A Positive Pronunciation Resource: Sounds Perfect

*You'll need to have Flash running on your computer to see the above. iPad users and iPhonistas can download an adapter like this or check it out on a 'proper' computer.  

THE IDEA
I remember one of my favourite co-teachers looking at the phonemic chart in the back of an English File book one day and saying: I don't sound like that. She had a point. The classroom phonemic chart is a description of an accent which isn't used by even a single percentage point of the local population here in Dublin.

Often the pronunciation chart is a drag. It can be a little condescending too. I hope the approach above helps by making it a bit less RP-centric and a bit more grown-up. I made this in Flash and uploading it was done through Google Sites without going to paid server. For you ELT Makers, let it be known: if you want to upload an interactive thingy you can. Follow these handy directions.

I learned Flash on a Technology and Learning course. It was seen as a dying technology but there are converters which change Flash files to HTML5 files which are readable by even those pesky iPhones. That'll be a project for later.

WHY NOW?
Well it would have been earlier but I've been busy. I'll be writing about the IPA chart and the history of our classroom phonemic chart in the upcoming ELT Ireland Bulletin.  Writing got me thinking what a useful chart would do. It would describe the sounds of your own accent as a teacher, or that of your students- but at least someone in the room should be represented. It should be useful for other things too. I should have made this years ago. When talking to other teachers in Ireland, I've said on at least one occasion: I could do better than Adrian Underhill's Interactive Phonemic Chart (Macmillan). We'll see about that.

Adrian Underhill has often said that the symbol set he decided to adopt is a kind of 'one size fits all symbol set'. I've tried to follow this and choose phrases that allow me to fit inside this view while maintaining my own voice. We'll see about that too.

USING PHRASES NOT WORDS
There are a million ways you could lay out a chart and just as many reasons to use it. I always wanted to turn away from a 'one symbol, one word' chart. Taking a little inspiration from the Michael Lewis' lexical approach I set my samples as phrases you could use at your job or in your school, even on the street.

If you have a better idea, bring it the comment carpet below. Most of these phrases are responses to seeing or hearing about a good idea. We come across good ideas all the time.

Enjoy it /ɔɪ/

*Special thanks to John C. Wells and his work on getting the IPA symbols working. The choice of Lucida Sans Unicode for the font was due to his work.

An ELT Thinglink for Christmas, or Rudolph gets a ELT Nosejob.

Again it's Christmas, the most consumer loving time of the year. Make it a goal to make- not purchase- a gift for at least one person this year. If you are a good maker, make it for someone you like.

Again it's Christmas and it was Monday so ELT Ireland were doing their #ELTChinwag. (not chat). Last night on Twitter, Peter Lahiff mentioned he was trying to use a new app for word clouds. I think word clouds should be used only rarely and mostly after you've just discovered Wordle.

But it's the holidays.

He sent me a sample of what he wanted to make.

I complained that it had no red nose.

He made some crack about my design sensibilities. He forgot I have this blog.

Note: No nose.

Let's review: If the words in the visual refer back to 'the red-nosed reindeer' it should- you know- have the red nose.

It's not like Rudolph is ashamed of this feature. Would Frosty be happy if you photoshopped his button nose?

So, Photoshop: I put the nose back on.

Note: Nose. Mine is blue because I used a screen shot of Peter's instead of downloading.

And it needs the song. The teacher will be looking for it anyway. So can we stick a song in the picture?  Is féidir linn, baby.


Again I go back to Paul Driver. He introduced us to Thinglink in one of his talks at the Digital ELT Ireland conference. It lets you add little hotspot links to an image you upload.  So I uploaded my Rudolph to Thinklink.

So I placed a hotspot link on the nose and changed the icon to a circle with a red border. I set the link to a YouTube version of the Rudolph with lyrics.

But the song is really just a souvenir of the 1964 stop-motion animation tv special* for me.

So also I gave RTRNR (completely unnecessary acronym) an eye which is a link to a full version of RTRNR (I love this silly acronym as much as I like the film) on DailyMotion so that learners can go enjoy it at home. The videolink is in an eye because... you... watch... stuff... with... your eyes.

 The finished Thinglink lives in my pitifully shoddy Thinglink page. But here's a link so you can put this RTRNR thinglink in your class blog for your learners or those teachers you share stuff with.

EMBED Link

<img style="max-width:100%" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/596269464324931584/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-596269464324931584;1043138249'" class="alwaysThinglink"/><script async charset="utf-8" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/jse/embed.js"></script>

Note: Nose

If you'd prefer the iframe embedded version try the codey goop below. Just copy and paste. The iframe code is what I used to get the actual interactive version below. The only advantage seems to be you can see and play with the interactive hotspots in the blogger interface as you are writing, whereas the embed link above seems like a static image.

Switch your blog view from 'Compose' to 'HTML,' copy the code and paste it in your blog post's code. That allows the codey magic to to shine... just like noble Rudolph's light guiding us on to a brighter felizier navidad.

IFRAME Link

<iframe width="313" height="398" src="//www.thinglink.com/card/596269464324931584" type="text/html" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen scrolling="no"></iframe>

IFRAME Link added in HTML

*This little retro jewel and maker's inspiration was made by a company called Rankin/Bass which even in the 60s and 70s was outsourcing their work to Japanese animators some of which went on to work for the mighty Miyazaki, a total legebag as young D4 Dubliners might say. 

Maker Project: GoogleMap of your students' favourite places.

Challenge: A GoogleMap of your students favourite places in Dublin (or wherever you are teaching next week).

Disclosure: The use of technology in this is really a data entry so that the students create the list of places you upload to GoogleMaps. That map becomes a prop for the talk your students give. After the talk, the map becomes a classroom asset. During the talk it is focal point for their presentations and perhaps a discussion afterwards. 

It also creates an artifact of the group's time together and if relationships are the canvas on which we paint our language, groups matter. More benefits can be gained if your students consent to filming and storing their short videos up on YouTube. (Re: YouTube- Get written consent, mark this stuff as private and keep your promises).

Stuff: 

Post-it notes and a connected computer or tablet like an iPad.

Programs: 

GoogleMaps; Spreadsheet software eg Excel or Spreadsheets in Google Drive

Time: 

40 minutes

Day One

10 minutes (whole class) 5 minutes (individuals)

Day Two

30 minutes for 15 (1-minute) presentations

Tech help page:

http://www.add3.com/insights/how-to-create-customize-and-embed-a-google-map/

Step-by-Step:

1) Before class, post a post it note on the window in your class room with the question: what's your favourite place in Dublin (be specific)?

2) Ask students to consider three or four different answers. This could be their favourite nightclub, gym, park, shop, tourist attraction even their bus stop.

3) Pass around the post-it stack and have them write down one answer and then post them on the walls in the class.

4) Start your main lesson. But explain that you will be passing around a computer or ipad to enter in their answers with the name of the place, the location (the address if it's on the website) a relevant website or video link in a spreadsheet. Enter your own example to show them as a model. The address is key. Tell them to search for an address or location. The website is optional. The address and name are mandatory.

My part of my spreadsheet from the ACELS layer. (See previous post)

So each student inputs their own bits as you start the mains of your lesson. They may need to get coordinates or search in Google for a location. If Phoenix Park is their answer they'll need a minute to find an address. Spend time with the first person and have the first person spend time with the second person, etc... It's important that they have one or two locations. 'My apartment' is a frequent answer, but this may be the only address students know. It's ok.

5) As class is ending take a moment to ask the students to take a post it note each from a different person off the wall and find out who wrote it and then place it on the class window around the question for tomorrow's lesson. (You could alternatively leave this tomorrow if your building cleaners are cool and the next teacher is a lecturer.) 

As they are doing this at the end of class, open a GoogleMap for yourself and check the data your learners have put on it. 

If the Place, Address and Site columns are filled for each, upload spreadsheet. But remember the address column is the one the map will need most. 

Nine out of ten locations should come back as ok. Some addresses will need refining but only a few. So they've saved you a lot of work. GoogleMaps will use the addresses to automatically stick in location pins. Customize them for color or icon but the names and website will be automatically done.

6) Let the students know the next day that they will need to present their favourite place in Dublin for 1 minute (even just 1 for elementary, and, yes, you can do this with elementary). Scaffold the presentations. Require the following: 

• an introduction, 
• a story about how they found the place, 
• what they do there, 
• why they go there and 
• when might be a good time for others to visit 
• and maybe what to bring.

7) Share the map with them on Edmodo or your class blog or LMS portal. (If you don't have one make one. If you want help, say so in the comments below) 

Post student notes to the map. Post the videos only if everyone is okay with it.

8)Project the map up behind them and let them control the map as they give their one minute presentation. 

Further directions: 

Pronunciation: get written consent to record your students and record their tiny speech. Pick out one or two syllable stress or linking tips for them. Maybe post their videos to the map. 

Note-taking: have each student take notes on each speech.

Speaking: have students get together in threes to plan a trip to see 4 places on Saturday. Maybe they will follow up and actually do it. Have them report back on their plans.

Helping your school: Definitely share the map if you can. Even if not here are some other sharing ideas

• Share the map with your DOS or 
• other teachers from your level or 
• the activities coordinator. 

There are loads of directions to take this. Go teach.

And write back about how it went.

GoogleMaps

Paul Driver came to the Digital ELT Ireland conference in 2012 and 2013. He's ELT, media and illustration and is a member of our little ELT Makers group on LinkedIn and has made a book called Language Learning with Digital Video with Ben Goldstein. (Sorry I had that misspelled for a year, Ben. Say something next time.)

Paul's talks were fun. He used big words. He talked about theory and design. Things nearly prohibited in conversations around the photocopier. He encouraged teachers to take their students outside and showed you how mobiles can enable that. His Spywalk and Invasion games were elaborate, inventive and showed all the good attributes of thoughtful, clever ELT. Two items made them possible easy: mobiles and maps.

• Mobiles made the work your students' do out of earshot (or out of your line of sight) useable. They record video and audio and location, location using Glympse. 
• Maps were the other bit and GoogleMaps allows us to tie data to maps to make relevant, updatable, shareable resources which can store the video and audio collected.

A teacher from ATC and from Dorset College and I started meeting to put together our own map for a game between students from our schools. It unfortunately came to naught as Christmas hit us and then a big summer. But the idea stayed and so did our map.

That was how I started messing with GoogleMaps. That's my story.

...

This year has seen the close of the Laser Video shops (Significant because they are marked in as 'rain bases' our map), but it has also seen the close of half a dozen ELTOs (that's English Language Teaching Organizations) in the city, Eden being the biggest and most connected to the UK.

Folks in ELT know that new changes coming down from QQI on 1 January mean ELTOs that are not recognized by ACELS may not be able to advertise their courses abroad through the Internationalisation Register. There is still a lot of quiet back room wrangling happening. 

I know, I know: this is business. It's not our business, but English Language Teachers generally don't know how many and which schools are recognized by ACELS. 

So I made another map: ELTOs Dublin 

I pulled the data from the websites of three bodies that recognize ELTOs and put them into a spreadsheet uploaded the spreadsheets to GoogleMaps ...et voilà! -much more easily accessible data about the schools in Dublin. 

You should try to work for a school with the most recognition. 

But wherever you are, make stuff that is useful for you, your learners, your colleagues and your school.

See next post for an idea on how to use GoogleMaps for your class.

_______________________________________________________________

*At the request of a fan of the ELTOs Dublin Map, I've set the map as 'Public'. This allows me to get a bit of code to embed my map into this blog or allow others to do the same. 

Here's what that looks like:

<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=z2s-gz1rwzD0.kbzj8AnDjV-M" width="512" height="384"></iframe>

-and below is the result:

There was an odd little problem on my 'largish' computer screen. See the screen shot below:

You see how the right edge sticks out of the black text area and hangs over the background. It won't matter if you view on a phone but it's a bit messy on my computer screen. Look up at that code again. You see the 'width' and 'height' dimensions? I clicked over to the HTML view in blogger and changed the original embed dimensions of 640 and 480 to the ones you see above (512x384). Why those numbers- I searched for 4:3 aspect ratio.  I found this and used the next smallest digits (512x384) and updated the entry. I got this:

Better. Not perfect but better.

1: What is it?

English Language Teaching is creative. If you make something new and you want to show it or share it, this is the place. If you see something good, share it.

As teachers we create in collaboration with our students, we DESIGN lessons and CHOOSE materials for the students in our class THIS week.

Jean Dubuffet couldn't understand why people treasured the old paintings. His point of view was that created works are like food, the fresher the better.

As teachers we value tradition and probably respect authority. But if you create a short story doesn't mean that you don't respect your favourite authors. If you make a song it's not to claim superiority over another musician.

When you create a good lesson element- especially if it is for your current students- it has an intrinsic value. It also in inspires reflection, adaptation and growth in other teachers.

So if you've created anything you should have a space to share it.

I've found a few things I really like and I will share them here. If you see something good or make something good share it here or over on the LinkedIn group, ELT MAKERS. If you aren't on linked in send me an email. I'm trying to avoid Facebook. But Twitter is great for sharing links @ELTMAKERS or hashtag us with #ELTMAKERS. @ whippler for me.