Integrated Skills Teaching Video
Mar 31st, 2010 by John Mark
Teaching L2 Writing: An Overview
Feb 19th, 2010 by John Mark
Attached below is a PDF version of a PowerPoint presentation I wrote to give English teachers an overview of the current guiding principles and approaches to teaching writing in the language classroom. I also touch on benefits of teaching writing and some of the difficulties faced by non-native English speaking teachers who teach writing.
Download PDF here.
One from the Heart: The Music of Tom Waits
Jan 19th, 2010 by John Mark
This is a workshop designed for teachers of English on the music of American singer-songwriter Tom Waits. The activities included are for the songs, “Hold On,” “San Diego Serenade” and “Clap Hands” and they encourage students to develop their listening and speaking skills by exploring the uniquely American themes and landscapes of Waits’ music using a combination of individual and small group work.
Download handouts here in PDF.
The Music of Tom Waits
Tom Waits was born in 1949 in California to parents who were both schoolteachers. He grew up in the 1960s, but did not identify popular American music of the day. Instead, he listened to more traditional blues, beat and jazz music. He was particularly fond of music that told stories and spoken word poetry performed in smoky night clubs after midnight.
This unique background set the stage for his very long and rebellious career. His first album, Closing Time was released in 1973. His early music is a mixture of traditional jazz and folk which, throughout the 1970s, became more and more cynical as he succumbed to the lifestyle of living on the road that had him staying in hotels, eating bad food and drinking heavily. Songs of this period include, “The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me),” “(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night” and “Bad Liver and a Broken Heart.”
n the 1980s, not only did his musical style begin to change, but also his career as an actor took shape. His music began to employ less common instruments like bassoon, bagpipes, marimba and violin. His music moved more towards the blues and even including tinges of spoken word and European folk music. As an actor, he appeared in several offbeat films and plays, even doing some writing for the stage.
In the 1990s, his acting career continued to flourish and his music now included elements of gospel music and even electronic music. His most successful album to date, Mule Variations, was released in 1999. His most recent collection of songs is the live recording, Glitter and Doom Live, from 2009.
Still relatively unknown in the United States, Waits has recorded more than 20 albums and is best known from the songs he wrote but are performed by other artists. Still, he has yet to gain the popularity at home which he has achieved in Europe and other parts of the world.
His music can be both horrifying and beautiful and is often about sad or lonely people who are between stages of their lives or wandering through the world with no direction. The characters in his songs lament about love gained and lost and opportunities never taken, about dreams unfulfilled and promises never kept. He sings about America as seen through the backseat window of a ’55 Chevy.
For more information, please see the following websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Waits
The Christmas Gift: A Reading Lesson
Dec 18th, 2009 by John Mark
The attached lesson is designed for intermediate to high level learners at least 14 years of age. In a group of at least 10, it should take about 90 minutes.
The focus of the lesson is a short holiday story about a young man and woman who have an argument about a Christmas gift. But the lesson integrates all four skills and encourages creative language use throughout. It includes pre- in- and post-reading activities and offers a suggestion for a homework assignment.
Highlight: Senior English Language Fellow Visits Town of Pushkin
Dec 18th, 2009 by John Mark
On December 16th, Senior English Language Fellow John Mark King visited a middle school and met with English teachers from more than seven area schools in the city founded as the summer home of the tsars and where national poet Alexander Pushkin once studied.
25 working elementary and middle school teachers came for the Fellow’s two workshops, “Managing Large Classes” and the Christmas-themed reading workshop, “Using Stories to Build a Community of Learners.”
Russian teachers in and around Pushkin often have groups of 25 or more students when smaller groups are temporarily combined into one. The teachers shared many of their own ideas when managing large groups of students who may not be their own and also enthusiastically explored the benefits of approaches which the Fellow suggested.
In addition, teachers in Pushkin admitted that there is a need for innovation in their approach to the teaching of reading in English. This second workshop encouraged teachers to allow students to construct meaning on their own as they read and discover texts as a community of learners.
Many teachers exclaimed that much of what they explored in these workshops could be modified and used in their own classes right away.
These workshops were part of a series of additional workshops the Fellow conducts regularly for the Academy of Pedagogical Mastery in St. Petersburg.
Teaching Journal for December 18, 2009
Dec 18th, 2009 by John Mark
The end of the year is a special time. In the United States, most Americans celebrate Christmas, both as a secular and religious holiday on December 25. In Russia, as I am learning, the big holiday is the New Year, and it is basically celebrated like a secular American Christmas. This means that, so far, I am feeling right at home at the end of December in St. Petersburg. When I am walking home, the city streets are lined with festive lights and the ground is covered with snow. This is truly a beautiful city at this time of year.
I will be staying in St. Petersburg during the holiday and look forward to celebrating and relaxing with my wife and son. The short days and the ever-increasing cold are certainly an adjustment, but I am finding it quite an opportunity for exploration and discovery. Where I lived as a boy, we had snow only once every 10 years. I can remember a Christmas when I could wear shorts outside. Here, the rivers are already freezing and it is dark until 10 a.m. Quite a change!
This is also a time for English teachers to take the opportunity to teach American values in the classroom. Looking at the way many American families spend their time in December is a wonderful time for our students to explore the rich variety of backgrounds and cultural heritage that exist in the United States. Of course, not all Americans celebrate Christmas. Indeed, there are very large populations of American Muslims, Jews and non-believers. In addition, not all of those who celebrate Christmas do it in the same way. it can be said that each family has its own approach to the holidays.
My advice for teaching about Christmas in America is to remind your students that it is indeed a special time, but that everyone has their own way of celebrating (and some don’t celebrate it at all!). And even though we can look at the traditional Christmas celebrations, it is very important to show out students that the most important and valuable aspect of American culture is that it is both rich and diverse.
When I was a child, this is how we celebrated Christmas in my home. The holiday season starts on the Friday after Thanksgiving. This is when most Americans start doing their shopping, decorating their homes, listening to holiday music and watching their favorite holiday movies.
In addition to buying and decorating a tree, we often string lights on the outsides of our homes and decorate our lawns with mini statues of Santa Claus or little snowmen. The traditional Christmas colors are red and green and they can be seen on people’s houses, city streets and even in the clothes people wear at this time of year.
Gift-giving is of course a big part of the season. While it is important to present gifts to your loved ones, it is not so important to do so with all of your friends and co-workers. In addition, there is not as important a need for the gift to be of a personal nature or specifically designed for the receiver as it is here in Russia. Sometimes, something as simple as a card or a gift card to a book store is enough.
In most families, gifts are not opened until Christmas morning, and children tend to sleep very little the night before. Traditionally, parents tell their children that most of their gifts will be delivered by Santa Claus at midnight, and that he will not come unless all children are in bed. It i said that Santa Claus flies around the world on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer and that he lands on each family’s roof and enters through the chimney. Children often leave him milk and cookies so that he can keep his strength up for his long journey around the world. Parents keep their energy up by drinking egg nog and stay up late to leave out and assemble the toys brought by Santa Claus
Holiday music is a big part of the season, and many of the same songs are listened to each year. Such tunes as White Christmas, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, The First Noel, Silent Night and We Wish You a Merry Christmas are recorded anew every year by different artists. Starting at noon on Christmas Eve, most American radio stations begin playing these tunes nonstop for 24 hours, until noon the following day.
As for films, probably the most famous one is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, starring James Stewart. Most Americans watch this film on Christmas Eve with their families. Other holiday classics include White Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Christmas Story.
Adbusting: Critical Media Literacy in a Multi-Skills Academic Writing Lesson
Dec 11th, 2009 by John Mark
Attached to this post is a copy of the article I co-wrote with English Language Fellow Anna Grigoryan for English Teaching Forum magazine. It was published in 2008.
Teaching Reading: A Skills Course for EFL Teachers
Dec 11th, 2009 by John Mark
Attached below is a copy of all the materials I have used when teaching a six-week course on teaching reading in the EFL/ESL classroom. Included are outlines of workshops, handouts, worksheets and relevant articles from English Teaching Forum magazine.
Download materials here.
Abstract: Register Face and Email: A Writing Lesson for the Electronic Generation
Dec 10th, 2009 by John Mark
Format: Workshop
Time: 45 minutes
Title: “Register, Face and Email: A Writing Lesson for the Electronic Generation”
Target Students: Intermediate to advanced
One of the most important skills our students learn is how to use language differently in different situations and with different people. Speeches are not like telephone conversations. Essays are not like newspaper articles. And an email written to a friend is not like an email written to a professor.
The way in which we use language is the most important and effective tool we have for establishing the nature of our relationships with others. Strategies of deference and respect look very different from those of solidarity and intimacy. Our use of language is how we maintain our identity and membership in different discourse groups. It is also how we get what we want from others, whether they be our friends, our bosses or our teachers. Thus, in order to be successful communicators, our students need practice using these strategies.
In this workshop, teachers will review the concept of face negotiation and the two major strategies we use when establishing and maintaining our relationships with others. Then, teachers will examine and practice a lesson in which students explore the type of language used in electronic communication, after which they will draft and then send different types of email messages to various recipients.
Highlight: A Reading Lesson without Reading – Pre-reading for Students of All Levels
Dec 10th, 2009 by John Mark
On Oct. 21, 2009, Senior English Language Fellow John Mark King gave a workshop entitled, “Judging a Book by Its Cover: The First Step in Becoming an Effective Reader” to a group of 29 current teachers at the Academy of Pedagogical Mastery in St. Petersburg, Russia. Most of the teachers work at secondary schools and often teach reading. However, they admitted to rarely using authentic materials, primarily because they are too difficult for their students. In addition, they admitted to relying almost entirely on simple translation and text analysis. The Fellow suggested that materials written for native speakers can be used creatively in all classes, the only difference being that lower-level students will be asked to read less of the material than higher-level students.
To demonstrate this, the Fellow divided the teachers into groups and gave each of them a different book. The material included historical and suspense fiction, travel writing and historical non-fiction, all written for native speakers of English. The Fellow asked teachers to learn as much as they could from each book without looking inside. The teachers were then asked to evaluate each and share with their classmates whether or not (and why) their book is one they would choose to read themselves.
This, the teachers learned, is one of the qualities of an effective reader. All too often, learners select material to read and find later that it is either too difficult or uninteresting. The result is a loss of confidence and interest in reading as a whole. Practicing such skills not only generates interest in reading and allows low-level students to participate in reading activities with authentic materials, but it also helps students to develop the necessary skills of an effective reader.
This workshop is part of a series of bi-weekly events the Fellow is hosting in addition to his regular work at the Academy of Pedagogical Mastery. The goal is to provide a wide variety of teachers from all districts in St. Petersburg with innovative and creative approaches to English language education.