Friday, November 20, 2009
There is a discussion within the online teaching community world wide because of THIS recent N.Y. Times article about teachers selling their lesson plans/materials and making $$$. May the Best Teacher Win is a great response and correctly suggests we are asking the wrong questions. If interested further – read all the varying viewpoints on [...]
Thursday, November 19, 2009
A PERFECT TOEFL SCORE.
I read about this in today’s newspaper. Although, I’m firmly against the hysteria that involves TOEFL and TOEIC test taking in Korea (English ability should be judged functionally and face to face) – this story really hit the right tone. So I made a karaoke to share and allow teachers to inspire [...]
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I think backpacking English teachers get a bad rap. Truly they do. And especially from the more “senior” and “accomplished/established” members of our profession – ELT (English Language Teaching). Why so? I have only praise for this unseasoned, fertile, fecund and procreant soil of our profession. So I sing their praises and I’ll tell you [...]
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Jane Hart, bless her heart, runs a nice collection of THE TOP 10 TOOLS LISTS OF LEARNING PROFESSIONS. Check them out and lots of diverse entries. Here’s her own top 25.
I’m too late to participate but find my list for last year HERE. Here is my list for this year. The major thread/theme that runs [...]
Saturday, November 14, 2009
This game, Guess Who’s Speaking, I designed using the Speech Archives and stock photos.
It could be a good listening activity for students (it provides repetition) and also a way to discuss stereotypes.
Basically, you first guess who might be speaking (these aren’t the real people but it is fun to think about this and gets [...]
Continuing on from our other BEST Videos series (Funniest / Inspiring Students), here are my picks for favorite videos to inspire teachers. They all contain important messages and I consider each and every one MUST viewing for any long term teacher. Honorable mentions to the following: Did you Know Pay Attention , Educational Quotes, Teaching [...]
One of the hardest parts of being an EFL student is not getting enough opportunity to speak. In class, there are usually too few opportunities for really spontaneous and “real” production/output. Voicethread is a tool that offers this in abundance. Read all our blog posts about Voicethread HERE.
I’ve spent the last few hours on this [...]
Thursday, November 5, 2009
I just spent a day evaluating Korean teachers in their classrooms, as part of the TEE (Teaching English in English) program. I’m going to keep away from that topic – it’s still too raw, so to speak. However, I did take lots of notes and some things kept repeating themselves. Mostly small things that teachers [...]
Who Am I?
I don’t say much about my own professional (or personal ) life. However, I really believe and always encourage teachers to do so with their students. For many reasons, primarily to model and encourage students to speak about their own lives and beliefs – to create community within the classroom.
So in this [...]
Lately, I’ve been “evaluating” a lot of teachers for the new “Teaching English in English – TET program. Been rather frustrated along with many teachers and I really needed some inspiration today. I got it in this STERLING essay by a Korean writer. He really hits the nail on the head – he really [...]
