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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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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A brilliant talk about TED talks

In this eight-minute talk, Anderson ... clearly [and concisely] spilled the beans about public speaking.

Reference

• Anderson, Chris. (2016, March). TED's secret to great public speaking [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_teds_secret_to_great_public_speaking 

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Coming soon: Self-determination theory—for young learners and the young at heart!

Creating and implementing interactive tasks based on self-determination theory—for young learners and the young at heart!

By David Ockert, Toyo University

David Ockert’s teaching interests are in critical thinking, reading comprehension, and academic writing. He does research on the influence of technology on affective variables (motivation, confidence, anxiety, and willingness to communicate). 

David also enjoys creative lesson planning for communicative purposes, using a task-based language teaching (TBLT) approach via the three pillars of self-determination theory [SDT]: competence (mastery), relatedness, and autonomy. 

For this presentation, David will focus on self-determination theory-based EFL motives interconnected with competence, relatedness, and autonomy. He will show how all three can be incorporated easily into any level of pedagogy, with a focus on the junior high school level in Japan.

[UPDATE, 2018.09.10: This presentation will be a participatory event with very little lecture. David will lead participants through hands-on tasks, with evaluation of each afterwards, to provide a real-world experience of how and why SDT-based lessons work.]

Date & time

Saturday, September 15, 2018; 13:30–16:30

Venue

Seminar room 10, Faculty of Administrative Studies office wing, Prefectural University of Kumamoto (PUK): Please see PIGATE Meeting Locations (https://goo.gl/h5DgbP) for details.

Attendance plans

Hoping or planning to attend? Please let us know by filling out an attendance form: 

• https://goo.gl/i4GvyN (select: 2018, September). 

If you'd also like to attend an informal networking event afterwards (tentatively 18:30–20:30), please ... add, "Post-function: Yes!" (without quotation marks) along with your email address as Additional info. at the end of the form [2018.09.13: ... ask Paul in person on Saturday whether a seat is still available].

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ASCD Express 9.02 - The Why, What, and When of Assessment

ASCD Express 9.02 - The Why, What, and When of Assessment (Tomlinson & Moon, 2013b)

That newsletter article caught my eye this morning in a list of website bookmarks after discussion at an English Café gathering yesterday, in which participants ... considered ... [among other topics]: 

• Assessment practices in elementary school English-as-an-additional language learning activities slated to become mandatory coursework in the next few years (GU, n.d), and 
• Roles of assistant or partner classroom teachers in occasional or routine team-teaching. 

The article is an adaptation of Tomlinson and Moon (2013a, pp. 19-21), in which the authors described assessment of, for, and as elements of differentiated instruction. Tomlinson and Moon argued for assessments to identify differences in: 

• Individual learners' readiness to learn, 
• Their individual interests or passions, and 
• The learning modalities that individuals prefer (2013b, What to Assess, ¶1).

Tomlinson and Moon also outlined various types of assessment to use before, during, and after instructional units, namely: 

• Pre-instructional assessments,
• Formative or ongoing assessments, and
• Summative assessments (2013b, When to Assess, ¶1).

The article concluded with examples of, and purposes for, combinations of formal and informal assessments. Regarding informal assessments in particular, Tomlinson and Moon asserted:

Informal assessments are useful in giving a teacher a sense of what makes a student tick, providing a big-picture look at how the class as a whole seems to be faring at a given moment, and amassing a growing sense of how specific students work in particular contexts (2013b, When to Assess, ¶2).

The first few examples of informal assessments that Tomlinson and Moon mentioned in their article resonated with remarks that the English Café convener made yesterday with regard to what a team teacher could do when not directly involved in instructional activities.

References

General Union [GU]. (n.d.). MEXT's 2018/2020 "New Course Of Study In Foreign Language Education" Plan. [Retrieved 27 March 2018 from] https://goo.gl/sBjXpo

Tomlinson, C. A., & Moon, T. R. (2013a). Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A., & Moon, T. R. (2013b). The why, what, and when of assessment. Assessment and Differentiation, 9(2). http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol9/902-tomlinson.aspx

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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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New presentation resources on the LTD Project Wiki

Here are two of three of today's additions to LTD Project Wiki, SpeakingPresenting page:

Prezi. (2017.07.05). Harvard researchers: Prezi is more engaging, persuasive, and effective than PowerPoint [weblog post]. Retrieved January 17, 2018, from https://blog.prezi.com/university-study/

• This weblog post summarised Harvard researchers ... findings (Moulton, Türkay, & Kosslyn, 2017; above).

Prezi. (2018 [n.d.]). The science of effective presentations [webpage]. Retrieved January 17, 2018, from https://prezi.com/the-science/

• This infographic-style web page represented Prezi-related findings summarised in Harvard researchers ... (Prezi, 2017.07.05; above).

The third addition was the research paper by Moulton, Türkay, & Kosslyn (2017).

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TESOL Electronic Village Online workshop for teachers of young learners

This post is to point out a free, five-week long, online workshop for teachers of young learners—one of many such offerings in TESOL International's Electronic Village Online (EVO) program for 2018.

Teaching EFL to Young Learners
Participants of Teaching EFL to Young Learners TEFL2YL EVO18 will learn about and create activities for English to Young Learners and Teens from around the world using storytelling, board games, action songs, and limited resource classroom activities. ...

Registration starts on [Jan 8, and the _program_ starts] Jan 14, 2018. 

Source: http://evo2018proposals.pbworks.com/w/page/119830158/TEFL2YL, 2017.12.21

If you have a yen for online networking and distance learning, and will have a bit of time to spare between mid-January and February next year, I highly recommend looking into this and other upcoming EVO workshops. 

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The PIGATE Diigo Group: A social bookmarking venue

The screenshot below shows three websites I've earmarked recently for PIGATE by tagging them and sharing them in Diigo, a social bookmarking service. The list on the ... [right] side shows the top ten tags in use since May 2015.

For example, a few days before Mr. Kobori's presentation on September 9th, 2017, I discovered a homepage offering a free, open source typeface designed to help "make reading easier for [people with] some symptoms of dyslexia" (https://opendyslexic.org/faq/, ¶1).

The PIGATE Diigo Group, 2017.09.18
Source: https://goo.gl/XfudJW

Though the PIGATE Diigo Group currently is private, anyone can find and use bookmarked website links in an RSS feed on the PIGATE Blog sidebar (Diigo Bookmarks: Group PIGATE's best content).

PIGATE members are more than welcome to join. I'd love to see what websites other little piggies recommend for each other.

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ICT to-dos: Map and plans

The mind map in this post points out locations of online endeavours by and for members of a grassroots language teacher development group, for various language and professional development purposes. 

Though the map itself is far from comprehensive at present, it does include both links to venues and [plenty of] to-dos (tasks with or without checkboxes) planned or envisioned in order to consolidate, extend, and facilitate ICT use by group members. 

One such purpose involves collaborative creation and publication of information to promote face-to-face group events. Others reflect collective documentation of activities, maintenance of archives, and sharing and showcasing of professional development resources. 

Tasks may be one-off, on-going, or periodic (recurring monthly or annually). Green arrows indicate connections between various tasks and other tasks or venues.

PIGATE ICT to-dos ...

Source: Mindmeister.com

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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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Tips for Drawing-Challenged Teachers | Patrice Palmer ...

In Tips for Drawing-Challenged Teachers (March 1, 2017), Patrice Palmer wrote about Dan Roam, a graphic artist, author, and videographer:

"Dan believes that everyone can learn to draw better (I love his growth mindset!). He starts with the premise that we can all draw 5 simple shapes - [a] circle, [a] square, [a] triangle, [a] line and a blob. His first of three free videos illustrates this perfectly: http://www.napkinacademy.com/freevideos."

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PIGATE & JALT NanKyu: Joint My Share, 2015.10.10

This blog post ... [was] a work in progress [that I began composing shortly after the October gathering]. In this post, ... [in] which there ... [have been] numerous [modifications and] amplification[-s] ..., please find embedded a presentation file that covered the PIGATE and JALT NanKyu Chapter joint event in October (2015.10.10) at KGU.

For anyone who missed the October session, [the presentation (Google Slides) embedded in] this post may provide a rough idea of what took place; for those who were able to attend, it should (eventually) provide additional information collected just prior to, during, or after the numerous presentations–10, all told.

Please stay tuned for updates and amplifications, not only in this post, but also in the presentation file itself. Comments and questions on this post are more than welcome.

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Teaching Ideas Exchange: October 10th, 2015–Call for presenters

PIGATE and the NanKyu chapter of the Japan Association of Language Teaching (JALT) are planning a teaching ideas exchange for the PIGATE gathering next month.

Image source: Pixabay (https://goo.gl/5163KH)
License: CC0 Public Domain / FAQ

As teachers, we are always looking for new ways to teach. This meeting will be a great chance to exchange ideas with other teachers from various teaching backgrounds and with a wide range of experience.

You can present a game, an interesting way to ... [teach] a language point, a book you often use, or any other useful tips you may have for your fellow teachers. We hope this will be a fun, informative and valuable experience for all who participate.

You can present in any format you wish: PowerPoint, a poster presentation or a demonstration. Your presentation should be between five and ten minutes.

(JALT NanKyu blog, PIGATE Meeting October 10th, 2015.07.23)

If you're interested in sharing your ideas, techniques or tips, please contact Sarah Faherty, the JALT NanKyu Program Chair, today!

The event will be at Kumamoto Gakuen Daigaku [on] Saturday, October 10th, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Please check the Calendar of Events and Meeting Location pages for details.

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"Special for" v. "special to": 3 to 6 or 16 to 14?

On a quick break between a family emergency and tests, I ran a few searches on the Compleat LexTutor site for phrases that someone had asked about at the PIGATE gathering on Sat., Feb. 14.

In a mega corpus of approx. 3 million words, here's what I found:

• "Special" with "for" within a few words and words that repeat 1 word to the right of special: 
• for=3, fund=2, reason=2
• "Special" with "to" within a few words and words that repeat 1 word to the right of special: 
• to=6, health=2, meeting=2, precautions=2, reason=2

The mega corpus is approx. 2/3 British National Corpus (BNC: written + spoken).


A couple of bigger, slower searches of the BNC plus the larger Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), approx. 14 million words in all, gave different results:

• "Special" with "for" within a few words and words that repeat 1 word to the right of special:
• for=16, interest=3, provisions=3, time=3, ...
• "Special" with "to" within a few words and words that repeat 1 word to the right of special
• to=14, interest=11, issue=10, attention=6, access=3, effort=3, permission=3, prosecutor=3, reference=3, way=3, ...

Though convenient findings like these may be inconclusive, since they don't directly compare the BNC to the COCA, perhaps the author of the textbook passage in question was inclined toward British usage. [As I recall, the next word after "for" or "to" was a pronoun ("special * her"?). Anyone keen to dig into that?]

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