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 [...]
Someone once quipped that genius was “seeing the obvious”. Or as William James added, “the ability to overlook the irrelevant”. Well, by that criteria, I think I’m up there with Einstein and Hawkings because not a day goes by without me being astounded by the power of the written word.
I am reminded of it and [...]
I just did a write up about the top 5 “funniest” videos about language teaching/learning. Well received and I got lots of nice comments. So – I’ve decided to continue the series and reveal some more “gems” buried here in the hundreds of videos on EFL Classroom 2.0
I really think a BIG part of teaching [...]
There are a few constant questions I get from many people. One in particular is “So, what is the best place you’ve lived?” I’m always a bit puzzled by it and have to reply truthfully, “Anywhere there are good people”.
You see, teaching and also travel, is all about “people”. At least that’s what I’ve come [...]
Time for some levity. Us teachers need to laugh at ourselves, our profession a bit. This is an absolute must. So here are a few of the classic videos I’ve laughed at over the last few years. My top 5.
Each video has to do with learning English or teaching English. If you want to watch [...]
MIXTUBE
We have a lot of music here for language learning and teaching. Too much to even begin to list! (actually I have listed it HERE!)
However, here is one other hidden resource – our Mixtube list of Lyrics. A vast collection of great videos with only lyrics.
I find when teaching, a video with lots of imagery [...]
I’ve always loved Charles Bukowski. Though much of his writing is “off” when he hits it – he’s dead on. God like.
I was reading today, thinking about the writing process and Bukowski’s wonderful poem, “IF I Taught Creative Writing” came rushing back to me. So here it is below. Along with a recent Bukowski video [...]
Today I spent a little time helping out another teacher with resources for teaching about the planets. I thought I’d take a moment and just share here too…. This is fascinating stuff for kids of all ages and if you can get them doing any of the following, you’ll be successful.
1. Project – get groups [...]
Pluralism is something we don’t think about too often but WE SHOULD, especially as language teachers, especially English language teachers.
Part of our role, wherever we are, is to educate our students about the incredible diversity of this planet, cultural/linguistic. Educate our students to embrace “the other” and love the other (if I may be so [...]
Headlines Around the World
Long ago, when lost in translation, in E. Europe, I was a copy editor for a English Chinese business magazine. I’d get the articles and polish them and send them back. This was in the very early days of the internet. Part of my job was rewriting the headlines. The Chinese were [...]
