Today's class: November 26, 2008

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?

Comments

Those Pesky Native Speakers....AGAIN!

The question I most frequently get asked - probably because I grew up speaking English myself and my daughters went through the Swiss public school system - is “how do I deal with native speakers in my classroom?” I will discuss this below starting with my own experiences and then generalize those points to some more practical tips. First of all, I would like to state that I get irritated by the question. Teachers in Switzerland have a 3-year degree in education and a lot of fieldwork. In every subject there will be learners who are more or less motivated, more or less interested, and have had more or fewer experiences in a subject. So when I get asked about native speakers, I think “have they not learned how to differentiate instruction?” and that they have it wrong. Teachers are not responsible for teaching native-level English (they cannot), but they ARE responsible that every child has an active, positive experience where they make progress. They ARE responsible for not just “follo

Looking Forward!

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?

Body Parts in English

I have to say that I am slightly not happy with the over-focus on body parts in Swiss 2 nd and 3 rd grades. Often, they are introduced in the 2 nd grade. And then since Zurich teachers often use a book meant for the first year of EN over two years, or they take a first level book for the first year and start again with a first level book the second year, the kids get this language twice. In one book, the children have to look at each other and ask “Do you have green eyes” – how stupid can you get!!! So I am just sitting here thinking about the last time I ever talked about my eyes or nose or hair. Here’s what I came up with: I need to cut my hair. I got my contact lens stuck in my eye at dinner. You know, the woman with the red hair…. I have a runny nose. Oh, my goodness, I ate so many beans. There’s a rumbling in my stomach. So that makes me think of situations (contexts) that might make sense for teaching this language: Describing people NOT in

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