Teacher's Sharing Zone

Ok, so you´ve been teaching for a term, a month or a week and it is revision time.  Nothing new under the sun you say... it´s part of the learning process.  The author of the article we´ll be reading describes revision time as " an opportunity to consolidate everything you’ve taught into a cohesive language learning experience" . For sure we all agree on the first part of the sentence, but... what about the "cohesive language learning experience" part?  is there anything we are overlooking?  Let´s go to the article and read the author´s recommendations for creating a review lesson that is really useful to your students  ( and not just a way to buy time till they have the test) .  7 Steps to Fail-proof Your ESL Review Lesson What are your views regarding revision time? But going back to revising and recycling, if you are teaching intermediate or advances students, take a look at this article, written by the same author, full of useful tips whe...

Everybody likes listening to a good story. Have you ever wondered why? What do you think about this statement? Do you agree? A story can put your whole brain to work. This article may give you a few ideas on the power of storytelling.  The Science of Storytelling. Which are, in your opinion, the main concepts? What do you think about the suggestions for telling stories? Do you have any of your own? .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- There are a million ways in which we can tell a story. An interesting game to develop a number of skills is the following: "This quasi experimental web site is designed to foster visual thinking and build stories. It  draws upon collections of photos specified by a tag in flickr . You are dealt five random photos for each draw, and your task is to select one each time to add to a selection of images, that taken together as a final set of 5 imag...

Building Excellence in Student Work Through Critique and Revision What do you know about peer feedback? Have you ever tried it in any of your classes? Now let´s watch the following video. "This six-minute video gives a clear picture of how student work can improve through focused critique. It shows the evolution of a scientific illustration of a butterfly through multiple drafts toward a high-quality final product." Critique and Feedback: The Story of Austin's Butterfly from Expeditionary Learning on Vimeo . So far so good, but.... is there anything we (teachers) can learn in relation to our own learning? State 3 ideas you can pick from the video which describe the aspects you´d highlight.  The following article provides some ideas particularly suitable for young learners. Have a look at the four ideas described and share your ideas with the group.  Strategies to enhance peer feedback Two stars and a wish Plus, minus and what's next? War...

(August 30, 1954) Graduated with  B.A.  in psychology from  Stanford University  in 1976. After attending Stanford, he went to law school at  UC Davis , where he lasted one week before realizing that he hated law school. In 1977, he enrolled in the  UCLA Anderson School of Management , from where he received his  MBA .  He is a  Silicon Valley  venture capitalist, bestselling author, and  Apple Fellow . He was one of the  Apple  employees originally responsible for marketing  Macintosh  in 1984. He is founding partner and currently a Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures ,  co-founder of Alltop as well as a husband, father, author, speaker, and hockey addict. He is also a well-known blogger. "Alltop is an online magazine rack that I hope you’ll check out—you’ll probably enjoy  Innovation.alltop . I’ve also written ten books. My latest is  Enchan...

Friendliness vs. Friendship in the classroom. What a topic! Has it ever happened to you that one of your students or even group of students confuse these terms and expects from you attitudes or behaviours that make you feel uncomfortable? Let´s start by getting some definitions:  Friendliness: Warm; comforting. Friendship:  The quality or condition of being friends. Evidently there is a big difference between both words. And even if it hasn´t happend to us,  it is clear it is very difficult to be your student’s friend and maintain your teacher’s role .  Dr. Stacia Levy,  teaches writing and reading skills at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California to both native and nonnative speakers of English. She analyses and comes up with some interesting ideas regarding this topic.  You Are NOT Your Students’ BFF (Best Friend Forever): Balancing “Friendliness” and “Friendship” What do you think of the author´s Method to Maintain a ...

Exploring Elt Teachers Reluctance Towards Technology Jonathan Acuña is an ELT Instructor & Trainer. He was hired to train a group of teachers in Costa Rica. He starts by addressing an interesting question, Why were/are they so reluctant to using technology? Read his blog post and go over some of the highlighted concepts:  comfort zone  develop technological competences  self-training Exploring ELT Teachers Reluctance Towards Technology 1. What do you understand by "comfort zone"? 2. What type of "technological competences" do you think teachers need to develop? 3. Do you think it is possible to self-train in order to develop these competences? If not, how do you think this could be done? 4 Have a look at this image. What message do you think it is trying to convey? Do you agree? 5. What about you? How many hours of computer training did you receive? What do you think about technology integration to classroom set...

A new year is starting.  It is a time when energy is at the top, we are full of expectations, projects and ideas.  It is also a good time to reflect, consider and share views.  I´ve chosen 2 different inspirational videos from this site:  Best Kickoff Videos Choose one and generate your own video as a response. You can include your views on the topic, what you think, how it relates to your teaching situation. You can use your own photographs, images you get online, music... you can even record yourself!   Making your own video is very simple, probably one of the easiest ways is using   Windows movie maker   (you can download it from this site if you don´t have it in your computer already)  once you have it ready you can upload it to youtube and share it. 

Those of us who´ve been teaching for some time, know there are some typical 1st day activities; for example introducing yourself. We can make good use of some excellent web 2.0 tools to do this. Storybird. Animoto.   Photopeach.   Xtranormal Go Animate If you want even more, here´s a whole lot more! 50+ web 2.0 tools to tell a Story Here´s my choice. Now it is your turn. Following the same structure, prepare an "About me" presentation. Which tool will you choose? Once you have your Story, just include the link in a comment. 

Shall we start? Let´s go over some vocabulary words. Many of these words are related to different ways of speaking.  Can you list them? How many do you know and can explain? Are there any you don´t know?  All teachers know working on vocabulary is essential for ESL learners. Many times it is difficult to think of fun or creative ways in which to work on this area. Have a look at these sites:  Here is Merriam Webster´s Word Central , a great site where you´ll find word definitions, games and teacher resources. A great tool to present vocabulray  is:  Wordle  used for the following image.  You can also try  Visuwords .  Now fill in the blanks with words you´ll  find in the 1st cloud. ( You can make the font bigger by clicking on the letter A on the upper left hand )

Welcome to York´s Chatter Zone!  This will be our space, let´s make it nice and cozy for us and all our visitors. The idea is to share material which could be useful for your classes, reflect on our practices and learn together. If you are passionate about something, want to include some material, feel free to suggest it!   You are all invited to share your notes, post your questions and comments too, your contribitions will help make this a really interactive space.  See you all real soon! Wiggio Platform Our learning platform   065utv