Blogging in Greece.: The good stuff

I thought I'd say a few words about blogging in Greece, good and bad. In the "good"category I'd like to mention the blogs set up by an excellent local style magazine here in Thessaloniki called Soul. Being an independent publication they are using blogs as a mean to get out their message and so open a line of communication with their readership. In that respect they're not unlike indie bands who use MySpace in order to build up a fan base. This yet another example of the way free web tools such as blogs can open up new ways for those outside the traditional media framework a way to reach a mass audience.

Check out Soul's blogs at Blogger (here) and MySpace (here).

Web 2.0 tools for teachers and students

I was over at Cool Cat Teacher's blog and she talked about a wonderful post she'd seen on teaching and web 2.0. So check out Back to School With the Class of Web 2.o on Solution Watch. It has a great list of links to sites that are of interest to students and teachers.

Convergence

I think that there is going to be a sea change in the way we teach in the next few years and I believe that this will depend on three factors: Cheap laptops, mobile phones and easy access to the internet via wifi.

If Negroponte's $100 dollar laptop comes a reality and wifi networks follow the same kind of growth patterns that mobile phone use has in say, Africa then we are about to see a revolution in the way every subject is taught. I think that this change will take place in foreign language teaching first as the subject is all about communication and so less burdened by a prescriptive curriculum.

The ability to freely download excellent materials combined with the opportunity to talk using voip and write to other all over the planet with web tools such as blogs or wikis will mean that everyone will be plugged into one global classroom. A wall - less teaching space in which the only limits are the imagination of the teacher and student.

Mobile phone features such as mp3, audio recording capability, digital and video cameras and the like will soon become standard features on even the cheapest models. As a result students will have the ability to create more than just text for the web. Once again the teaching and learning opportunities are endless ( see here for some ideas of my own). Podcasting, vlogs, blogs and wikis are just the beginning, once a billion extra internet users enter cyberspace, imagine what riches they will bring, what stories and ideas will flow through the net.

28th October

Today is a national holiday in Greece ("oxi" or "no day"). On this day in 1941 the Italian dictator, Mussolini demanded that the Greek government allow Italian troops to enter its territory. This marked the country's entry into WWII on the side of the allies (see here for more details).

Every town has a parade in which students participate by marching through the streets.

Cool effects for photos

School sit - ins

There is a wave of school sit-ins sweeping Greece. While the five-week teacher's school is drawing to a close the students have decided to take matters into there own hand. According to www.syntonistiko.gr 1015 schools are being occupied (υπο καταλυψη). The demands of the students include higher government spending on schools and guaranteed access to all levels of education. At the moment the vast majority (and we mean 90% plus) of students are obliged to do extra lessons which have to be paid for by their parents, if they want to get into higher education or learn basic skills such as a foreign language to any kind of adequate level.

Check out what one of my students think of all this here.

Gutenberg's jukebox

One of the benefits of having access to the internet is that I can now find the kind of music I love, the songs and albums that i grew up with, Whether it be through ripped cds, internet radio stations such as Last FM or other services such as Limewire I now have access to a huge range of music that was unavailable beforehand. When I was a students in the 80's I was the proud owner of over 200 albums. The other guys I shared the house with were equally avid music fans so between us we probably had close to a 1000 albums that reflected our rather eclectic listening tastes.

The monetary value of those collections was enormous, representing thousands of pounds (not to mention thousands of lost hours spent rummaging in the bargain bins of various record shops). Now I have more music that that stored on a device that fits neatly into my pocket. More importantly, I didn't have to sell my soul or work for the next 60 years to pay for them.

So that's where Gutenberg comes into the equation; before the advent of the printing press books were expensive commodities, owning one was equivalent to owning a laptop in todays terms. Then within a 100 years they came an affordable luxury and then an everyday commodity. The same has happened to music, but instead of taking centuries it has taken a mere decade.

So this is my blast from the past that is rocking my world.

Laibach - Life is Life
Bad Brains - I against I
Big Black - Jordan
The jam - Going Underground
The Waterboys - The Return of Jimi Hendrix
Public Enemy - Don't Believe the Hype
Conflict - The Ungovernable Force
The Left Banke - Pretty Ballerina
The Smashing Pumpkins - Today
Walk on By - Isaac Hayes

St Dimitiris's Day

Photo courtesy of Jakebouma at Flickr

Today is a public holiday here in Thessaloniki as the city is celebrating it's patron saint's name day (click here for more information). As a result I don't have any lessons, except for a private outside the city limits, near Thermi. Still, better than nothing.

We Blog cartoons




Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

A day in the life......

I thought I'd just give you taste of a typical day. I started my working day at 10 am when I went to my first lesson in Euosmos, a suburb in the west of Thessaloniki, with Maria and Marianna, two very enthusiastic eight year - olds. They are a joy to teach as they bring so much energy and joy to everything they do. We're doing the Chatterbox book which they adore as it has lots of music, songs and games. Although they don't have a PC I usually take my ibook and digital camera and record them singing songs or acting out the dialogues from the book. Unlike most of my students they love seeing themselves on the computer screen.



After that it is a quick 10 minute ride over to Stavroupoli, the neighbouring suburb in order to do a lesson with Antonis (Antony),a fifteen year old who loves basketball and had no great love of English, or at least that was the case in the beginning. Now we've reached some kind of agreement in which I try to find stuff in English that interests him and he does the more pedestrian exercise that the Headway Intermediate book offers. This includes lots of action movies on dvds (English subtitles only), music and sports related articles.

Today one of the highlights of the lesson was sending his entry, which he took using his mobile phone to the BBC's young photographer's competition.

Also, whenever we have a short listening exercise in the book I ask him to record it using his mobile phone. As a result his accent in English has improved enormously.

After that I pop by the supermarket to get my shopping for the next couple of days then later it's back home to grab something to eat and prepare for the evening's lessons. This means recording cds, ripping listening exercises, putting them onto a memory stick, collecting dvds that I'll give out and getting photocopies done.

At 3.20pm I go to my lesson with Aristidis, a ten year-old boy who lives in Ano Poli and has just started lessons with me. We've been a lot of activities on the internet and together we've set up a blog and have been doing a lot of interesting writing exercises from the British Council site. He's off to Berlin and I've asked him to take lots of photos so that we can put them on the blog.


Next I whizz off to the centre in order to do my next lesson at 4.45pm in the language school with my FCE class. They're a bunch of boisterous teenagers who get bored quickly. In order to get way from just doing the atrocious exam practice books that we've been given I decided to do a listening exercise with a song and lyrics chosen by one of the students. We end up listening to one by System of a Down and discussing the meaning of the lyrics to Dreaming.


They've also set up a blog but they haven't really got the hang of using it yet. Their homework is to find the lyrics to a song and say why they like it. However, they shouldn't write their name as the other have to guess who chose what.

Finally, I'm off out of the centre to Retziki a new suburb to the north of the city to do a lesson at 7pm with Angeliki, who has just passed the FCE and wants to take the CPE exams. She is a long-time blogger, having started hers last year. I asked her to write about the school sit-ins that are sweeping the country from her own perspective. Check out her latest post here.


Finally at 9.30pm I get home exhausted. Thankfully, tomorrow is a public holiday here in Thessaloniki.

EFL/ESL writing

Here is another great story writing lesson (see here) from the British Council website. It's perfect for teaching boys at the intermediate level since it's all about aliens and stuff like that. I'm off in a few minutes to try it out for myself.

(http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-cold-planet.htm)

Help with the Cambridge interviews

Here's a teaching tip for helping students prepare for the Cambridge exams, and in particular the interview section. The activity is designed to help get the ready the parts of the interview that involve working together to discuss a question. In this part of the test students are given long, complicated instructions which must be followed carefully.

Lesson plan

1 Instead of asking students just to read the instructions, get them to close their books and listen. Explain to them that they are going to hear the instructions for this part of the interview twice.

2 Read out the instructions for the first time, remind students that all they should do is listen.

3 Next explain to them that they are going to hear the question a second time and that they should note down as much as they can about the question. Tell them that you will read the question out at normal speed and so that nobody can be expected to note down everything.

4 Read out the question again ( at slightly slower speed than before).

5 Students then work together in groups to reconstruct the question.

6 They then compare their version with the original in the book. Once again remind them that the most important thing is that they have the same idea rather than being a carbon copy of the original.

7 Students then work in pairs and do the interview exercise.

Registration deadline for ALCE

Just a reminder that the final deadline for ALCE registration in Greece is 10th November. Go here to find out how to apply (in Greek) and here for an application form (in English).

The Economist via Odeo

Playing around with some ideas.

Plato's cave

When I was studying for my Masters in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign language) one of the things that drove me almost to distraction was that fact that most of the sources and experts were based in either the UK or the USA. No disrespect, but neither country is a hotbed of successful second language learning. On the other hand, there was little or nothing from educational systems that regularly produce legions of students who feel comfortable speaking two or even three languages.

Here's my dream for the future, I'm dying to find out how in countries such as Morocco, Kenya, South Africa etc people learn to be fluent in French English, Arabic, Berber, Swhahili, Gikuyu and so many other languages with a fraction of the resources available in the schools here. One of the unexpected benefits of the introduction of the $100 dollar laptop is that these teachers and student voices will finally be heard on a global stage. I, for one, can't wait to hear what they have to teach us.

Plato
Book VII of The Republic

The Allegory of the Cave

"Here's a little story from Plato's most famous book, The Republic. Socrates is talking to a young follower of his named Glaucon, and is telling him this fable to illustrate what it's like to be a philosopher -- a lover of wisdom: Most people, including ourselves, live in a world of relative ignorance. We are even comfortable with that ignorance, because it is all we know. When we first start facing truth, the process may be frightening, and many people run back to their old lives. But if you continue to seek truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better. In fact, you want more! It's true that many people around you now may think you are weird or even a danger to society, but you don't care. Once you've tasted the truth, you won't ever want to go back to being ignorant!

[Socrates is speaking with Glaucon]

[Socrates:] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

[Glaucon:] I see.

And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent."

For the rest of the story click here

The $100 laptop

I'm sure that you've heard about Nicholas Negrponte's idea for a cheap laptop designed to change the way the planet uses the internet. It's a concept that I was initially skeptical of, however, after listening to Negroponte speak at Ted Talks and seeing how the internet can be used in my own teaching situation I'm starting to come round to the idea.



If you want to download the podcast click here

Hotel mime game

Here's an exercise I use as either a warm up for more advanced students or an revision activity at the end of a lesson to practice a particular vocabulary area. It can be used with any number of different learning tasks.

Lesson plan

1 Tell students that they are on holiday in London/New York etc. The only problem is that they have a terrible sore throat and so are unable to utter a word.

2 If that was not enough you have some problems with your hotel and you have to go the reception to complain.

3 Explain to the students that they have to explain their problems through mime. Do an example to give them a better idea of what you want.

E.g. There are not towels in my bathroom.

4 Divide the class into two teams. Elicit a name for each team

5 One student from each group comes to the front of the class, is shown a situation from the handout and then has two minutes to mime the situation to the other members of his/her team. If the team fails to get the right answer the other team has a chance to guess.

6 Then the other team has their turn.

7 Repeat as many times as you wish (though, I reckon four to five each is a good number, otherwise they start to get restless).

8 The winning team is the one with the most correct guesses

HOTEL MIME GAME

1 There are no towels in my bathroom.

2 The bed hasn't been changed.

3 I can't turn off the air conditioning.

4 My room is very dirty.

5 I need to be woken up at 8am tomorrow morning.

6 I would like breakfast in bed.

7 I'd like to order a salad and a can of orangeade from room service.

8 I want to use the hotel gym.

9 Where is the nearest post office?

10 Can you give me change for a 100 euro note ?

The same idea can be used for crimes, the supermarket, school etc.

Essay writing resources for EFL/ESL

One thing I really believe in is that we must also look outside the EFL/ESL world for our teaching ideas. Well, there are lots of great ones out there for teaching foreign languages I think that we often underestimate our students ability to think and reason in a second language. That's why I am always on the look out for stuff that English speaking teachers use in their L1 classes. so, here is a link to www.teachit.co.uk which is full of great teaching ideas which I've used over the years for post FCE (b2 level) students.

This particular link has a lot of ways to teach discursive, persuasive and argumentative writing. I find that the advice that most EFL books is sorely lacking and amounts to little more that copy this model essay.

Not quite Saturday Night Fever

Despite it being a rainy Saturday night here in Thessaloniki, I'm happily baby sitting Lydia and her friend, Penelope who are playing in the other room, happily oblivious to the bad weather outside. We've just finished making chocolate double chip cinnamon and vanilla (basically whatever we could find in the cupboards) cookies. They're absolutely delicious if a mite mis-shapened. We started off the project in order to avoid a "want to go home crisis' and it seems to have worked, at least for the being.

Sometimes it's the minutia of everyday life that gives meaning to what we do.

It's a Big Big World...

It's a Big Big World...
Originally uploaded by Ya Ya.

Ed Hopper in Japan.