My impressions on the Congress of Argentinian teachers of English as a foreign language

FAAPI Conference, Santiago del Estero, Argentina, September 18th., 19th. and 20th, 2014

This year the Conference of teachers of English as a foreign language was held in Santiago del Estero.  A city which is called "The Mother of Cities", because it was here where the first Spanish settlers decided to establish the first settlement before continuing funding cities such as Córdoba and Salta.  The whole province is also famous for its dance "The Chacarera", which is a lively folklore dance with clapping, easy choreography and swinging of skirts (on the women´s side).  In this province they manufacture an instrument which is an important element in all folklore songs: the "Bombo Legüero".  These drums made of emptied tree trunks and animal skin (my husband´s has goat and donkey skin) are beaten with sticks and they accompany most of our folklore songs with its rhythmic beat. The name of this drum "legüero" (league drum) comes from the fact that its sound is so loud that it can supposedly be heard from the distance (leagues) across the empty flat pampas.
What I heard at the conference was the voice of my fellow teachers.  And I liked what I heard.  Teachers who love their jobs and their students.  Teachers with no wifi connection in the schools.  Teachers who teach a first year of 60 teacher training college students trying to find a clean space on the wall to project their slides, again with no wifi connection.  Teachers who decided to get together with colleagues to study about autism and who decided to present in the conference in front of a full house of teachers who shared the same concerns and similar scenarios.  Teachers who volunteer their time to put together a journal of applied linguistics without getting any money out of it, just for the sake of the development of the profession.  Teachers from the "Plan Ceibal", from Uruguay, brave educators who partner with classroom teachers who don´t know the English language, but volunteer to offer their students the chance to learn a foreign language from the distance.  Teachers who came from Colombia or Ecuador to attend the conference.
The theme of the conference was "Teaching in the Post Method Era" .  The way I see it this is the best time to be a teacher of English.  We are freed from the dictatorship of a single method, but at the same time we have a huge responsibility: to question ourselves about everything we do, to share our practices and to reflect on what we do.  A call to theorize our practices.  A call to use our common sense, to work with what we have and to make the most of it.  A call to get together to start meaningful conversations.  The point of my presenting in congresses is to share my journey so that other teachers can benefit too.  I hope that in the future more colleagues embrace the challenge and make their voices heard  frrom the distance, like the sounds from the "legüero" drum.

AJAL, Argentinian Journal of Applied Linguistics

Digital Citizenship and the importance of including it in our teaching

Let´s begin by saying that if we talk about "digital" citizenship, some teachers may argue that they don´t need it since they don´t use any technology in school.  This is the case of many classes in Argentina where digital technology is being slowly introduced either through government or private iniciative.  What happens outside  the classroom may vary from children who have access to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts and are already using it profusely with their friends to those who are not allowed to use any social media at all, this group is the minority.  As regards teachers, we range from those who are connected via facebook, to those who have a twitter account but never check it or don´t see the pedagogical implications of using twitter (or any other social media) for professional development or any other school purpose.  However the conversation in classrooms about "digital" citizenship has not started yet.  It seems that we are waiting for the computers to arrive, the wifi connection to work and the curricullum to adjust itself.  Meanwhile children are already producing content, interacting through social media, and using the internet to look for materials for homework assignments.  All these without having had the chance to actually do what we have been doing during these two weeks of DCMOOC:  reflect and share our opinions about the elements that should be present in the "good digital citizenship" equation.
Not having access to technology may not be that bad after all, since it would allow us to focus on different aspects one at a time, or to establish priorities.

My Reflection on Week 5 of Crafting the e-Perfect e-Textbook, EVO Sessions 2014

Learning English, a handbook, by Maria del Carmen Colussa

After navigating the waters of the feeling of loss and frustration at not being able to check each and every amazing link and material put together by the Crafting the e-Perfect e-book EVO team, I finally got down to writing and eventually finished the first chapter of my first e-book.  And I managed to sail away without drowning in the attempt.  There was a reason for this, of course.  Our moderators crafted each stage of the process with a purpose in mind: putting us in the e-book frame of mind.  I have to acknowledge that I struggled with certain things such as templates or e-publishing options, which I will dedicate time to explore further in the near future.  However and thanks to having attended last year Podcasting for the ESL/EFL Classroom session I was able to embed audio to my book as well as image files, this comes from my previous knowledge of digital photography.
  Having gone through the process of crafting my first chapter of an e-book I have to say, no matter how much I till love paper books, a whole new world opens for us as teachers.  The potencial for language teaching use of e-books is amazing in the sense that it allows us to personalize our material, hence make it more memorable to our students by talking about what really matters to them.  I strongly support what Sylvia proposed in her presentation: Destination: Imagination.
This first chapter posed me an exercise of not only imagination but also of leaving behind presupositions which have been with me as a teacher from the very beginning of my career; eg. You can´t teach without a textbook, you should follow the textbook, etc.  In other words it was an invitation to think outside the box.
There´s still a lot of learning I have to do, yet I ´m looking forward to the future of what I strongly believe is the greatest time to be a teacher of English.

On Globally Connected Learning

It takes a very good reason to make one get up at 4:30 am on a Tuesday during Summer holidays.  A couple of times I did it because I had to go on a trip.  This morning I did it because a friend from Germany had asked me and six other friends from Hello Little World to co-present on our experience working globally with our students.  The presentation was via Google Hangout and the 5 continents were present from the following countries: Russia, Australia, Germany, South Africa and Argentina.
After the initial rush of adrenalin when all of us had tested our technical equipment with the aid of the amazing Steve Sherman, once everything was ready and we started everything seemed to flow and I can assure you I experienced what Sir Ken Robinson calls being in the zone.  A group of educators sharing their global experiences with no other purpose than that.  Only people who have put their feet in the waters of global collaboration understand each other.  The look in our students´faces of amazement and enthusiasm is the fuel that keeps us going.  Thank you Reinhard for taking the time to put all this together.  It was a pleasure to be part of this crowd of educators who went out of their comfort zones to reach out to the world and hopefully enthuse others to follow.

Here´s the link to the recorded presentation session.

On Rhizomatic Learning and Declaring

I have a problem with declaring.  The truth is that I don´t really know what I want to learn, I just try to enjoy what I see.  Eventually I will concentrate, focus on what I need.  Right now I am enjoying the ride. I have been learning by chaos ever since I started learning online.  As you can see from the picture, I´m up to many things at present and I am equally thrilled by all of them.
EVO sessions are instances of learning like no other I have ever had the chance to take part in.  I had been waiting all year for this one, because I would have all the time in the world to do the tasks and I have grown particularly skilled in most of the tools which would be used during the course of the sessions.  My plan was to squeeze as much knowledge as I could from my sessions while enjoying of the privilege of being on holidays.  However this Summer has proved to be particularly hot down here, making it quite hard for me to concentrate on any intellectual work! Plus my mother broke her wrist.  To sum up things didn´t quite go as planned.  Meanwhile a friend of mine asked me make a contribution in a PD session for teachers in Russia and a former friend-employer also asked me to submit a proposal for a brush up meeting about the use of tech in the English classroom for her teachers before classes begin here in March.  Needless to say that each of these instances of learning are events which I will also be looking forward to and enjoy preparing.
Last year, contrary to what a beginner should do I signed up for four sessions.  I need to make it clear that if I did it it was because I was so happy to have found the EVO that I was carried away by my own enthusiasm.  I lurked in three and was active only in one.  I not only lost my fear of audio files after completing most of the tasks in the Podcasting for the ESL/EFL classsroom session, I also dared to blog.  I cannot begin to name every aspect of my teaching that improved as a result of my participation here.  Every now and then I find myself relating things I remember having seen at one or other of these sessions. I ended up presenting a workshop in a teachers` conference under the guidance of my former moderator: Vance Stevens.  At the seminar I met face to face with another  EVO mod: Gabriel Díaz Maggioli.  I had not planned any of these amazing things.
This year`s session has started and I am trying to enjoy as much as I can from them.  I also wish I had more time to participate in the rhizo14 session too.  You can´t have everything in life!  As I turned the pages of my notebook I found an activity which related heavily to one suggested by my Becoming a Business Teacher mod Roy in his live session.  Rhizomatic implies connecting.  The connections a teacher makes between what she sees and what she can use now are personal and depend on many variables.  The fascinating thing is that these connections are in a constant state of flux, we don´t know what the future holds for us, what will happen when the door is opened on day one of any given class.  It would certainly be a good thing because this is the best time to be a teacher, let alone a teacher of English!