Introduction
I suggest that all the teachers who visit this forum should say a few words about themselves and their students.
So, I can start. I am Olga Penkovsky from the city of Saratov(Russia). Saratov is situated on the beautiful river Volga. Saratov is a nice place to live in.
I teach children aged 10-13 this year. I have 9 groups (and fill in 9 registers each week) and work in two sessions (from morning till late afternoon). I think, using great interest in learning English, perfect memory and imitating ability is what we should appreciate in our students first of all.What do you think? Do you have problems with your students? What kind of problems?
Hi Gabriela, nice to meet you. I am also an online participant. I participated in Cardiff conference as a moderator and learnt a lot about teaching technologies here. Nice experience. Are you planning to be in this forum constantly or rove from one to another? I hope we'll have time to communicate, won't we?
Best, Olga
Dear Gabriela, two of my girls-students (Tanya Kosheleva and Lena Chetvertkova) have registrated on our forum and they would like to arrange a team of their own with 1-2 students of yours. They have chosen the session and idea of Mr.Stanley about digital games in learning English for discussion. Would you cheer and support your students, please. Let them to introduce themselves first, O.K.?
Let's have a start!
best, Olga
Thanks for writing, Olga from Russia and Gabriela from Uruguay. Let me introduce myself - Dennis, an Englishman living, for a long time, in Germany and moderator of this forum and of the IATEFL special interest group - Young Learners and Teenagers - the YLT SIG.
See our website at:
We also have a Ning for members only - because it is not a free service and has to be paid for.
Olga. You teach a lovely age group - still young enough and untroubled by puberty to experience enthusiasm and not mind admitting it! Gabriela. You are right. We teach people and that means we are going to be confronted with problems as well as successes.
The first message I wrote was swallowed by the system. If you hear distant screaming it will be because the same thing happened to this attempt.
Dennis
Dear Dennis, I remember it happened to my messages once and again two years ago when I just started as an online moderator. The online team is perfect here, they help a lot and are very patient.
Dennis, I have a beautiful idea - why not invite here some of our students and ask them some questions or listen to their opinions, for ex. what kind of textbooks they like more, or what they don't like in testing or others. How do you like the idea? (To tell you frankly, I promissed my students).
Another is a personal question, you may not answer it if you don't like it. Where in Germany do you live? I love Thueringen most and I passed some time in Hamburg and Berlin. I like Germany.
Best, Olga
I really like Olga's suggestion about opening a space for the students' questions. I will tell them and maybe they can ask questions to the group through my account. If not they are too many.
I am going to reproduce what the different teams of students divided in colours according to the points in the syllabus asked, today we are going to work with these questions in class- these questions belong to the trainees from 3rd form cerp del sur
REDS
Q.1: HOW SURE ARE WE (HOW MUCH EVIDENCE DO WE HAVE) OF THE CBT-ORIENTED APPROACH IS REALLY WORKING, IN OUR CONTEXT?
Q.2: DOES THE EXPRESSION "FROM FORM TO MEANING" IMPLY A "ONE-WAY CONNECTION" AMONG BOTH?
Q.3: WHAT'S THE POINT ON ADOPTING "ONE" APPROACH / METHOD, WHEN WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY ACKOWLEDGED THE EXISTENCE OF SEVERAL, DIFFERENT STYLES OF LEARNING?
GREENS
Q.1:WHICH ARE THE CLUES TO KNOW WHAT TO TEACH?
Q.2:HOW DO YOU STAGE A LESSON REGARDING SS’ AGES?
Q.3: CAN WE SET OUR GOALS BASED ON SS’ OPINION?
.
PINKS
Q.1: WHICH IS THE BEST WAY YOU HAVE TO ENHANCE SS’ LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT?
Q.2: HOW DO YOU REALIZE IN WHICH LINGUISTIC LEVEL YOUR STUDENTS ARE?
Q.3: WHAT IS THE ADVISABLE WAY OF PRESENTING TASKS AND INSTRUCTIONS?
BLUES
Q.1:HOW CAN WE MAKE ECOLOGY BE PART OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CLASS?
Q.2:WHICH ARE THE MOST COMMON COOPERATIVE MODELS?
Q.3 HOW CAN WE CHANGE THE CLASS ATMOSPHERE INTO A BETTER ONE?
maybe some of you may be interested in answering some of them- I have done it already but the MO consists of letting the other groups try to formulate an answer
All the best
Gabriela
Dear Gabriela, these questions are not for my 13-yeared students. Have you any younger students willing to join the forum here?
Best, Olga
Dear Olga Yes. I've got some younger students too. I work at a State School in Atlántida. I will see that they share some of their views with yours.
Best,
Gabriela
Hello
I teach teens in a state school in France and I've just started dipping my toes into teacher training.
I'm a member of the YLT sig http://www.yltsig.org/
and also a Webhead, so that means I love messing around with computers in the classroom.
It's nice to see so many different countries here already and I'm looking forward to meeting more folks as we go along !
cheers
Helen
Hi everyone, I'm Graham, and I teach kids (8 year-olds) and teenagers at the British Council in Barcelona. Like Helen, I'm also a Webhead and love messing about with computers in the classroom too.
Great to see lots of familiar faces here and hope to meet some of you at the actual conference in Brighton
Best,
Graham
Hi Graham,
Good to be back in contact with you.
Susan H
And you, Susan!
Dear Graham, 2 of my girls-students of 13 years old have joined the forum to discuss your idea of using digital games to teach English. They would like to get known to your idea closer, try something and say their opinion. Would you mind?
Best, Olga Penkovsky, a secondary school teacher, Russia
Dear Olga, thank you for opening up the forum to some students! I know that you started the forum with that suggestion but I did not know whether or not that would be actually done My most sincere congratulations for breaking the teacher- student barrier on this forum. You must be a great teacher!
Best,
Gabriela Gaione Catepón ( Uruguay)
Dear Olga, very happy to help if I can and to hear what they have to say about the subject
Best,
Graham
Hello Everybody, I used to teach kindergarten, but have "graduated" to teacher training, both pre- and in-service, for teachers of young learners.
Perhaps at other age levels, technology is of some assistance in teaching, but at the very youngest level, the personal touch is so important. That could also be my own bias as I am not as up on the latest gadgets and programs as I could be.
I hope through this forum to hear from teachers (and any lurking trainers!) what approaches and activities are most successful in motivating students who are living in a non-English speaking environment. The lack of access to English in daily life outside the classroom is a stumbling block for student motivation and novice teacher confidence.
Hope to enjoy this conference with all of you. :)
Hi everyone!
Hey Kathy! I'm a pre-school English teacher as well!. Nice to see someone else who has worked with little ones, it's not very common. Where are you based? I'm in Portugal, where I also do some teacher training and materials writing.
Anyway, as usual I'm an IATEFL groupie and I'll be here on Brighton online and at the conference this year. I'm convening one of the symposiums with a friend and colleague, Janice Bland - Picturebooks in ELT, on Sunday 17th April.
Looking forward to following discussions.
Sandie
http://sandiemourao.eu
http://picturebooksinelt.blogspot.com/
Hi Sandie!
Great to be in contact again even if it's only in the virtual world!
Susan H
Argentina
Hi, Helen, Kathy, Graham and Sandie. Sorry not to if people have posted.
I'm busy setting up an event for this coming Wednesday online (but not Brighton online!). Susan Hillyard and Nik Peachey will join me in an Adobe electronic room to discuss creativity in TEFL. This is a lead-in to the theme of the YLTSIG pre-conference event in Brighton.
I'll give details of time and place when they are settled. The conversation will also be recorded and I'll let you know the URL of that, too.
I'm also putting the finishing touches (I'm boasting...).. I'm working on two presentations for the Bulgarian conference (BETA) about a week after Brighton. "Down with grammar!" and "Is Second Life of interest for teacher development".
Any strong views on any of those topics - creativity in TEFL, Second Life, grammar?
Dennis
Hi everyone!
I am a secondary school teacher and teacher trainer from Tallinn, Estonia. I am really looking forward to the conference, especially discussions on using ICT for teaching languages. What a wonderful opportunity to participate without the need to travel!
Welcome, Meeri. We share an interest in ICT.
Dennis
ICTs are the hit these days! For instance I always use my digital camera to photocopy blackboards, documents, etc and then I can see everything on the computer screen, or if necessary we can connect a projector of LCD screen to see it as if we were in the cinema!
I take pride in being quite creative myself. And I believe in grammar. Still cling to it fiercely. I believe that a winning formula is basic grammar and strong, meaningful context behind. What do you think?
All the best
Gabriela
hi
Iam a young teacher , working in primary (state) school in southern part of Turkey. my students are between ten and fourteen.the problem is that their native language is both turkish and kurdish, and that they have two main languages causes them to mix up the languages both.Besides, they begin to learn English when they r ten and the confusion occurs ever after.they speak Kurdish in conversation, turkish in lessons and english in language classrooms. do you think which approach is best for them? the three languages are different from one another and sometimes they cannot make a simple sentence.
First of all: welcome. (I can't see your name anywhere. Have I missed it?). I do hope that some other people as they join this list will have personal experiences of a similar kind to your own to report. My wife (also a teacher and teacher trainer) has often had children learning German and English (we live in Germany) with a rich linguistic background, with children speaking two or three or even four languages. This richness certainly sometimes led to the languages being mixed up but, overall, multi-linguality can only be seen as a gift, an advantage. I would suggest that what can help is a positive, slightly amused attitude. Let your pupils know you think they are jolly clever and smile rather than frown if they slip between languages.
What do others think?
Dennis
Hi everybody!
I'm Susan Hillyard from Liverpool, now based in Buenos Aires, Argentina where I am training 20 EL teachers on a new project "English in Action" backed by the Ministry of Education, to teach English through Drama in Special Education.
We work in hospital schools, orphanages, shanty town schools, a school for the physically challenged, in home visits for the terminally ill and another 15 remedial schools.
I also travel to speak at conferences, do workshops and seminars for publishers, teacher associations and the British Council, Ministries of Ed and NILE.
I'm an on-line tutor for the MA in ELT at the Uni of La Sabana in Bogota, Colombia and in my spare time I love to cook, especially the food of Asia and I try to run every day.
Both my children have married Argentines and my husband is head of a bilingual school and is lead singer in a rock band in Buenos Aires.
I'm thrilled to have the chance to join you all again on the YL SIG after a break for several years.
Susan H
HI,
My name is Philip and I am from Bracknell, England. I teach process drama to adults and teenagers with learning difficulties. For the last two years I have partaken in the EVO Drama workshops with Susan Hillyard. My students get exposed to a wide variety of topics from right across the curriculum. and I am not adversed to teaching students with very low IQ levels themes from Shakespeare and Dickens from the original texts as being treated as equals with students with higher abilities gets a higher level of apprieciation and willingness to learn and explore. Most of the problems my students face start from behaviour issues and they can be some of the biggest barriers to begin with as most of these are learn't behaviours from their schools or insitutions they grew up in. With their disabilities and communication issues too progress is slow, but as what I do is experimental, my students are still making progress. I think that Susan is able to demonstrate that just what is possible however, in a regular SEN environment.
Philip.
Thanks very much for that contribution. Hearing from and exchanging experiences and opinions with colleagues from a wide range of professional backgrounds is one of the several positive aspects of an international forum like this. Dennis
Hi Philip!
Great to have you here!
TESOL getting married to IATEFL!
wonderful!
Yes, we are in our second year of English in Action, teaching English through Drama in Special Education and creating a storm. The teachers were very reluctant at first to have English classes in the Sp Schools as they asked........ how can these students learn English when they have such great difficulties learning anything in their mother tongue? But now they are convinced that outr methodology works! The schools are asking for English for EVERY child not just for inclusion! We are learning a lot at the same time as teaching a lot!
Drama works!
Susan H
Hi Everyone,
I'm Asli Masucci. I am working as an ESOL Teacher in the State of Maryland/USA. Last year, I was one of the moderators of the young learners and teenagers forum. I remember Dennis from last year and I want to say nice to meeting you to the other colleagues too!
I would like to say that we have a similiar issue(not exactly the same) with Ebru. The students are speaking Spanish at home and English at school. Of course, they are confused a bit. But, I think literacy transfers, so as much as they read in their native language or their second language , it will be helpful with their English development too.
Hi Asli,
I agree with you.
Additive bilingualism is the thing.
We have a strong bilingual system in the private sector in Argentina so we have Spanish school in the morning and English school in the afternoon. We start at 3 yrs of age so by the time the students are 8ish you can have a real conversation with them!
The reinforcing of the mother tongue empowers them in the 2nd language.
Susan H
Argentina
Hello everyone, I am Tanya Kosheleva, a student of 13 years old from Russia. I am Olga Penkovsky's student and I'd like to participate in this forum and find out what teachers can do to make our English lessons modern ,more interesting, less loaded. My friends and I like our teachers but we'd like to know if it is possible to arrange English classes without hometask and marks. Does anyone think of it?
Besides we'd like to hear students from other countries here.We'd like to ask them some questions about their English lessons .
Hi Tania,
Let me tell you that I would be very proud to be your teacher. You have entered a teacher's forum and you are brave enough to state your point straightfully and clearly enough. I am going to asnwer you what I do to make my lessons modern, OK?
I do not teach the same lesson more than once. I look at my students' faces and there I find the information I want to make some adjustments to the lesson plan. I treat them well, but I demand from them, I demand what I am completely sure that they can do. I have a blog
webquestatlantida.blogspot.es
where I post the material that I use in class. I tell them to post there too, but around the middle of the year. I love singing with my students and I ocassionally make them participate of some sort of artistic event created by us. ( In 2006 I co- created a Murga Slam show in Atlántida where I live and last year the students at the Teacher Training Course created their own plot, in limericks to record a 19 minute- short film) . My students sometimes become my facebook friends and ask me questions online if they see me in the chatroom. I do not know what else to tell you. If you have any suggestions PLEASE POST THEM HERE. You can be of great help to all of us in the forum!
Regarding the issue of no marks and no homework... trust me I would like to be able to teach without all that, but teachers apart from sharing the joy of teaching and learning with their students have a social task that somehow differs culturally but shares some features throughout the world. We carry the heavy burden of deciding who knows and who doesn't, and telling that to the members of society!. Of course, some teachers do not care too much about their students' learning, and others do what it takes to help them improve. It's a continuum- Tell Olga to explain the term to you.
Well Tanya, it's been a pleasure to exchange my views with you
Thank you!
And congratulations on your impeccable language!
Best
Gabriela Gaione Catepón (Uruguay)
Tanya,
Congratulations on the message. Most of us are always trying to work out how learners see things - and now you are telling us direct!
Dennis
Hello everyone, I am Lena Chetvertkova, a student of 13 years old from Russia. I am Olga Penkovsky's student and I'd like to participate in this forum and find out what teachers can do to make our English lessons more interesting.
I like our lessons,but sometimes topics of our lessons are difficult.My classmates and I would like to play different educational games. I have some questions for you:do you play games with students at your lessons? What are they?I mean digital games.
I would like to hear your and your students' oppinion about digital games at the lessons.
Hi Lena, nice to meet you - I do play computer games with my students. They are not usually educational games, though, but we write tasks for them to make our students produce or practise English while they are doing them.
For instance, look at this one produced by my colleague, Kyle Mawer:
Game: Bonte Room: http://home.scarlet.be/~bbonte/bonteroom2.html
Activity: Complete the instructions while playing the game:
http://kylemawer.posterous.com/bonte-room-gap-fill-activity
Try it out and let me know what you think. If you get stuck, then ask me for help
Best,
Graham
Thank you for your game, Mr.Stanley.My classmates and I play this game 2 hours. It is a wonderful game!We have some problems with nuts and fan. We will try to solve this problem.
Mrs.Gaione thank you for your answer.It is very interesting.If I have some questions, I will ask you.
What about your students? Would they like to take part in our disscusions?
Hi everyone! I was very glad to participate in this forum together with our teacher Olga Penkovsky. My special thanks to Graham Stanly for the chance to use a computer game in learning English. I was very happy to play this game with my classmates at our English lessons. We did everything except the last step - we couldn't find the key in the room and open the door.I'd like to visit this forum with new ideas next school year as our school is over now. Thank you all!
Hi everyone! I thank Mrs.Gaione for her support very much and I ask her to think of making a project with her students and us "Welcome to our home land" and we'd like to speak with her students over the skype and have a satellite link in the next school year. Can we connect with you, Mrs.Gaione, then? I wish all the teachers a good vacation as our school is over now. See you next year in this forum.
Tatiana,
Thanks so much for writing. If there is any help I or anyone on the list can give - do just drop a line. In the meantime, enjoy your holiday!
Dennis
Dear Tatiana and All,
Please do not hesitate to mail me at
gabygaione@yahoo.co.uk
I will be glad to engage with my students in a project with you!
Have a nice rest, those of you whose school term is over!
Best,
Gabriela
Hi there Olga.I'm Gabriela from Uruguay. I live and work in Atlántida- Canelones-Uruguay I teach secondary school students at Liceo Nº1, Atlántida- 7 groups, and EFL trainees at CERP- 4 groups since next Thursday. My students' age ranges from 16 to 40 something. I have had all kinds of troubles with my students for I have been teaching since 1989! However, I have used many strategies to solve the conflicts. I believe that conflict is at the heart of every human relationship-What do you think?
I am an online participant. Well that would be all for now!