![\"Kevin](\"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/KevinStein3-150x150.jpg\")
\nThis year has been a little busier than I would like.\u00a0 In many respects I feel like I took much more from the teaching community than I was able to give back.\u00a0 And is often the case when busy, I haven\u2019t taken as much time as I should to say thank you.\u00a0 So I\u2019m grateful to have a chance to share a collection of 12 ways my PLN made my school a better place to learn and teach in 2013.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>I love Post-It notes.<\/b>\u00a0 This might seem like a very small change, but it has been huge for my students.\u00a0 The fact that I don\u2019t need to run to the board, that the post-in notes remain right there in front of the students, that they can be picked up, elaborated on, slapped into a student notebook and taken home, all of these things make all the difference.\u00a0 So thanks Carol Goodey (http:\/\/cgoodey.wordpress.com<\/a>) for the original nudge towards post-it notes, and Larissa Albano (http:\/\/larissaslanguages.blogspot.it\/2013\/10\/the-power-of-post-it-notes.html<\/a>) for another example of why Post-It Notes are a crucial classroom tool.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Be a gentle observer.<\/b>\u00a0 A few months ago I was wondering why, whenever I observe a class and a student seems unsure of a vocabulary word, the teacher invariably stops the flow of the lesson and insists that the student (or class in general) try and guess the meaning of the word from context.\u00a0 Why doesn\u2019t the teacher just give the meaning and move on?\u00a0 I was kind of ranting about the situation over drinks with a more experienced teacher.\u00a0 He laughed and said, \u201cMaybe they\u2019re just teaching by the book because you\u2019re in the room.\u201d\u00a0 It hit me that being observed often comes with the feeling of wanting to do things the \u201cright way.\u201d\u00a0 Being an empathic and supportive observer means keeping this in mind, always.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Comprehensions question, not so bad. <\/b>\u00a0I wrote a series of posts over the course of the year in which I derided comprehension questions.\u00a0 I was, for the most part, very, very unforgiving and harsh.\u00a0 Members of the community were for\u00a0 the most part, much more forgiving of my unforgivingness.\u00a0 On Twitter, in e-mails, and face to face, teachers would ask (and so gently), \u201cDon\u2019t you think there might be a role for comprehension questions?\u201d \u00a0And because they kept asking, I kept thinking.\u00a0 Eventually, as I was teaching a class in September and thinking how useless the coursebook\u2019s comprehension questions were, I remembered something John Fanselow (http:\/\/peacecorpsworldwide.org\/teaching\/<\/a>) said: \u201cIf you don\u2019t like the questions in the book, have the students make up their own.\u201d\u00a0 So that\u2019s what I did.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been doing ever since.\u00a0 Comprehension questions do serve a purpose, especially when students write them and ask them to each other to check their own comprehension.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Video as student tool.<\/b>\u00a0 For the past year, I\u2019ve been taking short videos of my classes to use as observation tools with my fellow teachers.\u00a0 Nina Septina and Tim Murphey, both iTDi-ers, suggested that I could take those same videos, give them to the students, and let the students use them as models to practice English outside of the classroom.\u00a0 Their suggestion was, I think, based on a paper they wrote together here (http:\/\/peerspectives.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/04\/language-performance-videoing-for-home-viewing.pdf<\/a>).\u00a0 And it allowed me to take a observation tool for teachers and turn it into a resource for student learning.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Moving isn\u2019t just for children.<\/b>\u00a0 As a high school teacher, it\u2019s all too easy for me to fall in the trap that sitting at a desk and puzzling over difficult language is what learning is all about.\u00a0 So thanks to Sir Marco Brazil for your collection of videos (http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/5254marco\/videos<\/a>), Malu Sciamarelli, and Barbara Sakamoto (amongst others) for reminding me that getting up, playing with actual objects, and physically feeling the wonder of learning isn\u2019t something that diminishes as our learners get older.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 6)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Walk the mistake walk.<\/b>\u00a0 I often give lip service to the idea that making mistakes is good, and that students should make mistakes.\u00a0 But what does that mean?\u00a0 And how can I do more than just give lip service?\u00a0 One of my favourite PLNers, Sophia Khan (http:\/\/languagelearningteaching.wordpress.com<\/a>), started a blog this year and she had me thinking about mistakes.\u00a0 I realised that probably the best thing I can do is just own up to my own mistakes in class and show the students how I\u2019m going to use that knowledge to make future classes, hopefully, a bit better.\u00a0 So this year I\u2019ve said sorry a bit more often.\u00a0 And I like to think that\u2019s helped my students see their own errors as a chance to improve.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 7)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Useful tech. <\/b>\u00a0This year I set aside some time for the students in the computer room.\u00a0 Not much, about an hour a week.\u00a0 Some of my favourite bloggers have kept up a steady stream of comments and reflections on tech they love to use in the classroom.\u00a0 So thanks to Sandy Millin (http:\/\/sandymillin.wordpress.com<\/a>)and Chiew Pang (http:\/\/aclil2climb.blogspot.jp\/p\/useful-resources.html<\/a>) and many others, for links and lesson plans about Quizlet (quizlet.com<\/a>), Lyrics Training (http:\/\/www.lyricstraining.com<\/a>), and Storybird (http:\/\/storybird.com<\/a>) to name just a few of the tools that my students have loved enough in the classroom to take outside of the classroom and make language learning a larger part of their lives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 8)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Pronunciation<\/b> work has always been one aspect of language teaching that I felt could be saved for when there was more time.\u00a0 But in a classroom, there is never really \u201cmore time.\u201d\u00a0 A series of blog posts on pronunciation by Alex Grevett (http:\/\/breathyvowel.wordpress.com<\/a>) convinced me that students might be much more interested in pronunciation that I thought.\u00a0 So thank you Alex for convincing me to take the time I need, and the students want, to focus on pronunciation issues.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 9)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Tell \u2018em what\u2019s wrong.<\/b>\u00a0 Cecilia Lemos, iTDi associate, blogger and teacher, gave a talk at IATEFL (http:\/\/iatefl.britishcouncil.org\/2013\/sessions\/2013-04-09\/oral-correction-reflections-recovering-recaster<\/a>) this year in which she challenged the notion that clearly correcting students\u2019 mistakes will somehow inhibit classroom learning.\u00a0 It was a great chance for me to rethink what error correction is all about.\u00a0 And when I asked my students, it turned out that they wanted, whenever possible, quick, clear and concrete error correction as well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 10) <\/b>Go to Activities.<\/b>\u00a0 At the end of the year, Anna Loseva (http:\/\/annloseva.wordpress.com\/2013\/11\/16\/the-flashmobelt-movement\/<\/a>) and Michael Griffin (http:\/\/eltrantsreviewsreflections.wordpress.com<\/a>) came up with #FlashMobELT, a lino wall filled with classroom activities that take little to no preparation.\u00a0 (http:\/\/linoit.com\/users\/annaloseva\/canvases\/flashmobELT<\/a>).\u00a0 Having 1 or 2 of these activities in reserve has given me a nice cushion to fall back on when things don\u2019t exactly go as planned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 11) <\/b>\u00a0Other Ways to Collect Feedback. <\/b>\u00a0For much of the year, I found myself stuck in a student feedback rut.\u00a0 But thanks to posts on fostering student reflection by Alex Walsh (http:\/\/www.alienteachers.com\/1\/post\/2013\/05\/promoting-student-reflections-failures-successes-and-lessons.html<\/a>) and a host of other suggestions such as feedback boards, many of which can be found here on Anne Hendler\u2019s blog (http:\/\/lizzieserene.wordpress.com\/2013\/12\/19\/collecting-and-using-learner-feedback-a-workshop\/<\/a>), I was able to make the giving and collecting of student feedback a much more enjoyable part of class.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 12) <\/b>Teaching is trust.<\/b>\u00a0 When a class starts, and the students are sitting at a table, all of the theory and knowledge in the world isn\u2019t going to do very much if your students don\u2019t feel that you care about them.\u00a0 Every single time I read a blog post, every single time I perused the iTDi forums and interacted with teachers on FaceBook, I was reminded again and again, that here are a group of teachers who are, more than anything else, dedicated to their students.\u00a0 Dedicated to fostering their students\u2019 potential, to making a safe place for learning.\u00a0 And knowing that I am part of this community, makes me a much better teacher than I used to be.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So this has been a year of much taking.\u00a0 These are just 12 of the ways the teachers I know and respect have made me a better educator.\u00a0 Which leaves me with 1 more something to bring this post to a nice round 13 for 13.\u00a0 And I would like to end by looking to next year.\u00a0 #13 is a promise to give something back.\u00a0 This year, more than anything else, I\u2019ve learned that I am a member of a community which recognises the value of experience.\u00a0 We are a community which believe that all teachers have something important to say.\u00a0 So my goal for next year is to more actively help to create that kind of space and invite as many teachers as I can into it.\u00a0 Because 14 for 14, 15 for 15, and even 45 for 45 is well within our reach.\u00a0 Especially if we have a chance to hear the rich and nuanced voices of all the teachers dedicated to making learning possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 12 ways my PLN (often unexpectedly) made my classroom a better place for learning (and teaching) + 1 look ahead – Kevin Stein This year has been a little busier than I would like.\u00a0 In many respects I feel like I took much more from the teaching community than I was able to give back.\u00a0 … Continue reading 13 for 2014 – Kevin 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