Wednesday, March 30, 2016

So I saw this video on the Internet today during my usual Internet surfing (via Khmer440), and I thought I'd just share it here to see if it was of interest to anybody else.


Although this is an issue directly connected to US government policy, it was something I was completely unaware of until I came to Cambodia.  (It's strange all the things that can go on in this world and be completely off your radar until someone calls your attention to them.)

But I started hearing a lot about this issue when I was hanging out in expat circles in Cambodia.
Some of the Cambodian returnees hang out in expat crowds.  I was never good friends with any of them, but I talked to a couple of them briefly.
Most of my knowledge about this issue, however, just comes from talking to socially concerned NGO workers in Phnom Penh.  This was a favorite pet-issue of theirs.

The issue is that starting in 1996, the US changed its immigration laws, and Cambodian refugees convicted of crimes were deported back to Cambodia.  Many of these people were born in refugee camps in Thailand, and had never even been to Cambodia before.  Or, in some cases, they had been born in Cambodia, but had left the country when they were still infants.  In either case, they were for all intents and purposes culturally American and most of them didn't even speak the Cambodian language, and they had no idea how to survive in Cambodia.
What makes the whole thing particularly troubling was the way it was handled.  They were just dropped off at the Phnom Penh airport, and then left to fend for themselves.

My own views on the issue are pretty moderate.  So I'm more sharing this video as a point of interest rather than as an act of advocacy.
This may only be of interest to me, but this video does a good job of capturing a lot of the scenery in central Phnom Penh--the riverside promenade, where I used to do a lot of my walking, some of the popular expat restaurants (like the FCC), and just the general feel of Phnom Penh....For anyone out there who might be interested in what Phnom Penh is like.
Also, although it's very brief, you can see a bit how the growing economy and foreign investment in Phnom Penh has created this weird situation where you have luxury shops popping up in Phnom Penh right next to third world slums.

As for my own views:
 I think a distinction should be made between violent crimes and non-violent crimes, and between those over 18 and under 18.
I don't have a ton of sympathy for anyone over 18 convicted of a violent crime.

For non-violent offenders, however, I think this is way too harsh.
For example, there is the issue of Lundy Khoy, a young Cambodian woman facing deportation for drug related charges.  I linked to her story a few years ago, but I'll link to it again here by posting that video below.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

English World 3 Vocabulary for Unit 5

(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks)


Following up from the ideas described in a previous post, here is the Google Slide Presentation for the Vocabulary from Unit 5 in English World 3.

Google (slides, pub)



And also a quizlet version to practice at home.  (docs, pub)



English World 3 Unit 5
https://quizlet.com/_24ibnm


English World 3 Unit 5
https://quizlet.com/_24ibnm


English World 3 Unit 5

https://quizlet.com/_24ibnm

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Academic Word List on Quizlet

(TESOL Worksheets)

The Academic Word List (W) is a list of the 570 most commonly occurring vocabulary in Academic Writing.  (The list was made through a corpus analysis of academic articles, and then subtracting any words which are included in the General Service List (W)).  These 570 words account for 10% of all words in academic texts, so if students can master these words, they will have a huge advantage in trying to break into academic reading and writing.  These lists are useful for both students studying IELTS and students studying English for Academic Purposes.

Getting these 570 words into the students long term memory, however, is often easier said than done.  But after a colleague introduced me to quizlet, I decided that this would be a great tool to help my students learn these words.

There's a lot of stuff for the academic word list already on quizlet, which means that me creating my own quizzes is somewhat re-inventing the wheel.
However, no lists that I could find were broken down into increments of 5 words.
The common assumption in TESOL is that 5 new words at a time is the perfect amount of new vocabulary to introduce--although I must admit I'm not sure if that's scientific or if it's just dogma.  But I wanted to gradually feed my students 5 new words on the academic vocabulary list every lesson, and gradually build up from there.
I followed the Academic Word List by the various subsets, alphabetically within each subset.
In order to keep these quizlet quizzes nice and simple, I had to make several sacrifices.  In the Academic Word List, the words are actually not single words, but rather word families.  So, for example, the word "analyse" is also: analytically, analytical, analyzing, analysing, analysers, analyzes, analyzed, analytic, analysts, analysis, analyses, analyser, analysed, analyze, and analyst.  
In the interests of keeping things simple, I just included one word for each word family.
Also, many of these words have multiple definitions.  For example, "approach" means both "coming closer" and "a way of doing something".  Again, for simplicity's sake, I started with just choosing one definition.
However, I changed my mind on this later. As I progressed through the list, I would later change this and make the later words contain more definitions.

Finally, I think there's a serious question about whether students can truly understand these words if they just study them in decontextualized settings.  Probably not.  But it is at least a starting point.  It will at least cause the students to notice these words more when they encounter them in their reading.  However studying the dictionary definition of these words should definitely be combined with other exercises that study these words in context.  There are numerous other sites on the Internet that have more contextual exercises for the Academic Word List.

The entire set can be found in the quizlet folder HERE.  The individual quizzes are listed below.

Academic Word  List--the first 5 words
Academic Word List--the first 10 words
Academic Word List--the first 15 words
Academic Word List--the first 20 words
Academic Word List--the first 25 words
Academic Word List--the first 30 words
Academic Word List--the first 35 words
Academic Word List--the first 40 words
Academic Word List--the first 45 words
Academic Word List--the first 50 words
Academic Word List--the first 55 words
Academic Word List--the first 60 words--All the words in the first Subset
Academic Word List--the first 65 words
Academic Word List--the first 70 words
Academic Word List--the first 75 words
Academic Word List--the first 80 words
Academic Word List--the first 85 words
Academic Word List--the first 90 words
Academic Word List--the first 95 words
Academic Word List--the first 100 words
Academic Word List--the first 105 words
Academic Word List--the first 110 words
Academic Word List--the first 115 words
Academic Word List--the first 120 words--All the Words in the 1st and 2nd Subset
Academic Word List--the first 125 Words
Academic Word List--the first 195 Words
Academic Word List--the first 200 Words
* Academic Word List--the first 205 Words
Academic Word List--the first 210 Words
Academic Word List--the first 215 Words
Academic Word List--the first 220 Words

Once I completed the Academic Word List, I continued by adding in some of the word families

* The Complete Academic Word List Plus 5 additional words from the word families

When assigning these word lists as homework in my classes, I print out the quiz website address on a small slip of paper, and give these to my students to take home.
Because a single term at my school is limited to about 30 classes, I didn't get beyond the first 125 words on the print outs.  However, at the end of term students were given the address of the folder, https://quizlet.com/joel_swagman/folders/academic-word-list and encouraged to keep studying on their own.

Below are all the Microsoft word documents with the website address written on them.  The Google Drive folder is HERE.

Academic Word  List--the first 5 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 10 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 15 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 20 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 25 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 30 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 35 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 40 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 45 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 50 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 55 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 60 words--All the words in the first Subset (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 65 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 70 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 75 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 80 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 85 words (drive, docs, pub)
Academic Word List--the first 90 words (docspub)
Academic Word List--the first 95 words (docspub)
Academic Word List--the first 100 words (docspub)
Academic Word List--the first 105 words (docspub)
Academic Word List--the first 110 words (docspub)
Academic Word List--the first 115 words (docspub)
Academic Word List--the first 120 words--All the Words in the 1st and 2nd Subset (docspub)
Academic Word List--the first 125 words (docspub)

A handout describing how to use these quizzes is here: drive, docs, pub

Academic Word List on quizlet.com


What is the Academic Word List?
Researchers surveyed all the words that occurred in academic writing in English to find out which words were the most common.  Then, from this list, the researchers subtracted all the words that also occurred in the list of the 2,000 most common English words.  (e.g. words like: am, is, are, etc.).  
The researchers were left with a list of 570 words which accounted for about 10% of all the words in academic writing in English.
The Academic Word List is divided into 10 sublists.  The first sublist is the most common words, the second sublist is the next most commons words, etc.


Why should I study the Academic Word List?
If you can learn the Academic Word List, you will increase your understanding of academic articles by 10%.
Since the IELTS uses academic articles in all 3 parts of the reading test, this will be immediately helpful to you on your IELTS reading score.
It will also help you with the academic sections of the IELTS listening test (Listening Sections 3&4).
Using these words in the IELTS writing will increase your vocabulary score.
If you are taking the IELTS test because you are planning on studying abroad, then you will find this list doubly useful.  Not only will it increase your IELTS score, but it will help you in your future university studies.


How can I study the Academic Word List on Quizlet?
570 words is a bit much to learn all in one go, so I’ve broken them up for you in increments of 5.  First study 5 words, then study 10 words (5 new words + 5 old words) then 15 words (5 new words + 10 old words) until you finally work yourself up to 570.


Step 1.  Go to the folder for the Academic Word List: https://quizlet.com/joel_swagman/folders/academic-word-list


Step 2.  Log-in to quizlet.  (You can either sign in with your Facebook or Google account, or you can create your own quizlet account.)  You will need to log-in in order to save your scores for the various games.


Step 3.  I recommend looking at the word list to familiarize yourself with the words.


Step 4.  I recommend doing speller before learn.  Speller is super easy.  The computer will say the word, and you just type what you hear.


Step 5.  Click on learn.  Complete all the words.
If you’re logged in, Quizlet will save your progress, so you don’t need to do all the words at one time.  You can do half of them now, and half of them the next day. (This is useful for once you start getting into the sets over 100).


Step 6. Complete the test, and check your answers.


Now, you’re ready to play the games.  Try to get the highest score in the class.


Step 6.  Play scatter.  Did you get the top score?  If yes, brag to everyone you know.  Call your mom over to the computer and show her.  Do a victory dance.  Run around the house and tell everyone how great you are.  If no, try again to get a higher score.

Step 7.  Play gravity.  Did you get the top score?  If yes, do everything the same as above. If no, try again to get a higher score.

Monday, March 21, 2016

English World 3 Vocabulary for Unit 4

(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks)


Following from the previous post, here is the Google Slide Presentation for the Vocabulary from Unit 4 in English World 3.
Supplemented, of course, with a quiz from quizlet (docs, pub)

Google (slides, pub)



English World 3 Unit 4
https://quizlet.com/_26h103

English World 3 Unit 4
https://quizlet.com/_26h103

English World 3 Unit 4
https://quizlet.com/_26h103

Sunday, March 20, 2016

English World 3 Vocabulary for Unit 3

(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks)

Nearly one year teaching out of the English World textbook series, and I'm just now discovering that they have vocabulary lists for every unit.  (This information was hidden away on the supplemental software, and so I just discovered it the other day while I was fooling around with it.)

Ever since I read The Lexical Approach by Michael Lewis (review coming eventually), I've been really big at building vocabulary as the key to language learning.
More immediately, knowledge of this vocabulary will help the students get through the unit that much easier.
And, in my school at least, some of these vocabulary items will show up on the test.

So, I decided to start making Google Slides presentations for each unit for all of the vocabulary in the word list.  The slides show the picture and definition first, allowing me to quickly quiz the students on the vocabulary at the top of every lesson.

I've pretty much copied and pasted everything directly as it was from the English World wordlist.  The choice of vocabulary items, the definitions, and in most cases the pictures are all just taken from their wordlist, with very little creativity on my part.

Google (slides, pub)



I also included a quizlet quiz for the students to study at home. (docs, pub)
\


English World 3 Unit 3
https://quizlet.com/_24goe5


English World 3 Unit 3
https://quizlet.com/_24goe5


English World 3 Unit 3
https://quizlet.com/_24goe5


English World 3 Unit 3

https://quizlet.com/_24goe5

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Complete IELTS Bands 6.5-7.5 Unit 4 Quizlet

(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks)


One of the things I like about the Complete IELTS textbook is that they include vocabulary lists for each unit.
 (I've come to the conclusion that mastering vocabulary is the key to IELTS.  Every time a student has trouble with an IELTS reading or listening, it's almost always vocabulary related.)

Therefore, I encourage the students to study these vocabulary at home, and in class we play various games around the vocabulary.

I use quizlet as optional homework for vocabulary.
In a previous post, I've written about my frustrations with quizlet (namely that you can assign it all you want, but students never do it), and the problem has not changed.  But I go through the trouble of making these quizzes anyway because it at least gives the students the sense that I'm trying to help them learn the vocabulary. And then once the vocabulary has been assigned, I feel justified in using it for various games and quizzes in the classroom the next week.

Google (docs, pub)

Some of the games I played in class are backs to the Board, using the Doraemon template (drive, slides, pub) and Naruto (drive, slides, pub)




Complete IELTS Bands 6.5-7.5 Unit 4
https://quizlet.com/_23qdhm


Complete IELTS Bands 6.5-7.5 Unit 4
https://quizlet.com/_23qdhm


Complete IELTS Bands 6.5-7.5 Unit 4
https://quizlet.com/_23qdhm


Complete IELTS Bands 6.5-7.5 Unit 4

https://quizlet.com/_23qdhm

Friday, March 18, 2016

Complete IELTS Bands 6.5-7.5 Unit 4 Transcript for the listening on page 44

(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks)


As I've mentioned before, I have the habit of actually typing out the transcript myself if I think it's buried in the back of the textbook in small font in an inconvenient place.

In this case, here is the transcript for the listening on page 43 of Complete IELTS 6.5-7.5, which I typed out myself so my students could have better access to it.

Google (docs, pub)



We’re going to have a look today at Aboriginal art and painting, which actually dates back 60,000 years, making it one of the oldest art traditions in the world.  Now, as long as indigenous people have been living in Australia, they’ve been creating different types of art. So let’s start by having a look at some examples of ancient art. It includes things like, as you can see here, rock paintings, bark paintings…. Even some sand drawings like this have been found. Then there’s the whole area of body art, which is so important for ceremonial practice, and lastly, here are some examples of decorative art on weapons and tools.


The oldest art examples today are the rock paintings because, obviously, rock is more durable than other materials and so the art has been preserved. In fact, most of this work is inside caves--largely because there, it’s been sheltered, hasn’t been destroyed by the weather, while the paintings on outside rock surfaces have often been washed away over the years.  Now, there are enormous variations in the style of Aboriginal rock art, depending on its age and location. Dot paintings are one of the best-known visual art forms of Aboriginal culture in which a surface is covered in small dots to reveal symbols. Typical ones include arrows like this--here’s a water hole, and these are animal tracks.  You get to see both the abstract dot paintings and more naturalistic art ….you get both in rock art of various ages. As the ancient aborigines didn’t have a written language, the key purpose of much of this rock art was storytelling, which has had a great significance for younger generations.


Let’s move on to look at the materials. Er, whatever they were painting, traditionally Aboriginal people all over Australia used pigment, such as ochre to make paint. Ochre’s very finely textured natural rock and, um, well they used this because ochre is plentiful across most of Australia. It’s coloured by iron oxide, which is the mineral that makes a lot of Australian outback soil--in places such as Ayers Rock--what is known as “Uluru red”, Uluru being the Aboriginal name for Ayers Rock.  However, depending on the exact conditions under which it formed, the shade can be anything from yellow to orange, red, purple or dark brown. Today, ochre occurs in many archaeological sites, and archaeologists at one site have discovered what appears to be an artist’s palette of ochres, dating back 18,000 years.


Preparing the ochre paints was time-consuming work. First, the appropriate rocks had to be found and collected. Then the rock had to be broken up and ground into a powder, and that had to be mixed with some sort of fluid to bind it into paint. Nowadays, the binder most commonly used is professional artist’s acrylic binder, but in the past, Aboriginal people used things like tree sap, or something similar like bush honey. Other fluids must also have been used but wouldn’t have held paint on rock or a piece of bark for thousands of years, so sadly those paintings would have been lost.


So, how have things changed? Well, modern Aboriginal is a mixture of the old and the new. Things changed in the 1970s really when Aboriginal people from many different parts of Australia, particularly south Australia, central and northern Australia, took up acrylic painting and began to paint on canvas.

Taking a modern approach has had many advantages. It saves artists a great deal of time, and they can still choose to use the traditional yellowish-reddish-brownish colours if they wish to. But perhaps the most important fact is that, unlike bark and rock paintings, the modern paintings are easy to sell. In fact, painting on canvas has given Aboriginal people an opportunity to showcase their art to the world and keep their ancient culture alive. Modern Aboriginal art, particularly dot painting, has take off and started selling on a big scale internationally. Aboriginal art can also be found on pottery and various musical instruments like didgeridoos and clapping sticks. Together, these have become some of the most popular souvenirs in Australia. Their artists, like other artists in the world, are now able to earn a living doing something they are passionate about.


Thursday, March 17, 2016

Live in Michigan?  Need some tree care?  May I recommend the good folks at:

Good Earth Tree Care LLC

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

101 Dalmatians (1961) Movie Worksheets for Low-Level Young Learners--Just the Links

[This post is an exact duplicate of the previous post. The only difference is that the previous post contained all the worksheets and PowerPoints embedded, which sometimes made it difficult to load. This post has nothing embedded, only the links to the Google drive version of the various worksheets and PowerPoints.]

(Movie Worksheets)

Google Drive Folder

PowerPoints:
Part 1 (driveslidespub), Part 2 (driveslidespub), Part 3 (driveslidespub), Part 4 (driveslidespub), Part 5 (driveslidespub), Part 6 (driveslidespub), Part 7 (driveslidespub), Part 8 (driveslidespub), Part 9 (driveslidespub), Part 10 (driveslidespub), Part 11 (driveslidespub), Part 12 (driveslidespub), Part 13 (driveslidespub), Part 14 (driveslidespub), Part 15 (driveslidespub), Part 16 (driveslidespub)

Worksheets:
Part 1 (drivedocspub), Part 2 (drivedocspub), Part 3 (drivedocspub), Part 4 (drivedocspub), Part 5 (drivedocspub), Part 6 (drivedocspub), Part 7 (drivedocspub), Part 8 (drivedocspub), Part 9 (drivedocspub), Part 10 (drivedocspub), Part 11 (drivedocspub), Part 12 (drivedocspub), Part 13 (drivedocspub), Part 14 (drivedocspub), Part 15 (drivedocspub), Part 16 (drivedocspub)

These are all the worksheets I designed for the 1961 Disney Movie 101 Dalmatians.

It follows the same pattern and approach as the worksheets I previously designed on Peter Pan, and The Jungle Book.  In order to avoid repeating myself too much, I'm going to try to keep the explanation to a minimum here.

Showing movies in class is based on the philosophy that young learners benefit most from lots of input.  The majority of this input should be highly graded, but I think some authentic material in the classroom is not a bad thing.  (I try to limit myself to about 5 minutes of this movie at a time, so they get about 5 minutes of authentic input during a class of 2 hours.  Although, granted, by the time the movie is played twice, this ends up taking between 10-20 minutes of class-time.)

Although the actual movie itself is far above the students' level, the worksheets are based off of the "grade the task not the text" philosophy, and so the intention was to make the task as easy as possible.

In the class, the movie worksheets follow these steps.
1. Students are introduced to 5 vocabulary words on PowerPoint.
2. Students read together "The Story Last Time" section on the PowerPoint
3. Students listen quietly to the section of the movie
4. Students are given the script, and fill in the missing words.
5. The movie is played again.  Students follow along with their script to check their answers.  The teacher pauses the movie after each answer is given, to ensure everyone has the right answer, and to allow weaker students to find their place in the script again.
6. After the movie finishes, final feedback is on PowerPoint.

The pictures for "The Story Last Time" Section on PowerPoint all come from this website here.
I had trouble finding a good script online for this movie.  There were a bunch of half-completed scripts, but no good full script.  The one I mainly used as a base is from this website here, but I ended up editing it substantially.

I used this youtube video here for the movie.  All the PowerPoint links are set up to go to that video at the exact time in the movie relevant for each section.
However, as the movie is copyrighted material, it's only a matter of time before the video is taken down, and the links become invalid.
At the time of this writing, however, all the links are still working.

Each movie worksheet also contains a link to a quizlet quiz.  The quizlet quiz reviews all of the vocabulary covered up until that point:

Quizlet Folder HERE

* 101 Dalmatians Part 1
101 Dalmatians Part 2
101 Dalmatians Part 3
101 Dalmatians Part 4
101 Dalmatians Part 5
*101 Dalmatians Part 6
*101 Dalmatians Part 7
101 Dalmatians Part 8
101 Dalmatians Part 9
101 Dalmatians Part 10
101 Dalmatians Part 11
101 Dalmatians Part 12
101 Dalmatians Part 13
101 Dalmatians Part 14
101 Dalmatians Part 15
101 Dalmatians Part 16