Methodology Pills for Induced Reflection No. 14 Lesson Planning Check List

It's been three months since my last post and it's been this long because unfortunately, one of my siblings fought against cancer and lost! This led to our family coming closer and since we are all over the world, it's also meant traveling a little. Anyways, on a much happier note here is a post on a short video I created on Nov 3 on Lesson Planning.  This check list suggests taking into consideration all the different resources which I have created so far e.g. the different Methodology Pills available in my YouTube channel and my Lesson Frameworks eBook which I can send you if you email me asking for it.

Bye for now and I hope you find this video useful!

Methodology Pills for Induced Reflection No.13 Productive Skills - SPEAKING

Right, here's the last one to complete the productive skills suite. As can be seen from the summary at the end it actually follows a PPP framework which we have said before was more appropriate for language based lessons. Now, you may be asking yourself why and here's a plausible answer. Speaking is a language skill and as such if you think about the what you would cover in a purely speaking lesson then, then you start realising that the sub skills we want to help ss develop are usually embedded inside functional language and so being language systems it seem appropriate to approach it through a PPP framework. Obviously this also means that it can be approached from a guided discovery angle as the sub-skills work you want to do when dealing with speaking (connected speech, appropriacy, specific areas of pronunciation, target audience, etc) is more easily done when embedded in a text, spoken or written. Ok, so here we go - enjoy!

Methodology Pills for Induced Reflection No. 12 - Productive Skills (Writing)

Right! So, here's another methodology pill on Productive Skills - WRITING- this time. It's been an incredibly busy time but it seems I get a lot more done when under pressure! This framework is obviously a suggested framework for a writing skills lesson so if you've been helping your students develop their writing skills in English doing something totally different, there's nothing to worry about. You may want to try this approach and see how it goes. Remember: Variety is the spice of life and so if you realise your teaching has become a bit of a routine why not liven it up? Of course, I speak from experience so no judging anyone here.

The whole idea behind these video clips using PowToon is that of simply providing trainees, teachers and anyone interested with a quick way of checking they're following a cohesive and coherent framework in their writing lessons.  This framework is in line with the input session on writing I do on our CELTA courses. Ok, I think that's it! Enjoy!

 

Metholodogy Pills No.11 - Receptive Skills Framework

It's been a while since my last post, but I'm back. I've been really busy working on two full time back to back CELTA courses, working on my PhD project and examining and so this has kept me away from blogging!  I've managed to put together a new Methodology Pill on Receptive Skills (Reading/Listening) Frameworks and so I hope it's useful. The main idea here is that of providing trainees with a visual way to the different stages a reading/listening skills lesson usually/may have. This video along with the PDFs in My Lesson Frameworks eBook provide a coherent set of support materials. It's important to note again that this video was created with 40min lessons in mind and that although for assessment purposes trainees are usually required to do only skimming and scanning tasks (because of the time constraint) more work on other sub-skills can be done in longer lessons.

TheConsultants-e's 10th Year Anniversary - a time to celebrate and enjoy their freebies

As you can see from the introductory description in the top block of this blog, I started blogging and implementing ICT into my teaching and training in a more formal and informed manner thanks to TheConsultants-e. It was 2008 when I embarked on a new wonderful, exciting and rewarding experience - their Certificate in Teaching Languages with Technology CertICT course fully validated by Trinity College London - not knowing this course would have had such a powerful impact on my personal and professional teaching and learning life!  

Nicky Hockly and Gaving Dudeney are the master minds and reknown gurus who run this online professional training company offering state-of-the-art courses and training in ICT implementation. But the story does not end here, this year they're celebrating their 10th anniversary and have got lots of pressies and freebies in store for you. This month of June they're giving away a scholarship for one of their fully accredited courses (the CertICt or the CertBET) so if you're interested do apply now - you may be the very lucky winner! Follow this link to find out more about all the wonderful freebies available.

Methodology Pills for Induced Reflection

Bookmarking, Tagging and PEARLTREES!

Bookmarking is an important part of our professional development as it helps us keep our links to important/interesting resources organised. The usual way we do it is by simply clicking on the bookmark button on our browser and that's it! Most people simply bookmark it and so it's saved to their Favourites. I used to do this all the time and one day I realised I had hundreds of links which I had bookmarked as 'favourite' but which were all in a potluck soup! Then, I was introduced to TAGGING and so I spent a day tagging my bookmarks. Now, there are different ways of bookmarking and the one you choose will be the one you fell more comfortable with. There are quite a few bookmark management tools around and 5 of these can be found in an interesting post in Jason Fitzpatrick's blog - Lifehacker here. I'll look at the ones I have used and which can talk about more confidently. These are: 

Diigo which is very versatile and allows you to add Diigolet to your Favourites Bar at the top of your browser...

 

... and so whenever you find a site you want to keep track of, you can do lots of things to the link other than just bookmark it. You can highlight, bookmark, add a sticky note, read later or share it, so there are quite a few good options. I particularly like the highlighting and sticky note options as often when reading I find parts that are especially interesting.

There's also Delicious which allows you to manage your bookmarks similarly but it doesn't have the extra features shown above. And the one that has really caught my attention lately because it is rather visual is Pearltrees.

Here's my Pearltree for you peek around and if you create an account feel free to pick any of my pearls - that's the idea, it's free, it's open and anyone can share and pick your pearls just as you can with anyone around. There's a premium option if you want to make them private and customise your page. I like mine being public!

Pearltrees is very easy to use too. If you install the Pearler - as shown below - in your brower bar all you have to do is click on it and then choose where you want your new bookmark to go.

This takes seconds! And what I find best of all is that you can create your pearls (folders) on the go. I'm a very visual learner and find that a Pearltree like this one caters best for my way of seeing things. I find it easier now to look through my bookmarks than before when going through my tags. We're all different of course so I'm not saying this is how it should be done, but my experience of it!   
I've also recently moved to Firefox, so I'm now off to explore how you can save and sync your bookmarks with them. I just saw the intro video and I like the fact that you can sync them across computers. You can also do this with other bookmarking tools, but I like how easy it seems with Firefox. I'll report on this later on. In any case, I think I'll stick to Pearltrees because it also allows you to add comments to your 'pearls' and share them. I think it'd be perfect if there was a mix between Diigo and pearltrees and you could highlight and add sticky notes to your pearls! Here's hoping :-)