Teacher Training Forum

New Teachers? Read This!

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 13:31:00 +0000

This posting is a bit random, I admit. I was watching our current TEFL Certificate trainees do their first ever teaching practice and was noting down a few things I noticed, and suddenly thought it might be interesting to post them here.

So in no particular order, with no-one in mind specifically, here are some of the things that went through the mind of this teacher trainer on week one of our teacher training course. Some of these observations are things I liked, and some are things that worried me. I didn't actually tell the trainees any of these because we like to be positive, especially on the first day of teaching. But they could be useful to consider nevertheless. Here we go.

Listenings: "See what you understand" is a very woolly reason for listening to a recording or dialogue. Give them an easy, concrete question to answer, such as 'Does he like football?' or 'What does the man order?'. And if the answer is towards the end of the listening - bingo! - they will need to listen right the way through to get the answer, which has to be better than them getting the answer after two seconds and contemptuously throwing their pens down and semi-surreptitiously checking their e-mails.

Grammar Points: Watch out for long, boring 'explanations' of grammar points by the teacher with no interaction or eliciting of patterns and rules from the students. An average grammar exercise book like English Grammar in Use from Cambridge or Practical Grammar from Heinle would probably do a better job.

Approach: Nice and friendly is definitely the way to go as far as I'm concerned, in the context of our 'guinea-pigs, who are coming of their own free will and for many of whom English is simply their hobby.

Voices: A nice clear voice, possibly slightly slower and crisper than usual, is something to aim for. You need to both be understood by your audience and also make it clear that you are the boss, after all. Many teachers have developped a special 'teacher voice' for this purpose, but watch out that it doesn't sound too babyish or patronising, and don't forget to switch it off when you're with your friends, or they'll think you've lost it.

Drilling: Good to see some first attempts but the thing that strikes me is... two things. First of all, only say what you want the students to repeat, in a crisp, clear voice. Avoid mumbled phrases along the lines of 'Right, what I'd like you to do is if you could just repeat 'I come from Spain', ok, 'I come from Spain', all right, so can you just repeat that...?' like the plague. Silence and incomprehension will follow. Secondly, the students must know when they are supposed to start. This calls for some quite dynamic conducting skills and tons of enthusiasm from the teacher.

Spelling: Not always easy to spell everything correctly when you're on the spot, but try to watch out for silly mistakes which may confuse the students - this gets easier with experience and confidence.
Grammar: Watch out for slightly unnatural sentences due to nerves or interference from other languages, such as 'I would like for breakfast some bacon and eggs'. Sounds like some French word order creeping in there I reckon.

Teacher Talking Time: Vastly too much of this from certain trainees. This is absolutely normal! Many people seem to equate talking with teaching. However, I consider teaching to be more about asking questions and getting people to work things out for themselves. A greater variety of student-focused activities will quickly remedy this.

Boardwork: Try to plan board layout before the lesson: clear writing, organised and not falling off the wall with the weight of the words all over it.

Checking Understanding: "Does everyone understand?" is not a CCQ (Concept Checking Question)! Nor is "Do you know what 'syrup' is? - Good." Ask yes and no questions such as 'Is syrup a liquid?' 'Is syrup a solid?' 'Can we eat syrup?' 'Can we swim in syrup?', where some of the questions demand the answer 'No' to prove that students are getting it, and not just saying 'Yes' to keep you happy.

Pronunciation: Don't forget to correct dodgy pronunciation during the Practice phase. That's what this phase is for before leading into the freer Production phase.

Questions: What is teaching about? Is it fundamentally about asking questions and making people think for themselves? What do you think?

Student Spelling: There should be a moment when written exercises are checked somehow (even by the students self-checking with a text) to avoid things like 'straigt on' and 'nexto' installing themselves in the students' notebooks. Wandering around and indicating mistakes over their shoulders can be effective and not too disruptive or teacher-focused.

Rapport: "You!" complete with stabbing finger indicating the next student to contribute is a bit aggressive. If you have forgotten the name then substitute it with 'Yes?', a smile and a friendly open-hand, palm up gesture.

Drilling: "Let me see. -One two three..." The aim was to get the students to repeat 'Let me see.' Personally, I would have make the 'Let me see' function almost as the 'One two three' and throw it over to them with a suitably dramatic open arm gesture towards the students just after the word 'see', and an appropriately expectant look, oh, and shut up too! By that I mean that as soon as you can, try to turn your volume down and the students' volume will increase to fill the silence. Many consider it rude to speak while the teacher is speaking and the tendency for panicky teachers is to fill the silence of the non-repeating students with more teacher talk - not the greatest drill in the world!

That's it for now - an A4's-worth of quick notes from a very respectable first attempt to stand up and teach from this months batch of trainees. Of course there are millions of things that could have been pointed out but I hope that this little list is of some use to you. Let me know what you think!

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

A Wandering of Websites 3: Useful On-line Resources for English Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:53:00 +0000

Share Us!

Here's another collection of amazing websites easily exploitable by teachers everywhere.

The only danger is... they're so interesting you might forget that you're supposed to be planning your lesson until it's too late!

So be careful, and let us know if you use any materials from these resources in your lessons, and how. Happy hunting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

songfacts.com

If you want to base a few moments of your lesson, or indeed a few lessons, on music, but don't know where to start, this interesting site can help. Far from being an on-line version of some awful written-for-English-teaching 'song book', Song Facts isn't for teaching English at all. Which makes it all the more fun trying to exploit it.

You've got all sorts of off-the-wall stuff in there: curious song facts, a trivia quiz, interviews with artists, a pretty hectic forum and you can add strange song facts of your own if you know them.

Clearly, this site is both for the more sophisticated (higher level) learner, and for teachers who have the right to devote chunks of their time to such, well, trivia, but you've got a great resource here, and plan a lesson right and your students'll love it. Getting them to create their own music trivia quizzes immediately springs to mind as a follow-on activity.

11points.com

This site should be banned, or knighted, or something. It's just too much! As it suggests in the title (see left) there are tons of 'Top 10 Lists sites, hell, I've even created a couple of Top 10 Lists for this very blog! But they go one better... literally. These are Top 11 Lists, and the topics, to say the least, are... varied. Many would provide some scintillating material for the adventurous English teacher in the right situation.

Some categories which just might tickle your fancy, amongst far too many to choose from, would be (they're clickable, don't thank me, don't thank me ;-) 11 Gorgeously Ironic Misspellings In Protest Signs; 11 Hidden Secrets in Fight Club; 11 Greatest Mug Shots of the 2000s; Interesting Facts About Our Presidents and Their Money; 11 Unbelievable Stories About Twins.

The list creator's intelligent wit just makes these lists even better. So click on some of those links above if you dare, but please come back after an hour or so to finish reading this page!

fox13now.com

A brilliant collection of thought-provoking and discussion-inciting pictures. Why so? Because they all look like they can't be real (or most of them anyway), at least until you start to understand what's going on.

If your aim is to get an inimated discussion going with your students, either from the front of the class or in groups, print out a few of these and you won't be able to stop them. Of course, it would be best to prime them with some targeted questions to answer, such as 'Do you think it's real?' or 'What is it?' or 'How did they do that?' otherwise the students won't know what to talk about and will just say 'Ooohh' and start talking about it in their own language.

paris-26-gigapixels.com

Another visual one, this, and sure it harks from my city of residence, but hey, we did it you you guys didn't, so just get over it, ok ;-) It caused a massive buzz when it was released a little while ago so have a look and see what you think.

What they've done is, climbed up (well, taken the lift) to the top of the Montparnasse Tower I reckon, and then taken a whole heap of high-res pictures then stitched them all together seamlessly with software. If I were an American I'd probably say 'Awesome!', but I'm a Brit so I'll content myself with saying... 'AWESOME!'.

You can zoom in on practically all the major landmarks of Paris and the creators have even slipped in a few anomalies to make you smile if you can find them so I'm told. (a giant tortoise on a balcony way up is probably the best known one).

Is this better than Google Maps or Google Earth? Well, to be honest, it's just different, and it's really quite refreshing to get away from the Big G for just a while and see what some of the other geniuses on the planet can get up to for a change.

howstuffworks.com

Here's another incredible resource, both for the language class and our daily lives. It's one of those sites, a bit like the 11 Points site above, that once you get there is very difficult to leave.

Need I need to give you any more incentive to make you check it out than telling you that there are the Top 5 Tips for Using Twitter, 10 Off-the-wall iPhone Apps to discover (I love the one where you can write a text message and still see where you're going on the screen..), and hey, what about the Top 5 Tips for Preventing Underarm Odor? You know it makes sense.

But it's not all weird or wired. The site has a vast, and I mean Vast range of categories and subsections covering pretty much most of human life as far as I can see.

And if all of this is just making you go boggle-eyed then relax with this silly-sounding but actually enlightening item on What if I crossed my eyes for 10 minutes? Or any of the other few thousand fascinating time-wasters you'll find there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ READ THESE OTHER GREAT POSTS ~

A Wandering of Websites 1

It's Forkin' Funny, But Could You Teach It?

Great FREE On-line ELT Resources

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

Teaching Video Analysis - A Practical Exercise

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!

___________________________________________________________________

Poetry Pause: 'Jean-François's Nodding Off'

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:28:00 +0000

Share Us!

Little poem for ya...

JEAN-FRANCOIS'S NODDING OFF

Jean-François is nodding off,

In his English class to the distant thrum

Of a past imperfect, roughly taught,

Through an eardrum pierced by a holy thought.

No searchlights could get through that fog,

So leave it out; Jean-François's nodding off.

Thank God It's Friday, weekend's come,

And his English teacher's having fun

With the unreal present;

Teacher-man is droning on,

Then spits out fire,

Like an air-raid siren, all gone wrong,

'Bout a future tense, but the eyes are limp;

No hail of tricky traitor verbs

Can cut cut cut through this thick gauze,

So keep the noise down, J-F's nodding off.

Still wounded eyelids struggle up,

To a present shot with sly conjunctions-

Run and hide; turn in; fall out;

Consciences pricked with wry compunctions-

Foxhole, cover, weapon, webbing;

Wife a-waiting, in the wings,

Future bridesmaid cries and sings,

Pulling cold hand grenade rings

Damp trenches and life ebbing,

But Jean-François is far away,

On a mushroom cloud of conditional days,

Young teacher shoots his sniper gaze,

To a bleary eye,

In a foreign field;

He's focused on

Another phase;

There is no future real in English;

Just ask... oh, Jean-François's nodded off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ READ THESE OTHER GREAT POSTS ~

A Wandering of Websites 1

It's Forkin' Funny, But Could You Teach It?

Great FREE On-line ELT Resources

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

Teaching Video Analysis - A Practical Exercise

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

A Wandering of Websites 2: Useful On-line Resources for English Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:36:00 +0000

Share Us!

It's polling time! With elections coming up (aren't there always elections 'coming up') in many countries, we thought we'd do a little polling of our own.

As we discovered one of our great teaching resources below we thought it would be fun to show you some of the functionality, sorry, I mean what you can do with it, ourselves. We'll publish the results in another posting on this blog once a few of you have had a go at filling it in. So go and have a look now - it's fun, interesting, and should give you some great ideas on how to use this cool tool with your students.

DO THE SURVEY NOW!

Of course, the Survey Monkey is just one of the five great new teaching resources we have found for you this time. Check out the rest below and be sure to let us know what you think... and to recommend your own favourites!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

acapela-group.com

NEW This offers a series of short This is one of those sites where you can type in some text and get the computer to say it. I must admit I'm wondering exactly how useful this could be for language learners, but there's a definite schoolboy thrill, along the lines of looking up naughty words in the dictionary when you were a kid, in getting Heather from the US, or indeed Rachel from the UK in her lovely 'proper' English accent to tell you to... oh well, let's not go into details, I'm sure you can amuse yourself no end with your inventive phrases and I defy you to keep a smile off your face as you listen to the results. I just hope they don't display a link of past requests anywhere...

surveymonkey.com

'The world's most popular web-based survey tool', they claim, and it's true that this is a great site to incite interaction with your users. It's free, and allows you to easily bang up questionnaires in a jiffy. Fast, that is. Look, I've created one just for you, to show you some of the question types available...!

DO THE SURVEY NOW!

The image here shows an attempt I had at 'branding' the survey with the Hotch Potch English colours, but it was just at the end of the process that I realised this was part of the 'pro' option. Shucks, but you are probably thinking 'Thank god for the Pro Option, judging by those colours'... I chose their 'Purple Passion' standard option in the end. It ain't Hotch Potch English, but it's better than nothing.

I wanted to give you access to the results of the survey without giving you my account login but... it's a Pro Option! So I'll content myself (and you?) by posting a brief summary of the results here once a few of you have done the survey - watch this space... and let us know if you have had fun using the site - why not create a survey and send us the link in the comments section below?

stunning-stuff.com

And as it says on the box... (or the home page, at least) this site is all about 'funny and weird news about stupid crimes, ignorant politicians, heroic toddlers and much, much more' and it certainly delivers.

Current headlines include: Will love songs put sharks in the mood to shag? / Prison van carrying convicted bank robbers crashes into security van, thousands missing / Man auctions permanent advertising tattoo on back of neck...

Current fun facts include: Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts / American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad in first class / 200 million people in China live on less than $1 a day...

Fascinating stuff, and clearly exploitable in class by the innovative English teacher, n'est-ce pas?!

yourdictionary.com

I was just about to recommend the authoritative yet amusing daily word e-mail posting from Your Dictionary, one of the best of these things out there in my opinion, when I realise I haven't been getting them for the last few days. Searching frantically through my inbox finally turns up a message soberly announcing the last word of the day e-mail from Your Dictionary! This is a shame, as it was one of the few which managed to inject a bit of humour into these po-faced thing, but never mind. Apparently this is so they can concentrate on making Your Dictionary even better blah blah blah, but anyway, do have a look at the site as it does, in fact, provide a LOT of interesting language content, including a large resource section for teachers which is worth browsing.

audacity.sourceforge.net

OK, I'd better get this one out of the way! If you type 'audacity.com' into your browser you immediately get a rather nasty page from a weary-sounding company called 'Audacity, Inc' and a curt black message telling us in no uncertain terms: 'We DO NOT make audio software'. It is some indication of the success of the company which does make the excellent free audio software known as Audacity that the company which owns 'audacity.com' have to devote their prestigious home page to telling people who they are not!

Well, whatever the story, if you follow the link above you'll get to the Audacity which does make audio software, and a fine product it is too, especially regarding it's free. It does take a while to get to know, and I would certainly recommend getting a knowledgeable colleague (look for someone with thick glasses and spots and sticking out teeth wearing a 'Kiss a Geek Today' T-shirt...) to get you started. Oh, sorry, Audacity allows you to record stuff in lots of formats and do some fancy stuff too. I use it to take the hiss out of my dodgy podcasts and free weekly English lesson recordings.

I must admit, I've seen worthy educators giving valiant presentations to enthusiastic souls on how to use Audacity to make their lessons the next best thing to being there, but I can never convince myself that your average teacher actually goes straight home and starts using the thing. Like a lot of the amazing technology out there, I have a feeling that many teachers, even if IT-ready, still prefer reading about it than actually using it just yet, or - same old story - simply don't have the time. Tell me if I'm right. OK, or wrong...!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ READ THESE OTHER GREAT POSTS ~

A Wandering of Websites 1

It's Forkin' Funny, But Could You Teach It?

Great FREE On-line ELT Resources

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

Teaching Video Analysis - A Practical Exercise

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

One-to-One English Teaching: Top 10 Tips for Great Lessons!

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:23:00 +0000

Share Us!

Although some professional language schools here in Paris tell us that up to 70% of all professional language teaching is on a one-to-one basis, not all TEFL Certificate courses actually prepare you for this.

So here is my first attempt at a list of ten key points to bear in mind when it's just you... and... him (or her of course)! Let me know what you think and feel free to add some more, thanks.

_______________________________________________________

Great One-to-One English Lessons: Top 10 Tips List

1) Ask Them What They Want

And give it to them! It's their lesson - their private lesson - and everything should be directly relevant to them.

2) Keep Your Shareholders Happy
You often have to keep several people happy: the student in front of you, the student's training department who chose your language school, your language school's director of studies, without forgetting yourself! So be aware of what all of them are looking for - often not the same thing - and try to give them all something to make their lives better.

3) Variety, Variety, Variety
Provide lots of varied activities for the student - it's more intense in a one-to-one situation so you need to keep changing the exercises regularly or you will both get bored.

4) Get Personal
Prepare highly personalised topics for your student based on his or her interests or needs - there's no excuse for not doing so. (but see No.7 below)

5) Personality Counts
So let's hope you've got one, eh?! If normal group teaching is a highly personal experience, for one-to-one teaching we need to replace 'highly' with 'intensely'! Personality clash? No-where to run. Boring, unmotivated student? No-where to hide. The fun, fast-moving lesson buck stops with you. So do your best to establish a friendly, professional approach from the start so that any problems down the line will be seen as being the exception rather than the rule and you should be able to work them out.

6) Perform Regular Rain Checks
Just because you get on well with them and they still smile quite often doesn't mean that they are totally satistied. Indeed, exactly because you have built up a friendly atmosphere may make it more difficult for them to let you know that they're not as happy as before. So ask them regularly if they are still getting what they want, if not why not, and change to rectify the situation.

7) Stay Professional
As long as money is changing hands, you ain't friends. You can never be friends. As long as money is changing hands. That's an important thing to remember. As long as they are the client and you the service provider they will be expecting you to bend over backwards to improve their English and if they don't feel that is the case, and you don't address it because you think you have become 'friends' and can get away with any old stuff, problems WILL arise.

8) Provide Structure, Not Content
The teacher provides the structure to the lesson but it is the student who will provide the content - the actual topics they want to study. Of course, the teacher may end up providing most of the materials, articles, etc., but in a one-to-one these should be closely linked to what the students has said they want or need.

9) Have Different Hats
At one moment you have to be interested in the student's son's soccer game at the weekend, the next firmly getting the student down to work and finally reassuring them that they really are making progress when they can't see it. If only we got paid in relation to the number of skills the average teacher needs!

10) Follow The LTP Approach
This is my own invention, what I call the Three Pillars of Being a Great Teacher, and is applicable, in my opinion, to any kind of teaching. LTP stands for Language Teaching People, and the idea is that to be a great teacher you need to love all of them. You need a love of Language (your chosen subject), a love of Teaching (the competences needed to help your students learn) and a love of People (the fundamental requirement to lead a happy life in our society). Read more here.

_______________________________________________________

Top 5 Related Posts

The Three Pillars of Being a Great Teacher

When is a Lesson Aim not a Lesson Aim?
The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List

It's Forkin' Funny, but Could You Teach It?

What On Earth are CCQs?

Comments, as ever, are very welcome.
___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

A Wandering of Websites: Useful On-line Resources for English Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Share Us!

While a herd of cattle, a flock of sheep, a school of fish and, at a stretch, a gaggle of geese might not have too much trouble rolling off your tongue, could you happily take on board (and not feel totally ridiculous saying) "Oh my goodness, did you see that intrusion of cockroaches / squabble of seagulls / paddling of ducks / murmuration of starlings the other day - weren't they quite something?"

(That was all one sentence, by the way - I'm rather proud of it...)

I suspect not.

But a wandering of websites... well I don't see why not. Never let it be said that I never neologise, right?!

And here they are: a handful of interesting, and potentially teacher-exploitable websites that I've come across over the last few days. There have been others, there will be more, but this is what I have for you today...

elllo.org

This offers a series of short videos of people talking about stuff quite similar to what I do on the Hotch Potch English Mega Minute, but it's always nice to have a choice. There are also some interactive exercises and the script which is useful, and lots of different accents which is good too.

newseum.org

This is a very useful on-line depository of newsy stuff, the most interesting of which may be the collection of newspaper front pages from all over the world. They are available in printable pdfs and can be used in class quite easily. Relevant and up to date - what more could you ask for?! Good for comparing approaches to news stories from around the world, with a good collection of English titles to choose from.

wordia.com

This is a great idea in principle but pretty useless in practice... for native speakers. But excellent for students of English. The idea is that people - anyone - creates a short video where they define a word on camera and put it on the site. They can, of course, peruse all the other efforts and there's nothing to stop you from setting exercises based on watching the homespun definitions of certain words. It would be pretty fun for students to define their own words in their own English and immediately see their efforts on the internet. All you need is a free You Tube account and you're away. The reason I say it's useless, or rather pointless for native speakers is that the fun of watching some boring definitions of words we already know wears off very quickly. But for learners this is less the case.

famous-quotes-and-quotations.com
A great site, not only for its large collection of quotes, but because you can sign up for a daily e-mail for free with an inspirational quotation and some other stuff. I just read the quotations and sometimes share them with my students. Why not have a look?

http://www.inanimatealice.com
Check out this site for a really cool, and curious little interactive story. There are resources for exploiting it with students and it is very unusual and strangely engaging.

Feel free to also send in your general ideas and thoughts by commenting below, and... read you shortly!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

What On Earth Are... CCQs?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:09:00 +0000

Share Us!

Have you ever spent a good five minutes explaining something to students and had them nodding and smiling happily making you feel they've totally 'got it'... only to prove thirty seconds later by some simple mistake that they totally 'haven't'? It happens to all of us, and that's where CCQs can help.

CCQs, or Concept Check Questions, are a very effective way of checking students' real understanding of vocabulary or even grammar you have just taught them. Let's take an example:

Imagine you are teaching your students 'snow', and you explain it by saying 'It's cold and white', and they nod and smile. You even ask them 'Do you like snow?' and they still nod and smile and maybe even say 'Yes!'. All is going well, you may think. Except that half of them think you are talking about vanilla ice cream!

How about explaining what a strawberry is? It's small, you say. And round. And sweet. Oh, and of course it's a fruit. You can eat it. It tastes good! Do you understand? Good. And you move on. With one third of the students thinking it is indeed a strawberry, one third thinking it's a raspberry, one third thinking it's a cherry, and probably someone who just hasn't got a clue, but what do you know? You haven't checked to see if they've understood the concept asking questions!

Asking 'Do you understand?' is one of the least useful questions you can ever ask in an English language classroom! Why? Because if students do understand the question 'Do you understand?' they will probably just say 'Yes' to keep you happy. And to not lose face if they don't. They may not even understand the question 'Do you understand?' but will say 'Yes' anyway, just to keep you happy. And even if they do understand something, are they understanding what you want them to understand?!

Another example: Imagine, like me, you are a less than useless artist. But that not having a map to hand during your explanation of the continents you draw a hasty map of South America on the board, and label it 'South America'. You then ask 'Do you know South America? And they all nod and smile. But half of them are thinking that 'South America' is actually the English for 'Africa'!

So how can we be more or less sure that our students really have understood? Let's take the snow example earlier. We need some really simple questions which, if answered correctly by the students, will prove to us that they've 'got it'. We could ask:

Is snow is white? The student answers 'Yes' but so is vanilla ice cream and cotton wool and fluffy clouds and sheep.

Is snow cold? The student answers 'Yes' but so is vanilla ice cream and ice and winter and fridges and snowmen...

Does snow come from the sea? (mime waves) The student answers 'No' - a good sign.
Does snow come from the sky? (point to sky) Student answers 'Yes' - another good sign.
Does snow fall in summer? Student answers 'No' - still looking good.

Does snow fall in winter? Student answers 'Yes' - very good - it looks like he's got it.

Do we eat snow? Student answers 'No' or laughs and says 'If you want!'. Really looks like he's got it.
What can we make with snow? Student answers 'A snowman!' Yes, he's probably got it.

Of course, there are many other things you could do along the way if you have the tools, such as simply drawing some snow falling from the sky or a snowman on the board. But often concepts are harder to picture than that, or the required tools are not available and CCQs can come in really handy.

They work with grammar forms too. How would you be sure that students had grasped the concept of 'I used to live in London'? Maybe they think you still do. Or that you are used to living in London. Or that you want to live in London. Who knows?!

So we need some more CCQs. What about...

Do I live in London now? The students should answer 'No'.
Did I live in London? The students should answer 'Yes'.
And why not some optional questions to test deeper understanding, such as:
Do I like London? The students should answer 'We don't know!'

A final example before an exercise! Take the sentence 'I managed to get to the top of the mountain.' What are the essential facts or meanings of this sentence? Choose the best three from:

I succeeded.
I didn't succeed.
I will succeed.
It was easy.

It wasn't easy.

It was nauseating.
I didn't try.
I will try.
I tried.
I like mountains.
I had to do it.
I won't do it again.

The sentences which carry the main meaning of I managed to get to the top of the mountain are 'I tried', 'It wasn't easy' and 'I succeeded'. The other sentences may have some relevance to the event but they are not essential to understanding the meaning. Now, in order to get some good CCQs we simply need to change these essential meaning sentences into questions to elicit the appropriate responses, and be reasonably sure that students have understood:

'Did I try?' (yes)

'Was it easy?' (no)
'Did I succeed?' (yes)

It's often useful to have a question in your set like 'Was it easy?' which require the answer 'No', to check that students aren't just 'keeping you happy' with the answer 'Yes (teacher)' as we mentioned before.

Now here's the task:

Choose one of the nouns and one of the sentences below, write a small set of CCQs for it, and post them in the comments below. Read the comments first and try to write CCQs for a word no-one else has covered, but feel free to also include improved CCQs for words already covered. I'll post the best CCQs below.

Here are the words and sentences:

Words

column / horse / bungalow / pebble / cup / laptop / deckchair
cucumber / barge / sandal / bat (animal or sports equipment!) / handbag / coast / path

Sentences (CCQs for the word(s) in italics)
She was limping badly when I saw her.
I've been living here since 1993.

They'd rather have stayed at home.

My dad went through the roof when he saw the house after the party!

Johnny was caught shoplifting the other day!

I was sleeping when you phoned.

We're seeing Avatar by James Cameron this evening.

I wish I were 18 again.

I'd only been in France for two weeks when I met my future wife.

(The phone rings) Don't worry - I'll get it.

Feel free to also send in your general ideas and thoughts by commenting below, and... read you shortly!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

Reflections on an English Lesson

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:40:00 +0000

Little poem for ya...

~~~~~~~~~~~

REFLECTIONS ON AN ENGLISH LESSON

Graceful as a swallow

Skimming past the chair

My latest careful handout

Goes floating through the air

Little Louis' pencil

Is lodged in Sarah's ear

As one pupil in fifteen

Is trying hard to hear

The others are, alas, alack

In quite a different world

Uncovering the guilty

Who Katie's bag just hurled

I gaze around and wonder

Through clouds of chalky dust

How, given any normal choice

To teach, I thought, I must

A little laugh escapes me

To be followed by a song

If I'm going down, you little shits

For you it won't be long

And as a gentle smile descends

Upon my lips to seal

The secrets of the English class

I swear they won't appeal

~~~~~~~~~~~

Feel free to send in your thoughts, ideas and questions by commenting below, and... read you shortly!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

It's TEFL Graduation Day... So What's Next?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:42:00 +0000

Here are some of our students: Hermann, Alban, Larry, Andrew, Morna and Brianna, to be precise, holding their thoroughly deserved TEFL Paris Certificates on the evening of our Graduation Dinner.

I never cease to be amazed at how your averagely literate person can study intensively for just four weeks and walk out with a virtually guaranteed ticket, not only to a new job, but in many cases a completely new career.

Some of our trainees are fresh university graduates, some are experienced business people. Some are young, some are not so young. Some are nervous but all are excited about this new phase in their lives and the unknown possibilities lying ahead of them.

Of course, no TEFL Certificate totally guarantees you a job. There are many other factors to consider, such as your real aptitudes as an English teacher and both your abilities to adapt to local teaching situations as well as how good you are at avoiding some of the most common mistakes made by new teachers. Not forgetting your innovative use of some of the amazing on-line resouces out there... See these previous posts for more on this:

Quite apart from how well you present yourself at interview, there is the local teaching market to take into account. Here in France, I'll be honest with you:

If you successfully complete the TEFL Paris TEFL Certificate course, with good grades for Teaching Practice, Theory and Professionalism, and make yourself presentable, coherent and enthusiastic during your interview, as well as having the necessary working papers*, you will get a teaching job very quickly indeed.

I know that sounds like a lot of provisos, but hey, you're walking into a very intellectually rewarding and stimulating job working with really nice French professionals, so you should expect to put a bit of effort in to get it! But no more effort than when applying for any other job, and if you fit the mould they'll probably offer you the position on the spot.

An interesting question teacher training schools often get asked is: 'Will you find me a job at the end of the course?' I don't actually know of ANY teacher training centres which guarantee their trainees jobs at the end of the course! This is generally for two reasons:

They are a teacher training centre only and not a language school
They are also a language school but cannot know what their future staff requirements will be

TEFL Paris falls into the first category, as do most TEFL teacher training centres.

Having said that, we have excellent links with the Paris English teaching community and will do our very best to point you in the right direction if you wish to work in France, or indeed globally.

We know from years' worth of successful graduates that teaching work is relatively easy to find all over the world if you respect the conditions mentioned above.

* Some countries require specific working visas, or impose other conditions on certain nationalities, and we strongly advise you to check what the situation is regarding your personal circumstances and the country you intend working in to make sure you reach your teaching goal as smoothly as possible.

Feel free to send in your ideas and questions by commenting below, and... read you shortly!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

TESOL France visits TEFL Paris: a Match Made in Heaven?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:49:00 +0000

It's that time of the month again, satisfaction tinged with sadness, the Friday of the last week of January's TEFL Certificate Course here at TEFL Paris and, my goodness, hasn't time just flown by, as it always does!

We had Bethany Cagnol, the current president of TESOL France out at our place today, to talk to our trainees and generally drum up support and share The Knowledge, which was great. Thanks a lot for that Bethany - great to see you again, and thanks so much for forgetting the personal photo calendar I gave you - I see how much you value my presents then... ;-) (Just joking, which you knew, obviously!)

Bethany talked about working life in Paris as an English teacher, and her American roots certainly interested the Americans in this month's group who are realising that there are a few hoops to be jumped through before getting their dreamed-of new teaching job/life on the Old Continent...

Bethany, of course, has cheated and just married into the system. I mean, literally, Married In to the system. That's one of the easiest ways and, to be honest, the definition of 'marry' is getting looser and looser here in France, so that could be a serious option for certain people.

As well as thanking Bethany for visiting us, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our wonderful trainees here at TEFL Paris for being such fun and so enthusiastic and just so into the course and doing their best. I have been really impressed by all of you - thank you.

And as a final sign/send off, I'll ask you a question.

Do yous guys remember someone telling you that teaching is all about asking questions? Juss wunderrin, az wun duz...

But that wasn't the question.

The Questions Are: "What was your best teaching moment on the course?

And "What event/situation did you learn from most?"

Anyone who has been on a TEFL course can take part, the more the merrier!

Read you shortly!

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

Burn Your Books?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:12:00 +0000

This is actually a very clever video obviously created by people who not only know English teaching, but are also familiar with all the pretentions and perversities that go with it. Click on the image here to go straight to it.

It's not a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language here - it's probably more concerned with teaching literature to native English speakers, but the fun-poking is delicious and very well done nevertheless.

We've all wanted to be like Robin Williams in The Dead Poet's Society, haven't we? Well this parody captures that spirit and knows how to twist it without totally deriding it.

No, on second thoughts, it does totally deride it. Whatever.

Could we use this video with our students? Well, if you're teaching English literature this might be a bit too close to reality to take the risk. Students might quickly end up laughing at you as opposed to all of you laughing at the video together.

If you're teaching English to non-native speakers again it's a tricky one. There are so many cultural and sociological references in here that it would be hard to communicate the true richness of the material. There's nothing worse than explaining why a joke is funny, which is why I never 'do humour' in class but just let funny situations or events happen spontaneously, of which there is no shortage in the average English class.

It's also probably far too fast for the typical non-native speaker to cope with.

The best bit has to be as he's ripping the covers off the books, but I'll let you see that for yourselves...

Thanks to Alban from our January 2010 TEFL Certificate course here at TEFL Paris for making me aware of this one - I hadn't seen it before.

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

It's Forkin' Funny, But Could You Teach It?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:16:00 +0000

Now here's an interesting one. The choice of suitable realia (in other words genuine, not-cringy-made-for-English-teaching materials) such as newspaper articles, songs and, well, dodgy You Tube videos is what we're going to discuss here.

In fact, I think I'll make it a regular feature, you know, I'll find a dubious vid, post it here and we'll say how we could use it with our students. Or not. Here's the first one.

And what a classic it is. Many people already seem to know all about The Italian Man Who Went To Malta, and with over 11 million views of just this particular version you can understand why.

So there we are, us teachers, tears running down our cheeks, and then we have a brainwave: We'll use it in our next English lesson! So we do. The lesson with all those nice retired bourgois ladies who so appreciate their weekly English lesson at the local town hall on a Friday afternoon with that nice English teacher which they squeeze in between a visit to the hairdresser and their pooch's regular pedicure...

And the result is... well, what do you think? Could we use this piece of juicy realia with our students, and if so how and if not why not?

This also brings up the whole question of do we 'do' swear words in our lessons. I remember a really contentious book from a few years ago which I loved called Taboos & Issues because it dared to offer a whole load of scary lesson plans on totally over the top topics like death and gays and drugs of which you could only ever do about a tenth of them in your average class but hats off to them - they went for it.

And swearing was exactly the sort of dangerous topic they covered. And naughty words like shit and fuck (and all its multivarious derivations) share the very interesting characteristic of being some of the most common words in the English language, uttered by many many native English speakers on a daily basis.

But should we encourage our learners to use them too? Or just to understand them... Or should we not even venture out onto that slippery slope (volunteers to explain 'I wanna fuck on the table' to the sweet retired ladies, anyone?) Or would they think it was the best English lesson they'd every had?!!

Well, I've said enough; have a look at the video and let us know what you think. Look forward to reading you all.

___________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre validated by IATQUO

Great FREE On-line English Language Teaching Resources

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:58:00 +0000

Umm, mine, in fact.

Lots of people are putting loads of effort into creating useful stuff for English teachers to use in or out of their classes, and I don't see why I should be the exception!

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to my baby, my passion, my contribution to the field of English language teaching over and above the call of duty (or 'doodee' as my American trainees are tellin' me) ... my very own free on-line English lessons => An Example

Before I describe each section, let me tell you that your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to contribute to the comments below, and the question is:

"How could you / do you exploit this free on-line ELT resourse with your students."

Please share your ideas which I'm sure will be very interesting for all our regular teacher/trainer visitors. I can't wait to read you!"

So, there are four sections to the page, and the first one is the Video Analysis. My idea here is to start on a high note, in the form of a funny or somehow surprising video. I've blatently taken these from You Tube, which is a phenomenal teaching resource if you use it intelligently and judiciously (two big words for the price of none).

I provide a couple of broad 'gist' questions and a couple of more specific 'detail' questions, although, depending on how I'm feeling when I'm writing the lesson, actual lessons may vary, so don't hold me to what I've just said, thanks.

The second section is the Podcast or Vidcast, depending on whether I've found someone to capture on video or have just had to record my poor old self without the wonder of webcam.

In any case, both of them are pretty interesting and you have the text on the Hotch Potch English Blog so you and your students have all you need to tackle some 'real English' like what it's spoke by zee natives...

The example pic I show here is a wonderful little video of the trainees on the January 2010 TEFL Paris course saying various years, with their personal accents and interpretations, from Glasgow to Texas, from Aberdeen to Alabama, and from New York to Hampshire. A fascinating exploration of accents and humours which I hope will amuse our viewers as much as I liked it!

The third section is an altogether more serious matter, but hopefully no less interesting. I 'steal' a news story from one of the big news providers, such as the BBC, CNN, ABC, or any number of other three letter acronyms, and put it out there.

This is actually one of the most popular sections of the lesson, based on what people have told me, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I pick out six key phrases and record them, with pauses for students to repeat them to practise their pronunciation for as long and as often as they like. Secondly, I record the news story twice. Once very slowly, but not unnaturally. I make a point of saying the text totally naturally but just slowed down. And then I read it at a natural pace, so people can decide whether they want the tricky-quicky version or the slow-mo chilled out mix to really get their tongues around all those sly Saxon syllables.

I also include a pic or two to make sure the lesson isn't too dry, and another feature of the lessons I haven't mentioned yet is the instant gratification angle. People hate to wait.

(frustrated yet?)

(you will be...)

Which is why students have the answer to every question just a click away (on the pink questions marks). I've learnt that you just don't capture peoples' attention with an exercise by telling them that they'll know the answer next week. They want to know if they've got it right NOW! So all they have to do is click on the pink question marks like this - ??? - and they will have the answer, which is satisfying and non-frustrating.

The fourth, and to be honest my favourite section, is Today's Song. Let's face it, we all love listening to music. And when we are enjoying something we are more open to learning (or our subconscious brains are in any case, according to the People Who Know About This Sort Of Thing).

I have purposely made the exercise in this section as simple as possible. The last thing I want to do is to let my boring English exercise get in the way of their enjoyment of the song. But at the same time I am supposed to be helping them to improve their English!

So I take a sneaky approach. I create exercises where I change the words in the lyrics and they have to listen to see what I have changed. If possible, I replace the original words with funny or silly new versions. My ultimate aim is for them to be thinking about the English language without actually realising they are thinking about the English language. And song are a superb way of doing this.

By the way, a song I haven't dared use as my song of the week yet is Sean Paul's We Be Burning. I'm dying to, but really don't know how to explain the 'be doing' future (Jamaican English?) and it sure ain't in any of the course books... your thoughts on this would be great. It's part of the English that our kids, and language students, are listening to every day, after all...

_______________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:29:00 +0000

The following list has been put together to help new English teachers (and a few old ones too) understand the most common sins commited in the classroom.

I should stress that this list is completely personal and as such has no particular authority but in my experience these are some of the main dangers to look out for.

If you are a trainee doing a reasonably decent TEFL Certificate or Diploma course then you will have a far better chance of getting good grades if you take these points very seriously indeed. TEFL teacher trainers understand that it takes time to get the hang of things, and that the very reason we exist is that trainees can experiment and make mistakes in a warm, caring and forgiving environment.

Up to a point.

And then, after a while, if you are still spending the first 40 minutes of a one-hour lesson giving another lecture on another of your pet topics our heads start exploding and we start seeing DIRT (Definitely Isn't Really Teaching)!!!

The English Teaching Sins Top 10 List!

1) You speak much more than your students because what you've got to say is more interesting anyway and you make far fewer painful mistakes.

2) You tell the students everything so they don't feel embarrassed when they don't know the answers to your incomprehensible questions.

3) You speak to them as you would a native speaker (or a little faster to push them ;-) because 'authentic input' is the way to go.

4) You follow a course book faithfully because it was written by experts, after all, and has some really nice exercises to photocopy, whilst also cutting down on preparation time.

5) You don't bother planning your lessons because you are the 'spontaneous type' who can wing it (have been doing so for years) and like the element of surprise this brings to the classroom.

6) You focus specifically on the most extroverted, confident students because those who make an effort to contribute deserve most of your attention.

7) You correct student mistakes constantly. It's what they expect, it's what they pay for, and it helps them learn faster.

8) You don't 'get personal' with your students. Your life has nothing to do with their English skills and their private lives are of even less relevance or interest to you. Good solid grammar lessons are what they need and appreciate the most.

9) You use humour as a powerful correctional tool. Subtle humiliation of the weaker students can encourage them to work harder so as to avoid the sting of your razor-sharp wit in the future.

10) You aim for accuracy as the ultimate goal of your lessons above all else. The need to eliminate mistakes is vital and we shouldn't let our students get away with poor grammar or shoddy vocabulary when they speak.

So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to offer some antidotes to this tale of gloom and doom: let's hear lots of things a great humanistic and communicative teacher should do to make their lessons a great place for their students to be.

Please send in your Top Three Teaching Tips which you think will help make our lessons great to the Comments Section below. We look forward to reading you.
_______________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre

When Is A Lesson Aim Not A Lesson Aim?

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:34:00 +0000

A lesson without an aim is like a boat without a rudder or a traveller without a map: there's very little chance you'll get to your destination because you don't even know what it is!

When you start teaching it is particularly important to know where you are trying to get to (or get your students to) by the end of the lesson.

How can you do this? Well, there are different ways. One of the best is to imagine what you would like them to be doing at the end of the lesson, such as confidently ordering a meal in a restaurant. This could otherwise be called The Aim of the lesson.

Once you have decided what you would like them to be able to do at the end of your lesson, you then need to work out all the steps necessary to get them to the point of being able to do just that with the minimum of teacher intervention. Why with a minimum of teacher intervention? Because out there in the real world you won't be there to hold their hands and their confidence will be much higher if they have already 'done it' in the classroom without you.

So now let's try a little practical exercise. I'm going to give you some sample 'lesson aims', below. Tell us which you think are good lesson aims in terms of how well they will keep you focused on planning a lesson which will take your students 'directly to the goal' of performing the given task successfully, and why.

Consider a lesson aim a good one if it's...

   - clear and easy to understand
   - not too detailed
   - not too vague
   - doable for the students
   - teachable for the teacher

- useful, fun and ultimately satisfying for all concerned

Sample lesson aims: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly!

1) We'll do holidays

2) Students are able to ask for and give direction in the street, using take the first right, go around the roundabout, go straight on, turn sharp left, and the other key vocabulary given in the lesson plan. They will also be able to ask relevant questions using functional language such as Excuse me, can you tell me where the ... is? / I'm afraid I'm lost..., etc. They will also know the names of relevant buildings and shops (such as bank, station, car park, baker, church, hotel, restaurant, and so on).

3) Students are able to write a postcard, using the present perfect tense (I have... but I haven't ... yet) and referring to London sights such as Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square.

4) Students can present themselves simply in an informal situation, giving their name, their nationality and their home town, and asking the same questions such as What is you name?.

5) Talking about the weather.

6) Past simple lesson.

7) Students can use the same modal verbs (should, must, might, etc.) for both giving advice, e.g. He should go home, and for talking about probability, e.g. He should have arrived by now.

Do feel free to comment on others' comments, and why not try to get a 'best' and 'worst' lesson aim out of the above list?

I look forward to reading your ideas...
_______________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre

Teaching Video Analysis - a practical exercise

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:17:00 +0000

Here's an interesting little exercise for you:

Have a look at this teaching video I found on You Tube and tell me what you think from a teacher's and teaching point of view. I find there are many useful things we can take from this.

As you watch, consider the following points:

1) What sort of learner do you think this video is aimed at?
2) Do you think it meets its aims?
3) Are the presentation and explanation well-adapted to the You Tube medium?
4) How could this lesson be improved?
5) What can we imagine about the teacher's reasons for doing this video?

I'll give my comments once I've heard from some of you - so why not let us know what you think and get a discussion going?

I think it's great that so many people are putting so much effort into providing useful teaching and learning aids based on their personal experience - something which was practically impossible just 15 years ago.

But as proactive English teachers and trainers we owe it to ourselves to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, or at least to know what actually makes a good English lesson. That's one of the main purposes of this blog: to keep the grey matter ticking over and to never stop learning and improving. We'll all benefit from that.

_______________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre

The Three Pillars of Being a Great Teacher

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:55:00 +0000

Arrogant as this may sound, I believe I have identified the three fundamental characteristics, the Three Pillars, if you will, necessary to be a great English teacher. And this after many years of reflection and meditation!

Yes, in retrospect that really does sound a bit over the top. But I still believe it! And it's all based on L-O-V-E folks!

So, let's see what you think, as the Beatles play cheerfully in the background ('All you need is love, love... (English teachers)... love is all you need... love is all you need...')

PILLAR ONE:

A LOVE OF LANGUAGEThat surge of deeply-seated geeky-intellectual joy and squirmy satisfaction that comes from discovering a clever new blend like 'guesstimate' or the sudden, searingly understanding that 'smartbook' is not really a new IT milestone but just the latest in a long line of dreamt-up fancy antecedents including smartphones, netbooks, notebooks, mini-notebooks, subnotebooks and laptops (let's not forget the good old laptop!) trying to dupe us into thinking something pretty wicked this way comes...

(you've got to Love Language to be a Great English Teacher)

PILLAR TWO:

A LOVE OF TEACHINGA lot of people seem to forget that teaching - the act of helping learners to understand new ideas - is a skill and an art and a passion unto itself, irrespective of the subject being taught. The satisfaction that comes from this interchange, yes, this two-way exchange of ideas and learning, is one of the most wonderful aspects of this noble activity.

(you've got to Love Teaching to be a Great English Teacher)

PILLAR THREE:

A LOVE OF PEOPLEIn the end this may be the most important of all the three pillars. In the final analysis, it's all about the atmosphere in the classroom, that tangible static of thoughts and revelations, struggles and enlightenment, buzzing through the air. It's about the very human pleasure to be had from that special, that unique and privileged place where people feel safe and confident enough to try things out, to make mistakes in a positive atmosphere and know their efforts will be recognised and encouraged. It's about human beings interacting together, sharing experiences and supporting each other in their attempts to improve themselves.

(you've got to Love People to be a Great English Teacher)

The LTP Approach

LANGUAGE TEACHING PEOPLEBecause we are People who Teach Language.

Because we are People being Taught through Language.

Because Language Teaches People things.

Because we are Teaching real People through Language.

Because Language is a lubricant.

Because Teaching is a gift.

Because People are precious.

What do you think?

_______________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre

Introducing Sab's New Academy of the Ingleesh Language (SNAIL)

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:14:00 +0000

Well hey, if the French can have their Academie Française, and the Spanish their Real Academia Española, then I think it's high time we English speakers had our own Academy too.

If you google 'English Academy' you get a bunch of language school home pages, so I reckon the coast is clear to set up my very own, my original, my totally official Sab's New Academy of the Ingleesh Language, or 'SNAIL' for short.

Based firmly on the original (and best, of course) missions of our Gallic and Hispanic cousins academies, SNAIL shall insist on the absolute minimum amount of change to the language from the days of, oh, let's say Shakespeare, for a start.

This train of thought was started when I read that the venerable Real Academia Española has just updated the 1931 version of its Nueva gramáticade la lengua española , the word nueva having become somewhat compromised in recent decades.

Some of the oh-so-grudgingly included 'exceptions' to the pure version include accepting that a handful of unenlightened individuals (mostly living in South America but increadingly found on the Iberian Peninsula itself) have completely dropped the polite or familiar plural form of you (vosotros) from both their daily speech and even their grammar books in favour of ustedes. Ouch!

A Caribbean pronunciation of amor (love) as amol is another example, as well as mentioning that some Latin American friends don't actually bother to invert the subject and the verb in questions such as "¿Qué quiere Luis?", prefering "¿Qué Luis quiere?" instead. You can almost hear the grinding teeth back at the old Academia, can't you?!

I have to make an admission. Having made fun of these poor old institutions, what they have done in producing the Nueva gramáticade la lengua española is actually a massive and hugely admirable step towards linguistic reality. Where the 1931 version basically told people how they should speak the Spanish language, the new one attempts to describe how people all over the world actually speak it. And there's the great difference, and what a marvellous difference it is too.

In my review of the excellent Cambridge Grammar of the English Language I praised CUP for doing exactly the same thing: describing instead of prescribing, and the approach is as refreshing as it is simply sensible.

And the teaching point in all this? Well simply to realise and remember that language is pretty much uncontrollable, and that we should revel in its changes and adaptations and enjoy sharing them with our students. And when they say they've heard a certain expression that we are not familiar with, be careful before saying it isn't 'proper' English. It may be that they are one step ahead of us!

_______________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre

Welcome to the TEFL Paris Teacher Training Blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Hotch Potch English) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:21:00 +0000

Hello, and welcome to the brand new and exclusive... TEFL Paris - Teacher Training Blog!

TEFL Paris is a great teacher training centre just half an hour from Paris and we offer an excellent 4-week TEFL Certificate course to set up future teachers with all the skills they need to walk into their first paid English lesson... and teach!

As language and teaching fanatics, we are keen to share our ideas and to learn from your comments as well of course, which is why we have set up this little corner of the web.

The TEFL Paris Teacher Training Blog is run by TEFL Paris Course Director, Sab Will. That would be me. I'll be delighted to answer any questions you have for me and hope to hear from lots of you soon.

Although based in Paris, I'm interested in all aspects of English teaching all over the world, so do let us know how you are getting on wherever you find yourself churning out another attempt to get your students to understand the good old present perfect!

I aim to regularly post snippets of useful information relating to learning, teaching and training, interesting ideas, funny stories, innovative lessons I've seen and more, and I would love to have your comments on them, and your own stories too. Feel free to disagree totally with anything I say, but keep it friendly of course. Over to you!

_______________________________________________________________________

Sab Will is Course Director at TEFL Paris, a TEFL Certificate Teacher Training Centre