Try to look closely at the photographs. What do you see? What you do notice? How does it make you feel? Can you describe your inner feelings? Can you see the rays?
After the sun rises – Madinah
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Category Archives: English
Ramadan Day 3 (2012)
“And before complaining about life and it’s ‘miseries’, remember those who are going through a greater torment. Indeed, through patience and thankfulness you can overcome any difficulty; indeed there are many who have a greater test.”
Syrian Refugee camp in Zaatari , near the Jordanian border. source: http://www.facebook.com/BritishSyrianRevolution
Saudi Business Podcast
Based on the Arabnews, May 19th, 2012. Just click on the link below
Jumping around like a monkey and trying to motivate the unmotivateable
The title is I must admit a bit harsh (does the word unmotivateable exist?), but in a way describes the context I found myself in the other day.
From a language instructor background, I’m used to ‘jumping around like a monkey’.
Most language instructors try hard to get the attention of their students, trying to get them involved in class activities, with the goal that by the end of the class they will have taken another step in their language learning. When I see a student yawn, I feel the need to access my ‘teaching strategy file’ in that upper stratum we call the brain!
The other day, I was facing a group of BA English students. I had been placed within a ‘lecturing environment’ where as one of the students told me, “teacher we are used to listening, not speaking. We just take notes.”
Tasked with having to teach modals (I was teaching grammar of course) I was faced with a bleary-eyed group of young to mature adult males.It was also late afternoon – 5.30 pm to be exact.
After a few minutes, I realised that my students were not only having difficulty with the concept, they did not seem to understand what I was saying!! When I asked them a question, all I got was silence.
What now I thought as I rubbed my chin and raised one eyebrow (in a James Bond like fashion of course).
Eureka!! (I thought)
I offered to let all of my students go home if they each wrote a sentence for the words must, might, may and could.
I wrote the words on the white board, drew four columns and made my board markers available to anyone who was brave enough to come to the front and take a risk. “Even if you make a mistake, I’ll be happy, the point is to try!!”
I waited a few minutes. Two to three students (the best ones as expected) wrote four sentences each, followed by immediate feedback from yours truly. They then all went home.
After what then seemed quite a few minutes, one or two of the students came forward and started writing. They could look at their grammar book, but they had to use different vocabulary.
The students ‘I think’ had observed the other students writing, looked at what they had written, as well as my feedback, and were beginning to pick up a pattern.
Slowly but surely, some of the more shy students started coming to the front. In a way they had no choice, as the class was becoming empty as more and more of the students started leaving. I gave individual feedback and made sure all the students were watching and at the same time was rallying them to “have a go”.
The class ended at about the same time it normally would.
I was beginning to wonder. Do I have to offer them a chance to go home early in every class to get them to actually learn something or even motivate them? Remember, this was an unusually difficult situation?
And is lecturing really the right way to be teaching a second language? Obviously I can’t use this strategy all of the time.
What would you have done?
Replying to Thank You!!
When someone says thank you, how do you reply? A nice video about different ways to say thank you, by someone who genuinely seems to enjoy telling us how! An excellent way to show your friends that you know a few different ways to reply. Can also be used by teachers.
Supplementary materials as pension plan
Some years ago, I had the opportunity to work for Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam – see a website about Yusuf – www.yusufislam.com ), a well-known pop-star from the late 60’s and early 70’s.
In case you’re wondering, I was certainly not teaching English, and neither did he have an English Institute. So what does this have to do with TESOL and teaching?
Okay, let’s take a step back, and think about ourselves as teaching professionals. First, how many years have you been teaching? Second, how many subjects have you taught; third, how much are you earning compared to other professionals?
Let’s assume the answers to the first two questions are “quite a few”, and for the third, the answer is “pretty average”. Having said this, if money was a primary motivator for you, then you would probably have gone into another profession.
Question: How many supplementary materials do you produce per lesson, per day and per week? Now, calculate the number of supplementary materials you produce per year, and then multiply this into the number of years you’ve taught.
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Here’s an example:
Subjects taught a week =4
1 supplementary sheet (S.S) per week created for each subject =4 (S.S) per week
The teacher works 50 weeks a year =4 (S.S) x 50 = 200 (S.S)/Year
The teacher works 10 years =200 (S.S) x10 = 2,000 (S.S)
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Now, how many TESOL teachers are there out there? Let’s assume 20,000.
Taking the figures above, this means that 40 million supplementary sheets are produced for each generation of teachers.
What happens to supplementary sheets? Well, they’re stuffed in envelopes or filed away to gather dust. Who knows, they may be re-used but ultimately, this vast knowledge is being thrown away. How much knowledge have we lost in the last 100 years or more? How could this knowledge have helped us in our teaching and research today?
Each one of us is a container (or silo) of knowledge. Where is that knowledge going? It’s going in the bin of history. There is no library out there of supplementary materials, and so that knowledge is going to waste.
Now back to Cat Stevens (Yusuf). Musicians write songs, and some even produce the music. Long after Yusuf had left being an active musician, he was still receiving money for the work he had previously done. Wherever and whenever a song was played, be it on the radio, be it in an advert, a royalty would be earned. So despite the fact he had written the songs 20 years earlier, he was still making a living on the work he had previously done. The musicians who had collaborated with him in the past also got a part of the royalty. This is standard practice across the industry.
Now, some of you may have worked out what I’m trying to suggest here, which is that the supplementary materials we produce is a valuable resource of knowledge, something that each one of us produces without even a second thought. It’s part of our job. But what happens afterwards?
Ladies and Gentlemen, you are repositories of knowledge, the work you produce is invaluable, and in reality all of that knowledge is going to waste.
Why can’t we have a library of supplementary materials in e.g. cyberspace, let’s say something like Amazon.com, where teachers, students, materials seekers, curriculum writers and even policy makers, can go to and download a copy of one of the masterpieces you have produced. Every time they download your work, you get paid a modest amount, a ‘supplementary materials royalty’.
In a world where iPhones, iPads and various digital tablets exist, in a world where everything and everyone is connected via the net, and in a world where for our students this is the norm, why don’t we take the next step? Imagine you are teaching and then you ask all your students to download materials from cyberspace. Who knows, there may be enough relevant materials out there that you may not even need a textbook. Every time a download occurs, someone somewhere will receive a small royalty.
In this world of transmedia, where publishers are making a killing with their books, CDs, DVDs and online resources, why don’t the rest of us also make use of this opportunity? No one is saying that you are going to make a ‘ton of money’ but at least you can get back something for the work that you produced with your own creativity, your own passion, with your concern for your students, without even a thought that you should get a monetary return. Who knows, with a ‘supplementary materials royalty’ we may survive the unpredictable financial world we currently live in.
So now that I’ve provided the idea, are there any takers out there who can make this a reality?
A New Year one month too late?
Hi,
Whereas many people around the world are celebrating the beginning of the new year i.e. 2012 (Gregorian) many people around the world are more used to the Lunar or Hijri calendar. Today, on the 1st of January 2012 (Gregorian), the Hijri (Lunar) calendar date is the 7th of Safar, 1433. This is the second month of the year. The Hijri calendar also has 12 months. In case you are wondering why there seems to be a 600 plus year difference in the calendars, this is simple – both calendars have ‘spiritual’ origins. The Gregorian has origins in Christian tradition whereas the Hijri calendar has origins in Islamic tradition.
Here’s a 1 minute song to help people remember the months of the Hijri calendar. Have a good year ahead!! You could use this topic to create a listening, speaking, reading or writing activity.
So you think your English is good? Try this
Can you describe how to tie shoelaces? Watch the cartoon and start describing! Write or speak. A test for the natives too!
Are book publishers killing teacher creativity and student learning potential?
Okay, so how many of you teaching English are using a text from a major
publisher? And how many of you seriously think that you, let alone your students are particularly enjoying the topics under the microscope? I mean, how does someone sitting in a dusty office in the middle of no-where decide what our students are going to learn and talk about. A few years back, I was teaching the topic of spanking to a group of Saudi students. Of course, this had nothing to do with their life experience, and the topic went down like a lead balloon! It
didn’t make for much interesting conversation.
The other day, I started a discussion with my students about the latest smart phones. I mentioned the iphone, Samsung Galaxy, the HTC desire, the latest Blackberry Bold and a few other ‘in-phones’.
The students ‘pounced’ on the chance to talk about their phones memory size, whether Android beat IOS, and the various functionalities of the phones concerned. It goes without saying, that many of us are also ‘into’ these kinds of ‘in-things’. It was an opportunity to justify positions for choosing particular phones, and of course the resulting argumentation resulted in a lot of ‘talk’ – which of course was the desired outcome.
I find without reservation that most book publishers are way behind on interesting content. At times it feels like we’re stuck within a straight jacket that just does not give us the freedom to be creative. You have to focus on the content so that students perform well on the ‘achievement exam’.
The discussion on smart phones, fitted into the broad categories of technology, communication, computers etc. etc. Themes which are sometimes separated or combined as main topics within books.
My proposal is that within a teaching context, a collection of main ideas or topics should be decided by the teachers, and then teachers left to build whatever content they want around it – subject to the proficiency level of their students. Yes, build the content ourselves. We’re teachers, we’re meant to be
creative!
Collect the content that’s interesting to both sides (teacher and student) and start learning using more interesting content.
Okay, now I can hear many of you saying that if you have ten teachers, producing or acquiring their own content, doing their own thing, in their own class we’re going to end up with a bit of a ‘biryani’ or should I say ‘mix-up’.
If we take the example of travelling, whether you discuss the Bahamas, having a good time at a beach front, a trip to Tokyo or even Dhaka in Bangladesh, the
vocabulary used is going to be quite similar. The lexis students use will be very close.
All content areas have similar core vocabulary. No matter what you talk, read, write or listen about, the same words will be repeated across the classes, again and again.
The main topic or area acts as the starting point for creating content. The specifics of the content are in the teachers and students hands.
To summarise, teachers should have the freedom to choose whatever content they deem appropriate, look for content that is relevant and useful for students, taking into account student experience in their lives, and importantly items which are interesting and current.
Do you eat with your hands?
Hi! Although many of us may eat with a knife, a spoon or a fork, there are a lot of people who eat using their hands.
Before you start thinking that it is rather disgusting licking your fingers after the end of a meal, research indicates that licking fingers helps the digestive process because it results in the release of appropriate fluids to help break down the food further. I usually eat with utensils such as a knife and fork, and sometimes use my hands when eating pizza.
However, when in the mood, I’ll eat rice with my hands. Usually at home but even sometimes at weddings in Saudi Arabia. When in the UK (England) and in a public place, I revert to knife and fork. To be honest though, there is nothing like getting your hands dirty with some rice and lentils.
How do people eat in your culture? Please add a comment below.
English and other useful knowledge to improve yourself 