Australian English teacher enters Bermuda's Scrabble Tournament!

American Boarding Schools and The Puente Program

After talking with many of the educators from American Boarding Schools last night at the annual Bermuda admissions fair I can see lots of excellent English and ESL curriculum ideas. Combined with my reading of Robin Turner's "Greater Expectations" detailing the Puente Project in California (thanks for the signed copy, Robin!) I believe I'll have lots of practical pedagogical suggestions for English teachers in Darwin. This is one of the two main research goals. Feels good to be on track, now I just have to stop procrastinating and start writing the report...

10 ways to know you're a Bermudian

1. If you can explain cricket to an American AND the NFL to a Brit

2. If you've named your car (or your bike)

3. If you never notice tree frogs at night

4. If mayonnaise is both your favourite condiment and your preferred method of removing beach tar from your feet

5. If you have ever referred to your near empty cocktail as being "at low tide"

6. If you know that "going shrew de trees" has nothing to do with horticulture

7. If you've ever brought your Christmas tree home on a bike

8. If your phone book listing includes your nickname because no one knows your given name

9. If you've ever gladly stood in line to buy food from a place called "the Roach Coach"

10. If you use the word "fullish" to describe someone's sanity and not a container's current content relative to its capacity

Bermudan school's English success

Spent the morning at Warwick Academy, an international school which was founded in 1623. The Headmistress is a Senior English teacher and has been sharing insights on how to set up web communications with parents. I'm also attending the 2009 Secondary School Fair where American Boarding Schools exhibit. That's tomorrow night organised but before that occurs, I'm discovering the islands treasures. There's a Marks and Spencer in Hamilton, and my taxi driver was a retired school teacher so spent time with me chatting about our shared profession! I agree with Mark Twain's assessment of this place:

“You can go to heaven if you want. I'd rather stay in Bermuda.”

San Diego is an ideas economy!

Well worth the traffic and brief trip to San Diego. The English teacher's conference was full of welcoming, and wise like-minded and open people. Robin Turner ROCKS. So eager to read his book. Thanks everyone! Carol, I'll be in touch!

CATE conference tomorrow

Put English teachers in a room and what do you get? Stimulating conversation, that's what! Thanks to Punky, Anne, Robin, Carol et al for a wonderful dinner and overwhelming welcome to San Diego. I'm really excited about hearing from all the Teachers of English at the conference tomorrow - who needs a festival of books when you can be in beautiful San Diego with a marriage of true minds?

Online partnership with St John's College

Final day at "Bishop Conaty", we are working out how to communicate online between students and Miss Robbins and I have an idea about an American and Australian Poetry unit. Her students have written postcards to each of my students asking them a question which my students can reply to online. The Honors class for Sophmore English is pictured below, and they have a video message for my students. Off to meet San Diego teachers and lecturers this afternoon but VERY reluctant and sad to leave UCLA when the Festival of Books opens today. As you can imagine, it is heaven on earth for me!

Charity begins at home

At school today, I witness students giving up their lunch times to 'Book Club' where they are holding a Book Drive to collect books for a local shelter. The girls are keen for reading recommendations and want to stay in touch on line to get our reviews. They liked the idea of 'Reading in A Minute' which we used at school with the staff for Literacy and Numeracy week last year. Observed two sophmore classes and a Senior Brit Lit class. Great discussions with the students and teachers.

Inspirational Catholic Girls School in LA

In a school of 350 students, English teachers have their own classroom, offer tutoring before and after school and achieve 100% graduation and nearly 100% students go on to student at college. Interviewed a teacher and taught two classes today. Temperatures in the high 90s but not as humid as Darwin!

Research progressB

In the midst of an unseasonal snowstorm, I interviewed a high school English teacher for two hours (whilst warming ourselves on brownies and hot chocolates). Got some great ideas. Thank you Sheryl! She's the wife of the Brigham Young University English Professor who invited me to meet the English undergraduates travelling on a British Literature tour of the UK next month. Happy travelling to all the young people I met on Tuesday.

Snow in Utah

Interviews scheduled at the English Professor at BYU's house this afternoon with students and a High School and Middle School teacher. Really looking forward to it and in awe of the attractive mountainscape and snow here (photos to come). Have purchased lots of English biscuits to take as well as an Australian book of poetry as gifts.

Leadership High School

Conducted two teacher interviews today of Grade 10 English teachers. Cohort similar demographics to ours.  Another interview scheduled with Middle School and Special Needs teacher.

Meeting a Grade 10 AP English student

Advance Placement English at Long Beach Polytechnic does not involve film studies. This is taking (if desired) in a separate elective. As is Journalism. AP English is a continuous cycle of reading, discussion online TED conferences which link thematically to the texts being read. The year began with two Native American Indian texts; "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" by Sherman Alexie, and "Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon Silko. Students "take notes" but not to summarize, to "draw parallels, analyze paradoxes" this is assessed once a month. Essays can be as broad as the social context of the text or on marginalised communities portrayed in the work. "Fun Language Projects" are undertaken each month - the first one was to represent themselves on a song playlist. This student presented the songs on a CD and designed the CD cover.

My student experience today

Visited William R. De Avila School in Haight. Sat the four hour CBEST - California Basic Educator Skills test. This was a great way to see the focus on English teaching - comprehension is tested through inference, understanding of structuring of ideas and persuasive language techniques. Writing is assessed through sequencing of ideas, clarity, depth, accuracy and vocabulary. I heard myself in my head saying to check through all answers if time allowed and to read the questions to identify key words. It's harder to do it when you are feeling under pressure! I'll definitely teach exam literacy more explicitly at home now. Noted that grammar and spelling is not assessed explicitly and forms perhaps one fifth of the overall criteria for marking. Sitting the test on the computer made time go very quickly.

Movie making training course

Apple never fails to meet and exceed training expectations. This morning's course was a 6 person hands on iMovie, iDVD and Garageband session. It's GOT to be the way forward for digital lesson planning, assignment modelling and student creativity. It's an equity issue - the students need access to a standard definition camera and movie editing software. The best DVDs to burn onto are -Rs (I learnt that this morning). Things are going quiet on the school communication front - it's Easter break and spring break now in most schools. Off to Grace Cathedral to view an exhibition on guns and young people.

University of Berkeley visit

Had a great visit to the university town of Berkeley to see where Sr Philippa is studying. Had an interesting discussion with her about the integral place of art in the curriculum for indigenous students. This matches exactly with the practice in California schools to use art across the curriculum to build relationships with the community through business sponsored projects and exhibitions. Spent the evening listening to the author Rand Richards discuss his new book about San Francisco in 1849. Fascinating to hear about the people whom the streets such as Geary and Mason are named after . The bookstore lady talked to me about "The Elegance of Hedgehogs" and "The Blood of Flowers" being popular novels in English classes in high schools. Bought the latter to start reading after I have finished "The Shack". It's written by a local female author and the setting is 17th century Iran. Tomorrow I'm looking at the California Basic Skills Test for teachers - the Writing and Reading tasks wont take me as long as the Math section (ahem!).

Using technology

Had a great session learning about Podcasting through GarageBand and iTunes. Need to request through school that we have a windows mp3 player on the student network (if we can't get iTunes). Students are not just consuming podcasts here, they are creating and publishing them - talk about real life learning! Some can even earn money from it if their podcasts create enough 'buzz'. I've been looking at school websites and have some ideas on how to make my googlepages work better for the students. Had a San Fran institution on my way home - an icecream sandwiched between oatmeal cookies and dipped in chocolate. Happy Days!

Presentation to American class part 3

Presentation to American class part 2

Presentation to American class part 1

Springtime

Spent the morning reading the educational research articles I have been collecting since I won the scholarship - amazing how time flies when you're taking notes and getting lots of ideas to think about (both practical and theoretical). Also started to design a Powerpoint to show to classes with an Aussie slang quiz in. Walked through the sun drenched streets admiring the Queen Anne Victorian Houses (wow!) and went for a two hour workshop at Apple. Now I've got more skills in Photoshop and photo editing it gives me confidence to try more of this in the classroom for our Digital native students. Podcasting session tomorrow.

Meeting up with Sr Philippa

Just had a wonderful day catching up with Sr Philippa and hearing all about her studies here in San Francisco. Also played tourists in Fisherman's Wharf and Alcatraz. Certainly nothing compared to the majesty of our "rock" but a great audio tour. We then had tapas at the Ferry Building. Hope to catch up again this week after her lectures. I've got three computer workshops booked this week, an author's talk on Wednesday night and have just been invited by my landlady to an open night at the Science Museum she works at. Hitting the phone tomorrow to use the contacts I made yesterday to set up a couple of teacher interviews for the week. Loving it here!

Please be aware that the music has been overlaid when it wasn't in the original therefore the quality of sound is impaired.

Fallon Middle School

Spent Saturday on the train from San Francisco to Dublin where teachers met for a biannual fair. Could not believe the line in front of me of new/out of work teachers applying to work in the district. Class sizes being pushed up to the 30 because so many teachers getting 'pink slips' for the new year (in the fall - or August in my language). Managed to speak to some middle school students about their English and have a couple of invitations to talk to teachers on stalls next week.