Asking for directions with Sock Puppets

It can be a bit of a struggle to get some older kids/younger teens to look up/at each other when they have a book to hide in!

From this rather static format

Book is safe, and flat on the table = ideal excuse not to establish eye contact...and a great way to continue muttering along in the least interesting tone as possible. How to break into that little comfort zone & get some meaningful production going? First of all, do use the audio available to you from CD or whatever classroom recording you have. It will present a dialogue more naturally than you can (unless you are a trained ventriloquist?) and at the same time expose learners to 'other Englishes'. Read along, figure out the context and get set. One way is to ask your students to do this as a pair. EFL 101, for sure. Nothing wrong with this as a starting point, but come the day when this dialogue might actually happen, chances are the book is not going to be to hand.

I like to change the dynamic of this kind of work and invite the students to self-inflict a challenge; I write up the dialogue on the board (large enough to be read from a distance), colour coding the speakers. Students stand up & pair up, looking at each other. Separation anxiety already from the book (leave open on desks if they need that security blanket!). Using the board, students are already being more natural with body language getting involved (pointing to each other when it's 'their go') & eye contact and moving (remembering which way is left & right!)

...to this board script

Challenge? When groups have navigated though once, invite one to erase 5 words off the board (and replace with a line where the words were). Likely the student erased their partners words more than their own - so of course you ask students to now switch roles and try again. Repeat this process (change partners too) until you run out of words or time; students will not run out of enthusiasm! They realise they are building up a visual memory of the conversation and trying to 'see' it helps...and they also help each other (when usually they wouldn't dare).

Sock Puppets I came across a few years ago now, an iOS app which is great in class, via +Shelly Sanchez Terrell on twitter (@shellterrell). The 30 second limit works in your favour to speed things up even more & have students begging to retry/improve/beat the buzzer! Really recommend trying it out - here are my two 12/13 year olds giving it their best shot...what do you think?

Confessions of a twitter stalker? Meeting Shelly Terrell

Shelly Terrell addresses the tech converts, JALT 2011

The highlight of my weekend was meeting Shelly Terrell, even briefly, and to see her present two workshops at this year's JALT Conference in Tokyo. I have been 'following' @shellterrell for some time now on twitter; she is a very healthy spider in the middle of an extremely useful network of teachers/ideas/links & inspiration.

And in person, she's a delight. It's always a bit uncomfortable meeting fellow twitterers in person - "Hello, I follow you" makes you sound like some kind of stalking perv! A good friend of mine was once approached in Tamita Gumtree with "Hi, I've been watching you from across the room". To which he replied "Well you f*** off back to the other side of the room!" Fortunately, Shelly is more approachable : )

A lot of people, especially here in Japan I think, don't "get" twitter. I did, very quickly, after overhearing Barbara Sakamoto (@barbsaka) at JALT two years ago, and deciding that if something was working for her, it should be worth investigating. Since then, following the likes of Barb and Shelly has opened up my professional horizons beyond all imagination. I am trying hard to make sense of and share on (if that is good English?) the useful bits and bobs I come across.

On Sunday I saw Shelly present on using an iPhone with learners - something I am particularly interested in as my daughter mastered my iPhone from the age of two. I would LOVE it if all of Luna's students could arm themselves with an iPod Touch - or even better, iPads...as it is, lending my phone to students is the best I can do, and on a limited basis as there is only one phone to go around. Whatever we do with it needs to be co-operative and simple.

Shelly mentioned a number of apps that I am familiar with, and a couple of others that I downloaded immediately afterwards! I also had the pleasure of finding myself sitting next to a former ESOL examiner trainer & ongoing football fan, and catching up as best we could in between furious note taking and app sharing ideas! Here is one link to take you the rest of the month to research. Find out what and how Shelly shares her great ideas here, and find her kitchen sink over here.

One thing I will be searching out for our YLE preparation is the Story Robe app and key words "learner autonomy" & "collaborative stories". You can see our Monday students working with a couple of these apps in use here...would love to hear some feedback.