the lives of teachers

For anyone who is still watching, I’m back from my blogging break just in time for classes to start tomorrow. The bigger picture is that teacher development passes through different stages, and in a pragmatic assessment of my blogging and tweeting I realised that neither was the most efficient way for me (personally) to become the best teacher I can – at least, not at the moment. So I took a trip back to England to take care of some family business, I spent some time thinking about photography, and enjoyed time with my boys before the youngest starts kindergarten next week.

The Lives of Teachers blog is not dead, but I will be posting more sporadically and focusing mainly on the interviews I intended to focus on originally. I have a backlog of podcasts to post, and a few future interviews in the pipeline, so please don’t unsubscribe! And apologies to any commenters in the meantime who have gone unanswered.

I am also working on a couple more sites which should be live fairly soon. The first is a website for teaching resources, mainly to direct my own students towards but also (hopefully) of interest to other teachers looking for class materials. The second is a blog about things I read – the other thing I have been doing a lot of in my blogging break. In order to concentrate on my own original research I am finding it useful to turn off the computer and measure my reading in pages rather than characters. Details of both these projects will follow.

To anyone starting the new academic year this week, students and teachers alike, best of luck and enjoy yourselves. Spending most of your days in a classroom is a privilege, and not an opportunity to be wasted.

It’s that time again…. a couple of quick ones in time for Jason Renshaw’s Hallowe’en Lesson Plan Challenge.

The first worksheet is a set of questions to get them in the mood – there are four different question sheets with spaces to add extra questions. Students can circulate and make notes, then report back to their original team (language practice – reported speech “Tomomi told me that…” / most of / the majority of / almost everyone said that…). I have a stable pdf version, but if you’d like to play around with it there is a word version too.

Next is a pair of urban legend readings. You can cut them up and have groups of students work together to put one of them in order (good for noticing structures and organisation). Then students can tell one another the story they completed.

truck driver hallowe’en story (pdf)

university students hallowe’en story (pdf)

If you want to add local place names and personal touches to give the students an extra chill, you can use these word versions.

Trucker

Uni Students

Finally, I have written before about the Kuchisake-onna, one of my favourite urban legends. Students can read about her, and her little sister Toire no Hanako, in these two short passages…

kuchisake onna and toire no hanako.

However, after the readings A and B put their papers aside and compare information. Can they find the nine differences?

Happy Haunting……

I’ve had my new toy for a couple of months now, enough time to play around with it in various teaching contexts, on a few long and short trips, and in two different countries. I say toy because, if I’m honest, that is mainly what it is – I mean, it’s a luxury item, something I wanted rather than needed, and something which makes my life more fun rather than better. Nonetheless I have found myself doing a lot with it, and with certain reservations I would recommend it.

Which Model?

Mine is wi-fi only, and 64GB memory. My university campus doesn’t have wi-fi, so it means I have to be a little better prepared for class – not that I was unprepared before, but I had greater flexibility with a laptop plugged in via an ethernet cable. I miss not being able to call up youtube videos, google images and the like on the spur of the moment. On the other hand, I don’t miss carrying my MacBook Pro up a very steep hill every morning.

In the UK, wireless coverage is far more widespread – you can check up in pretty much any cafe or pub. For Japan, I may pick up one of these mobile routers – very cheap minimum monthly plan, but handy for emergencies.

I can live without the 3G, but I am glad I got the largest memory available. I have a lot of audio and video, as well as quite a few books, and it’s nice not to have to keep deleting and re-synching.

Classroom Apps and Applications

The main reason I held off on the first model is that it didn’t have video mirroring, which the iPad 2 does. That means that whatever is on the screen of the device can be beamed through a projector or shown through a TV, with the right adaptor cables. This is great for showing video clips in class – I use handbrake to rip my own dvd’s onto my mac, and it is also handy for converting other files sourced from the internet. From the laptop, I can easily synch them onto the iPad. One video app which has a lot of potential is the TED＋SUB application. Many of the subtitled videos are available to be saved and played offline, too. I have also loaded up all my class cd’s – one less thing to forget when scrabbling around before a lesson, and also easier to use in mp3 format with a touch-slider control.

The first essential app is Keynote. You may have used the desktop software in presentations or class before, but I really love the way it is set up in the iPad version. It’s so easy to create nice looking slideshows, with animations, audio/visual inserts, or different design features. I like it because it allows me to pace the class according to the mood. Rather than writing three discussion questions on the board, for example, I can put each one on a slide and reveal them one at a time. The same goes for new vocabulary, or images, or example sentences, or whatever it is you want to show. It saves paper, and looks neater than my scruffy handwriting. One drawback is that I haven’t figured out a way to save the files into folders on the device itself yet, although they are so quick and easy to knock up that I’ll probably just delete them and remake them as necessary. Those that are worth saving can be exported in several formats and saved externally, them synched back onto the device in the future.

The two other apps I have used the most so far in class are both dictionary apps. The first is the Oxford Deluxe Dictionary and Thesaurus, very expensive for an app, but for an English teacher probably worth it. I’ve found it very useful as a dictionary training tool, for pointing out differences in usage, and for demonstrating pronunciation (with the audio). The other dictionary is Midori, a very effective Japanese / English (and back again) translating dictionary. Lower level classes in particular tend to rely on their translating dictionaries, (although I try to encourage and support other methods) and it helps me to make sure that they are saying what they want to say. As an aside, it’s great for my personal study. I can input Japanese via the keyboard or with a stylus directly onto the touch pad – so I can even look up complex Chinese characters.

One more reference tool which has come in handy is All of Wikipedia, as you can imagine it’s a huge file but when I am offline it can be handy for checking up on random ideas or questions which come up in class. A very useful tool for a wi-fi only, 64GB iPad 2. If you have wireless access, Qwiki presents information via audio, text and pictures. It also detects your location to offer you encyclopedia entries which may be of particular interest, although to be honest the best use in class might be spotting the inaccuracies! I am still tinkering with maps, but World Travel Atlas seems to be the best so far.

With only one iPad for a class of twenty to thirty, and no wi-fi, there have been no fundamental changes to the way I teach. If I had several iPads and wireless classrooms… now THAT would be something! Imagine students video recording each other and uploading the videos to a class blog, solving puzzles, doing research together….

I have been teaching a professional couple, informally, on-and-off, for several years. In the past, I used a notepad with a piece of carbon paper in a ‘dogme’ style lesson – I noted the ‘emergent language’, we worked on whatever we needed to work on, and at the end of the class I gave them the top sheet and kept the carbon copy myself. However, they are very tech savvy people, now each with an iPad! I am set up on the wi-fi in their house and we are figuring out together some of the things we can do. One app they put me on to is Note Taker HD. Using a stylus, we can write directly onto the screen, insert images or links, save as a pdf and share on dropbox or via email. Another which could be fun is Dragon Dictation, a very clever (and free!) app which transcribes whatever you say (as long as you are wi-fi connected). It could work for presentation or pronunciation practice very well.

Finally, GoodReader is another essential app. It’s a pdf reader which I’ll talk about it more in part two of this review, but in class I have used the highlighting and annotation functions on conversation transcripts, to show particular features of conversational English. It works well in conjunction with audio downloaded from elllo, an excellent free resource in its own right.

I am still exploring the possibilities for classroom use, but I can say that the device itself has a fundamentally different feel to using a laptop or desktop. By removing the keyboard and mouse and interacting more directly with the screen, it feels far more intuitive and responsive… there seems to be one less layer of mediation between what you want to do and what the computer does. Because of that speed, flipping between a video and a text document, then zooming on to a thesaurus page feels far more natural and the flow of the class is less likely to be interrupted.

In part two of the review I’ll talk more about the out-of-class applications, for research, for admin (and for fun!). Until then, I’d love to hear what you’ve been doing with your new toy!

I haven’t read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, but I have heard enough about it to feel as if I have. The handy little factoid that is most quoted is the 10,000 hours rule; basically, that it takes 10,000 hours of hard practice to master achieve mastery of one’s given discipline.  What constitutes mastery, or practice for that matter, is the kind of significant detail which gets lost as original research is interpreted by popular science, and re-interpreted by the people who read popular science, and re-reinterpreted by the people who read the tweets of the people who read popular science. That’s where I come in.

Whether it’s a figure that stands up to scrutiny or not, it feels right. It’s a round number, for a start. It’s impressively big, too, but not unachievable. Worth checking to see if I qualify, I thought. It turns out, I’m some way short of being an expert. In the twelve years since I started teaching, according to my back-of-a-fag-packet calculations I have spent about 6,000 hours in the classroom. At current rates, I should become an expert sometime in 2017. Can’t wait.

One of the reasons I have been rather quiet on the blogging and tweeting front of late relates to this lack of expertise. This isn’t false modesty, and I am not fishing for compliments. I think fundamentally I can be a good teacher, and I have pieces of paper to prove it from people who have actually seen me teach

But I think for me at the moment I need to spend less time talking to others and more time talking to myself. That’s why I’ve started writing a teaching journal again – actually seven of them, one fat, lined paper notebook for each class of students I currently teach. Before class, I write my lesson plans, what I’ll need, some rough timings. During class I write notes to myself, about who is quiet, who needs a poke, who needs an arm around the shoulder and about what is working and why. And after class I paste in scraps of worksheets, draw diagrams of the state of the whiteboard, and scribble critiques . It’s something I haven’t done for a long time, but it has reminded me of what a technologically mediated PLN can’t do.  

1. It isn’t a place to be truly honest. Even now, I am selecting my words carefully, but sometimes I just want to complain about something. Constructive? No. Mature? Not really. But everyone has to let off steam from time to time. Of course, you can’t do that online. Because it’s forever, and you will probably get sacked. Whereas if I want to go off on a vitriolic rant in my journal, no harm done.
2. It isn’t a place to discuss the minutiae of your own classroom experience. For one thing, everyone would get bored. Even if they don’t, discussion quickly moves from the local to the global, from the specific to the general. This cross-pollination of ideas is very healthy, and I am glad to learn from teachers in different contexts. But at 9:20, I am the one who has to walk into that classroom alone, and I am the only one (along with the students) who can figure out how to make it work.
3. It doesn’t promote reflection. Too  much information, no time to think about it. “Hmmm… I wonder what I should do about.. Oh look! Another tweet!”

So this is the step back I have taken. A step back to written lesson plans, to the nuts and bolts of a lesson, to exactly how I should set up a listening exercise, and all the other mundane stuff which a real expert teacher needs to know. With a bit of an effort, I might even make it before 2017.

I am working on some short videos or animations to show language learners how to do basic presentations. At the moment, I am focusing on common problems my students have had in the past and I used these tips as a kind of jigsaw reading today. What do you think? Anything to add, or take out? Feedback welcome!

Using Notes
A presentation is not the same as reading an essay aloud. However, you shouldn’t have to memorize every word. Try to use a cue card to help you hit the key points.

Research
Try to use a variety of sources, online and printed if possible, and don’t use anything if you don’t know who wrote it. Cite your sources in your presentation (on your slides and in handouts) and if necessary explain why your sources are valid.

According to…
Dr. Peter Smith from the University of Northville claims that…

Timing
Remember that there are probably other people waiting to present after you, so don’t go too long. You should rehearse to check the timing before the presentation, and make sure that you leave time for questions. Some people speak faster when they are nervous, so try to relax.
.
Organization
You need an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Use appropriate signposting language to help the audience see where you are going.

Let’s start by thinking about….
Now I’d like to talk about…
To sum up….
Thank you for listening. Now we have time for a few questions…

Voice
Don’t mumble, and don’t speak in a monotone. Your voice modulation is important for two reasons. Firstly, it doesn’t matter how exciting your words are…if your voice is flat, everyone will fall asleep. Secondly, we need to emphasize certain words to make the meaning clear. Think about the differences in meaning between these three sentences.

I wanted you to buy me a dozen red roses.
I wanted you to buy me a dozen red roses.
I wanted you to buy me a dozen red roses.

Visuals
They should be big enough to see, and used well. Don’t turn your back to the audience to point at them. If you are using presentation software, make sure that the visuals fit the content. For example, ‘fun’ animations are not appropriate if you are making a presentation about child poverty.

Language
One mistake presenters often make is to forget their audience. You must make sure that the audience understands what you are talking about. If you use complex language or technical jargon, make sure you ‘gloss’ it. That means, you should explain it in simpler terms. You can use pictures or examples to make things clearer. Think about this – if you had to check a word in a dictionary to put it into your presentation, your audience will need a dictionary to understand your presentation!

Posture and Body Language
Sit or stand with a straight back! No one wants to see someone slouch their way through a presentation. Good posture makes you look more confident and more professional, and your audience will be more inclined to listen to you.

Day three. Get up and go to pub.
Day four. By now, people in the pub should be continually getting on your nerves. Write things about them on the backs of beer mats.
Day five. Go to pub… by now guilt, drunkeness, the people in the pub and the fact you are one of them should combine to enable you to write out of sheer vexation.
Day six. If possible, stay home and write. If not, go to pub.

In a way, this is how I write. Without the drunkeness these days, but with a lot of time spent thinking, the odd scribble on the back of an envelope, and then a flurry of activity during which I bash out the entire piece on a keyboard with two fingers. That, usually, is pretty much my first and final paper draft. The other drafts are done in my head. Jack Kerouac, apparently, used to use huge rolls of newsprint which he hooked up to his modified typewriter so he could keep going until the amphetamines wore off.

I think it’s important to allow students a similar opportunity (minus the drugs and alcohol). I usually spend the first part of a writing class on ‘free writing’. There are a number of ways to approach this, but I think the key points are the following.

1. Writers must not stop writing, use an eraser, or use a dictionary.
2. Whatever is written is not shown to the teacher, or to any other student.
3. Writers should not pay any attention to grammar, punctuation, handwriting, neatness, style or cohesion.

I usually give the students a few discussion questions to get them warmed up, then give them ten minutes to write about the topics they have discussed. True free writing should be about whatever the writer feels like writing about, but I like to give a loose theme to help them get started. Afterwards, the students get together to talk about what they have written. Some of them choose to read their work aloud, others give a precis, or talk about ideas which occurred to them as they were writing, but it is important that they know they are under no pressure to reveal what they actually wrote. It is essentially private. The whole process takes less than half an hour, with about ten minutes of that is the writing itself. The only thing I see is the word count they give me at the end of the semester, to show how many words they wrote each week. Of course, this increases. And after we have finished our free writing, we take out our writing homework, swap it around and start pulling it apart!

How do you write? And how do you balance fluency and accuracy work when teaching writing classes?

(If you are not familiar with Mark E. Smith, he has been the lead vocalist and only constant member of ‘The Fall‘ for more than thirty years. People often say ‘You either love them or hate them’ about bands, but I think this truly applies to ‘The Fall’… they inspire almost unmatched devotion but to many will sound like a drunk man mumbling through a megaphone while a bath full of copper piping is tipped down a staircase onto a synthesizer. Which to be fair is basically what they are.)

“..standardisation is a reasonable way of maintaining minimal standards, not the best way of ensuring the highest possible ones. Establishing minimally acceptable standards and imposing them on everybody, even on those who can exceed them, can create a powerful but stultifying myth about what constitutes ‘good’ teaching. Creativity in teaching is then stifled in favour of conformity to the set model”

(p. 35)

Allwright , D. & Hanks, J. (2010). The Developing Language Learner. Basingtoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan

An Interview with Kaz Hagiwara from darren elliott on Vimeo.

Kaz Hagiwara is a teacher of Japanese working in Australia, and a leading exponent of (de) suggestopedia. It’s a method you have probably heard of, but in seeing Kaz’s presentations and spending some time talking to him I realised that there was more to it than I had imagined….

We may be living in a ‘post methods era’ but it is still worth looking at teaching theories developed in the past. I recommend a look at these links if you are interested in exploring further. Thanks to Kaz for giving up his time at the JALT conference 2010.

Now Lindsay is retiring his blog, we can safely plunder its fantastic format. I suppose it would be more respectful to wait until after the official date, but frankly I’ve been sitting on this one for a while and it’s Friday afternoon…. I feel like starting a meme. Here is my ‘something for the weekend’, in a slightly TEFLtastic vein. Six things…..

“Sorry about the noise, they got quite excitable today”

What you are actually saying is “My class was fun and engaging, and the happy laughter and lively English conversation may have disturbed the pedestrian and turgid activities your slug-like students were working on”. The truth – your students have no respect for you and you left the classroom to get your hip flask.

“Haven’t you handed those in yet?”

The modern school is heaving under a mountain of paperwork. The trick is never to be the last one to hand it in. As you turn in your overdue exam results, scour the room to find that cringing worm who still hasn’t finished. Say this loudly in front of the admin assistants (or, even better, the school owner).

“No, I haven’t seen it…sorry”

That’s because it’s locked in your desk drawer, under a stack of unmarked writing compositions. The trouble with shared resources is that you will walk into the classroom, pull out the photocopies you cobbled together three minutes before the lesson, only to be greeted with blank-faced stares and a lone groan of “We done already” from a Belgian teenager at the back of the room. Prevent that happening to YOU by “managing” the school materials.

“Got anything good for first class?”

On the other hand, why not tap into the knowledge of your fellow professionals? Best uttered as the bell rings.

“I didn’t have any trouble with them last year….”

Like number one, this is a double whammy. It implies that you are a Super-Teacher and your colleague is hopeless. Actually, they locked you in a store cupboard but that is beside the point. Again, drop this in front of the DoS.

“Oh yeah, I’ve been doing that for a while”

Don’t you hate those keen types with their methodology, their technology, their research and their experimentation? Next time young Thompson starts piping up about his student podblog or his dogears (or whatever the damn thing is), hit him with this. In reality there’s nothing wrong with the lesson plans you perfected in 1987, but it helps to look like you are on the “Cutting Edge” (second edition).

Any key phrases you like to drop? And do you have a ‘Six Things’ of your own?

(My contribution to the ＃dogmeme, with advance apologies to Karenne Sylvester)

Teachers have a lot of people telling them what to teach, and how to teach it. Governments looking for cheap votes. Parents who want to abdicate themselves from the responsibility of raising their own children. Administrators who need to hit targets, meet budgets and check boxes. Publishers with units to shift. That is exactly why I engage in my own self-initiated professional development. When I visit conferences, talk to other teachers, blog, tweet, and do all that other stuff I want to hear what I could do. Or what I might do. Or what may, perhaps be worth thinking about. Sure, tell me what works for you…. but let me think about it and see if it works for me, please.

I am broadly sympathetic to the basic concepts of dogme. I certainly agree that coursebooks and pre-planned curricula built around grammar mcnuggets can be very restrictive, and that teachers should exploit emergent language, teaching affordances and other human unpredictables as best they can. I am not sure that this in itself constitutes a method, however… it is at best an approach. And if you are talking about the more rigorous, chaste versions of Dogme that might be called a method, then I am not really interested. I want to plug things in and interact with ideas from outside the classroom. I see it as equally restrictive to tie oneself to or deny yourself materials. This is the religious fervour to which I refer.

And as for the evangelism?  I believe that classroom methods are a negotiation (implicit or explicit) between the teacher, the learner (s), the context and the moment. For that reason, I believe that unplugged teaching has a very important role at the right time, with the right participants, in the right situation…. but it is not the only way. If I were teaching advanced adult learners in small classes in Europe, I imagine a techno-dogme hybrid would be fantastic. But actually, very, very few teachers, in the wider world of English Language Education, are teaching in such a context. In fact, very, very few know what Dogme is, or ever will. And we bloggers and tweeters, we conference goers, the movers and shakers, sometimes need to remind ourselves that we are not typical, that we are lucky to have some choice about how and what we teach. Teachers can be afraid, tired, confused, or just plain uneducated. Like students, they need nurturing, not hectoring. So let’s not assume that anyone who doesn’t teach Dogme is too self-interested, too stupid or too lazy to try it.

Is ignorance always a sin?