I used to call it Improvisational ESL when I was referring to the actual classes. This was probably because I was teaching my students the fine art of improvising in English. Interpreting: Finding alternatives to traditional thought I didn’t want to feel trapped by the accepted interpretations of my work as an ESL teacher. I was not … More What do I mean when I say Interpretive ESL?
Hey all. What’s up? Have I been having fun? Must have been, time has flown, and seeing that it’s been since January of 2019, well, I’m surprised. Let’s see, 2019, I was still working at the combine harvester import place here in Northern Spain. I spent a week in a small village in Gredos that … More Has it been four and a half years?
Oh, yes, it’s been a while. Life kind of sometimes gets in the way, we get distracted by one thing, like the dog getting all excited when he see a squirrel over there and instead of paying attention to what’s on hand, taking the walk, he pulls at the lead, pulls you off balance. During … More Listening to the Universe of Discourse: an Online Introductory Course
So, after a bit of head-spinning, sometimes stomach-upsetting “training” (read: free class meant to get you to sign up for the pay-for class), and continuing to receive dozens of emails from those subscriptions I signed up for during the “training”, I guess it’s time to actually load a class into one of these platforms and … More Online Teaching: Taking Notes on Adding a Class to Thinkific
So, Skillshare left behind, I found myself with some “free time” on my hands, as far as continuing self-training was concerned. Just about then, I got an email from Thinkific inviting me to a special bootcamp created by Mirasee for course building. Pyramid detector on…. sign up…. get started. Now, this morning as we drove … More Online Teaching: Thinkific and Mirasee
Never mind the why or wherefore…. This morning, I received an email from Skillshare. It began: “I am excited to announce the 12 Challenge participants who have won a feature on the Skillshare blog for creating a project by July 6th!” and was followed by twelve nicks (all one-word names or nicks) that linked directly … More Online Teaching: A Farewell to Skillshare
One thing that was clear from the beginning was that presenting a course on Skillshare would mean adopting a specific style, pretty clearly defined by the platform itself. The basic style expected from teachers on Skillshare can be outlined: content should be bite-sized classes consist of 20 to 60 minutes of prerecorded video videos are … More Online Teaching: Skillshare’s Basic Teacher’s Style
This was not my first online platform. Others came before it; however, this is the first one that I’ve taken the time to try to hang a course on. Here’s how it happened. About mid-June, I got an email from Skillshare, telling me that I had been invited to participate, among a few chosen others, … More Online Teaching on Skillshare
I’ve been looking (for a couple of years now!) at a number of platforms where I can hang some videos and share teacher ideas. The idea actually began to take form over ten years ago. While working at a language academy here in Spain, the local government offered a training course in online teaching. My boss … More Online ESL Teaching 01: Teaching Platforms Process, Notes and Reviews
Speaking from my own personal experience, native American English speaker, fluent European Spanish speaker, I personally think that Spanish would have been a more clever choice as a lingua franca for the modern-day world. French is out of the question, way too many irregular verbs and the spelling is hellish. Spanish would have been better, … More English Only 02: The Spread of a Linguistic Empire: Spanish and French
Interpretive ESL Teaching 