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EmailDo you Diigo? To be honest, I signed up but never used the online social-bookmarking tool. Fortunately, TESOL’s Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL) Interest Section has been busy bookmarking some great online resources. Dr. Elizabeth Hanson-Smith shared the Diigo CALL IS Virtual Software List on the TESOL CALL Community: http://www.diigo.com/user/call_is_vsl. This list contains tons of resources on various teaching topics! However, this post focuses only on the teacher-training videos.
Here are some of Dr. Hanson’s recommendation for teacher-training videos:
1. Bridge TEFL Videos Teach English:
A teacher training site with videos on how to work in a classroom. You have to register to login but can view three videos without registering. Check out: “Breaking Bad Teaching Habits.” http://www.teflvideos.com/
2. Teacher Training Presentations – School of TEFL
These free videos generally show teachers at work in the classroom, leading
games and activities, teaching vocabulary and grammar, assessing speech,
co-teaching, etc. These would be very useful for the teacher-in-training or
for the old dog who would like to see some new tricks. http://teachers.schooloftefl.com
3. Dr. Hanson’s personal favorite: From Good to Outstanding | Teachers TV
These wonderful videos take you from initial lessons to interviews with teachers and students to advice by the expert, and a view of how those lessons are put to use in the classrom. Amazingly good teacher training in 26 videos. www.teachers.tv
4. TeacherTube Professional Development Videos
Like most items at TeacherTube, these videos are uneven in content and production values, but contain several real gems. You have to register/sign in.
http://www.teachertube.com/
5. BBC audio programs:
For teachers – Radio programmes: Innovations in Teaching
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/teachingenglish/radio/innovations.shtml
6. Arts Impact Teacher Training Video
“See the Arts Impact program in action as teachers participate in the summer
institute and teach the arts in their classrooms. Hear comments from
participating teachers and artist mentors.” This is a very nice teacher training video if you are using drama and/or art in the classroom. Great ideas. www.arts-impact.org
7. YouTube – Shaping the Way We Teach English: Introduction
This is a teacher training series funded by the U.S. government titled, “Shaping the Way We Teach English, Successful Practices Around the World.” These introductory materials
are designed for English as a foreign language educators. Professionally produced but excellent ideas can be applied in many circumstances.
The free ones are listed first, organized by game genre.
My bad teaching habit with ESL students was not giving my students a sufficient wait time so that they could formulate a thoughtful response to my questions. Now when asking questions, I often wait for 15 to 30 seconds when asking students questions.
Dear Michael,
You have the right idea now! I generally ask a question and start counting under my breath to see how long the class takes to respond. I remember that it was generally around 8 seconds for my students in Mozambique. It can depend upon the cultural aspects of your students or their individual personalities. As with heterogeneous groupings, you will have certain student groups who are quick to respond. Therefore for equity, you will need to call upon students sometimes, too. Otherwise, you’ll get the same 2 or 3 students responding to every question.
From what I’ve seen of friends and maifly applying to and attending teacher’s college, and then trying to find a job after, competition is also stiff for jobs in most areas of Canada, particularly Ontario. Unless you have in-demand teachables, or are willing to live and/or teach in a northern or at-risk community, the chances of you finding full-time, permanent work even within 5 years is slim. Some people I know with teaching degrees have moved on to more stable teaching positions, such as corporate training and international teaching jobs, to avoid unemployment.
Sandy,
I understand your situation completely. I’ve applied for several full-time teaching jobs in the past two years. I even got to the interview process four or five times but the competition is so fierce for jobs, that even with all my specialties (trilingual, Master’s level ed, & CALL training), I didn’t get the job. Instead, I score for ETS.org. It is a freelance job that allows me to work 40 hours. They always need raters, so if you’re still looking, contact them. Also, I’d be amiss if I didn’t share my website on job resources, Brokebutnotforlong.org.
Dear Halima,
I’m afraid you have the wrong term when you used “exhibitor session” as this refers to those in the exhibitor hall such as publishers and other sellers. You will need to contact the TESOL convention coordinator for specific information regarding your presentation. On this link you will see the link for exhibitors and presenters as separate categories: http://www.tesolconvention.org/. I just noticed in the sidebar Twitter feed on the convention page that you’re promoting this class. If you’re really presenting at TESOL, you would have received instructions and a contact person via email. Best Wishes!
Comment & Question:
@Sandra, these resources are a godsend! I am a new teacher working on ESL certification in addition to a master’s degree. Watching and analyzing videos have been engaging ways for me to understand teaching concepts and improve my teaching. I’m definitely bookmarking and sharing this blog!
The very first video, “Breaking Bad Teaching Habits” from http://www.teflvideos.com, was extremely helpful because in reflection, I’ve have problems, at one point or another, with each of the areas discussed: teaching to the board, echoing students, and interrupting to supply answers. The solutions and strategies presented were very clear. In my own practice, I’ve also found another strategy for stopping myself from interrupting students that’s related to allowing another student to help, as the teacher in the video says. Doug Lemov (Uncommon Schools) wrote about a strategy he observed and named “No Opt Out,” where if a student doesn’t know the answer or will not share the answer for fear of being wrong, the teacher calls on another student to help and then returns directly to the first student for a repeat of the correct answer. I have used this strategy in an ESL inclusion classroom, and I felt that it helped students practice and increased their confidence.
Do you see this as being a significant strategy specifically for teaching English learners? Are there potential problems you foresee?
Thanks again for your post!
Dear Ashley,
First of all, please forgive my delay in responding. I just came across your comment today. I will have to ask the admin of our blog to change the setting, so that I will receive notification when someone posts a comment to my blog.
I’m glad you like the information provided in the CALL resources. As for your question regarding the “No Opt Out” strategy, I’d say it depends on the students’ cultural background and/or learning style. It sounds like a good practice, however, if a student is still unable to respond, then you could ask a third student to repeat or paraphrase the answer. That would keep the whole class involved instead of placing the focus back on the initial student.
Mainly, I think if you’re consistent in your call-and-response routine in eliciting information and ideas from students, they’ll become comfortable interacting in class. A consistent single head-nod for when they get the answer correct is sufficient or a head-tilt to the side if you’re not sure about their answer. These subtle non linguistic cues are extremely helpful.
This reminds me of an instance with a new elementary student that entered my class towards the year’s end. I’d been using the scientific approach to teaching by asking students why they did certain things when they were busy working on projects or writing. The student thought he’d done something wrong when I asked the why-question. He was unfamiliar with my scientific questioning which tried to elicit his thought process on his creation.
I hope my ideas were helpful. I’d like to ask our readers to share more, so please post a comment. I promise to read the comments more often!
Glad you like the Diigo site, Sandra–
Anyone can join the group and add sites to the growing list. And Diigo has nifty features, such as viewing the links in a List as a slideshow–really helps to give a quick overview of the sites.
I try to tag links by level of learner as well as the topic/content of the site. Hope you all find it useful and help make the lists grow.