#KELTchat Slowburn 2 (Tuesday 26th November, 10am-10pm (GMT +9)

Hi team,

We at #keltchat towers thought that the last #KELTChat Slowburn was a bit of a success. Many of you dropped by to add their opinion throughout the day, and I hope that you all manged to take something away from it too. Whatever happened, we hope you’ll agree that it was good fun, and with that in mind, we hope you’ll join us for Slowburn 2! If you have no idea of what we’re talking about at this point, a recap of the Slowburn concept is below.

Slowburn 2 takes place on Tuesday 26th November, starting at 10am Korea time (GMT +9) and finishing at 10pm.

This week we’re going with a more ‘traditional’ topic:

“Why is there a gap between classroom learning and spontaneous conversation and what can we do about it inside or outside the classroom?” 

As a basic example: Students in Korea spend years learning grammar and sentence structure, but still produce sentences like “I park in play.” What can we do to help them practice and automatize correct (or at least comprehensible) English? 

Any thoughts, responses or opinions on the above topic are very welcome. Just throw them into the mix, or find a tweet that interests you and reply. If you get sidetracked that’s good! The advantage of Slowburn is that we have time to explore tangents. Any contributions are very much welcomed, whether you participate in the chat for one tweet or twelve hours (though we don’t recommend that you do all twelve hours for the sake of you and your loved ones’ sanity).

The concept

The concept of Slowburn is very similar to the original #KELTChat one hour Twitter chats. We will set a topic (see below) and encourage people to tweet their thoughts about it using the #KELTChat hashtag. This time, however, the chat will take place over 12 hours rather than one, allowing people to dip in and out, think and the discussion to diverge in more interesting ways. We also hope that this will allow more people in Korea to play a part, as well as taking in most other time zones.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, but you’re not really sure how to go about it, click the “about and how” tab above for a link to a handy guide. There is also a quick guide here. Friendly advice is also always available at the #KELTChat facebook group, or in the comments section below.

We hope you’ll enjoy #KELTChat slowburn. See you all on Tuesday.

The #KELTChat team

#KELTChat Preview – Sunday 17th November, 8pm (Korea time, GMT+9)

Hi team,

After Slowburn the week before last, we’re returning to our regular one hour Sunday chat this time. Don’t worry though, Slowburn will be back again on the 27th November.

This week’s topic carries on from a Facebook discussion – qualifications in Korea. Some questions that we might tackle:

• Do/should we need qualifications to teach ESL here? What kind of qualifications should be necessary for Korean ESL jobs (Hagwon, Public School (Elem, Mid, High), University, Teacher Training)?
• What kind of qualification might be most useful for getting a job?
• What kind of qualifications might be best for those wishing to develop professionally?
• What qualifications can you do in Korea?
• (How) Do qualifications improve you as a teacher?
• What are your experiences with getting qualifications?
• How much teaching experience should one have for the positions listed above?
• What other sources of continuous professional development for teachers are out there? How do we access them?

The chat takes place on Twitter from 8pm on Sunday 17th November. Just run a search for #keltchat, and add the same hashtag to your own tweets in order to contribute. If you need any help, please send me a tweet or ask on the Facebook group.

See you on Twitter!

Alex G (@breathyvowel)

Some help for participating in #KELTChat Slowburn™

This is a very short post with some information on how to take part in #KELTChat Slowburn. This is our new approach to Twitter chats, over a longer period of 12 hours. Here are some tips that may help you.

– We will be using the regular #keltchat hashtag for the chat. If you don’t already monitor it, go to the Twitter page and search for “#keltchat”. Alternatively, go to tweetchat.com and enter “#keltchat”. You will now be able to see everyone’s tweets.

– We will post the topic at the start of the chat and at regular intervals throughout the day. When you join the chat, scroll down and find the topic, or ask someone what we’re discussing.

– Remember to tag your tweets with #keltchat. That’s the only way to guarantee that participants will see them. Where possible, moderators will try to retweet hashtagless tweets, but due to the longer form we can’t promise to catch everything.

– If you need help at any time, the #keltchat team will be around. Just send a tweet to @breathyvowel, @michaelegriffin, @alexswalsh, @annehendler or @johnpfordresher.

Enjoy!

Introducing #KELTchat Slowburn (Tuesday 5th November, 10am (GMT +9)

Hi everyone.

We at #keltchat towers (think big, ivory, gold) have been doing some thinking recently. We’ve been wondering how well the one hour chats work, and trying to find a time that suits everyone including us. The result is a new, experimental approach, somewhere between a short chat and a discussion group. We’re calling it #keltchat slowburn.

The idea is very similar to the original chats. We will set a topic (see below) and encourage people to tweet their thoughts about it using the #keltchat hashtag. This time, however, the chat will take place over 12 hours rather than one, allowing people to dip in and out, think and the discussion to diverge in more interesting ways. We also hope that this will allow more people in Korea to play a part, as well as taking in most other time zones.

We’re going to trial this approach on Tuesday 5th November, starting at 10am Korea time (GMT +9) and finish at 10pm.

The topic this week is also a little different. We’re presenting a situation and asking you how you would respond. The situation is as follows:

You have recently taken over a class of students who are low level but being forced to work with intermediate materials. You have a difficult relationship with the class due to previous classroom management techniques like rearranging seating, and your colleagues report similar problems. Two questions:

1) What would you do about the materials?
2) How would you try to repair your relationship with the class?

We’re hoping for a lot of interesting ideas here on managing ‘challenging’ classes and helping students who are put in the wrong level. Any thoughts are very much welcomed, whether you participate in the chat for one tweet or twelve hours (though we don’t recommend that you do all twelve hours for the sake of you and your loved ones’ sanity).

If this sounds like your kind of thing, but you’re not really sure how to go about it, click the “about and how” tab above for a link to a handy guide. Friendly advice is also always available at the #keltchat facebook group, or in the comments section below.

We hope you’ll enjoy #keltchat slowburn. See you all on Tuesday.