Welcome! Six Things is a collection of miscellany from the world of English Language Teaching.
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Six ELT apps for the iPad/iPhone
Immediately after the launch of the iPad, that crazy team of scientists here at Six Things (the ones who brought you six technological inventions teachers really want to see) got down to work on creating apps for our field. Here they are, still under development but showing a lot of promise already…
1. iGrind - delivers ten grammar exercises to your mobile phone every day for 20 years. A 21st century application of an idea from my co-author and friend Philip Kerr for a coursebook called Grind On.
2. iCELTA – Imagine having your CELTA teacher trainer in every one of your classes! This app quietly sits and listens to your lessons, occasionally giving you CELTA-type advice via text message (e.g. “slow down your teacher talk” “demo the activity first” “spelling mistake on the board”) At the end of your lesson press the feedback option, and iCELTA will ask you gently what parts of the lesson you thought went okay before giving you a mark.
3. imSick – makes your voice sound completely cold-ridden and flu-like for when you want to call in ill for work.
4. Dogme app – this paperless app at first emits a peaceful and purposeful silence. Point your iPad or iPhone at the students and watch the language simply flow out. The app then uses this to tailor a language learning activity just for you. Don’t ask what this looks like, it must be experienced. Can be upgraded to synch with twitter and will broadcast the occasional anti-technology tweet. Note: this app works best if all coursebooks have been removed from the room.
5. 6things app – delivers a daily dose of Six Things joy to your phone. Never miss a blog post again 
6. UnderstandMe app – programmed with instructions for all your favourite activities in clear and loud English. Don’t worry about losing your voice, or your cool, ever again. The volume on this app can actually go way up so that the instructions are heard by a large class of teenagers.
Do you have an idea for a killer app for English language teachers? Post a comment.
Six questions for linked language learning
Yes! Time for another guest post, this time from a colleague in Ireland, Patrick Jackson. Patrick is the author of Potato Pals. Here he shares six questions teachers can ask themselves about links, linking up and linked learning. Some good food for reflective thought here.
Think Link! Six questions for Linked (Language) Learning
1. The links between teacher and student.
Do I have mutually respectful relationships with my students and do I devote time and energy to developing these relationships?
2. The links between students.
Are my students communicating without anxiety, working together well and supporting each other? Do students have plenty of opportunity and encouragement to develop these relationships?
3. The links between teachers.
Am I connected to an active community of teachers? Does this community enrich my teaching and support my development? Is it easy for me to seek the help of more experienced teachers? Am I engaged in helping less-experienced teachers than myself?
4. The links to the world outside the classroom.
Are students being given opportunities to use the target language in a real and relevant way, linked to the world beyond the classroom? Is the language being learnt through such links? Am I giving students space and time to use this language in the context of their own lives?
5. The links between the known and the new.
Is new language being introduced in a way that makes connections with language students have already mastered. Am I helping my students to find and use these connections?
6. The ‘M’ link.
Do I use a wide variety of materials, methods and media linked in a way that students will find memorable and motivating? Mmmm.
You can find out more about Patrick’s work at his blog, The Potato Diaries, here. Thank you Patrick, for your six!
Six things teachers always say
Insert what you always say here.
This is a post I have been meaning to do for some time. What words and phrases do we always use as teachers?
1. OK
Perhaps not so unusual as it is supposed to be the most frequent discourse marker in the English language (for a humorous take on the various uses of OK, see here)
2. Right
Again, this is a typical teacher “signalling” device. I use this all the time, I must confess.
3. Very good
A common and useful form of praise from the teacher, or is it? According to research by Jean Wong and Hansun Zhang Waring in the United States, the highly frequent use of ‘very good’ by teachers may not always be indicative of positive feedback and in fact may inhibit learning opportunitites (see ELTJ volume 63/3 July 2009)
4. Today we’re going to…
Many English classes around the world begin very much with these words I think. Not much of a problem unless it ends up being a rather long tedious ramble that takes up the first quarter of the class.
5. Quiet please!
Well, teachers of business executives perhaps not but I’d be willing to bet that this phrase gets a lot of usage in young learner classrooms (or a close equivalent)
6. (open your books to) Page … please
I’ve given whole workshops devoted to finding alternatives to saying this in class. This common phrase can be quite a killjoy, especially if they are the first words out of a teacher’s mouth at the beginning of class.
There are two good ways to find out if you are overusing a certain word or phrase. One is to record yourself over a series of classes and watch. The second is to ask your cheekiest student to do an imitation of you. I am not sure which is more painful!
What word or words do you overuse? Post a comment.
Six ways for teachers to address the Haitian crisis
When a crisis the scale of what is happening in Haiti hits the headlines and gets “blanket coverage” from news outlets like CNN, it’s tempting to bring it up with students. But does this sort of thing have a place in the language classroom? One the one hand it feels negligent not to mention it at all, but on the other hand one wants to avoid descending into a sort of gruesome spectacle (using youtube clips or the like) which may not be that productive at all. Here are six suggestions on ways you could address the Haitian crisis in a language classroom.
1 Use an existing lesson plan – e.g. Breaking News English
Sean Banville at Breaking News English has already made a general lesson plan about Haiti and the disaster. You could use that on its own or in conjunction with any of these ideas.
2 Understand the Richter scale and earthquakes
I’m very fortunate not to live in an earthquake zone, so those of you who do may already be very aware of how the Richter scale works.But if you or your students aren’t, it makes for a useful and timely read. Or you could use as your text any of the many websites giving advice on what to do during an earthquake. Here’s one from FEMA in the US.
3 Analyse how the media is portraying the crisis
Ask students to pay attention to the news and make a list of the keywords being used. Ask them to bring these to class and translate them into English. Then, depending on the level of your students you could ask questions such as the following: What elements of the disaster are focused on most? What is attracting the attention of the news stations? Do different stations focus more on one kind of story? How are average Haitians being portrayed?
4 Use something Haitian other than the disaster
It might make for a welcome change from death and looting stories to raise awareness about other aspects of Haiti. One possibility would be to use a folktale or Haitian proverbs as a text. You can find examples of both here. Alternatively, and especially if you are working with younger learners, you could make a poster project about Haiti, its geography and culture.
5 Encourage a critical eye
One way to look at events in Haiti is also through the prism of “who benefits” from such disasters? With all the money flowing in from around the world there is ample incentive for many different players to get involved: from all kinds of aid organisations (some perhaps with political or religious agendas), to corrupt government officials to multinational building companies wanting to get rebuilding contracts. And then there are the fraudsters (see warning from the FBI here). These questions could be a starting point for a higher level class discussion on how, why and who to donate money to in the name of solidarity. Or ask students to do a webquest on this topic and bring in articles or viewpoints themselves.
6 Ask students what they think they can do to help
Of course, any of the above might lead to a feeling of urgency to “do something” for the victims of the earthquake. This could form the basis of a class project: either to organise a fundraising event, create a poster project for the school to educate others about Haiti or generally raise awareness among students who can then choose themselves what they should/are able to do.
I currently don’t have a class (my last one finished just before Christmas and I won’t have a group until April) but I’d personally be tempted to do a combination of two or more of the above if I did. I know some teachers who believe this kind of stuff is best avoided in the classroom. So I’m curious, would any of my readers address this issue? And if so, how to do it sensitively? Post a comment if you have time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale
Six anagrams of well-known ELT bloggers
Awhile I ago someone sent me this link to an anagram generator. I’ve been thinking of ways to use it in class, barring simply making interesting anagrams from words or phrases for my learners to solve. Recently I found a whole new fun thing to do, which was put names into the generator and see what I get.
So, here’s a test on six things for you! The following are anagrams of other ELT bloggers out there (they are on my blogroll). I’ve included a little description next to each. Can you identify them?
1 Seller, Hell Try – I met Seller, Hell Try at a conference last year. She’s a great networker, very active on twitter and #edchat and her blog currently features a set of goals. Would I recommend Seller, Hell Try? Hell yes!
2 Obstruct Thorny - Obstruct Thorny does tend to ask questions worthy of his anagram last name, especially about coursebooks and grammar syllabi. However, the quality of his blog entries makes up for the thorniness of some of those questions!
3 A Giddy Uneven -Taking a trip to A Giddy Uneven’s blog about technology matters is not a dizzying experience, it’s a solidly written one. Some of his blog posts are very “even”, as long as you agree with him! 
4 Transversely Keen – Her blog transverses many topics, supposedly about technology and speaking but in reality covers a lot more. Transversely Keen lives up to her last name very well, she’s one of the keenest bloggers out there – I mean that in a good sense.
5 Noel Winks – Noel Winks is a splendid chap and recent addition to the blogosphere who is making quite an impact despite his modest claims to the contrary. Mr Winks alternately shares stories from his life in the profession with provocative posts about culture, or the things he knows about teaching English.
6 Cease Lax – The Godfather of the ELT (blog) world, Cease Lax has been blogging since before many of the others on this list. Cease Lax has a wry sense of humour, produces far too many free worksheets for his own good and probably had a post like this around 8 months ago. Many of my favourite post ideas were probably done by Cease Lax in the past.
Finally, my name is Clay Landside Find. Creator of what one reader called “a bit of a hodge podge” of this blog, which is also – according to Onestopblogs – probably too wordy. Hopefully there are some good finds in this clay landslide of text though!
Ok, let’s hear it from all the other great bloggers and readers I’ve missed. What does your name give in the anagram generator?
