English Out There Shopping Lesson Instructions
I really hope being human is proving rewarding and that this newsletter can help
you to learn something about human nature and psychology that you can store, recall and use for the greater good.
Listen to this newsletter online
'Come up and see my etchings' - Language and Human Nature - top presentation and video bySteven Pinker
'The end of the world is nigh!'- great article about leadership and the tools to change things for the better
How not to do EOT - brave and honest teacher feedback made me make this video
LOT enters 'EOT Intermediate TD4' for British Council innovation awards (ELTons)
Teacher's questions about using social media to practise English
Old Jokes Home
Listen to me read this newsletter: you can see and hear me read this newsletter on our Facebook fans page, click here (careful I do it in one take, so no editing, and the mistakes are left in):
http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=123094894015
Why didn't George in Seinfeld understand what 'coffee' really meant? Pinker PPT, Edge 300: Language and Human Nature. Reasons for indirect speech.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/chile09/Pinker.htm
Are we doomed? Article: Educhange and leadership can save us. We already have the tools. Henry Porter, "The gap between our technical ingenuity and our political and moral capacities to deal with these problems is so large that most succumb to a fatal pessimism. This is wrong because reason, moral fortitude, leadership and science can save us and the world yet".
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-27-the-end-of-world-is-nigh-no-things-are-getting-better
EOT is all about human psychology and social behaviour linked to language - I got some great feedback from a new EOT teacher the other day. She very candidly (openly) told me that she tried to do some EOT and that it didn't work. Here I explain why I wasn't surprised and why we do what we do...the way we do it.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/English-Out-There/123094894015
You have to forgive and forget...and that is what I am doing with the British Council and the innovation awards that they organise called the ELTons. I know that we will probably not make the shortlist (even if our entry is actually accepted) but I'd like anyone reading this and especially those people who care about these things and are connected to us or the British Council in any way to watch these two videos.
In January 2008 Gordon Brown and the British Council trumpeted (announced boldly) that they and 'Britain' were going to teach the entire world English using the latest technology and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), here are the videos, still on Youtube:
Gordon Brown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gxaN-hagTY
British Council: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fat2hgqpims&feature=channel
Has this happened? I asked someone at the Council if they had made any progress on it and was told that they thought that there was 'a pilot in China'. I met the lady who was planning that, in January 2008 at BC HQ in London. She was perfectly pleasant but she didn't strike me as the kind of person who knew one end of a headset from the other (maybe a twinset :-).
In 2004 English Out There Ltd entered a taught course which had no formal study materials but used bits of this and bits of that and a new philosophy of learning outside of the classroom (backed up by some amazing statistics, 700+ great testimonials and a focus group of hand -picked students that sang its praises).
The course was shortlisted for an award, but not one of the judges came to see how it worked, so it couldn't possibly have won. The awards also corrresponded with a British Council inspection which sufficiently shocked the two chief inspectors who did it that they looked like they'd each been slapped with a wet fish. Which would have been funny if it hadn't wrecked so many plans and cost so much money in the long run. Innovating is tough.
Anyway, what was first created in 2001, then in 2004 got shortlisted for an award has now, with a different company owning it, finally been published in a printed course book. The book was posted to the ELTons organisers under 'guaranteed next day delivery' to get there before the 5th October deadline. Being able to send a course book means that no one needs to come and see us in order to judge it. Everything is in the book.
I am aware that someone might say EOT has been shortlisted before and can't enter again. But this is a course book by a registered publisher, a different company (Languages Out There Ltd) that bought the intellectual property, developed it much further, has an ISBN and is now for sale on Amazon, i.e. it is a new product for the mass market that is based upon a concept course.
The course book is very different from what was presented in 2004. It has been part-written and comprehensively edited by professional ELT writers using ideas and materials created in the field and taught for around 250,000 hours or 85,000 individual lessons to paying students since 2001 (surely some kind of a first for a course book?).
Since the lessons are planned in a certain way they are not platform or format specific and are truly flexible: real world classroom/virtual classroom, street/skype/social media, even Second Life. Or a combination of any of them in the same lesson.
The book costs just 14.75 and can be legally photocopied, but if someone buys it they get 50% off the rest of the materials that are on our website. That means that for under forty UK pounds (or seven UK pence per hour to be exact) a school, teacher or student can dramatically lower the cost of effective focused real practice with fluent and native English speakers. The practice, the powerful social learning (check out the latest research: http://www.languagesoutthere.com/articles/teachyouEnglishlikeababy), is always free, in the real world and online.
English Out There Intermediate TD4 is the first English course book specially designed for use with the powerful field levelling phenomenon that is voice enabled online social media (Google it, you'll see it's true!). And don't forget that Facebook will have voice soon!
Who ever heard of a course book that works online? You have now. And so have the British Council. I won't hold my breath waiting for that call to help Gordon with his plans for the world :-)
Check out the ELTons:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-innovation-awards.htm
I'm getting increasing amounts of questions about teaching and learning English the Out There way, which is fabulous and I am understanding that there is a lot to learn and it is very different to what most people know. I will answer your questions personally and fully if you contact me any way you want to, skype, email, twitter, whatever..here's a great couple of questions from a teacher (via Facebook) about students using social media to get real practice and my answers:
"Hi, I've been spending a great deal of time on your website and related places and am very interested in the approach you are promoting. I do have a question though about the VoiP option. How do you get instant conversation partners in iTalki? I know, I know, you can browse. But iTalki is supposed to be two way exchange, not just our students learning English but also their partners learning the students' native language. So where is that in the equation? And how can you guarantee that if I start a class on Monday morning that all 12 of my students will be able to hook up with a language partner immediately at the appointed stage of the lesson?
Socialnetworking is all about the building of relationships over time so I have difficulty with the apparent instant 'add water and stir' aspect of the Voip option".
by: Jason west
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