#KELTChat Sunday 29th May 2016: Careers in ELT (8pm KST)

Dear #KELTChat-ters,

ELT has a job market that is perhaps in flux more than other industries. Different areas become ‘hot’ areas to teach in and then cool down. It makes sense then that English language teachers frequently have their minds on their careers and their careers on their minds.

This chat will be an opportunity for teachers to discuss their career plans. Some suggested questions are:

1. What changes in the job market have you seen in your time as a teacher?
2. What do you predict for the future of ELT in Korea? What about elsewhere?
3. How long do you plan on staying in ELT?
4. Do you think that ELT could provide a lifelong career for you should you want one?
5. If you were going to do something else, what would you do?
6. What other career options are there where the skills and knowledge of an English language teacher would be put to good use?
7. Do you know anyone who successfully made the transition out of ELT into doing something else?

These questions will form the basis of this hour-long chat, though of course you are welcome to bring your own questions and explore any tangential topics.

If you’re new to #KELTChat, there are guides to getting started above, or feel free to ask for help on the Facebook group.

See you on Sunday!

#KELTchatlive – Questions for my Older Teacher Self

In April we held a very successful chat based on Joanna Malefaki’s blog post about a letter one would write to their self at the start of their teaching career. Over the next two weeks we will be flipping this question at two #KELTchatlive events by asking questions we want answered by an older (hopefully) more experienced version of ourselves.

It can be helpful to have a mentor in the potentially lonely world of a teacher. What better mentor than one who understands where you’ve been and what you (think you) know. What better mentor than you? Participants can bring their questions, hopes, and goals for the future, and gain new insights by talking about them in a group. This workshop is an opportunity for both newer and more experienced teachers to see things from different angles and gain broader understanding around their teaching practice.

We will be collecting questions on twitter from the time this post goes live until 4PM KST on the 9th of October. There are two conferences where we will be meeting to discuss these questions and hopefully provide each other some answers. The events will be at:

• Gangwon KOTESOL Chapter meeting: This will be in Sangji University from midday to 4:30 in Dongakkwan room 2105. The event is free and you can see two other workshops including one by #KELTchat’s very own Alex Grevett.
• KOTESOL International Conference: Korea’s largest TEFL event, held in COEX in Gangnam, Seoul. We will be in room 307C at 4pm on Sunday the 11th of October (subject to changes).

How to get involved

1. Tweet questions you’d like answered with the hashtag #KELTchatlive. Retweet and/or favourite questions you’d like answered as we can take this into account when picking questions
2. Come to one or both of the events above. We will be collecting questions during the session as well as using ones from the twitter chat.

It’s important to note that you can do part one without doing part 2 and vice versa. We’d love to have your questions even if you can’t make it, and you’re more than welcome to attend if you didn’t take part in the Twitter chat.

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: the great coursebook debate (Sunday 31st May 2015, 8pm KST)

It is time for another KELTchat. The next chat will be a one hour chat and will start at 8 pm Korea time– click here for times in other areas. Even for all the recent debate, it’s probably not that controversial to say that coursebooks are here to stay – but what should our relationship with them be? While many teachers may be at times frustrated with coursebooks, they may also be to some extent reliant on them. The issue of if and how we should use coursebooks is the subject of this #keltchat. Questions

• Are textbooks beneficial to ELT?
• What textbooks have you used? Which were most helpful and why?
• What are the characteristics of a good/bad textbook?
• How do you use textbooks effectively?
• What are alternatives to using textbooks?
• Why might some teachers choose to use textbooks in spite of their drawbacks?
• What strategies might teachers use to make the most of a textbook that is ill-suited to their learners?
• If we reject coursebooks on the basis that a grammar based, synthetic syllabus is not effective at causing learning, what alternatives do we have? Should we teach grammar at all?

If you have never participated in a chat before but would like to start, there are some useful hints on the how-to tab above. Questions and contributions of any kind are also welcome at our Facebook page. We hope you can join us for the chat.