Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Joshua Millage, Cofounder ofLifterLMS and one half of  LMScast. Josh how are you today?Joshua: Hey Jonny, thank you so much for allowing me to come on and do this interview with you!Jonny: Tell me a bit about your background. How did you get in to edtech? Joshua: When it comes to my background and how I got into edtech, I would sayit started when I was really young actually. I had a mother and a father who wereboth educators. My mom was a first grade teacher and my dad was a college professor. My dad had this habit that every Tuesday he would take me to a store called Incredible Universe. RadioShack owned incredible Universe at the time. It was a massive technology store. He would buy me a computer game or some piece of technology every week, and he wanted me to teach him how to use it. I was really interested in technology, so he supported that interest.Through that he learned some really cool ways to bring technology into his classroom. Now this was like mid-1990s, so technology was much different thanit is now. But that's actually what got me interested in technology is just having an exposure at a young age and then seeing how my mother and my father were applying it into their classrooms.As things went on and the online educational boom happened, I watched that. Later in my college career, I kind of hacked at my thesis. I went to Azusa Pacific University, and the dean of my business school asked if I would like to help her develop a new MBA program. This MBA program took place over the course of15 months and allowed students to study for two months in Azusa, and then spend two weeks traveling all over the world. There was a heavy technology component there to sync up the in-classroom work and the out of class case studies that we would do overseas. It was truly a unique way to do blended learning.That just sent me down a rabbit hole. I fell in love with the WordPress space, and over the past year I’ve been watching the WordPress LMS space in particular. And I saw some incredible opportunities to jump in with my client services company, codeBOX, so we decided to do that this last summer, and it's been a wild ride.Jonny: What are the features of a good LMS?Joshua: I think the WordPress LMS space is very different than some of the corporate training or larger LMS systems that are really geared towards universities. I do think that WordPress is going to start to really push on those different systems like Blackboard and BrainHoney and some of the other ones. I think some of the features of a good LMS are really giving you proper insights into how your students are performing. Those are pretty good features. I think the new block of features we're going to start to see come onto the scene is in the way of artificial intelligence and automation. So being able to watch how astudent learns, help engage them and encourage them to continue to learn, and meet them where they're at.What I mean by that is I've seen some features of various LMS systems actually allow students to submit their assignments based on their learning style. If they're an auditory learner or someone who enjoys giving speeches, they're able to upload that sort of content. If they're a writer, they can do that. If they're an artist, they can do more of a photo collage or something like that. So the LMS system is supporting the ways that the students learn. I think those are some of the new features on the block that are really, really cool. I also think that just having agood user experience for teachers to create courses is really important. I hate to see it when technology gets in the way of allowing a teacher to do what they do best, which is teach.Jonny: The LMS world is becoming heavily populated. Which key players will still be around in 5 years time?I think you're going to see Blackboard stay around. It's not going to leave any time soon. Part of the reason is that they're cash heavy, and they're able to acquire a lot of the new key players in the space. That's already happening. They've acquired a handful of companies in the past 12 months. I think that you're going to start to see much more focused and niche companies come in. I really think that we're in the era of the long tail for the learning management space.You're going to see more niche systems that come in and focus on supporting a certain type of learning style, blended learning. Maybe you'll see something, for instance, maybe support Montessori school systems or something like that. You're going to see a much more distributed and fragmented space come alive. I think there will be a couple of big boys left, but I think if they don't iterate fast enough they're going to find themselves extinct.Jonny: So tell me a bit more about LifterLMS? What makes it different? Joshua: LifterLMS is a WordPress learning management system. It's really built tohelp solo teachers build and sell courses online. What's different about it is that itallows you to build, sell, and engage your students. A lot of WordPress LMS systems will just focus on building a course. They won't come with any sort of e- commerce functionality to help you sell your course, and none of them have engagement functionality.What we define engagement as is basically a lightweight marketing automation system. It allows you to do gamification actions like awarding badges and certificates based on students' behavior in your course, as well as automatically sending emails based on what users are doing and not doing. If they're not utilizing your course, you can actually automatically trigger an email to say, "Hey, what's going on? Is there anything that we can do to help you?"We feel like that that's a way to scale the human touch. If I weren’t showing up to my class in college I'd probably get an email or a phone call from my professor saying "Where are you?" Now I went to a smaller school where the class sizes were much more intimate. Maybe that wouldn't happen at a state school, but I think that the people who are going to win online are the ones that do their bestto really bridge the gap and scale the human touch. LifterLMS is really situated to help that type of individual. Those are some of the things that make us different.Jonny: I'm obviously a huge advocate of Free Technology hence the blog Free Tech for Schools. Can you convince me that Lifter does what other free providers can't?Joshua: One of the things I really appreciate about what you do with Free Tech for Schools is that you promote free technology for schools to use. I think that's really, really awesome. There are some things LifterLMS can do that free providers can't do, and that's combining all of the things we've talked about just a minute ago into one plugin. I think that when you get to marketing automationand you get to what I call learning automation, something that we're coining, is that it’s going to be hard to be free. Because there are moving pieces that have to always be moving. There are server costs and things involved with that.With LifterLMS the cost is pretty lightweight. What I mean by that is for $150 and whatever cost it is to host your WordPress site, you can have a full-blown, very dynamic learning management system up and running in a matter of hours. I think that offers a new level of functionality that schools currently don't have. I would love to see a school adopt LifterLMS for each and every one of their teachers so that those teachers can teach in a more dynamic way online.Jonny: A big problem with online learning is a low completion rate for students. How can you best tackle this problem?Joshua: You're right. Online learning does have a low completion rate, and I think that happens for a number of reasons. The main one is that the user experience for the student is really, really bad. Moodle, Blackboard, and all of these bigger systems do not do a good job of making the learning experience fun for students. It's really difficult for a student who's used to a very clean experience that they would get on their iPhone or Mac, or even their Xbox, to jump into a platform that's very archaic and stale.LifterLMS has a very clean user interface, and with some of our themes that we're going to be releasing soon, add a much more engaging user experience. I think this will help students stay in the online learning environment longer and not be so inclined to jump out and do something else.In online learning not many people are doing a good job with the human element. Teachers aren’t connecting with their students. With our engagementfunctionality, like I mentioned earlier, you can award badges, which students are already geared towards with all the gamification that happens everywhere else in their lives. I think using that in the classroom will make the class much more sticky.It’s also helpful to have automatic emails go off when a student hasn't been around for a while. So for instance, if they haven't logged in for seven days, sending an email. I think just small touches like that can really make a huge difference in terms of helping a student complete an online course.The other thing that I would say is that sometimes professors and teachers online just don't know how well their students are performing, so they don't know how to reach out or when to reach out. With our up and coming course analytics feature you'll be able to get some deep insights into how your students are performing and pick up the phone and email, or however you would like to engage your student, because you'll be able to see how they're performing. I think it's on the professor to take action, but that will help student completion rates.Jonny: Finally a few quick fire questions to finish off. Apple or android?Joshua: I'm definitely going to go with Apple. Jonny: Kanye or Beck?Joshua: That's a fantastic question. I definitely like Beck. Jonny: Spotify or Google play Music?Joshua: I've been a Spotify fan from way back when we didn't even have Spotify in the United States, and I was using a VPN connection to connect to Europe so that I could access it. So definitely Spotify.Thank you so much, Jonny, for allowing me to come and do this interview with you. It's been really fun! I hope that your audience finds it useful. If there's anything I can do, please let me know. You can always reach me at joshua@lifterlms.com or @jmillage on Twitter. Thanks again.This is not an official endorsement of Lifetr LMS and I have received no payment for promoting the product.This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

Stacey Hughes, a teacher trainer in the Professional Development team at Oxford University Press, offers some practical ideas for blended learning in EAP. Although the idea of blended learning is not new, most people now associate it with including computer or tablet and internet use in the classroom. These tools can be used to expand the range of possibilities for communication between students and teachers. Here are some ideas to experiment with. Train your students to use internet It may seem odd to think about training students to use technology - after all, they are digital natives. However, many students have not yet developed a critical mind-set when it comes to assessing whether or not information gleaned from websites is reliable or valid. They also may not be very adept at using key words to search for academic articles and books - resulting in either too many or too few hits or information that is not relevant to their research. 1. Teach students to recognise which sites are reliable for their purposes. Show them Google Scholar as a starting point and teach them to recognise more generally reliable URL endings: .org; .ac; .gov; .edu. Teach them to think about who wrote the page and why. 2. Train students to use the university library search engine to look for information. They will need to understand how articles are kept in the databases and how to narrow or broaden their searches using key words and limiters: and, or, not, "…", etc. 3. Teach students how to use online bibliography tools to create their lists of references. You could start by referring them to Education Technology and Mobile Learning which lists a number of bibliography tools. The university librarians may also have some ideas for good ones to use. Using technology for collaboration There are a multitude of resources that teachers and students can use for collaboration. They can help make teacher-student communication more efficient and can help students work together. If your university has a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) such as Moodle or Blackboard, the tools will already be available for you to use. If not, you can find resources on the internet which can be used for similar purposes. 1. Set up a discussion forum. Post a relevant question or topic and ask students to contribute to the discussion. Make sure they respond to each other rather than just posting their own views - this will make it much more valuable as a forum. 2. Create group or class wiki pages. Use the university platform or a wiki space such aswww.wikispaces.com to set up a virtual space for news, collaborative project work and assessment. Wiki spaces are also useful for uploading handouts for students who were absent from the lesson. 3. Give audio and video feedback on papers to save marking time, give fuller feedback and add listening practice. Visit the University of Edinburgh page to read some case studies. 4. Flip the classroom once in a while. Use screencasts to teach a point, then use the class time for a seminar discussion or debate. 5. Ask students to work in groups to create a video documentary about university culture and the changes new students will have to adjust to. Using technology in the classroom Many students will have tablets or laptops and may prefer to work from them in the classroom. A majority may also have smartphones that can be used for learning. 1. Encourage those students using laptops or tablets to look up information on the internet while engaging in the lesson. Post information on the class wiki that they can access while in class as part of the lesson. 2. Point students to useful apps that they can use for learning: the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, Practical English Usage, Headway Phrase-a-day and English File Pronunciation are all excellent apps for independent study or they can be incorporated into the lesson. Find out more here. 3. Ask students to record decisions made in a group discussion using their smart phone. Then ask them to email it to another group to listen to as a way of comparing information between groups. This article barely scratches the surface of how blended learning can be used in EAP settings. Remember to think first of the pedagogical aim, then look around to find the right technological tool that could help forward that aim. If you are interested in exploring blended learning further, these resources provide plenty of additional information: 1. White paper for support, guidance and best practice ideas on implementing tablets in teaching and learning 2. British Council Report with 24 international case studies which illustrate different blended learning scenario And finally, for some tips on ways to use technology in the classroom, visit the digital resources pages on the Oxford University Press blog. In particular, you may find the following helpful: 1. Edmodo: Introducing the virtual classroom 2. 5 Apps every teacher should have in 2014 3. Using blogs to create web-based English courses   This article first appeared in the April 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults,subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Multimedia & Digital, Professional Development Tagged: Blended Learning, EAP, EdTech, English Language Teaching, mlearning, Stacey Hughes, Technology

Teacher trainer, Freia Layfield, offers some practical ideas to bring CLIL into the young learner classroom. Categorisation tasks (science) Bring a selection of flashcards to class. Draw two large circles on the board. Label them with two different categories. For example, fruit / dairy, plastic / paper, animals / plants. You can use more challenging categories for older students, like living / non-living. Ask individual students to place a flashcard into the correct circle on the board. If the students are older and able to read and write, you can ask them to write the name of the thing in the correct circle. As a group, the students can then check and decide if the flashcards are in the correct circles or not. Measure it or weigh it (maths) Ask the students to measure or weigh a number of objects in class that are related to a topic you are studying. For example, weigh classroom objects or measure hands, feet and height. Ask students to draw and record their results. Allow them to work in pairs. Each pair can share their answers with the class. This exposes them all to a lot of English and develops their maths skills. Magazine collages (art) Bring a selection of old magazines to class, or ask the children to bring in one each. If possible, the magazines should be related to a topic you are teaching. For example, home and garden magazines if you are looking at houses, holiday magazines or brochures if you are studying countries and holidays, or wildlife magazines if you’re looking at animals and the environment. Put the students into pairs and give each pair a piece of paper. Ask the students to cut out, and stick onto the paper, pictures that are connected to a topic. For example, Places you want to go to or Animals you like. Students can share these collages with the class and talk about the pictures they have chosen. This works well with all ages. Internet research and peer teaching (social science) This works very well with slightly older children. Divide the class into small groups of 2-3 students. Give each group a different research topic. For example, if you’re studying animals, assign each group a country to research. They should work together to identify 3-4 animals in that country and then find out a fact about each animal. For example: The Kangaroo is a marsupial. It carries its baby in a pouch. Students can print pictures or download them onto a memory stick to show the other students in class. Each group then gets a chance to present their new knowledge, in English, to the rest of the class. Would you like more practical tips on using CLIL with your young learners?  Head over to the Oxford Teachers’ Club for ideas and teaching tools for young, and very young learners. Not a member? Sign up here - Ii’s easy and free. Filed under: CLIL, Skills, Young Learners Tagged: Children, CLIL, Content and Language Integrated Learning, Flashcards, Internet Research, Maths, Young Learners

Today has been National Learning at Work Day in the UK, when people are encouraged to learn a new skill in the workplace. It doesn't have to be work related, of course, although I'm sure most employers would prefer it if it were.Since I am self employed and no longer really have an 'at work', I sent out an email to the team of 200 or so people who constitute a mailing group for one of my clients. I encouraged people to push the boat out and learn something new.Fairly predictably for a UK audience, I had a very poor response.One person was thoroughly enthused and suggested that we each offer a 60 second micro-lesson online to whomever was interested. But he was a lone voice. At the other extreme, one respondent claimed that, having read my email, he now needed to learn 'how to clean puke off my keyboard'. Charming.But the third and final response, received just minutes ago made it all worthwhile. With the permission of the respondent, I reproduce it here verbatim:Thanks for your message. When I worked at the University of Manchester a few years ago, they made a good effort for the National Learning at Work Day. Five years ago, they organised a day of unusual activities to stretch people’s minds, at the Manchester Museum which is on the university campus - this included things like circus skills (juggling etc). I asked my boss if I could go and was surprised that I was allowed (but for only half a day) - no one else in my department of about 100 people had even asked. The bit that I attended was an indoor planetarium, offered by the School of Astronomy; this consisted of a wonderful introduction to the stars and how things look different in the southern hemisphere and in different seasons etc, and also included lots about the mythology around the constellations (e.g. how Orion the hunter met Taurus the bull). I enjoyed it a lot and it stayed in my mind.I have just completed a Certificate in Introductory Astronomy with the University of Manchester, via distance and e-learning, which I’ve been doing for the past two years. I know that that one day when my boss was good enough to let me ‘learn at work’, planted a seed for pursuing this hobby (a lifelong love of science fiction played a part too of course). Ironically, the course had very little to do with gazing at the stars - it covered the physics and maths behind ‘life, the universe and everything’. But now that I’m finished with the course and with possible clear nights ahead this summer, I have lots of star gazing ahead. So, the day worked for me anyway, five years ago today!Isn't that an encouraging anecdote?Oh... and I spent the day in teach mode rather than learn mode (but I reckon that counts, too), acquainting someone with the use of social media for business purposes. I have already posted a link to one outcome of the day.

In the second of a three-part series on teaching EAP, Edward de Chazal, a freelance consultant, author and presenter, looks at effective listening strategies and appropriate materials to support students in their chosen disciplines. Listening is a core activity in EAP: when students are studying their chosen disciplines, they will have to deal with a range of spoken texts - which involve listening. For many people academic listening implies lectures, yet there many other types of spoken text: presentations and papers; seminars and discussions; tutorials and small-group events; one-to-one meetings and supervisions; collaborative activities such as group work and projects; and more informal activities like dealing with administration staff and social interaction. These can be highly varied - from informal to formal, straightforward to complex, transactional (e.g. a lecture) to interactive (e.g. a group project). Accessing the content further Clearly a lot of information is given through spoken texts, and students need to be able to understand them. However, understanding is just part of the story. Listening is not simply a passive activity. Two key roles of the academic listener are interpreter and recorder. The listener has to work out the meaning of what they are listening to, including the speaker’s main points, arguments, and stance. They may also have to record this information, for example by making notes. In this way the listener can access the main content - via their notes - to use in future spoken and written texts. Lectures can be highly complex, and taking notes typically involves far more than listening and writing. In short, lectures are integrated, cyclical, and multimodal. Lectures are integrated as they develop a topic which students might be reading about, talking about in seminars and discussions, and ultimately writing about in their essays and assessments. They are cyclical in that they form part of longer cycles of knowledge: the material in lectures may also be developed and presented in conferences, and then published in articles and textbooks. Multimodality means using various ways and technologies to present information. These can include visuals (such as PowerPoint slides), embedded hyperlinks to external content such as websites and podcasts, other video and audio content, as well as other spoken and written texts including student questions and handouts. Any or all of these may be incorporated into a single lecture. These characteristics mean that students have to work with multiple inputs of text, knowledge, and language; furthermore, while doing so they have to respond to these inputs by making notes (in a lecture) or making a relevant contribution (in a discussion). Challenges for the student include language (phonology, vocabulary, grammar), and other aspects such as reading a lecture slide while listening, or dealing with the cultural dimensions of the input. Effective learning strategies Given all these characteristics and challenges, how can EAP teachers facilitate effective learning? Above all, learning needs to be focused and realistic, with clear objectives. Good materials are vital. Time is limited, and students typically have a great deal to learn. It is better to follow these principles and make some measurable progress, for example by moving from B1 to B2, than adopt a ‘hope for the best’ approach through unfocused activities such as exposure to a series of difficult lectures without providing the appropriate support. Think of someone you know who has lived in a foreign country for years without learning much of the language - lots of exposure in itself is not the same as moving forward in terms of language level. To be effective, EAP listening tasks need to be staged, scaffolded, and supported. This support can take the form of sample texts to aim for (such as student presentations), carefully selected language for intensive focus, and achievable outcomes like completing a set of notes. With lectures, the tasks can include relating the information on visuals to the lecturer’s spoken text. In addition, reading is a good preparation for listening - in authentic academic contexts students typically read something on the lecture topic before the lecture. Finally, follow-up tasks can be very useful, for example identifying and noting down material in a listening text to use in a new speaking or writing text. What can we learn from these observations? Listening is a core activity in EAP, and it requires a complex set of skills and language. By using appropriate materials with achievable learning objectives, we can enable our EAP students to overcome these challenges and develop their academic listening skills. This article first appeared in the January 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults,subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.Filed under: Business & English for Specific Purposes, Professional Development Tagged: EAP, Edward De Chazal, English for Academic Purposes, listening skills, Methodology, Teacher Development, Teaching EAP

There is much that is amiss with British culture, but there are times when things happen to make me deeply appreciate the things that are so very right with it.I would like to relate a true incident to highlight this.At a recent conference, a prominent American speaker had cause to summon a delegate onto the platform. In a largely white audience, this delegate was one of the few black people in attendance. The speaker explained that, in America, he would call this man African-American, but he didn't know what term to use in the UK. "What do I call you?" he asked the man. To resounding cheers from the by now very uncomfortable audience, the man answered, "I'm British."I have always wondered how 'African American' is a less offensive term than 'black' because it amounts to pretty much the same thing. It is a term which serves to divide a society on the basis of skin colour. What's wrong with 'American'? Why does there have to be differentiation at all?Oddly enough, the one person I can think of to whom the term can accurately be applied is President Obama, since he has one African parent, and one American parent.But the 'African' bit is somewhat misleading, anyway. I play squash once a week with a friend. Let's say two people were watching us play and person A asked, "Who's winning?" If person B answered, "The African woman is behind by 6 points," person A would probably think I had opened a can of whup-ass on my friend. But under those circumstances, they would be dead wrong. You see, she's black-and-British, while I am white-and-African.Some time back, I related how I had been hounded out of an online group for Africans on the basis of my skin colour. To add insult to injury, the ringleader of my virtual lynch party was an American woman who had never set foot on African soil.It doesn't work.In recent years, I have noticed increasingly racist tendencies on the part of friends and family back in South Africa, as the problems in the country fuel the racial tensions and give rise to all manner of blame-game tactics. I have heard the most pejorative terms coming from the mouths of people I love, people from whom I never expected to hear such talk.And I want no part of it.I far prefer a society in which a person of any skin colour whatsoever can say unequivocally, "I am British."

This is the fourth of a six part series of articles from two ELT professionals who have successfully done just that: Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol. Here, they share advice on how to handle the tricky subject of pricing your services and billing clients. In the three previous articles, we discussed the areas you may wish to target as a freelancer, your strengths and weaknesses as a business owner, and how you can market your services to your clients. Following a logical progression of developing yourself and your business, the next three articles will look at pricing and billing, maintaining clients, and dealing with success and failure. How much do I charge? In a previous article we recommended assessing your current (or desired) standard of living on a monthly and yearly basis and then calculating the income necessary to sustain that lifestyle. Following this, you will also need to assess the market value of language training in your area. Many countries have seen increased price sensitivity in recent years, with per-hour training prices steadily decreasing and making it difficult to make a comfortable living. Therefore, we suggest you remain flexible, at least in the beginning. For example, will there be commuting time involved? Will it require a significant amount of preparation time or none at all? Will you need to invest in training for yourself so that you can better adapt to your clients’ needs? What sort of peripheral services will you include (e.g. placement and progress testing, correcting, proofreading or translating documents, follow-up meetings with HR, etc.)? All of these factors will influence the per-hour or per-package price you should set for your training. Beware of clients that try to set the price far below the local market value. Accepting it may have a detrimental effect on your quality, and your well-being. Some freelancers are afraid of asking for too much, however setting prices too low is to be discouraged. This doesn’t help the value of the ELT industry and moreover, it might draw your own credibility into question. Be prepared to justify your prices and the value your services will bring. Just like your marketing plan, how much to charge clients may always be in a state of flux. If your business becomes more successful you can consider charging higher prices. Monitor your income regularly and adjust as necessary to react to the changing market value and additional expenses you take on as a business owner. The first meeting Congratulations! A prospective client wants to discuss a training programme. Do your homework before you meet them: Google them, learn as much as you can about their industry. The size of the company, the number of employees, and whether it is public or private may have a strong influence on the amount of money they will be able to invest. During the meeting, money probably won’t be the first question on their minds. Some clients prefer to sit down and tell you what they want, while others expect you to give them an overview of your services. It’s crucial that you tailor what you offer to what you learn about the client: so ask lots of questions. When the conversation turns to money, don’t be shy, but also don’t feel obliged to quote a price spontaneously. Many clients expect a quote along with a detailed training programme (in the local language if you can), which can take a day or two to write. In the quote, it’s also advisable to include the conditions of payment, however, depending on the company (public or private), they may or may not be able to meet these conditions, so you may have to be flexible. Whatever the payment conditions are, be absolutely sure they appear in the final order/ proposal confirmations. Billing clients Surprisingly, many freelancers struggle with this area of their business. Some admit they feel uncomfortable asking for money while many forget to bill their clients. However, with all the balls you have to keep in the air, billing clients is a ball you shouldn’t drop - your livelihood depends on it! Send invoices that look professional. On them put your company logo (if you have one), your company information (address, phone numbers, email address, government- issued company and tax numbers if applicable), the title of the training, the dates and times, the hourly rate, the total, payment method and conditions. Some clients are better than others at paying on time. Sometimes, you may have to deal with a client that refuses to pay an invoice. In such cases, you should get assistance from an accountant or lawyer. Otherwise, expect delays, and be prepared to send friendly reminders. You should also budget accordingly so that you’re not under too much financial pressure if a client is a month or two late settling their invoice. Now that you’ve got some clients to be invoicing, you need to think about keeping them. We’ll be looking at this topic in the next article.   This article first appeared in the February 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.   © Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to the authors with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.Filed under: Professional Development Tagged: Becoming a freelancer, Bethany Cagnol, ELT, ELT professionals, Freelancing, Mike Hogan, Teaching adults

Image courtesy of Kapa65 Ian Brookes is a freelance writer and editor based in Scotland. He has edited a number of dictionaries and has written books about spelling, writing, and punctuation. In this post, he looks at the origins and use of animal-related adjectives in English. The names of animals are probably among the first things learnt by a student of a language, yet knowing the names of animals doesn’t always help when it comes to their associated adjectives—in fact, sometimes it can be downright confusing. Most of the formal adjectives that relate to animals are not derived from the common English names but are taken instead from the Latin name of each animal. So when you are talking about things to do with dogs, you use the adjective canine (from the Latin word canis) and when you are talking about things to do with horses, you use the adjective equine (from the Latin word equus). There is one of these Latin-derived adjectives for just about every animal you can think of, and some of them can be quite obscure even to native speakers. (Not many dictionaries bother to record ‘murine’, which is the Latin-inspired adjective that refers to mice, or ‘vespertilionine’, which refers to bats.) In a few cases the Latin name of an animal is similar to the common English name, and so it is easy to guess the meaning of adjectives such as elephantine. In most cases, however, there is not an obvious connection between the Latin-derived adjective and the English noun. Yet the common names of animals also give rise to adjectives: ‘horsey’, ‘doggy’, ‘catty’, ‘fishy’, and ‘ratty’ are perfectly respectable—if somewhat informal—English words. A few of these can be used to refer to the animals themselves, so you can talk about ‘a doggy smell’. On the whole, however, they are more likely to be applied to people or things that exhibit qualities associated with animals. In fact, it is possible to identify two distinct groups of adjectives that are formed from the common names of animals. Adjectives formed by adding the combining form -like to the name of an animal are usually neutral or even positive in tone (depending on the typical associations of the animal involved). Someone who moves in a stealthy manner might be called ‘catlike’, while a gentle person might be ‘lamb-like’. A more negative example is the use of ‘ostrich-like’ for people who ignore what is going on about them (a term that comes from the ostrich’s proverbial habit of burying its head in the sand). On the other hand, adjectives formed by adding the suffixes -y or -ish to the names of animals are predominantly negative: someone who is catty tends to say unkind and spiteful things about other people; someone who is sheepish is embarrassed because they have done something wrong; someone who is sluggish moves slowly and lazily; spidery handwriting has long, thin strokes that appear unattractive; someone who is waspish is aggressive and bad-tempered. So if you come across an adjective that looks as though it is derived from the name of an animal, the first thing to be aware of is that these words usually don’t refer to the animals themselves: people might be sheepish, but sheep are not. It is also worth noting that when these words are used to describe people, the comparison is often not a complimentary one.Filed under: Dictionaries & Reference, Grammar & Vocabulary, Uncategorized Tagged: Animal adjectives, English Language, English spelling, Etymology, Grammar, Ian Brookes, OALD, Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

I am shattered at this point, and unlikely to be coherent in my writing or organised in my thinking, but here are my early impressions of my first eLearning Africa conference. I will unpack some aspects in greater depth in due course.Of course, everything runs on 'African time'. The shuttles are late, the dignitaries are late, the food is late. The queues are long and the sun is hot, oh, and impala stroll around the grounds of the conference centre. This is very definitely Africa.There is a craft market on the grounds as well, but my only visit to it resulted in my being mobbed on all sides by insistent, wheedling vendors, each with a sob story about transport money or sick mothers/children. I struggle to cope with that kind of thing, so I fled empty-handed, to my deep disappointment.Also, there have been displays of drumming and dancing every day. The costumes are charming and the skills demonstrated are impressive. The Europeans in attendance were entranced. But one bishop standing behind me in today's lunch queue labelled it an embarrassment. He considered it irrelevant both to elearning and progress in general. I guess he saw it as a perpetuation of the stereotype from which Africa is trying to escape. He was adamant that this tradition was unhelpful to the nation. I guess I can see his point.The shuttles have been utterly haphazard. Each one is manned by a driver and a... well, I don't know what the other guy is, to be honest. I do know that the 'other guy' on our shuttle is about the most efficient man in Lusaka and his frustration is running high at the ineptitude. We often arrive at one hotel (having been sent there by the handlers back at whatever co-ordination centre exists) only to find another bus (or two) at the same place, while frantic phone calls from other delegates indicate that their hotels have not been visited by any buses at all.The lunches have also proved tricky, due to the fact that hundreds and hundreds of people arrived unexpectedly to enrol for the conference, causing a major headache for the organisers.This has proved by far the biggest eLearning Africa conference to date. The Zambian government is enormously proud of this fact, but I'm not sure that it is an unequivocally positive fact. African culture is one of natural deference to elders in society. As a consequence, many of the attendees are, well, venerable is the most polite term I can think of. It is evident that they have little or no connection with the subject matter under discussion and several of them seem to doze their way through the sessions.At the other end of the spectrum, for some reason, the minister of education has seen fit to have hordes of children in attendance. For almost all these children, English is their second language and both the content and the language used in the presentations are highly unlikely to be engaging for them.My biggest surprise has been the source of the most active and outspoken resistance to the concept of using elearning in education. It has been the intelligent, articulate, savvy early-20s crowd who have stood up and declared that Africa is not ready for elearning, or that the culture of elearning is not a good fit. I will unpack this in greater detail in a review of my own session at a later date.I have also been surprised at the complete lack of understanding of the concept of 'workplace learning' or 'corporate learning' (pick your simile). Not just the term, but the 'thing' itself... even when you call it staff training. If it isn't formal education conducted by an accrediting institution, it isn't learning. More of that anon, too.But everyone is incredibly friendly. Total strangers chat like old friends. The Zambians are astonishingly gracious and willing, but they are hamstrung by the fact that an awful lot of stuff just doesn't work... or doesn't work properly, from the Internet connection to the power supply to the roads (oh, and don't bother trying to cross the road at a pedestrian crossing, those white stripes appear to be no more than just a fashion choice!).I have readily been accepted as an African, which took me by surprise. I call myself an African woman, which is unusual for a white South African (it also very unusual for people from the extreme north of Africa (Saharan and supra-Saharan Africa). For many, even in Africa, African = black, but when I introduce myself as and African girl living in England, this has been accepted without question and with a great deal of approval in some cases. Just today at lunch, I was chatting with two Zimbabwean women who were seated beside me, when a Kenyan man called out from the other side of the table, "You know, you are a very African woman!" He explained how, watching my body language and listening to my intonation, he was suddenly able to see beyond my fair skin. I assured him that I saw myself in the same light and that I took this as a huge compliment. The conversation at my table flowed fast, and in numerous directions simultaneously.The food has been very much local fare, and no explanation is forthcoming as the ingredients of any of the dishes. I asked what was in a dish called chiwawa and was told, "Chiwawa". I was at a loss to explain that I already had this much information, and needed more (I have since learned that it is made of pumpkin leaves with onion and tomato).I have made many new contacts, but I am doubtful as to whether it will lead to business opportunities.C'est la vie.It's been fun.

Image courtesy of Colin K on Flickr How do you check your students’ comprehension of a concept or skill? Stacey Hughes, former teacher and current teacher trainer in the Professional Development team at Oxford University Press, shares some ideas for checking students are on the right track. Aren’t students tested enough? Surely the last thing students need is more tests! Continuous assessment is not the same as testing. For one thing, tests are marked or graded whereas continuous assessment isn’t. Continuous assessments are quick checks for the purpose of letting the teacher and student know if more revision is needed. They are also useful for keeping track of progress between more formal tests. Ideas for continuous assessment Below are some ideas for quick checks teachers can use throughout the year. Reading speed quick check: Give students a text to read from the course book or a graded reader. Make sure it is the right level for the class or student. Ask the students to read for exactly one minute. Stop them and ask them to mark the last word they read. Ask them to count the number of words they were able to read in one minute and note it down. Repeat this several times during the term so that students can see if their reading speed is increasing. If it is not, remind them of reading strategies: guessing unknown words from context, skipping unknown words, reading groups of words rather than single words, etc. Listening for gist quick check: Give students a short listening that is at their level. Play the listening once, ask students to discuss what they understood, then play it again. This time, ask students to write a short (1 sentence) summary of what the listening was about. For example: The listening was about the dangers of mountain climbing. At first, students will find this difficult to do and the focus is not on grammatically correct sentences, but on conveying the main idea. Repeat this many times during the term to see if students are improving their ability to understand the main idea of things they listen to. This will also show students if they need to do more listening outside of class and if they need to work on their listening for gist skills. Vocabulary quick check: Write any new vocabulary from the lesson on the board for students to copy down. Ask them to put a tick next to words they feel they can remember the meaning of, a cross next to words they can’t remember and a star * next to words they feel they know really well and can use in a sentence. This will let students know which words to study more and, if you collect the papers, you will quickly see which words need revision in the next lessons. Grammar quick check: Grammar quick checks can focus on form or use. So, for example, if you were teaching present continuous for making arrangements, you could ask the students to write the answers to your questions:a. What do I need to remember about the form of the present simple? (e.g. BE + base form + ing) b. Are there any spelling rules to remember? (e.g. drop the -e and add - ing) c. What have we been using the present continuous for today? (e.g. making arrangements to do something together) These could be collected and checked by you or you could give the answers and ask students to check their own. Ask students if they were able to answer. If they could they can feel like they have learned something and if not, they know what to study. Ticket out the door: Any of the above assessments can be used as a student’s ‘ ticket out the door’. Continuous assessment isn’t new. Teachers naturally assess whether or not their students have understood or mastered a concept or skill before moving on. This non-graded formative assessment is also valuable for students for several reasons. Firstly, it clarifies what content or skills the teacher thinks are important to learn which enables students to review relevant material. Secondly, it shows students the relevance of classroom activities. If performance on tasks is assessed - even informally - then students are more likely to understand why the activity was important. Finally, continuous or formative assessment helps students realise where they are in relation to where they should be in terms of skills and abilities.   This article first appeared in the January 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development, Skills Tagged: Assessment, EFL, Grammar, Reading Tests, Stacey Hughes