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Customized or ready to go

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Analysis and enhancement

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The unexpected math behind Van Gogh's "Starry Night" - Natalya St. Clair

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Speaking practice and presentation skills

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Stance, evidence and sources

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Describing trends

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Here is an example of a quizlet which I created for a student practising for IELTS Writing Task One

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Here is an example of a quizlet which I created for a student practising for IELTS Writing Task One

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Perspectives on frankincense distillation

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Below are three examples of some work I did with my class of STEM students in China, now adapted for Padlet.

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Broaching key elements of academic writing with foundation students

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Broaching key elements of academic writing with foundation students

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This activity is intended as a gentle introduction to key academic issues - such as identifying a writer or speaker's stance and exploring how to support arguments with evidence from cited sources.

The students are familiar with reading and listening circles.  In this case both are combined.

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I have used this video on Starry Starry Night with Chinese UG STEM students f2f in the past and they were literally enthralled.

As well as the scientific aspect and element of mystery, they were unexpectedly captivated by the crossover with Western Art.

Fortunately, we managed to create some opportunities to explore Van Gogh and other Impressionists alongside our discipline specific in-sessional EAP course.

The Maths and Physics angle was deeply meaningful to them too, which is more than I can say for myself! There arose some interesting disputes about some of the theories propounded in the video but I was not in a position to comment.

TED Ed provides an instant format  to transform videos into a part of a flipped online classroom.  I am going to try to incorporate this into my work with pre-sessional STEMM students in the summer.

The pre-prepared lesson would be a great boon as an introduction when time is short.  However, I will probably tweak it to make it more subject relevant and culturally meaningful when the time comes.
I have left it as it stands until I know who my students are. I may even make my own, now that I know how.

The same goes for countless other Ted Talks.  Such as this one:

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How to see with sound - Jacques S. Abramowicz

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Prior to the main activity the students had been working in their three discipline groups to describe each of three objects from the different perspectives of Maths, Physics or Chemistry.

Although they worked on a large chart f2f, the actvity transfers quite well to a padlet for online collaboration.

PLEASE CLICK OPEN THE PADLET:

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Students had then been introduced to the process of distilling frankincense oil from frankincense resin.

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In this task they once more apply differing perspectives according to their disciplines - this time to the distillation process.

Maths students largely concentrate on quantities, questions of yield and geometry.

Physics students focus on features of the process itself.

Chemistry students examine the chemical compounds and reactions involved.

PLEASE CLICK OPEN THE PADLET:

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Each discipline group works collaboratively in their appropriate column to contribute their ideas.

As they have done previously with the abacus, noodle strainer and water bottle, each other discipline group then has a chance to contribute further ideas.

The objective is to gain a deeper appreciation of what different disciplines and perspectives can bring to bear on the subject in hand.

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In this last padlet, the columns have been used in a different but equally challenging way - to try to adequately describe a beautiful image of a human cell. Please feel free to add contributions...

PLEASE CLICK OPEN THE PADLET:

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Using the shelf format on Padlet seems to provide the optimum way to transfer such activities online.

I have experimented with some of the other formats but as yet have not found a use for them.  I am sure I will once I have a full class of pre-sessional students - starting with an introductory padlet similar to the one at the beginning of this course!

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It's so quick and easy to prepare a vocabulary quiz with Quizlet.  The app does all the work for you - even suggesting  definitions and visual clues.  The students love the wide range of activities and games it creates instantaneously.  Most importantly, it's fantastic for vocabulary expansion and extension.  On top of that it has a great pronunciation feature.

One of my students has now taken control and is making her own Quizlets, although she does ask me to check them for her first. So, great for student autonomy too - at the right level.

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All of my students have now taken to creating short video or audio clips of their daily life and localities, accompanied by selfies, slide shows or just photos of local features and highlights.

I feel this may be particularly popular due to the sufferings of confinement in lockdown - and because it helps to alleviate our geographical enstrangement.

As with most of us, initial attempts tend to be rather halting and nervous - but progress is rapid once enthusiasm and confidence kick in.

We have previously discussed the merits of the teacher also making similar contributions of their own.

FIRST AUDIO CLIP FROM BRAZIL

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Although this student is normally confident and fluent, the previous audio file betrays the natural tendency for nervousness to impede voice projection when in a stressful situation.

Since that first attempt at an audio recording, we have followed up with work on voice projection, body language and eye contact - and how these work differently online.

FLORIANOPOLIS, BRAZIL

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This is a summary of a Ted Talk on the future of dentistry.

TED TALK SUMMARY including preceding audio and original Ted Talk

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The same student has to make many presentations as part of her fourth year course as a dentistry student.  Many of these are in English, so we are using the phone recording function for her to video her own presentations and to help to fine tune her delivery.

The work on voice and other presentation skills will transfer and be helpful for her across both English and Portuguese - and into other aspects of life too.

I have now introduced all of my students to Padlet, which will help to simplify postings and create some more dynamism.

STUDENT PRESENTATION TALKED THROUGH IN PERSON ONLINE

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Supplementary content plus pedagogical and technical support

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Many students are particularly taken with Learn English with Lucy.  Above is one of many examples:

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Lucy does all kinds of specifically British English lessons and is funny and informative.  She is held to speak English "beautifully" with "crystal clear pronunciation" and and holds a lot of appeal to students around her own age group.  She is good on cultural and idiomatic stuff, providing a spot of lighter but helpful relief alongside heavyweight EAP work. She should not therefore be viewed as competition to the EAP teacher, although there are plenty of competitors to her type of lessons on youTube!

Above is another example I have to hand.  (Warning: the ads can be annoying.)

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20 Incredibly British Words & Phrases (with examples and pronunciation)

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Of course, there is also a literally endless array of other videos to supplement ongoing work at any given moment - far too many to make any attempt at a selection for current purposes.

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A final credit to the plentiful youTubes which are out there to help our students with unfamiliar technology.  Not to mention ourselves.  Here is one of the hundreds available for Padlet alone:

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Just another example of the panoply of help available to help us master seemingly every aspect of technology

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Getting Started with Google Jamboard (Web Version) Tutorial

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I have been using youTube as a supplement and resource for a long time now and am constantly trying out ways of exploiting this wealth of material.  There are some further examples of this in the Smartphone section of this padlet as this is an area of overlap.

Many teaching videos and animations are geared to take some of the load off us - for example, to revise aspects of grammar and vocabulary and to help with pronunciation.  In a way they have replaced the traditional library in this, or private lessons even.

In the meantime, we can concentrate on appropriate selection and on using ourselves to best advantage.

I am looking forward to learning more of how to exploit some of these videos, where necessary, with tools like Video Ant and Edpuzzle.

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Comparative analysis on Oxford Wordchecker

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Comparative analysis on Oxford Wordchecker

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This work provided my students with unexpectedly useful insights into elevating their vocabulary and towards understanding the importance of collocation. They are all high level at present, which meant these comparisons were  relevant and timely.  Nonetheless
I was surprised by what great interest they took, some of them extending to their own research.

Five examples follow:

1)  3rd YEAR UG in-sessional EAP student

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As discussed in the forums, the smartphone is a wonderful tool to be utilized in myriad ways. Just one of these is for students to make their own contributions to the flipped classroom.

Whether they produce material in advance or as a follow up, this is a remarkable method of increasing student involvement without eating into too much precious synchronous time.

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2)  1st year UG HOME Classics student

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UG essay - BA Classics  - Home student - Ox 5000

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3) MASTERS Medical Management PG EAP student

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PG essay -Masters Medical Mgt EAP student - Ox 5000

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4) PhD THESIS excerpt HOME STUDENT
Sample text

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PhD THESIS excerpt HOME STUDENT
Results

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5) Comprehension Hypothesis

Krashen excerpt - sample

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Krashen's Comprehension Hypothesis - extract

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Krashen excerpt - results

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Krashen's Comprehension Hypothesis extract - results t

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I will leave you to draw your own conclusions...

Fascinating stuff...

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These forays into the students' worlds can also provide a brief but pleasant warmer interlude before entering into the more arduous EAP tasks of the day.

A bonus is that many of the topics encountered - their home, their city, their favourite place, local food, local customs - are perfectly geared towards IELTS and other speaking tests.

Error awareness development, focussed pronunciation practice and practice in asking and answering questions are just some ways in which student recordings can be exploited and utilised.

Although I had previously imagined that much of these techniques would be better achieved through peer interaction,  I have ultimately found them to be at least as successful with individual students - and, somewhat surprisingly, just as much fun.

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Here, my student created this little slideshow of her own volition and narrated it live online.  It's a remarkable improvement and, as importantly, she is enjoying taking responsibility for her own learning.

BRAZILIAN EASTER BUNNY

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A current online student has since completed both of the above Ted Ed lessons and  was inspired enough to create her own follow-up materials.

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A light hearted introduction to the importance of critical thinking and use of reliable sources.

SOURCE 1

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Meghan Markle's revelation that there was concern within the royal family about Archie Mountbatten-Windsor's skin color was perhaps the biggest bombshell in an interview full of them-and the strongest evidence that she and Prince Harry are truly willing to burn bridges with the royal family.

Meghan told Oprah Winfrey in the Sunday night interview that, despite reports to the contrary, she and Harry never asked for Archie not to have a royal title. She said other people in the family had made the decision for Archie not to be a prince, and that she was also told that without that royal title, Archie was not entitled to security protection. "The most important title I will ever have is his mom, and I know that," she said. "But it was the idea of our son not being safe and also the idea of the first member of color in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be."

Meghan said that her concern was that the desire to deny Archie a title might be related to the concerns about his potential skin tone, as the son of the biracial duchess. "We have in tandem the conversation of, 'He won't be given security. He's not going to be given a title,'" she said, "And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born."

"It was really hard to be able to see those as compartmentalized conversations, that if you were to be brown that would be a problem," Meghan said. "I wasn't able to follow up with why, but that if that's the assumption you're making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which is really hard to understand, right?"

When Harry joined the conversation at the halfway point, he added a bit of context to that moment. He explained that the conversation about skin color-"What will the kids look like?"-happened before they were married.

The skin tone comment was so offensive and ominous to Harry because it came alongside comments that implied Meghan would not be welcome in the family. "That was right at the beginning when she wasn't going to get security, when members of my family were suggesting that she carries on acting because there's not enough money to pay for her," he said. "There were some clear, obvious signs that this was going to be very hard."

Yet both Harry and Meghan declined to share exactly who in the family brought up the matter of their child's skin tone. "That conversation I'm never going to share," he said. "But at the time, it was awkward. I was a bit shocked."

In a follow-up interview on CBS This Morning, Oprah said that Harry clarified it was neither the Queen or Prince Philip who made the skin color comment, which has sparked an ongoing guessing game about who the offending royal might have been. Harry and Meghan were both careful to praise the Queen throughout the interview, and most complaints about the family's conduct were not attached to specific names. But Harry commented on his family and their internal conversations with a level of detail that rarely happens in public, and expressed open disapproval of their approach to the press. "I'm acutely aware of where my family stand and how scared they are of the tabloids turning on them," he said. "I think everyone needs to have some compassion for them in that situation, as there is a level of control by fear that has existed for generations."

It's not too objectionable as a statement of fact; most stories about the modern royal family contain at least a little bit of fretting from the principals about how their actions will play in the morning papers. But to hear that coming from the person who is currently sixth in line for the throne, regardless of his current status, is practically unprecedented. If he didn't feel secure in his new life, it's hard to imagine that he would be so willing to say that he and Meghan had been living off his inheritance from Princess Diana, or that Prince Charles had stopped speaking to him for a time. It's also a sign that the internal conversations about whether Meghan and Archie could fit into the family seriously damaged his opinion of the royal lifestyle altogether, which might be why he called Charles and Prince William "trapped."

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Why Meghan and Harry's Revelations About Racism Within the Royal Family Were So Devastating

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Meghan Markle's revelation that there was concern within the royal family about Archie Mountbatten-Windsor's skin color was perhaps the biggest bombshell in an interview full of them-and the strongest evidence that she and Prince Harry are truly willing to burn bridges with the royal family.

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After the subject matter has been introduced, each member of the Circle is given a different document or video to examine closely on their own.

Each member examines their material with a view to reporting back to the group.  They are limited to three main questions:

1)  What is the writer or speaker's main stance?

2) How do they support that stance?

3) What original sources are provided in support of their argument?

When the group re-convenes, each member of the circles briefly reports back, opening the way for further comparison of the full set of materials and ensuing discussion.

This activity works well as a lead-in to a further comparison with the rigor of academic argument and citation, where conventions are strictly adhered to and claims must stand up to intense scrutiny.

(Clearly none of the current sources come anywhere close to academic standards of reliable citation.)

Any contemporary topic can be chosen with a selection of current videos and reports from the popular media. In this case,  the following was a very topical hot issue which worked well and provided plenty of room for further development as the media story continued on.

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Padlet is so colourful and versatile and is an ideal way to bring students together in synchronous sessions.

Most of all it enables a wide variety of media to be incorporated with the absolute minimum of hassle.  This in itself makes it most invaluable as a tool.

All that said, I am going to mention a couple of negatives I have been grappling with:

- Formatting can be restrictive and unwieldy.  I'm not sure it is every graphic designer's dream!

(Manipulating the sequencing within the columns appears to be tedious until you develop the knack. As with many aspects of technology, it is actually pretty simple - but only once you know how.)

- There is also the issue of how to save all the work effectively given that there is the limitation of three iPads on the free version and, even if you upgrade, presumably you would lose all your work if you decided to unsubscribe?

Lone experimentation has its limits - so any reflections on the above would be much appreciated, as always.

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SOURCE 2

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Piers Morgan 'sickened' by Harry and Meghan 'two hour trash-athon'

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Piers Morgan 'sickened' by Harry and Meghan 'two hour trash-athon'

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SOURCE 3

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Critics point out inconsistencies in Sussex's Oprah interview | CNN International

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SOURCE 4

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SOURCE 5

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Meghan and Harry interview: 'Royalty is not a shield from the despair of racism'

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While the couple said they had difficult moments with some members of the Royal Family, including Harry's father Prince Charles, they talked fondly about the Queen who Meghan said reminded her of her grandmother.

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SOURCE 6

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Monday, March 8th, was Commonwealth Day in the United Kingdom, an annual celebration of the association of fifty-four former colonial territories of Britain, headed, as it has been for the past sixty-nine years, by Her Majesty the Queen. Up and down the country, Britons from all walks of life were, naturally, preoccupied by the commemoration, taking the opportunity to reflect thoughtfully upon the legacy of colonialism, upon the service of the ninety-four-year-old monarch, and upon the still wide-reaching influence of the Crown.

Just kidding: the "family of nations," as Patricia Scotland, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, referred to the association she heads, barely got a look-in on Monday, which was, instead, dominated by discussion of the nation's principal family, the Windsors. The latest royal crisis was precipitated by Oprah Winfrey's incendiary televised interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, whose final appearance as working members of the Royal Family took place at last year's Commonwealth celebrations, when they attended a service at Westminster Abbey before making their exit to Canada, then California. The Oprah interview was shown on CBS in the United States on Sunday evening-prime time for an American audience, but inconveniently falling between one and three in the morning in Britain. As a result, to see the broadcast in real time in the U.K., one had to be both a dedicated royal watcher and sufficiently technologically adept to have a V.P.N. installed-a Venn-diagram intersection that includes journalists and members of the Buckingham Palace comms team, but perhaps few others.

Waking up on Monday morning in the U.K. and checking the headlines-"Meghan claims she was suicidal when she was five months pregnant, Kate made HER cry and Royals refused to make Archie a prince because they were worried about how 'dark' he would be," the online summary in the Daily Mail read-was similar to the experience of logging on to Twitter after a day's healthy avoidance only to descend into a boundless morass of takes and subtweets. Commentators who had watched the broadcast-or at least who appeared to have done so, radiating the wide-eyed, ravaged hysteria of having pulled an all-nighter in middle age-did the rounds of the morning shows on radio and television, mediating the public's absorption of the couple's revelations while still absorbing the details themselves.

It made for disorienting viewing: while American audiences were served the full Oprah banquet-her skillful deployment of the confidence-building inquiry, and her devastating forensic follow-up-British audiences were sputtering over the show's most indigestible revelations along with their toast and coffee. On "Good Morning Britain," the breakfast show on ITV, the network that had acquired the rights to broadcast Oprah's interview on Monday evening, the co-host Piers Morgan declared the event "a two-hour trash-a-thon of our Royal Family" and accused Harry and Meghan of "spray-gunning his family on global television." Morgan, who began his career at the tabloids of Fleet Street in the late eighties, ascending before he reached the age of thirty to become the editor of the News of the World, a Murdoch-owned Sunday paper, is one of Britain's best-known and most contentious broadcasters. Over the course of the pandemic, Morgan has repeatedly played the unlikely role of the moral conscience of the nation, blasting Dominic Cummings, formerly an influential Downing Street aide, for flouting lockdown rules in the spring, and denouncing Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, for not firing him; challenging the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, to resign over his bungling of school closures; and humiliating the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, for voting against free school meals for low-income children.

Morgan, who has a long-standing and well-known antipathy to the Duchess of Sussex, turned Monday morning's show into what he might, under other circumstances, have described as a three-hour shout-a-thon. At a little before seven-thirty in the morning, one remote guest, the author and activist Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, who described the Royal Family as "rooted in the legacy of colonialism, white supremacy, and racism," challenged the Queen's apparent lack of intervention: "What kind of grandmother would be so close to her grandson Harry, but then not use her power and influence as Queen to protect them from the racist media coverage?" she asked, one rhetorical inquiry among several that Morgan decried as "disgraceful." In a surreal moment an hour later, Chaka Khan was beamed in from Los Angeles to comment upon Meghan's claims. "I am not a Britisher, but I am only hoping and praying that they will look into what she is alleging, and make it to rights," the onetime queen of disco offered, as helpful an intervention as any Britisher might have been able to muster under the circumstances.

Elsewhere in the British media, confidants of the Sussexes were roped in, as were defenders of the institution. On the early-morning "Today" program on Radio Four-the British equivalent of NPR-Dean Stotts, a former Special Forces soldier and a friend of Harry and Meghan's, described the Royal Family as "very warm and open . . . there is no arrogance at all," laying blame instead with palace aides, who, he told Martha Kearney, the show's host, "almost feel like they have the title of the family." Kearney's next interview subject was a former palace aide, Charles Anson, who was press secretary to the Queen from 1990 until 1997, a span that includes the annus horribilis of 1992, during which the collapse of the marriage of Harry's parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, was made public. Anson told Kearney that he didn't believe there had been "a strand of racism" within the royal household's reception of the Duchess of Sussex; when Kearney pointed out that Harry and Meghan said otherwise, Anson conceded silkily that this point was "a question that needs to be considered." By lunchtime, a further video clip was released, in which Harry claimed that the Queen herself was at the mercy of controlling palace aides, who had forced her to disinvite him from a prearranged visit to Sandringham, in Norfolk, shortly before he and Meghan made public their wish to step down as senior royals, in January, 2020. It emerged that there were two hours more of footage on Oprah's cutting-room floor: enough to keep the royal household up for several more uncomfortable nights.

By the time that just over eleven million Brits tuned in to the interview on Monday evening, what remained to be parsed was context: not the meat and potatoes of the interview but the amuse-bouches and the garnishes. These included the delightful revelation that it fell to Fergie, the ex-wife and current mansion-mate of Prince Andrew, to speed-teach Meghan how to curtsy to the Queen, the Californian actress not having realized that royal protocol requires such displays of obeisance even when no one is watching. That Meghan exercised the self-control not to Google her husband in the early days of their courtship was admirable, if, on reflection, foolhardy. To have remained immaculately oblivious of his family's twelve-hundred-year history was an error, as Robert Browning's Last Duchess might have warned her. In the less horrifying parts of the interview, when Meghan was not confessing to suicidal ideation or exposing the egregious bigotry of an unnamed in-law's speculation about the skin color of the unborn Sussex offspring, she might have been the invention of Henry James: an American innocent abroad, blithely and almost culpably unaware that the archaic regulations of an inscrutable aristocracy would apply equally to her. If the chicken coop in the garden of the Sussexes' fifteen-million-dollar home in Montecito had a touch of the petit trianon about it-the best part of living there, Meghan said, was "being able to live authentically" and "getting back down to basics"-then her description of life under the palace's regime, according to which, she said, she was deprived of her passport and driver's license and made a virtual prisoner in Frogmore Cottage, sounded barely preferable to the guillotine.

The full-length interview revealed, perhaps surprisingly, a well of affection and admiration on the part of the Sussexes for the nonagenarian at the center of it all: "Her Majesty the Queen," as Meghan deferentially and correctly referred to her on first mention, offering the lexical equivalent of a curtsy. Meghan recalled a moment when, having joined the Queen on an official engagement for which they were transported by car, the monarch urged her grandson's wife to share the car blanket that had been draped over the Queen's knees against the cold. The anecdote was intended as an indication of the monarch's kindness; but it was also a suggestive metaphor for the Queen's predicament, as an individual trapped by duty in a chilly environment, able to offer only a modicum of comfort.

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The British Reaction to the Meghan-and-Harry Interview

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Monday, March 8th, was Commonwealth Day in the United Kingdom, an annual celebration of the association of fifty-four former colonial territories of Britain, headed, as it has been for the past sixty-nine years, by Her Majesty the Queen.

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SOURCE 7

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I can't stress how much I appreciate Kayleigh (and Patrick Adams from Suits) staying on top of the Meghan Markle/Prince Harry business. It is decidedly outside of my wheelhouse, but culturally speaking, it's important to understand, if only for the way that the Royal Family and the establishment media cling so desperately to narratives that enable systemic racism to thrive both in the UK and here.

To wit: Last night after the interview aired, Megyn Kelly - who lost her very high-paid job with NBC News for defending blackface - questioned the way that Oprah Winfrey, an American icon, conducted the interview.

Oprah stayed too broad-I wanted more: "who?...Be specific...what exactly did they say? Who was jealous of M after Australia? How did u know that? What do you mean ur family hasn't "educated themselves" the way u have? They're racists? WHO?" Eventually they'd have to get specific.
- Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) March 8, 2021

There is not a GIF that offers a strong enough reaction to that malarkey. In any respect, Megyn Kelly appeared on the morning show of that vile little man Piers Morgan today to continue offering her opinion, because that's exactly what no one asked for. It sounds exactly like the commentary one might expect from a person who defends blackface.

'She's painting herself in adorations while she was making complaints that will be totally unreliable to 99% of people.'

US broadcaster @megynkelly says Meghan's Oprah interview was full of contradictions and she was 'completely unaware' of how she sounded in the interview. pic.twitter.com/qJZB6xsz4W
- Good Morning Britain (@GMB) March 8, 2021

Megyn Kelly has the audacity to accuse Meghan Markle of not being self-aware and then proceeds to critique Oprah's interviewing skills.

Yes, actually.

Mind you this lady was so out of touch with reality, problematic, and bad at interviews they paid her $30 million to fire her.
- Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) March 8, 2021

On the other hand, Piers Morgan also asked Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu to appear on the show. He probably wishes he had not. "Are you out of your godforsaken mind?!"

Please take two minutes and watch Piers Morgan get absolutely stuffed into a locker while taking up for racism in the Royal family... https://t.co/ICPr60pGMp
- Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) March 8, 2021

That's how it's done, y'all.

When an older Black woman says "listen, you might learn something" that's when you know your speaking part in the conversation is over.

Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu really tore Piers Morgan a new one.
- Ernest Owens (@MrErnestOwens) March 8, 2021

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Header Image Source: ITV

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dr. shola mos-shogbamimu and megyn kelly offer contrasting opinions on the harry and meghan interview

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i can't stress how much i appreciate kayleigh (and patrick adams from suits) staying on top of the meghan markle/prince harry business. it is decidedly outside of my wheelhouse

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Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu and Megyn Kelly Offer Contrasting Opinions on the Harry and Meghan Interview

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I can't stress how much I appreciate Kayleigh (and Patrick Adams from Suits) staying on top of the Meghan Markle/Prince Harry business. It is decidedly outside of my wheelhouse, but culturally speaking, it's important to understand, if only for the...

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SOURCE 8
You may want to listen selectively

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Chatting with Lady C: The Queen/William fallout re Oprah interview/Piers Morgan/Sharon Osborne

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The ensuing discussion works well f2f, physically sitting in a circle of eight.

An effective alternative is for students to work collaboratively on three separate Google documents - one each for stance, supporting evidence and reliable citations.

Students can then read though the contributions in detail and make relevant observations and comments.

This could then be followed up with discussion in interchangeable breakout rooms before returning to the main learning objective.

The source materials provide endless extension opportunities for comparison with academic style and conventions.

My overall conclusion is that this activity works more successfully f2f,  I'm afraid.  I also think that Padlet would be my preferred tool in the event. Any other suggestions would be appreciated as next time I will be trying it out with weightier academic sources...

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This is summary of the Ted Talk itself, self-recorded by my student:

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And here is a written follow-up on the applications of ultrasound within Dentistry, which is her current major in Brazil:

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Brainstorming

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I was introduced to Jamboard by a colleague on this course and have since found it very popular with students for the rapid sharing of ideas.  It is super simple to use and has an appealing sense of informality for certain activities.

It also provides an oddly sentimental connection to a  world of tactility which seems long lost right now.

So far I have used it for synchronous brainstorming and also in preparation for flipped learning activities, where students can simply add their ideas at will before the class begins.

In this case we were brainstorming ideas of topical interest for debate and essay practice.

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In the course of these reflections, it now occurs that I was, in actuality, using the phone to flip my student's learning long before I had even encountered such terminology.

In that case,  back when living in Oman, I had tasked myself with helping a Bangladeshi frankincense distillery manager to get his English up to speed for the job.

His name is Hassan and he can be glimpsed in the earlier frankincense videos!

Being able to articulate the process of distillation and to respond immediately to instructions given in English was fundamental to Hassan's work.  Although he was immensely skilled (irreplaceable even), communication was a bugbear.  Latterly his lack of English had been affecting the safety of the operation - as frankincense oil is highly volatile - and this was putting him in peril of losing his job. A good command of English had become imperative to fulfill his role.

There were more than a few obstacles, however.  Not only was Hassan unable to speak more than a few basic words of English, but he could not read and write in any language at all at that point.  It was therefore quite a new kind of challenge for me to work against time to help him keep his job.

As he could only spare an hour a day for f2f classes, I quickly sourced and selected from a wealth of language videos on youTube.  These I sent to him through Whatsapp at appropriate junctures.

I introduced these tentatively and with as much tact as I could muster as many of them were cartoon style for children.  I need not have worried as he took to them without demur. In fact, he visibly enjoyed this way of using his phone - practising alone either in preparation or to reinforce our short sessions together.  The fact that there was minimal, simple, text worked very much in his favour and, ultimately, also contributed to his overall achievement.

Additionally, there were also many surprisingly helpful bilingual videos to explain areas of perplexity to him in his own language, Bengali. The direct translation method can certainly have its uses, especially when literacy can no longer be taken for granted.

On top of that, I used to customize short drills (scaffolding from one word to key phrases to whole sentences) and other exercises on Whatsapp and send them through to Hassan.  This technique very effectively got around the issue of him being unable to read.  Soon he could be heard murmuring his drills to himself, rehearsing and practising the key terms of his trade. Unhampered as he was by the problems of un-phonetic English spelling, he soon developed a very fine British accent!

Within a mere couple of months Hassan was functioning quite brilliantly in English both within his work environment and beyond.  I would surmise that his rapid acquisition was helped by the fact that he was already multi-lingual - in Urdu, Hindi and Arabic as well as his own tongue and a variety of dialects.  Plus he would have had a fair bit of passive exposure to English both in Bangladesh and in Oman, where English is one of the official languages in conjunction with Arabic. However, in the absence of access to a laptop, it was the phone which provided the key.

Nowadays,  Hassan even presents tours of the distillery and explains the process in English to groups of visitors!  For him, the phone remains a tool for lifelong learning and he still frequently self accesses it to upgrade his English skills.

As a postscript, it was gratifying that not long after - having picked up the rudiments from his phone and emboldened by new confidence - he went on to learn to read and write in English and to access something of the education that had been denied to him by his childhood circumstances.  But that's another story...

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Jumping back to the present moment, three years later...

Over the duration of this course, I have once again taken to Whatsapp for its convenience as a teaching tool.  This time to practice question structure with my current Brazilian student.

Although her written grammar is pretty flawless, as is often the case, she was hitting problems when speaking spontaneously.

Our method involves me sending her a selection of photos - usually mysterious ones from my my own phone library.  She then instantly and spontaneously records a few questions about each picture.  If she is making a recurring formation error, I help her to identify this and she then tries to correct it - usually with success.  Other times we may listen back to the recordings together synchronously, employing various error awareness raising exercises. Sometimes she may reinforce the correct forms by following up with a written consolidation exercise.

Something about the immediacy of this method has produced correspondingly instantaneous results.  This could just be down to the very act of increasing self awareness - as it is not grammatical knowledge that was an issue, just the preservation of accuracy in normal speech. However, there is an intrinsic danger that this kind of exercise can be counter-productive in producing panic and creating inhibition - thus exacerbating the very problem it seeks to address.  Using such an everyday, familiar medium and giving the student technological control seems to mitigate against any such pitfalls of loss of fluency.

We are now moving on to use this technique for more fine tuning - the goal being to prevent the fossilization of minor but often systemic errors. (Many being simple but important examples of L1 interference - eg: articles, past participles, use of present perfect.)

I think it is important to handle this kind of thing incrementally and with sensitivity.  When well received, there are few tools more effective in promoting learner autonomy than the ever more fabulous smartphone.

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Whilst here I have necessarily been referring to individual learners, there are a host of ways that these techniques could be adapted for group, class  and - especially - pair work.

What I notice is how just the very use of the Smartphone in itself seems to galvanise students, especially - but definitely not only - those in younger age groups.

For them, it somehow appears to confer some kind of validity upon their learning experience - possibly as it bridges so effectively to their own world, making it both relevant and familiar.

Assuming I have a homogenous Chinese pre-sessional group when I start back in May, I now intend to explore ways of better harnessing Wechat as an effective supplement to the clunky old VLE.

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My very last reflection is that current smartphones are only a stage in the onward march of technology.  At the rate things have been going, they are set to become increasingly sophisticated and ever more intrinsic to daily life.  As things stand, as a tool towards autonomous learning, they seem unrivalled...

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Here is another one which my student just created to practise specialist dentistry terminology - right off her own bat

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Finally, here is a customized lesson I created to exploit a short Ted Talk regarding the future of medicine.

This relates to a much longer Ted Talk looking at the effects of the Covid19 pandemic on the future of medicine.

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Dr Kraft is the founder and chair of Exponential Medicine.
He is a Harvard and Stanford trained physician, scientist, inventor and innovator.
His current focus is on the future of health and medicine.
His full bio is available at https://exponential.singularityu.org

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The Digital, Connected, Exponential Future of Health & Medicine - Dr. Daniel Kraft

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Dr Kraft is the founder and chair of Exponential Medicine.He is a Harvard and Stanford trained physician, scientist, inventor and innovator.His current focus is on the future of health and medicine.His full bio is available at https://exponential.singularityu.org

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And here, as an encore, are three short sketches created, directed and acted by my Brazilian dental student with help from her (English) boyfriend and young nephew.

These follow on from some experimentation with online role-play - both in the dental surgery and in a variety of more everyday settings.

These videos were filmed on iPhone and zapped straight to my screen via Zoom.  I was very impressed!

I was also proud to see them as a culmination of three months work both linguistically and in pushing forward the possibilities for using technology in online teaching.

I think these sketches reveal that online learning has the potential to be every bit as much fun as in-class interaction can be.

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Clara Sketch 1 - Toddler patient at dentist

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My student later used these Tedtalks as a basis for an exploration of the future of dentistry.

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Of particular interest was the application of Smartphones as a tool of the future within medicine and, by extension, dentistry.

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See also the importance of Smartphone technology to the future of medicine, and dentistry - as described in the TedEd section, first column.