FM Learn

Investivated this tool, as it was recommended to me for free meetings.  Worth knowing about as it is free (it's run by the Open University) and you can host meetings, see each other and talk as wellas synchronous chat, and share a whiteboard (and files) but you can't upload a Powerpoint presentation, so it won't be any use to me for the course. 

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/blocks/learning_tools/learning_tool.php?courseid=3101&tool=fm

Should we teach this at all?

Another interesting opinion from Neil McMahon on the celta e-mail list:

My personal opinion is that a pre-Celta grammar course probably does more harm than good.  First of all, without having started to get the classroom experience that doing Celta brings, the trainees won't have much idea of what they're learning the grammar for and may well find the course daunting and demotivating and what they do learn will probably still be contradicted in other sources or be too much for them to convey to students.

My main concern, however, is that surely such courses continue to perpetuate the unnecessary over-emphasis on grammar in the world of ELT in general, perpetuated by many Celta courses and particularly by many course books and school syllabi and assessment systems.  Where is the pre-Celta vocab course? Or functions course or phonology course?  Our trainees have as many if not more problems with these aspects of language than they do with grammar and we certainly don't expect them to have a good grip of any of them before the Celta starts or even during their first years teaching, so why should grammar be any different?  

Please let your Celta candidates discover all the beautiful intricacies of the English language system and how they can clarify them for their students in their own good time and in their own good (or bad) ways.  The Celta itself is a perfectly adequate way to begin this process. 

Marisa's thoughts

Really interesting post from Marisa Constantinides (she of the great blog...) today.  She runs a similar course to the one I'm thinking of, and has had trouble selling it... (see below)

 I have run several language awareness courses as well as CEELT prep

> courses and truly lament the exctinction of CEELT I & II which

> addressed exactly language teachers need in the classroom

>

> More recently we started to offer an online synchronous grammar for

> English Language Teachers course which you can read about here:

>

> http://www.celt.edu.gr/grammar4teacherz.htm

>

> One of the things which I have come to see, however, is that these

> courses are difficult to 'sell' as I have very often found that even

> if I suggest a course such as this to a teacher as a pre-CELTA prep

> course, they very often apply to another centre which accepts the same

> candidate without a murmur

>

Using Voice and Timing

The session tonight was on the Present Perfect.  It's the first of the part II course lessons, ie the first time I've been explaining grammar rather than just explaining what things are called.  It was largely quite successful, but went on for much longer than I  had planned - about 90 mins, not 60.  I thin this was necessary, to be honest, I couldn't have done it justice in less, but I may have to rethink the times - maybe this part II has to have 90 minute sessions.

More trouble with the breakout rooms and the (not responding) signal.  I'll have to get on to Adobe again - this only seems to have happened since they changed the programme - I want the old one back!!

What was interesting tonight was that people were comfortable to use voice for the first time.  I had a lot more vocal feedback and much less text chat.  Not sure whether this is good or bad as it meant that some of the participants were less involved, but it made it feel more like an interactive classroom environment.  Not sure how this will work if the group is much bigger.....

Started to think about a website - I'll need one if this is going to be a commercial venture.  There's a lot of interest in the pilot course (it is free, though....) - I've had 15 people sign up in 2 days - what is really interesting is that they are not in any way all pre-celta trainees - a lot of them are post celta or qualified teachers in a job......  There may be a lot of mileage in this.

Does it have to be Pre-CELTA?

I've been up to my ears in lovely e-mails over the past couple of days.  It was suggested to me (thanks David Hare) that I put something on the CELTA e-mail list about my ideas for the course, and having done so, have had loads of support, encouragement and good ideas.  One of the things that came through was that it wasn't only before the course that this kind of information was useful, and that it was often only during or after celta that trainees realise how much they need to know and perhaps have the schema to embed the new knowledge more effectively. 

There were also some good ideas about sources for information - nothing new, but well timed reminders that Parrott, Aitken and Thornberry will be good friends to have over the next few months.......

With all of this motivation going on, I decided that I needed to strike whilst the iron was hot, so I have put out some information to publicise my first 'proper' (but still free) course, starting in April.  That was about 9am - this evening I already had 4 e-mails from people wanting to do the course - wow!

This is the advert:

Just about to do a CELTA?

Worried about the grammar?

I may be able to help!

I am a CELTA tutor in the UK and am running an on-line class in real time in a virtual classroom to help you to prepare.  If you’ve never done this kind of thing before, you’ll be able to see me on a webcam, see a whiteboard, hear me talk and talk to me and other participants. 

The course is FREE, and all I ask is some feedback from you afterwards, as I am using this for an MA research project.

The course will be in two parts –

·         Part I – 5 x 1 hour sessions on naming parts of speech and tenses.

·         Part II – 7 x 1 hours sessions.  A closer look at some of the trickier parts of grammar (such as the present perfect tense and conditionals).

All you need is a computer with a broadband connection, speakers and a microphone (if you don’t have the latter two, you can buy a headset very cheaply).

The course will begin in April.  If you are interested, please e-mail me, and I will send you the web address you need to log on, and the timetable.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Jo Gakonga                 gakonga.family@onetel.com

Two different courses?

Had more nightmare problems with the system last night - whenever I tried to move people to breakout rooms, the programme kept freezing up (not responding) on the screen.  The Powerpoint froze on two occasions, too and I had to reload it.  Will talk to Adobe today. I suspect it's glitches with the new system.

Had a bright idea this morning.  I could offer a 'foundation level' course with just 4 or 5 hour long sessions covering parts of speech and verb tenses, active and passive ie just the nomenclature, and then a further add-on going over some of the more tricky parts of the grammar eg present perfect, relative clauses, the future etc.  This would mean that I could offer the first one very cheaply and a lot of people might feel that this was all they needed (even if it really wasn't, but at least it'd be something and it'd be affordable for everyone.)

What happens when the technology doesn't work?

Tonight was really quite a frustration!  Adobe have updated the system (which, to be fair they did warn me they were going to do) and so the layout was a bit different, and took a bit of getting used to.  More concerning was that when I rtied to use the breakout rooms, the whole system seemed to freeze up - I kept getting a (not responding) title on the top of my screen.  Now whether this was due to the new system, or just the connection tonight, I'm not sure, but it was so frustrating.  I had to log out and log back in twice and then there is a lot of hassle in trying to ascertain whether or not people can hear you again, etc.  In the end, I decided not to bother with the breakout rooms and just to use the whole room scenario.  This was a shame, though.  The metality seems to be that people don't want to use voice in the main room and are happier to text chat, but will use voice in the breakout rooms. Snce using voice makes the whole expereince so much richer and more immediate, I'll have to hope that we can fix the problems with the breakout rooms......

Thought this was interesting in general, and specfically the highlighted bit!

 

Re: Breaking down the walls of the classroom + Virtual Worlds

Posted by: "Sven Cederberg" sven@forumeducation.net   svenceder

Sat Feb 12, 2011 5:05 pm (PST)

Hi Nik and all,

In your replies to Pete, Ron, and me, you touch on the very core of
breaking down the walls of the square classroom - AUTONOMY.

The teacher's prime task is, has always been and will always be, to
guide his/her students towards autonomy, or as I prefer to call it -
self-reliant learning. You point out, Nik, that "all children are born
as autonomous learners, an ability that is later 'beaten' out of them by
schools". Well, at least the portenial to develop autonomy. Instead of
saying that the ability is "beaten out of them" you could say that many
learners won't develop the ability when they are faced with learning
tasks they cannot see the immediate benefits of. In The Seven Keys to
Self-reliant Learning, I make a distinction between spontaneous and
directed learning. In spontaneous learning, e.g. when teenagers are
tinkering with their mopeds, autonomy is 'plugged in' automatically.
Directed learning, in my terminology, concerns the kind of things you
(feel you) are forced to learn, e.g. brushing you teeth or to read and
write. There are great individual differences when it comes to what is
spontaneous and what is felt as forced upon you. In order to accomplish
the goal of guiding his/her students towards self-reliant learning
(accepting directed learning tasks), the teacher must have the
competence it takes to provide individualized learning opportunities in
challenging, creative and relaxed learning environments, be a super
motivator, and constantly work on the balance between spontaneous and
directed learning tasks.
Education is faced with tremendous challenges: The more complicated a
society gets, the more directed learning is needed, which in turn puts
ever-increasing burdens on the shoulders of teachers and teacher
trainers - not to mention our poor students. Over the past century we
have seen basic education for blue-collar workers go from six to twelve
years. We are now witnessing how lots of young people drop out of
school, and how boys are falling behind the girls in all subjects.
Naturally you could say that we humans cannot cope with the fast
development of technology and other major societal changes, but I don't
think we should sit down and wait for the inevitable holocaust. We need
to address the educational challenges that threaten to bury us in an
enormous avalanche. We need to better understand the possibilities and
the limitations of human potential and how that potential is transformed
into competence by learning.

Learning must not be seen as something that "prepares you for life" in a
square classroom, it has to be regarded as the most essential part of
your life from birth to death. The roles of our teachers and their
students must be clearly understood and appreciated. That's why I have
been trying to get you guys to dress the incomplete teacher so that not
only the square classroom walls are knocked down and teachers realize
the potential of extramural learning, but more importantly so that we
all get better prepared for the avalanche.

Best regards,
Sven

Onward ever onward...

Just finished a session - 9 people came and it's getting easier.  Made much more use of the breakout rooms tonight and this worked well, especially for those who had microphones - I think I'm going to encourage people more strongly to get microphones, because it's a much richer experience for all if you can use voice.  Discovered that the participants can move the slide show on themselves when they are in the breakout groups, so that was a bit of a revelation, and made managing them much easier.  I asked the learners about the breakouts and they were very positive about them - said that they gave them time to think.

In terms of the material, had a bit of a re-think about what is important to teach them.  Things do go slower in  on-line teaching, and I think I am being drawn into too much detail (especially with pronouns.....) I need to pare it back a bit and keep up the levels of practice.

Thoughts from Nik Peachy

This was posted on the IATEFL ttedsig group  - digest number 1206  - 9th Feb 2011.  Thought it was interesting.
"Teaching is (broadly) a transferable skill and a good face-to-face teacher will
usually (not always) find that they are able to transfer
their good practice to new environments; their ability to reflect will enable
them to deal with the
difficulties / obstacles they encounter. "

This one I tend not to agree with. I think there are some teachers, possibly
exceptionally good ones, who will work best because they have a very direct face
to face connection to their students in class and for these teachers I think it
can be very difficult to transfer that to the online environment which can seem
very 'cold' and devoid of the kinds of paralingusitc 'clues' that many teachers
depend on. Teaching online can also undermine many of the very physical gestures
and techniques that classroom teachers use. It can be difficult and take a long
time to rebuild these and develop the same degree of comfort with expressing
yourself through your computer and digital tools.

These are just a few examples. I think it's a bit like saying that somepone who
is a good cyclist can tranfer those skills to become a good lorry driver. Well
yes, many of those skills are transferable, like respect for other road users,
knoledge of the rules of the road etc, but they also need a lot of support and
training to develop new skills and techniques too and time to adjust to a very
different environment with very different sensory indictators and connections.

best

Nik Peachey

Voice or Chat?

Just finished my first session in my bigger room - I had 8 participants, four of whom were the same people who came last week, so were really seeing the same thing again.  A couple of interesting things - one is that the number of people who are interested in this is quite a bit lower than I had hoped - only 8 out f 23 trainees - and (of course) the really weak trainees who need it most aren't coming. I guess that you can lead a horse to water.....

On a more technical note, although the voice option seems to work quite well with ConnectPro, it's interesting that most people don't seem to want to use it and are much more comfortable with the text chat option.  This has the advantage that it's easy to get answers and feedback from a wider number of people, but it's less personal from my point of view.  The new session went well, though - I estimated the amount of material much better and the visuals were good.

Another small technical hiccup is that when you put them into the breakout rooms, the powerpoint presentation in each room is on the first page (ie hasn't moved on.) Not sure if there is a way around this, but it'd be helpful if there were - I can't leave them with a quiz, because they're not on the right page.

How to do it better...

I signed up to Adobe Connect yesterday, so now I have a room that I can fit 100 people in (wow!) at a cost of around £40 a month.  I spoke on-line to the trainees in their input session, so now they all know what's available and we'll see how many turn up tonight at 8pm.

I've been thinking about the differences between this kind of on-line teaching and face to face classes (f2f).  It is a different animal, and is going to require some different techniques, I think, or at least a rethinking of the emphasis of different things.

The main two differences (and they're related) are that you can't see the learners' body language, and that makes it more difficult to ask them questions and have any idea of whether or not you're going to embarrass them.  In a class, you stand a good chance of knowing if they know.. not so, on line.

The other thing is similar, but related to the teacher, and is that it's easy in a class to create an atmosphere with your personality - you can sense the mood, run with it, and use your own energy to 'gee things up' where necessary.  This isn't so easy on-line.  I've been pondering how to help to inject more interest into the sessions (although, to be fair, the learners seem to like it so far, anyway).  I've re-adjusted the parts of speech session so that it's got about half the content of the original, includes lots of images, cartoons, etc and has a 'quick quiz' slide after each new bit of input -four in all.  Let's see how that goes....

Adobe Connect and keeping it simple

Tried this out last night.  I think it's going to be my vehicle of choice.  It only needs Flash Player, which apparently is pretty universal and only has one version, and the interface is nice. You can use Powerpoint and the animations work and there is the possibility of breakout rooms.  Having said that, I tried to use this facility last night and it seemed to result in the screen going blank and all of the learners losing sound and vision!  I thinkmore practice is needed with the software, preferably in a room where we can all see each other and play around with it a bit. 

Adobe is better with voice, too.  I only had 3 people  there, so I gave them all microphone rights and they can just press 'talk' when they want to put their microphones on (thus avoiding all of the feedback issues I had with Elluminate (which were probably my fault...)  Interestingly, though, they weren't all that keen on using the voice option and still prefered the 'chat' option often.  Not sure why - I'll have to ask them.  There is a bit of a delay with the voice communication, it's not as easy as speaking on the phone, for example, and it wasn't all that easy to hear all of the participants.  All bugs to iron out, I'm sure.

The other thing is simply that I'm still, despite paring back this session, putting in too much.  This isn't about the on-line part of it, I don't think, but just about what they do and don't know.  I HAVE to go back much more to basics - I tried to look at overall meanings of the perfect and continuous forms, but this was too much - I'm going to re-plan it looking just at the form.  It's hard, as always, with this kind of stuff, to see it from the trainees' point of view.  The nomenclature of the verb system seems so straightforward to me, but it really isn't to them.

Onwards and upwards......

Click Meeting

Just tried out this site.  It's quite nicely laid out, and it's on a 30 day free trial for a room with 25 person capacity.  More importantly, you don't seem to need to have any plug ins to run it.  The drawback is that you can load Powerpoint presentations, but like Elluminate, the slides will show but the animations don't work, so you can't easily reveal things.  I guess you'd have to put them on separate slides.  Adobe is better in this respect.