Teacher Training

The ETAI Teacher Training & Development SIG is launched

by janecohenefl

 

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It isn’t often that you get an opportunity to be present at the start of something new, something that has the power to change the way we think about teacher training, about the proficiency of non-native ELT teachers, and about the role and impact of research upon English teachers in the classroom. Today, at the ETAI pre-conference Teacher Training and Development, inaugural Special Interest Group, I was privileged to witness the start of a movement for change.

Dr. Lindsey Shapiro Steinberg, opened the day with questions regarding the recruiting of talent, and whether need necessitates compromise. What is a good ELT practitioner? What level of proficiency is required by English teachers? What is learning, and how is learning assessed?  Following Dr. Shapiro Steinberg’s opening Dr. Debbie Lifshitz spoke about ‘Shaking Up the Israeli Conventions of Teacher Training.’ With statistics to demonstrate the challenges faced by Non-native English speaking teacher (NESTS) trainees, regarding proficiency at entry and exit of teacher training programmes, and the challenges that lay ahead. Dr. Lifshitz suggested that proficiency levels of NESTS are critical for teacher retention in the schools, in a system where teachers are aging, and more than 40% of newly qualified English teachers never even enter the school system upon graduation.

Following the morning presentation participants divided into 3 discussion groups, Proficiency, Methodology and Linguistics, and discussed changes that could be taken  by each of these areas, to positively impact upon  the proficiency of future NESTS . (Watch the ETAI website for a summary of each group’s suggestions.)

The afternoon session was expertly led by Professor Penny Ur who discussed ‘Research and the language teacher.’ Professor Ur asserted that “Research is not the main source of teacher knowledge, but it can enrich it.” She stated that it contributes to teaching in three ways by:

  1. Producing evidence, that can be used to create practical principles for teaching
  2. Providing new insights / information that would not have occurred to teachers otherwise
  3. Contradicting inaccuracies in methodology or firmly held theoretical beliefs

Professor Ur provided numerous examples of why research is regarded so highly by the academia and ministries of education, and yet is often seen as trivial, irrelevant or impractical by teachers in the field. The sheer quantity of literature is overwhelming, and therefore needs to be read selectively and critically. Professor Ur suggested that if we want preset and inset teachers to read research there is a need for ‘mediators’, chiefly teacher trainers, who can mediate the research on their behalf.

The day closed with an open discussion led by Professor Penny Ur and a thirst for more discussion and dare I say, action.  “Professional Development takes place through professional conversation.” Garton and Richards (2011) Today was truly a day of Professional Development at the inaugural Teacher Training & Development SIG.

 

 

My favourite Apps for ELT – Free and easy (with a little practice)

by janecohenefl

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  1. Quizlet – for learning vocabulary items, lexical chunks, collocations and so much more.You can create a class, and sets of items (no more than 20 items is optimal), you can use synonyms, definitions or translate the terms ( supports most languages including Arabic), add images and even use it for comprehension tasks. It is easy to share with your students, and you can encourage them to make and share their sets. No need for students to sign up. See Sandy Millin‘s detailed guide here .
  2. WhatsApp for creating class groups to share images, texts and recordings – this is the most important App of them all as all the URL addresses can be shared with your students via your class group.
  3. Answergarden for brainstorming, checking students prior knowledge and getting short (20 characters) answers. No need for students to sign up.
  4. Mentimeter for brainstorming, mind mapping, allows for longer answers. I like the visual features. No need for students to sign up.
  5. Linoit – Collaborative board for sharing ideas, images and videos via sticky notes. Easy for students to use. IPhone users now need to download the app in advance to see the canvas (collaborative board), which is a recent and less convenient change. No need for Android students to sign up.
  6. Photofunia for creating fun posters, billboards and other images on Smarphones, using photos from the Smartphone gallery.
  7. Muzy for creating photo collages or storyboards.
  8. Canva for creating Infographics.
  9. Keep-Calm-O-Matic  for creating Keep Calm posters.
  10. Google Translate for instant translations and the Miriam Webster dictionary  app for dictionary work.

All of the apps in this post are free and have websites where you may feel more comfortable creating your language task than on your mobile device. You can then copy the URL address and make it tiny with goo.gl which generates a QR code, your students can then scan the code with a QR Code Reader app, which takes them straight to the task you have created for them.

When using Smartphones in the class always ensure that the use of the app meets the learning aims of the class, and that you have tried it yourself on a mobile device, and preferably get somebody else to try it too.

For those of you who attended my presentation Mobile learning – empowering teachers and engaging students here is the promised powerpoint presentation.

The Red Rabbit generates the Tower of Babel

by janecohenefl

Red Rabbit from Egmont Mayer on Vimeo.

The room is set up with chairs in clusters of 4, with some facing the screen and some facing away from the screen. The guest lecturer is standing in the room as the Dialog language teachers start entering the room. Within seconds they have started moving the chairs into rows and there is little that can be done to stop them. They are expecting a lecture and are deaf to the pleas to leave the chairs as they are. Learning point – tell participants before they enter the room that they are not to move the seats, as they have been arranged in a specific formation, for a reason.

Leo Selivan, of Leoxicon, is ready to start but is struggling to be heard over the noise of 55 teachers chattering excitedly in 10 languages. Suddenly the room is silent and Leo has their attention. Leo opens the session with a discussion around the use of videos in the classroom, with a particular focus on the possibilities of generating language from silent movies. The teachers are interested but not yet convinced. Leo asks the teachers to organise themselves into language groups of up to four per group, with one person per group facing the screen and the others with their backs to the screen. The task is for the ‘watchers’ to describe what they see on the screen, while the other members of the group listen carefully and try to understand the plot unfolding, on the screen that they can’t see. After 2:46 minutes Leo stops the movie and asks the teachers to swap places, the ‘watchers’ are now the ‘listeners’, and the ‘ listeners’ are now the ‘watchers’. The narrative continues…

As the teachers listened, described, questioned, gestured and laughed aloud, I wondered around the room enraptured by the cacophony of languages being heard. This was organised chaos, and it was exciting. The descriptions of the ‘Red Rabbit’ that I could identify in so many languages, including Spanish, German, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Italian, French and English was akin to what I imagine it might be like at the United Nations. As I looked across the room I was clearly aware that the teachers were engaged and on task. The scene created was reminiscent of the story of the Tower of Babel, though this time the tower was the Red Rabbit, and the goal was to generate language rather than reach the heavens.

Four months later and the activity has been tried in a number of Dialog classes in multiple languages. An English teacher reported that one student in a pre-intermediate class was so excited by the experience, and refused to let his language limit his narrative, that as he gestured wildly he shouted; “Oh it is a big, big rabbit. It is a Rabbit Rabbit!”(Doubling a word in Hebrew, is a common way of emphasising something.) A Spanish teacher used the activity with her pre-intermediate class, and stated that though her students really enjoyed the activity they were frustrated by their limited vocabulary, she told me that she now realises that she should have pre-taught the requisite vocabulary. Reflection par excellence!

As English teachers you’re probably not trying to create the Tower of Babel but I strongly suggest using this activity, and the others Leo shares in his blog, “Not a word was spoken (but many were learned), with your learners for a fun, interactive and challenging learning experience.

Teaching with Technology – First Task = Create your own online course!

by janecohenefl

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After the first online synchronous lesson of ‘Teaching with Technolgoy‘ with Dr Nellie Deutsch on Tuesday 6 January, I was all fired up to really learn about teaching online. Due to terrible weather and an unusually slow internet connection that night Imissed parts of the audio and as a consequence didn’t realise that the first task would be to set up a Blog or Wiki (luckily I already have both), answer some questions on one of those platforms and then set up my own online course.  The first task I can do without too much problem. However I am concerned about my ability to set up a useful online course without any real planning. However, I do have a need for such a course as I want to provide online teacher training to my teachers at Dialog.

Task 1: Answer the following questions:

What does teaching with technology mean to you?

Teaching with Technology means using technology to support and enhance the learning aims that I have set my students. Technology today is at our fingertips, in our pockets and in most classrooms. As a language teacher in 2015 the free resources at my an my students’ disposal our limitless. Why wouldn’t I use them? With apps and websites to enrich our lessons and engage our students, with Wikis and Blogs, and collaborative noticeboards such as Linoit and Scrabblr, and vocabulary learning tools such as Quizlet, the opportunities are truly endless and  even overwhelming. However as a teacher / teacher trainer it is my role to choose the tools that enhance the learning goals. I need to ask myself reflective questions such as, “Am I showing this Youtube video because it relates to the theme, promotes listening comprehension and expands the students’ vocabulary, or am I using it because it is cute, the students will love it and the school will be happy that I have integrated technology into my lesson?”

So for me technology is a must but it must be simple, I must have a back up plan for when it doesn’t work and it must, most of importantly of all support the learning aims not drive the class.

What do you expect students to learn from the course?

‘EFL Teacher Training for Language Teachers of Adults’ – this course will be a pilot for a language teacher training course that I want to create for ‘Dialog’ language teachers to access online at any time. We have new teachers joining us on a weekly basis who come with all different teaching backgrounds. This course will provide an introduction to communicative language teaching, with a focus on the integration of Learning Technologies into the learner-centred classroom.

What skills and knowledge do you want them to acquire by the end of the course?

Students / participants will have a clear understanding of what the communicative approach to language teaching is and how it relates to adults in particular.  Setting the stage, and the importance of making an impact from the very first lesson; the use of L1 (native language) in the classroom; differentiated instruction; lesson planning; 21 Century teaching skills; the role of homework; teaching grammar and vocabulary; error correction versus fluency, evaluating and  assessing content , and lastly evaluating and assessing student levels and progress.

What teaching strategies (lecture, discussion, group work, case studies, etc.) will best help students achieve these goals?

The course will combine synchronous lessons supported with PowerPoint presentations, reading assignments, discussions and tasks such as creating a model lesson plan.

 

 

Professional Development in 10 Languages

by janecohenefl

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Any DOS knows that the quality of their school/programme is dependent on their teachers  knowledge, skills, enthusiasm, passion and ability to  connect to their students. For a school to thrive and  grow it needs to respond to market needs, whilst  ensuring that its teachers are provided with  professional development opportunities that enable  them to stay up to date, develop new skills and most  importantly of all, learn from and share with their  colleagues.

 

One of the first goals I set myself when I started working at the Open University eight months ago was to revamp the professional development programme offered to teachers. With more than 130 teachers of 10 languages,  and around 40 teachers active in the branches, in- company  courses and various tenders at any given time, there is no such thing as one size fits all.  Successful professional development must be relevant to the teachers’ needs and not imposed from above.

 

Challenge number 1: How do we create a programme of professional development which meets the needs of the Arabic, Chinese, Italian, French, Japanese, Hebrew, Russian, German, Spanish, Dutch and English teachers (who make up more than 50% of the teachers), when we the pedagogical team don’t even speak most of those languages?

 

After revamping the observation and teacher feedback procedures and templates, and having observed many classes myself, I was much more aware of what our strengths as a school were, and where we needed to improve. With my new insights I decided to focus on refreshing our teachers’ knowledge of the communicative language approach and how it is implemented in our school, and the integration of simple digital tools into all courses.

 

Challenge number 2: How do we get our teachers to attend the first workshop to be given in Dialog under my leadership? Many of my colleagues told me that I should expect about 20 teachers to attend. Our teachers live all over the country, and many teach at the given time, and “to be honest as they aren’t paid for professional development they probably won’t come”, one colleague clarified for me.

 

Hmm. That is a tricky one! However, I thought to myself, I do lots of things for myself that I am not paid for, and as a teacher I also love to learn and am happy to give up my own time if I feel that I am going to get something of benefit out of the experience. I imagined that this is probably true of most teachers. With this in mind it was clear that the first workshop needed to have an engaging title and must be relevant and fun. And so on the 2 May 2014, “Integrating digital tools into the language classroom”, which focused on using Smartphones, was attended by 35 Dialog teachers. There was a lot of energy in the classroom and there was a lot of professional conversation: “Professional Development takes place through professional conversation.” Garton and Richards (2011)

 

Not wanting to lose momentum I decided that the next workshop would be two days in October, just before the start of the new school year. In June we sent out a save the date, digital flier. In July and August we worked on the content. It was clear to me that we had to build a programme that would review the schools pedagogical approach and expectations and would set clear teaching and PD guidelines. There needed to be lots of group work activities, both in mixed language groups and specific language groups. There needed to be time to work on an activity or lesson plan with colleagues and time in the computer room learning and experiencing the digital tools to be integrated into lessons. Most importantly of all there needed to be down time, talk time, as this is when most learning often happens. I am supported by three highly experienced pedagogical managers, and together we were going to provide the professional training workshops. However, I felt that a guest speaker was going to make our programme so much more attractive to our diverse teaching team. Who could provide training to so many language teachers? Leo Selivan (Leoxicon) was the obvious answer.

In my next blog post, “The Red Rabbit generates the Tower of Babel”, I’ll share the highlight of the Dialog Language School October Professional Development workshop.

PD Oct 2014 Programme

 

Learning from a mentor

by janecohenefl

In my lost post I mentioned how frustrated I was with my blog and that I was feeling digitally incompetent as a result. In true digital style I tweeted for help and two ELT colleagues, Julie Bytheway and Naomi Epstein, immediately swooped in to help. Naomi, a local ELT leader, invited me over tonight for a hands on mentoring session. This post is one of the results. I can sleep a little easier and now focus more on content than on layout. I feel so much more digitally competent now.

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Are my conversation classes more than recitation?

by janecohenefl

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In my new job as Managing Director of Dialog, The Open University Israel, I am keen to ascertain what is the conversation based approach being employed in our school. Is it the communicative approach or a mixture of approaches (eclectic) or is it more akin to PPP?

Having observed a number of classes and teachers it is too early for me to say, however what I can say is that I need to refresh my ELT and LOTE pedagogical knowledge. This is what led me to reading Phillip Chappell’s “Engaging learners: conversation-or dialogic-driven pedagogy? (ELT Journal Volume 68/1 January 2014, pp.1-11) The article looked at the conversation that most often takes place in language lessons based upon Dogme principles. According to Chappell the most predominant form of conversation is recitation script which is most akin to classroom talk rather than the desired natural conversation that teachers strive for. However Chappell purports that if teachers record a few lessons and transcribe the conversation taking place, they can reflect upon whether the language is more ‘classroom talk’ or ‘dialogic inquiry’ – “those language acts whose purpose is to engage another in one’s attempt to understand” (Lindfors, J.W 1999).

Although I myself have always thought my lessons very much reflected the Inquiry dialogue approach, after reading Chappell’s analysis of a number of ‘typical’ language interactions in the ELT classroom, I now believe that too many of the conversations taking place in my classes are more recitative than I would care to admit. Will I find the same in the classes that I am going to observe, and if I do what am I going to do about it?

e-merging forum 4 – Moscow 2014 – ‘Learning Technologies Track’

by janecohenefl

emerging forum 4

I recently returned from the e-merging forum 4 in Moscow where I had the opportunity to facilitate the Learning Technologies track together with Elena Kazachkova and Nicky Hockly. This was a wonderful professional development opportunity for me as I was able to learn from the local presenters as well as from Nicky, who is both a great presenter and an advocate for incorporating LT into the ELT classroom along with the active teaching of ‘Digital Literacies’. In each of the presentations, in the LT track, the themes of engagement, motivation and learner autonomy as enhancing learning outcomes came through very clearly.

In Elena Peresada’s talk: ‘How to Gamify your English class’ we were shown how all students can be motivated to achieve ‘Personal Bests’ through the use of a game design approach to teaching. Elena explained that XP points (experience points)’ a leaderboard and healthy competition are criteria for this approach. It was interesting to see that Elena has flipped the concept of Gamification by applying Online Gamification rules and techniques to traditional learning in her classroom without any computers, to increase student motivation and self-autonomy.

Anna Avramenko’s talk: New educational standards, Mobile competence of students and teachers in Russia, referred to the mobile competencies of both teachers and students. Anna highlighted the difference between ICT and MT( mobile technology), and said that many teachers do not yet feel comfortable with MT, despite the fact that this is their students preferred way of learning. Anna explained that with the use of MALA (mobile assisted language assessment) teachers and institutions are able to track progress immediately and effectively. Anna also spoke of PELE, a peer assessment system, and said that students are keen to use online polls in class, as polls provide instant feedback, which students find both motivating and engaging.

Vera Bobkova led an interactive workshop: ‘Time savers for Busy Teachers’ which gave the audience an opportunity to see that engaging activities can be prepared quickly by using online tools such as a dictionary apps, crossword creators, story cubes and the ‘Big Wheel’. Vera’s message was, get the students to create the games and tasks wherever possible, because they love it, and their learning is enhanced; and the best of all is that it saves time for busy teachers.

Anna Loseva shared with the audience her use of Social media as a learning opportunity for students. In her talk: ‘International student collaboration on Facebook: what it is and what it isn’t,” Anna explained how she had responded to a single student’s request for authentic language practice. Anna set up a FB group in 2011 for 17-23 year olds, and asked teachers to join and bring their students to the closed group. Since then the group has grown to over 500 members from 23 countries. Anna shared the challenges and the successes, and encouraged us all to try this medium for engaging learners by providing authentic language opportunities.

Little pigeons can carry great messages or using online post its in ELT, Anastasia Fetisova shared her ‘fetish’ for post it notes. Anastasia started off by showing us multiple ways of using physical post its for ice breakers, for spelling words, for writing poems and for labeling the body parts of some willing volunteers in the audience. Anastasia then went on to share with us a multitude of digital tools that offer numerous creative ways of using post its to engage, motivate and stretch our learners, for example, www.scrumblr.ca; www.primarywall.com; www.telescopictext.com; www.telescopictext.org (Creating and expanding sentences); www.noteapp.com

In her talk: Using Wikis to create collaborative teacher student sites, Alexandra Smirnova spoke of the Wiki as a collaborative storeroom, as a tool for organization and collaboration, where everybody can be involved from the teacher, the students to the parents. Alexandra explained that all digital tasks can be stored in the one place on a Wiki, from Vokis, to e-books, to podcasts and videos, which is really useful for everyone to quickly access each other’s work. Lastly, Alexandra showed us how we can use hypertext to create web quests.

The Learning Technologies plenary: Digital Literacies, was delivered by Nicky Hockly, who so skillfully convinced us all of the existence of the endangered species; The Pacific North West Tree Octopus, which surprisingly enough does not exist, in order to demonstrate how our students tend to assume anything that is published on the web must be authentic. Nicky showed us the importance of evaluating websites and how to do it and emphasized four areas that need to be focused on: Information; Language; Connections and Redesign. After she presented the theoretical background to integrating Digital Literacies in the ELT classrooms, Hockly share some great activities with the audience using Remix and Literal Videos. Check out: goo.gl/Ut7Yru and youtu.be/MahTKZDHXaA. Catch an interview with Nicky Hockly after she gave her plenary for more information.

For my video summary of the entire conference you can catch me on the TeachingEnglish website. Now I can’t wait for e-merging forum 5.