ELT Bakery

The third Braz-Tesol Pernambuco event was held at SBS Bookshop in Recife on May 4th, 2013. There were about 60 English teachers present from language institutions, secondary schools, public schools and universities. The British Council, four publishers (Macmillan, Pearson, Richmond and Oxford University Press), SBS Bookshop and ELT Bakery Blog sponsored the event.

I was very pleased to see Braz-Tesol Pernambuco back and I’m also very happy to be part of the board. I’d like to thank everyone who put so much work to make this event possible. I’d aso like to thank all the teachers who decided to spend their Saturday afternoon learning and sharing experiences.

I’ve uploaded the slides from my session here, feel free to download them and use this session with your teachers. Please, send me an email if you have any questions.

If you’ve been teaching English for over 2 or 3 years, then you get the idea of how demanding the profession is and how tough it can get sometimes. Making the choice of becoming a teacher was the first step, but developing as a professional and keeping on believing that you’re on the ‘right track’ is a daily challenge we all have to face.

If you take a look at the big picture: experienced teachers, years behind and a big number of teacher training courses, language certificates, conferences attended and (now) webinars, it doesn’t look that hard. Once you’ve made the big decision of embarking on this journey, you realize that golden bricks ain’t what you’re going to get.

When it comes to professional development, I’ve noticed along the way that some teachers don’t realize the extra mile they must go in order to get real professional development. A teacher training course like the CELTA might be the next step, but stopping there is a big mistake.

Pic from nzgabriel CC license

I see real professional development as a seesaw: keeping the balance is the key. If you are too heavy with certificates and courses, then your professional experience will be too light. Planning your career, taking the right courses and getting real experience according to the courses and training you have, seems to be the solution. This solution might be at the school where you teach or at the job ad you’ve seen online, deciding what to do is not easy, but it can save you from avoiding a teacher burnout, or ending up like Tom  in 500 days of Summer. 

Here are some things you should do:

1. Apply what you’ve learnt from a TT course immediately after finishing it. (i.e. get different groups according to age or level, teach English for Specific Purposes, do action research)

2. Read books, magazines, ELT journals and blogs in order to keep updated with what is going on in your career.

3. Ask for advice from experienced teachers, coordinators, DoSes and mentors.

4. Be competitive. Reflect on where you want to get and where you want to be as a professional. Decide how you’re going to get there and how long it will take.

5. Join a teachers’ association, either a local, regional or international one. Share with other teachers by creating a blog or posting comments to their blog posts. 

6. Attend seminars, webinars, local events and conferences. Networking is very important!

7. Invest time and money in your career. Analyze the benefits you will get and how long it will take you to reach your next goal as a professional.

8. Think BIG! But don’t forget to bridge the gap between expectations and reality: know where you’re stepping and keep up the pace.

I’ve always found very difficult to create a digital flyer or poster using Corel Draw or other tools available. Asking designers to do the job for me was also a problem because it includes costs (not cheap) and deadlines which were usually not met. Sometimes, as teachers, all we want is to create a simple flyer or poster to promote an event, a conference talk or a special meeting.

Today, I saw Carla Arena‘s post on Twitter about a web 2.0 tool called Smore which does exactly what I had been looking for. I registered, you can use your Facebook account to do so, and a few minutes later I came up with my first digital flyer. It is incredibly easy and very user friendly. Check out the result: https://smore.com/6ykc

Every two years, students from public schools in Brazil take a national exam, the results of which are used as a ranking to determine the best schools in the country. For the third year in a row, the Colégio de Aplicação (CAp), from Recife, is ranked 1st.  What is their secret? I believe all of the reasons mentioned are valid for English language teaching.

Source: www.ufpe.br

1. Highly qualified teachers

Most teachers at Colégio de Aplicação have a Masters and/or PhD degree, which is something rare at schools in Brazil. The school director points out this is a crucial factor for the school’s performance. And teachers are always stimulated to take part in courses and conferences. As Foord (2009) reminds us, “there will be moments in your teaching career when taking a course or working towards a professional qualification is a very positive step, which will stimulate tremendous achievement.”

2. Critical thinking as part of the curriculum

Students from CaP agree that teachers make them think beyond equations and language rules. Debates and discussions are an essential part of the curriculum. Harmer (2012) suggests that “a lot of learning happens when people talk to (and participate with) each other, rather than when they are studying with books.” Each student’s ideas and opinions are taken into account during the lessons. Students are welcome to question what is being taught and suggest topics for the whole group.

3. Students take responsibility for their own learning

One of the key aims of the lessons is to show students that what they’re learning is important for them in real life outside the school. Students’ sense of responsibility plays a vital role in the learning process. Students arrive in the classroom with a natural interest in the lesson and the content of the lesson, they usually search for books and internet resources to complement what is being taught in the classroom.

4. Promoting learners’ autonomy

The fact that the school is located inside the campus of the Federal University of Pernambuco allows students to have access to all libraries and resources from the university. Students from CaP are also allowed to change their schedules, giving them the option to ‘skip’ lessons in order to have extra study periods or join another lesson at the same time if that’s more important for them at that time. However, giving students partial freedom means they are responsible for their own learning and they must be responsible for their choices as well.

5. Student-centered lessons

Lessons are focused on students’ needs and teachers prepare lessons with content that goes beyond the classroom walls and teach them lifelong lessons. According to the director, the school is interested in the learning process, students’ individual difficulties and if they are able to develop critical thinking in order to question what is being taught. As Graves (2000) puts it: “Any activity associated with teaching is in some respect a work in progress because it will be transformed by those involved in it.”

References:

Foord, D. (2009) The Developing Teacher: Practical Activities for Professional Development. Surrey: Delta Publishing.

Graves, K. (2000) Designing Language Courses. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Harmer, J. (2012) Essential Teacher Knowledge. Essex: Pearson.

Source:

[in Portuguese] http://g1.globo.com/pernambuco/vestibular-e-educacao/noticia/2012/08/colegio-no-recife-tira-nota-mais-alta-do-brasil-no-ideb-pela-terceira-vez.html

There’s a song from the 90s I will always remember: Blue Savannah by the English duo Erasure. It’s the melody, the 80s beat and the line My home is where the heart is… that makes this song unforgettable. Having left my mom’s apt years ago, I still feel confused when I call her place my home. It’s where I grew up and where she has lived for over 30 years.

I’ve also seen this ‘confusion’ in the classroom with my students. Some say they have 2 homes because their parents are divorced. Other students, who have recently moved to Recife, admit they don’t ‘feel at home’ here yet. Some students also say that home is where their family is, no matter which city they’re living in.

Defining home is not an easy task, for that reason, it can lead to a very interesting discussion in the classroom and generate meaningful conversation among teens and adults. The objective of the activity below is to promote discussion and also to raise students’ awareness of connected speech through a song under the same theme of home.

Download activity: Defining Home