What would you like to talk about on Wednesday January 12th?

A PLN for ELT Professionals

What would you like to talk about on Wednesday January 12th?

Review

 

Last week’s #ELTchat got the year started with two great discussions on how to overcome colleagues’ resistance to online professional development and  on the principles that govern our materials preparation.

 

In response to the chats and the experience of sharing in the discussion and, on that particular day, the moderation of #ELTchat, Paul Braddock – @bcnpaul1 on Twitter – wrote an absolutely marvellous post, called What a Good Idea, in which he relates the Theory of the Adjacent Possible to connectivity on the web through social networks, especially Twitter and how it has helped him build his own PLN (Personal Learning Network) and revitilized him as a teacher sending him on a new path to his own professional development.

 

You can read about the Theory of the Adjacent Possible here where you can also listen to a video talk by its creator, Stuart Kauffman.

 

Then, the Reform Symposium over the weekend took over and there were so many good talks about connecting with other teachers and so many mentions of #ELTchat, we all felt very pleased by the way it is slowly turning into an established channel of communication amongst ELT professionals around the world. The keynote talk, Why Networked Learning Matters by Dr Alec Couros was absolutely amazing and he shared some wonderful links and resources. Don’t miss out on the next Symposium! And do visit the website soon to view sessions – they have all been recorded!

 

Podcasts

 

As you may have noticed, we have not been able to coordinate our podcasts for the last couple of weeks. Most of you reading these lines will know how busy all moderators have been, @ShellTerrell runing the Reform Symposium, @riberni running her weekly workshop for teachers and @Marisa_C preparing her talk for the Reform Symposium and also getting ready to act as moderator for the TESOL EVO 2011 VILLAGE course – a course training FL teachers in Second Life.

 

All this, over and above our normal workload!

 

We must let our #ELTchat followers know that  @olafelch, our very own resident elk (!) has taken a long break from Twitter and so, we have been a little remiss in putting podcasts together as they take quite a bit of time to upload but we hope to be able to resume our podcast activity soon.

 

New Time for the early #ELTchat

 

Our team of moderators – @Marisa_C, @englishraven @riberni and @ShellTerrell – have agreed to change the early time slot from 15:00 p.m. GMT (London time) to 12:00 GMT (London time) as many of our friends in the Southern hemisphere have most times been unable to attend and most of our colleagues in Europe are still either at work or on the way back home from work.

 

So, starting from  this Wednesday, January 12th, the new time will be 12:00 and the main moderators for that time slot will be @englishraven and @Marisa_C

 

The second #ELTchat of each Wednesday will still go on at 21:00 p.m. GMT.

 

So, What would you like to talk about on Wednesday?

 

Fired up with all these great discussions over the past week, I am hopeful you will come up with some great topics for discussion on the upcoming #ELTchats this coming Wednesday.

 

Please post a topic in the comments. We look forward to your suggestions and ideas for our next chats!

@Marisa_C @englishraven @riberni @ShellTerrell

Post by Marisa Constantinides

21 Responses

  1. Andy Hockley says:

    Personally I’m glad the time has changed – that one is much more doable for me, and hopefully this week I’ll be able to attend. I’m intrigued and looking forward to it

  2. Marisa says:

    Any ideas about a topic to put to the vote, Andy?

  3. Andy Hockley says:

    Since I’ve never participated before in ELTchat (though I have read a few of them after the fact), I’m reluctant to have my first ever contribution be “choose my topic”. 🙂 I think I’d rather not until I at least have given something (anything!) to the community

  4. Sandy Millin says:

    Great news about the time change – that means I can make it at least once every week instead of just when I’m off sick 😉

    I think there were a couple of good topics brought up while following the #dosconference tweets which could be possible topics:
    -What makes a good (ELT) manager? I suppose this could also be ‘How do you turn great teachers into great managers?’
    -How can / should L1 and L2 interact in the classroom?
    Sandy

  5. Suggestion for January 12th: “Google Translate: A blessing or a curse?”

    How has this online tool changed your approach to teaching writing / vocabulary / translation skills in the classroom? I myself have found that I’m going to have to rethink the way I assign written homework in classes where the students are marked on their writing skills. Sometimes, I get the feeling I’m correcting Google Translate’s work, and not my students’. On the other hand, it has greatly improved my adult classes in many ways. I’d be curious to hear input from other fellow #ELTCHATters.

  6. Perhaps one or two of the questions which came up during the IH DOS conference might be interesting:
    1) How do you define excellence in teaching? How would you best judge it?
    2) Should ELF be part of coursebook syllabuses?
    3) Guy Cook raised interesting issues related to translation: translation being useful for learners – (not sure if ELT chat has dealt with this before).

    Just suggestions.
    Valéria

  7. Another suggestions inspired by Ken Wilson’s latest blog post: “The challenges of staying healthy in ELT”.

    This topic applies to all teachers, but it would be interesting to read everyone’s input, Whether we teach one-to-one, groups, primary students or adults our classes take place in germ factories. Moreover, I’ve found many of my colleagues (myself included) often push the limits of teaching while under the weather.

  8. Ty Kendall says:

    Hello Marisa (and everybody else)
    I am going to suggest a topic purely based on selfish motives as I am about to do my dissertation on the subject, but how about a discussion based on the use of music to teach English (to clarify: I mean using lyrical music from a range of genres pop, dance, rock etc to teach anything from a grammar point to pronunciation to reinforcing skills….. I don’t mean using music in the suggestopedic sense).
    Just a thought 🙂

  9. Hi dear PLN,

    What about talking about DELTA? I would very much like to learn what you think and what your experiences are…. Planning to take it. 🙂

    Regards,
    Evridiki

  10. Ty Kendall says:

    I also like the idea of this as a topic too! I’ve got mixed feelings about it and i expect others do too! Great idea!

  11. Ty Kendall says:

    I also love your 3rd idea Valéria! I too am an advocate of translation in language teaching, despite its vilification!

  12. Maria Zygourakis says:

    Hello to all,

    Am new to all these and am not sure if the topic of social media has been posted before but
    how about discussing how social media has affected the EFL classroom and when can a teacher accept a student’s friendship request on fb or any other social media…

    Maria

  13. I love this idea!!! And would love to read your dissertation!

  14. bcnpaul1 says:

    I really like the idea of how can (good) teachers be good managers. Or maybe, how do teachers stay in touch with teaching once they become managers.
    Or… why do good teachers also make good managers and bad teachers make bad managers?!

  15. sue annan says:

    I think its a great subject. I also would enjoy your dissertation.

  16. Ty Kendall says:

    I’m still in the initial stages of researching and planning, but as soon as it is written I’ll be happy to send you a copy! 🙂

  17. I would go for the third one too, for the translation one. I think it provides a lot of room for discussion, and I guess we would have lots of ideas to share. In addition, it would be good to strive to involve as many NNS into discussion as possible. A lot of us – me as a NNS too – have been told for a long time: “English only”, and some of us did it without using L1, e.g. as a tool for awareness raising, etc. Old schools, which did/do use more or a lot of translation would most probably have a lot to say about this.
    So thank, GC and Valéria for raising this topic.

    Erika

  18. UHH, that’s another good one. This is also something I feel that needs to be discussed, also would be nice to invite (ex) educational managers to hear their views on what they do/did to help their staff stay healthy in this profession.

    Great idea, Bethany!

    Erika

  19. Gosh, so diffucult to make up my mind. As I go down this list. I think appreciation for music and teaching language can be done together. I wrote a supplementary material for the primary age-group on this – based on Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf in 2003, but was rejected by a publisher. However, I still believe in the idea, and in my experience it works wonders with the kids.
    So definitely would love to discuss this topic too.

    Erika

  20. Another great one 🙂

    Been there! Done it! Was an interesting and a great experience! Would also love to talk about this too.

    Erika

  21. Yes, Sandy – let’s go for both. Great ideas!

    Would love to talk about them! If not this Wednesday, definitely sometime soon 🙂

    Erika

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