Category Archives: Discussion

The Basics of Online Learning: the Future of Education?

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There’s nothing special or complicated about going online these days. For many people, it can even be regarded as second nature. Upon waking up, checking email or updating status on social networking sites comes to mind first. It’s not surprising that the field of education went along these developments and made online learning its answer to innovation.

Online course providers are increasing in number and anticipated to cater to an equally growing number of students. As a matter of fact, online learning is not limited to schools. Many academic institutions that are into classroom-based learning are also increasingly relying on technology to respond to the diverse needs of students and instructors alike. Nowadays, the ease of using videoconferencing, web-based modules and instant messaging appeals to a number of teachers and students, particularly those who can’t be present in the same room or those who have difficulty attending physical classes.

Note how beneficial online learning can be for both teachers and students. Highly qualified instructors can get hired by International Career Institute, for instance, and accommodate classes outside their city or country. More importantly, technology allows them to post additional materials, continue discussions through email, customize lessons, flip classrooms, or simply accomplish more. Instructors at International Career Institute can also work around their schedules and determine a convenient time for teaching.

Nowadays, the ease of using videoconferencing, web-based modules and instant messaging appeals to a number of teachers and students, particularly those who can’t be present in the same room or those who have difficulty attending physical classes.

Students in forward looking institutions, on the other hand, can take advantage of quality teachers regardless of where they are based. If further training is necessary and the school lacks the resources required for it, the school can connect to another institution and facilitate lessons through online means. The Internet has shrunk the world to one happily connected village so it’s not surprising to see a school making use of affiliations to improve services and place learning in a global context.

Employers are quickly catching up too. Many of them accept and appreciate distance learning graduates as they do not only demonstrate knowledge in their specialization; they also possess self-discipline, a trait that most applicants today lack but quite apparent in many International Career Institute graduates. Interestingly, the International Career Institute is catering to many corporate clients who want to keep their employees brushed up on latest trends and armed with new skills.

If like most students, you are considering cost, pace and convenience, it is best to opt for an institution whose programs are specially designed for students who want to be armed with the skills that are most practical in their field. Individuals who are looking for a new career or a new skill perhaps can fulfill their goal in a matter of weeks or months.

Finding a way through the forest

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So, the student finds themselves in a foreign country, with so many new challenges, not the least of which is having to study at university level in English when this isn’t their first language. Together with trying to settle in an alien culture and trying to do such everyday tasks as finding somewhere to live and eat on a regular basis, such students are faced with the daunting task of attending lectures delivered in English and then handing in written work in the same language.

Answer this question honestly: could you do the same?

There are many ways in which such students can seek help. Some turn to friends, while others try and copy and paste writing they find on the internet. Both of these are extremely short-term solutions at best. Friends will only help you up to a certain point, at which they will get fed up of basically doing your work for you. Turning to the internet for immediate cut and paste solutions is, as we know, academic suicide, as anyone with half a brain will spot in an instant that this isn’t the work of the individual who is trying to claim it as their own. So, where do such students go when they are looking for a way to hand in decent work despite the obvious linguistic difficulties they are facing? Well, the answer is that they look in the direction of online essay writing services.

Turning to the internet for immediate cut and paste solutions is, as we know, academic suicide, as anyone with half a brain will spot in an instant that this isn’t the work of the individual who is trying to claim it as their own.

The advantages to the student

Such online services offer two huge advantages to second language students in preparing their English written assignments:

1. The just in time aspect

Students seeking a model essay from which to work can get timely help from online essay writing services such as galaxyessay. If they have a deadline, they can order a well-written model essay from which to base their own work. Time management is an especially big problem for those who are struggling to come to terms with language problems, so having a model to work from in the week leading up to the deadline is a life saver.

2. They deliver a grammatically correct product

Online essay writing services such as galaxyessay will always provide their student customer with a piece of work which does justice to the language in which it is written. Interestingly, the majority of students who turn to companies like galaxyessay do so because they want to look at how an essay is written from a grammatical perspective, rather than to fraudulently complete their course requirements.

Summing up

Not all students buy essays from online companies to avoid work. Many do it so as to help them in the construction of their own work.

ELT teachers need to understand and utilise their natural rhythms

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As ELT teachers we operate best when we allow our bodies and minds time to recover after intense periods of effort. If we try to operate at high levels of intensity for prolonged periods of time without allowing time for rest, we become mental and emotional flat liners. Our minds and bodies simply break down and we stop functioning optimally.

Our minds and bodies function best when we operate using a work rest ratio that was designed over 1800 years ago by a Greek named Flavius Philostratus. He drew up a set of training manuals for Greek athletes, carefully detailing the work rest ratios that would allow the athletes to deliver their best performances. His theories were resurrected in the early 1960′s by the Russian Olympic team. They enjoyed an unprecedented level of success at the Olympic Games that year. This really effective theory, simply states that every period of intense activity, must be followed by a period of rest. This allows the mind and body to replenish and recover.

There are two ways you can negatively affect your performance

  • Operating at high levels of intensity for prolonged periods without adequate rest. (Over Stressing Your System)
  • Not training or working hard enough (Insufficient Stress)

Over training or over exerting your mind or body for prolonged periods causes injury, soreness, break down of the immune system, anxiety, negativeness, loss of passion and mental and emotional staleness. Training or operating at high intensity without adequate rest allows toxins to build up in our bodies. This leads to burnout and the breakdown of our performance.

If we want to improve, grow stronger and build muscle. We must place our muscles under stress and then allow them adequate time to recover before we stress them again. It is during recovery that our muscles rebuild and become stronger. If we keep placing our muscles under stress and we do not allow adequate time for them to recover, we will see our performance drop off.

If you work at extremely high levels of performance for prolonged periods, without allowing adequate time for recovery, you will see your performance steadily drop.

The same is true about your mental performance and your ability to be creative an effective every day. If you work at extremely high levels of performance for prolonged periods, without allowing adequate time for recovery, you will see your performance steadily drop. You must build recovery time into your daily, weekly, quarterly and annual schedules. Without adequate recovery time planned and built into your schedule you will stunt your growth and damage your performance.

Break your year up into 4 equal parts of 90 days each. Ensure that you get crystal clear focus around exactly what you want to achieve. By prioritizing and carefully selecting a theme for what you want to achieve during that quarter. Break the 90 days back even further and select specific projects that are aligned with this theme. Focus all your energy on accomplishing this single project for the next two weeks or 30 days.

Apply my code of personal achievement, by selecting five daily activities that are aligned with achieving this project and carry out these activities every day. Your head must not hit the pillow before you have carried out these actions.

For example: If it was January and I wanted to improve my health and lose weight by the end of the year. I would break my year back into 4 equal parts of 90 days each. I would then choose a project that is aligned with this goal namely to loose 3 kg. I would break this back further into three periods of thirty days each. I would now only need to lose 1 kg over the next 30 days.

The code of personal achievement that I would choose could be the following:

  • Eat Six small meals a day
  • Exercise for 30 minutes each day
  • Only Choose low fat healthy foods
  • Drink 2 liters of water a day
  • Walk the stairs at work every day

These are actions I will take every day. They will be penned into my schedule every day. My head will not hit the pillow until I have carried out these actions.

Here is a recommended formula for success

  • Choose a theme each 90 days that is aligned with the overall outcome you are trying to achieve that year.
  • Break each 90 day period into shorter cycles. These cycles can be anything from a few days to six weeks each. Depending on the outcomes you are attempting to achieve.
  • Choose a code of personal achievement. Choose five activities that you will carry out every day. These activities must be congruent and aligned with the outcome you are attempting to achieve.
  • Invest the first few days of each cycle in really intense effort. Really get things going, launch your new project with gusto. Apply an intense amount of focused effort to each project.
  • Include time to rest every day, at the end of every week, after completing each cycle and most definitely at the end of each quarter and the end of each year.

About the Author

Hi my name is Andrew Horton; I am an inspirational Speaker, Master Teacher, Radio and TV Host, Global Traveler and Author. My area of focus is in the field of human behavior, expanded awareness and enlightenment. I travel the planet constantly researching, learning and seeking ways to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. I delve into the inner workings of the universe, always looking for ways to understand my role in making things better and contributing to the improvement of the human experience. Please visit my website to sign up for a daily inspirational message by following this link Daily Inspirational Message. This is your daily call to action, a reminder to do things better each day. Visit my website at http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

 

Another 4 Stupid decisions your TEFL colleagues make and why they make them

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The follow up to my earlier article appears not on this blog but on Alex Case’s excellent TEFL Tastic. I did this for two reasons, firstly so that everyone coming here can find their way to this excellent blog and, just as importantly, vice versa.

Read what I wrote by clicking here.

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4 Stupid decisions your TEFL colleagues make and why they make them

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Most of the people you know and work with persevere in making dumb decisions that they know are clearly wrong. The worst thing is, you’re a person that someone knows and you’re just as guilty of doing stupid stuff in their eyes. The good news is that there is almost always a good reason why people do dumb stuff, so below are the first few in what may prove to be a long list of reasons why we all act like idiots without even knowing it.

‘If everybody else thinks so, then I guess we should…’

This is a basic human trait commonly known as conformity. People make decisions based on what they think and not what everyone else thinks, right? Give me a break. Pressures such as the general group consensus are only too often enough to get people to do things that they know are wrong (fixing attendance sheets, giving inaccurately high exam grades, etc.).

Does this sound familiar?

Your school emphasises the importance of students passing exams to be able to take a course at a higher level. This was an important factor in you deciding to join this school. Unfavourable economic conditions suggest that those students who fail their exams won’t be willing to shell out money to take the course again. Other teachers agree to give a large number of students a ‘helping hand’ to make sure they return for the next course. What do you do?

Actual research says:

A famous experiment by Solomon Asch, in which one participant and several experimenters (in disguise) were asked to announce their judgment about the length of several lines (which line was longer then the other, etc.) supports the notion of peer pressure and conformity. The experimenters were instructed to give incorrect answers to easy questions. Astonishingly, about one third of respondents gave wrong answers because of the pressure of their peers. Conformity is an incredibly strong factor in decision making, so don’t assume someone is bad for making choices based on peer pressure.

‘Mine, mine, mine… you can’t have it’

This is known as the endowment effect: it is surprisingly hard for people to throw away, give away or sell things that are past their prime. One theory for this is that people tend to place a higher value on objects they own relative to objects they do not.

Does this sound familiar?

Have you ever tried to take back a copy of a course book a teacher has been using that’s annotated with lesson plans, notes and answers, even though it’s now been replaced by a new edition? How about getting supplementary materials from someone who last semester used the book you’re now using. Did you wonder why they were so unwilling to share, even when you were willing to reciprocate the favour in some way?

Actual research says:

An experiment conducted in an office by Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler looked at how difficult it was for people to part with the coffee mugs they used every day. It found that randomly chosen mug owners had to be paid around $7 for it, while randomly assigned ‘buyers’ were only willing to pay around $3. So it’s likely that your colleague values things they already have more than they would if they didn’t already own them.

Don’t judge people too harshly for doing this, they simply place a lot more value on the things they have than you do.

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‘Listen, we’ve come this far… so let’s just keep going’

Those in the know refer to this as the sunk cost bias. While we know that the past is past and we can’t get back money or time that we have already spent, many people irrationally take costs, time, money, or other resources which have already been consumed and can’t be recovered into account in their decision making.

Does this sound familiar?

Your school persists on using a Headway-type series despite it being grossly inappropriate for the ESP courses you’re teaching. Better options are available, but a lot of time and effort has been put into developing grammar and vocabulary exercises, course programs, etc., not to mention the agreement with the supplier to use the book in exchange for a bulk buy discount. Word of mouth feedback from students suggests that people aren’t satisfied with the courses and aren’t recommending them, but surely too much has been invested to switch now.

Actual research says:

Barry Schwartz discusses this issue in ‘The Paradox of Choice’, examples of such behaviour include taking into account how much you spent to get your car fixed last time, how long you have been dating someone, how much you invested in a stock, or how many troops have been lost in Iraq so far, when trying to decide if you should persist.

If the American government can’t get past this, give the admin at your school a break for adopting this posture

‘Me, me, me!’

Not to be confused wit ‘mine, mine, mine…’ egocentric bias refers to the fact that putting yourself in another person’s shoes is harder than it sounds for most people.

Does this sound familiar?

Certain teachers seem to regularly claim more responsibility for themselves for the results of a successful class than an outside observer would credit them with. Besides simply claiming credit for positive outcomes, which might simply be self-serving, it’s interesting that the same teachers also cite themselves as overly responsible for negative outcomes as well.

Actual research says:

In a study conducted by Sukhwinder Shergill and colleagues at University College London, pairs of volunteers were connected to a device that allowed each of them to exert pressure on the other volunteer’s fingers. The researcher began by exerting a fixed amount of pressure on the first volunteer’s finger. The first volunteer was then asked to exert the same amount of pressure on the second volunteer’s finger. The second volunteer was then asked to exert the same amount of pressure on the first volunteer’s finger, and so on. Although volunteers tried to respond with equal force, they typically responded with about 40% more force than they had just experienced. Each time a volunteer was touched, they touched back harder, which led the other volunteer to touch back even harder. Is this why parties in a conflict invariably think they are both right?

So, here are the first four examples of stupid behaviour that can be explained in a perfectly reasonable way, if you take the time to think what’s causing the behaviour. Knowing the causes of such behaviour may not enable you to get past such actions, but it will give you a better insight into why it occurs.

6 simple reasons why your TEFL resume sucks

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Another lunchtime chat with the boss, another great idea for a blog post. Although, technically speaking, she now only has to deal with formulaic online job applications, my boss has years of experience of weeding out rubbish CVs, the reasons she suggested why yours might be ending up in the garbage are sometimes startlingly simple. Now, it’s one thing to garble meaningless rubbish in everyday life, but when the wrong words appear on your resume it sucks and it will cost you a chance at landing a job. The words I’m referring to are all too common, wherein lies the problem. They litter the average resume with ‘buzzword badness’. Managers who do the hiring can and do identify such words in seconds, leaving your resume work worthless. To help you land that job interview, which, let’s face it, should be one foot in the door, here’s how to turn six crappy resume words into selling points that set you on the way to landing the job.

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Crap word #1: ‘Experienced’

So, are you experienced? You are? That’s great. What on Earth does ‘experienced mean? For the love of God, say what your experience entails. Saying you’re experienced at something and laying out the facts of that experience are two very different approaches. Guess which one you should be doing…

BAD: ‘Experience in teaching ESP.’

GOOD: ‘Developed, taught and received feedback on a sixteen-week ESP syllabus for Chinese mechanical engineers which was adopted by a chain of schools in Shanghai.’

Managers want to know exactly what experience, skills, and qualifications you have to offer. Tell them concisely without just saying, ‘I am experienced.’

Crap word #2: ‘Responsible for’

Buddhist monks have set fire to themselves in protest over less. Of course you’re responsible for something… but how many, how long ago, who, what or why? Rather than waste the hiring manager’s time reading a vague list of responsibilities, be specific and use quantitative figures to back up your cited skills and accomplishments.

Managers want the cold, hard, numerical facts. Write percentages, monetary savings, and figures of students brought into the school to best explain your accomplishments. Be specific so as to get your point across quickly and prove you have what it takes to get hired.

BAD: ‘Responsible for IT in classes.’

GOOD: ‘Developed a series of PowerPoint presentations for common grammar structures that have been used throughout every branch of the school I worked for.’

If your resume avoids vague ‘responsibilities’ and sticks to facts detailing figures, number of people managed, budget innovations, student bums on seats, you’ll get the job interview.

Crap word #3: ‘Excellent written communication skills’

If you have excellent communication skills, you don’t need to say so in this most important of written communications. If you need to write this, it means that in fact you don’t have excellent written communication skills. This phrase is very, very bad and must die. It’s on most resumes. Is it on yours? Go on, check now and remove immediately.

BAD: ‘I have excellent written communication skills.’

GOOD: ‘Developed a jargon-free online course guideline that reduced related email queries from prospective students and enabled intake to increase for several courses.’

If you’ve got specific writing skills, say what it is that you write and how you communicate. Are you writing ‘can do statements’, or course materials? Whatever you do, be sure to give the details.

Crap word #4: ‘Team Player’

Awful; just plain ghastly. What job do you think this is? Are you joining a bloody football team? If you don’t want to be joining the unemployed ‘team’, get some hard facts behind your job pitch.

BAD: ‘Team player who works well in both large and small groups.’

GOOD: ‘Worked with students in large groups and on a one-to-one basis, software developers, course book writers, and prospective customers to increase the quality of language services offered.’

Do yourself a favour and explicitly say what teams you play for and qualify the teams’ achievements.

Crap word #5: ‘Detail Oriented’

What the bloody hell does ‘detail oriented’ mean? I know English is the fastest growing language in the history of civilization, but this is one phrase too far. Give the specifics to the details with which you are oriented. Please, I implore you, orient your reader to the details, there’s a good chap.

BAD: ‘Detail oriented language instruction professional.’

GOOD: ‘Proofread the school-developed course books and online materials currently used by 25 language schools throughout Mexico.’

If you have specific details, share them with the person doing the hiring. Give the facts, the numbers, the time lines, the monetary figure or the quantitative data that sells your skills.

Crap word #6: ‘Successful’

What’s wrong with you? Will you also include a section labeled ‘abject failures’? Hopefully you’re only listing successes on your resume. So, if everything is a success, then why write the s-word? Show your success by giving solid, real-life examples of what you’ve done to be successful and let your skills, qualifications, and achievements speak for you.

BAD: ‘Successfully taught the English course.’

GOOD: ‘Not only maintained student intake for the English for mule farmers course, but also enabled a 42 percent increase in intake for further mule farming courses due to word of mouth recommendations.’

When it comes to success, don’t be shy. Brag, sing your own praises, sell your skills and say why you’re wonderful.

So, there you go, six of the crappest words or phrases that might be on your resume. By focusing on the facts, detailing the details, and qualifying your qualifications, you may just land yourself the job interview.

Bilingual babies get a head start before they can even talk

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Here’s an interesting finding from the National Geographic:

Even before they can babble a single word, babies in bilingual households may get a head start in life, according to a team of scientists in Italy. Rather than confusing babies, hearing more than one language gives newborns a mental boost, according to the new study, which tested seven-month-old infants.

“In many European countries, parents are wary of giving a bilingual education to their kids and try to speak only one language,” said study author Jacques Mehler of the Language, Cognition, and Development Lab at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy. “They are afraid [their children] might suffer when they get to school and so on,” Mehler said. “Because of our results, I doubt that very much.”

Read more of the article here.

CLIL for dummies?

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Big Alex Case has just published some great material for history, moving daringly into CLIL territory. What the Hell is CLIL, I hear you ask? Content and Language Integrated Learning, or CLIL as it’s better known, is basically where a regular classroom subject, such as history, is taught in the target language rather than the first language of the learners. In CLIL classes, tasks are designed to allow students to focus on and learn to use the new language as they learn the new subject content. For example, in a bilingual English/Malaysian school, at a certain age half of the subjects, often including maths and sciences, are taught solely in English. Such policies are becoming more commonplace, as I’ve detailed previously on ELT World News, although not without resistance, especially in the aforementioned case of Malaysia.

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In the classroom, CLIL materials can often be characterised as having lots of visual support for ‘meaning’, thus allowing low language level students to access high level content. The materials allow the students to focus on the language they need to learn about that particular subject in English. The choice of language focused on is determined by the demands of the subject. Check out Alex’s stuff here.