this is astoundingly new, nor is it unorthodox. Some of the hackles raised by the people opposed to it may be that it is tree-hugging hippy crap or they’re tired of people who haven’t seen the inside of a classroom in ten years telling them how they should be teaching. Some of it is “common sense” or “just good teaching”. However, I do think that learners could do a lot more on their own: checking vocabulary, listening practice, reading for pleasure, etc.
In the language school I used to work at, there was also a debate about whether learners could ‘graduate’ from the school. The sales staff thought not; the teachers thought so. The sales staff get money for bums on seats whereas the teachers get the feelgood glow from thoughts of helping learners attain intended proficiency levels. It’s not that simple, though. I do know of organisations that have refused advanced-level students to join classes, though this is more to do with very-advanced-level students intimidating the upper-intermediate learners. I do not know of any that have done so for reasons of fostering learner autonomy. A lot of teachers don’t like to have their learners in too low a level. What if no level is high enough? Other teachers don’t want their students to be in over their head. In that case, how come they don’t have the tools to cope with autonomy at advanced level?
Geoff’s conundrum is whether his learner would benefit (or benefit enough) from the course. In an ideal world he might just curl up with a book, a video, put the radio on, talk to somebody online or write to a friend. However, I do mean ‘in an ideal world’; his learner might not actually be motivated to do it without a teacher there to motivate him. I feel that some of my most motivated learners would read and listen widely even if I didn’t moan at motivate them to.
I see my role as having my learners get to the point where they no longer need me. However, this leads to the issue of who decides. Should the teacher or the learner ultimately decided when they are ready for autonomy? (There is an interesting article by Sara Cotterall about readiness for learner autonomy [PDF].) I hate to feel like I’m saying there’s nothing to learn, but then teaching does not necessarily equate to learning.
Of course, it’s in no teacher’s best interests to turn down money from a willing student. I tend to wonder whether it’s the morality at play; that even if we are not wrong, that we feel bad for taking money when the teaching sometimes feels less intensive or there is less visible, near-immediate learning taking place.

Non-Language Teaching Sites for Language Teachers

Marc Jones / / Links

Happy New Orbit cycle Earthlets. I had a zarjaz time reading 2000AD comics over the holiday. This post is nothing to do with that but is a collection of random resources that language teachers might find useful (and myself, for reference).
Diigo is great for collecting bookmarks to link to later and tag. It’s like del.icio.us used to be before it got swamped with spam. You can follow users and share links.
Pocket is a marvellous app for saving stuff to like Diigo, with offline reading and text-to-speech functionality so you can recommend it to your students and it can help them with checking pronunciation of a text. It works on Android, iOS and in the browser on a computer.
Stack Exchange is useful for anybody doing stuff with analysis of language and spreadsheets or computing, etc. It started as a computing Q&A forum but now there are communities about a lot of different stuff. It can also be a good resource for ESP teachers. You never know, you might even get inspired to write a webapp or set up a website!
 

Opening Phases

Marc Jones / / Uncategorized

Ooh, no sooner do I open the library and email account for my MA in Applied Linguistics & TESOL course than Teaching Practice for the DipTESOL finally starts! I have already passed the written exam, and now just have to pass the TP, 3 written assignments (all started; one perhaps even finished) and phonology presentation.
Because of this, service might be a bit hit and miss. Or I might be living on the internet asking for help all the time. Who knows?
I should be in bed but I am not in bed yet.
Anybody else studying for the DipTESOL might want to look at this blog about it and this one which goes through it and has other cool stuff, too

Authentic Listening Material

Marc Jones / / Links, Listening, Materials

I’ve been looking out for some authentic listening material for some of the Business English courses I teach. I just found a website called Freesound which has some fantastic Creative Commons-licensed MP3 and wav files, free to download.
I downloaded some basic train and airport announcements and I am planning to have false beginner students listen for answers to the following questions:

  1. When does the announcement change to English?
  2. Which gate can you board the plane from?

In another class I’ll have some pre-intermediate students listen for answers to these questions:

  1. What is the new platform for the Penzance train?
  2. Does the Penzance train stop at Exeter St. David’s?