Archive for September, 2007

By the kind of happy coincidence that only happens once in a blog lifetime a reader has mentioned they are looking for some flashcard games (see Ana’s question below), a friend has asked me for some kids’ games for a workshop, and I happen to have all the ideas already written up for a book proposal I wrote a few years ago. The ideas are below, and I’ve also included the book proposal as a page on the right (Book proposal- Kids’ activities for everything) in case anyone wants to write one too- bear in mind that this one was unsuccessful though!

Flashcard and Drilling Games
Introduction
One of the main reasons why parents and education authorities want children to start learning foreign languages early is so they can pick up correct pronunciation while their brains are still young. Especially at the younger ages, correction has little effect and children pick up correct pronunciation as they hear and use the language many times. The problem then is that (more…)

After rather a long break, the Alternative TEFL Jargon Dictionary is back!

Defective modals- This somewhat negative expression for modals that do not have a seperate past or future form (e.g. must) is now being replaced by the expression “modal with special future and past needs”

Mixed abilities- Strictly speaking, this means classes where students have a differing ability to pick up the language or differing prefered ways of doing so, although it is often used to mean classes where students have a different starting level. Recent test have shown that teachers who mix their sandwich ingredients, especially those that add crisps and/ or peanut butter to everything, or more likely to be able to deal with and enjoy mixed ability classes.

Morpheme- A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language and a morpheme cannot be broken down further. It can however change shape at will, jump through a solid table and pester you when you are trying to draw something on “Take Hart“.

Perfect- Perfect tenses are made from the verb have plus the past participle. The names of the “Present Perfect” etc. come from a groundbreaking psychological study of student errors that show that students who overuse the Past Perfect tend to idiolise the past etc.

Person- In linguistics, this refers to the use of the “first person” (me), “second person” (you) and “third person” (he/ she etc.). However, some American university Liberal Arts academics believe that these terms perpetuate the selfish individualistic tendancies of right wing society and propose the alternative terms “equal first person”, “also equal first person” and “just as equal as all the others first person”.

Phatic language- Language used for social purposes such as chit chat rather than to acheive a particular task. Derived from the street word “phat“.

Phoneme- This is the technical linguistic term for the gesture of holding your hand up to the side of your head with thumb and little finger extended while you wave at someone in a train that is pulling away from the platform.

Polyseme- Something with many semes.

Polysemy- Many semies.

Portfolio- A portfolio is a method of testing where students are given marks for a selection of work they have put together rather than/ as well as a final test. The difference between a project and a portfolio is that with a portfolio the teachers give more credit for being in a nice leather binder.

PPP- Presentation Practice and Production. This is a natural form of language learning that was based on how babies naturally learn. For example, presenting the language is like showing a baby a lovely Playdoh model of a banana you have just made and handing it over to them. Students practicing that language is like when the baby randomly massages the yellow Playdoh, occassionally coming up with something that looks vaguely like a banana but then mangling it again straight after. When students are given the chance to produce that language in free communication is like when the baby hands you back 10% of the yellow plasticine (the rest being all over the floor and their clothes) in a random shape with a proud look on their faces, and you try your best to look pleased and say “What a nice banana!”

Prediction- When you make a prediction about something in the future you are talking about something that, unlike an arrangement (Present Continuous) or a plan (Going to), is somehow out of your hands. Language used to give predictions include the verbs “will” (e.g. “If I teach ‘will’ for the future first, all the students will talk about things which should be used with ‘going to’”).

Present Simple- The tense used in English to talk about routines, habits etc. It is called “simple”, because it is very easy for students to understand that you only time you change it is when you add the “third person s” with “he”, “she” or “it”. Anyone who fails to use this correctly in the first few weeks of English instruction can therefore safely be told to give up.

Priming- The way in which words are stored in the mind by forming associations with other words. The word comes from how watching a student trying to trace back through their memory to find a word they studied in week one until it finally dawns on them looks just like watching a fuse on one of those comedy bombs burning down until it sets off the flash of an explosion.

Process writing- Teaching students to enjoy the process of writing so much that they never actually want to finish a piece of writing, because that would mean they have to stop.

Word class- A word class is a group of words that act in the same way, for example eat peas in the same way or buy the same kinds of things in Marks and Spencers.

You can see some older entries below or on the “the Alternative TEFL jargon dictionary” article on the Articles page.

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/archives/100

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/archives/130

First of all, I should point out that a supernova sounds like a good thing (Oasis song and all), but actually it is a giant explosion that swallows up a solar system, so not really something a language school should want to be associated with…

Anyhows, although there isn’t much new news about the imminent explosion in the super-sized chain of Japanese Eikaiwa English conversation schools (crossing my fingers that any big developments come after my EL Gazette story comes out and so it doesn’t seem totally outdated), the rest of the world is slowly catching on to the story.

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There is one person (and only one) who, despite me explaining very clearly several times how I was going to delete everything they wrote without reading it, continues to try to gate crash a TEFLtastic party they are not invited to, including changing the name they use to try to slip through the net. Luckily or unluckily, they still continue using the same hectoring tone and I can quickly spot them and delete those messages too. Unfortunately, I still feel miffed at wasting another 2 minutes of my life reading what they have written, until I notice the new name and can go back to my old scheme of just skimming past. Here is my latest attempt to free myself of this once and for all:

Dear Glenski (or Joe, or Greg, or whatever- you are incidentally the only person I have ever known not to use a real name on the English Teachers in Japan Yahoo group, no doubt because you could not go around pissing off the important people on that list if they knew who you were)

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Another wake up call from the world of sumo for anyone feeling nostalgic for the good old days of samurai when the Japanese respected their elders:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,2177780,00.html

I guess the fact that the wrestler tried to run away gives us some hope that the younger generation is not going to put up with this kind of bullying anymore. Unfortunately, their chief escape seems to be one into unreality and infantilism.

I know at least five Japanese women in their thirties who have had enough of the bullying and bitching at work and quit. Unfortunately, rather than quit to set up their own business, they have quit to move back in with their parents, spend more time on their flamenco dancing etc. etc. Not that this is unheard of in the UK and the rest of Europe, of course, but then again that is another region in terminal decline…

My last little anecdote to show why “the new generation that is changing Japan” stories faded away as quickly as they came. While doing IELTS practice speaking tests with one class of 21 students, mainly 18 to 21 year olds who are planning to study abroad next year, 4 of them told me of their plans to become a “dolphin trainer”. Either by some fluke I had Japan’s entire year’s supply of dolphin trainers in one IELTS class, or this country’s decline is due to continue for quite some time…

A student has asked me for telephoning stuff tomorrow. Although none of you lot did, only time for one thing today so that means you get telephoning too… And here are the treats we have for you:

Answerphone messages worksheet with a nice game that involves recording their own voices (very very popular)

A worksheet I wrote in an attempt to practice emailing, telephoning and comparatives in a low level Elementary short course that needed to revise all those. Amazingly, it worked! Adapted from an idea in English File Elementary Teacher’s Book (highly recommended).

And at the other end, a telephoning and emailing pairwork worksheet I wrote for Upper Int and above students who use English everyday full of their most common mistakes and misunderstandings.

And more on the Telephoning Worksheets and Games page.

Hope that hasn’t made you too tired to answer the questions from readers below, because I must admit it’s had that effect on me and I won’t be able to help them until the weekend- so it’s up to you. Go on go on go on. Go on go on go on go on go on go on go on. Go on….

Quite interesting even for people who haven’t taught in these countries. If you can help, even better!

“Hi, my name is Jason. I´m writing you to ask you about teaching English in Spain. I read the article that you wrote for the Transitions Abroad website and found it extremely interesting and helpful. The only problem is that the article is a few years old and I was just wondering if you had any tips regarding the current situation for teachers in Spain and how it might have changed since you wrote that article.
 
I´m in Mexico right now, teaching English in Guadalajara. I´ve been here since August and am set to fly back for Christmas break at the end of December. Beyond that, however, it´s all still up in the air. The default position would be to return and teach here until the end of the school year in June. My ultimate goal, however, has always been to return to Spain (I was in Santander two years ago on a study abroad program and just loved the culture and everything.) In fact, that´s what I wanted to do in the first place, but the difficulties with getting a visa and the prospect of draining my savings (esp. considering the Euro-dollar exchange rate) while waiting for a job to come through made Spain unfeasible, so I came to Mexico instead.
 
But I just recently was offered a job working at a hostel in Granada, which has piqued my interest again. It´d be non-renumerated, but I would get room and board. I figure that with food and a place to stay, my two biggest expenses would be covered, making this a good, relatively cheap way to stay in the country while I looked for a job, probably giving private lessons to local university students at first, and eventually working my way into a position at some school or institute.
 
What I wanted to ask you, then, is the feasibility of this plan. First off, is there a big enough market for English teachers that I would be to a) make money giving private lessons to university students, and b) find a job at some school without having a visa? And if so, would the pay be high enough and the cost of living low enough that I`d be able to support myself ( i.e. no digging into savings?) Again, I`d really like to go back to Spain, but I`m worried about giving up a relatively sure thing here in Mexico for something over there that I`m not sure will even pan out. I think being in Granada would help me find private students to teach (the University of Granada being such a big and prestigious university and also attracting so many ERASMUS students) and I´ve heard Andalucia is significantly cheaper than, say, Madrid or Barcelona, but I know it´s also not a huge town and I don´t know how many big language schools and institutes they have there that might offer more steady employment. Also, I´m worried by the time I arrive in January, the school year will already be in full swing and all the positions might have already been snapped up. Are these valid concerns?
 
One last note: how is the typical teaching environment in Spain? One thing I don`t really like much about my situation here in Mexico is the unprofessional environment in the schools—students coming in late all the time, having people in higher-level classes that really don`t know enough to be there but whose previous teachers didn`t care enough to fail them, teachers getting little to no support from superiors, etc. Is this just a Mexico thing, or is that how it goes in English classes worldwide? Because if things were more professional in Spain, that`d be a huge draw for me.
 
Wow, this e-mail turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated. Sorry for all the questions, but you seem like you know what you`re talking about when it comes to teaching English abroad, and good resources in this field are hard to find. In any case, thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.
 
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Jason “

Question from a reader that I am pondering my answer to- can anyone else help while she is waiting? 

“I’m from Bosnia and Hercegovina, and I’ve been teaching English to very small children, age 4-6 and this year I decided to use Cookie and Friends A. I ordered the books, CD, teacher’s book and play pack. But the problem is the delivery.. I’ll get the books maybe in 20-30 days and I’m starting to teach on Monday! So, I must do something interesting with them for about 6-8 times untill the books arrive (we have classes twice a week, and it last for half an hour). Please give me some ideas so that they don’t lose interest in course untill the books arrive. I was trying to find some sample pages of Cookie and friend on the Internet but I haven’t found anything.
p.s. I’m 23 and I have only one year of experience with such small children, it’s fun, i love it, but it’s hard to hope you understand, and I hope my English is good.
 
Thank you very much, Ana”

Any advice at all would be much welcomed I’m sure. Any thoughts guys?

Sharon has written a very nice piece of working and living “somewhere out East”, back when they really still meant something mysterious… Enjoy!

Living “somewhere out East” 

Budapest – the very name, like Belgrade and Warsaw, conjured up images of espionage and romance. I pictured myself in grainy black and white, to a soundtrack of Bartok (or, if I’m more honest, that Elton John number, Nikita). So, when I was offered my first TEFL job there, I bought a guidebook and plane ticket and started listening to Liszt. Then the personnel manager called me up and asked me to go to Prague instead. Thus began my ten-year odyssey into the world of open-faced pork fat sandwiches.

On the evening I arrived, the manager of the school took the team of six new teachers to dinner in a typical Czech restaurant. He explained the menu. Utopenci, or “drowning men”, turned out to be pickled pork sausages, which, horrifying as they might sound, were not as bad as tlacenka, which translated as “bloody head cheese”. I had the breaded pork cutlet.

Prague at that time was not a place for vegetarians or those with a cleanliness fetish. Deodorant was not available, nor, if the smell on the metro was anything to go by, was soap. Getting a visa took hours of pleading with a mustachioed granny and the students wore double-breasted purple suits. As a country with a communist history, factory hours were not uncommon, so I often found myself waiting for trams on icy streets at 6.30 am. Upon arriving at the student’s office, I would more often than not be offered a glass of slivovice (plum schnapps) before getting down to the serious business of the present perfect.

Alas, with modernization, came charcoal suits, Caesar salads and professional standards. These days Prague is as sophisticated and beautiful as Paris. It even has the dog shit. It’s in winter, when the streets are misty and deserted, that the city really works its magic. One can wander around the cobbled old town at night, the silence broken only by the clanging of trams and the drunken bellowing of stag parties from Newcastle. If that’s not your bag, you can always head for a basement bar for a nice frothy beer and some bloody head cheese.

Thanks a lot to Sharon for that. If anyone else has anything at all related to teaching or living abroad they’d like to write about, just leave a “yes please!” comment in the box below and I’ll email you very soon.

The latest rumour has it that there is a meeting of all the bigwigs this morning. Until that news comes out (and it may take a while as Nova have yet to make a single official press statement about anything), here are the latest news sources and some of the more interesting older ones:

A very detailed article from the Japan Times, with predictions from a business journalist

The New Zealand and Canadian press catch up with the original story of unpaid wages

Shortly after the Japanese press had decided to cover the story:
www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070922TDY02008.html

…but which, strangely, had been covered in the Australian newspaper “the Age” first:
Or not so strangely if you know how the Japanese press will only swarm all over a story once someone else has taken the risk of covering it first…

Which is why this savaging of the Nova business plan from a Japanese business magazine is such a shocker (English translation from Let’s Japan, the main Nova breakdown news source in English- good job!)