What’s Happening in Today’s Classrooms? – A roundtable discussion between ALTs & Lecturers

Roundtable of sharing ideas and answering questions about situations at different levels, in order to begin the process of bridging the gap between the levels through understanding.

Homework Management Revisited

This is an interactive and reflective session. Theresa Kannenberg, Mike Lyons and Meagan Kaiser have joined together once again to reflect on how they have managed time and homework for large university classes (30-100). They will share and compare what methods and approaches they used this year compared to last year. Find out how they reduced their workload in order to control stress and overwhelm of being both online and in the classroom. They would like to request attendees to share their own approaches and methods in the breakout rooms with other teachers as part of reflecting upon the growth they’ve experienced during the pandemic. My Share Time will be conducted in a friendly and safe manner in groups of 3 in a BOR where attendees will each speak for 2 minutes and the others will listen with no interruptions. Then we will ask for shares in the main room while others can share reflections in the Chat box. When we are all finished, we will have gathered audio and visual info from one another. We look forward to seeing and hearing what you did to improve and grow as an educator.

Sites I’ve Relied on for Teaching Online

I’ll introduce 3 sites that I relied on heavily throughout the last year of teaching online, that are perhaps not widely known. I will give a brief interactive demonstration of how I used each site, and explain further according to audience interest.

  1. www.LingoLab.Online (free, *this is my own site) – for setting self-study, quizzes & live games with phrases & sentences.
  2. www.GoFormative.com (freemium, very useful even at free tier) – for setting open-ended questions and monitoring live responses.
  3. www.TeacherTools.digital (subscription-based, free trial) – for easily setting customized accountable listening & reading activities.

Group Work Breakouts

Group work in classrooms and breakout rooms:

What are the differences for teachers and students?

So many of us have had to switch back and forth from classroom to online teaching recently and are acutely aware of the differences in these modalities from our perspective as teachers. But how about our students? What do they have to say about their experiences of group work in a classroom and on Zoom? In their view, how large should a breakout room group be? How long should they spend in a breakout room? Should they switch their cameras on or off? How can teachers assist breakout room discussions when they cannot be present all the time? After sharing my findings from interviews with students, we will discuss the teacher perspective and share suggestions for how to improve the group work experience for everyone.

Machine Translation: Here to Stay

Are your students using machine translation apps to complete their English homework? Welcome to my world! As a teacher of translation and professional translator, I will share some ideas for incorporating this technology in your writing classes with the goal of getting students to analyze, write, and rewrite extensively. Translation tools do not have to be avoided at all costs; they should be embraced for the educational opportunity they offer.

Advanced Fluency Techniques Using Verbal Classrooms

Verbal Classrooms has been receiving attention from schools and instructors in Japan since it was first introduced in 1997. But as most are new to the technique, the greater part of the techniques advanced stages are often not touched upon. In this session, Cruz hopes to deliver a greater view on what can be done with Verbal Classrooms when an instructor decides to make it their primary classroom engine.

Verbal Classrooms Resources on GOLDFish365
https://goldfish365.com/vcdocuments/

Advanced Verbal Classrooms Slides (pdf)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oT5-uyuBFh_a298aYmujhu0OTBA3OGAb/view?usp=sharing