World Hunger Bites ...

 ... as do climate changes, international conflicts, and pandemics! 

There are representations of all four global problems [that] appear on the interactive World Food Program's HungerMap accessible from the hot-linked snapshot below (click to open).

https://hungermap.wfp.org/

In additional views, the map also can show current hazards to humans flagged for severity, for instance: droughts, floods, storms, volcanos, and wildfires.

Please browse through the map and let us know in comments on this post what most concerns or surprises you, or what else you'd like to know about it. 

We'll be especially keen to hear from teachers who are exploring sustainable development goals (SDGs) with students in classes that they teach.

Last but not least, I'd like to express gratitude to a colleague, K. Tokunaga, who raised my awareness of previous World Food Program (WFP) HungerMaps.

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PIGATE's first entirely online gathering

This post showcases slides from PIGATE's March gathering (2020.03.14). Previews of slide-building in progress were available the week leading up to PIGATE's first entirely online program. 



The gathering took place in a Zoom meeting room with screen sharing from remote presenters. 

Amplifications and revisions of slides continued afterwards. 

Follow-up questions, reflections, and suggestions are welcome in comments on this blog post.

Except as otherwise noted, slides in that compilation are licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 

International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). 

Please attribute adoptions or derivations [of the slides] to The PIGATE 英語授業学研究会 2020.03.14.

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Dr. Morrow's presentations from December 2019

This post showcases two presentations that Dr. Jeffrey S. Morrow made at the PIGATE gathering on December 14, 2019, on:

1. Keys to Successful Student Motivation; &
2. Successful Pronunciation Teaching.

These are for attendees to review as well as for the perusal of PIGATE members who had other commitments last month.

If you have questions or suggestions regarding either of those presentations, please feel free to:

• Post them in comments on this blog post; 
• Send them in messages to the PIGATE Google Group;
• Voice them at an upcoming PIGATE gathering (Calendar of Events); or 
• Address them directly to Dr. Morrow (contact info. at ends of slide shows).

Except as otherwise noted, each of those presentations is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License:
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Please attribute them to Dr. Jeffrey S. Morrow.

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Online activities and opportunities: Work in progress

The short (16 slide) presentation embedded in this blog post represents on-going endeavours mainly to recover from a massive setback in online resource curation. In a nutshell:

This presentation provides snapshots of an individual teacher's recent and ongoing professional development endeavours. It reflects problems of ICT use, mainly discontinuation of a free service for educators, and outlines strategies for addressing them with collaborative partners, tools, and venues of choice. It supplements a working paper submitted to PIGATE.

(Abstract, slide 2)

If you have comments or questions with regard either to the content of slides in that short presentation or the gist of the working paper (Beaufait, 2019) submitted to PIGATE prior to its Annual General Meeting last month (2019.09.14), please feel free to spell them out in threadable comments on this post.

Reference

Beaufait, P. (2019a). Reflection in action: An unavoidable IT transition. PIGATE eigo jugyou gaku kenkyuu-kai kiyou, 26 [English language teaching action research group working papers, issue 26], 32-42.

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The Beaufait Collaboratoire: A Google Site

A Google Site that I'm using to reconstitute bits and pieces of new and previous online endeavours, the Beaufait Collaboratoire, grew new pages and subpages today.

Home page snapshot, 2019.07.12

Most notable was a new Educators' Corner, now a ProDev subpage. Other additions included a couple of Google Forms for surveys of EnglishCentral (EC) users that I have embedded in EC subpages. I'd linked to the forms previously from the Tech. Tools page to replace old wiki resources.

Please feel free to browse the Collaboratoire, and let me know in comments on this post if you have any questions or discover any incipient web rot (faulty links).

As I continue to build and update that site, I'm seeking a communication interface to include there. Something like the threaded comment functionality of Blogger blogs might be ideal. In the meantime, I welcome your suggestions in comments here.

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A Visual Summary: 32 Learning Theories Every Teacher Should Know

In his post, A Visual Summary: 32 Learning Theories Every Teacher Should Know, Terry Heck displayed a detailed graphic by Richard Millwood.

In that post, Heck asserted that "there are dozens of theories that underpin what and how you teach already, and that the better you understand them, the better chance you’ll have to master your current approach and begin to bring new possibilities into your classroom..." (¶4).


Heck then posted brief additional explanations of the concepts in Millwood's graphic. 

The graphic itself is available ... [as a PDF]: 

• http://blog.richardmillwood.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Learning-Theory.pdf (PDF)

and in a hypertextual concept map with loads of links to additional resources here:

• https://cmapspublic3.ihmc.us/rid=1LNV3H2J9-HWSVMQ-13LH/ (Cmap).

A follow-up comment by Millwood (2019.06.18) on his one of his own posts that introduced the map (2013.05.10) suggested that he was preparing a new version.

References

• Heck, T. (2019, January 12). A Visual Summary: 32 Learning Theories Every Teacher Should Know [weblog post]. Retrieved from https://www.teachthought.com/learning/a-visual-summary-the-most-important-learning-theories/
• Millwood, R. (2019, June 18). Learning Theory [comment on 2013, May 10 weblog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.richardmillwood.net/2013/05/10/learning-theory/#comment-54999 

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Revisiting communicative competencies (YouTube recording)

This hour-long recording by Dr. Kate Reynolds of Central Washington University's College of Education and Professional Studies[, Chairperson of the Department of Education, Development, Teaching and Learning,] came out about a year ago. It was from a TESOL Teacher Education Interest Section (TEIS) webinar on evolving theories and potential applications of a communicative competence framework for language teaching.

Frames and Reframing:

Recent Discussions on Communicative Competencies 

In that webinar, Dr. Reynolds surveyed "recent developments on the model of communicative competencies and [began to] facilitate an interactive conversation on how teacher educators can use this information" (Abstract, 2018.06.26). Though the webinar chat is invisible in the recording, live discussion opened about 33 minutes in. Dr. Reynolds read and summarized chat entries aloud. She then reflected on contributions and issues that arose, and asked clarification and follow-up questions.

At the end of the webinar, Dr. Reynolds highlighted one of over a dozen selected references for further reading. She also offered to share her PowerPoint slides, and expressed desire to continue discussion in audience-initiated TEIS discussion list posts. That's a TESOL members-only venue, so I (Paul) would be happy to see comments from PIGATE reviewers here [on this post].

Reference

• Reynolds, K. M. (2018, June 26). Frames and reframing: Recent discussions on communicative competencies [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs1aRTjnwAY

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Personal and professional language development

This post displays Google slides [and references] from part two of the PIGATE gathering on March 10, 2018. The presenter's blurb for the program that day read:

In this workshop, participants will make, share, and refine self-assessments, then project and reflect on goals and resources for additional personal and professional language development.

(PIGATE meeting agendas, 2018.03.10)

To find out about what ensued, please ask one or more of the language teachers who took part, ...

... or post questions in comments on this post, where all of the participants can respond.

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The PIGATE Blog's new look

Wondering, you may be, ...

... what happened to the PIGATE Blog. 

Well, it got a facelift today—a new theme chosen for simplicity and readability, and vetted with contributors.

We hope you like the new look, and welcome feedback in comments or reactions on this post.

Teachers' resource book in the KGU library

One of the last times we met in the KGU library, the title on the spine of a book (Shin & Crandall, 2014) caught my eye. So I pulled it out to take a peek. It's in the syllabus corner on the first floor: 

KGU OPAC catalog listing (English)
KGU OPAC catalog listing (Japanese)

Here's a preview of the table of contents:

• Preface
• About the Authors
• Chapter 1: Teaching English to Young learners around the World: An Introduction
• Chapter 2: Basic Principles of Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL)
• Chapter 3: Contextualizing Instruction: Creating Thematic Units and Lesson Plans
• Chapter 4: Teaching Listening and Speaking
• Chapter 5: Teaching Reading and Writing
• Chapter 6: Storytelling
• Chapter 7: Assessment
• Chapter 8: Classroom Management
• Chapter 9: Twenty-First-Century Skills in Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL)
• Chapter 10: Professional Development
• Worksheets
• Index

(Source: National Geographic Learning, English Language Teaching, 

Product Information, More, Table of Contents, 

retrieved 2017.11.01)

Would you like to have a go at reviewing it for a future newsletter? If so, please send us a heads-up either in a comment on this post or in a message to our Google Group.

Reference

Shin, J. K, & Crandall, J. (2014). Teaching Young Learners English: From Theory to Practice. Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning.

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Webinar recordings and related resources

Here's a window into a Google spreadsheet in which there's an in-progress list of teacher development websites with webinar recordings and related resources:

If you have recommendations for additions, please mention them the next time we meet, or point them out in comments on this post.

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PIGATE's Special Summer Session (2017.08.12)

This post provides a preview of slides in the works for Saturday's big event. It also includes a Tweet feed display for the Twitter hashtag #higopigateSSS.

Tweet about it: #higopigateSSS

Relevant comments and questions are more than welcome!

[88 words]

Classroom practice: Using instruction checking questions (ICQs)

This post showcases a presentation that Taishi Kaneko (KU, Fac. of Educ., M2) used for a demonstration and discussion of instruction checking questions (ICQs) at the PIGATE gathering earlier this month (2017.05.13). Taishi began to develop his interest in ICQs while studying overseas last year.

If you have comments or questions regarding ICQs and their use or potential, please feel free to spell them out in comments on this post. Suggestions of and pointers to related resources also are welcome.

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Skidamarink: Super Simple Songs & Wee Sing YouTube videos

Skidamarink is one of the songs for young learners that Mr. Takaki introduced during the PIGATE gathering on ... [May] 13. Here are a couple videos of the song from the Super Simple Songs and Wee Sing YouTube channels.

Source: https://youtu.be/ug1pI-Ephns

Source: https://youtu.be/vG9HM-1R7sk

If you use songs and gestures like that with young children or older learners, please shout out in comments on this post to let us know what your favorites are and how you use them.

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Oh, my yard! A mind map in development

The presentation that I've embedded in this post uses time-lapse screenshots to replicate several stages of mind map development. The mind map of a favorite place is a work in progress[.]

I created the mind map with FreeMind—free, open source software from SourceForge; and have continued to develop it with FreePlane—also available for free from SourceForge. The background photo in the penultimate slide, I took from my veranda on March 14, 2017.

If you have concerns or questions about mind-mapping tools; or suggestions of novel, possible, and practical uses for learning or teaching [with them]; please don't hesitate to spell them out in comments on this post.

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Nik's Learning Technology Blog: 20 + Things you can do with QR codes in your school

Those of you who've had an opportunity to peruse the slides in Social media for you and me (Beaufait & Terada, 2016.06.11) will have seen dozens of QR codes pointing out various online resources.

Here's another one:

http://goo.gl/pxDilp

It points to a 25 September 2015 post by Nik Peachey that tickled a strand in my Diigo social bookmarking network today: Nik's Learning Technology Blog: 20+ Things you can do with QR codes in your school. 

Nik's an English language teaching and technology guru that I met several years ago through a series of virtual workshops entitled Blogging for Beginners and Blogging for Educators. EdTechTalk is a Diigo group with which he shared that post 7 June 2016.

If you have any questions about QR codes or suggestions of other ways to use them around your schools, please do not hesitate to spell them out in comments on this post.

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Social media for you and me? (Beaufait & Terada, 2016.06.11)

Here is the slideshow from our presentation about social media at the PIGATE gathering on June 11, 2016:

We'd love to read [and respond to] concerns, questions, and suggestions regarding social media for learning, teaching, and professional development, both from attendees and from people who were unable to attend the session at KGU. Please feel free to spell them out either in comments on this post or in tweets to #higopigate20160611.

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Flashback: Introducing Hap Palmer to Japan (Yoneoka, 2015.01.09)

This post is a follow on to Prof. Judy Yoneoka's guest speaker presentation last January (2016.01.09). The converted slideshow below includes active links to numerous musical resources that she used to demonstrate classroom activities.

As a newsletter write-up explained:

[She] is a professor in the Department of English and American studies at Kumamoto Gakuen University. Her major research theme is world Englishes.

(PIGATE Newsletter, 268, p. 4)

Introducing Hap Palmer to Japan (Yoneoka, 2015.01.09 [converted])

A few additional musical resources are listed in a previous post, along with a call for more resource suggestions: Music for children: Online resources (2016.01.22).

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PIGATE in Cyberspace: Comments for working outline, please!

The purpose of this post is to call for comments, questions, and suggestions regarding another work in progress. 

I'd like to get feedback from PIGATE members, old and new, on a working outline for a research paper in preparation for the summer 2016 issue of the PIGATE working papers (紀要 [kiyou]).

PIGATE in Cyberspace [working title]

An environmental scan of Internet communication technology (ICT) uses, challenges, and potential for collective grassroots teacher development [working sub-title]

Below is the body of the working outline. Most of all I'd appreciate suggestions of new sections or subsections to add in order to represent various aspects of ICT in use that I may have overlooked so far.

---

...

Retrospective

The paper trail

Wiki developments

Pigs on the Web (Tomei, 2014.08.14)

Transition to paperless-ness

Current state of affairs

Defacto

Facebook page

Google Group (since 2014.04.13)

Mailing list server

Mailing list archive

JALT NanKyu contributions

Channels on Slack teamwork site

Page on NanKyu website

Redistribution of Pigate newsletters (since 2016.01.05)

Members' favorite social networking services (SNSs, 2015.12.00)

OneDrive (溜池和孝)

ICT use with colleagues and students  (溜池和孝, forthcoming)

In the works

Social bookmarking (Diigo group)

[Other stuff?]

Prospectives

Additions

Alternatives

Amplification

...

---

Please feel free either to post your comments, questions, or suggestions in comments attached to this post, or to voice your ideas in person the next time we meet (12 March 2016?).

Likewise, if you'd like to get a personal look at details as they appear and develop in the paper itself, please do not hesitate to ask for access to the work in progress.

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Music for children: Online resources

Image source: Pixabay
Creative Commons CC0

At present, this post is a work in progress inspired by Prof. Yoneoka's presentation of Hap Palmer's music for children at the PIGATE gathering 9 January 2016. 

The songs Prof. Yoneoka played and the activities she led to accompany them reminded me of another musician I'd met years ago in British Columbia, Canada, named Matt Maxwell.

Sort of like Santa, I'm making a list and checking it twice. It would be a pleasure to hear of other resources like these:

Maxwell, Matt

How C'est l'Halloween songwriter Matt Maxwell wrote the ...

'C'est l'Halloween': the story behind the greatest French ...

Palmer, Hap

Educational Children's Song (YouTube channel)

iTunes Preview

WatchKnowLearn.org

English as Second Language

Subcategories

...

Wee Sing: Learning through Music (YouTube channel)

If you know of any similar resources, please spell them out in comments on this post, and I'll be happy to look them up and add them to this growing list.