Accademia Britannica International House 50th Anniversary Conference, Rome, 22-23 October, 2010

DAY TWO

What a GREAT day! I think I enjoyed it even more than yesterday. I'm looking back over the programme, and I think the presentation I enjoyed the most was "CLIL - Herstory", by Deborah Withworth and Jo Glaiser, both of   Accademia Britannica International House. As has long been noted, text books to tend to focus on HIS-tory, with only token females (Amelia Earhart? Marie Curie?) appearing now and again - and those tending to be white and European. The presentation began with an exercise for students - nine women from history, of different cultures and colours. I felt ashamed that I knew only two of them - but I wasn't alone. We were then given the names of the women, and the countries, and had to match them to the pictures. I recognised more at this stage. The women were Rosa Parks, Ci Xi, Pocahontas, Anita Garabaldi, Truganini, Miriam Makeba, Aung San Suu Kyi, Jacqueline du Pré and Hypatia. We then were given a list of what they were famous for, and had to match again. The task then focused in on Jacqueline du Pré, with a listening (audio/video) taken from youtube, with some questions for the first listening, then a braille-coded gap-fill type exercise, where we had to reconstruct the text (listening). A very clear lesson plan.
We were then shown how to do something similar with a reading text about Truganini.
This was such a valuable presentation as it reinforced what I'd learned while doing the CELTYL - when teaching our young learners (or anyone, really), it pays to be creative with materials, instead of relying on the text book.

Jeremy Harmer spoke again this morning (and autographed my copy of The Practice of English Language Teaching! I'm such an ELT groupie!). His presentation was based on a series of short videos he'd made using a flip-cam. At several different ELT conferences, he'd asked teachers to talk about a successful lesson they'd taught recently, and we used their responses to think about the beliefs we bring to our own teaching.

There were two presentations in praise of the IWB (interactive white board) again - I even got to try one out! Yes, I want one. As with any tool, they don't work by themselves. The teacher still needs to put in the time for preparation, perhaps even more time than before, at least at the beginning. It seems that they might take some getting used to. You have to think about where you stand, so you don't block the beam, and you have to write very neatly on the board. That being said...I STILL WANT ONE!

The after lunch speaker, Paul Roberts, from the Centre for English Language Teaching at the University of York, offered a theoretical presentation entitled "Fixed Standards and Language Flows" which raised questions about how the type of English we teach our students. He talked about problems he has had with groups of students from different cultural backgrounds trying to negotiate and make decisions in English. One culture's way of showing respect may be another's way of showing disrespect - so are we trying to teach a "culture" while we teach a language? He ended with  two tentative conclusions and a question...
"Fixed standards may only be slightly relevant."
"Native speakers are probably irrelevant."
"Where are the new teaching materials?"

And I will leave you to ponder those while I make my way to bed.

Accademia Britannica International House 50th Anniversary Conference, Rome, 22-23 October, 2010

MY IMPRESSIONS (to be expanded later...)
DAY ONE

Nothing beats an ESL conference for giving your teaching a lift, and the first day of the IH conference had me soaring. Although I must admit that gone are the days when I just absorb everything. I am now more attuned to the presenter who is really informing me, and more aware when the presenter is just trying to sell me the latest textbook or product.

In this post, I'm going to deal with the speakers who really taught me something, and  inspired me to be a better teacher. Therefore, I have to begin with Norman Cain who, with just a few comments to open the conference, reminded me what a truly gifted teacher he is. It was fascinating to learn that back in 1984, Norman got his CELTA (which was called something else back then) at the very school he now runs (IH, of course).

The first speaker of the day was the famous (in ESL circles) Jeremy Harmer, the author of The Practice of English Language Teaching, among many other titles. His presentation, entitled "The marriage of True minds: poetry and music in language teaching, began with an enthralling performance of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. He then went on to explain that his talk had arisen from a show he'd created with a musician friend called Steve Bingham, called Touchable Dreams. As well as some ideas for helping our students learn to pronounce perfectly through poems (I will deal with specifics in a later post), he touched on the use of music (rather than just songs) in the classroom. An important point - as teachers, we should remember to ASK our students if they would like some background music while they do a task, instead of just playing it...and then turning it off when we think the activity should end, even if the music hasn't finished!

Margaret Horrigan was the next presenter to inspire. Her talk on Biodiverse Teaching was based on a lesson using shoes as the theme. I'd seen part of this during the CELTYL course, but that didn't detract at all. The main message was that as teachers, we should show respect for accents, cultures, races, and beliefs, and that our teaching (especially of children) can be a chance for us to gently open the minds and broaden the horizons of our students. I got to help Margaret on the stage, too, which was a thrill (yes, my nickname IS Herminone!).

Norman Cain then gave a presentation on CLIL - Culture, Traditions and Religion - going where many ESL teachers fear to tread! And, of course, showed us how it can be done, in the most engaging way! He videoed a taxi driver in Malaysia, talking about Thaipusam and the Batu Caves, and played it to his students. REAL English, unedited...and they loved it. There are just so many possibilities.

The after-lunch slot is never easy, but Hugh Dellar (author of the Outcomes series of ESL textbooks) made it look that way. He compared ELT with the British Royal Family, with vocabulary and pronunciation coming in as lowly ranked nobles in thrall to King Grammar. His talk ended with King Grammar is dead! Long live...?
...lexico-grammatical structures?
...grammaticalised lexis?
... curiosity and wonder in the ordinary!
...learning and teaching!
and an invitation to join him on facebook (which I did, naturally...)

My brain was about full by this stage, and I didn't manage to get very excited by the last presentation, which was an introduction to the web platform english360...that is, until the presenter, Valentina Dodge, began to show us what we could do with it. It looked like the future, manageable, right there on the screen. And you can try it for free www.english360.com - which I will do, after the conference ends, tomorrow.

As with any conference of this nature, there is a lot of information to process. Tomorrow, I will reflect on Day Two, and then in later posts, go into specific details, applicable to lesson planning.

A festival for Saint Bartholemew

San Michele in Teverina is protected by St Bartholemew, who is also the patron saint of Armenia, bookbinders, butchers, Florentine cheese (eh?), salt merchants, Malta, neurological diseases (and those who seek their cure), plasterers, shoemakers, tanners and leather workers (he was flayed).  

Our village church has a large statue of him, and every year, in the week leading up to his Feast Day (August 24th), we celebrate with Masses in his honour, live music in the piazza every evening, games for the children, an Ape Gymkhana (see photo), and on the final day, a procession of the statue around the village.

This is an Ape (Ah-Pay), Italy's answer to the ute.

Gruppo Folkloristco arriving...

This year, on the Sunday afternoon, we also had a "Gruppo Folkloristico" come and perform. The first impression was more Main Street, USA than Corso d'Italia, but they were a lot of fun...AND check out the ribbons on their hats.

Yes, Italy does feature...

They had some really fun instruments, and I especially loved the cymbals on the scissors. This group seemed to have pulled "folklore" from the United States, England (Morris Dancing, anyone), and ... well, I guess, Italy.

The funny man with the scissor cymbals.

The marching/cheer leading girls were a big hit, and highly skilled. It was an original act, and I think most people enjoyed the music and the dancing. The main thing is that our village is protected for another year, and we can rest easy. 

Very exciting moment.

For many of us in the on-line TESOL world, Alex Case is a bit of a hero. Well...he is for me, anyway. I check his blog regularly, and value what he has to say. So I was thrilled to bits when he asked me if I would comment on the Young Learners course I did in June. It took me longer than I wanted to write the blog (perfectionism going strong!), but I finally took advantage of Anti-Procrastination Wednesday (www.flylady.net), and GOT IT DONE...and submitted, too!
Today it is up on his blog, and I am really tickled to a high shade of rose to see it there! Of course, now that it is up, I'd like to tweak it a bit, but I'll deal with anything that needs tweaking in the comments!
A big thanks to Alex for inviting me to write for his blog. www.tefl.net/alexcase/teaching/tefl/teenagers/yl-extension-to-celta/

A little oneirology for Thursday.

Studying your own dreams can be an interesting window into your current mental state. Most adults dream about two hours EVERY NIGHT of their lives – but most adults are also highly unlikely to remember more than one or two of their dreams.
When I was younger, single, and had more time on my hands, I kept a dream journal for six months. As soon as I woke up every morning, I would write down all the dreams I could remember. Initially, only one or two were clear, but as I began this habit, I started to remember more and more details, and then more and more actual dreams, until I could record up to seven dreams from a single night.
I was disappointed to note that there were no real patterns. Most of my dreams were fairly unexciting, and seemed to be more of a rehash of the day’s or week’s events, than any specific message from my subconscious.
Except for the Anxiety Dreams. I had read that people often have a particular recurring dream during times of heightened stress. The common examples are appearing naked in public, being chased, not being able to move, and the classic, turing up for an exam without having studied (I didn’t need to dream that one – it actually happened my first year of university. It was stressful. And I failed.). However, none of these was my Anxiety Dream of choice at the time I’m talking about (ten years ago now).
No, my AD was about toilets. A severe need to pee, and nowhere to do it, or else the toilet was up a tree, or in a vast maze of cubicles, mostly occupied, or mostly filthy, or mostly with a large audience. Whenever I found myself recording a toilet dream, it was a sign for me to examine more closely what was happening during waking hours.
I no longer have the time or the inclination to record all my dreams, but I have noticed over the last year that the nature of my AD has changed. In anxious moments, the location of terror is now an airport. I need to catch a connecting flight. I have too much luggage. I can’t find the gate. I have to go from one terminal to another, but can’t find the way. There are too many escalators, mainly going in the wrong direction. And last night, I was in a country between Italy and New Zealand (maybe Singapore, maybe Bangkok), and they had told us to wait in a garden. Where a smiling flight attendant gave me a suitcase, and told me to hurry to Gate [unintelligible], which was over there [vague gesture]…up and down escalators, have to validate boarding pass, have to go through a long corridor which is also a luxury hotel (picture walking along side many cubicles, each with a fancy bed and delicious linen). At the end is a staircase, very crowded, and my Australian aunt is there, but she isn’t going where I am going. She knows where I need to go, though, and starts to give me directions, while we are both being jostled by the crowd. In the background, at all times, is a large red clock, ticking loudly, counting down how much time I have left...
As it approaches 0:00 I am thankfully wakened by my son yelling “Muuuuuummmmmmmmyyyyyy.”
If I visit another airport tonight, I’m getting help.

NaNoWriMo - not just November.

For those of you who don't know, National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) starts on November 1 every year, and ends on the last day of that month. The challenge is to write the first draft of a novel (at least 50,000 words) in that month. If you want more information, check them out at www.nanowrimo.org or on facebook under NaNoWriMo.
At the moment, as a way to keep us on our creative toes, they are running writing challenges, in the comments section of their fb wall, and today's was "Write a story that uses the words "happy" and "coffee" and is 50 words or less!"

So I thought I would cheat on my blog today, and just publish my entry :-) This year will be my third NaNo, and I am very excited about it - although this is the first year that I haven't had a single plot or character idea in the lead-up. I'm a little worried, but not too much, yet :-)

I'd love some comments about my wee story - perhaps THIS will spin out into the 50,000 for NaNo2010?
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Just another day turned to cheap farce when Samson entered his usual coffee shop and found the waiter locked in an embrace with Sylvia. Perhaps she had forgotten that this was where Samson always had breakfast. Or else she was trying to show him that she was no longer happy.

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A day's not wasted when you learn something.

I've been subscribing to TIME magazine for ten years now. Its weekly entrance into our home provides a take on world news and culture which I don't get from other sources - and nearly every week I find myself reaching for the OED to look up a word I don't know. Anything that expands my vocabulary is a good thing.
This week, however, I am excited to have been introduced to a whole new piece of jargon - for jargon it can only be. The August 2, 2010 Europe edition has an article about South Korea's LG Electronics, and I was puzzled by the sentence "...more than tripled the share of R&D spending on "disruptive" research -...". ??? How can research be disruptive, was my immediate thought. Reading on, I gathered that this term refers to research into brand-new areas, "breakthrough solutions" and that this research may not show results for a very long time. Okay...got it...
The very next article is about OLEDs (or Organic Light-Emitting Diodes) - fascinating reading. These are flat, flexible, and can even be transparent. They emit a warm glow, similar to sunlight, but remain cool to the touch. The last sentence of the second paragraph reads "..."That's the disruptive nature of it."..." - again, this word leapt off the page at me. At this point, a trip to the dictionary becomes mandatory.
My trusty OED only has the standard entry ...
disruptive adj. Causing problems, noise, etc. so that sth cannot continue normally.
Yes...time for a trip to that other font of all knowledge - google. Google, then to wikipedia, where I discover that I am many years behind on this one!
The entry for disruptive technology first entered the wikisphere in 2002! I'm eight years behind...
No, WAIT!
"The term disruptive technologies was coined by Clayton M. Christensen and introduced in his 1995 article Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave[3], which he co-wrote with Joseph Bower." (wikipedia).
I'm fifteen years behind!

And this is what wiki tells me it is all about.
"Disruptive innovation is a term used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by lowering price or designing for a different set of consumers."

Thanks to TIME, for helping me catch up, and thanks to google and wiki ( for teaching me something new today.