Webheads in Action Online Convergence May 24, 2009 at 15:00 GMT.
The New Real English Lessons
Michael Marzio
My Presentation: I will first cover the basics for those unfamiliar with Real English and move on quickly to the pedagogy of self-graded learning, and hopefully make clear how images, text, and sound files, in addition to the videos, make it possible for students to learn English based upon natural, spontaneous speech, despite all the difficulties that true spontaneity involves as learning content.
Bio: Born and raised in New Jersey, I help run a language school which I created in in the south of France in 1976 with the help of my wife. I found the company clients and teachers, she did everything else, such as managing the school when we started to develop & began to need a serious financial/legal back office.
I've spent approximately the first half of my life in the USA and the second half in France. I've always been fascinated by videotaping. Before going to grad school, I was a high school teacher in 1969/1970. That was the first time I interviewed people, or rather helped my students interview interesting local people, in and around Traverse City, Michigan.
I continued videotaping and editing in the 70s and 80s before starting Real English in the 90s. Several of our teachers happened to be very funny actors, so every weekend in the late 70s and early 80s, during a 4-year period, we filmed grammar-based sketches and "drills" written by Ben Johnson and Charlie McBride. The result was a 3-hour collection of VHS videotapes, entitled "The Adventures of Charlie McBride", used by a lot of language schools in France and Spain in the 80s. We also did a comical film in collaboration with Longman France, called "We Mean Business". Unfortunately, by the time the digital revolution began, the original tapes of our early work did not survive the test of time, and never made it onto the internet.
As of this moment, I plan on using Elluminate. I have very little experience doing online presentations. I've only presented Real English once, using WiZiQ. I also tested DimDim with success. But I hope to learn about Elluminate quickly, so as not to diappoint my audience.
News (2 days later): Rita Zeinstejer has offered to help me out with my prep in Elluminate.
It'll certainly be MY pleasure, Mike! Rita
Comments (1)
Michael Marzio said
at 6:25 pm on May 4, 2009
Rita is now a "new writer" here.
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