i’m using a nokia n70, an organiser-like phone. it’s dead easy to use, but a bit poncy, ‘un’-handy and battery flattening.
i think our understanding of teaching is quite similar; i’m well aware of the fact that school-like teaching is not very effective. the best thing would be to do those classes abroad (in a place like i.e. york), ever thought about that? but i have no idea whatsoever whether we’d stand a chance in hell to get government funding for that.
there are many approaches to teaching, and there are many surveys in modern didactics promoting the communicative approach in a genuine linguistic environment. this makes things ever so much harder in a classroom situation, because our means are fairly limited. in my opinion, the only way for effective ‘teaching’ is conversation with native speakers, ‘learning the street way’, so to speak.
but i also believe that assigning tasks can help. ‘learning english every day’ sounds like a promising formula, we only need to come up with a feasable way to employ it.
I think it’s great that we are having this discussion here on the forum because it’s read by lots of people and some point somebody might join in.
You are right, in order to learn English you need to interact with native speakers and yes, a training program in Ireland or any other English speaking country can be very effective. However, this will work only if the participants surround themselves with English speakers. If a group of 20 Germans took a government organized course in Ireland it’s rather likely they would stick together and speak German most of the time.
I think you can do a lot of different things to improve your English once you have made the decision to do so. What’s really important is to recognize how the language acquisition process works. In addition to having conversations with native speakers you should watch English/American movies and analyze the language. Listen to the dialogues several times, repeat phrases until you sound like the original, imitate the speakers, record yourself, type out the sentences, look up words in the dictionary, discuss the film in online forums… there is an endless list of things you can or should do yourself. The truth is, in order to learn English you actually don’t need ‘a teacher’, you just need self-discipline. If you really want to improve your English you have to do something every single day no matter if the government organizes or funds a course and supplies you with a teacher. Take our forum. Do people learn something here every day from native speakers, ESL instructors and other professionals? I would say yes.
That’s why I want to see myself more as a coach, a trainer, a mediator and partner rather than just a teacher. Let me know what you think and we can create our own program one step at a time.
Regards
Torsten
PS: We should develop our own programs. If you like you can take a look at New project: hotel and catering service review? - we will be offering website localization services, SEO consultations, promotion campaigns, etc. Think of the potential and make the best of now ;-).
By the way, thanks for sharing your mobile phone experiences. I’m very interested in these things because I want to be able to work online from any place in the world. If you have time you might want to take a look at Do you have a mobile phone? How do you use it? to see how we can incorporate this discussion into our training programs.[YSaerTTEW443543]
happy father’s day to both of you, may all your children express their gratitude cordially. and who knows, you might as well get a surprise call :shock:
i still think that doing the program abroad would help. of course people would stick together, but there are all those everyday situations which make people more motivated to learn the language. motivation is probably the most decisive factor in language acquisition. studying abroad shows people that you indeed need to try and speak the language if you want to make yourself understood.
and that’s another thing. when teaching A2 students we should probably completely dispense with german, or at least tell people more decisively and distinctly to restrict their utterances to english.
anyways, enjoy your holiday and talk soon!
ralf
p.s.: in yesterday’s delitzsch class we talked about the olympic spirit, ireland, cultural differences, difficulties to find employment and, last but not least, our course programme. we had a very fruitful 2 hour discussion about it. r.
Hi, Torsten, hi Ralf,
things are going well. And thanks for your suggestions! I also agree with both of you on planning and coordinating better our schedules. I think it is important to strike a good balance between the old and new pedagogic approaches.
Today’s class:
-Review of almost all verb tenses (active voice): present simple and continuous, present perfect s. and c. , past perfect s. and c. , past perfect s. and c. , all future tenses, some conditional tenses, past participles, modal verbs. Practical exercises (oral and written ones). Translation exercises from German into English.
Brushing up some old words. Verbs to borrow and lend.
-Word order exercises: negative words, frequency adverbs, time and place expressions etc. …
-In the afternoon we had a barbecue and I answered a lot of curious questions about Colombia and my home town, Barranquilla,
-after the farewell barbecue Wieland played some beautiful songs for us! Live! : We are the champions, Casablanca, Guantanamera etc…So we spent a pleasant afternoon together. Then time was over and we said good-bye to each other. In spite of the sad farewell, everyone seemed to be highly motivated to continue learning this international language. :o
Bye, and best regards.
As for next week, I could teach on Monday the whole day (half a day is also o.k) and on Friday too.
P.S The D-class wants to meet on August 11th at the Greek restaurant in front of the Railway Station in Delitsch. We are also invited. What do you think?
Many thanks for your update. It seems Barranquilla has two famous citizens: Mrs. Mebarak Ripoll and Roberto Steffens ;-).
As for the D group. Do you know how many of them have found work placments or jobs where they need the skills they practiced in the past two months? I mean, after all the purpose of the entire program was to enable the participants to find jobs and earn a living.
When it comes to evaluating the outcomes of a training program it makes sense to use the following checklist:
What do the participants think about the program?/What is their perception? (This is rather subjective everyone will have their own individual definition of a ‘good training program’.)
What have the participants learned/How have their improved their knowledge? (This can be measured by exams for example.)
Can the participants apply the acquired knowledge? (They may have learned something about the English tenses. The question is can they make sentences using those tenses? Can they express their thoughts in English?)
How useful and valuable are the skills they have acquired? (Maybe they can speak better English now but do they also have better job chances?)
Regarding their invitation, that’s very kind of them, isn’t it? If they really want to continue to improve their English and meet with us they can do so any time here on the forum.
Regards
Torsten
PS: I should have told you about their PowerPoint presentation because the labour agency thinks this should be an integral part of that program and so did some of the participants.[YSaerTTEW443543]
I’d like to answer the questions Torstein asked concerning the delitsh class:
In general, I had the feeling people liked the program when asking them to evaluate it on my last day. I asked them explicitly to say what they thought was good or bad. And as I said, they are more or less content with the course, and most of them agreed that it should have been longer, too. on the negative side, apart from the obvious flaws (different levels of participants) people criticised a lack of co-ordination, a lack of structure (“there’s no clearly outlined plan”), my communicative approach being too confusing at times, Roberto’s attempts to describe words (word trees) a bit too elaborate, and Torsten preaching motivation a bit inappropriate. These are the things I could get out of them, and I reckon most of them (if not all) had a very positive experience with the program.
Participants have learned a lot. Some of them found it very hard in the beginning, and some of them found it a bit tedious in the course of the program, but overall everybody has improved.
Curiously, people with a lower command of the language find it easier to express there thoughts now, whereas intermediate speakers seem a bit more confused now. However, I think this is a sign of better second language awareness, and that they have learned new things. In my opinion it only takes some time and practice to get it right.
I agree, it should also be a main aim of this program to make people more confident and skilled (in English). This we have probably achieved. And we should increase their job chances. This is probably best achieved by creating situations as with CENTI or glossaries. Teaching/training is probably most successful when creating a challenging and at times even exciting atmosphere where people can participate actively.
‘Frontalunterricht’ doesn’t do that, and in my opinion Power Point presentations are of little help either. They are good for the person doing the presentation, but quite pointless for people watching it, because they are not involved. At least this is what my didactics professor at university proclaimed, and I think he’s right about that. Still, if arbeitsamt thinks it necessary I have no problem to comply.
Speaking of which, it’s a bit sad really, but when people asked me to bring pictures of Ireland on our last day I brought a big poster sized picture book and talked about what was in the pictures for half an hour. Maybe my ‘presentation’ was a bit lacklustre (even though I’d like to think I always talk quite passionately about Ireland), but I think that halfway through my talk most people’s attention was lost. Well, you live and you learn.
Have a good Sunday, I’ll let you know how tomorrow’s class went by 6 p.m.
Many thanks for sharing your thoughts and giving your feedback.
As you know the program structure and contents depend on a variety of factors. The crucial question should always be: What exactly do you want to achieve and why? As for me, if I can get only one person to practice and improve their English on a daily basis, I have done a good job. Learning English is a process that should happen every day, not just 9 hours per day for 4 weeks (Friday through Sunday) and then it stops.
Also, you can also learn a language if you ask questions. The more questions you ask, the more you learn. We have people on our forum who ask one grammar question per day. They make constant progress while having fun and sharing experiences with other learners.
The new Leipzig class looks very promising. 11 out of 13 people have a university degree, and they seemed very interested and motivated. The overall level is high-beginner/pre-intermediate (A2-B1). maybe there are 1 or 2 weaker A2 students, but they’ll swim with the fish in no time.
topics today:
What do the participants think about the program?/What is their perception? (subjective, individual definition of a ‘good training programme’.)
What have the participants learned so far/How have they improved their knowledge?
Can the participants apply the acquired knowledge? (They may have learned something about the English tenses. The question is can they make sentences using those tenses? Can they express their thoughts in English?)
How useful are the skills they have acquired? (Maybe they can speak better English, but do they have better job chances?)
Constantly working on your English is necessary, if possible every day!
General course outline.
apart from this:
I spoke about motivation quite a lot and found myself ‘preaching’ which wasn’t too benificial for people’s attention. i was then trying to pass the ball to them by asking everyone individually, and we came up with quite a number of ideas to get the English language acquisition ball rolling.
Basic grammar terminology and word order.
Covered simple present situations in a communicative way without using the board too much. Introduced words triggering the gerund (go/like/hate swimming etc.). Briefly tackled present continuous.
I also think, if everyone agrees, that we should try and stick to the course outline I suggested. Since i’ve already covered most of…
mo basic conversational skills, grammar terminology tue basic tenses + word order
…the main focus of tomorrow’s lesson should probably be a general tense review. People could also introduce themselves since they’ve introduced eachother today.
Ralf, thanks a lot for starting the new course, the first day is always crucial because you introduce the program as well our team.
Based on what you have covered so far, this is my plan for tomorrow:
Introductions
This time everyone will introduce themselves. We are going to take rounds, covering one item at a time. This means, first everyone talks about where they are from (they have to come with a create way of introducing their place), then everyone says how they have learned English so far, what their hobbies are, etc.
We'll recap the goals of the program
Everyone should write down key words describing what they want to achieve within the next four weeks. The more precisely we do this, the better will be the outcome.
We'll take the TOEIC mini test
If AFI have provided the photocopies of the TOEIC mini test we'll take the entire test, if not, we'll do 45 listening comprehension questions only (15 TOEIC Bridge + 30 TOEIC). I think listening comprehension is something our clients often find challenging so the purpose of this test is two-fold: a) Our clients analyze 'where they are'. b) We are raising awareness of listening comprehension skills and the format of the TOEIC. This also helps answering the question: How do you describe my English language skills on my CV or in a job interview? Then we'll talk about what we can do to improve our listening comprehension within the next few weeks.
Review of the tenses
We'll work in small teams and answer the following questions:
- What is the difference between a tense and a time dimension/time level?
- In which language are there more tenses - English or German?
- What do you remember about the tenses from your school and university years? (Have you been taught the tenses by a teacher and if so how?)
- What are the most important/most commonly used tenses of the English language?
- What is the difference between a verb form and a tense?
- What is a help verb?
- When do I need a help verb?
We’ll then practise the Simple Past the conventional way (everyone thinks of sentence which somebody in the group makes negative, etc.)
We will also do a dictation - I’ll use the vocabulary words contained in 600 Essential Words for the TOEIC (‘General Business’ => ‘Contracts’). Yes, I should point out that there is syllabus provided by AFI – it should be in the ring binder along with the other materials. Let’s incorporate this syllabus into our program as best as possible.
Whenever I do a government course I wonder what it would be like if the participants were my clients rather than participants of a funded and administered program. What would be different? Would they want to be taught 9 hours a day, 5 days a week? What kind of questions would they ask before the course? Generally, what would be different if they were to pay for my/our services themselves?
Today we did the introductions covering most of the items I outlined above and we took the TOEIC test. The level of the group is very diverse, some will have to do more listening comprehension training than others, some need more grammar review, etc.
Roberto, could you please do the tenses tomorrow, concentrating on simple present, simple past and present continuous. In addition you should introduce some business vocabulary, you can create a company describing the different departments and job functions.
Also, review basic grammar items following the check list contained in the yellow ring binder (‘Grammar Basics’).
Please read the messages from Ralf again to make sure we are on the same page. Ralf and I have introduced you to the group so they are expecting the man from Columbia who speaks 8 languages and was raised in the same town like Shakira.
You can share your experiences in learning languages with group.
hi guys, just took a look at the syllabus and it’s more or less what i’ve suggested last week. think we should try and cover those topics in the first week to keep on track.
week 1
mo basic conversational skills, grammar terminology tue basic tenses + word order wed making telephone calls thu writing a personal letter fri stating personal details/profiles
i’ll make copies for both of you and put them into the folder on thursday so you can take them with you.
please let me know what you’ve done by 8 pm tomorrow. i think we should always do the forum entries by then.
Hi, Torsten, Hi Ralf,
I am looking forward to teaching tomorrow morning. I think I will have a lot of fun with this class too sharing my acquired language skills, specially English, of course ( :lol: ). Anyway, I must admit I enjoy teaching this international Germanic language.
Thanks also to Ralf for your good hints.
Tomorrow I will deal with the verb tenses you proposed to practise, Torsten (present and past simple, also irregular verbs), some word order exercises, the use of important prepositions, adverbs; I will ask each of the participants to introduce himself or herself, this time involving everyone in a funny game where they will brush up some relevant vocabulary).
-Regarding vocabulary: business vocabulary: a company, its departments, etc. ; professions; job hunting, applications/CVs/resumes (a short introduction)
Making phone calls: essential vocabulary and vivid phone conversations.
-Comparisons between German and English language (regarding vocabulary, grammar, phonetics etc…: thus we will consider such examples as false friends; differences when using verb tenses; pronunciation drills).
Anyway, I am quite sure that time will fly very fast again.
More details, tomorrow.
I am waiting now for a Danish press report I must have translated into Spanish by Thursday.
Bye, and have a good one too!
Hello, Torsten, hi Ralf,
here is my update for today’s class:
introductions; professions; qualifications; origins (Leipzig, Isselsburg, Saarbr?cken, Cologne; Barranquilla): everyone explained the reason why they came to Leipzig; Andreas also speaks Polish (born in Poland) and Krassimira comes from Bulgaria and studied German as a foreign language.
Then we played some games (as activities for brushing up the essentials of the English Grammar, getting to know each other better, brushing up basic vocabulary : food, cities, places, routine activities etc…).
We practised some irregular verbs (take, shake, get, forget, burn (besides the regular one burned), learn (id. ), eat, grow, etc…I asked some of the participants to construct a useful sentence by using these verbs: present (simple vs. progressive, present perfect, word order, etc…).
present perfect, its function, signal words.
habits (use of frequency adverbs, place in a sentence), giving opinions (I think you should, in my opinion).
-used to- construction
likes and dislikes: verbs: to like, dislike, hate, detest, feel like etc…
Making phone calls; relevant vocabulary: put through, get through to, connect, long-distance call, the line is engaged/busy, connect etc…Expressions…
Explanations of some abbreviations and false friends
Also, could you please have everyone in the group create a key word list describing their jobs/industries? For instance, Achim did a research project on the jail/prision situation in Florida. He wants to find a job in the UK and we can give him some directions. His key word list should contain vocabulary that is related to his specific expertise which is quite different from Andreas’, for example.
So everybody should start their own, individual glossary which they can use a basis for further job hunting activities.
When it comes to CV’s and resumes, I strongly recommend we use the information provided by Wikipedia. There you will find details about the differences between a CV and resume, their features and functions, their structure and contents etc. Also, there are some interesting findings as why CV’s and resumes tend to be longer nowadays than a couple of years ago and the impact of the Internet on the recruiting process in general. Please, read the article and let me know what you think. (Just google CV wiki.)
Regards
Torsten
Let me know what you think,
Regards
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
conversation in the morning: plans for the weekend (short introduction of the most important future tenses)
Topics: Stay in the USA (Achim, e.g., for six weeks; Gerlinde with her husband on a business trip, Jana etc…) Impressions, possibilities to speak English there, experience in the USA; who has been to England and/or Ireland?
Revision of old vocabulary
present perfect, review of important verbs and their collocation.
writing an informal letter vs. formal letter (introduction)
Synonyms and antonyms: for instance/for example, job/work/position/post/profession/situation/vocation; refuse, garbage, rubbish, trash etc…antonyms with prefixes such as un-, in-, im-, dis-, ill-, irr- (tricks to choose the right prefix)
-Etymologies: of Latin/French origin: employer, employee, beef, table, mutton, chair, visible, feasible, r?sum?, CV, legible, regular, etc. Connections to German words(e.g. legible, lesson and Lektion, Lektorat;etc); of Germanic Origin: Friday, fear (ea=ah, aa, false friend), gossip, tomorrow, sorrow, follow, borrow, worry etc…(-ow = -g), fare.
False friends: overhear …
Homophones: fair and fare etc.
-Spelling and pronunciation exercises; dictation : writing a CV, your personal details; vocab regarding personal profile
Song: Don’t worry, be happy; use of rhymes; double entendres; vocab: landlord, rent, pay, money, be broke/hard up; hire and fire etc…
Have a nice weekend,
Roberto
P.S Next week the class will take place in room Nr. 60 every day.
Bye, and enjoy Whitsun!
Robbie
tomorrow i will start with what i suggested should be done on monday week 2:
mo writing a CV tue writing a covering letter wed having an interview thu how to do a presentation fri doing a presentation on a certain topic
let me know if you feel like doing anything else on the days you will be teaching (or whether you want to shift the topics). i will analyse job ads, talk about job characteristics and write CVs for a fictive person.
hi, Ralf, hi Torsten,
i think we can continue Ralf’s syllabus + some extra individual suggestions.
As for Wednesday i will deal with the topic: writing covering (cover) letters and review most of things we have discussed in the class so far.
Have a nice Monday and let’s start this week with optimism.
Bye,
Roberto
:o 
:lol: 
). Anyway, I must admit I enjoy teaching this international Germanic language.