5 Card Flickr – Storytelling….

Yesterday on twitter, I was pinged and asked about “Storyboards”. I offered my own collected resources, including Story Dominoes. Both fine resources with photos which students can use to either tell or write a story. A wonderful activity (and always make sure to get students to share their stories, the final part of the learning process – or should be!).
I got to thinking some more on this type of resource and shared my Writing with Pictures resources but then was reminded of the fantastic 5 card flickr website.

It is simple to play and students can either tell a story based on the photos or even write / read a story on the website.  Here’s one I made and which you can use for telling in class.

Students simply select one of five photos offered. They continue to do this 5 times and will have 5 images. Then they can save the story and write it or tell it. So simple!  Make sure to click the random button to get a random story!

Need just one story?  We have the largest online library of stories for all levels. You’ll be amazed!

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 and reviewed, he never watched!) has to be his accent. Love it! As a language lover, I love accents, embrace accents and salute accents. Not a common thing in my field where millions are spent promoting farcical “accent reduction” programs.

An accent is something we need our students to love. We should be their coach in getting them to fall in love with the way they speak a foreign language. If they think they sound sexy, they’ll certainly feel so much better about the language learning experience, be more motivated and have a brain fully loaded with dopamine and endorphines. We should compliment our students continually and encourage their love of their own voice. It will pay off lots. Play Zizek for your students and ask what they think about his accent – as a way to start this conversation.

Most will say his accent is too strong, too “je ne sais pas quoi”, too, too, too….. I find it wonderful and also great that we do take the effort, are forced to take the effort to understand him. That’s what makes language lovely, this diversity, this huzzah of sound. Stephen Fry in a well known speech decries also, our reluctance to appreciate speech, the sound of speech, the dance of words, the spray of meaning …. We love music but very seldom do we honor a speaker and his “sound”. Zizek, I honor you and want you to be a model to all my second language students.

But language is a funny beast – it is governed by the paradox of anamorphosis, here Zizek outlines it while discussing a different issue, the movie, Children Of Men.

“the paradox of anamorphosis: if you look at the thing too directly, (the oppressive social dimension), you don’t see it. You can see it in an oblique way only if it remains in the background” (Žižek 2006a: unpaginated)

I’ll leave you with that quizzical thought – you take it from there and think what I mean. I know Zizek would understand!

EFL 2.0 gems: Karaoke dialogues

I am very proud of this very underused resource- our karaoke dialogue page. You get a full ebook of all the blank dialogues + Karaoke or video files of the full dialogue or with parts missing where the student can reply with their own voice. It’s a stellar activity and try it below or go directly to the Karaoke Dialogue page. This post , “The Blank Dialogue Refreshed” explains how I developed this approach.

The “gems” series will continue all month. Here are the previous posts.

EFL 2.0 Gems – Our 24/7 teacher

One of the nice things about a computer is that it never tires (also frustrating, always there tempting us). No greater example than our teacher bot on EFL Classroom 2.0. She’s pretty, smart and also wants to talk about Christmas these days (just select the questions below her to speak about Christmas). She’s a wonder and I’m glad I took the initiative to develop her for language learners all around the world.

Hours of fun. Post up your own “gems” from her responses. Also, try the Ghost Writer version of the same mark up language. A wonderful Harry Potter way to practice writing.

Get more gems in this ongoing series HERE.

The #1 …. (voicethread of all time)

Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

Dr. Quinn’s Love Line

I can’t tell you how many tears of laughter I’ve shared with students while using Dr. Quinn as an example of Voicethread. He’s incredible and even after 5+ years, still brillant and new as the sun is each day.

I’m really proud of being one of Voicethread’s first supporters. I saw immediately the revolutionary thing they were and cheered it on as such. Really proud too of my own Voicethreads that have acted as models for many EFL teachers. But alas, I could never, ever beat, nor could anyone Dr. Quinn. It is so real, so genuine. A gem.

See my own tutorials for using/making your own Voicethreads – HERE.

The “Blank” Dialogue Updated

The blank dialogue is a very “natural” teaching approach. Something intuitive about it. I used it in my early days of teaching – just pausing a dialogue on cassette tape and asking students to respond. You had to get skilled with using those big buttons! That is what being a teckkie used to entail!

Most blank dialogues are receptive – students listen and fill in. Then repeat the lines and try to do it “without looking”. That’s okay – Molinsky and Bliss would be in bliss – however, nowadays with video and technology, I believe we can do more.

Blank dialogues are highly engaging to students because they do some important things:

1. They embrace a powerful principle of teaching – anticipation. Students don’t know what will be coming and must respond. So it is very engaging. Also, it teaches (in a controlled fashion) how to tolerate the “ambiguity” of language.

2. They recycle language and are repetitive. The form is controlled and students just substitute.

3. They allow production of language by students in a controlled fashion. Students can produce language and self correct themselves immediately against a model. Swain and Long are two researchers who stress the importance (and value) of production for language acquisition.

4. Students can personalize language. They utter the words, they can change them about, say them differently. Even respond differently than the original model.

Practical examples.

Let me show you clearly, how I envision the video blank dialogue.

1. Here is a standard dialogue for language learning. The teacher plays. The students repeat. The teacher asks questions. blablabla…. Standard and non anticipatory.


2. Here is the video as a blank dialogue. Much more engaging. The teacher can even get this in Karaoke and slow the dialogue ever so slightly and make it easier for the students. I even made a book using 20 dialogues with cloze scripts.


You can even go one step further and get students to record the lines and produce their own video! This is the direction I want EnglishCentral to go. Where the actual recording is interactive and there is simulated communication (however controlled). This I believe would revolutionalize the now a bit tired and too true blank dialogue.

What do you think ?

Here’s my own recording! I just used NCH’s Wavepad to “silence” selected parts of the audio. Then put that into Audacity and recorded over the track. Finally, used the karaoke editor to put it all together (Studio version allows you to produce a video). Get all this on the Software for Education page I put together.

The 5Ws focused lesson

Using the journalistic technique of the 5W questions is really effective for any listening / reading activity. Students can read or listen to  the news item or story and then write out the 5 questions that would cover the story. They can then quiz each other for comprehension instead of the teacher asking the questions.

Here is a clip from newsround (below). I give students the task of writing the 5 questions for one news item. So students only have to listen in detail to a selected part of the newscast. Each group completes the questions below for a different news item (the 1st , 2nd, 3rd etc…). They quiz other groups afterward.

Listening – The 5 ws!

Play any short clip or news report. Even a short story. Ask the students to list the “reporters” 5ws on a piece of paper.

Who _______________________________________________

What _______________________________________________

Where ______________________________________________

When _______________________________________________

Why ________________________________________________

Then check as a group or in pairs. Can they answer them?

This activity can also be done for any reading/text in the textbook. It
is invaluable to get the students themselves forming the comprehension

questions for your class readings.

This should be your goal – get them to TEACH THEMSELVES!   View the many reasons for using current events in the classroom. See all the rest of the Lessons in a Can! Here’s a handy lesson sheet for this lesson.   current events 5W lesson

Recommended websites for getting “news” are:

VOA on EnglishCentral BreakingnewsEnglish CNN Student News BBC Newsround

Using Technology to teach Speaking

I recorded my talk at the recent KOTESOL National Conference – Getting Students Speaking: Harnessing the Power of New Technologies.

It’s a pretty comprehensive overview of online tools and technologies. Here’s the presentation of only the websites (click the images to go to that website).

Thanks to Aaron and all the hard working Kotesol organizers for really pushing the envelope by skyping me in and starting to use this type of professional development!

Blended Learning – EnglishCentral Style

bubblesI’ve made a very beta coursebook for beginning level learners. It uses a set of EnglishCentral videos which the students can then use for practicing their speaking using their state of the art speech recognition technology. Teachers can use the videos in class, along with the book.

The exercises are very simple. One – personalizing and then performing the dialogue. In this way, the students put in their own content/meaning and are more motivated than through pure repetition. Two – a simple exercise to use the word bank from the dialog. Students can do the video quizzes for the vocab. on EnglishCentral.

Click on the photos to go to the appropriate EnglishCentral video. Or find them all in one handy place on EFL Classroom 2.0.

Comments about this coursebook, its design, methodology and “future” are appreciated.

Embedding and Hidden Challenge on EnglishCentral

bubblesEnglishCentral, a site where student can practice “speaking” English using authentic videos and “hip” content – just got better.

I’ve been working closely with the EnglishCentral team and you can expect more developments along the lines of sharing and social media. Also, being able to search and use this powerful “video corpus”. You’ll be able to search for “idioms” or any other language term and pull up loads of video examples. It’s powerful and exciting.

The two recent changes that I think will really help teachers are:

1. You can now embed their videos and use them on your school page / site!

2. The Hidden Challenge. Take away words and use as a listening cloze.

See a couple screenshots of each below. Also, note that you can easily just copy any transcript to the right of the video and then paste into a word document for printing and use in class! And of course, EnglishCentral continues to build up their teacher tools into a regular LMS (learning management system).

Enjoy using EnglishCentral with your students. A site with a perfect balance of CI (comprehensible input) and CO (comprehensible output).

ec hidden challenge

ec embed

Faking it …..

Today, my “much better half” insisted that our dog Chico could understand Korean. She showed me how he could understand Korean and sit and stay, even give paw. I had a good chuckle. Not much different to many teachers who believe their students understand them in the classroom! Chico, like so many students, was great at “faking it”. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

I think all of us teaching English, have to remind ourselves that though it might seem that our students understand – a lot of time, even most of the time, they are faking it.

I remember especially in my first years of teaching, fully thinking that the nodding, the “yeah, yeah”, “ok” of my students indicated that they’d understood. However, what was happening was probably much like this famous Far Side comic.

ginger far side Our students often are “bewildered” (to borrow a term Frank Smith uses often in reference to children learning to read). There is overload and the brain is overcome. But there exists a powerful need to believe in the pragmatic elements of communication (the facial expressions, gestures, eye contact etc..), also the hints and inferences of half meaning that pass along as communication. We want to understand so much and we want to communicate and please the other so much – that we “fake it”. Nobody wants to say, “I don’t understand”.

Not that faking it is all bad. It is only bad if “learning” is your aim. If you want to be social, faking it can be a great strategy. Or if you are asking for directions in Spanish and are confronted with a flood of Spanish that you can’t understand at all – it can be a quick way out of a sticky situation.

Still, as a teacher, we should be aware of how learners, “fake it”. Otherwise, we can’t adjust our lessons and content appropriately and we become teachers who “fake it”. And yes, they exist! In my experience, “faking it” is an art undertaken in abundance by teachers. Like the Cuban joke about communism, “they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work”, — “teachers pretend to teach and students pretend to learn”. It happens a lot.

So be aware of the dynamics of communication in the classroom. Do your students really understand you? (and they don’t have to understand everything but they also shouldn’t be overwhelmed). If they are faking it, it is time to think through your lesson delivery and maybe do a few of the following;

1. Model more, explain less. Think through how you’ll explain the stages and activities of the lesson.

2. Get Ss speaking and doing the explaining. They’ll bring it down to the level of the audience and the communication will be much more effective.

3. Ask follow up questions to assess student understanding. A very handy request for teachers is, “So, could you repeat back to me, what I want you to do / what I said / explained?”

4. Speak less – decrease teacher talk time and let students have more opportunity for production rather than reception of language.

But the important thing to remember is to ask the question – “Do my students understand me?” and conversely, as a learner, to ask, “Do I understand?” Start from there and stop faking it – that is unless faking it provides some side benefits outside of learning. If you know what I mean……

The #1 …. (conversation game)

Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

Pass the Paper

There are many conversational games but I have found none so popular and powerful as “Pass the Paper”.

We have many pre made Pass the Paper games on EFL Classroom 2.0 but you can also do it low tech, without a powerpoint. However, I like the ppts because you can just set a slide transition interval and it takes care of itself and you are free to wander the classroom – helping, monitoring.


What is it?
Basically, the students are in a group with one crumpled piece of paper among them. The music plays and they “Pass the Paper” . When the music stops, the one with the paper must do something preset by the teacher. It can be many things.


1. Answer the question on the ppt.


2. Do something the group asks.

3. Answer a question the group asks (with target language the teacher has on the board. ie. Have you ever ……?)

4. Finish a sentence or expression on the powerpoint.
5. Truth or Dare (for higher levels).

I’ve used this game to good effect at workshops as an icebreaker. See below and example of the many available in our resources.


Try “Pass the Paper”
, it really lowers the affective filter of students and gets them relaxed and learning English without even knowing it!

Finish It Off! – PTP game (full screen)

Quizlet now has voice recognition for student practice!

I’ve started up our long dormant Quizlet flashcard group. Even make your own flashcards and share them (use our ID/PWeflclassroom/eflclassroom

However even better, is to get your students playing the games online. Yes, you can print and cut out all the flashcards (this is superb!!!) but now with their new “speaking” component, there are more reasons for your students to practice online. Students can “speak” the flashcard word or sentence and try to make it disappear. Really works!

Watch the tutorial I unprofessionally made – it does the job of introducing you to it. Then send your students to Quizlet for practice. This is cool — your voice has magic and what you say can make things happen!


The #1 ….. (faux pas / weakness) of ELT instruction

Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

Not Pausing while speaking

I’ve been in a lot of classrooms recently. One thing that becomes abundantly clear is that most instructors aren’t pausing enough while speaking. Students need time to process language, students need time to think about the answer to a question, students need time to “wrap their brain around things”.

This is under appreciated by English Language instructors for the most part. It is also a very effective skill for any presenter – giving your audience time to think! (see my fav. Bill Cosby speech for an example!).

Teachers need to “slow down” by pausing between sentences. Especially when asking questions, they need to count to 5 or more and then have a student respond. There is a lot of “heat” and cognitive demand on an ELLs brain – let’s give them time to chill!

This video I subtitled, addresses this question well – focused on general teaching skills and asking questions in the classroom.



Assessing Student Speaking – English Central.com

I’ve been helping English Central put up a teacher’s area on their site. It is still in the initial stage but all the same, Ready To Go. Click HERE to join as a teacher and start inviting students! I’ll be posting a nice screencast later today, describing all the features available for teachers to track student progress. If you haven’t visited English Central yet, WATCH the DEMO and see how powerful it might be for your digital students!

Sign up as my student and help me test the Teacher’s interface!

Join us on EFL Classroom 2.0 where we are discussing and commenting on English Central and language learning/teaching.

It isn’t easy to assess student speaking! First, it is time consuming. Typically us ESL / EFL teachers have hundreds of students – so it is hard to give them both individual practice or even an individual assessment. English Central allows teachers at a minimum to get some feedback about student ability.

Further and most importantly – English Central’s voice recognition technology is highly motivational to students. Students can choose their own content, at their own level. (but soon teachers will be able to preselect videos for students on their own channel – THIS IS COMING!). It “flattens” things in that learners can now practice anywhere, anytime and the teacher still have information about what they are doing. The class can now truly have “no walls”.

English Central is in no way a replacement for face to face communication! Language at all times, is about human beings talking/communicating – about that dance and bounce of meaning between people. Still, I think this tool really “takes things up a knotch” as far as online learning is concerned. Now, for the first time, we can get students producing language (and Voicethread was a great addition in this area too!) but also getting feedback. English Central has amazing pronunciation / vocabulary feedback. If only for this aspect, it really is a pearl among oysters. Watch the demo here.

Myself, I’ve been involved with TTS (Text to Speech) for 5-6 years. Promoting both Karaoke and Bots for language learning and reading development. However, I’d been waiting for a way that students could actually be encouraged to produce (in the spirit of Swain’s CO [comprehensible output}. Students need this as well as CI {comprehensible input}.

Please leave your comments here on this thread and let’s build ideas for English Central. I’ve already asked the developers to;

1. Make the inviting students easier — have an internal email server + an embed button so students could just click and sign up for the teacher’s class.

2. Export/printable stats for student(s). So teachers can discuss with parents / administrators.

What do you think about English Central? What can be improved? ....

Who’s Speaking? Guess the Accent.

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 us thinking about stereotypes too). Then, guess where they are from. Check. 20 questions plus one practice question.

This is based a bit on the Language Accent Game. This game is enjoyable but I find only useful with adv. learners. Thus, my own attempt…. (I’ll be tinkering with the game, changing, over the next few weeks as feedback is given).

Full Screen – Click Here.

Using Voicethread with your textbook

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 quiet , rainy Sunday, going through our voicethreads here on EFL Classroom 2.0. Wow! So many thousands of visitors from around the world using them to speak English, practice English. So in this spirit, I’d like to share a very easy method to combine your textbook and voicethread.

It’s simple. Simply scan or take a picture with your digital camera – one page or item from your textbook’s lesson/chapter. Upload to Voicethread and invite your students. Learn more about voicethread on my tutorial page HERE.(scroll down). Download this handy tutorial also.

Students simply visit and then speak about the picture. Or read the text, complete the exercise. This is very helpful because it repeats the lesson content/objectives. Further, it allows the student to repeat, relisten, share. It also gives them a very secure environment (at home with a headset maybe?) to speak English and lowers the affective filter a lot.
Try it – it will benefit your students! Here’s an example I made using the Middle and High School textbooks here in Korea. (YES, your students can use this one too!)


Getting students Speaking – CO2!

As a post-methodist (and not of the religious kind!!) I’m really big on getting students producing language and talking. CO2 is what I call it. Comprehensible Output for 2 people (communication). We all need to give our students more CO2 – forget the oxygen!

In that vein, I’ve promoted extensively both Voicethread and Voxopop. Two wonderful applications where students can go online and either prompted by the teacher or just joining in on others conversations, practice speaking. Send your students or go yourself to both our EFL Classroom Voicethread and EFL Classroom TALK GROUP Voxopop. Join our Voxopop group and collect your conversations there!

here is an example of a voicethread for Korea teachers. Scan parts of the M.S. or H.S. textbook. Put the pictures up on Voicethread and have students come and speak! Assess their speaking at your leisure, unrushed!

I recently taught a series of workshops on this. See the workshop material HERE. Very comprehensive with tutorial videos to watch and links, suggestions, examples.

Also see info. about using TAR HEEL READER – I’m holding workshops and having teachers make these books this week. The most satisfying technology training I’ve ever done! After an hour of book making and exploring, each teacher gets up and shares their book! They can bring the book back to their own class and share with students and also get their students making books.

IF you are really ambitious and want to spend $2 / month, you can get the EVOCA recorder. Put it on your school webpage and students can make recordings and send them to you! Easy as pie. Try it out by sending me a message to my email – ddeubel@gmail.com Just put in the name of TEST! Please say hello and like your students – Get some CO2!

Getting your students “speaking” – Some Strategies.

conversation1It isn’t easy to get students speaking sometimes. But it is well worth it! It is truly the road towards a fluent, confident speaker of English.

I remember when first confronted with a “silent” class. They were really passive and not willing to speak. After lots of trial and error I finally came into class gagged! (yes, I was brash and bold in those days!). I continued with the lesson as normal but there wasn’t any speech from me. Soon enough, the students couldn’t stand it and they started speaking! Not terribly lots but a beginning. And more than anything, I broke the crust and now it was all creme de la creme…….

With the coming of the Communicative Language teaching approach, instruction began to focus less on grammatical form and more on meaning. Part of this new emphasis on meaning meant that instruction would have to emphasize “communication”- 2 or more people negotiating and exchanging meaning.

Oral Interpersonal Communication was pushed into the spotlight. Students were expected to use functional, situational, everyday language in class. The mantra was to decrease “teacher talk” time and increase the production time of students (Swain’s concept of Comprehensible Output informing this approach). Student talk meant the following;

1. Authentic, unscripted, not memorized activities. Ex. Task based role play.

2. Meaning based. Transfer of information was the goal. Ex. Information gap

3. Listening and interpretation of the speaker is necessary.Communication became a two way street of listening and speaking.

4. Meaning was negotiated. Repetition, clarification, confirmation, pausing, signaling of not understanding, interjections, pragmatics (gestures) were all to be practiced as part of natural conversation.

Research has shown that students who experienced more time producing meaningful language, gained higher levels of fluency. Yet, teachers understanding the above, still had to get their students talking. How?

Here are some tips outlining many of the standard approaches to fostering oral interpersonal communication (a big word for speaking) in the English language classroom.

A. Set the correct tone.

The affective filter that Krashen alluded to, and the fear many students have, must be lowered by making students comfortable and the teacher providing a “safe” environment. Students won’t speak unless they feel comfortable. Teacher modeling of all activity and showing a very self-depreciating manner really helps. Clapping and rewarding mistakes also helps set the right tone. First bring the class together as a team, then focus on communicative language teaching. Don’t put the cart before the horse.

B. Assist performance.

The teacher acts as a facilitator or discussion leader. The teacher activates background knowledge on the topic or theme and uses
language that scaffolds learning of the L2. The teacher in an Instructional Conversation (IC) approach offers feedback to the students in the form of correct usage and providing language model forms. The teacher focuses on the object of the learning and assists students in practicing that. The teacher arranges tasks in sequence so that students can perform them with increasing ability.

C. Turn taking.

The teacher explicitly teaches students how to take turns in a conversation. Communication is a two way street and the teacher should after each answer by a student, prompt them to continue the communication with a question or suggestion.

D. Use tasks and especially 2 way tasks.

Students can be motivated to speak, “if there is a need”. A two way task where there is some information missing, provides this kind of motivational need. See the attached examples of an info. gap kind of activity which really acts as a catalyst towards inflaming student talk time.   HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES

E. Use authentic texts and topics/themes that the students are interested in.

Nobody enjoys talking about something that doesn’t interest them! Make it real and make it up to date with timely texts (news items, celebrity gossip, hot topics etc…) Keep it about their lives and world. In order to generate speech, the students need “some fuel in the tank”, something they know a lot about. Keep them driving (speaking) on a full and powerful engine!

F) Tolerate silences.

Yep, sometimes that is necessary. So often, students aren’t speaking simply because the teacher seems so good at it! Wait more often and the students will respond. One of the things experienced teachers do better is that they wait longer after questions. This gives the student more time to work out the language in their head, more time to articulate themselves. It isn’t easy speaking in an L2 – slow down!

G) Get them on their feet!

Have you ever wondered why we teach students while they are sitting down when 80% of human language is produced while standing up? Get them practicing what they will be preaching! Simply giving them a slip of paper with one question or prompt and having them walk around the class exchanging it and finding others – does wonders for acquiring language and practicing what I call – authentic production.

H) Modify other teacher behaviors.

Listen more to your students. Really listen with an interest and exaggerate so they know you are! Pause often, altering your rate of speech while maintaining naturalness. REALLY speak to your students, about real topics and concerns. Keep it real. Do what you ask your students to do. Be one of them when possible and do the same tasks. Also, learn to step back, step aside. If the class is really speaking English and using English – roll with it!

I) Give students the ammunition to succeed
.

Provide gambits and target language forms on the board to help lower level students succeed. Preteach essential vocabulary and make sure your students are ready to handle the task (for the most part). Provide pictures as prompts and modify the activity for lower level students.

J) Teach inductively!

Too often, us teachers follow the basic lesson plan. Engage or Prepare / Study or Practice / Activate or Present . However, what often happens in class is that the most important stage – Production, never happens! The bell rings and the students get little time on their feet speaking. So turn your lesson plan upside down! Start with the production activity. Then do some controlled practice if necessary, so they can see how the correct production should have been.

K) Enjoy yourself.

Yes, we’ve come full circle. If a teacher shows they are enjoying themselves, the students will too. This will only foster the proper classroom environment for oral production. Hopefully, you’ll be so luck as to have a classroom of Argentinians I had years ago – they just wouldn’t shut up! I would get major headaches but happily so…….

This teaching with Bailey episode focuses on the problem of “silent students” and how to engage them so they will “open up”. A neat look, as Bayley always is!  Go here for more videos with Bayley


Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0