BOSTON 2015 C1 CELTA JANUARY 5 - JANUARY 30

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Comment by Matthew Noble on January 15, 2015 at 8:02pm

Having a re-read of your thoughts on texting...some absolutely stellar points/perspectives/insights in each and every case! Very nice.

Just a bit of follow up on that particular topic...

Here's an example of a lesson about texting: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/Texting_plan...

And a lesson about news about texting: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/1011/101110-texting.html

Nice related lesson based on a Vimeo short animation of a poem (I love film-english.com: http://film-english.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/missing-U-lesson...

CUL8R

Comment by Matthew Noble on January 15, 2015 at 7:08pm

Not sure how "...the creator of the IPA *share* we use for teaching..." happened. Perhaps obviously: share = chart.

And they give me money to teach English! ;P

Comment by Matthew Noble on January 15, 2015 at 6:49pm

From now on if you'd like to use these audio files rather than spinning a CD around in an almost obsolete machine (you can just attach your phone to the speakers in the classroom, for instance), go at it...should be downloadable from these folders. Let me know if not...

Global Upper Intermediate Audio:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6s45WWdJGrcU29mZ2NZazBtdk0...

American Headway 2 (Pre-Int) Audio:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6s45WWdJGrcbUFMWVkyVGNXeVk...

BTW - always check your audio way, way early in the lesson planning process! Someone was out listening material today because of this. We couldn't locate the material at the last minute, but we do have it online. If it were known earlier that it was needed, would have dug it out. Just Right stuff MAY come back in a TP 6 or 7 so here's all the audio for that: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6s45WWdJGrceW9NcWdCTjBoZE0...

-----

While I'm here, I'll share some materials PDFs that *might* come in handy...on the CELTA itself or perhaps later on...(we also have these on the shelf, printed out in binders): The Reward Resources Packs are full of awesome communicative language activities. These are go-to books on the shelves of language centers the world over, and don't seem to age (OK, the occasional activity has, but overall they're timeless in their design): https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6s45WWdJGrcQS1IcjlHTmh0ME0...

BTW - If an unobserved lesson isn't crucial to that day's flow of 3 lessons, you're allowed to use something like the above to build a lesson around (some of the speaking activities are particularly good as speaking lessons).

Cheers

Matthew

PS - also attached for your optional viewing pleasure: Adrian Underhill, the creator of the IPA share we use for teaching, pronunciation guru extraordinaire, teaching a bunch of teachers the IPA. Really cool stuff if you're interested, and he does a fantastic job of explaining it all extremely lucidly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kAPHyHd7Lo

Comment by Amanda J Folcarelli on January 15, 2015 at 9:20am

Text messaging is convenient, but its drawback is that it has negatively affected the structure of language used by young learners. Compared to older generations, they find more difficulty differentiating between formal and informal writing.

Comment by Steve Jamrog on January 15, 2015 at 9:20am

Joe and Steve's position

The people who are older like above a certain age (30 and over) are offended by the way that language is being dumbed down, but ultimately, thats how the evolution of language works. It is not really dumbing down, but its the ease of articulation, gestural economy. There were languages 1000's of years ago that were very complex but through time they have always become simpler, and thats a good thing. People will always complain that language needs to be formal, but what its really all about is communicating as quickly and efficiently as possible, and making it universal so that a 12 year old who hasn't taken an english composition class can communicate with anyone. As long as were on the same page, no matter what the page looks like, that is the most important thing :PPPPPP

Comment by Nathan Jacob Zwillich on January 15, 2015 at 9:19am

Txting is situational, people don't forget how to spell outside the chatbox. At least us millenials don't. These exciting new devs in orthographic conventions in the use of telecomunnications have led to more efficacious composition of text. Development is development. All hail development!

Comment by Rachel Soule on January 15, 2015 at 9:19am

Nancy and Rachel here. About texting: we believe that texting does not necessarily impact English writing negatively. Texting is a shortcut, and people often use a new form of 'shorthand' for it. It doesn't make people lose their 'real' writing skills, unless they didn't have them to begin with or overuse 'text speak' when writing in more formal contexts - but this is very uncommon to do. People generally choose to write a certain way while texting but can still write in a more 'correct' way in other contexts. Also, we love texting! We do it all the time.

Comment by Tom Hudson on January 15, 2015 at 9:18am

My position statement on txting is that it encourages the whole world to write. Texting, tweeting, Facebook, emails, etc. have resulted in Gutenberg-like leap for millions who probably spent most of their adult lives writing next to nothing.

Comment by Matthew Noble on January 14, 2015 at 5:48pm

I was reminded today that a PDF of "Learning English" (primary source material for your FOL assignment) is available online here: http://languageexpert.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/0/4/11049906/swan-lear...

Comment by Matthew Noble on January 14, 2015 at 9:09am

One 'jazzy' way to facilitate pronunciation practice is to take a musical approach. English is a stress-timed language (unlike, say Spanish) and is very...rap-able! (Ever listened to rap music in other languages? It ALWAYS SUCKS). In English the main content words 'get the beat' while the others are said quickly and fit into the half and quarter beats. It's jazz, daddy-o!

Below find a link to a video of the originator of/about the "Jazz Chant" teaching approach, Carolyn Graham. It'll show you what it's all about. (Our very own Petrina was doing this kind of thing in her TP class the other day!)...as for me, I love it. EVERYONE responds to rhythm and music, and language is INHERENTLY musical.

Even if you're not getting "jazzy", drills shouldn't necessarily be boring and mechanical. So it's a reminder to keep it lively and fun. :)

Another note: to be frank, you're never going to make a million dollars as an English teacher (or a teacher of any kind for that matter!) but there are so many 'priceless' benefits of committing to this field. One of them is that it's chalk (chock?) full of fascinating, wonderful, great PEOPLE! Carolyn is a good example. Just a side note!

BTW...Jazz Chant-style drills are great with kids...but also with 'grown kids' = EVERYONE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_nPUuPryCs

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