The first posts

It's been a while since my last post on here, but finally I have time to post a little update on the progress of www.thegrandmasduck.blogspot.com which is a class blog set up with an upper-intermediate class I have the pleasure of teaching.  

Their original enthusiasm has not waned, although with end of term exam pressure a telling factor, a couple of students have still not managed to get involved yet. Initial excuses for slow interaction were difficulties creating a google account, which some of the other students mocked as being ridiculous, but fair enough. In class I demonstrated how it could be done, with the more knowledgeable students helping out. Then, there were issues with following the invite link I had sent. So, I got a volunteer to demonstrate what was to be done. Within a week, therefore, most of the students had author privilege, yet at that moment nothing had been produced.  

I had initially set a task of writing a short profile as a first post, being careful not to include personal details, but this had not been done by any of them. Suspecting a fear of being the first and nobody else doing it, I got them to write these profiles on paper in the class, then checked and helped them correct the work and finally we had time to get the work online. Having only two computers in the classroom, I had to make sure they were all occupied, but by working in pairs with one student to dictate and the other to type, this was easily possible, particularly as they finished the original paper-based work at different times. 
 
Interestingly, and perhaps due to a surreptitious text message during all this activity, a student who had stayed at home to study for a dreaded philosophy exam was able to read the articles being posted, post her own and comment on others while the class was taking place, which I thought was great! 

Over the weekend there have been a couple more comments and I have emailed a student to point out some errors he had made during typing, which he has since corrected, though I didn't insist he had to. All in all, I'm extremely happy with the progress of the blog and the effort the students have made, despite the time constraints of their heavy study schedule. 

My main current target is to persuade the two remaining non-participants to get involved. They seem keen and have displayed real interest in class, so I can only assume that they just haven't got around to it yet.  

This week I hope to have a discussion about a video I've found on youtube, have a discussion in class and have the students write a post further discussing their opinions on the blog, hopefully this could create a bit of debate, let's see.


The Layout

I mentioned on the last post here that their choice of background colour was horrible! Well, thankfully they came to a consensus and changed to a much more pleasing blue page.

The Grandma's Duck Hatches

During this last week I took the first steps towards starting a blog with a group of my students. I've wanted to try it for ages, but never got around to it, for various reasons. I considered it with various classes but always thought that 'it's not quite the right one' or something. If I'm honest, I've been making a variety of excuses, but now I've started, finally.

The class is a group of 7 teenagers aged between 15 and 17, they are in the first year of a two-year FCE preparation course. My personal feeling about exam preparation courses is that they can be extremely demotivating for students if they are concentrated solely on the exam. I know teachers have different ideas and opinions, but I wince when I hear other teachers declaring 'well, what they need is more practice, give them more practice tests, do more timed writing', that would put me off for life. I strongly believe that a balance needs to be struck between exam preparation and actually learning the language, as they are two different things; exam technique is extra, not the main focus of the syllabus. Anyway, I digress...

Partly as a result of my feelings, I wanted to try a blog project to motivate the students, give them the opportunity to practise English outside the classroom and to increase their exposure to real English by getting them involved in activities on the internet.

One 'problem' that I'd been using as an excuse, is the fact that our school doesn't have a computer room, so I couldn't use this route to introduce them to blogging. So, in order to introduce the idea I decided to have a general discussion in the class about blogs. During this chat I found out that the students knew what blogs were, read blogs themselves and a couple of them said they regularly commented. I then asked them to think of some ways in which a blog could be used by the class. They immediately suggested various things: writing articles about their favourite topics, discussing world issues, posting links for interesting articles in English, posting favourite videos from youtube and commenting on them, receiving homework and feedback via the blog and also making connections with other students around the world. I was over the moon! They'd already suggested a load of things that I had thought I would suggest to them and seemed really enthusiastic. Then one of them asked, 'Can we do this?' I hadn't realised, but they had been discussing it all hypothetically. When I told them that this was what I wanted to do, they were made up, a hugely motivating reaction.

In the following lesson, I used the IWB (well, we have e-beam), to show them blogger and some examples of student websites, from my former school IH Braga. I went through the set up process and let them choose the name of the blog and the design, there was some conjecture about the design, before they finally compromised on a horrible brown thing! I'm hoping they can agree to a better thing later.

As for the title, they've chosen the somewhat surreal moniker of 'The Grandma's Duck'. To briefly explain, the balcony of a flat overlooks our classroom window and there's an old woman who lives there, known to the students as 'the Grandma'. She can often be spotted during the lessons, much to the amusement of the students, spying on people in the street in her dressing-gown. The duck reference is from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, part of which I used in a class recently. They have developed a liking for quoting various phrases, including 'A duck!' from the scene where King Arthur helps out as Bedevere attempts to explain to the assembled peasants how they can tell if the accused is indeed a witch. So there you go, they've certainly taken ownership!

The site now exists, it's online, it has a trial post and the potential for a long running Grandma joke. The students' homework is to sign up to google, send me their email, accept the invite to contribute and then write a short introductory post about themselves, without too much personal detail, obviously. So, let's see where it all goes from here.

Teachers Online

Last weekend I completed the two-week 'Blogs' course offered by the consultants-e. I was motivated to do the course mainly in order to get some guidance and receive a final push towards using blogs myself, so having finished that, I am starting. Many thanks to Nicky and Andrei.

I've been reading blogs for a while now and becoming far more aware of what is happening in the field of education, particularly elt, online. It's something I've only really had the opportunity to get into as a result of having bought a laptop and got an internet connection at home for the first time, something that's never previously been feasible in any of the places I've lived. There seems to be a fair amount of online discussion as to why more regular teachers aren't taking the opportunity to interact online. I feel that as a newcomer to this world, I have a good idea as to why much of the evangelising about elt in cyberspace is falling on deaf ears.

As a regular efl teacher the contractual period of work is nine months and often internet providers only offer a minimum 12-month contract. It's also quite expensive, at least I think the 35 euros a month I pay in Spain is. On top of that, laptops aren't exactly cheap, not all teachers can afford them and buying a pc is unrealistic due to the need for flexibility. This expense is an important issue.

Despite this, there seem to be thousands of teachers looking for materials and ideas online, as schools do generally offer decent facilities nowadays, but of this number only a few hundred seem to blog or comment. Reading a discussion on Ken Wilson's blog the other day, there were a few interesting points raised about how many teachers were actually part of an online community. There are a lot, but whilst browsing many blogs I see the same names, over and over again. It feels like a clique. What's more, many names are 'famous', in elt world. Woah! Hang on, am I allowed to comment here? What if Scott Thornbury disagrees with me? I might put my foot in a large grammar shaped hole.

If you're reading this, first of all, thank you. Now, look at the profiles of elt bloggers out there. How many of them are just teachers? Not teacher trainers. Not managers or senior staff. Not course book writers or freelancers. Not teaching in Universities. Not teaching in US state schools. The regular short contract, under-paid, over-worked efl teaching staff do not have a big presence online. Some may lurk, though I doubt that all but a low percentage of teachers worldwide have the time or inclination to spend time browsing the blogosphere.

Back in the real world, thinking of my colleagues, I regularly pass on ideas to them which I've got from blogs and I always tell them where the idea came from, partly in order to promote blogging. The other day we discussed how helpful reading blogs could be, but two of them immediately mentioned that a lack of internet at home meant that they didn't spend much time online. In school we have internet, but outside of planning time, teaching time and online interaction with friends and family abroad, their other time is spent outside the school enjoying some free time.

Another thing for me is that there is something a bit evangelical about elt online, pious with an unwelcome dose of self-help life coaching. This often comes across as smug and annoying, which most teachers with a healthy level of cynicism will notice and easily come to the conclusion that it's not for them. After all, having had IWBs enthusiastically rolled out only to discover that they're not actually that great, how much more techno-evangelising can anyone take?

Related to various points above, one conclusion that I have reached is that many English language teachers just don't care. How many are in it for the long term? Only yesterday a colleague with around a year's experience was considering her future. "What are your plans for next year?" I asked, 'Well, it's probably about time I settled back in the UK and got a proper job', she replied.

Twittering

I have recently started using twitter properly, having signed up last November and found it fairly useless. Then I discovered a friend and former colleague on there and made a few more connections, now it feels useful, many thanks to @annapires. I've come across loads of new blogs to read and followed links to dozens of interesting sites. However, I notice the amount of time some people seem to spend online and I'm amazed. Do these people actually teach? Do they ever disconnect from their computer? Do they eat? I've come to the conclusion that the ever active and informative @shellterrell must really be a whole team of people working round the clock to keep #edchat going.