Hi! I teach English as a foreign language to deaf and hard of hearing students in Israel and am a national counselor in this field.
http://visualisingideas.edublogs.org
I’ve always been under the impression that the students who are good at spelling are also good at math. Something to do with analytical thinking, I surmised.
At yesterday’s great #eltchat on spelling, (see an equally great summary of the chat here!) a few teachers disagreed and thought that if there is any connection at all, it is a negative connection; great spellers were not strong math students.
It seems to me to be a good idea to enlarge the sample and throw the question out into blogosphere. I would be delighted if you could take a moment and answer these two questions:
1) Were you good at spelling when you were a child?
Since we owe a big THANK YOU to the British Council for bringing fascinating guests to local events, I think it is suitable to use the title for the Pecha Kucha event (hosted by the British Council as well) : Good things come in threes
One Gavin Dudeney, three experiences for me!
The very first session I chose to go at ETAI didn’t take place. While there are sessions cancelled due to unforseen circumstances at every conference, there was some lack of clarity regardng the situation and there was no note on the door. A group of people were sitting in the room, waiting and talking and it so happened that Gavin Dudeney had joined the teachers sitting directly behind me! At conferences I must admit to being rather excited and perhaps somewhat pushy and I butted right into the conversation! Its quite exciting to meet someone in person who knows (not just virtually) all these people from #eltchat! Luckily he was very friendly and patient and didn’t look at me oddly when I came to him the next day to say that I had tweeted from his session and it was my first time EVER tweeting from a conference! But most importantly, he meant what he said when he told me to write him regarding my question relating to technology and my deaf / hard of hearing students. HE REPLIED! I don’t take such things for granted.
I attended two sessions of Gavin Dudeney’s talks. In the first he talked about different kinds of digital litercies but kept us all on our toes with all kinds of questions. That was no easy task becasue the room was PACKED and people were sitting almost on top of him. The airconditioner in the room wasn’t geared for such a crowd. Dudeney seemed unruffled and simply took off his jacket
I particulary liked his emphasis that we should be interested in PEOPLE using technology, the skills people needed to know so that technology would work for PEOPLE!
The second session focused more on practical applications. Adele Raemer, in the preceeding session, had shown us the power of Word Clouds (among many other things!) and Dudeney emphasized this, citing research that there are advantages to students not always seeing words in straight lines. He gave us a very powerful demonstration of how having an audience (online) can help students improve their speaking skills. This time the session took place in the auditorium!
The third experience was just watching Gavin Dudeney present and participate in the Pecha Kucha. One of the great things about ETAI is that we are all teachers sharing our work. However, I found it very instructive to see a seasoned presenter in action. I was as interested in the HOW as in the WHAT. Dudeney had all of us glued!
The room was packed to hear Leo Selivan’s (British Council) talk on:
Does the word “synonym” have a synonym?
Leo began with giving us an historical background, explaining about Latinate and Germanic influences, but didn’t get “bogged down” there. All through the session he encouraged participation and there was a lively debate regarding words that are synonyms and those that aren’t really. Part of the “arguments” had to do with the fact that some of the teachers in the audience speak “American English” while others speak “British English”. I was particularly interested in the debate about whether or not the words “child” and “infant” are synonyms. As a native speaker from the USA those words seem totally different to me. I knew it was used differently in French because of the movie “Au revoir les enfants” (louie Malle). In that movie the children were certainly not under the age of two!
Leo ended the talk with some practical suggestions for the classroom.
Here’s a link to a related blog post by Leo Selivan:
I can’t stress enough how great a writer I think Atwood is. The powerful way in which she uses words, the way more information is slowly fed to us is keeping me completely hooked.
It wasn’t my first choice as an audiobook (you may remember that I had wanted to listen to Patchett’s Bel Canto, which I then found in the library!) because I had a misconception that an audiobook should be a comparatively “light” book. Not true! A good reader (the reader here is excellent!) makes all those thoughts and descriptions come alive. When Iris wonders about something, you HEAR the wonder in her voice and so much more!
Really recommend this and recommend the exprience of LISTENING to this book!
The instructions were 20 slides, 20 seconds for each slide. Short and preferably amusing.
I adapted an old post of mine, “How to Steal Like a Teacher” (which was adapted from Austen Kleon’s post “How to Steal Like An Artist”. He has since turned the post into a book) and turned it into 20 slides. I thought that because I was using something that I had prepared it wouldn’t be a lot of work but it WAS and I was quite nervous.
I’ve presented in front of a large audience before but not that large and not so fast! There was no time to pause and see if everyone got the point or found a picture I chose amusing. I usually give talks without holding papers but here it seemed important to say the concise sentences I had prepared so I had index cards. I didn’t always look at them though.
Leo Selivan from the British Council was the host. He categorized the six presentations in this manner:
I defined mine as inspirational. There were quite a few “blame it on the host” ones! Most of the presentations were very funny. I settled for “inspirational”!
Leo showed a preview slide for each presentation. Here’s mine:
So, here is the slide show of my presentation. Its just the visuals, of course, but I hope you can enjoy it anyway!
At the ETAI 2012 Conference, in Jerusalem, we hashed out our very first OUPUT list. We formulated
Seven Do s and Don’t s on:
How to Sane and Motivated Over the Years
Before you read this, it was really interesting to note how recommendations that appeared on the list were reflected in the conference itself.
For example:
At the Peka Kucha we learned that our very own “watermelon artist” , Avraham, obviously is enjoying his hobby! And Adele shared with us how good it makes her feel to be a medical clown! Recommendation number two got strong support!
A very different example occured in one of the sessions – humor is a wonderful thing but one has to employ it carefully. One of the presenters had a brief moment of misunderstanding when someone who attended misunderstood her humor. Never fear, it was immediatly cleared up and all is well!
In addition, it seems the principal of the host school (who gave a welcoming talk) was reflecting on the “don’t” of point number three…
And don’t forget the many tech talks, some of them presenting tools to help teachers implement recommendation number five!
Finally, all of us at ETAI were following recommendation number SEVEN!
So, here is the list (it will be posted everywhere possible!):
Number one:
Do – Reflect on lessons that went well – build on THOSE.
Don’t – Don’t obsess over lessons that didn’t work out – Let it go. Number two:
Do – Have a hobby / relaxing activity to engage in.
Don’t – Don’t say yes to everything the school wants you to do. Number three:
Do – Have a sense of humor (Warning! Beware of sarcasm).
Don’t – Don’t take everything seriously. Number four:
Do – Have a shoulder to cry on / someone who will let you vent.
Don’t – Don’t let your issues at school spill into your private life. Number five:
Do: Collaborate and divide the work with other teachers.
Don’t: Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Number six:
Do: Count to ten.
Don’t: Don’t forget to take care of yourself. Number seven:
Do: Engage in ongoing Professional Development.
Don’t: Don’t try to constantly reinvent the wheel.
Things didn’t turn out as I expected them to but not all was lost. In fact something was gained.
First, the sad truth – only two teachers attended the session. I took a picture of the wall of classroom ( I came early) and the message was apt:
There are many reasons for this. As ETAI has been my home turf for over 20 years and I’ve experienced both ends of the spectrum (more than 45 teachers, some sitting on the floor, when presenting practical srategies for the classroom, to talks with 2 or three people when presenting about students with a hearing loss) I know the reasons aren’t personal.
There were 10 sessions going on at the same time. People came up to me and said they weren’t coming because they really couldn’t miss the session on using body language in class or the one on accomodations for students with a learning disability on national exams because they needed this for class.
In addition, it was supposed to be an ETAI output thing. I did not “bug” the conveners enough so as to have it in planned as part of one the general conference sessions. In all fairness, I hadn’t given enough thought to that aspectand was busy teaching – that’s hindsight.
More hindsight is that it turns out there was wifi at the venue – a nice idea would to have teachers over twitter contibuting their suggestions.
HOWEVER,
The teachers that did come were wonderful! They are very experienced and took the topic very seriously. We had the kind of discussion I envisioned and it was great! You would think that with so few teachers there would be no reason to elaborate and make your case but the limit to only seven items really caused us to discuss which points are THE ones to get across.
And now I’ve had some (albeit small) experience being a moderator!
The fact that there IS an output from this session means the ball will continue rolling. I’ve already begun drawing attention to the list we produced!
The list itself will go up shortly in the next post.
My debut as a moderator at the first OUTPUT Session ever to be held at an ETAI (English Teacher’s Association in Israel) Conference will be next Tuesday.
I’ve advertised the session (on our Israeli online list) as one where we will tap into the vast experience of our ETAI members and join forces to formulate an agreed list of ONLY seven “Dos” and “Dont’s” on the subject which is currently being chosen by poll.
I’ve also advertised the fact that I’m intending to have a “Critical Brainstorming” discussion rather than a regular “Brainstorming” one: Brainstorming means writing EVERY single idea / suggestion on the board. However here, we can only have a limited number of recommendations. Teachers should be prepared to defend or POLITELY disagree as we HASH OUT our final list. Since the goal is to produce a concise list that will be useful and can be widely posted, brevity and clarity are vital.
The topic leading the pollby far is “staying sane and motivated over the years”. Fifty four people have taken the poll but I have no idea (at all!) how many intend to attend the session.
I have a colleague who will come and help me with keeping written track of the suggestions.
I will bring in extra markers for the whiteboard.
I will bring a few suggestions of my own.
I will have the runner-up topic ready as well in case it goes really quickly (“dealing with technology”).
I’m preparing my third lesson for my class of 38 adult students.
Photo by Omri Epstein
They had their first quiz in the previous lesson. As the topic of their online exercises (this course has an e-learning component) and our first lesson dealt with the information to be gained by reading the title, names, numbers, etc., the quiz had a short and very simple text with facts about the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada. The questions were designed to have short answers too.
I’ve checked all the quizzes.
I know these students were placed in this group (weakest) based on an exam they took, which I hadn’t checked. I don’t check the exercises they do online either. While some students participate actively during the lessons and make themselves noticed right away others do not. Some place themselves at the far end of those long rows of desks that cannot be moved. I can’t even look over their shoulders to see what they’ve written when they sit there.
Now I know which are the ones (only three!) that tried to answer a rhetorical question inside the text itself as if it were another question. Now I know how many students didn’t notice the only question that had two parts. Now I can show the students why we’re going to be spending some time on grammar this lesson – not only is on the syllabus but it is related to mistakes they made.
I still can’t conjure the face behind each of the 38 names. But now that the list of names is connected to things they have written (or the manner in which they wrote them, how they organized their answers on the page) I’m hoping to have made great strides in remembering their names by the end of lesson three.
This lesson’s quiz is just a vocabulary quiz – much shorter. It will be easier to check too, not much to comment on. But that’s fine, its already the second quiz.
At the end of the first lesson a few students came to me to ask if I check their online exercises too. I think the question was based on their desire to know who is “noticing” the effort they are making. They have exercises, a reader to read and flashcards on Quizlet to practice.
It seems that even a quiz with a grade provides “a human touch”, saying “I see you”!
Teaching English as a FOREIGN language to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students
