One of my goals this year is to do a monthly review of my goals set back at the beginning of the year. It will give me a chance to review the goals and adjust them if necessary. I hope do this by myself, of course. However, putting it on the public domain puts a little more pressure on myself to achieve those goals. So, here we go. Books Although I did manage to do a little writing for the book proposal at the beginning of the month, it has been incredibly busy since I got back to work. So, not much progress has been made there. I'm still keeping the same goal. Hopefully in February, I'll be able to get the proposal done. Presentations There weren't any conferences for me to present at in January, but I did apply to present at a conference in Poland. If accepted, I look forward to going to present, as well as meet Sarah Mercer, who has also done work with mindsets, and see Rod Ellis again. Sarah and Rod are two of the keynote speakers at that conference. The presentation proposal for Macau was sent away in December and I am still waiting results on that one. I am not going to present at JALTCALL this year, and am still debating about JALT National. I probably will apply for JALT national, though. Papers The paper I wrote with a co-author from Fukuoka made it past the first round. So that was good. I put a fair bit of work into explaining reasoning for statistical analyses I used as well as improving the paper based on the reviewer's comments. Hopefully, we'll get a pass on that one. Work with other research is moving slowly, but in the right direction. Private My first goal here was to be a nicer person and less grumpy. Nah, I'm still grumpy. I managed to get out and do a bit of running: 36.85 km. It's not the 70km / month needed, but I'm still happy with that. I felt I could have done more, but mainly due to ice and snow, I was quite limited in how often I could run. I will be aiming for 50km in Feb. I managed to achieve the 'Move' goal with my Apple watch, and even got a pretty blue one because I got the special goal of averaging more than 95 minutes exercise per day (I ended up averaging 102). February has given my the goal of 3481 minutes of exercise for the month. Now this proves to me that Apple is working with the i + 1 idea in mind, because I did 3170 minutes of exercise in January. However, they appear to have forgotten that February has only 28 days. So, they are pushing me to do 124.3 minutes to exercise every day. Don't they know how busy uni professors are???? As for updating this blog, well,I was a couple of days late once or twice, but I got there. Hope you'll keep with me in February!
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Those who follow me on Twitter (if you don’t follow me, please do now) would know that I went to Kobe last weekend. I was privileged to be invited to attend a special event on teaching English to learners with dyslexia. I have done a little work with teaching English to students with special needs before, namely conducting listening tests to deaf and hard-of-hearing students, and one of my seminar students from 2016-2017 focused on dyslexia for her graduate thesis. But I have to admit that I am certainly in the dark for the most with this topic. Talking about the entire event would take up too much time, so I’ll just give a quick summary of a few ideas that the main speaker, Keiichi Takeda, talked about. I had seen Keiichi Takeda speak at a conference in Shimane last year. He spoke really well and I enjoyed his talk then and this time as well. He started by talking about a couple of famous people who have various degrees of dyslexia, before explaining different terminologies: Learning Disabilities, Learning Disorders, and in some parts of the US, Learning Differences. Personally, I like the "Learning Differences" idea; we all learn in different ways. We then saw a couple of different ways to experience how those with dyslexia see words written in books, etc. I'll quickly explain three. The second example given was something like this. To read this passage, you'll need to follow this code: ○ = e △ = a ▲ = t ▼ = s □ = p ◎ = h For m△ny □○o□le, ▲◎○ ▼unflow○r i▼ △ ▼ymbol of ▼umm○r. ▲◎○ir brig◎▲ y○llow color▼ m△k○ u▼ f○○l r○l△x○d on ◎o▲, ◎umid ▼umm○r d△y▼. △▲ ▲◎○ ○nd of ▼umm○r, you c△n coll○c▲ ▲◎○ ▼○○d▼ to □l△n▲ ▲◎○ n○x▲ y○△r, or ○△▲ ▲◎○m △▼ △ h○△l▲◎y ▼n△ck. The third example is a little rarer, but a situation where the letters on the page seem to move or disappear. Rather than trying to explain it, it might be easier to just watch a short video I have linked from YouTube. Here you go: Professor Takeda also talked about features of dyslexia among Japanese students, such as difficulties distinguishing between hiragana characters like ね and わ or perhaps ぬ and め. It goes without saying that kanji is even more challenging. The thing that is difficult for teachers, and what we really need to be aware of, is that dyslexia doesn't mean the child is less talented. We need to be aware that such children learn in different ways and having trouble reading doesn't mean they have to give up on their dreams. If anyone has read Malcolm Gladwell's book, David and Goliath (I will be using this book in my foreign cultures course next school year), you would have read about David Boies, the attorney who has dyslexia. I think that gives a pretty good example of someone who has managed to use what many people might see as a disadvantage or weakness as an advantage and strength. So, as I was listening to the talks at the event, as always, I was thinking about how mindsets fit into this. At first, I thought that mindsets wouldn't be helpful for considering the education of children with dyslexia. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that having a growth mindset is vital for those with dyslexia. Teachers need to educate such children with the growth mindset being the basis of their instruction. The growth mindset is more than just using a bit of elbow grease; it is about reflecting on how to do better and focus on the process rather than the person. Many children with dyslexia might become victims of the false growth mindset, in that they are told, "Just do your best!" However, as we learn with the false growth mindset, a true growth mindset isn't just about trying hard; it is about being prepared to fail, but then learning from your failures. It is about ignoring comparisons with others, and just looking at improving your own ability and being better than you were yesterday. There is still plenty for me to learn about this part of education. Thanks very much to the organizers and everyone involved with the event! So what do you think? Do you have much experience teaching children with dyslexia? Share your experience and ideas with a comment. Finally, I want to share a short film I saw about dyslexia a few years ago. Enjoy! Although I never used to be a huge follower of basketball, over the last couple of years I have become a bit of a fan. This is all due to one player: my son. When I was a bit younger (much younger???), I used to love cricket. Everything was about cricket. Cricket cricket cricket. But I think my son is much more addicted to basketball than I was to cricket and that has had a strong influence on me. In one of my classes about public speaking, I have been incorporating podcasts a bit this year. This month, we used a podcast episode about basketball and how the balance of the dunk and the three point shot is a reflection of the yin and yang of life. My favorite podcast is 99% Invisible. I've always been interested in architecture and design (I considered becoming an architect at one stage......until I fell asleep during work experience). Although not every episode is about architecture or design, the stories are really interesting and Roman Mars is very easy on the ear. My favorite episode, and the one we used in class, is called The Yin and Yang of Basketball. If you haven't heard the episode, I highly recommend it. It starts with a brief history of basketball and goes through some of the issues the sport faced over the years. The focus of the story then turns to racial discrimination and how the dunk shot became a symbol of the fight against segregation in the 1960s. In class, we discussed problems with race around the world, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the Black Power salute , and racial discrimination both in and out of Japan. We even had a chat about which language we should use with people who appear to be from abroad, using this classic (bit slightly exaggerated) video. The podcast then moves onto to explain that the three-point shot was brought into basketball in order to make basketball more exciting—it was turning into a game in which tall guys would just dunk or lay up the ball. This is where the yin and yang of basketball comes in. (I'm not going to get into the details here. Listen to the podcast to find out what it's all about.) What I really liked about the message in the latter half of the podcast was that regardless of any innate ability or having tall parents or not, anyone who puts in the effort and hard work could become an NBA player. This reflects the idea of the growth mindset, which is where I am centering my research at the moment: How can we, as English teachers, create classroom environments in which students also feel that it is their efforts, not some natural ability, that pays off in the end? It's important to remember that the growth mindset, however, is not just about effort. Reflection and consideration of how to do better next time is vital. Do you do anything to build your students' beliefs in the importance and value of effort? I'd love to hear your ideas. Photos borrowed from:
99% logo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99%25_Invisible Basketball ring - https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/yin-yang-basketball/ Black Power salute - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute Wow! I've missed a deadline already! Actually, after a busy weekend and graduate students' theses due today (now yesterday), I'm going to allow myself this one. Actually, 24 hours (well, now it's 36 hours) late isn't bad all considering. So last week, I talked about my Apple Watch, and this week, I'll finish the set by looking at the AirPods (those things you can see on the left there). Apple, I'll be looking forward to my pay cheque soon. So when you buy the Airpods, you get the little box and the two pods. The box acts as your charger (assuming it is fully charged) and 15 seconds sitting in there nice and comfy gives the pods 3 hours of continuous use. I use the pods for at least an hour every day and probably only need to recharge the charger once a fortnight. That's not bad, I think. The other thing that I like about them is that it is easy to connect them up to your phone. All you need to do is open the box and your device and pods pair up in no time. Easy and quick: just how I like it. The shape and size of the AirPods was a bit worrying at first; surely they'd fall out at the slightest bump while walking or running. But no, they don't—and don't call me Shirley (Can you name the movie?). I've used them for quite a bit of running, and they have not fallen out even once. I have no idea why, but for some reason they manage to stay locked in your ears. And even if one did fall out, you'd know about it straight away, because unless both pods are in your ears (or one in your ear and the other in someone else's ear if you are sharing listening to music), the audio automatically stops so you know something is wrong. So I guess the question is, as always, would I get a set again? Well, at ¥15000 for a set, they are a bit pricey, so hopefully I won't need to get another set, but I think, yeah, I would get another set. The sound quality is great considering they are not your full headphone kit and they are great for running. The set up is really easy and they look pretty cool. Well done, Apple, well done!
I mentioned on my Twitter account in late October that I had succumbed to temptation and bought an Apple Watch. I got a 42mm Series 3 GPS + Cellular model with stainless steel back as well as an extra band for running and a pair of air pods (I'll get to those in another blog entry). It was probably a little more than I had planned to pay, but you've got to go out and splurge on yourself from time to time, right? Am I happy with it? Yes, I think so. Looking back, I don't know if I would have gone with the GPS + Cellular model if I had to buy it a gain, but basically I have no problems with it. What I like a lot about the watch is the activity app it comes with. I'm not sure, but I think it only comes with the watch, not with phones. You can see the three rings on the watch in the photo above. They, along with the numbers, show me how active I've been that day (red ring, red number in calories burned), the amount of exercise I've done that day (green ring, green number in minutes), and how much I've been standing (blue ring, blue number in "number of hours in which I have stood for at least one minute"). Each day, you have a challenge to complete the three rings, which you can re-adjust to your liking. I have my red ring level set at 700, the green one at 30 minutes, and the blue at 12 hours. The red one is definitely the hardest to complete. Working with the daily challenges, there are trophies for certain achievements, such as completing each ring every day of the week, every day of the month, 100 times, doing the highest number of minutes exercised, and so on. These trophies don't sit on the shelf and collect dust, which is great and the little reward is nice (if you're a simple person like me!). Getting such rewards probably makes me "extrinsically motivated with instrumental orientation" (hire me as a speaker if you want to know more about that), but I think it works okay for this because of the new challenges that come up each month. Each month I get new challenges sent to me. So last month, if I wanted to get a special "trophy," I had to burn 200% of my red ring goal (so that's 1400 calories) in one day twice in the month. I didn't get there.... I did it once, and got to over 1300 one other day, but didn't quite have enough in the tank. This month, I have two new challenges, as you can see in the photos above. I've achieved the one on the left, which was just completing all three rings for seven days in a row some time in January. The one on the right is a little tougher. I need achieve an average of 95 minutes of exercise every day during January. This exercise can include running (linked up to my Nike Running app), walking, air bike, yoga, and pretty much whatever exercise I do. What I really like about this is that it is telling me that up until now, my average has been 90 minutes a day. Now it wants me to go for 95 minutes a day. I don't know if the 95 minutes is the same across the board for everyone with an Apple Watch, but if it is looking at my average so far and telling me to do just a little more each day, that's a perfect example of i + 1 (again, hire me as a speaker if you want me to talk about that, too). FYI, as of 18:00 today, my average is at 97 minutes for this month. I guess I'm on track, but only barely. I might have to do a yoga session before bed tonight.
There is a lot of talk about robots becoming human-like and artificial intelligence reaching levels beyond the human brain. I can't remember who said it, or even when I heard it, but I have heard that "before robots become like humans, it is likely that humans will become like robots" (Someone, Sometime). When it comes to education and social skills, I am a bit concerned about this. But, when I think about health and how advances in technology will help us look after our bodies a bit more, I kind of like things such as the Apple Watch and the app that tells me to get off my butt and go for a walk or run. How about you? Do you have an Apple Watch? Want one? Don't want one? Let me know with a comment. (Oh, and if you do, let me know what your special exercise challenge for January is. I'm really curious to find out if they did go for the i + 1 idea.) 2017 went by in a flash and now I realize I haven't updated the blog for nine months. I guess it's time to give it another go. I'll aim for one post a week this time. If it doesn't work out, sorry; I'm a kind of busy guy.
First, what happened last year? Books I had three books published this year. Two were a series of listening books focusing on dictogloss: Ultimate listening. You can find the links under the "books" tab at the top of the page. I also co-edited a book on flipped learning. It was completed in November, printed in December, and will be on sale early this year, I believe. Presentations At the last count, I had a total of 30 presentations in 2017. This number includes presentations at conferences, workshops at schools, and guest teacher lessons. About a third of these were conducted in Japanese and the rest in English. I really feel my Japanese language skills have been slipping recently, so I would like to brush up on them a bit in the new year. Papers I only had three papers published in 2017, which was a little disappointing. I do, however, have four papers forthcoming and to be published in early 2018 and another four papers currently under review. A further three papers are currently halfway through being written, so hopefully I can finish those off early in the new year. Private I was probably too grumpy throughout a lot of 2017 (sometimes with good reason......). But generally, I think I had a pretty good year. I made some really good new friends who have similar academic interests as I do, so that was great. I spent a lot of time helping out with my son's basketball team and they manage to win the winter state finals, which was huge. They have been working towards that all year and it was a great relief for everyone involved for them to win. It was the first time for their coach to win that tournament after more than 20 years of coaching and the first time in 25 years for the club. We are off to the nationals in March. (Luckily, I chose not to apply to present at the two biggest academic conferences in the world for those involved in second language acquisition, which is in the U.S. in March.) So what about this year. What are my goals for 2018? Books I'm enjoying writing books. My goal for 2018 is to get at least one book published as the solo author and on sale by the end of the year. This will be a big challenge, but I am always looking how to improve on the previous year, so there you go. If possible, I would like to upgrade the two dictogloss books and if the solo book works out, I will look at translating it into Japanese to reach a wider audience in Japan. This goal might be revisited and revised later in the year. Presentations I presented at three international conferences in 2017 (two of which were in Japan) and would like to keep this going. I am hoping to present at ASIATEFL in Macau (application submitted) and at the ICFSLA 30th anniversary conference in Poland (application currently being prepared). I am involved in the running of the JACET Conference in Sendai this year, so I will be very busy with that. I really enjoyed giving a couple of workshops last year and would like to do one or two this year as well. Papers As I mentioned above, I do have a couple of papers currently under review. They are all for international journals, so hopefully they will be accepted. If not, I will keep on trying. The goal for 2018 is to write and submit 5 new papers to international journals with at least three being accepted. Of course, whether they are accepted is beyond my control and purely up to the mood of the reviewers (I'll be the first to admit, though, that I am not always the most forgiving reviewer.....sorry). Private I'll try to be a nicer person and less grumpy. I would like to work a bit more on my fitness. I'll set myself the goal of running 800km in 2018. I only did 400 km in 2017, so I'll need to make sure I'm on top of it, but let's see how we go. It's less than 80km a month, which is a gold medal level on the Nike Running app. I managed to do that level a couple of times last year, so there are no excuses not to do it this year. I might be reporting on my efforts with this throughout the year via my blog. Finally, I will try to be better with this blog and be a little more consistent. Till next time, bye! |
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AuthorI'm Adrian Leis, Associate Professor at a university in Sendai, Japan. I mainly teach and research second language pedagogy, motivation and Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). |