ELTMentor – Getting students to write
ELTMentor News
In this edition:
- Housekeeping
- What’s going on next
- Teacher workshop in August
- Getting students to write – some ideas on showcasing their writing
Housekeeping:
- The last session on Assessment is available on WIZIQ and will be in the ELTMentor section on Gapfillers very soon.
- I will also post the timetable for the next 12 months in the next week
- I want to put in a regular Q&A session so that you can all bring your current ‘problems’ and questions and we can discuss these in real time
- Please don’t forget the forum – there are messages waiting there and it would be great to have your input and experience shared
- I’m still struggling with the times – 8.00 only brought along Elena so this doesn’t work for you either – some feedback would be great!
Last Session:
I had a lovely hour with Elena discussing assessment. We discussed our own experiences especially around IELTS and other external exams.
I hope that you will be able to watch the recording. If you have anything to add then please start a thread on the forum 🙂
What’s happening next?
ELTMentor will be 1 year old at the end of this month.
We will, of course be continuing with the programme and I want to make a few small changes (more in the next newsletter)
I would also love some feedback form you all on this anniversary occasion.
Some of you I see often and the sessions and some of you I don’t see and I am hoping that you are all accessing the recordings and getting value from the sessions and information that is created for you.
I have learnt a lot over the past year and I have many more ideas for how we can work best together. I want to support you all in whatever challenges you are facing as well as give you the ideas and information that I have learned over my 35 years of being an EFL yaecher.
I am also still learning new things and I believe that this is why I have stayed in this profession fro so long. Much to learn and much to share 🙂
CPD Workshop in August
As most of you know, I run workshops here in the UK for very small groups of teachers . We stay together for a week and each day we explore an area of teaching together.
http://www.language-tuition.co.uk/cpd-workshops-for-practising-efl-teachers
These sessions are not ‘taught’ although I do prepare something by way of introduction and then we all bring our own experiences and ideas to the table.
One day is devoted to the Brontes. The Bronte museum and moors where the books are set are not too far from me so we can really try and get into the atmosphere of the stories by going there. The books are also well-known and often feature as texts for EFL/ESL students. I ask everybody who comes to read one of the books before arriving and then we discuss them, watch the movies and have a day out.
Previous workshops have been great fun as well as a valuable source of information and ideas.
The next one I’m running will be August 5th to 12th. I like to give priority to participants of ELTMentor. I can only take 6 people in total and I have 2 booked already so there are 4 places left if any of you are interested.
The investment is £175 to cover food, the day trip and other local transport. I provide full-board accommodation and I will collect you all from the nearest train station (Northallerton).
It would be marvellous to see some of you here.
Getting students to write
I wanted to look at some ways of getting students to write and publish their writing. I think this can be very motivating for students once they get over the initial fear of having it out in the open! You can keep this controlled and have them just publish for their class or group as a first stage.
Sharing diaries – Writing from the heart
This is the 3rd and final part in my series on writing for a wider audience. In this final piece I want to look at diaries and how, although more intimate and certainly very authentic pieces of writing, they can still be shared.
Writing Diaries
From time immemorial diaries have been an obvious genre of writing for use with students. There are many different ways of approaching diary writing from formal work schedules through daily records to very personal commentaries.
A recent development of the diary format can been in the use of Learner Diaries. This is an excellent and personal way for a student to record their learning both in terms of progress and also personal reaction to the process and results. It can be at once a practical and a reflective piece of writing. As such it is highly personal and allows the freedom to be more creative.
In a classroom situation students will share their learner diaries with the teacher and perhaps with each other too. When students are studying alone, it may seem pointless to keep such a diary as there is no one to read it (this is not necessarily a good reason not to write one) and who is going to correct it?
See Nik Peachey’s piece on Learner Diaries
I think there are two things to say here.
- Firstly, keeping a learner diary just for yourself is a valuable thing to do. You will develop a record of your learning which can be very revealing about your journey through the process and it will help you to develop and progress your skills in the future.
- Secondly, taking into account my previous suggestion in posts 1 and 2 about joining communities online, you can share your diary if you want to. Being an independent learner does not mean being an isolated learner and finding these groups can be part of the e-learning process.
A personal experience of sharing a student’s learner diary.
So, I’d like to share a diary with you which was written by my student (face 2 face) after staying here for a week in the summer. I hadn’t actually asked him to do this as part of the learning (although I do often ask my face to face and online e-learners to do this).
The student is a dentist and we had spent a pretty intensive week on a mix of general English and work on several presentations that he was going to be giving internationally.
When the week was over I realised that I had forgotten to get him to give me an evaluation on the week and some thoughts (which I could publish) on the efficacy of the immersion experience he had spent here in Yorkshire. However, I felt that we had built a good working relationship and that I could ask him for a sentence or two retrospectively.
Imagine my great surprise when the week after the course I began to receive, via email, instalments of his diary that he had written each evening after the day’s work. I was gobsmacked!
It is an amazing piece of writing, full of life and energy and it really captures the week we shared together. When I asked if I could share this on me site he was delighted! I feel so privileged to have been sent this and
I feel even more honoured that I am able to share it with you here.
I have made very few changes (although I did go over it thoroughly with him) as I think it it’s ‘raw’ state it has a great deal of energy that I could only spoil.
This a great learner diary!
Ezio’s Diary
http://www.language-tuition.co.uk/?atk=401
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
I was lucky enough to have others share their experiences in blogs and videos too. Here is a collection of their reflections and another way that students can share their learning experiences with a wider audience.
More reflections on learning experiences
And the latest is an online diary from one of my Gapfillers students:
http://www.gapfillers.co.uk/?atk=7420
Part one of this series – Using blogs to help your writing skills, the how, the why and the what
Part two of this series – Getting your voice heard – authentic writing for English language students
Need help with anything?
If anybody else needs help with anything just post in the forum, or on twitter or email me or send a message in Gapfillers. I am really pleased that you are using the forum – let’s get more things posted to discuss.
Don’t forget to put any suggestions in the forum, this is your space to share ideas or experiences and to ask questions.
You can always email me too berni.wall@language-tuition.co.uk about anything that you are concerned about or if you want to ask a question.
Until next week
Berni