BOSTON 2015 C1 CELTA JANUARY 5 - JANUARY 30

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Comment by Matthew Noble on January 18, 2015 at 4:37pm

Hi Nathan - those are gonna be questions for your current level tutor (Kimberly). You can come in or call in during tomorrow's Study Day or wait until your GLP time on Tuesday.

All I'll say is: think about what the difference is between 'analysis of examples from text' and 'clarification' and why they are designed as separate stages with separate stage-aims.

Go Pats

Comment by Nathan Jacob Zwillich on January 18, 2015 at 2:05pm

Two questions:
1. Since TP 6 for me is going to be functions/grammar do I have to do both a grammar analysis sheet AND a functions analysis sheet or just the functions?
2. I'm following the Text Based Systems model for planning, but it seems as if Analysis of Text Examples could be integrated into the Clarification stage (since they'd make perfect example during MPF). Would that be a problem if they were to be combined into one big, 12 minute Clarifications MPF w/ Text Analysis stage?

Comment by Matthew Noble on January 17, 2015 at 11:46pm

A trainee from the previous course (just before the holidays) posted this pic in their myTH group - it's six trainees and their Upper-Int learners...you might recognize some of them ;)...anyway, just a thought: your well on your way to taking similar pictures, smiling similar smiles...so don't let up, don't unfocus, and don't take your eyes off the prize! :) Do your best and make the absolute most of these next two weeks...you can't repeat the CELTA, sadly ;P..it's literally once in a lifetime..and there's nothing else like it! */puts away cheerleading megaphone/*

Comment by Matthew Noble on January 17, 2015 at 11:31pm

Joe: both BC and OSE are absolutely legitimate, reputable sources for info and activities/activity ideas! Go for it.

Nathan: A few thoughts...(that I hope might be worth a look for all y'all)..

1. I don't see where "roleplay" comes into what you described: try to be specific and consistent with terminology. :)

2. If you're drawing on the WB, there's not actually "realia" involved. Realia = non-classroom/pedagogical objects and items brought into the classroom environment. The whiteboard and absolutely everything that goes on it cannot be categorized as "realia". If your lesson involves the language of shopping transactions, real bills, change, and a bunch of jewelry used to help Ss act out some dialogues for practice...you'd have both realia and roleplay happening.

3. You're right that something *like* that is indeed teacher-led but still learner-centered IF they're induced to follow and provide known language and you're not talking at them etc...but: don't you want to establish a student-centered dynamic at the beginning of your lesson? If so, plan something for *your students* to do together for this stage, not you.

...think of it this way: you set THEM up nicely to do active, engaging tasks --> YOU get all the credit from US. In some sense, the "less" you do, the better your chance of success if that means what you DO do (all the things we're teaching you to do so precisely and efficiently) is feeding 40 minutes of learners + language learning activity. Be the "puppet master" of student learning activity, not the busy, hard-working 'sage on the stage' throughout the lesson.

The "hard work" is really all in the planning...and we 'plan hard' in this CELTA way in order to construct these lessons in which we've already gone ahead down the path and 'laid out the groundwork' for our students to climb up through several cleverly designed and sequenced stages to arrive at a satisfying learning experience at the top of the mountain, so to speak. They should be panting like the first Europeans to climb Everest, while we are the Sherpas - we know the trail, we blazed it...this was very much the way your excellent TP4 came across.

That's all a riff on "student-centeredness" generally. Back to your lead-in. Like I always mention, don't overthink something as relatively unimportant as a lead-in; those first 4 minutes are not going to make or break the achievement of any lesson's main aims, is it? As a reminder, they CAN do some really good things:

1. Generate interest in a topic/context/theme
2. Activate schema/general/previous knowledge
3. Establish a S-centered class atmosphere
4. Motivate/stimulate learners for your lesson
5. Build S-S rapport and positive group dynamics

To tick more of those boxes, 'arrange the meeting' between the learners, their peers, and something interesting/captivating/fun that they can talk/share about that leads right into the rest of your lesson...

TIP REMINDER: great 'holistic' lesson lead-in ideas can very often come out of the lesson's final stage - productive task/freer practice activity. When you really know and consider where the lesson is taking them will you know just how to best "take-off" for that place ;)

4. You suggest that the aim would be "to accustom Ss to the TL"...this is definitely a less-than-fully-appropriate stage aim for a lead-in, no? So, what is then? This should be very clear by now (see above), and I'd strongly recommend you stick with what clearly works and what has been modeled and examined during the course so far. Your TL is the main course - serve some appetizers, first, eh chef? :)

PS- The "slow reveal" of activity is a tried-and-true ESL move...teacher draws pics or reveals flashcard pics slowly as the learners attempt to figure out what's what orally, guided by the teacher. It's a nice idea in itself. :)

Kudos for bringing it up!

Comment by Joseph ONeill on January 17, 2015 at 8:51pm

Same question for OneStopEnglish. I know you said it was reputable for exercises in the FOL assignment, but I want to confirm before I use it as a source in my LRT.

Comment by Joseph ONeill on January 17, 2015 at 8:27pm

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/verbs/mod...

Comment by Joseph ONeill on January 17, 2015 at 8:27pm

Is "The British Council" a legitimate source for the LRT assignment?

Comment by Nathan Jacob Zwillich on January 17, 2015 at 4:15pm

@Matthew Noble

I'm designing Wednesday's grammar/functions activity, and I was thinking of doing a realia-based roleplay lead-in to accustom ss to prepositions which will be used in the session. I was thinking of drawing a "story" on the board with clear contexts to elicit some of the prepositions, ss would be elicited for the correct words and then I would draw the next situation, etc. until the "character" literally arrives in the Town that will be the focus of the lesson on page 49.

It is very teacher-centric, but only in the sense I'm providing realia and the ss are trying to figure out what's going on. Do you think that's acceptale or would you want more details?

Comment by Matthew Noble on January 17, 2015 at 2:42pm

If you're interested, an app (has free version w/ paid upgrade) of the phonemic chart we use is available in iTunes and Google Play stores. See that here: http://www.macmillaneducationapps.com/soundspron/

Another pron app that goes much further in the technical phonology direction but is still pretty accessible is here: http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/

Just FYI.

Go Pats.

Comment by Matthew Noble on January 16, 2015 at 5:59pm

Local area ESL job info/update:

The update part: positions at GEOS I mentioned on this wall earlier are filled. The director said they expect to hire lots of teachers for a busy summer session though.

The new info: see PDF attached for a info on a position at a brand new (I think? I've never heard of it...) Boston language school. They're looking for CELTA-qualified teachers to start February 2nd. Let me know ASAP if you're interested and maybe I can assist in helping you prep your resume, etc. before we get to that input session, etc. so you can get an application in and get the ball rolling as soon as possible.

Have a great weekend and congrats on being halfway done with the course!

Matthew

LAL%20School%20Job%20Posting.pdf

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