#KELTChat 1st June 2014 (8pm KT) – Recycling, Reviewing and Repeating

I have written before that taxi drivers in South Korea probably ascribe a much greater degree of Korean fluency to me than I actually possess. This is because I tend to take at least my fair share of taxis here, and the kind of small talk interaction that takes place in taxis is fairly predictable. Thus, I’ve had a good amount of repetition of “taxi Korean”, and I handle these situations much more confidently and fluently than other, less familiar interactions.

This is generally not lost on language teaching theory, where we know that vocabulary learning requires multiple reviews of and encounters with a word. The world of Task-based Teaching and Learning research abounds with studies into the effects of task repetition on accuracy, complexity and fluency. However, at least in my classroom, the pressures of the syllabus, exams and the need to be seen to be progressing sometimes means that I don’t spend as much time as I should going over old material.

If this also rings true for you, #KELTChat is here to help. During the chat we might look at any of the following questions, or any other questions that you bring:

• How much repetition, reviewing and recycling do you do in your classroom? How do you go about it?
• How can we carve out space for a little R&R(&R)?
• How can we help students to see the benefit of repetition and review, when all they want to do is rush on to the next piece of language?
• How much is repetition and review the job of the teacher, and how much is the student responsible for?
• What techniques have you heard of for repetition and review that you’d like to try?
• Is there any technology out there that could help teachers and students?
• Is there anything about repetition and reviewing that we need to condsider that is particularly relevant to Korea?

We will try to tackle all of this, and more, at 8pm Korea time on Sunday 1st June 2014. If you would like to take part but don’t know how, see the guides at the top of the page, or ask someone who looks like they know what’s up via Twitter or our Facebook group.

 

 

#KELTchat Slowburn – Communicating with Colleagues (Tuesday, May 20th 10 am-10 pm)

Relationships with colleagues can be a major factor in how much we enjoy and learn from a teaching position. They can also be a source or stress and confusion and more. If we want to avoid workplaces like this, communicating with our colleagues in ways that foster cordial relationships, collaboration and improvement in teaching is important. In this Slowburn, we would like to tackle some of the things we should think about while picking our way gingerly through staff room relationships. Here is a list of questions that we will base the chat on, but please feel free to bring your own questions and experiences too.

Do you…?/How do you…?:

• foster a more collaborative relationship with colleagues when that seems like a worthwhile thing to do, but in a workplace that seems to discourage collaboration;
• access the wisdom of experienced coworkers when that wisdom might not be shared spontaneously, or might not be sharable within ‘official wisdom sharing’;
• negotiate different teaching philosophies among colleagues;
• approach new colleagues;
• offer help to colleagues who are struggling;
• model interactions to students;
• respond to colleagues who may not have your best interests at heart;
• avoid coming off as a cult recruiter when you mention KELTchat/KOTESOL/professional development;
• deal with getting feedback you disagree with or think is just unhelpful from senior colleagues;
• handle receiving criticism from a coworker in front of students;
• communicate your teaching philosophy to senior coworkers?

We will try to tackle all of this, and more, between the hours of 10 am and 10 pm Korea time on Tuesday, 20th May 2014. If you would like to take part but don’t know how, see the guides at the top of the page, or ask someone who looks like they know what’s up via Twitter or our Facebook group.

Sun May 11th #KELTchat on Critical Pedagogy with Special Guest Moderator Divya Madhavan

Hello there and thanks for dropping by. We here at #KELTchat are thrilled and honoured to announce our topic and special guest moderator for the next KELTchat. The topic is Critical Pedagogy and the special guest moderator is Divya Madhavan. The date of the chat is May 11th and the time is 8 pm Korea time, which is 1 pm in Paris and Prague, 11:00 am GMT, 3:00 pm in Moscow, 8:00 am in Brasilia, and 7:00 am in Boston. For the times in other locations you can check here.  In addition to being kind enough to join us for the chat and to help moderate it Divya has also shared part 1 of a preview (on Cultural Capital) here and part 2, which is on the Hidden Curriculum, here and here is part 3 which is on the Banking Model of Education. We are very much looking forward to the chat and hope you can join us. In the meantime, please head over to Divya’s (excellent) blog and check out the previews. While you are there you might want to check out her other posts as well!