FREE English teaching and learning materials newsletter March 09 (04)
publication date: Mar 31, 2009
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author/source: Jason West
March '09 Newsletter (4)
Hello to everyone Out There
I really hope your March has been more successful than Gordon Brown's pre-G20 world tour. Sorry this is a bit delayed...I was entertaining some anarchists who dropped in for a cup of tea on their way to London for a punch-up.
Have we put the 'cart before the horse'?
'Free' teaching and learning materials
Great website
Wordy gag fest (jokes)
In my continual quest to find the truth behind how we learn to speak and understand languages other than our first one I have been corresponding with someone who is a materials writer and an ex-publishing executive.
At the same time I have been corresponding with a well-known professor of education and linguistics.
Both conversations, started in different ways and at different times, and with what seemed initially like wholely different stimuli have come round to the same question that I think about quite a bit.
I posed a question that seemed reasonable to me:
"I do find it amusing that the thing that enables all people to communicate and reason verbally and distinguishes us from all other species, is so contentious and fragmented in terms of methodologies and the way in which they have lined up commercially.
I mean, is it just me, or do commercial interests/markets constitute the cart and the methodologies the horse(s)? The relationships between format/mode of delivery and market segment/distribution model create these clearly defined sectors, it seems, to me anyway.
You'd think that the human race would have, by now, worked out how best to teach language, or as some people would no doubt say, we have, but it doesn't sell as well :-)"
Feel free to join in the debate...visit my blog at:
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/categories/blog
or email info@languagesoutthere.comor visit this newsletter when it is posted on the website and leave a comment.
Which leads on nicely to free teaching and learning materials, something that I have been mulling over (i.e thinking about) for some time too and which came up again twice this week.
Once in conversation with an investment banker (I know, I know...but oddly I found myself warming to him very quickly) and then with my friendly professor.
Both, would you believe it...believe in 'free'. Free content, free products, free stuff for everyone.
Free is a big thing on the web and in our world of lesson plans and materials. There are people who say online content will increasingly be paid for and free content will whither because someone has to pay for it in the end and once most published materials are distributed online they will have to be paid for.
Pearson just announced a deal with Livemocha.com. Here is a bit of the press release:
"Pearsonand Livemocha plan to build a series of online conversational English courses that will be offered as premium, paid-for content on Livemocha"
So they are going to try and sell materials (like ours) online...yee-ha! Must mean we are onto something and that we were 'on the money' to officially partner with Italki.com.
Is the free stuff inferior to the stuff you have to pay for? In other words does it need to be sustainable to maintain quality? If so, how do you do it?
I would say that the banker and the professor have a lot more in common than just believing in free.
In my experience it seems that a lot of free stuff is either not great or is in fact linked to a paid for product. For example, the big publishers push out lots of free stuff, but it is often linked to the stuff that they want you to buy and which makes the product complete.
I said to the professor that I was interested in free but felt that to be able to do it I would need, like the publishers (and him), another good income.
The banker is working on something quite different, income from the free stuff itself. Which is not as oxymoronic as you might think. How he gets there is anyone's guess but at the end of the day, as they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch...or truly free materials.
Found another great website, one pager, built in 20 minutes and is designed to promote the creation of opportunities and peace and harmony for freelance teachers in London to express themselves and throw off the chains of servitude:
http://jasonpwest.googlepages.com/home
We will have an educational agency running the office, what fun, and they will be happy to sell courses for you and your fledgling enterprise!
We've had some teachers from Ecuador enquiring about teacher training in EOT, nice. We can do it in London face to face or online. Anyone else interested go here and sign up and let us know you're out there (no pun intended):
http://www.meetup.com/London-English-Out-There-EFL-ESL-teachers-group/
New EOT London course details are on the site now:
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/categories/london-english-courses
There are also 10 teachers' lesson plans at each level available for individual download for just £1 each at ("Yeah, we're still trying to sell 'em but according to someone who should know, it could catch on"):
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/store/
Finally, I thought I'd take our 'Out There Providers' Manual' out of the online shop on the website, I mean, with all this intent to create online conversational practice materials in the air, you can't be too careful. Can you? :-)
Wordy gag fest
Did you hear about the oyster who went to a
seafood disco last week? He pulled a mussel.
This lorry full of tortoises collided with a
van full of terrapins. It was a turtle disaster.
I phoned the local builders today, I said to
them 'Can I have a skip outside my house?'
He said, 'I'm not stopping you!'
Until next time...
Cheers
Jason
Hello to everyone Out There
I really hope your March has been more successful than Gordon Brown's pre-G20 world tour. Sorry this is a bit delayed...I was entertaining some anarchists who dropped in for a cup of tea on their way to London for a punch-up.
Have we put the 'cart before the horse'?
'Free' teaching and learning materials
Great website
Wordy gag fest (jokes)
In my continual quest to find the truth behind how we learn to speak and understand languages other than our first one I have been corresponding with someone who is a materials writer and an ex-publishing executive.
At the same time I have been corresponding with a well-known professor of education and linguistics.
Both conversations, started in different ways and at different times, and with what seemed initially like wholely different stimuli have come round to the same question that I think about quite a bit.
I posed a question that seemed reasonable to me:
"I do find it amusing that the thing that enables all people to communicate and reason verbally and distinguishes us from all other species, is so contentious and fragmented in terms of methodologies and the way in which they have lined up commercially.
I mean, is it just me, or do commercial interests/markets constitute the cart and the methodologies the horse(s)? The relationships between format/mode of delivery and market segment/distribution model create these clearly defined sectors, it seems, to me anyway.
You'd think that the human race would have, by now, worked out how best to teach language, or as some people would no doubt say, we have, but it doesn't sell as well :-)"
Feel free to join in the debate...visit my blog at:
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/categories/blog
or email info@languagesoutthere.comor visit this newsletter when it is posted on the website and leave a comment.
Which leads on nicely to free teaching and learning materials, something that I have been mulling over (i.e thinking about) for some time too and which came up again twice this week.
Once in conversation with an investment banker (I know, I know...but oddly I found myself warming to him very quickly) and then with my friendly professor.
Both, would you believe it...believe in 'free'. Free content, free products, free stuff for everyone.
Free is a big thing on the web and in our world of lesson plans and materials. There are people who say online content will increasingly be paid for and free content will whither because someone has to pay for it in the end and once most published materials are distributed online they will have to be paid for.
Pearson just announced a deal with Livemocha.com. Here is a bit of the press release:
"Pearsonand Livemocha plan to build a series of online conversational English courses that will be offered as premium, paid-for content on Livemocha"
So they are going to try and sell materials (like ours) online...yee-ha! Must mean we are onto something and that we were 'on the money' to officially partner with Italki.com.
Is the free stuff inferior to the stuff you have to pay for? In other words does it need to be sustainable to maintain quality? If so, how do you do it?
I would say that the banker and the professor have a lot more in common than just believing in free.
In my experience it seems that a lot of free stuff is either not great or is in fact linked to a paid for product. For example, the big publishers push out lots of free stuff, but it is often linked to the stuff that they want you to buy and which makes the product complete.
I said to the professor that I was interested in free but felt that to be able to do it I would need, like the publishers (and him), another good income.
The banker is working on something quite different, income from the free stuff itself. Which is not as oxymoronic as you might think. How he gets there is anyone's guess but at the end of the day, as they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch...or truly free materials.
Found another great website, one pager, built in 20 minutes and is designed to promote the creation of opportunities and peace and harmony for freelance teachers in London to express themselves and throw off the chains of servitude:
http://jasonpwest.googlepages.com/home
We will have an educational agency running the office, what fun, and they will be happy to sell courses for you and your fledgling enterprise!
We've had some teachers from Ecuador enquiring about teacher training in EOT, nice. We can do it in London face to face or online. Anyone else interested go here and sign up and let us know you're out there (no pun intended):
http://www.meetup.com/London-English-Out-There-EFL-ESL-teachers-group/
New EOT London course details are on the site now:
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/categories/london-english-courses
There are also 10 teachers' lesson plans at each level available for individual download for just £1 each at ("Yeah, we're still trying to sell 'em but according to someone who should know, it could catch on"):
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/store/
Finally, I thought I'd take our 'Out There Providers' Manual' out of the online shop on the website, I mean, with all this intent to create online conversational practice materials in the air, you can't be too careful. Can you? :-)
Wordy gag fest
Did you hear about the oyster who went to a
seafood disco last week? He pulled a mussel.
This lorry full of tortoises collided with a
van full of terrapins. It was a turtle disaster.
I phoned the local builders today, I said to
them 'Can I have a skip outside my house?'
He said, 'I'm not stopping you!'
Until next time...
Cheers
Jason
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