This is Natasa Bozic Grojic, reporting for you from the trenches of this year's EVO. In order to be able to inform you better, I am attending 4 (yes, four) EVO sessions. Yes, I am crazy. If you still believe I am a sane person, look at my last year's post Multitasking.
I have got a lot of homework and really shouldn't be here at all. So, just a brief tour through Week 1 in the 4 (yes, four) sessions I am attending.
BaW is as hectic and as exciting as ever. I don't participate much these days, but I do love the friendliness and the excitement and the positive energy. The BaW Yahoo Group is like a room full of people all talking at the same time. During Week 1 the participants have signed in and edited the wiki (ah, that dreaded wiki! Everyone who has managed to post their picture and edit their data there has already graduated as a Webhead - all the other tasks are much easier).
In Images4Education you introduce yourself by posting the photo of the view from your window. Since they are working on the playground in front of my building and everything is muddy and not very pleasing to the eye, I thought I would cheat by posting last year's photo. I couldn't fool Carla Arena. She insisted that I should "look through the lens and find a new angle". So, I did. I looked into my room from the outside and here is the result:
It is good that we learnt about Picnik at DMPT, which is what gave me the idea for this photo. DMPT is really interesting, lots of great links and resources. Apart from Picnik, we learnt about other image editing tools, such as Fun Photo Box, Image Chef, PhotoShop Express, Photo505 and Photofunia.
At the moment I am attending a couple of EVO sessions, so there is a possibility that some of my EVO classmates have followed the link to my blog and found themselves here.
If you are reading this blog for the first time, welcome. You can find out more about me here.
This blog was born on 22nd January 2008 (which happens to be my birthday too) as a part of the Blogging4Educators course. I have done different things on the Internet since then (Twittered, created wikis, podcasts, slideshows and online exercises), but my favourite online activity is still blogging. It is hard to define why - maybe because I simply enjoy writing. It clears my mind and helps me think.
I mostly blog about TEFL and about Web 2.0. In the weeks to come I might write more about EVO and about the new things I am learning there.
If you like what you see, please come back. Or you can subscribe to my blog via RSS or Email - whichever you prefer. And do leave a comment. I love comments and I will definitely write back.
If you have been here before and like my blog, please don't leave yet. I would like to make a couple of changes here in 2010 and I could really use your help to improve this blog. If you can spare a minute, please leave a comment and answer some of these questions:
What do you like about my blog?
What should I do to improve it?
What, according to you, was my best post in 2009?
Is there something you would like me to write about?
I am thinking about uploading some lesson plans here in the future. I believe it is a logical step I should take in 2010.
I was also thinking about posting or uploading some short stories that would be suitable for students, but I am still thinking about the best way to do that. My inspiration for this idea was Jeremy Taylor. My students love his short stories.
As you can see, I am still working on my resolutions (see the previous post). Your comments and ideas are most welcome.
It is that time of the year. People are summing up what they did in 2009, making plans for 2010, making resolutions...
I think I became rather good at making resolutions last year. The trick is to set that bar just high enough for it to be a challenge, but not too high. You don't want to fail too often, because it's bad for your health. One day you are going to break that record, maybe in 2020 (what a lovely, symmetrical year!), but probably not yet. It is important to do something about it now.
I sound like one of those self-help books, don't I? Probably because I am trying to justify my irregular blogging habits. No, don't look at how often I post. Don't look at the date of my previous post. Or the one before that. Please.
Still, I am not unhappy with what I have achieved here. When I started blogging two years ago I didn't bother to define my niche. I wrote about whatever came to my mind. I didn't know anything about SEO or Google Analytics, I didn't know who my readers were or what they wanted to read about. All I knew was that I wanted to go on blogging.
I used to sit down every Christmas and write a new set of resolutions. Except that they wouldn't really be new, they would be the same as the ones I wrote the year before. Last year I changed something. Instead of "I am going to write a novel" I put "I am going to sit down every day and write something".
Did I sit down every day and write something? Er, not every day. But I did establish a blogging routine. And call it a coincidence, but I stumbled upon a blogging challenge in January. And another one in April. During which I wrote 25 Ways to Keep Your EFL Students Motivated (that day's challenge was to write a list). Suddenly I had readers (i.e. other teachers of English) who wanted me to go on writing posts like that one. My readers wanted me to write about TEFL and I found out that I enjoyed writing about TEFL.
Again, call it a coincidence, but around that time I joined BELTFree. I became a part of a caring and inspiring community of people who blogged about TEFL. They supported me every step of the way. I don't think I'll ever be able to thank them enough.
Somewhere along the way I made a rash promise that I was going to blog once a week. Then twice a month. Then I stopped making promises.
I can't tell you how often I will write in 2010. Making such a promise would be irresponsible to my readers, because I will probably break it at some point. There are things in my life that I can't control. Blogging is still just something I do in my free time.
I will not make that promise. But I do promise that I'll be here as often as I can. And if I am absent for a while, don't worry. I'll be back. That I can promise.
Happy New Year everyone and thank you for travelling with me this far.
It was a neat little list of personality adjectives. Hard-working, organised, tidy... They marched like pink elephants on parade, then suddenly... They turned into tiny monsters, which grew, until they turned into big monsters with sharp claws and even sharper teeth. Gluttony, anger, greed... Then they disappeared and instead there was my lesson plan, only I couldn't read it. Everything was a blur and I couldn't see the inspector, but he was there somewhere and he wasn't pleased at all.
Then I woke up.
Then my school was inspected. The personality adjectives behaved themselves, so did my lesson plan, so did my students, and so, hopefully, did I.
I've been in the classroom for 20 years and, as you can guess, this wasn't my first inspection at all. So, why panic?
1. Because it never gets easier. I mean teaching, not being inspected. You never reach those high standards of perfection you set yourself 20 years ago. There are times you feel you are improving every day and there are times you get frustrated and actually feel you are a worse teacher than you were the year before.
2. Because somebody is watching you. Somebody who knows. Your students take everything you do in class for granted - they are usually easy to please (OK, usually, not always). But another teacher - be it an inspector, your DOS, a colleague, or even a novice teacher - they will sit there and take in everything you do or fail to do. I find novice teachers particularly scary. They walk into your classroom looking for ancient wisdom and they still believe that it is possible to reach perfection in class. You can see the disappointment in their face as they realise they are observing yet another imperfect teacher in action.
3. Because you have worked hard and you need someone to acknowledge that. Again, the students won't do. As John Cleese says in that film, they are not qualified. But a colleague is a different story. Getting a compliment from a colleague will do wonders for your self-esteem.
4. Because you yourself will concentrate on what you are doing rather than on your students. This is why most teachers complain that the classes that are observed are not as "good" or as "natural" as their "real" classes. This is true, up to a point. If you let your lesson plan rule the class and completely disregard your students and their needs, then your class will not be good and it will not look good. There are all sorts of things that can force you to adapt or completely abandon your original plan. One of the main problems is that students tend to behave differently when someone is present. Talkative students grow quiet, good students often forget basic things and there is always that student who decides that now's the right time to ask all the difficult questions about grammar and vocabulary. Most of them, however, think that they need to rescue the teacher, so they pretend that they understand even if they don't and start talking in pairs before you told them to (happened to me during the inspection).
The system of class observations is not perfect but the alternative is terrifying. Imagine having to teach for the rest of your life without any feedback from your colleagues. Or, for that matter, without the chance to observe another teacher and learn from them. Learning from each other is the only way we can go forward, towards that ideal of perfection that we had in mind when we were novice teachers.
They came to the first class timidly. They looked at me, their faces enthusiastic and hopeful. They all had their textbooks open at the first page. They wrote busily into their notebooks and, when I gave them homework, they all brought it back the next class.
No, I am not making it up. These are my new students. Some of them are my old students, but they have all transformed themselves into this dream student overnight.
Am I surprised? Not really. I have seen this strange behaviour before. It was back in the nineties. I don't like to remember those times. Wars, hyperinflation, the general feeling of despair... Our students, however, were eager to learn. Most of them were planning to leave the country for good and my school was a safehouse between their old life and their new life. Others wanted to learn English just in case...
A very good friend of mine got out of a painful relationship some 10 years ago. I remember that she kept repeating: I am going to learn English really well. I am also going to learn how to drive. Then I'll buy myself a car. And then I'll go anywhere I want.
Now that the economic crisis has hit us hard, learning English has once again become a priority for a lot of people. This time they are not focusing on leaving the country right now (nowhere to go while the crisis is all around us), but they are still learning the language just in case. Because, once you can speak English well, you can go anywhere you want.
OK, maybe I am imagining it. I have been really lucky with my students this year. Yes, they are enthusiastic and yes, they are eager to learn. And yes, I smile on my way to work every day. Even if they are not looking for a way out, I know they have had to give up a lot to be able to pay for the course. And that makes me think about my responsibilities as a teacher even more.
The EFL classroom is the place where people learn English. The main idea, then, would be to make sure they learn it well. However, that's not the only thing we do in the EFL classroom. We support each other and celebrate each other's victories. We inspire each other. We share stories. Not all of the stories are nice, especially these days. What do you do when a student walks into class immediately after she has lost her job? Do you talk about it, or do you leave her alone? If she starts crying, what do you do then? They never taught us those things at the University.
I have said it over and over in this blog - I believe in the healing power of the group. That's why I would say that one of my first responsibilities as a teacher at the beginning of each semester is to create that group spirit. So that we can support each other through the learning process and through whatever happens outside the classroom.
I don't know why, but I have been working on this post for two weeks. I wrote, I deleted, I wrote again, I deleted again. The only thing that I haven't deleted so far is the title. However, making the rest of the post live up to the title was what troubled me. What wisdom, ancient or new, could I pass on to you? What advice was I going to give you? What solution?
Well, here it is: just keep doing whatever you are doing in the classroom, because it is important. Especially these days.
That's it?!
Afraid so. I couldn't think of anything else to say to you and, anyway, that's what I have been doing all this time.
I created this slideshow last winter when I attended the Images4Education workshop:
I am going to publish this post as it is now. I am finished with editing it. Please feel free to add your thoughts. How can EFL teachers help their students go wherever they want to go? And what exactly is the role of an EFL teacher during the time of the economic crisis?
In my last post I wondered what would happen if we, the teachers, just "let go" from time to time and, instead of trying to control our students, we just observed them. Something like that.
I was merely trying to be clever, you see. However, some people took me seriously, as you can see in the comments area. Thank you, Nina and Dennis, for very constructive comments and for making me think. I even promised I would try letting go in class from time to time.
Then I remembered that it had already happened in one of my classes. Before I go on, notice the word "happened". You will see that it is very appropriate.
It was quite a while ago. I was teaching a group of upper-intermediate students (adults) and they were really nice and cooperative. One girl worked in the German Embassy and she said she often played Taboo with her colleagues. She thought Taboo would be a great game to play in class. I agreed and promised to do someting about it. To my surprise, she brought the game to our next class. It was the original game, not one of those activities we, the teachers, create when we want to recycle vocabulary. And it had originally been in German, so she had single-handedly translated all the cards.
She literally took over from the beginning of the class. She took my place and I suggested I should be one of the students that day. She divided us into groups, explained the rules, timed us... When it was my turn to explain a word, I got a bit confused, which made the students rather pleased.
The reason I remember that class so well is that I have always felt it was one of my best classes ever. And, as you can see, it hadn't been planned by me at all.
I do wonder what the students thought about it, though. I wish I had collected some feedback.
What do you think? Should I have done what I did? Or should I have stuck to my lesson plan?
I was in a spa last week. One day, my son and I took a ride in one of those old-fashioned horse-drawn carriages. I took out my camera and aimed it at my son's face. I put it down, irritated. His face was too close and I couldn't make a nice picture. Soon after that the carriage started. I decided to make a video clip and upload it later. I raised my camera again. The carriage was shaking too much (really, those horses), so I put the camera down. I finally paid attention to what was going on. The name of the spa is Vrnjacka Banja and it is really beautiful, especially if you are in a carriage. I was beginning to feel like a princess from a fairy-tale. Then the driver took out his mobile and the magic was gone. I thought how interesting it would be to tweet this. But I didn't have enough money on my mobile account. The driver put down his mobile and broke into a song. He had a good singing voice. I was immediately transported back to the time I was 10 and sitting in a gondola in Venice. Naturally, I desperately wanted to tweet this. I checked my mobile account. No, definitely not enough money on it. So I finally gave up. I had no choice - I had to enjoy the ride, the beautiful spa and the fact that I was there with my son without tweeting, you-tubing or facebooking about it.
I like to write my blog posts sitting in cafes and parks. There is something romantic about pen and paper. I always use beautiful notebooks and I really love my little red Moleskine notebook. I always carry it with me, just in case. Also, I concentrate better if I am not on the Internet. Today I sat in a park, a large iced latte by my side.
I didn't write today. This wouldn't be so strange in itself, as there are a lot of situations when I don't write (you will notice that my last post was a month ago). You see, I wanted to write. I started this post yesterday and I hoped I could use my time in the park to finish it. Instead, I decided to sit there and focus. I watched the children playing, a young couple eating hamburgers, a girl sitting in the grass reading a book... Everything was so beautiful and so there. And I could have missed it as I so often do.
Don't worry. I am still an Internet addict and a notorious multitasker. I am not going to go to Tibet and start meditating. And I am not going to tell you to turn off your computer and get a life or to focus and live in the present. That is not the message I am trying to convey.
So, what is the message I am trying to convey? Your guess is as good as mine. It is obvious that I am enjoying my holiday and it is equally obvious that it is having a disastrous effect on my blogging style. I'd better put some TEFL in and quickly.
Most teachers are notorious multitaskers and they often lack focus. They say nonsensical things, wear shoes of different colour and walk into buckets of water. They write something on the board while listening to four groups of students at the same time while answering a question while worrying whether they are going to finish everything they planned to do...
What would happen if we just let go? Do you think the class would fall apart? Or would those four groups of students go on with their discussion, blissfully unaware of the fact that the teacher is not trying to control them any more? Maybe we could do what I did in the park today - observe our students, admire them, even learn from them. After all, are we really in control of their learning process?
Letting go would definitely be beneficial for us - we would be more relaxed and we might even never walk into another bucket of water as long as we live - but could it be beneficial for our students as well? Would they take more responsibility for their learning process? Let's face it: we do not make the Earth spin, we do not make the Sun go out every morning and, no matter how hard we try, we cannot learn instead of our students.
