Ideas From The Guardian: Family

I like to challenge my students. I like to choose activities and stimuli that will prove to be thought provoking and different. I have no desire to make them, or me, feel uncomfortable, but I do feel that I need to be pushing them mentally in order for them to come up with an interesting response to the materials I provide.

So in the spirit of 52, I took a look in the January 28th Family supplement of the Guardian newspaper to see what I could find...

Michelle Hanson writes about her embarrassing parents.


Q. Have you ever been embarrassed by somebody? How and why?


Original article

Steven Appleby's Loomus cartoon shows 6 cynical ways you can be loved.


Q. Have you ever tried to make someone like you?


Other examples

Joanna Moorhead interviews family members who have donated organs to their loved ones.


Q. What's the biggest sacrifice you've ever made for someone?


Original article

Erica Medcalfe writes about a photo of her father before she was born.


Q. Can you find an old family photo? What did you think was happening in the photo? Who do you think took it? etc


Original article

Claire Bainbridge remembers a recipe that she used to eat with her family.


Q. Is there are a particular meal or food that you associate with your childhood / past? Discuss why it is so memorable for you.


Original article

David writes a letter to his partner of 42 years, Roy, who died from a stroke.


Q. If you could write a letter to someone from your past, who would you choose?


Original article

Charlie Condou writes about the difficult birth of son.


Q. Have you ever been through a period of great stress? How did it feel? How would you advise anyone experiencing it for the first time?


Original article

Annalisa Barbieri advises a woman whose daughter has become a porn star.


Q. What advice would you give to this woman? How should she deal with the situation?


Original article

The Guardian were looking for contributors for a story about meeting the in-laws.


Question as in the picture.


Follow up article

A quote from the American writer Pearl S Buck.


Q. Do you agree with the quote? Should this be the aim of education?

An anonymous diary of a woman going through a separation.


Q. Who else in society would you like to read a diary by? A prisoner, a police officer, a professional sports person?


Original article


Eight pages, eleven ideas. The chances are you wouldn't use quite a few of them in your lessons. To be honest, for various reasons there are a few I wouldn't use either. But that's not really the point. There are many opportunities to find interesting and stimulating classroom materials all around us, it's just a case of opening our eyes, being receptive and not underestimating our students capabilities.

Just Say Yes

About a year ago, I made a decision. It was the kind of decision that people have made careers out of, especially the writer Danny Wallace who coincidentally was at my university at the same time as me. Since he studied Journalism and became a writer and I studied Media, specifically television, and became a teacher of English as a foreign language, I’m going to assume that his days at the University of Westminster were rather more productive than mine.

He went to write a book called Yes Man, which was Hollywoodified (that's my word but you can use it...) into a movie staring Jim Carrey, who I definitely did not go to university with. Anyway, back to me. My decision, which was in no way at all influenced by either the book or the film (I regret mentioning them now, to be honest) was to say yes. To everything. Within reason.

Taken from http://bit.ly/JvESrw

I'm talking professionally here. You see, I don't believe in luck. I'm a rationalist, I believe that science is our ticket to a golden future and that our destiny lies in our own hands. Sure, sometimes circumstance and coincidence can wreck our plans, but it's not luck, because it doesn't exist.

If you've read this blog in the past or know me personally, you know that I became an EFL teacher because I moved to Brazil and didn't really have any other alternative job options. So I guess you would think that I was lucky because I only had one option and I loved it? I politely disagree. It's a coincidence that the one job I could do is also one I love. And how did this coincidence come about? Because I moved from London to Brasilia. I made the coincidence possible because I took a risk and went for it.

Once I realised how this sequence of events had occurred, it changed how I see the world and I made my decision to say yes to everything that I reasonably could (you have to know your limitations). And what has happened since then? Let me give you an example...

At the IATEFL conference in March, ELTchat hosted a symposium. I, me, James Taylor, theteacherjames, was featured in the first three talks. I don't tell you this to show off, really, but because it illustrates my point. Marisa Constantinides mentioned me because I am the producer and presenter of the ELTchat podcast, something I volunteered for after seeing a request on Twitter, despite having never made a podcast before. With my media background, I was confident I could learn what was required of me in order to put a podcast together, so I said yes and it's been great fun so far.

In the second talk, Shaun Wilden showed a video that I made for him on his subject hashtagging. I don't consider myself to be particularly knowledgeable on the topic, but I racked my brains and come up with something I hoped would be useful. Why? Because he needed a hand and why not? It took 5 minutes of my time and was helpful to him.

Finally, Sharon Hartle used my summary of an ELTchat from last year as an example in her talk. Coincidentally (not luckily!), this was Sharon's first ever ELTchat and included her first ever tweet. My summary was used because I volunteered to do it after what had been a feisty and fascinating chat. This was my first ever ELTchat summary, and I volunteered because it was a subject I'm passionate about and I wanted to contribute to the community that was giving me a lot. Somebody asked, and I said yes.

I could go into more details, but what it comes down to is that as well as the above, I have been to conferences in Switzerland and France, my writing has been featured in an ELT journal for the first time, I have reviewed books, I have spoken to Petra Pointner and her class via Skype, I've met two great Belgian teachers, I've given my first presentation, I’ve been featured on blogs, and more. All through saying yes.

Am I richer as a result? Well that depends on how you define richer. In monetary terms, no, categorically no (those conferences are expensive!). However, I prefer to look at it in non-monetary terms. I've met great people, been involved with fun projects, improved my skills and I hope become a better person. In that sense, I'm the richest man in ELT.

So can you do the same? Of course you can! To kick you off, I'm going to ask you some questions and you can begin by saying yes to a few...

1) Will you start blogging about teaching?

2) Will you get involved in ELTchat whenever you can?

3) When someone asks for help on Twitter or Facebook, will you help them?

4) Will you help your colleagues, even though they might not help you back?

5) Will you start using Twitter and Facebook for your professional development?

6) If someone asks you specifically to help them, will you say yes even if it means stepping out of your comfort zone?

7) Will you start to read more ELT blogs?

8) Will you tackle that pile of methodology books you've been meaning to read?

9) Will you ask for help from your PLN and not feel discouraged if you don’t get the result you were hoping for?

10) Will you start to say yes more often?

That should get you going! Be sure to let me know how it goes.

Update:

Some people have posted relevant links in the comments which I thought I’d share with you here above the line:


Cecilia Lemos shared the fascinating story of Profeta Gentileza (Prophet Kindness), who has painted the phrase “Kindness generates kindness” around Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Adam Simpson shared the following TED talk on the power of yes:

Phil Pethybridge was “peeved” by this post and responded here, including my reply.



And here's a quote I saw on the Facebook page of the School of Life that seemed relevant:

Quotes of the Day

Here are a couple of quotes that I came across recently that resonated with me and my teaching so I thought I'd share them with you. Do they mean anything to you?

Click on the image to make it larger. Taken from here.

Taken by me here. Louis Agassiz biography here.

One Postcard

In my one to one class the other day, my student pulled this postcard out of her bag.

No to Contemporary Art # P4, 2006 by Patrick Guns (www.patrickguns.com). Printed by www.kletandko.be.

I immediately seized upon the image as I thought it was an arresting image and just the kind of thing I like to use with my students. It’s an ambiguous image, probably photoshopped, with a small amount of interesting language and with plenty of scope for investigation.


Below I’ve listed 41 different things you could say to your student(s) in response to this image.

1) What do you like and dislike about this image?

2) Who do you think made these signs?

3) Why did they make them? 

4) Who are they aimed at? 

5) Where was the picture taken? 

6) Why do you think that?

7) Who are the people in the background? 

8) Why are they there?

9) What do you think is written on the sign on the car in front?

10) Do you agree with the signs?

11) If you this was your sign, what would you write instead of contemporary art?

12) Why did the photographer take this photo?

13) Why was it turned into a postcard?

14) Rewrite the sign with new verbs.

15) Rewrite the sign and make it positive. What would you say yes to?

16) What do you think these people would say yes to?

17) Let’s practice the pronunciation of the words.

18) Let’s change the intonation. If we stress different words, does it change the meaning or intent?

19) How would you convince these people that contemporary art doesn’t suck (whether you agree with them or not)?

20) What do you understand by the definition contemporary art. Can you think of any examples?

21) Is contemporary art popular in your country?

22) Do you know the names of any other kinds of art? Which is your personal favourite?

23) Do you think contemporary art should be sponsored by public money?

24) Do you enjoy seeing art in public spaces, or do you think it’s a waste of money?

25) If you were artist, what kind of art would you make? Picture it in your mind and describe it to a partner / me.

26) Is protest popular in your country? What do people usually protest about?

27) Have you ever protested? If yes, what about? If not, what would it take to make you go out onto the streets?

28) Do you think that public protest is worthwhile or a waste of time?

29) How do you think it feels to be a police officer at a protest?

30) Is violence ever justified at a protest?

31) Do you think this picture is real?

32) Does it matter if it is real or not? Is authenticity important in art? 

33) What do you think the photographer is trying to say with this image?

34) Why do you think the photograph is black and white and not colour?

35) Do you think this picture belongs in a gallery?

36) If you were going to send this postcard to someone, who would you send it to?

37) Write the postcard to that person.

38) Swap postcards with someone in the group and reply to their postcard, imagining that you are the person they have written to.

39) If you could interview the photographer, what would you ask him?

40) If you could interview the protesters, what would you ask them?

41) If you think it was photoshopped, what do you think was originally written on the sign?

Now I didn’t say all of these things to my student, that would be overdoing it a bit. In fact I probably chose less than ten and got a good 45 minutes of discussion and activities from them. All of these questions are perfectly valid responses to the image, however, so it’s just a case of picking and choosing which ones your students will engage with, or even better, ask themselves without prompting. 


And each area of discussion can lead into its own area of discovery, whether that’s grammar, pronunciation and so on. I asked my student to exchange ‘contemporary art’ for another phrase on her own protest banner and she arrived on ‘female mutilation’ (with a little language help from me) which led to an interesting discussion, as you can imagine. A rather more serious suggestion than my own ‘cinnamon with apples’!


It’s amazing what you can come up with when you have an open mind, a willingness to be taught by the student(s) and the confidence to be flexible. All you need is one postcard.


For this and more great images in the No to Contemporary Art series, go to the artists website.

ELTchat Blog Challenge: My First Lesson Plan

The current ELTchat Blog Challenge is to share with us your first lesson plan. If you can't find it or threw it away in a tidy up many moons ago, then why not tell us about your first ever lesson as an EFL teacher? What do you remember? What do you wish you'd known then that you know now? And when you look back on that lesson, how do you trace your own development since that day? I'd love to hear about your memories and reflections.


If you'd like to learn more, listen to Bethany Cagnol's reflections on the ELTchat podcast.


I've actually already blogged about my first ever lesson, in fact it was my first post proper on this blog back in October 2010. For this post I have decided to literally write about my first lesson plan, the first time I ever sat down and wrote out my aims and the procedure of the class in a formal way. Not surprisingly, this was on my CELTA.

So four years on, how do I feel about this lesson plan? Here are some observations...


Time


Twenty minutes! Oh how I remember it now, it seemed like an eternity. Now it disappears in a heartbeat. But it's hard to achieve a lot in that amount of time, so it does make a difference in how I assess the plan.


Stage and Aims


Clearly this was a writing class with the idea of recycling vocabulary already learned in the lesson (the lesson was divided up into sections, twenty minutes per teacher). I have no problem with that!


Procedure


- Eight points in twenty minutes! For me, that's overplanning but at the time I needed to break a lesson down, understand its constituant parts and how they work in order for them to become the second nature that they are now.
- I used a supermodel as an example, which I certainly wouldn't do now. It's too bland and clichéd for me nowadays. Politician could certainly create some interesting feelings in most countries at the moment, and then we'd use students own examples rather than mine.
- As activities go, it's not a bad one. I wouldn't make handouts now, just give them pieces of paper which they could divide up into four.
- I collected examples of errors but didn't mention also collecting positive, correct uses of the target language which I would always do now.
- It didn't coalesce into a more meaningful activity, but I didn't have time, so I'll let myself off that one.


Interaction


I should have played a less active role in point four. Now I would let the students get on with it without my input unless they specific asked for something. Otherwise, I would monitor, take notes, and not get involved.


Observer Comments


The feedback was very positive, but this examiner was known as the good cop of our two trainers! I'm sure he overlooked numerous faults in order to look to the positive, especially as it was the first teaching practice of the course.


Peer Feedback


I particularly remember the feedback I received after this session as it was one of those occasions where somebody says something that really sticks in your mind. In general, I'm a fairly lighthearted person so I was surprised when one of my fellow trainees described me as coming across as very serious in the lesson. She basically told me to smile more, and that simple point was very helpful in opening me up to the students and has helped me a great deal over the years. Thanks Lindsay!




Join the ELTchat Blog Challenge! Write about your first lesson plan or your earliest teaching memory on your blog and share it with me in the comments below, or tweet it with the hashtag #eltchat. For more details, read here.