Why use poems in class

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

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

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

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

Convention Center
http://t.co/DCsVizy

BRIGHTON 2011 CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

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)

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

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

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

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

Peter Medgyes: Native or Non-Native language teacher?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
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