Job Discussion Forums

Nomad Dan · Joined: 17 Feb 2003 Posts: 145 Location: Myanmar

Hello all,

I have to give a 45 minute presentation next week over "something ESL"....
I am at a loss for ideas and would like to hear your suggestions....Are there any good workbooks or books out there that are the absolute greatest teaching tool ever ??? Is there anything interesting that you are doing in class that is the cat's meow of teaching pedagogy??

I don't want to re-consider the jazz chant....
I need something FRESH.

Any fresh ideas?

Thanks,

Nomad

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

What about technology as a focus? Online teaching, or net resources? There are always new ideas to plumb...

Nomad Dan · Joined: 17 Feb 2003 Posts: 145 Location: Myanmar

excellent idea!

Especially since the internet is still a totally new concept here in Myanmar. We are just now getting the internet up and running in our school really.
What other sites could I refer them to? Dave's and.... ??

Many thanks, Guy

Nomad

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Could you be more specific? I'm assuming this is a workshop for teachers...?

If so, what about a focus on the global community? Being able to come to a place like this as a resource for lesson ideas?

If this is for students, you could talk about internet penpals, or websites that help teach a student English. They are too numerous to list here but a google expedition will yield hundreds of sites.

Getting higher tech, there is a lot of teaching done online, through MSN and Yahoo messenger.

Johanna · Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Adelaide, Australia

Hey,

I was at a seminar yesterday about technology use in the classroom.

A few of the useful ideas mentioned were webquests, simulations and moos. I don't know if they'd be really useful in your context - a guided webquest might be a great introduction to websearching in English for your students 'though...if the seminar is about teaching ideas.

Good luck.

Nomad Dan · Joined: 17 Feb 2003 Posts: 145 Location: Myanmar

The workshop is for all teachers at our school.....K-12 though the focus is generally on the lower grades. there will be about 16 teachers present.
I like the notion of this webquest thing...
Sounds promising.
I love teaching, but for some reason I am not crazy about talking to other teachers...They sometimes make the worst students...lol

Nomad

Johanna · Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Adelaide, Australia

The site he gave us for the webquest was webquest.sdsu.edu/matrix/9-12-For.htm

I haven't been there to have a look.

The webquest seems to be a guided research project on the web which can be as involved as you want to make it - if you really want to control it you can tell the students where to go and what kind of questions you want them to answer or you can leave it fairly open.

The process is the research, you decide what the product is - a power point display, an oral presentation or a poster for example.

I teach mostly pre-entry university EAP so my students would be left to their own resources but the guy giving the seminar was talking mostly about LOTE classes in schools - he said that webquests where students compared their cultures with others have been really successful.

He also said that it would be a good idea to try someone else's webquest before devising your own and then gave us that site.

Good Luck once again!

kaw · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 2:28 pm Post subject:

I.T. use in the classroom but - how practical is it. If computer use where you are is limited then why not go for something else - materials development (ok admittedly it is a bit of a 'wheel recreator' but is certainly useful - and pretty easy to do...) failing that - how about looking into Multiple Intelligences, teaching with songs, etc - anyone who's recently done the Dip can probably give you some ideas - where do you think my M.I.T. one came from??

fluffyhamster · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:01 pm Post subject:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=4675

denise · Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 3419 Location: finally home-ish

I�m preparing a workshop on internet use also. Some issues that have come up are (and some have been mentioned by other posters here... sorry to be redundant!)

1. access to technology--maybe not all schools have high-tech computer labs, but a lot of countries these days are overrun with internet cafes, so hopefully Ss will have at least basic familiarity with the internet

2. Ts�knowledge--do we need to be "experts" (whatever that means!) to be able to guide our students, or can we learn with them?

3. who controls the lesson? Ss will have a lot of autonomy if you put them in front of a computer and have them do a search--great for them, but how closely can you monitor them?

4. how fully can you integrate internet use into your class syllabus? is there a relevant reason to use the internet, or are you just turning them loose once a week with no clear focus or connection?

I�ve got more notes, but can�t remember them all right now. If you do a google search for "using the internet in ESL classes", you will get loads of links to articles and ideas.

d

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Nomad Dan,
Just who are these other teachers? ESL teachers? Americans, Germans, Chinese? Where is this workshop taking place? What is the theme of the workshop, and what are some of the other presentations?

Not much to go on.

jr1965 · Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 175

Nomad,

Not sure if it�s too late to suggest an idea, but here goes. Have you thought about doing something on teaching grammar inductively (vs. deductively)? In other words, focusing on how teachers can guide their learners to notice certain grammatical patterns and getting them to generate the rules on their own (with the teacher's guidance, of course).

It's not exactly a revolutionary idea, but it's one that I think many teachers might be interested in, especially if you could walk them through some actual activities with different levels (low-beginner thru advanced) in a 45-minute workshop. There's lots of info on the Web about this, I'm sure. An author who's written quite a bit about this is Scott Thornbury.

If you're looking for other topic ideas, check out this site published by the BBC & the British Council. There might be an idea here that will help get you started: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/think.shtml

Good luck!

jr1965 · Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 175

Oh...I just went back through this thread and saw that you're working with K-12 students. Well, the inductive thing might work well with teenagers, but you may want to have a look at the BBC/BC site I listed. There are a number of topics there related to young learners .