Amazing where the energy comes from when you’ve got nothing really to do. Wasn’t quite what I planned when I got up this morning, but I seem to have started a new blog, QuoteJapan. Comments or your own favourite quotes always welcome here or there.
Somewhere along the way I have come up with idea of looking at games in the classroom in a completely different way, by brainstorming games for language points that absolutely all kinds of students need and so not dividing them up by age or level. The idea behind this is:
it can free you up to brainstorm a similar broad range of activities for the classes and language points you need to prepare for
it can help you bring a range of learning styles into classes where they are usually neglected, e.g. logic puzzles with younger students or physical activities with advanced adults
it can illustrate how cross-fertilization of ideas across different areas of teaching and from outside teaching can be a great source of ideas (more…)
Full details of this shocking story here.
Fabio “my name is Italian for fabulous” Capello thinks he’s going to learn English in a month:
http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/internationals/article3263515.ece
I hope his ideas of what he can do with the English football team are a little more realistic.
I particularly loved the claim in that article that if you do 150 hours on the software you are guaranteed a level of Upper Intermediate. Seeing as how you could theoretically do that many hours in two weeks, that really would be impressive to go from “my English is not so well” to someone who can: (more…)
Bored of Xmas before it’s even arrived as usual, so here comes with the New Year theme ones instead:
“Why the Method is effective
Most people who learn English are more interested in acquiring a practical
skill than in obtaining intellectual satisfaction. They want to learn
English for business or professional purposes, and they need to acquire a
good working knowledge of the language as quickly as possible.”
…from the Callam website. I could explain why the Method (scary use of capitals!) wouldn’t work as either a marketing or a teaching method in Japan, but it might be quicker to just convert it into a version suitable for Japan:
Looking for TEFL Xmas activities is like writing the list of presents you want from Santa- once you start there seems to be no end…
One really nice real-life task (because Santa exists in real life!) - sending emails to Santa. Students will also get a reply, apparently:
“He also told me that, back in the 1960s, he used to spend hours eavesdropping on people and painstakingly writing down the musical notes that they used in ordinary conversation.
‘Hey, cool!’ I said. ‘What did you do with this information?’
Will get onto combining grammar mistakes and Xmas lessons in a bit, but first:
I’ve become a bit of a cultural relativist in my old age, even accepting stuff that drives other people nuts like Japanese English, but this time of year seems to bring out the grumpy old traditionalist in me. The fact that there’s been quite a lot of telling about an English Xmas in my lessons could be just because Japanese students tend to love that kind of stuff (maybe because anything that mentions the rest of the world is an escape from Japanese reality at the same time as being a reinforcement of why Japan is different and special). What seems to reflect something deeper is the fact that I’ve found myself actually correcting them on the “errors”of how Xmas is done in Japan- several times on the same points to different classes! Apparently these are the things that happen in Japan that test my limits of acceptance of difference and stir as much deep discomfort in my soul as female circumcision or animal cruelty: (more…)
‘There several pieces of research showing the negative effect of teaching several unknown words at the same time that are members of a lexical set. Learning several unknown words in such sets made learning 50–100 per cent more difficult.’ (more…)