Lessonwriter.com !

Technology contributes majorly to the modern teaching techniques. Especially for current instructors and educators, www.lessonwriter.com is a very useful website.

All you have to do is to find an article and paste it into LessonWriter, add class info and you are done ! The site provides you with bunch of different practice options such as vocabulary, pronunciation, word roots and grammar support for students.

I do believe that this makes things so much easier and worry free...also very time consuming. Add it to your "Favorites"  :)



click here to watch a summary of LessonWriter !



:)

Accents?!!! Funny or die....

Ok, I know in our last class we talked about certain accents in English. It seemed like a lot of us had fun while listening to accents and the differences among them, so here are a couple of videos that I've found online, they are pretty funny. So, check 'em out ! ;)











 This is also very good listening practice especially for the EFL majors. Try to listen to these accents a few times so
next time you watch news or a movie, you will be able to tell differences among foreign and local accents. And eventually, with time, you will name the accents like a boss ! :)









  So far so good ?? If you get this video with the comedian to your right, you are already making progress ;)








Can you actually imitate some of the accents that you've heard? Me and my roommates are doing it right now...its good fun :)

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity ??

"If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”"

(Ken Robinson)

 
At first, this whole idea of schools killing creativity sounds way too critical and hard to relate to. But if we keep an open mind and try to relate to where Sir Ken Robinson is coming from, all of a sudden his ideas do make sense in terms of thinking critically and thinking "outside the box".

I definitely agree with his constructive criticism towards the pressure or fear of making mistakes not only in schools, but also in our everyday lives. Not only the educational systems but also political systems contribute to this.

The times we were raised in or where we grew up play tremendous roles in who we are today and how we think. So it would be safe to assume that political systems do shape the mass psychology of a current society, and educational systems therefore are shaped by that current political system. It is a chain of interactions between systems that lead us to the smallest particle in this chain of action/reaction, and the smallest particles are -> individuals.
 
For example, from my own personal experiences I can tell that in Russia we had "must" courses such as vocal training, piano, dancing, drama...From my generation it is hard to come across someone who doesn't know how to play the piano, or can't read notes, or isn't familiar with the art forms of impressionism or expressionism, who doesn't have a basic knowledge of world literature classics, skating, skiing, etc. The reason of this is the previous political system, mentality of which still exists in today's Russia. When we go deeper into the social motivation of "being able to do everything or knowing everything at a decent level" mentality, we can see that underlying urge or even ambition is to represent Russia by being successful in world events, competitions and draw a politically strong, proud image of an average individual who grew up there.

But why have such social pressure of succeeding and being "the best" in everything you compete as a nation? The answer to this question is again pressure. For example when Russia wins a Gold Medal in the Olympics, what kind of image of a nation or of an individual who grew up in Russia does it impose? Or it is not a coincidence that Russia is one of the most successful nations when it comes to the Olympics or fields of Classical Music, Ice-Skating, Dancing, Literature, Arts, Space, Mathematics, etc. All of these winnings, I'm not even counting the popularity that it brings, based on an international platform add into the national image of Russia being "strong" or is enough to cause fear on a political level.

Ken Robinson mentions one of the Picasso's quotes:
"All children are born artists". And yes, as we grow up we also grow out of our childhood, creativity and so forth, but the reason of this is not only educational systems, but also political systems, history and social psychology of a nation.

Click here to watch Ken Robinson's speech of schools killing creativity.