Tyson Seburn's Blog, page 5

IATEFL bite-sized sessions notes

I took photos of slides. I tweeted. I gave up and simply listened intensely. I typed up notes on my laptop. I switched to my iPad or phone. I sat in the back. I sat in the front row. I sat near the wall. I participated with others. I avoided participating. IATEFL sessions ran the gamut [...]

IATEFL bite-sized takeaways

IATEFL: yes, that massive collection of language teaching industry talks and professionals from across the globe, just concluded last Tuesday after five days of awesomeness. If you weren’t able to attend, there’s no realistic chance of replicating almost any part of it for you. Sorry. Believe me, this was my first time in person and [...]

Correct English, no.

English is crazy? Grammar police? I look at both concepts with a similar disbelief. If you do too, this post may not be for you. You’re the choir, so to speak, but feel free to read along with a collective nod. That kind of agreement comes up again a little later in this post.

In one part of [...]

Google docs for academic writing process

Google docs works well to model the writing process with EAP students, who are navigating the expectations and mechanics of an undergrad research paper.

The assignment

Suppose you’ve given an assignment to your students with the steps something like these:

Basic exploratory research Narrow focus and create research question(s). Research, organise and outline Annotate bibliography Draft paper & [...]

Google docs 1; pen and paper 0

NB: Let me preface this post by saying if you have never touched a Google doc before, you may want to watch a quick Youtube tutorial on the subject first, like this. You won’t regret it.

My first workshop of the year is coming [...]

I might not have been around much, but these awesome posts were.

Man, it feels like I’ve been completely out of the loop for a year. I guess it looks that way too. I still exist, I swear. Sure, for most of 2014 I was subsumed by my dissertation (or at least its grey cloud looming over me), but I wasn’t completely lost to everything. I managed to become [...]

Because grammar (and cats)

Are we resistors to language adaptations?
Are we out of the language loop?
Are we getting old?

I wouldn’t have thought so (and nevermind, I’ll actually just speak for myself). I think I’m very open-minded about this sort of thing; I am normally at least aware, yet more often a user, of new vocabulary [...]

More online CPD is a good thing

Over the last 5 years that I’ve been heavily involved with the online ELT community, it has been extremely satisfying to see the dramatic rise in participation at web conferences, online streaming of offline conference sessions, and types of synchronous Twitter chats. Webinar series–Shelly Terrell’s for American TESOL Institute springs to mind as the go-to–continue to [...]