By Barbara Dieu · August 19, 2008
Have you ever seen 10,000 students learning English from one teacher – all at the same time? Have you ever met a detective whose mission impossible is to arrest bad grammar? Or encountered a 74 year-old retiree who thinks nothing of ambushing foreigners on the streets just so he can practice his English? Or heard a Chinese policeman speak English in a New York Bronx accent?
Mad About English, a film by Singaporean filmmaker Lian Pek, humorously documents China ‘s passionate love affair with the English language and their obsessive quest to learn it (some through very unorthodox methods).
This TechCrunch article shows another opportunity to_grow_ your_ career by pointing to a very grammatically (and politically) incorrect website, EngrishFunny, to which users send in photos of poorly translated or odd variations of written English in products, signs or instructions.
Deivis Pothin, a student of linguistics in London, shares his impressions and worries about the underlying message.
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By Barbara Dieu · July 25, 2008
Many teacher or ELT consultant blogs today either link to content listed in institutional portals or to suggestions coming from group lists, bulletin boards, conferences ,blogs, etc with the purpose of filtering and interpreting the never-ending stream of information, while suggesting examples of best practice.
At Dekita, more than giving recipes or pointing to stimulating or controversial uses of the web, we have sought to highlight such good practice by showcasing how EFL/ESL learners themselves make use of the Web environment, discuss issues that matter to them and reflect on their language learning experiences. The Exchange and the Orchard project were an attempt at facilitating connections, recording and aggregating such instances. However, they have not managed to gain momentum so we have decided to close them, at least for the time being.
Examples of open, participatory Web publishing amongst English language learners (and teachers) are still scarce, resulting in a dearth of authentic voices. Also lacking are evidence of observation, description, comparison and a critical reflection on everyday practice and learning processes. Most coordinated teacher-driven activities arising from classwork result in learner-generated content that does not seem to stretch beyond the cookie-cutter model of the standard pre-packaged coursebook topics.
What do learners have to say? What makes them tick and connect? Where can we read them and listen to their voices? What environments do_ they_recommend and why? How do they observe, describe and learn from their interaction with the diversity of people, stimuli and situations they encounter? How do they search and filter the web? What language do they use to communicate? Are they encouraged and envisage participating in the design of their learning process?
Is it possible or just useless to develop together open architectures of participation where experts, practitioners and learners mingle, guide and scaffold each other outside institutional gridlocks and gatekeepers, walled gardens, ELT methodology marketing trends and the edutainment tech consumer bandwagon?
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By Barbara Dieu · May 16, 2008
In the article Who Comments on Blogs, and Why?, published on March 15th 2007, journalist Stephen J. Dubner (co-author of Freakonomics) admits that although he enjoys reading blogs and has quite a lot to say, he hardly ever comments. He challenges non-commenters to answer his question and gets 135 replies in the span of more than a year (last comment is from May 13th).
Incentives seem to be the cornerstone of modern life. On the Web, memes, friendship and love chains and challenges abound. In the educational arena this is exemplified by the Comment Challenge, coordinated by Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, Michele Martin and Kim Cofino.
The organizers challenge the 123 participants to be better blog citizens by engaging them in a 31-day round of activities with the aim of later tracking who is the commenter with:
Monetary prizes from coComment and other sponsors have been secured.
What do you think? Comments welcome :-)
Comment [6]
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By Rudolf Ammann · January 17, 2008
It’s happening here on Dekita as we type: Social Media in English Language Teaching (SMiELT) is a six-week workshop sponsored by Tesol CALL IS and conducted as part of the Electronic Village Online (EVO) sessions. It runs from January 14th to February 24th, 2008.
The course is designed for teachers who already have a level of familiarity with blogs, wikis and related technologies and who would like to review, extend their technical/pedagogical knowledge and develop a critically reflected understanding of social media, focusing on their use and implications in language teaching.
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By Barbara Dieu · December 23, 2007
This is an end of year homage to Teresa Almeida d’Eca, one of the most illustrious and hard-working members of the Webheads in Action Community of Practice.
Teresa, whose students have been featured on Dekita in a previous post, has been involved in ICTs since 1996 and is working against all odds to implement these new technologies in her EFL classes at the Escola EB 2,3 de Sto Antonio in Parede, Portugal.
I am very happy to report that Teresa was one of the 13 finalists of the international eLearning Awards 2007 and that her CALL Lessons 2005-2007, a curricular blog for 5th & 6th graders (1st-2nd year EFL) for learning English with the help of different Web 2.0 tools, has won the SMART Technologies award for the school of the future at the e-Leaning 2007 event organized by the European Schoolnet during the Eminent Conference held in Brussels on 6/7 December 2007.
Teresa, who has been documenting the work Webheads of many WiA along these years, shares a more detailed explanation of her own success on a wiki she opened to register the event.
Congratulations Teresa on your prize, given as a recognition to your diligence, inventiveness and commitment to your students and ELT.
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By Barbara Dieu · December 02, 2007
Larry Ferlazzo’s blog Websites Of The Day For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL has been nominated as Best Resource Sharing Blog in 2007 the Edublog Awards, organized by Josie Fraser with James Farmer’s Edublogs support
Larry, who teaches beginner, intermediate, and advanced English language learners (as well as native English speakers) at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California, has written a number of articles on community organizing methodology for ESL teachers, classroom strategy and leadership. Every month, the ELL/ESL/EFL Carnival highlights blog posts teachers around the world have found particularly useful and insightful.
These kind of initiatives, enabled by social media (pdf file), federate and feature the work and creativity of talented educators, who would otherwise remain closed and isolated in their own institutions or contexts.
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By Barbara Dieu · September 19, 2007
Claudia Ceraso, the Argentinian blogger behind The FCE Blog , makes a post referring to the European Day of Languages. The event, promoted by the Council of Europe, has been celebrated every September 26th since 2001 to foster plurilingualism, diversity and life- long language learning.
I notice the link announcing the event takes me to a page of European Centre of Modern Languages in Graz, Austria. This triggers memories and sends me me back in time to 2001-2003, when I participated virtually in a series of surveys and discussion forums led and moderated by Peter Radai and team around The Status of Language Educators . These outline the views, perceptions, questions and daily professional activities of language educators and the project was launched with the mission of drawing national and international attention to the profession of language education, and to its implementers, language teachers all over Europe.
The results were published in a book of the same name (French or English version available), which can be bought online or downloaded as a pdf file .
Although many of the issues brought up then, like the existence of teacher power/influence/ability to empower students/solidarity and the role of the teacher as a an agent of change in their own institutions remain the focus of many of the edublog discussions nowadays and have not been solved, I am optimistic and see an evolution.
There is a growing awareness that schooling, as it is offered now in many contexts, does not educate learners for civic participation and collaboration in a knowledge society. There is a recognition that at work, much of the learning occurs informally through conversations with experts, peers and tutors, independently from the formal courses offered by traditional training departments. Participatory media has allowed many educators from around the globe to connect to a growing network, start conversations, exchange ideas, develop professionally beyond the institutional walls and actively co-construct knowledge.
Alexander Hayes, the organizer of the Future of Learning in a Networked World , advances the following questions on the group list :
Do you believe that the future of learning in a networked world is a bleak one…..a souless online virtual connection, a facile attempt to build community where only self serving individuals oscillate in ever increasingly smaller circles with shorter interactions and a senseless lack of ‘human-ness ?
The burning questions I put forward back in 2001 are still topical:
What steps have you taken in your language classes to promote cooperation, tolerance, respect towards the other and individual development? How responsible do you feel socially?
and to them I add:
What are the key literacies needed in the 21st century and can participatory media help us, life-long language learners, develop them? How?
Comment [3]
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By Barbara Dieu · July 11, 2007
Among the many cool social tools that have been lately launched on the Web, there is one that has struck my fancy: Voice Thread
It is an online platform that allows you to produce a narrative using photos and audio. Other people can add their comments (voice or text) so an entire group’s story can be told from various perspectives and complemented by multiple audio voices. Fascinating!
Alan Levine gives two excellent examples on his blog and demonstrates how you can creatively mash-up and relate content from various sources.
Many creative and exciting possibilities of using this for language learning. Can you think of any? Share your little spark!
Comment [1]
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By Barbara Dieu · January 03, 2007
EVO stands for Electronic Village Online, a CALL IS professional development project and virtual extension of the TESOL annual Convention, which this year will take place in Seattle.
It is open to all interested parties and offers free 6-week workshops during which participants can interact online with peers, tutors and experts while engaging in hands-on experimentation with different online tools.
Among the many sessions offered from January 15th to February 25th 2007, you will find one which focuses on Webpublishing in Open Participatory Environments.
This will be an advanced level workshop for teachers who have already experimented with blogs and podcasts either for their own use or with classes and who would like to extend their technical and pedagogical knowledge of these social tools, RSS and tagging to help learners interact with the web at large and create networks according to their own interests.
At Dekita, we are interested in highlighting and connecting this thriving community of ESL/EFL learners interested in sharing their own multi-media productions, like blogs, photos, audio, and video.
Put professional development and creativity on your list of good resolutions for 2007. There are sessions for all levels and interests. Registration for the EVO has started and goes until January 14th.
Happy New Year!
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By Barbara Dieu · November 07, 2006
This year I was fortunate enough to be able to engage two of my secondary school classes in open and participatory webpublishing (read and write web) more regularly and for a longer period. They were split in half and I’ve had them in smaller groups in the computer room for one hour (from the two other hours in class).
I managed to have them open accounts with Wordpress and other social tools like Flickr, Del.icio.us, 43Things and 43Places and Community Walk
We have inter-linked the tools so it is now possible for them to post directly from the other accounts to their main blog. They have also learnt how to aggregate friends’ blogs and interesting sites through Bloglines to be able to read the posts directly from one page.
After showing how and why to use the different tools, the moments in the lab are now devoted to reading other blogs, commenting on them and publishing their own posts. Students choose the subject and the tool they are going to work with. If they have not managed to conclude what they have set out to do during that hour, they polish it off at home.
At the end of the trimester, I check if they have accomplished the different tasks they have undertaken during the sessions and mark them symbolically for “participation” only because the system demands I do it for all work students engage in. Students KNOW however that they are not doing it for a grade.
Correction is done on the spot, when they ask me for it or later in class, to the whole group, when I notice recurring mistakes. They are encouraged to go back to their posts and rewrite them but I have found out few actually do it. They tend to forget about it once class is over.
Grammar and vocabulary are reinforced AWAY from the blogging area, on Hot Potato sites that abound on the net, grammar books or photocopies – if and only if – the need arises. If I were totally online, I would do it inside an LMS system as Aaron suggests in his Blogging for Homework post . I point them to links for more practice on static pages.
Time in class is devoted to reading, listening, speaking and discussion. More formally structured essays are submitted by mail and the correction and comments go back the same way. I have also experimented doing some group and collaborative work on wikis but the concept is not yet totally clear so I decided to re-introduce next year once they are really at ease with blogging and social tools.
Now, what I like about Wordpress is that it gives you the possibility of having a static page so I am thinking asking students at the end of the school term is to choose some of the essays they like best and archive them on the static pages as part of their learning portfolio. This will make them go over the writing they engaged in during the year, reinforce some concepts and give them an idea of their progress.
Comment [2]
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