ELT Podcast - The Teachers' Lounge

www.eltpodcast.com In this episode, language teachers talk about what they do when faced with a new group of students in the classroom on the first day of classes in the new school year. Visit the Teachers' Lounge archive on our website for a full summary of this and other episodes. ELT Podcast Teachers' Lounge is for language teachers.

Streaming, or tracking, involves dividing the students up into different ability levels. The goal is to have a set of classes comprised of students of similar abilities and / or aptitudes, so that teachers can provide more suitable class contents and teacher instruction. The first question is how students are placed into their levels. Dominic's school uses the TOEIC Bridge Test. Dominic says it's easy to administer, and the students' mark sheets are sent to the test company for marking. Kevin's school uses a speaking test produced in England for the first year, and a TOEIC test for the second year. The speaking test has students look at some pictures and tell a story into a tape recorder. Robert's school uses a test that Kurume University developed in-house. Up to 8 teachers contribute items, and they have meetings to determine the test content. Ideally, a school will have a trial period, to see if there are students who stand out as being either well above or below the level that they tested into. At some schools, though, this is difficult to do. Also, sometimes the administration may insist on an equal number of students per class, even if your testing shows that the upper and lower levels should be smaller than the middle-level classes.

ELT Podcast - Teachers Lounge We talk about various technology-related presentations that we attended at a conference held in Tokyo June 2-3, 2007. For extensive notes and links to the content discussed, please visit http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge

www.eltpocast.com Conferences for language teachers are an important opportunity for professional development. Today's episode is intended for teachers with little to no conference experience. We discuss why we like attending conferences, and we offer some advice for "novice" conference-goers to get the most out of the experience. Listen to this episode and / or view our online summary (www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge).

www.eltpocast.com We have all probably seen large classrooms that are two-thirds full, with the front third of the seats empty. Or, when the number of seats is about the same as the number of students, you might have seen students rush in to grab the seats at the back, then watch as the classroom fills up back to front. However, when the students are closer to the teacher, it is easier to watch their faces for feedback. Also, teachers do not have to strain their voices to reach the back of the large room. Classrooms with students bunched up at the back indicate that either the students do not care or the teacher does not care. Since learning a language is an emotional thing, students have to be more engaged by being up close. A large physical distance is also a psychological distance; when there is a spatial gap between the teacher and the students, it is difficult to bridge that gap to reach the students. Listen to this episode and / or view our online summary (www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge) to see how we address these problems. The solutions we discuss should help you in your own teaching situation.