Getting there

2010-04-16T09:16:00.002+09:00

This is now my sixth (?) odd year teaching at the university.I have changed the rooms where I teach so that they are in the computer room with constant access to the internet, with screens and mike, and have moved the teaching time to the afternoon so students can get up on time...The room is much closer to the station so students don't have far to walk. The department also streamlined classes

2006-07-20T13:23:00.000+09:00

This is amazing...I have spent the morning trawling through the spring terms of 2004 and 2005 to look for blog entries related to the vocabulary worksheet and autonomous vocab learning that I did, and about which I am now going to write (some kind of a) dissertation to crown my MA.Really deep, particularly as I cut and edit 2005 down to about 8 pages of word, to see how anal I am, with being late

2006-04-25T18:24:00.000+09:00

Ripping open the paper of a parcel from India to find inside my first book! Well, a chapter in a book, and here’s the reference:Renata Suzuki (2006) ‘Diaries as Introspective Research Tools: From Ashton-Warner to Blogs’. InSatish, D. & Rajesh Prabhakar, K. (Eds.) Blogs: Emerging Communication Media. Hyderabad:ICFAI University Press (pp153-168).ISBN 81-7881-773-XThe original is here: http://

2005-12-15T20:56:00.000+09:00

Day 10 Thursday Presentations on Environmental and Socio-Economic TopicsI am reminded as I look at the orange attendance slips of my students where I ask them to write mini meta-cognitive comments on what they learned, noticed or found interesting, that the skill we were after was teamwork, using Q&A, repetition and so on to liven up the different voices, not just presenting one after the other

2005-12-15T14:22:00.000+09:00

i fell asleep on the train and went past my usual stop, so I changed to a different train from usual and arrived. I need a coffee, I thought, and indulged in a latte while reading Bachman's (1990) Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing Oxford University Press.I really liked the idea (p.54, 55) that we have to think about the purpose of tests, and Bachman has two major ones mentiond, tests

2005-12-14T18:39:00.000+09:00

good presentations yesterday tuesday, altho I must say greening in china group simply hadn't read the article or begun to understand the need for relevance and quoting sources...great attempts to use mixing voices and questions for humor and teamwork, particularly the first presentation.Meanwhile i have spent the whole day making a fantastic end of term vocabulary,which I have decided will review

2005-12-10T10:34:00.000+09:00

Digging into the backlog of marking and filling up my markbook. Interesting to note the discrepancies in Presentation 2 between the average and my own grade of a presentation.The system is five student markers, one from each of the groups listening to a presentation, and mine, added up and divided by six, so my own judgement is equal to that of one student. I discounted one student's rubric which

2005-12-09T10:50:00.000+09:00

This is Friday morning, and i have been seriously pressured by the thought of blogging this week. I even thought, what would happen if I just stopped? Like, if i just taught away and didn't blog?I then thought that that wasn't really a good idea, because the reflection that happens, and the sitting down to gather those thoughts (also for later perusal) and focusing for conversations with

2005-12-02T13:24:00.000+09:00

Day 8 Thursday preparing for Presentation 3Feeling minimally better today. Began class on time, asking for vocab checking. managed to chalk up the day's time schedule, the article topics and my mollusc shell diagrams without vomiting, which is something.During the mini-test I wandered round asking people to put their student id number on the rubric cover of the article reports (Thursday class is

2005-12-02T12:18:00.000+09:00

Day 8 Preparing for Presentation 3: Using an Article to explore environmental and socio-economicsI am posting this late because I have been SICK! I contemplated not going to class on Tuesday, spent half the night awake clutching my cell-phone agonizing over getting up at 5:30am for class and whether I would be able to, and then when I finally agreed in my mind to let hubs call up the university

2005-11-24T15:54:00.000+09:00

Presentation 2 Financial English: Course Day 7This class had doubled up on topics, so we only had three in all for six groups, on Central Banking, on International Trade, and on Bankruptcy. As one web-savvy student helped get the monitor up on screen I explained the homework as on Tuesday, to prepare a twenty word vocabulary sheet and study one other topic in the ppts at eemsophia. I particularly

2005-11-22T15:49:00.000+09:00

(Pasted in Dec. 2nd) I am not kidding the internet is down or slow or what have you, driving me crazy I can’t get into blogger or access student files from eemsophia.Today was Day 7, Presentation 2, focusing on Delivery and Survey Skills.Excellent, excellent! Next will be Teamwork, Enthusiasm and integrating reference to an article in the ppt.I was having the heebie jeebies in class at the start

2005-11-17T19:10:00.000+09:00

THURSDAY day 6 Computer Room DayPicture a room like a banquet hall with two table rows of flatpanel desktops for students to sit on either side, and walls lined with more, for about 60 students. I have 34 today, and they all centred on the two banquet tables, lined up on both sides. The whole left back of the classroom is empty. I dump my bags at the raised teacher dais in front of the whiteboard

2005-11-15T15:28:00.000+09:00

REBUILDING THURSDAY DAY 5 from memoryI would like to just revisit last week, if I can. I handed back marked vocabulary sheets with personal comments as students moved into the new ones, and asked students to return marked peer essays at some point during class. Two late comers worked together, and I let them carry on checking vocabulary as I explained the mini-test and handed out the papers. Then

2005-11-15T15:23:00.000+09:00

ooh and i forgot to say, one of the students in the last group i was working with said, hey, you spoke too much, we didn't have time to brainstorm! Well, why didn't you just tell me you understood and would I go away while you handle it? i countered. Hm, you make it sound so easy, they joked back.Well, I'm not really sure where all that came from, since I definitely had time with all groups, but

2005-11-15T15:05:00.000+09:00

Tuesday Day 6Computer room D day, and everyone filled out a pink slip for presence, or a blue one for being late. i distributed an interesting article I found in the Japan Times this morning on Japan importing blue-fin tuna illegally caught by Turkey...thought it would be of interest, particularly to the two groups doing international trade.I passed it out as I went round groups asking if they

2005-11-15T14:54:00.000+09:00

THE WHY AND WHEREFORE OF THIS BLOGDidn' t blog Thursday...just flaked out when I got home and was down all day Friday, still feeling washed out over the weekend and what with writing on my Bham gender paper on Monday and the Webbies conference ppt on Sunday I have been nowhere near blogging....So there it is, when do researchers not blog, well, when they are sick and exhausted!Now for the last

2005-11-08T16:35:00.001+09:00

I’m having probs getting online with the network system here at home so I’m blogging this in word and pasting it in in case it gets lost being published, as has happened once or twice lately. I know this ends up with funny squiggles where the Japanese upsets blogger, but it’ll have to do. Doesn’t feel nearly as much like blogging not being in my lovely blogger window tho.I felt quite overloaded

2005-10-27T13:12:00.000+09:00

Thursday Day Four, Presentations.Got into class 8:55 and began to set up the ppt stuff, one of my students was kind enough to help me. Took me ages to find cables, and then I couldn't get the laptop screen to show on the slide screen...as I got more and more anxious, the chime went, so I decided to ask students to hand in the summer assignment while I worked on the hardware issues a bit longer.

2005-10-25T13:27:00.000+09:00

Tuesday DAY 4: PRESENTATIONs!The homework:To learn twenty new vocabulary from the presentation handoutsTo read, rubric grade and comment on a peer's summer assignmentTo study one other presentation topic(ppt and handout) for a minitest when we get back to class in two weeks' time. (So load them in to our yahoo group, load them in!) Now if anyone's reading here they'll know I made that up on the

2005-10-20T14:43:00.000+09:00

Thursday, Day 3: Research Day in Computer RoomChatting to colleague i got into class with five minutes odd to spare, and handed out attendance slips, blue for on time, and green for latecomers.After the chime I asked all student to go to the merriam webster site and try out the pronunciation tool, and also the thesaurus. Amazing how many had not ever been, in spite of my mentioning it and having

2005-10-18T22:32:00.000+09:00

Get a load of this: from Li Li, H. (2004/2005), 'Rethinking Silencing Silence'. In Boler, M. (ed.) Democratic Dialogue in Education: Troubling Speech, Disturbing Silence. New York: Peter Lang pp.69-86Thus, the pedagogical purpose of silent wait time is simply to entail verbal responses...it is clear that silent speculation cannot be observed and measured...the current accountability movement is

2005-10-18T22:19:00.000+09:00

Tuesday, Autumn Semester Day 3How can it be raining again? Dripping wet by the time I got home, like I can see my puter freezing up as my hair drips on the keyboard sort of thing…I indulged in talking to two colleagues on the way home, about three of my students who are moving into their class, and the why and how of it, but I checked with the head of department, and all is well. I also had some

2005-10-13T15:24:00.000+09:00

Thursday, Autumn Semester Day 2I began class by greeting everyone, reminding them of the meaning of the English intros to checking vocabulary (useful phrases for discussion) and asked students to go ahead and work with someone new. I helped a couple of people find new partners, and asked two to work with two newcomers, who had not done the homework. (I notice one signed into the yahoo group

2005-10-11T15:13:00.000+09:00

why, o why is my blogger in Japanese????sigh....This morning was vocabulary work, so I began the class greeting everyone and reminding them that the English prompts on the vocab sheet are useful in discussion, and so to please use English, and to work with someone new. I spent a little time explaining to the two newcomers, (they had both not done the work, although they have successfully joined

2005-10-06T17:55:00.000+09:00

Raining like last year.Started off more holistically this time, asking students for what they remember of class rules. Got 'no Japanese' and 'Respect the teacher' which i expanded to and yourself and other students, and said, yes, fine by me, so we need to speak English during pairwork and discussion activities, with Japanese fine to check and make sure you know what to do if you need it.Everyone

2005-10-04T16:25:00.000+09:00

This blog entry looks at my workstations, with the heading of what I wanted students to notice, and then what they reported from their groups as noticing. I gave students a quick rundown of what I had wanted them to notice also before they left for home.PPT as a handout: looks good, but some text is so small it's illegible. Needs numbers.Simple is best.They used efficiency powerpoint.Color print

2005-10-04T15:28:00.000+09:00

I was feeling happy to be preparing for class, all enthusiastic.I set up my folders with handouts and photos of last year from A-J, sticking colored labels on each, and also copied my worksheet for the day and the presentation rubrics.In class there was a new face, so I began explaining about eemsophia and wondering about how to get a US id. I asked students who managed it all in the first term,

2005-10-02T11:43:00.000+09:00

well well well after the looong summer break, looking forward to heading into the new term. I want to read over past posts for 2003 which will be in the October2003-January2004 archives, to see what it was I did last time, and ping ideas for how presentations, which is our goal, needs to be approached this time.I have already posted a new link in eemsophia http://www.iasted.org/tips.htmIt has

2005-07-12T14:08:00.000+09:00

I went to a workshop at the weekend, and the teacher just dictated some transcripts and then left the room for us students to think about "what was happening " in the lessons....and it really bugged me that the eminent teacher comes all the way from NZ and has but two hours with us, and spends the time asking us to wootle in the same pair over and over again on dictated transcript after

2005-07-05T14:34:00.000+09:00

Many students hadn't checked up on yahoo group mail, and one said they hadn't even joined, but fortunately I had a backup plan, I gave them last week's Nokia article from the Economist, and asked them to make a sheet there and then on the spot, to see how they went about it and what words they would choose. Students dribbled in, and I had to dock marks from three students for being late.Overall

2005-07-02T18:20:00.000+09:00

Having announced the grades in class I am now getting a flurry of emails from people who were absent....Yes Thursday was the most awful rainy miserable day after we all thought the rainy season was over with the sunshine earlier in the week, so the turnout was disastrous, but what has shocked me is that compared to the Tuesday group a large portion of top students just didn't bother coming, (

2005-06-28T15:13:00.000+09:00

the quickest of quick blogs...granpa's still here!!!caught one of my keen students walking over to class and had a nice wee private chat, trying to encourage them as a top quality student to speak more English in class and be a model for others...the quality of the uni lies in the students, not in the name, I said, as the eternal theme of failing to get into a Japanese Ivy League cropped up, and

2005-06-27T09:25:00.000+09:00

Thursday, June 21so late blogging this time, I remember my essay marker saying I was too uncritical about blogging after class, saying what happens when you come home drunk....well, I may not drink, but this time the family has whammied me with demands, like, granps staying over inbetween an operation, so no time to blink...Thursday was a really static class, very mental, I remarked on it to two

2005-06-21T14:39:00.000+09:00

Before I blogged I clipped together today's marked economic definitions minitest, homework gap-fill vocab on company structure and the note-taking sheet to have a wee look at the overall performance of today.My first impression is that in brainstorming opinions I am not getting the quality of deep thinking that I had from last year, and which I offered as a scaffold. I also see in comments a

2005-06-20T14:45:00.000+09:00

I've changed the course compared to last year...I remember last year thinking that I'd kind of overburdened students with summary of the Japanese article, and their own opininion, and wishing that more students had shown uptake of the new vocabulary to label company structure we had learned during the class, so I modeled a sample intro and summary myself and put it in the final exam.This year

2005-06-19T11:31:00.000+09:00

Just taking a moment to blog in details of my investment collocations test.. last year, 2004, 53.3% was the average score for Tuesday and 62.8% for Thursday. This year I italicized the collocations, and the average was higher: 2005 Tuesday 58.3% and Thursday 65.7%. The highest score was full marks, 60/60, 2 students on Tues and 4 on Thurs, the lowest was 15 on Tues with 3 students, and two

2005-06-16T15:31:00.000+09:00

For some reason my blogger has been in Japanese lately, which always gives me a bit of a turn when I open the editing page...my fine hidey hole from all things Japan has been invaded, probably thanks to the cookie monster or some other such spyware which automatically labels me as Japanese because that's where I post from....Ah well, not that i haven't been here long enough to be able to cope....

2005-06-14T15:10:00.000+09:00

got up at five to minister to son with aching belly, so not exactly into blogging right now...basically repeated last week's policy of docking five points on vocab sheets for latecomers, and ten for the last five mins, also checked some latecomers personally as I stood guarding the door. Meanwhile utilizing the time to explain to a couple of people the idea of reading texts, lifting useful

2005-06-09T13:03:00.000+09:00

Today after dumping my heavy bag I headed for the loo before class, had a word with a friend of a student who has been absent too many times to get credit for the class, and then as the bell went for class, asked everyone to begin vocab sheets. I put away past papers, or students spend time picking up their work in vocab checking time, then stood at the door to catch latecomers.Most had train

2005-06-07T14:45:00.000+09:00

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions1Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally.2Take the students learning very seriously.x Showing I care about progress, being available for all things academic, yes, today I was talking to the absent students about going to the yahoo group and finding out what was happening. I have also been

2005-06-07T14:13:00.000+09:00

Stood at the door today to catch latecomers and wrote L on all their papers, after ten minutes late i began to write the times, and asked for train slips. One student dripping with sweat came really late, and told me the trains were running late by ten minutes, so I credited for that and began class with my wee lecture on vocab and collocations in Japanese using the put on your hat, put on your

2005-06-06T21:20:00.000+09:00

Just read over old blog entries, and see that I was running a small test after the discussion, which I am not going to do this time, I'll be using the rubrics to grade the discussion, plus accepting evidence of preparation.I was reminded of a great way to split up banks, use all the different colored attendance slips ( I think there were about ten) and have a Blue Mitsupo Bank and Yellow one and

2005-06-06T21:04:00.000+09:00

It's nearly tomorrow and I'm really excited by the research files that have begun to be loaded at the yahoo group eemsophia, either by me or by students (YES!! one so far, and a named empty folder I had to delete, whipped out an email apologizing for deleting, but I don't want everyone's names up there).Many students of Tuesday last week handed paper copies of research to fellow students, or,

2005-06-02T19:47:00.000+09:00

Thanking everyone for coming nice and early as I walked in, then fanned out the back papers over a table and began handing some back personally with praise and encouragement (I had worked out the average so far for people who had come consistently) as the chime went and the vocabulary work began around me. Meanwhile I also asked more vocal students to sit in the middle group, so that I could hand

2005-05-31T14:16:00.000+09:00

This is the third time we are doing a jigsaw and I still feel some people are at sea!Basically as people came in I grabbed the homework so that there was no last minute copying, and made sure there were no threesomes for vocab checking. Trains were late so I got some papers thrust into my hand, not quite sure who for, I have asked for names on the back, but....At 9:32 I called everyone to order

2005-05-26T14:19:00.000+09:00

Trains were running late so many students missed checking the vocab. I asked them to hand in the paper later with the train slip attached. Cut off the vocab deadline at 10:30 and refused to take in one handed to me at 10:33 after a moment of milling around as students tried to pick up homew ork while handing in vocab.Lost track of where I was at due to the look here give it to me at the end of

2005-05-19T15:02:00.000+09:00

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions1 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally.x Yeah, well see the earthquake episode below.2 Take the students learning very seriously.x I can't imagine not doing this, today I spent half an hour photocopying every paper, I hand back assignments with a personal word, I set my sights high. I

2005-05-19T14:33:00.000+09:00

Today I ditched all the work in group thing, just saying to everyone to make good use of people around you and work with a friend, and then kind of moved in to a sink or swim explanations moving through the worksheet with time to think about questions inbetween type lesson. The reason for this being I wanted to get home on time to pick up the Japanese granny from the hospital, so time factors,

2005-05-17T15:47:00.000+09:00

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions?5/171 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally.x Today I even talked about not getting paid very much :P But loving it, thinking and growing. 2 Take the students learning very seriously.x To the point where I bombed them with work! But three main ideas, basically how to manipulate models and

2005-05-17T14:48:00.000+09:00

In Cortazzi M. & Lixian J. (1999) 'Bridges to learning'. in Cameron, L. and Low, G. Researching and Applying Metaphor CUP, which I happened to be glancing through on the train in to work this morning, I came across a description of the metaphors applied to teaching and learning.Thinking about myself, I thought of "parenting", because I find of myself thinking of my students with the kind of

2005-05-14T23:21:00.000+09:00

marking vocab I notice one student has reused vocab from the first week...didn't think I would be making photocopies and checking! To my face they are all cooperation, but there's a wee scam going on in terms of not marking memorizing on vocab at all, and of sharing homework and the like, with a particular group near the back door....I plan to take them to task, I already warned them a bit about

2005-05-14T08:21:00.000+09:00

a post-it to myself:look at how the Economist intros its sourcesset up a C-R with student economy opinions from HW Day 3 and ask which one carries more weight, with or without sources, statistics, etc...

2005-05-13T06:56:00.000+09:00

Another free blog and Doernyei Checklist example! KEWL!Check out this entry at:http://lajaulavira.blogspot.commiercoles, mayo 11, 2005Everybody has their story… drama, wonders, uniqueness.

2005-05-13T06:26:00.000+09:00

On illustrating the importance of learning Vocabulary ChunksI just woke up this morning and want to post this before I get my kids' brekkie...I was thinking of the student who wanted credit for thinking up his own example sentences on the vocab sheet, and the way of making it clear to students that it's better to learn words as chunks rather than lemmas.maybe I should change the name of the sheet

2005-05-12T16:13:00.000+09:00

More on Thursday Day Fourbefore i forget, what was also interesting for me was when i said that for the second last question of the worksheet any of the answers was ok, that it was a question of how you were feeling in terms of agreeing, that you could choose is or may be or might be, there was a kind of sigh of excitement? disbelief? happy relief?, it seems they were all wondering about what was

2005-05-12T15:17:00.000+09:00

Thursday Day FourEveryone is back on track in learning mode, including me, in spite of posting up the crossword homework at the groupsite late last night. Lesson content was the same as Tuesday, Vocab checking while I learned some names and gave personal feedback, then students checking another person's worksheet as I explained how vocabulary shifts into synonyms and modals change when agreeing

2005-05-10T14:09:00.000+09:00

Well, a really quick run-down on today...I had developed and posted the jigsaw prints at the yahoo group site, so on this day four we were going to check somebody's homework on agreeing/disagreeing politely, take a break and then jigsaw group leadership skills, with a final application jumbled leadership conversation which I had used in last year's final exam.Meanwhile I thought I was going to do

2005-04-29T19:58:00.000+09:00

so I started literally grabbing people and leading them into different groups, trying to get a mix... Wow! My students would never stand for that! There'd be a riot! You seem pushed for time and probably have large (more than 40?) classes, but there are ways to create random groups. Investigate.The power in being the owner of this blog! I am responding to Marco Polo's comments on my third Tuesday

2005-04-29T13:14:00.000+09:00

I love the comments feature, so much to learn! Thank you Marco Polo!I was going to write something about your comments about vocab-learning and Mitsubishi: it seems a little authoritarian, I mean, are they learning vocab for themselves or for you? And if you're grading them on it, doesn't that make it more EXtrinsic rather than INtrinsic motivation? And are you sure you want to do thatI just

2005-04-27T09:32:00.000+09:00

Just a quick rundown on Tuesday (yesterday)...what I'm proud of most, is when explaining the rubrics I cited two students' positive examples of eye-contact and asking clarification questions to illustrate, acknowledge and praise in one go....happy!Came to class, left out marked homework and two papers at the back with new homework and Economist article plus the new yahoo groups info, then moved

2005-04-26T15:01:00.000+09:00

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions1 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally. Didn't check this today, because I didn't share my own personal interest with anyone, unless you count the fact that I joined in the discussion and played around a bit with the idea of Gross National Happiness....2 Take the students learning very

2005-04-25T10:40:00.000+09:00

Congratulations! Your Yahoo! Group eemsophia has been created. Youcan access your group using the link below or from the Yahoo! Groups "My Groups" page.* Your group information:Group name: eemsophia Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eemsophia Group email address: eemsophia@yahoogroups.comhaha! yippee! getting web savvy! this way absent students can access files, maybe we can get

2005-04-25T08:36:00.000+09:00

I've been reading over the early may entries in my blog to see how I proceeded last year and what i did wrong, as it were. I think that after my group discussion I went into the section on graphs, and verbs describing rises and falls, before moving into a worksheet on the business cycle. I think this time I'm going to give students an Economist article on the recovery of the Japanese Economy

2005-04-25T08:20:00.000+09:00

The link to a recording of me presenting in Venezuela via a Learning Times virtual classroom. The subject? Why, blogs as research tools, of course...http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=599417

2005-04-24T16:17:00.000+09:00

Sitting here in my tatami room on the most glorious Sunday afternoon blithely ignoring the cherry blossoms outside, I am beginning to remember why my students were so great last year as I mark the first of the vocabulary sheets....I was devilish severe about looking over their papers and not giving credit from misspellings (goverment bonds; a corpolation tax; disicion making, trustworthly), ,

2005-04-22T21:06:00.000+09:00

In response to my idea yesterday of needing more meta reflection, I woke up this morning with an idea to do self-assessment for the group discussion, with six categories,preparationspeakinglisteningideasrespondingdoing your bestand students can rate themselves on a scale of 1-10 and have their assessment countersigned by another group member.Then inbetween I'll work on responding, uh huh, hmmm,

2005-04-21T20:33:00.000+09:00

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions1 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally.Didn't do this today, although I did give out my blog addy in case students wanted quick access to peer homework samples.2 Take the students learning very seriously.x I think I always do this. Always walking round scaffolding and looking for people

2005-04-20T19:49:00.000+09:00

Proudly reading over the great thoughts of my students about how their cells link them to the economy I realize the text of the original is profoundly sexist and condescending to housewives of whom I am one. I mirrored the original making it a female student, but oh heavens, we DO think!We ARE thinking! Men and women, students and housewives, Yippee!Now then, I was so exhausted yesterday I am

2005-04-20T19:10:00.000+09:00

This was my first homework of the year, with a view to getting students thinking about how they are linked to the economy via their mobiles/cells (I notice I've been switching these terms indiscriminately...). Last year I also asked students in one group how it linked them to the Iraq war, and found out they didn't make the link between plastic and oil and Japan importing oil to make all the

2005-04-20T15:14:00.000+09:00

I looked up the meaning of 'sector' in the Oxford Dictionary of Economics (John Black, 2002 2nd edition)"A part of the economy. Sectors can be delimited in a number of different ways. One way is by the bodies organizing expenditures:... public/....private/....corporate. ...For national income accounting purposes the rest of the world is sometimes regarded as a sector. Sectors may also be

2005-04-15T18:43:00.000+09:00

My brain leaps on and on, hooked on new... reading English and the Discourses of Colonialism Alastair Pennycook, 1998, Routledge... a nice little statement about the difference between the way the Eurpean based holocaust has been remembered, mourned, learned from, and the way colonial brutality has been glossed over, justified by the supposed savagery and inferiority of the "natives". 'Meanwhile

2005-04-15T13:57:00.000+09:00

So, almost 24 hours late, here it is, the checklist for yesterday...and I'm thinking that going through it I must be more aware than I was last year, and wow do I think of a lot when I teach!Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions1 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally. I didn't check this, because I wasn't. Reading over

2005-04-15T13:08:00.000+09:00

I want to take the time today to look again at why I am checking a particular motivational strategy Doernyei suggests or not, and in a sense review the list of possible teacher motivation strategies. Birmingham really didn't like the way I was using the whole list, one essay marker pointed out that Doernyei himself did not suggest we use all the strategies. She is talking about Doernyei's

2005-04-14T21:13:00.000+09:00

I could kick myself for not reading over my last year's blog this year! It's all in there, including the how to improve the rules activity with brainstorming....well, I'll make sure I keep reading over as I go, because it seems to me there is some condensed wisdom in there!

2005-04-14T17:40:00.000+09:00

well, so that's the transcript, for the first couple of minutes. I notice I perhaps don't need to talk as students begin to work, the kind of stream of consciousness talking i'm doing when walking around handing out papers looks sort of hypnotizing, i wonder if students like it or not...they were murmuring and chatting quite happily tho. I think it's clear that they need to listen when I get back

2005-04-14T16:50:00.000+09:00

Transcript of Class 1 The beginning of the first day[My name is Renata] Switches on tape: Teacher at centre front of room:…Suzuki ( sound of chalk as I write on the board) and this is K107 English for Economics, and ah..I hope you all make sure when you register don't make a mistake, you're registering for K107, K108, Renata Suzuki.For the first term the room is here. For the second term the room

2005-04-13T15:49:00.000+09:00

It's one of those cold, dull, drizzly days when you just want to curl up with a book, and having done the ironing, washed the dishes and got a load of various vegies, fruits and fish, along with a bike basketful of loo paper, tissues, shampoo and whatnot, I have been reading Jennifer Coates (ed.) (1998) Language and Gender Blackwell Publishing with a lot of relish and not a jot of serious gotta

2005-04-13T13:05:00.000+09:00

Bushisms: can you correct the President?http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms.htmGrammar (and content?):1. "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.'' George W. Bush, Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 20012. "Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 20003. "I want to thank my friend,

2005-04-12T16:07:00.000+09:00

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions1 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally.2 Take the students learning very seriously.x3 Develop a personal relationship with your students.4 Develop a collaborative relationship with the students'parents.5 Create a pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom.x6 Promote the

2005-04-12T14:51:00.000+09:00

oof home at last, lots of niggly piggly things to be done after class, like applying for the uni account, applying for the terra account, applying for an internet link-up in the room, (all this gets deleted automatically every half year for part-time staff, no wonder I lose steam...) not to mention declaring this will be my only (and pitiful) income this year,,, asking for a teeny room to be

2005-04-11T20:02:00.000+09:00

Well, the new term starts tomorrow and I have been cooking with it these past three days, waking up in the mornings with ideas or having fleeting thoughts on things during the day. I kind of reserved the whole day today for actual put it into reality sort of work, starting this morning by throwing out old papers and bumph and making sure I have a new file, plus pulling out the old student papers

2005-01-22T20:44:00.000+09:00

OK, student comments, and my favorite goes first: I'm proud of me.Yes, great comment!Thank you very much! I learned many many things!I enjoyed this class very much. Thank you!Thank you very mucho tsukaresamadeshita! Thank you very much!o tsukarechan* I could study many knowledge. Thank you very much.Feels good to be thanked like this, and the Japanese way of acknowledging shared work (otsukare

2005-01-22T10:53:00.000+09:00

Writing this last entry a day late, yesterday's Friday class was a last Tuesday class, with one student handout to be printed I had a really relaxed time in the staffroom looking over the students' term performance and checking whose grades I still needed the tiny extra bit of oompph for to bump them into the higher grade, and whose presentations I would need to be watching carefully... Up to

2005-01-18T03:12:00.000+09:00

Things that bugged me about today's class: Some groups of students just disappeared off to the research room without consulting with me, showing work and generally promising to come back.... The tsunami team were going to research on the basis of the handout made by a student who is involved in a job search thing and did the whole handout as his contribution....but felt mighty miffed by my

2005-01-13T15:16:00.000+09:00

well well well, spent a couple of hours yesterday fixing up the four handouts sent to me in the e-mail, fitting them into two pages rather than three (less paper and less printing for me), actually had spent an hour or so googling the correct terms for a Gun Control papera couple of days earlier, so lots of extra time doing that and writing personal email comments and sending back the revised

2005-01-11T15:14:00.000+09:00

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions 1 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally. 2 Take the students learning very seriously. x 3 Develop a personal relationship with your students. 4 Develop a collaborative relationship with the students'parents. 5 Create a pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom. x 6 Promote the

2005-01-11T14:28:00.000+09:00

There I was all ready to begin the class snappily with my test, and one of the guys tells me the trains are running late due to accidents and suicides....I was handed at least five different train tickets, forgot to even check up the validity of the info on my way home, but anyway...thanked for the info and postponed the test, deciding to explain the objectives of the last presentation instead.

2005-01-06T16:35:00.000+09:00

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions 1 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally. 2 Take the students learning very seriously. x 3 Develop a personal relationship with your students. x 4 Develop a collaborative relationship with the students'parents. 5 Create a pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom. x 6 Promote the

2005-01-06T15:15:00.000+09:00

oooh the aching bones on the first day of work! although I was armed with my marked vocab tests, average 22, highest mark 32, lowest 6 out of forty(which I didn't give back in the end, since some students decided to sit the test after the last class), and with a luvverly end of term assessment questionnaire i will evaluate after i get the absentee opinion... I began chatting about New Year with

2004-12-21T14:58:00.000+09:00

Student Comments: What did you learn? Content-based comments: Nuclear power, the cost of AIDS, Electricity Car, GM Food, Driven by the oil price. Prius <->CorollaNuclear power is unliked by peopleI got much information about Nuclear Power, and hybrid carsI learned the most quantity of power generation is nuclear power. I am surprised at the mileage of Prius which is 35.5km/l.I'm interested in

2004-12-21T14:52:00.000+09:00

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions 1 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally. x 2 Take the students learning very seriously. x 3 Develop a personal relationship with your students. x 4 Develop a collaborative relationship with the students'parents. 5 Create a pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom. x 6 Promote

2004-12-21T14:25:00.000+09:00

Yoooohooo christmas is coming!!!! I had a wee handout with jokes from the web, as a kind of xmas ending to the class, but basically I sailed into class up to the back table to spread out my stuff as usual and karen and I sat down, I had to ask some students to leave the table for us, but they know the routine by now. One of the students who had to leave and wanted to go first said they were

2004-12-16T18:43:00.000+09:00

walked into class armed with the test, ten mins on five gap-fill sentences with the most frequent collocations from the Economist, with dictionaries and open book, then ten minutes with no support on fifteen translation and acronym questions...I had students move apart so as not to crib, and people who came in late were given their paper. One student came in with two minutes to spare,, handed me

2004-12-14T15:45:00.000+09:00

OOOOOffffff, energizing class, up front reminding everyone to get into groups and start work on the article summary presentation, offering peer handouts from my Thursday class as an example, introducing our guest, Dr Karen Garcia, who will be in charge of GM foods and hybrid cars while I take nuclear power and , and finding everyone so slow to align, then moving around constantly between groups,

2004-12-09T16:04:00.000+09:00

well a brilliant fun performance today, we all started off sleepy and slow, the first presentation group not up til 9:30, which meant we ran out of time on the last presentation...In the meanwhile I asked them to sign the consent form for research...and unpacked all my various paraphenalia at the back as usual...handed out little green slips to collect learning experiences comments, and then off

2004-12-07T14:21:00.000+09:00

Got home late, spent almost an hour talking to a student after class, about issues related to the course...first of all centering on aggressivity but then the underlying aspects came to the fore, problems of not knowing how to pronounce vocabulary and not feeling fluent to participate in discussions or produce work, worrying that fluent returnee students have an unfair advantage, and pretty much

2004-12-02T17:20:00.000+09:00

2004-12-02T17:02:00.000+09:00

Transcript of comments by Lee S. Shulman, President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching from The Learning Classroom Theory into Practice Session 11. Lessons for Life-Learning and Transfer from Annenberg CPB http://www.learner.org/index.html "And therefore, the challenge of education is always to ask, "What's the least amount of material we can teach really well that will, in

2004-12-02T16:40:00.000+09:00

well a late posting today, off to choose a bicycle for my son the minute I got home....let me look back.... Well, I know I envisaged sitting happily at my desk on the podium double-checking student vocabulary sheets and putting the marks gained in my register, but when I got to class I first busied myself putting up the URL for the site where you can listen to pronunciation, http://