Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Thiuda]

I've been listening to a lot of audio lectures by The Teaching Company (TTC) lately. They have several thousand lecture series, most of them very well done. Some of the series are directly applicable to our jobs, so I thought I'd share my favourites.

1) The Art of Teaching: Best Practices from a Master Educator

I've just started listening to this series and I'm enjoying it very much. The lecturer, Allitt, a professor from Emory U., does a very good job; he's engaging and easy to listen to, while presenting material that is directly applicable to us as English teachers in Korea. Especially interesting, from my point of view, is that professors in the US have to overcome exactly the same problems that university EFL lecturers in Korea struggle with as well: apathy, plagiarism and poor writing/presentation skills. Allitt gives a lot of great info on how to overcome these problems, while at the same time motivating the teacher to become a better instructor. The course is not meant for just university instructors, but is applicable to all teaching situations (though to a lesser extent). If you have the time to listen to this series, it'll be worth it.

The Art of Teaching: Audio

2) Understanding Linguistics: The Science of Language

This course is great if you don't know much about linguistics. The course provides a pretty solid overview of the field, and introduces a lot of basic concepts and vocabulary. Most importantly for language teachers, the instructor, McWorther, touches upon First Language Acquisition, Second Language Acquisition, Sociolinguistics and Generative Grammar (among other, no less interesting, sub-fields of ling).

If you're thinking of doing an MA in AppLing or TESOL this course would be a good way to prep in advance.

Understanding Linguistics: Audio
Understanding Linguistics: Video

McWorther did another language related course for TTC on the evolution of language and language change. Though not directly related to language teaching, its a great series for those interested in linguistics.

The Story of Human Language: Video

3) Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft

This course is great for instructors teaching writing; it really highlights what students need to know in order to write well. It's much too difficult for Korean students, but it's helpful in familiarizing us with the concepts, which we can then pass on in a simplified manner.

Building Great Sentences:Audio

Building Great Sentences: Video

Do you have any great audio lectures to share? I listen to them while I'm commuting to and from work on my bike (120 min/d), so I appreciate any recommendations.

[kimchikowboy]

Bump for great info. Thanks for taking the time to post.

[Thiuda]

[Mr. Pink]

Cool post I have to say. I think I've done more PD in the past year than in my previous 10 years of teaching. I encourage people to try to learn more about their craft. It is definitely rewarding.

[Mister]

Thanks for the OP, but these are very expensive, and not free.

Hundreds of dollars, or did I miss something?

[the_beaver]

[Thiuda]

[Chaucer]

The Teaching Company puts all its courses on sale once a year. The downloads are actually quite reasonable, when they're on sale.

Fantastic stuff. I've bought the History of English, Introductory Argumentation, and a literature survey course. Makes the commute pretty productive.

[Thiuda]

[Chaucer]

The actual title is The History of the English Language. It was just like reading that book "The History of English" or that with a bit of Finegan's "Language" (a popular linguistics textbook). Since I'd read both, it was a refresher, and good in that way. If you haven't read those books, it's great. Lots of quotable stuff for English language classes anywhere above very basic level.

The literature one was 4 pt-History of World Literature. Good. Great lecturer. Gave me a bit of a background in world lit that I'd lacked studying English/western lit.

All the courses I've "taken" have been in the context of professional development, and I've been satisfied with all three--little things come up here and there and you know what you're talking about where before you didn't.

[Mr. Pink]

If any of you are into newsgroups I noticed a ton of them on there. I am going to sample a few...if it is worthwhile I might use some of my PD budget and have my school purchase one of the series.

They have a TON on history which is cool.

[Thiuda]

[GreenlightmeansGO]

There are torrents available for a load of the courses. Search for 'the teaching company addendum torrent' on google and some links should come up. There are seven torrents, with many gigs of audio.

[Mr. Pink]