Using the Internet for Professional Development

The World is Your Staffroom: Using the Internet for Professional Development Part 1 - Seminars and Webinars

If you work at a large institution, you have access to experienced teachers, in-house workshops, seminars and (possibly) travel assistance for presenting at, or possibly, attending conferences. Additionally, your line manager has probably assigned you a mentor who can answer the day-to-day questions like "What happens if I need a new CD?" as well as fill you in on the "culture of the school" or the "unwritten rules."

Yep, if you work at a school with a growth mindset, you will always be reminded that a teacher is a learner first and foremost and, therefore, will always be challenged to improve not only their content knowledge but also their pedagogy. In this type of school, in-house professional development workshops will be mandatory and there will be competition to see who can generate the highest turn-out for workshops.



Do you do things because that is how they have always been done?
But what if you don't work in "that" school? What if you work in a school that has a fixed mindset, one that believes that if you have a BA/BS in anything and a CELTA or TESOL Cert then you know "enough?" What if you are THE English teacher at your school? Well, in that case, you can either:

choose to be the valedictorian of summer school (aka "the biggest fish in a small pond") or
embrace the web and create your own personal learning network (PLN). Since you're reading this post, you're in group 2. The problem with the web isn't the lack of information, it is actually the opposite: known as The Paradox of Choice, the number of options is so overwhelming that instead of doing something, people feel overwhelmed, don't know where to begin and ultimately do nothing. The goal of these posts is, if you're a new teacher, to point you in the direction of some resources that could REALLY help your teaching. If you're a more experienced teacher, maybe you'll come across some sites that will help you fill in some of the holes in your game or get you to rethink something you've been doing. Additionally, please feel free to post your favorite sites in the comments section below but beware, I have final say on what gets posted. Translation: if it's off topic, or off color, it gets deleted. Without further ado, lets begin.

Seminars and Webinars
So you can't make it to a conference or a teacher training seminar because it's too far away. Fair enough. Thankfully, organizers of conferences are starting to realize that the vast majority of teachers can't attend conferences for financial and family reasons (not to mention time and distance) and are starting to put their conferences on the web. Therefore, if you have a decent internet connection, then you have access to a number of world class seminars and webcasts for free.

So what distinguishes a seminar from a webinar? In a word, interaction. When you watch a seminar, you are doing just that: watching; however, if you are taking part in a webinar, you have the opportunity to ask questions, take part in polls and help shape the discussion in real time! While you will have to download some software to participate, rest assured that it is free and easy to operate but please be sure to download and install the software at least 30 minutes before the start of the webcast.

And what happens if you miss a webcast? Luckily, the hosts archive the recorded webcasts (does that make them seminars/webinars?). Best of all, they are now on demand; I can't count the number of times I've watched them during my lunch break. Where can you find them? Well here are a few of my favorites:

TeachingEnglish: British Council and BBC


Image via BC English Agenda

The professional development carried out by the BC is second to none. Luckily for those of us who don't work for them, they video tape some of their seminars and post them to the internet.

Two of my favorites seminars are:
20 Steps to Teaching Unplugged by @LukeMeddings
This seminar was my introduction to Dogme.

Teaching IELTS: Skills and Techniques to Link English Speaking and Writing by Sam McCarter
Need some ideas on how to prep your students for the IELTS exam? Check out all four of McCarter's seminars on IELTS plus his seminar onPutting EAP into Focus.

Additionally, the BC also conducts webinars. To keep up to date about upcoming webinars, be sure to follow them on Twitter @TeachingEnglish. To view past ones, click here.

Finally, here is one I wholeheartedly recommend is Learner Autonomy by @LizziePinard. Everyone likes to say "I don't teach content, I teach learning" but how do you actually teach people how to learn? This webinars tackles that question and provides some ideas on how to shift rhetoric to reality.

TurnItIn.com


Image via TurnItIn

TurnItIn designs and sells plagiarism prevention/detection software. Even if you're school doesn't have a subscription, you can still take advantage of their professional development resources. All you have to do is create a free account and then start streaming their recorded webcasts and downloading their white papers.

Here are a couple to get you started:

Stopping Plagiarism at the Source: Why Assignments Matter by Barry Gilmore and Jason Chu
It may sound obvious but if you want students to write something original, give them something original to do.

The Accidental Plagiarist: The Myths, the Truths, and What it All Means for Teaching & Learning by Dr. Tricia Bertram Gallant and Jason Chu
There is a massive difference between copying a paper wholesale and forgetting to add a citation and this webcast delves into how to distinguish and respond to plagiarism.

Oxford University Press - English Language Teaching



Image via OUP ELT

OUP is one of the major publishers in the field. As such, they have webinars on every aspect of language teaching which you will have access to after you create a free account. One that I highly recommend is Oxford Big Read - An introduction to setting up a class library and using Readers by Verissimo Toste. This webinar is fantastic because it gets into the details of what you need to do to create and cultivate a classroom of readers.

Additionally, be sure to check out Patsy Lightbown's webinar on Content Based Teaching which focuses on how to strike the right balance between teaching content while still providing language instruction.


Macmillan English

Image via Macmillan English

And finally, from the people who bring you onestopenglish, there is Macmillan English. On their site you can search their archives since 2010 to uncover gems such as The Sound Foundations Phonemic Chart by Adrian Underhill.

In Conclusion, know that there are more, way more, places to look on the internet for webinars. Doing a simple Google Search for "TEFL Webinar" returns over 30,000 results. As I said at the outset, this post is by no means exhaustive; it is, however, meant to provide you with a starting point on where to look to improve your teaching. In my next post, I'll be looking at how you can use YouTube to teach yourself any number of technologies and teaching techniques. Until then, happy teaching!

by Evan Simpson

taken from: http://evansimpson.blogspot.mx/

Macmillan Education Online Conference Videos!

Recordings of all the talks from last week's Online Conference are now online! http://ow.ly/EFyrv ‪#‎MEOC2014‬

How to Teach English Tenses

Teaching tenses is one of the main tasks of any English as a foreign language teacher. Here are guides on how to teach tenses including exercise resources, lesson plans and more:

How to Teach the Present Simple

Step by step guide to teaching the present simple including lesson plan and activity suggestions. The guide also points out common difficulties students face when learning the present simple tense.

How to Teach the Past Simple to ESL Students

Use guide discusses how to teach the past simple including multiple examples, exercise and lesson suggestions as well as other related resources.

How to Teach the Present Continuous

This how to focuses on introducing the present continuous to students covering basic usage, as well as more advanced uses of this tense. Examples and suggested activities are included, as well as typical problems that come up in class.

How to Teach the Past Continuous

Guide to teaching the past continuous for English teachers who teach ESL and EFL classes including an emphasis on using the past continued for interrupted action. This guide includes appropriate lesson and activity suggestions.

How to Teach the Future

Guide to teaching future forms with will and going to for English teachers. There are many difficulties for students when choosing between will and going to, this introduction to teaching the future focuses on differences between will for speculation and going to for future plans. This guide includes appropriate lesson and activity suggestions.

How to Teach the Present Perfect

Teaching the present perfect can be quite challenging. Students need to understand the three principal uses of this form including speaking about life experience, expressing past to present and recent events that influence the present moment.

How to Teach Present Perfect Continuous

Teaching the present perfect continuous goes hand in hand with teaching the present perfect tense. This guide points out the important differences between the two tenses and provides tips on helping student understand.

How to Teach the Past Perfect

Teaching the past perfect comes later in the learning process. This guide focuses on the various uses of the past perfect including conditional forms and as a means of providing reasons for past actions.

How to Teach Conditionals

Use this guide to teaching conditionals to teach all four forms of the conditional. This guide provides notes on important differences in the forms, as well as a wealth of teaching resources that you can use in class.

How to Teach the Future Perfect Continuous

The future perfect continuous tense is one of the last tenses students should learn. This guide to teaching the future perfect tense provides tips on introducing the tense and comparing to similar tenses in the present and past.

How to Teach the Future Perfect

The future perfect tense is one of the last tenses that will be taught in class. Use this guide together with the guide to the future perfect continuous to help students understand how to express what will have been completed by a future point in time.

How to Teach the Past Perfect Continuous

The past perfect continuous should only be taught to advanced level students as it is seldom used in everyday conversations. This guide on how to teach the tense provides explanation tips as well as links to resources you can use in class to help teach the past perfect continuous.

How to Teach Future Continuous

The future continuous is used much less frequently than the present or past continuous. However, teaching the future continuous can be challenging because of shades in similar meaning between the future tenses. Use this guide on how to introduce and teach the future continuous to help clear up doubts in class.

How to Teach Reported Speech

Teaching the reported speech can be of great help to students as a means of reviewing tense usage as well as stretching their muscles in terms of conjugation. This how to approach suggests starting off easy with simple changes in tense and work towards more advanced reporting structures and verbs.

How to Teach Pronouns

This guide on how to teach pronouns suggests a manner in which the subject, object, possessive pronouns, as well as possessive adjectives can be introduced in a manner which will help students understand their usage by exploring sentence structure.

Who is responsible for continuing professional development?

This is the second in a series of articles which presents extracts from the British Council publication, ‘Innovations in the continuing professional development of English language teachers’. Here, the authors discuss who the stakeholders in continuing professional development might be and who is reponsible for CPD.

‘Continuing professional development policy 'Think Tank': an innovative experiment in India’

Learning from the Think Tank

Teachers' ongoing professional development is not a matter of concern for teachers alone. Various stakeholders - school heads, education authorities, state, society and parents - have interests in teachers' CPD for their own reasons, depending on their place in the education system. Consequently, each of these stakeholders may have differing priorities for and expectations of CPD. Teachers may have their personal developmental priorities, usually determined by their needs, interests and aspirations. Institutions may have different expectations from teachers' professional development, related to their concern with strengthening institutional performance, culture and image. Apart from these, the teaching profession also has interests in teachers' professional development, which are reflected in education policies, politics and administration. Figure 1 represents stakeholder priorities in a general way.

Figure1: Priorities in teachers' professional development

(Adapted from SACE, 2008: 5)

Though the figure shows a balance between the different priorities, in reality professional priorities (including administrative, social and political) and institutional priorities are seen to greatly outweigh teacher priorities. Such different priorities both stem from and lead to different understandings and interpretations of the very notion of CPD. This was the immediate challenge that the Think Tank faced when it commenced its work. Coming from different backgrounds, agencies and organisations, the members showed differing views of the notion of CPD. For example, the representatives of national and state teacher education bodies perceived CPD in terms of traditional INSET, particularly various kinds of training necessitated by curricular reforms, textbook changes, methodological shifts, and so on. In their view, equipping teachers to effectively implement the various programmes and policies of the state was the main objective of CPD. The practising teachers and representatives of teacher associations prioritised teachers' personal interests and professional needs such as enhancing competence in English, becoming trainers, attending conferences and publishing papers. The administrators looked at CPD in terms of enhancing teachers' teaching skills and classroom management, and ensuring the good performance of students in examinations. In the course of subsequent discussions it soon became clear that, while none of these perspectives could be downplayed as unjustified or unimportant, each represented only one aspect of CPD. The Think Tank members summed up this insight in terms of the 'elephant and blind men' metaphor, as in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Multiple views of CPD

It was therefore considered essential to arrive at a broad and inclusive understanding of the notion of CPD as an important prerequisite for the subsequent work. The unique contribution of the Think Tank was to bring all these differing, and at times conflicting, perspectives together face to face, which facilitated thrashing out of differences, identifying commonalities and arriving at a shared understanding. The outcome of this churning was the following working definition of CPD, which the Think Tank adopted as the basis for further thinking and action:

CPD is a planned, continuous and lifelong process whereby teachers try to develop their personal and professional qualities, and to improve their knowledge, skills and practice, leading to their empowerment, the improvement of their agency and the development of their organisations and their pupils. (Padwad and Dixit, 2011: 10)

The process of evolving a shared understanding of CPD also led to frequent discussions about key challenges in ensuring effective CPD. There was a general agreement that the CPD scenario in India was not a very happy one, and that there were no effective CPD mechanisms in place. Some of the reasons for this were easy to identify, such as the neglect of CPD in teacher education policies and programmes, the lack of a well-formed and comprehensive CPD policy and the lack of general awareness about CPD. But others only emerged in the course of animated discussions and debates. It was yet again the diversity of views and approaches within the group which helped in understanding the complexity of the challenges. The collective thinking within the group helped in evolving a clearer understanding of challenges, and also a more concrete and specific formulation of issues, even if it wasn't always possible to identify solutions.

An interesting and enlightening example of this process was the discussion around the question of whose responsibility teachers' CPD was. This question is not much explored in research and policy documents on CPD in India, perhaps because it is generally assumed that the education authorities (in other words, the state) are responsible for teachers' CPD. A small-scale study carried out by two Think Tank members also found such an assumption clearly prevalent among the teachers and the authorities they interviewed (Padwad and Dixit, 2012). Even within the Think Tank the initial view of many members was that CPD was obviously the state's responsibility. However, as the cycles of discussions continued and as the members started bringing in findings from their individual studies and initiatives, it became clear that the issue was much more complex. Many studies by the members reported in the Think Tank publication (Bolitho and Padwad, 2012) indicated that teachers' taking responsibility for their CPD was the key factor in the success of the CPD activities in question. For example, Maya Pandit-Narkar's study (2012) pointed out how the member teachers' initiative helped them exploit the District English Centre set up in their town under an education ministry scheme for launching CPD activities. As Rama Mathew found out in her study (2012), the success and value of her experiment in promoting CPD through reflective practice were premised on the participating teachers' voluntarism and willingness to take responsibility for their development: '[a]lthough there [was] no acknowledgement/benefit of any sort in the school for teachers to take on CPD-related work.' (Mathew, 2012: 69) The account of the 30-year-long developmental journey of a voluntary teacher development group (Shivakumar, 2012) clearly established that the member teachers taking responsibility for their own CPD was the crucial and indispensable element in launching and sustaining the group. On a more theoretical level it was remembered that 'development' was not something that could be done by others to an individual; one developed oneself. In the final analysis, none but teachers could be responsible for their own CPD. At the same time some other studies reported in Bolitho and Padwad (2012) showed that support in the form of policy provisions, resources, incentives, freedom and opportunities was crucial for CPD, and that this would basically be the state responsibility. In a study exploring various stakeholders' views about CPD (Padwad and Dixit, 2012), expectations of state support were explicitly indicated by the participants, who included not only teachers but also administrators, managements and state officials. Another study into the use of school libraries as a resource by teachers (Waris, 2012) indicated that good support of resources like libraries led to better involvement in CPD by teachers. Pandit-Narkar's (2012) study of the District English Centre at Nellore quoted above also showed that the support and opportunities brought in by a 'top-down' intervention of the federal education ministry significantly enhanced the impact and success of the teachers' CPD initiatives. These observations about the need of supportive policy provisions, resources, incentives and opportunities were further corroborated by the two 'guest' contributions from Montenegro (Popovic and Subotic, 2012) and Serbia (Glusac, 2012), countries with explicit legislation and elaborate official provision for teachers' CPD. While underlining the value and significance of policy support for CPD, these studies also highlighted how the importance of school-based CPD was recognised and prioritised at the ministry level.

Eventually the Think Tank came round to the conclusion that CPD was a joint responsibility, and would succeed only through a combination of teacher responsibility (teachers' personal initiative and voluntarism) and state responsibility (support of policies and provisions for CPD), i.e. a combination of bottom-up initiative and top-down support. In this combination, schools, administrators, management and teacher education institutions (TEIs) played an important mediator role. Figure 3 shows a visual representation of this conceptualisation.

Figure 3: A model for effective CPD

The Think Tank thus led to the raising and analysing of a critical issue in CPD for the first time in India. It also helped in further clarifying the roles and responsibilities of teachers and other stakeholders in CPD.

Extract from ‘Innovations in the continuing professional development of English language teachers’ (Chapter 11, A Padwad and K Dixit, p258 - 262).

Click here to download the complete publication.

Tomorrow in our next extract we look at the theme: 'Can continuing professional development change lives?'

Don't forget to register for next Monday's CPD webinar with Silvana Richardson on 'CPD that works'. Silvana will look critically at the INSETT model of contining professional development and discuss more relevant, useful and personalised CPD approaches that put you in the driving seat of your development as a teacher and engage you as researcher as well as practitioner. This approach can have a positive impact for the CPD of other teachers, and also for the organisation you work for.

Find out more here: http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/continuing-professional-development/webinars

How teachers can become leaders

Are you a teacher leader?

I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.” ~ Rosa Parks

How do we need to change the culture around teachers as leaders. How are we going to do this? What are we going to do?” Thinking about great visionaries and leaders throughout time, people who started movements and influenced change, people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. I haven’t stopped wondering about who will be our fierce leader. Who will drive the movement around teacher leadership? I’ve come to this conclusion: It needs to be all of us, because we all want freedom, justice, equality, and prosperity for students.

Here is how YOU can become a teacher leader:

Move beyond the status-quo for ourselves, our students, our profession.Seek opportunities for self-improvement. Kentucky teacher Sherri McPhersonstates it this way, “I simply see a need to improve myself and seek opportunities to fulfill that need. If it helps, then I share. If it doesn’t, I keep looking and learning. My drive for learning often fuels my leadership.”

Think big. Teacher and CTQ blogger, Lauren Hill, reminds us that, “to do right by our students and ourselves, we require a larger community — a broader view.” Thinking beyond the communities we build in our classrooms to our local, national, and even global communities, provides perspective and access to other professionals and opportunities for collaboration. A broader view opens minds to issues of freedom, justice, and equality.

Model. Danny Hollweg, a teacher in Colorado, asks how we can effectively open up our classrooms, to use them as laboratories, for others to observe and model. This is what past National Teacher of the Year Sara Brown Wessling, and all the other teachers on Teaching Channel, are doing. Not only are they willing to show us how they work, they believe that getting feedback from fellow educators is valuable and helps them become better teachers.

Make learning meaningful. Elementary teacher Brad Clark designs meaningful learning experiences for 45 students under his charge, and he extends learning into his work as a mentor as well. If he’s teaching literary analysis of a short story, he makes sure to help his fourth and fifth graders understand how those same analysis skills can be applied to the media they consume outside of class. He says, “everyday is an opportunity to refine my practice, to become more efficient and more effective.” He also makes learning more meaningful for his students by continuing to be a learner himself. For example, if he’s working on questioning skills with his students, he seeks out his own professional learning around this same topic. If he’s sitting in a required school-wide teacher PD session that is designed as one-size fits all, he determines in advance how he will drive his own learning. Specifically, he sits near colleagues who he knows will push his thinking forward.

Mobilize. Across America and in other countries as well, teachers are cooperatively running schools, speaking in front of legislators, using their voices through blogging or writing op-eds; they are creating videos and podcasts, designing award ceremonies to honor other educators, organizing conferences and edcamps, and opening community organizations. While there are numerous national and state organizations to join, you could also choose to join Twitter and use social media to mobilize. We now know that revolutions and entire movements have started via Twitter.

Teacher leaders are people who want all students to learn, and they will do whatever needs to be done to make this happen. Teacher leaders influence change beyond classrooms. Great leaders are “regular” people like you, me, and Martin Luther King, Jr. — we are people who know that our convictions will make a difference. As King once said, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

By Renee Boss.  https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2014/11/03/are-you-a-teacher-leader/

IELTS for Academic Purposes

Archives to improve your IELTS Score!

• File IELTS for Academic Purposes - Bandscore Booster..
• File IELTS for Academic Purposes - Practice Tests_.pdf
• File IELTS for Academic Purposes - Student Book_.pdf
• File IELTS for Academic Purposes - Teacher Book_.pdf
• File IELTS for Academic Purposes Booster CD.rar
• File IELTS for Academic Purposes Practice Tests CD.rar
• File IELTS Placement Test & Student Book Audio 1..
• File IELTS Placement Test & Student Book Audio 2..

Have fun with vocabulary!

A lively and fun resource for teachers, this material provides a varied collection of challenging vocabulary quizzes and games. All activities are fast-paced and designed to stimulate and maintain learners' motivation. Each unit covers useful everyday topics, such as people, sports and games.

• Covers 15 useful everyday topics such as food and drink, shopping, transport, the media, jobs, and health and fitness
• Detailed teacher’s notes provide information on method, the level of the activity, timing and background
• Answer key, scoreboards and suggestions for room plans
• Suitable for Elementary to Advanced level students
• Answer key, scoreboards and suggestions for room plans

File barnes_annette_hines_jean_penguin_english_photo..