Learn English
Taking Your Staffroom Online
- Use Social Media To Improve Your Language Skills
To really understand another language, you need to get to grips with the way it is used by its native speakers. Learning a language using a textbook is a good way to get to know the basics. What textbooks don?t do is help you to understand how people...
- Electronic Village Online 2012: Classdigitools
New year, new resolution: to take any opportunity I can to improve my professional development. No sooner said than done! Seven days ago I joined Electronic Village Online Sessions 2012 which are free virtual courses. For five weeks teachers will connect...
- Tesol Spain 2012
Guggenheim, Blibao. My photo.Last weekend I was at the TESOL Spain conference in Bilbao. I had a great weekend, but returned to work on Monday completely exhausted! I spoke on Sunday morning about online professional development, presenting some findings...
- What Motivates Us?
I really enjoyed this video. The notion of freedom being a great motivator really struck a chord with me. I love the fact that a US economist actually dared to use the word 'socialism'. I also like that he shares ideas that are essentially...
- Teachers Online
Last weekend I completed the two-week 'Blogs' course offered by the consultants-e. I was motivated to do the course mainly in order to get some guidance and receive a final push towards using blogs myself, so having finished that, I am starting....
Learn English
FECEI Madrid
Last Saturday I had the wonderful opportunity to talk at the inaugural FECEI conference in Madrid. It was a very successful and extremely well organised event that attracted a good number of teachers from all over Spain. It was the first time I've given a full hour-long talk and I was somewhat nervous; I was also completely exhausted by the time I'd finished! I think it went quite well, but there are a few things I'd change if I was asked to do it again. Aren't there always?
During the day, I had the pleasure of hearing some fantastic talks: a wonderfully creative opening plenary on creativity by Carol Read, a highly amusing talk with some hugely creative ideas by my colleague Chris Roland, a fine session on the 'Connected Classroom' (example stuff here) with an ill and stuck in England Russell Stannard via adobe connect, and an entertaining and interesting session with a series of wonderful ideas by Jane Delaney, based on Cambridge YLs exam material.
I spoke about what I'm starting to call the 'Connected Staffroom', which is respectfully (sort of) ripped off Mr. Stannard. I talked about why being online, through creating a PLE (Personal Learning Environment) and establishing a PLN (Personal Learning Network), can be of great benefit. I proposed that this is a difficult task for many teachers and that jumping into the ocean of online conversation is a task considered too much for many.
I think that by creating smaller, private groups, only for their teachers, schools can provide an environment in which to practice 'being online' within a professional learning community. Through sharing and interacting with each other, this could lead eventually to individuals establishing a presence in the wider world of the ELT community online.
I tried this with a school where I worked a couple of years ago (Idiomaster, Lucena - my sponsor for this event) and at Active Language, where I work currently. At Active we have started a Facebook group for our teachers. In the talk I referred to issues I have had in the past and some challenges that have needed to be met. I also suggested some opportunities that might be possible should such a group gain support from the staff.
The slides I used can be seen in the embedded document below and below that there is a list of links to useful online sites and groups, some of which I mentioned in the talk. I also recommend the blogs listed in my blogroll in the right margin of this page.
If you're reading this because you came to the talk, many thanks for coming! I hope you found it useful.
Some useful online sites and groups focused on teacher development
aPLaNet- Autonomous PLNs for Language Teachers
British Council Teaching English
British Council Teach English ? Facebook
Cambridge ESOL Teacher Support
International Teacher Development Institute
OUP Global Blog
- Use Social Media To Improve Your Language Skills
To really understand another language, you need to get to grips with the way it is used by its native speakers. Learning a language using a textbook is a good way to get to know the basics. What textbooks don?t do is help you to understand how people...
- Electronic Village Online 2012: Classdigitools
New year, new resolution: to take any opportunity I can to improve my professional development. No sooner said than done! Seven days ago I joined Electronic Village Online Sessions 2012 which are free virtual courses. For five weeks teachers will connect...
- Tesol Spain 2012
Guggenheim, Blibao. My photo.Last weekend I was at the TESOL Spain conference in Bilbao. I had a great weekend, but returned to work on Monday completely exhausted! I spoke on Sunday morning about online professional development, presenting some findings...
- What Motivates Us?
I really enjoyed this video. The notion of freedom being a great motivator really struck a chord with me. I love the fact that a US economist actually dared to use the word 'socialism'. I also like that he shares ideas that are essentially...
- Teachers Online
Last weekend I completed the two-week 'Blogs' course offered by the consultants-e. I was motivated to do the course mainly in order to get some guidance and receive a final push towards using blogs myself, so having finished that, I am starting....