Small texts for beginners

This website brings some short and easy texts ready to be photocopied and handed-in to students.
Click here to go to Small Texts for Beginners

Teachers Narratives

This is a great website developed by the Department of Education of the University of Washington for both fresh and experienced teachers whose aim is always learn a little bit more about the way teaching takes place in different environments (and with different publics!).

All the narratives contain a list of suggestions and tips for the specific problem related by the teacher, and all the strategies point to the best approach to be used with students fitting that specific profile.

Even though the taught subject is sometimes related to the engineering field, it is really worth reading the needs analysis they perform for each case.

I have personally selected some of the best narratives which, in my opinion, best illustrate the reality of our everyday professional lives:


My Students Look Bored in Class

Facing bored students frustrates Dr. Wong.

Synopsis:

Dr. Mike Wong, who teaches a large mechanics of materials class, is frustrated that his students appear bored and disinterested. Mike wants his class to be an engaging and instructive experience, so he talks with a research colleague who offers useful suggestions for enlivening the course.

Click here to be redirected to the whole narrative.



Why Are My Students Performing So Poorly?

Christina's students did not perform on a recent exam as well as she expected.

Synopsis:

Dr. Christina Delgado has been teaching for 15 years in mechanical engineering, but in one class she’s frustrated that her students’ performance is not meeting her expectations. Exam scores are lower than previous years she’s taught this class. Trying to figure out why her students are struggling, Christina speaks with an instructional consultant to tease out the roadblocks to student performance.

Click here to be redirected to the whole narrative.




This Student Is Driving Me Nuts!

Dr. Rucker must manage classroom dynamics when a student dominates the discussion.


Synopsis:

Dr. Craig Rucker is having difficulty managing one particular student in a graduate level class he's teaching. He's frustrated that this student dominates the class discussion with her professional experiences. Craig speaks with a friend to figure out how to maintain a positive learning environment for all.

Click here to be redirected to the whole narrative.

How to Teach Phonemic Symbols - make it easier!

This IPA Typewriter, by Peter MacKichan is a very useful tool for teachers and students that want quick and accurate phonemic transcriptions.
Click here to go to IPA Typewriter.

How to make your students SPEAK

The website itself says: "The main aim of these Talking Point worksheets is to promote fluency by presenting students with stimulating discussion questions. All Talking Points are designed for use with students who have reached Pre-Intermediate level, though they are also very successful with Intermediate and more advanced students. Each Talking Point is accompanied by Teaching Suggestions (TS) with answers."
A great resource for teachers!
Click here to go to Talking Points.

How to teach Anagrams - challenge your students!

The definition of "anagram" is: "A word or phrase formed by reordering the letters of another word or phrase".

As it is commonly known amongst teachers, one good technique to have students memorising a word and its pronunciation is by making them repeat this word backwards, divided in chunks.

Using anagrams can be even better for this purpose, since you are using the language in its different angles, and proving to students that they can play around with words since they know those words in English. Anagramsite.com is an excellent source of anagrams - you can generate an anagram from the website, or even use some examples they offer there.

Of course that the fun factor is also involved - playing with the meaning of the words (or its non sense)make students really stop to think about the language, and instantly access their background experiences of those words. For this, I suggest dividing the class in groups, and, while you write the words/expressions, on the board, they have to shout what those words/expressions are in "real" English. The group that gets more correct answers wins the game. (Don't forget to say to students that they will have x expressions/words before the game begins, and to tell them "one!"or "two left!" so they have the chance to recover their results).

Nice activities using technology

Make a long story short, family tree and other activities to make your students enjoy internet resources in the classroom and learn more effectively...




1. Family Tree

It is hard to make students learn family vocabulary without using L1 if we do not show them a family tree. If you are not good at drawing or prefer something more hi-tech, check this new way of presenting family members vocabulary.

First you will need to download a free 1.2 Mb software called “Grow a tree” (click here ). The program is really simple to use and you can add as many family members as you need to your tree.

Start the lesson by showing pictures of famous families (such as The Simpsons, The Flinstons, etc) and then show them a picture of your family (if you feel comfortable with the idea of doing so).

Open the software and show students your family tree. As it is not possible to make and save your tree previously, you will have to do it in class – which can be even more interesting because you will be able to elicit from them how those members you are adding to the tree are called.

A good follow up to this would be handing students a family tree graphic, where they will write the names of the members of their families. After making their family trees, students could ask each other the ages of the people of their partners' families, their jobs, what they look like, what they like doing and so on.






2. What's your opinion?

This activity is very good for one-to-one students and groups which like debating.

You will need to sign up to Voxopop, an online community in which you will find discussion forums where people debate by voice-recording their opinions.

There are lots of opinions on different topics. In “Advanced English” a wide range of topics are being discussed. Another forum where people often participate is “Health, Wellbeing and Relationships”.

You can play some different opinions on a chosen topic to your students and ask them to tell a partner who they agree with and why, or even ask them to, in groups, write reasons to support both ideas.

It is also possible to start a new discussion forum and ask your students to join it and record their contribution to the debate as homework.





3. Making a long story short

Do you know Twitter? It is the web thingh everyone has been talking about. It consists of a micro-blogging service where people should say what they are doing at the moment they are posting in 140 characters at most. However it has been used for many different purposes.

You can create one account for a writing project with your students. You should post the beginning of a story. The idea is to assign one student to post 140 characters continuing the story per class. It should be assigned as homework as students will have to think carefully to write what they want in only 140 characters. It is also a good vocabulary exercise (students will always search for the shortest words) and one which enables them to practise coherence and cohesion.

The teacher can always show the Twitter page with the fresh posts in class and comment about the plot with the students, to raise their interest and to show them you are aware of what they are posting. When the story ends, the posts can even be compiled and an extract of the story used in class for a reading skills exercise.

How to Teach Idioms

Teaching idioms to our students is not an easy task. Even for native speakers, idioms and collocations can be challenging to teach, since EFL/ESL students may not have that correspondent expression in their first languages.

And, as "we all are in the same boat", and "actions speak louder than words", I have selected a nice website where you find most of the idioms used in the English language: Idioms.com.

A tip I give is: pick one or two nice idioms to begin or finish your classes with, or you can even play a memory game with them, by writing the words on the board and erasing them right after. Just make sure you contextualize the expressions by applying them to videos, miming or songs, and don't forget to check meaning after that by asking students to roleplay a situation using the idioms, for example.

Find ESL/EFL Jobs!

This is a great career search engine for those who want to work in a big language center spread worldwide. Click here to go to Berlitz Career Service webpage.






The International House website offers a career search session on their website for EFL/ESL teachers looking for several kinds of positions at their branches worldwide. They offer a very detailed job description, including things such as salary, location and accomodation, and an online form. Click here to go to IH World career webpage.






Dave’s ESL Café Job Center
This part of Dave’s ESL Café also offers a journal of job experiences, forums and a space to discuss teacher training issues.





ELT Jobs offer Worldwide
Employers can supply details of their language vacancies for free, and job-seekers can add their CV to the job wanted section.
They also have a careers' clinic, with advice on interview techniques and CV preparaton, and would-be English teachers can find out the qualifications required and the institutions where they can study.





ESL Career
You can forward your cv directly to the institution advertising a job when you apply online.




ESL Worlwide





Jobs in ELT
TEFL tools, publications, resources and jobs, divided by country and a "top jobs" session.





TEFL.net Jobs
This site offers lists of current vacancies in categories of “Europe”, “Asia” and “Worldwide”.





TEFL Professional Network
Jobs around the world, a direct-to-desktop weekly magazine (ELT Job Source), a worldwide salary guide and much more.





TESOL Career Center
Searchable database of job vacancies and a bulletin (The Placement Bulletin) are some of the offered services in this part of TESOL website.





TES Jobs
In this website, you can search a job for position, subject or workplace.





The British Council
'Whether you are curious to know what EFL stands for or already established with an ELT career and looking for a new challenge, these pages contain useful information for you.'






Linguistic Funland’s Job Opportunities
Job opportunities for ESL professionals.






Jobs in Asia
Besides offering jobs, this website offers articles on how and why to apply for jobs in Asia.




Jobs in Japan


Sensei 121.com

Job hunting, teaching tips, resources and guides.



Jobs in Japan

Job listings in teaching and other areas.




ELT News

News, classroom activities,material thoughts, professional development... a very complete website for ESL professionals.




Tokyo Connections

Bilingual jobs, associations,job listings.

Possible Interview Questions

We all get a little bit nervous before a job interview - it does not matter if you are an experienced professional or not, butterflies arise from nowhere when we are sitting there, facing another new career opportunity.

Even though it can sound quite obvious, going through some "basic literature" on job interviews can be very helpful if the objective is to revise some etiquette, postures, or even try to antecipate some of the questions and simulations you can be asked to perform in an interview. Of course that certain issues such as a timid personality or lack of patience to undergo some tests can be a little bit more complicated to fix; however, if you are interested in knowing some of the possible interview questions, and if you are willing to analyse your own reactions to them BEFORE an interview, you can be quite surprised by the results you may get in your next mission!
Some of the questions posted here have been taken from my personal experience in interviewing possible candidates for ESOL and ESL positions in institutions I have worked in as pedagogical consultant. Others, I have chosen from some published material from my CELTA course.

1 - What do you consider your strengths and weaknesses as a teacher?

2 - What does classroom management mean to you?

3 - How can you define a good class?

4 - What materials are you familiar with? Of these, which do you prefer and why?

5 - What levels have you taught? Which levels do you prefer teaching?

6 - What age groups have you taught How would you feel about teaching children

7 - What size classes have you taught? How would you feel about teaching one-to-one?

8 - Can you give me an example of the first conditional/the past continuous, etc?

9 - Can you handle technology? How would you feel teaching online/with an interactive board?

10 - Can you please prepare a class for a PI1 group, aging around 14, with 12 students in it, using only the board, in half an hour?

11 - What would you do if...

... some students were having problems understanding a certain grammar explanation?
... two students kept talking about other issues during class?
... one student had more difficulty with pronunciation than the others?

12 - How do you usually monitor students?

The best Internet websites for ESL/EFL teachers

WikiAnswers is a website where ask-and-answer gain another meaning - you just ask whatever you want to know, and they will show you lots of possibilities of answers for that question.
For example:

Question:
How to teach toddler to speak?

Answer:

Just talk to the toddler like an adult. explain things over and over again. help them make complete sentences. just help them with everything.






With Gizmoz, you can make your own 3D character, add voice, text and even videos to it. This is a great resource to make your students produce oral language, socialize and have fun! You can use celebrities'faces and voices, or even text-to-speech if you don't want to use your own. After that, you can embed, upload, share.... Your students will love it!

Watch this clip, made by a public user;











Magmypic allows you to create magazine covers with your own pictures. The best way to work with these magazines is to create a writing task, a PROJECT ("The Magazine Project", for example), asking students to get in groups of 3 or 4 and write 3 or 4 articles about the topic of the magazine they have chosen (give them 2 or 3 weeks so they can do it at home - remember: it's a project for the semester). Every class, you can help them with correction and feedback about the content of the articles using the final 15" of the class. Tell them that, besides writing the articles, they will choose one article (the one they enjoyed the best)to make an oral presentation with (tell them not to worry - they will only retell the class what they have written). Encourage them to interview people, and display something nice for the class at the day of the presentation. This way, you can give them their final marks (or extra points) for writing and for oral production (everybody in the group has to speak!)

This is a sample cover I've made with my own picture:

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Read the Words.com

Readthewords has a text-to-speech function. You can create avatars and embed them on your webpage, or download them. For the free membership, you can only create and share 3 voiced avatars.

This is the one I've created:








Sing your Text!




In SingYourText site, you can write your text in a box, click play, and the site sings the text for you. Very funny, and also very useful for students to improve their listening skills. One activity I suggest using SingYourText is: divide the class in groups (after rolemodeling the exercise) and give them 10" to 15" to write a song about some topics YOU will have assigned them on the board, and that they will choose. It could be "love", "school", etc. Each group cannot show the other what they have written. After that, open the website, ask the first group to come to the computer and ask the others to keep their back to the board (if it's a smart board), but warn them that they have to keep their ears wide open. Then tell them they should jot down the words they hear. The group that gets more right words, wins the game.




Nice Story Maker




This is an excellent story maker (the best I could find, since it generates longer and more contextualized texts) from the session LearnEnglish Kids, from BBC website.

There, you can choose a fairy story, a horror story, or a science fiction story. You should wait for the storymaker to load, then answer the questions - choose the characters, words and places or write your own! Then the story maker will 'make' your story - you can print it too!

Irreplaceable white boards

From Teacher Jimmy Astley, one more collaborator and co-author of this website, a food for thought about technology in the classroom.

Doubtlessly machines will never replace teachers. Even in online courses, based on moodle platforms, a teacher is needed to guide and assess students. However, nowadays the Interactive White Boards have been in the spotlight of the ELT field. Not only because they seem to facilitate teachers' lives but also because they are now being seen as the new great thing which should be used all the time by everyone.

It's important that we reflect on the use of such marvellous tool in our classes. IWBs are not interactive themselves. They do boost students' motivation as long as they are not there as a board on which they will only see beautiful backgroung images and objects disappearing when we click on them with our magic pens.

The link to the Internet, for instance, is a great advantage of the device. Youtube videos, online games, blogs and pictures are only one click away. Won't we forget why they are there: to promote interaction amongst students, to serve as an stimulus, to help us ignite the fire within their minds.

Interactive White Boards are great indeed. But they are only one more tool which will help us reach and involve our students. A recent theory concerning learning styles defined as 4MAT states that there are four types of learners: imaginative, analytic, common sense and dynamic. According to it, only imaginative and analytic learners would enjoy the sort of activities which have been made by teachers for the IWBs. How do we expect to reach all our students by using one tool as the main resource in our lessons?

Despite the introduction of technology in the class, it is still necessary to use a variety of resources and activities. It is common that when new things appear every conference, meeting, training course and internet website will make their point on it. However we should always remember that technology is only one more way to make students interact and learn. It is our job to make it useful, meaningful and effective because it will not work on its own for the purposes we expect.

More on 4MAT in www.aboutlearning.com


Jimmy Astley

E-learning development - relearning how to teach

Being able to teach by making use of technological resources makes us rethink our whole teaching and learning process, and challenges us to reconsider our own approach to the subjects developed in the classroom, which we have got (a lot!) used to dealing with in a certain manner, in our own time and pace.

Let's be honest: how many online courses have you undertaken in the past 2 years? And, of these, how many were on professional development courses on technology in the classroom? Either because the school or language institute you work at don't sponsor recycling courses, or because you have a strong opinion about technology and its implications in the learning process, putting hands to work and reconstructing the learning space in accordance with the top technological resources still is a challenge for most teachers around the world.
One simple change or a greater adaptation of the learning environment requires a number of things to be considered, such as:

- Planning;
- Budget;
- Training and development;
- Implementation;
- Infrastructure;
- Security;
- Systems to be used;
- General awareness of the public about these new changes;
- Compliance to the regulatory concerns and implications of the new rules.

And it is not difficult to imagine why these difficulties arise in the first place: until some years ago, educators in general were not instructed at the university or anywhere to deal with technology when planning a lesson. Teaching theories and students' learning styles were not analysed under the scope of e-learning or distance learning realities, and flexible learning was something still discussed amongst scholars.

If it was already hard to predict what your students'difficulties and doubts would be and what pronunciation problems they would have to face at your following class (and how you are going to deal with that!), imagine now, that you have to remember to download that You Tube video and plan the follow-up discussion on the topic! Not to mention that you don't know how to download You Tube videos, and that you still have to watch the tutorial before checking your class for the following day (by the way, click here to watch this tutorial!). Very hard!

However, if you stop to think that the vast majority of your students are used to dealing with technology, and that their interest in your class will certainly increase if you make use of nice tech things, you will realise that your motivation to make students learn will be a key factor in having YOU learn how to deal with everything related to technology, in the first place. You will eventually be lead to research the same things you used to research to make your teaching easier and more interesting for your students, but the references you are going to consult and the way you are going to present them from now on are going to change. Listening exercises now become more exciting with the aid of visual resources, and teaching cultural aspects of England or of the US is much more effective and makes more sense for the student, if you know what to show to him, how to plan your lesson and how to allow them to develop further discussions on the topic.

This article is the first of a series that will focus on e-learning and development training for teachers, and I hope that you can learn and put in practice all the ideas discussed here.

Reconstructing the Learning Space in new Working Environments

The future of the learning space has been a central issue for discussions in teachers’ development trainings. The implementation of new realities in teaching such as the use of technological resources in the classroom calls for an adaptation of previous paradigms in the application of best teaching practices. Institutions, students and teachers are now facing a new reality, and efforts have been concentrated on proper training of all people involved in the field of education, as well as on the adaptation of materials and pedagogical approaches that best suit this new and fascinating environment in the learning space.

The Learning Space and the Teacher – a matter of constructivism

Many teachers now wonder what is really going to happen to the teaching space some years from now; as a matter of fact, technological changes have already begun to take place in most of the educational institutions around the globe – high tech audio devices, state-of-the-art materials, interactive boards and the internet are just some of the issues we have had to learn how to deal with. And dealing with new technologies is not just about knowing how to switch a button on or off. It has to do with learning how to effectively put them to work for you in a pragmatic way, in a tangible way – it has to do with actually seeing the results in the learning process.



The Current Standard Learning Environment


For many teachers, the pre-conceived image of a learning space is the classroom – funnily enough, learning for most people still have to do with being confined in a four-walls space, with a white board in it and some “Look and Learn” pictures hanging on the wall.

Despite of all new researches on different and fresh approaches to teaching, the effort is now concentrated on changing this traditional and worn out perspective that the public in general has as regards to educational institutions – students, on their side, have the idea that the learning process only takes place inside the classroom, within a certain time limit (usually, until the bell for the next class rings), just comfortably sitting while the teacher “broadcasts” information and tell students who are chit-chatting off; and the teachers, on their side, face the classroom as a stage (specially if they have to use the microphone), where their role is to perform the best show they can so they captivate students´ears (not questionings or interactions) and to know and try to predict questions that (may) arise from the content they are supposed to teach at that moment.

To make sense of, or meaning from both teaching and learning processes and the environment we find ourselves in is our main concern and, even though it can expose our methods and preferences when transmitting information to an audience, a deep analysis of how it occurs can be enlightening and point to solutions we have never thought of before.




“Don’t do as I do – do as I say”

Controversially to everything that has been said about teaching methods, teachers still find themselves learning how to teach in the same kind of environment they are advised to avoid at all costs – the constructivist and the ‘theories-in-action’ idea that putting hands to work is in fact more effective than theorizing is abandoned, and real risks are not taken.

When teachers are in college, they receive constant input of information which they rarely have the opportunity to put in practice (and this happens in any area of studies – law, business, etc) – it is only when they apply for an internship or when they get their first jobs that they have the real chance to actually add knowledge to the information they have previously received, and subjectively work on and improve generic ideas with their own creative imagination.

Instructors will eventually become real professionals when real problems arise, and real solutions come out of their minds. It is impossible to gain experience without having the experience – just as simple as that. However, if working with human beings and all the characteristics that are natural to them – such as personality and character – involves knowing how to understand and deal with subjective realities all the time, it is extremely important that we rethink the way teaching and learning take place, either from a teacher-student, or a student-student (per se) perspective, in the new learning space arena.




Interactive board + the internet and the situated learning


When I was studying to take my CELTA, the thing that I had to struggle more with was designing tasks for students. As I took the intensive module of the course, time was very limited, and all the exercises, eliciting, presentation of new language, etc, had to be hand-made by us. I understand that in most countries novice teachers take the CELTA in order to be able to start teaching. But here in Brazil most teachers take CELTA as a course extension to their careers – I took CELTA this year, after 11 years teaching (before, during and after my graduation) – so you can imagine that I had already developed my own techniques to perform those steps in my (very) personal way. And as we all know that old habits are difficult to be changed, I used to spend all night long (for all nights during the entire module) searching, printing, cutting, gluing, imagining board schemes, CCQing… I had to virtually relearn how to do everything.

And, to be quite honest, I started using my laptop to teach with internet resources way before online teaching or materials specifically designed for the teaching purpose were available on the internet – I used to adapt songs, texts, newspapers articles and other resources to my one-to-one classes, and I had had great experiences with that up to that moment. And, all of a sudden, I realized that I would have to go back to printed materials and images books all over again, and convince myself that that way (using traditional materials) was better for students in their learning process.

And I did! At the end of the course, I was pretty much convinced that I would spend the rest of my life preparing my classes that way – printing everything, singing, etc. Well, that feeling lasted only for a month – right after that, I joined a very prestigious language centre here in Brazil, and, since they had no time to offer me training and (apparently) they trusted my work, they just gave me a funny pen and said “You start on Monday”.

That was a Friday, and I have to admit that I spent the whole weekend looking at that funny gray pen, with a round edge and a strange format, wondering how the paint would come off from that high tech marker… When I entered the classroom next Monday you can imagine my surprise – there was a computer, a funny board, and 20 9-years-old students staring at me…. I do not have to say that they taught me (imagine, me, the teacher with high tech tendencies!) how to first use the interactive board. When I got home late that night, after a whole day struggling to pretend I had being using an interactive board for my whole life, I looked at my messy desk and wondered: “What now? What is going to happen to all my beautiful pictures and printed images, my precious red, blue and black markers, my eraser….” . I felt like I had no ground under my feet.

Well, a semester has gone by, and I have to say that not only the way I teach has changed, but also my beliefs, my creative processes, my personal approach to some topics of the lesson… everything concerning my professional issues has suffered a dramatic change.

As I usually say to teachers in training, teachers are not only what they have in their minds – their personal beliefs, their cultural background and the way they view the world influence on how they are going to transmit knowledge. And I felt that I have undergone a lonely and drastic process of rapid change in my way of teaching, purely because I had not been prepared to face those changes – I had not been taught on how to teach in a new learning space, and the so called situated learning did not take place with me in the first place – after all, I had never been in that kind of environment before. All my personal and professional backgrounds were somehow influenced, and certainly the results of my teaching were way below expectations (mine, at least).

Thankfully, I can say I have mastered most of the functions of the interactive board myself (so far), and I have managed to use most of the resources it offers (not only internet connection) in a successful way.



The Teacher and his centrality

“Interaction with the professor will continue to be the centerpiece of education, no matter what the medium." (Feenberg - University of Illinois, 1999, p24). However the focus on the teacher/trainer as being the 'guide on the side' "...lend themselves to the notion that the instructor can be nothing more than…a non expert but motivational cheerleader"

When I first started teaching about twelve years ago, my main concern was to stand in front of a 12 students classroom and, basically, continue speaking English for as long as I could – this would prevent students from making futile or difficult questions which either I did not know how to answer or I did not want to answer, and my students would see me as some new icon of the communication (as my main objective – and thought – was to speak the perfect English, with the perfect accent) era. Of course that this has changed, and interpersonal interaction – at all levels – is one of my greatest concerns in the field of teaching a second language nowadays.

During teachers´training sessions, we can clearly observe teachers favorite interaction pattern inside the classroom – the teacher-student one, where (and in accordance with) traditional teaching takes place. Cultural issues and teachers´personalities apart (this will be discussed in another article), it is widely known amongst teaching experts and researchers that this kind of pattern should happen in a minor scale during a session, and that the interaction student-student or student-teacher is the most effective one from a pragmatic point-of-view.

However, if we now consider the technological breakthroughs in the educational field, we will be lead to review the interaction pattern concept and analyze with broader eyes what is in fact occurring inside the learning space: is the interactive board substituting the traditional teacher and working as a TV, only broadcasting the news? Or is it actually functioning as it has been conceived to do: as an interactive resource?

If we consider a constructivist approach to this matter, we are going to reach a common agreement that students actually learn when they have the chance to effectively put in practice, in a natural and contextualized environment, considering their personal beliefs, cultural backgrounds and learning styles, the language. Do teachers have the chance to best perform this situated learning with the internet, for example? If you think of a movie filmed in England, with a typical English boy showing and describing his typical British bedroom, when the topic of the lesson is “Bedroom Furniture”, then you would answer ‘yes’ to the last question. However, if you consider the way this movie is going to be displayed (in parts or not) and the approach the teacher is going to develop (present language and vocabulary, or only vocabulary?), then the topic based on the visual and audio resource (the movie) can be only something displayed on the screen – are the students discussing the topic? Has the teacher previously elicited the vocabulary? Are students developing mental and emotional connections with the movie? Do they feel comfortable discussing the topics? Has pronunciation been cleared out?

In my personal experience, it depends entirely on the teacher to have the technological devices working as powerful tools to generate interaction between the students and the content being provided. The learning space has, in this sense, a direct influence on the establishment of the proper interaction patterns, but it is teachers´role to best use these resources in favor of a proper learning environment, and make it relevant to the learner - a piece of information only acquire meaning and can, thus, be used to express ideas in communication when it is first, meaningful to the speaker and, secondly, correspondent to its actual use in natural speech.
And it is not ‘natural’ to repeat words, even with the perfect pronunciation, if this word is not contextualized and functioning as a means to convey meaning, feelings or emotions embodied in the message. Interaction is, ironically, the key-word we should keep in mind when adapting the learning space to the best use of technological resources in the classroom.


The theory-in-practice

The principles that emerge from constructivism play, in the learning space, an important role when we consider a healthy second language acquisition process - "Knowledge is individually constructed and socially co-constructed by learners based on their interpretations of experiences in the world" (Jonassen 1999, p. 217).
If those experiences from the world, which eventually will lead students to a subjective interpretation of the information, are presented to students in a non pedagogical and contextualized environment, learners will struggle more than the expected to reproduce that information. Since ‘information’ is ‘language in context’ in the present case, some theoretical considerations are of major importance when we move from the constructivism principles in the learning space towards its implications in learners and the role of the teacher in the classroom:

(1) embed learning in complex, realistic, and relevant environments;
(2) provide for social negotiation as an integral part of learning;
(3) support multiple perspectives and the use of multiple modes of representation;
(4) encourage ownership in learning;
(5) nurture self-awareness of the knowledge construction process (Driscoll, 2000, pp. 382-383).

Building and adapting a learning environment that supports these principles is fundamental for those involved in the establishment of better teaching practices. Face-to-face teaching and individual training are just part of the main concerns in the application of new technologies in the learning space.



A Wake-Up Call

"It is probably no accident that constructivism is gaining popularity and momentum at the same time interactive, user friendly computer technologies are becoming widely available. The computer offers effective means for implementing constructivist strategies that would be difficult to accomplish in other media" (Driscoll, 1994, p376).

The internet and other computer medias urge for a rapid change and adaptation of the design both of the information and of the materials, as well as the proper training and awareness of the teachers involved in teaching with these resources, so we can maximize students´learning abilities and increase their performance inside and outside the classroom.
Generating autonomy and independence for learners to recreate knowledge in their own realities is fundamental in this process – that is, in fact, the ultimate goal of using technology in the learning space in the first place.
Teachers, institutions and learners are engaged in finding out their place in the sun, struggling to discover the best way of interacting with each other, of learning from each other and of maintaining a good relationship amongst all parts involved. Nevertheless, the construction of knowledge is always connected with the idea of further development of a critical awareness and with the implications different approaches to the teaching-learning process will generate, and eventually with the results and improvement of the standard procedures.
Once these aspects have been deeply analyzed, their outcome further scrutinized, and, since there is the desire to keep the quality in delivering excellence in the development of teaching methods, there will be always place for new ideas in the field of educational resources.

Bruna Mendes






References



• “A New Framework for Teaching in the Cognitive Domain”. ERIC Digest. by Molenda, Michael


• Jonassen, D. (1999). Designing constructivist learning environments. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), "Instructional design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory (Vol. 2)," pp. 215-239. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.


• 2005 Phillip D. Long and Stephen C. Ehrmann “Future of the Learning Space: Breaking Out of the Box”
http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume40/FutureoftheLearningSpaceBreaki/157992



• Ros Brennan Lecturer in VET, Charles Sturt University “Implications of Online delivery for teaching and learning in Education and Training”

http://nw2000.flexiblelearning.net.au/talkback/p27.htm


• Driscoll, M. P. (2000). "Psychology of learning for instruction," 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

• Marion Williams and Robert L. Burden (1997) Psychology for Language Teachers: Cambridge University Press

Teaching Beginners - texts,short stories, novels and more

Due to several requests from teachers who are always looking for new reading materials (with quality!) for their beginner students,

I've made some research on the web and found a great website for
reading purposes: My Own Resources.

There you can find lots of texts (some very interesting ones!)divided by title and level of difficulty. You can also go to the Short Stories section, where you will find short stories from great international authors such as Doris Lessing, Muriel Spark, Charles Dickens, W. Somerset Maugham and many others. You will also find novels, like Shakespeare's Complete Works and others. And you still have exercises, fully ready and prepared to develop with your students!

I hope you enjoy this tip, and....Good reading!

What are your students' learning styles?

Learning styles are definitely something teachers and educators in general are always interested in. Read this article and learn how to teach and engage each kind of student more effectively.


The website Learning Styles gives a very practical overview of learning styles:

"Many people recognize that each person prefers different learning styles and techniques. Learning styles group common ways that people learn. Everyone has a mix of learning styles. Some people may find that they have a dominant style of learning, with far less use of the other styles. Others may find that they use different styles in different circumstances. There is no right mix. Nor are your styles fixed. You can develop ability in less dominant styles, as well as further develop styles that you already use well.

Using multiple learning styles and “multiple intelligences” for learning is a relatively new approach. This approach is one that educators have only recently started to recognize. Traditional schooling used (and continues to use) mainly linguistic and logical teaching methods. It also uses a limited range of learning and teaching techniques. Many schools still rely on classroom and book-based teaching, much repetition, and pressured exams for reinforcement and review. A result is that we often label those who use these learning styles and techniques as “bright.” Those who use less favored learning styles often find themselves in lower classes, with various not-so-complimentary labels and sometimes lower quality teaching. This can create positive and negative spirals that reinforce the belief that one is “smart” or “dumb.”

By recognizing and understanding your own learning styles, you can use techniques better suited to you. This improves the speed and quality of your learning."

And they still define each kind of learning style (go to their website to see more about each one of them):

Visual (spatial) - You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.

Aural (auditory-musical) - You prefer using sound and music.

Verbal (linguistic) - You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.

Physical (kinesthetic) - You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.

Logical (mathematical) - You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.

Social (interpersonal) - You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.

Solitary (intrapersonal) - You prefer to work alone and use self-study.


Testing your students'learning styles

This is a fantastic test for you to have and also give information to your students about their own personal styles. Raising awareness of the topic helps students to better comprehend their personal learning ways, and gives them tools to better handle their weakneasses and strengths when learning something new.

I have personally applied this test to several students, and it really works! Click here to go to Edmond's Learning Styles Test. Read the instructions carefully, and do not forget to give them some exercise after the test, so they can really see their learning styles "in action".

An example of a good exercise is to write different situations in the classroom on several strips of paper and hand them in to groups of 3. For instance, in one paper you can write "The student learns faster and better when he listens to MP3 or songs in English" - then the students have 5 minutes to discuss the situation and try to find out what that specific learning style really is. You can still ask them to come up with 2 or 3 suggestions of exercises (they will pretend they are the teachers now) they would give to that type of learner as homework, for example.