September 2, 2011
by annavarna
4 Comments

Together Together

I read Alone Together by Sherry Turkle and it made a deep impression on me. This morning, I watched a presentation on augmented reality and I must confess I was bewildered if not disturbed.
Let me explain starting with the book: Sherry Turkle is a psychoanalytic anthropologist who was a member of faculty at MIT, during the first days of computers, and has been studying their relationships with people, our perceptions of self and emotional intelligence since then. Her first books as she says were optimistic about where this journey would take us. She was observant enough to see computers bring philosophy into everyday life and self reflection as well. But, naturally, she was not one to accept that computers were “just” a tool: “I was certain that the “just” in that sentence was deceiving. We are shaped by our tools. And now, the computer, a machine on the border of becoming a mind, was changing and shaping us.”
This latest book however, no matter how balanced it is, is not optimistic. At least for me. She sketches a society where people are so tethered to their various devices and virtual social circles they neglect their people, their jobs and sometimes themselves. She presents some cases that could be said to be extreme examples. But the general idea she gives agrees with the image we can see around us. An image where “technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities. And as it turns out, we are very vulnerable indeed. We are lonely but fearful intimacy. Digital connections and the sociable robot may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship”.
Her conclusions have been sometimes painfully familiar and they have made me reflect on the last three years of my life in the virtual world. For me discovering this world (quite late, because I was not a pioneer of the IRC or chatrooms) was what Turkle describes as a “dazzling breadth of connection”. But getting connected with all these new people and keeping up with them doesn’t come without a cost. I hope I wasn’t one of those mums she describes that neglected their kids to text their friends. What I have gained is new friends and I wouldn’t change that. I can totally relate with what the writer describes as “erosion of boundaries between the real and the virtual”. My virtual friends have special places in my heart and I do not regret the time I invested in getting to know them. Turkle says that “networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we can feel utterly alone. And there is the risk that we come to see others as objects to accessed – and only the parts we find useful, comforting, or amusing.” But in order to be part of a wider professional community it is a risk I am willing to take.
What resonates even more with me, are the stories of young people she describes. My students may be in primary school but they are becoming increasingly connected. Moreover the way these children grow up, with parents all the more dependent on mobile technologies, surely affects the way they are at school and their expectations. My concern is not the way people learn and pick up what they need has changed. I welcome this change and I am very interested in incorporating into my classes. What worries me is the pace this is happening. Turkle says about the pace of relationships online: “One quickly moves from infatuation to disillusionment and back. And the moment one grows even slightly bored, there is easy access to someone new”. Sometimes I am afraid this is happening in classrooms all over the world. I am not saying that teachers should keep to their old ways, because those worked for them. The world has changed beyond recognition and schools should change too. In another fascinating book I read this summer “A new culture of learning” by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown emphasizes how we can use this new reality to benefit education. The writers draw many of their examples from the world of online games and show how learning happens there. However, this constant hunt for new pleasures, for more excitement in the classroom leaves me breathless and none the more satisfied.

Augmented Reality (AR) in Education

View more presentations from Steve Yuen

Yesterday morning just before I left for the first day of school (first day for teachers) I saw this presentation and I was stunned. 3D technology in class! I can immediately think of how many applications it can have especially for science related subjects. And it would be cool. But I also wonder that once we start wearing these special caps, or glasses or whatever, we are going to miss yet another piece of real life around us. (And now that I’m rereading what I wrote yesterday I think I have become a grumpy old teacher who’s afraid to try anything new. The concern new inventions will destroy the world as we know it is as old as Socrates who damned the advent of alphabet because it would mean loss of memory)
Of course, my reality is very far from even approaching what Turkle describes and Steve Yuen shows. Our school is probably low tech compared to other schools even in Greece and no matter how infatuated with our mobiles we Greeks are we are very far from becoming like the people the book depicts. If for nothing else because our culture is not so job oriented as other societies. Turkle for example mentions many times that people find calls more and more intrusive and they prefer to text their colleagues or friends in order to be more effective. This is not happening here (yet). Privacy is not so valued and my personal joke about it, is that for example my parents in law completely ignored the meaning of the word tactful.
In a few days educators all over the world will be welcoming new and old students in their classrooms. Some (me included) are already planning how best to use Skype and Glogster and even Facebook to communicate, to support, to stimulate their students. Let’s share our concerns and doubts on how to best do that. Let’s also take a step back, to take in the whole picture and reflect. Let’s not be Alone Together but Together Together! Looking forward to your comments and ideas!

July 6, 2011
by annavarna
3 Comments

My favourite videos this year

Thanks to Mike Harrison for inspiration to share some of the videos I used this year with my classes. I teach young learners from grade 3 to grade 6. I used these videos with different classes for different purposes.

1. Drawing Inspiration

I used this video with grade six to revise the narrative use of Present Simple. But it was also an excellent opportunity to discuss about inspiration to teach the word predictable, to elicit possible endings. What I liked most was that they went home and showed it to their parents as well and they would come to class discussing various options. “My mum says the artist was the kid with the ball”, one boy said and I thought it was a good activity if they went home to discuss it like this…

2. Early Flight Attempts

Grade 6 again. There was a Unit in our coursebook about Flying. It is a very interesting unit about the inventors behind flying, about the mechanics of flying. The only problem with this unit is that there is so much material you bring in. It is used to teach Past Simple and Pat Continuous, to teach how to write biographies, how to talk and write about paintings, plus a huge vocabulary bank most of which is virtually unknown to 12-year-old Greek students. The labelling the plane parts exercise is infamously disliked by most teachers. I like it though because I see it as an opportunity. So among all these things I thought it was a good idea to show students this short video about early attempts to fly. Apart from helping revise simple past verbs (run, jump, fly, move, etc) I saw it as an opportunity to show the importance of failing!

3. We are what we do (intro)

Grade 5. This is a video I have used the last two years with considerable success. It was used for Unit 5, Ready For Action which is a unit about environmental sensitivity, about pollution and what children can do to change the world.

4. Animal Sounds

Grade 3 and 4. This is by far my favourite video this year. It was an instant hit and was used for many purposes. In one activity students had to write the names of the animals (20 in all), in another to recognise the letters, in a third one to say the sounds (video played soundless). All in all it was very popular and for days if not for weeks they would sing it in the corridors. And it was one of the videos they always asked to be replayed!

So these were some of the videos I used this year in my classes. What about you?

July 3, 2011
by annavarna
2 Comments

David Crystal and our collective experience

I just got a Kindle. I was resisting the temptation for some time now, but as the saying has it, the best way to eliminate temptation is to succumb to it, so there you have it: My Kindle is here and I’m trying to get the hang of it.

Last night I was reading David Crystal’s book “Just a phrase I’m going through”. I’ve read other books of his and I love his sense of humour and his ability to explain plus his academic expertise. Especially this one is like a biography of us all because he describes how he became a linguist and I’m sure his experiences will echo with a lot of us.

I haven’t read all of it yet, just the first 40 or 50 pages but already I have made notes on things that have reminded me of discussions we are having here:

There was an incident he was describing about how he learnt the plural of the word “plant” in Welsh which means child apparently. He mentions how for some time he was under the impression that it was just another meaning of the English word plant actually and that it seemed natural to him because children grow like plants do. Well, that immediately reminded me of David Warr and his language garden and how we teachers are sometimes like gardeners.
Further on Crystal is talking about how his early exposure to two languages (Welsh and English) might have given him a linguistic sensitivity that made him the eminent linguist we all know today. That reminded me a discussion we were having earlier yesterday with Mark Andrews who wrote about his early experiences from other cultures and how this shaped his motivation to learn a second language. Mark was lucky enough to have travelled to other countries when he was a young boy. I am convinced myself that travelling motivates learners a lot. Unfortunately it isn’t something easily done especially where my students are located. They live in a landlocked area and they most come from low income agricultural families, among whom travelling to another country is a remote dream at the best of cases. But even for my family, although we love travelling, we haven’t been able to take our daughter to a trip abroad. That’s why I think that projects that include student mobility like Comenius partnerships, or even eTwinning collaborations that bring students in touch with students from other cultures are essential elements of our teaching.
The third point in the book that revived a conversation held in blogosphere was the paragraph he claims a linguist is like an actor. I will copy this paragraph because I think it’s interesting and it relates to my previous post about our language personalities:

“It must be helpful to have some acting in the blood if you’re going to end up a linguist. When you learn a foreign language you adopt a new persona. You don’t just talk differently, you hold yourself differently, you look different, you talk about different things and in different ways. “I think you always feel braver in another language” said Anita Brookner, in a newspaper article a few years ago. This must be why there are so many quotations around by famous people explain that they use different languages for different purposes such as former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s comment: “When I have tense relations with my wife, we speak in Arabic, When we talk business then we speak English. And when our relation is better, then we talk French.” ….Emerging into a new language is just like entering into a new character. You learn its foibles, its strengths, its weaknesses. And when you try to speak it, you have to enter into the activity totally, otherwise you will not be convincing….”

In Tyson Seburnt’s blog we were discussing something similar about role-playing and the importance of names. I agree with him that we teachers shouldn’t try to impose anglicized names to our students just for our convenience. But I also suggested that maybe our students (especially the young ones) want to take up a different name because it gives them a new identity to play with, and it (probably) makes language learning easier.

So, that was it. Just in chapter 4 of the book and already so many connections with so many teachers in so many places. Enjoy you Sunday wherever you are and I’m going to my veranda to keep on reading.

June 16, 2011
by annavarna
13 Comments

What’s your language personality?

Good morning people! This blog was a bit dormant lately but now is school is out there are no more excuses for me not to write. And the problem is not that we have run out of ideas. Quite the contrary, the ideas keep coming at all times. Nevertheless, I wasn’t able to find the time, the motivation or the inspiration to put them down. Let’s see if I can correct that now!

Today I am going to write about a topic that I have been thinking for some time now, probably for years. I am non native speaker of English. I learnt English in Greece and I have lived in an English speaking country for a short summer in 1998. (Manchester, I miss you). I have had a number or teachers from different countries, from the USA, from Canada, my personal favourite, a petite, super energetic Ms Tina from Australia, a couple of teachers from the UK. That is to say I have had a number of influences as far as accents are concerned. Many years ago, when I was a young, insecure teacher I was a bit self-conscious of my own accent. But now I have been emancipated and I feel confident about it. Well, you know, reading can do this to people…

What concerns me lately is not how I speak but what I say. Let me explain. All of us believe we have interesting personalities and naturally want to show these when we speak another language. It is actually a recurring problem when you teach adults: the fact that they have all these ideas they want to share and all they can say are a few elementary phrases. It’s pure frustration. And my question is this: IS there a time when our native language personalities come out when we speak a foreign language? I have been learning English for 31 years and sometimes I feel I am not as fluent as I would like. Words don’t come easy, especially the informal words, the idioms, the slang of the language, the jokes. Maybe because living where I live (in the middle of a valley, with minimum interaction with native speakers) my communication with foreign people are mostly written.

But I don’t think it is personal matter only. I observed a huge difference in a teacher I know recently. She is a very experienced teacher, a well-read person, someone who keeps reading and developing. She is also a very lively person, with a sense of humour, someone you enjoy being with. She is a teacher trainer and usually she gives her presentations in English. For some reason she gave one of her latest presentations in Greek and it was like watching a metamorphosis going on. In Greek she was a much deeper person, with many layers, referring to common experiences and memories. I’m not sure if I can even begin to relay the experience but suddenly I realized that her English, no matter how fluent and grammatically correct was a bit sterile. And I immediately felt the same for myself.

As I’m writing this I realize that there are many implications for our teaching. How do you teach these elements of the language? I am also pretty sure that if I lived in an English speaking country for some time, these elements would come more naturally to me. But how do I simulate this situation in class? Is it really possible? I would be more than delighted to read your opinions about this! Tell me also, do you feel the same when you speak a foreign language? And are there differences between languages? For me I can safely say that my “Spanish speaking” personality is closer to my “English speaking” personality.

Looking forward to your contributions!

April 10, 2011
by annavarna
9 Comments

My weekend at ISTEK

Last year, while I was watching on line the 1st ISTEK International ELT Conference, I promised myself I would be there at the second one. This year I made that promise come true! And I went there and I had the most fantastic time.

I am not very experienced in international conferences, this was actually my third one but it has certainly been the best so far. And the interesting thing is that people who have been to many conferences agree with this opinion. Maybe because it is a manageable conference, where you can attend interesting lectures and workshops and at the same time actually meet people, interact with them and form friendships and connections.
The program of the conference was really enriching and innovative but what was even more satisfying were the discussions that were taking place after each talk or workshop during breakfast, lunch or dinner!
So because I am still intoxicated by Istanbul and its atmosphere let me just list the highlights of this conference as I experienced it.

– The private phonetics lesson by Dede Wilson during breakfast. Priceless. I have already used one of her activities to the enjoyment of my students.
– The secret of Shelly Terrell and how she manages to do so many things in her life. I am going to reveal all: Shelly hardly sleeps!
– The amazing stories Jan Blake told to a full auditorium and how she engaged her 1000-people audience into acting out sounds and words and phrases. Nobody was afraid to seem silly or childish; we all enjoyed it and admired her talent and commitment.
– The even more amazing bits of her life Jan narrated to us, while walking in Gulhane Park, on the way to catch a boat.
– Giving a short interview to Mark Andrews, our never tiring Roving Reporter.
– Tweeting live during the plenary talks and sitting next to different people each time and learning from them. Thanks Valentina for Hootsuite quick lesson!

– The discussion with Evridiki on the bus back to Taksim. Vital issues came up: Are (our) ELT gurus getting older or is it just that we are getting more critical of them? Is Facebook as appreciated as twitter or is there a condescending attitude towards it? Do teenage daughters really get dizzy on buses or are they just trying to attract our attention?
– The story of how Nicky’s daughter taught herself to play the guitar through YouTube.
– The late night dinner with delicious pizza we ordered at the dormitory after PechaKucha night. Greek people are infamous late eaters and we proved our reputation right. The good thing was leftover pizza saved us from starvation the next day: anxious for our workshop, Marina and me skipped lunch and coffee and snacks. Thank (any) god for cold pizza!
– Our dancing in Bosphorus!
– Meeting with Joel and Lenka and Julie and discussing our eurolib project, a project I would like to have taken part in, from the beginning. Thank you Joel from bringing me in!
– Joel’s invention of a fountain game!
– Burcu’s organizing, coordinating, motivating and inspiring abilities! What a woman!
– Hospitality at the Conference – we were dined and wined so well we felt like distinguished guests.
– David Hill’s talk on creativity in the classroom. An old skool talk that showed how a teacher can be absolutely captivating even without slides.
– Ania’s workshop on drilling was funny and demanding at the same time! Hard work trying to learn Polish!
– Meeting Arjana, Julie, Eva, Joel, Evridiki, Mark, Rakesh, Ed, Mike, David, Luke, Claire, Elizabeth, Ilia, Ania, Mark, Nick, Helen, Shirley, for the first time in real life. Most of them I had met on line before and real life just proved that the friendships we form on line are usually with like minded people whom we would like to meet face to face as well.

– Meeting Shelly, Petra, Marisa, Jamie, Gavin, Nicky, Ken, Dede, Sue, Lindsay, Russell, Ozge, Beyza, Burcu, again. I had only met them last year briefly but they already felt like good friends!
– Meeting Sebnem again and sharing her joy about her talented 15-year-old daughter whose film premiered that week in Istanbul!
– Talking with Russell Stunnard and proving once more what a small world this is: we managed to find when our paths had crossed again, many years ago in Seville and we even have a common acquaintance!
– Working with my school advisor, mentor and friend Marina. Thank you for everything!
– Above all: Magnetic, enchanting, colourful, intoxicating Istanbul, metropolis of the south. Teşekkürler!

UPDATED: You can find more accounts about what this phenomenal conference was like here:

– David Dogson: 6 Reflections from ISTEK

– Mark Andrews: Our star roving reporter keeps uploading videos and reviews from the conference even a week later

(the video we made with Mark on the boat in Bosporus is actually here)

March 29, 2011
by annavarna
7 Comments

Hello!!! Is the kid inside you alive?

Hello world! I haven’t written for some time because it has been hectic around here. Sometimes I am envious of people I know in other countries who achieve so many things and seem to work 24/7. Don’t they ever sleep? I’m talking to you Shelly? J

But then I tell my friend Olga about my worries and she says Anna please don’t say this to anyone of your friends because you are going to depress them. Anyway, here I am again, blogging about teaching, development and my favourite young learners.

Six years ago when I had to make the decision whether to work in primary or secondary education, I thought about it for some 5 minutes and haven’t looked back since. Working with young learners is so lively, so creative, so unpredictable every day that I am still amazed people mock that decision of mine. “You will work more hours”, they told me, as if this a drawback. “They will make you crazy with their constant bickering” they said, as if they had forgotten how funny it is to be with kids under 12.

So creating a workshop about teaching English to very young learners was only natural to me. “Is the kid inside you alive?” is the title of our workshop at the 2^nd Istek International Schools ELT Conference on Sunday and along with Marina Kollatou we will try to remind you what it is like to learn a new language, but most of all we will try to revive that forgotten kid inside you! Since you probably speak fluent English to be reading this, and if you are there at the conference it means you are either a teacher of English or a student, we had the idea to teach a lesson of Greek to make this workshop as authentic as possible.

As the days go by and we are trying to put the last brushes to our presentation (last rehearsal tonight), trying to follow all the suggestions about an excellent presentation by Ken Wilson and all the tips about what to do before the conference, by Adam Simpson, stress is peaking by the minute. Thankfully, having such a fantastic PLN I just came across this superb animation video that seems to be the perfect illustration of what we want to achieve in our workshop.

Please watch it! If you intend to come to our presentation see it as a kind of pre-lesson activity, if not, just to relax! Is the kid inside you alive? Looking forward to your answers either here or in Istanbul, on Sunday at 13.15 at Room 315!

February 24, 2011
by annavarna
2 Comments

So you want to be a reporter?

I have never met Mark Andrews. But last year one weekend at the beginning of April we were both attending virtually the 1^st ISTEK ELT conference in Istanbul and tweeting about it and then blogged about it, each one from our respective countries, him in Hungary and me in Greece. It was a fantastic experience: we weren’t there but we both felt the electric atmosphere. I remember looking at photographs reading the posts in the various blogs, following the presentations all from my kitchen in Larissa. I was really envious for the people who were actually there and I promised myself that if I went to a conference the next year that would be it.

A few weeks after that I went to the IATEFL 2010 Harrogate conference, my first international conference, the first time I presented at such an audience, a magnificent experience all in all. But to be honest, maybe because I didn’t stay long, maybe because I wasn’t so well connected back then, the social part of the conference seemed to be somewhat lacking in comparison to Istanbul’s. So the desire to go to ISTEK never waned. Not only that but as the organizers kept informing us about the stunning line up of speakers, it kept getting bigger.

Forward one year later, December 2010. Proposals for Istanbul would open soon ( I kept pestering Burcu about that, so I had inside info) and I was stuck for ideas. No matter how many (thinking) hats I put on I wouldn’t come up with anything. But inspiration works in strange ways so during one long drive to Karditsa to attend a presentation of the Finnish Educational System, I had the idea to suggest to our school advisor to make a proposal together. Before we arrived in Karditsa I had the first idea formed which we later developed and improved.

Forward to last Monday: a message from Burcu telling me that my video for the Roving Reporter Competition was one of the top three submitted, and it was up to the people now to decide who was going to go to the ISTEK as a reporter. ISTEK is going to cover expenses for the Roving Reporter and the Reporter will have to cover the conference, write, blog, or vlog, tweet from there to the best of their abilities.

I can’t begin to describe how happy I felt, how honoured, how enthusiastic! And the company was fantastic too! I don’t know Sabrina yet, I just discovered her blog, but to be in the same group as Mark, this is Serendipity if nothing else!

And another thing: a few hours ago Mark blogged his feelings about this competition. Personally I’m not very competitive, I am more for cooperation and if I could I would send all three of us to Istanbul. But he says something about this being like taking part in X-Factor or some other show like this that I want to comment on: Whenever I have watched programs of this kind I usually make fun of how all the participants are so touchy-feely and all for fair play, and so on an so forth. I never thought it was true. However, this is exactly how I feel about Mark: I like his video a lot and I am sure he would make a great roving reporter.

So if you want to help us go to Istanbul you can go to Burcu’s blog and vote for one of us. Vote with your heart and you mind, vote as you like, I am certain each one of us has something different to offer to the event and whatever choice you make is going to be for the best!

February 19, 2011
by annavarna
7 Comments

Getting Connected feels Good

I was looking forward to this PD event which would take place here in Larissa. First of all because it had been sometime I hadn’t presented in any conference or something like it, and I’m sure practice makes best, but mainly because it would be a great chance to meet with colleagues from other areas, to connect with more teachers. Sometime I feel I am more connected to teachers I haven’t met because I interact daily with them than with teachers in my town. So it was a great occasion.

The day dawned bleak and rainy but it seemed that it didn’t prevent anyone from coming. My friends were worried that maybe being the first presenter, some people would come late and miss it but at 9.30 it was almost a full room and I was happy to see familiar faces, my special mentor among them, friends from bookcrossing, teachers I had worked with many years ago and hadn’t seen since.

I gave my presentation and I think it went quite well. I talked about the necessity of getting connected. If you are reading this blog it is possible that another presentation under this topic will seem superfluous. It may seem that I’m speaking to the already converted. But this isn’t the case in my country. In my school none of the teachers have twitter or facebook accounts and if they have they hardly use them for educational purposes. And this is an average provincial school. So I am certain the presentation was eye-opening for some and as they remarked during the break they felt more confident to try new tools now. Of course the result will show if it was really successful or not. You can see it here, in any case.

A day in the life of a Connected Teacher

View more presentations from Anna Varna.

The highlight of it was the already famous video by Shelly Terrell and all the other great educators who participated. You can watch the video here and see the rest of Shelly’s amazing resources. Thanks a lot friend, you are a treasure and I’m really happy to have met you!

And then it was time to attend other people’s sessions.

First there was the presentation by Ms Vivi Hamilou about the project of creating a newspaper with her students. The fact that I had met Ms Hamilou in an eTwinning eTwinning event when I was an ambassador for eTwinning was another happy coincidence. Her project seemed beautiful and it showed that it was work made with enthusiasm and passion. You can find samples of her work at her blog here

The next presentation was by Mr Eleftherios Avramidis about a study that was conducted with 5^th grade students in order to assess their writing strategies. The procedure and the outcomes of the study were interesting indeed and it’s always invigorating to see teachers wearing the researcher hat.

The presentation by Karditsa and Trikala School Advisor Ms Marina Kollatou on differentiated learning was one I had been looking forward. I had heard part of it and I wanted to see the whole, so this was a great chance. On top of that having to work with mixed ability classes every day and every hour in our school I was sure there would be some useful tips. She will soon put up the whole presentation on her blog too and you can benefit from it.

Next came what I thought was the best presentation of the event. It was by School Advisor in Achaia Ms Marianthi Kotadaki. This was a presentation of what we can do with You Tube in our lessons. It included samples of lesson plans and video clips with advertisements and how these can be exploited. It was a well rendered presentation, colourful and fresh. You can find more info about her work here.

The following presentation was a similar one as far as the topic, that is the use of video in the classroom but it was examined through a different point of view. It was a more theoretical presentation but it also included a sample of a video about the use of social media by teenagers.

The next presentation was by another two friends Ms Mintsidou and Ms Korpinurmi. The latter is an assistant teacher from Finland being hosted by the former in a Technical Vocational High School in Karditsa. Having worked in such a school or should I say having suffered for a year when I worked in such a school I was looking forward to listening to their presentation. And I was thrilled to see how many things they have achieved, how they try to engage this difficult target group and what great results they have! Just for working in such difficult environments you deserve a medal girls, let alone for doing all this great stuff you are doing!

The last piece of work was by Ms Apostolia Tsipra who is a primary school teacher in Karditsa. She was presenting part of her MA research related to innovation within innovation that is using a task based approach to train teachers.

The last part of the event was short presentation of the Union that organized it. PEKADE is a Panhellenic teachers’ Union for teachers in State Education. It is an active union, organizing events like this all over Greece but also promoting English Language Teaching, publishing a quarterly magazine (Aspects Today) and in general doing its best to connect teachers of English and supporting them in their work.

So, overall it was a fantastic day for professional development, a day I connected with new people and refreshed some old connections. It was tiring all right but rewarding.

One last comment about the presentations in general: all of the people who gave presentations today had interesting things to share with us. They are passionate teachers who love what they are doing, kindred spirits, like-minded educators. My only objection is that they might have to work a bit on making a captivating powerpoint presentation. The fact that some of them were overloaded with information gave me the idea to prepare a webinar on how to present what you want to say in an aesthetically pleasing way. I’ll keep you posted!

For the people who attended my presentation and are looking for more resources I want to point them towards the video I mentioned during the session. If you are going to watch one educational video this week let it be this one. It is full of ideas and creative enthusiasm.

As for the #eltchat I mentioned in Twitter you can find all the info here. The quotation about “no shortcuts, no panaceas, no silver bullets in education is from the book by Diane Ravitch ” The Death and Life of the American School System”.

February 18, 2011
by annavarna
3 Comments

Silver bullets and ELT

A friend called me anxious yesterday morning asking me if I could give some classes to her brother who urgently needs to learn to speak English, because he has some clients from abroad (he is a business man). I declined, but promised to ask around. But then she tells me: “We ‘ve heard about this miraculous new method by which you can be fluent in English in three or four months”.

I was kind of baffled then and said I would get back to her, because the bell had just rang. I was saved by the bell, someone could say. So I spent the rest of the day, wondering about this “new, miraculous method” that promises to teach you English in a couple of months. Wow, I must have been doing something wrong all my teaching life then.

And what use is all this connection with people if they don’t let you know about such things? I mean I am involved in so many educational networks and nobody mentioned a thing. Are you keeping it all to yourselves people? So that you can become millionaires?

Late at night I started reading Diane Ravitch’s book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” and I was lucky enough to find my answer on page 3: “I have consistently warned that, in education, there are no shortcuts, no utopias, and no silver bullets. For certain there are no magic feathers that enable elephants to fly”. I was thankful for this quotation, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night.

But in case you have heard about this “New, Easy Way to Speak English in a couple of months with the minimum effort” please let me know!

February 5, 2011
by annavarna
4 Comments

Feeding the chickens may lead to a class fight

I teach English to a class of 4^th graders, nine-year-olds that is, and many of them seem to have Facebook accounts. They all know that FB is for adults but they have registered a false birth date. So far nothing surprising, I’m sure thousands of kids do this around the world mainly to play these addictive games. My kid (11 years old) has been allowed to do it too.

Last year many of my students were asking me persistently if I have a Facebook account and if I would add them as friends. For months I resisted because I didn’t want my private life to be visible to my students. I was thinking that sometimes I may share a song or a video inappropriate for children and I didn’t want to censor myself like that. Back then FB didn’t have this tool where you can group your friends in various ways and share or not share with them your content. Anyway, after thinking about it for some time, I decided to follow my friend’s advice and set up another FB account which would be only for students. That way I would keep my own life private and I would be able to share with them what I thought appropriate and maybe teach them a couple of things too.

That was last year. For some time it worked well, most of my students found me there and we were happy to exchange gifts and silly nothings, I would post interesting sites and no one would try them, I would post songs with interesting lyrics and they wouldn’t listen them, they would find me on line and would try to chat with me and then get mad at me when I spoke in English to them. A very pleasant experience all in all…

It proved that me and my students had a very different view of how FB worked. For me it was a platform to share interesting material, it was the portal to something else. For them that was it. They were in FB for the sake of FB. They uploaded photos of them, in most them they would pose in a way that made them look older, they would tell each other (especially the girls) how good looking they were and that was it. For me it was also a way to share photographs with them. I like taking photographs at school and the kids like it too, but until now there was no way to show them these photos. So FB was a way to share some of the photos I have taken during the last four years I have been in this school and since I had arranged all settings so that photos were visible only to my students and nobody else I thought everything was safe (as safe as it can be online, anyway).

Some learning opportunities came up too although they weren’t what I thought they would be. There were some rude comments under some photos that gave me the opportunity to talk about netiquette, and I was amazed at how fast they were withdrawn.

But the other day I went into this class of 4^th graders and there was a lot of turmoil over some private FB messages exchanged between two girls who had allowed other people to access their accounts and these people supposedly had said nasty things. Baffled? So was I and mostly I didn’t know what to do with this class that was divided in two, half supporting one girl and half the other, the two girls on the verge of tears and me in the middle trying to handle the situation. What I did that moment was say a few things about FB, how we shouldn’t allow other people to have our passwords, (but miss who’s gonna feed the chickens when I’m out playing?) (probably with some real chickens) how we shouldn’t forget our good manners wherever we are. I tried to get on with the lesson and asked the two girls to stay behind after class to discuss it.

Since then I have been thinking a lot about it. Are they too young to handle Facebook? In my opinion yes, but it is so trendy to do it that they didn’t give it a second thought. And their parents? Do you allow your kids to “play” with such obviously adult applications? And what have you done to protect them from uncomfortable situations? Are there any safe networks for kids and how popular are they? Is it the novelty of Facebook that appeals so much, the fact that it is a grown-up thing to do or the beauty of networking per se? I’d love to hear from you, wherever you are.

In your hands

My life as a teacher of English and other curiosities