Welcome to Halina’s Conversational English online course
A bit about me.
I have been teaching languages for over 40 years.
I taught Polish as a foreign language in traditional settings at the
Wroclaw University of Technology for about 41 years. I have been teaching
English to speakers of other languages for over 25 years.
In 2000, I became an American Citizen.
In 2010, I started my online adventure mainly on WizIQ. Since that time I
have been using technology in my classes.
I have been training in both face-to-face and blended learning arrangements.
A commonly held belief is that human behavior is the result of rational decision making based on available information. A closer look into the science of behavior reveals the powerful role our emotions play in our decision making process. In this animated video we look at the behavior change process using Jonathan Haidt’s analogy of an elephant, a rider, and a path.
Teacher extraordinaire Mr Keating appears as the epitome of the charismatic teacher – one that his students are sure to remember long after their school years are over. Way over the top as this might be (though I am sure that, whatever we may say, many of us would love to feel we are a little bit like Mr Keating) it is only natural to ask ourselves: does the personality of the teacher matter in this Brave New World of technology and on-line courses? As teachers we are in the business of influencing people. How can we do that? It helps if we imagine each individual as a big elephant with a rider sitting on top of it (a metaphor first used by J. Haidt 2006). The elephant is our emotional side; it is big, strong, somewhat impulsive and not as predictable as we would like it to be. The rider is our rational side; it can guide the elephant and the latter usually allows itself to be directed by the former (but if there is a disagreement, we all know who we should bet on! J ) So how can we influence people? There are 3 ways: a) We can motivate the elephant; this is what charismatic teachers do – they inspire their students, and this clearly works best in a f2f context. b) We can direct the rider – appealing to the logical part of our students and telling them what to do. This can work equally well in a f2f and an online context. c) We can shape the path down which the elephant and the rider will walk (an idea first proposed by Heath & Heath 2011 – click here to watch a 2-min clip). By careful use of choice architecture (see Thaler & Sunstein 2008), we can ‘nudge’ the duo in the direction we would like them to go. * An on-line environment is ideal for such an approach. However….
References:
Bloom, P. (2008) Introduction to Psychology. Yale Courses, You Tube
Haidt, J. (2006) The Happiness Hypothesis. London: Arrow Books
Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2011) Switch. London: Random House
Lieberman, M. (2013) Social. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Thaler, R. & Sunstein, C. (2008) Nudge. Michigan: Yale University Press
When we decide to teach adults, the awareness, as well as comprehension of whom we teach and what we teach, is essential here.
1)Adults do not want to waste the time.
Some adults take language courses because of a job requirement while others have their specific goal to attain (such as a language exam or a professional interview ).
Adults expect direct, practical benefit. All of them will raise the similar questions
·Why,
·What for,
·How,
·Who (is my teacher?),
·What else could I achieve instead?
·Is the time well spent?
All lessons must have a clear outcome, perhaps even a practical takeaway. It is necessary to define specific profits at the end of the lesson and associate the benefits to the individual learning purposes.
2)Adults are reflective learners; they think about
·what is challenging or where I require more support
·individual learning strategies and self-evaluation
·maintaining a sense of responsibility for learning and achieving goals
3)Motivation is varied, and flexibility is crucial.
Teachers have to be flexible and ready for different approaches, wide-ranging content or even unconventional paths to lead to the same goal.
Creating a context for meaningful learning is one of the tasks.
4) Mature students feel the need for direct benefit as well as dominant language skills.
·Learners are looking for a solution to an exact problem at hand, immediately.
·The fundamental question is: “What should I do to get this to work?”
·Mature learners usually want to accomplish a particular task, or at least, see a noticeable benefit for the future.
·Adults want to use language for a real-world reason.
5) The different abilities of adult learners are evident.
I am against using grammar tables, linguistic terms and other abstractions in language teaching. However, if they can help the grown-up learner why do not explain the grammar rules?
The song is broken into four verses, with a bridge between the third and fourth and a chorus sung at the beginning of the song, and after the second and fourth verses.
Musically, it is written in a Jewish klezmer style.
Through the first two verses, Tevye dreams of the material comforts that wealth would bring him. Sung boisterously and comedically, Tevye first considers the enormous house he would buy and the needless luxuries he would fill it with, including a third staircase "leading nowhere, just for show," then the poultry he would buy to fill his yard.
Tevye switches his attention to the luxuries in which he would shower his wife, Golde, in the third verse. He talks of servants to alleviate her workload, fancy clothes for her pleasure, and mountains of food. The song is sung in the same boisterous, comedic style.
The music and vocals intensify during the bridge, when Tevye starts lamenting his place in the community as a lowly milkman, and considers the esteem and importance that wealth would bring him.
In the final verse, Tevye softens as he further considers his devotion to God. He expresses his sorrow that the long working hours he keeps prevents him from spending as much time in the synagogue as he would like, and how wealth would allow him to spend less time working and more time praying and studying the Torah, and finally asking God if "it would spoil a vast eternal plan" if he were wealthy.
A repeated phrase throughout the song, "all day long I'd bidi-bidi-bum," is often misunderstood to refer to Tevye's desire not to have to work. However, in an interview with Terry Gross, Sheldon Harnick said he basically made up syllables that he thought would give the effect of Chassidic chanting. The first person to play Tevye, Zero Mostel, then replaced the syllables Harnick had written with ones that Mostel thought would be more authentic
