Teaching Young Learners Affectively

During the month of April I lived an amazing experience!
I gave my very first online course on Teaching Young Learners Affectively!

Everything started when Chuck Sandy kindly offered me to teach an online session on affective language learning at iTDi's Summer Intensive last August. I rapidly accepted it and got ready for my online debut. I was a little nervous at first, but slowly I got more and more comfortable with this means and I was overjoyed at the end. The marvellous feedback I got showed me that I had an opportunity to pursue!

Last December in talks with Barbara Sakamoto I told her I was interested in giving an advanced course on affective language learning. She agreed and we scheduled it for April of this year.

This was one of the banners used to promote my course:

I had four weeks to share my 20-year journey learning and discovering affective language learning with young learners and I decided on the following program:

Week 1: Introducing Affective Language Learning concepts to get you started. 

Week 2: Empowering resources for you and your learners to learn affectively.

Week 3: Unleashing creativity and fantasy through storytelling and puppeteering.
Week 4: Making grammar and writing enjoyable and meaningful.

We started advertising the course and slowly participants from many different countries started enrolling. In the end there were 31 participants from 13 countries. The countries were Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Egypt, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the USA. Wow, what a privilege to be able to learn and share with such an audience!

Then the first day was getting closer and closer. In the previous week Steven Herder gave me a course on how to use the Adobe platform and also gave precious hints to make the course run smoothly. Here are some of these:

My computer was on boxes for me to be better on screen.

I had a lamp with a sheet of paper to difuse the light.

I had earphones to avoid echo.

I had all my slides printed in a list I had by my side.


Each session lasted an hour and sessions happened on Sunday mornings in Brazil and that worked fine as most participants could watch the session live without having to be awake in the middle of the night. Participants also the opportunity to watch the recording of the sessions or even watch these again to get more details.

This is the screen that I had in front of me while delivering the course. I had to manage time to cover all the planned content in one hour and also to keep an eye on the running chat box to comment on and answer the questions that were coming from the participants.


Affective learning has to do with responding to students' demands, so my challenge was set there!

I was very happy by the end of the first session that I even cheered on screen. Facebook feedback was also great. Then I was ready for the second component of every session: the google community forum. Every session I present three tasks from which students had to choose two to share their views on the forum. One of the first tasks was to take a picture that represented affective language learning for them. Their pictures and the motives were brilliant. Check some of these below:

One area that we had in the Adobe platform that I like very much is the lobby. The lobby is a customizable area where I welcomed participants while they were waiting for each session to start. 

One affective strategy that I used was to display there some of the pictures that participants had shared in the forum the previous week as a way to validate their work and celebrate our learning. 

I could clearly notice how teachers were excited to see their pictures in the lobby. I will certainly do this again in my next courses! 

Another important moment was circle time when we shared about what we had thought since the last session. It was also a great way to acknowledge the great work that was done in the discussion forums. 

Throughout the course we explored how to foster affective language learning through everyday objects, storytelling, and puppeteering. In the last session we focused on how to engage young learners in writing and grammar in meaningful and creative ways.

Participants also recorded lovely videos of how they would present puppets to their students. Here I would like to share here a special video made by Damien Herlihy from Thailand in which he even used chroma key. Check it out! 

Every week I had the most adorable time engaging in dialogue through the participants' discussion forum posts. There I was able to bond individually with each teacher validating their dedication and commenting on their ideas. A highlight were the puppets that teachers made and their sharing of how they introduced them to their students using the techniques learned in the course. 

The ending was a very special moment that I will always remember. We turned on our cameras and we were able to see each other around the world. Many of us got emotional, including me, and we were all very excited to celebrate these four intensive weeks in which we share our experiences, lives, and dreams. I feel that lots of the affective learning seeds are already germinating!!!

I am certainly going to give many more online courses as I simply loved this experience. I met lovely teachers all around the world, discovered online tools, and learned a lot about affective language learning.

I would like to thank iTDi for this amazing possibility and in special to Barbara, Steven, Chuck and Gareth for all the all the support and attention!

There are always great courses, given by passionate teachers, happening at iTDi .
Check here iTDi's advanced skills courses and choose the next one you will join!



Sending you all a big hug,

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Thank you!

Affective and effective leading practices and postures

It is with great pleasure that I am part of the May issue on Leadership of the iTDi blog! 
In my article I share postures and practices that my sister Sosô and I have learned and that have been both affective and effective in our leading of the language school for children we direct in São Paulo, Brazil. Feel free to steal all the ones that you feel might work for you and your school!

Never heard of iTDi? 

iTDi is a global online teacher development institute that is owned and staffed by dedicated teachers. iTDi provides Online courses to improve your classroom teaching or English language skills, written by some of the most respected authors in English language teaching. 

iTDi's mission is to provide quality professional development that is meaningful, accessible and affordable for all teachers. The iTDi community brings together teaching professionals working at every level -- newcomers and veterans, native and non-native teachers from a wide range of contexts, all sharing a common belief that being a teacher means a never-ending commitment to growing and learning.

Make sure you check iTDi's site and check out the offered courses and webinars!  

Send you a big hug, 

Juan

Eleven!

Welcome to the Eleven blog post challenge! 

I have been tagged by my dear  friend Malu Sciamarelli, with whom I have exchanged and learned so much. Malu is a globetrotter and I'm very happy that we will be attending some conferences together in 2014! 

I have been also tagged by Fabiana Casella, who I met online. We are both from Argentina and I look forward to meeting her and lots of great Argentinian educators next time I visit my country. This will be a day to remember!

The game goes on! Priscila Mateini has just tagged me and I am happy that I was remembered again. Priscila is an educator I have met through Breltchat, who has a huge passion for people and education. She is very creative and I hope to meet her very soon as she is only 500 kms away from me in Rio. 

So, how does it work?

If you’re tagged:

a) Acknowledge the blogger who has nominated you.

b) Share 11 random facts about yourself.

c) Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger asked you.

d) Nominate 11 more bloggers of your choice.

e) Post 11 questions for the nominated bloggers and let them know they’ve been nominated. Don’t nominate a blogger who has nominated you!

Here we go: 11 random facts about me!

1. I like frogs. 

2. I have just divorced. 

3. I have the travel bug!

4. I have lost 5 kilos and plan to lose 5 more. 

5. I give all the books I read to friends, so then I can discuss the story with them. I ask them to pass the books forward. 

6. I love watching non-traditional movies. 

7. I love animals in generals, specially dogs. Miss my two dogs that are in Toronto so much!

8. I meditate very often and I love it.

9. I am a morning person, love to wake up early. 

10. I am writing a book. 

11. I love listening to people and making them questions.  

Malu's questions: 

1.  What do you have on your bedroom wall?   The statues of prince Rama and princess Sita.

2. What’s the first thing you do when you get up? Check my twitter, facebook, and instagram.

3. Do you have a pet? Yes, two lovely dogs. A Schauzer mix named Joy, and a Lab-Collie named Nina.

4. What’s your favorite food from your childhood? My mom's Puchero.

5. What do you like most about teaching? Listening to students' stories. 

6. What’s the best thing about going to a conference? Meeting amazing educators. 

7. Do you read two or more books at the same time? Oh, yes! Usually in different languages about totally different things. 

8. Who is your hero? Sort of hard... I would say Jim Henson. 

9. What’s your favorite country to visit and why? Japan. Culture, food, places, and most of all, the lovely people!

10. What’s making you smile at the moment? Thinking about Japan!

11. Life is too short to… think you are too old to do something!

Fabiana's questions! 

1. What are three adjectives that describe you best? Creative, affective, passionate. 

2. Who is someone you admire the most? Why? I do not know if the most, but I admire Pope Francis. He's brave and humble. 

3. What is your favorite color? Why? I would say blue. It matches everything. 

4. Where would you like to spend your dream vacation? Iran. 

5. Are you a good cook? What is your "speciality"? Not really. Can't cook much. It is a goal for 2014. 

6. Have you ever met a Hollywood star? Where? How? No, not really interested in them. 

7. The Beatles or The Rolling Stones? The Beatles. 

8. Can you Tango? or better said: Can you dance Tango? Unfortunately, I can't. And I'm Argentinian! 

9. Have you ever eaten some exotic food? Oh, yeah. Kudu, Onyx, Ostrich. Mainly in Africa. 

10.Do you think you are a connected educator? I would say so as I am playing this game now! 

11. If you were ever offered to teach in a foreign country, which one would you choose? Probably Butan. 

Priscila's questions! 

1- What is your favorite movie? Casablanca. 

2- What is/ was the most challenging moment in your career? Now. Transitioning from a school director to an international teacher developer/ plenary speaker/ educational consultant

3- Would like to teach in another country? Oh, yes. I have already taught in Canada and have given workshops in many different countries. I am excited that soon I will be giving my Affective Language Learning Certificate in the United Arab Emirates and in Armenia, two mysterious places I have never been. 

4- What was the most memorable moment in a Conference that you had been? Mario Rinvolucri gave me his copy of Bernard Dufeu's Teaching Myself, which everything to do with was I was doing and I was totally unaware there were other educators that thought and taught like me. 

5- What could you do if you had to teach in a public school in the country side of your Country? A lot. Feel ashamed of not having contributed much with the public sector. 

6- What is your favorite band? The Beatles.

7- Do you have a special song? If does, what is the name? Yes, Africa by Toto. 

8-How many languages do you speak? I love languages. I am bilingual in Spanish and Portuguese, fluent in English and German, and I'm love with Japanese. I could easily spend a year in every country learning their language and culture. 

9- Did you have a teacher that inspire you? Yes, I had a biology teacher that I loved. Sadly, he was murdered when thieves wanted to rob his house. 

10- How many books did you read this year? Many, no idea of how many. Probably around 15. 

11- What “Teaching” is in your point of view? I prefer to talk about learning, as it is really the focus of teaching, and when you are teaching you are learning. Learning is the communion of souls. 

And now the 11 bloggers I would love to see answering my questions:

@vickyloras

@roseliserra

@AnnLoseva

@DanielaAyalaM

@ceciELT

@BsmDgn

@hoprea

@michaelegriffin

@tamaslorincz

@teacherhigor

@eltbakery

My questions: 

1. What would you do if you were not an educator? 

2. How do you relax? 

3. Do you write a diary? 

4. What is love? 

5. What book are you reading now? 

6. Do you have a pet? 

7. Do you collect anything? 

8. How do you have fun?

9. What can you cook? 

10. Do you exercise much? 

11.How would you describe me? 


Great fun! 
Thank you Malu for inviting me to play! 
Thank you Fabiana for inviting me as well! 
Thank you Priscila too!!!
Look forward to learning more about everybody! 


Send you all a big hug straight from São Paulo, Brazil!

Juan

Caring, Learning, and Sharing at JALT 2013

Happy we arrived at JALT 2013!

A conference is always a very special moment. We meet old and new peers,  question old ideas and learn new ones, and many times share our work. And JALT 2013 in Kobe is certainly one of those intense growing experiences that will always stick near and dear to my heart. I had wanted to return to Japan for a long time and I am happy that I made it to JALT!

The conference finished more than a month ago and after the euforia I can see better what I have lived. It is my great pleasure to share share my experience here with you.

Meeting people is one of the things I love the most doing. I love listening to their stories, their successes, and their challenges. Being curious as I am, I also love making questions. As you can see in the picture above, it is not usually hard for me to meet people as Buddy always strikes up conversations with everybody.


Recently I had the great pleasure of becoming an associate educator with iTDi, a group of dedicated teachers from many different countries, whose mission is to improve language learning around the world. At JALT I had the chance to meet many members from the iTDi family I had known only online. The only person I had met in person before the conference was Malu Sciamarelli, who I had the delight to take on a tour of my school in São Paulo.  The very special people from iTDi that I met are Barbara Sakamoto, Anna Loseva, Nina Septima, Marco Brazil, Tim Murphey, Matt Shannon, Naoko Amano, Kevin Stein, Michael Griffin, Steven Herder, Eric Kane, and John Fanselow. What a family!

Here you can see a little bit of the fun it was being in family!

Malu, Tim, Nina, Barbara, Buddy, John, and me. 

iTDi guys: Matt, Marco, Kevin, Michael, and me. 

More iTDi: Malu, Nina, Eric, Anna, and me in a great shot by Barbara!

 I also had the great pleasure to meet three amazing educators at the conference and to be with them in their own settings, many times even participating as a guest storyteller/puppeteer!

 These energetic and passionate educators are Naoko Aramano from Yellow Banana Kids in Kishiwada, Eric Kane from Elf Learning in Omihachiman , and Mark Kulek from Gifu Kids in Gifu. 

I usually get overwhelmed at conferences with the sheer amount of information and JALT 2013 was no different. There are so many ideas, talks, and people that it was hard to choose where to be.

 Some of the things that have me had thinking after the conference are lapbooks with their marvellous process and products, classes with very young chidren and their parents, and innovative games for children.

I also really enjoyed the discussions about feedback, gamification, modelling rapport, and professional trajectories of language teachers. But nothing compares to seeing  Mari Nakamura and Eric Kane dressed as ladybugs in the presentation of their lovely Lily and the Moon!

JALT is a large international conference and one can even get lost in the amount of sessions that are happening at the same time. One great idea was to have all the presentations that had children in them in the same area, which was called JALT Junior. This made it super easy for me to go from one to the next one and make sure I met other teachers. JALT Junior was like a mini-conference inside JALT!

Presenting to small groups at a time made it very personal. 

Many of you might know that I hosted a poster session on Affective Language Learning with young learners, which has been my passion for a long time. I have lived, studied, and talked about it for almost 20 years now and Affective Language Learning is the area that I thoroughly researched during my Masters at OISE/ University of Toronto.

In my poster I highlighted four main areas that when well addressed can create very positive emotions for children learning a foreign language. In reality these areas are important not only for children, as you can imagine. These four critical affective domains are:

Holistic language as a real and accessible means communication
Creating memorable personal experiences through relevant student-centered activities
Power sharing and discussions about learning for empowerment and ownership of learning
Mental models and collective reflection to gain learning self-awareness

I will come back to these domains in a post to come. If you are attending TESOL Arabia, I will be hosting this very same poster session, but now with an enhanced version!

Nina and Malu checking the monoculars!

A special treat I inserted in my presentation were monoculars with pictures from students and teachers learning affectively at Juan Uribe Ensino Afetivo, the school I founded in São Paulo, Brazil.

 Most people who paid me a visit had never seen them and were delighted to see the tiny pictures. That is how affective learning should be, with surprise, fun, and some mystery. I am really happy that it worked out and participants were able to feel some affective learning. 

After the conference I had the great fortune of being invited by Barbara Sakamoto to go to Kyoto together with Anna Loseva and Malu Sciamarelli. We had a fantastic day going with Hiroshi, our fantastic guide, to different temples and having the most amazing lunch in a traditional Japanese restaurant surrounded by a gorgeous garden. These experiences I will cherish forever! Thank you Barbara once again! 

Barbara, Anna, Buddy, Malu, Brownie, and me at this lovely Tori in Kyoto! 

After the conference I had the chance to still continue travelling for more 20 days and only now I have started to feel the post-conference blues that has been mentioned in posts. I have this feeling of having truly lived humanity during this one month I had the privilege of spending in Japan. And more than that, I feel that I am more myself by carrying a little bit of all the people I met during my stay. So blessed! 

What about you? 

How often do you go to conferences? 

What do you like about going to conferences? 

Write me a few lines, I'd love to start talking to you. 

Send you a big frog-hug from Toronto!

Juan

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The benefits behind learning a foreign language

I have realized that most parents and even some teachers are unaware of how young learners can benefit from learning a second language from an early age. I decided then to create this infographic (my very first one) pointing out some of these "hidden" benefits.

Here it is!

You can check the full list with all references made by Professor Paradowski by clicking here. 

 I used a site called Piktochart to make this infograph and it wasn't that hard. 

Thanks to Ana Luiza Uribe and Vicky Loras for reviewing my drafts! 

Frugs to all of you!

Juan

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My second comic: #vickyrevolution

Making comics with Pixton is not that hard, specially if you use the quick ones. 

Here I share one I have made to my dear Greek- Canadian friend Vicky Loras. Let's all use the #vickyrevolution that Brad Patterson created to celebrate this unique event!

Frog-hugs to all of you!

Juan