The Obblogatory Life

2003 Presentation in Thailand

Aug 14 at 3:03pm by ObverseView

Online Chatting Times: Processes, pitfalls and potentials

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A library for ESL learners

Jul 16 at 12:12am by ObverseView

For the school library, we started collecting books when we first opened. Though it took many years, we built up our collection to about 500 books for children to read.

That was when we realized that if we wanted to grow bigger, we needed a barcode scanner to automate the entry of our books into the database.

That’s when the acquisition of books took off really. We worked hard to acquire both new and good quality used books from as many sources as we could find. Truthfully, we couldn’t have done it otherwise.

The new book dealers simply didn’t have the depth of stock to furnish our library, nor did they have a lot of classic books, while the 2nd hand sellers just didn’t have enough good quality books. Somehow, though, we built up our collection to about 1000 books for students.

I’m hoping that we could have about 5000 books or so in our collection, but it’s difficult to see how we could really develop that number of books without trying to monetize our resources. Ideas are lacking at this point!

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New Class Presentation: June 2010

Jun 18 at 11:11pm by ObverseView

Enjoy this video of my wonderful students doing their first presentation after nine months of learning English! Some have been learning longer, though! Pretty good, overall! I just wish they’d look at their ‘real’ audience! But perhaps next time!

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Online Degrees: Are they my cup of tea?

Apr 21 at 11:11pm by ObverseView

I love tea, I really do. But I digress… A few years ago, I spent a considerable amount of time researching Masters degrees in TESOL/TEFL and eventually chose a course with the University of Aston which had some really great courses. I really thought it was the best online degree for my chosen career.

But it was almost the worst timing: I had a full-time job at University, a part-time job at my local business, and several private students! Not only that, the business I was a part-owner needed all sorts of assistance: accounts, teaching work, some managerial stuff, and financial management.

All in all, it was just too tough to get anything done on the course, so eventually I quit my job at the University (was that a mistake…? I don’t know, but at that time I was just stressed out!), worked full-time at the business, and still found I had no time and less motivation.

So, if you are going to do any work on a degree, you really need a solid motivational timetable with real goals…! Otherwise you might just let it slide! Like I did!

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Jim’s Snailpionelephlyrhinosaurgiraffishbigeyeman

Apr 6 at 4:04pm by ObverseView

This picture and story present a very detailed and colorful! Well done, Jim!

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Interactive ESL Materials: A Video Lesson

Mar 19 at 1:01am by ObverseView

Thought you readers would be very interested in seeing this ESL lesson that is embedded in a regular page and includes a YouTube Movie, language explanation and tips, writing practise and is scored. I’m not exactly sure what Joomla mods can do this, but I think it’s a very interesting way to create interactive learning materials. You can check out the site by clicking on the image. Don’t forget to check out the rest of Chris’ website, too at http://www.nupotato.com/ .

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The Six Principles of the Taiwanese Education System: An Outsider’s View

Mar 10 at 11:11am by ObverseView

Having taught at pretty much all age groups throughout Taiwan’s educational spectrum, I believe that there are six axioms that pretty much inform ALL of Taiwan’s educational philosophy in the 21st Century. Whether any of these is relevant for Taiwan in the 21st Century is entirely another question.

1. To learn it you MUST memorize it. To memorize the lesson regardless of whether it is a meaningful thing to do is the ONLY sign that you have learned something, that you have been processed by the school system, that you have listened to the teacher…

2. More is always better, esp. when it means more hours, more quizzes, more practice exercises… but more does not usually extend to the idea of more teachers or more qualified teachers or more experienced teachers or more higher quality teaching in the classroom. Oh, and let’s have the teacher copy the entire lesson FROM the book, handouts and all, as well.

3. Oh, it’s good enough! If you live in Taiwan, you probably already know the phrase in Chinese. This also extends to a kid’s education, no matter how old he or she is. He’s studied English for three years, his grades are good now. It’s good enough… No matter that in six months’ time, said kid will be struggling to keep up or even maintain what he learned.

4. Don’t read any books but your school books! Seriously, I’ve heard parents say this to their children, and children report this to me in class on MANY occasions. Needless to say, these kids often have NO other books at home but school books, can’t read any form of books (even a comic book) as it’s considered a waste of time (school time! see Rule #2) and a waste of money (what are you reading that book for? It’s not even in the test…)… God forbid that you should learn ANYTHING without the teacher’s sanction.

5. I paid for it so I should get it! When education is traded for cash, as is often the case in Taiwan and many other developed countries, too. Often the purchasers think they are buying hours in the class, scores in the quiz, a graduation or course completion certificate, etc.. It rarely occurs to many participants that it’s possible they may not meet the requirements of the course. They didn’t come, didn’t hand in assignments, didn’t complete coursework. Never matter, I paid for the course. So graduate me, NOW!

6. Multiple-Choice Rules! Multiple choice is of course the way to test knowledge thoroughly, and saves a lot of effort in grading because you either KNOW the answer or  you don’t! It also helps to ascertain that you have reached the accredited standard and your results are directly comparable to every other student in the class/form/grade/school/system…

Naturally, I’m at pains to point out the flaws in my own country’s education system, esp. in subjects like Math. But that doesn’t mean that I should approve of all of these ‘benefits’ of the Taiwanese system. I rather think points 5 and 6 are increasingly common in the UK, too.

But what frustrates me in Taiwan is that teachers often fail to see the importance of education to reach out and make a real DIFFERENCE in the lives of the people we serve – our students. So I hesitate to teach in the Taiwanese system any more. I really feel there are better ways to make that difference… through speaking out. Through writing. Through telling people.

My rant.

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Proud of my students: Anansi Drama

Jan 21 at 1:01pm by ObverseView

Take a look at this wonderful drama written and illustrated by my talented students.

Anansi and Five – The Drama

It’s a wonderfully illustrated story with cute pictures written after a traditional Anansi story from Africa. If you don’t know these childrens’ stories, have a look for the keyword Anansi in Google.

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Should you pursue ESL? Not only ESL, then what else?

Jan 21 at 1:01am by ObverseView

Back in the days when I thought TESOL was all that I wanted to do I nearly signed up for an online bachelor degree. It was pretty expensive, and all told would have been a good thing for my TESOL career.

But that was before I became disillusioned with TESOL. I have been running a business for about 5 years, and I realized that most of the ESL businesses don’t care what TESOL qualifications you have.

I am thinking that TESOL in general is a dead-end career. So I’m advising: if you want to travel and see the world, do it. ESL is great for that. But after you’ve done, go do something else. It’s just not worth it in the long run to spend a significant portion of your life practicing ESL.

Get experience of other things, do other jobs, meet people, all of these will matter far more than some tenuous career in a country that may not really want you to stay, may not really want you to do your job too well, may not really want its citizens able to speak English fluently.

So give it some pause before you sign up for a life of ESL. And keep your experience broad as well as deep.

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Making a Library: Using Software and a scanner

Jan 13 at 10:10am by ObverseView

You may have seen the pictures of children using our little library on our website. We always try to promote reading among our learners, but one way we did this was to build our own lending library.

At the moment, it’s not open to all students as we have only 1000 books in the system, but we intend to add about 1000 more books at some point.

Instrumental in making this possible was our purchase of some library software and a barcode scanner which speeded up the entry of most of our books. About 1/3 had to be done manually since we couldn’t pull any records about the books, but with multiple books from the same publisher, it was still pretty fast.

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