Disqus - Latest Comments for jasonoutthere

Re: Citizen-led retrofitting – how the poor relation of climate policy is becoming its secret weapon

jasonoutthere — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 08:39:29 -0000

I love this idea of communities doing it for themselves. I did a Victorian whole house retrofit in Weymouth (Dorset) not having done one before. I have a lot of data/info as I kept everything from the planning/build and subsequent net zero carbon operation of the house (my family home) without taking the expensive and complex 'passive route' and have been exploring how to use the data to help others to de-mystifying and inform the process. I just don't know who to contact with a hope of collaborating and I will email your editors to see if they can give me a steer :-) This is my house https://solarpvhouse.com

Re: Does it Matter HOW you Learn?

jasonoutthere — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 18:07:36 -0000

My favourite bit...‘getting out of the way’.

Re: Learning English, But Lost In Translation

jasonoutthere — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 13:34:56 -0000

Such a pickle. Help them to learn to speak first then the rest will fall into place.

Re: “Who Is Afraid Of Copyright Infringement?” Campaign To Save D School Photocopy Shop

jasonoutthere — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 06:12:36 -0000

You might find this interesting and worthy of support http://petition.avaaz.org/e...

Re: Teaching English in the Age of Data - Languages Out There

jasonoutthere — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 05:27:01 -0000

Thanks for commenting! I'm glad you found my article interesting.

Re: Creating English language teaching and learning materials for the future - Languages Out There

jasonoutthere — Wed, 30 May 2012 09:28:33 -0000

"Approve"

Re: Teaching Mute English Unplugged - Languages Out There

jasonoutthere — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:57:50 -0000

"approve"

Re: Teaching and learning global english using social media and social interaction - Languages Out There

jasonoutthere — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:05:33 -0000

It is a balancing act, too much emphasis on the rules will inhibit speech, too little and the basic structures for communication aren't there...that's why we have some exercises to prepare students to do the speaking tasks. works really well, give it a go! Have a listen http://englishoutthere.com/...

Re: C’est La Vie: 5 Ways to Learn A Foreign Language Via Social Media

jasonoutthere — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:27:19 -0000

Thanks for including English Out There! If anyone is interested in what we do and how easy and fast it is to improve your English using social media come and have a listen to our free podcasts and 'before and after' case studies of real English learners. http://languagesoutthere.po...

Re: How to Transition Your Traditional Classroom to the Web - Distance Education.org

jasonoutthere — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:17:38 -0000

We teach ESL using just PDFs and MP3s, and connect and manage closed learning groups using Skype and Facebook or Edmodo dot com The number of PDF viewers that facilitate online collaboration and act as workbooks is growing fast...here's one we tried out earlier today

Re: Applying Seth Godin marketing to language schools

jasonoutthere — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:31:50 -0000

Here's my purple cow....beginner speaker to intermediate speaker in 6 lessons....listen to before and after audio clips (every second of contact time was recorded and is online for anyone to listen to on Podomatic):
http://englishoutthere.com/...

Re: Fair Trade English - protecting TEFL teachers - Languages Out There

jasonoutthere — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:27:36 -0000

Thanks a lot! :-)

Re: OneAmerica chooses Livemocha for Project to teach Immigrants English

jasonoutthere — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:58:17 -0000

Cool, I'd have joined the competition if I'd known/been asked..it would have been fun! :-)

Re: OneAmerica chooses Livemocha for Project to teach Immigrants English

jasonoutthere — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:41:41 -0000

Any news on this K, any results, should be interesting?

Re: http://www.shv.me/post/10204406018

jasonoutthere — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:03:57 -0000

Nice one Shiv! I might have to pinch this as it totally backs up and supports what we both do.

Re: Award on Social Media Use in Formal Language Teaching Contexts

jasonoutthere — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:20:49 -0000

We got shortlisted! :-)

Re: Language Exchange Relationships are Complicated

jasonoutthere — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:42:18 -0000

Interesting post Kirsten and thanks for the mention! I think our materials do a bit more than provide discussion topics...6 levels...20 three-hour lessons per level, CEFR aligned, 250,000 hours of teaching in development with real students, blah blah :-)

I think you are right about the issues surrounding language exchange, as is ChinaMike.

The key, as you and the others have pointed out is (and in my experience also) structure and being totally open about your needs with the other person. EOT materials can turn language exchange into a full on structured course at your speaking level but it is also best to approach the relationship from the perspective of asking partners to help you and give you some of their time. Just that, altruism, focused upon your practice. There are a lot of people who will 'donate' time online, it is called 'micro-volunteering' and is a growing phenomenon.

As we all probably do, I get learners calling me without introduction on Skype to try and practise. Many ( most if not all) of those trying to practise this way fail to prepare properly before they speak. Once or twice I have let people come through to see how they fare and they always run out of things to say fairly quickly.

So the key things to do are:

1. Prepare properly, follow a course at your level that will get you into conversations at just above your level (Krashen's i+1) and using language you need to learn how to use. This puts you in control of the conversation from the start and makes it a lot less stressful or scary...our courses will do that for you, that is what they were designed to do.

2. Look for speaking partners who are happy to give you some of their time, just a few minutes a week and let them know you will talk to them about specific topics FOR A FEW MINUTES and then say 'goodbye'. Many people have been put off language exchange because they don't know when the speaking time will end and often they are asked to cover the same ground (topic-wise) again and again. It gets very boring, and not knowing when the boring conversation will end or how you are going to escape means you will be reluctant to do it again.

3. Record you conversations and listen to them again on your iPod or MP3 player..the brain likes this, your voice speaking another language, using language that you have recently studied is much much more interesting to your brain than someone else's and you hear your mistakes clearly. This is like providing turbo-charged comprehensible input (Krashen).

4. Speak to four or five different partners in short bursts using the same lesson/language...over a period of a few days too....staged repetition.... and every conversation will also be unique and memorable for different reasons.

I could go one but will leave it there....

Here is a video I have on YouTube that has an explanation of the difficulties of language exchange:

http://youtu.be/HgywwUG_dm0

I think language exchange, with some structure and some good materials and an honest approach to the building of relationships is fantastic. To make an EOT speaking session into a language exchange all you need to do is 'flip' the conversation into the other language and start it again.

In summary...multiple short, pre-prepared, focused, structured and quick conversations (ALWAYS be the first to say 'goodbye' so you build TRUST) are the way to make it hugely effective. As you grow in confidence and skill you can expand conversations and go 'off-piste', which will enhance the learning experience even more. But you need to take small regular steps before then.

Re: How Online Language-Teaching Start-ups Lack Educational Expertise, and Why Language Learners and Teachers Should Worry

jasonoutthere — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 02:52:31 -0000

ChinaMike,

Got it, thanks Kirsten! Offline today and busy weekend but will be in touch
soon.

Re: How Online Language-Teaching Start-ups Lack Educational Expertise, and Why Language Learners and Teachers Should Worry

jasonoutthere — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:53:37 -0000

ChinaMike,

Thanks for the offer of help, I accept!

Look for adult students who have studied English for a few years but find
speaking difficult and have almost given up.

I will contact Kirsten and Skype you. This should be fun.

If I convince you this works across the board I'll explain how we can work
together selling our materials in China. It's easy to set up and the idea
has always been to enable teachers to work for themselves and earn money
from both teaching with the materials and selling them to students.

Re: How Online Language-Teaching Start-ups Lack Educational Expertise, and Why Language Learners and Teachers Should Worry

jasonoutthere — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:29:54 -0000

ChinaMike,

I don't think your first argument is valid, I'm sorry. When she first spoke to me she sounded the way she did, speaking like a beginner. Her presence in a Francophone environment obviously had had no effect on her English speaking ability.

Secondly, what other environmental forces could not have been accounted for? The period of study was over a very short period of time, don't forget that, hours, days and weeks. In the context of her life and her time in France it was almost nothing.

Thirdly, she has only become friends with me after the case study. Please read the case study and listen to it from the start at http://languagesoutthere.po... before you make remarks like that that, whether wittingly or unwittingly, cast doubt on the whole basis of the study.

Fourthly, have a listen to my before and after audio with Waldek, the Polish adult English learner. He was recruited the same way and was based in Poland. As with Jane, he and I have never met just used Skype.

As I have said, Jane answered a forum post on an ESL website offering free English lessons in exchange for the right to publish. She came to the study with no prior knowledge of me, my methods or what I was intending to do with her.

If you'd like to propose a way you feel happy selecting a person from inside China we can have a go, by all means. Or we could select two and if we can agree they have similar backgrounds and levels then we could have a teach off! We could even involve some of these other teachers/companies/methods and get some media interest. What do you think?

Re: How Online Language-Teaching Start-ups Lack Educational Expertise, and Why Language Learners and Teachers Should Worry

jasonoutthere — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 05:40:24 -0000

Steve, I think you have a good point re asking users/members and doing some analysis from that. I did it in 2001 when we first started teaching English Out There in London (these stats are for face to face teaching then doing the speaking practice with complete strangers on the streets of London, so different from the online stuff in the case study with Jane, above):

http://www.languagesoutther...

I think recording someone speaking before they engage in some focused study activities then recording them at the end are a good way to gauge whether they have improved and by how much.

We also did it for face to face London course learners in the summer of 2006 and you can watch and listen to them on our Youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user...

It seems absurd to me that course providers who charge a lot of money don't do similar studies to support their published claims for their products. I suppose they can point at exam results but having owned and run an accredited UK English school I know that most FCE students who are allowed onto an FCE course are assessed as the likelihood of them passing it and the course is mainly about exam practice.

Re: How Online Language-Teaching Start-ups Lack Educational Expertise, and Why Language Learners and Teachers Should Worry

jasonoutthere — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 05:22:46 -0000

China Mike, there is more info in the case study and Jane answered Professor Krashen's questions.

Every second of her contact time with me providing speaking practice was recorded and is publicly available on our podcast so you can listen to her English improve sentence by sentence. Just go here and scroll down to find all of the other recordings and contemporaneous notes.

http://languagesoutthere.po...

I deliberately did it this way so that anyone who was interested could analyse her progress (and Waldek's, the Polish English learner).

The questions and answers stimulated by Professor Krashen's interest in the case study are here, again, scroll down:

http://www.englishoutthere....

I understand your scepticism re my comment about 400m Chinese. I think it is fairly well documented that a phenomenon the Chinese call 'Mute English' exists and you can read some research on it published by the Pilgrims journal website Humanising Language Teaching here:

http://www.hltmag.co.uk/feb...

In terms of speaking and listening skills most of the learners remain at a very low level, like Jane did, even after 16 years of formal study.

A number of your questions are the same as Prof Krashen's and Jane answered them or the answers are in my notes with the numerous recordings but I will try to answer the others here:

1. Jane lives in Strasbourg but was born in China and lived there until she went to study architecture in France.
2. She spoke Chinese when she called home and French during the day, except when she did some EOT speaking practice online with me and a couple of other people she met on Facebook after I showed her how.
3. She was doing normal stuff during her free time, she told me she went to some places and met friends. She did download the recordings I made of our conversations and put them on her iPod to listen to again a few times. Which is something I suggested she did. So got repeated exposure to herself speaking English with me in a way she could control. Yes, this will have added to her amount of exposure to the language and that is great. It happened as part of the process I guided her through and occurred after the first recording and before the last one. So her improvement had to have taken place during that period of time when we were working together.
4. She spent about 18 hours studying our materials...in fact probably less, because she was quite quick and admitted she rushed a couple of times.
5. Well, I think she read English language magazines from time to time but she was not using any other course materials.
6. No one taught her in the conventional sense. She self-studied with the materials and then did the speaking practice after the lesson with me and a couple of other people. The recordings are what she did with me after she had studied each lesson and completed the worksheets for that lesson.
7.She was corrected naturally whilst we spoke, if there was misunderstanding we worked at it until we reached mutual understanding. Like someone talking to a kid, kind of. It is very natural and not like talking to someone who is there to correct you in the conventional teacher/student sense.
8. What do you mean exactly by evaluated? She chose the lessons she wanted to study by level and topic, she provides some information on this in her answers to Professor Krashen.
9. Yes she did and she agreed to it being published online. We are still friends and she is currently in my Facebook as an LMS experiment group helping other learners who have agreed to take part in that case study. If you would like to contact her I can ask her if she will talk to you?
10. I think Jane is representative of a fairly typical Chinese English learner because she had studied English in reputable educational establishments for 16 years and yet she lacked confidence and fluency and still spoke like a beginner. The Mute English phenomenon research is fairly widespread online. The number of Chinese learning English was estimated at 400m by the China Daily last year:
http://www.chinadaily.com.c... and also Profesor Baker's Blog 9he is well known and trusted online) quotes David Graddol's 'English Next' research published by the British Council: http://profesorbaker.wordpr...
I think the percentage of the 400m who are still low level speakers of English is probably significant.

Sorry for the length of this post, I hope it wasn't too dense and that we can continue the discussion.

Cheers

Jason

Re: How Online Language-Teaching Start-ups Lack Educational Expertise, and Why Language Learners and Teachers Should Worry

jasonoutthere — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:45:58 -0000

No problem, sorry for the delayed response.

Yes, with all of the resources at the disposal of all of these big companies
why do none of them publish case study evidence? Might our questions be
rhetorical?

I think you can say, with regards our case study subjects, that they
represent many many similar people who have studied English conventionally
and have found it hard or almost impossible to improve.

The Chinese learner, Jane, had, like many of the alleged 400m learning
English in China, made little communicative progress after 16 years of
formal English study. Then in just six sessions suddenly started speaking
comfortably. I'd be very confident that what happened with Jane would happen
with most of her compatriots if they followed the same materials and did
what Jane did (which is very well documented).

I don't even think the old 'multiple variables/different types of learners'
argument holds water anymore. Our brains are all virtually identical and we
all acquired our first languages the exact same way. It is probably terribly
convenient for those same big companies who provide no evidence that there
is also a well cultivated right old mixed bag of methods, theories and
old-wives' tales in language teaching and learning. It serves to obfuscate
and deflect attention away from the harsh reality of millions upon millions,
even billions upon billions, of ineffective and incredibly expensive
courses.

Re: compare courses - English Out There

jasonoutthere — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:45:11 -0000

LOL. Just the truth. I don't see a comparison and a challenge as aggressive.
We are ten years in and our network is growing.

Re: How Online Language-Teaching Start-ups Lack Educational Expertise, and Why Language Learners and Teachers Should Worry

jasonoutthere — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:22:46 -0000

Fantastic and much needed debate! Evidence is obviously crucial for any organisation purporting to help people acquire another language. I don't think many people have seen this but I was a bit bored one day and decided to do the type of course comparison I had never seen (and I have owned and run accredited and innovative English schools in the UK since 1992).

I sought to find out the Time claimed to improve three levels (CEFR), the Price per hour whilst that happened and finally if the organisation published any Proof (in any form but preferably, as one of the previous comments requested, in the form of before and after case studies).

This is not exhaustive in terms of pedagogy used or mode of delivery but I think it is probably fairly exhaustive on the production of real evidence. I Googled long and hard on that front.

So, your thoughts please:

http://www.englishoutthere....