TESOLing

What happens when 200+ people show up at a workshop you feel certain will attract 50? You have four times more fun!  Lori (Howard) and I had a great time working with teachers, teacher-educators, students and other equally-important-but-unidentified participants at our Paired Reading session today. At one point- which I so wish I had on film--everyone in the room demonstrated the positive nature of "leaning forward" because I asked them to. (With great power comes great responsibility...)

The day got even sweeter. After doing a run through of the OPDi at the Oxford Booth for an exhausted but enthusiastic instructor from Indiana, I met an instructor from Russia who told me that she was using the OPD to teach Russian gas company executives.  "Bosses are using your book," she said with a laugh. I think I'm going to have to adopt that as my new catch phrase. "You want to know why you should use this book with your learners? Bosses are using it--that's why!"

She promised to send me a photo of the learners with the books and I promised to write them a letter. We finished up this swell collegial encounter with a photo op in front of the sparse yet elegant display at the Oxford booth. All in all-- a day well spent!

Onward!
j/me

TESOL LOOMS LARGE!

Tomorrow the skies of the southwest (and the airline that bears their name) will transport me to TESOL 2013 in Dallas.  I am looking forward to the flight because:
1) I leave from our quiet, local airport in Burbank;
2) there's a short layover in Las Vegas, where the possibility of winning a small fortune at the video poker slots always lurks in the back of my mind; and
3) althought the total travel time is the same as going direct to NYC (6 hrs!), the time difference once I'm there is two hours rather than three.

I am anticipating that TESOL will feel quite different this year. The economic woes facing adult education across the US have made many publishers downsize their adult ESOL offerings and, unfortunately, this is the first year that many of the people I look forward to catching up with at the conference will not be there, (op. cit. economic woes).*  

Of course, every TESOL has an element of surprise. Last year, Pearson's booth-without-books was quite the controversy! Maybe this year Nat-Geo (National Geographic-Heinle Cengage) will do something special, green and cool.

I'll be ready! (And I am excited to see the colleagues who will there. This is often my first opportunity to meet my international students f2f!) 


Despite the pervasive E.W.s (see above) I firmly believe that we are soon going to have an immigration reform bill that will help reopen schools and inspire new programs-- but the big question for learners, instructors, and program administrators alike is "Who will be in charge?"  (I would have said it was the $64,000.00 question--but that number is far too low.) TESOL will be a place to hear more about this very issue--and I promise to share what I hear!


My plane flight will most likely be spent reviewing the slides for my academic sessions on Friday at 11 a.m. (Paired Reading with Lori Howard)  and Saturday at 10 a.m.  (Challenges of Online Teacher Education with Radmila Popovic). God help me, I love to tinker with a presentation that should be finished.  How many times do you think I changed the color scheme on this one?

In case you are interested in any of the materials from these sessions, they will go up on the Tools and Tips page of the website. And, in addition, I promise to scout out as many exciting, engaging and practical ideas as I can and put them up too!

And this year, instead of doing a full-fledged publisher-sponsored session, I'll be doing a walk through of the Oxford Picture Dictionary digital materials at the OUP booth (Thurs. and Fri at 1:15.) Those kinds of presentations are always a bit tricky:  will there be people there, or will I look as though I'm trying to sell Oxi-Clean to the passing throngs?

As a lark, I thought I would try my hand at tweeting during the conference.  If you want to follow me, just click https://twitter.com/lthrtdlrng.

And of course, if you see me at the conference and have read this blog--do come up and say hi! It would be lovely to meet my reader. :

Onward!
j/me
******************************
*Yes, I do know this is not the correct usage of op. cit. but I just don't have that many opportunities to use it--and I love the way it sounds. Sort of the researcher's ipso facto, which is also quite lovely. And ibid--can't forget ibid!

A NEW WEBSITE! LightheartedLearning.com

I know it's absurd, but I feel like running around distributing politically incorrect chocolate cigars to complete strangers. (Bwhahahaha....My chance to give candy to strangers!)





Absurd or not, there's a real sense of joy (and relief) at having a website up and running. I should probably knock wood as I type that.  For those of you who are not familiar with the Yiddish verbal equivalent of knocking wood ---no, not spitting, if that were a verbal equivalent it would have to be the cartoon exclamation of TsuTsu-- I'm speaking of the expression, KENOHORA...which one uses to ward off the evil eye. E.g. Look your souffle is so puffy and high. Kenohora!  (The omission of kenohora would mean that once the complimentary statement left the speaker's lips---the souffle would be doomed.) Upon re-reading that last example, I'm not so sure that souffle and Yiddish create a collocative concept. Excuse me while I step over to another browser window to check. [time passes]

Okay--we're good. There were plenty of hits for "Jewish souffle" (However the souffles shown were all pretty flat...guess somebody forgot his or her kenohoras...)

Embryonic Elephant

But back to the website. The gestation process has been what one would expect-- not in elephant terms, of course--but in terms of the average pregnancy.




Proof of Reasoning
Elephant from start to finish: 22 months.
Website from start to finish: 9 months

Ryan Sebring

Thank goodness I worked with a VERY patient and gifted web designer, Ryan Sebring (Sebring Creative). It's probably been at least three years since I said to him, over some chocolate rugelach, "Oh, you do web design? I'd really like to get a lighthearted learning site up and running."  He should have started running...and screaming from the room. But instead, in June of 2012, we found ourselves talking about banners and sub-banners; assets and anchors, and the scroll of death. (We did try to avoid the latter.) Ryan really had no idea what he was getting into, but he was an excellent sport throughout my crazy travel schedule and various changes of heart (and design.) 



Of course,  Ryan wasn't the only patient person during this process. My best friend and LOML, Gary, endured my numerous interruptions to a) solicit advice, b) ask for help, and c) whine.  What do you think my beloved replied when I said, "The hummingbird looks a little snarky. Could you fix his eye?"?  He fixed the eye of course, and then turned his own heavenward and sighed deeply.  
 

Hummingbird, less snarky

And speaking of eyes; my daughter's took on catching every inconsistency in phrasing, punctuation, and spacing. Emily made my life SO much easier at a time when 3,8 and 5; i and l and (.) and (,) look pretty much identical to moi. And then Ed, (best B.I.L. ever), did a round of edits that ameliorated the typos and cut and paste ghosts that can haunt an educational website forever!


Setting a March deadline was probably the best thing we could have done...it  has to be done when you set a deadline. (Or so my editors have always said.) The deadline meant that when I fly away to TESOL in mid-March I will not have to look at my shoes and make snuffling noises in response to the website question. (Nor, since the conference is in Dallas, will I have to hear, "Well, bless your heart, you'll get it done some day." )

This year for TESOL, I've set a goal of having business cards with the website address and my email and no typos. (Not like the year when, much to my chagrin, I discovered I had printed out cards with an extra digit in my phone number. Of course, I'm sure I appeared very editorial as I scrawled the delete mark each time I handed out a card. But I digress....)

I have a new website. You can find it here: lightheartedlearning.com (kenohora)  Do drop by! (And for those of you already here and reading this on the site...WELCOME!)

Laissez les bons temps (et leçons) rouler!

Fat Tuesday was not a part of my upbringing, but the spirit of letting "les bon temps" roll was certainly something my parents encouraged--our version was a saucepan and wooden spoon parade around the house while singing "We are marching to Pretoria." Even now, when I feel especially festive, I let my inner 6-year old hum those two lines. (I only just found out that there are lyrics beyond "We are marching to Pretoria-Pretoria-Pretoria. We are marching to Pretoria-Pre-tory-ory-AH!"  Thank you Wikipedia.)  

These days I live in a more diverse universe--both real and virtual, and Fat Tuesday ventures into my field of vision annually. There are beads and masks at my drugstore as well as my friends' jubilant and madcap FB announcements and photos. I especially like the masks, and I know I am not alone in this. So,  I thought this month's blog could focus on a few

mask idées which I hope will inspire some bons temps with your learners.

 Faces of Diversity Jose Manuel Ribeiro / Reuters

MASK MATCH UPS
Show students any of the images of mask collections from google docs--this one for example:inShare

• Ask about the types of masks they see in the photo and the types of masks they have worn or seen.   
• Have learners categorize the mask images by emotion, rate their appeal or craftsmanship, or come up with one sentence that someone wearing one of the masks would say.

VIDEO LISTENING LESSON: BEHIND THE MASK

For your intermediate-level learners, show this 9-minute documentary "Behind the Mask"  in segments, asking learners to listen for specific information in each segment (See sample time frames and questions below) 

Segment 1- 00:00 to 1:49

How old is the oldest mask we know about?

Where is the picture of that mask?

How old is the Balinese mask tradition?

What did ancient people believe about masks?

Segment 2- 1:50-3:59

How did masks help actors in the Greek theater?

How did Comedia del Arte actors use masks? 

Segment 3- 4:00 – 6:19

How did you feel when you saw the actor in the lion mask?

One speaker says masks are “stepping into another person’s shoes.” Is that a good thing to do? Why or why not?

Which masks do you remember from this part of the documentary?

How is making a mask different from wearing a mask?

Segment 4- 6:20 – end

One speaker talks about masks allowing us to have fun in public.  

What are the pluses and minuses of “having fun in public”?

How does a mask help a person have fun in public? 

MASKS AND ROLE PLAYS

Based on your lesson theme, come up with a scenario for a roleplay. For example; if students are working on giving opinions and talking about healthy life choices, you could set the roleplay in a workplace breakroom, and have groups of learners develop a role play based on a situation that occurs when someone brings a birthday cake to work. Some workers are upset because they don't want to eat sweets, but several workers like snacks at work.

http://metacog.tumblr.com/post/22716943983/we-had-birthday-cake-at-work-today-i-didnt-take

Next have the groups determine the personalities of each person in the role play and decide what those people look like. Distribute markers, paper plates cut in half, craft store half masks, or stiff card stock cut in large half circles, glue sticks and other craft items for groups to use in creating masks that represent the different personalities they've decided on. (Because you want to be able to hear the "actors" in their role plays, it's probably best to create masks that only cover the upper half of the face, leaving the mouth exposed.)

http://www.colorado.edu/odece/pcdp/eligibility.html

Have learners put on their masks and practice their role plays. Give groups the opportunity to perform their role play for at least one other group if not the whole class. Be sure to get feedback from the class about how they felt using the masks. 

LINCOLN IN THE HOT SEAT

Use masks to play "hot seat"- the activity where one person sits at the front answering the class' questions. These questions may be printed on sentence strips or cards or may be generated by the learners. In this version of the activity, the student who volunteers to be "on the hot seat" is given a choice of printed masks of famous people. The class then addresses the learner as the person on the mask. E.g. "Mr. Lincoln, what's your favorite color?" (Note, "Mr. Lincoln" tries to give answers that make sense based on what everyone in the class knows about him.)

Fat Tuesday will have been and gone by the time most of you read this--and Halloween is not for months yet-- but wouldn't you agree that masks can be the source of some truly lighthearted learning anytime? How have you used masks in your teaching?
___________
(1) The Asian mask collection at Lisbon's new Museu do Oriente

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article

 

 

January 2013: A New Year! A New Blog! and a new website in the works!

(That was exhausting... now I must go have a little lie down.) 

It is probably not news to you that many famous authors wrote from bed. Edith Wharton, Winston Churchill, Colette, and Mark Twain could all complete their fortune cookies with "between the sheets."  And there just have to be at least five blog posts about writing in bed. (I checked...there are.) However, writing on a laptop, with pillows propped up around me is NOT the subject of this post. It's the "little lie down" on which I'd like to focus.

This past December I was reminded, again and again, of all the good that co-exists with the miserable and broken in the world--but the deep sadness that began the month stayed with me and challenged any lighthearted feelings that tried to rise in the face of that sorrow. And as we all know, joyful is the catch phrase of our Decembers in the U.S.  But trying to be joyful when you really aren't ...well that's a very tiring thing. And so I found myself needing  to rest more, to take a moment and sit down or lie down or stare into space. And because it's really not all about me, as I sat, lay or stared, I started to think about the exhausting aspect of language learning and the days when a learner may just not feel up to it. Those of us who are energetic in our teaching style may not recognize that some learners are yearning for a quiet, restful time to contemplate the lesson content. In some cases, they may just need time to make the transition from their work day to the classroom.My classrooms are typically filled with teachers, but it's a parallel situation.

From Teaching Outside the Box or Just Unpacking it? ELTA 2012

In fact, I often ask the participants in my workshops to rate and share their energy level with me, before they begin. If it turns out that a highly caffeinated person is sitting next to someone who has said her energy is at a low ebb, I implore the energized to be kind.





In an effort to be kinder, I will use this month to try to strike a balance between the high energy of a new year and quiet, restful contemplation of what lies ahead. And then I'll try to bring that balance into my teaching... I'll let you know how it goes. Won't you do the same?

Happy New Year two weeks in!  (In years past that would have been all caps and delivered at 12:01 a.m. on January first. I astound myself with my mellowness.)
j/me

Week 2 begins!

I actually saw some of Singapore F2F rather than from inside a taxi! Sunday started out with a luxurious sleep in to 8 a.m. and then a morning observation on the north side of the city. I set out with Joan (Polster), the head of the Workplace Literacy Centre in the Institute for Adult Learning around 10, only to arrive on site at 10:30 and see a big closed sign on the mosque's community center door. Undaunted, we found the class in the back and sat for an hour as the trainer worked with students on the theme of "surprises." Kolsum, the trainer, was very gracious and it was clear her students adored her (one gentleman a bit more than most) When they were working on homonyms and bear/bare came up--there was a definite awkward moment as she began identifying parts of the body that could be bare..but then we were off onto "bare-faced liar" and singing"rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens." (It really often is that random) and he awkward moment was forgotten. (The random, less communicative teaching methods are a little bit why I'm here: to help with the lesson flow and learner-centered instruction. It's clear, though, that it's a big shift and it will take time and patience to help the trainers expand their teaching strategies.)  We left the class around noon and headed out to the city centre so I could see the water. (There's enough of it in the air--but I wanted to see the real thing...) I got to see the Lion of Singapore, which is quite beautiful (see above) --I didn't know this until I read about it this week,  but in the 13th-century Malay Annals, Sang Nila Utama, a prince from Palembang was shipwrecked and washed ashore to an island. There he saw a creature which he believed was a lion. So he named the island "Singa Pura" (in Tamil language Singa puram) which means "Lion City" in Malay^{. (Thanks Wikipedia!)}
We were in the high heat of the day, so we hid in the concert hall and the back of Harry's Bar and then, finally the Science Museum. We went over a double helix bridge to get there, which was a great walk over the water (Breezes!) If you look hard at the picture you will see a woman carrying a parasol. I did that too... I can--literally--feel myself burning if I don't stay in shade or cover myself up. Sunscreen or not!

The museum is really something. But let me just show it to you--that's Joan on the left. There's a lovely pond of water lilies that surrounds the building and there's a backwards fountain (raining down from the ceiling) in the center.  (I didn't take a picture, sorry...)

But here's the silliest thing--I thought that in the Science museum we'd see all the latest technology in Singapore...nope! I toured the Titanic.  (You get a replica of someone's boarding pass (sic) and then at the end you see if "you" survived. I did. I was Polish and Jewish too! I wonder if they do profiling...)
It was a fascinating and really a unique exhibit...but still--not terribly Singaporean! 

From the museum we headed back through the "glamorous" shopping mall that's under that boat building ...it's very Las Vegas with a waterway running through the building. Lots of sparkly magpie things to buy...but I'm saving my SDs for little India and Chinatown.

When we finally got back to my neck of the woods, I got to walk across a bridge that probably symbolizes what I like most about it here...the colors!

This is the Clarke Quay Bridge. (I did not know how to pronounce Quay, which you all know is pronounced "key"--and I found out in a less-than-worldly moment...) Here's another view:

I loved being on this bridge. I even did a little dance going over, but very subtly... I did a bit more grocery shopping on the way to the apt. (All my veggies had frozen--sigh, so I'd had to cook them up and some did not do so well. To celebrate Sunday, I got myself three tiny Ben and Jerry's 1/4c. servings for...wait for it...14.00SD which is probably about 11 or 12 dollars US. I have been parceling out the ice cream a teeny bit at a time. :-)

Yesterday --Monday was quite the day. I started observing at 10 a.m. and got home from observing at 11 p.m. Here's where I went, sort of...

I took 10 taxis and saw four trainers and discovered that the "Bread Shoppe" puts sugar on their garlic bread. (This country is in love with sugar..) By the time I got home, I was quite the dithering idiot...but then I watched "gorgeous"!!"DIVA"!! TV!!and felt much, much better. 

Off to get my employment pass! I shall soon be legal!
xoxoxoxox j/me