TEFLTech News

English UK Management Conference, Birmingham March 2009

2009-03-08T18:30:00.002Z

I've just returned from the English UK Management Conference in Birmingham where I gave a presentation on the Practical Uses of Technology in the EFL Classroom to a large audience of School Directors and Directors of Studies. Although a little rushed towards the end, the presentation seemed to be well received and hopefully gave everyone there a few ideas of how technology can be used nowadays. If you would like to download the PowerPoint presentation slides, please click here (1.3MB PDF).

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this training further, please do not hesitate to contact me at richard@tefltech.com.

Take part in Cardiff Online!

2009-02-24T16:14:00.007Z

With only a couple of months to go before this year's IATEFL conference, the online presence is already starting to grow. Click on the image to go through to the official IATEFL website.

This year promises to be even bigger and better with more abstracts, audio and video of the conference plus the chance to contribute to the debate.

If you're going, be sure to drop by to my presentation on the Thursday to say hi. If not, I'll see you online!

Obama's Inauguration Speech Word Cloud

2009-01-20T17:45:00.005Z

From wordle.net.

Windows Live Writer

2009-01-07T21:30:00.001Z

Just trying out Windows Live Writer... a slightly easier way to publish blog posts. As it is a downloaded piece of software, adding images, videos etc is a lot quicker than having to wait for them to upload before publishing. Another nice advantage is that it can download any customised styles/templates you have set up on your blog, so you get a "live preview" - you're writing as it will appear on the blog.

Free and compatible with most blog services, might be worth a look...

SMART Master Certification

2009-01-07T16:06:00.002Z

Well, happy new year to everyone and it has certainly started well for TEFLTech! I can now proudly announce I am a certified SMART Master Trainer!

This has come as a result of attending a rigorous training course at Steljes (the sole UK importer of SMARTBoards) last year and successfully completing the post-training assignment. I am now one of a handful of companies (and the sole company involved with TEFL) that are fully qualified to train anyone involved in education on the functions of a SMARTBoard. This is particularly relevant as I am trained in the latest version of the software, version 10, which is radically new and enables teachers to produce some really motivating lesson material.

Please do get in touch if you would like further information.

Sussex DOSA Presentation

2008-07-10T15:07:00.003+01:00

Last night, I gave a presentation to around 30 teachers in Brighton on the topic of Using Technology in the Classroom. As it was only an hour, it was tricky to squeeze so much information in, but hopefully everyone went away with an idea or two.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation:

| View | Upload your own

Using Powerpoint in the Classroom

2008-04-13T19:32:00.004+01:00

Please find below a Powerpoint presentation that I created for a recent lesson on authentic reading. This lesson looked at the collocations involved in describing famous places for a Pre-Intermediate class. It was projected on to the whiteboard and the students came forward to take part in the reading races, providing some healthy competition and motivation to win!

| View | Upload your own

The students really responded well to the stimulus and it made for a very useful lesson. I think Powerpoint is an exceptionally useful tool to master not only with the introduction of Interactive White Boards in the classroom, but also for online teaching. Most web conferencing tools such as WiZiQ, Adobe Connect, and Elluminate all have the capacity to present PPT files.

Class Blogs

2008-04-13T19:11:00.004+01:00

In order to graduate from the ICT in the Classroom course, it was necessary to plan and implement a technology based lesson. The area of blogs really interests me as it is a project the learners can take personal control of and contribute to outside the classroom. Having read about lots of successful class blogs from the Webheads discussion group I decided to set up my own.

I created a class blog as a kind of hub that provides the students with links to learning English resources (http://bscbrightonclass1.blogspot.com/) - please note it is still under construction as there is not a lot on it at the moment!

Secondly, I asked each student to create their own personal blog. Here they will be asked to write a homework assignment each week, but of course they can contribute further themselves if they wish. Every time they write a posting, I am automatically emailed. I then check the language and email it back to them. It is up to the student if they then go back to edit their language or not.

However, as I teach in an language school with continuous enrolment, using blogs poses additional problems. Namely, when any new students join the class, they have to set up a new blog costing valuable class time. Therefore, I designed a simple "How to" guide to setting up a blog which the students can complete in their first week with a personal introduction:

View Upload your own

This has proved a success with many of the students contributing over and above what is expected of them. I am looking foward to experimenting further with the different tools that work with blogs.

Synchronous Teaching Tools

2008-04-13T19:02:00.003+01:00

Below is a Powerpoint presentation I created for a teacher training session on using synchronous tools in the classroom. I'd love to hear any comments!

| View | Upload your own

ICT in the Classroom

2008-04-13T18:55:00.004+01:00

I have recently completed The Consultants-E Trinity moderated ICT in the Classroom course which I found very inspiring. The course was very well handled by our moderator, Carl Dowse, and all thanks go to him for his explanations and encouragement when trying to get hold what seems like a never ending amount of new tools.

It was a great experience being a student again, and in particular being an online student with Moodle and the challenges that it poses. I particularly enjoyed our synchronous sessions using Skype and WiZiQ which gave a good opportunity to discuss the tools and teaching in more depth. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who is interested in ICT in the Classroom.

Technology and the DELTA

2008-04-13T17:38:00.004+01:00

Time certainly flies when you're having fun! It also flies when you're chained to your desk reading and writing, searching, reading and a bit more writing - oh the joys of the DELTA.

Despite the syllabus of the DELTA, in my opinion, not covering technology in much depth, I have managed to incorporate technology into all of my observations so far. I have used MSN Messenger for a grammar lesson, Skype for a listening lesson, Google Docs for a writing lesson and Powerpoint for a reading lesson. All the lessons have been very successful, at least technologically, with my tutors being suitably impressed with the potential these, and other tools hold. Because of this, I have been asked to hold a training session for the other DELTA candidates in the near future.

Global English

2008-03-05T23:43:00.004Z

Just saw an article on the Telegraph (here) reporting that Prof. David Crystal believes everyone will need to master two forms of English - a local variety determined geographically and an internationally intelligible Standard English. He gives some convincing arguments to support his case.

This of course needs to be taken into account when teaching - depending on personal needs, learners need to be exposed to Standard English as much as possible rather than just the local version. I can see that technology could be the answer to the problem again with the Internet breaking down the traditional barriers. Standard English as well as the range of international varieties can be brought into the classroom through text, audio and video.

R.I.P. Audio Tapes?

2008-01-26T11:16:00.000Z

Is the backbone of the TEFL classroom, the trusty audio tape, reaching the end of it's life? How many times have teachers run around the staff room, frantically trying to find the right tape - New Pre-Int, Workbook, Tape 3, and then when they do, frantically trying to find the right spot - Module 12, Track 6.1, Speaker A - 1..... argh!

Well technology is here to the rescue! How many of your friends still listen to music on cassette? Not many? So why is the TEFL industry so behind? It's easy to see the progression that will take place with most materials being released on CD nowadays (although it is still possible to buy the tapes from some publishers!)... it's only a matter of time before they release downloadable MP3 versions. Publishers however, seem to be wary of producing MP3 versions of their materials and I wonder why when the music industry, with far more to lose, is diving in head first.

There are numerous benefits to having your TEFL audio library on MP3:

- ease of finding the right recordings - no more hunting for that missing tape
- ease of finding the right track on the recording - no more cueing
- security and reliability - a master version would always be on the system so no worrying about originals getting lost
- dramatically improved sound quality
- portability - with each teacher having an mp3 player, they could simply "plug-in" to speakers in the classroom - no more worrying if the room you're going to teach in has either a tape or cd player, or both.

There are a range of programmes that can intelligently record from audio tape to MP3, automatically recognising the track breaks and when the tape starts and stops. However,this must all be done in real-time making for a lengthy process to back-up that whole library. Perhaps pressure should be put on the publishers to produce their library in MP3 format for schools to download?

I'm going to do a bit of research with the publishers in the next few weeks to see what their take on this is. I don't think they will be able to avoid the issue for much longer, particularly as many are starting to produce IWB materials now, which carry audio mp3s. I imagine they will adopt a similar approach to the music industry using Digital Rights Management and perhaps limiting the number of players a track can be used on. It's something they have to deal with. For the time being though, I don't think we would be breaking any more laws by converting our resources to mp3 than we are by making back-up tape versions. I'll post their responses in due course.

Email me if you have any thoughts.

Gordon's thumbs up for English!

2008-01-21T23:44:00.000Z

A good place to start this blog is with Gordon's speech made last week (a full transcript can be found at http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page14289.asp. He makes some bold points as is his job, but made a few plans that I found interesting. Firstly, the introduction of a new bigger better British Council website, a kind of hub if you like, that allows teaching through VoIP - would love to know how this is going to work! Secondly, he mentioned the expansion of teaching qualifications including new short courses, and "Master Trainers" to train 750,000 teachers in India! Again, would love to know how this is going to work. Still, I think his speech summed up the importance of English globally nowadays and sets the scene for moving forward in 2008!

Let's get started!

2008-01-21T19:43:00.000Z

Hi and welcome to my brand new shiny blog!

I hope that you find it interesting and useful. I am currently teaching English as a Foreign Language here in Brighton on the south coast of England. I am currently studying for my DELTA and also working on The Consultants-e ICT in the Classroom online course using Moodle. I am also an active member of the Webheads group of educators. I am very interested in how technology can help learners learn more easily and teachers teach more easily. I think there are a vast number of tools and techniques that are out there ready to be exploited but many learners and teachers wary of using them. I hope this blog will be a posting board for thought and discussion on how to make everyone's lives easier by using technology in the classroom.

Please feel free to post comments or thoughts...
Cheers!
Richard