So I'm trying to get a pulse on teachers when it comes to multimedia. Here are two questions: 1. What do teachers (and I'll let you define whether you are a teacher or not) watch on TV? 2. What movies do you let students watch?
My answers:
1. I'm addicted to Lost (I'm watching season 5 right now).
I love watching the Biggest Loser. I get teaching insights from it all the time (my wife is a personal trainer and so I also learn from her).
I love watching So You Think You Can Dance.
I love Glee because it reminds me of being in high school show choir.
2. I used to watch Karate Kid with students to teach them about indirect and direct styles of writing (contrastive rhetoric/Kaplan). I love to watch clips of the Ironman triathlon and relate it to students' lives (it requires tremendous effort, few people do it, the end is joyous but the process can be miserable).
And here is something I think ANY ESL teacher could find a way to teach...It's Joshua Bell, violin virtuouso, performing in the Washington D.C. Metro, while more than a thousand people simply walk by and ignore him. This guy is one of the premier musicians in the world, and people are just walking by. The teaching applications are endless. And you can listen to his entire performance. It is gorgeous. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
My answers:
1. I'm addicted to Lost (I'm watching season 5 right now).
I love watching the Biggest Loser. I get teaching insights from it all the time (my wife is a personal trainer and so I also learn from her).
I love watching So You Think You Can Dance.
I love Glee because it reminds me of being in high school show choir.
2. I used to watch Karate Kid with students to teach them about indirect and direct styles of writing (contrastive rhetoric/Kaplan). I love to watch clips of the Ironman triathlon and relate it to students' lives (it requires tremendous effort, few people do it, the end is joyous but the process can be miserable).
And here is something I think ANY ESL teacher could find a way to teach...It's Joshua Bell, violin virtuouso, performing in the Washington D.C. Metro, while more than a thousand people simply walk by and ignore him. This guy is one of the premier musicians in the world, and people are just walking by. The teaching applications are endless. And you can listen to his entire performance. It is gorgeous. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
I think the Joshua Bell story has some valid points, but I don't think it's all about people not appreciating it. I think it has a lot to do with time and place. Rush hour. Rushing to work. Sorry, but I don't want to tell my boss I was late because I stopped to hear a violinist, even a good one. Or if I was listening to my audiobook, I also wouldn't have noticed it.
ReplyDeleteBut still, I think it's a good article to spark discussion. I just was absolutely not surprised about the results, regardless of how good he was, based solely on the place and time.
Btw, I'm Alicia's friend. She said you were her first boyfriend :)
You're right, the teaching application is endless. You know, this is what I like to see, real examples and what causes people to do what they do. Not necessarily right or wrong, just cause and effect.
ReplyDeleteI get so darned irritated, when the email comes around that describes a scenario that never happened but is posed as truth and then illogically ascribes judgement to the reaction as right or wrong. It didn't happen...so there was no real cause and effect, which if one thinks about it long enough, eliminates the foundation of the whole point. Unlike a fable, which inherently teaches that the moral is relative to the eye of the beholder (knowing that it really didn't happen but the story helps to focus on one point), the false account on the email tries to justify truth through perported "real" events using an illogical cause and effect analysis.
This real event, however, gives us insight to what distracts people from the beauty around them. What happened? Why did it happen? If we want to make a difference, what do we need to do to overcome the obstacles in the scenario? That's how we teach! By helping the students focus on the things that are important to them, the things that will motivate them. By getting their attention.
Like you said, all sorts of teaching principles.