1440 http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge en-us Language teachers talking about education and language teaching. Hosted by Bill Pellowe Language teachers talking about education and teaching EFL, English as a Foreign Language. no Language teachers talking about education and teaching EFL, English as a Foreign Language. Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:27:13 GMT ℗ & © ELTpodcast.com Bill Pellowe podcast@eltpodcast.com http://www.eltpodcast.com/images/eltpodcastlogo_sm.gif http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge 144 40 Bill Pellowe, Kevin Ryan, Robert Chartrand Language teachers talk about what they do when faced with a new group of students in the classroom on the first day of classes in the new school year. www.eltpodcast.com In this episode, language teachers talk about what they do when faced with a new group of students in the classroom on the first day of classes in the new school year. Visit the Teachers' Lounge archive on our website for a full summary of this and other episodes. ELT Podcast Teachers' Lounge is for language teachers. http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl09.mp3 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:26:42 GMT 16:33 efl, esl, english as a foreign language, first lessons, lesson ideas, lesson plans no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/firstlessons.html Bill Pellowe, Dominic Marini, Kevin Ryan, Robert Chartrand EFL teachers discuss streaming, or tracking, which involves dividing the students up into different ability levels. Streaming, or tracking, involves dividing the students up into different ability levels. The goal is to have a set of classes comprised of students of similar abilities and / or aptitudes, so that teachers can provide more suitable class contents and teacher instruction. The first question is how students are placed into their levels. Dominic's school uses the TOEIC Bridge Test. Dominic says it's easy to administer, and the students' mark sheets are sent to the test company for marking. Kevin's school uses a speaking test produced in England for the first year, and a TOEIC test for the second year. The speaking test has students look at some pictures and tell a story into a tape recorder. Robert's school uses a test that Kurume University developed in-house. Up to 8 teachers contribute items, and they have meetings to determine the test content. Ideally, a school will have a trial period, to see if there are students who stand out as being either well above or below the level that they tested into. At some schools, though, this is difficult to do. Also, sometimes the administration may insist on an equal number of students per class, even if your testing shows that the upper and lower levels should be smaller than the middle-level classes. http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl14.mp3 Fri, 23 Nov 2007 02:38:57 GMT 36:10 ELT, EFL, ELT Podcast, testing students, streaming students, ability levels in EFL, ESL no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/streaming.html Bill Pellowe, Kevin Ryan, Robert Chartrand We talk about various technology-related presentations that we attended at a conference held in Tokyo June 2-3, 2007. ELT Podcast - Teachers Lounge We talk about various technology-related presentations that we attended at a conference held in Tokyo June 2-3, 2007. For extensive notes and links to the content discussed, please visit http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl13.mp3 Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:02:23 GMT 28:42 elt, elt podcast, efl podcast, teacher development podcast, tefl conferences, electronic dictionaries, electronic dictionary, mobile technology, web 2.0 in the classroom no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/call07.html Bill Pellowe, Kevin Ryan, Robert Chartrand Attending conferences is good for teachers for so many reasons. In this episode, we talk about attending conferences, and we offer some advice for first-timers. www.eltpocast.com Conferences for language teachers are an important opportunity for professional development. Today's episode is intended for teachers with little to no conference experience. We discuss why we like attending conferences, and we offer some advice for "novice" conference-goers to get the most out of the experience. Listen to this episode and / or view our online summary (www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge). http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl12.mp3 Wed, 16 May 2007 12:10:45 GMT 28:59 elt, elt podcast, efl podcast, teacher development podcast, tefl conferences no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/conferences.html Bill Pellowe, Kevin Ryan, Robert Chartrand Sometimes students are clustered at the back of the room. We discuss why this is problematic and we offer solutions that have worked for us in our own language classrooms. www.eltpocast.com We have all probably seen large classrooms that are two-thirds full, with the front third of the seats empty. Or, when the number of seats is about the same as the number of students, you might have seen students rush in to grab the seats at the back, then watch as the classroom fills up back to front. However, when the students are closer to the teacher, it is easier to watch their faces for feedback. Also, teachers do not have to strain their voices to reach the back of the large room. Classrooms with students bunched up at the back indicate that either the students do not care or the teacher does not care. Since learning a language is an emotional thing, students have to be more engaged by being up close. A large physical distance is also a psychological distance; when there is a spatial gap between the teacher and the students, it is difficult to bridge that gap to reach the students. Listen to this episode and / or view our online summary (www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge) to see how we address these problems. The solutions we discuss should help you in your own teaching situation. http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl11.mp3 Sun, 22 Apr 2007 03:29:40 GMT 17:30 efl classrooms, language classrooms, english as a second language, classroom seating, classroom spaces, arranging students, ELT podcast, EFL podcast, ESL podcast no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/seating.html Bill Pellowe, Dominic Marini EFL teachers discuss attendance policies and how to discourage students from being late. For more extensive notes, please visit http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge Dominic's basic policy is to mark students absent if they are over 5 minutes late, and 3 absences will earn the student a failing grade. But what if the teacher is late? Listen and find out. http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl_10.mp3 Sun, 15 Apr 2007 10:50:37 GMT 16:29 ELT, EFL, ELT Podcast, attendance, attendance policy, late, tardy, classroom policy, ESL no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/tardy.html Bill Pellowe, Robert Chartrand, Dominic Marini Practical talk from classroom teachers about info gap activities Today we discussed information gap activity, a familiar type of exercise found in communicative textbooks and teacher resource books. An information gap activity requires as least two different versions of the material. Students work together in pairs or threes, and each have different information on their pages, so that they have to talk to each other in order to complete the information. For more extensive notes, please visit http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl08.mp3 Tue, 20 Feb 2007 23:46:21 GMT 26:49 ELT, EFL, ELT Podcast, information gap, info gap, classroom exercises, ESL no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/infogap.html Bill Pellowe, Kevin Ryan, Dominic Marini English teachers talk about using textbook dialogs when teaching English as a foreign language. www.eltpodcast.com This week we discussed what to do with the dialogs that are commonly found in language textbooks. First, we outlined a basic procedure that was popularized through textbooks such as Streamlines Departures in the late 80s. We discussed follow-ups and alternatives. http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl07.mp3 Mon, 12 Feb 2007 08:06:36 GMT 24:12 ELT, EFL, ELT Podcast, podcasting in ELT, textbook dialogs, using texts with EFL students, foreign language activities no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/dialogs.html Bill Pellowe, Kevin Ryan, Robert Chartrand Language teachers talk about student expectations. www.eltpodcast.com Welcome to the sixth episode of ELT Podcast, the Teachers' Lounge. In this episode, we discuss student expectations. What do students expect our classes to be like? What do they expect to get out of the classes? How are their expectations sometimes at odds with our own expecations of how the class should go? http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl06.mp3 Sun, 04 Feb 2007 10:08:42 GMT 18:34 ELT, EFL, ELT Podcast, expectations, student expectations, evaluating students, assessing students, student grades, student performance, student motivation no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/expectations.html Bill Pellowe, Robert Chartrand, Kevin Ryan Language teachers talk about evaluating students, from continuous assessment to final examinations. www.eltpodcast.com Welcome to the fifth episode of ELT Podcast, the Teachers' Lounge. In this episode, we discuss student evaluations, including continuous assessment, final examinations, and other aspects that go into deciding a final grade for our students. http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl05.mp3 Tue, 23 Jan 2007 08:21:38 GMT 25:29 ELT, EFL, ELT Podcast, evaluation, student evaluations, evaluating students, assessing students, student assessment, testing, efl tests, testing in Japan, student grades, grading students, grades in Japan no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/evaluations.html Bill Pellowe, Robert Chartrand, Kevin Ryan Language teachers talk about vacation time. www.eltpodcast.com Welcome to the fourth episode of ELT Podcast, the Teachers' Lounge. With the winter holiday approaching, we discussed a topic that, while outside the scope of educational topics, is nevertheless relevant to a teacher's life as a teacher, long holidays. We discussed the various conditions under which we have worked, including contact hours, office hours, research days and more. http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl04.mp3 Thu, 28 Dec 2006 02:22:49 GMT 27:41 ELT teacher contact hours, teacher office hours, EFL research days, teaching conditions, EFL teaching conditions no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/holidays.html Bill Pellowe, Kevin Ryan, Robert Chartrand A 16-year-old girl in Wyoming won a car for good attendance. We talk about attendance policies, motivation and enforcement. This is our third episode, and our topic is attendance. We started with a CNN news story with the title of "Students with good attendance can win a new car." We talked about how many classes students were allowed to miss. We raised the question of what constitutes attendance. Also, we talked a little bit about rewarding participation, and this seems to be a topic worth returning to in more concrete detail in the future. For a more detailed summary, see www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl03.mp3 Sun, 17 Dec 2006 00:01:00 GMT 17:24 ELT, ESL, EFL, attendance, attendance policies, shuseki, taking attendance, coming to class late, late students, absent students, absences, attendance policy, participation, student participation, seating charts no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/attendance.html Bill Pellowe, Robert Chartrand, Kevin Ryan Regional accents and English language teaching. www.eltpodcast.com Welcome to the second episode of ELT Podcast, the Teachers' Lounge. Today we discussed accents, starting with a look at an online quiz that can accurately place your accent to a region of the USA with only 13 questions. There are two URLs for this quiz; as far as we know, both give the same results: www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have www.gotoquiz.com/what_accent_do_you_have During the conversation, Bill mentioned a website that has compiled recordings of a wide variety of accents of English; he couldn't remember the name of the site at the time, but here it is now: International Dialects of English Archive, http://web.ku.edu/idea/ http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl02.mp3 Sun, 10 Dec 2006 13:23:55 GMT 22:12 ELT, EFL, accents, accent reduction, teacher accents, language variety, varieties of English, dialects of English, regional differences no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/accents.html Bill Pellowe, Robert Chartrand, Kevin Ryan Educational reform in Japan. Michael Richards and dealing with disruption in the classroom. www.eltpodcast.com This is our first episode of ELT Podcast, the Teachers' Lounge. We started with an article from the Japan Times, "Reform panel eyes teacher improvement" (see our website, eltpodcast.com, for links to the article). We also discuss the Michael Richards incident (in which during a comedy stand-up routine, the actor best-known for his role of Kramer on Seinfeld began hurling racial slurs at two members of his audience), relating this to how we as teachers should develop strategies for dealing with disruptive students. http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl01.mp3 Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:20:37 GMT 34:37 Michael Richards, Kramer, Educational Reform, Japan, Japanese school system, EFL in Japan no http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/01.html