Back to school at the age of 42

"Sleep with one eye open" was the quickly emailed advice from my Dad the night before Jake, my internet procured van driver, turned up on my doorstep along with my younger brother.

My parents were freaking (as parents do)

but I...

a) knew everything would be alright because statistically life usually is
b) trust the MyHammer website
c) had his email details and the van number
d) hitchhiked my way across Sumbawa on the back of an onion truck when I was 25 - if nothing happened then...

Of course, when Jake and Martin actually turned up, all of Jake's mates were furiously emailing and texting, worried that he'd arrived in Stuttgart and had his liver and kidneys taken out.  Ah, you gotta just love the way that television and general overhyped media resources have created such a nervous world.

My adventure did have its ups and downs, more because a jinn attached itself to my journey, probably attracted by all the worrying family members and friends.

He, the jinn that is, decided to infiltrate my bank account and managed to stop it from working on the very day I was leaving.   Despite frantic calls to the bank at 9am on Saturday, being able to view my money but not touch it, it was a no-go and all information given by the call centre pointed to an apology on Monday (which I got but seriously, it doesn't help to know that technical problems happen).  I was worried and stressed out enough that day, already nervous about packing up my whole life and cancelling numerous jobs and contacts and saying goodbye to students and friends and throwing out garbage bag after garbage bag of stuff not needed anymore... and trying to fit the rest of nigh-on 7 years into one van.

I recounted and recounted the pounds and Euros I'd taken out during the week, crossed my fingers that my budget based on GoogleMaps information was correct.

It wasn't... 

The jinn, you see, he'd also managed to persuade a neighbour to park his Ford 4x4 in front of the van, thus blocking the driveway.  Manic calls at 2am put me in touch with the efficient German police who promised to tow it away if they couldn't contact the owners.  They turned up bleary eyed and in their pyjamas, leaving us an hour off-schedule.

Jake tapped on some keys on the GPS which then prompted "Do you want to avoid tolls?"

We clicked no - we had to try and make the ferry in time - we left, speeding away through Germany and into France.

Sure enough, it was a badly clicked decision, as French toll after toll after toll ate away at those Euros in my pocket, in trickles of €3, €6, €24, €36 and thus, fearing not having enough to pay the final toll... a quick math calculation at the last gas station on the European side to get us just enough until we were in Ole Blighty, proved to be our undoing... 10 minutes away from Calais, 25 minutes away from our afternoon ferry, we wound up with the van parked on the side of the road and a whopping bill to pay for.  No gas.

Also, of course, because I had been super-super careful to tie up all loose ends, I'd remembered TWO DAYS BEFORE to report that I no longer knew the PIN number to my credit card (because I use it only for emergencies and internet transactions)...they'd said no problem and that they'd get a new one sent to me in the UK...

I hadn't reckoned on the jinn...

and thus, I didn't even have a credit card to take care of the breakdown on the side of the road.  It took some persuasion and desperation to convince the French-uber-expensive-fix it man (€186) to take the British currency.  He huffed, he puffed.  It's money.

So...

Nevermind.... 

Finally, after paying a fine for missing the right ferry and making our way through the south of the UK with nary a pee-stop, we got here around 10 in the evening and were met by my friendly landlord who'd brought round bread, tea and cookies in case we were hungry.

And so, oh-my-god, I am here.  In Manchester,  in a super-super-super friendly city where people talk to me for absolutely no reason.   I am sharing a flat with lovely young postgraduates who, so far, don't mind/know that I'm an old lady.

I am sleeping on the floor because I was outbid on e-bay on the bed I wanted.

There are still boxes which haven't been opened and unpacked yet.


I'm relearning how to cook soup from scratch, put together spaghetti bolognese, tuna-fish pasta and other cheap dishes (send me your student-food recipes!)

I've met my tutors and some of the onsite participants and they're all very friendly and interesting.  I'm also looking forward to hooking up with the off-site distance folk.

The University is amazing, the library is wonderful (although lots of the books I want are on one-week-only-loans so will have to reach deep into the coffers to purchase some).  

I have a student card and can get cheap tickets to movies and stuff.  Yippeeee! Lars von Trier here I come.

My course modules look RIDICULOUSLY UBER COOL (for an edtech tesol geek like me) and it's hard to decide for sure which ones to do, but I've worked out a good plan for the next two years and I am ridiculously, ridiculously excited to learn.


So, tomorrow, at the age of 42, wearing jeans which have already been laid out plus brand-new-shiny polished up DrMartens, me, after 15+ years in the classroom, I shall be walking in not as teacher but as learner.

Best,
Karenne
p.s. Thanks Anne Hodgson for introducing me to MyHammer!
p.p.s nervous as all get-out, so wish me luck!
image credit:Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

A fire in my belly

This is my blog and I am back.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/64615651/sizes/o/in/faves-kalinagoenglish/

Where was I?

Head down, working on new materials for Voxy - by the way, we're now >>> INCREDIBLY<<< at 250,000+ users!  Excellent, interesting, challenging work.  But then, I am working with a seriously talented team of thinkers and doers plus a brilliant, innovative boss I've never actually met but talk to weekly!  

Head down, writing a book aimed at IT students for Pearson.  But that's pretty much now over as despite finishing a week ago, after refusing to sign a ridiculous contract that would soon render me without the mere pennies promised we are parting ways...  too many unacceptable clauses, editorial digital illiteracy - a long story - so much more on signing away your creativity to publishing houses, book contracts, minimum-wage advances, the effect of global markets on royalties and oh, digital rights - coming soon.  

Dance with the devil, get burned? 

Think Wikileaks.  


Where am I?

Working at a great school with a wonderful team of teachers in the UK - we're working together in face-to-face sessions (so much more personal than the virtual), on professional development for European teachers.  

Wonderful site and great students.  Having a super time, more on that later.  

But! My various sites have informed me there's a great set of virtual sessions on this weekend at the The Reform Symposium.   Although I'm busy up to my gills, am going to try to change around my schedule and catch some of these, tho' luckily they'll also be recorded.

Where am I headed?

I'm off to do a Masters in September, gently easing out of social-media and other than Switzerland they'll be no more presenting at conferences for a while (though I do have a kick-a**e idea for IATEFL...hmm....hmmm €€€) but I do really have to turn my focus and attention towards the psychology of language learning, motivation and gaming mechanics.    It is a digital future after all.

So folks, to sum up, I'll be here, on the page, sharing whatever I learn with you.  I hope you'll still pop on over every now and then to say hey.

Talk soon,
Karenne

p.s  I missed you all muchly and if you missed me, am sorry for being away so long!   I'm back and boy, watch-out, do I ever have a fire in my belly.

I'm Baaa-ck

Did ya miss me?  Hope so :-).  This was post was supposed to go out yesterday but I had a peruse through the 'verse and 'spere and ended up with a rant instead...

Soz where have I been?  Well, I had a super holiday sleeping mostly on the floor of my sister's and  hanging out with her and my baby brother in the UK, watched the fireworks over the Thames on TV,  watched endless reality TV and dull comedians... and went to my cousin's wedding in Wales - she was a gorgeous bride!  Ate loads of Marmite and Branston Pickle and was dismayed by Cadbury's - hmm, perhaps too long in Europe with real chocolate... was relegated chief chef and fed my family, read lots and lots of throwaway-after-reading-don't-remember-their-names-novels, finally got around to seeing Inception (um, um, what was the fuss about exactly?) and also watched the entire four seasons of Heroes.  

Sidebar: Hiro Nakumura was my favorite character so I was totally gutted when the love-of-his-life, Charlie got lost in the space-time continum by the very bad Butterfly Man a.k.a earthmover Samuel Sullivan - wasn't that just awful? Thought Claire terribly naive for coming out to the Brave New World about her superpowers - the world will never accept nor understand them, sigh, and of course wasn't completely convinced of Sylar's final act of goodness. 

I mean evil is as evil is. N'est pas? Still, it was a great show...

So, um, aside from pure nothingness in my break (recharging batteries and creativity after 3 years of non-stop work), I've also been reflecting on what's on the agenda for 2011:

• Possibly beginning work on a new coursebook - yeah, dogme me... we'll see tho', so don't start calling me hypocrite just yet - at the moment I'm very much not happy with their offer.

• Started doing some consultancy work for Voxy - remember I wrote about them as being the most impressive mobile learning start-up around? Well, I'll be mainly advising them on the academic side as well as helping build brand awareness and also helping to develop the games aspect of the product.  I'm so incredibly psyched to have the opportunity to work with a bunch of young and very tech-savvy entrepreneurs in an entirely new and radically developing area of educational technology - more about this later but in the meantime check out their new i-phone app!

• I've decided that I really must load up more of my SimplyConversationsTM conversation prompts directly on to this blog for free as my website is still down and I just don't seem to find the energy to set it up again!

•  I've enrolled for the digital storytelling course with EVO and the Webheads and am very excited to be part of this and to participate in all the activities and learning!  Oops, that'll mean homework!

• From next week on, when I'm officially finished with my "vacation," I'll be putting Business English in 5mins back into motion again and I'll also be back to working on my MyEC with the wonderful global students I work with there...as well as returning to face-to-face teaching.

• As much as I can, I also, knock-on-wood, still hope to blog 3 days a week... (Sundays for the SocialMedia stuff, Thursdays LessonTips/Plans & Tuesdays for the rest of my educational musings... except when I get distracted.. and it's  also my number one resolution to comment much more too on other people's blogs as lately I've slipped into a pattern of reading and bookmarking them into delicous however, honestly, I really used to like all the global conversations with other teachers and miss the real discussions we used to have there!

• What else? Lemme see.. I'll be at Spain's TESOL (talking on From Ink to I-pads: motivation in language learning) and in the UK in April will be hosting IATEFL's first ELT blog symposium (featuring Tara Benwell, Berni Wall & Peter Ryley) - am very much looking forward to hooking up with you at one of these! 

Hmm... there's probably more ahead, and heaps more on my tooooo-do list  but in the meantime, let me wish you all a Happy New Year and I truly hope it brings you everything you want and need!!

Best,
Karenne

I'm Two

No, this post isn't a reference to my schizophrenic tweeting as kalinagoenglish and BloggerELT.  ;-)

Although everyone who should know this, knows that it is social meDIA not social MEdia, bloggers often get a slapped (especially from real writers) for openly sharing their thoughts, opinions, experiences, impressions, annoyances, knowledge etc on the page... and are often critiqued for being the inner-most-seekers of ze eternal belly-button...

When I first came on board there were really actually only a handful of real ELT-bloggers out there in the 'sphere - excellent bloggers like Nik, Alex, Seth, Graham, Elena, Susana, Carla, David, Ronaldo to name a small few but there were a many, many more of the "do-visit-my-blog-so-you-can-envy/laugh/get-angry-at-me-bloggers" - which wasn't doing the sphere any favours and many of these have died off now. 

Pretty much, right from the get go, I knew that I very much wanted to do something different to the prolific navel-grazing going on: I wanted to create and participate in a global, educational, community of practice.

Still, as much as I've tried in the last two years to keep my writing aimed at you, you, you... at what you're interested in reading and learning more about sometimes I too, especially when I witter on about social media, can be a wee bit "me, me, me" and... well, get ready folks, because this post in particular is going to be just that...

because as of 2 days ago,

Kalinago English is celebrating her second birthday (all be it that celebrations are actually taking place with a box of tissue paper parked by the bed: worst head cold in years has gotten me in its deep grips)... but nonetheless, I am  super happy to be part of  the wonderfully, engaging, dynamic world I write in and want to celebrate that - this place where we hold a conversation between peers: in the democratization and exploration of our knowledge and educational experiences.

From my first hesitant post

What a crazy bunch of months these have been. Teaching, teacher training, meetings, writing, website developing, foruming, blah! But all that's just an excuse, and a way of avoiding this task in front of me BUT what's the point of starting a blog if I am not actually going to write in it, eh?
I reckon the problem is one of focus or purpose: I mean what should I actually write about? Ha, isn't that a funny quandary for a writer.   Developing a website by myself - learning all the tips and tricks, nah. Boring, done.
Teaching with technology,hmm...interesting, teaching speaking skills, teaching in general, writing materials... Hmmm. Yes, I just answered my own question.
That's what a blog's for after all, the on-line diary experience, to answer one's own musings so I will write about all the above and, as time whittles on, probably more.
How about I start off with a chat on using video in the classroom? That's a question I get asked loads in my workshops. AND it's MUCH, much, much easier that you think.
Yah. That'll be my next post. Tomorrow.

I then went on to publish 234 articles - ranging in topics from teaching with technology, to teaching English, to teaching Dogme-style, to talking about issues in our field, to musings and rants about social media.

And somehow from the first six months of only family and friends visiting to amassing a global audience who've now, collectively read over a 104,000 pages, it has really been you who has kept me working - pretty much because you've kept coming 'round to visit me, saying hey and letting me know what you thought of my words/links/tips and when I got nominated for awards, you voted for me.


Thank you so much - you have really kept me busy!

Alex Case has been whittering on about whether or not the ELT blogosphere is dying out... and I'll say nope, not at all.   I think, to be honest, yes twitter and facebook have become incredibly distracting and addictive places to hang out but in many respects the ones who were blogging about themselves are now tweeting their updates instead... so it doesn't so much matter that they've gone.

In other cases some of the greats in our 'sphere got bogged down with real life and career commitments but I expect (hope) we'll see them launching back with a vengeance over the next few months.

From observation, though, Alex is right, we aren't commenting, visiting or linking back as much as we used to - I'm not sure if it was due to OneStopEnglish's stock-market that somehow, may have, unintentionally, forced us to look inwards, to stop from paying attention to each other and working on our community...

or if it was just perhaps that we all felt a bit overwhelmed by late 2009 when so many newbies came on board (ten on top of the other, all demanding special attention and back-links to blogrolls before proving their mettle (and dropping out after the first three posts),  making many a social-faux pas with  "visit my blog please" "do an interview with me please*"  requests by the dozen...:)  yet really, aside from those, some outstanding newbies have come along to teach us fantastic new things - way too numerous to count or list them but in particular Eva, Ozge, Darren, Marisa, Shelly, Jason, Mike, Nick...

so, perhaps it wasn't that but instead when the edu-VIPs came on the scene and showed us the what-for on the comment front (not great for the ego when you watch someone get 100 comments in a day (who knew there were that many people who had something to say!) while you're averaging 1- 5) lol, still some of these giants have in fact helped us to become sharper thinkers, to hone our posts with care, to cross the t's and dot the i's.


All in all though I think the die-hards amongst us have indeed muddled on through, those of us who're serious about our genre, about sharing our knowledge with our friends and peers and I reckon in the end, that's all that really counts.

Anyway, back to my own lovely jewel-encrusted belly-button... as we speak I've got another 46 articles lying around in draft and I've also sketched out numerous guest-posts to hit the 'sphere with soon, so


I'll see you for my third...


Karenne
"do an interview with me please*" - why this is a serious no-no when you enter the 'sphere, as it seems not to be obvious for many newbies:  You write 6 lines of text and then ask someone else to write a reply for who knows, 6 hours, actually answering questions they've answered thousands of times before.  You think you have struck gold and found the easy-way-to-blog... but in fact, you look like a lazy chump :-)  Sorry, them's the facts. Don't do this.

About Karenne

updated June 2010

Karenne is teaching teachers how to teach speaking - using technology.

I'm a certified TESOL trainer, working as a freelancer in Stuttgart, Germany and I specialize in teaching adult learners in the financial/ banking, energy, engineering and IT sectors. 

I've lived, taught and worked all over the world: from the Caribbean to the US, UK, Australia, Hong Kong and Ecuador.


I recently co-authored Working with Films for Klett Verlag, have written audio material for Didactica and wrote the English version of an animation film, City Animals.  I regularly contribute to teaching magazines both offline and online.

Apart from this blog, I am the sole proprietor and webmaster of Kalinago English and author of SimplyConversationsTM, a pedagogically sound speaking skills system, designed to activate language learners' fluency.  I also take care of the ELTAS website and recently began writing a blog for Business English language students: Business English >5mins.

One of the things I'm most proud of being is "Ning.Mistress" of BELTfree, a private community of blogging teachers in ELT and we are a supportive group of reflective educators. 

I'm also a  Edtech teacher trainer and have presented internationally at IATEFL, TESOL Spain and  for numerous teaching associations, language institutions and community colleges as well as in webinars.   You can hire me to teach you and your colleagues, especially if you are interested in the integration of technological tools in the language learning classroom.

As my teaching philosophy is student-centered so are my  very hands-on sessions.

This is what they usually look like:

• Teaching Advanced Learners Business English

• Drama in the Business English Classroom

• Pepping Up Your Business English Course Book

http://www.slideshare.net/KalinagoEnglish/presentations

Visit LinkedIn to connect with or to learn more about me in general, read what my colleagues, employers and trainees think about my work or just to know what else it is I've got up in the past.


External sites

• Why is my business and blog called Kalinago English?
  
• Conversation materials for adult learners who would like to improve their fluency: SimplyConversations

Links and my life in social media...

• Karenne's delicious links
• Karenne's videos
• Karenne's presentations
• Karenne's on twitter
• Karenne's group on facebook
  
• Karenne's weblinks

More..? Seriously?

• 7 things you probably didn't know about me
• Meeting President Barack Obama

CAN YOU USE MY ARTICLES?


All the articles that appear on these pages by Karenne Sylvester are registered under creative commons, non-commercial, non-derivative, share-alike.

Recently, requests have been coming in for me to write articles or guest pieces for ELT magazines and blogs however what with my own blogs, website, teaching, teacher-training, web2.0 life and numerous projects, I really don't have a lot of time available.

So, this is my compromise:

If you are a non-commercial (or a very small micro-preneur) site, blog, or magazine in the field of ELT you may use any article that you find on this page,

http://kalinago.blogspot.com

as long as you attribute the article to me by

• providing my name,
• the original title of the article if you changed it,
• the date of the article,
• the url address and blog name.

Please notify me that you've done this and state clearly "reprinted with kind permission" at the end of the posting.

You may not do this if you do not contribute or write any original work of your own or if you are a glorified advertising "hub".

You may not do this if you are a commercial website, magazine or newspaper.

Contact me if there is something you would like me to write, re-write or use.

Meeting President Obama In Strasbourg

I never, ever intended on using this blog for vanity postings, however, something so incredible happened to me last week and, well, I’ve got to share all the photos with my family and friends so it’s going up on here - do hope you’ll enjoy the read too!

July 12, 2008: backstory

I hop aboard a plane and go to Berlin for the day just to hear Obama speak.

Everyone thinks I’m nuts (and I am, but just a little). Figured this was as close as I’d get ever, cause once he’d become President it’d be impossible and honestly even if he didn’t win, I wanted the chance to see this great leader live, not just on youtube.

I’d volunteered to help man the crowd.





My job was taking email addresses and moving Americans on over to the booths to register to vote.

It was a wonderful day, 200,000+ turned up and I couldn’t have been happier.

Until, Friday 27th March 2009:

I pop into the DAZ to drop off my monthly bill for the dogme-style EFL conversation class I teach there.

While rummaging around in my sack for the invoice, Valerie says ‘Karenne, do you want to meet Obama?’

‘Yeah’ I reply. Where did I put the darn thing? Oh, there’s just too much stuff in my bag. What I really mean to say is ‘duh.’

She smiles and tells me they’ve sent invitations to their entire membership, trouble is I’ve got until exactly 3pm to reply and don’t know my passport number.

She also warns me I might not be in the target group (youth, and I’m hardly that).

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday:

Checking my emails everyday – nothing.

Wednesday, which incidentally is April Fool’s day, the email arrives telling me I’ve been picked. Is it a joke?

Don’t say anything to anyone except my students whose classes I’d missing.

Thursday comes with a confirmation call, it’s not a joke, telling me I’ve got to be at the ZOF in Stuttgart at quarter past six.

Friday April 3 April.

UP. Wash face. Do I have enough to drink on the bus? Passport –check. Books to read –check. Coat to stuff with camera, phone etc – check.

Out the door.

Miss the train.

Are you kidding me? Jump on two different connections, get there.

Time to grab coffee at Starbucks.

Thank god.

6.15am

“This is so coooooool” I scream at Valerie when I see the coaches. The very handsome US consulate representative who’d woken up at 3 to take us on to Strasbourg grins back at me “yeah, this is sooooo cool.”

He smiles and checks my docs and I climb aboard.

6.30am

Very sadly, Dr Bachteler, who runs the DAZ isn’t very well, he can’t come with us. He specially organized our breakfast though: Obamers instead of the popular german cookie known here as an Amerikaner (it normally has a white icing). LOL.

7.00am – 8.15am

The atmosphere on the bus is just great.

Valerie’s brought a quiz with her: crazy questions include what kind of car did Obama drive to Harvard in, how did Jessie Jackson get Obama into trouble and what did Obama want to be when he was in the 3rd grade?

I read my book, some watch the biography on the TV ahead and others snooze – am so psyched!

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Did you know that Barack means blessed?

8.15 – 9ish

We make a stop in Renchtal for trips to the toilet, more caffeine and to wait for the rest of the coaches. There are about 8 from different parts of Germany and we’ll be travelling in convoy, police on all sides, going in both directions. So exciting!

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9.30am – We’re in France!

The cops’ uniforms are blue and there’s loads of them everywhere – feels like I’m in a movie.

James Bond or Mission Impossible.

10.15am – we’re all still on the buses.

No permission to exit or enter the stadium yet.

People are going a little nuts locked inside.

Someone gives the okay for the smokers to hide between the coaches – everyone’s becoming a smoker today.

“It’s a town hall, not a Pep Rally” Valerie dutifully reads from her sheet.

“Behave!” she warns. We laugh.

“The letters you’ve got in your hands are color-coordinated, once you’re in, head to the section that corresponds to your color.”

We’re off, we’re on our way. Helicopters chop the sky.

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I climb down the stairs clutching my blue letter from the White House.

“Oú?” I ask. Mum’s french lessons try to make their way back.

“N’importe” she says. I look at her. She Paris-shrugs.

“OK, Merci.”

10.45am

Is there any kind of calm way of saying there was a free seat in the middle, front row?

Is there any kind of calm way of saying:

I AM IN THE FRONT ROW.

I. I AM. I AM IN THE FRONT ROW.

There is no calm way. OMG.

I can’t believe it.

I throw my coat over a couple of seats to the left and save them for Valerie and DAZ crew.

They make it a couple of minutes later.

I meet my seat partners, one from Heidelberg and the other Spainish. We practice our questions and wow, can-you-believe-it at each other.

The lady tells me her kids had the chance to come but they’d said no. Teens, eh?

Michael says to me “I dreamed this. I dreamed I would sit in the front row.”

I smile at him. “The angels must be listening.”

And then tell him “I dreamed I got to shake Barack’s hand. But that’s not going to happen, now is it?”

He shrugs back a maybe. “You never know” and I laugh then we have a philosophical debate about how humans are never satisfied.

A week ago we didn’t know if we could come to this.

An hour ago we didn’t know we’d be in the front row! Shake the President’s hand? We’re special enough, just being here.

11.20am

The rest of the people from the various buses are filing in. They can’t believe we’re in this special section.

I see some friends from Tübingen, the Empire Study group, Lawrence and Scott – howdie! Everyone’s taking snaps of the podium.

This is much, much better than a pep rally!

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12.00pm.

The French are coming in and we watch the stadium filling up. Lisa Dobie (not sure how to spell her name) sits on a stool.

She tells us that she’s as excited and honored as we all are and then begins to sing…

13.15 The press arrive

13.30 The final cleaning

13.48 Sticking the seal on the podium

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13.55 The secret service stand on all corners of the stage.

13.58 The speech goes up on the podium.

He’s here!!!

Michelle looks lovely!

Gorgeous dress – think I’ve seen it before, how responsible!

Obama steps in front of the podium and the crowd quiets.

He tells us that he’ll give a speech for about 15 minutes and then it’ll be down to us, he’ll spend the rest of time answering our questions.

His speech is interesting and as always, he is eloquent.

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He talks about the issues of blame, the relationship between Europe, US an the emerging nations; talks about trade barriers and dismantling nuclear arms – the usual politico speak but somehow he makes it all sound true.

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And then he takes questions from the crowd and we get a real chance to see his character.

He moves across it just like a boxing coach, more sports personality rather than a politician: relaxed, in control, natural – he owns this stage.

And then Obama listens.

His answers aren’t planned, his agenda isn’t the only only thing in the room and he thinks before he answers, considers what the person has said and what he is going to reply rather than simply saying what we want to hear.

He makes us laugh!

His warmth and honesty shine through and I feel as if he is someone I know personally. My head nods at some of the harder-hitting points, forgetting it was “Obama, The President” just for a moment and just a sage friend communicating.

Did you know that Barack means peach in Hungarian?

15.15? –something around then.

We think it’s all over. We watch as he leaves the stage and then goes to the back, then

there’s a swarm in the crowd over there!

He’s shaking hands.

He moves towards the VIPs on the right.

He’s shaking hands.

OMG.

NO WAY.

He’s coming this way… he is coming towards me and

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Shock. I shake his hand. How strange to feel that he is real.

What a world.

Surprise.

Happiness.

Wonder.

Luck.

Michael gets to shake his hand too.

We all do, Valerie and her sister and her sister’s boyfriend.

And the student who got told she’s looking good and the professor who was thanked for being there and the guy who shook both Michelle’s and Obama’s hands and we are all bubbling, so excited, we share our stories, share love, excitement – our hope that this man will really bring us the change we all want to be a part of.

How very, very cooooooooooooool.

And on the way home, I notice

Spring has finally come.

Seven things you probably don't know about me

I was tagged by Alex Case of TEFLtastic to write up a list of seven things you don't know and / or you probably don't want to know about me but as these things are quite fun I thought I'd give it a go.

1. When I was a little girl I thought I was a blood relative to or the reincarnation of Indiana Jones. I haven't ever really shaken that belief and have spent most of my life chasing adventure.

I have swum with sharks, climbed up and into volcanoes, stroked a maori wrasse (a fish) as if it were a puppy, fallen off a 75ft waterfall, lived through being tied to a mast in a violent thunderstorm aboard a 64ft ketch while we pulled the lifeboat back on board.

Slept with a scorpion on the wall in a Thai buddhist monastery, ridden an elephant, took a bamboo raft down the Mekong, petted a llama, talked to people you normally only see in National Geographic, followed butterflies, hitched on the back of an onion truck across Sumbawa, spent a night in a church built in the 13th Century by the Knights Templar, fed fish to a dolphin and had a face2face with an orangutan in the wild jungles of Borneo.



I took the road less traveled off of the standard Camino de Frances along the St James' way / El Camino de Santiago and got lost too often to count.

However I discovered what it means to follow the stars and the simplicity of using the sun for directions (it's on your back in the morning, in front of you when you're traveling west).

I walked 700+km and made it to Santiago in 28 days.



2. I moved to Germany for the peace and quiet.

I got exactly that.

3. When I grow up I am not going to be a novelist, like so many of my fellow TEFL comrades.

Instead, I am going to write movies and I'm going to win an Oscar before I am 70. Here's an animation film I worked on and here's something I did to entertain myself/ a gift for a friend.

I am not sure I want to grow up though. I'm almost 40 now and haven't really gotten around to this. Maybe when I'm 60.

4. I was asked last year to become an author of a new business English textbook. I turned it down because
a) it didn't pay very well
b) the Ed tried to use the standard 'Headway =look how much they made' example as an excuse for the poor advance and royalties
c) my blogs keep me pretty busy in between all my lessons and
d) I don't want to write textbooks!

I love my blogs and my website and making materials to support these activities because I love teaching English. Yar, yar, scoffers - it's not the best paid job in the world but it just might be the most fun.

I enjoy sharing my knowledge, however, mostly I just like the independence and making learning as exciting and interesting as possible.

Although I use textbooks (not always) and have a great deal of respect for their authors, a textbook would probably not let me, personally, continue to do that. I would consider contributing to something like The art, methodology and psychology of conversation but I'm not really qualified to do this, yet.

5. When I was a teenager I was given an intelligence test, designed for Americans, not for Caribs like me - somehow I managed to get into the top 5% of all students.

A friend, at the time, who didn't get the same who's who letter in the mail, despite the fact she was pulling all A's and I wasn't, told me they had made a mistake.

They may have.

I actually don't think much of grades, levels, intelligence tests or, in fact, exams in general. My sincere belief is outrageously that we should do away with all that baloney and tom-phooey and get on with learning and teaching for the sake of learning and teaching.

There will always be mixed-level, mixed-style, mixed-intelligence type classes, punkt.

6. I don't enjoy television - it's a major time-sink.

I do really enjoy a good HBO series, though, like The Wire or Desperate Housewives and am more than happy to fork over the cash to buy the DVDs (or swapsies) so that I can opt for watching it whenever I want to and not have the box in the room tell me when and where.

I mostly entertain myself with the internet, youtube and blogs - not just TEFL related ones ;-).

I read incredibly quickly and can finish a Harry Potter in a couple of days, the Swarm took 3.5.

Most novels are done within a couple of hours. This reading habit became way too expensive so I switched to reading business, methodology, pop-science/socio-cultural tomes and autobiographies - it takes a lot longer to figure out what's going on on the page.


I'm a big fan of Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell and can't wait to read Outliers.

Currently working my way through and enjoying Nassim Taleb's Black Swan. And if you're teaching advanced ESP:financials/investor types, give it/ get them to give it a go.

7. For my 70th birthday, in honor of my Oscar, of course, and because I am just dying to do this - I want to ride in a space shuttle so that I can see the world as a green and blue marble.

I am convinced that it is even more beautiful that it appears to be in the photos.



That's it!

So now, on to my seven great ELTers = I call on

• Lindsay Clandfield of Sixthings,
• Aniya Adly of The English Teacher Online,
• Jason West of Languages out there,
• Margarita of English teacher,
• Isabel Perez's ESL
• Eric Roth of Compelling Conversations and
• Neal Chambers of English Spark
  

Rules = write a list of seven things (okay, Lindsay write 6) about yourself as per above, tag the person who tagged you and then find seven other bloggers (who haven't done this activity yet) and tag them too.

For further inspiration, check out: Nik Peachey's, Gavin Dudeney's, Graham Stanley's, Seth Dickens's, and David V's.

Best,
Karenne

Personally, speaking

I received an excellent question via email about a month ago and it made me sit, think and try to work out how to give a reply worthy of the value in the q'. There's nothing harder than having to analyze the very nature of your teaching style, which I'm sure you know too!

Anyway, while drafting up my response, I got to thinking that instead of just replying to my emailer, it'd be best to share it with all of you...

This was her letter:

Dear Karenne

I’d like to thank–you for running such a great teacher training session on promoting fluency/ speaking skills. I’ve been thinking about student-centred learning (again) and have been re-evaluating my teaching techniques (again).

I have a Cambridge CELTA- so my techniques are fairly student-centred.

What REALLY impressed me was the way in which you got the teachers to do the work/learning, through a series of stages that built upon an initial task. I know the power of this type of teaching. I learnt through “doing/ self discovery” as opposed to being “told.”

There is a saying that goes something like this: Tell me and I will forget. Let me do it for myself and I will remember.

I’d love to move closer to this style of teaching and also to be able to write/adapt classroom materials that include more student-centered techniques. I was wondering if you have any advice and suggestions for reading material?

Kind regards,
S.F, Stuttgart

I'm going to go way, way out on a limb here and confess that chiefly "my style" of teaching and creating student-centered lessons actually comes from business guru style books rather than pedagogical/ teacher training manuals!

Yeah, Gods, I expect I'll be shot by the ELT teaching community for that comment!

You know the books I mean?

Pop psychology, basically.

Covey's 7 Habits, Stumbling on Happiness, Wisdom of the Crowds - that sort of thing.

Also, of course, my teaching has also been heavily influenced from traveling and the people I've met globally.

Way back in High School (in the US), when everyone was focused and organized or getting there, figuring out what they were going to be: doctors, lawyers, engineers etc, I only knew that what I most wanted out of life was to see the world.

I come from a teenie-weenie island in the middle of nowhere (sorry, Grenada) and have always found people and culture fascinating.



This doesn't mean I didn't like work - I'm often accused of being a work-a-holic - but it does mean that I didn't study to be a doctor or a lawyer.

Instead, in the beginning of my 20's I thought what I'd most love to become was a wine importer and exotically travel the vineyards of the world on glorious shopping trips.


Yeah, okay, right. But I did study to do this.

And, in an odd sort of way, it was the pursuit of this daydream that kinda, sorta led me to leave London for Australia even though I eventually got waylaid in Thailand on the way.

I was sitting on a beach in Java one late afternoon, after having been backpacking solo for about six months and a man came over and sat down next to me.

I don't have to tell you that initially I was pretty suspicious of his intentions.

But, pretty soon, following behind him tottered over two of his kids. They were adorable darlings and looked at me with wide beautiful brown eyes.

The man began to talk to me.

I tried to explain that my Malay was pretty basic (I had a book I was learning from to pass time on buses - Malay is very similar to Indonesian) - it was definitely not enough to manage conversation.

Part of me just wished he'd go on his merry way so that I could just chill out and watch the sunset. But he continued rambling on and I found myself listening.

A very, very strange thing started to happen.

I knew what he was talking about.

He was telling me about his life, his wishes and his dreams.

He used the sand to describe where he lived, what his house looked like but it was much more than just the scribbles on the sand, there was something magical in his very intent to communicate his experience to me and in my willingness to concentrate.

What can I still tell you about that 2hr conversation with an ageing Javan dressed in a colorful man-skirt, over 15 years ago?

Yes, I still do remember most of it.

I don't remember the small-small-talk about the fine evening, have a vagueish memory that the sky drifted off into deep oranges and purples but I do clearly remember that he was married and had 5 children.

His dreams were to give his kids a good education so that they wouldn't end up having to work the land like he does. He was puzzled by politicians and the future of his country, was Buddhist and thought that the world would be a better place if everyone just loved and talked to each other.

His wife was a good woman who argued with him often (about money) and one of his children was sick.

He wanted to know who I was, who my family were - why I was traveling alone, wasn't I afraid that someone would hurt me?

He was actually quite worried about my safety and he wouldn't like for one of his daughters to grow up to be like me! ;-(

I learned then, right there on that beach, that we are all passionate about ourselves.

This sounds kind of "selfish" but it's not really.

I mean that what we think matters to us.

And what we think about what we think is of great importance.

Sometimes we will share these very deepest beliefs with an absolute stranger, they are that important to us.

Recognizing this intrinsic human quality and applying it to language teaching simply makes sense to me.

Our students want to talk about themselves.

They are learning English in order to discuss their company, absolutely, however actually they want to discuss their relationship to their company. Their job, their project, their colleagues.

They are learning English to discuss the weather appropriately but more than likely they want to talk about their own experience and feelings about sunshine vs. cloudy days. They are learning English to tell their personal stories.

Textbooks all too often are passive, dry and safe.


They are designed to specifically cater for the highest percentage of student ratio: across age, education, occupation and experience. They are designed to be commercially successful and they are produced in a set framework, the publisher's style, (or whom else's that they deem most popular over the last x years - no matter the faults) and the author's frame of reference.

They specifically aim not to offend and in that very lack of risk, they fall flat and don't live up to our students' communicative needs.

Yes, there are exceptions -I'll blog my praise of them later- and no, I'm not dismissing published textbooks nor their value in general. I also acknowledge the enormous quantity of work that goes into producing them.

However our role as EFL educators is to make sure that our tools and materials (even when we're using a course book) successfully elicit student response. We are there to improve their communicative skills.

How do we do that?

By making our students the first aim, the first objective of any lesson plan.

We must put their actual interests way up on the list of priorities. We can not follow a set index, - unit 4, page 32 - we must start with what do you need to learn?

Followed by what do you want to learn? (And sometimes vice versa).

And when we do this, when we get them to buy in to learning, they will learn - even if it's yet another textbook/case-study on advertising.

Because instead of discussing the merits of some random BT (British Telecom) ad from about 5 years ago that almost none of them has ever seen (as it was shown on the telly in the UK, not in Germany or Ecuador or Hong Kong and none of these students even know what British Telecom is, nor do they care!)

Ranting sorry...

But instead, as language coaches, we can turn that case study on its head and ask what ads are on the television currently in their countries and which of these ads are interesting to them.

Then we can encourage them to take charge of the lesson's material, change the case study themselves into something that they are interested in watching and discussing: a product that they are or not buying and while they are passionately engaged in their own experience, we can slide that new vocabulary and lexical chunks in like a nice new shoe and they'll adopt it: because they really need it in that moment, it has tangible value.

And with that last sentence, I'm brought nicely full circle to Stephen Covey's book, the 7 habits of highly successful people.

One of his major habits is "Begin with the end in mind."

What is the "end" we are teaching to? Our students' fluency.

so..
Begin with your students' interests,
start with what they need to say.

Questions, comments?

Don't hesitate to add your thoughts, opinions. Let's make this a conversation about conversation!

Karenne,


p.s. I've put a brainstorming sheet on my website which you can download and use to help determine a plan for your conversations lessons. Change it, adapt it, make it better & send me a copy... it's creative commons. Click here.