ELTeaCH

Hello students! I am using my blog like a task card! The goal of today's lesson is to look into materials that can support testing and evaluation of children and to fill in the loose ends of some of the conversations on ILIAS. Therefore, I ask you to: Try out a test or two from one of the Explorers Assessment Packs. Go through the Lingualevel scavenger hunt. Add a comment to our module's ILIAS pages to summarize something you've learned or something you found interesting that might help the person who's initiated the comment. Go to the Explorers website and find the webquest and try out the CD ROM. Go to Laura's website and figure out how to UPLOAD materials onto the materials bank. Go to Laura's website and look at the links to webquests. Discuss how children use computers and where they encounter English. How can you support their English-language learning through the use of the Internet?

Should there really be a unit in the Swiss textbooks about Halloween?? If other countries are going to do Halloween activities, shouldn't children learn the history of the celebration and not just about symbols that are meaningless until the history is known? It seems very strange to me that many Swiss embrace the symbols of Halloween and also spend goodness knows how much money on witches and spiderwebs without really knowing what it's about. Here's a link to Unger's view on it! Thanks for the picture, Kathleen! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6405989

So it 's the third day of our PBL saga . And below I summarize my feelings : 1) Students should write the problems ; 2) What we did in three days we should have done in two days ; 3) We should be clearer in the fact that we had a concrete plan but that we are willing to change it - this is not meant to be confusing but rather accommodating . I don 't really know what 's going on but I'm getting very strange mixed messages from the students and no real concrete feedback . On the other hand, isn't it a chance to say "Well, since things are so vague, I can choose something that really interests me in terms of of strategies and go with it". Up to now, everyone always says what is necessary but here's a chance to define it yourself. When I think back to my studies, I remember horribly boring lectures and perhaps I'm now giving some of those. But at the same time, I think that this Lernf

I was just thinking about how important it is to get and give spontaneous feedback - on every level! When I say to my five year old daughter "Hey, Ally, you wrote that word so well this morning - that was great" and she then shines! On the other hand, when I say "Maybe you should try it like this" she doesn't always look happy, but she does and then she "gets over it" and our conversation resumes - no one was hurt and she learned something and I learn each time how to formulate feedback into something constructive but hopefully not too critical. So what made me think of the role of feedback was last week - after one course a student said "Actually, I find the topic really interesting, but I wasn't sure of the timing". And throughout that entire course, I was thinking about whether the others found it interesting or not. So her feedback was constructive - I knew we could more or less go on how were were with the main concept but we'd

Last night I was wondering about two things: working interdisciplinarily and also problem based learning. About interdisciplinarity : On a superficial level, most things are interdisciplinary. If you teach English, you are also teaching things related to culture, to "self" and to many other topics. If you teach M&U, you are also teaching language, you are also teaching math, etc. However, if the school system is based on specific subjects having 45 minute blocks and there is this concept of teachers having a profile (some do English, some do art, some do French - but not all), on a feasibility level, this interdisciplinarity remains on this superficial level unless teachers really make an effort to network. So on the level of strategies, how do you have a strategy-based approach with the children in one subject and then ensure that they are transferring the strategies that they "train" to other subjects? Of course it's possible, but it's more complex due

Zoo visit A lot of planning went into our zoo visit and I was really nervous about it but all in all, I think it went okay! Of course, there were certain things we could do better like giving you a short overview of what we were doing with the zoo tasks and why we chose to do them BEFORE we let you on your own to do it. We didn't because we wanted to "just do it", but next time I think it'll start off a bit better if you know what the module is about beforehand! Other things we could have done better would be changing the weather or getting a room, but we won't mention that!! It's so important to start off on the right foot - it doesn't have to be perfect, but it should be positive at least! As the students were sharing their observations about what would help the teacher/student be able to do the task better, I was thinking that these students have a pretty great understanding of the terms and the general concepts behind identifying strategies - we can al

What's the difference between "forward-looking" and "looking forward"? An initial thought leads to time: are forward-looking things less probable because they take place in an undetermined point in the future? Are things you look forward to more concrete, in the shorter-term and thus more probable? Who knows - but it is sure fun to think about it!! I am looking forward to this upcoming semester because: I get to teach a lot! My grandfather is coming from the US and we get to go to Lauffen am Neckar ( http://www.lauffen.de/portal ) and take a trip through time. I get to go to the mountains ( http://www.nationalpark.ch/ ) with Ally, Zoe and Patrick. I get to go to the Leonard Cohen concert in Zurich ( http://www.leonardcohen.com/ ) with Patrick! I get to go to the zoo with my students. Somehow it seems a bit simplistic, but isn't it these simple things that keep us happy?

Patrick and I had a very long discussion last night about terminology: I got really annoyed that people use specific terms without knowing what they really are about, especially people who should know what they're about. If an expert in a certain subject, say English didactics, uses the term "CLIL", then shouldn't they be talking about something more in-depth than just topic-based teaching? And Patrick gave the example of the use of the word AJAX in computer science - most people use the term when they mean SJAX. Although we shouldn't expect generalists to use precise terms correctly, should we expect experts to? And why should we simplify the ideas behind these terms? Instead of having a general overview of what a term is about and then filling in the gaps slowly with aspects of the correct and precise definition, wouldn't it be better to get an understanding of one comonent of what is meant at a time and build up? Imagine a set of building blocks - you can h

Today we're off to the beautiful Hershey Gardens ! They've got a really cute scavenger hunt for kids, so Alison is really excited about it. Last night Patrick and I went out to eat. It was a 45 minute walk to the restaurant and it was nice to walk at normal pace instead of kiddie pace! On the way there, we saw a groundhog or woodchuck. We also saw some bird of prey, some rabbits, and Patrick kept threatening that he smelled a black bear, which are known to be in the area! On Tuesday we had a history tour with Grandpa in upstate Pennsylvania. We must have visited about seven different graveyards and traced most of the Bohlayer ancestors back to the original brothers who came over from Laufen am Nekar, Germany. We went up Armenia Mountain and had a wonderful view and saw the family picnic site and where they used to keep the sheep in the summer. We stopped at Bohlayer Orchards and chatted with David and Heather. On the way home, we stopped and saw Jim's cabin and mansion

The big news in our family is that Zoe has the chicken pox! I've had to take off work, so life has been crazy this past week - what do you do when you have work to do, but not work where your presence is necessary? Then I suppose you have to make it up on the weekends, which is exactly what I'm doing! I've updated the PHSH website and I've read through Reto's blog . I've tried to finish a lot of little pending things, too, but they never seem to end!! The other big news is that Patrick had his last day of work - now he'll be home with the girls! The third piece of big news is that Alison can finally ride her bike! Now she's in for a big one!

On Monday and Tuesday I was at the KPH in Graz - it was an amazing trip! I had Schlagobers! I was treated like a queen by the staff of the KPH and can highly recommend any exchange with them. Just a few thoughts about my trip: English is an obligatory subject starting in the first grade in Austria. However, it is a low-pressure subject – writing is not required for the first two years and there is no assessment. This has the effect of secondary teachers starting their English teaching from the beginning. French and other foreign languages are not mandatory but are present in some schools. Students at the KGPH have a personal coach who is responsible for their “Biografiearbeit”. This is a fascinating subject. Not only do the students have mentors who help them on a planning level, but also “coaches” who are responsible for getting students (pre-service teachers) to analyse their own school careers and “ways of being” and get them to find ways to overcome fixed ideas. A practical example

I was asked by Sarah to come share some ideas with you for integrating technology into the classroom, so I thought I'd do it in Blog form. I will read this blog aloud to you as you read it on the computer screen. This will give you a short American English pronunciation lesson and allow you to work a bit at your own pace as well! I will organize this presentation in order from the easiest ideas to implement to the more complex. Here you can find a table of ideas if you would like my outline . BLOGS - AUSBILDUNG and WEITERBILDUNG Let's start with blogs! What are blogs? Who has used one before? Here are a few that I will now freely comment upon: http://phzh-zab.blogspot.com/ http://cpeblog.blogspot.com/ Blogs are easy to develop because they don't take an incredible amount of knowledge to set up, you can use them simply or in more complex ways and they help to foster informal communication outside the classroom. Keywords: developing writing skills / peer or instructor corre

Hello! I am now in England visiting the PHSH teachers. They seem to be having a very good time and learning a lot. They've had an outing or two and a tour of the town of Norwich. They've now been in two different classes. The only negative comment I heard was: English schools are rather traditional . So I'm wondering what this means and also if we can really say Swiss schools are different or more 'modern'! Right now I'm sitting here in a great workshop about using the Web. The possibilities are endless!!

Hello Hello at the PHSH! How can you use this blog to document your trip to Norwich and to improve your English language skills? How could you use a blog in your own classroom, once you have one! What do you think of my georgous family? Aren't they sweet?! Tell me about your own family - do you have any kids? Sisters? Brothers? This picture was taken during our vacation in Sorenberg in January. Ally (the oldest) learned to ski and Zoe just screamed the whole time because she didn't like the snow!