New English Teaching Methodologies Blogging Project

My English Teaching Methodologies Class and I have started a new blogging project.

The class consists of 30 students; some of them plan on being English teachers, others plan on being elementary school teachers, and others plan on entering the private sector. Above is a picture of some of them doing a practice elementary school English class last year.

We started this class on April 12 and we will finish the first week of August. AStudents will be blogging about their experience as language learners and teachers as well as be using these blogs as a means to exchange ideas and opinions about teaching English. Please check out the class blog for links to the students' individual blogs. We hope that you can join us.

Demonstration Test

Dear English A Students,
Next week is our final test. Here is what you will need to do for next week:
Part I: I would like each pair from 2/7 to select three of the startling facts (see the list we made here.)we took from the United Nations Human Development Report that you think represent the biggest problems the world faces. You and your partner will then talk about the following with another pair:
a) Why do you think these problems are so big?
b) What can we do to solve these problems?
To successfully do this task, you should
1) be able to speak without reading from a piece of paper.
2) be able to pronounce the words correctly.
3) speak with passion.
4) give the listeners time to ask questions
5) be ready to explain the meaning of unknown words.
When you are listening to other people speak, I will expect you to ask questions.
Part II: There will be a written test containing reading, writing, and voacublary from the following chapters of the textbook: Synchronicity, Alternative Medicine, Nightmares, Bizarre Foods, and Startling Facts. The best way to study for this is to study the word entries in your vocabulary notebooks. To do well on the test it will be particularly important to know the derivations of the words we have learned, know how the words are used, and be able to use some of the words. You can view a test I gave in the past here. The written text next week will be a similar style.
Attention: Tomorrow's test will be in room G19 of the 学生センター and not in room 203 of the Faculty of Education.
JH

Students of Teaching English in Japan - A New Blogging Project!

I have started a new project with my English Teaching Methodologies 3 (ETM3) class called "Students of Teaching English in Japan."
We will be doing both group and individual blogging work and have three types of blogs: A group discussion blog, individual llearner blogs, and a blog to post assignments, resources or announcements.
The first blog is called "Students of Teaching English in Japan". It is to serve as a group blog for ETM3 as well as my advisees and a portal to the individual blogs. Every week, I or another learner will summarize the hot topics appearing in the learners' individual blogs and link to them. Sometimes this blog will also host discussions with English teachers inside and outside Japan. The current topics on the group blog are Japanese Teacher Employement Tests and Comparing English Teaching in Thailand to English Teaching in Japan.
In the second type of blog or individual blog, learners will reflect on their own teaching, what they have learned in ETM3 and their own theories about teaching English. They are also free to write about anything they want. The goals for ETM 3 learners is to 1) Increase their understanding of English teaching and 2) Improve in English. This blog is my individual blog.
The third type of blog will simply serve as a bulletin board for assignments, relevant anouncements and class resources.
I hope that you will come join us!

A Proposal for Research in Blogging

I am about to start a new blogging project with my English Teaching Methodologies III class. But I am not sure as to whether or not to have one class blogs that all students contribute to like M-Hetherington does or to have students create their own blogs like I did last year. I am also depating whether or not to use blogger or switch to James Farmer's Learner Blogs . Each option, group blogs or individual blogs, blogger or Learner Blogs, has is pluses and minuses (See Aaron Campbell's Comparative Review of Common Blogging Applications.
I am curios as to what other educators are doing. I think a survey of a number of teachers who use blogs in their class would be helpful to help practitioners like myself learn how other teachers employ blogging in their classes and also how other teachers have employed their blogging applications. Does such a survey exist? If not, would anyone be interested in doing one?

What's New (10/25)

Our Seminar

• This week, Ayu, Gami and myself facilitated an English Department Open House for high school students interested in our university. The public relations committee had asked us to do a "mock lesson" for the students and it was a success! From this experience, I had an epiphany about how I could make group work actually work next time I am called on to teach a demonstration class at a junior high school.
• Gami wrote about her experience teaching at a cram school. Do you think her experience working at a cram school is typical?
• Bonsai, YuS, and Hope have finished their 2 weeks of teacher training at junior high schools and have rejoined the seminar!Bonsai has started distributing a questionnaire she made for ALTs working in elementary schools. Sometime this week, she will write about what she hopes to learn from this questionnaire and what she thinks the results will be. YuS is putting the finishing touches on a questionnaire asking recent high school graduates to reflect on their six years of learning English in junior and senior high school. This week Yu will also write about what he hopes to learn from the questionnaire and what he thinks the results will be. Today, Hope and I are going to meet and see how she is progressing with her paper "The Future of English Education in Japan."
• Eri, Ayu, and Cube have been a little quiet lately. I hope that we can hear from them soon.

Colleagues

• AJ Hoge's situation at the university has had some unfortunate developments, details are here. AJ is now in Japan and already has some new students! He was interviewed by students in Aaron Campbell's class. The interview is here.
• Marco Polo after reading the blogs of AJ, Aaron, and myself has theorized why teaching at institutions is difficult for teachers who care about their students' learning. What do you think about what he has to say?

Blogs from Other Classes

• I have looked at the blogs of students from Rosa's ESL class in Australia. The students are from a variety of countries and talk about their home countries; pretty interesting stuff!

Well, tomorrow, I have to give two 3-hour workshops to jr. and sr. high school English teachers about teaching reading. I am now going to prepare. Have a nice week! Adios!

What's New in our Blogging?

I have been reading some of the blogs written by our colleagues (other English teachers) and members of our seminar, Research Methodologies in English Education.

Our Colleagues

• Team Orepan, a junior high school teacher from Hokkaido, is in a slump. If you would like, please write him and give him some encouragement.
• AJ Hoge, a University English teacher in Thailand, was fired for speaking his opinions on his blog. Personally, I did not think his blog was controversial in the least bit. Actually, I quite liked it. Some of my favorite posts of his were "Beating the System" which no longer appears to be on-line and the "Jerry Mcguire Business Plan" in which he talks about what he thinks good education is.
• Marco Polo, a University English teacher in Japan, writes about his struggles in encouraging his students to take charge of their own learning and become autonomous learners.

Seminar Members

• YuS writes his thinking to the question of Why Students Lose Interest In English.
• I am hoping that people will comment on the following entry Good and Bad Discussion Topics in the English Class. I write of asking students to talk about personal information in the language class (what is your favorite TV show etc.) and them being very reluctant to provide an answer. I wonder if personal topics make for bad discussion topics.

Other Classes

• This is a class blog of adult migrants in Sydney, Australia. The blog contains links to other members' blogs. If you would like to learn more about these ESL learners who have moved to Australia, check out their blogs. What have they been talking about?

This week, I would like you to look at the other blogs you have on bloglines and see what people are writing about. Write some comments if you wish, I am sure the other bloggers would be very happy to read your comments. Also, based on what you have read, I would like you to write your own blogging entry by October 24.

Teacher Trainees Writing about English Education in Japan

Blogging about EFL in Japan
Seven aspiring teachers in a Research Methodologies in English Education seminar are blogging. We all live in the prefecture of Iwate in Japan. Some of the students aspire to be elementary school teachers, some junior high school teachers, and others are perhaps undecided. They have begun blogging about issues in education in Japan that concern them, their teaching experiences, or anything else they wish to discuss! Their pages and recent blogging topics are described below:

The Juniors: Teacher Training
In September Eri-chan, Ayu, Cube, and Gami underwent 3 weeks of teacher training. They were so busy that they could not write in their blogs! The 3 week teacher training program is very intensive but they survived. Please go to their blogs and read about theit experience. Anyone interested in elementary school education in Japan should read Ayu and Eri Chan's blog. Anoyone interested in junior high school English education should read Cube and Gami's blog. I learned a lot from watching their classes. For example, Eri-chan did a class on how to wash your hands for first graders. I realized that in my 30 years, I had never washed my hands the right way! Yuck!

The Seniors: Their Graduate Papers
Bonsai, Hope, and YuS (pronounced "U.S.") have created their blogs. These three are writing their graduate papers and all deal with the topic of how to make English education in Japan better. Hope, is writing about the future of English education in elementary schools; Bonsai is investigating the roles of ALTs and homeroom teachers in elementary school and will offer suggestions as to how the two can work together to make better class; Lastly, YuS is investigating why students in junior high school and high school lose interest in English.

Talk to Current English Teachers

Hi, I have made this blog so that the aspiring EFL teachers in my English Teaching Methodologies III class can talk to current English teachers. Every week, I will try to invite current English teachers to talk about their work.

This week's topic is:
★☆"What do you like the most and what do you like the least about teaching English?" 　★☆

Dear teachers,
To answer this question, please add a comment to this post.