Olha Madylus, an experienced teacher and teacher trainer gives her thoughts on the first of our Solutions Speaking Challenges: ‘My students keep making the same mistakes’. As teachers we may despair of marking our students’ written work and writing that ‘C+ must try harder’ at the bottom of their compositions, but let’s spare a thought for those poor students, who may after all be trying as hard as they can. First let’s admit it - writing is hard! They are on their own Students face a number of challenges producing correct and appropriate texts. For a start it is usually a solitary task, often given as homework and therefore unsupported. In class students can find support from each other doing pair or group work and also from their teacher. Writing a composition for homework, they often don’t know how to help themselves. *Consider allowing students to write compositions collaboratively in class, especially when writing long texts is new to them. Topics can be uninspiring  How easy would we find it to write something interesting (let alone grammatically correct) on the topics given. While practising other skills it is possible to be genuinely communicative and even have fun, but this is rare in writing practice. *Consider allowing students to choose their own topics to write about; doing creative writing; tapping into the interests of the students. Too much feedback is counter-productive When it comes to motivation, students often feel a great sense of failure when they have writing returned to them covered in red ink, with each mistake highlighted. It is not easy to know how to pick yourself up and start again. If our students are teenagers this is particularly difficult. They may put on a show of not caring, but teens find criticism very painful and may feel great frustration in not understanding exactly how they can redress their weaknesses in writing. *Consider being selective about what you mark; marking positively; reducing the word count of written tasks so that students can focus on quality rather than quantity. Writing is a difficult skill even in our mother tongue - consider how often we have to write continuous impressive prose in our lives, especially when texting and emails encourage short abbreviated text. There are many skills involved in producing good compositions. We should not expect students to be able to write well without breaking down the skills and practising them separately. Footballers practise shooting at the goal, dribbling, tactics etc. They are not simply asked to turn up at the match and play the game! These are just some of the skills needed to produce good writing: Correct grammar Range of vocabulary Accurate punctuation Correct layout Correct register Accurate spelling Good range of sentence structures Linking Imagination Planning Drafting Proof reading Communication I am sure you can think of more! Rather than expecting students to put all these skills together, we must consider how to break them up, practise them effectively and gradually combine them - on the journey of developing writing. Students sometimes get register confused when writing. This activity helps them to recognise style/register. Hand out this list to students, or pop in onto a PowerPoint slide and display each line one at a time: Once upon a time… I regret to inform you… All my love, Boris xxx She grabbed the gun and pointed it at Dillon.  Add two tablespoons of sugar and stir… Ask students to consider, discuss and then suggest where they think these are taken from and why. For example, the first one must be from a children’s story, because it’s formulaic. To expand the activity, ask students to work in pairs and add one more line either before or after using the same register. Check together if they sound correct. This type of task (which doesn’t have to take a lot of class time) helps focus students on the conventions of different styles of writing. It can be used if you notice that students are using incorrect register in their writing assignments to raise awareness.Filed under: Teenagers Tagged: English Language, ESL, Solutions, Solutions writing challenge, Teenagers

Excerpts from the Educause Live! Program on "The Future of Fair Use" by Steve Anderson, PhD, Director, Media Arts + Practice Ph.D. Program and Assistant Professor of Interactive Media, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California Copyright Fair Use Resources Rod's Annotated Bookmarks on Fair Use Creative Commons Critical Commons - for Fair & Critical Participation in Media Culture Center for Social Media Fair Use Evaluator Digital Millennium Copyright Act Title 17 of the United States Code § 107 Podsafe music selection from Music Alley "Don't Be Long: The Beatles v Elken", a Beatles "Blue Jay Way" mashup by Elken, a 60's influenced band from Dublin, Ireland Duration: 20:21

EFL teacher, teacher trainer and Principal of St. Giles International, Keith Harding has authored and co-authored several courses published by Oxford University Press. To mark the release of stunning new video material for International Express, Keith Harding and Rachel Appleby have prepared a series of four articles to be used alongside units within the course. Today, Keith shares some ideas and video resources for Elementary Unit 6 - Santiago, Chile, focusing on comparative and superlative adjectives. The introduction of video as a learning medium in the classroom needn’t mean passive learning, or a risk of students ‘switching off’ from being engaged. The key to maximising learning potential, as with any listening or reading text, is to prepare and predict. Before watching: Here are some ideas for preparatory work, before watching the video: Countries and cities Show the picture of Santiago from the video as a still image. Where is it? Which continent? Which country? Ask students in pairs to write down as many South American countries and cities as possible. This can be done as a team race - for example, the first team to name five countries and five cities. Show an outline map of South America (from the Internet, or an atlas or wall map of the world if you’ve got one). Locate the cities and countries. Comparatives and superlatives Use the list of cities/countries (and the map) to make comparative and superlative sentences. Which is the largest/smallest country? Which is the most beautiful/the highest city? Examples could be: Brazil is larger than Chile; Argentina is further south than Chile. Use Chile as much as possible, as the video is about Santiago and Chile. Practise the language What do you know about or think you know about Santiago? Consider: Location Scenery Buildings Things to do Tourist attractions To prompt show four stills from the video, such as: Map of South America (1:40) City buildings (2:16) Church (2:50) Scenery and city (3:11) While watching: To maximise the learning opportunities, set tasks for students to focus on throughout watching. Remember: tasks can be graded to the level of the learners, even if the content is not. This will involve you having to press pause, rewind, and also the sound-off or mute button, in some cases. Silent play Play the whole video (or just a section) with the sound down. Have your students write down what they see, particularly the objects and places, and then compare with a partner. If you wanted to make this more interactive, get the students to stand back-to-back with a partner - one will look at the screen, whilst the other looks away. The student facing the screen describes to their partner what they can see, and the student facing away writes down the words. They swap roles halfway through. Then rewind the video or section and have them watch it back together, to see how much they identified or what they might have missed. Stand up! Give each student a letter - A, B, C, and D. They must stand up every time they hear a word from one of the following categories: A: a word for a building B: a word for scenery C: a comparative D: a superlative After watching the video: Follow-up tasks and activities will help to reinforce the language and will also provide the opportunity for more communicative and interactive language practice. Vocabulary work on other world places: Country (e.g. UK) Capital (e.g. London) Language (e.g. English) People (e.g. British) Speaking activities Why not try out these activities, taken from the video worksheet that comes with the International Express Teacher’s Resource Book DVD. All the worksheets are also available for free here. You just need your Oxford Teacher’s Club log-in details to view them. Make a film Ask students to make their own film about one of the cities they have researched on the Internet, or of their own city/country. It might not be possible to actually make the film (although this could always be filmed on a mobile phone, for ease), but the students can plan the film (frame by frame) and write the script (using the Santiago script as a model). I hope you enjoy trying out some of these activities in class! In the next article in this series, Rachel Appleby will be exploring the Selexyz bookstore video from the Pre-Intermediate level. Look out for it next week.Filed under: Multimedia & Digital, Young Learners Tagged: Bringing Online Video into the Classroom, Classroom activities, EFL, ELT, free online lesson plan, International Express, Keith Harding, video-based learning, Young Learners

Ray Henderson Interview: Ray Henderson, President of Blackboard's teaching and learning division, Blackboard Learn Hear about the key differences for faculty between Angel and Blackboard 9.1 Hear about Blackboard's future direction, including How the purchase of iStrategy relates to Blackboard Outcomes Blackboard Resources Blackboard Learn Blackboard Learn: On Demand Learning Center Ray Henderson's Bb Blog Rod's Annotated Bookmarks on Blackboard Podsafe music selection from Music Alley Kiss This! (Hey IRS)" by Robert Lund of the Funny Music Project, a parody of Faith Hill's "This Kiss" Duration: 21:23

Have you ever noticed how, whenever you're going through something, everyone always knows exactly what you should be doing and how you should be feeling?New mothers with tiny infants are told exactly how they should be handling the business of being a Mom and how they should feel about all the things their new babies do. Newly bereaved people are told exactly how they should be responding and are given only X amount of time before the good graces of friends start to wear out because they really should be over it by now.And my situation is, of course, no different. Everyone knows exactly how I should be feeling. And it seems the one thing I should not be feeling is guilt. "You've done nothing wrong!" they assure me. And they're right... in a way. But that changes nothing.I guess I've known on some subconscious level that there are different kinds of guilt, but right now, I'm neck deep in it, and am intimately acquainted with it.As a practising Christian, I subscribe to the notion of sin, repentance and redemption. I do. And when I sin, I experience guilt. So I seek forgiveness. And - I believe - I get it.But that doesn't have bearing here. Because, of course, not all failings are sinful. And, if I were the only one to be impacted by the failure of my business, I could handle that.But I'm not.Yes, my business is a limited liability company, and so my personal assets are not forfeit to the collapse of the business. But, the collapse of the business has meant a loss of income. And my failure to find an alternative source of income does place our personal assets at risk.And this is where the guilt comes in.You see, my husband works extraordinarily hard. He always has. It's the nature of the man. He currently commutes two hours each way, every day. Scooter, train, tube, train, walk. He would prefer not to, and when he started at the company, the plan was to move his role to a town 20 minutes' drive from our home. But the recession put paid to that idea. So he continues to commute, two years later.He hasn't failed at anything. He continues to work to the same standard. He continues to earn the same salary. But he still stands to lose his personal assets (including, under extreme circumstances, his home).Now you can paint that any colour you want, but I did that, and I have to live with it. He is not angry with me. Good grief, what kind of man would he be if he did? He fully supports me in every way.I have been harangued fore and aft for feeling guilty over this. I have been told I shouldn't because it doesn't make sense on a logical level. I have even been told that my guilt is unChristian and sinful, because it is tantamount to saying that I don't accept God's forgiveness. I simply cannot get people to understand that I don't believe I need to be forgiven.I tried to explain it to one person like this:You are told that you have to hold out two 5kg weights at arm's length and at shoulder height. The moment you let them drop, someone large and powerful is going to slap your husband (wife, son, daughter) humiliatingly in the face and kick him in the stomach. So you hold those weights. You hold them beyond endurance. But eventually, you simply cannot. You are not capable. You reach the end of your ability, and you are forced to let them drop. Your husband is duly slapped and kicked.Now tell me you don't feel guilty.You didn't sin. But you did fail. The task was beyond your capability, you were not able to perform it, and he paid the price.Okay, it's a simplistic analogy, but please tell me you get my drift. Sometimes you fail without sinning/wrongdoing. But you still fail. And you still feel guilty when your failure hurts the ones you love.Surely this is perfectly reasonable?On a side note, permit me to brag. My husband had a long talk with our younger son (the older one is out of the country on a gap year) about the possible implications of our situation. He asked him what worried him most. Did my 17 year old talk about the loss of the nice big house? Did he express concern that his driving lessons could be forfeit? Did he worry about not being able to afford the lifestyle he currently enjoys? No. He said he was worried about the impact on my well-being. He was concerned that I would feel like a failure and that my confidence would take a knock.In the midst of everything falling down around my ears, that strikes me as a success story, wouldn't you say? We must have done something right. I am so proud of his lack of selfishness that I could just burst.

Interview: Ray Henderson, President of Blackboard Learn Learn about Blackboard's ePortfolios offerings, and Open Database Inititative Open-source competition Blackboard Resources Blackboard Learn Blackboard Learn: On Demand Learning Center Ray Henderson's Bb Blog Rod's Annotated Bookmarks on Blackboard Podsafe music selection from Music Alley  "Midnight" by singer/song writer Adrina Thorpe from the album "Halflight & Shadows" Duration: 21:03

Interview: Dr. Mark Nestor, Associate Provost and Chief Information Officer at the University of the Sciences in PhiladelphiaPanopto Focus Lecture CaptureLecture capture systems offer important benefits: an alternative when students miss class; an opportunity for content review; and content for online course development Podsafe music selection from Music Alley"California Dreamin" by The Mamas and The PapasDuration: 21:36

Aisha Walker, Associate Professor of Technology, Education and Learning at Leeds University, introduces her webinar, Technology Enhanced Language Learning, hosted by Oxford University Press on February 25th and 26th. As I lead an MA programme in TESOL and ICT I frequently see draft student assignments that open with a sentence such as: "Technology is increasingly important in the world today." The student may then go on to say that today’s learners are ‘digital natives’, that technology motivates and engages students and that all teachers should be using more of it.  Luckily, because we offer students the opportunity to get feedback on drafts before submission, I can catch these broad statements and ask students to be more measured and more critical in their approaches to concepts such as the ‘digital native’ or ‘technology for learner motivation’. So why should language teachers make use of digital technologies?  I see two main reasons although there may be other pressures such as institutional policies (if a school has spent a lot of money on a new online learning environment, for example, they will want teachers to use it).  The first reason is that digital media are part of the way that we use language in the real world.  Much of our day-to-day communication is mediated by digital tools including email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, What’s App and much more.  These tools are normal sites of language use and it is as important to explore these with learners as it is to explore older media such as newspapers and radio (now often online, of course). The second reason is that technology can provide solutions to some of the problems that we encounter as language teachers.  For example, in the context of a single-language classroom there is little reason for students to communicate in the target language except that the teacher tells them to.  Digital tools may enable them to communicate with an audience outside the classroom, for example by posting blogs or videos either to a general audience or in partnership with a class of learners elsewhere.  Whilst I do not believe that technology is intrinsically motivating, novelty and variety do engage and motivate students.  Technology offers plenty of novel possibilities from new ways of presenting material to new games for language practice. In summary, digital tools and media are part of everyday language use and should, therefore, be part of language learning.  In addition, the range of possibilities offered by digital tools mean that there are many ways in which technology can enhance language learning. But… ‘learners are digital natives’? It’s more complicated than that! To explore how using everyday digital tools and media can be part of language learning, join us for Aisha’s upcoming webinar Technology Enhanced Language Learning.Filed under: Multimedia & Digital, Professional Development, Skills Tagged: EdTech, Educational technology, EFL, ESL, Language learning, Technology in education

Jane Hart has shared her journey from elearning to social business in this blog post. Her journey has similarities to my own... and perhaps to yours.Jane is probably one of the best known advocates of the use of social media for business performance. She and the other members of the Internet Time Alliance (Jay Cross, Clark Quinn, Harold Jarche and Charles Jennings) are running a workshop in London next week. If you're an L&D professional (other than a consultant to whom the invitation is not extended), you might want to find out if there are any spaces open.This could change your professional practice.Seriously.

Interview: Donald Doane, CEO, ConnectYard Inc.ConnectYard a centralized social media communications platform that seamlessly integrates Facebook, Twitter and video as well as text messaging with popular Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard, to better engage students and expand overall institutional communication.Podsafe music selection from Music Alley"50 Ways to Lose Your Luggage" by Robert Lund of the Funny Music ProjectDuration: 15:42