Archive for the ‘Cultural differences/ cultural training’ Category

I’ve been very busy deep in the dark chaotic depths of the TEFLtastic Worksheets pages, and have also found time for a few of the usual articles. If useful stuff that makes your life easier is not your thing, will be back to the usual trivia here on the main page soon…

Articles

15 ways to start an adult lesson

15 ways to finish a preschool English lesson

15 more ways to boost your teaching confidence (as promised- not often I actually write something I planned to…)

Worksheets and lesson plans

A much expanded Market Leader worksheets and lesson plans page

Business Past Continuous and Personality Accusations game (THE classic Past Continuous game- not my original idea, but don’t know any other online or Business English versions)

Business English Needs Analysis ranking task

Crime Vocabulary storytelling game

Complaints roleplays

Pingu Will for predictions video worksheet 1 (3 more available on the Video Worksheets page, but can’t be bothered giving each link)

Passives guess the country game

Active/ Passive True/ False quiz

Trends and conditionals discussion and grammar presentation

Rules and regulations pictionary (mainly passive forms)

Second conditional chain writing (consequences) game

Passives disasters storytelling

Second conditional supernatural error correction and discussion

Supernatural modals of possibility discussion

Special occasions reported speech cultural differences guessing game and discussion

…you ask your landlady where to leave the rubbish and she says “Over there somewhere, I guess”

Actually, usually I think I would prefer the Japanese version where there is a sensible system of rubbish places and days and everyone sticks to it- although possibly without the anal neighbours assuming all deviations from that system are by the local foreigner and so dumping offending trash outside your door. At the moment, though, the almost Mediterranean slapdash Korean style is a refreshing change.  When you read descriptions of Korean etiquette and Confucian values you would think things would be very similar to Japan, but reminding me much more of Turkey at the mo.

11 hours (more…)

I write my “15 ways…” articles and teaching ideas in the spirit that even if what I put in there is painfully obvious, sometimes seeing something written down can help clarify an idea that was floating round somewhere at the back of your brain. A case in point is this description of two kinds of teachers who I’ve never consciously thought about, read about, written about or written for but have probably come across while only half realising it:

“There are two kinds of teachers here in Korea that really make me wince. One is the native-speaker who has been here for six or nine months, acknowledges that he was lost for three months but now ‘has it all figured out’

No help, no study, no reading, no questions to other teachers, he just somehow found a way to get through his classes without bosses, parents or students complaining..

He no longer feels uncomfortable in class, so he no longer feels the need to grow, change, develop or learn. Maybe he’s hit on one or two good activities, but I sort of doubt it.

The other kind is the Korean teacher who has studied modern teaching ideas and techniques, who does know what exciting things she could and should be doing in class, but who doesn’t do those things because she is afraid her boss or the other teachers or the parents won’t like them…”

Phil Owen, Korea TESOL President in The Korea Times, Thursday 16 October 2008

And after all the teaching and reading about teaching and writing about teaching and studying about teaching over the last 13 years, reading something that was only half remembered or half conscious is about the best you can hope for most of the time. It’s certainly the best you can hope from Complex Systems in Applied Linguistics, a brand new title from OUP. In summary, it says something like “a complex system is a mathematical concept that is different from just a complicated system and often involves techniques like computer modelling. However, because most of you studied English Lit at uni, we are going to deal with this subject without using a single mathematical formula and instead look at complex systems as some kind of metaphor of language, SLA and teaching. This basically means that we have to stop pretending that these things are easy to predict”

Or as a very short summary “complex systems are complex, but we think they are interesting and you will too (hopefully, because we’ve spent an awful long time researching them!)”

Not sure I ever thought any of those things were easy to predict, and am totally certain that more computer modelling and less metaphor is what has made complex systems interesting and useful, but did prompt a few minutes of musing and a tiny bit of “Oh yer, hadn’t thought about that recently”. Here’s hoping that Language Learner Strategies, which arrived in the same package from OUP, turns out to actually have something new to me in it. I’m on page 25, and it’s looking more hopeful so far.

Getting more or less back on topic, here are some other TEFL related bits and pieces in the same edition of The Korea Times:

“As ETS is a non-profit organisation, we don’t care about an alternative test organizer”

Well if you really don’t mind people doing other people’s tests, ETS, might I suggest you recommend BULATS and IELTS to all your candidates and stick to doing GRE?

And a fundamental misunderstanding of action research:

“This lead to my action research… I applied my research to develop the Pronunciation Rhythm Control Method (PRCM), which has proven to dramatically improve English speaking and listening skills for both students and teachers”

The whole point of Action Research is that it is to develop and adapt methodologies for use in a practical teaching situation, and coming up with a Method with a big M demands entirely another approach- one that the so-fine-you-could-easily-miss-it distinction between ‘has proven’ and ‘has been proven’ suggests this person has not gone through. Doesn’t mean I’m not open to her ideas, though, and I will be seeking out a workshop on PRCM if I can.

*I was going to call this post “The best you can expect in TEFL”, but this message I saw on a T shirt in Seoul today seemed to say it much more poetically…

I have to fly away from my Yahoo BB internet connection now, and I may be some time. So while I am gone from cyberspace, you all have a chance to read the over 200 articles I’ve written elsewhere- starting with this month’s supply:

15 easy ways to bring change into the classroom

15 ways of dealing with students who pause before they speak

15 ways of dealing with pre-experience Business English and ESP students

15 ways to boost your teaching and lesson planning creativity

15 places to start getting published

15 ways to correct spoken errors

15 ways to bring lucky chances into your classroom and lesson planning

Done already? Well, I’m sure you’ve all been good and read the entire list of articles etc in the September list further down this page already, so the extra homework for the keen this month will be having a look at:

TEFLtastic articles (reorganised a bit to have more links to articles elsewhere on the same topics)

and

TEFLtastic worksheets (ditto)

“We are dealing with clouds, not clocks” (more…)

15 fun ways of using pre-school storybooks

15 ways of preparing for ELT management

15 variations on a grammar auction

15 common complaints about TEFL workshops (and how to respond to them)

15 things to find out about a TEFL certificate course

15 criteria of a good needs analysis

How’s that for a minimalist blog post! To make up for the lack of text, here are even more links:

157 articles and worksheets of mine on UsingEnglish.com

onestopenglish.com (the Macmillan website, where you usually have to pay to see most of my stuff but which has some kind of special offer on at the moment)

New stuff in August, for those who have recently joined us (welcome!)

And brand new worksheets etc actually on TEFLtastic:

Business English rotating revision board game

Complaints sentence expansion game

Dealing with complaints guess the situation

Dealing with complaints pairwork- Amusing and odd excuses

Email and internet abbreviations

Email language definitions game

Email rules business meeting

Formal and informal email errors

Telephone and email spot the difference pairwork

“Punishment“- Passive voice and tense review

Table manners Present Simple and Continuous mimes

Describing people workshop

English for Telephoning/ Negotiating double book review

…from the Analects’ very opening lines:

“Isn’t it a pleasure when you can make practical use of the things you have studied? Isn’t it a pleasure to have an old friend visit from afar? Isn’t it the sure sign of a gentleman, that he does not take offense when others fail to recognize his ability?” 

Whoever would’ve thought that the average TEFL teacher had already achieved at least two of the first three things mentioned in the Analects of Kung the Master? We confucianally rock!

If you haven’t managed two out of three yet or would like help reaching all three, luckily the Sage’s disciple Te-fu Ta-tsutik wrote up some more practical advice based on the Master’s words:

Practical use of what you have studied

Few of us have TESOL as a first degree, and even English Lit rarely comes up in the average TEFL class. One solution is to study so much TEFL stuff that it outranks your degree as what you have studied. If you’ve done a TEFL Certificate and aren’t ready for a Diploma or MA yet, there are short courses on teaching Business English, young learners and one to one classes available. Alternatively, set yourself a personal study schedule of books to read. You can add to your motivation by aiming to read all the books in your school or local library by the end of the year in case you decide to leave then, or by volunteering to review for TEFL.net reviews.

The other approach is to change your classes to include whatever your first degree or other studies were about. Getting into ESP or EAP can be a good way of doing this. Even if it as very general class like Business English or IELTS, there should be some connection to your chosen specialist subject. For me, the best thing has been moving into Technical English by using parts of or all the whole of Tech Talk with my engineering students.  

Friends visiting

Move to Rome. Well, worked for me… Seriously though, choosing somewhere with good and cheap flight connections is something always worth bearing in mind.

Not taking offense

Two things have helped me in my usually successful quest for this one. One was climbing the slippery slope early on in my career, so that when I gave up ELT management etc I knew it was my choice rather than a lack of ambition or being left out for promotion. Another is to have a sideline that is at least as important as your teaching.

The books all teachers in Japan should read Part One- The best books about Japanese language and education

I’m sitting here mourning over the 100 or so books about Japan that I will be leaving on the school bookshelves rather than taking with me, and wondering quite how many books I have managed to read in 5 years. I don’t think there are any other countries that you can find so many interesting books about, especially ones that tell you as much about the world and human nature as they do about the country name in the title. Being the person I am, the books have been one of the best things about Japan for me. However, if you aren’t such a reader, do not despair- the five books below will be enough to make you aculturally sensitive teacher and keep you stimulated by understanding the things around you for at least a year or two:

1. Learning to Go to School in Japan

Working with Japanese preschool age kids can be an almost manic depressive swing between thinking they are the cutest, nicest kids in the world and wondering how they get away with stuff like hitting their teachers. This book not only explains how those two seemingly contradictary things are connected, but also explains how preschool education in Japan affects and reflects the whole society. Reading this book was the first time in Japan I thought “If you look at it that way, it all makes sense”, and inspired me to try and explain everything else on my JapanExplained blog.

2. Japanese English: Language and Culture Contacts

Not Engrish.com the book, but a serious and yet suprisingly readable examination of how English is used in the Japanese language and what that can tell us about Japanese society and languages in general. It can also help you misuse English expressions in the right way when speaking Japanese and understand and correct your students when they bring them into English.

3. Tuttle New Dictionary of Loanwords in Japanese

As you can imagine from the title, this is not a book to read through. Nonetheless, I did (!) and found it improved my Japanese, my teaching and led to loads of Japanese English worksheets. The introduction also gives a short introduction to the surprisingly systematic changes the Japanese make to English pronunciation, helping you gain the ability to change any English word into understandable Japanese. You’ll also learn a few words of some other languages or find out how you can use the languages you know in Japanese.

4. Preschool in Three Cultures

… being the US, China and Japan. Not only does it tell you quite a lot about all three societies, but also introduces a whole new way of doing research- asking teachers and parents to comment on what goes on in the other countries too.

5. The Japanese Educational Challenge

Although written when the marketing department of Free Press wanted a Japan-catching-up-panic book back in the 80s, the author has managed to turn it into more of general examination of the differences between Japanese and American society and education, and what if anything they can learn from each other.

Also worth a mention

Safety and Challenge for Japanese Learners of English

Although I don’t still use any of the activities in this book, it did inspire me to try and find my own principles for teaching in Japan and prompted some interesting pondering on how much you can generalise by nationality.

Teaching English to Children in Asia

Written by David Paul, director of David English House and founder of the great ETJ (English Teachers in Japan) teachers’ association. He can be a bit dogmatic about his child-centred ideas and you’ll almost certainly hear the same things if you go to one of his workshops, for example as part of the Introductionary Certificate in Teaching English to Children (recommended), but again it is guaranteed to prompt some serious reflection on how much change you need to make to CELTA-type techniques in a place like Japan.

Dictionary of Japan’s Cultural Code words by Boye LaFayette De Mente 
 
Try to ignore his claims to explain the “uniqueness” of Japan (and certainly ignore all his other books), but have at least a flick through this book for the kinds of words your students will get stuck on when trying to explain themselves in English because there are no real English equivalents. Also good for painless Japanese study and appearing to be a Japan expert/guru/unbearably pretensious prat when you drop words like wabi sabi into conversation back home.

As mentioned in a comment or two below (and in every other sentence in my real life conversation), I am off on my reasonably well deserved hols from Friday and won’t even be looking at a computer screen for the next 10 days. For those of you who can’t live without an opinionated TEFL rant until I get back, I’m sure there must be something in my 458 posts over the last 14 months that you must have missed, so have a little trawl through the archives here- I’m sure there must be something there to entertain and/ or offend you!

For those of you still here for the serious stuff that I was supposed to have set this blog up for, here are the links to bits and pieces I have been involved in elsewhere in the world on TEFL. The top two are my own particular favourites from the last few months:

15 ways to help your students forget

15 ways to help your students dream in English

15 games for the language of describing people

15 real life situations for the language of describing people

15 typical textbook activities you can personalize

15 difficulties in teaching the language of describing people

15 ways to write a TEFL review

Office vocabulary compound noun stress

Why does my teacher make us work in pairs?

Talking about your job and company first class

Business English prepositions

Present Simple/ Continuous and Tense Review Guessing Game

Complaints prepositions practice