ELTeaCH

In an attempt to put all the cool and interesting things we discuss and stumble upon in our family into some sort of structure, I will reopen my blog! Last night we discussed the following NPR article: Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning and pondered the following points. 1) Do our own children have enough perseverance? 2) Did the teacher judge the moment in that he knew that the child would succeed by the end of the lesson? What would have happened if that child had NOT succeeded? 3) Where have our own children had these "AHA" moments and been publicly praised? 4) What can we take on from other countries into our existing behaviors? And much more.... I read about a really cool app for English language learners - useful for Swiss kids : English Train by Kaplan I saw this teacher's website and found it really cool: http://bossysmile.wordpress.com/resources/images/traffic-lights/ And here is a picture of Zoe (toothless) and A...

We are currently in the US. If you wish to follow our travels and thoughts, you can go here: Buechel Family Travel Blog http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/laura.buechel/1/tpod.html

Sonnenaufgang in der öden Wüste von Rats County. Ein neuer Tag beginnt. Ein neuer Tag voller ungesühnter Gewalttaten und Gaunereien, denn die Justiz von Rats City hat die Kontrolle über das Gesindel und die allgegenwärtigen Desperados längst aufgegeben. Der Sheriff will eben eine neue Flasche Whisky aus dem Keller holen, um den Tag möglichst schmerzfrei anzutreten, da blitzt eine Idee durch sein ansonsten vernebeltes Gehirn. Statt in den Keller steigt er in den Estrich und schnappt sich die Kiste mit den verstaubten Sternen. Er geht damit von Haus zu Haus, schreckt jeden ihm bekannten rechtschaffenen Bürger, und ja sogar die rechtschaffenen Bürgerinnen aus dem Schlaf und steckt den Verduzten einen Stern ans Pyjama. „Ich ernenne dich hiermit zum Deputy von Rats County. Wach auf, zieh dich an und geh die Stadt säubern!“ Die folgenden Jahre brachten viel harte Arbeit. Die Koordination der Hilfssheriffe verlief nicht immer reibungslos, und viele Male musste der Sheriff in letzter Sekunde u...

Today I taught a group of students at the Zurich University of Teacher Education (PH Zurich). I corrected the following utterances: “What means ‘intelligible’?” (should be “What DOES ‘intelligible’ mean?”) “Last year I have gone there, it was great!” (should be: “Last year I WENT there…”) [eye roll] How many times I have corrected these ‘miscues’ or ‘mistakes’? However, did these utterances hinder the students’ ability to communicate? No! Did the students know the rule? Yes! Were they able to correct themselves? Yes! Did they say it incorrectly again after being corrected, made to repeat the expression correctly and write it down to remember? Yes!! What does this example show us? It shows that language is not learned in isolated moments of “learning the present perfect”. It shows us that noticing language takes place all the time, in different contexts. Some things, like the present perfect, are so different from German, that it is only in extended exposure, use in different...

Here I am once again at NILE , in Norwich, England. It's been extremely productive - we'll revamp the stay in England a bit for the next set of students - and also inspiring! But let's just look at the inspiring language aspect and not the inspiring organizational aspect. Today I got to sit in on Mr. Jamie Keddie ( jamiekeddie .com ) and got to focus on two main text-reconstructions activities that I summarize here below: 1) Watch a Youtube short video without sound (e.g. "Procrastination" Tales Of Mere Existence") 2) After watching the video, elicit vocabulary and recreate the story verbally with the learners 3) Teacher has prepared the text in advance. Do some sort of language work with it, such as a running dictation where the learners then have to write the text and put the sentences in the order shown in the video. 4) Learners compare what they wrote with what was provided and correct their answers. 5) Each sentence is written on a blank card. Each lea...

Who said no more vocabulary tests? Dear Parents, Your teacher asked me to write to you because there seems to be a modern misconception that good principles of modern foreign language teaching encourage your child’s teacher to purposefully neglect to provide you with a list of vocabulary and grammar items that your child can study at home. Your teacher is often asked “which grammar should my child know, which vocabulary?” Just because language aims are not spelled out in terms of structures and words does not mean that these structures and words are not there, otherwise volumes of respectable academic literature (Bablyonia 4/08) would not be dedicated to these topics! Moreover, the new curriculum does provide some suggestions for vocabulary and structures, but generally, how well you know a language is generally more and more defined by what you can DO in a language and this links more to reading, writing, speaking and listening. Grammar and vocabulary fall under the skills. Let’s take...