Two Teachers Talking™: Recent Episodes
Tony Silva and Charles Wiz
Teachers know that when classes are done, the beer has been poured, teachers gather around the table, and the talk turns to...teaching. Great (and not so great ideas) are tossed around, argued, praised, and ridiculed. What's been missing is a microphone on the table. Until now. If you're a teacher, and especially if you're teaching in Japan, have a listen. Tony and Charles talk about what they've learned, what works, what doesn't, and what other teachers like you have to say.
Tony and Charles struggle with that question and discuss the best ways to reach our students. It’s not simple.
Mentioned, previous episodes:
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- 154 Desirable Difficulties - November 2022
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- 130 Learning Styles - November 2020
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- 118 Great Expectations Revisited - January 2020
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- 60 Great Expectations - March 2015
We discuss the value of mixing it up - using diverse deliveries, approaches, methods, activities, tasks, media, teachers. See also: 154 Desirable Difficulties and 130 Learning Styles.
Charles talks once more with an elementary education major at a university. They talk about her experiences working with a resource teacher, dealing with tech that doesn't work, and an upcoming summer school teaching gig.
It’s holiday time for lots of people, and for most of them/us, that means buying gifts…and hopefully receiving, some, as well. Here’s our brainstorm session of gifts for the teacher in your life. As for your favorite podcasters, cash will do nicely.
“OK, let’s make this a little harder,” says Duo the Owl to us every day. We take a look at how some counter-intuitive practices can improve learning by tricking the brain to try harder. No, we’re not neurologists. But we have a podcast.
- Sans Forgetica - YouTube: https://youtu.be/CEXzSehu5HM
- Sans Forgetica - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans\_forgetica
- Why Making Learning More Difficult Improves Your Skill Development - Erik Hamre: https://hamre-erik.medium.com/desirable-difficulty-why-you-should-make-learning-more-difficult-on-purpose-c65223046d6b
Charles talks with Nerida Rand to find out how a background in improvisation plays out in the classroom. Nerida was an exchange student in a Japanese high school in the 80’s and has been back in Japan as a teacher since 1997. She teaches in the Graduate School of International Social Sciences at Yokohama National University as well as being adjunct faculty at Keio SFC. When school’s out she’s acting, improvising, and translating plays.
Charles talks with Nerida Rand to find out how a background in improvisation plays out in the classroom. Nerida was an exchange student in a Japanese high school in the 80’s and has been back in Japan as a teacher since 1997. She teaches in the Graduate School of International Social Sciences at Yokohama National University as well as being adjunct faculty at Keio SFC. When school’s out she’s acting, improvising, and translating plays.
We discuss the why, how, and what of music in the classroom - as well as music for the teacher.
Mentioned:
- Radio Paradise: https://radioparadise.com/player
- Misheard lyrics: https://bit.ly/t3lyrics
We discuss the why, how, and what of music in the classroom - as well as music for the teacher.
Mentioned:
- Radio Paradise: https://radioparadise.com/player
- Misheard lyrics: https://bit.ly/t3lyrics
A bit tweaked at the end of the semester? I guess we were, too, so off we go on a lightning round session of time saving and emergency pull-stuff-out-of-your hat ideas.
Mentioned:
- Socrative: https://www.socrative.com
- Google Forms: https://www.google.com/forms/about/ (does not require Google Classroom)
- Teachers for Ukraine: https://www.teachersforukraine.org
- Bonus link: - NYT - 145 Picture Prompts to Inspire Student Writing: https://tinyurl.com/nytpicprompts
We talk about teaching reading and all the ingredients that get baked into that. Why, what kind, how…all of it. Correction: only 55% of web content is in English, not 75% as I stated in the podcast.
Mentioned:
- Episodes 73 and 77, the Paul Nation Interviews: http://twoteacherstalking.com
- Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Jung Chang: https://amzn.to/3QQCdkG
- "Why English?": http://tony-silva.com/eslefl/whyenglish.html
Plagiarism, again. Why the problem is so difficult to solve in Japan. Culture, society, comprehension, and plain old delinquency, the teacher is up against all of that in this fight.
Mentioned in the podcast:
Two Teachers Talking Podcast http://www.tony-silva.com/t3/index.html
October 2021 - 141 Does everyone understand? Are there any questions?
September 2014 - 54 Plagiarism
It’s a new school year in Japan, and very likely, most of your classes are now again face to face, or, at least, mask to mask. Things are returning to “normal.” Or are they? What is the new normal? How have the last two years changed you, your students, your teaching, their learning, and our academic universes?
Another year begins. Instead of talking about how, we discuss some of the whys. Why teach English? Why teach foreign languages?
- Why English?: http://tony-silva.com/eslefl/whyenglish.html
- Go Abroad: www.goabroad.com/articles/language-study-abroad/why-is-it-important-to-learn-a-foreign-language
- Decision making: How Knowing a Foreign Language Can Improve Your Decisions, Catherine Caldwell-Harris: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/foreign-language-improve-decisions/
- Lead With Languages: https://www.leadwithlanguages.org/why-learn-languages/top-ten-reasons-to-learn-languages/
Tony and Charles talk about last months’ discussion with Professors George Truscott and Nathanael Rudolph on what’s involved in program coordination. Then, the discussion turns to Tony’s departure from Japan and his landing in Mexico.
Charles sits down with George Truscott and Nathanael Rudolph to discuss the art of Program Coordination. Approaches, philosophies, goals and outcomes, staff management, limitations, liabilities, and juggling all the balls.
Treading carefully into 2022, we first look back at Episode 143 (Teaching While Black in Japan) and two years of COVID Era Teaching. We then pull out our cloudy crystal balls for a look at the future.
Three very special guests join us to discuss being a black educator in Japan: hiring (and leaving), student interaction, staff interaction, peer interaction, teaching materials, stereotypes of the English teacher…and, most importantly, how we can improve things.
Avril Haye Matsui is an educator, activist, researcher, and Ph.D. candidate, studying the status and roles of black women in ELT. You can view one of her JALT presentations here: The Changing Face of ELT: Black Women in ELT, https://youtu.be/8nO3fLcq-OQ
Rachel Patterson serves as the Assistant Academic Director and instructor at the Berlitz-ELS program at the Kindai University Faculty of International Studies. Her focus is on teacher training and development, study abroad, and formal assessment. She lives in Nara and spends her free time gardening, studying Japanese, and wood burning. Professional Development Through Language Conferences: https://bit.ly/PDTLC-RP
Davina Robinson is an educator, narrator, and singer living in Osaka. Tony and Davina go waaaaay back. https://davinarobinson.com
We all dream about it. What’s yours look like? But, remember the old adage…be careful what you ask for. Make your list and let’s compare notes.
We know that Japanese students’ English comprehension is overrated, even by those of us who know that their listening comprehension is overrated. But that’s not it, or, at least all of it. Join us in a deep dive on impediments to understanding and how maybe, just maybe, we can make things better.
Mentioned:
- Grant Wiggins, Understanding By Design: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Design-Grant-Wiggins/dp/1416600353
- Gary Larson, The Far Side Comic Strip, “What they hear”: https://desertdemocrat.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/gary-larson-far-side-cartoon-what-we-say-to-dogs-blah-blah-ginger.jpeg
Thoughts and comments on teaching pronunciation and the interview with Prof. Alison Kitzman in Episode 139. Then, a brief discussion of how computer translation may require a reset on how English, or any foreign language, is taught.
Mentioned:
- My Cousin Vinny, Two Youths: https://youtu.be/NdCijCUj8w
- Perfect English in an incomprehensible essay: http://tony-silva.com/download/badessayannotated.pdf
- DeepL Translator: https://www.deepl.com/translator
- English Language Statistics: http://tony-silva.com/eslefl/whyenglish.html
Prof. Alison Kitzman of Kindai University talks to us about the what, why, and how of teaching English pronunciation in Japan. Included free: cicadas and a very bad Eliza Dolittle impersonation.
Mentioned:
- Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, Peter C. Brown: https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Peter-C-Brown-ebook/dp/B00JQ3FN7M/ref=sr\_1\_1?dchild=1&keywords=make+it+stick&qid=1627252684&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
- Stress in the Speech Stream, Dr. Wayne Dickerson: https://www.amazon.com/Stress-Speech-Stream-English-Teachers/dp/0252060962
- “The ‘Cornfield Test’: A Study into the ‘Katakana Effect’,” Alison B. Kitzman
- Lenneberg’s (1967) Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical\_period\_hypothesis
- My Fair Lady: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My\Fair\_Lady\(film)
- My Cousin Vinny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My\_Cousin\_Vinny
You know how you’re “supposed” to conduct and manage your classes, assignments, and grading. Sheer work volume—classes per week, students per class—often makes that ideal impossible. So, how do you get it all done and still maintain quality and sanity? With great difficulty and effort. And some tech.
Approaching mid-semester, an odds and sods SITREP. What can we learn and apply going forward this year, including a report from Tony on the world of retirement.
Mentioned:
- Compleat (sic) Lexical Tutor: https://www.lextutor.ca
Two heads, too many cooks...so, when does it make sense to sit down and hash things out and when is it better to just go it alone?
Mentioned:
- Modular Press - Charles' new textbook and materials publishing portal: https://modularpress.org.
- The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Fred Brooks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month.
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance.
Maybe you don't know whether you'll be teaching online or in the classroom. Maybe you know. Maybe you think you know. If the past year has taught us anything, it's to be prepared for the unexpected. We try to help you cover all the bases. Good luck this year, folks.
Game Over: Tony has retired. I made it. My last class was February 10, my contracts expire 3/31/21. I'm retired. 🍾 🥂 Charles and I talk about what this means. I used to teach: http://tonysensei.net Personal: http://tony-silva.com Also, for the record, after some of those last classes, I cried like a baby. I will miss teaching way more than it sounds on the podcast. When it's your time, don't be too proud or think you're too tough to seek out some counseling to ease the transition. Just sayin'. It's as big a step as it looks.
The self-sabotaging student. There's nothing so creative, resourceful, and frustrating as a student set on his or her own failure. You can't win them all.
Charles grills his daughter on her experiences as a first-year education major at McGill University. They discuss her own educational journey, her transition from Canadian Academy student to Canadian Academy observer, online learning, and face-to-face classroom observation. (Sophie! Math is important!)
It's been such a rough year, we didn't have the energy to select a topic. Still, we manage to marshal some lessons learned and even find some not-so-obvious highlights of the past year.
Many articles have been published in the past few decades “debunking” the notion of learning styles. Yet, despite that, many teachers are reluctant to let go of the idea. Then what about differentiated learning? Well…"they" say that doesn’t work either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Tony sits down with Prof. Alison Kitzman to try to sort this out.
After a semester on the front lines of remote learning/teaching using Zoom, we share what we’ve learned. Some basics, some stuff we’re pretty sure will be new to you. PLUS, a special giveaway of a great application/tool. Good luck with the new semester!
A look back at what was necessary to survive the first semester of remote teaching and what might be necessary in the semesters to come, for both teachers and students. What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Everyone’s feeling the strain at the end of along, even crazier than usual spring semester. A mind mapping tool might be what you need to ease the load a bit. What’s a mind map and where can it take me? Find out. Uses, tips, essential features.
How much is too much, how much is too little? Conscience, responsibilities, ethics, cultural imperialism…we struggle with how to begin to figure out what the right thing to do is on rapidly shifting social terrain.
It’s been a few weeks. We’re still standing (well, sitting, mostly), zero student casualties, at least as far as we can tell. So, what’s it been like? Taking a break in the trenches, we try to assess what's been happening, what’s been working, what hasn’t, and what we–and our students–have learned so far in this very unusual academic year.
We take apart the student discussion on the turns university education has taken this year (E123: Meet Generation C, 4/20) and confirm the value of listening to our students. We also talk a bit about the state of the profession and how we ourselves are coping with the new world we find ourselves teaching in.
In another very special episode, we talk with students and alumni from Osaka University about how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting their education, their future, and their lives. Their discussion is full of insight, surprise, and hope. If you’re teaching in Japan, you need to hear what they have to say. They distinguish themselves as very special representatives of their generation. This is a good one. Don’t miss it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Big, special thanks to (alphabetical order):
Miyu Kataoka Moku Seiyou Rene Tai Atsuhiro Tsuruguchi Yuto Yamaoka
Email for remote learning. As we all gear up for teaching in this new environment, we can predict that email, particularly email from students, is going to be a bigger part of the workday. In a special episode, we talk about what we have learned about handling student email and offer some tips on avoiding mistakes and speeding up workflows. More at http://twoteacherstalking.com
A very special episode of Two Teachers Talking, so special it’s dropping early. First we recap last month’s interview with Alison Kitzman. Then, we move on to discuss the COVID-19 virus and how it will change our teaching, our students, and our world. A hard discussion in hard times. Let’s all try to get through this together. Be safe.
Mentioned:
Charles’ Covid-19 information site for ex-pats in Japan https://japancovid19.carrd.co Otter - audio recording of meeting, discussion, with auto-transcription, etc. https://otter.ai/?s=welcome Zoom - video conferencing (like Skype+) https://zoom.us Canvas - build larger scale online classes https://www.instructure.com/canvas/ Blackboard - create lectures, classes for distribution https://www.blackboard.com Moodle - full LMS https://moodle.org “Getting started is easy,” they say. See Two Teachers Talking, Episode 80, November 1, 2016. PARLAY - Teacher creates prompt and materials, students read, share reactions and thoughts, interact with other students and teacher. https://parlayideas.com/how-it-works/ Google Classroom https://edu.google.com/products/classroom/?modal_active=none Looked really good - but school needs to enroll in Gsuite…security, privacy, etc. I gave up. Microsoft Teams https://teams.microsoft.com/start
Charles is MIA this month, but Tony interviews Prof. Alison Kitzman to explore how needs analysis can help our teaching, and more, help with course and curriculum design. In a future episode Tony and Charles will compare notes.
An interview with Chris Ruddenklau. Chris, colleague and old Japan hand, shares his teaching experiences in Thailand, Laos, and Japan. He is the coordinator of the JALT Teachers Helping Teachers (THT) Laos Program and plays an active role in the annual Laos TESOL conference. Just two teachers talking. Of course, afterwards, Charles shares his observation and analysis. Good stuff.
JALT THT SIG Japanese Association for Language Teachers, Teachers Helping Teachers Special Interest Group http://thtjalt.bravesites.com
Teachers Helping Teachers (THT) Laos http://thtjalt.bravesites.com/laos
If you want to get in touch with Chris, just send an email to the show (twoteacherstalking@gmail.com) and we’ll hook you up.
Raise high the bars, teachers. That’s the current mantra. But how high is too high? How do you know? What are the consequences? What do you do if you've screwed up?
Mentioned: Episode 60, Two Teachers Talking, March 2015.
And Happy New Year! (And thanks to Mick, Keith, et al, for the outro riffs.)
As 2019 slithers down into its ignominious place in history, we consider ourselves lucky, in that, at least from a teaching perspective, it’s been an unremarkable year. We sift through the memories, panning for nuggets of wisdom to help us in the new year. Don’t expect much.
Nevertheless, please accept our wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a new year better than the last. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Solstice, 今年も色々お世話になりました.
Near-universally reviled and loathed, do speech contests make any sense? Tony and Charles disagree on almost everything except that, in their current manifestation, speech contests are awful. But listen in to hear all the shades of speech contest gray.
Visit our website for links to things mentioned. http://twoteacherstalking.com
ボクです！¡Soy yo! C'est moi! To ja! Это я! 나야! Tôi đây! 是我！ມັນແມ່ນຂ້ອຍ! So, really…how does the language we use affect…everything? Tony and Charles dive off the deep end. Luckily, they have some help from Maria Minohara, student at Osaka University, who shares her insights on bilingualism, personality, persona, and society. (And apologies to Maria and listeners for the poor recording quality of the interview.)
Mentioned: Ivana Paz, "How the Language I Speak Changes My Personality" https://humanparts.medium.com/how-the-language-i-speak-changes-my-personality-73a1c19a49a7
François Grosjean, "Change of Language, Change of Personality?" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-bilingual/201111/change-language-change-personality
François Grosjean and Aneta Pavlenko, "Psychology Today blog, Life as a bilingual" http://www.francoisgrosjean.ch/blog_en.html
Nairán Ramírez-Esparza, Samuel D. Goslinga, Verónica Benet-Martínezb, JeVrey P. Potterc, James W. Pennebakera, "Do bilinguals have two personalities? A special case of cultural frame switching." http://www.utpsyc.org/Nairan/research/bilingual.pdf
Nairán Ramírez-Esparza and Adrián García-Sierra, "The Bilingual Brain: Language, Culture, and Identity" https://labclab.psychology.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1167/2015/04/Language3.pdf
We all have more things to do than time to do them. We talk about trying to manage all the things we need to, want to, or are expected to do. Spoiler: no magic app will solve all your task management problems. Also, apologies for the poor audio quality; not up to our usual standards, but TIME MANAGEMENT issues didn’t allow a re-recording.
From time to time one needs to step back and take account of what you do and don’t have control over. When you realize the things that are bugging you most are things beyond your control, what do you do?
Mentioned: Text Expander https://textexpander.com The Flintstones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flintstones Previous Episodes http://twoteacherstalking.com: - 12, 13 Interviewing and Hiring - 51, 52 School Culture - 53 Failure by Design
Motivation. No, not yours. The students’. How do you motivate students–or should you have to? Peering into the opacity of the student mind.
Mentioned: You Are Not So SmartPodcast (YANSS), Episodes 52, 53, 55 https://youarenotsosmart.com Two Teachers Talking: Episode 67 Japanese Exceptionalism Episode 53: Failure by Design Episode 51 and 52: School Culture Internet Content by Language http://tony-silva.com/eslefl/whyenglish.html Us and Them, Silva http://tony-silva.com/usandthem/usandthem.html Geography of Thought, Nesbitt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Thought
We’re all pretty much obligated or resigned to shooting for the middle with our classes. How do you accommodate the student whose abilities far outstrip his/her peers? How about the one who just believes his/her do?
Mentioned in the podcast: Tony Buzan and Mind-Mapping
So, you landed a teaching job. Sit down, kid, let us tell ya couple things. We dig deep for ideas, tips, shortcuts, and insights that might have helped us in our early teaching years. (Give us a break…that was a long time ago.) Here’s your chance to learn from our many, many mistakes.