Not only is the movie great because it’s based on a true story, and revolves around an important issue in the history of America, and of mankind, in general. But it’s also rich in vocabulary, and is highly engaging. There is a lot of material to sustain lengthy discussions on referential meaning, and because the actors play their part so well, more often than not, high school and older adult students find it worth their while to pay attention to the story.

So, if you are looking for something that would spark interest, jump start your unit on Debate, or something to do with an ethical issue that’s rich in vocabulary and content that could drive lively discussions, you can not go wrong on showing your students the movie, The Great Debaters.

So far, in my experience, it has been one of the best choices I’ve ever made in terms of meaningful education.

For starters, I had the chance to be a language learner again this weekend. Our workshop presenter (who is awesome at his topic!), asked some volunteers from the group to sit through a crash course in Turkish. I volunteered simply because it’s always good to get into the nitty gritty of things when you attend these PD (professional development) days, to get the most of your time. And I find it always to be of value to put oneself in our learners’ shoes, and gain some perspective into what they must go through every single day they are under our care at school.

My reward for the volunteer work was this: exhaustion!

But it was good that I went through that experience, because it helps me remind myself just how difficult it is to be learning a language. As I was sitting through that 10 minutes or so of Turkish, these were the things I was processing:

1. What words the teacher were saying, and how he was saying them.
2. How to sound out the words so I can say them correctly later on.
3. What the words meant in English.
4. The instructions the teacher was giving about the activities that follow to practice the language.
5. How to interact with my partner to practice the language.
6. How the language relate to the visuals the teacher provided to practice the language.
7. And all the while, I was nervous about forgetting the words when it comes time to practice them, wondering whether I was saying them right at all, etc. etc.

And that is but a snapshot of what our language learners go through in the classroom. And they are at it 5 days a week, for about 8 hours each day, more if there’s homework to be done.
If, as teachers, the only language we know is English, it would be quite hard to appreciate all the struggles our learners go through. And I think, to be effective at what we do, we have to put ourselves in that zone of discomfort, where we become like children again, and grow as one – one step at a time.

At this workshop with Jon Nordmeyer, it has been great to revisit the old, to gain more insight to take on the challenges of the new.

(Written on February 18th, in Kao Hsiung, Taiwan)

Initially, the student has to explore his interests when it comes to reading and choose a story book or a novel (depending on the student’s initial English language level). The student then reads his chosen story book or novel in his free time (but preferably, he commits to at least 30 minutes of silent reading every night).

Then we begin with the first step, which is the CHOICE.

1. CHOICE: The student can choose 7-10 new words from his readings. (Readings say that beyond this number would no longer be effective in terms of learning.) His choice can be because the words are difficult and he didn’t understand what they meant while he was reading, or they are words he knows, but vaguely able to explain, or they can be words he wanted to remember the spelling of because they might prove useful in his writings.

2. USE IN A SENTENCE: Now, comes the manual task. The student has to keep a notebook where he writes these words down, which he chose himself to learn. With the aid of a dictionary, he finds out what the words mean, or reviews them, if he has encountered those words before. Then, he has to write his own original sentences using the words he has chosen.

This bit here is very important, for two reasons. One is because this will help the learner keep the words in his memory, and two, this step has a vital role to play in the third step of the process.

3. SHARE: Finally, the third step – the sharing and getting feedback part.

Here is where the teacher and the classroom play an important role. If there is a class of more than one to share with, it is always a great idea to give the floor to students at regular intervals to share their chosen vocabulary. They say their chosen words, and share their original sentences using those words. It is important that sizes of groups during this part of the learning process is limited to 3 or 4 at the most. This gives everyone ample time to share and the environment is less intimidating to very shy learner.

Then, the feedback. In order for the student to stay on track, and in order to establish a sense of commitment to this task, the teacher has to give a written feedback on the accuracy of the sentences which the student crafted, using his chosen vocabulary. Not only will the student learn about whether his understanding of the word is indeed correct. He also gets a grammar mini-lesson on the side. Now, in order to make this part of the program effective, feedback has to be given a day after the student has written the sentences.

There you are folks! I hope that was helpful for you English language learners out there. As for you, my dear co-educators, do try this program out, and when you gets results, I am most interested for you to tell me about them, or we can share your thoughts out in this blog.

Happy teaching and learning English, everyone!

Is there such a thing as a wrong way to learn English?

One adult student I had thought there was – and that he was learning English the wrong way for a long time, before finally ‘cracking’ it. Just before he went on to finally pass the TOEFL test after about 5 or more tries, he blurted out his realization in class one day. “Miss, I think I was learning (English) the wrong way.” And at that point, I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

So in case you are one of those who feel like you are “stuck” in your learning of the English language, or have been at your nth try at TOEFL or any other standardized test of English, stay on. I might have a solution for you!

If you’re a teacher of English and is finding some solutions for your students who seem unable to fully master English for exams or to pass standardized test of English like the TOEFL, the IELTS, etc, stay on. I probably have a solution for you.

So what is the wrong way of learning English?

From many readings I’ve done over the years, from my own experiences learning English as a second language, and from my teaching experiences the last 15 years of my career in international education, I am of the opinion that still, many teachers and learning institutions advocate rote memorization as a way of learning vocabulary (and learning English).

In international schools in Thailand, many of our Japanese and Korean students go to cram school right after school, 5 times a week if they are near their graduation time. The reason? They have to “cram”, literally, for university entrance examination in their home countries. The general practice includes a long list of words, which the students have to memorize. According to the kids, this is a way that they are prepared for TOEFL as well as for entrance tests to universities.

However, looking back into what, to me, were ‘effective’ ways to learn English, memorization of long lists of words just does not pave the way to success. At least, not in what most of the students I’ve had experienced.

What does work?

One important method, which is also advocated by many English language teaching practitioners is learning vocabulary through context. Now, while many of us in the field of teaching may know this like the back of our hand, sometimes, it takes some time for our students to fully grasp its meaning.

While exposing our learners to skills books that teach vocabulary through context, I have always felt there has to be an even better way to it. First, for instance, our students have to OWN their learning. And that their learning of English vocabulary has to be a constant companion, even in their sleep, when it is necessary. As was the case with that adult student I had who was ‘learning English the wrong way’.

The key is in a very simple 3-step program that involves the student’s choice, a manual task, and an environment where the student can “share” his choices and where he gets feedback for his efforts. Once this 3-step program is followed, the learning of English takes on a new meaning for the student. And based on experience, paves the way to more success and towards “owning” one’s learning of the language.

On Friday, we shall give you this 3-step program, which could help you in your learning of the English language, or help your students find the right way to master English! Stay tuned!

Here’s Part 2 of this article: http://www.heddatan.com/the-3-steps-writing-program-build-vocabulary-2.html

I look at the first week of school from a ‘make-or-break’ perspective.

In a seminar by Hal Urban (author of the best-selling book, “20 Great Lessons in Life”) in Singapore in February this year, I was reminded of how important it is to start the year right the first week of school.

What a teacher does on the first day determines how the rest of the year is going to proceed — will I have students who are well-focused on goals, or have pure hooligans in class determined to just have a darn good time?!

Good thing I have my back ups –some tips and tricks of the trade, which I’ve learned over the years. Good thing I’m such a consumer of books on good teaching practice, as well as an avid attendee of just about every useful professional development opportunity I could get my hands on, so I have a few tricks up my sleeve ready to serve to the students on our first week.

GOALS and TARGETS

First and foremost, I started with these two questions in all of my classes this year. Yes, all- including my 4^th grade Humanities class. I wrote these on the board, and that’s the first thing students tackle when they come into class:

• What is your learning goal this year?
• What do you expect from this course/class?

I find, that most students come in with NO goals or targets at all, whether they are graduating seniors, or well,  4^th graders. By making them think towards this idea, it lays down the very purpose why they are in school in the first place, and then gets them to think about how they should behave when they are in the classroom.

Those two simple questions set up the stage for the rest of the year. By putting these questions out there on the table, students move towards a more purposeful time in the classroom, minimizing disruptive, unfocused behavior. To a teacher, that environment is like heaven here on earth!

WHO ARE YOU?

In another Character Development seminar I went to (in Singapore again, about a year ago), this time with Dr. Gary Smit,  I came away with this packet full of ideas on how to build character with my students from day one.

In it is a worksheet that starts out asking about information related to different aspects of the students – likes, dislikes, wants, dreams and wishes, etc. It’s quite a comprehensive set of questions, and when you teach teen agers, where  it’s all about me, I and myself (adolescence tends to do that to you), you’ll find students hard at work answering the questions, heads bent over the sheet, eyebrows furrowed, like it’s the most important task there is in the world. And from a teacher’s viewpoint, it should be!

There is nothing compared to a good grasp of what your students are like. If you’re going to be spending a whole 10 months with a bunch of human beings, all different in character, strengths and wants, the “who are you” sheet is the best thing to start with on your first day.

Of course, one doesn’t have to join Dr. Gary Smit’s next seminar in Singapore (although I would recommend it because it was all practical ideas you could use in class the very next day!) You could easily make up your own set of questions, keeping in mind the information you need in order to help you plans lessons.

Student’s interests and their own thoughts as to their strengths and areas to improve on are crucial bits of information. Equally helpful would be to know who they go to the most to get help, and even mundane things like ‘what time they sleep at night’. Nowadays, with Facebook invading just about every bedroom on the planet, you have to know how much time your students spend online, because it impacts their studies, their ability to manage their time and workload, and most especially, how it impacts their health and of course, alertness in class.

Knowing these crucial bits, you are empowered when planning intervention, especially when it gets out of hand, and you feel you need to call in the parents so little Danny goes to bed at 10pm the most every night, instead of 3 in the morning!

IF WE MADE THE RULES

Again, in that earlier mention I did, from Dr. Urban’s seminar on Character Development, I got this worksheet idea that has two questions on it:

If we made the rules….

• Students would NOT be allowed to….
• Students would be encouraged to….

This is the third piece to the puzzle on the first day of my meeting with students this year. And once the whole class has turned in this last piece, I make up a whole “document” of all they wrote in, and have them sign it.

So whenever I encounter undesirable behavior at some point during the course of the year, I could easily point their attention to this document they signed, and remind them that THEY made the rules, and so should abide by them themselves.

SEATS

Finally, I find it a good idea to have a seating plan ready when kids come in on their second or third lesson with me. It’s just a small matter of keeping chatty personalities away from each other for say, 70minutes (‘cause that’s how long my classes are).  This helps lessen disruptions in class, allowing everyone to focus on tasks at hand. Also, it creates a whole new dynamic when you mix kids up.

Then, at the end of the quarter, which is after every 3 months, I rearrange students’ seats again, in order to change the working environment. Works for me, so might be good for you to try, too.

There are other things, other ideas to try to start the year right. Here are just three of my favorites, and so far, the plan seems to be working.

Check out my other blog posts under Character Education.

In my years as a teacher, this is one tidbit of wisdom I always keep with me, to guide me on my daily choices, on what to teach, how to teach, and why I should teach it, in the first place.

A child is like a new blank canvass to an artist… a blank paper to a poet. As such, we adults have the power to influence the young minds of those under our care. And our influence will be carried onwards to the future.

Tough call. Quite a tall order. But if we do not enforce such high expectations upon our selves, how can great things ever be accomplished to ensure a better future for the coming generations?

Many leaders of many nations today, have values that are either misplaced, or nonexistent. That is why so much atrocity exist, so many children and young and old people alike suffer, and injustice and suffering are on the rise.

Where and when did we make mistakes in raising leaders of such makings? Did we fail in kindergarten? Or was it in their teen years when we have failed to teach them right and wrong? Or was it when they were studying in their chosen careers as lawmakers, financial and business professionals, that we forgot to remind them that life is not about amassing all the wealth there is you can lay your hands on, without a backward glance toward others who get hurt along the way to success?

We now live in a time when it is no longer easy for some to tell which is right or wrong. Some kids would say they are only exercising their right to individuality and free speech whenever they are vulgar and rude towards their parents. Some parents, would say they can not help themselves when they abuse their children, because they have been dealt a cruel lot in life, and so it is not their fault when their child goes to school with burn marks on their bodies.

Everyone is to blame – society, schools, governments, and other people. Whatever happened to individual accountability and responsibility? Probably got washed down when we were cleaning up our homes and offices, to make way for the new gadgets and more advanced technology of tomorrow.

Life has now become tied up to our Blackberrys, iPhones, laptops and iPads. Time for our children, the teaching of our youth, has been put on the hands of the internet, the world wide web. We have left them to the mercy of fellow young people who pretend they know better, and so perhaps, there’s the answer right there. We can no longer ask what has become of our young people, when they behave like they don’t have any character or values. After all, where were we, when it was time to teach them how to become good people?

At Dr. Hal Urban’s seminar in Singapore on Feb. 28th to 1st March 2011, I may have found my answer. For the new teacher, I would say Dr. Urban’s ideas about the teaching of character is THE road map to success. If you’re someone who is eager to start a career in teaching, yet have some apprehensions on how to start on your career path in this profession, go to his seminar/workshop or at least, buy his book, Lessons from the Classroom, and you will never go wrong.

It will tell you specific ideas on how to start your classes on the right track from Day 1. He has simple yet timeless ideas to ensure that your lessons are meaningful and purposeful no matter what subject you teach, and more importantly,  you will have enough ammunition up your sleeve to face potential problems from “difficult” parents and students later on in terms of grading and behavior.

For the older teachers, those on the verge of becoming jaded, listening to years and years of toxic talk and conversations from other teachers who have stopped being idealistic and positive about the profession, it is a breath of fresh air. He will remind you what and how noble this profession is – teaching. And he will remind you that you have a touch call, on this job, because how you affect the students who go through your classroom, your classes, you will never know how your influence enriches their lives, or how negatively you could affect them if you do things wrong.

He is a wealth of knowledge, and I believe there is nothing more potent and more lasting and more meaningful, to revive your love for teaching, or to jumpstart your career in teaching, than to sit through his talk, as he gives you anecdotes and real life examples of all the principles he has written in his book/s.

Our world is wanting of “heroes”, of people who actually “practice what they preach”.  They now come in trickles and are far between. Don’t let this one gem of an educator pass you by.

So when Hal Urban is coming to your city, to talk about his hard earned, and well lived principles about life and about teaching, grab a seat and listen well. The lessons you learn will not only help you in your profession, but would have a positive effect on your personal life as well.

A special gratitude goes out to Joanne Wang, for having the foresight and passion to bring educators like Hal Urban to Asia, for it is important for us to know, on this side of the world especially, that there are educators in the West, who still believe in all these books we read about education, and who still actually practice what they preach in seminars, in books they write.

I was given the task of sharing the experiences and knowledge I have accumulated all these years that I have been working and living in Bangkok, and somehow, give the graduates some insight into what opportunities are available out here for them.

After the talk, the first question was on how applicants, once they are decided on getting a job here in Thailand, should prepare when they apply for work. Here are a few pointers I shared with the group:

Resume/CV – many employers I have met, not just in the field of education, but in other fields as well, always have this observation to make: many Filipinos send resumes that are hard for them to read.

Consider the staff of the Human Resources Department for instance of a certain company, who has to go through piles and piles of resumes sent their way, especially if the job you are applying for has been advertised. He/she won’t have time to scrutinize nor read whole resumes, but will only have time to look for the most basic elements. And these are: your educational background, work experience, and most importantly, are you best fitted for the position you are applying for.

If you meet all those mentioned criteria, then most likely, your resume goes into another basket, which later on, probably your direct supervisor/employer will be looking at for interview considerations.

Here is where your special skills, such as languages you speak, special interests you have that might prove useful for your employer can spell the difference between you getting an interview, or you being added on to a wait list.

You have to make your resume/CV well focused and highly relevant to the job you are applying for. Understood, you may be someone who has had years and years of experience, workshops/professional development events attended, and so on and so forth. But you can’t just cram all that information into your resume/CV. Include only the most recent and/or the most relevant to the job. And try to squeeze them all in one or two pages, maximum of three.

Some employers I’ve spoken to still find these information on resumes/CV that come their way: elementary education, complete with the name of the school, school address, awards the person got on his/her graduation in 6th grade. Some still even include their blood type as well as other personal information like names and birthdays of their children!

No, no, this is not an exaggeration.

The information age started decades ago, and we can no longer make the case of “not being very well informed”, or in the Pinoy way of getting out of ‘now knowing’, just say, “I was absent when that was taught in school!”).

It’s funny, all right, but it’s not entirely a laughing manner when knowing how to write a resume well is what makes the difference between getting a job and not getting a job.

Stay tuned dear readers, for additional tidbits of information on how to apply, successfully, for a job in Thailand. My next article will be on making a list of job possibilities, and on getting to know the places you are applying for.

Also, the two other questions from that conference, which I will tackle on in my next few articles, are :

• a. ( from a mother): If I am decided on a career on education for my child, what advice would you give to prepare him/her for it?
• b. (from a young female MBA graduate): for those of us who are not affiliated in the field of education, are there job opportunities available for us in Thailand?

The call nowadays, is not just for the teacher to hold a university degree on education, but to be more versatile, flexible and able to use a cacophony of tools out there to bring the classroom and the real world into one single field. In other words, tools such as the web’s Youtube, for instance, which many of today’s young learners are familiar with, has to become part of one’s teaching, to be seen to be “keeping with the trends”.

In the past, movies like “Stand and Deliver”, which chronicles how a teacher learns to speak the language of the students to reach them, demonstrate how unconventional teaching methods (and the eternal belief in students’ capabilities) are able to produce results that most would think are impossible to accomplish. One such knowledge nowadays, is how to motivate students to actually be interested, participate and be engaged in the topic/concept a teacher wants to teach.

Our High School students today, for one, have so many distractions. With their Blackberrys, their iPhones, etc., many feel the classroom is just one of those things in life one has to endure…until the bell rings and they’re free to access all the social networks they spend most of their waking hours on.

To illustrate my point, here are a few Youtube sites I’ve used with my classes lately. Below the videos, you will find some ideas on how they could be of use in your classroom, from teaching English, to Social Studies, to Science and World Issues

1. Severn Suzuki, a 13-year-old girl from Canada, speaks at the UN Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992. She silenced the world in 5 minutes as she tells leaders to mend their ways to make sure future generations still have a world to live in.

• I recently used this to open up my classes during Earth Week. This can be used to elicit answers to questions like, “After _____ years, what have government and world leaders who have this speech done towards a better earth for future generations?”
• This can also be used in Science class, where studies on the environment are of relevance, for example.
• This can also be used in a Social Studies class, when discussion is focused on responsibility and accountability of world leaders or on the efficacy of organizations such as the UN is being talked about.2. Craig Kielburger was 12 when he started an international human rights  movement  called Free the children, to help children who are exploited in countries like India, Bangladesh and Thailand. Watch him speak at the Ontario Federation of Labor.

• In an Oral Presentation class, great discussions or brainstorming sessions could start off by having students watch this clip. You can then pose the question, “What makes this speech a good one?”
• In a Service Learning class/Ethics/Character Development, you can make a point about what young people can do if they put their heart into it.  Further talk could focus on traits such as being concerned and caring for others; service beyond self.

These are but a couple of the hundreds upon hundreds of videos available out there, which teachers could make good use of. What I find about these clips is that they never fail to catch students’ attention. In the beginning of class, when students are dragging their feet into your classroom, looking like they would rather be somewhere else other than in the school, learning, turn to these clips for some inspiration. After a few minutes of being transported into the world Youtube, most of the time, they will be ready to listen. By then, you would have gotten their full attention.

I think, for many of us who have been teaching for a long time, and who have realized that this job is more than just ‘work’, there comes a point where you start thinking of your students as your own children. As such, you would ask yourself, ‘so how do I prepare them for life? What do I do I do in class, so they will take whatever I teach within the four walls of the classroom, into the real world? How do I equip them so they become successful at what they wanted to be in the future

In one workshop on Character Education I attended in Singapore in March 2010, the presenter talked about the teachers’ influence as ‘having no end’. We impact our students in such a way that it can either scar them for life, or strengthen them for what’s in store in the future.

I’ve seen teachers teach so well in class. Yet, once outside the safe confines of the classroom, , where it really matters most, they talk badly about their students. They ridicule, they criticize, and yet, they have the gall to go back into class, and spew meaningless words and pretend they like their students. Such lies! And such hypocrisy.

I may not be the best teacher a student can have, but I do try my best to make my words, whether inside the class or not, to ring with truth. I will never, for example, ask a student to do something I myself, am not prepared to do, or have not even experienced.

It’s been hard to transition from being, simply, an English teacher to a teacher of Values! I thought, “Wow, I must become perfect!” But as I found out these last couple of years, you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to keep it real.

In my Grade 9 class this last quarter, I had my students working on a goal for their final project. They had to think of a character trait they’d like to acquire or get better at. The next 3 weeks, they have to keep a journal of their progress, and do a power point presentation towards the end of the 3-week period. One student, while working in class on this project, asked me, “So Miss Hedda, what IS your goal?”

I said, “To be better organized.” It wasn’t hard to look the student in the eye and tell him that, because just a few days prior, I worked on all of my students’ final projects’ guidelines, timelines and rubrics. It used to be hard for me to get organized for a whole months’ work of course work, but knowing ahead of time that I will require that much planning and work from my kids, I also pushed myself to do more than what I would require of them. And that paid off in the end.

By trying to live by the same guidelines I ask my own students to abide by, I have enough integrity to push them to challenge themselves and work on becoming people of better character. It’s not about perfection. It’s about doing the little things that really matter, on a daily basis.

For more information on this project I have designed for my Grade 9 Values class, click here. It contains guidelines, rubrics and prompts. And when this project is done, I will throw in some reflection on how the whole project went, especially on how it has benefited the students.