I’m making a Christmas episode of the podcast and I need your help. Yes, YOU. The person reading this right now. Don’t look around, I’m talking to you~!
As serious, devoted education professionals, we all love hearing about things going wrong or weird in a lesson, so the end-of-year episode is going to be a collection of funny stories from the classroom. I’ve already recorded a few with the recent interviewees. If you’d like to contribute, I’d love to have your story.
They don’t have to be long at all. One I have already is just a teacher leaning against the classroom door and falling straight through it! Short n sweet. But longer ones are good too. If you have more than one that’s even better.
So, any mishaps, odd co-workers, weird or funny experiences, just record yourself telling the story (just on your phone is good enough!) and send it to mastersoftesol@gmail.com
If you want to be anonymous, that’s fine, otherwise you a can give your name at the start. As it’s the end-of-year show, the sooner I get them the better, so don’t delay if a story comes to mind
I’m making a Christmas episode of the podcast and I need your help. Yes, YOU. The person reading this right now. Don’t look around, I’m talking to you~!
As serious, devoted education professionals, we all love hearing about things going wrong or weird in a lesson, so the end-of-year episode is going to be a collection of funny stories from the classroom. I’ve already recorded a few with the recent interviewees. If you’d like to contribute, I’d love to have your story.
They don’t have to be long at all. One I have already is just a teacher leaning against the classroom door and falling straight through it! Short n sweet. But longer ones are good too. If you have more than one that’s even better.
So, any mishaps, odd co-workers, weird or funny experiences, just record yourself telling the story (just on your phone is good enough!) and send it to mastersoftesol@gmail.com
If you want to be anonymous, that’s fine, otherwise you a can give your name at the start.
This episode, we start with a little experiment and get more interactive. Let us know what country you thought the music originated in at @MOTcast with the hashtag #motesol . I’ll put up the results on www.mastersoftesol.com
Andrew Ewan MacFarlane is a lecturer at University of York in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science and a sociolinguist. We spent a while flipping back and forth between accents and dialects, reminiscing about Margaret Thatcher, thinking about unobtrusive kiwis and kangaroos, gettin’ daaaan wit da yoof o’ London innit, and playing “Name That [Country of Origin] Tune”.
This was one of my favourite interviews so far and hopefully inspires more than a few listeners to get deeper into the subject.
Once again, I got lost in the labyrinthian corridors of the University of York Language & Linguistic Science department, this time to speak to Tamar Keren-Portnoy about first language acquisition. There’s a lot of similarities between how we learn our first language and how we acquire our second language, so it’s a useful topic for ESL / EFL / second language teachers.
She gives us insights into such things as how babies develop syntax/grammar norms, why they learn some words earlier than others, how babies are not simply mimicking their caretakers and, through her own research with Rory DePaolis & Marilyn Vihman, how babies learn through listening and the sounds they themselves make.
You may remember Marilyn Vihman from episode 9 of MOT.
Later in the year, I’ll release a mini-episode about the developmental stages of babies.
This episode, I speak to University of York’s Heather Marsden about the controversial Critical Period hypothesis. This theory suggests that there is a limited age at which we can learn a second language, after which it grows increasingly difficult. Anecdotally, we assume this to be true – kids are sponges for language while older people struggle – but what does the research say about this?
This episode is simply a bite-sized introduction to a much larger topic, so I encourage you to search around for other perspectives on this subject.
This listening activity uses “Someone Like You” as a listening activity. There are TWO aspects to this.
The verses and the bridge are fill-in-the-gaps
The choruses are “correct the wrong words” activity. Some of the words on the student sheet are incorrect and students need to listen closely to find which.
Followed by the questions and activities from the lesson plan.
Click the link below for the lesson plan and answer sheet.
A fun ice breaker using “Would you rather A or B?”. It’s deliberately silly and the classes have had loads of fun with it over the years. It needs to be set up and demonstrated along with giving some rules (I.E., you MUST choose one option / if the choice is “completely bald” then they are not allowed to ‘get hair implants’ later! / and so on).
Partners (A & B) have different questions. Students can start to expand it and add their own questions.
FOR SOME MORE CONSERVATIVE TEACHING CULTURES, SOME OF THE QUESTIONS MAY BE ON THE EDGY SIDE.
