Words

“Words are trouble, words are subtle Words of anger, words of hate Words over here, words out there In the air and everywhere” Tom Tom Club – Wordy Rappinghood

Getting students to learn new words can be difficult. Teachers might have memories of seemingly endless rote memorisation of words at school, but also appreciate that learning vocabulary is essential to learning language. In ‘The Big questions of ELT’ Scott Thornbury writes

“All in all, this suggests that the learner needs to assemble as big a lexicon as possible–even if this means putting other areas of language learning, such as the learning of grammar, ‘on hold’.”

On Sunday 21st of June at 8 PM KST #KELTchat will be discussing teaching students words. Questions discussed might include:

• What does the teaching of new words look like in your classroom?
• What have you found effective when teaching vocabulary?
• What have you found ineffective?
• What activities can teachers use to teach vocabulary in an engaging way?
• How can you encourage students to increase their vocabulary outside of class?
• What does it mean for students to learn or know a word?
• What do you think is the role of L1 while teaching vocab?

Further reading

V is for vocabulary teaching

V is for vocabulary size

Misconceptions regarding learning/teaching

Even further information
(Kindly shared by @daylemajor)

Dealing with Vocabulary in Class. Vocabulary and Intensive Reading 
–a talk by Paul Nation.

Best Practice in Vocabulary Learning and Teaching
by Paul Nation

#KELTchat: Making sense of experiences (June 9 2015, 11am KST)

Announcing the next KELTchat slowburn on Tuesday 9th June 2015, 11am–7pm (KST). Check your local time here.

Topic: “Making sense of experiences”

Our jobs as English language teachers/professionals inevitably mean we encounter several experiences on a day-to-day basis. In fact, it could probably be argued that any professional’s life is made up of experiences. Some of our experiences in (or outside of) the classroom are positive, while others perhaps less so. But what do we do with these experiences, and how can we use them to better our teaching?

In the words of John Dewey:

We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.

In our next #KELTchat on Tuesday 9th June, our point of departure will be reflective practice, and how we can use it to develop professionally. There is no single ‘right way’ to engage in reflective practice, however, there are frameworks and suggestions to assist us. One such framework is the Experiential Learning Cycle, or ELC*. Familiarity with the ELC is not essential to join in with Tuesday’s KELTchat, but should you so wish to learn more about it, I highly suggest checking out Zhenya Polosatova’s blog post on the topic.

One part of the ELC is what is often called the analysis stage (although as you will see from Zhenya’s post, it does have alternative names). It is during this stage of the cycle that we try to make sense of our experiences. And it is this stage that has provided the inspiration for this KELTchat: How do you make sense of your experiences inside and outside of the classroom?

Questions that can be covered during the chat

• What do you do after a negative experience in class?
• Do you prefer to reflect on something that happens in class alone, or with a colleague?
• Who do you usually talk to?
• Do you like to think about experiences in class immediately or take some time before doing so?
• Do you feel that talking to someone about what has happened helps you to make sense of an experience?
• What do you consider “talking productively about teaching?”**
• How productive/helpful/cathartic do you find “bitching” about teaching/your experiences?**
• Does your place of work provide you with the support to reflect on your experiences?

*It is my view, as well as the view of others who use it, that to use the ELC effectively, one needs to complete the cycle from start to finish. However, I’d like to make it clear that this chat is not about using the ELC, but rather about how we think about our experiences. What we do can of course be incorporated into the ELC by reflective practitioners already using the cycle or those who would like to try it out.

**Questions copied/adapted from this post about ‘Talking about teaching’ by Mike Griffin.