Tagged: curriculum

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Gifs as Universal Language Ideographs

Isaiah Berlin related that there are only two types of people, foxes or hedgehogs.  I’m a hedgehog.  A generalist. A slow plodder that sees the bigger, wider picture. When it comes to language learning, this has been very handy.  It’s valuable to cut through the...

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Teacher Education & Stand Up Comedy

This is not a post about teachers being funny and capturing students’ attention through jokes, humor. Rather, it is about the premise that a teacher can learn to teach in a class. I have changed so much over my 30 year teaching career. My beliefs...

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The Ignorant School Teacher

There has been a lot of debate about the  ideas of Sugata Mitra. He tends to get under teachers’ skins, especially those in ELT.  Find a nice summary of these posts / discussions through this post. I’m kind of confused by all the kerfuffle. I’ve been...

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A Gif Library: Gif.gy

I’m busy these days with Gif Lingua and building a “gif corpus”, a collection of gifs that perfectly describe human experience. Daunting task but I’ll be inviting many others along this journey in the coming months.  Up to over 60,000 perfect gifs in my library....

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“Best” Videos for ELT Player

Further to my last post here, I didn’t think this was a good enough presentation. So I spent the weekend designing a player loaded with what I consider all the “best” videos for teaching ELT. – http://eflclassroom.com/videolessons/ In the player, you can click through and view the...

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The 3 Cs Of Education

The more, the longer I’m involved in education, the more clearly I’m able to see the forest for the trees. Truly. It’s something about just being there, mucking about, taking in loads of information daily that builds a soul inside oneself, the teacher. Not tooting...

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5 Favorite & Fabulous Video Based Lessons

As a language teacher, I love video!  Students do too, so it’s a happy class when a video is being used. I’ve pounded the pulpit before on the benefits for video in the language learning classroom.  See my Using Video In The Classroom Guide Book as...

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My 5 Fav. Simple Ways To Use Video In Class

I hear often from teachers about how video is such a powerful media form to use in the English teaching classroom. But at the same time, I also hear how difficult it can be to actually design a full lesson based around a video(s). So...

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Video: Going To Pieces

I’ve long been a big fan of using video creatively in the classroom. My work with speech recognition and EnglishCentral proves that. However, I have a long history of not only making 100s of video based traditional lessons (see Lessons In A Can for EFL...

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Standardized Learning

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,...

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My own Egyptian moment (Part 2)

Previously, in the spring, I wrote about events in Egypt and my own feelings as a teacher. Given recent events, I’m revisiting these thoughts and thinking about my caution at the time, my fear that power will triumph over “education”. By education, I mean what...

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Teach | Learn – download the “techbook”.

I published Teach | Learn about 8 months ago.  A lot of what I’ve learned and believe about teaching English to students in a classroom went into this simple book. It’s simplicity can be deceiving and it is based on my own belief in SCC...

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Peace In Education

  “Establishing lasting peace is the work of education” Maria Montessori I’m back on the war path again – beating the drum of peace! I think “Peace” an essential part of any school’s curriculum, even an essential part of an EFL/ESL textbook. Look around the...

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Apple or Google?

Which side do you generally side with when making decisions? Do you make decisions based on your expert knowledge and experience or do you lean towards the data and numbers? I’m asking because I’ve had some interesting conversations in this regard, with a colleague. How...

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The Video Teaching Revolution

My work over the years has brought me into thinking heavily about the role of video in language instruction.  I saw its power as a university T.A. – tramping around the campus showing heavy “reels” of film to mesmerized classes. I wouldn’t go so far...

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Project Peace finally is “HOME”

I started Project Peace 2 years ago. I’ve been amazed by the response and how other teachers have motivated their students and brought “peace” into their curriculum through song (and taught a lot of English!). I will be doing more with the project this year...

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Teaching with a blank piece of paper

Even now, this late in the day, a blank sheet of paper holds the greatest excitement there is for me — more promising than a silver cloud, and prettier than a red wagon. – E.B. White I’ve just returned from “a return” to nature. Hiked...

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Why isn’t “shit detecting” a school subject?

I”m sorry but I’ve had a bad day. All the B.S. about the “royal” wedding and people aimlessly following,  jollygagging along.  The farce of celebrity and bread and circuses. Who’ll break this circle of lies? What I mean is that school should be a place...

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World Peace Games

What is education? I just finished reading David Warlich’s 2cents worth blog and commenting. About making education purposeful. That’s what’s missing. Forget reform, change blablabla. Just get people together with a purpose. And what should that be? Well, I think it should be what John...