I had never heard of Pecha Kucha until quite recently and now it is the buzz trend of the day. Basically, it consists of presenting 20 slides of images each lasting 20 seconds = 6minutes 40 seconds, on any subject of your choice. It is really great fun to watch and it is spreading around the globe like wildfire! Many cities are hosting special "Pecha Kucha" evenings where people get together for a fun-filled and exciting event.
Lindsay Clandfield has written up a post called "Six Things about Pecha Kucha ELT" which is really informative.
I attended Heike Philp's exciting and excellent Virtual Round Table Pecha Kucha event last Friday night. I observed a lot of great teachers and educators giving fantastic presentations on a huge variety of interesting topics, which I really enjoyed. It was fun to say hi to quite a few people I follow on Twitter, so it was a nice evening with Montepulciano d'Abruzzo being offered around in the "virtual" sense of the word, of course! I found out about this evening via the wonderful Shelly Terrell's blog called "Teacher Reboot Camp".
Teaching Adult Beginners
I have always enjoyed teaching adult beginners' classes ever since I started off a few decades ago. Why is this? Well, it gives me great satisfaction to teach people who are sometimes the same age as me and who share the same interests. Being a beginner, you are in a very vulnerable position as everything is new and a bit scary. The intricacies of the English language are many and mysterious and it can all be rather overwhelming. That's where as a teacher, you have the opportunity to really help and guide students. You need patience and understanding and empathy to bond with a group who have zero knowledge of a language or any subject, for that matter.... It's also a lot of hard work but great fun. A teacher trainer/educator I admire immensely is the wonderful Marisa Constantinides. Here is an excellent and very thought-provoking post she has recently written on Kalinago English blog on" How to become a good ELT Teacher Educator". She gave her first Pecha Kucha presentation last week and I feel she sums up perfectly what it involves to teach beginners.
Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009
Jane Hart has come up with the latest edition of top learning tools for 2009 and it is an excellent list to refer to if you are interested in keeping up with trends in technology. You may not be surprised to see that Twitter is the number one tool! Here is a link to a Virtual Round Table panel discusson on Twitter.
TESOL-Italy 2009
No rest for the wicked, so they say! I am off to a 2-day conference in Rome tomorrow. I am very excited about going to the "Eternal City" and attending the 34th National Convention called "Multiplying Voices". I will be offline for 3 days, so no tweeting or blogging or anything technological at all. This will be a bit strange, but maybe it's good to spend more time on "earthly" matters for a change. I will report back later!
Roman Holiday
"Roman Holiday" is one of my favourite films ever, starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.
I wonder how much Rome has changed since the scenes were shot in this short trailer below?
Posts
5 comments:
Hello Janet,
thanks for sharing these wonderful PK's from the Virtual Conference. It was a great event and I really enjoyed it, but what I liked most was meeting my twitter friends. I felt as if I was with people who I had known for a long time and from the real life. Fantastic experience!
Enjoy the conference and have a great time in Rome:-)
arjana
Janet,
I have Pecha Kucha fever! I love them and glad you enjoyed them. I really enjoyed Marisa's presentation. She is a wonderful presenter and I look forward to future presentations from her!
Did you know that Notting Hill was a "sort of" hommage to Roman Holiday?
Hi Arjana
Thanks so much for your comments. I saw an example of your wonderful work on your "Greetings from the World" Glogster in Rome. You are a real inspiration!
Hi Shelly
I really admire your passion for your work and your Pecha Kucha presented at the Virtual Round Table web conference was fabulous!
Hi popps
I had no idea that Notting Hill had anything to do with "Roman Holiday". I'll have to watch NH again to see if I can spot the homage to Roman Holiday. Thanks for the information.
Well i guess it's more 'atmosphere" but princess is replaced by film star, unlikely meeting of two different worlds, star slumming it, love story, press conference finale. that sort of thing.
Post a Comment