Ixchell Reyes
The DIESOL podcast

Brent Warner
Developing innovation in English as a second or other language,

Ixchell Reyes
Episode 78 interview with Jose Goulette

Brent Warner
Welcome to DIESOL This is episode 78 We are your hosts. I’m Brent Warner.

Ixchell Reyes
And I’m Ixchell Reyes. Hey, Brent.

Brent Warner
How are you?

Ixchell Reyes
I’m recovered from being really sick with COVID.

Brent Warner
Yeah, yeah, it’s a slow crawl out, but glad you’re doing better overall, and I’m doing better too.

Ixchell Reyes
Yeah, you were sick too.

Brent Warner
Yeah, we all got sick. That’s that’s winter, you know. So we, I think that the voice is better than the last episode though. For both of us. Oh, my gosh. The tail end of it now. Mostly. Okay. So

Ixchell Reyes
yeah, that’s right. My voice was matching your pitch last time?

Brent Warner
Yeah.

Jose Goulette
Why not to love about COVID. Right.

Brent Warner
It is. So, so that voice you’re hearing.

Ixchell Reyes
It’s not me.

Brent Warner
All right. So why don’t you go ahead and introduce our guests?

Ixchell Reyes
Yes. Okay. We have we are starting off 2023 with an interview with one of my colleagues, Josie Goulet. Hey, Josie, you heard him in the background? Yes. Let me give him the formal introduction. As I said, he’s one of my colleagues and he’s doing great things in the classroom. And when I heard about it, I thought, Oh, my goodness, I need to, I need to go observe this. This teacher josei started teaching at the age of 19. In Brazil, he’s taught in Vietnam and in various institutions in the US. His academic background includes English literature, linguistics, and legal studies. He describes himself as a teacher who loves learning from about and with students. He is a teacher’s fan. He enjoys collaborating with his coworkers and learning from them. He has an inquisitive mind and derives joy when he finds solutions for classroom issues that may seem trivial to many, but can become a major struggle for students. Teaching is his passion, not his profession. He is a citizen of the planet. And without further ado, josei.

Jose Goulette
Welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you, guys. Thank you for the introduction.

Brent Warner
Yeah, thank you for joining us.

Jose Goulette
Appreciate it. It’s my pleasure to be here and share.

Ixchell Reyes
Yeah, so Jose, one of the the popular stories that I hear from people who have been able to observe your classroom is was about using remote control cars in a classroom. And so that is what led me to, to having you on the show, and part of it is because you turned a lesson that could just be a boring paper lesson into something that was physical. And that helped the students internalize, even though I’m assuming it maybe didn’t go perfect the first time, but it was effective.

Jose Goulette
Yes, that lesson is actually what the first time I used remote controlled cars in the classroom was an eye opener. To me, I thought about how one simple too, could roll out into different things and make my life as a teacher easier. And make the students experience more enriching and fun. You know,

Ixchell Reyes
can you tell us a little bit more about the lesson and the concept because people are thinking how am I going to use remote controlled cars? And

Jose Goulette
sure, and I’ll give you a few scenarios, how you can apply that tool as well. And those are things that I actually do in my class, in my classes in different levels. And don’t be intimidated thinking my students are business people, they will not get into it, you know, the people are competitive. So, so yes, so, one, when I use the remote controlled cars in my class, the first time was simply to teach directions. I cut out a map, I placed a map of the city on the floor on the classroom floor. I asked the students to make space moving the desks out of the way, you know, and I had to group of students, one of the students would drive the car from point A to point B, while the other student was supposed to give directions But the caveat is, the student who was driving the car did not know where they were going. So they couldn’t cheat on the map and drive themselves to that point. So I just wrote in a piece of paper where the GPS, quote unquote, should take the student who was driving the car. And when they loved it, and, you know, the carts are not responsive, so they bump into things they, they drive backwards. So it makes it for for a fun moment with the students as well. That was That is the the easiest, most traditional way to use remote controlled carts in the classroom. Option two would be, instead of going through activities that are multiple choice activities, where the students have to pick Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta ABCD, 1234, you can simply just write those options in posted notes, spread them around the classroom, split the students into two teams, and they have to drive to the correct answer. The group who gets to it first, scores a point people are competitive. And they love it.

Brent Warner
Tell me a little bit Josie about these cars themselves? Are they like, are you buying, like good remote control cars? Are they kind of the cheapo kid ones

Jose Goulette
with a cheapo cheapo kid ones that you can find on Amazon for 2025 bucks or two or eBay, you know, and as I said, I’m in favor of having one thing that you can use in multiple activities, so that your classroom is also not cluttered. Students. If you have students who have problems paying attention to things and get easily distracted, you know that to clear out their visual space, as well as those are cheapo carts. After I use them, it’s simply a group effort. And the students have the responsibility of cleaning them, making sure everything’s in place, putting them back into place, it’s their materials to use, it’s part of their set of materials to use. So they feel engaged in the process of learning not only from a student standpoint sitting on a desk, but also hands on like, I’m responsible for these materials that I’m using, so I have to take care of them, or like or else, or else we want to have them to use in a future activity.

Brent Warner
So that’s great. I know, there’s lots of different ways. I love that that’s kind of the Japanese school approach, right? It’s like the kids have to go clean up all their own stuff, and then they have the responsibility for what they’re what they’re holding there. I’m wondering, I think you have smaller classroom sizes, is that right?

Jose Goulette
That’s right. Generally, the institution where I teach will not have more than 10 students per class, but I’d say seven to 10 students. However, I’ve used the same activity with larger groups, okay. I just had to adapt the activity and make sure everyone had the job.

Brent Warner
So yeah, so let’s, let’s talk a little bit about that. Because that’s the first thing going on my head is like, what are the students who are not driving or giving directions? You know, like, I kind of feel like this sense of driver and navigator, right? But then you might have two or three other people in a group that are watching. So what are what are the roles and what what are the ways that you’re engaging the rest of the students,

Jose Goulette
so the rest of the students who are not driving are supposed to help with GPS support. I’m a big advocate of self correction. So I will not interrupt students while they are performing a task, unless it’s way off track. You know, so while the GPS is giving directions, if it’s not going as it should, it’s the other students responsibility to reroute the GPS and make sure that the driver is actually gearing where they’re supposed to go that the language they’re produced. thing is accurate. You know. And that leads me to another device that I use in class for those moments when I want to correct my students, but I want them to first try to self correct. You know, so those students in the background, let’s quote unquote call them myself correction devices. To know instead of saying jump, turn, right, a student said, Jump, right? I expect those students to support the GPS student and have them correct the language sample, they used interest, if they don’t, then I just kick them out of the classroom just if they don’t, then I come I came up with another game. Another way to gamify correction, which is Shao and I have talked about, which is using you know, cards. But you can use literally any play cards that you have. Or if you’re not in favor of using cards in class, you can make your own colored system with cards or colored paper, and that will equally work.

Brent Warner
Okay, so what what are the cards do?

Jose Goulette
Okay, so, if you are familiar with yellow cards, they are split in different colors on green, red, blue, yellow, and the plus cards, right? So I take the plus cards out of the deck, and I’ll use mostly green, yellow, and red, I generally don’t use the blue cards. So while the students are talking or producing language, if I noticed they made a mistake, I’ll give them a red card. Oh, can I’ll not say I’ll not say why. You’ll know, I want them to stop and think about the language sample they just produced, in self correct. And self assess, self evaluate, etc. Um, if they can’t, or if they if their classmates and not help, and I never, I never interject, I’ll let them go until I’m happy with what they’re doing. So if the, if the class as a collaboration or group can’t get to the correct language sample or an acceptable language sample, then I’ll help them. And then I may review a grammar point or show them a different way of saying what they’re saying. If that student who made the quote unquote, mistake is able to self correct, I give them a green card, you’ll know and the objective is for them to accumulate as many green cards as they can during class. And then at the end of the day, they can exchange the student with the most green cards can exchange that set for price. Can you doesn’t, it doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Sometimes it’s a pencil or gold coin made up chocolate or something simple. You don’t know. While the yellow card is when the student produces a language sample that is understandable, but could be more polished for their levels. So if we are teaching an intermediate or higher intermediate or an advanced group, you expect a certain level of language and if it’s not there, or they’re not incorporating the vocabulary that they’re expected to or using a language function they’re expected to, then you can give them a yellow card to leave them in limbo just to show them. Okay, it’s good. But it could be 1 million times better. Let’s work on it.

Ixchell Reyes
So I think what I like about that concept is that it’s I guess some teachers like to do the leaderboards and have leaderboards on the on the board or somewhere visible but in this case, you could also you know students have the points physically with them. And you wait until the end of the day. Also some teachers don’t like to post leaderboards simply because it my my leave the one student with no points. Feeling bad, but I think this is a more subtle way of of having those points.

Jose Goulette
That’s a that’s a very good point. One way that I found that won’t let students feel left out is to have them share responsibility for the learning process. So that student who is struggling, could ask somebody else in class for help somebody else with let’s say, who doesn’t have a green card on them? And both of them could get a green card instantly? Because they collaborated to produce accurate language. You know, it’s not it’s not, it’s never black and white. And sometimes they’ll just make the rules as I go. And the students will question that and say, Mr. Goulette. But it’s like, yeah, it’s better butter. Now it’s butter. (laughter)

Brent Warner
I love this. So you have a deck of Uno cards. And then the other part I like about this too, and he shows kind of what you’re getting to is like that leaderboards very public. But you can also pretty discreetly just slide a red card to someone as you’re walking by. Maybe give them a minute to think about it to work, but work on it and then come back quietly to them while they while other group members, you’re kind of you can circle and scan the whole classroom without calling people out, but still helping them and maybe if they’re in groups, if they get a red card, like maybe their group members can help each other to figure out well, what did you say? How was it wrong? What would we change? How do we say it better the next time, right? And so it could continually be something for all of them to build upon. And not just not not necessarily just the one person. So I like how it’s not too. Not too in your face, I guess, right? Like, not aggressive.

Jose Goulette
And we have to be very culturally sensitive with the types of students that we have in our class, while some of them will enjoy a more thrown toe correction, some of them will feel intimidated and never ever asked the question in class again, or participating anything again. When I have more advanced classes, I leave it all to them, I will not give them cards, I give it students a set of cards, and they can administer the dynamics of this activity as they wish, you know, they can come up with the rules. No, no, they can take rules now, which is also a part of producing language that is authentic. I’m not, they’re telling them, Hey, you gotta use the word card instead of piece of paper, you know, they will figure it out, then my job is just to help them navigate. Not to dictate Ascar the leaderboard. I like the idea of having the class leader, some for a class period. And that brings me to something else that I adapted to my classes, which was using the random name pickers online, you know, as the leader of the class for that period, or the leader of the day. So there is no pressure on electing a leader, and anyone can be a leader. At any point.

Ixchell Reyes
I’m getting, as you’re talking through these things, I’m getting ideas for my own classes where Oh, well, we, in our institution, we have the students all day long, but it’s divided into periods. And we could then tell you Okay, in the morning, the morning periods, which group got the highest score, okay, that group is going to be in charge of reading instructions or leading something in the class, or correcting the homework for us or something like that, which, which also helps to put the take the spotlight off the teacher constantly delegating, which is a big issue in our institution, it’s a big deal, right? The students have to be leading most of it.

Jose Goulette
And that’s why I found the sweet spot from having a class that is, instead of being student centered to be student led. Well, because there is no way you can play a game if you’re not engaged. You know, you you can’t sit back and just watch the parade. You have to participant or else you particularly our students, they’ll put you on the spot like Why aren’t you doing this? You know, because then if you don’t do it, I’ll have to take charge and do it. And when we think about using technology for those You know, leader peeking moments, if you don’t have a computer in class or the internet is down, or whatever the case is, you can simply write in a piece of paper, and give it to them and let them pick the piece of paper from a plastic bag or whatnot. Because, again, it’s not you doing it.

Ixchell Reyes
And, you know, I think it’s important to, to remember that because, as teachers, we’re constantly in a hurry to get through whatever we’re supposed to get through. And and we think in the, in the interest of time, it’s faster if I’m the one picking, because I know that that student is going to give me the answers or be more responsible. But there is a lot of value in allowing the students giving that students that autonomy. And I, it’s something that I’m constantly trying to balance because I’ll catch myself, Oh, I’m very big on autonomy. But here I am doing this for them. And I have to step back and let whatever messy part of that is going to happen just happen.

Jose Goulette
We can I learned with time that we can also gamify autonomy and gamify. Timing, which I love. I’m a very musical person. And I have music playing in my classroom all day on the background. And I asked students first, are you okay with Starbucks music playing the background? And if they say, yes, we’ll go for it. But in terms of timing, I use musical timers, with the students, instead of just saying you have two minutes. Well, I mean, it Hurry, hurry, hurry, it’s, I will just project a YouTube video, or a musical video or lyric video, or just instrumental music, or just play something off my phone, as long as it’s not gangsta rap, and let them use that as the timer. You know,

Brent Warner
just when the song ends is when the activity ends, or whatever it is, like,

Jose Goulette
exactly, like you’d have, I’ll tell them two minutes, and then I’ll play a song for two minutes. And they’ll know when it’s up, you know, and, or I’ll play a song and just project the timer on the screen, so that they have a visual cue for it. And a visual cue of it, as they’re doing their, their activities. You know,

Ixchell Reyes
that reminds me of a fifth grade classroom, I, when I was doing my teaching credential, I had to do the, you know, the teacher observations, and there was a teacher who used music and when the students and of course, these were elementary school students, so a lot of they were very, they had a hard time with keeping on track. And so as soon as they walked in, she would play something from Star Wars, and I can’t remember which song it was. But at the end, that the students knew that they had to be in their seats with their materials with the book open to whatever page was on the board. And she never had to remind them of anything, she would just turn it on. And while the students were getting ready, she was doing attendance, making sure that if there were any notes for the students that they were printed out, etc. So that gave her that those three minutes or so. And then it gave the students like their individual time to walk around and say how do they neighbor or whatever they’re gonna do when they’re walking into class. And I always wanted to try that I just never have found the song that I play every morning.

Brent Warner
There are a lot of us a lot of these things like people use us songs and use music in interesting ways. I know. One of the one of my friends and listeners of the show, Edie Campos JR. He’s He’s done some cool things around. He’s done some cool things with music, but like working working on the walls or working on tables or something like that. And I can’t remember the details it was it’s been a couple of years since I heard this, but but he was he was using that song, I think it’s a Beyonce song the to the left to the left, you know, to the left to the left, and so that every time that part of the lyrics would come up and the students were had to move left to the next activity. So they like they would all be working on something and then to the left to the left comes up and then they’re all have to move to the next station over to the left to do the next part of the activity. So there’s these cool ways and then it’s not totally distracting because they know the song is going on. When it finishes, they know this song is finished, but it’s not the same thing. It’s like a timer finishes and students aren’t really paying attention and they’re so engaged. It’s like when the music becomes part of it and then when the music stops I can see that combination that’s that’s pretty cool.

Ixchell Reyes
Huh? I never thought about that. Now I’m thinking who I could do something with that.

Jose Goulette
There that’s a good there is that other song that says to the right to the right To the right to the right to the left, and now kick. So I just wrote it down.

Ixchell Reyes
Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s, and again, some students will enjoy that, because they don’t always get it at all, it’s almost like it turns the activity into a whole group experience, I find that with music, I mean, a student could be working individually on something or with a group. But when you have a song, you pretty soon start seeing the students bob their heads up and down, or hum to the song or some, the ones that know the song will start seeing and if a couple starts singing, then the whole class starts, quote, unquote, singing. So it becomes this group experience, which I find I still sometimes like, I’m just gonna play and see what happens. I do that every once in a while.

Jose Goulette
As as far as the group experience goes, since my students are in class for six hours a day, I don’t want them to feel like they’re islands on their desks. I want them to get up and move. And why? Why do I want them to sit down and answer A, B, C, or D, when I can just tape a piece of paper on the wall and ask them as a group to write their answers, you know, just to keep them moving. You’re not falling asleep. And as for music, activities, I love music. So I incorporate music in my classes. And it’s not something that requires prep. You know, if you listen to a song, and you see let’s say a word or two, in the vocabulary that you’re going to teach that day, guess what that song will become an activity. One way that I that I do this is I play it. I always played this game with my students, it’s called PT, I named it the last word. So if I’m teaching a vocab, a sack of vocab words, and there’s like four or five songs, four or five words, from that vocab in a song that I’ve just listened to, I’ll play the song and pause exactly where the word is. And the students have to tell me. And then back to the you know, cards, I can use the yellow cards as a pointing system, to I’ll give them points for getting what the way it is.

Brent Warner
Oh, so they get it right, then you give them that would be like another green uno card or something like that?

Jose Goulette
Correct. It’s like,

Ixchell Reyes
I used to have a teacher who gave, she called them chance cards, and there were yellow cards and all throughout the day, she’d give them out for different things, it could be something like being kind to somebody answering during class raising your hand. And at the end of the day, or at the end of the week, you could exchange it for a homework pass or little prizes. And they worked, those worked.

Jose Goulette
I haven’t magnetic tokens in my class, they’re like the whiteboard, magnet, magnetic thing that you can put papers up or posters or whatnot, a colored mag, yes, I use those as tokens. Because not always the magnets will attract. You know, so when they do something that is nice, I’ll give them one. And then maybe the next one they get will repel the one I gave them so they get to donate that one to another student student who doesn’t have one. Maybe happy that.

Ixchell Reyes
That’s, that’s, that’s kind of cool. That’s another way of randomizing what you’re getting, I suppose.

Jose Goulette
And then at the end of the day, they can exchange it for something else. You can also use push pins for that idea because they are colorful if you have if you want to work with them as groups, you know let’s say the green group yellow blue and then you have a board that allows you to put push pins on them. The push pin can be a pointing system and you can do a car race with them or an airplane… An airplane how do you say that? Not the catwalk,

Ixchell Reyes
The runway?

Jose Goulette
the runway.

Ixchell Reyes
It can be a catwalk

Jose Goulette
Yeah. You can use different things like for for them to have that point in system not only you know cards, literally anything goes even the razors or gift bucket you know, it shouldn’t we’ll have a cup on their desks and you But stuff there, they can only take it home on Friday. And it doesn’t need to be expensive. Like an eraser, a pencil, anything, anything goes or with my more advanced groups, inspirational quotes. I’ll give them pieces of paper with inspirational quotes and just getting their cup. And they can only read them on Friday. Like, that’s cool.

Ixchell Reyes
I like that too. I can I know that with my students, they love idioms. So that’s a good way to incentivize the idiom, sometimes. They they’re afraid of them. They’re afraid of idioms. But if you’d like we you get to draw today’s idiom, which one is it going to be? It might be one that we covered or it might be a new one. Oh,

Brent Warner
I like all these this is there’s these cool little like incentive incentivizing ways to get things done that maybe don’t take a lot of time or prep or effort is really great. It makes me think one of my colleagues, Melanie hierarchy, who works who works with us, at my school, she does. Like circus tickets, you know, like the the little like the raffle ticket raffle tickets, yeah, raffle tickets, you know, so she’ll, they, you know, they’re a little tags, she just gets a big roll of them. So she’s like, I’ve seen her at the beginning of the semester. And she’s like, here’s my new role. And like, she’s gotta roll with like, you know, 500 tickets or something on it. And then, and then she’s giving those out. And then she just pulls random one. So like, as students are doing good work, or whatever else it is. And then at the end of the day, she she pulls her matching one, so she’s like, number, you know, 72, or whatever it is. And then whoever has that, that ticket also has a chance to, you know, same type of thing that you’re talking about Tuesday with the like, you know, it could just be like a little eraser or something. So

Ixchell Reyes
those those tickets, you can buy them, they’re pretty inexpensive at the dollar store. And I think that I’m thinking now. So we’re talking about, I know that we have plenty of apps that do this kind of random pickers are point assigning. But many, many of our listeners and many of us will go to settings where we don’t have technology available. And teachers are not full time. So they don’t have necessarily the the budget to spend on these items. And I’m thinking right now, never underestimate the power of stickers with adult learners. Because I was recently in Japan. And one, I didn’t want to take a lot of equipment with me. So what I did is I ordered United States stickers. And so I had a sticker for every state of the whole United States with their different flags, like flags and birds and whatever identified or associated to the state. And I remember the first time I gave these adult I was teaching teachers. So these adult teach again, teachers of English Japanese teachers who came back and they said, Can I can I get another sticker? And, and sure enough, and so this time, I’ll be traveling soon. And I’m thinking I’m gonna take this time around, I’m gonna take United States memorabilia, stickers, because you can now purchase these and like $7, you can get 100 or 150 stickers on Amazon. And and right now it’s, you know, it’s all the rage to put them on your water bottles or so again, or the your computers or your luggage. And that’s what I tell them. See, when you travel, put it on your luggage and they’ll want them they’ll ask for them. So I’m going to experiment with different genres of stickers. That reminds me, you mentioned the quote cards. And I don’t know, Brent, if I told you this, but when I was recently supervising, and I would have to talk to the students that were in academic trouble. So of course, they come to me and and they’re, you know, they’re, they’re crestfallen, because they didn’t pass. And one of the, one of the things that I would always I’d never wanted them to think they were in trouble by seeing me. So I’d always have stickers with encouraging phrases on them. And I would always ask them to pick one and I had one student who came one time just to see me because he had he didn’t pass the test. He was really close. And that was his way out of out of to the next assignment. And he said, Teacher, Teacher, I need hope. They said, Wait a minute, wait a minute. So I looked at my little and my little container of stickers. And sure enough, there was a sticker that said, Oh, I gave it to him. He kept that and again, it made for a pleasant conversation about you know, the courage to continue, especially when you’re repeatedly trying your best but you’re not you don’t feel like you’re achieving in English. So that’s just anyway, I think now I went off track.

Jose Goulette
That’s reminded me of something else, the class the group card. So when a student fails a test or something, I’ll have the class right that student An incentive card.

Brent Warner
Oh, wow.

Jose Goulette
Okay, tell me about that. Yeah, just fold a piece of paper in the middle, send it around and ask them to write something nice to that student to hold on to, you know, and then they really enjoy it.

Ixchell Reyes
You know, that’s, yeah, I love that I’m now thinking. I have had students in the past who come and tell me teacher, remember, you told me this. And now I’m moving on. And I’ve had students who graduated from university, and they still remember. And they’ll remember, and I’ll think, oh my gosh, of all the things to remember. And again, we have to, I think incorporating encouragement and self esteem when it comes to how tough it is to to succeed in English or another language, we often forget, with the pressure of everything we have to teach, and the students are supposed to show that they can do. It’s just so important to include that in and infuse it into everything we do.

Jose Goulette
I agree with you. And I always think, from this perspective, you’re going to be in that school for I don’t know, six, eight hours a day. If you’re not having fun, and enjoying it as worse, as bad as it can be. Be we’re wasting our time in life. So yeah, so let me just say this, I, I play games with the students, but I think they have more fun than they do. Because you know, all the toys they couldn’t buy. Like me,

Ixchell Reyes
me, I’ve had this conversation.

Jose Goulette
Now we can do it in class, you’ll know and learn another language, which, you know, we take for granted, of course, sometimes, because how can this be easy for you? Since I already, you know,

Brent Warner
I know this language, why don’t you?

Jose Goulette
Why don’t you speak in it? Well, then at the end of the day, if they’re learning and they don’t think about it as a class, mission accomplished.

Ixchell Reyes
Yeah, it’s so easy for you to say Jose, but there’s so many people out there who will say how can you play games in the classroom?

Jose Goulette
Well, the game is just the curtain for that show. You know, he will use it as the curtain for it. The objective is very clear, and the students see it. When you’re playing a game with the students, the objective needs to be clear, even if the objective is to have fun. Like, what if they asked me sometimes Teacher, why are we doing this, I’ll say, because we need a break from life. Let’s play cards for 10 minutes. And period, you know, doesn’t need to be this methodological research that goes into a five minute. I know the methodological basis for it. But I don’t need to inculcate my students with that I know what I’m doing in class, you know, and if it goes wrong, sorry, do it again, next time, try to make changes. And one of the questions people ask is, quote unquote, how do you keep students under control while you’re playing games, because they would think it’s a free for all blah, blah, blah? And it’s like, no, the objective is clear. Maybe the first time they do it, they may think it’s the best time because you got to take into consideration some students who come from educational backgrounds where the teacher is authority, and authoritarian, at the same time, but once they realize there is another or many other ways to do the same thing. You know, it’s a fun ride, and they may enjoy it. You know, let me bring something up. We did a fishing activity in class one day, because I have fishing rods, because they have to, yes, so they have to fish for the correct vocabulary or the correct grammar structure, or what I’m asking them so you can basically write words or grammar structures or whatnot and pieces of paper, and you can make your fishing rods out of pencil thread and the hook of any kind anything can become a fishing rod, even a pencil. Right? So and I didn’t know how many of the students were so into fishing and that literally hit home for them and it was there was that emotional memory that they connect did listen, and I was like, Oh my God. And yesterday, I thought this was going to be the most boring activity that I’ve ever done. And here they are so intimate to fish for vocab words.

Brent Warner
Okay? So just so that people listening can kind of follow along with this. So you have a card, let’s just say cards with a vocabulary word on them, and then do you attach, you attach something to the card that the, so you got a fishing and you got a fishing rod, whatever it is a pencil with a string on it. And then at the end of that string, there’s a hook, is that right? Like a paperclip or something?

Jose Goulette
Yes. And in the cards, you can cut fish out of paper and punch a hole on it. And anything goes really, if you’re not, if you don’t have the device to make the cards or the fish standing in a position where the students can try to get the hook through it, you can put them on the edges of tables or desks, and have the students walk around to fish. You know, you can have students being the fish to, they have to some of the students have to hold the cards and some will be the fisherman. Right? So it’s a lot of in that matter, there is a lot of TPR happening while they’re doing this, you know, and they are collaborating. And there is a million variations of the fishing game, as well. You know, that they can play fish and rescue. If they have to rescue a classmate who is in a pond, or a river or the ocean, they can fish for that classmate who has the correct answer, you know, or so.

Brent Warner
So like, so they’re going around, they’re fishing, if they catch the wrong one that gets

Jose Goulette
the right answer. They, they they call it a sink, so they have to go to the pond or deal. So then they become and then they become fish.

Brent Warner
Oh, okay. So this is so this is so cool. Because I love all of these because they’re kind of they’re all easy to implement. But they’re like, I think for me as a teacher so much. So many times, I think what Ixchell was saying to struck me is like, we’re in a rush to get the next thing done the next thing done, but most of these are things that like, if you’re just take a breath, you can implement it. Like it doesn’t it’s not so much extra work to do these things. And in fact, that breathing time, we know, you know, we know that people need to move, we know that people need to like, get a little bit of action and just have a variety and all those things. And so just taking the the 30 seconds it might take to set that up or to move around the room or to do that in a different way. I bet I mean, there would have to be research on it. But I bet you that time gets gained back in their focus when they’re doing the actual work itself to right.

Ixchell Reyes
Click a mental reset, I think I mean, I know I’m thinking oh, I would love to see that happening. And then see how later they they they’ll inevitably someone will say, Oh, remember when you went you were wrong because of this. And they’ll remember because of whatever action, that physical action so you’re, as you’re saying, like, Oh, you went to the sink? I bet someone’s gonna remember that later

Jose Goulette
than they do. And as for timing, I am I’m a sinner in that area, because I’m terrible with the CM trying to get better at pacing. But I noticed that even when I fall behind schedule, the student it’s gained so much more than just, you know, if I have just stuck to flipping pages, one exercise to the other. And no connection, no bridges, nothing. So sometimes I will sacrifice spacing for doing something that is going to be memorable and they’ll connect with me, you know. So yeah, so the fishing activity is a favorite. Many, many of our students come from countries where fishing, fishing with their family is the big thing. You know, and they find a Connect, they connect to it at a different level in mind you some of these activities may sound childish for some people, but you have to consider that all of our students are adults. And they get into this big times, you know, and even the ones who are a little bit reluctant to dive in and enjoy it, give them three minutes. They give them three minutes. And I always tell them like you can come here and be happy for six hours or miserable for six hours. It’s your choice, I can change my life on the ship. Because it’s, it’s the reality of things. Do you want to sit in class and be miserable for six hours? Or do you want to try a differently? I’ve learning the same thing more effectively? And have a good time.

Ixchell Reyes
Yeah, I agree. I think as I think as we move to wrap up, I’m thinking of, I have a set of Super Mario, like little Lego figurines that you can stack up and whatever. And I just keep them in my classroom in the corner, it’s really a conversation piece. But what happens is during the breaks, my adult students, their two year old, 40 year olds, 50 year olds will head over to that corner. And they’ll make the conversation about it with someone else because they can connect to when they were a child and they played or they buy that for their kids. And so now you’ve had you have these students talking to each other that would maybe have not talked, because I had a conversation piece. And I think that that’s just when you include things that tie our students cultures together, or their early childhood memories together than that that does give you a chance for for an authentic language exchange. Which games do.

Jose Goulette
Yes, I have a future episode, we can talk about Legos. Like, oh, yeah, once out of Legos, one you need, you need one set of Legos to take it to play sitting in class that the students would be mind blown.

Brent Warner
We’re gonna run out of time here. But that’s like, I’m like, Oh, I really want what’s the what’s the the one Lego set you would recommend?

Jose Goulette
I like the generic one, I think it’s 250 pieces. It’s like $10 or less than $10. Now, you know. And you can do that as you can use it as a pointing system to a scoring system. Like, the more they the more they get the right answer, they can pile up and connect Legos. And the group with the highest tower at the end of the day is the winner of whatever stablish

Ixchell Reyes
Jose you need to write a manual each write a little quick and dirty. Like Manual for Teachers who are traveling and need low tech ideas on how to gamify.

Jose Goulette
Mind you, I’m a big fan of tech, I use tech in class, I also take into consideration that means students are not tech savvy. And that will add to their anxiety. Right, because explaining how an activity is done online or showing it can heighten their level of anxiety. And that will get in the way of learning what the objective of the day what language sample of the day is. So if I can reduce that level of anxiety by doing something low tech, I’ll go for it. Then I’ll transition. You noticed something high tech, quote unquote high tech, whatever the standard of high tech is, you know. So, yeah. And anything that I see online also, that is high tech, quote, unquote, I try to make it a point to have a low tech version of it, that I can easily adapt, if I don’t have the technology available if I’m traveling, if the students are not comfortable with technology, whatnot.

Brent Warner
I love it. So just a you’ve given us tons of practical implementable Quick, quick ideas to think and I think the best part is like there’s so many different parts of Spark asked and go Well hold on a second. I can do this version or this variation inside of my own classroom as well. So I think we’re going to get you back at some point we’ll do a whole maybe do a whole Lego episode. I think there’s that’d be a lot of fun too. We can’t come up with ideas on how to do some Lego stuff, but

Ixchell Reyes
we need to do like a drinks with DIESOL and have our our brainstorming session there.

Brent Warner
Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea.

Jose Goulette
Count me in!

Brent Warner
All right. All right. So we’re gonna wrap up here and jump on over.

Ixchell Reyes
It is time for our fun finds and this time around, I have have kind of an it’s old but continues to regenerate. It’s the Monster Hunter video game series. Have you heard of Monster Hunter?

Brent Warner
I mean, the name sounds familiar but I’m not sure.

Ixchell Reyes
It’s just you know, for those of us who like exploring worlds and then hunting like dinosaur crossover dragon beasts and then building armor. I recently while I was in California, I introduced my six year old nephew to it. And I feared that my sister would say no, it’s too scary all my nephew love that. And so there they have them on like every platform, but I just think it’s fun and yeah, Monster Hunter game series. Any of them are good. Awesome.

Brent Warner
So mine is pretty simple. It’s a silicone, silicone egg molds, you know, like if you it’s just a silicone ring, right with a little handle on it. And I bought one of these five, six years ago something like that, but recently I’ve started using it again I kind of found it in the back of the cupboard somewhere and I’m like oh about these things. It’s just a little like a three inch circular mold right and you make scrambled eggs and you pour it into it and it makes a you know like a it just heats up an egg in the shape of a circle but it’s like perfect for a bagel topping you know and so it the reason I like it so much it’s just because it makes my my dumb bagel and eggs breakfast into like a little fancier breakfast you know breakfast sandwich which is nice. So I just I grew a little bacon and then I throw on the egg ring and the egg circle and it’s it’s almost like a professional breakfast very quickly was one of these silicone egg molds and I recommend the one that have the the pivoting arm so you can actually kind of reach into the pan and lifted off because they’re the the these other ones that don’t have that and you’d probably burn your fingers. So anyways,

Ixchell Reyes
sounds like another thing you have to wash

Brent Warner
(laughter) You should probably wash anything that you’re cooking with at any at any given point. Yes.

Jose Goulette
Not really (laughter)

Ixchell Reyes
Jose what do you have for us?

Jose Goulette
One thing that I would recommend and I think every teacher should smile themselves with and give it a try is handle ocean called Tokyo mil. Like your city of Tokyo. I’ve heard of Tokyo milk. Yes, the city of Tokyo milk because it’s very moisturizing specially if you deal with papers. And your NBA ClD it’s not it’s not sticky. It’s very good.

Ixchell Reyes
Yeah, I was recently looking at Tokyo milk. perfumes or they have mists. Is there any particular fragrance for the hand lotion that you recommend?

Jose Goulette
All of them? If there isn’t, you can’t, it can’t go wrong with Tokyo milk. Yes. And the lows and the the mists are equally amazing. Good to know. Yes. And if you have carpet in your classrooms, and you want that smell of mist and mildew to go away. The smell of dust

Brent Warner
just drips, Tokyo milk and lotion on your carpet and you’ll be

Jose Goulette
Then you ask people to roll on it (laughter)

Brent Warner
All right, awesome. took your milk hand lotion. All right.

Ixchell Reyes
All right. If you are finding this episode useful, and you’re giving us a shout out you can do that. Please tag us on any social media. We’re on all the platforms

Brent Warner
Yeah, we’re out there. Yeah, share the show. If you’re if you’re so inclined. Sometimes people ask us send messages Ixchell, I was telling you about this the other day some people say like hey, is it okay if I share this with people? Yeah, please. It’s all public. Please share if you like the show. We have a little Patreon over there. If you’re interested in supporting us. You can get the show notes for this episode at DIESOL.org/78. That’s the number 78 And of course you can listen to us at voice Ed Canada that’s v o i c e d.ca Yeah, as Ixchell mentioned, we are on the socials. We’re still kind of in the like what’s gonna happen with the socials thing, but we’re still on Twitter for now. The show is at @DIESOLpod and I am at Brent G Warner.

Ixchell Reyes
I’m at Ixy underscore Pixy, that’s @Ixy_Pixy and if you want to ask Jose any questions, where can they reach you Jose?

Jose Goulette
they can email me at jrsodi It’s spelled J U N I O R Sodi is s as in Sam O D as in David I at hotmail.com

Ixchell Reyes
and let’s say we will have will have that so reach out to us

Brent Warner
okay, and then just the last part is just this little language part here. You shall put it up at the top of the chat. So you know we’ve done you know the the basic example we say in in Spanish thank you is Gracias, gracias for tuning that’s not turning that’s tuning into the DIESOL podcast and you can choose any language that you want to say for that.

Jose Goulette
All right, okay and can say okay, so in Portuguese, thank you is omitted, God will open the floor to to the

Ixchell Reyes
It’s okay. It happens all the time.

Jose Goulette
In Portuguese, thank you is Obrigada. Obrigada for tuning in, in the DIESOL podcast.

Brent Warner
Thanks, everybody.