Half term holidays. Invented for the ease and convenience of the teacher, so that he or she may catch up with the mountain of marking from the previous six weeks and bin/set fire to all the stuff that was marked urgent a few weeks previously. In no other profession is it easier to understand how the tomorrow we worry about today will itself become today: In other words, if it really is urgent, it will make itself utterly bloody obvious, and the rest is just bollocks.
I have been in work today, and amazingly found myself with very little of the bin/burn variety. instead, I have been developing Blended Learning material using the Blackboard Platform - that is, gap fills via the interweb thingy - and pushing onwards with my studies. Actually, I am very much in favour of using IT in class, as it's engaging and fun, and means you can recycle tons of stuff ad nauseam once you've put the initial legwork in. I don't particularly like Blackboard, which is a very dated piece of software, but until my educational establishment stops paying for the licence, it's what we've got.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Thursday, 7 February 2008
I wouldn't say bad hair day...more flat hair day.
I had only the one lesson today, and while it was OK, I didn't really enjoy it. It hung off its foundations like a 20-year-old's clothes off a 70-year-old's body. It was my upper intermediate class, and we were looking at the perennial fun favourites of relative clauses and present and past participles. Whoo. I didn't do any pyrotechnics this time round - I just didn't feel up to any, for some reason.
The evening saw me handing out information and smiles to potential students, most of whom wanted either ESOL or something more intangible - something to remove their ennui, perhaps.
The evening saw me handing out information and smiles to potential students, most of whom wanted either ESOL or something more intangible - something to remove their ennui, perhaps.
Thursday, 31 January 2008
lesson idea: your life in the news
quick idea: your life in headlines
The aim of this exercise is focusing on key words within texts. The idea is to model one or more parts of your day on the board as headlines, e.g. Teacher in early morning no tea terror. Try to get students to guess what the story is. Students then write a headline for themselves and other students have to guess what the story behind the headline is. An exercise that can be done in conjunction with a reading exercise centred around looking at newspapers. It should be pointed out to students how headlines tend to use present simple in order to be dramatic and omit articles and auxiliary verbs. By getting students to deliberately omit these, it helps them focus on the reasons why they are used in the first place.
The aim of this exercise is focusing on key words within texts. The idea is to model one or more parts of your day on the board as headlines, e.g. Teacher in early morning no tea terror. Try to get students to guess what the story is. Students then write a headline for themselves and other students have to guess what the story behind the headline is. An exercise that can be done in conjunction with a reading exercise centred around looking at newspapers. It should be pointed out to students how headlines tend to use present simple in order to be dramatic and omit articles and auxiliary verbs. By getting students to deliberately omit these, it helps them focus on the reasons why they are used in the first place.
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
finding directions.
I'm still trying to find my feet with this journal, and identifying precisely what it is for. In part, this reflects my own doubts about my career: Is this what I really want to do till I retire? Or is it just the vague thrill I get from standing up in front of a load of people and making them believe in me? If that's the case, why not go on stage, do stand up, or get in a pulpit or on a soapbox? After all, it's all the same skill: making someone else believe in what you are saying, or confirming their beliefs.
Besides, I might get paid better.
It's a strange fact, and a sad one, but TEFLers are some of the most creative teachers, and the ones most willing to embrace new ideas, theories and technologies, although you'd be hard pressed to believe the latter if you saw my place of work. One teacher's idea of trying to understand the intricacies of logging on and reading his emails is to write everything down on grey pieces of cardboard cannibalized from cereal packets, and store it in a filing system in the bottom of a rather smelly, damp holdall. For all the TEFLer's enthusiasm however, we are amongst the poorest paid of teachers. An absolute top wage, for someone with a doctorate, is likely to be in the region of £40,000; In FE, you'd be lucky, after several years, to break the £30 k barrier; And the entry wages are shocking. In the private sector, things are even worse - I've heard of people earning as little as £7 per hour in London, even those with a diploma or higher. There's also the public persona of a typical TEFL teacher - lecherous, drunk student backpackers, or alcoholic runaways from the law, and the attitude of colleagues who teach other disciplines - namely, we are not seen as 'proper teachers'.
Is any of this fair? well, from the perspective of a long-term teacher with 15 years' experience, clearly not, but when you look at the TEFL certificate mills, there is justification. A four-week programme of study simply cannot prepare someone to teach. A lot of would-be teachers do the course as a way of paying for a year or two abroad, or to escape home for various reasons, then they go abroad, dragging their metaphysical baggage with them, and live up to the stereotypes. The rate of attrition in language schools is high - less, maybe, than it used to be, but still high. But still the TEFL mills continue to churn out neophytes clutching their TEFL Certs. The last time I bothered looking at the statistics, there were some million and a half TEFL Cert-ified teachers knocking about. Most of those do not last longer than a school year or two. It's no wonder, with such a glut of native speaker instructors knocking about, that schools feel they can get away with offering peanuts.
Besides, I might get paid better.
It's a strange fact, and a sad one, but TEFLers are some of the most creative teachers, and the ones most willing to embrace new ideas, theories and technologies, although you'd be hard pressed to believe the latter if you saw my place of work. One teacher's idea of trying to understand the intricacies of logging on and reading his emails is to write everything down on grey pieces of cardboard cannibalized from cereal packets, and store it in a filing system in the bottom of a rather smelly, damp holdall. For all the TEFLer's enthusiasm however, we are amongst the poorest paid of teachers. An absolute top wage, for someone with a doctorate, is likely to be in the region of £40,000; In FE, you'd be lucky, after several years, to break the £30 k barrier; And the entry wages are shocking. In the private sector, things are even worse - I've heard of people earning as little as £7 per hour in London, even those with a diploma or higher. There's also the public persona of a typical TEFL teacher - lecherous, drunk student backpackers, or alcoholic runaways from the law, and the attitude of colleagues who teach other disciplines - namely, we are not seen as 'proper teachers'.
Is any of this fair? well, from the perspective of a long-term teacher with 15 years' experience, clearly not, but when you look at the TEFL certificate mills, there is justification. A four-week programme of study simply cannot prepare someone to teach. A lot of would-be teachers do the course as a way of paying for a year or two abroad, or to escape home for various reasons, then they go abroad, dragging their metaphysical baggage with them, and live up to the stereotypes. The rate of attrition in language schools is high - less, maybe, than it used to be, but still high. But still the TEFL mills continue to churn out neophytes clutching their TEFL Certs. The last time I bothered looking at the statistics, there were some million and a half TEFL Cert-ified teachers knocking about. Most of those do not last longer than a school year or two. It's no wonder, with such a glut of native speaker instructors knocking about, that schools feel they can get away with offering peanuts.
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
'will' for predicting a current situation
I'm doing modals this morning, so here's a quick idea for showing the use of'will' to predict things currently happening:
on the board, draw two stick men. give them names - Dave and Gavin, or something. tell the students that one has just seen the other. What does he say? 'It's Gavin'. write it on the board. Now, draw a door between them. Can Dave see Gavin ('No'). wipe off 'It's Gavin'. Tell them that dave was expecting Gavin, and now he's knocking on the door. what does he say? 'That'll be Gavin'.
That's the idea, anyway.
on the board, draw two stick men. give them names - Dave and Gavin, or something. tell the students that one has just seen the other. What does he say? 'It's Gavin'. write it on the board. Now, draw a door between them. Can Dave see Gavin ('No'). wipe off 'It's Gavin'. Tell them that dave was expecting Gavin, and now he's knocking on the door. what does he say? 'That'll be Gavin'.
That's the idea, anyway.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Guess who...
...just bagged an 'Outstanding' from an OFSTED inspector?
Except he wasn't working for OFSTED, but in a private capacity, hired by TVU as part of a team to check that all us lecturers are standing on our best tippytoes while balancing the tutorial equivalent of a ball on our noses.
However, it was a bloody good lesson, and one forged out of rather unpromising materials. One thing that worked especially well, and which I pass on free: Speed Dating Information exchange.
the students in this class were split into two groups, reading two different texts, but answering the same questions. After they had finished the texts and answered the questions in their groups, I had them sit down in two rows facing each other. They then began to ask their partners questions in order to elicit information from each other. After a minute, I got one group to move chairs so that they talked to a new partner, and change again after another minute and so on, until each person in the first group had talked to evfery member of the second group. It worked wonderfully well, especially as students had to generate new questions in order to fill in their gaps in the knowledge they had obtained from a previous partner.
Except he wasn't working for OFSTED, but in a private capacity, hired by TVU as part of a team to check that all us lecturers are standing on our best tippytoes while balancing the tutorial equivalent of a ball on our noses.
However, it was a bloody good lesson, and one forged out of rather unpromising materials. One thing that worked especially well, and which I pass on free: Speed Dating Information exchange.
the students in this class were split into two groups, reading two different texts, but answering the same questions. After they had finished the texts and answered the questions in their groups, I had them sit down in two rows facing each other. They then began to ask their partners questions in order to elicit information from each other. After a minute, I got one group to move chairs so that they talked to a new partner, and change again after another minute and so on, until each person in the first group had talked to evfery member of the second group. It worked wonderfully well, especially as students had to generate new questions in order to fill in their gaps in the knowledge they had obtained from a previous partner.
Sunday, 25 November 2007
The English UK Teachers' Conference
The day didn't start too auspiciously. Actually, the whole week hadn't started auspiciously. My prsentation was still in a parlous raw state, and the dry run I'd given clearly hadn't worked. However, thanks to the advice, criticism and suggestions of my colleagues and the support and encouragment of others, I could clearly see where and why it was going wrong, so got down to the task, or at least trying to. Come thursday, however, it was still only distinctly three-quarters baked. I tried to work on it during the day, and late into the night, hoping that I'd have a few colleagues willing to give it a dry run through with me again the next day.
Fat bloody chance. Our regular team meeting went on, and on, and on, and - guess what? - on, and on a bit more, until half past ten had come and gone, and everyone said, sorry, we've got other things to do - with the exception of a couple of teachers, who graciously gave up their time to watch. It still wasn't ready, but I took on the advice proffered. Later on, after lessons, another colleague patiently sat through it and offered her ideas. To add to the stress and tension, an email came through from EnglishUK detailing which rooms we'd be in, and it appeared that I had swapped sessions with Adrian Underhill, so he'd be giving my presentation! I emailed them back to tell them of the mistake.
Anyway, picture me slaving away late on friday night, when I suddenly nailed the words and ideas that I exactly needed and rapidly made up a couple of class activities to go along with them just for good measure.
The trip up to London was uneventful, and I found Prospero House, where the conference was taking place, easily. It's billed as a state-of-the art conference venue, but it's not that wonderful, being a long, linear structure with the main hall to the back of the building, smaller - no, tiny - meeting rooms facing onto the main road, and a large hall for dining. I checked in and introduced myself to Mark Rendell, the organiser from EnglishUK, He gave me a copy of the programme, now billing me with the right programme. It was to take place in one of the largest of the rooms, with a bloody huge projection screen: The room itself was created by the nifty use of heavy wooden dividers in the main hall.
Anyway, after a quick scoot around the publishers' stands, it was time for the opening plenary. This was delivered by Paul Seligson, on the theme of spontaneity in the classroom. It was a neat, entertaining session, but it wasn't, for me anyway, anything new, apart from a good summation of techniques to allow spontaneity to occur in lessons. I was a bit surprised he didn't mention Dogme. However, for a neophyte TEFLer, and there were quite a few in attendance (there were 170+ delegates), I think it would have provided an interesting and encouraging summation of ideas.
Following that, I went along to a session on using dictionaries more effectively. If only. It was a pleasant presentation by a pleant presenter, but I learnt nothing new. More importantly, it was overrunning, and I had to make my excuses in order to get myself set up. I quickly went to the loo, and saw the huge queue for Adrian Underhill. By now, it would be fair to say I was bricking it. I took a deep breath, and went into my room. There were about fifteen people already sat down. I went up to the podium, found the computer, plugged in my portable hard drive, briefly panicked when I thought the computer couldn't find it, relaxed when it did, waited a minute and made a bit of manic patter, and watched as all of a sudden another thirty delegates walked in, most of them young teachers. And I began.
One hour later, as I walked among the crowd chowing down on the rather magnificent lunch buffet, I realised that a) people were telling colleagues about my presentation and b) I so, so, so NAILED it! My point about how the full infinitive in English has a specific function in certain contexts - namely, it suggests incipience - had experienced teachers giving out an audible gasp of understanding. Damn, I felt good.
This lasted until fifteen minutes into a spectacularly bad presentation I decided to join, and which was nothing more than an extended plea by the author to buy his book, when I had a sudden colossal headache and I just had to get out of the place.
All in all though, I felt I'd done a good job.
Fat bloody chance. Our regular team meeting went on, and on, and on, and - guess what? - on, and on a bit more, until half past ten had come and gone, and everyone said, sorry, we've got other things to do - with the exception of a couple of teachers, who graciously gave up their time to watch. It still wasn't ready, but I took on the advice proffered. Later on, after lessons, another colleague patiently sat through it and offered her ideas. To add to the stress and tension, an email came through from EnglishUK detailing which rooms we'd be in, and it appeared that I had swapped sessions with Adrian Underhill, so he'd be giving my presentation! I emailed them back to tell them of the mistake.
Anyway, picture me slaving away late on friday night, when I suddenly nailed the words and ideas that I exactly needed and rapidly made up a couple of class activities to go along with them just for good measure.
The trip up to London was uneventful, and I found Prospero House, where the conference was taking place, easily. It's billed as a state-of-the art conference venue, but it's not that wonderful, being a long, linear structure with the main hall to the back of the building, smaller - no, tiny - meeting rooms facing onto the main road, and a large hall for dining. I checked in and introduced myself to Mark Rendell, the organiser from EnglishUK, He gave me a copy of the programme, now billing me with the right programme. It was to take place in one of the largest of the rooms, with a bloody huge projection screen: The room itself was created by the nifty use of heavy wooden dividers in the main hall.
Anyway, after a quick scoot around the publishers' stands, it was time for the opening plenary. This was delivered by Paul Seligson, on the theme of spontaneity in the classroom. It was a neat, entertaining session, but it wasn't, for me anyway, anything new, apart from a good summation of techniques to allow spontaneity to occur in lessons. I was a bit surprised he didn't mention Dogme. However, for a neophyte TEFLer, and there were quite a few in attendance (there were 170+ delegates), I think it would have provided an interesting and encouraging summation of ideas.
Following that, I went along to a session on using dictionaries more effectively. If only. It was a pleasant presentation by a pleant presenter, but I learnt nothing new. More importantly, it was overrunning, and I had to make my excuses in order to get myself set up. I quickly went to the loo, and saw the huge queue for Adrian Underhill. By now, it would be fair to say I was bricking it. I took a deep breath, and went into my room. There were about fifteen people already sat down. I went up to the podium, found the computer, plugged in my portable hard drive, briefly panicked when I thought the computer couldn't find it, relaxed when it did, waited a minute and made a bit of manic patter, and watched as all of a sudden another thirty delegates walked in, most of them young teachers. And I began.
One hour later, as I walked among the crowd chowing down on the rather magnificent lunch buffet, I realised that a) people were telling colleagues about my presentation and b) I so, so, so NAILED it! My point about how the full infinitive in English has a specific function in certain contexts - namely, it suggests incipience - had experienced teachers giving out an audible gasp of understanding. Damn, I felt good.
This lasted until fifteen minutes into a spectacularly bad presentation I decided to join, and which was nothing more than an extended plea by the author to buy his book, when I had a sudden colossal headache and I just had to get out of the place.
All in all though, I felt I'd done a good job.
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