If struggling learners embracing homework may sound like a dream, take a moment to think how mindboggling the existence of the Reform Symposuim Conference is. VOLUNTEERS, amazing educators from all over the globe, are taking the time to organize, moderate and present a THREE DAY CONFERENCE available to any teacher, from the comfort of her/his home, for free! And so much is offered! Professional development at your doorstep, with recording available for your comfort. The future is truly here, only days away, Oct 11 to 13!

I’m pleased to play a small part of this dream come true, and will be sharing how I kindle “the romance” between struggling students and homework. For information on joining us, please see the links below:

Link to information about the conference including explainations how to attend, click here

Link to schedule showing local Jerusalem time, click here

My talk is on October 12, at five pm, Jerusalem time.

I’m excited to announce that for the first time I’ll be presenting at RSCON! It’s a truly global experience bringing together so many educators and such a wide range of topics! All available from the comfort of one’s home, and free! Just take a look at the following information (link to my talk below too):

In a few days, thousands of educators from various different countries are expected to attend a free 3 day virtual conference, The Reform Symposium, #RSCON4.  RSCON will be held October 11th to 13th in conjunction with Connected Educator Month. The entire conference will be held online using the Blackboard Collaborate webinar platform. Participants can attend this online conference from the comfort of their homes or anywhere that has Internet access. This amazing conference provides educators new or currently active on social networks the opportunity to connect with educators and professionals in the field of education worldwide.

 

Useful links (click on any item for more information):

• Opening plenary- Sugata Mitra, 2013 Ted prize winner and instigator of the Hole-in-the-Wall experiment, will speak about The Future of Learning.

• Musical guest- Steve Bingham, the internationally renowned electric violinist, will conduct a live performance.

• 10+ international keynotes

• 4 panel discussions featuring distinguished experts

• 100+ presentations by educators around the world

• 5 EdInspire Award Recipients– nominate an inspiring educator here

• Link to my presentation “Homework – A Powerful Tool for Individualizing Learning for Struggling Teen and Adult Learners” here

 

We would like to thank the incredible organizers- Shelly Sanchez Terrell, Steve Hargadon, Clive Elsmore, Chiew Pang, Kelly Tenkely, Chris Rogers, Paula White, Bruno Andrade, Cecilia Lemos, Greta Sandler, Peggy George, Marcia Lima, Jo Hart, Phil Hart, Dinah Hunt, Marisa Constantinides, Nancy Blair, Mark Barnes and Sara Hunter

We hope you can join us for this incredible professional development experience!

It took me a while to decide how to upload my talk to the blog. The following elements which made me proud at the talk itself also made it very difficult for anyone not present to understand:

* Hardly any text on slides, no reading aloud of slides

* Letting the audience actively experience some activities

The following is an adapted version. All the text you now see on the slides are for the benifit of the reader. I know that, theoretically I could have recorded myself, filmed myself and all sorts of things. But I also knew that I would never get any of that done now that I’m back to normal life again. This way, I worked on it over several nights, and here it is!

Important Notes:

All photos in the slides were taken either by Gil Epshtein or by Omri Epstein.

Thanks to Sandy Millin for posting her tweets from the talk.

Thanks to Anthony Gaughan for talking about my talk (second topic) when he was interviewed at the conference.

 

Here are the links mentioned in the talk:

1) Ms. Frizzle and The Magic School Bus

2) Scott Thornbury, ‘Disappearing Dialogues’ in “R is for Repetition”

3)) Mike Harrison: “Reverse Reading Comprehension“

4) Jason Renshaw: “Live Reading Passage Composition”

5) YALP – Yachad Accelerated Learning Project

 

 

Here is some insider information from someone who is having a GREAT time but has learned some things I’m sure no one thought to tell you before attending a  HUGE international IATEFL Conference in Britain.

Number One:

Computer bags with wheels don’t do well on cobble stones. Nor on mock cobble stones. Quite a few of the sidewalks too.

Number Two:

The hiding place of the water cooler is in the book fair. A quick run down the elevator is the fastest way to fill up your water bottle and be back in the lecture area in time for the next talk.

Number Three:

People in Liverpool are incredibly friendly and patient with Bozos who don’t know what is what when it come to British coins.

Number Four:

Don’t arrange to meet someone by the reception desk at lunch time and THEN go off to find lunch. When there are 2,500 people at one conference, all the eateries at the venue and beside it, literally run out of food. If you want to eat without going too far you have to be off like a shot.

Number Five:

It’s the WONDERFUL company that counts, not the food! It seems to be “Sandwich Heaven” around here. At this rate I’m beginning to look forward to cooking again…

Number Six:

No need to abstain from using your laptop before your presentation for fear of not having “juice”. Turns out the “Quiet Room” for presenters is absolute VIP treatment – from tea and coffee to electricity and even assistance for those who need it! oh, and did I mention cookies?

Number Seven:

Keyboards are different. Surprising. As so many people are logging onto the wifi it crashes so it’s really helpful to use the computer area. The symbols such as @ and quotation marks are in completely different places. Since my computer most certainly was manufactured abroad, I didn’t expect that.

Number Eight

When there is so much going on, so many people to talk to and so much new information (the days are really long),  it IS actually quite refreshing to sit and drink quietly alone for a while. I believe in tea, by the way.

The most important thing is to ENJOY ENJOY and ENJOY!

 

Since I can’t believe that in a week I will have the pleasure of attending another one of Prof. David Crystal’s talks in Liverpool, I thought I’d repost the following. Not only was it a pleasure to attend his talk at the Jerusalem ETAI conference, he took the time to reply to my letter! I n addition, the incident mentions marks the time when I became “the puffin”!

Here is the letter I wrote. I am not posting his reply as I have not asked his permission to do so.

Dear Professor Crystal,
I attended your lecture in Jerusalem, at the ETAI Conference in July. I enjoyed it very much. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I bought your book: “Just a Phrase I’m Going Through”. I began reading it right away. Little did I know that I would be discussing it just a few days later in what seemed to me to be the middle of nowhere!
A few days after the conference I found myself on the remote island of Skellig Michael, 12 km. off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. We had come to see the Puffins and Gannets as my son is an avid bird watcher. I was feeling worse for the wear – an hour in that sea was not something my stomach could live with (since I’m reading your book I know that you have had firsthand experience with motion sickness as well).
While standing at the “dock” waiting for the boat back (seeing the puffins in nature was worth it!) a man approached my family and asked what language we were talking in. Upon hearing the reply “Hebrew” he nodded smugly and said “I thought so!” I asked if he was interested in languages and he replied that he was only interested in the sounds of languages. I asked if he was a speech therapist and he was somewhat taken aback that I had “nailed” his profession so quickly, obviously he likes to puzzle people with that sentence. He introduced himself and said he was from Dublin. As I had just read about your lecture in the Trinity College to speech therapists, I asked the man if he had heard of you. He was dumbfounded. How had I, from Israel, heard of him? He was envious to learn that I had heard you speak in person, as he had not had the opportunity to do so himself but wanted to.
Then we started discussing what I had just read about you “adopting” the accent of the person you are talking to and do we all do it to some extent or not. A man from Uruguay joined the conversation too! Unfortunately it was rudely cut off by the arrival of the boat. Once on the boat no further conversation was possible, not only because of the sound of the engine…
I’m still reading your book and find it fascinating.
Yours,
Naomi Epstein
Israel

 

 

There’s something absolutely exciting about getting a large number of poll responses from people. It begins with a feeling of awe at the number of people who spent some time thinking about what I had asked. It’s as if I had spoken briefly to each and every one of the ONE HUNDRED AND TEN people myself.

Then came the drowning sensation. I’ve prepared many talks and usually have a very clear picture of what I want to achieve. Suddenly there was so much data! I could take it in so many directions! For a while I was stuck.

The talk was for “Shema” itinerant teachers. These are qualified teachers who tutor students with a hearing loss in elementary and junior high-school. They teach whatever subject the children  need help with, including English when necessary. But they are not English teachers and most of them aren’t Native Speakers either.

I posted survey questions in Hebrew for these teachers, both as a wake up call to be more aware of services and support they could be getting and aren’t utilizing, and as a way to get more information for myself regarding their needs.  93 itinerant teachers answered the survey questions.

I also created a survey for English teachers, which I posted on our wonderful local network, ETNI. 12 teachers answered the survey in English

I must point out that the part of posting the surveys was very easy indeed, thanks to Adele Raemenr, who introduced me to Google Docs in a session at the Jerusalem  Summer ETAI Conference.

Here are some of the results (note that the numbers refer to actual numbers, not percentages. They don’t always add up to 110 as not all the teachers answered all the questions).

The English teachers did not agree whether or not it was important for a Shema teacher to have her own copy of the teacher’s guide. There was a question of how helpful it could be for someone who was not a qualified English teacher.

Of the 30 Shema teachers who attended my talk, only one had ever looked at a teacher’s guide in English. In other subjects they had done so.

The Shema teachers, who travel from school to school, were also unaware of what they might find in the school’s “English Closet”. Here is what the English teacher’s had to say:

It was very clear from the survey that many Shema teachers do not feel comfortable aksing the classroom teacher to explain material being taught. 61 of them said they would prefer to have a special            reference/resource site for them instead of asking the teacher.

Considering the Shema teacher’s interest in having a site tailored to their needs (which already exists in a smaller format, yet hasn’t been used much!) I was surprised by the number of teachers who said that they prefer their resource material to be in printed book form – 36!

The explanation was that grammar is the topic most stressful for Shema teachers. They want to own a good book that not only has explanations in Hebrew but also has exercises for the students. They want to have it in printed form, readily available whenever needed.

I asked for information, now I can’t ignore the answers. So, now I had better get cracking on expanding the online resource material for Shema teachers. I just hope they will use it!