Using Graphic Organisers to Promote Student Speaking [presentation]
Professional Development Online – KOTESOL’s (beta) project [workshop]
Peadar Callaghan
Abstract for presentation
Students often have problems with moving from tightly scripted or scaffold answers to specific questions to a more free form conversation. They struggle with this due to the difficulties of holding vocabulary, grammar and semantics in processing memory at the same time. This linguistic load often leads to students suffering from the tip of the tongue phenomena and affective filter issues related to their ability to communicate in an organized way. What can we as teachers do to help improve our students ability to communicate while reducing issues with affective filter and linguistic load?
Graphic organizers can be used to support more free form styles of conversation by creating more organized ideas for students to use during conversation. This presentation will focus on the use of graphic organizers and how they can be used to support learning in a Korean learning environment. The organizers to be discussed are mind mapping, bulls-eye, grids, Venn diagram, and the T chart. This is a fifty minute work-shop style presentation where teachers will get a chance to complete sample activities as if they were the students participating.
With the use of graphic organizers in a speaking environment student engagement will increase while reducing the affective filter and increasing the student talk time in the classroom.
Abstract for workshop
Online professional development has never been easier. The advent of open courseware and online platforms for teacher training, have revolutionized the way we go about professional development. More and more teachers are taking online courses to improve their skills or to acquire new ones.
This workshop will focus on the use of Moodle as a platform for providing free online professional development courses for KOTESOL members. People who attend the workshop will be offered the chance to test the new system. You will be given hands-on instruction detailing how to set up an account, how to use the variety of features and see just how valuable online professional development can be.
Bio-sketch
Peadar Callaghan is first vice president of KOTESOL. Peadar graduated from the University of Limerick with an MA in ELT, and has been working in Korea for over six years. During this time he has given numerous presentations on a wide range of topics. All his presentations focus on being practical and adaptable to all students no matter their levels or ages. Peadar is currently teaching at Daegu University, and has been using Moodle for several years. He has also taken several online credit and non-credit courses which have informed the design that is outlined in this workshop.
