Hadashi the barefooted

And so today, the 5th, I'd better decide what to cover! I've blocked myself and hour or two out to prepare. I'll do so via this blog interface - I find it easier to draft on a keyboard, and it leaves a permanent record that others (you) can readily access. That's assuming that I' actually have pearls of wisdom to offer. I'm just not too sure how a data projector operates . . .

Being a visual learner, I quickly sketched out/brainstormed a plan on a piece of paper (recycled of course). Three arrows radiate out from the centre, so there are to be three sections in this presentation:

1. The nature of my (ESOL-related) work
2. The online tools that I use
3. Links to my ESOL resources

To me the Internet is like a fabulous, gigantic toy shop. There's a ton of stuff out there. Some of it is useful, some is not. It is half-pie organized, so if you know what you're doing you can find what you're after. However it all takes time. It is all too easy to get distracted. Sometimes you wonder how permanent or not it is, and whether it is worth investing the time and the effort to become conversant. And for certain people - and I include myself - its unstructured nature and technical gobbledy-gook is stressful to negotiate.

For me it would help if management acknowledged the input that is required for people to get up to speed (the same way that we know that hundreds of hours of English practice are required to raise the IELTS score by a single point). If a training programme along the same lines as fire warden, Jasper instruction, first aid, Treaty of Waitangi and computer safety was made compulsory, then that would develop a stronger collegiate network where everyone feels they are working in tandem. It is awfully hard for a small number of individuals to push against resistance using their own time and energies. There needs to be a concerted approach.

There now, that's my rant over!

What am I doing in terms of ESOL-related Learning Centre business? Three things:

1. One hour a week I see a group of four NESB students enrolled in Foundation Studies. We look at the skills that are needed to do their classwork well, and I often look up sites that they can refer to. I often find a link by searching another of my blogs.
2. I see Pariya's AM3 once a week for an hour (Mondays 11-12, H513). The level three students practice their listening, grammar, reading, writing - even conversation, at a different website each time. I try to write up what they will be doing for the day here.
3. Finally, whenever I come across a website that may be interesting or useful I make a record of it. It is most important to do that, otherwise it is swallowed by the ether! There are various ways of doing this, and they vary in terms of their effectiveness. I shall now look at some of these ways since that leads on to the tools I use.