Ixchell Reyes 0:02
If you could hear from teachers around the world, what would you want to know? We asked you, the DIESOL crew, all around the globe to share your favorite tips and tricks that all teachers should know.

Brent Warner 0:13
That’s right, we wanted to celebrate the listeners of the show. So episode 100 is for you and by you, the DIESOL crew.

Ixchell Reyes 0:35
Welcome to the DIESOL podcast where we focus on developing innovation and English as a second or other language.

Brent Warner 0:42
I’m Brent Warner professor of ESL at Irvine Valley College and blogger for TESOL. Amongst other things, and I’m here, as always, with the esteemed Ixchell Reyes – award winning educator in innovation and professional development, specializing in teacher training with an ed tech focus.

Ixchell Reyes 1:00
That was long. (laughter) Before we get started, we’re going to take a few minutes to celebrate and share about a few changes.

Brent Warner 1:09
Yeah, so first up, congratulations on episode 100. We made it can you ever think we’re gonna get to 100 episodes?

Ixchell Reyes 1:17
Well, gosh, no. 100 seemed so distant. Yeah.

Brent Warner 1:27
It’s hard to kind of imagine that right?

Ixchell Reyes 1:29
Yeah. Most shows don’t make it to 100.

Brent Warner 1:32
Most shows don’t make it a 10. Right.

Ixchell Reyes 1:34
Also true, also true.

Brent Warner 1:36
And so, yeah, so I wasn’t really thinking of it actively, like, Oh, we’re gonna make it to whatever number here or whatever. Like, that wasn’t really my my thought process. But, but I did actually, I think I did think that once we got to around 50, it was like, and we did

Ixchell Reyes 1:51
reflection, we have a few things to say.

Brent Warner 1:55
And like, even now there’s like more and more to talk about. So I think I bet we’re gonna get to Episode 200. So a couple things that we wanted to share a little bit about here. Just so that people are aware, we’ve made a few changes, starting with episode 100. But there’s there’s some changes that are coming about and that are maybe a little bit already in place. Starting with some design changes. So Ixchell we have a new logo?

Ixchell Reyes 2:23
A new logo! Yes, we do. Yeah.

Brent Warner 2:24
What do you think of it? Describe it

Ixchell Reyes 2:28
is a minimalist, and it embraces everything that DIESOL stands for, I think.

Brent Warner 2:36
So we got a minimalistic? Yeah, so it’s a, it’s kind of a D, drop shaped D and then it has like a little drops of a little orange drop in the middle of it. And so you can take a look at so it should be on the new episodes. So if you’re going if you’re listening to the show right now, yeah, if you’re listening to this episode, you should be able to see it right there in your pod catcher. But the the kind of concept behind it is like drops of knowledge and diesel drops of fuel. And the letter d to be kind of a little bit more of a, like you said a minimalist shape to, to capture, you know, focusing on the essentials. Yeah. And so and then it does still have kind of matching colors, you got that kind of a deep purple, and orange and white. And so we can mix those up as we need to. But yeah, and then we’ve also updated our I guess we call it a mascot, right, the the cartoon picture of the two of us

Ixchell Reyes 3:33
as well. Man, I never knew how hard it was gonna be to get an updated version of my head.

Brent Warner 3:42
Yeah, so. So I think both of us are a little bit, just a little bit more modern and how we look. So I’ve got my beard glasses, you’ve got, you’ve got your headphones and a few other things. So yeah, so it’s just, it’s just a little bit more modernized, not a huge, huge change for that. And so, so, so glad to get all that done. But we’ve got a few other changes that are here, too. Yeah,

Ixchell Reyes 4:03
we also have some structural changes, you’ll start to notice them. Show will typically be a bit shorter and punchy here, not this episode, this episode is actually a little longer because we’re celebrating. You may also notice some small formatting changes. And we’re also adding more to YouTube. So our outside content is now going to be playing more. We’re going to be playing more on YouTube and seeing where that leader leads us.

Brent Warner 4:32
Yeah, yeah. So we’ve got some videos that are going up, there are some of the things that we’re experimenting with, etc. So, if you’re interested, check out check us out. Where are we making these changes? Let us know what you think about things. A few things Ixchell, are not changing, right. The fundamentals of the show, right? We’re still focused on helping teachers explore creativity and possibilities in the English language classroom. And I think we’re also you know, we continue to be He focused on applying activities and strategies to research based practices, right? So the best, the best ways that we can do these things, and having open conversations and trying to see what’s going on in the world and what you know, what’s what’s, what’s happening in language learning and all of these things. So the core of the show is still there, just a little bit of mixing it up for the 100th party, though. All right, so Ixchell, Episode 100. Here we are, we’ve got kind of four sections here, we reached out to everybody, we left messages as many places as we could. And so we’ve got friends of the show, we’ve got past guests, we’ve got listeners of the show, all sorts of people have called in left some messages for us. And we kind of broke down their tips and tricks into four categories. So we kind of have our tools, then activities. And by the way, I’m just gonna clarify, some of these things are hard to say they’re only in one category. So we just did our best to kind of cross over so. But anyways, we’ve got tools, we’ve got activities, and then we’ve got kind of strategies for students and strategies for teachers. And so first, just before everybody who called in left messages, thank you so much. Some of these we haven’t. Yeah, we had to do a little bit of editing either for brevity or for clarity. So sorry, if we cut a couple of words out here, there, something changed a tiny bit, but the core of your message is absolutely there. And we’re going to go in by section. So Ixchell, are you ready to jump into tools?

Ixchell Reyes 6:40
I am ready to jump into tools.

Michelle Quiter 6:48
Hello, this is Michelle Quiter. I teach adult ESL. And first of all, I want to say congratulations each shell and Brent on 100 episodes, that is so awesome. My favorite teaching tool is the website, word wall. I love this website because I can make so many fun games, from vocabulary, to pronunciation, to multitasking. And what’s really neat is that you can add a vocal track to the game where the game will say the words or the expression of the idioms. And you can also add pictures pretty easily. And so I just really, really love word wall. Bye bye.

Speaker 1 7:36
Hi, this is Elijah cosca. Here from Northeastern University, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite tools and one that I’m using a lot at the moment. It’s an AI based tool called tweed, t w e you can find it@twit.com. And I like it because it’s made for English teachers. So there are tools there that you can use to help students with reading with vocabulary and grammar. And I like it especially because I have been using it to make materials to support my use of a flipped learning approach. So outside of class was flipped learning. Students engage with the content, they either read or watch videos or watch interactive videos. And then we an important part of this is checking their comprehension before class. So I use 20 to create multiple choice questions for YouTube videos and readings, you can create open ended questions and true false activities as well. And all of these form the basis for collaborative in class work. So that’s my two cents. I hope that everybody will give it a try.

Speaker 2 8:37
Hello, this is not so distant from Bahrain, being a Sri sector is a challenge. Ditching ARPANET of students, especially teenagers who are just graduated from high school, and one of my techniques or teaching techniques, and which is, which is February technique. realia, I use realia. This technique makes my students understand clearly, it works with me, I love it. And my favorite tools, the first one, and and it’s my it’s really my favorite, which is Kahoot. This website makes my students so interactive, so competitive. They love it. And it’s really easy to prepare the questions. My second two, which is called foot, this one also is very good because it can make sure that your students do their homework reading homework properly, they can record themselves and post on this web application is really good. So that’s it. Those are my techniques. And thank you for listening, except my regards.

Speaker 3 9:59
Hello, my name is is Charlie, I work as a Director of Studies at a language school in Spain. And my top teaching tip for English language teachers is to start using Canva. Now, I’ve reviewed a lot of their tools on my YouTube channel Charlie’s lessons. And the tools I love are, for example, building worksheets that are designed especially for your students using their presentation tool, which is probably one of the best out there. And also the new whiteboard which you can use an online classes. So yeah, bye.

Dayamudra Dennehy 10:36
Hello, this is Diane mutrah Dennehy I teach ESL at City College of San Francisco. I primarily teach online, and I always spend the first week building community. And so one of my favorite things to do with a tech tool is to use Padlet. At the very end, the last assignment that the students do is create advice to future students. I asked them, What advice would you give to future students to be successful in this class, think about strategies you have used to do your best, your best work and share with them be positive and encouraging. So Padlet gives you a beautiful bulletin board. And a lot of times the students add their pictures. And at this point, they’re very successful in the class, they finished the whole semester. And my new students read that as their first discussion forum. And I just asked them, take a look. And notice the patterns on the student responses, what surprises you what motivates you, and what is most helpful to you. So I hope you’ll enjoy using Padlet in this way, my students always let me know that this is one of their favorite activities, and it sets the semester off with a really nice positive tone. And students might come in feeling nervous about the class, but they feel very encouraged hearing from one another. So I hope you try it.

Brent Warner 12:11
All right, so that is our first round of tools. We got word wall, we got tweet realia Kahoot, Flip, Canva, Padlet lots of different things. The I love what I love about these, Ixchell, they’re kind of classics, right? Like, the classic Yeah. And, and to me, I’m like, you know, there’s so many new conversations, all the AI stuff and like and, you know, tweet, tweet is, you know, AI integrated, and all those things, too. But it’s like, one of the things that always stands out to me is like, it’s great to explore all these things. But when you find what works, you stick with it

Ixchell Reyes 12:43
It works. Yeah. And also it’s cool to hear people from other nations are also using these tools.

Brent Warner 12:51
Mm hmm. Yeah. So. So a lot of these people are friends of the show’s. You know, Daya, Michelle, Ilkka. It’s just exciting. Sorry, I’m all like, I’m on the party high (laughter)

Ixchell Reyes 13:06
We’re, we’re I guess, I would be fangirling you would be fan, what?

Brent Warner 13:12
fanboying

Ixchell Reyes 13:14
It’s our – it’s our listeners!

Brent Warner 13:17
Yeah, it’s our friends. And then I really liked here too, that Daya’s Padlet one kind of was also a transitioned into an activity, right. And so how you use that as an idea to kind of keep the connection between everybody. But I think we’ll use that as our way to switch right into some of these activities. All right, here we go.

Speaker 4 13:45
Hello, I am an English instructor in a Thai Army. And today, I would like to share my favorite teaching activity. So whenever I have to teach English to my military students, I would come up with activities that reread movements, you know, kinesthetic activities that encourage total physical response. For example, I would act out a dialogue as if I were rehearsing for a live performance. Then I would turn to focus on some pronunciation aspects by conducting front and back channeling. You can say that it is a call or dueling. But my students have to act out the dialogue and practice pronouncing the target language at the same time. Okay, now everyone, listen. I am an English instructor. I am an English instructor. Now I’d be one. Point your finger. I mean, you’re in next finger to your sales and repeat after me. I am an English instructor. I am an English instructor. I am I am. I am an English instructor. So you have learned how to pronounce I am as I am. And you can remember it quickly because you have acted out of hacky language. Right. Okay, that’s it. Thank you very much.

Speaker 5 15:39
Hi, my name is Andrea Earl. And I’m a longtime math teacher currently working as a certificated learning and achievement specialist for the Santa Ana Unified School District. Congratulations on your 100 that’s episode. So exciting. My favorite strategies revolve around edge protocols, specifically thin slides and the Frayer model. I really like using these strategies because they provide students with the all important think time, time to produce and then something to talk about. Anytime I can get my students talking, it’s a win. But many students are not confident in what they have to say. So giving them think time makes all the difference. Thanks again for all you guys do to help support students and staff.

Speaker 6 16:34
Hi, this is Denise Maduli Williams and I am an English and ESL professor at San Diego Miramar College Teaching community college students. And the tip I want to share today is affinity mapping. And this is something that I use in both my online hybrid and in person ESL classes. It’s kind of like a collaborative sorting activity. And you can use it with many different levels and with many different content areas. And I learned this technique, the way I do it through the San Diego San Diego area writing project. So a shout out to estop. So I’m just going to walk you through how I have used it in the past. So for example, students might be reading a text, and I would have them silently read and give them maybe two to three post it notes and ask them to write down either some general phrases or even to copy down golden line are sentences that really resonated with them. And that they found important for some reason as they read. And then what I would then have them do is I would break them into groups. And I would have big poster boards if we’re doing it in person around the classroom. And I have would have them students may be in groups of four or five, or maybe more, go to each poster board. And then this is important and which is what I learned from estop is to silently put their post it notes on to the poster board. And then for them all to silently read all the different notes. And again, these are quotes or takeaways from the text. And then I would have students silently start moving and organize organizing these notes into groups based on similarities or natural affinities. And the reason why this is so great to do silently is because it allows for equitable participation for everyone encourages thoughtfulness, it gives everyone with different levels time to read and think and move the notes and it can be kind of fun to watch because you’ll see students move one note to one area and then someone else will move it to another one. And then things will just kind of magically form into groups. And so, after some time, I will then tell the students okay now please talk about the groups you have formed. And then at that point, students in their groups can then discuss the little groupings have posted the and categories that have been created. And then now they have the chance to talk about it in a meaningful way and have a discussion and give reasons for the groupings and then start moving them again. And then once they have decided on that then as a group they label each of the categories, which forces them to articulate the connections they see and the reasons why these groups are formed. Finally, the groups can then move around and review the different cultures and see the different groupings that have formed. We can discuss it as a as a class and see the different takeaways that have come from one reading. So for me, this is really useful because students are able to participate equitably If we think of a regular discussion or something in class, we might have just a few voices. But here we literally have everyone’s voice. Students have the opportunity to silently participate, and be thoughtful, and then verbally have the chance to discuss with each other, supporting their vocabulary development, you know, grammar, listening critical thinking skills, and then we get to see the different areas of content that were most important to students. And it’s a really student centered activity. It is not led or fronted by the teacher in terms of what the teacher thinks is the most important takeaways the students do. So I’ve used this in so many different ways. It’s a versatile tool in any class, if you want to move it to the online setting, you could use a digital tool I use use jam board for this, I’m sure there’s many other different tools that you could use in the online setting. Okay, and so how fun I hope that you guys try out affinity mapping.

Eric H. Roth 21:02
Congratulations, Ixchell and Brent for creating 100 Fascinating podcast episodes. It’s quite an achievement. My name is Eric Roth, I teach at the University of Southern California and work with mostly international graduate students on their speaking and writing. Then sips I’d like to talk about today are the importance of creating classroom rituals. And when I talk about two of them, the first one is turning a bureaucratic necessity, taking attendance and turning it into a meaningful opportunity for student expression. How I ask a question on every single day for every single class. Students, it can be very simple question, if we’re talking about hometowns, could you give us four adjectives to describe your hometown, of course, no student should use the same adjective. So if you have a class of 12 students and four adjectives for student that’s 48 vocabulary words, if it is classic 15, that becomes 60 adjectives. It’s a class of 20. Now we’re up to 80 adjectives. So it’s a wonderful way to reinforce this. Um, it has some other advantages. It introduces and reinforces the day’s lesson and checks off that bureaucratic necessity. It allows students to express themselves, it builds group cohesion, I think it encourages student curiosity too. If you want to add a pithy relevant quote at the bottom, that’s an adds another layer of sophistication. Often students appreciate. If I catch a student, for instance, having problems with plagiarism, then I remind the next day I’ll use a Shakespeare. So, quote of all’s well, that ends well to encourage them. I’ve done this with high school students, and told education students, community college students, and of course, university students. The second tip I’d like to talk about classroom ritual is ending the class by reviewing the good mistakes. If we’ve heard a series of class presentations, now I’ll pick out four or five good mistakes that we heard during that day, without identifying any student. Likewise, if we’ve worked on our writing, and peer reviews that day, as I’ve gone around a big note, and chosen four or five good mistakes that we can learn from a good mistake is one that once identified, it’s a logical error. Once identified, we know the pattern and then we can choose more appropriately. So two plus two equals 22. No, that’s a good mistake. But once we show that equals four, then we can we can make a new and different mistake. So classroom rituals, help establish and reinforce clear expectations. Help students increase student comfort, and add an A level of help create a positive learning environment. So we open with a question. We close with a review of good mistakes. So celebrate classroom rituals. That’s my tip for English teachers. Thank you very much. Have a great day. And again, congratulations on a fantastic show.

Ixchell Reyes 24:47
That is so neat. There are so many moments where I’m over here. You can’t you guys can’t hear it. She can’t see me but I’m smiling and I’m just like, Wow, what a great activity and the thing is I’ve seen some of these happen. I love how we got examples within the sharing. So how to try these activities, right, the choral drilling and acting the or even the word front and back chanting. Right? Pronunciation. Yeah. Go ahead. I was gonna say the whole aspect of TPR. And sometimes I have to do that with my students have to repeat it, and I make them do a make a signal, because that’s what they’ll remember.

Brent Warner 25:33
Oh, yeah, that’s great. I mean, when you’re looking at, you know, so many students really like, especially if they’re beginners, right? And like really having that opportunity to kind of go, Okay, I’m going through this physical process, I get it. I was actually really happy to see the Andrea URL submitted on there, too. She’s a math teacher, right? And so you’re like, hey, this is a, you know, an ESL show. And I was like, that is one of my favorite things is like crossing over the, you know, out into a different world and taking information. I know that Andrea listens to the show pretty regularly. And so I love that, that she’s like, okay, let’s, let’s figure out some different ideas, even though it’s not specifically my field. Of course, she she has ESL students in her classes, but and then she talked about Edrick protocols. We did have John Ruffo on the show. Slides. I know you love this slides. Yeah, they’re great. And so, so bringing those in, and then you know, Denise and Eric, both are just like rockstars. They’re always always coming up with amazing stuff, always sharing tons of interesting information. For for Denise’s activity. I love that idea, right, where it’s like, let’s take that quiet time, right, let’s let’s let our brains think about this information. The

Ixchell Reyes 26:45
fact that it makes it equitable, that spoke to me stick Oh, yeah,

Brent Warner 26:50
because some students, I mean, I’m not saying it the right way. But you know, some students can kind of commandeer the conversation, right, if you’re not careful with it. And so this is kind of gives a chance for everybody here. I love that. And then Eric’s I think I’ve talked to him about this activity before, just to kind of clarify with that. The attendance one is like, he has a piece of paper, right? And the students are writing writing their answers to one or two other questions next to their name, as that gets passed around. And so they’re already working on activities as they’re checking themselves into class there, right? So, so what that’s adding the vocabulary words, or that’s the activity as they’re going through that whole thing. So really wonderful rituals that are kind of come into regular activities. And so they know the pattern of what they’re trying to do. Every time they enter class, every time they exit class. It’s kind of like a, you know, it’s like, you get into that pattern, you get into that habit. And then you understand like, hey, now I’m in the mood for learning. Now I’m leaving the mood for learning, right? It’s such a cool way to look at things. Very cool. All right, everybody. So we’re halfway through, we got the tools and the activities. And just a quick request here for our 100th episode, it has been a while since we’ve gotten some reviews on the show. So if you have not given us a review, if you’re listening in now, that would be the best present that we could get is some updates on the reviews. And so if you could rate us and review us five stars would be awesome. If you’re on Apple or whatever platform you’re on really, it just kind of helps the show get out there helps other people see it and know that it’s there. You know, this show has been going on for a while. And we’re still I think the only one that’s specifically focused on you know, ed tech and innovation. Right. And so I know there’s people that’s into these conversations. Yeah. And yes.

Ixchell Reyes 28:41
That’s what makes us the need. Yeah.

Brent Warner 28:44
Well, I’m sorry, I defaulted to my blind to my own knowledge here. So yeah, so please, if you’d be willing, we would love to get a couple more reviews to kind of bump us up around the 100th episode. That’d be awesome. That is what keeps us going and gets us in front of other people’s eyes. Of course, sharing it out with your colleagues. I know some lot of people do that as well. But thank you so much. That is our gift request for episode 100. Our little celebration here. Okay, Ixchell, we’re going to move forward into strategy. So we’re going to start with strategies for students. Are you ready?

Ixchell Reyes 29:25
I am ready.

Speaker 7 29:32
Hey there, this is Robert Stroud from Hosei University in Japan. And the idea I’d like to share with you is about planning for students. This is something that has been researched a great deal for second language learners. And when I say planning, I mean giving them a chance to kind of prepare or reflect on how they perform especially with things like presentations or discussions. So you can break planning down into pre task planning is task planning or post task. Pre task planning, what you should probably be doing with students is giving them a chance to, you know, use a, some notes or a diary or some maybe even just practice with a partner, before they’re kind of thrown in at the deep end to either present or discuss a topic in task planning. That basically is just allowing students to, you know, have the safeguard or the safety net of having some notes with them to check back on. And post task planning we’re talking about, after they’ve done something like some interaction, let them sit down, and you know, reflect on it so they can do better the next time. So planning is basically, you know, looking at students and thinking, okay, you know, this is a bit too heavy for them to ask them to communicate with the second language. So really putting some training wheels on or putting a safety net for them. I’ve had great success with this, I recommend trying to combine pre task in task and post post post task planning together. I actually believe in it so much that I’ve created an actual textbook series that has been very, very successful called Smart communication that has a model that incorporates all these things together. So that’s my advice. And I think you should really try it. Thanks very much.

Speaker 8 31:12
Hello, folks, my name is Andrea headland. And I’ve been working as a teacher of English for almost 20 years. But nowadays, I work much more as an educational consultant, a teacher trainer, I teach some graduate students in Brazil as well. And the topic that I love the most is the science of learning, something that I’ve studied for a while. And I really want to promote some strategies based on evidence. And this is exactly what I want to share with you today. And this is called retrieval practice, or retrieving. So basically, what you do is when you get input from your teacher, for example, so your teacher has just taught you something, you’ve just been exposed to new content, it takes time for your brain to process that. The best way for you to check if you are learning because learning usually doesn’t happen immediately after input, it takes time, like I said, sometimes days, weeks or more, the best way for you to check is by trying to remember just trying to remember so let’s say your teacher gave you some input. And then after a couple of minutes, your teacher says, Hey, everyone, just let’s stop for two minutes, close your books, don’t look at your notes and try to remember what I just gave you. And that’s retrieval practice. If you are studying on your own, you can also do that. One way to do it is instead of re viewing all of your notes and rereading the material, just try to test yourself. So quiz yourself before you check that retrieval practice. So you test yourself and then you check. Because if you simply reread stuff, your brain will tell you that, Oh, this looks familiar. And that might be mistaken for oh, I know that I know this content. Maybe you don’t know, maybe it just feels familiar. So the key here is retrieval practice, quiz yourself, test yourself and then check. And that’s it.

Speaker 6 33:30
Hi, my name is David haste. I was teaching at medical universities in Tokyo, but now I have moved my family to FEMA. Anyway, here’s my little teaching tip. When you are doing presentations, like group presentations, or individual presentations, don’t give them too much time to prepare. I feel like with chat, GPT and deep bail and all of these things, the students tends to tend to just either read or memorize translated documents. So what I do is, the more in the beginning of the class, I just tell them you have 20 minutes to prepare your presentation. And I usually do group presentations because nobody wants to be alone on stage. And at first, it seems like it’s impossible, they can’t do it. But you know, that impossibility that that feeling like it’s just not possible to make it perfect, actually gives them a sense of relief that because it doesn’t have to be perfect. They have to just rely on their skills as best they can. And they just kind of have a bit of fun with it rather than overthinking it rather than, you know, over practicing it. And I think that there’s a real benefit to that and because the improvements in AI translation and To generation software, you know, I really feel like the ability to kind of speak off the cuff is a skill that the students need to learn. And that is the that is the missing link. And that’s what I think it’s worth focusing on. Anyway, thanks for listening.

Speaker 7 35:25
Hi, I’m Susan, aka Vaughn and ESL professor at Irvine Valley College, and a proud colleague of Brent Warner. I currently teach adult ESL, there’s one activity I do that is an ongoing semester long assignment. I call it to connect the dots. I tell my students that I don’t care about what we do in class, weight word, meaning that if the classroom learning doesn’t translate to their own life, what’s the point? So connect the dots is an exercise in noticing. This isn’t anything the students have to specifically work on or search for? It’s purely going about your daily life when suddenly something catches your eye. And you have an aha moment, when you realize a connection to something we studied in class. No matter what that is a grammar topic, a story we read, or a casual conversation we had. For example, I was in line at the grocery store. I looked at the display with a candy and saw the word chocolate in big letters on one of them. We had recently practice pronouncing reduced syllable words. And that was a perfect example. So I took a picture, showed it to my students the next day, and ask them what the connection was to class. They had several ideas beyond what I even had in mind. And we talked about reduced syllables again, I pointed out that by simply noticing we can reinforce our learning and put it into practice. For the assignment, when students notice something like this, where they’re seen or heard, they post an entry on a class discussion describing what they saw and what the connection is to class. posting a picture if possible. I require three posts for this semester. It sometimes requires reinforcing that this is not about searching out examples, but rather noticing in our daily life. One year, I had a student who was really enthusiastic about this activity and posted often one of her posts I absolutely love and I use it to clearly illustrate the idea of connect the dots. In class, we had used playing cards for an activity. So I taught my students the names of the suits. Soon after the student posted to connect the dots. She explained, she could remember three of the suit names but not spades. Then it struck her, she went to her closet, pulled out the shoe box where she kept her wedding shoes. And there was the brand name and logo, Kate Spade. She said she would never forget the name of this suit. So I hope you and your students enjoy noticing and connecting the dots.

Brent Warner 38:02
All right, so strategies for students. So happy to hear all these right. Like, I love it when the teachers are thinking about their students and figuring out ways to help their students even if it’s not like, it doesn’t have to be class time, right? It can be part of the class time, like let’s figure out how to be more successful in class. But also, just what are ways that you can learn better, right?

Ixchell Reyes 38:21
Yeah, life skills a lot of is just connecting back to life right? Beyond the classroom. Yeah.

Brent Warner 38:30
So I was really happy. And this is a cool one too, because it really travels all around the world. We’ve got teachers in Japan, Brazil, America, you know, it’s like, everywhere. And I was very happy, everybody, of course. But Susan, aka Vaughn has been a big supporter of the show since since day one, really.

Ixchell Reyes 38:49
Yeah, since day one.

Brent Warner 38:51
Yeah. And so it was really great to be able to hear her share a little bit. And I want to go back into this section, because I think all of these kind of linked together, right? And really can kind of give you kind of an interesting structure for helping your students out. So really cool stuff for sharing four strategies for students.

Ixchell Reyes 39:13
All right, so let’s move on. Shall we hear about strategies for teachers?

Brent Warner 39:19
Absolutely.

Ixchell Reyes 39:20
Let’s dive in.

Speaker 9 39:27
Hi, my name is Larry Ferlazzo. I’m a high school teacher and Sacramento, California. I know we’re only supposed to give one tip that I’m going to give four tips in the same amount of time. They’re all related in basically related to showing respect for students. One is don’t give commands instead make requests including the word please apologize often. Explain the why I behind roles, consequences, behaviors and lessons as often as possible and lead with what students can do instead of what they can’t read or Pearson’s most famous line is kids don’t learn from people they don’t like. And I think if we follow these four strategies, odds are that our students are going to like us, which will mean we’ll be more effective teachers. Thanks for listening.

Mark Makino 40:30
Hi, Brent & Ixchell. This is Mark Makino from the LCC American Language and Culture Center at Southern Utah University. And I’m a former guest on your show. So I hope you remember me. I have a kind of a higher order tip and a lower order tip. More nuts and bolts style tip for teachers, mostly when I’m imagining myself talking to a younger teacher here, but let’s say first of all, and this is the more higher order tip is don’t always presume or be conscious of your presumption, at least that students are like you were at their age, I don’t mean just in terms of the technology they’re familiar with, but the kinds of things that motivate them. Some students are very motivated by contact with their peers or like are more apt to listen to their peers and then to the instructor. So you know, dog may or task based or group discussion style activities are great for this kind of students. But a lot of students are also very motivated by the teachers approval. And I wasn’t one of those, but it’s always, you know, a struggle to remember that those students exist as well. The more lower order tip is, remember, let’s say the value of biting your tongue. Sometimes, well, actually, quite often, when you see students having a discussion and they seem to be engaged and talking with each other. Don’t feel the need to blend in and give the teachers perspective. A lot of the time, what they’re hearing from their colleagues within the classroom is more valuable because it comes from them and doesn’t have your proverbial stamp of approval. That wasn’t that nuts and bolts, I guess it was a little nuts and bolts, but you know, trust your students. And when you see them participating, don’t assume that they need your teacher li gaze involved. And sometimes the absence of your teacher Lee gaze can be a benefit. All right, that’s it. See you guys later.

Speaker 10 42:19
Hi, everyone. And first of all, I’d like to say a huge congratulations to Brent and a shell for 100 Amazing episodes of the DIESOL podcast. I think it’s a great resource to find out what’s new and what’s happening in the world of ELT, and pick up some top tips for materials and resources that you can use in your lessons. I’m T or Theresa, and I’m a materials writer and teacher trainer based in southern Spain. So my top tip for ELT is one for the teachers out there and for educators whatever role you’re in, and really is just to get involved in social media. I think there are lots of fantastic groups on social media, on Facebook and on LinkedIn. And just lots of educators who are constantly willing to share information, share articles, share updates. And so it’s a really great way to continue keeping in touch with what’s happening in the world of ELT. So, here’s to another 100 episodes of the DIESOL podcast. Bye!

Speaker 11 43:32
Hello, my name is Richard Gray and I teach in the non credit ESL fields. So you know one of my favorite tools that I use is creating name cards for the students. So you can get a very simple three by five card and just you know cut them in half. And you can write the names if you want or you can have the students write their names you know on one side, usually the name that they want to be called in class. And on the other side you can have them write you know basic background information like you know, birthday or the reason they are learning English, favorite snacks or candy, their hobby, you know, just just simple things like that. This way we can just know some basic and you know fun information about each of your students. Now, there are a couple ways that I like to utilize these cards. One way is to call on students so the name card is there to kind of randomly call out you know, on on the student. So this way the same student isn’t always answering the question or you’re not always calling on the same student to answer. Now what I like to do for this is I like to shuffle all the student cards with their names facing up. Once I call on the first student. I put that card you know on the back of the deck, but I put the name card face down So I switch it this way, I know that once I see students cards again, that students name card again, when it’s face down that shows that I’ve gone through all students, and I just need to shuffle the cards again. So. So yeah, you can put, you can also put tallies on the back, or the front of the cars to mark if a student answers a question correctly or not to so there are many ways that you can, you can use name cards. So yeah, I believe it’s effective. Again, name cards, you know, it’s low cost. It’s an easy way to get everyone involved when answering questions. And when you’re creating groups, you can visualize and see who are getting together. You know, this also helps the teacher your, it reinforces the teacher by thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of each student when you see their names. Because again, you’re thinking about them. Yeah, when creating groups. So that’s why I prefer and it’s something that I’ve been using for the past four or five years of my teaching career.

Winnie Dinh 46:03
Hi, this is Winnie I teach noncredit ESL at a community college. My teaching tip is to write small love notes to students throughout the semester. For example, on a unit test or a worksheet, I would put a message at the end, saying things like you’re making good progress. Thank you for working hard. I love our class. For low levels. I also translate messages into different languages. You can even make it fancy by adding in a picture meme or any emoji. This is a great way to connect with students and motivate them to keep learning.

Ixchell Reyes 46:41
Wow, Brent, I’m sitting here and I feel well, first of all, it’s a little bit weird to hear all of these congratulations. That’s a little bit like, Oh, this is this is so cool. It’s so nice to hear it. But it’s it’s a little bit weird. But also, I’m humbled by how many people are how many teachers are sharing what they do to connect in the classroom? As you said earlier, people are thinking about their students. Right? Yeah. And I don’t know, I feel humbled by what because I’m learning myself. In this episode, I’m learning new strategies to getting ideas.

Brent Warner 47:18
I love also that they don’t have to, you know, nobody’s really focused on like, the craziest things, right? It’s just, let’s get let’s get down to earth. Like, let’s just really talk about the humans. Yeah, like, really, everybody here is talking about connecting, right? That just seems to be the way and it’s like, here’s the strategy, but like, but what does it what does it mean to do it means to make a better relationship with your students? Right. Larry, we always love Larry, just so much amazing stuff he shares like, and he came in here and just for the price of one you know, I mean, I love it. Mark Teresa. Gray weenie. We’ve had several of these people been on the show in the past, when he also won teacher of the year last year at our school. So we had her on before and she won teacher of the year last year. That’s awesome. Really well deserved. So so you’re just like you’re hearing from teachers who really care. And, you know, I just love that it’s not like, oh, you know, check out this most crazy thing…

Ixchell Reyes 48:25
“How to catch your students cheating” They’re plagiarizing! (laughter)

Brent Warner 48:30
Yeah, none of that stuff. Like there’s nothing going on there. There’s no like, you need to you need this hottest new tool that nobody knows about. Right? Nothing like that. It’s just like, straightforward. You know, really helpful. And really student focused, I think for every conversation going on here, so. So I just want to give a huge thanks. I mean, this is, you know, what we do the show for is like, Hey, is it useful for people out there and like now we’re kind of in the hey, this, this is useful for us. So just big thanks for everybody. Sharing very much. Yeah, taking the time dropping these, these notes in here. And we hope that that’s been useful for everybody else, too. And you really made a great a 100th episode for us.

Ixchell Reyes 49:17
Yeah. And if you didn’t make the cut for the deadline, recording the recording deadline, sorry, I’m saying things backwards. You can still share, make sure to comment, wherever you end up. Listening to this episode, we would love to hear your strategies, tips and tools and etc. So you can still participate. Absolutely. All right, it is time for our fun finds. And now I kind of want to say this episode is my fun, allowed.

Brent Warner 49:54
Episode. It’s our show you can do whatever you want.

Ixchell Reyes 50:00
Well, my friend find this time in addition to the show to this episode is new Netflix series. It’s called our Valley School for Girls. It’s, it’s we’ve ever seen, I think 10 reasons. What is it called Tinder. It’s one of those teenage angst type of nose but, but it’s so well made and it’s based in a Jordanian High School. Okay, watch the show in English. I started watching because I wanted to brush up on my Arabic and I wanted to hear females speaking Arabic so that I could get the female, the female Arabic speaking style, but it is such a good show, I actually think it’s very well made. It’s very relatable. And the main themes is the main theme is bullying. And we know bullying happens everywhere. It’s not just you know, in our in our schools here in the United States. But again, I just especially if you work with international students kind of it’s kind of just something to watch and learn from. What do you have?

Brent Warner 51:11
Uh, mine is much less cultured so I was like, I gotta find a great thing for the 100th episode and I didn’t. Well, this is just simple but I have been wearing hats like baseball caps more more recently just for whatever reasons I don’t know but but a nice fitted baseball cap. So I found that new era and I have a giant head so I have a seven it’s really hard to find caps that fit me well or whatever. And even the ones that the snap backs on them like they don’t fit me like it has to be the last one and they pop up. So anyways, I finally found out the the fitted New Era caps are a great fit for me. And so I even got one with the Hanshin Tigers logo on it. So little representation for Japan here as I’m living in this area. But yeah, so find a good hat. It’s probably it’s it’s a nice thing to have as seven and seven eighths hat. Well, I mean, you have to send it to me because I’m guessing most people don’t have they had as fat as mine.

Ixchell Reyes 52:16
That were too big for you send them to print. Yeah,

Brent Warner 52:18
great. I’m gonna have a client mailed now. Yeah, so fitted caps. It’s a nice it’s a much more comfortable experience than a prop fitting. Not well put together.

Ixchell Reyes 52:34
All right, for the show notes and other episodes, check out DIESOL.org/ 100 That’s right, you can find us on YouTube and you can find us on threads.

Brent Warner 52:47
That’s right. You can find me on the socials at @BrentGWarner.

Ixchell Reyes 52:53
And these days I’m actually mostly on LinkedIn. But on the other socials I’m @ixy_pixy, that’s I X Y underscore p i x y. To wrap things up, we have a mystery quote and another language. (Mystery comment here). If you know what this quote means drop us a line on the socials.

Brent Warner 53:20
Thank you for listening to the DIESOL podcast.