James Taylor Interview

James Taylor Interview: Blogging, Twitter, English Teaching Methods, Non-Native Teachers and More!

James Taylor is one of the busiest English teachers I know.

He has a lot going on and he is heavily involved in ELT, both online and off. We get into a lot during this interview, including:

  • how he got into teaching
  • why he started a blog
  • Twitter and #eltchat
  • his podcast
  • BELTA
  • TEFL Equity Advocates
  • teaching methods

What We Discussed

James fell into language teaching out of circumstance (I did too), but fell in love with it. He’s moved around a lot and now works for Cultura Inglesa.

Blogging

James started blogging five years ago. He had already read other blogs and had things he wanted to say. Here is his blog.

Twitter and ELT Chat

James joined Twitter over six years. He is a moderator for #eltchat. This is a Twitter-based discussion where English language teachers discuss different topics.

Each chat has a transcript and summary.

Podcast

James also has a podcast called The TEFL Commute Podcast. As James put it, it’s a podcast fo English language teachers that isn’t about language teaching.

BELTA

When James moved to Belgium, he noticed that there wasn’t a teaching association in the country.

After discussing this with colleagues, they decided to set one up in 2013. Being the President has taught James a lot about teaching and helped him pick up new skills.

TEFL Equity Advocates

James has also worked with TEFL Equity Advocates. Part of his work was to write a post called Why I Wish I Was a Non-Native English Teacher.

This has gained a lot of attention (and is a great example of a headline getting interest).

Teaching Methods

James’s teaching style changed after taking his CELTA in South Korea. This is where he “made the transition from someone who taught English to becoming an English teacher.”

He then discovered Teaching Unplugged. This is a method that is light on materials and conversation driven. He has also recently been influenced by Philip Kerr.

Finding the Time

Finally, I asked James how he found the time to do all this. He talked about how it’s his hobby and that he feels it’s his responsibility as a teacher.

About James

You can find out more about James by visiting his blog and can connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.

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Interview Shayna

Shayna Oliveira Shares Her Story of How She Built Espresso English in Her Spare Time

One of the biggest challenges for teachers moving online is finding the time to get things moving.

Shayna, from Espresso English, shares how she built an online business while working in other positions in this latest interview.

In addition to sharing how she made the transition into going full-time with her business, I ask Shayna about how she built her brand into one of the most popular sites for English learners, what products she sells, how she markets her courses, and her plans for the future.

Watch in HD!

What We Discussed

Shayna started her website after one of her learners asked if she could send daily lessons by email. She soon realized that she could reach a lot more people this way and published the lessons on her new website.

The first stage of her online business lasted around 6 months. She posted consistently (nearly every day) taking inspiration from her offline classes. She then launched her first ebook “100 Common Errors in English”, and the feedback and sales from this encouraged her to keep moving forward.

While Shayna was building her brand, she was teaching in her local area and working 10+ hours per week for a web development client in the U.S. She waited for the right time to go full-time with her business, and her offline teaching was the first to go. After “chickening out” once, she quit her other job in 2014.

As of today, Espresso English offers 3 books, 9 online courses, and a monthly subscription program. There are 40,000 learners subscribed to her email newsletter and her site brings in 300,000 visitors a month.

Shayna puts her growth down to consistently giving away free content. In addition to her blog, she also posts videos on YouTube and has a popular podcast.

Shayna has used an email newsletter right from the start. In every email, she links to a relevant product. Her motto is, “Always present, never pushy.”

Shayna plans to go back and improve the courses she currently has. This will be based on the feedback she receives from those inside her courses.

Over to You

I really enjoyed interviewing Shayna and I have learned a lot from her during out mastermind meetings.

Her transition into online teaching is a perfect example of someone building something on the side and going full-time when the time is right. Additionally, the way she has consistently posted free content shows just how far you can take things if you stick at it.

I hope you enjoyed the interview. Please leave any comments or questions you have below!

You can connect with Shayna through the contact form on the Espresso English website.

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Interview Jase

Jason R. Levine: Teaching English through Music, Travelling, and Helping Learners Do More in English

Jason R. Levine is an English teacher who travels the world performing songs he has written specifically for English learners.

In the interview, we talk about how he got started with making music, why he was nervous about putting his songs out there, what he likes most about doing workshops around the world, and how he uses social media to connect with and inspire English learners worldwide.

Watch in HD!

What We Discussed

After getting a masters in TESOL, Jase started teaching English in New York.

He started using music in the classroom right from the start to give learners more exposure to the language in a way that was fun and sustainable.

His first song, StickStuckStuck, has nearly three million views on YouTube. He talked about how he was a little nervous about putting this out there at first, but his learners persuaded him to do it. He didn’t have a plan for where he wanted things to go, but this song was the catalyst for his current success.

His first tour came about after a teacher in Morocco shared his video on Facebook. She pulled some strings and he headed over there to perform.

At this time, he also realized how powerful social media could be. He started using it as a way to get feedback from learners and teachers. We talked about how different online platforms have allowed him to expand his reach and help him inspire learners to do more in English.

It addition to the touring (Gallery Languages help with this), Jase has started creatings courses for learners and teachers. Here is a mini-course that he is going to teach in late June/early July.

Over to You

It is obvious from the interview that Jason is passionate about reaching English learners on a large scale. His work with teachers is incredibly inspiring too.

If you follow Jase on social media, you’ll realize that he enjoys sharing, commenting, collaborating, and working with other teachers. He is incredibly active and his success online is down to the work he puts in.

I would love to hear what you think about this interview, so please leave any comments you have below!

Follow Jason on Facebook here.

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Interview Andrea

Andrea Giordano on Teaching Online and Selling Products

Joining Teaching ESL Online in this latest interview is Andrea Giordano from ESL Basics.

Andrea and I recently collaborated on a video together and, after looking at her website and YouTube channel, I reached out to ask if she would like to share her online teaching story with us.

In the interview, we discuss how she got started, email marketing and social media, and her courses for English learners.

Watch in HD!

What We Discussed

Andrea started teaching English in 2006 while she was in the process of getting her TESOL. But after binge watching Food Network Star, she thought, “I can do this.” So, after bouncing ideas around with her brother, she decided to start teaching English through video.

She shot several hundred videos on her YouTube channel in the first couple of years and has continued uploading free content since then. Her biggest challenge in the beginning was working out who her audience was and how she was going to connect with them.

Most of her early videos were around 15-20 seconds long. As she became more comfortable and built up her experience teaching in the classroom, she started to make longer-form videos.

She regrets not starting an email list straight away but, when they did, it was a game-changer, and this is when they started to see their audience grow.

They have had ups and downs with YouTube – having your advertising cut off is never nice! – but it has helped them cast a wide net and bring more learners into their world.

Andrea interacts with learners through her various channels. She talked about how she reaches out to people through Twitter, not to sell them her courses, but to get the conversation going. As she mentioned, she really cares about helping learners improve their English.

They use Selz as their payment provider for their products. We both talked about how easy it is to set up and use, and Andrea mentioned how impressed she was with their customer service.

They have had much success with helping learners who need to take the Citizenship Test in the U.S. and have various products and videos in this area.

A new course (The Spoken Life) is going to be introduced soon (by the time you read this, it will most likely be live) and it is there to help English learners become more confident with their speaking.

You can reach out to Andrea by email or by contacting her through Twitter.

Over to You

I hope you enjoyed listening to Andrea’s story. Unfortunately, I messed up the recording of the video a little but we got to see her at the end!

One of the biggest takeaways for me was the amount of time she spends interacting with people online. Doing this shows that you care and helps you build trust with English learners.

Please let me know your thoughts on the interview in the comment section below!

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Interview Justin Murray

Justin Murray on Connecting English Learners, Building an Audience, and Solving Problems

What would you do if Facebook deleted your group with over 120,000 English learners?

That happened to Real Life English (RLE), and one of the co-founders, Justin, joins Teaching ESL Online to share this story, and to give us an insight into how the RLE team built a very popular site for English learners.

Watch in HD!

What We Discussed

Justin started by introducing Real Life English as follows:

“It’s a global community of English learners and speakers dedicated to help people all around the world speak English through real life conversations, real people, and real learning materials.”

RLE got started with a party in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Justin, and his cofounder Chad, wanted to teach English in a way that would help people to live it. And after they saw how popular the parties were, they decided to start a blog.

For nearly two years now, they have been posting content (videos, podcasts, articles etc.) 4-5 times a week. One of their former cofounders started a podcast and a Twitter account. And talking about the podcast, Justin said:

“If you keep doing something over and over again, you get better.”

We then talked about the Facebook group that they built to over 120,000 members. But out of nowhere, their group was deleted.

“If you build your house on Facebook, they can always take it away from you.

This is why it’s so important to build your own blog/website and email list.

We then talked mored about Facebook, specifically organic reach (how many of your followers see your content when you post). Justin then went through the difference between a Facebook page (business page) and a Facebook group.

Justin’s former cofounder started their Twitter account and employed different tactics to grow their following (currently at 70k), using tools such as Tweepi. They also use Hootsuite to schedule their tweets.

They have a free ebook for learners and this has helped them grow their following. Focusing on email marketing has been a big part of their strategy from the start.

Justin and the team spend most of their time interacting with learners through email, and prioritize this over social media.

We moved on to talk about the different products they have sold. They have offered an audio version of the ebook mentioned before, a course called Fluency Plus, and a product that goes with their podcast. I’ve seen one of the podcast lessons, and it’s incredible how detailed and in-depth they are.

The RLE team are now in Chile in a startup incubator. They are shifting their mindset to try and understand what learners really need, and to build a business around this. And the problem that they are trying to solve is to help learners connect with others and use their English in a way that feels real.

You can learn more about Justin and Real Life English here.

Over to You

What was your biggest takeaway from this interview?

Leave your comments below!

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Interview Gabby Wallace

Gabby Wallace on Teaching Online, Youtube, Podcasts, and Online Courses

In this latest interview, I speak to Gabby Wallace about teaching online.

Gabby has a very successful YouTube channel, co-founded a popular podcast, and has created various online courses for her English learners.

We discuss the above and much more in our interview below. Hope you enjoy it:

What We Discussed

We started off talking about our mastermind group. Now, a mastermind group is where you meet either online or in-person to brainstorm, share your successes and failures, give advice, share resources, and give each other support.

“For me, it’s been really motivating and it’s held me accountable too.”

Like Gabby said, it’s about collaboration, not competition, and we both recommend finding people who have something in common with you if you want to start your own mastermind group.

Gabby has been teaching language for over ten years in many different settings and age groups. About five years ago, she picked up a copy of The Four Hour Work Week, read other entrepreneurial books, and liked the idea of moving online and helping more people.

But before all that, she started making short videos that answered the questions she had in the classroom, and uploaded the videos to YouTube.

There was no business plan at this point, but she started receiving positive feedback, and made more videos. YouTube has now become a focus for her online teaching business (driving people to her website and to continue learning with her).

She was a little self-conscious and worried about putting herself out there at first, but it’s something she has got used to.

Gabby has also had a lot of experience with podcasting and has been very successful in this area. She was the co-founder of All Ears English. It was, and still is, hugely popular. But after a year or so, Gabby started her own podcast and concentrated all her efforts on her own brand.

Before starting the first podcast, Gabby admitted that she had never listened to one before. There were a lot of things that she had to figure out to get things going, but once she had gone through this process once, she knew exactly what to do the second time.

After creating around 100 videos on her YouTube platform, she posted her first course on Udemy. This year, she posted a new course on her own site, which is solely video based. She has a total of six courses with a new one on the way.

Just like Stephen, Gabby listens to her learners and creates her courses based on the feedback she gets.

In the past, Gabby couldn’t get things to work on her own platform, but changing the software she used made a big difference. When creating her courses, Gabby sets a deadline, pre-sells the course, and then gets the material out there.

Gabby’s plans for the future are to continue working on Go Natural English, and also wants to help online teachers become successful online through her blog, Laptop Language Teacher.

Here are some links to her social platforms:

YouTube for GNE
YouTube for LLT
– Her Facebook page

Thanks Gabby for sharing your story with us!

Over to You

Did you enjoy the interview?

Please comment/ask questions on anything we discussed. Gabby and I will respond to any questions you have.

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Interview with Teacher Diane

Interview With a Location Independent Online English Teacher – Teacher Diane

Teacher Diane is someone who I have been following online for the last year or so.

So, it was a nice surprise when she reached out to me to connect. I soon realized that I wanted to give her the platform here at Teaching ESL Online to share her story and the valuable advice she has for other online teachers.

In our interview, Diane shares with us her experience of being a location independent online English teacher, and how she has managed to build up a large student base.

As you’ll see, she has some creative ways (and tools) to teach her lessons and make videos for her followers.

Here is the interview (watch in HD):

If you would like to teach English online, click here.

What We Discussed

Diane started teaching English five years ago, firstly in Brazil and then in Chicago. After two years of teaching in the language school in Chicago, she got the travel bug and decided to start her own website so that she could teach and travel at the same time.

Making the Transition

Diane was a little hesitant at first, but started with an old student and realized that she could do more online than in the classroom – screen sharing, links etc. – and she found that is was more comfortable to teach at home.

Diane uses a Wacom Tablet for her teaching, writing and drawing on this tablet. Her learners can see this on their screens along with her webcam.

She also uses the tablet to make her very unique videos for Youtube; here is an example:

Bringing Learners onto Her Website and Into Her Lessons

Youtube has been one the best sources of students for Diane, and she places a link at the start of each video and also in the description box under the video to bring people onto her site.

We then talked about putting ourselves out there on video, and how it can be strange to hear your own voice at first. I know this can be a concern for teachers when starting out, but this does become easier the more you do it.

Diane now schedules her posts on Facebook and batches this work every Sunday. She has three types of posts: a question post, something humorous, and then a post with a link back to her website.

She uses Facebook to build her brand and also to give more exposure to her videos and other materials.

Planning Lessons and Hiring Other Teachers

Diane has a tailored approach to her lessons where she is specific to each student, although she does have certain students who fall into a similar category. She has build up many resources over the years.

Diane has contracted other teachers to help with her workload, hiring teachers who she has met on her travels.

Plans for the Future

Diane’s plans are to focus on marketing her website and learn more about SEO and social media marketing.

She plans to create other sites for specific types of learners (English for doctors, for example). And in the long-term, she wants to write a grammar book and open a language school in the US.

Summary and Over to You

It’s great to see how successful Diane has been with her online teaching and her site does a great job at converting learners into paying students.

One thing that I took away from our interview is this: if you put quality stuff out there, work hard at it, and stay consistent, you are going to get rewarded.

At first, it might seem like you’re doing a lot for small reward; but as you build up momentum, you’ll start seeing some really good results, and have opportunities to hire others and expand just like Diane has done.

Please comment below to let me know your thoughts on this interview. I’m really interested to read what you have to say about this.

About Diane:

Diane is an English teacher from New York with over five years of experience teaching English to students from all over the world.  She is the Founder of teacherdiane.com, a website that provides personalized English lessons on Skype.  You can watch her English grammar tutorials or follow her Facebook group, Learn English on Skype.

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Interview Michael Marzio

Making Videos, Solving Specific Problems, and Adapting: An Interview With Michael Marzio

I’ve got a great interview for you below: Michael has been making videos for English learners (you’ll find out who he is specifically targeting later) since the 70s! He’s the perfect example of someone who has adapted to change, and has managed to build a very big audience of English learners through his different channels.

We talk about his story, how he solved a specific problem, the ways that he has adapted throughout the years (27 different cameras!), his website, and his tips for English teachers who want to create videos.

There are some incredible takeaways here. Watch and enjoy (in HD)!

Are you an English learner? If so, CLICK HERE.

What We Discussed

While on vacation in Paris in the early 70s, a friend asked him if he wanted to stay and teach English. And that is what he did.

After teaching in different schools he created a brick and mortar language school in Avignon, then in Istres (near Marseille).

His Niche Born Out of a Specific Problem

Michael has always taught working adults – people who really need English (professionals). He found that they had a common problem that needed solving:

They would come back from their business meetings… and would say, ‘It was easy to speak to so and so about anything that had to do with work… but when we had to sit around the dinner table it became very difficult.”

That is when Michael started going to the States and the UK filming people speaking spontaneously so that his learners could get exposure to this type of natural (or real!) English.

His own students liked the videos he was putting together and other teachers used them too. He continued creating these resources and ended up with a large video library (which has been online since 1994).

All the interviews are spontaneous (no actors), and to begin with, he had to film 20 interviews before finding one that was acceptable.

Michael’s Website and Filming

Michael built and coded his own website back in 1994 after learning HTML. We saw Michael’s site when he shared his screen; here is the summary:

– There are two options (main site and mobile site).
– He makes two videos: with and without subtitles.
– There are 10-20 exercises for each video.

Here is the video that Michael showed in the interview and is a great example of what he does:

Michael has gone through 27 cameras (he told us how the VERY expensive camera that he had in 1994 has a similar quality to the lowest setting on the cheapest mobile device today!).

He started with Adobe Premier (pro version) for editing videos and has used it ever since (I have my own recommendations below).

Tips for Teachers Who Want to Create Videos

Michael has some great tips for teachers who want to create their own videos. These are:

  • Know what you want to do: have a plan for your videos.
  • Find a niche: something that is fun for you, unique, and gives learners a reason to go and subscribe to your channel.
  • Put the camera on a tripod!
Michael has over 560,000 Facebook likes on his page. He really enjoys communicating with the learners, and answers all student and teacher questions about his site and about English in general!
He now wants to concentrate on Google+.

Takeaways

The biggest takeaway I got from the interview is how Michael has adapted throughout his ELT journey. Going from selling VHS cassettes to having a very popular Youtube channel is really impressive; as is coding his own website in HTML way back in 1994.

Michael also shows how powerful it can be when you find a solution to a problem. His learners were struggling with everyday English, so he flew out to the US and the UK to film spontaneous conversations to help them gain exposure to this.

All of this is so inspiring. There are so many opportunities for English teachers these days to do their own thing; and although Michael said he was lucky with different opportunities, he is a great example of someone who takes action and creates his own luck.

Resources

Here are some resources from what we discussed:

Michael’s Website: Real English

Michael’s Youtube Channel

Michael’s Facebook Page

Screenflow for Mac (my favourite video editing software)

Camstasia (the equivalent for Windows)

Over to You

Do you have a Youtube channel for English learners? If so, leave your link below!

If you don’t, are you planning on making videos in the future? What type of videos do you want to make?

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Teaching English to Young Learners Online

Teaching Young Learners Online, Getting Students, and Lesson Planning: An Interview With James Heywood

I connected with James and his business partner Kris around a year ago, and if you are a regular reader of this blog, you will remember that Kris wrote a guest post last year (click here to read it). I was excited to get one of the guys back to talk about their new creation for English teachers, and to share their experience of teaching English online to young learners.

Kris stepped forward, and in the following interview, he gives some really powerful advice about teaching young learners online, how to find students, and how his new site can make planning for online lessons much easier.

There’s a lot of value in this interview. Here it is:

What We Discussed

James talked about his background, and how he travelled around teaching in different countries before settling in Turkey. He was receiving requests for private learners, and was spending more time teaching these types of lessons and finding them more rewarding.

He then decided to move his teaching online. The reasons for doing this included: he saw online learning was growing, he liked the online teaching environment, wanted to save time by not having to commute, and wanted open up his lessons to a broader market.

So, this is how his first site (TurksLearnEnglish) was born.

Specializing and Finding a Niche

“The name is basic, but that’s exactly what it is: it’s a site built for Turks to learn English.”

The vast majority of his students are young learners from Turkey. James talks about how important it is to have a niche; to specialize in a certain area.

We then both discuss the advantages of doing this, including knowing the culture, the language, and other things about our specific learners to ensure that we can offer them the best value.

Teaching Young Learners

James argues that taking young learners online helps increase motivation, turning technology from a play instrument into a learning instrument.

“The student’s focus is increased enormously because there’s not somebody sitting at the other side of the class throwing a piece of paper..”

Having the different tools and applications, you can make the learner focus more on the lesson, bringing the child’s attention on to what is happening in the class. James has found this to be really empowering for his young learners.

Some tips when teaching young learners: the learner needs to learn in a quiet space, don’t allow interruptions by the parents, don’t allow other devices, communicate with their parents, use their own environment for learning props, and be flexible with the lesson. When starting with a new child, offer a trial lesson with the parent present.

Getting Learners

James then gave his advice on how to fill up your schedule with online learners. Firstly, he states how important it is to be confident when starting out. He was able to move all but one of his learners to his new online learning environment, and recommends talking with your current learners about making this change.

Word of mouth has worked really well for TurksLearnEnglish (something that I and other teachers constantly talk about). To do this, get a landing page up (here are the options available for this); this gives referrals and new learners the ability to know more about you and to be confident that you are a legitimate teacher.

Turks Learn English

The TurksLearnEnglish Landing Page

James and Kris know their market well and have a very specialized niche. He doesn’t recommend spreading yourself too thin, but instead, be attractive to a segment of the English learning market. Finding the first student is the hardest thing; that it why it’s important to have a strong landing page.

We then talk about the important of keeping contacts (something I have written about here).

Lesson Planning (Off2Class)

I receive lots of emails about the best resources for online teaching. And James and Kris have started something really exciting: a database of lessons plans that you can use online through sharing your screen or through student and teacher logins.

It was created to remove the amount preparation time for online teachers, with the lessons being effective for 80% of the students 80% of the time. Here is an example of a lesson:

Off2Class

Off2Class Lessons

You can see the lesson notes on the left hand side and the slides on the right. When a learner is logged in, they don’t see the lesson notes, but as you move through the lesson, their screen will show the slide that you are currently on.

As you saw in the interview, there are lots of material involved in each lesson. They are still in BETA, but you can request an account from their homepage.

Click here to get an account

About James

James Heywood has lived and worked in Sydney, Paris, Auckland, Dubai, and has a background in language and linguistics. He is a strong believer in the use of technology in the learning environment. After years of teaching in language institutes and private schools, he made the leap to online in late 2012.

He has taught a variety of ESL students online including young learners, adults and adolescents in one-on-one and group settings. Off2Class (lesson plan content for private ESL teachers) was launched to provide lesson content resources targeted to teachers running their own private tutorials.

Over to You

As I mentioned during the interview, I have no experience teaching young learners online, so it was fascinating for me to learn about this. Let us know if you have experience teaching this age group, or whether James has inspired you to do the same.

Additionally, I recommend signing up to Off2Class. If you do, please let us know your thoughts. And as always, feel free to leave whatever comments you have about the interview.

Thanks for watching!

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Mark Barnes Interview

Student Centered Learning, Social Learning, and Twitter: An Interview with Mark Barnes

There was an article popping up in my various social media feeds the other day called, “Why Everyone Should Be On Twitter.” I then realized it was by Mark Barnes, another fellow presenter in the TTO MOOC. I then read some more of his stuff, asked him for an interview, and a couple of days later we met on Google Hangouts.

In the interview discussion we talk about student centered learning, narrative feedback, social learning, why teachers should be on Twitter and how best to use this platform.

Below the interview I break down what was discussed and relate this to ELT.

Here is the video interview:

What We Discussed

Mark was a teacher for 20 years, and left the classroom two years ago to focus more on his writing and professional development. Let’s start with..

Creating a Results Based Environment

Mark talks about how he was a “traditional teacher” for the first ten years of his career, but after taking some time to research motivation, he decided to do something different. His biggest focus for this was the final result: learning.

To achieve this he created what he calls a chaotic environment, one where kids are working on different things, have long-term projects, and use different technology to head towards a goal and learn whatever the objective is at that time.

“The most important thing of all was I eliminated traditional grading… I’m tired of measuring kids learning and punishing them if they don’t turn something in… that turned out to be something really exciting.”

Narrative Feedback

Mark talks about a system that he pulled from other systems called SE2R (Summarize, Explain, Redirect, and Resubmit). This is using descriptive feedback to eliminate subjectivity and comparisons. It gives the student to go back and revisit prior learning.

“I think that education should be about mastery learning and not punishing kids with grades.”

We then go on to discuss the tools that we can use to achieve this.

Social and Mobile Learning

Mark then goes on to talk about social and mobile learning and how we should find ways to incorporate the devices our students have into their learning.

“We are heading to a place, very soon, where every kid will have a mobile device.”

“Educators have to face it, and they have to prepare for it.. I have to be ready to use it myself.”

There is then some great advice given in terms of how to do this: watch online videos and actually use the devices and applications that you want to use. And learning how to use these tools will take less time than you think.

Twitter

Mark’s article went viral this week. And he gives a couple of reasons why everyone should be on Twitter (click here for the full list):

1. Free Professional Development: Twitter has an advantage in that it is very professional. Following other educators and following specific chats gives you access to advice and resources in your industry.

2. Kids are moving to Twitter from other platforms.

When joining Twitter, it is important to follow these discussions, find “How to Use Twitter Videos,” follow people in your industry (more specifically, find one person who you look up to and follow who they are following), and post with hashtags when first starting.

Relating this to ELT

Throughout the interview I related what Mark discussed to ELT. Here are some ideas I talked about and more on reflection.

Traditional Marking and feedback: The language schools that I worked in liked exams, and it seemed like half our time was spent on either studying for an exam, taking an exam, or reviewing an exam.

I really like the idea of trying to achieve mastery in learning, especially in our industry. Having running feedback, using Google Drive for example, means that we can ensure that our students stop making mistakes that seem to be engrained. This is something that I have implemented through creating audio resources for my learners.

Repetition is such an important part of learning a language. It is our job to make this fun and engaging.

Student Centered Learning: Although we didn’t talk about this too much, it is really important that we help our students find their intrinsic motivation. This is what I believe to be at the core of a results based classroom, especially when talking about online ELT.

An easy way to do this is to make the lessons centered around the interests of your learners. For example, I have one learner who is an athlete (running, rogaining, skiing, and biking!). The materials we use are centered around these topics. By doing this, we talk about things that she is interested in and she also learns the language that she needs to know.

I recently posted a video for my online learners that talks about how to read interesting things and how to subscribe to blogs (click here to watch it).

Social and Mobile Learning: As I mentioned in our discussion, I convince my students to change the language of their devices into English, and use these devices to read, listen, and watch things in English.

This really helps when it comes to getting the input needed to make progress in English. People are going to use these devices; as educators we need to think about ways to use this to our and our student’s advantage.

Twitter: Mark has given me the motivation to follow more discussions on Twitter and to use this platform for professional development. If you follow Marks advice, you will get so much out of this platform.

Resources Mentioned in Our Discussion

You can follow Mark on Twitter and check out his blog: Brilliant or Insane.

Here are Mark’s books:

Role Reversal

The Five Minute Teacher

Teaching the iStudent

And, here is the website Learn it in 5.

I also mentioned the Twitter discussion #ELTchat, you can find out more information about this here.

Mark talked about Daniel Pink and his book Drive (I’ve just ordered it – I’ve been wanting to get this for a while now), and research from Alfie Kohn.

Over to You

I would love to hear your feedback on student centered learning, social and mobile learning, and narrative feedback. Here are some questions:

How do you keep a narrative feedback with your learners?
How are you incorporating devices into learning?
How are you bringing out your learners’ intrinsic motivation?

Please leave your comments below; I really appreciate them.

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