Learning to Teach Better

Thanks for all the insights and interactions everyone - it's been great to meet you all, even if it's 'virtual'. It'd be great to keep in touch and see how everyone progresses in their teaching and teacher development. I will be starting an MA in ELT in early 2018, so I've got some busy times ahead! In addition to that, I hope to keep my teaching blog updated (haven't had much time for it recently) and I'm looking at the conference schedule to see if there's anything worth attending next year. I presented at conferences for the first time this year (it's worth it if you've never done it before - it does help you to focus on your research), though I'll probably go back to being an active attendee for a while. On the non-teaching front, I'll be taking a short break with my family around Christmas to a spot in central Taiwan we really love, and I'm also training for a couple of half marathons. I've enjoyed the sessions - I think...

A couple of resources I mentioned in yesterday's session: Trello https://trello.com/ This can be used for writing projects, especially those where learners work on continuing or completing each others' stories. The teacher can see it being updated in real time. My students introduced me to it and I've used in in workshops and for collaborative tasks. draftback.com - http://draftback.com/ This enables you to 'playback' google documents - yours or anyone else's - to see the edits and revisions as they were made. It looks like a good tool if you want to see how your students develop their writing. https://trello.com/

Error correction is an interesting topic because teachers have to make instant decisions about whether and how to correct an error or mistake. Should we correct immediately? Should we use delayed correction? Should we ignore the mistake (this can sometimes be a valid decision). For my writing classes, I use a variety of error correction methods. If we are speaking about a topic that we'll later write about, I won't correct speech as much as I would in, say, a listening and speaking class. But I will get learners to brainstorm and plan in-class, and will monitor closely as they go through this process. Again. sometimes I choose to intervene, sometimes I will wait (if a student is deep in thought it might not help to interrupt them to point out a misused be verb in their first draft). When I do receive the 'final' piece of work I will read it thoroughly before making any marks. For some essays and paragraphs I use a colour coding system to help the learner figure out wh...

This is a warmer activity I often use with new student groups and one-to-one classes at just about any level. I’ve adapted it over time and I think it works well for me. How does it work? Before the students come into the room I will draw a grid, usually with nine squares, on the whiteboard. Each square in the grid will contain information that can be interpreted generally, or relating to me specifically. The student’s task is to think of questions to match the ‘answers’ they can see on the board. It is possible to ask a ‘general’ question to match any of the answers, or a ‘personal’ one (all of the answers, in different ways, relate to me and my own life). Questions must make sense, and should match the ‘answers’ on the board in a logical way. What I mean is: let’s say I write “Teacher” in one of the squares. – If a student, trying to ‘win’ the square that contains this word, asks me “Are you a teacher?”, that question would be incorrect (as the answer to that question is “Yes” or “No...

Hi Everyone. I've been incredibly busy this week, so this is the first chance I've had to read everyone's comments and add my own reflections. I enjoyed last week's session and I'm looking forward to the next one! Last weekend (on Saturday) I went to a conference in Taipei. Stephen Krashen was speaking, and he highlighted a lot of rules and guidelines that are commonly used by language teachers but which, in his view, need to be reconsidered. They are: 1. If you don't understand, signal (often an agreed-upon signal is used) 2. If I am speaking too quickly, slow me down (with a signal or short utterance) 3. Don't repeat what I say. 4. Don't worry, I won't call on you. 5. When you speak in class, you won't have to use full sentences. 6. Don't worry if you can't easily retrieve words you think you know. 7. Don't worry about making mistakes 8. Look at my facial expressions and body language 9. You don't have to understand ev...

I think it is important to make good use of lesson time, though some of the tips Penny provided on Sunday were new to me so it’s interesting to have a chance to find out how they will work with my own groups. Considering the possibility that students may be enjoying a task but not actually learning anything is also an important reminder, and something to look at when I plan my lessons. Of course, ideally learners should be enjoying what they learn. I haven’t used hangman for years – I think I subconsciously realized that it was too often a waste of time – but the ‘recall and share’ activity seems useful – I tried it this week with my writing class and the learners were engaged and happy to work together to identify words they’d misspelt. I used the recall and share activity at the start of the class before handing the learners back their paragraphs which I’d marked over the weekend – the words I used in the activity were common errors from those assignments, so it was a chance for them...

Hello everyone! I'm Martin. I live and work in southern Taiwan, and I’ve been teaching English as a foreign language for almost eight years. I worked in Korea for a short time before coming to Taiwan, and I’ve taught learners of all ages and levels of ability. At the moment, I teach on intensive foreign language and business programmes for Taiwanese university graduates who want to work overseas and/or in management, so my current learners are mostly advanced in terms of English ability and are also highly motivated. What I hope to get out of this course are some fresh ideas – although I’ve been teaching for a few years now, I do feel that I need to keep learning how to teach (better). I also want to find ways to identify any bad habits that might prevent my teaching from being as effective as it ought to be. Some topics I’d like us to address include: - meaningful and useful techniques for reflective teaching, (especially techniques that can be used by busy teachers); - how to ide...