ddeubel
Teacher trainer, technology specialist, educational thinker...creator of EFL Classroom 2.0, a social networking site for thousands of EFL / ESL teachers and students around the world.
Homepage: http://eflclassroom.ning.com
New LinkedIn Conversations about teaching
Our LinkedIn group is growing and there is a lot of sharing of ideas. A great place to do some summer professional development or to add your own thoughts. So here are some recent conversations of note with many comments and insights. Check them out! (not a member of the group? Please join, just takes [...]
category: methodology, Prof. Development
The #1 …. teaching prop
** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1. A Wig or a Hat A teacher wears many hats, so why not actually wear one? Especially for a language teacher, it is imperative to decrease student anxiety, lower the students’ “affective [...]
category: Prof. Development
Commencement. Commencing What?
Tomorrow my students are graduating with their B.Ed. There will be the usual big ceremony, the speeches, the dinner and so on and so on….. Each year over and over like a giant gristmill. I’m happy with my students. So happy. Also very proud of this bunch of new teachers, they kept their idealism and [...]
category: In The News, Prof. Development
Summer Reading: Books by teachers about teaching
I recently was contacted by a fellow English language teacher about promoting a book he wrote. I’m always happy to help and will buy it and review ( Teaching with Chopsticks: TEFL from the frontline ). However, it got me thinking about books by teachers about their own classrooms and teaching. Got me thinking about [...]
category: In The News, Prof. Development
The #1 ….. factor effecting teacher performance
** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1. $$ Teacher Salary and Benefits $$ The Gates Foundation is pouring money into “better educational outcomes”. Lots of money. But little of it is going into the pockets of working teachers. In fact, most of it is going into designing tests, creating standardized [...]
category: In The News, Prof. Development
The End is the Start
I ended my year and sent off my new teachers into the wide world of education. Fingers crossed. Lots to relate about my year pontificating and sharing, nurturing, cheerleading teachers to be, to be reflective about education and schooling. Here though, I’d like to share how successful my “Project Zander” was. Read about this activity [...]
category: methodology, Prof. Development
tags: letters, reflection
Sell On Facebook
This blog post is a follow up on my recent post “Disrupting ELT: ebooks“. I’m really keen on the new possibilities web 2.0 and technologies have for “the little guy”, us practicing teachers. We can now share and produce our own materials quite easily. This community is a testament to that. We don’t have to [...]
category: In The News, websites
The benefits benefits benefits of repe repe repetion
Over the length of my teaching career, I’ve changed in many ways. I think my journey mimics a lot of ELT teachers. 1. I have slowed down my delivery and instruction considerably. I used to just screech and scream through content. Now, I relax and pause a lot. I take time to enjoy the spaces [...]
category: on language, Prof. Development
Joking Matters
I’ve spent the weekend reading the Heidegger and a Hippo walk through those Pearly Gates, the sequel to the amazing Plato and a Platypus Walk Into A Bar. Amazing books that combine commentary with jokes. As I’m reading, I was thinking of how jokes so well inform us teachers. So many times, jokes have framed [...]
category: on language, Prof. Development
Learning To Swear
“I am my language.” What a powerful phrase about how language is so wrapped up with identity. Both our own personal identity and our social identity in a larger group. A language learner aims to get to the moment where they “flow” with the language and “sing” language (Anna Deaver Smith talks about this here). [...]
category: on language
Montage Maker
Today I was experimenting with a cool way to support your classroom instruction and contextualize the language you are teaching. Even make a game of it! I returned to Grant Robinson, maker of the wonderful Guess The Google game. It’s since been retired but now he has adapted it into Montage Maker. The idea is [...]
There is no longer any “normal” – disrupting ELT
I’m all about ‘disruption” (to borrow Clayton Christensen’s term) and think this is the most potent role that technology plays in our society. A disrupter thinks small and keeps moving. Large companies/groups are about sustaining and normalcy – the small can dress up in innovation and act quickly – revel in change. Technology in [...]
category: resources, Technology
Keeping the ideas flowing….
I think that the godhead, the soul, the core of the new technology paradigm is “the pipeline of ideas”. We now have the ability to correspond, share, connect, learn with, learn from, engage so many, all over the world. This is truly revolutionary and changing the world – especially our own teaching world. So I’ve [...]
Finding Stuff
It’s not easy on the web these days. There is so much and seemingly so little time. The more search engines are perfected, the more social media evolves, the more notifications improve, we still seem way behind and fail at keeping up with “the new”. Noise abounds too…. I guess like that marvelous Beckett (Godot) [...]
category: resources
The #1 ….. thing a teacher needs to succeed.
** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1. The Freedom To Teach There is one thing I always wish for the teachers I’ve trained and taught and shown the door into the big wide world of teaching – the freedom [...]
category: Prof. Development
Accent Agape
I spent a large part of a wonderful day stuck in the car. Thankful, saved by a wonderful interview with Slavoj Zizek, philosopher and iconic social critic. Catch the same interview here. What I love about him besides him irreverence (laughed like crazy when he said that 50% of the movies he’s written essays about [...]
category: Prof. Development
Teachers Talking About Teaching
I just finished up my school year, sending off a new group of teachers into the possibility that is teaching / education. This year in my course, my students did some reflective journal writing using my book Zen And The Act Of Teaching. I spent many happy afternoons reading their amazing entries about their lives in [...]
category: Prof. Development
The #1 …… article about teacher development
** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1. The Making Of An Expert I’ve been involved in teacher training and professional development for a long time. A lot of the time, I’m trying to keep up the good fight [...]
category: Prof. Development
Video Courses For All – Coming Soon!
I wear many teaching hats. Besides my courses at the university teaching education & schooling and tending to EFL Classroom 2.0 and my own online school, most of my waking hours are spent working with video for language teaching through EnglishCentral. I’m keen and bullish on this approach to learning/teaching a language – authentic video [...]
category: resources, Technology
Recommended Videos for ELT
I am a big believer in using video in our classrooms – bringing rich context and “the real” into the artificial laboratory that is our classroom. We have thousands of teacher recommended, curated videos on EFL Classroom 2.0. All specific to teaching English. A marvelous resource for our profession. But I always get asked – [...]
category: resources
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Speak Like Bond
The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Teacher
Download The Book
Co-teaching in the EFL Classroom
ESSENTIALS FOR TEACHERS
TESOL training presentations
