Language Teachers Collaborate Network

I also found this one (and another yet to come) in the WebWatch section of The Language Educator. 


"Language Teachers Collaborate is a wiki dedicated to language teachers collaborating and sharing their best ideas, information, resources, and advice."




They have already done much of the leg work in accumulating audio resources, books, and other documents for language teachers. This is a site you must check out!

http://languageteacherscollaborate.pbworks.com/w/page/32526867/FrontPage

Reading Packets for Native Speakers

I found this blog in the Web Watch section of The Language Educator. 


"Created by a middle school Spanish teacher who found she needed to develop a program for heritage speakers in her class, leemosjuntos is a blog with reading comprehension for more than 40 books, organized by series." 


http://leemosjuntos.wordpress.com/

Little kids and Big Kids

Alright, Señorita Taylor asked me to do an update on some of the things I have been up to, so here goes!

I have been working at language school for the last 6 months as many of you already know. My students are typically between the ages of 14 and 40 (roughly speaking.) I loved working at the school with the exception of all the "required and unpaid meetings" that were called 10 minutes in advance requiring me to shower (because in Brazil if you leave your house without taking a shower, it's a sin) and run to grab a taxi (because during this time we didn't have a car... we do now!) and it was just to learn that they wanted us to sign our names on some form after each lesson, or something else that an email could have resolved.

Anyhow, due to these frustrations (and some other assuntos) I'm still not sure if I am going to continue working at the school, however, I am continuing my private lessons and am starting my classes at the university this week!

This whole teaching thing has been a constant challenge for me as I am famous for my lack of patience. I feel that this position is the best for me, as it forces me to overcome my irritation when people don't understand something, and try and find different ways to explain them so that they do understand. A great and important skill in life that I am currently cultivating.

My greatest challenge has recently been a young, bright, 7 year old boy. M is an incredible student and greets me each day with a beaming "GOOD MORNING TEACHER!" with his colored pencils and notebooks all in hand, ready to tackle the next lesson.

My first two weeks (4 lessons) with him went great! We learned greetings, we learned the names of food, colors, and how to use the verb "I like" making questions and all. We learned body parts and sung "Head Shoulders, Knees and Toes" I thought I was on a roll. I've never taught illiterate children before (here in Brazil children don't learn to read until they are pretty big... school days are 4 hours... and consequently not much gets done considering the majority of this is snack time, play time and settling down time) and I wasn't sure I was up to it, however, the first two weeks were so successful I thought I was the best!

Well, I should have learned better. I had two lessons that bombed. I was teaching clothes.

Let's just say he was irritable, not interested, tired, cranky, and just wanting to talk about food, colors and body parts again. I didn't know what to do, and I'm still unsure how our next lesson on Thursday will go, but I decided to try a new approach. We're going to try doing a letter of the alphabet each day, learning words, writing these words (which he is starting to do in school) and practicing things he is already comfortable with, colors, numbers, "I like" and trying to add new things each week such as "Where does the alligator live?" or something like that. I found a ton of printables on http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/vowels/lettera.htm and http://www.tlsbooks.com/letterworksheets1.htm and I also use www.twistynoodle.com to print "A is for Alligator" coloring sheets with tracing spots to boot. (I am PDF-ing 4 that focus on one letter and then printing them 4-up on one sheet) I especially loved the Find the Words that Begin with the Letter coloring sheets. I sure hope that my little kid, M, enjoys this new approach. I think that this will at least give him the expectation of what will be coming up on the next lesson, since he already knows the alphabet!

And now to my big kids. I start Wednesday teaching at the largest local university. I'm terrified, but also super excited. It's been a crazy few weeks (especially since it is around Carnival, everyone is on vacation, working half days, etc....) so all of my due dates and appointments were obviously not met and this is forever frustrating to a girl who lives by her agenda. Note: I live in a cowboy town. Carnival is not a big deal. No parades, just some parties, dance clubs have costume parties, and pretty much everyone is happy for the 4 day weekend so they either 1) go to the family farm, the chácara, sitio or the fazenda depending on how big the land-area is or 2) they go somewhere else that is more interesting. They go to the beach, they go to a big city that has a mall, pretty much anywhere but staying here since the town is dead. I am, however, staying in town, working, playing with my pup and getting all my lesson plans for the next two weeks DONE so I can relax and concentrate on winning over more students!

All said and done, I have been spending a decent amount of time looking at various text books and I finally decided at one point, "Puxa (gosh...)" I'm just going to make my own. And so began, what I thought, was an easier option. Obviously I didn't prioritize and left everything for the last minute but I got it done. All 46 pages of it. All grammar topics (and a few modal verbs) in one workbook. With some texts, conversation topics, etc. This book is going to be the basis for my class and I think it is going to be super helpful because it is really basic and all the vocab (18 new words per lesson) have something to do with college, or are very commonly used words in English. I even have a TOEFL section! If you're interested in checking it out, let me know, I can send you a pdf. If you find any errors, PLEASE let me know as I am sure I am going to run into a bunch as I go along.

In addition to the stress of getting this book finished, printed and bound, I needed to recruit students for my class! My original week for doing PR was the first week of Feb, when classes started. However, since the director was on vacation, and the person responsible for approving all propaganda that has the name of the university on it was also on vacation, (read: nothing gets done in Brazil from Dec 1--Carnival) I had to wait until the week before I was supposed to start classes. UGH! Thankfully, they finally got my info on their website (LOOKIE HERE!), on their facebook and all over the bulletin boards at the university. I made tear-off flyers, which were a hit! Professors and students told me they loved the tear off part.. they had never seen a poster like that! Go figure...

So, after spending 12 hours, for three days in a row handing out pamphlets, yelling "INGLÊS NA ULBRA! AULAS COM UMA AMERICANA! MAIS INFORMAÇÕES AQUI!" (something which I have been told by a girlfriend of mine NOONE does and she laughed SO hard she almost peed her pants when I told her that I did this... and H just shook his head in shame!!) I have come to the conclusion that everyone at the uni now knows who I am. I walked around during lunch and dinner hours chatting with people while they ate, left pamphlets in classrooms during class changes, and held demonstrative classes to get to know prospective students and to get them to sign up.

Result: I now have 16 students signed up BEFORE the class even started! (A huge deal since Brazilians, like most Latin Americans, can't seem to plan something more than about 10 minutes in advance.) I even had people just come up to me and ask for the sign-up form, then handed me $100 reais pointblank and then said "Até quarta!" (Until Wednesday! -- days of the week in Portuguese are in numerical order, to see why click here.)

All of my heart work seems to be paying off. I hope that this week I have happy little kids and big happy big kids. Se deus quiser.... (The Brazilian way of saying Ojalá...using the future subjunctive. And yes, Portuguese even has a future subjunctive!)

Foreign Language House

Foreign Language House is a website with a newsletter I subscribe to. I hardly use it, but they have interesting stuff around the holidays and sometimes send cool holiday freebies (or cheaply priced items) that you can download and print. If nothing else, you should subscribe so you see what they have. It might inspire you to borrow and improve an idea for your own classroom!

Subscribe at: http://foreignlanguagehouse.com/

How to find students!?

Alright, this post is for all of you who provide private lessons. How the HECK do you find private students?

I have tried social networks, this has been a huge fail for me in Brazil.

After a year of banging my head against the wall, phone calls have been becoming much more common and it looks like I am going to have a full load of teaching this semester. These are the things that I have found that have been working best for me.

1) I printed a ton of COLORFUL business cards. These business cards I ALWAYS have with me and I try to leave a few at every place I go after talking with the owner or manager of the establishment.

2) Keeping a really good profile at the school I teach with. I had one student through the school who insisted I take her on as a private student (even though I charge the same thing as the school basically....) and I refused based on etiquette. I told her that unfortunately, I would not be able to do that for her, as she found my services through the school and that I thought it was rather underhanded, especially since she was looking for conversation practice alone, and I would charge exactly what the school charges and the same hours as the school. A few weeks later she gave my information to two individuals who now are doing private lessons with me. She respected my honesty and respect for my employer and rewarded me with new clients. She's the owner of the largest car-parts distributor in the state and has a million connections. This will definitely help my business to grow.

3) Keeping a really good public profile. I don't go out to the clubs on a regular basis nor do I frequent bars. This is a result of how the first time I went out and got fly like a G-6 in Ji-Paraná, I ran into one of my students and was so incredibly ashamed, I didn't know what to say when I saw her in class the following week.

Has anyone taught online? I have heard of some websites that provide this as an opportunity (and let me tell you, it would be nice to be able to just teach from my computer). I would love any advice on these options if you guys know anything!

Independent Spanish Learning Resources?

Hola! I have this innate reaction to kids that even though they may move or grow up, I will never stop being their Spanish teacher. Once my student, always my student. With that said, I have two students who moved back to Sweden with their family last year. I happen to know their mom from salsa dancing, and she messaged me to tell me that her oldest child feels that he is learning no Spanish at school. He is not given vocabulary lists or homework. She bought him Rosetta Stone, but he doesn't like it. She doesn't know how to help him! 


I have shared my elementary website, www.fcspanish.com, with them for now, but considering this kid is now in 7th grade, he will soon outgrow what my K-5 sixteen-lesson-a-year curriculum can provide. Do you know of any resources I can share with him that can help him advance his Spanish independently? I was thinking of sharing the BBC Languages page with them, but it is rather disorganized and not user-friendly. I'm not really sure if anything exists that he can work his own way through without getting super bored or missing the interactive piece that is so necessary.


Heck, I may end up creating a custom curriculum for this kid and skyping him for free. I can't give up on a kid who sees the value in being multilingual (he speaks at least German and English already) and who wants to learn Spanish!! 


Any ideas would be appreciated. :)

American Teaching English in Brazil

Hello! Although you all know me, I thought that I would spend this first post talking about exactly WHAT IT IS that I am doing in relation to Language Teaching.

Upon arriving in Brazil with my Master's degree from Vanderbilt in Latin American Studies in hand, prepared to work on vigorous educational policy reform, I decided to take it easy and relax and teach English instead (which would also provide me with the stellar opportunity to END MY LONG DISTANCE MARRIAGE and make finally live in the same house, together, after almost two years of only visits every other month or so.)

Little did I know that I was opening Pandora's box and would absolutely fall in love with teaching.

I've now changed my career goals bastante and am totally excited about teaching English and am constantly looking for new ways to continue to etch out my own place in the local market, which already has about 5 private language schools, along with mandatory English instruction from the primary through college-prep education. English is a requirement here in Brazil, as all college entrance exams have an English (or sometimes Spanish) section, so for the youth, it is of utmost importance to have control of a foreign language, and most choose English, because, well you know.

I have been lucky as I have been able to continue using my Spanish in the few Spanish classes that I do have, however, I regret to inform you that my Spanish which was at the advanced level, is now Portanhol, due to my constant immersion in Portuguese.

I have found that my favorite lessons are the the most difficult ones (the Three Conditionals and the Perfect Tenses) and LOVE working with pre-college or college level students. I have found that the wealthy business owning women tend to be more of a distraction than the 13 year olds who throw spitballs at the girls that they like and their brothers.

I have also been providing translation services (Portuguese-->English only) to professors and students at one of the local colleges and have successfully translated 2 complete thesis about genotoxicity (wow did I learn a lot about Amazonian fruits!) and have translated numerous abstracts (abstracts are required to be in Portuguese and a foreign language in order to be publishable in Brazil.). To my surprise, one of my clients spoke with the president of the university about me starting up an English course there (since they are lacking one) and after a presentation, I was approved to be able to utilize a classroom free of charge as a test run for a "College Level English Course" to prepare students for international conferences, understanding advanced texts in English and participating in international research collaborations. My propaganda starts in February and needless to say, I am terrified that it is going to bomb, but I am so excited if it takes off! If I can manage 7 students in each of the 3 time slots, I will be able to triple my monthly income. A huge plus.

So, in 2012, my plan is to cut my ties with the language school I was working at in order to free up my time for lesson planning for my MWF classes at the college and for my T/TH private lessons that I will be still keeping up with since they pay so well. I'm also considering trying out a "Coffee Hour" at one of the local cafes here. The whole "socializing at the local cafe" has not taken off here in the interior, but there are numerous establishments that are on the brink of bankruptcy due to the lack of clientele. My plan is to suggest to one of these places some type of collaboration where I can utilize the space for an hour or two on a Thursday or Friday evening for advanced English conversation. I'll probably make some form of punch cards for people to buy more than one session at a time (with a small discount) and provide the coffee shop owner a small percentage of the fees that I charge in addition to allowing him to keep all the profits from the coffee sales. I think that this might take off if I advertise correctly IN the language schools and promote it as "professional development" for their staff and "travel preparation" for those who travel abroad and want a refresher.

As far as language resources, I am in love with using TED.com videos as homework. I assign a different video for each of my students (usually about 5 mins long) as homework and the next week they do a class presentation on the topic that they were assigned. This works their comprehension and presentation skills like crazy! I also utilize VOA News for reading comprehension, new vocabulary and occasionally as listening comprehension for homework. I LOVE to take 30 minutes every other week to work on short dictations using funny stories from Yahoo's Odd News. I read the text in chunks and have each student write what they think they are hearing. After I am done reading, I read it through one more time without pausing, but still kinda slow, and then I let them collaborate in groups to fix their errors. After about 10 minutes, I let each group choose someone to write their version of the text on the board. The results help them to see how MUCH they are understanding and laugh together at their errors. Last semester I used a story about a guy who tried to smuggle a bunch of animals in his pants (snakes, monkeys, etc...) through the airport. Imagine the insanity! Lastly, I like to spend a part of the class EVERY class, on conversation. I bring a list of questions to ask the students or I have them prepare a list of questions that have to do with a certain topic. Friendship, World Peace, Happiness, (the New Age philosopher in me LOVES this part) and I try to get them using their language skills to express their ideas and opinions. At first it is always really hard, but they usually let loose after about 5 minutes. I found that this page from The Internet TESL Journal has TONS of questions related to various topics for when I am in a pinch.

I think that this website is an AWESOME idea and I am looking forward to participating and hearing from all of you. What are your favorite things to teach? What are your frustrations? What sites do you like to use? Let's start inviting our friends to participate and make this site exciting for all!

Feel free to check out my personal blog at www.adventuresintheamazonjpr.blogspot.com!

Abraços!