Random Quote
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
---- Pablo Picasso
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
---- Robert Copeland
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
Podcast with an ELT recruiter
Joe of Zenkimchi has produced a podcast interviewing a recruiter for language schools in Korea. Recruiters generally have a vile reputation here in Korea so I’m sure this will be an interesting podcast. At 158 minutes it is rather long. Anyhow I haven’t listened to it yet, though it is queued up for my subway ride later today.
This week we have one of those evil recruiters, Rowan Hall, from ESL-Planet Recruiting. He actually has a lot of background info on the current trends in the Korean ESL industry and personal experiences and advice on how to navigate the new E-2 visa regulations.
I’ve now listed to the first hour and forty minutes and must say this is very interesting and highly recommended.
Screwed by your employer?
I’ve been listening to the latest SeoulPodcast where Joe Interviews Amanda. I’m about 30 minutes into a 153 minute podcast (don’t know if I’ll finish it) and it’s been all about hagwons, dodgy employers, the labor board and generally getting screwed in Korea.
If you are looking to hear from two expats who’ve been screwed by their employers this is the podcast for you. It’s not overly bitter, but it is definitely informative.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday May 15, 2008 at 12:20 PM
Podcasting | Teaching |
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review of koreanclass101
The EFL Geek described a new KSL class online and I am in the process of giving it a try. Koreanclass101 is growing and currently has ‘newbie lessons’, beginner lessons and a little more (the audioblog seems geared toward stronger Korean ability). The site offers free podcasts and additional paid material. When you sign up, you get a free week of access to the premium material, including transcripts and review.
I am about to game the system. I don’t recommend this, but I will soon sign up with a second email address (doesn’t everyone have a handful of email accounts these days?) for a further week of free access to the full service. My trivial excuses are: 1) I’m doing this for you -helping give you a better account of the services offered, and 2) I was busy that week - it was a bad time to explore the content.
A more serious reason is that I have not yet found my true level in the material offered. Again, I was busy. Perhaps a level test is needed (is ‘level test’ a Konglish term -it rolls naturally off my tongue but I’m not sure). I would even accept a sort of eye test: “Can you read and understand this line?” “How about this line?” There’s not much point in cheating on a level test, after all.
I don’t mind, and probably need, review. I am not a ‘newbie’ but, well, false beginners are always hard to place.
Anyway, the podcasts are clear and stand alone well. The documentation prints out in good format, but I don’t really like PDF files. I would prefer a simple ‘.txt’ file that I could store in my phone’s ebook folder and read while listening on the bus. That would be handier than paper in my situation.
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kwandongbrian inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Oct 30, 2007 at 12:55 PM
About_Language | Podcasting | Guest Author |
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Podcast for Korean Learners
Long term readers may recall that I started work on a podcast for Korean language learners but that it eventually fell through for a number of reasons. Well it looks like someone has gone ahead and completed the project almost exactly as I envisioned it. If you want to use podcasts to improve your Korean skills be sure to check out koreanclass101 - and don’t forget my long running Korean learning group blog 한국어 연습장 for writing practice.
KoreanClass101 offers the podcasts for free via RSS just like any other podcast. But if you want access to the learning center and pdf’s of transcripts/vocabulary etcetera that involves a paid membership. They do offer a 7 day trial membership which gives you access to all the features of a premium account. I haven’t yet signed up for the trial as I am too busy to take advantage of it fully. However at the end of the semester I will definitely be signing up and trying it out. After the trial you can expect a full review here or over at 한국어연습장.
If you try it before then feel free to use guest authoring to write a review here. Also added a poll about podcasts - vote now!
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Oct 9, 2007 at 10:13 AM
Podcasting | Public_Service_Announcement | Polling_Station |
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ESL & Archie Comics
ESL & Archie Comics is a blog that posts one Archie strip with accompanying audio and simple vocabulary explanations. currently the audio is set up for download only rather than an inline player, but the RSS feed has enclosures all set up to run like a regular podcast.
The author of the blog sent me an email.
Perhaps your students would enjoy my blog… ESL with Archie Comics… sort of a short (but hopefully sweet) ESL lesson for elementary and middle school kids (maybe even up to adults?). Anyway, I taught an ESL class this spring and have just learned about doing podcasting and thought it would be a neat extension for my students. If you can offer any helpful advice, I’d appreciate it. (BTW I am working on fixing the audio player to be viewable in the same window rather than opening a new one.) http://www.eslarchie.wordpress.com
I responded suggesting that there might be problems with copyrights and found out that the author works with archie and if you check the mp3 address it’s actually on archie comics, so this is a legitimate comic resource for ESL/EFL learners. Go and enjoy.
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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Jun 4, 2006 at 10:31 AM
Podcasting | useful_web_sites | Materials |
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Podcasting Revisited
I recently purchased a new MP3 player and have started thinking about podcasting a little more. Today at work I had a couple of hours between classes and went looking for some EFL/ESL/ELT podcasts. I noticed that there were several targetting students but what I was really after were podcasts that were for teachers, specifically a reflective look at teaching. I guess somewhat like my blog or many of the blogs on my blogroll but audio oriented.
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Chinese Podcasting
Chinese Pod is a fantastic learning resource if you are learning Chinese. Honestly I would kill if there was a Korean site that did this. If anyone knows where I can find good Korean listening resources I would be very grateful. I also posted this in Lets Learn Korean.
Hat tip to Gord.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Apr 24, 2006 at 07:49 AM
Podcasting | useful_web_sites |
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CHAT: an intro to podcasting
Bee and Graham have both made announcements of the special Blogstreams Salon Session on Sunday June 19th at 21:00 GMT (that should technically be UTC Universal Time Coordinated).
I know that I previosly stated that I wasn’t going to podcast, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested or won’t change my mind in the future. I think podcasting for students has benefits, if you can get your students interested and involved. Not everyone has an mp3 player or wants to sit in front of the computer to listen to podcasts. Anyhow, if I can I will participate in thier chat. All I need to do now, is find the world clock so I can figure out what day/time that is in Korea. Thier abstract is in the extended entry.
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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Jun 15, 2005 at 09:13 AM
Podcasting | Public_Service_Announcement |
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Not Podcasting
A while back regular readers may remember that I was getting interested in podcasting. I was even interested enough to purchase two domains which are now pointing at this site and create a podcasting category. However after considering it further I have decided against podcasting. I think that it involves too much work and time for what I would get out of it. Additionally I see some critical flaws in the whole idea.
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The Third Round-up
I’m incredibly busy these days which is nothing new. However there have been a number of great posts on other blogs that I have failed to comment on or mention here that have slipped by. I’ve managed to recall four of them.
Dan briefly talks about extensive reading and links to a page with a wealth of information on the subject. Extensive reading (and writing, and listening) is something I’m very interested in persuing as a student of Korean and finding ways to get my English students involved in as well.
Graham provides a series links and resources for EFL teachers interested in podcasting on his Podcasting ELT blog on the new yahoo 360 platform. One link of interest is the TEFL Podcasting Forum which is actually a blog and not a forum. Over at his original blog Graham posts an email response to one of his readers about blogging that is definatly worth reading.
Finally Gord writes about festival week at a Korean university. His post reflects on issues in university rules, expectations and student behavior in Korea as well.
update
A new blog that I just subscribed to recently by Adam titled Sarin Miso has a great post on language anxiety.
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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday May 19, 2005 at 10:34 PM
Podcasting | Random_Ramblings | Teaching |
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Podcasting Intro
In the last week or so I’ve been reading alot about podcasting, and wrote a bit on ESL podcasting which has a good number of comments with useful information. Over the weekend one of my RSS feeds, Help2go posted a comprehensive Podcasting Introduction with good explanations and links to other sites. If you are interested I would say this is a good starting point to learn about podcasting.
Also check out Grahams post about ESL podcasting (mini) explosion. Finally I created a new category here for all future discussions about podcasting and the eventual podcast that I will start.
ESL podcasting
I’ve been hearing the term podcasting for some time and never really understood the appeal. It’s basically somebody talking and recording their thoughts in audio format. You can’t skim it, you can’t quote it without transcribing, and you can’t print it. Additionally there is the issue of space and bandwidth for most people. With my host, I have no problems - 5 gb of space and 300gb of transfer is a good deal. I have changed host to Site5.com
I noticed that a few EFL teachers have started podcasts for thier students. Graham links to Charles Kellys podcasts which I don’t find particularly useful as it is primarly nursery rhymes which I don’t see being motivating for adult learners. I know someone will say what about kids? and to that I say, children who enjoy nursery rhymes are not old enough to be surfing the net and studying English. There are however a couple of good sites around.
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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday May 3, 2005 at 10:41 PM
Podcasting | Teaching | useful_web_sites |
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