The Carnival of English Language Teaching

The following is the text from the original post that I wrote at my teaching blogfolio to explain why I gave up working on the CELT. The link to this text is defunct, so I’ve gone back into my archive and pulled it out and posted here.
After 11 months I’ve decided to discontinue editing the Carnival of English Language Teaching. I’ve worked on it for nearly a year and I think it’s fair to say at this point that the CELT has failed to become a self-sustaining online publication. The reasons can most easily be divided into those factors that are related to me and my choices and those factors beyond my control.

Perhaps the first mistake that I made was giving the carnival its own URL. That’s not really how a carnival ought to be done. I knew that but I did it anyway because I was learning about the mechanics of using a blog and I didn’t necessarily want to mix the carnival with this one, my professional development blog. Another mistake that I made was not spending more time on the CELT. It seems that the really good carnivals add value to the posts through their editorial comments. My comments mostly pointed readers somewhere and added no value. My reasons for choosing not to spend more time editorializing in a reflective manner are neither right nor wrong, but they certainly had a negative impact on the success of establish a self-perpetuating carnival. These two mistakes are probably the killers.

One thing that was out of my hands was reader habits. As EFL Geek said to me one time, most people are readers and not commenters. If anyone was reading the CELT I wouldn’t know it from the comments. (To be fair, the comments are more likely to be left on the site of the post and not the carnival site.) Another thing that I think negatively impacted the success of the CELT was the apathy of people. For whatever reason, the CELT didn’t spark an interest in them that could have caused the CELT to really take off. I tried to get colleagues interested but they weren’t. I’d hoped that they would have shared the URL with others they know in far flung places but they didn’t. Even after I put a plug in for the CELT at TESOL-Arabia last year I didn’t see a significant jump in traffic. There were times when I thought the CELT was about to take off but ultimately it didn’t.

So, I’m letting it go. I’ve got so many other things to do now that I can’t see myself being able (or motivated) to seek to correct my shortcomings in the matter, much less address those other factors which were not exactly my fault. It’s been a good experience and I’ve learned some things by doing it. I would certainly be glad to see someone else attempt to revive it and make it work. It would be especially good if they could read this and learn from my mistakes. I could be happy of serving as an example of what not to do provided that the next attempt at a Carnival of English Language professional writings took off and became something akin to the Carnival of Education.

This marks the end of the Carnival of English Language Teaching.

An explanation of sorts is available here.

My apologies to the three bloggers who submitted their posts for this month. I post their links here:

http://www.redinked.com/2006/09/06/ie-that-is-internet-explorer/

http://www.philforhumanity.com/Speaking_Carefully_and_Correctly.html

http://www.textbookevaluator.com/?p=109

Over and out…

It’s time to get back to school and back to work! I hope that you enjoyed your summer break and are returning to a positive work environment filled with helpful administrators and motivating students!

This month’s edition of the CELT will be very, very abbreviated due to unexpected changes in editors and impending responsibilities of getting myself ready for a new year at my institution.

Let’s get started by playing a bit of catch-up by including some submissions from some bloggers whose posts languished in the largely unchecked mailbox over the summer…with my apologies.

Mr. Purple is looking for some “professional” assistance regarding the proper use of “through” and “thru”. While it’s obvious that he’s no TEFLer, he certainly is a man in need of some help.

Mark at Doubting Shuo tells us how to make money teaching EFL in Taiwan. Learn how to make the magic word “greed” work for you.

Here’s another non-TEFLer seeking a spot at the Carnival. (How do you think they found us?) Keith opines about the need for better presentation skills…which I suppose could be applied to us TEFL teachers. Think about it; how much linguistic clutter…um…is in…uh, you know…your teacher talk?

One of the drawbacks of such verbal debris is that it makes the speaker look like a dummy. Fortunately, Pandapassort provides an EFL Guide for such folks…dummies, I mean. Uh…perhaps now is a good time to remind you that the views expressed in other peoples’ blogs are not necessarily shared by the editor and are included because the CELT is pretty desperate for content.

Quality content is a challenge for all blogs. EFL Geek demonstrates one course of action when the creative well runs dry. We here at the CELT sympathize and wish him the best with his other activities. Farewell Geek!

Finally, this last minute entry from Mark Montgomery aka The Textbook Evaluator. It’s a tale of money squandered and opportunity lost by the Denver Public School System during its adoption of an ESL textbook. Keep a box of Kleenex at hand.

As I said, this is a short one. Next month, we’ll announce the direction of the CELT for the coming year.

Until then, we hope that your new semester starts off well and finishes off even better.

Summer break is over and that means it’s time to get back to the CELT.

Thanks to Aaron and Aaron for taking the CELT through the summer and doing such good work.

As usual, the CELT will be published on the 25th of this month, so watch this space.

For anyone who may wander this way, the 9th Midway of the Carnival of English Language Teaching is being hosted this month by Aaron over at Teacher In Development.

EFL Geek has the August Midway.

The CELT will return to the home URL in September once Daniel gets back to the UAE and back to work.

This is an early reminder that the Carnival of English Language Teaching’s eighth midway will be hosted by Aaron over at his blog on June 25th.

The CELT is still looking for hosts for its September and October editions. If you’re interested, send an e-mail to carnivalelt [at]gmail[dot]com .

Enjoy your summer holiday !

Look for the CELT at a blog near you!
(more…)

Midway 7 of the Carnival of English Language Teaching is online!

We start off this edition with some important developments:

Next month’s midway will be hosted by one of our colleagues, Aaron in Japan. In July, the CELT will take a summer hiatus and return in August. EFL Geek in Korea has agreed to host Midway 9 over at his place then. Little by little the CELT is picking up speed. Thanks!

Since we’re leading off with some warm fuzzies, let’s just keep the theme going with a few success stories. Lynne Davis has one about an unsolicited bit of writing from one of her students that she received after the class had finished reading/watching The Miracle Worker.

Then there’s Teacher in Development who has a kick-ass moment he’d like to share.

And here’s one more success story from AJ.

Now that we’ve all joined hands and sung a verse of Kumbaya, let’s attempt to stir the pot and generate some controversy.

Professor Henry Widdowson thinks that the exclusive use of authentic materials in EFL teaching is a flawed concept. TDOL agrees. What do you think?

Bloggers who don’t allow comments seem to be missing the point, don’t you think? I started to add this guy’s link to the blogroll but stopped when I realized that he doesn’t allow comments at his site you have to e-mail your comments to him directly as opposed to the normal way through the blog. Recently, I found myself back by his blog and couldn’t resist sharing this post about the value of hard work versus student IQ. I guess you’ll have to send the guy an e-mail or just keep your opinion to yourself.

Are you guilty of these Three Mistakes Foreign Language Teachers Make That Cause Learners to Fail? If you only recently got your teaching degree/certificate, then you need to read this post. Sadly, only those with a Blogger ID can comment.

Editor’s Comment: Why do people limit who can comment on their blogs in this way? It’s been my experience that many of us TEFL bloggers are using software and accounts other than Blogger/Blogspot. People should at least enable non-Blogger users to comment; like Rick over at pandapassport.com.

Speaking of Rick, he welcomes “all upwardly-mobile expat riff-raff” to China, where opportunities for expatriates are on the rise.

Curious about the new TOEFL iBT? Oh. Well, read This Guy’s blog anyway since he’s new to the blogosphere. He’d probably appreciate the traffic and the comments.

And as we come to a close, let’s relax with Muse and reflect on “Bagrut”.

Don’t forget that Aaron will be hosting Midway #8 of the CELT at his place on June 25th. Please send your submissions to him at apc33 [at] rocketmail [dot] com.

You can also use our carnival submission form.

Would you like to host a midway of the CELT in the future? Send an inquiry to carnivalelt[at]gmail[dot]com.

Tell your friends about us!

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

The 6th Midway of the Carnival of English Language Teaching has arrived!

And it’s conference time all over the world!

TESOL-Spain, TESOL-Greece and TESOL-Arabia just finished up theirs last month and JALT 2006 is coming up. If you’re about to get your “Presentation Mojo” working, then check out AJ’s post about the wildly successful presentations of the one and only Steve Jobs for some inspiration.

Also, head over to English 360 for a “Nice presentation skills & blog site“. Although this article was first posted in October 2005, the site that Cleve directs you to is much more robust these days.

Speaking of JALT 2006; those of you planning to attend should be sure to catch APcambell’s presentation “Personal Language Learning Ecologies”. I can tell you that he’s been working hard on it.

JH from the English Teacher Discussion Forum has “A Proposal for Research in Blogging” that he would like your help with. If you’re using blogs with your students, please visit this post and give a fellow TEFLer a hand. (Watch out for the random audio!)

I’m willing to bet that there will be at least one presentation at everyone’s conference this year about podcasting. But why wait until the conference when Barbara Dieu can take you for a visit to Bardwell Road to learn about it now.

Let’s be honest: some of us don’t go to the “big” conferences unless we’re job hunting. If you’re on the prowl for a new job, Arjan Dee, “a manager for one of Thailand’s largest educational businesses” has a blog for you. It might be amusing useful.

Perhaps we should consider becoming professional proof-readers for ESL students in the UK now that we can expect universities to start sending their students to us.

Thanks to Steve Shackne’s ESL Money listserv, I found Greg Kessler’s blog about working as a consultant in ES/FL. It’s in the very early stages so there’s not much to read at the moment, but you might want to add it to your feed aggregator if you’ve got one.

Did you know that G-mail comes with a feed aggregator already built in? Would you like a free G-mail account? There’s still time to get one courtesy of the CELT. Simply send a message to carnivalelt {at} gmail {dot} com from a valid e-mail address. We’ll send you an invitation and you’re in!

When you get back from the conference of your choice and write about all the great presentations you attended, be sure to share your posts with us here at the CELT so we can share them with your colleagues all over the world!

If you’d like to host the next edition of the CELT at your blog, please volunteer by sending a message to carnivalelt [at] gmail [dot] com. Or you can submit your blog article to the same address to be included in the next edition of the CELT which will be out May 25, 2006.

Or simply use our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Welcome to CELT Midway #5.
We’ve gotten a little more attention as of late which has been encouraging. Hopefully, as the year progresses we will see more readers hosting the CELT at their blogs and offering their editorial perspectives. Come one, come all!

The CELT begins with congratulations to Daniel Kirk in Japan who was made an official professor this month at his university. Apparently, this is no small feat in Nippon.

Which of the three approaches to language acquisition (Behaviorism, Cognitivism, or Constructivism) would you emphasize in a degree program for future TES/FLers? James Trotta in Korea gives his Reasons for the cognitivist approach to first language acquisition.

If you received your teaching certification from an online training course, there’s a good chance that you weren’t exposed to any of those three approaches. Furthermore, Richard Flynn (aka TDOL) says that he would trash your application immediately if you had one of those smoke and mirrors operations mentioned on it.

Charity is going the more conventional route of getting her ES/FL degree at the University of Tennessee (USA) and she’s already asking those kind of questions which drive some of us to change careers. Stop by her blog and let her know if you think she is torturing herself.

Eventually most of us think about making the move from teacher to manager. Brenda Hall from the ESL-School tells us that it’s possible, but my question is: “Is it desirable?”

We’ve all got a story to tell and Stefan Chiarantano wants to put yours in his e-book. And while you’re pecking out something at the PC for him, feel free to share a post with the CELT.

Scott in Taiwan has a story about meeting Dr. Stephen Krashen and discussing linguistic competence versus communicative competence.

AJ says that reading a story aloud is not just for children. I agree with him. What do you think?

And now we take you by way of the Carnival of Education to Rhymes with Right for this post about Minnesota’s proposed legislation to require non-native English-speaking teachers to be comprehensible to their students.

We close this month’s edition with some good news and some sad news. First the sad news: EFL Geek is hanging up his blogging gloves and entering semi-retirement. The good news is that he’s going to be fighting the good-fight of fatherhood for the second time and so we want to encourage and congratulate him with that.

Free G-mail account!
The CELT has 100 invitations to send out to readers who would like to get a free Gmail account. Since Gmail is currently available by invitation only, act fast! Send a message to carnivalelt {at} gmail {dot} com from a valid e-mail address. We’ll send you an invitation and you’re in! It’s our way of saying: “Hey! Look at us! Thank you.”

If you’d like to host the next edition of the CELT at your blog, simply volunteer at carnivalelt at gmail dot com. Or you can submit your blog article to the next edition of The CELT which will be out April 25, 2006.

Simply use our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

The CELT welcomes its first guest editor, Dr. Charles Hall!
Since Charles doesn’t have a blog to host the CELT from, his edition is posted here at the home site for all to enjoy. Thanks Charles!

My American university has just spent a bunch of money subscribing us to an anti-plagiarism program, Turnitin.com. It allows us to upload student papers (which they submit to us electronically). Then ‘whoosh!” we get a report back which is supposed to tell us how much of the paper is plagiarized and even the sources for the plagiarism. Well, it doesn’t work so very well; my colleagues and I were able to fool it in our very first attempts. Lee Hobbs at English-Blog talks about trying to convince ESL students they will get caught even without expensive programs.

Catching the students is not the issue, however. We need to start by asking “Are cheating and plagiarism universal and/or culturally defined?” Daniel Kirk on EFL in Japan talks about unnecessary cheating on a low-stakes test.

The official Fulbright site for the Czech Republic tells us cheating is rampant in Czech schools on almost all levels (btw, I just plagiarized that last part of the sentence: cut and paste, thank you.).

For a very American perspective, look at the surveys and polls on What’s Right, Wrong, and it Depends.

Now we even have to think about more types of cheating and plagiarism. I have to admit I’d never thought about plagiarism in presentations till I read Jill’s comments at Cac.ophony.org.

Will Richardson at Weblogg-ed gives us a new start on a different way of looking at testing and cheating by talking about kids using blogs to post answers for their friends!

And let’s end with A Writing Teacher’s Blog by John Lovas at De Anza College which provides us with some really good thoughts about using an occurrence of plagiarism as a teachable moment and reprints Dave Parrent’s real response to a student. I’ll be reprinting that for my teacher trainees, but of course, I’ll cite the source.

Thanks again to Charles for putting together this edition of the CELT.

The CELT also wants to thank EdWonk for giving us a mention at his place which lead to two other mentions at other blogs.

If you’d like to guest edit/host the Carnival of English Language Teaching, please contact me at carnivalelt [at] gmail [dot] com

As always, you can submit your blog article to the next edition of The CELT which will be out March 25, 2006. Use our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Unfortunately, EdWonk’s gracious comment was swallowed by the Spamminator so I’ll simply post it here.

Hi

I tried to leave a comment, but your anti-spam software kept me locked out. Nice job on the CELT. We’ve linked it over at our place:

http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/2006/02/would-you-believe.html

I’m looking forward to many more successful midways.

Warmest Regards,

EdWonk

Since the CELT was inspired by and aims to be as good as the Carnival of Education, getting this comment was a pretty big deal…especially after being told by two colleagues on the same day that they hadn’t checked out the CELT.

And while we’re on the subject…the next Carnival of English Language Teaching will be here on Feb. 25th with it’s first guest editor!

As a teacher, you’re promoting something. Sure you are. Perhaps it’s a technique (like role-playing), a methodology (like the Communicative Approach) or even an institutional agenda. Like it or not, we’re all promoting, actively or passively, a set of values.

Deivis Pothin promotes tolerance and believes that others should do so as well.

AJ promotes not pre-teaching vocabulary… and TPRS.

Flickr for low level students is one of AP Campbell’s causes. Kudos to AP for being willing to take a dose of his own medicine.

Advocating and facilitating peer-to-peer learning is the theme of the group blog Dekita.org. One of their lastest projects is to mentor young women from the Caucasus region.

(The CELT also wants to congratulate Dekita.org for winning the 2005 EduBlog Award for Best Group Blog.)

Teacher in Development, Aaron Nelson is “totally sold out on blogging for purposes of professional development”, which I confess is a pet project of mine.

Co-teachers in Taiwan’s EFL classrooms is a concern of the Taiwantroll, Ryan Klempner.

Finally, if you have curriculum for K-12 English that you’re happy to reccommend to others, then Bora’s mom would like to hear from you.

Charles Hall has graciously agreed to edit February’s edition of The CELT. If you are interested in being a guest editor of The CELT, please contact me: carnivalelt [at] gmail [dot] com.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of The CELT. Use ourcarnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Happy Holidays and welcome to the second midway of the Carnival of English Language Teaching!

Have yourself a cup of whatever seasonally inspired “cheer” that you prefer and enjoy this month’s collection of blogs from your colleagues through out the world.

Most of us (all of us?) have thought about leaving TEFL for something else. Now it’s time for Czech TEFLer to make the choice. Should he stay or should he go? Not only is the soul-searching here, so is his final answer. Check it out.

AJ says “Surveys and “teacher evaluations” are lame. What’s your opinion? Read his post and tell AJ your thoughts.

What do you think of EFL textbooks? Is the “definitive textbook” out there somewhere? Daniel Kirk of EFL in Japan shares his thoughts regarding the nature of EFL textbooks after filling in a questionnaire for a publisher.

My first teaching observation at the new job took place about a week ago which is why I found James Trotta’s post from nearly a year ago relevant. Since I couldn’t link to it directly, I’ve reposted it in its entirety here. Hat Tip to James.

November 10, 2004
Getting observed - tips
So my new director and coordinator just finished observing us teachers. I was the first, and I think my observation went fairly well. Here are some things that helped me:

1. Show off. Don’t just teach from the book, show off one of your more creative activities, preferably one you’ve made.

2. Use a familiar activity. The game I was doing with my students is the same one I had played with 5 different classes previously. Reduce the chances of some unexpected problem by doing something you’re very comfortable with.

3. Explain the theory behind your choices on the lesson plan or observation form. I know that before observing my class my directors were expecting something brilliant. I had explained that the game was there for linguistic input and reduced affective filter as per Krashen’s monitor model. I explained that there would be a grammar drill for homework for a more cognitive approach to grammar teaching, because Krashen’s acquisition emphasis didn’t do enough to promote accuracy, etc.

The game wasn’t a communicative one, so without the explanation they might have been wondering if it was a waste of time; students didn’t need to produce much English. I would have been self conscious about the lack of communication if I hadn’t explained myself (and dropped a few key names and words) on the observation form.

4. Smile and have fun. Look like you enjoy your job!

The debate continues: should students be encouraged (coerced?) into using only English in the classroom or is there room for their native languages? Gordsellar has a lot to say (long post warning) about this. One comment on this post reads “I’m going to reread this one a few times, Gord. Thought-provoking stuff.” You might want to do the same.

Don’t know about you, but I rarely hear about teaching EFL in Israel. Reading Bataya’s blog gives us an “obyectivi” American’s perspective of the Hebrew classroom.

Concerned about copyright issues in your classroom? Just a little bit curious? Okay, well check out Ed Z’s post about using copyrighted music in your classroom anyway. The hassle you may prevent could be your own.

While not exactly a discussion of anything particularly professional, here’s a good story from a colleague in the Middle East where you can judge a man by the kind of camel he drives…or the kind of watch he wears.

That wraps it up for this midway. Remember that you could host an edition of The CELT and share your favorite blogs and bloggers with your fellow TEFLers. Simply send an e-mail to carnivalelt [at] gmail [dot] com and request to edit an upcoming edition.

Look for the third midway to hit the blogosphere January 25th.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of The CELT. Use ourcarnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Welcome to the first edition of the CELT!

Due to an underwhelming number of submissions, the majority of inaugural posts will come under the Editor’s Choice category. Hopefully future editions of the CELT will be more representative of readers’ interests. Until then, enjoy the blogs of your fellow TEFLers around the world and comment, comment, comment. I look forward to having your posts linked here for the January issue.

I’d like to start off with a hat tip to TESall.com’s BlogRoll which lead me to some of the posts you’ll read here.

What do you do when one of your students commits suicide? Michael Thurton at The View From Taiwan attempts to write about the death of one of his students and finds it too difficult to adequately express himself. Read this one for the comments.

For those of us (that would be most of us right?) who couldn’t make it to Korea’s TESOL conference this year, “gordsellar” fills us in on an intriguing session entitled Language Policy and the Construction of National Cultural Identity. Take a look and offer your answer to gordsellar’s question “At What Price English?”

Do you tolerate violence in your classroom? Do you perpetrate violence in your classroom? Don’t be so sure of your answer until you’ve read Violence in the Classroom Hyperbole Syndrome by Cleve at English 360.

Sure, you could give your students a boring old syllabus on the first day of class full of important information that they may or may not understand, or you could write them a letter offering some advice about how to improve their language learning like Czech TEFLer did for his students.

If you are not an investor, then maybe you should be. (No, I’m not selling financial products.) Aaron from Teacher in Development thinks you should. See what he has to say here then let him know if you agree with him or not.

While reading Aaron’s post, this article came to my mind and I thought I’d share it with you. Hat tip to Phil Quirke whose EFL Support site hosts this particular version of the article.

Finally, does anyone out there know Alex Buffa? Jane Keeler at From Russia With Blog has something that she really wants to tell him. Thanks to Jane for being the only person to respond to my invitation to participate in the first edition of the CELT.

Again, thanks for coming by and I look forward to recieving your contributions for the January edition of the CELT at carnivalelt [at] gmail [dot] com by December 30, 2005.

Announcing the first midway of the Carnival of English Language Teaching! TEFL bloggers all over the world are invited to exhibit their thoughts, opinions and comments regarding all things TEFL and/or TESOL.

Don’t know what a blog carnival is? Read this.

The goal of the CELT is to provide a central location for the blogging TEFL community to post, comment and contribute to the development of both their fellow professionals and the profession as a whole.

Please submit your posts to carnivalELT [at] gmail [dot]com by November 15, 2005 2:00pm GMT+4. The first midway will open December 1, 2005.

My name is Daniel and I’ll be the interim editor of the CELT. In the future, the editor’s role will be played by other contributors. To see an example of what the CELT aspires to be, visit the Carnival of Education.