A Class Project on Multiculturalism

Communications have brought people from different countries and cultures closer than ever. You can "chat" with someone in New Zealand while you are in Mexico City!!! Physical distance is not a problem any more. Even more, people are increasingly migrating to other countries looking for better opportunities, to continue their education, to learn new languages, etc. It is a fact that learning from other cultures promotes empathy towards people with different nationalities, religions and races but it has also been considered as a controversial issue. Here are two videos that I have found which show positive and negative aspects of multiculturalism:

1. "Multicultural Education" What is the difference between normal and multicultural education? What is multicultural education about? What are some controversial issues about multicultural education? What do you think about multicultural education?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnJPJ2xMdG8

2. "Multicultural Project" What does this project intends to achieve? How do the participants feel about it? What is one important result of this project? Write 3 sentences that describe the project. Would you like to participate in a similar project? Why or why not?




2.

A video quizz sample using eslvideo

Talking about collaboration...."wikis"

At this point we all know what a blog is and what its features are. Now we have approached another option which main characteristic is the possibility to have various participants writing and providing ideas and knowledge to add value to a "virtual space" and that is a "wiki" . A wiki is different from a blog in the way entries are kept, there is not a chronological arrangement, in fact there isn't a specific arrangement for organizing entries. All participants can edit, review, correct, improve or write entries. Wikis can be used to collaborate with other teachers or for specific tasks with our students.

To create your wiki you have to access pbworks.com and get started! I am already working on my first "wiki" theowlsworkspace.pbworks.com and doing all this stuff for me has been like visiting a new world and an exciting challenge!

Communication Problems

What do you think is the problem? Hasn't the message been clear enough?

This video makes me think that we have to be careful when selecting videos for our classes. Even when we thnik the content is very clear, it is possible that the message is not received correctly by the students. That is why an introductory activity is important to make them focus on the relevant features. As we have learned, www.youtube.com is an outstanding source to find videos for our classes, but always keep in mind there should always be a purpose for showing one. Always prepare an introductory activity, a main activity focused on an objective and a follow up activity to assess on comprehension. Good luck!

In Short

During our first three sessions we have been able to approach technology from a theoretical point of view but most importantly, from the practical side. I have found this workshop most "enlightening". To recap what we have learned so far I would list the following:

1. A simple "ice-breaker" or "warm-up" activity, when well organized , takes only a few minutes and can bring a lot of fun to the classroom as well as motivate students to participate and get involved.
2. Acquiring new tools, such as the ones new technology can offer, helps us do things better, facilitates class presentation by providing us with the richest source of material, ideas, videos, etc. from which we can choose what suits our needs best.
3. Technology also gives us the possibility to be up to date by "attending" video conferences where the ELT gurus talk about their experiences and share their ideas. Technology has made it possible "to bring the world" into our classrooms.
4. The development of technology has moved faster during the last years and that is why there are still some technophobics; however, having a positive attitude towar technology can transform them inot "digital immigrants" and benefit from all these new sources. On the other hand, there is an increasing number of "digital natives" since children become familiar with all different types of technology since they are very young, and some of them are the technophiles which will continue working on this technological growth.
5. We have also learned how to take the best out of Power Point, which is a very useful and versatile software. The internet makes it accessible a wide variety of already-made games, activities and presentations, which can be customized according to individual needs. An example of these useful games is "jeopardy".
   
6. Word processors, besides being an every day tool for teachers as well as students, also have a revision tool which is excellent and helpful to correct and revise written work, essays, exercises, etc.
7. Google offers useful tools called "modifiers" can save us lots of time by making tasks such as currency conversion and finding words' meanings, very easy and quick.
8. Through "Blogger.com" we can create a "Blog" to improve and promote communication within the classroom. Relevant information can be summarized and made available toall our students. Comments, questions, homeworks can be posted and easily checked. However, it is important to mention that private information should never be included in a blog.
9. Web pages are another excellent source of information. It is important to state what your objectives are in order to choose the right web page, may it be an authentic page or an ELT specific page. To find the right web site, it is very important to learn how to use "search engines" such as Google, Yahoo. etc.
10. Don't forget, it is a must to have in mind what we want to achieve and how we are going to evaluate it. Always be focused on: accuracy, currency, content and functionality.
    

We learned about another useful link where you can easily find the origin of borrowed words: krysstal.com/borrow.html

Conferences on Technology and Education

http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_unplugged.html
Is the link to a Bill Gates' conference on Education. "How do you make a teacher great?" is the question he tries to answer. He talks about statistics showing an increasing level of drop outs at elementary and high school levels in the USA. Lower income is closely related to lower chances to have college education and higher possibilites of going to jail at some point. This leads to a problem: how you make education better? and what they have found is that having great teachers is the key to solve the problem. Knowing the answer, it is necessary to find the ingredients to make a teacher "great". Gates mentions that it was thought that seniority (years of experience) or a master's degree made the difference, but statistics show that neither one improves the performance levels in the students.
On the other hand, a group of teachers working with the poorest schools have had a strong effect on the performance of their students. They are constantly told about it and therefore, they are always worried about how their way of teaching is being reflected in their students' results. Keeping people engaged and having every one involved have proved to make a difference.
He also mentions that putting cameras in public schools is a way to promote great teaching by having teachers meet to discuss on good and poor performance to improve themselves and give each other advice on how to handle some student acting out. Also, good courses on any subject, can be recorded on DVDs so any student can have access to them.
A good attitude is also very important in this process.
accountcenter.digitalsamba.com/join.php?id=c5af7c9436df2eecc7729f3e0fd97b9b&afid=&pw=&r=c4ca4238a0b923820dcc509a6f75849b is the link to the video conference in which J.J. Wilson, Jill Hadfield and Jeremy Harmer give their insights about the use of technology in the teaching process (the audio isn't great at all but it is worth listening).
First of all J.J. Wilson (author of "How to teach Listening") has divided internet resources in two categories: esl sites and authentic sites.
ESL sites like www.esl-lab.com/ are FREE and easy to use because it provides a pedagogical framework that allows students to work on their own.
Authentic sites like www.youtube.com provide a variety of videos which students will enjoy but it is important that the teacher provides a task so they have a purpose to watch them, not just entertainment, for example, ask them to fill in charts with information taken from the video, will give them a purpose. If they are going to work on their own, students should be given some listening strategies, such as:

• not wasting time with unknown words, try to guess from the context.
• listen selectively trying to focus on relevant information only.
• look for transition phrases like therefore, then, although to find when an idea has been completed, contrasted, defined, etc.

He also suggests an activity where each student has to find a video or clip and presents it to the rest of the class. They have to write a comment on it so they have to listen critically and then have time to discuss and share opinions.

Jill Hadfield worked at very poor communities in Madagascar where there weren't books and she had to find ways to help teachers be able to work without any resources. She found that the value of the relationship between the teacher and the students can't be replaced by any technology. In New Zealand she has experienced the transition from low resources to high technology, where smart boards are available and therefore all kinds to tools can be brought into the classroom. Links can be set to wikis, youtube videos etc. She has found that many teachers are not used to technology but thinks that anybody can do it and once you learn it, it has very positive benefits. For example asking yourself in what ways a 'wiki' is better than a traditional assignment -dominant students won't dominate- shy students will be able to participate, ask questions, answer without feeling threatened, it can help to improve the relationship with all the students.

Jeremy Harmer is considered as a "technophile", however he mentions he was reluctant to use power point, but after watching other people's presentations, he started willing to use it and considers it is a very powerfull tool. You discover that you can do the same things but much better, however, you must have something interesting to say so it makes sense using it. Getting involved in technology for him is a way of keeping up with life, making it interesting, exciting and being constantly engaged.
His worst technology experience has been when technology doesn't work and you have to go back to do things in the old way.
One of his best experiences has been teaching on-line discussions because it gives you the possibility to work with people from different places, sharing opinions, providing ideas, etc. Also, he is very fond of twitter which for him is a great device and which requires a good level of self expression, it forces you to summarize, etc.

So don't be scared at technology, let it seduce you!!

Finding ppt templates in the internet

Power Point templates are a great source for us teachers as we can design activities which are suitable for our particular needs. I have designed "Jeopardy" ppts to review a grammar topic or as warm up to introduce a new one. Make them challenging enough, set clear rules and instructions before you start, make sure everyone knows what the mechanics is. The content depends on you. It is also possible, when you have a computer lab available, to have students design their own games using templates to later use them with the whole class.

I have found the following useful sites:
1. Through "filetype:pdf elt worksheets" I got to a very interesting site which offers a variety of worksheets: www.usingenglish.com/handouts

2. I tried "filetype: ppt interactive games templates" and I got several links at:
www.ittechno.com/links/powerpoint.html there I found a PowerPoint Tutorial 2007 (www.fgcu.edu/support/office2007/ppt/index.asp) This is very useful in case you are not familiar with power point, and as my teacher says, "don't run until you've learned how to walk". It helps a lot to understand how to do things from scratch in order to personalize the already-made material available in the internet.

3. From the page we found in class for the "jeopardy game" (jc-schools.net/ppt.htm/)I clicked on "Game Resources", under "Templates" I found great stuff like: Classroom Game Templates & More (www.murray.k12.ga.us/teacher/kara leonard/) This link gives you a long list of possibilities. Also vickiblackwell.com/ppttemplates.html provides other interesting links like "Brainy Betty" which includes videos, fonts, sounds, etc.

I went back to the "Templates" list and clicked on "PowerPoint Templates" which provides another list and I picked "Internet4Classrooms" (internet4classrooms.com/on-line_powerpoint.htm/games) there, under "Game Templates" I found "Battleship" and a "Baseball" templates, which are also doable.

I think I'd rather stop here--I found many more interesting links like factstaff.uww.edu/jonesd/games, but it is a never ending story!! So far I'm happy, I found really great material.
One last thing that I don't want to forget tech1.coe.uga.edu/wwild/pptgames/templates.html "Homemade Power Point Games" has a couple of easy-to use templates.
Conclusion: The internet has an infinite number of sources and resources but it takes long hours to find the right thing. We should be very clear as to what our objectives are, and once we have something we can handle, it is better to use our time customizing it to fit our own targets.

Some of these links might not be available at this time, but start creating your own resources bank to have it available anytime. At the beginning you will need to invest time and work, but you will be able to reuse your materials with different classes, ot just make slight modifications.

I hope you enjoy the process!

Use of technology in the classroom

Last Monday August 3 was my first class in the use of technologies for teaching English. Our instructor, Erik, presented a video of a speech given by Bill Gates on Education in which he posts an interesting question about what it takes to be a great teacher. The video is available at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjgefzz5t2M

By the way, I suggest you also visited the site: www.ted.com where you can access talks about different topics such as technology, science, culture, etc., a good resource for teachers.

A video conference with the participation of Jeremy Harmer, J.J. Wilson and Jill Hadfield was also presented in the class. These experts talked about the use of technology in the classroom.
Valuable insight was provided by these people. Jeremy Harmer talks about how useful it is to film teachers for different reasons, I think it is a great source for self evaluation and techniques improvement. There is a video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuG6jUTeQlw&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLA2FA1EEE51FF9C72

We also had an "ice-breaker" activity which I loved and I think is very easy to use in any classroom. Although we had access to personal computers and word processor, it can be done using paper and pencil. Participants just write their first name at the top of the page, then leave some space and list five words or phrases which are meaningful to them. When it is done, participants go around others' pages and write why they think that person wrote that word signing his or her name. Each participant goes back to his/her place and reads others' comments. Finally, each student shares with the class the reason for writing the words in the list.

To close this entry, I would like to share another video link which has interesting ideas about what being a good teacher is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jh9qkTK52w

By the way, did you see the film "Dead Poets Society", I think is an excellent film that reflects much of a teacher's essence!

Cheers!

The Beginning

Ludwig Wittgenstein said: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" ("Los límites de mi lenguaje significan los límites de mi mundo") which makes me think about the importance of languages in our globalized world -they are the key to communication- until there is a universal language, we will eventually have to become active language learners if we want to be involved in the development of human kind.
As teachers, we have to know our subject really well, we have to do a lot of research, to show our students enthusiasm about learning. However, it is sometimes hard to find the time to do this. I have found that internet is a great tool, but it can take hours until you find something that is really useful and helpful for your classes.
Through years of work as a teacher, I have gathered some excellent web pages and a variety of documents, videos, etc. and I would like to put together all these tools as well as materials and ideas in this space, to share them with other teachers who are also welcome to contribute to enlarge this collection.
It will take some time to do it, but I expect it will be worth the effort.
I am also taking a Diplomado at UNAM and I want to use this space as a "log" to write my reflections on what I learn in my classes...

The following link shows and interesting article about the origin of language and it includes the audio version too. I hope you like it..

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi989.htm