Author Archives: ddeubel

Listening – UGC (User Generated Content)

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The whole world is the English Language Teacher’s oyster. Nowadays, with the proliferation of technologies and especially the internet – we don’t have to use the staid old materials of “usually” dried up, old white men who write textbooks and run up publisher’s expense accounts. Nosirree. There are great authentic materials everywhere which we can harness, control and use for presenting great classroom material, all with little effort. “Ecrasez l’infame” said Voltaire, “Down with the infamy”. Same applies here, we don’t need experts anymore – the textbook emperors have no clothes.

Here’s one simple example of the power of video that can be brought right to the classroom and used effectively as a language teaching aid. HP Computers – Getting Personal: You On You contest videos. [see all my other players full of great material for the classroom - HERE]

People from all over the world uploaded “headless” videos of themselves. Here’s an example. I have a full player of the best for the classroom HERE.  These videos are absolutely brilliant and I specifically chose one of the worst to highlight how even these are great for teaching.

It’s easy to use these videos. Simple play one a few times and allow students to record the information about the contestant. Use this nice badge/card (made at the wonderful Big Huge Labs). After, play again and take up the info. pausing the video as you go.

Here’s my answer to the example video!

Another great activity is to just let the students watch and then guess which are the top 3. (the first three in the player were the winners :) )

If you really want to do something amazing – get your students to make their own You On You videos. Have your own contest! Getting students to be the authors of their own language learning materials (what I call SCC or Student Created Content) is the be all and end all of language teaching.

Enjoy using these great videos!

Gus the Bus (Driver)

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GUS the BUS (Driver) full screen
I want to thank those readers who’ve written asking me about when I’ll be blogging again. Honored.

I haven’t been blogging for several reasons; marking students’  work (Philosophies of Education), my work with EnglishCentral (stay tuned for major developments) and  just needing a break. But mostly haven’t been writing because of the loss of the greatest teacher I’ve ever known – bar none. Doug “Gus The Bus” Worth.

It’s been a tough year – lost my coach/teacher/mentor Mr. Z. and that threw me a curve ball. Very unexpected. But the loss of Mr. Worth was more than just a personal loss or a loss for my family (who were close to him), it was a hole blown into our whole community. At his funeral, you could feel that emptiness.

Doug’s greatness as a teacher was of many parts. Let me list them, they are a model all us teachers should follow:

1. Praise.  He knew how to praise well. Always made you feel special.I wrote about him several years ago in this regard.

2. The Art of the Personal. He listened to you. You knew he cared. He’d send notes, stop you on the street, give you photos and clippings of your achievements.

3. Memory.He knew everyone, called all students by name and never forgot a thing. He’d pull up details about you that even you had forgotten.

4. Success. Doug taught all students but made sure the lowest of us mastered the basics. His legendary “hints” about tests got us all prepared and learning. He fostered success, never tried to put up barriers to achievement or use tests as a “trick”.

5. Being Human. Doug was never afraid to be himself or not be himself, whatever it took to get the students motivated. His jokes and stories beginning lessons are legendary. So too his funny walk, his chalk antics, his now iconic expressions. The video above shows Doug at his finest – a 1983 assembly at our high school, New Liskeard Secondary School. He plays the role of “Gus the Bus (Driver)” . If you watch, you’ll get to know why he touched the lives of so many.

6. Community and Service. This is the most important and what I want to highlight for all teachers. We are part of a wider community, it is here where what we do in the classroom begins to grow. Doug was so active in the community, a light, a beacon. He leaves us with a calling, a calling to create community through our day to day acts. To not be a 9-5 teacher but a teacher in heart, wherever, whenever.  That our small town is left with such a big hole now, speaks volumes of how Doug made “education” something beyond the 4 walls of school.

I’m glad I got to visit Doug just before his passing. He still had that twinkle in his eye, a saintliness. I’ll remember it always and pay homage to him by doing more to foster community and take my own teaching out of the confines of the institution and into life.

I haven’t been on skis for years. I’m heading out for a little ski in memory of Doug – he loved “the boards” and being out there in the wild.

Standardized Learning

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One conclusion I’ve come to after years teaching – testing and assessment are poorly used as a way for students to learn.

This is curious and unfortunate because students for the most part DO get motivated and energized through tests and quizzes. The pickle is, the way they are designed doesn’t make the test a learning experience and rather is meant to trick students.  I’m calling for all teachers to review the way they test and I’m offering one example using the popular convention of testing – multiple choice questions.

I recently began one of my classes after the New Year by writing the following on the board. A typical, 3 truths / 1 lie activity where students try to guess the lie.

This new year I resolve to ….

1.  grow my hair long

2. plan my classes better

3.  travel the world and teach

4.  get a new coffee maker

It’s a great activity for teachers to share themselves and also for students to do and allow the teacher to get to know them. However, I’m teaching teachers so I took this opportunity to go beyond the activity and ask them what this multiple choice question might say about assessment and how we decide design these questions.

What’s remarkable about this question is that you can pose it two ways.  One – which statement is the lie?   Two – which 3 statements are the truth?   Now you might think this is just semantics but I believe if we created multiple choice, standardized assessments where the students were asked to not choose just one right answer but  three right answers – they’d learn a lot more. They’d be encountering a lot of “right” knowledge and not trying to side step through a labyrinth of wrong.

Here’s another example.

A typical standardized multiple choice question for language students might be;

Beth ___________ to the store every day.

a) has   b) is    c)  went    d) liked

A multiple choice test that would actually give students more success and help them learn would be them choosing the 3 appropriate language forms.

Beth ________ to the store every day.

a)  went      b) likes    c) goes   d) has gone

It’s important that students choose 3 right answers and not be asked to choose the 1 wrong answer. This way, we can give marks for right answers. This way they feel “success”.

This is just one of many ways we could rethink assessment and make it more about “learning” and less about tricking students. Do you have any other ways?

PS.  The 3 correct resolutions for this year are 2,3,4!

Disappointed Books

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Books will always be with us and like poetry, will be valued more as they become less… They are personal and secret things – therein lies their power.

I’m busy writing another one, always busy with “the word”. Today, looking at my book shelves and feeling good that I have my books together in one place. Been traveling the world for a lot of years and they sat in boxes so long.

I say this by way of introducing this wonderful video – The Diary Of A Disappointed Book. It makes for a simple but powerful lesson. Students write down the months of the year and then must note what happened to the book each month. Do this as a writing exercise or just pause the video and speak about what happened each month. Any way you look at it – this video is a gem. Especially for us bibliophiles.

Like this post? You may like: Gems of EFL Classroom 2.0: ebooks

Marking. Is it all about going through the motions?

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marking

Marking is something teachers kind of dread.  It takes hours and usually there is little pay off.  However, on the other end are students who wait with anticipation for any feedback or comment.  How to reconcile these two opposing forces?

This dilema and “round peg into a square hole” dichotomy became clear to me when I recently showed my students the clip below.  It’s from a new TV series – Mr. D (and yes, I was a Mr. D. in a school just like this guy!) premiering in Canada.

I teach a core course in the Bachelor of Ed program – Education and Schooling. A broad overview course dealing with topics like “Becoming a Teacher”,  ”History of Education”,  ”The law and schooling”, “Philosophy of Education”,  ”Social Perspectives” and “Critical Issues in Education”.  I enjoy it and I beyond the specific curriculum objectives, have the overall objective of lighting a fire inside my students and getting them to think critically about every day issues in education. Thus, the Mr. D. clip.

I asked my students ” Based on this tv series clip, what do you think it says about how society views teachers?”  I was surprised when many said that it shows teachers as “Realists”.  Watch and decide for yourself.


Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0
My students also talked about how they feel when they put a lot of work into something and the professor/teacher doesn’t spend any time actually reading it and giving feedback. This comment hit home. I just got a load of assignments to mark – a pile of them! I’ll be spending the next week wading through them (but happily for the most part!).

What all this really says to me is that we have to stop giving “useless” assignments. Really and truly. Assignments that mean for students “just get it done” and for teachers, “just get the marking done”.

What does this video say to you? What issues does it raise for you? I’ll be interested to see if this new series develops in a way to portrait teachers as lazy blockheads or in a vein of showing the “realistic” side of our profession.

* need some reading on assessment? See my page on all things to do with assessment.

 

In Memory Of Josef Skvorecky

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I’ve spent a good part of my life studying Czech writers and the incredible literature that has come from this tiny country. I studied Czech, drank beer with her writers and failed at translating the untranslatable.

I had the esteemed pleasure to visit Josef and Zdena Skvorecky who lived just a few blocks from me in Toronto. Shared conversation and great Czech hospitality. I grew as a writer but more importantly as a human being, through my reading of Josef Skvorecky. He’s in my pantheon and now he’s gone. Gone and all I’ve got is this poem I dug up from a box full of notebooks. Based on a glorious day I went to visit him. I walked down Parliament St. and watched him – slunk in to a coffee shop to write this…..

Dekuju vam.

A Writer’s Place

“The swan sings on the lake of the mind”
– the Silver Swan, Kenneth Rexroth

Seeing a man
in the distance
I knew
it must be you, only you
that Whitmanesque
everyman
so rarely seen on these
senseless streets.

You walked with a rhythm,
a side to side waddle of
a man smoothed – no soothed
by years of mindful contemplation,
waves rubbing, rolling, refinding rock.

You, with the blue jeans -
the scream of the common
and safari hat
cocked on one side
so you, the hunter
melding meaning and moments
could hear the hammering
hearts of your everyday prey
so often seen
on these sacredless streets.

So many buzzed around you
in busyness
lost in thoughts of
hot dogs, hard ons, haftos
unaware of you
someone who has achieved
the unwritten writer’s aim –
absorption into the word
heard but healthily unheralded.

What if
you were Hulk Hogan
I thought?
How the street would hum for days
after your handsomeness
had passed, this way (away?)
Yet, I see you
Josef
caught in that
circuitous virtuouso
that only we know about
yet, unable to shout –
we walk the streets
with our masks metted on.

Seeing you
walking so sure
among us,
who suffer surely
yet so sillily (and willingly),
I saw you
measuring our merriment
in song
meters of mediocrity
pulling you along
into our midst
so obscurely (and surely).

I thought to ask you
about this or that,
let your smooth finish
shine upon me –
but thought better
as I watched you
assuredly deposit a letter
into the mouth of a mailbox.

You have other things in mind.

A cold pivo perhaps
(or an old love lapsed)?
To run home and
like a person who
having seen a U.F.O.
tries to live with it
the knowledge of another world
maybe
more important than our own
while the bread and circuses
keep things going around
keep lifting up the frowns
as some as yet unknown gladiator
eats crumbling, unleavened bread
and awaits his death
in the dark caverns
below the merry meant.

(P.S.) Didn’t Kurtz say (or sing)
“Exterminate the brutes”?
I think of all this
upon seeing you.

To The Unknown Teacher

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These few meager, to the bone words, go out to all the teachers who are “unacknowledged”, under the radar in their magnificence.

I’m sure we can all name many of them. They support us, encourage us. They don’t make a big splash, aren’t particularly memorable but they “get the job done” – the job being to nurture the diamond in all students, to polish it, to make it believe in itself and make it shine.

I just came back from a hospital visit to a former “unknown teacher”, Mr. Worth. I’ve written about him previously in the post, “In praise of praise“. Mr. Worth, just understatedly went about doing his miracles. He wasn’t ever in the limelight. He never sought it. Instead, he was about the students, helping, going that extra mile and was a teacher 24/7, 8 days a week.

It wasn’t easy seeing him on his last legs, frail, fighting cancer and near death (but still transcending this monster). We always think of “our” teachers as strong, confident, in control. Yet life/death has its way with us all – even great teachers, teachers who are “unknown” and keep the lights on and hope alive.

Mr. Worth, Doug, my thoughts are with you and your family. You’ve done what only most teachers could ever dream – you’ve touched eternity in a thousand ways and made this world a much better place than if you hadn’t been.

EFL 2.0 gems: What The Wordle

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What the Wordle is a series of games for improving vocabulary that I made. They are very creative and meant to foster thinking skills of students as well as build vocabulary. You can get the PPT versions for most too! Edit and make your own editions…. Also a good example of using a Picasa slideshow to present information and make a game.

Find more in the Gems of EFL Classroom 2.0 series.

My Teaching Resolution 2012 – Make It Real

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Every year, I make a very practical, specific resolution for my teaching. Last year, it was to explore and practice the possibilities of using video in the classroom. This year, it is one big, inspiring one that I hope other teachers will join in – MAKE IT REAL.

Too often, we postpone. We dream, we plan but our resolutions just remain that – ideas. This year, I will follow the Signal 37 philosophy that I’ve long espoused and make my own long list of teaching projects become REAL.

I’ve got a new School of TEFL, I’ll be launching with a full 120 hour course. In my own lessons, I’m going to bring in experts, bring the world into the classroom and flag – relevance to the world out there. I have a list of ideas that I won’t wait on but will seed. I’ve long mucked about but this year it will get even more intense.

So join me – let’s resolve to Make It Real in 2012. Here are the words of Goethe to get you off the couch. Also, some 80′s rock, The Scorpions. Let us know what you will make real this year in your teaching world!

 



Gems of EFL 2.0: Poetry in the Classroom

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Poetry is in my soul (read my own, if interested HERE) and I think if used correctly, it is a powerful activity in the EFL Classroom.

In that vein, find a plethora of resources on the Poetry In The Classroom page. Lots of ideas and printables (click the links at the top of the page), you can use immediately in your classroom. Your students will discover the English poet in themselves and when students use language in creative ways, they become very empowered and more confident, less fearful of the second language.

* Read my full blog post on this topic. Read about more gems of EFL Classroom in this series.

My Blog Year in Review: Part 1

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2011 was a big year for myself as a blogger. I blog for several organizations in addition to this blog (both this public one and the one on EFL Classroom 2.0). So I’m always shocked by my output – over 270 posts on this blog alone in 2011. However, even more suprised by the joy and pleasure I have making a blog post. I don’t count, or do it as a duty. I enjoy sharing, I enjoy the thought I suck upon like a gum drop, when I make a blog post. [but I am totally surprised by how many people do visit - thank YOU for visiting. I've had many days this year of over 1,000 unique visitors (readers)]

2011 for me was a time of big change and a lot of turmoil. I shared a lot of personal stuff on my blog. That was my goal and I think for the most part it was achieved. You can read an interview with myself. I wrote about the death of my coach and teacher. I launched my open source coursebook – Teach | Learn. I published a book of selected writings about teaching and education. I wrote about being a curator of content. I wrote about a new job and challenge at a new university. I wrote about my failures and triumphs with technology over the years. I wrote about “Keeping Up” and my new treadmill desk. I wrote about my own “Egyptian Moment” while teaching in the Ukraine. I wrote about how EFL teaching has changed since I first started 20 years + ago and what I know now but didn’t then. I wrote about teaching during a disaster.

Amid the hundreds of blog posts this year, stand a number I believe didn’t get the attention they deserve and others which did but deserve even more attention!

This post, I’ll detail my top posts I think need more readers and “light of day”. Next up will be the Top 10 that would welcome even more eyes of readers. To end the year, I’ll list my best Practical and best Language oriented posts. – See here a mid year review of Simply The Best posts.

Top posts 2011 (that need more readers)

Jan: It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.

Feb: How to discern a fit and fun classroom.

March: The other side of being a teacher. Making school so it doesn’t stink anymore.

April: Nothing breeds success like success. We keep what we give.

May: Myths and Maddness on both sides. My favorite graduation speech.

June: Memory and Language

July: Cursing and Swearing. The future of the tech book. . Assembly Line Education

Aug: The new way forward.

Sept: Extensive Watching. The 4 Freedoms

Oct: Dancing to the pied “textbook” piper. Philosophy of education at the movies. Disrupting ELT

Nov.: Minimally Invasive Teaching. The #1 factor effecting student success.

Dec: Yes sir, No sir, sorry sir.

Gems of EFL 2.0 – Classroom Management

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Classroom management related questions are the top email item I get. I get them often from both new and experienced teachers alike. It is a skill that needs a teacher’s constant attention. The ground is always moving underneath us.

In response to this, I created a Classroom Management directory page. Loads of videos, quizzes and go to references to help all teachers. I’ve been updating it recently and hope it helps out some teachers in need.


Find other “gems” in this series.

Listening Practice Made Easy

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Listening is a very under taught skill by almost every teacher. It really should be a focus and is such an important part of language learning. I’ve written a popular post offering a lot of suggestions on how to do this – however I can’t think of anything easier than using EnglishCentral‘s “hidden challenge” function.

With the new player (it isn’t out yet, you are getting a sneak peak!), you can make a listening cloze easily and simply. The words and blanks are very clear. Play several times and students write down the words missing. (the teacher should just copy and paste the transcript from the main video detail page to get the answers). Check afterwards by deselecting the hidden challenge from the top of the player.

That’s it, simple as pie and with the great variety of videos on EnglishCentral, an instant lesson and sure to be instant hit with your students. They can even “speak” the videos afterwards. Either at home or at school.

Happy Listening!


Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

EFL 2.0 Gems – Our Podcast Library

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I’m a major “junk” collector and when I first started using Huffduffer, just couldn’t resist collecting all the best education/teaching related podcasts on the web. And I think I’ve achieved that, bar none.

You’ll enjoy searching with handy tags and you’ll be sure to find some “gems”. My favorite podcast has to be this one Aldous Huxley – On Language – but I’m sure you’ll have your own.

Follow the whole “gems” series HERE. If you like podcasts, you might also enjoy our Linguistics series on EFL Classroom 2.0.

Letters to Santa

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This is a great activity for Christmas!  Why  not have your students write a letter to Santa!

Here’s a nice template.

Two options.

They can either write a letter to Santa which someone in the class will write back to.

OR 

Students can write a real letter to Santa and email to the address below.  They will get a response and the Canadian government has a mass of volunteers to respond. Even send an email to Santa!

Santa Claus

North Pole, Canada

HOHOHO

EFL 2.0 Gems: ELT and Tech

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ELT and Tech is a wiki I use to detail all the tutorials I’ve created + references for using technology to teach language.

I’m continually adding tutorials and updating the existing ones. Use the page links on the right, to navigate through the site. There are dozens of tutorials on things like how to embed videos to using specific websites/tools. Also, a some handy bookmarks of the best reference sites for using technology in the classroom.

I’ll be offering a nice 10 module, technology materials creation course in the new year on The School Of TEFL. Stay tuned. Teachers will be challenged to create 10 materials using existing technology, share their products and along the way, realize the power of these fantastic tools.

See all the other gems in the series HERE.

Funny Door Mats

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I’m a big fan of drawing in the EFL Classroom 2.0.  Last night, my parents related a story about a neighbors door mat (pictured). I immediately thought “LESSON!”, so here it is.

It would be great for students to make / draw their own door mats for the whole class. Maybe even have a contest. Watch the presentation / examples below – discuss as needed. Make one together as a whole class and then give out the A4 paper and let me do it!  Check their language and sketch and they can then turn it over and do it as a final draft. Finally, present them for the class and display on the classroom walls.

Simple, strong lesson!

Full Screen

Gems of EFL 2.0: Our Teacher Toolbox

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The Teacher Toolbox is something I’m proud of. I’m a curator and enjoy finding “the best”, especially the best things to help teachers. On this page are certainly the “top” of the top – things every teacher can use and put to use in their class right away.

There are clocks for timing students. I love the Super Timer!
There are generators galore – I love the student name generator!
There are sensational selectors of all sorts. I love the dice, great for playing games.
There is so much. Forms, organizers, vocabulary tools, IWB tools, the list goes on ….. A real gem of a page.

Read more about our other gems in the series.

Gems of EFL 2.0: Our Classrooms

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On EFL Classroom 2.0, we call our groups – “Classrooms“. We have over 100 of them and recently, they’ve gained unbelievable functionality and really are almost full social networks in their own right.

All members can start a group. Make unlimited webpages for your group members. Make the group private (a school/teacher/class might want to do this) or public. You can email all group members with one click of a button (perfect for teachers!). Further, you get discussion forums, commenting area, unlimited file uploads (photos/videos), rss feeds and even more! Personalize the group too.

What’s even better is that you can make one generic id/pw for all your students. After setting up a group, they can visit with the same id/pw (we support multiple logins with the same id). So ontop of your group, students get access to all the amazing content on EnglishCentral.

Here are a few of my fav. groups.

1. Young Learners – so many helpful resources!
2. Karaoke in the Classroom. Many files not on the regular site.
3. Project Peace. Learn how to make a Project Peace video using the Peace Packs.
4. World Groups – join a group for your country in the world. If there isn’t already one, make one! We need members to help make these groups grow!
5. EnglishCentral Star Educators. – learn / share about using this powerful video learning platform.
6. Lessons in a Can. Hundreds of complete lessons with downloads, media, printables. Available to EFL Classroom 2.0 supporters.
7. Teacher Trainers. Lots of helpful advice/resources.
8. Global Issues. Ideas for teaching your students to think about their place in the world.
9. English For Fun and Friendship. This group has it all. A place of immense TLC.

Make your own group, it’s easy!
More in the EFL Classroom 2.0 gems series HERE.

Gems of EFL 2.0: Top Content

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There is so much on EFL Classroom 2.0, the biggest challenge is finding it! I’m trying my best to help teachers and learners in this discovery process and work hard at making the main page search, tag search, tag clouds work. Posts like this “gem” series help too.

However, they is even a better way to find out what’s great on the community – Top Content. It’s a page full of what members think is “hot”. I recommend using it and finding lots of great content. Also, click the red sidebar tab. There, you can find a whole list of pages that members are on at the moment. People like to be where other people are! (you can even see all the data for the site there; visits, page views etc…. no secrets here).

The best way YOU can help others find great stuff? Just tweet, facebook, like it! Others will have a better chance of visiting it and knowing about it. You can now even comment right to facebook on all our pages.