I was attending a workshop about ESL writing activities and saw this really neat full-page comic strip activity where the students had to fill in the word bubbles with narrative or dialogue. The comic depicted a bank robbery and an ensuing police investigation, and the accompanying lesson had vocabulary on phrasal verbs. My coworkers and I had to come up with dialogue to fill in the boxes, and instantly, it was like we were little kids playing cops and robbers:
"THIS IS A STICK UP!"
"GET DOWN!"
"The robbers ran away with the money!"
"The cops tried to find out where the robbers were hiding out!"

I started thinking it would be cool to have more of these kinds of activities, so I searched online and sadly found nothing that wasn't either violating copyright or as intricate as the comic I saw in the workshop.

So I started sketching out some ideas myself, and while I'm an okay artist, it takes me a long time from start to finish. Then I thought about my friend Zac from high school and his ability to draw really great art in a very short time, and the wheels in my head started turning: What if we teamed up? He'd make the drawings and I'd make the lesson plans? 

I got a hold of him and pitched the idea to him, and now we're working on some projects together! (I'm really geeked about it since back in the day the two of us almost got started writing a comic book together and even attending a workshop up in Battle Creek about it, but we got so busy that it just got put on the back burner indefinitely).

He sent me a rough sketch of an idea he had and then we talked about ways to edit one of the individual cells and I thought it'd be cool to talk about it over a Google Drawing since we live in different cities:

Maybe it's so fun because it's a throwback to those times when you were a kid and you'd sit down next to a giant piece of paper with a pal and just draw, but there's something about collaborating on the same digital space in real-time that brings out that inner child, that person who wants to play, and goof off, and be ridiculous. It was the same feeling I got when I was sitting in that workshop looking over that comic strip with my coworkers and coming up with a story together, and it's the same feeling I observe in my students when I use this kind of technology in the classroom: Students get so animated, and I always have to let them have a couple minutes in the beginning to "get their wiggles out" and delete or rewrite each other's sentences and cause digital mischief before they get down to work. Whatever it is, it's fun and it's the biggest reason I repeat activities like this in the classroom each semester.

In any case, keep your eye out for more drawings and lesson plans to go with them once we're ready to upload them. I plan on having a section on the site for materials to download.

Are there any fun things you're doing with collaborative technology? I'd love to hear about them, so please feel free to write about them in the comments below.

Have a good one, and good luck out there!

-Bill

I changed the brakes on my car last Sunday morning! Seriously, I am so bummed that I have paid to do brakes in the past... I got out of Autozone for less than $100, and I changed them myself (okay, so not entirely by myself, but a friend had the tools and he did one half while I watched and then I did the other half, but still, I feel accomplished!).

The budget this month was particularly tight, and the brakes started squeaking pretty bad, and so I took to YouTube and found a really awesome channel for DIY car repairs. At this point, I was really fired up and wanted to go out and try it myself. Luckily my wife stepped in and suggested I find someone to do it with me just in case. Hey, I've got a life insurance policy, but no need to tempt fate, right?

This got me thinking of the difference between ESL and EFL, a distinction I've always found to be kind of tenuous. As the story goes, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) is the English students are studying in their home country versus English being studied in America, Canada, England, Australia, and other English-speaking countries. Since they are probably studying English for their own personal enjoyment or goals, EFL students don't have the same motivations as students who are immersed in English and must use it to get by and buy groceries and other necessary stuff. EFL students are hoping to get a good score on a college entrance exam, or they hope to get good specs for a new job.

I think this distinction is a bit wooden because not all people living and studying in another country feel motivated to learn the language--even if it would make their lives easier. I remember living in Korea and finding some people were content to stick with the "point and grunt" method of getting around in a taxi, and I also see students studying here in America that huddle together with their L1 peers and don't venture out. I ask them, 

"What's your favorite American TV show?" 

"Oh, I don't watch anything in English that isn't in class."

"Oh... do you go out with Americans at least?"

"No, I don't have any American friends."

"Hmmm."

Believe it or not, there are Americans that love to hang out with foreigners--I'm one of them! Students need to be persistent and keep looking. Interaction and immersion are one of the best ways to do it, and sometimes I think we have to be forced to get to that point, but as it says in the title, necessity is the mother of invention. When we need to do something, we'll find a new way to do it; when we find ourselves in an environment where we don't know how to communicate, we'll find a way. Maybe we'll need to point and grunt, maybe we'll find a new word or phrase, but we need that kick in the butt to get out and do it.

So get out this weekend! Or... find something interesting on TV that's in English.

-Bill

I found a very funny article about Congress being divided over a bill that is entirely blank. As I read it, I couldn't help but notice how well written it was in terms of newspaper style (it's also not too far-fetched given the productivity of Congress in general). I thought about using this article in class for identifying source credibility. I could give them several sources and send them home with them to determine their credibility. 

I think with more and more research being done strictly online, teaching students how to discern a trustworthy website from an untrustworthy one is essential. Even more so, students need to be able to navigate the different agendas and biases that are an unavoidable reality. A good video I like to have students watch is the Wolfgram Memorial Library's Evaluate Web Pages Video, which gives a great overview of the criteria for evaluating web page credibility:

This reminds me of an activity I did when I was teaching freshman English to native speakers. I gave them four websites and they had to write a paragraph about each that evaluated their credibility, but most importantly, they had to identify the bias in each one. One was a white supremacy page featured in the video above, another was a US government page, another was some random website on caffeine addiction chock full of spelling errors (which I can't find anymore), and the last was a pro-gay rights website. Interestingly, despite having a discussion about every source in the world having some level of bias or an agenda, only two students out of all my students that semester noted any bias in the US government website and the gay rights one. They all remarked that the government website was "just a government website" and that the collection of gay rights petitions was a page that had "no bias or agenda. Only facts."

I think it's a tough pill to swallow that (almost) everyone is selling something even if you happen to agree with him or her, but as teachers, I think we ought to try to encourage that kind of disinterested critical thinking anyway.

Have a good weekend, and good luck out there!

-Bill

A friend asked me why hamburgers are called hamburgers if they don't have any ham. Well, being the curious soul that I am, I had to confirm whether the meat patty is in fact named after a region in Germany. So I consulted my favorite dictionary and no, hamburgers do not contain ham. The word hamburger is actually short for hamburger steak, which is a meat dish that did originate Hamburg, Germany. Hotdogs, on the other hand, apparently did get named due to customers suspicion that some unscrupulous street vendors snuck a little Fido into their frankfurters.

This all made me think about the horse meat scandal in Europe, and there was this hilariously titled article about it that I found on CNN.com. "Neigh it ain't so: Burger King finds horse meat at European supplier." The article also has a subheading that reads: "Mare's the beef" which is a throwback to Wendy's "Where's the beef?" ad campaign. I love this strategy for writing titles, and I share it with my students every semester.

First you start with a common saying or song lyric, and you modify it to make it relevant to your topic. In other words:

Funny/Quirky Title: Informative subtitle

So the horsemeat article works because "say it ain't so" rhymes with "neigh it ain't so," but the extra subtitle gives you a better idea about what it's about. I usually have to spend about five minutes explaining the funny part, and I usually don't get a laugh, unfortunately, but the fact is, most teachers would rather read an interesting title than a boring one. It puts them in a good mood, and when someone is grading your paper, you need them to be in a good mood!

Do you have any titles out there you are particularly proud of writing? I'd love to hear about them.

Well, have a good one and good luck out there, and may the meat you eat be the meat you think you're eating!

-Bill