Two Teachers Talking™

A new academic year has begun and brought with it a slew of new opportunities to screw things up. What we’re doing differently to try to save our students and our sanity.

Paul Nation, one of the leading researchers in ESL/EFL, discusses the importance of extensive reading, vocabulary testing and acquisition, the flipped classroom, and implicit and explicit knowledge. Part 2 will be aired later in the year.

Mentioned in the podcast:

What Should Every ESL Teacher Know http://www.compasspub.com/eng/compass/level_view.asp?h_seq=1721# 

Paul Goldberg’s Xreading http://xreading.com/

In the tradition of rushing in where wise men fear to tread, Tony and Charles make predictions for the future, predictions that will no doubt return to haunt them. What are we looking forward to? What are we dreading? Hold 'em? Fold 'em?

Also, a reminder that next month we will be interviewing Paul Nation. Don't miss it. Finally, still some chances for free e-book teaching material from Chris Cotter's Heads Up English (see entry for Episode 71 below).

We sit down with Chris Cotter of Heads Up English (headsupenglish.com), a resource site for English teachers to talk about the road that’s brought him to his situation as academic director at a private English school and the man behind the web site. Interesting insights on the alternate dimensions of teaching English in Japan.

Chris has generously offered sets of materials from his collection to ten of our listeners. Send an email to [email protected] with “HUE” in the subject line. The first ten folks to respond will get one copy of each:

1001 Grammar Discussion Questions (https://gumroad.com/l/1001Special)

101 Pre-lesson Worksheets - General English  (https://gumroad.com/l/101General)

You’ve been assigned a new class. No problem, you’re a TEACHER, dammit. You’ve done this. You reach into your bag of tricks and come up with...air. OK, now what?

Happy new year! 明けましておめでとうございます！

An attempt to answer the question of whether we're learning and getting better at teaching or if our best years are behind us. Not a simple question, we find, as we wrestle with various vectors of change.

An interview with Prof. Kim Kanel of Kinki Univerity and a look back at the changes that have snuck by in almost 40 years of English language teaching in Japan.

The sometimes obvious and sometimes not-so-obvious ways that teaching in Japan can be very different from what you might expect, and how those differences can affect your teaching. Never assume.

Mentioned in the podcast:

You are not so smart podcast, Episodes 52, 53, 55 http://youarenotsosmart.com/

What does successful learning look like? When you compare that picture with your and your students' accomplishments, how similar are those two pictures? Determining what success is, how to increase chances of achieving it, and how to measure it.

An Interview with D.J. Condon, Headmaster of Canadian Academy. Charles sits down with D.J. Condon to discuss the International Baccalaureate World Schools, assessment, mentoring, student empowerment, and the future of education.