# Forum for Teachers



## Swettenham

I had an idea that you might consider interesting, a suggestion for a new forum in which teachers of languages could discuss their work, various teaching methods, the learning styles of students, and related matters.  

Many of the people who participate in these beautiful forums are teachers, and, of course, many are very brilliant and helpful people.  Wouldn't you agree that there could scarcely be found more linguistically enlightened minds than those who convene here?  I personally would love to have a forum where I could ask for advice from and maybe talk shop with my colleagues at wordreference.com.  What do you think?     

   

—Joe


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## Benjy

certainly merits discussion. in my opinion


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## Artrella

Yes! That's great Sweet...I've been searching some forums where you can find even some material (printables) to use in your classes!  It would be great if we could have something like that here in WR.  I think we have an EXCELLENT level of people here (you can see that throughout the threads) so it'd be really helpful and useful for us teachers to have that kind of section, where we could discuss about methodology and exercises...


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## panjandrum

I am not a teacher.
I have nothing against teachers, indeed some of my best friends have been seen in company with teachers, but... 
I observe that in any social context where teachers are included they will inevitably come together and spend a lot of time talking about teaching and what a hard life they lead. I don't see this happen to the same extent with other professions.
It would concern me a little that a forum for teachers might remove a lot of the entertaining conversation from the other forums and place it in a more specialist context where we mere non-teachers would feel inadequate.
Well, to be honest, it doesn't really concern me all that muchl - after all there are already several specialist forums in the Spanish section - and if it is therapy for you poor souls then why not


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## fenixpollo

Artrella said:
			
		

> it'd be really helpful and useful for us teachers to have that kind of section, where we could discuss about methodology and exercises...


...as well as specialized terminology. Another teacher votes in favor of this great idea!   


			
				panjandrum said:
			
		

> I observe that in any social context where teachers are included they will inevitably come together and spend a lot of time talking about teaching and what a hard life they lead.


  True, too true.  However, I see them doing this already in the culture forum.  (Thread)  If it got too out of hand, you could institute a "No Whining" rule.

In my view, the benefits would far outweigh the costs.  Cheers!


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## GenJen54

Erm, I'm gonna raise my hand on this one.  

As a former (emphasis on _former_) ESL teacher, I certainly see the benefit for those in the profession to share tips, materials, and discuss the countless pedagogical theories that exist in the domain of education etc.

However, in my current state as a non-teacher (note the above reference to _former)_, I agree with others that we may risk segregating those of us who do not share in the profession from participating in what is wonderfully rich, culture-filled discussion.

I think if teaching-related threads were kept to more specialized discussion of particular teaching methods, student evaluation, comparison of learning styles, etc., this might prove beneficial, especially since teachers would be able to discuss things "colleague to colleague." 

I think any other general discussion should remain reserved for the general populous of simple admirers of language, English and others.


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## mkellogg

Sorry, I've been traveling and had not seen this thread before.

I'm intrigued by the idea 
Can you give examples of the types of questions that would be asked/answered? Also, do we have enough teachers here that would say "I'm interested, too" here?

Mike


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## juliebebz

i'm interested in this idea...

i'm a teacher too, and i want to know some techniques, methods and strategies on teaching... on how to handle students, how to catch their attentions,
sharing ideas on a topic that sometimes hard to discuss or maybe lack of references etc...

if this would happen, it would be a big help for us teachers!
we want the students to learn effectively!


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## Swettenham

GenJen54 said:
			
		

> However, in my current state as a non-teacher (note the above reference to _former)_, I agree with others that we may risk segregating those of us who do not share in the profession from participating in what is wonderfully rich, culture-filled discussion.


This is definitely a concern, one which had not occured to me before I started this thread.  Since then, several people have brought it to my attention, and I understand; in fact, I greatly appreciate that my friends here at WR are so concerned about maintaining the integrity of our forum.  There may be another place on the internet where we could go for this sort of resource.  If anyone knows of such a website, please post a link here, and that may resolve this issue once and for all. But then again, my motivation for bringing up this idea in the first place was that I would really like to discuss teaching with my colleagues at WR, since I have been so impressed by the level of general competency here.

Another idea given to me by Fenixpollo was to start a thread in the culture forum called "Teachers post here."  First, we would have to get the green light from Benjy and Zebedee (happy belated birthday  ).

If la gente wordreferencés wishes to continue considering the idea, then I will offer an earlier thread posted by yours truly to give an idea of what might be discussed.  Basically, I was having trouble teaching this concept to my students, wanted to know how other teachers on the forum would go about teaching it, and got a response that really helped me in a major way (ask my students!)

In any case, thank you all for your comments, whether pro or con.  As always, all perspectives should be equally and fairly weighed.

—Joe


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## jacinta

Hi Joe,

Your idea is intiguing...I'm going to play devil's advocate here. 

Frankly, I come to WR to escape my world of teaching and all its headaches.  I frequent other chatboards for my teaching tools and conversation.  Are you familiar with them?  If you aren't, you can PM me for the ones I know.  There are some great ones out there and some not-so-great.

Now, with that said, I'm always up for receiving and giving help to fellow teachers.  To me, that is what makes a great teacher; knowing when to ask for help!    I'm not sure how it would work here since this is mainly a language forum.  But, then, that's what we language teachers are all about, right?  Would we have a completely separate forum? 

Now for the positive side:  Here at this site, I can be assured that the people who participate are intelligent and caring.  Also, the setup here is much easier to navigate, thanks to our Mike.  Especially with the great search engine, we can use it as a research tool as well.  This is the only place that has this, and some of the boards I frequent have lots of repeated questions.  They don't save a database for longer that a few months and mostly it is "real time" only.  I'm not sure how we would search for "questions", though, since the search is geared to "words" only.  Could we have our own search??

My fear would be that once the word gets out, (through google or whatever) there would be lots of people entering who are not necessarily language teachers.  I don't know if this would happen, it is only supposition.  Would this be a problem to anyone?  It would be to me.

I guess I'm saying that I'm on the fence with this.  I would go either way and if it were to happen, I would certainly participate!  My other problem would be that I love participating with the regular language forum and my time is limited.  So is yours during the school year, I imagine!!  It would be nice to keep it all in the family, though.  

Sorry for the length of this, but it has made my mind whirl.


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## cuchuflete

Random thoughts from a random sometimes teacher...

Having taught both language and literature (as well as sundry business and technical courses), I'm always interested in learning from discussions of pedagogic technique.

I think the segregation issue is small.  The teaching threads would be incremental.
What is special about the WR community that might, I stress MIGHT, differentiate it from other teachers' forums such as those Jacinta frequents? Well, for one thing, here we have the possibility of student input and feedback.

I would therefore propose that those in favor of the proposal just begin by starting related threads in Culture, if Zeb and Ben don't object, and if there is sufficient interest and activity, we could easily split those threads off into a new forum.

To Jacinta's final concern...that non-language teachers might 'clutter' our discussions, we can easily define and moderate the pedagogy forum to avoid that. 

with respect to all who have participated here, with a total absence of whining,

Cuchuflete


PS- as some may have noticed, we are totally reorganizing and expanding our Resource forums in various languages.  We already have lots of teaching resource material, and can easily add more.


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## Benjy

we have had threads dicussing the merits of certin forms of language teaching/learning before in the culture forum, i dont see why we couldn't have some more  only thing is though about that, i dont know if we would get a very good idea of how much extra traffic we would get if we had a dedicated forum (ie people looking for a language teaching forum on a search engine or something [just a thought]).


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## panjandrum

I am not at all against this idea, just curious.

Looking at Swettenham's example - I assume it was a perfectly acceptable thread over there in Spanish-English.  It will have been seen by all kinds of people, not just teachers.  As suggested below (or above), this is probably a good thing.  There is a good chance that many non-teachers would not come into a Teachers' Forum.

I wonder...
Do teachers who would like a TF feel that there are issues that they can't discuss in one of the existing Forums?

Do non-teachers feel that more teaching-related threads would be in the way on their favourite Forum?

Should there be one TF or should each language forum have its own?


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## jacinta

cuchuflete said:
			
		

> I think the segregation issue is small.  The teaching threads would be incremental.
> What is special about the WR community that might, I stress MIGHT, differentiate it from other teachers' forums such as those Jacinta frequents? Well, for one thing, here we have the possibility of student input and feedback. Yes, could be a good thing. I didnt think about that possibility. We'll have to watch our language!
> 
> I would therefore propose that those in favor of the proposal just begin by starting related threads in Culture, if Zeb and Ben don't object, and if there is sufficient interest and activity, we could easily split those threads off into a new forum.  I think this sounds good.  If there is a small amount of interest, we wouldn't worry about cluttering the forum. (no more than our friends who want to know if love at first sight truly exists)  If someone is not interested, they will ignore it anyway.  Then we can go on our merry way discussing our concerns.
> 
> Cuchuflete
> 
> 
> PS- as some may have noticed, we are totally reorganizing and expanding our Resource forums in various languages.  We already have lots of teaching resource material, and can easily add more.  Really?  I must get over there more.  I haven't checked!



I think that this will be fine to try in Culture to see how it goes. I don't think there would be a flurry of activity.  Joe, I leave it to you to ask away, especially with the first of the school year breathing down our necks.  It's always nice to collaborate and commiserate


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## panjandrum

jacinta said:
			
		

> PS- as some may have noticed, we are totally reorganizing and expanding our Resource forums in various languages. We already have lots of teaching resource material, and can easily add more. Really? I must get over there more. I haven't checked!


 AHA - well just in case any of you need directions to find some of this marvellous new resource material, and would perhaps like to help by contributing some of your own wisdom, you can find a fascinating set of themed-list forums in French and English if you *CLICKEZ ICI*.

  Ce n'est pas mandatoire de parle Francais pour entrez dedans  
OR
*English is spoken over there.*

You can tell I went to the Miles Kingston school of French.


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## cuchuflete

panjandrum said:
			
		

> Ce n'est pas mandatoire de parle Francais pour entrez dedans
> OR
> *English is spoken over there.*
> 
> You can tell I went to the Miles Kingston school of French.



Is Miles Kingston the FR equivalent of M. Kellogg?  Or is this another of those BE/AE things?


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## fenixpollo

cuchuflete said:
			
		

> I think the segregation issue is small. The teaching threads would be incremental.
> 
> I would therefore propose that those in favor of the proposal just begin by starting related threads in Culture, if Zeb and Ben don't object...
> 
> PS- as some may have noticed, we are totally reorganizing and expanding our Resource forums in various languages. We already have lots of teaching resource material, and can easily add more.


After further thought and consideration, I agree with Cuchu 100%.  I also agree with GenJen and Jacinta -- it's nice to have a (virtual) space where you can switch off your Teacher Mode, take a deep breath and let it out, curl your toes, stretch your back and just focus on _language_.  Teachers already have lots of places they can go on the Web to find resources and ideas, and we can gladly refer them.

I think the best solution is not necessarily a separate forum (why would WE get a separate forum, and not any other professionals?), but the other things that were suggested here:

Continue the practice of asking language-related teaching questions in the Culture Forum & in the other forums;
Refer teachers who are looking for ideas to the Resource forums.
I think the best starting point might be to have a "Teacher's FAQ Thread" in this forum (either this thread or a new one) to describe the resources for teachers that are available in the forum, with appropriate hyperlinks.

That's my three cents.


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## panjandrum

We are going back a long way here - to the 1970s.
I would hate to be accused of off-topic posts, or of advertising, so I simply include a link to a relevant article in this useful teaching resource.


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## Agnès E.

Off-topic or not, the pun was good, Panjandrum!


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## cuchuflete

panjandrum said:
			
		

> We are going back a long way here - to the 1970s.
> I would hate to be accused of off-topic posts, or of advertising, so I simply include a link to a relevant article in this useful teaching resource.



Bravo Monsieur Pandemonium

Just out of curiosity, as I've been away, since this thread opened, has anyone begun a pedagogy thread in Culture?

Cuchu


PD- The rumors that franglais is a dialect of Benjois are fallse


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## jacinta

Hey!  Mike!  If the Congrats Page gets its own sub-forum, why couldn't we (teachers)?
(Maybe after we see what kind of traffic there is?).


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## Swettenham

cuchuflete said:
			
		

> PS- as some may have noticed, we are totally reorganizing and expanding our Resource forums in various languages.  We already have lots of teaching resource material, and can easily add more.


I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with these Resource forums.  Where are they?


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## panjandrum

cuchuflete said:
			
		

> Just out of curiosity, as I've been away, since this thread opened, has anyone begun a pedagogy thread in Culture?


I just came across this one, started by Swettenham:
*(ESL Teachers) Comparisons & Superlatives* 
Including the target audience in the title is a really smart idea.

To answer Swettenham's latest question:
*~~~~THEY'RE HERE, THEY'RE HERE, THEY'RE HERE~~~~*

(sorry - I am sure there are other very resource-full places as well)


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## VenusEnvy

panjandrum said:
			
		

> (sorry - I am sure there are other very resource-full places as well)


Como aquí, por ejemplo.


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## Artrella

mkellogg said:
			
		

> Sorry, I've been traveling and had not seen this thread before.
> 
> I'm intrigued by the idea
> Can you give examples of the types of questions that would be asked/answered? Also, do we have enough teachers here that would say "I'm interested, too" here?
> 
> Mike




Mike, I'm sending you a link with some information where you can see how this could work...Not here in order not to make publicity of another site.


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## zebedee

Sorry for the delayed reply, I'm just back from my holidays.

Speaking as a former EFL teacher myself, I think it's an excellent idea to have a coffee corner where teachers can get their heads together and exchange teaching tricks etc. 

I'm more than happy for it to be in the Culture forum to start with and I like Swettenham's idea of putting "(*EFL Teachers*)" in the title of the thread. (Thanks for the belated birthday wishes by the way Swett.  )

If we see there's a lot of traffic building up as more teachers get involved we could perhaps open up a separate forum, what do you think Mike?

zeb


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## mkellogg

That sounds like a good idea Zeb. Start a thread in culture and see how it goes. Once there is as much interest in this as there is in those Congrats threads  ...then we can open a separate forum for it. 

Mike


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