Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The Power of Song in the YL Classroom

Hey folks,

When it doubt sing, dance and chant... here are two videos of kids singing along with Level 1 Unit 1 Song from the Our Discovery Island pilot.

Here's one with a girl leading and the teacher joining in as a student normally would:

L1_U1_Happy.B'day.Song.Girl.Leading from Mr.Jolly on Vimeo.



Here's one where the boy leading the class added a special action of his own:

L1_U1_Happy.B'day.Song.Boy.Leading from Mr.Jolly on Vimeo.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

GEPIK. Yangpyeong Workshop.PPT.and.More


Prof.Jolly.Summary.EPIK.Yangpyeong.4.28.2011 from Mr.Jolly on Vimeo.

Hello everybody,

Scroll down the page to you see the Red PPT that says "I smile because I have no idea what is going on?"

That's the same PPT as today. You can find links from me there... more to come in next 24-48 hours so if you  follow this blog if you'd like more links and stuff, as I will update this page.

Thanks for an awesome day out in Yangpyeong and remember to check out the conference May 14th at KAIST in the link here. http://www.kotesol.org/2011NatCon

To read about the awesome workshops click the moniker on the page or this link... the wonderful 3hr workshop I mentioned on classroom presentation skills and better communication is by Joshua W Davies.
http://www.koreatesol.org/2011NatConPresenterDetails

You can register online or pay on the door... not expensive for a conference of this size.

All the best,
Aaron Jolly.

KOTESOL 2nd VP & Teacher Trainer.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

"It's Break-time Kids Video"

When the teacher has to remind kids that it is break-time:


Untitled from Aaron Jolly on Vimeo.


Our Discovery Island: Online World Breaks Through Affective Filters.

“Excuse me Mr. Jolly, when’s break-time?”

“My dear students (kids)… it’s break-time!”

“Excuse me Mr. Jolly, when’s break-time!” This the usual refrain of even the best and most motivated among my winter camp students once the class starts heading toward the 40 or 45 minute mark. That is, unless they have already got their watches or cell phone timers set to remind me.

Imagine my surprise and delight when instead of being begged for break-time, it was me who had to remind them - “My dear students… it’s break-time” and tell them that they should “log-off” from their language learning and “go get a snack”.

This was my experience this past winter when road-testing the online world for Our Discovery Island at my language institute. You can see evidence here (on my blog) of this actual occurrence – and given the low level of my students and the fact that they were new to studying with me – I was pretty amazed by it.

The reason for their reaction is quite clear – kids in 2011 are demanding blended learning experiences. They want to learn English in the way they learn many other things these days - through self-directed learning and exploration.

Kids want something that speaks to them in their “language”. The best online supplements for language learning do this. They can enable students with motivational issues, or even shy personalities to shine – while enabling the teacher to collect feedback and track student progress efficiently.

We know that motivation is the key to leaning anything, so we shouldn’t really be surprised. My wide range of experience as a language teacher, an eager methodology tester and curriculum designer, teacher trainer, conference organizer and attendee has led me to believe that “motivation + vocabulary acquisition = success”. There are many other factors but without these two nothing else is possible.

Thus, my surprise and delight at the benefits of online learning deepened, as I watched my student James learn the word “dentist” in the online world one day, then teach another student the word the very next day as if he had known it forever. And, thanks to the way he learnt it, he will know it forever.

All the best of luck with your teaching (and your students’ learning)!

Aaron D. Jolly.
Seoul, South Korea.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

CNOE.Presentation.Cheonan.Feb.26.2011

Howdi EPIK teachers and TALK scholars,

Great active participation from all of you on Saturday. Thanks for inviting me down to Cheonan.^^ 

Presentation PPT Here:
Here's the presentation from PPT below the post. Check out the links in the slides, at the end and let me know what more you need from me. I will add new posts and videos on some of the topics here over the next month or so, starting this week, so follow the blog if you are interested in more stuff, and post any comments/questions in the blog comments and I will get back to you as soon as I can. If anybody would like me to expand on any particular points or offer more activity samples, or expand on anything in the handouts then just post here.


Cool sites for YL EFL and Education:
By the way, the website I mentioned that you ALL should join to get involved with online ELT community is called EFL 2.0 - I have included that in the list of recommended blogs here on my site, and a couple of others with more to come soon. Look over on the right of the screen for the links. Also the last two slides of the PPT have links to a bunch of cool sites as promised.

Thank you all:
Thanks again for a great time - I had a blast, and just spent my morning enjoying the video of the activities... and admiring the dancing in the Eric Carle video and also the dance battle - awesome stuff! I was just saying on my FB this morning that an EPIK South African teacher stole my thunder in the workshop and I had to turn off the music... only an EPIC teacher could do that. ;)

Videos of session activities and classroom videos:
I am having some problems uploading some of the videos to my YouTube account as Korean YouTube has some problems, so going over to Vimeo. Anyway, I will add some video of some of the activities we did on the day, and also some classroom videos for you to view this week. The class videos are small classes but the ideas are transferable especially in after school classes, or in big classes too if you use good classroom control and arrangement techniques.

Follow the blog and you'll get my new posts. And again post any questions below the blog.

All the best,
The Jolly Professor.