Have you read English Teaching Forum magazine yet? It is another outstanding resource for English language teachers whether working with adults in Africa, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, or teaching immigrants and future citizens inside the United States. Published by the U.S. State Department,the excellent quarterly magazine includes concise lesson plans, reflective essays, and reproducible exercises.
I’ve subscribed for a year, and consistently been impressed at the depth, range, and creativity of the articles. The practical articles offer classroom suggestions that can be immediately used, putting many more academic publications on teaching English to shame. I’m keeping all my past issues of English Teaching Forum. I also wish more government sponsored educational efforts attained this high-quality. Perhaps excellence in public education will become fashionable again.
Fortunately, older issues of English Teaching Forum are also available online. The archives go back several years. You can read the Winter 2007 issue online. Each article can be downloaded in a separate PDF file, allowing teachers to pick and choose their favorite articles. Unfortunately, the 2008 issues remain in print form only. You can also find other valuable teacher resources at
How do students conduct online research for their K-12 classes? Do they systematically pursue a topic, use critical thinking to evaluate sources, and focus on the assigned topics? Or do they wander, often confused and easily distracted, from site to site? Is it possible for Google, the creator of the best online search engine,to create a specialized search engine just for K-12 students? Could Google, in other words, do for the K-12 students, teachers, and librarians what it has done for elite graduate students with Google scholar?
That’s the question that Dorit Eilon and a group of tech savvy teachers and educators are asking at Classroom 2.0 .
“We are a group of educators who for the past 7 months did an extensive research about on-line research and the education world. According to studies most students (and teachers) have difficulty conducting an efficient on-line research and most do not understand how Google or other search engines work.
Students, well versed in IM and SN (Social Networking) stumble when they conduct on-line research.
Even with technology many teachers still use the web in isolation. Teachers find great links that… stay on their computer, on their own website or their own blog.
So a group of us, educators, would like things to change.
We dream of a search engine that is unique to the education community with searches that produce text, video, audio results at the same time, where both commercial and school created material is accessible and monitored (we have a whole plan), where the resources will be identified, contributed and monitored by educators in phase one and Middle School / High School students in phase two. A search engine that it’s content will grow by the education community. and we want Google to be a part of it, to work with us to develop it and provide the technology.
But, we need librarians, teachers and students to talk about the day-to-day difficulties of navigating the web. We need educators to speak up so we can show that there is a real need not just plain statistics.
We imagine a search tool that will allow you to search within sites created by teachers, ability to rate sites / review, ability to search by “author” (person contributing links) , connection to Google Maps and much more.
If you feel the same way please go to our blog to look at comments and votes. While there, please take a vote and leave a comment to have your voice and opinion heard. http://cangooglehearus.blogspot.com/
Together we can make a difference.”
Sounds right to me. As the leading search engine and innovative technology company, Google can play an even more prominent role in improving education across the globe. Let’s hope Google hears this eloquent plea for a more student and teacher friendly search engine.
If you feel the same way, please visit and sign the petition.
As readers of this blog will soon discover, I believe in experimenting and finding new resources. Following an emailed lead, I discovered an impressive website for teachers called Classroom 2.0 . What attracted me?
The site meets me where I am – an English teacher curious about new technologies, but unsure how to proceed and which technologies to explore in depth. Filled with concise, yet detailed guidelines to various 2.0 technologies, I look forward to reading and learning more about evolving web technologies and how they can be used as 21st century educational tools.
Sometimes students ask simple, direct questions that I can’t immediately answer. For instance, an ESL student wondered, “What are the 1000 most common words in English?”
Wiktionary, an offshoot of the wonderful Wikipedia, offers this answer . The list looks, sounds, and feels right, and offers no big surprises. English, an ever evolving and changing language, will probably have a slightly different list in a decade.
Do I recommend memorizing this current list? No. Language is to be used, discovered, and enjoyed. Memorizing long lists of vocabulary words in English, while sometimes effective for standardized tests, seldom helps create compelling conversations. Vocabulary lists, however, can provide a sense of satisfaction and order.
Sometimes lists like this can also help us review and trigger new connections. Yet exploring a personal interest in English will help you generate a more personal, authentic, and meaningful vocabulary in English. So what interests you today? What do you want to learn more about? Where can you find two quality articles on that topic? Why not create your own vocabulary list to match you and your interests? Shouldn’t your vocabulary journal reflect you?
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), British author
Sometimes you don’t appreciate something until you lose it.
My website, down and out for almost a week of tech turmoil as I changed server, host, and webmaster, demonstrates this point. The site, www.compellingconversations.com , has been restored and even slightly upgraded. The check out system, for instance, takes consumers directly to Paypal – saving time and reducing hassle. The blog, still primitive, is a more advanced version of WordPress, but I still don’t really know what that means in practical terms. I seem to have lost numerous blog postings, but these brief musings are first thoughts and not finely crafted essay. The free conversation lessons and five book chapters on Traveling, Studying English, Being Yourself, Talking about Movies, and Practicing Job Interviews, can be easily downloaded.
I’m still learning – and sometimes stumbling, but the website is stronger, safer, and deeper than before.
Please drop by, check out the free lessons, and read about creating lively ESL classroom discussions. As ever, please contact me if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments at talktome@compellingconversations.com.
Sometimes we confuse talking about English with talking in English. As English teachers, we need to gently encourage our students to talk as much as possible in English, and only sometimes in English. And as world citizens, we should learn as much about the country and host language as possible when we are teaching English abroad.
A new English teaching program, sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology in Korea seems to understand that goal. Or at least that seems a reasonable inference about TaLK (Teach and Learn about Korea) from the persuasive recruitment website for 400 quality English teachers. A few features struck me as particularly promising:
·Preference for individuals of Korean descent showing the government’s investment in the quality of the program
·Pitch for undergraduates and novice teachers to develop their skills
·Small class size and universal internet access
·Status as presidential scholars
·15-hour work weeks
·planned visits to museums and cultural attractions
·pitch for TaLK program includes “be a local celebrity”
·opportunity to deepen the ties between Korean and American educators
The large recent demonstration by thousands of Korean citizens against the importation of untested beef has been widely misunderstood in the United States. Almost everyone, including American citizens, wants stricter regulation of food to guarantee food safety, but too many media reports pretend this mass demonstration showed widespread anti-American sentiment in South Korea. I thought this innovative educational program was a poignant retort to that silly exaggeration. I’m confident that most citizens, in both South Korea and the United States, understand that you can’t blame individual people for unpopular government decisions.
The 400 young teachers selected for this program will have many opportunities to share experiences, teach English to eager students, and learn some Korean. They will also help sustain a strong friendship between people from two dynamic civilizations.
Visit TaLK on Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology website for more information.
