…Well, ask buyers and they’ll tell you that you should know their pain points before you even walk in the door. They want to start the conversation with their pain points and work forward from there—without talking about what you have to offer them. They are looking for good ideas, facts, and data about how to solve their specific business problems. That’s what they’re looking for on the internet—why shouldn’t they expect it from their providers, too? (Why Salespeople Should Sell Ideas: A FAQ by Christopher Koch)

There’s much here for a teacher to learn. Did you catch any ideas? Here are a few things I thought of:

• Know your students inside and out. Effective teachers know their students. They don’t talk at them. They don’t broadcast content, and students soak it up. Today, teachers need to think like a coach. Coaches KNOW the people they train so they can offer the exact help and advice required. Teachers should do likewise.
• Don’t just teach. Use what you teach to help your student solve a real personal or business problem – and don’t be taking long to go about it.

Business has much to teach us teachers. What have you noticed that could be helpful here? 

Maybe I was nerdy or weird, but that kind of motivation really worked well for me. In fact, it worked well for most of the guys in my troop.

Badges for Learning: Could an elaborate, but fun badge system work for people trying to learn English?

I just noticed that Google News is doing it.

Goals: Promote reading. Promote sharing of stories. Promote discussion with people with similar opinions and/or interests as you. Easier access to more reading on that topic.

I’m thinking that ESL students could sure benefit from more reading, sharing, discussion, and access to things that interest them in English.

Con: from my initial playing around, one thing I didn’t like about the Google Badge scheme was that I had to read what they wanted me to read. This time: Columbia.

Lesson: What would happen if you could earn badges the way YOU want to. Maybe I’m more interested in Business in Mexico. Maybe I don’t want to read about X. User Experience should be just that: the user’s experience.

Con: I don’t know how many to read before I level up. This one is so important. Students need to know what they need to do before they can level up too. Keep progress very visible.

Open Badges

Could this apply to learning a second language? Would it be cool for an ESL company to design their own online badge system? Students could learn whatever they wanted to, and earn a badge for it. Would this make learning another language more motivating?

What do you think? What drawbacks do you see? What pro’s do you see?

The Challenge: Create a stronger and more obvious ROI for our client. Happily, we’ve managed to build a 6 year relationship with them to date. We’ve seen them grow from 75 employees to nearly 200. With that growth has come a need to develop a program with stronger emphasis on return on investment.

Goals that Matter.  It’s one thing to accomplish course book inspired goals. But what about the goals that our client wants their employees to accomplish? What about the individual goals our students have and want to accomplish?

Part of our redesign is listening. How can we offer a course that matters, with English that matters unless we first make sure we understand what our client is really looking for. What matters to them.  Our program will have spaces for them to fill with THEIR content.

Break the Book. Time matters to ROI, doesn’t it? Most course books we work with have between 13 and 16 units. Each unit tends to take a month to complete. I spent most of my weekend trying to find ways to fit our program into one of those course books. Then the thought hit me: why? Why not blot out units that don’t really matter or fit into what our client is doing? Would the world stop spinning if we left a chapter here and there out?

Fight the System. My first attempt at mapping our program to our course books looked more like a mechanical, robotish program where teachers and students would be forced to roll through content with down to the second precision.

Is this ROI? You’ll know exactly what content is being viewed in class X. You’ll know how much time is left before your employees have an evaluation. But will this kind of approach promote and allow for learning to occur? I don’t think so.

Learning is messy, and rarely follows a nice straight line. The program of study must fit the student. It should not try and stuff the student into itself – and therefore stop serving.

Instead of lock step, there must be direction which leaves room for freedom. And by freedom, I mean the space to pause over important topics to make sure all is understood. By freedom, I mean working along side our client to make sure our classes aren’t just about a course book. It must be about them, and they must see a positive impact in what they do every day because of the time and money they spent with us in their courses.

How would you design to serve your client? 

]]> http://epicenterlanguages.com.mx/program-design-challenge-ordinary/feed 0 http://epicenterlanguages.com.mx/planning-esl-classes-with-blooms-taxonomy http://epicenterlanguages.com.mx/planning-esl-classes-with-blooms-taxonomy#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 10:00:21 +0000 Aaron Nelson http://epicenterlanguages.com.mx/?p=2127 What is Bloom’s Taxonomy in about 300 words? 

First, what the heck is a Taxonomy? It’s a system for organizing similar things into groups. (If you didn’t know what Taxonomy was, join the club. I just looked in the dictionary.)

And Bloom’s Taxonomy?  A really smart guy named Benjamin Bloom researched and developed a classification of learning objectives. Basically, he mapped out how people learn from LOTS to HOTS. LOTS = Lower Order Thinking Skills to Higher Order Thinking Skills.

From what I’m understanding: LOTS = just that. Lower order. Not as effective or enduring as HOTS. But each stage does (or should) play an important part in the process of learning. Here’s a visual from the Educational Origami wiki about Bloom’s Taxonomy. 

Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS)

• Remembering - Recognising, listing, describing, identifying, retrieving, naming, locating, finding
• Understanding - Interpreting, Summarising, inferring, paraphrasing, classifying, comparing, explaining, exemplifying
• Applying - Implementing, carrying out, using, executing
• Analysing - Comparing, organising, deconstructing, Attributing, outlining, finding, structuring, integrating
• Evaluating - Checking, hypothesising, critiquing, Experimenting, judging, testing, Detecting, Monitoring
• Creating - designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing, devising, making

Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (Text version, also from the wiki.)

Who cares? Look at the text version of the Taxonomy. Where do your lessons live most of the time? After careful inspection, I am pretty sure that the majority of my lessons tend to hang out in LOTS land. That means I can and should be pushing for HOTSer lesson development.

What I noticed for futre lesson planning: Did you catch those new verbs? Applying - Implementing, carrying out, using, executing – could the verbs in red be part of your lesson plan objective statements?  I know that most of my objective statement verbs wind up in the ‘remembering’ and ‘understanding’  categories. 

I can already see that developing ‘hotter’ lessons will require a foray into the unexplored!

Would you join me in exploring? Do your lessons tend to be LOTS or HOTS?

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

Our courses are being pulled in that direction, and it makes total sense. If I were my clients, I would want to see strong ROI.

But what I’m wondering about, is how to make that happen honestly and with integrity. Have you ever tried to wrestle with that?

There are companies out there who promise bilingual in just 6 months. Bilingual! But I think we all know that’s just marketing. What does ‘bilingual’ mean, anyway?  Webster says it’s about being able to use two languages ESPECIALLY with equal fluency.  The online Macmillan dictionary says something similar: that you’re able to speak two languages extremely well.

Sorry, but bilingual doesn’t happen in 6 months. (For normal people, anyway.) I’ve been immersed in Spanish for 13 years, and I still suck at it at times. I do consider myself bilingual though, and I think I could have felt comfortable with that label by around the 6 year mark of my immersion. But not after 6 months.

The giant chain companies out there work with a system. Their teachers, based on conversations I’ve had with a few,  feel more like robots following their programming vs really interacting with people on a human level.

Is that what systemized teaching has to look like? You trade in creativity for a script?  I don’t think I could do that, could you?

Is there a way to do ROI well, AND genuinely connect with and help people learn English?

Over to you: Can creativity and engagement play well with a system?  How would you pair the two? Or better yet, how have you? 

Photo by visualpanic

]]> http://epicenterlanguages.com.mx/can-you-systemize-and-still-teach-with-spark/feed 6 http://epicenterlanguages.com.mx/are-your-students-about-to-leave http://epicenterlanguages.com.mx/are-your-students-about-to-leave#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 10:00:18 +0000 Aaron Nelson http://epicenterlanguages.com.mx/?p=2109 I’ve just lost a group. Has that ever happened to you before? If you’ve been teaching for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve experienced the sting of a class deciding to call it quits on you. I’ve been at this for 12 years, and it’s still a hard pill to swallow.

The reasons will likely vary for every person who decides to walk, but I’m betting that the top 3 most popular reasons are:

#3 Workload.

#2 I just can’t make it – no time because something in my life changed.

#1 I’m not making any progress.

Warning Signs:

• Students missing more and more classes? Houston, you might have a problem.
• Taking too long to move on. This was one of the factors in  my case, though I’m not entirely sure what I could have done differently.  The level I was working with was a pair of beginners, but beginners for nearly 2 years in a row and a few teachers later.
• Negative feedback. If you ask for feedback and you get something negative, pay attention!

What to do about it?

• Missing? Try asking your student directly: I noticed you’re not in class these days, everything ok? Have my classes been hard/boring/combo of both?
• Too long? Hmm, I’m still working on this, but I’m thinking about how to tinker with our program/curriculum some. Try to break your unit down into bite sized chunks? Make progress more obvious for your students. Just like video games are great at letting you know when you’ve ‘powered up’ (Music changes, you get bigger, stronger, have more fire power etc.) I wonder how we can help students have ‘power up’ experiences? (Testing isn’t enough.)
• Negative feedback? Adjust yourself. Plain and simple.

How do you know if your students are about to walk? What would you do about it? 

Photo By geezaweezer

What made the experience was the owner of the spot. Roberto Castro is amazing. With a lifetime of experience – I believe he’s been running his business for over fifty years now, the man KNOWS his products like the back of his hand. But best of all, he knows how to treat his clients and customers like royalty.

What I learned from watching Roberto Castro in action:

1. Know your craft, and be passionate about it. Roberto has devoted his life to his service. He literally lives and breathes it. When he speaks with you (not talks at you….speaks with you) about his offerings, he quickly moves to educating, and finding out what your tastes are.  As he heard something about our tastes, in only seconds he had a generous sample to offer. No pressure. No sales. Just an enthusiastic ‘you’ve got to try this!’  His enthusiasm and excitement were contagious.

Application for teachers:  

• How well do you know your art? I think the more you learn and know about what you teach, the more natural you can become as you present it. Live and breathe your expertise. Let it flow passionately from who you are. Your students will love you for it just like Roberto’s clients seemed to SOAK him and his knowledge up. And always remember: if you’re not inspired by what you teach, you’ll never inspire your students to love learning it.

• Don’t talk at your students, speak with them. How can you figure out how to come along side and share your information so that it’s in tune with what your students are looking for? Or how can you awaken a curiosity and deep interest in what you teach? The best business people know how to create demand, even where there hasn’t been any before.

2. Generosity wins.  Samples are normally crumb sized. Not in La Jersey. Before our delicious baguette,  we had a lovely plate of cheeses and cold cuts along with a cup of wine. No cost. Large samples. The feeling: abundance lives here! And as our cups got low, helpful servers came around and offered to top things up. And would you like to try this ham? Or look at this delicious cheese – try it! I think you’ll love it!

Applications for teachers: 

• Shape content for students. Serve it up to meet their need and interest.
• Always be checking to see how well students take in what you present. ‘Would you like some more?’ ‘What did you think of….’ ‘I know you’ll enjoy this…’

What can teachers learn from service experiences you’ve had? 

E-mail is supposed to be simple, and business e-mail should never be longer than your viewer – if it is, pick up the phone and call the person you are writing. E-mail is designed to save time, not kill it.

Today’s class focus: helping my student to rewrite his original e-mail. How? Planning. Before I get him to write, I will ask him to think about his purpose. What’s the most important idea(s) you want to convey? I think that step alone will help shave valuable time off the writing process. It will also help him to write more succinctly.

Simple is beautiful.

How have you helped your students improve their e-mail writing  skills?

Photo by Robert S. Donovan

• New words are brought to student attention from bold ‘in text’ examples.
• Word lists.
• Teacher makes sure students understand what those bold or listed words means.
• Students attempt to use vocabulary in exercises which follow from their book.
• New words are recycled throughout the unit (perhaps once), and then brought out again at test time.
• New unit, new vocabulary words.

Problem #1: Learning vocabulary “…is a cumulative process.” (Actively Teaching Vocabulary ) What was described above is not cumulative. It’s more ‘fire and forget.’ Or ‘fire, and bring up again on test day.’

According to the Actively Teaching Vocabulary site, learners need to have contact with new words at least 16 time (maybe more) to actually own the word.  SIXTEEN!

Problem #2: Multiple Encounters, variety of contexts. According to the Actively Teaching Vocabulary site, students need to encounter and use their new words in a variety of contexts. When you introduce them to their new word in the text of your course book or article, that’s only one encounter. Many words have multiple meanings and uses.

Take ‘Manage’ for example.  Common business use: She is going to manage the sales team for three months. Likely your students would understand and own this usage first, as it’s a pretty common word in business English. What about this example: Have you managed to finish the reports that I asked you for?  Different meaning.  Other example: “How are you managing with your new responsibilities?”

Same word, but different meanings. Same meaning, different spellings. Effective vocabulary development explores all the potential meanings and uses of new words across multiple sources if possible.  Students need to see that new word in as many different contexts as they can so they can see how it works.

Problem #3 – Receptive Knowledge. 

• Student recognizes the word when heard.
• Student knows how the word can morph alter spelling. (+ing, ed, d, etc.)
• Student knows definition of the word
• Student knows enough to use word in a variety of contexts.

http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/vocabulary/01/teaching.php

http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam031/2001269892.pdf

Photo by JefferyTurner