By Barbara Dieu · August 19, 2008
Have you ever seen 10,000 students learning English from one teacher – all at the same time? Have you ever met a detective whose mission impossible is to arrest bad grammar? Or encountered a 74 year-old retiree who thinks nothing of ambushing foreigners on the streets just so he can practice his English? Or heard a Chinese policeman speak English in a New York Bronx accent?
Mad About English, a film by Singaporean filmmaker Lian Pek, humorously documents China ‘s passionate love affair with the English language and their obsessive quest to learn it (some through very unorthodox methods).
This TechCrunch article shows another opportunity to_grow_ your_ career by pointing to a very grammatically (and politically) incorrect website, EngrishFunny, to which users send in photos of poorly translated or odd variations of written English in products, signs or instructions.
Deivis Pothin, a student of linguistics in London, shares his impressions and worries about the underlying message.
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By Barbara Dieu · December 23, 2007
This is an end of year homage to Teresa Almeida d’Eca, one of the most illustrious and hard-working members of the Webheads in Action Community of Practice.
Teresa, whose students have been featured on Dekita in a previous post, has been involved in ICTs since 1996 and is working against all odds to implement these new technologies in her EFL classes at the Escola EB 2,3 de Sto Antonio in Parede, Portugal.
I am very happy to report that Teresa was one of the 13 finalists of the international eLearning Awards 2007 and that her CALL Lessons 2005-2007, a curricular blog for 5th & 6th graders (1st-2nd year EFL) for learning English with the help of different Web 2.0 tools, has won the SMART Technologies award for the school of the future at the e-Leaning 2007 event organized by the European Schoolnet during the Eminent Conference held in Brussels on 6/7 December 2007.
Teresa, who has been documenting the work Webheads of many WiA along these years, shares a more detailed explanation of her own success on a wiki she opened to register the event.
Congratulations Teresa on your prize, given as a recognition to your diligence, inventiveness and commitment to your students and ELT.
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By Barbara Dieu · December 02, 2007
Larry Ferlazzo’s blog Websites Of The Day For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL has been nominated as Best Resource Sharing Blog in 2007 the Edublog Awards, organized by Josie Fraser with James Farmer’s Edublogs support
Larry, who teaches beginner, intermediate, and advanced English language learners (as well as native English speakers) at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California, has written a number of articles on community organizing methodology for ESL teachers, classroom strategy and leadership. Every month, the ELL/ESL/EFL Carnival highlights blog posts teachers around the world have found particularly useful and insightful.
These kind of initiatives, enabled by social media (pdf file), federate and feature the work and creativity of talented educators, who would otherwise remain closed and isolated in their own institutions or contexts.
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By Barbara Dieu · September 19, 2007
Claudia Ceraso, the Argentinian blogger behind The FCE Blog , makes a post referring to the European Day of Languages. The event, promoted by the Council of Europe, has been celebrated every September 26th since 2001 to foster plurilingualism, diversity and life- long language learning.
I notice the link announcing the event takes me to a page of European Centre of Modern Languages in Graz, Austria. This triggers memories and sends me me back in time to 2001-2003, when I participated virtually in a series of surveys and discussion forums led and moderated by Peter Radai and team around The Status of Language Educators . These outline the views, perceptions, questions and daily professional activities of language educators and the project was launched with the mission of drawing national and international attention to the profession of language education, and to its implementers, language teachers all over Europe.
The results were published in a book of the same name (French or English version available), which can be bought online or downloaded as a pdf file .
Although many of the issues brought up then, like the existence of teacher power/influence/ability to empower students/solidarity and the role of the teacher as a an agent of change in their own institutions remain the focus of many of the edublog discussions nowadays and have not been solved, I am optimistic and see an evolution.
There is a growing awareness that schooling, as it is offered now in many contexts, does not educate learners for civic participation and collaboration in a knowledge society. There is a recognition that at work, much of the learning occurs informally through conversations with experts, peers and tutors, independently from the formal courses offered by traditional training departments. Participatory media has allowed many educators from around the globe to connect to a growing network, start conversations, exchange ideas, develop professionally beyond the institutional walls and actively co-construct knowledge.
Alexander Hayes, the organizer of the Future of Learning in a Networked World , advances the following questions on the group list :
Do you believe that the future of learning in a networked world is a bleak one…..a souless online virtual connection, a facile attempt to build community where only self serving individuals oscillate in ever increasingly smaller circles with shorter interactions and a senseless lack of ‘human-ness ?
The burning questions I put forward back in 2001 are still topical:
What steps have you taken in your language classes to promote cooperation, tolerance, respect towards the other and individual development? How responsible do you feel socially?
and to them I add:
What are the key literacies needed in the 21st century and can participatory media help us, life-long language learners, develop them? How?
Comment [3]
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By Barbara Dieu · October 25, 2006
Clarence Fisher does not teach at a language school nor is he in the foreign language teaching circuit.
However, although Cool Cat Teacher has already extensively covered the technology used in the classroom, I am featuring him on Dekita today not only because the tropical learners from the megalopolis have enjoyed interacting with the distant wild north but also because there is a smooth and perceptive way he tunes in, which I very much relate to and find most inspiring: class dialogue and international networking, a commitment to excellence, imagination and like most of us, a deep love for the language and writing as it is used out there in the open, in the real world , not the frozen artificial snippets we find in many books and exercises for the classroom.
Through the photos posted on his class account on Flickr, there is life and emotion as he not only encourages learners to manipulate the technology but also describe the process and reflect on the effect they are creating on the viewer.
It’s really a joy to have discovered this junior high school small package!
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By Barbara Dieu · June 27, 2006
Carla Arena, a dynamic EFL teacher and, according to her own words, “a fearless explorer of the wonders of technology” has been creatively incorporating some of the latest social tools in her classes at Casa Thomas Jefferson in BrasÃlia.
International Exchange brings together Brazilian and Dennis Oliver´s ESL students from the Estrela Mountain Community College in Arizona, USA.
Samba EFL features interviews, discussions of up-to-date topics and Brazilian cultural aspects while Brazil and Brazilians brings us closer to the hopes, fears and impressions of our people about the 2006 World Cup.
In the group stage, we played against Croatia, Australia and Japan and managed to secure our position. In an hour, we will be playing against Ghana. It´s the knock-out stage. Will we be able to laugh, samba and shout Dekita Brazil at the end of this game?
Run Brazil, score!
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By Barbara Dieu · April 03, 2006
Absolutely Intercultural is a newly launched site focusing on all aspects of intercultural communication. It is hosted by Anne Fox (Denmark) and Elmar-Laurent Borgmann (Germany), and edited by Karsten Kneese (Germany). A new episode will be podcast every second Friday evening. Anne and Elmar would like to start an intercultural dialogue between the makers, the contributors and the listeners.
The first tasty tidbit takes place in a tapas bar in Leon, North of Spain. Get a glass of rioja, join the table and share your experience!
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By Barbara Dieu · March 13, 2006
Geoff Taylor, English language teacher at St Clare’s, Oxford explains what a podcast is and how to put one together.
The Bardwell Road Podcast Centre, under Geoff’s supervision, features some excellent student productions like Juliane Felicio’s from Brazil, during which she hosts a show on food and eating out in Oxford. Angela Vilarino interviews her classmates on love and romance while Bo Yang Zhu, from China tries to find out what people do in order to better learn English.
Listen to what this talented group of students has created!
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By Barbara Dieu · January 19, 2006
In For the Dream, a young woman from China called Searay has just started blogging about her stay and impressions of Vancouver, Canada, keeping a blog and studying English.
Eddie, a friend of hers from the same course, has already gone back to Taiwan but has kept on blogging in Always the Hours. This is the quotation that he has chosen to illustrate his blog:
What I wanted were new experiences. I wanted to go out into the world and test myself, to move from this to that, to explore as much as I could. As long as I kept my eyes open, I figured that whatever happened to me would be useful, would teach me things I had never known before.—Paul Auster
Do you have any experiences, dreams, learning impressions to share with us? Send us word.
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By Barbara Dieu · June 15, 2005
Nini is Virginie Segaut from France, presently a student in Education at the University of Technology of Sydney. She opened a blog at Incsub last March to help her organize and record her progress into e-learning and foreign languages.
She reflects on the methodology and pedagogy employed at French schools and universities and questions the traditional way of teaching. In the post What is Learning a Foreign Language she discusses her own perspective, and based on a paper by Professor Steve McCarty, also mentions the issues and difficulties that may arise when using the same approach towards e-learning in different cultural and disciplinary contexts.
Although she believes in the potential of ICT in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning , her first experience attending an English course online seems to have been frustrating and disappointing.
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