CINCINNATI: CINCINNATI UNIVERSITY (RESEARCH ON ELT)

Day 2:

Meeting 1: Cincinnati University

Today it made miss my years as a Teacher Trainer. Mind you, I'm now devoted to Colegio Mayor and it's been almost two years since I last gave a workshop or course for Teachers.

The director of the school welcomed us and told us they were asked to do presentations about the use of Technology in the Teaching of English and so she brought teachers and post-graduate students to talk about their research and innovations in this matter.

Presenter 1: Winona - Topic: AAPS in the classroom

Winona is trying to implement the use of the so famous iPads and Smart Phones to reinforce The students' Academic Writing Skills. She showed us some of the activities that can be done with it and personally, I don't have an iPad but after this meeting I really think it'll become a great tool in the teaching of English soon. So, I'm dying to get one! Will I?

Presenter 2: Joy Ting Xiao - Topic: Literacy and Second Language Studies

When teaching English as a Second Language and for Specific Purposes, it demands from the teacher to know a bit of everything; but above all, giving tasks to students that are meaningful to their subject matter and for doing that a close connection between teachers and curricula should be done. In other words, learning English while learning Content.

Presenter 3: Xuejiao Diao - Topic: Trustworthy webpages

This is a thorough research on the use of webpages as sources to teach English. Xuejiao has developed an instrument to assess the webpages we use as teachers or that we suggest students to use. Quite an interesting research!

Presenter 4: Glenn Chapman - Topic: Corpora and Second Language Acquisition

In 2005 I went to the IAETFL conference in Cardiff and one of the topics that I became interested in was 'Corpora in Applied Linguistics'. So, I bought a book there and got familiar to this topic, searching on the internet and reading more papers about it. I still remember I thought it would be a good idea to let everybody know abou it and prepared a presentation abou it for Peru TESOL 2005, encouraged by my dearest friend Erik. Not many people went to our presentation but the ones who were there also realised about the importance of knowing about this topic. Usually, the teachers that attend these conventions, expect to be given tips on what activities, games or tasks to use in the classroom and so I think the topic "Corpora in Applied Linguistics" was not catchy.

Six years later, this topic is being part of a research in the university of Cincinnati. I'm sure that if an American or British gives a talk about it in Peru, it'll soon become popular!

Presenter 5: Zachary Haurash - Topic: Academic Writing through Gaming

Yes, gaming meaning Video Games!! This research is the one that is still in process but will surely become of everybody's interest. Zachary is using the following page:

www.minecraftwiki.net to create a Content Based Learning approach activity to encourage students to write and so they are learning English. If some of you have ever played City Ville on Facebook, it has more or less the same structure and what he basically does is to make students write about it. For example, describing places (as he creates it, he has Viking houses, Native American homes, etc) also it can be extended to Speaking activities. Try to find out more about it.

This university is seeking to make connections with Latin American countries where they can apply their research, create a colearning link, and in the near future to offer Masters and Diplomas entirely online for Teachers of English. We'll keep in touch!

Ohh! I think I had eaten too much the day before and felt bloted, I wanted to eat nothing, not even drink water. Ironically, everybody had the cheapest ($8) buffet lunch in the US. It was the University Canteen. The place smelled delicious!! Look how much they all ate!

After that, Mary (Nicaragua), Cecilia (Bolivia), Virginia (Dominican Rep.) went to the university bookshop. I bought the book Fresh Takes on Teaching Literacy Elements which cost me $24 and which will help me with the supervision of the extended essays I'm in charge of.

Meeting 2: Conversa Language Centre

There's no much to say here. This is a private business that offers Translation and Interpreting services. It's a very small English Language Center for immigrants. They currently have about 20 students from different countries and 3 full-time teachers.