Teacher Professional Development in Online Environments

aPLaNet Project: A WizIQ online meeting

2011-06-12T18:12:00.000+08:00

Message pasted below as posted by Graham Stanley on Webheads and Twittermates FB page:
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Graham Stanley Jun 12
aPLaNet Live from Athens - Meeting Online today 3:30 PM GTB with Partners (13:30 GMT) http://www.facebook.com/l/64c99cCBo5tfU_DuePP-swlR_sA/bit.ly/mzqAxZ - come and find out how you can join in - http://www.facebook.com/l/64c99_XO8VhpivGTPUhZY3wn5Zw/aplanet-project.org/

Webinar: International Collaborative Project

2011-06-12T18:04:00.002+08:00

Recording of the Session is available at
Eluminate http://tinyurl.com/2011jun12l2g
* and the full URL is: https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2011-06-12.0657.M.7AE801FFB697DA460D4BF25AA8C21B.vcr&sid=75
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Pasted here is the message posted by Vance Stevens on the EVonline Webheads list.
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Sunday June 12,

Ayat Al-Tawel (from Egypt) and Maria Bossa (from Argentina) are two EFL teachers who would like to share their international collaboration project. They have both worked with their students so they can interact with each other, not only to practise their English, but also to go beyond the walls of the traditional classroom to meet other cultures, customs, traditions and likes. This Sunday they'll tell us about their students' collaborations between Egypt and Argentina; e.g. http://photopeach.com/album/17qcpq4?ref=fb

When and where:

* noon GMT, start gathering at http://tappedin.org for distance coordination and setup
* 13:00 GMT, start the discussion in Elluminate
o Time where you are: http://tinyurl.com/2011jun12gmt1300
o or: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Learning2gether+Live+Online+Webinar&iso=20110612T13&ah=1
* Eluminate is at http://tinyurl.com/y3eh,
and the full URL is http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=273662

Announcements

* http://taedtech.ning.com/events/learning2gether-with-ayat

Here are some screenshots taken during today's webinar:

Vicki Hollet's Webinar

2011-06-08T23:58:00.002+08:00

Vicki Hollet's presentation materials, http://bit.ly/mfAO7D Download pdf file

Some screenshots taken during the webinar

Free Online Conference sponsored by Flexible Learning in Australia

2011-06-08T19:13:00.000+08:00

As posted by Michael Coghlan to the Webheads' listserv.
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A free 3 day conference begins today at
http://networksevents.flexiblelearning.net.au/
Everybody welcome :-)

- Michael

Cultural Fluency: An Essential Skill for Today's World

2011-06-07T18:53:00.002+08:00

Here's a screenshot of Joan's Webinar

As POSTED by Pearson Longman

Event: Cultural Fluency: An Essential Skill for Today's World
Date: Wednesday, June 08 2011 11:00 AM (GMT +01:00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London

Add this event to your calendar

Approximately 80 % of the people who speak English in the world today are not native speakers of English. This startling reality compels us to broaden our pedagogical focus for today's learners, who will have to navigate the world of work, study, and travel among people of diverse language backgrounds and unfamiliar cultures. Offering a rationale and a syllabus for integrating the skill of cultural fluency with language instruction, this presentation proposes shifting the treatment of ?culture? from content to skill, greatly accelerating students' ability to communicate verbally and socially with confidence and ease.

Joan Saslow

Joan Saslow has taught in a variety of programs in South America and the United States. She is author of a number of multi-level integrated-skills courses for adults and young adults: Ready to Go: Language, Lifeskills, and Civics; Workplace Plus: Living and Working in English; and of Literacy Plus. She is also author of English in Context: Reading Comprehension for Science and Technology. Ms. Saslow was the series director of True Colors and True Voices. She participates in the English Language Specialist Program in the U.S. Department of State?s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Before the event
To be sure your computer is setup correctly for this event, run: System Check

Link to attend the event
http://mt204.centra.com/GA/main/0000001a68ba94012fea1b4a64007a41

This session may be recorded and each attendee may have the capability of distributing this recording. Each participant's use of recordings and participant information is subject to U.S. and international privacy laws.

Why use poems in class

2011-04-17T20:19:00.002+08:00

Notes from Linda Yael's session yesterday

Why use poem
Linda Yael

Authentic content
Encourage students' personal reactions

Trigger students' own writing
General educational value

Deal with values

Give insights unto other cultures while increasing awareness if own

Use both sides of the brain

Motivating and enjoyable

Characteristics of poems
Focus on language eg vocabulary, intonation, stress， collocation

Can be dealt with one lesson and can be tied in with topics in syllabus

Deal w universal themes students can identify with

Poems by Wendy Cope
Robin Thurston

For young learners, use pictures. Eg lions are ___

The Veggie Lion (Spike Milligan)
I'm a vegetarian lion...

Students can work in pairs

Oh homework, oh homework
I hate you! You stink! ( a teacher from Poland)
- long version on presenter's ppt

Notes on Richard Cauldwell's presentation on accent and identity

2011-04-16T21:16:00.000+08:00

Notes on Richard Cauldwell's presentation on Accent and Identity: Prejudice and insecurity

Sonocent audio note taker

Outline:
Definitions
Prejudices
Accents, identity, change, variation
Insecurity and self-worth
Thriving with

Prejudice: OALD, 8, an unreasonable dislike

Prejudice league table
Best- received pronunciation (RP)

Worst- Birmingham

Prestige accent: BBC type of worry (A Lloyd James)

It is spoken by those who properly called the best people

If you want clarity- go to non standard accent

Prejudices: self-loathing, poor self-worth

Foreign language syndrome. Accent can change dramatically if you've got a stroke. 'losing accent. Losing identity.'

People change, accents change

Multiple accents, vary depending on who they're talking to

Prestige accent: embarrassment

John Wells's blog, BrE

Attainment Models? Target pronunciation? Richard's argument

Typical learner's problem: leave
Thriving in English

English as a lingua Franca (Jennifer Jenkins)

English is not ours
Reference models are very useful, but they are not what people speak
ELF movement can help us identify attainment model

ELF can remove the sense of poor self-worth

Final thoughts:
No such thing ad good accent
People are multi-accented

We are surrounded by voices od people who not speak the reference model- they thrive.

Use prestige accent ad a reference model, not model/achievement target

Not as a measure of professional expertise

Notes from the AS Hornby Scholars' Presentation

2011-04-16T18:59:00.002+08:00

AS Hornby educational Trust presenters
Teacher Development Language Proficiency

A. Confidence and language proficiency

Recognizing reality
A. pre-service
B. In-service

possible suggestions
Teacher training courses
Workshops and seminars
Prof devt courses

B. Teacher Motivation
Low level motivation- or no motivation at all

Poor motivation- leads to attrition

Causes of low motivation
1) Job context
-poor facilities eg no chalks etc
-teachers not considered in educational decision making process
- teachers are nit given professional autonomy

2) Job Content
- teacher and student ratio
-work load eg 36 hours of teaching per week

3) lack of incentives and poor salary
70£ per month
Poor socio economic situation

Realistic solutions
1) creative positive working environment

2) provide opportunities for continuous training
Tpd
Enhance self-esteem
Update their skills

Implications fir teacher training and education

Trainers should be aware of these situations

C. Contextual Factors (Ramzi)
Causes
1. People involved- not aware of contextual realities

2. Objectives- not clear, realistic, and practical

3. Training
A. Content- emphasizing theories, ignoring practical implications
B. Timing- too short to achieve objectives
C. Trainers- not properly trained
d. Evaluation- no learning from previous experience

Effects if ignoring contextual factors

1. Cascade programs- trickle
2. Irrelevance- demotivation
3. Impracticality- lack of administrative support
4. Investment of time, money, and energy- wasted
5. Unrealized national curriculum objectives

Solutions
1. Involve more stake holders in planning- teachers, training

2. Integration of planners and implementers

3. Post-training support

4. Readjustment and fine tuning based on feedback

5. Decentralization/localization

Teacher Development: the Kerala model

Context: Kerala is a small state in India

Focus of the governments- time independence

A. General trend- infrastructure
B. Budget deficit 13.5%

English graduates teach English
A. New legislation in the 21st century

B. English teachers teach only in English

Motivation
A. Secure job
B. Pensions after retirement
C. Salary increment at oar with inflation in addition to annual increment based on the existing scale of pay.

2. Teaching Organizations

3. Regular teacher development workshops
5 day annual workshops
Practicing teachers as resource persons

4. Resource Person development workshops

3-6 months training at Bangalore
Selection

Teachers support offered online- IT@Schoolproject
Eg subsidized laptop

Cluster meetings- teacher share
Avoid backwash from exams- teachers can test what is taught

Caveat of the method
Not perfect
Evolving
Practical issues

Conclusion

Fullan (1991) educational change depends on what teachers do and think. It is as simple and complex as that.

Notes from Peter Grundy's talk, IATEFL Plenary

2011-04-16T17:42:00.002+08:00

Peter Grundy Plenary

Maximize content,
Formulaic questions, obvious yes or no answer

What is language?
Communication? Answer to the question what is language for?

To communicate what precisely?

Pragmatics
Meaning comes from the use of language; what we mean by our words; implications

Particularized understanding. Depending on context.

Type of inferences. Token understanding.

Does your boyfriend know you're here? The question asked if folks from Brighton go to a football match. (joke)

Pg: that's a nice pair
Lady: thank you

Pragmatics: contextual and cognitive effects

Inference and metarepresentation

Our thoughts are more precise than our words

Metaphors
Idioms
Hedges: I think, probably, really, by the way

The phenomenon of speaking in the wrong language

What we want our learners to achieve?

Fluency
Accuracy
Complexity
Cognitive mapping?

Methods:

L1-l2 w/o thought is translation

Meaning and humanistic approaches

Pragmatic competence

Receptive learning vs productive learning

Semantics- what words mean

Thought- unspoken though that we intend to communicate

Pedagogical implications if the two

Equivalence
Breadth, depth and context
Corpora and context
Dictionaries and metalinguistic explanations
Anglo-centric
E.g. Chinese writing system, the use of classifiers (fire, fo, huo)

Orientation to the properties of the public word

Utterance is an index for thought

IATEFL 2011

2011-04-16T17:39:00.001+08:00

Convention Center
http://t.co/DCsVizy

BRIGHTON 2011 CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

2011-04-03T13:27:00.002+08:00

Click the link below to view (in PDF file) the IATEFL 2011 in Brighton conference programme. I had to squeeze my limited budget to attend this conference as a full participant- yes, first time ever. And I'd like to make the most out of it.

I'd love to meet colleagues and friends whom I've been interacting with online for the past several years but never had the opportunity to meet f2f. Now here's my chance :-)

Conference Programme: http://bit.ly/ewLPxi

Free Online TPD (IATEFL)

2011-03-29T18:20:00.002+08:00

Posted on behalf of the Brighton Team.

IATEFL BRIGHTON CONFERENCE: BRIGHTON ONLINE WEBSITE NOW LIVE!

Online conference coverage of the 45th IATEFL Conference

The Brighton Online website is now live at:
http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2011

The British Council and IATEFL have launched the Brighton Online website
which offers live web coverage of this year's IATEFL Conference in Brighton.

The Brighton Online website allows gives you an opportunity to follow one of
the world's biggest ELT conferences free online.

Brighton Online offers:
- video recordings of selected sessions
- live interviews and streamed plenaries
- moderated special interest discussion forums
- text reports and photo albums

To visit the Brighton Online website, go to:
http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2011

This initiative builds on earlier collaboration between the British Council
and IATEFL.

Last year over 50,000 teachers and trainers participated in Harrogate
Online.

This year we expect a much larger audience, and this is a real opportunity
to take part in the biggest online ELT training community.

The Brighton Online website gives you an opportunity to share ideas with
teachers all around the world. There will be interactive live coverage with
video presentations, reports and interviews from Harrogate.

We look forward to meeting you online, and hope that you will share this
information with your colleagues worldwide.

Gavin Dudeney - Honorary Secretary, IATEFL
Julian Wing - British Council Brighton Online Project Manager
Nik Peachey - IATEFL Online Editor

Free TESOL 2011 Webcasts

2011-03-14T06:56:00.000+08:00

As posted by Chris Sauer on the Webheads List:

Hey folks!

We'll be webcasting several sessions from the Electronic Village and Academicsessions in New Orleans. Visithttp://www.call-is.org/info/course/view.php?id=22 to view the calendar ofwebcasts and instructions on how to attend. Please pass the link on to otherswho might be interested in participating.Chris

CALL-IS Webcast lead

LESSON PLANS ON APEC WIKI

2010-11-18T18:58:00.002+08:00

Lesson plans I submitted are now on APEC's wiki,
Cross Cultural Communication,
http://hrd.apec.org/index.php/What%27s_in_a_Name:_A_Cross-Cultural_Communication_Project

Gender Roles in Advertising, http://hrd.apec.org/index.php/Gender_Roles_in_Advertising

Public Service Announcements, http://hrd.apec.org/index.php/Public_Service_Announcements

Other lessons from TESOL submitters are found here http://hrd.apec.org/index.php/Tips_for_Teaching_21st_Century_Workplace_Skills

Am very pleased :-)

Aiden
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: APEC Wiki
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:00:07 +0000

Greetings to all (there are 6 of you in this email…),

Remember a while back… I was bugging you about creating teaching tips for a contract for APEC? Well, here it is: http://hrd.apec.org/index.php/International_Education_Week_2010

All of our wonderful teaching tips are found at Tips for Teaching 21st Century Workplace Skills.

I cannot even begin to share my thanks and gratitude for all of your contributions. Thank you, thank you, thank you! If you had time, look around a bit. The Skills for Success in Multinational Business was developed by the Center of Applied Linguistics. The Business Language for a Global Economy was developed by Synergy. And the Learning About Each Other pages were developed by the US Department of Education.

Cheers-

Sarah
Professional Development Manager
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.
A Global Education Association
http://www.tesol.org/

Christmas Carol Learning Materials

2010-11-17T20:16:00.001+08:00

I'm sharing on this blog post a message posted by Kieran on IATEFL's YG list. On the link provided you can find learning materials on Christmas Carols, which should be just in time since Christmas is around the corner.

http://christmascarol.esolebooks.com/

Visit Kieran's site at http://younglearners.eslreading.org/ for more learning materials.

Kevin Spacey on Being Successful

2010-11-14T00:19:00.001+08:00

Peter Medgyes: Native or Non-Native language teacher?

2010-11-07T18:09:00.002+08:00

The text below was the message posted by Dennis Newson at the YLTSIG list. Peter Medgyes is going to lead asynchronous discussions on Native or Non-Native language teacher? The discussions are going to be held on YLTSIG Yahoo!Group list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/younglearners/ You need to join the group in order to participate in the discussions.

Our fielder for the YLTSIG discussion from Monday 8 November to Friday is PETER MEDGYES, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest. Previously, he was a schoolteacher, teacher trainer, Vice President of his university, Deputy State Secretary at the Hungarian Ministry of Education and the Hungarian Ambassador in Damascus. Professor Medgyes is the author of numerous books and articles published both in Hungary and abroad.Many of you may have read his Changing Perspectives in Teacher Education (Macmillan Education, 1996), Laughing Matters: Humour in the Language Classroom (CUP 2002) orThe Non-Native Teacher (ELT) (Max Hueber,1999).

For the YLTSIG discussion we have decided to look again at an old and still disputed issue -
Native or Non-Native language teacher?

As Peter put it when I invited him to make a provocative statement to get the discussion started:

"I still know of language schools which are reluctant to employ non-native speaking teachers of English. If you were the principal of a language school, would you also give priority to natives?"

Well, would you or wouldn't you - and why?

The official start of the discussion is on Monday, but there is nothing to stop you posting right now if you have an opinion to share.

Dennis Newson
Formerly University of Osnabrueck, GERMANY
Committee member
Discussion List Manager IATEFL YLT SIG
Creator: YLTSIG NING
http://ylandtsig.ning.com/
Winner British Council ELT 05 Innovation Award
Unrepentant grammarophobe

YLTSIG Website: http://www.yltsig.org/
Yahoogroups: Subscribe: younglearners-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

SpeedGeek: Electronic Village Online Sessions

2010-11-07T16:16:00.001+08:00

I'm reposting Vance Steven's message to the Webheads' List

Hi everyone,

This Sunday at 1300 GMT Elizabeth Hanson-Smith will coordinate a presentation on EVO, or Electronic Village Online. You can find information about the free professional development available over a 5-week period this coming January and February 2011 here http://evosessions.pbworks.com/, and you can come to this live event to meet some of the moderators who are now preparing to put on these sessions; e.g.

PLEs and PLNs
Susan Berg, Letizia Cinganoto, Daniella Cuccurullo

Second Life
Dennis Newson, Kalyan Chattopadhyay, Heike Philp, Maria Pinto, Nahir Aparicio

Podcasts
Evelyn Izquierdo, Jose Rodriguez, Miguel Mendoza

Digital Storytelling
Carla Arena

Multiliteracies
Vance Stevens, Dennis Oliver, Jennifer Verschoor, Nelba Quintana

Internet4YoungLearners (a 2010 EVO session)
Sandra Rogers

The event actually starts at noon GMT (4 p.m. in the UAE) when teaching practitioners gather at http://tappedin.org for informal text chat. At 13:00 GMT (5 p.m. in the UAE) we move to the presentation venue in Elluminate at http://tinyurl.com/y3eh

Please note, Elluminate is generously provided to us by Learning Times, and prior registration is required (non-intrusive, takes only minutes).

The Google Calendar showing these events displays at http://multiliteracies.ning.com/

All are welcome, and hope to see you there,

Vance

Letter-from-the-Chair Draft

2010-11-03T22:27:00.000+08:00

Dear NNESTIS Members,

I hope that 2010 has been a good year for all of you as it has been for our Interest Section (IS). Since this will be my last letter as Chair, I’d like to bring your attention to three key IS issues: IS elections and exiting IS officers, TESOL 2011 Academic Session and Intersessions with other ISs, and the NNEST-Electronic Village Online (EVO) 2011 Session.

Firstly, we are going to wrap this year with an election for the various Steering Committee (SC) positions for 2011-2012. I will be stepping down as Chair, and Icy Lee will take over as Chair for 2011-2012. Aya Matsuda and Ryuko Kubota (members-at-large officers) and Lifen Lin (our web manager) will also end their terms in March 2011. Candidates for these positions will be announced soon, and I’m hoping that we could have our elections before 2010 makes its final exit. To Aya, Ryuko, and Lifen, many many thanks for your help and support. Rashi Jain will continue on with her role as our Newsletter Editor, and (name of new volunteer insert here) will be the (name of position to be filled, insert here). Election results will be announced to the list and an official announcement will be made during our IS business meeting in New Orleans next March.

Secondly, for the 2011 TESOL convention in New Orleans, we will be working with SLWIS (with NNEST as primary), SPLIS (as secondary), and with TEIS & EFL ISs (as third), and the following NNEST-IS members will be representing our IS in these sessions:

NNEST-SLWIS Intersession: Icy Lee, Lisya Seloni, and Claus Gnutzmann
SPLIS-NNEST Intersession: Paul Sze, Katya Nemchinova
TEIS-EFL-NNEST Intersession: Isabela Villas Boas

Zoreh Eslami, Lia Kamhi-Stein, Lawrence Jun Zhang, and Donna Fujimoto will be joining me for our Academic Session.

Last but not least, we will be offering NNEST-EVO 2011 in January to kick-off a good year for NNEST teacher professional development. We have a roster of great guest speakers per week who will be leading the synchronous and asynchronous discussions. The speakers (see below) are experts in their own right and are quite well-known in the TESOL/ELT academic circle.

List of Confirmed-Speakers

1. Jeremy Harmer

2. Jeff Lebow

3. Yilin Sun

4. Isabela Villas Boas

5. Michael Carrier

6. Marisa Constantinides

7. Robert Griffin

8. Icy Lee

9. George Vassilakis

10. Masaki Oda

11. RELO Thailand

12. Rashi Jain

The thematic weekly discussions will cover a range of NNEST-related issues, which unfortunately despite the vast research conducted and published papers in these areas, the same concerns and dilemma still exist today. Links to the synchronous and asynchronous discussions will be announced by the end of December. This EVO session is definitely something you wouldn’t want to miss!

Thank you all and have a great new year!

Aiden Yeh

Response to Week 2, EVO training, Pitfalls

2010-11-01T20:17:00.003+08:00

Hi All,

I'd just like to respond to Holly's and Sandra's messages regarding this thread.

First, I like what Holly wrote about getting balance, support, and most importantly, the ability to forgive ourselves when we fail to do what we're supposed to do. Increasing/adding items to our 'things to do' list is really not a pitfall, but it becomes one when we stuffed in too many things at the same time. This is my common pitfall. I tend to over commit myself, to the point that I don't get enough rest, I produce a pretty mediocre job (which I could've probably done better), etc. A glance at how we all performed in Week 2 is a good benchmark in looking at our commitments. We are all committed to this training, yet not all of us shared with the group what we have accomplished so far. Are you like me? Have you over-comitted yourself this time around? Your session participants would probably do the same thing. So instead of producing/participating in making use of the learning opportunity, they'd tend to not fully commit themselves since they've probably had tons of other things to do in their 'to-do' list.

Sandra mentioned 'enforcing' people to participate. We all do want them to participate. But unlike her course, our participants are not graded. This isn't a pass or fail thing. We just kinda provide this learning service for free and we just hope that they somehow would benefit from this experience, one way or another. But this training session, although free and voluntary, we do have standards. And this year, as mentioned in Week 1, we do have some pending sessions. Your participation in this training i.e. evidence of meeting the tasks/benchmarks will be used to assess whether your session is ready for offering or not. I don't want to sound like the strict-principal that all teachers hate, but EVO has got a name to keep. And I hope that we are all in the same boat and using the same sculls so we can row it smoothly.

Have a great Week 3 everyone!

Aiden Yeh
EVO/NNEST-EVO 2011

Reflections on Claire's ESL-WOW Project Presentation

2010-10-27T01:08:00.004+08:00

Claire B. Siskin did a presentation about the ESL-Writing Online Workshop (WOW) Project that she's involved in, which is funded by FIPSE, Funding for the Improvement of Post-secondary Education (see http://buxiban.blogspot.com/2010/10/esl-wow-project.html). FIPSE usually awards grants in projects where 'innovation' is involved. ESL-WOW is somewhat similar to PURDUE's ONLINE WRITING LAB (OWL) project (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/), but the difference is ESL-WOW is completely devoted to ESL. According to Claire, they plan to have all the materials and learning resources completely available to everyone- but this won't materialize until 2013! Although, she hopes that they would be able to make some of the materials available online in 2012 :-) Basically, ESL-WOW develops materials for ESL students that are easy to understand; they hope to employ ESL (live) tutors for the first year, and they hope that the site would become a place where students can 'interact' with the available materials on their own; in other words, students will have to be autonomous learners making use of 'computer scaffolding'. In the chat discussion, Dennis O. provided some good examples of 'computer scaffolding' i.e. glossary, peer editing, etc. Vance and others also suggested the use of twitter applications on their site, creating a Facebook group where students could meet and learn together. While human scaffolding i.e. asking people/teachers for support is always desirable, sometimes in projects like this, it would be very difficult to maintain. Claire pointed out two of her main concerns: dissemination (informing people about this) and sustainability (making sure that the site survives the test of time). I think getting the word out won't be much of a problem since basic marketing and promotional techniques can be employed. Besides, with the advent of personal learning networks (PLNs) and social networks, the simple word-of-mouth advertising will do- so long as people keep on sharing information about ESL-WOW. Claire's second concern, sustainability, is I think more problematic, as she pointed some good examples of NING sites that were created but ultimately met untimely death since people did not bother to go back or pay them a visit. In other words, without the human support/following, the site full of wonderful and available resources can just become a memorial site for those lost ESL souls. What they hope is for students to keep on coming back and making use of these resources; well I think as long as they are free and downloadable, students (new and old) will keep on coming back. The thing is, we're talking about second language writing. For ESL students, writing is extremely difficult. And sometimes, no matter what resources are available to them, they do not see how they can successfully make use of them. In some cases, students are perenially lazy. It's easier to ask, than do the search themselves. Only those who are extremely motivated will go out of their way to search and make sense of the resources they've found online.

The open resources will be archived in a Moodle, and for the first few years, live tutors will also be available on the moodle site to offer virtual support.

The recording of Claire's is available at http://tinyurl.com/24oct2010claire

You can read the chat transcript here,
http://evo-training.pbworks.com/w/page/Tapped-in-transcript-October-24th

The ESL-WOW Project

2010-10-24T19:56:00.006+08:00

The recording is available at http://tinyurl.com/24oct2010claire
You can read the chat transcript here,
http://evo-training.pbworks.com/w/page/Tapped-in-transcript-October-24th
-----------------
Hi all,

This is just reposting Vance's message on EVONLINE WEBHEADS:

Here are the details:

http://taedtech.ning.com/events/claire-bradin-siskin-describes

Title: The ESL-WOW Project

Description: Claire Bradin Siskin will describe the ESL Writing Online
Workshop (ESL-WOW) Project, which she directs. ESL-WOW, currently under
development, will be a website designed to guide non-native speakers of
English through each stage of the pre-writing, while-writing, and
post-writing processes. Once the materials have been created, ESL-WOW will
be available to all individuals and educational institutions across the
country. Siskin will outline the development process, and she will also seek
feedback and suggestions from her fellow Webheads.

This event is part of a participant-driven professional development series
planned as a part of the ongoing (since 1998) Webheads in Action
professional development series, most recently with the involvement of the
TESOL Arabia EdTech SIG. The events take place at 13:00 GMT each Sunday (5 pm in UAE).

The event actually starts at noon GMT (4 p.m. in the UAE) when teaching
practitioners gather at http://tappedin.org for informal text chat. At 13:00
GMT (5 p.m. in the UAE) we move to the presentation venue, either Elluminate
at http://tinyurl.com/y3eh, or Adobe Connect at
http://connect.pi.ac.ae/taedtech.

The event this week will take place in Elluminate http://tinyurl.com/y3eh
Please note, Elluminate is generously provided to us by Learning Times, and
prior registration is required (non-intrusive, takes only minutes).

All are welcome and hope to see you there,

Vance

Reflections on Use of MOODLE and Web 2.0 tools in the EFL e-learning courses Session

2010-10-13T19:23:00.006+08:00

Here are the things I've learned in Vance Steven's weekly speed geek that took place last Sunday Oct 3 at 13:00 GMT in Adobe Connect, http://connect.pi.ac.ae/taedtech. This particular session was about the use of moodle and web 2.0 tools in the EFL e-learning course at a Casa Tomas in Brazilia, Brazil. The lead presenters were Carla Arena and Erika Cruvinel, both long-time webheads.

Being a webhead, I've have seen the many class projects that Carla and Erika have designed for their EFL courses. I have also worked with Carla in numerous online endeavors i.e. Electronic Village Online (http://evosessions.pbworks.com/) and she also presented for the EFL-NNEST Intersession in Boston early this year, http://eflnnest2010.pbworks.com/ So I knew that they'll be presenting effective practices of techology integration in traditional F2F classroom. What I wasn't expecting, and surely it was a very welcome surprise was the inclusion of teacher training which uses both traditional methods and online teacher training strategies. So this is what I'll be focusing on in today's entry.

The discussion on teacher training was raised almost at the very end of their session, and it was brought up by Wendy Arnold, IATEFL Young Learner Sig. She asked, "how long it takes online training teachers up to speed on how to use tools?" It was an interesting question and a valid one, too. Erika responded to this and she said that it (teacher training) is a process and the first thing they do as trainers is to teach the teachers how to use these tools. It's pretty common sense that to be able to use the tools effectively in the classroom, the teachers have got to be proficient and confident in using the tools themselves!

To support the teachers' training needs in Casa Tomas, they developed the 'Web tools course/E-tutoring course' which is patterned to the EVO style of mentoring and training. This I think is the best complement for EVO, which I believe is a testament to the benefits of doing free online professional development for language teachers who may not have access to TPD in their local teaching/learning environment. Carla also emphasized that it takes some time for teachers to get used to the different tools- since there are hundreds of them! She also pointed out that teachers have to experience how to be online students themselves so they could 1) familiarize themselves with the tools and the technical aspects of web tools application, and 2) realize the students' difficulties Again this is very important because having experienced the same trials and frustrations in using the tools in learning that students face, teachers would be able to provide better support and guidelines to make the students' learning experience a positive one. Sometimes when teachers get so used to using a tool it becomes second nature to them- they coud probably do a task with their eyes closed! For a digital-native teacher, technology integration comes with ease. But surely, before one becomes so good in something there's has got to be a point where they started off as totally ignoramus. So before becoming digital natives, they must have experienced how it was to be digital immigrants. I once was-- back in 2001- until I met Vance Stevens and joined his EVO-Webheads session; the rest is history. Carla and Erika also took the same path- through EVO and webheads they experienced informal mentoring from web-savvy webheads EFL teachers, and once they got the knack of it they started doing the same thing their informal mentors were doing- they were involved in informal teaching/mentoring/participating/sharing. This is a crucial point not only in the survival of a communty of practice (Webheads), but in the language profession as well. Teachers join online groups/networks/CoPs or whatever you want to call them because they feel there's a need to participate, to learn something, to update their skills, etc. and in most occassions, this kind of teacher-support and learning opportunities do not come handy in their workplace. A motivated teacher looks out for ways to improve her/his craft- and they sometimes find them online. It would be ideal if such learning/teaching support is provided by the employing institution, but with the economic setback that many countries are experiencing, even providing basic teacher training is not available just to cut cost. But not for Casa Tomas.

This is why I admire Isabel Villasboas, Carla's and Erika's head manager, because she makes it possible to blend theory and practice; she allows the use of social networking sites and other web 2.0 tools creating their own (Casa Tomas) personal learning networking which is shared with other teachers across the globe. Teacher training is not only done online but face-to-face as well- this I believe is the icing on the cake. The more local teachers are given access to teacher professional development the better it gets for the local ELT community. When you improve the kind of teacher quality in your own local network, particularly non-native English teachers, you also improve the quality of English learning students get. I wish there are Isabel Villasboas in Taiwan- but I still have yet to find one :-(

/a

Comments on Angela's Blog Entry on Community vs Network

2010-10-12T17:39:00.002+08:00

This is a response to Angela's Blog entry on community vs. network, http://byrnesa.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/community-vs-networks/. I'm pasting here what I snipped from Angela's blog which would help me address the specific issues that she raised.

I think wat she wrote (below) is a great reflection of the benefits of having a recording of an online session/webinar.

It seemed that when my concentration went to one, I missed something in the other and thus I ended up watching the session 2 more times, and each time I got something new out of it. I guess that is the beauty of having the elluminate recordings, we can always go back if we need to.

Recording a webinar and putting it up online after the session to share with others who didn't have the chance to participate synchronously. I, for one, often missed out on a lot of synchronous conferences/discussions mainly because of two reasons, 1) time availability i.e. conflict of schedule usually with other f2f engagements, and 2) time zone differences. I live in Taiwan and that's where I teach too. But I occassionally travel back and forth between Taiwan and Birmingham, UK. I'm in Birmingham now doing my PhD residency, and the time difference makes it impossible for me to participate. You also wrote about listening to the recording many times and each time you learned something new. Would this have been possible if the recording was not available? If the recording was not made public, do you think that the volunteer mentors, like myself, or other educators who are interested in the topic but could not fully commit themselves to the course would be able to understand your blog reflections if we/they didn't have a clue what the recording was about? This is the beauty of open resources. Anyone who needs it can gain access to it. It's free. It's available, and when you and I discuss we aggregate the data; we snipped bits and pieces and react/reflect on them. In the end, we have this mashed up knowledge as a result of accumulated shared ideas.

Another key point is on 'trust' which you mentioned quite a bit in your blog entry. I think you know by now the difference between a network and a community. A network can be helpful specially if connections with others are continuous and active, but it does not necessarily mean that is a community of practice (CoP). Forming a community takes time to build; it's like a 'village'; you've got to know people. You've got to befriend them, which means that there's a certain level of comfort enough for you to share your views and opinions. You are, honey, is like the new kid on the block. You just moved in, and have not yet adapted to the new place. Give it sometime to grow, get to know people and find common goals (which I think you already found in this group/course). Sharing can sometimes be nervewracking because you just don't know how other people will react. So in a new community, one has to be careful with his/her choice of words. But I believe the most important thing to know when sharing ideas, lessons, etc. is that someone out there will benefit from what you've shared. How many times have you benefitted from what other people have shared online? Sometimes you let them know that you got something out of it, most often not. In my own PhD research, I found that the benefits of online sharing, ementoring, etc. to other EFL teachers outweigh the barriers. Perhaps in your own class project, you'd also discover the same :-)

At the moment, I do not have enough trust in our EC&I 831 community to be comfortable speaking. Like my classmate, Jamie, I have no problem typing responses in the chat when I have something to say but I am not ready to grab the mic yet, not because, like her, I am shy, but rather because there is not enough trust on my part, yet… It’s another goal area.

I like this comment in particular i.e. B. Dieu comment. Well for one, I know who you're talking about. Barbara Dieu is a colleague and dear friend- and our friendship grew as a result of our active participation in the Webheads online community of practice. I agree, CoPs are round, and I'm adding my two cents on this. I talked about sharing and learning, but the process for a teacher does not really start there. For me, there's has got to be a need- your own teaching/learning need. You call out for help in your CoP, and see how many people will turn up to offer guide and support. Soon, it'll be their turn to call our for help, but will you be there for them? What I'm saying is, to make a CoP work, the very essence of belonging to a community lies on sharing and helping and calling out for help. That's the continuous process of a CoP's existence.

I think what made the most sense to me was when Barbara Dieu said that “communities are round and networks are spiky.” That gave me a visual in my mind, which is important as I am a visual learner.

On Fostering change via a learning community like the ECI,

By doing this, maybe we can foster change within our own lives and effectively be a venue for social change.

I agree, you can foster change. But without trust, your confidence in this group's ability to foster change is not that strong. You need to be an advocate for change, hence an advocate for this learning community. You strongly believe that this network, this community that you belong in works for you, and therefore will work in your teaching community.

On being in a tight-knit closed community,

I think my sense of community would be stronger if the course were closed to only those taking it for credit. However, I do not want a closed course; I want it to be an open community.

Again, if Alec had chosen to limit participation of non-course takers, I wouldn't be here commenting on your ideas. Perhaps it would be easier to establish a stronger connection with a smaller community- but what you receive and put out foster stronger bonds among the community members. Your participation, combined with other's active contribution make a stronger CoP. So are you willing to make change happen?

Let me know about your project, I'd like to see how I can help make your ideas come to life :-)

Aiden Yeh/Motherchina

Comments on Shawn's Understanding Connectivism & Constructivism blog post

2010-10-12T16:40:00.001+08:00

Below was the comment I posted on Shawn's blog entry on understandin connectivism and constructivism, http://shawnastangel.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/76/#comment-41

Hi Shawn,

I read your blog post with interest. You have covered the basic theoretical framework of connectivism and constructivism. In the end you asked, "Yes, all of these are benefits of the technological aspect of connectivism, but are they not also a very strong component of constructivism?" They are! long before connectivism, CoP was the key phrase. And both capitalizes on social construction of knowledge. Technology provides the access to connecting with other people who share the same interests. Constructivism is more grounded to providing you solid evidence of learning; that learning was not only a result of receiving information/knowledge through your various networks but you construct new ideas based on them. If you were given a project, how would you show evidence of constructivist learning in a connected social network?

Aiden Yeh
Motherchina on Twitter

Virtual Round Table TODAY!

2010-10-08T16:41:00.001+08:00

Announcement on behalf of Heike Philp

A message to all members of Virtual Round Table

Dear all,

The Virtual Round Table Conference starts today at 9am GMT which translates to be 10am in the UK, 5am in New York and 5pm in Beijing. (http://tinyurl.com/8Oct9amGMT for world times) with the WELCOME ADDRESS by the three company organisers, Shelly Terrell of Parentella, Berni Wall, Gapfillers and the originator of the Virtual Round Table conference Heike Philp, CEO of LANCELOT School GmbH.

One of the highlights of today will be, to listen to two industry giants in the field of language learning peer-to-peer communities, LiveMocha (6 Mio users) and Busuu (1 Mio users). Busuu's CEO Bernhard Niesner will present straight after the welcome address at 9:30am GMT http://tinyurl.com/8Oct930amGMT

During the first set of PARALLEL SESSIONS, you might find it very difficult to choose between listening to Lindsey Clandfield (Nicky unfortunately can not make it), Kevin Westbrook, Paul Maglione or Andrew Connolly of Mikogo at 10am GMT (http://tinyurl.com/8Oct10amGMT). Sadly Andy Chaplin can not be with us and his session is cancelled. Difficult to choose but don't worry, whatever you miss out on you will be able to watch as recordings.

At 11:30am GMT (http://tinyurl.com/8Oct1130amGMT) we will have an UNCONFERENCE. But what is an unconference? An unconference is a part without set program when conference participants get together, vote for a topic that they wish to discuss with others and then split into interest groups. At the end of the 30min discussion everyone meets again and a spokesman of each group relates their findings. Conferences which are entirely based on this concept are called barcamps or educamps.

Certainly one of the highlights of the day is our first main PANEL DISCUSSION with the 'webheads' an online community of educators, orginally started by Vance Stevens and Dave Winet some 10 years ago. We are thrilled to see Teresa Almeida d'Eca, Carla Arena, Michael Coghlan, Erika Cruvinel, Daf Gonzalez, Vance Stevens and Jennifer Verschoor join us from Australia, Portugal, Spain, Brazil and the UAE, spanning the globe. They will be discussing what works where in teacher training. This is a learning conversation without any powerpoint and you are all encouraged to freely ask questions and add comments in the text chat. .

The afternoon sessions then starts at 3:30pm GMT (http://tinyurl.com/8Oct330pmGMT) with Livemocha’s CEO Michael Schutzler world leader of online communities for language learners, joining us from the US followed by Judie Haynes on KidSpiration and teaching kids to write and Tara Benwell of MyEnglishClub. Please note, this session starts half an hour early at 3:30pm GMT to get a chance to listen to Michael, who has some speaking engagement and has to leave promptly at his local time 9am.

Then, non-stop, we continue with PARALLEL SESSIONS http://tinyurl.com/8October5pmGMT to join Sirin Soyoz at British Council in Turkey about songs in ELT, English360 and their workshop on how to create dynamic and engaging lessons, Işil Boy (pronounced Ishil) a 30min presentation on web 2.0, Philip Gienandt of LinguaTV and their award winning and fun language videos and Udemy's Gagan Biyani, a true alternative to Moodle with a plus, namely a built in payment system (upcoming soon) that allows you to charge for the courses you create there.

Even if it is terribly difficult to choose between any of the parallel session, “worry not” because all sessions are being recorded and will be published on our conference site usually within 3 days of the conference.

The Friday closes with an exciting, fun and fast-paced PECHA KUCHA NIGHT http://tinyurl.com/8Oct7pmGMT and an ONLINE AUCTION.

Many thanks to our donors of products and services for their give-aways, which we are granted to auction of for a good cause, namely the teacher training grant. Our goal is to reach 3,000 EUR!

Looking forward to seeing you online.

The Conference organizers

Heike Philp
Shelly Terrell and
Berni Wall

Visit Virtual Round Table at: http://www.virtual-round-table.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

Webheads' Idioms in English Project on Flickr

2010-10-07T19:26:00.001+08:00

The "Idioms in English" project on Flickr started by the Webheads is an interesting idea that can easily be used in a blended learning EFL class. Look at the examples Webheads did and you can actually do the same- or even better!

Here's the link to the Idioms in English page, http://www.flickr.com/groups/1383087@N24/pool/with/5059716650/

Below is my message posted today to the Webheads Yahoo! Group regarding my contribution to the Webheads' Idioms Project on Flickr!
--------------------------------------------------
Hi All,

Just thought of sharing a picture that Michael Coghlan took back in 2008 but I couldn't figure out how to link it. So I took a screenshot and added it to the idioms stream. I added a description right below the meaning of the idiom expression; I also provided the direct link to Michael's photostream where you could see all the past comments on my shoe. There's an interesing comment made by Nergiz :-) and I just responded to that. Interesting though to find out that Graham wears high heels! :-)

Link to Walk a mile in my shoes! http://www.flickr.com/photos/14329959@N00/5059716650/in/pool-1383087@N24

To Michael's stream, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/2388083213/in/set-72157604359818827/

hugs to all,

Aiden
p.s.
what a wonderful project!

Response to ECouros's ECI831 student's blog post

2010-10-06T13:47:00.001+08:00

This is in response to ECI831 student's blog entry, http://trishshynkaruk.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/connect-mad-crazy-easy-with-sheryl-nussbaum-beach/#comment-14

And below was my response to her.
--------------------

Interesting blog post. I'd like to comment on two things: CoPs and local network for local teachers.

Regarding CoPs, I think it would help to read Etienne Wenger's theory, see http://www.ewenger.com/, http://www.learning-theories.com/communities-of-practice-lave-and-wenger.html He emphasizes the role of social participation in a CoP. This is a major factor since without the social interaction there won't be much networking and therefore in the long run, the connection with other group members won't be as solid. It takes people to connect, yes, but the relationship must grow into something stronger that really bonds the group i.e. friendship, open/informal mentoring, etc. Webheads in Action is a solid CoP and proven through the years of continuous collaboration with TPD projects and class-related projects.

Secondly, I'm interested in your idea of establishing local network for local teachers. My PhD thesis focuses on local teachers' online TPD i.e. ementoring and how learning & change can take place in their real teaching contexts. It was a long and tedious process but I saw how it worked and what the shortcomings were. I'd like to see your idea grow into something that will work for the teachers in your community. The first thing that you need to do is to prepare a mindmap or an outline on how you intend to make this happen. You can do this, one step at a time.

Goodluck and keep me updated with your project.

Aiden
aka motherchina (Twitter)

Use of MOODLE and Web 2.0 tools in the EFL e-learning courses, Oct 3, 13 GMT

2010-10-03T18:35:00.003+08:00

Recording is available at http://connect.pi.ac.ae/p55432632/
Pasting announcement from Vance Stevens via Webheads YG:

weekly speed geek to take place on Sunday Oct 3 at 13:00 GMT in Adobe Connect, http://connect.pi.ac.ae/taedtech

Carla Arena, Claudio Fleury, Erika Cruvinel and Ronaldo Júnior are a group of educators at Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brasilia. They will be sharing a bit of their experience of mixing the use of MOODLE and Web 2.0 tools in the EFL e-learning courses they devised and teach, of which this is one example: http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume14/ej54/ej54int/. Please have a look at this article and come talk with the Brazilian Webheads about how they integrate Web 2.0 and multiliteracies into their teaching.

This event is part of a participant-driven professional development series planned for the TESOL Arabia EdTech SIG at 13:00 GMT each Sunday (5 pm in UAE). Between Sept 6 and Oct 3, 2010 the event coincides with the TESOL PPOT 107 Multiliteracies course.

The event starts at noon GMT (4 p.m. in the UAE) when teaching practitioners gather at http://tappedin.org/ for informal professional development text chat. At 13:00 GMT (5 p.m. in the UAE) we move to the presentation venue.

Venue confirmed for http://connect.pi.ac.ae/taedtech.

Please feed back to us on your preference for Adobe Connect or Elluminate, as we have both available to us.

All are welcome of course, hope to see you there,

Vance

NOTE: 13 GMT is 21:00 Taiwan time

http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=3&month=10&year=2010&hour=13&min=0&sec=0&p1=0

Chat with Mark Pegrum and Gavin Dudeney Wed Sept 29, 2010 08:00 GMT all welcome

2010-09-28T16:18:00.001+08:00

Hi. I'm just copying and pasting Vance Steven's message (below). If you are free during this time, please join the chat!
--------------------------------

From VANCE STEVENS via Webheads YG
http://taedtech.ning.com/events/discussion-with-mark-pegrum

Mark Pegrum's book From Blogs to Bombs (http://e-language.wikispaces.com/mr2) was used recently as core reading in the multiliteracies course whose portal is here: http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com/

More recently, Mark has been touring Australia with Gavin Dudeney giving workshops on Digital Literacies. Mark and Gavin have agreed to reunite to discuss this topic with Vance Stevens and any other colleagues who would like to drop by and chat online.

Date: Wednesday, Sept 29, 2010

Time: 08:00 a.m. GMT, noon in UAE, and time where you are: http://tinyurl.com/2010sep19gmt08

Venue: Elluminate: http://tinyurl.com/y3eh

In preparation, check out these links:
* The flyer from the joint session: http://www.pearson.com.au/marketingimages/ELT/PD_workshop.pdf

* A wiki with links to a dozen artifacts worth perusing in preparation for the discussion at http://e-language.wikispaces.com/mr3

* A Google Doc prepared in collaboration with workshop participants on the Gold Coast, Australia: http://tinyurl.com/25394pu

All colleagues interested in participating are welcome
===============================

Make sure you get the time right; check out this link to find out what time it'll be in your part of the world.
http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=29&month=9&year=2010&hour=8&min=0&sec=0&p1=0

/aiden

Jennifer Verschoor on Technology Integration in EFL learning (Sept 25)

2010-09-26T19:37:00.002+08:00

Jennifer Verschoor is giving an informal talk today, September 25 at 13:00 GMT (10 am in Bs.As.) on Technology Integration. There will be two special guests, her daughters, who blog at http://www.vickylearningenglish.blogspot.com/

Please click the following link to join this session http://connect.pi.ac.ae/taedtech

Check out time differences here, http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=25&month=9&year=2010&hour=13&min=0&sec=0&p1=0

Note: This posting was based on Jennifer Verschoor's message posted on her Facebook wall.
-------------------
Recording: http://connect.pi.ac.ae/p57572846/

Sneak Peek at Charice on 'Glee' Season 2: An EFL Lesson (Cross-cultural communication)

2010-09-22T10:36:00.001+08:00

I came across this sneak peek video on Facebook, and after watching it I thought it can be used as a great material for an EFL lesson or cross-cultural communication course activity.

I'm a Charice fan. Like Susan Boyle, Charice was a product of the you-tube phenomenon. From Ellen to Oprah, to David Foster- they saw a potential (money and talent wise) in Charice. And now she's in Glee (season 2). Her life is an amazing story, but that is not what I had in mind for an EFL lesson. It's really about the sneak peek video that GLEE producers published/shared on Facebook.

Before you show the video in class, do a pre-video discussion as a warm-up activity. Ask your EFL students about their experiences when talking to native speakers of English. Were they treated badly simply because of their Asian appearance or because of their accent? This can be a sensitive topic- so be careful with what you say and be cautious of how your students will react.

Ask students if they have heard of Glee (TV series) and what they think of the program. Do they like the cast members? Who among the cast do they like the most? Why? What do they think of the lead cast, Rachel?

If they have not heard of Glee, you may want to show them a clip from Youtube to help them understand what this Glee is about.

Now, tell your students that you're going to show them a sneak peek video for one of the series for Season 2.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/09/21/exclusive-get-a-sneak-peek-at-charice-on-glee-season-2-video/

After watching it for the first time, ask them:
1) how do they feel about the clip/scene
2) did it change their opinion about Rachel (the lead character in Glee)
3) what do they think of Charice's performnce, and how she was portrayed in that scene?

Now, tell your students that you're going to watch the same video again. But this time, they should pay attention to the ff:

1) what made Rachel talk to Charice that way?
2) Were Rachel's assumptions valid? how so?
3) How do you feel about Charice's reactions? Could she have done more?

We sometimes judge people based on the way they look. Appearance can tell us something about a person, but we can't summarize a person's ability, intelligence, personality, etc. simply based on the way she/he looks.

We also sometimes judge a person's ability based on his/her accent? Does accent really represent one's intelligence?

Consider the consequences of that particular scene to Charice's character 'Sunshine'- how do you think it would affect her? Can a similar situation affect your EFL students and their attitude towards themselves as EFL learners? ...their perception about their ethnicity and how it affects status symbol? For teenagers, image is everything. Being 'IN' is what matters the most. But how can EFL students be 'in' in an environment where there's little tolerance to ethnic/accent differences?

TOLERANCE. Big word- what does it really mean? How can EFL studens/teachers practice it?

The issues raised in this lesson are valuable to teaching cross-cultural communications, and yes, world Englishes.

I hope you'd able to use this piece in your class, and share with us/me how it went.

Aiden

BELP PG Conference

2010-09-21T21:03:00.002+08:00

BELP PG Conference
Westmere House, University of Birmingham
September 27, 2010

Will you be interested in the following sessions? Would you like to join us via webcast?
---------------------------------------------------------

9.00 – 9.30 Registration G3, Westmere

9.30 – 9.40 Welcome and Introduction

SESSION Chair:

9.40 – 10.00 Phrasal verbs and Malaysian Learners of English

10.00 – 10.20 An investigation of discourse markers oh and I think made by Chinese NNSs and NSs of English: Localisation of English and implications for pedagogy

10.20 – 10.40 A comparative study of wh-words in Chinese EFL textbooks, elicited native and non-native speaker data and written native and non-native speaker corpora

10.40 – 11.00 An Introduction to the NAFWiC

11.00 – 11.20 Coffee Break

SESSION 2 Chair:

11.20 – 11.40 'Women of Action': A Critical Metaphor Analysis of Professional Identities of Female Politicians in Contemporary Polish Media Discourse.

11.40 – 12.00 Four ideas about why ‘chav’ matters

12.00 – 12.20 A local grammar of translation equivalences

12.20 – 12.40 Valency – Word Sense – Sentence Production

12.40 – 1.40 Buffet Lunch

SESSION 3 Chair:

1.40 – 2.00 Online Teacher Professional Development: Effecting Change on Taiwanese EFL Teachers’ Attitudes and Classroom Practices

2.00 – 2.20 Blog Assisted Language Learning (BALL) in the EFL Writing Classroom

2.20 – 2.40 Genre of Feedback

2.40 – 3.00 How definite are we about articles in English? A study of English L2 learner article interlanguage during a University Presessional English course.

3.00 – 3.20 Tea Break

SESSION 4 Chair:

3.20 – 4.20 Guest Speaker:
The Linguist as Detective: Forensic Applications of Language Description

If Facebook was created years ago: EFL task-based activity

2010-09-17T16:08:00.003+08:00

I got this link from a colleague in TESOL on my FB network,
http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?pid=14520790&id=739070012&ref=fbx_album

One of his followers asked who created it- so anyone who would pass it forward could give the right attributes/reference.

Google didn't help, but I found the same graphics with better quality.
http://www.funnymail.co.za/images/if-facebook-was-created-years-ago
and
http://www.systemwars.com/forums/showthread.php?80218-If-facebook-existed-years-ago

This is how you could turn this piece into a creative and fun EFL activity. I think it would be better if you 'localize' the characters/known personalities so students could easily relate to them. This is a great piece for ESP i.e. History, Social Studies, etc.

First, show students the same Facebook messages above. Choose one that does not contain profanity/vulgar words (most of them contain words that you may not want your students to use. Please edit as you wish)

Ask students if they know Abraham Lincoln, Galileo, etc.
Do a little text analysis i.e. what word in the message that connects it to the famous person involved?
For example: Abraham Lincoln: what does 'theater' and/or 'private box seats' got to do with him? What happened to him? Dig real facts here. Get your resources ready.

What about Charles Darwin? What about living creatures evolving from basic forms? And why is the Church so angry at him asking him to shut up?

Source: http://www.systemwars.com/forums/showthread.php?80218-If-facebook-existed-years-ago

Once you've gone through the materials, ask students to do some brainstorming.

Brainstorming: Ask students to name famous local people they've encountered in history books or people who have made an impact on their history and culture. Are they considered 'heroes'? What did they do in the past that made them famous?

Write/list the names on the board (wiki or whatever you're using in the classroom). For each historical figure named, write down what their personality/character was like.

Once you've got enough information regarding your list of famous people, ask students to write/compose messages or Facebook updates that they think these people would use. Ask them to look at the given sample for help/inspiration.

Ask them to write/publish their work online i.e. Wiki/blog and share with the Webheads and we'll comment on them!

Have fun!

Aiden
----------
BELOW ARE THE COMMENTS I RECEIVED FROM WEBHEADS RE. THIS LESSON

"Thanks, Aiden. That just brightened my day:-)"
"I quite like this one which explains World War 2. A few inappropriate posts along the way though. http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1802364"
"Great idea and lesson! Thanks for sharing."
"I loved the idea! My students are big fans of Facebook and I'm sure they'll see "language contextualized" !!! thanks for sharing "

Salford Uni. beats UoB in online PG conference

2010-09-17T15:06:00.003+08:00

[Promised to self this is my last blog entry for the day]

On my Tweeter network, I received a post from Cristina Costa, a longtime Webhead colleague, regarding an online conference for PG students. This got me excited because it's a conference for PG students BY PG students. University of Birmingham, Applied Linguistics, English Depts have a weekly-Friday PG seminars where PG students present/share something about their research studies. Back in 2004, I got in touch with a couple of students who were in Japan and asked them if they'll be interested in doing an online PG seminar. Sure enough, they were pretty cool with the idea--but nothing came out of it. My first supervisor left the Uni and I was re-assigned to a new supervisor-and not knowing who to talk to at that time made it worse so the whole thing just kinda fizzled out. I was then later told that the PG students who were in the UK at that time were not interested in doing an online seminar because many of them were not comfortable with it. I told them all they had to do was to have a computer with webcam and internet access- I was thinking, if they were not interested in presenting, I can get in touch with distance learning students who can and who will. Well, getting the list of students isn't that easy. When I finally went there to do my residency, I got the chance to attend these PG seminars. Interesting stuff but not any different to conference presentations. These seminars are supposed to provide students training and experience in doing presentations. And they do- some students really need the training. Anyway, I was able to talk to someone in-charge, I talked-the-talk, and was told that it can be done. I know it can; I've seen it done and it works! And so I waited. And waited. Still waiting. I told myself, well, Aiden, don't rock the boat too hard, you still need to get that degree. And so you must see how proud I am when Cris made this online conference happened. I am sad rather than envious; sad because UoB provides Distance learning programmes in different modes- and yet no online PG seminars. The only connection I have with fellow students is the PG list, and it's simply for online announcements- much like an email announcement board. I'm not really craving for another network and connections- I've got the Webheads and IATEFL folks- they keep me pretty much connected every single day. But yes, I do wish there's an online CoP for UoB Arts & Humanities PG students.

Here's Cris's Retweet:

OCTIS programme, http://www.slideshare.net/salfordpgrs/octis1-2010-programme

Here's a snapshot of the morning conference that I attended,

This was a great experience not just for me but for the Professors and students who participated as well. For one, they have experienced how different online teaching/lecturing/presenting is compared to f2f presentations. In blended presentations, you've got to deal with both the online participants and those who are physicially there in the room- and I think many Webheads are experts on this :-)

Some professors do lecture/s well (it depends on how look at them). But I like lectures/presentations that are lively, interactive, and those who do not present themselves as 'I know it all' kind of experts.

In this OCTIS conference, I get to reaffirm my beliefs that you do not have to be a native speaker of English to be able to deliver an effective online/blended presentations. I don't know Prof. Gaspari and I'm not into Translation studies or related research but I did enjoy his session--I learned something from him. He made use of the whiteboard to make his presentation even more interactive; he was just, in my opinion, pretty awesome.

From this event, I could give another example of the power of social networks and how it provides access to online teacher professional development. Below is a snapshot of my FB wall showing a message I received from another Webhead-EVO colleague from France, Moira H. thanking me for forwarding the link. If you click on the picture above, you might just see her username- she was there in the online conference.

Read Cristina Costa's blog entry to know more about how she organized this event, http://www.pg.salford.ac.uk/blog/?p=758

And going back to UoB PG seminars, the Birmingham English Language Postgraduate Conference
(BELP) conference is going to be held on Sept. 27, Monday at Westmere House. I'll be presenting in the afternoon, right after lunch (I know, siesta time for me...). Talks about whether this event will be streamed or webcast are still ongoing--but nah, not counting on it.

And so folks, that's it for me.

/a

Participating in ELT Chat on Twitter

2010-09-17T13:05:00.002+08:00

Last September 15, 2010 I participated in the first ELTchat (#ELTchat) on Twitter.com.
http://eltchat.com/

I was excited to take part in this activity mainly for three reasons: I wanted to see...
1. how the flow of conversations would transpire
2. what subtopics would come out as an offshoot from the general main topic: 'How do we best motivate learners?'
3. how I'd be able to follow the thread of conversations/messages posted by so many people almost all at the same time

I have participated in many online chats, webinars, voice/text chats, or whatever you want to call it, and I'm quite familiar with the set-up. I'm also pretty aware of how people behave in online chats; some are really responsive and some less active, and there are those who are 'technically have web presence' since they are logged on and we see their usernames in the chat platform but 'conversationally absent' since they do not participate in the conversations. But facilitating a chat session on Twitter is definitely new--at least for me. Now, I've seen pretty short yet interesting conversations on Twitter, and they can sometimes be delightful to read. A source of amusement, I should say. My favs on brief-twitter-chats would be those of between Gavin D. and Claire Siskin, and again Gavin D. and Jeremy Harmer, and yet again Gavin D. and Scott Thornbury (which Jason R. also blogged in, http://jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/jason_renshaws_web_log/2010/08/gavin-dudeney-vs-scott-thornbury.html). Jason describes Gavin and Scott as people in the ELT field with sharp and witty personalities. I agree, and I think the same can be said for Claire and Jeremy. These people are great in carrying snappy conversations- made me sometimes feel I was watching tennis- the suspense of seeing who's gonna hit or miss. But carrying a chat on ELt related topics for an hour on Twitter?--not sure how it would go?

I don't know who the people are behind ELTchat, all I knew was that Jason and Marisa were creating some noise about it on my PLN, so I thought, hmm, this has gotta be good. I also did my share of shoutouts- my family and friends on FB who are not ELT folks would have wondered what the buzz was about.

So off I went...

It started pretty smoothly. I was able to follow the conversation; I responded to questions, although not all of them, but I think there were some interesting chunks of info being passed around. I did enjoy being there, but it made me feel like I was in a party (no, not the punk or rock type- more matured, imagine light Jazz being played in the background) . I was talking to sometimes one or two people, then I get silent, listening to what everyone was saying/posting. I had to wait for the new tweets to come up- Twitter dropped them in bags, too- sometimes 4-6 tweets at once. Manageable. But try 20-30 tweet-updates! I had to scroll up and down the page to find out where my message landed and who picked it up, and who carried the conversation. 2-3 people did, but similar to party conversations, people move on, and so do the conversations. Then after all that chattering, it just slowed down. I was thinking it could be Twitter's fault- the site gets bogged down when the traffic of messages become heavy. #ELTchat could have caused traffic... I wonder if the #ELTchat hashtag made it to the TOP Trends in Twitter... Let me know if it did.

Marisa posted on Twitter that the chat was archived and uploaded, and is now available for everyone to read. Here is the link if you're interested in reading it, http://eltchat.com/chat-transcripts/how-do-we-best-motivate-learners-to-practice-outside-the-classroom/

The transcript is a great source of data if you're into Discourse analysis- see how many subtopics came up and how long each topic-thread lasted. Cool, huh? Would love to do it but I'm pretty focused on finishing my dissertation- to be handed in for review next week!

But what I'd like to show you is this,

http://archivist.visitmix.com/6ad5e436/1/User

The graphic is not only visually attractive but the data it provided is simply impressive. Marisa, Jason, and to all the ELTchat organizers, you've got to have a webinar on how to use this site!

It was able to archive the following data:
number of tweets: 1,285 Tweets
when the archive and visualization was last updated: 21 hours ago

I realized that this site updates every 24 hours, which means the gathering of data is continuously performed. So, if I'm only interested on what happened on Sept. 15 during the first ELT chat on student motivation, does/can this site give me that info? Do we have that info? Is someone keeping track of the data i.e. tweets data for chat 1, chat 2, etc.

Anyway, I was happy that I participated in this endeavor. I'm sure we're all learning as we go.

Thanks ELT chat for that Twitteriffic experience!

/a

ELT Chat on Twitter, Sept 15

2010-09-14T20:56:00.000+08:00

Online Chat on Twitter on anything related to English Language Teaching (ELT) is about to kick off tomorow, September 15 at 3pm London time (GMT)- that's 11 pm Taiwan time.

Click here to find out what time it'll be in your part of the world, http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=15&month=9&year=2010&hour=15&min=0&sec=0&p1=0

Online chat session will last for an hour. To take part in this oTPD, you gotta have a Twitter account. If you don't have one, click here, http://twitter.com
The organizers of ELT chat is asking you to cast your vote and choose the topic that you're interested in. There are five topics to choose from: intercultural competence, lexical approach, international English, TEFL or TESOL, and motivating learners. Click here to vote, http://eltchat.com/

Use this hashtag to follow discussions on Twitter, #ELTchat
Be there or be square!

/a

Challenges of Using Tech with Young Learners

2010-09-07T08:58:00.000+08:00

Watch Nik Peachy's webinar presentation, 'Challenges of Using Tech with YLs' http://bit.ly/cnH5TQ adobe connect recording #efl #elt #ict #iatefl #tesol

Informal Learning of a Teacher from Ghana

2010-09-02T17:34:00.001+08:00

I received an email from this teacher (let's call her 'julyddan') in Ghana last August 28, 2010. She was interested in joining EVO and was asking if she could join the EVO team. Before sending her a response I informed the EVO coordinators about this and consulted them on how we should go about this- we have never received such an inquiry. While awaiting response from the team, julyddan was already sending me instant messages from Yahoo! Today, however, I decided to talk to her via Yahoo! IM and get this issue settled.

The flow of the text conversation with her was quite interesting because as it turned out, this was informal learning/mentoring in practice- ahhh the power of the Internet. Behold!

Note: orig worldmap was retrieved from this site, http://geology.com/world/world-map.shtml

Read the entire text chat and see what took place. She was already impressed with my old class wikis, but I told her there are other Webheads out there with great class blogs, wikis, and what have you. By the time you read this, julyddan is probably on her way to signing up to the Webheads YG!

I had a hard time figuring out how exactly I could help her. The idea of mentoring always interests me, as that's what Webheads and EVO team do; but she came in with all that motivation to learn and list of things to do- I just didn't know where to start.

I hope I did the right thing today. Anyway, I did tell her that she could show me her class wiki when it's done. And yes, she can always send me an IM!

/a

Read her message below:

Dear Aiden,

I have received a copy of the TESOL e-newsletter and have fallen in love with the EVO project. I am a post-graduate student awaiting the defence of my thesis and thence graduation with an MPhil English. As professional teacher with 11yrs teaching experience, my pre-occupation is researching into the most effective ways of teaching English and Literature especially through CALL. However, with regards to the use of CALL in Ghana, it is even difficult to find a single lecturer in my department who can mentor me. Hence my special request to the team is to be accepted as a protegee who can be coached and trained to introduce CALL in my country and my university in particular, University of Education, (name of state deleted).

As part of the training, I would be grateful if you could pair me or make me join a moderator group. Through they assigning tasks, and others to me I am sure I can learn and make an impact in my community.

By the next session my aim is to become a full fleshed moderator and be able to recruit many other language teachers from my country.

Hope to here favourably from you.

Thank you.
(name deleted)

----- Our chat on Thu, 9/2/10 5:07 PM -----

julyddan (4:13 PM): HI can I join an EVO team from Ghana? My interest is in integrating computers in language learning.

Aiden (4:15 PM): Hi there. received your message. Have you participated in any of the EVO sessions before?

julyddan (4:15 PM): no

Aiden (4:16 PM): The EVO sessions will be offered in January 2011. We are still in the process of receiving proposals.

Aiden (4:17 PM): http://evosessions.pbworks.com/, here's the link to past sessions, http://evosessions.pbworks.com/EVO+Previous+Sessions

julyddan (4:18 PM): Is it possible to join an existing team so i can be coached?

Aiden (4:18 PM): I suggest that you join Becoming a Webhead session as they show participants how to integrate technology in the classroom

Aiden (4:19 PM): There are no open sessions now; but you can join Webheads online community and be part of the learning community

Aiden (4:21 PM): I also suggest that you look at past BaW weekly activities- they introduce the basics from which tool to use to why you should it

Aiden (4:22 PM): you should also attend free webinars on Web 2.0

Aiden (4:23 PM): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evonline2002_webheads

julyddan (4:23 PM): ok I am checking on the links u have sent me

Aiden (4:24 PM): how old are your students and what class/es do you teach?

Aiden (4:25 PM): oh, and how did you find out about EVO?

julyddan (4:26 PM): I am 32. I have submitted my submitted a soft copy of my thesis for MPhil in English

julyddan (4:27 PM): Currently I am a tutor at the univ of Education, Winneba, distance learning section.

julyddan (4:29 PM): and i am looking for innovative ways of integrating IT in my teaching

julyddan (4:30 PM): I am also and IELTS exam proctor for British Council Ghana

Aiden (4:30 PM): how did you find out about EVO?

Aiden (4:31 PM): how old are your students and what class/es do you teach?

julyddan (4:32 PM): I joined the ELTeCS Europe, Caucus and Russia from the Briish Council Website when I was browsing for BC language teachers' opportunities

julyddan (4:33 PM): They are 18+. Diploma, Post Dip and 1st Degree

Aiden (4:35 PM): Is this a general English course?

julyddan (4:37 PM): I teach Comprehension and Composition at Post Dip, Com Skills and Intro to Lit at 1st degree

Aiden (4:38 PM): is this an online course or f2f?

Aiden (4:39 PM): do you use a wiki?

julyddan (4:39 PM): they are all f2f

Aiden (4:40 PM): do you have access to computers in the classroom?

julyddan (4:40 PM): but the dip courses are by distance and i wish to find ways of integrating IT so that my students can com and learn from home

julyddan (4:41 PM): not yet but if i can put a gud design together, my director is ready to provide them

Aiden (4:42 PM): do you use a course/leanring management system i.e. wiki, moodle, Yahoo! Group

julyddan (4:42 PM): I need to convince them with a gud proposal

julyddan (4:42 PM): no can u teach me how to?

julyddan (4:42 PM): this is why i want to be an evo member

julyddan (4:43 PM): nobody does these things in my university

Aiden (4:43 PM): Outline your proposal on a wiki and use your Yahoo! Group (or Google group) as learning mngt system (LMS)

Aiden (4:43 PM): EVO provide yearly teacher professional dev't sessions

Aiden (4:44 PM): what you need is to join a community of practice so you could just post your enquiry to the list

Aiden (4:44 PM): and peope will respond to you

julyddan (4:44 PM): so what is the first step?

Aiden (4:45 PM): for collaborative projects, you can also count on the webheads to help you

Aiden (4:45 PM): outline your plan on a wiki

Aiden (4:45 PM): sort of like a learning syllabus

Aiden (4:46 PM): i'll show you my class wikis

julyddan (4:46 PM): oh ok like my course outline right?

Aiden (4:46 PM): yes

julyddan (4:46 PM): great

julyddan (4:46 PM): i wild like to see it

Aiden (4:46 PM): in this way your students should have an e-copy of your syllabus

julyddan (4:46 PM): ok

Aiden (4:47 PM): these are old wikis because I took a break froom teaching last year bec. i'm finishing up my PhD

Aiden (4:47 PM): wait, let me get the UR:s

Aiden (4:48 PM): http://dcyeh.pbworks.com/,

julyddan (4:48 PM): oh ok

julyddan (4:48 PM): hope u grad soon

Aiden (4:48 PM): look at the sidebar, scroll down and you'll see SY2008-2009

julyddan (4:49 PM): then you can guide me through one

julyddan (4:49 PM): I am checking on the link now

Aiden (4:49 PM): yOU'LL see all the subjects that I taught that school year

julyddan (4:49 PM): ok

Aiden (4:49 PM): each class has its own YG and Wiki

Aiden (4:50 PM): the YG serves as our LMS, while the Wiki as a site for syllabus, instructions, students work, etc.

julyddan (4:50 PM): hmmm

Aiden (4:51 PM): familiarize yourself with YG or google group and see how you can organize it in a way that course materials are available in folders, links bookmarks, etc.

Aiden (4:52 PM): this is an example of Freshman English class

Aiden (4:52 PM): http://ue1a.pbworks.com/

Aiden (4:53 PM): my advertising class, http://ad97.pbworks.com/

Aiden (4:54 PM): research writing, http://researchwriting97.pbworks.com/

julyddan (4:55 PM): I am impressed

Aiden (4:55 PM): for writing, you can use googledocs

Aiden (4:56 PM): and you don't have yo publish your students work until they're ready

Aiden (4:56 PM): and you should always let them know why you're putting their work online

julyddan (4:57 PM): ok

Aiden (4:57 PM): Other webheads also have great class blogs, join webheads and you'll be surprised on how friendly and helpful people are

Aiden (4:57 PM): you can't find anything like the webheads

Aiden (4:58 PM): once you've got your class wiki up and running, let me know and i'll give it a visit

julyddan (4:59 PM): ok

Aiden (4:59 PM): great. glad to help you this time.

julyddan (5:00 PM): thank u very much

Aiden (5:07 PM): (smilie)

Seminar on Teacher Professional Development in Southern Taiwan (Chinese)

2010-08-25T17:18:00.000+08:00

For Teachers in Taiwan, you may want to attend this seminar.
Please pass this info to your colleagues or to anyone whom you know may benefit from this session.

The Social Network Official Trailer -In theatres Oct 1 2010

2010-08-24T17:42:00.000+08:00

This is not just a story about Facebook- the social network. It's a story about all the negative things about being human- greed, selfishness, vicious desires, etc., etc. It shows what people would do for the sake of money. Take the trivial things out of FB, and what have you got?

500 million friends. wow, what a network. But with that number, what kinds of relationships are created? How long can a social pyramid based on weak foundations of trivial friends and connections stand? It will soon crumble, and when it does count again the number of friends on your list, and you'll see.

This film is showing in October. Are you going to watch it? I think I will; I'd like to find out how the professors/admi in Harvard reacted to the whole FB thing. I wonder how their (the two kids featured in the movie) professors felt when the social network idea exploded right on their faces. Did they get a share? Did Harvard? Did they support the idea or were they totally against it? Did the professors who taught these kids ever predicted that FB's gonna be huge? did they ever tell themselves, 'Why the hell didn't i think of that?!'

I wonder if the script is out- I think it can be used as a learning activity.

Lady Greenfield: Social networking is turning us into babies

2010-08-24T13:43:00.000+08:00

Patrick Wintour, political editor guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 February 2009 10.52 GMT
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/24/social-networking-site-changing-childrens-brains

Wintour wrote an article, Facebook and Bebo risk 'infantilising' the human mind'. His article basically talks about what Lady Greenfield thinks of the social networking sites and how they are changing the way children think and behave, making them selfish with matching attention-deficit-disorder.

Are social networking sites turning us into babies? Does Bebo? I don't use Bebo and therefore can't comment on it; but the name has that similar 'goo-goo' sound babies make...or is it just because both words start with the letter 'B'...

I've been using Twitter and FB, and I don't think they have negatively affected my attention span. Tweets actually make me more attentive, since I could scroll my tweet updates and could easily catch an interesting tweet that deserves my full attention. I would even click on the provided link and read the entire article or watch the video clip and leave a brief comment. Now that I'm slowly making my way back to blogging, I can spend a few minutes and write something about what I've read. Attention is needed when you write, right? Even when you're writing nonsense, it still takes effort to whip up a few words of total B.S.

Now do Twitter and FB influence my identity? That's a loaded question. On FB, I use my real name and add friends and family to my friends' list. Got my entire network of real people who knows 2 or 3 things about me. Aside from my brothers and sister, and a handful of dear friends who could tell the best or worst side of me, the rest of them probably just know a few stuffs about me- mostly good ;-) But do I need to have multiple identities- I don't think so.

Ok, I hear you saying, what about your twitter account? You're using a different name- what's 'motherchina' about? If you're one of my closest friends in college, you won't even ask that question since you're probably one of the culprits who gave me that nickname. Back in those days, we either use silly nicknames (based on our chracter/physical looks/shortened first names e.g. Lalls for Lally, Helgs for Helga) or last name e.g. 'Dux' for Duco, Sison, etc. As for me, I was re-baptized with 'motherchina' because of my chinky eyes. I don't know how and why they came up with 'mother', I seldom cursed or is it my selective memory kicking in? Anyway, the name stuck with me. Now that I'm living in Taiwan, I have not yet heard any politically-loaded comments addressed to me. Yeah- other people may associate the word China (in motherchina) with something else, but who cares? There's a history behind that name, and that's what matters. That's one side of me you probably didn't know.

Wrapping this up, do social networking sites 'changed' my brain? For the better I hope. As I get older, I do find myself forgetting names, losing bits and pieces of my childhood memories and even events that took place less than a decade ago. With FB, I get to re-connect with cousins, many of whom were still little babies when I left for Taiwan- this brings back forgotten memories. I also get to re-connect with my former students- their connections and presence on FB remind me of what kind of teacher I was--likeable I hope (othrwise they won't even add me to their list), and yes a couple of occassional comments like "I miss you or I really enjoyed your classes" make me think of the reason/s why I ended up teaching.

/a

p.s.
perhaps this article does not relate to me afterall. She was referring to children- not 40-something-gal like me ;-)

MoodleMeet Moodle’rrific

2010-08-24T09:11:00.001+08:00

The posting below is an invitation to participate in the upcoming online conference, Moodle'rrific. Please pass it forward to colleagues who may be interested in getting involved.

Word is out that you have developed some successful practices around online learning and we’re hoping that you would be willing to share some of your ideas with colleagues in the upcoming MoodleMeet Moodle’rrific: taking place online between Sept 17-24, 2010.

The purpose of Moodle’rrific is to bring educators from across the world to ‘show and tell’ their successful online practices bringing together innovative uses of technology and personalized. Some of our partners this week include: British Columbia (Canada) Ministry of Education,Commonwealth of Learning*, and CUE BC, .with other partners and individuals still signing on.

We invite you to join this growing team as we work together leading the way internationally to:

- ensure that educators have access to a network of colleagues to help one another be the best they can be as online or mixed-mode educators

- ensure that students have access to engaging and effective online courses There are several ways you can join us ranging from being a participant during the week, being a “show and tell’ presenter during a 30-min

Elluminate timeslot and being part of the threaded discussion on the topic, and/or being an organizer/facilitator.

We know September 17th is fast approaching and no doubt you’re busy with back-to-school preparations; however, our facilitating team is ready to assist you and to bring you into the event in whatever level of participation interests you.

Please contact me if you have any questions, or want more information. Join us, you’ll be glad you did!

Sent by Sharon Betts on behalf of the Moodle’rrific Team, sharonbetts[@]gmail.com

Are you a Web Whore?

2010-08-23T12:00:00.001+08:00

Are you a web whore? Read this interesting blog post and see if you could relate to Leo, http://leoville.com/buzz-kill

Let's see if I qualify as one...

Leo joined twitter in 2006. I think I joined in 2007
Leo "sign up for every site, try every web app, use every service I can find". I don't sign up to every web app I find or learned from my web friends, only those that I fancy.

Leo: "I love trying the myriad new ways people are using it to connect and I believed that social media specifically had some magic new potential to bring us together." Me too and I agree that social media connects people, hence the term 'social'?! Hello?...

Leo: "When Google announced Buzz last year I was one of the first to jump on the bandwagon." I didn't. I guess I didn't hear the buzz...

Leo: "Buzz exclusively, replacing Twitter, Friendfeed, and Facebook" I didn't use Buzz or Friendfeed. Been using Facebook and twittr, and I have never been unfaithful--well, not yet...

Leo: 17,000 people followers. Wow- impressive. I think I'm more of a 'follower' than the one being followed. Though my tweet numbers may say otherwise, http://twitter.com/motherchina

Leo: use Feeds. I used it and I think I still have my feed site somewhere but I never really get the hang of it.

Leo: "But I ignored my blog and ran off with the sexy, shiny microblogs." I did too, and also ran off with twitter and FB. But now, like Leo, I find myself going back to blogging- tiptoeing my way back.

Leo: "Screw you Google Buzz. You broke my heart" I can't say the same to Google Buzz. Didn't ran off with buzz. So far, I'm enjoying the company my network of social media brings me. In this world of 'change' and social mobility, tech tools come and go, but what I find interesting and yes motivating and sometimes heartwarming is no matter which web tool I use or web space I land in, a handful of webheads are ALWAYS there to accompany me with my online journey. Joining the bandwagon are a few IATEFL folks that keep me good company too- making the tweets I get even more stweeter :-)

So, am I web whore? Well, are you? If you're interested in technology and its uses in the language classroom, you don't have a choice but to try the tools that are out there. You're gonna be doing a lot of 'sign ups', trying lots of web apps, transferring files from here to there, shifting from one task to another, etc. If you count all these as being 'unfaithful' and 'web promiscuity', well, then I am guilty as charged. Don't be so judgemental, I'm sure you've got your little secret tucked in somewhere. You're digital footprints could lead us to the web paths you've taken, and then we could see and judge...

Aiden

How Fairy Tale Ends: Ideas for Language Writing Tasks

2010-08-23T10:53:00.001+08:00

Hi All,

This was forwarded to me by my sister-in-law. It's just for fun, but I think it

(the idea) can be used as a writing/speaking activity. Some points to consider:

- Write a paragraph or brief essay (which could be posted on blogs/wikis/google

docs) about

fairy tales vs practical/cruel realities of life
childhood stories- when to start/end believing in them
describe the story behind the picture/s (easy task)

Anyway, perhaps you could think of other better ideas :-)

Aiden
----

How fairy tales really end:

Cinderella

Link: http://www.myjokemail.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Cinderella.jpg

Snowwhite

Link: http://www.funstuffdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/How-fairy-tales-really-end-Snow-White.jpg

Little Red Riding Hood

Sleeping Beauty

Link: http://files.sharenator.com/slee_How_fairy_tales_really_end-s658x437-48540-580.jpg

Jasmine: Aladdin

Link:

http://files.sharenator.com/jas_How_fairy_tales_really_end-s658x437-48541-580.jpg

Belle: Beauty and the Beast

Link: http://rosiebell.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341cac7d53ef0133ec5bb649970b-500wi

The Little Mermaid

Link: http://rosiebell.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341cac7d53ef01311001c4dd970c-500wi

Seems like only yesterday...

BARBIE DOLL has her 50th birthday this year......

Link: http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:oGjbWKx8eCOubM:http://i38.tinypic.com/swxtv8.jpg&t=1

Tweety Bird is 60 years old!

Link: http://ragsnram.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/image010.jpg

What about our superheroes?

Superman

Link http://img.uphaa.com/uploads/126/Superman.jpg

Read: 25 Ways to Tell You're Grown Up,

click here, http://fabulously40.com/article/id/25-ways-to-tell-youre-grown-up-2306

Cheers,

Aiden

Sue Waters Keynote Presentation Webconference

2010-07-31T11:54:00.000+08:00

Reform Symposium
http://reformsymposium.com/blog/2010/07/10/keynote-sue-waters/
Saturday, 7/31/2010, 12 noon

Day 1 Closing Keynote: Sue Waters

By Christopher Rogers, on July 10th, 2010

Sue Waters is Australian based in Perth and is married with two kids. While her work as an aquaculture lecturer, at Challenger TAFE, earned her the vote of the coolest job title Sue’s passion is the use of technology to enhance student learning.

Sue’s technology use has changed considerably since she was first introduced to it’s potential in 2000; from a LMS (WebCT) to Virtual Classrooms (Elluminate), mobile technologies (spyglasses, PDAs, iPods) and Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis etc).

Her passion for technology has lead to Sue’s transition from aquaculture lecturer, to facilitating professional development workshops on elearning and web 2.0 technologies to her current role as editor of The Edublogger and working for Edublogs as Edublogs Community Facilitator.

While she does spend considerable time helping and mentoring others — she does make time for for her personal and family life. Sue’s favorite ways of relaxing are reading a good book or going to a movie at the cinema.

As a blogger Sue stands for — practical application of technologies in education, and most importantly HELPING OTHERS learn how to use these technologies.

Date & Times: Fri. July 30th 9pm-10pm LA/ 12am Sat. NYC/ 5am, Sat. 7/31, London/ 6am, Sat. Paris/ 2pm, Sat., Sydney/ 1pm, Sat., Tokyo

Click here to join the Keynote: https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=M.CFE71A28898F87AA1A007FBC9CFA49

Keynote’s Website: Sue Waters, http://suewaters.com/
Twitter: @SueWaters

21C learning environment

2010-07-31T09:48:00.000+08:00

Shelly Blake Keynote

Keynote: What We Do

Description: A view from the classroom and a conversation about what 21C learning looks like on the ground level. There will be many examples of the practical and everyday use of Twitter, Jing, Wave, Blogs, Wikis, and more as used by students and teachers alike as well as a look at how to transform the physical space of the classroom into a 21C learning environment conducive to collaboration, mobile computing, and tech-integrated differentiated instruction.

Date & Times: Fri. July 30th 7pm-8pm LA/ 10pm NYC/ 3am, Sat. 7/31, London/ 4am, Sat. Paris/ 12noon, Sat., Sydney/ 11am, Sat., Tokyo

Click here for more time zones!

Click here to join the Keynote: https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=M.3A2AF29E985C9DD57501D645EE19D0

http://reformsymposium.com/blog/2010/07/10/keynote-shelly-blake-plock/

David Nunan TESOL Seminar: Motivating Young Learners

2010-07-30T11:40:00.000+08:00

Reform Symposium

2010-07-30T10:53:00.000+08:00

Showcasing Innovation in Education

The Reform Symposium is a free online conference for educators, administrators, parents and students. This year the conference is focused on innovative practices in education and what role these practices can play in educational reform.

Online presentations, http://reformsymposium.com/

Smories

2010-07-17T07:59:00.000+08:00

As posted on the Young Learners SIG Yahoo! Group list:

[1] We've now started adding subtitles - see these smories:

http://www.smories.com/winners/

[2] From May onwards, a new smory will be published daily, and all will be subtitled.

[3] The "Submit your own flimed smory" functionality is now live on the site. We still can't take external readers for stories submitted by writers, but we CAN take films of kids reading their own stories.

It's all done in a kids-safe environment. Instructions are available on the main menu on http://www.smories.com/.

The direct link is here: http://www.smories. com/submit/ video/

Best wishes,
- Ralph

The POST Method: A systematic approach to social strategy

2010-07-16T21:54:00.000+08:00

The POST Method: A systematic approach to social strategy

by Josh Bernoff

What do most companies do wrong when they enter the social world? No, it's not that they're being fake, or don't "get it." It's that they don't really know their objectives.

Is your company doing its social strategy backwards?

If you started by saying "we should do a blog" or "we should create a page on a social network" or "we should create a community" the answer is probably yes.

In any other business endeavor we start by figuring out what we want to accomplish. Social technologies are not magic. They accomplish things, too. It's time to stop doing social because it's cool. It's time to start doing it because it's effective.

Read full article here, http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell/2007/12/the-post-method.html

APA Cogniive Taxonomy

2010-07-16T21:52:00.000+08:00

Click on the link to view graphic from APA website,
http://www.apa.org/Images/cognitive-taxonomy-circle_tcm7-74268.gif

Comment posted on Cris's blog

2010-07-16T21:37:00.000+08:00

Hi Cris,

I'm still trying to finish my own PhD race. Although I am in my last leg of the race, I feel that I have already consumed my last energy pack. After writing the first five chapters, working on the last one is not as easy as I thought it would be. I need to consolidate all the ideas that I've presented in the previous chapters, but I find myself running out of things to say.

I started this race back in 2004. 'worked on my pilot study, survey, and case study. Then by early 2006, I took a Leave of absence due to personal reasons. Miki (my husband) decided to subspecialize in Nephrology which would take 2 years. I was only able to continue my studies after he got his subspecialty certificate- that was in 2008. Using the data gathered in 2005 were still useful but I felt I needed to spruce things up. So, I did another survey, a replicate of the 2005 survey, and a new case study. I'm hoping that I did the right move, and that I'm presenting something that is worthy of a PhD degree.

Cris, I could almost see the finish line; It's near and yet so far...will I be able to make it before my energy pack totally runs out?

Invitation to listen to David Crystal on the British Council Isle in Second Life

2010-07-11T19:49:00.000+08:00

Posted on behalf of Graham Stanley

We are pleased to announce that two talks by renowned linguist David

Crystal next week which will be retransmitted live to people on the

British Council Isle in Second Life

Details are here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/34172281/David-Crystal-Second-Life-July-2010

1) Speaking Shakespeare: Fact and Fiction

A light-hearted romp through Shakespeare

Prof. David Crystal and Hilary Crystal

WHEN: Monday, July 12, 2010 at 5.00pm UK time

see http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ for local time

WHERE: British Council Isle

http://slurl.com/secondlife/British%20Council%20Isle/213/223/30

2)Myths and realities of English on the Internet

by Prof. David Crystal

The internet, the language linker par excellence, offers ELT fresh

opportunities and challenges, but to respond to these requires an

understanding of how language is evolving in electronic media. The

talk examines some of the myths about what is happening to English in

electronic communication, and discusses research realities.

WHEN: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 9am UK time - see

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ for local time

WHERE: British Council Isle

http://slurl.com/secondlife/British%20Council%20Isle/213/223/30

PARTICIPATION:

To participate in the event, join us at the British Council Isle in

Second Life:

Anybody (over 18) can access the Main Grid island by downloading the

Second Life software from www.secondlife.com

Creating an avatar is free and takes 15 minutes. Once you've

registered and downloaded the software, teleport directly to the event

by clicking on the following link in your browser:

http://tinyurl.com/3xnrjo2

For more information on Second Life for English learners and teachers

have a look here:

www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/links/second-life-learners-teachers-english

HOSTS and ORGANISERS:

David Crystal will be speaking live at ETAI's 6th International

conference, Linking Through Language (see http://tinyurl.com/24z2vho

for more information)

Looking forward to seeing you on the island!

------------------
As posted on the webheads list

Web 3.0- the Video

2010-07-10T12:37:00.001+08:00

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

Structure is needed to make sense of all the data we have on he Internet. Information overload can be overwhelming- and people tend not to engage or drop the whole thing (stop reading or sharing) simply because there's too much information going around!

Letter from the Chair

2010-07-08T17:56:00.000+08:00

Here's a copy of Letter from the Chair which I wrote as part of the NNESTIS newsletter first issue for 2010,

Dear NNESTIS members,

Now in its third year as an interest section, NNESTIS is still going strong! At the recent TESOL convention in Boston, our IS was very well represented. With 29 sessions this year, compared with the 25 sessions we did in 2009, it just goes to show that our members have still got a lot to say about the issues that we advocate for. Below is a list of hot topics that we will be discussing at TESOL 2011 (New Orleans):

•Examining the “E” in TESOL
•Employment issues in Asia
•Native speaker and color in the workplace
•Tomorrow with an E: that is, how NNES teachers can compete with NES teachers in the teaching profession
•Reviewing previous studies and envisioning the future of NNESTIS
•Topics related to other ISs can include NNEST focus
•How the NNEST issue is affecting everyone in the field
•Analysis of policies in other organizations
One of the items on my to-do list is to conduct a series of free webinars for our members. The first session, held on April 23, 2010, and entitled “Webinar on Writing Good Proposals for the TESOL Convention,” was for those who may be interested in submitting a proposal but don’t know how. We were very fortunate to have Past Chair Karen Newman and Robert Griffin to share with our members some tips and tricks. Unfortunately, Valerie Jakar was unable to do her presentation because of illness. However, we’re planning to put up a slidecast and podcast of her session soon, which will also be available for download. PowerPoint materials used in the session and a link to the recording of the webcast can be accessed at http://nnest2010webinar1.pbworks.com.

The next webinar in the lineup is about improving presentation skills. Having your proposals get accepted is just the beginning. Making sure that you’re able to present your session well is just as important. Learn what it takes to impress an audience. Details about this webinar will be posted to the NNESTIS e-list.

In addition to the webinars, I am also planning to do another Electronic Village Online (EVO) session for 2011. Please look at the EVO session we offered back in 2009 (http://nnest-evo2009.pbworks.com). For EVO2011, I’d like to organize an online workshop for NNES teachers who wish to enhance their teaching skills. The focus will be on teaching practice(s) in the local context. I’d like to see more EFL teachers participate and share with us how they teach and what they teach. If you’re interested in helping out in the planning process, please get in touch with me.

If you look at the list of hot topics above and at the topics of our webinars and online workshop, you will notice that we’d like to cover a wide scope of issues. Yes, it is true that discrimination against teachers who are labeled as nonnative speakers is still rampant and sometimes we see it right under the wings of TESOL. However, we should bear in mind that although we are very much interested in the issues regarding nonnative speaker status, we cannot deny the fact that they are interconnected with the issues of other interest sections in TESOL. We need to deal with these issues from the inside out. As a group we are united because despite the differences in the color of our skin, the beauty of our own first language(s), and the unique sound of our accents, we see one common ground that bonds us together: These differences unite us. These differences define who we are. And as long as we value these differences as our strength, we can serve the larger EFL/ESL community much better without losing our own identity in the process.

I am hoping that through the webinars, online workshops, and face-to-face conference presentations, NNESTIS can help empower you so you can help us empower teachers in the larger EFL/ESL communities areas all over the world. As we think global, we spread our vision to the world. We do this by working with local TESOL affiliates to gain access to local teachers. And with the power of new technologies, teacher professional development is just a click away. It’s time to think “glocally.” And it’s time for all of us to pay it forward.

Aiden Yeh

NNEST Newsletter 2010 Volume 12 Number 1: Table of Contents

Twitter & Education

2010-05-31T10:46:00.002+08:00

Twitter & Education - #140conf LA from RealPlayer SP on Vimeo.

Stephen Krashen: Children need food, health care, and books. Not new standards and tests.

2010-05-15T21:59:00.000+08:00

Stephen Krashen: Children need food, health care, and books. Not new standards and tests.
By Anthony Cody on May 10, 2010 10:36 AM | 8 Comments | No TrackBacks
Dr. Stephen Krashen is a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California. He has written numerous books on his research into literacy and language acquisition. In recent years he has emerged as a persistent voice pointing towards the basic steps we should take to build literacy and strong academic skills for our students. He also points out the flaws in many of the premises of the "school reform" movement. This week, I asked him to share some thoughts with us on where things are headed. He offers us his views in this guest post.

Read full article here,
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2010/05/stephen_krashen_fix_poverty_an.html

Arizona Education Loses The Accent Of America

2010-05-15T11:57:00.002+08:00

NPR: Andrei Codrescu wonders what America would be like if public figures with accents, like Albert Einstein, had their contributions eliminated from the American landscape.

From the PD list:

TESOL released a joint statement with its AZ affiliate, AZ-TESOL, today regarding the initiative by the AZ Department of Education mandating teachers with accents be removed from classes with English language learners. The statement is below.

Joint Statement on the Teacher English Fluency Initiative in Arizona
May 2010

According to recent media reports, the Arizona Department of Education has mandated that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English. It is reported the intent of this initiative is to ensure that students with limited English have teachers who speak the language flawlessly.

For decades the field of English language teaching has suffered from the myth that one only needs to be a native English speaker in order to teach the English language. The myth further implicates that native English speakers make better English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers than nonnative English speakers because native English speakers are perceived to speak “unaccented” English and understand and use idiomatic expressions fluently. The distinction between native and nonnative speakers of English presents an oversimplified, either/or classification system that is not only misleading, but also ignores the formal education, linguistic expertise, teaching experience, and professional preparation of educators in the field of English language teaching.

TESOL has long opposed discrimination against nonnative English speakers in the field of English language teaching. All English language educators should be proficient in English regardless of their native languages, but English language proficiency should be viewed as only one criterion in evaluating a teacher’s qualifications. English language proficiency, teaching experience, and professionalism should be assessed along a continuum of professional preparation; pedagogical skills, teaching experience, and professional preparation should be given as much weight as language proficiency.

TESOL and its Arizona affiliate AZ-TESOL have great concerns about this teacher English fluency evaluation initiative and its impact upon English language learners. Nonnative English-speaking educators should not be singled out because of their native language, nor evaluated based on arbitrary standards of language fluency. All educators should be evaluated in a transparent manner along the same criteria based on clearly articulated and valid standards. The TESOL-NCATE Standards for P–12 Teacher Preparation Programs, which provide standards and rubrics designed to help teacher education programs identify evidence of teacher performance, can be useful resources for institutions.

With the recent state legislation targeting undocumented immigrants in Arizona (SB 1070) and other legislation banning ethnic studies in Arizona (HB 2281), TESOL and AZ-TESOL are deeply troubled by what appears to be an environment of fear and xenophobia being fostered by lawmakers in the state without consideration of the consequences upon student learning and achievement. This impacts all educators and students, including U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who speak a language other than English. The right of undocumented students to a K–12 public education has long been protected under U.S. law. TESOL and Arizona TESOL strongly urge lawmakers and education officials in Arizona to ensure that the education of all Arizona schoolchildren is not harmed by these developments, and that the right of all educators to be treated fairly and equally is protected.

#####

Color, Race and English Language Teaching: Shades of Meaning - edited by Andy Curtis and Mary Romney, exploring the intricacies of being a TESOL professional of color. Whose language? Whose authority?

http://books.google.com/books?id=D0IAov9RElsC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=%22color+race+and+english+language+teaching%22&source=web&ots=B5knevT-EX&sig=EEHNDuxwCH9xs33FbI_MRDPsHBA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Voices for Diversity and Equal Opportunity in ELT

2009-07-17T10:46:00.000+08:00

Presented By British Council Signature Event
Session Details
British Council Symposium on Equal Opportunity and Diversity in ELT: Getting it Right - took place on 20/21 February 2009 at the British Council, Spring Gardens in London

Demonstrating a willingness and commitment to discuss, understand and promote equality of opportunity and valuing, managing and promoting diversity in the ELT staffroom and classroom context are a challenge but have never been more important. Finding space for discussion and others to share in this commitment can be equally challenging.

Please visit the IATEFL site for details, http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/sessions/63/voices-diversity-and-equal-opportunity-elt

Online (and Distance) Design

2009-06-17T15:02:00.000+08:00

Day 2: June 16

Discussion Topic: Online (and Distance) Design -

As an instructor and student of online classes, I have not have much hand at designing or contemplating what can be used in the design of an online learning environment. From what I have seen in e-mails directed to this discussion I find it is utterly amazing and there are so many possiblitities. I liked the "Survey Monkey" Janet put in the discussion.... what a great site! I will definitely find a use for it! Thank you Dr. Rosen for the tip regarding the instruction movies on the site http://www.mlots.org . There is some great stuff that has come my way without even looking for it!

I guess from the stand-point of someone who has taken online classes and has instructed using them, I find the more user-friendly, the better; interactive sites, where drawings are made, (such as demonstrating angles, acute, obtuse, etc.), or where feed-back or answers are given, are great learning tools; use of graphics to teach things is a spectacular teaching tool. I have found that when I review some suggested sites, I learn new ways of explaining things, or ways to make the explanation clearer in my own teaching. It seems the internet has a great future for teaching and is a great tool for teachers.

When a lot of the discussion seemed slanted to those designing or facilitating the design of online professional development, I didn't know if it was a place I belonged. But, it is a great adventure reading the comments and visiting other areas, and a lot of places I was unaware of! I find it is a great learning experience and I look forward to all of the discussions.

Live Session on Teaching Speaking to Seniors

2009-04-08T18:11:00.002+08:00

Terry Doyle will be giving a brief talk about 'teaching speaking/oral skills to seniors' today at 5 am GMT in Learning Times, http://tinyurl. com/y3eh

Here's a link to his ppt.

http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/57376/Teaching-English-to-Seniors

Link to recording is at
https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2009-04-07.2223.M.7AE801FFB697DA460D4BF25AA8C21B.vcr

Learning English Kids Website

2009-03-18T11:54:00.001+08:00

As posted by the British Council:

There are some new materials on the
British Council's LearnEnglish Kids website.
This month we have a new story. It's a
traditional tale from West Africa called
'Why Anansi has thin legs'. Anansi is a
spider, and to find out why his legs are
so thin you'll have to listen to the story!

There are some lovely flashcards and a
reading and writing worksheet to accompany
it: http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-anansi.htm

Students are also given the opportunity
to write a traditional story from their
country. They can send it in to us and
we will put the best ones up on the site.
It will be great to be able to read traditional
stories written by children all over the world,
so please encourage your students and/or
children to take part and send us a story:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-your-traditional-stories.htm

As spring time arrives (on this side of the
earth anyway!) we'd like to remind you
about the activities based on the topic
of seasons which you'll find here:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-topics-seasons.htm

Finally, a reminder, that you'll find lots
of tips for how to get the most out of
the material and topics on LearnEnglish
Kids, on the TeachingEnglish website.
Here's the link to the Teaching Children
section:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/resources/teaching-children

Guest Speaker for Cindy's Live Session

2009-03-11T09:33:00.001+08:00

Here's a brief bio of Terry Doyle.

Terry Doyle has been an ESL teacher at City College of San Franciscosince 1978. He has taught all of those years but one in non-credit classes. These classes include many retired seniors, He teaches all levels and skills, but he specializes in using authentic movies to teach ESL. He has also collaborated with another teacher on organizing a Video Drama club. He graduated from UC Berkeley with an MA in linguistics, from San Francisco State University with a MA in TESOL, and from the University of San Francisco with an EdD in Multicultural and International Education. His dissertation was on language maintenance among Chinese families in San Francisco. His research interests center on NNEST issues and intercultural communication and the connection between these two. He is also currently compiliing a Movie-Idioms dictionary which he plans (with the help of some weboholic) to put on a website.

Cardiff Online

2009-03-11T09:15:00.000+08:00

Posted on behalf of Gavin Dudeney,
-----------

Join us for IATEFL Cardiff Online - 'one of the biggest global teacher
development events ever'

The Cardiff Online website is now live at:

http://iatefl. britishcouncil. org/2009

The 'Cardiff Online' project is British Council / IATEFL partnership
which will provide online conference coverage of this year's Cardiff
IATEFL Conference.

If you can't attend the Cardiff conference, follow the event online!

Cardiff Online will provide teacher audiences worldwide with an
opportunity to share ideas with colleagues before, during and after the
conference.

Please see below for some background information, which I hope you`ll
find useful.

Hope you can join us!

Julian Wing
British Council Cardiff Online Project Manager

~~~~~~~~~ PROMOTING CARDIFF ONLINE ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~

We'd like to encourage Teacher Associations, ELT institutions and ELT
bloggers to carry a link to Cardiff Online on their website, newsletter
or blog so we can spread the message and encourage more people to take
part in Cardiff Online.

We've produced some web banners which are available in different shapes
and sizes on the Cardiff Online website at:

http://iatefl. britishcouncil. org/2009/ cardiff-promotio n

~~~~~~~~~ CARDIFF ONLINE BACKGROUND ~~~~~~~~~~~~

IATEFL CARDIFF CONFERENCE: CARDIFF ONLINE WEBSITE NOW LIVE!

Online conference coverage of the 43rd IATEFL Conference

The Cardiff Online website is now live at:

http://iatefl. britishcouncil. org/2009

The British Council and IATEFL have launched the Cardiff Online website
which offers web coverage of this year's 43rd IATEFL Annual Conference
in Cardiff.

The Cardiff Online website allows remote participants to take part in
one of the world's biggest ELT conferences through a variety of
resources including:

- Video recordings of selected sessions
- Audio recordings of selected sessions
- Live streamed plenaries and events
- Moderated special interest discussion forums
- Chat sessions
- Blogs and photo albums

To visit the Cardiff Online website, go to:

http://iatefl. britishcouncil. org/2009

This initiative builds on the earlier collaboration between the British
Council and IATEFL.

Last year, 1,600 teachers and trainers attended the Exeter IATEFL
Conference, and over 5,000 participated online.

This year we expect a much larger audience, and this is a real
opportunity to take part in the biggest online ELT training community.

The Cardiff Online website gives you an opportunity to share ideas with
teachers all around the world. There will be interactive coverage with
video presentations, reports and interviews 'almost live' from Cardiff.

We look forward to meeting you online, and hope that you will share this
information with your colleagues worldwide.

Gavin Dudeney - Honorary Secretary, IATEFL
Julian Wing - British Council Cardiff Online Project Manager
Nik Peachey - IATEFL Online Editor

~~~~~~~~ IATEFL Press Release - March 2009 ~~~~~~~~~~

There are many thousands of professionals for whom attending the
conference is usually no more than a dream because of the costs involved
in travel to UK. This year plans are afoot to make the event accessible
to many thousands more participants from around the globe through a
virtual community space, known as 'Cardiff Online'

http://iatefl. britishcouncil. org/2009

This initiative builds on the groundwork laid at our two previous
conferences. It is an exciting and truly ground-breaking innovation made
possible through collaboration between IATEFL and The British Council,
and one that is very much in line with the charitable aims of IATEFL. It
promises to be one of the biggest global teacher development events
ever.

So what happens? A teacher in Mongolia, or Nepal, Venezuela or Ethiopia
will be able to sign up and participate in the conference from their own
country. All the plenary talks, as well as a sizable number of other
presentations will be shown live over the Net or recorded and made
available on the conference site. We will also have forums to discuss
all aspects of our profession, photo albums, chat sessions and prizes
especially for our remote participants. A large team will be in place
behind the scenes to bring the event to the remote audience, which is
anticipated to be in the region of 20,000 participants.

This year certainly promises to be different.

Marion Williams

President, IATEFL

Gavin Dudeney - Project Director, The Consultants- E

c/ Ceramica 54, 08035 Barcelona, Spain

Tel: +34 93 427 4240 | +44 20 7193 0770

http://www.theconsu ltants-e. com

Sole Online Providers: CertIBET and CertICT - http://tinyurl. com/3s3mm7

Winners: 2007 British Council ELTON award - http://tinyurl. com/3e2c54

Winners: 2007 Ben Warren Trust Prize -
http://tinyurl. com/6yolo4

Owners: Second Life EduNation sims - http://tinyurl. com/34l8mw

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Six Inspirations to become a teacher

2009-02-21T12:42:00.001+08:00

Philip Kerr's Six Inspirations to become a?teacher

This blog entry was posted at the IATEFL'S Teacher Education Sig list. It talks
about the 6 inspirations of Philip Kerr. Read this short blog entry, and see if
you agree with him. Read the comments area, too. Take note of the teacher who
got robbed in Thailand, and see where she landed next.

What inspired you to become a teacher?

Go to the blog, click here.

Motivating Young Learners Workshop

2008-08-08T19:56:00.000+08:00

Motivating Young Learners!
如何激發青年學子的潛力

A workshop led by Olha Madylus 英語教師研習工作坊

Why, if children are actually born with the necessary skills to be successful learners, do so many fail to reach their potential?

Organised by the British Council, this presentation addresses this dilemma. First examining the abilities children are born with, then exploring what happens when children are thrown into that unnatural and bizarre establishment – school. Practical classroom strategies (which teachers can easily integrate into their own classrooms), for children aged 7-17, based on the idea that challenge, fun and success are vital ingredients in shaping children’s attitude to learning and ability to do well will be presented.

如果孩童都與生俱來成功的學習技能，為何還有許多無法發揮其潛力的例子呢?

此工作坊為英國文化協會主辦，將針對這個主題，深入探討孩童出生時已具備的能力，以及進入『學校』這個學習環境後所面臨的挑戰。同時，講師將為國內教導7-17歲孩童的英語教師，分享實用的課堂教學策略- 強調具挑戰性、趣味性、及成功的教學方法為塑造孩童成功學習的重要關鍵因素！

講員介紹：

Ms. Olha Madylus英語教學經驗豐富，在英國擔任國際英語EFL教師證照CELTA之講師，同時也是劍橋大學考試局 (Cambridge ESOL) 國際專業導師。曾受邀至很多非英語系國家擔任英語講師及顧問，並且培訓當地學校英語教師，對兒童英語教學相當有研究。目前是師資訓練專家，經常受邀到世界各地演講，深受歡迎。

日期與時間：2008年 8月15日，星期五下午13:00 – 16:00 [ 13.10-14.30 & 14.45-16.00]

地點：集思會議中心柏拉圖廳〔台北市羅斯福路四段85號B1〕

報名方式：歡迎您免費報名參加！請填妥下列報名表格，利用傳真或是電子郵件寄至吳小姐，Evelyn.Wu@britishcouncil.org.tw即可，我們會盡快與您確認報名。詳情請洽詢英國文化協會，Tel: 02 8722 1027 ; Fax: 02 8786 0985。

姓名

服務學校/ 職業

聯絡電話

E-mail

聯絡地址

※ 前來參加完成研習的英語教師，將可申請多元研習時數共三小時。

※ 英國文化協會將提供”閱讀的魔力”讀本致贈與會貴賓，歡迎有興趣的老師踴躍報名參加！

活動場地交通資訊:

集思會議中心柏拉圖廳 http://www.meeting.com.tw/；捷運公館站出口2

Links to Logging Classroom Observations

2008-07-28T18:04:00.001+08:00

http://www.humboldt.edu/~tha1/observ.html
http://del.icio.us/aidenyeh/classroom_observation

Christmas Cheers 2

2007-12-25T10:04:00.001+08:00

If you enjoyed Celine Dion's serenade, this one will knock you out ;-)

Christmas Cheers

2007-12-25T09:56:00.001+08:00

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do :-)

EFL Teachers' Perceptions of English Language Policy at the Elementary Level in Taiwan

2007-05-15T12:52:00.000+08:00

EFL Teachers' Perceptions of English Language Policy at the Elementary Level in Taiwan

CONNECT conference announcement

2007-05-15T09:49:00.000+08:00

On behalf of Vance Stevens

This is to remind you of the free online conference starting in a
few days, May 17/18-20.

Our theme this year is CONNECT: Conversations on Networking,
Education, Communities, and Technology, and though not specifically
mentioned in the theme, many members of the Webheads community of
practice, http://webheads. info, are practitioners in language
learning.

This is the second time our community has hosted a free online
conference. You can replay the first one at http://2005. wiaoc.org

This year we kick off in a pre-show event at 22:00 GMT May 17, with
the start of a Webcastathon hosted by http://www.worldbri dges.net.
The conference itself starts at midnight GMT May 18 (evening of May
17 in the USA) with a keynote speech by Leigh Blackall and continues
for three days with more talks by Stephen Downes, George Siemens,
Etienne Wenger, Robin Good, Barbara Ganley, Teemu Leinonen, and many
other presenters whom you can see on the schedule at
http://schedule. wiaoc.org.

To attend the conference you can register for free at
http://www.webheads inaction. org and use the calendar there or the
schedule link above, or our online help pages, to work out how to
access the presentations and make comments or join forums. The will
be a voice stream of most events available at
http://www.webheads inaction. org , as well a live chatroom for use
during the conference, and we hope to have someone live online
available to assist you at any time during the conference at
http://www.tappedin .org

We look forward to your joining us May 17/18-20 for this unique
adventure in online professional development. We hope it will be
educational and F.U.N.

Vance Stevens
WiAOC Coordinator

creativity

2007-05-08T13:10:00.000+08:00

Posted by Dr. Rossem, ALPDD List

If you are a teacher, does your program or school nourish creativity
and innovation? If so, how does this happen?

If you are a professional developer, how do your professional
development efforts nourish creativity and innovation?

Does your state ABE system nourish these? If so, how?

How do _you_ nourish creativity and innovation in your work and in
the work of your colleagues?

You will find at

click here

a list of possible sources � and examples � of teacher creativity
and innovation in adult literacy education.

What other sources and examples are you aware of?

To contribute your ideas of sources or examples, reply to this
message on the Professional Development discussion list and/or add
them to the above wiki page.

The Adult Literacy Education Wiki page,

has been updated

Parents' Attitudes Towards Bilingual Education Policy in Taiwan

2007-05-08T10:10:00.001+08:00

Parents' Attitudes Towards Bilingual Education Policy in Taiwan

http://taiwanmatters.blogspot.com/

2007-05-08T10:04:00.000+08:00

http://taiwanmatters.blogspot.com/

Languages in Taiwan Today

2007-05-08T09:59:00.001+08:00

Languages in Taiwan Today

Issue of Language Policy

2007-05-08T09:55:00.000+08:00

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2002/03/26/129253/print

Language Ideology in Taiwan

2007-05-08T09:54:00.001+08:00

Language Ideology in Taiwan: The KMT’s
Language Policy, the Tai-yü Language
Movement, and Ethnic Politics

Chinese Language Attitudes Survey

2007-05-08T09:30:00.000+08:00

Survey cover letter

An interview with Nicky Hockly, Consultants-E

2007-04-21T21:32:00.000+08:00

An interview with Nicky Hockly, Consultants-E
Click here

Teaching EFL in Primary Schools through blended and distance learning

2007-04-21T15:22:00.000+08:00

Teaching EFL in Primary Schools through blended and distance learning
Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou (Cyprus)

Abstract
The presentation shows how blended or distance learning can be used to enhance the EFL learning and teaching in not‐so affluent or technologically‐rich primary schools. Examples of synchronous and asynchronous e‐learning will be shared as well as the pedagogical and technological challenges posed by such a project.

Click here

YL Content-based teaching of young learners: possibilities of assessment

2007-04-21T09:29:00.000+08:00

YL Content-based teaching of young learners: possibilities of assessment
Sanja Wagner (Germany)

Abstract
Working in a group on a content‐based task, presenting the outcomes and thereby using the target language,is a very complex performance. In this talk I will show how descriptors from the CEFR and ‘rubrics’ can help both teachers and pupils assess, not only the results, but also the manifold competences during project work.

Click here

Graded/levelled readers = effective scaffolding in EFL. Some concrete evidence!

2007-04-21T09:22:00.001+08:00

Graded/levelled readers = effective scaffolding in EFL. Some concrete evidence!
Wendy Arnold (Hong Kong)

Abstract
This talk will present the interim results of a longitudinal classroom research project using a published levelled reading scheme across keystage 2 (aged 9‐12, total 400) in a Hong Kong government‐aided primary school. The students are monolingual, homogenous, mixed ability and mixed gender. The study tracked the students for three years with formative and summative data.

Click here

50 ways to improve your international presentations

2007-04-21T09:18:00.000+08:00

50 ways to improve your international presentations
Bob Dignen (UK)

Abstract
50 Ways to Improve Your International Presentations is a new book from Summertown Publishing. It isprimarily a self‐help manual for professionals but also provides excellent classroom material for teachers. The presentation will introduce the critical success factors for international presentations and demonstrate how the book can enable professionals to develop their international effectiveness.

Click here
Flash needed

New links to readings

2007-04-07T14:44:00.000+08:00

http://www.hss.nthu.edu.tw/~fl/thesis/tesol/905259.pdf

Taiwan’s High School Education: High School Students’ Performances in Their Study Plans and Interviews

教育部 ( 民95 )。國民中小學九年一貫課程綱要。中華民國95年3月10日台國（二）字0950030031C號令修正國民中小學九年一貫課程綱要-語文學習領域（英語）

http://www.edu.tw/EDU_WEB/EDU_MGT/EJE/EDU5147002/9CC/English-1.doc

教育部國教司( 民89 )。國民中小學九年一貫課程綱要語文學習領域-英語課程目標

http://www.edu.tw/EDU_WEB/EDU_MGT/EJE/EDU5147002/9CC/English-1.doc

Codeswitching

Gill, S. & Rebrova, A. (2001). Native and non-native: together we’re worth more. ELT Newsletter. Retrieved July 20, 2004, from http://www.eltnewsletter.com/back/March2001/art522001.htm

Maum, R. (2002). Nonnative-English-speaking teachers in the English teaching profession. ERIC Digest. Retrieved April 2, 2005 from http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/0209maum.html.

Zhou, J. (1999). How can a Chinese teacher of English succeed in oral English classes? The Internet TESL Journal, 5(7). Retrieved March 2, 2005, from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Zhou-SuccessfulTeacher.html

Edinburgh Research Archive

2007-03-31T17:23:00.001+08:00

Edinburgh Research Archive

How to Write an Effective Discussion

2007-03-31T10:07:00.000+08:00

How to Write an Effective Discussion, read the article in pdf file
click here

On Research Writing blog, click here

Writing Results and Analysis

How to write the methods section of a research paper

Writing Literature Review Guide

2007-03-31T09:57:00.000+08:00

Writing Literature Review Guide from Stanford

2006-03-04T11:27:00.000+08:00

Master/Ph.D. in ELT & ELIT, English Language Teaching

Web Casts from TESOL's Electronic Village 2006

2006-03-04T10:48:00.000+08:00

Web Casts from TESOL's Electronic Village 2006

Dear colleagues,

Connect with the 40th Annual TESOL Convention and Exhibit (TESOL 2006) March 15-18, 2006 in Tampa, Florida, USA. If you cannot be there in person, join the Convention goers virtually. For the first time, the CALL Interest Section has organized 4 presentations and 2 interviews to be web cast from the Electronic Village in Tampa. You will be able to hear CALL experts Tom Robb, Randall Davis, Leslie Opp-Beckman, and Chris Jones present their Web projects. By clicking on the links to their presentations, you can follow along and also participate in a text chat. If you have a microphone and a Skype connection, you will be able to ask questions of the presenters directly. Please click the link below to see the schedule of web cast presentations.

Schedule of Web Casts, March 16 and 17, from the Electronic Village—Internet Fair Classics

Please click here for Instructions for Participating in the Web Casts.

We are looking forward to your participation during these events.

The Web Cast Organizers
Jeff Lebow (www.Worldbridges.com) and Christine Bauer-Ramazani
We thank TESOL, the CALL-IS, the Electronic Village team, and the Electronic Village Online Coordinators for their on-site assistance with these events.

Distributed on behalf of TESOL EV Online Coordinating Team

Taipei Times - archives

2006-01-20T09:55:00.000+08:00

Taipei Times - archives: "English teacher plan falls short
OFF-MARK: A program launched in 2003 aimed to place 1,000 foreign English teachers in the nation's public schools, but only 40 teachers have been placed so far
By Mac William Bishop"

EducationGuardian.co.uk | Advertisement feature | How blogs can make the link

2006-01-19T16:55:00.000+08:00

EducationGuardian.co.uk | Advertisement feature | How blogs can make the link