I use this blog for two different projects: my reviews and my materials for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Game Change: Movie Review
Links to stuff mentioned:
* The video in which I included Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin on my book haul: https://youtu.be/aFGM_Mg-H-U
This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost. For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:
In this case, the old blog post is here: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2013/04/game-change.html
Playlist HERE:
Monday, May 27, 2024
Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus translated by David Grene: Review
Started: May 24, 2024
(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)
May 26, 2024 Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus p.136-182
Playlist HERE:
Sunday, May 26, 2024
Books (126 pages this week--the goal is 200 pages)
Robin Hood by Henry Gilbert p.52-118 (66 pages)
Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus p.136-182 (from Classical Tragedy - Greek and Roman) (46 pages) (finished--review coming soon)
Comic Books (Comic Books don't count towards weekly page counts)
Revolutions Season 10: The Russian Revolution by Mike Duncan 2nd Listening From: 10.25- Senseless Dreams To: 10.40- Relaunch and Recap (from Revolutions Podcast)
Aeschylus' Oresteia (Tony Harrison Adaptation), the National Theatre, Directed by Peter Hall, 1983: Oresteia - The Libation Bearers 1983 (cleaned & subtitled) ; Oresteia - The Eumenides 1983 (subtitled & cleaned) ; The Oresteia at Epidaurus documentary (finished and reviewed)
From: Section 2, Unit 23, Level 2, Lesson 4 To: Section 2, Unit 24, Level 1, Lesson 3 (My Duolingo profile is here. Here is the quizlet I use to practice all of the vocabulary I've learned in Duolingo. I had to create a second one once I got to 2000 words. Second quizlet here. And here is a smaller quizlet I use to consolidate the new or difficult vocabulary.)
Videos from this week:
* Aeschylus' Oresteia, 1983 Television version, directed by Peter Hall: Review: https://youtu.be/_mfYmeie6Ec
For more information about what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE.
Friday, May 24, 2024
Aeschylus' Oresteia, 1983 Television version, directed by Peter Hall: Review
(TV Shows)
Started: May 15, 2024
[This is my first time watching and reviewing this, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only.]
Links to the versions I watched on Youtube:
Oresteia - Agamemnon part1 1983 (subtitled & cleaned): https://youtu.be/mdv3vkECqXA?si=A58GNXYvF3KkBNh3
Oresteia - Agamemnon part2 1983 (cleaned & subtitled): https://youtu.be/ldIJVtDG5TM?si=QcofrstAJzUSypiD
Oresteia - The Libation Bearers 1983 (cleaned & subtitled): https://youtu.be/nFv5-OuaL-E?si=B2TURfaeUPcTskHI
Oresteia - The Eumenides 1983 (subtitled & cleaned): https://youtu.be/xagHZoNS6DQ?si=2ss0DVs7FaWRgZhT
The Oresteia at Epidaurus documentary: https://youtu.be/0VvgKu6zc9Q?si=Bd8X2Gi8U2sSFeF3
Links to other stuff mentioned:
New York Times Review of 1981 Stage Play: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/20/theater/peter-hall-stages-a-london-oresteia.html
Review on archive.org: https://ia801203.us.archive.org/34/items/omnibus03_201608/03%20Murray%20The%20Oresteia%20in%20London.pdf
Steve Donoghue's video: The Ten Commandments of BookTube! :https://youtu.be/_C_RP2cCOvw?si=1TGdD4ybH1NHHXqu
My reviews of The Oresteia:
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Die Hard 5: A Good Day to Die Hard: Movie Review
My review of Die Hard 4: https://youtu.be/5x2eB3vpfHQ
This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost. For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:
In this case, the old blog post is here: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2013/04/die-hard-5-good-day-to-die-hard.html
Playlist HERE:
Monday, May 20, 2024
1st Kings (The Jerusalem Bible): Book Discussion
Part of my project to read through the Bible.
Started: May 01, 2024
(This is a reread. I originally read this book in 7th grade. But since this is my first time reviewing this book on this blog, according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)
As I expected, I rambled on for too long, and I got cut off when my phone ran out of space.
I explain about my background with the Bible and my reasons for doing this read-through in this blog post here: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-book-of-genesis-from-jerusalem-bible.html
Here are links to some of the stuff mentioned in this video:
* The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible by Robin Lane Fox: Book Review: https://youtu.be/6PvZGsvXveo
Playlist HERE:
Sunday, May 19, 2024
Books (95 pages this week--the goal is 200 pages)
Eumenides by Aeschylus p.112-133 (from Classical Tragedy - Greek and Roman) (finished and reviewed) (21 pages)
The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green p.242-256 (finished and reviewed) (14 pages)
Robin Hood by Henry Gilbert p.1-52 (52 pages)
Comic Books (Comic Books don't count towards weekly page counts)
Revolutions Season 10: The Russian Revolution by Mike Duncan From: 10.102- Dizzy With Success Finished 1st Listening. Started 2nd Listening. To: 10.25- Senseless Dreams (from Revolutions Podcast)
Aeschylus' Oresteia (Tony Harrison Adaptation), the National Theatre, Directed by Peter Hall, 1983: Oresteia - Agamemnon part1 1983 (subtitled & cleaned) ; Oresteia - Agamemnon part2 1983 (cleaned & subtitled) ; Oresteia - The Libation Bearers 1983 (cleaned & subtitled)
From: Section 2, Unit 22, Level 5, Lesson 1 To: Section 2, Unit 23, Level 2, Lesson 4 (My Duolingo profile is here. Here is the quizlet I use to practice all of the vocabulary I've learned in Duolingo. I had to create a second one once I got to 2000 words. Second quizlet here. And here is a smaller quizlet I use to consolidate the new or difficult vocabulary.)
Videos from this week:
For more information about what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE.
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Practice Activities For Vocabulary Lessons
(TESOL Ideas--Any Vocabulary Set, Stages of a Vocabulary Lesson)
I like teaching vocabulary lessons because vocabulary is so easy to gamify. You can do any number of "guess the word" games or "match the word to the definition" games. And if you look through my lesson archives, you'll see that I've used these types of games a lot (e.g. grab the card, backs to the board, matching game, crossword puzzle, Describe the Card to Your Group, taboo, Bang!, Blooket, Gimkit, quizlet, Baamboozle).
...perhaps I've been guilty of using these types of games too much.
You see, the problem with these games is that they're not really practicing using the vocabulary in meaningful contexts. They're essentially just repeating the clarification of meaning stage over and over again.
Now, don't get me wrong, these activities have their place. If you don't overuse them, they can be a fun game to liven up the lesson. They can also be useful for reviewing vocabulary from previous lessons.
But, in a vocabulary lesson, you need to move beyond simply recognizing the vocabulary, and start getting the students to use that vocabulary.
And again, if you look at my archives, this is something I've not been great at doing in the past. (Historically I've often just gotten stuck on the "match the word to the definition" games and not moved beyond it.) But it's something I'm going to try to do better on in the future. And this blog post will describe some ideas for practicing activities that are about actually using the vocabulary.
In terms of the practice part of the lesson, the staging framework for grammar and vocabulary lessons is:
--Controlled Practice
--Semi-Controlled Practice
--Freer Practice
As I defined it in a previous document, controlled practice is when the students complete a sentence, semi-controlled practice is when students make their own sentence, and Free Practice is when students produce language at the extended discourse level.
I included several ideas for activities in that previous document, but that document was only for grammar. So, how can vocabulary be practiced at the controlled, semi-controlled, and freer level?
Well, the range of activities available will depend on the type of vocabulary--whether the target vocabulary for the lesson is all from a single lexical set, or if the vocabulary for the lesson is from different lexical sets.
To explain: in some vocabulary lessons, all the vocabulary will come from a single context--what is known as a lexical set. So, for example, a lesson on vocabulary used to describe feelings. Or a lesson on vocabulary used to describe jobs. Or a lesson on vocabulary used to describe personalities. Etc.
If all the vocabulary comes from the same context, then you've got a lot more activities that lend themselves to practicing that vocabulary. For controlled practice activities, you can get students to do ranking activities with these vocabulary (e.g. most important to least important). Or categorization activities (e.g. positive vs. negative traits). For freer practice activities, any speaking or writing activity related to the context will provide opportunities for practicing the vocabulary. Etc.
However, in my experience, most of the vocabulary lessons that I have to teach deal with vocabulary items that are unrelated to each other--i.e. vocabulary items that are not all from the same lexical set. (*1) (*2)
That could be just my context, but I feel like that's the general trend these days.
So, this post will deal with practice activities that can be used for a vocabulary lesson in which the words are not from the same lexical set.
For those types of lessons, practice activities that work well are:
Controlled Practice
Gap-fill sentences. There are a series of sentences. Each sentence has a gap in it representing a missing word. The students have to fill in the missing word using one of the target vocabulary words from the day's lesson.
This can be done simply on a worksheet. But it can also be gamified easily enough. (e.g. Show the students a sentence with a missing word--the first team to get the correct word wins.) Examples of ways to gamify gap-fill sentences are board race, Kahoot, garbage man, Grass Skirts, PowerPoint Games, Bamboozle, etc.
For some examples, see below:
* Board Race gap-fill sentences (from Impact 4)
* Garbage Man gap-fill sentences (from Impact 4)
* Kahoot gap-fill sentencces (from Impact 4)
* Bamboozle gap fill sentences (from this lesson)
Semi-Controlled Practice
Freer Practice
(*1) There's been some discussion in recent years about whether its best to present vocabulary in lexical sets or not.
Historically, the preference was to present vocabulary items as part of a lexical set. (Older textbooks reflect this.) But then research came out that said that students actually remembered the vocabulary better when the vocabulary in the lesson was not all from the same lexical set. This is counterintuitive, but I guess the logic was that if you presented students with 20 vocabulary words that were all from the same context, the students would start to confuse the words with each other. See, for example, this article HERE.
So, for a few years, the common wisdom was that the vocabulary in a lesson should not all be from the same lexical set.
But then the pendulum swung back the other way again, and people began to say that actually the research finding--that students learn better when the vocabulary is from different lexical sets--were over-reported, and maybe not accurate. So maybe we're now back again to the idea of teaching vocabulary as lexical sets?
...I don't know, and I've not kept up with the whole controversy in detail. This is just my impression of the whole thing, based on what I've been able to glean from podcasts and blogposts, et cetera. Let me know if I'm getting anything wrong here...
But all that being said, for the average ESL teacher, I think it's a moot point. That's because the average ESL teacher doesn't have any control over what the target vocabulary will be. Your average ESL teacher is just given a textbook and told to follow the textbook, and so the target vocabulary is whatever the textbook publishers choose. The only thing in the teacher's control is how to practice this vocabulary, and so that's the purpose of this blogpost.
(*2) In many of my old posts, when I use the term "vocabulary set", I'm usually talking about the target vocabulary for a specific lesson. So, for example, in my post "Activities that can be used for any Vocabulary Set" what I mean is activities that can be used for any vocabulary lesson--whether or not the target vocabulary comes from the same lexical set or not.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Started: Aeschylus' Oresteia (Tony Harrison Adaptation), the National Theatre, Directed by Peter Hall, 1983
(As I mentioned in the previous video, I discovered through Internet searches that there was a 1983 production of The Oresteia using the same translation that I just read--the Tony Harrison translation. See IMDB page HERE. And it's all available on Youtube. I watched a little bit of it just out of curiosity, and quickly realized that seeing the play dramatized did help me to understand it much better. So, I'm going to take a short break from reading Classical Tragedy - Greek and Roman: Eight Plays in Authoritative Modern Translations in order to watch the dramatization on Youtube. Then I'll come back and review the dramatization.)
Progress so far:
May 16, 2024: Oresteia - Agamemnon part1 1983 (subtitled & cleaned) ; Oresteia - Agamemnon part2 1983 (cleaned & subtitled) ; Oresteia - The Libation Bearers 1983 (cleaned & subtitled)
May 20, 2024: Oresteia - The Eumenides 1983 (subtitled & cleaned)
May 24, 2024: The Oresteia at Epidaurus documentary
The Oresteia by Aeschylus translated by Tony Harrison: Review
(Book Review--Classics, Greek Mythology)
As I noted in the video, I've already reviewed all 3 parts of The Oresteia separately.
Playlist HERE:
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Eumenides by Aeschylus translated by Tony Harrison: Review
Started: May 07, 2024
(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)
Eumenides by Aeschylus translated by Tony Harrison: Review
The previous plays in this trilogy:
May 12, 2024 Eumenides p.83-112
Playlist HERE:
Monday, May 13, 2024
Reflect Reading & Writing 6 (Supplementary Materials Index)
(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks Subdivisions)--This index uses the style described in this post here.
Google Drive Folder HERE
Unit 4--Folder
--Reading 1: Reach for the Sky p.77-83--Folder
* Wrong Words: docs, pubThe Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green: Review
On My Shelves: March 26, 2023
Started: May 07, 2024
(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)
May 12, 2024 p.1-242
Playlist HERE:
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Weekly Reading Vlog 157: The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green p.1-242,1st Kings 8-17
Book Haul: Robin Hood by Henry Gilbert, Circe by Madeline Miller, The Railway Children by E. Nesbit
Books (317 pages this week--the goal is 200 pages)
Choephori by Aeschylus p.48-82 (from Classical Tragedy - Greek and Roman) (finished) (reviewed) (34 pages)
Eumenides by Aeschylus p.83-112 (from Classical Tragedy - Greek and Roman) (29 pages)
The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green p.1-242 (242 pages)
Comic Books (Comic Books don't count towards weekly page counts)
Revolutions Season 10: The Russian Revolution by Mike Duncan From: 10.86- The Communist Soviets To: 10.102- Dizzy With Success (from Revolutions Podcast)
From: Section 2, Unit 22, Level 1, Lesson 3 To: Section 2, Unit 22, Level 5, Lesson 1 (My Duolingo profile is here. Here is the quizlet I use to practice all of the vocabulary I've learned in Duolingo. I had to create a second one once I got to 2000 words. Second quizlet here. And here is a smaller quizlet I use to consolidate the new or difficult vocabulary.)
Videos from this week:
For more information about what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE.
Saturday, May 11, 2024
No More "Finished" Posts
As you may have noticed from the previous post, I've stopped doing my "finished" posts.
The reason is simple. Under my new rules for reviewing, I film a review as soon as I finish a book. It no longer takes me weeks or months to write a review. I just finish a book, and I film a review that night.
So, announcing that I had finished a book in one post, immediately followed by a post reviewing that book, just seemed like unnecessary clutter.
It's extra work for me, it clutters up the blog, and it drives away readers. So let's just get rid of it.
So, when I finish a book, I'll try to film a review within 24 hours. And I won't feel it necessary to post a separate "finished" post going forward.
The Sandman Volume 2: The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman: Review
On my shelves: April 28, 2024
Started: May 02, 2024
(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)
My review of the first volume: The Sandman, Volume 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman: Review: https://youtu.be/aJAPrmVxavg
May 05, 2024 p.1-48
Playlist HERE:
Thursday, May 09, 2024
This is a Kahoot quiz that I found on reported speech. I used it in my classroom, and it worked well.
Tuesday, May 07, 2024
Choephori by Aeschylus translated by Tony Harrison: Review
Started: May 05, 2024
Finished: May 07, 2024
(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)
Choephori by Aeschylus translated by Tony Harrison: Review
The previous play in this trilogy: Agamemnon by Aeschylus: https://youtu.be/AxqIgSDYaDs
Started: The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green (On my shelves since March 26, 2023)
Links to stuff mentioned:
* The video in which I talked about buying this book: https://youtu.be/yFH5Fe5sBKI?si=95nVGu_b8ZjD0HFa
* Classical Tragedy - Greek and Roman: Eight Plays in Authoritative Modern Translations Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x5Zl4_iYTB3AZRf6Fa7kekA&si=6mMH4OuO_Y6R8jlQ
Sunday, May 05, 2024
I hope I'm not breaking a confidence, but I was asked to participate in this video. John contacted me via Twitter and asked if I'd be interested in participating in the fan tribute at the end of the video. He said the reason he contacted me was that I was one of the few people who had a Youtube video on Sara Douglass I thought about it for a couple minutes, but ended up declining. I wrote back:
I should probably take a pass on this one. I can't really consider myself a fan after having just read one book. I will be looking forward to watching your video once it comes out though. I was just intrigued enough by that book that I would be interested in learning more about Sara Douglass and her body of work.
My written review: The Wayfarer Redemption by Sara Douglass: Book Review
and the video here: