bcgstanley (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

You are right - you have no duty or obligation at all to share your knowledge and experience. I hardly think your attitude is one of an educator interested in helping other people learn and am now convinced from your that you have little offer those of us who are actually actively involved in education.

prawn1111 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

i'm not upset. as far as arrogance goes it is ur arrogance to claim that this nonsense assists actual learning without providing one shred of data to support your ridiculuous thesis. i have plenty to show that u r wrong and i am right. i am under no obligation to show u this. if u r beating ur head against a wall, i feel it my duty to inform u of ur idiocy, but it does not follow that i am obliged to give u sth better to do. goodbye.

bcgstanley (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

I agree to blindly follow any methodology is not the right way to work in any field. This comment makes me think you're misjudging what I and others do and our reasons for using this technology with learners. I'm actually still intrigued by your anger and arrogance, though, and would love to find out why you're so sure of yourself and so upset that teachers choose to use this technology with their learners.

bcgstanley (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Interesting. I actually stand by what I've said in the video and the comments here from experience with students and from the experience of other teachers that do the same. I still don't understand why you think it's so wrong to encourage students to communicate with others from different parts of the world using this technology. Or would you rather the students just talk to themselves in a classroom?

prawn1111 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

i'll tell you what the easiest thing in the world is. it's to just blindly follow all the drivel presented as 'methodology' in the 'field' of esl and compensate for any lack of progress by the comforting knowledge that u'r working 'hard'. imagine if u wanted to learn another language and ur teacher told u this could be done by doing blogs/role plays/ cloze test/ being 'motivated'/ trying to 'communicate'/ the teacher sticking things on the wall etcx1000. u'd find this absolutely preposterous.

prawn1111 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

it's not a negative comment mate. it's a positive comment and i am also positive that your defensiveness lends weight to my hypothesis that you aren't sure that this sort of stuff is effective even though you work so 'hard' on it. lugging sacks of dung up deadend streets is also 'hard work' but whether or not it actually achieves anything is another matter entirely.

bcgstanley (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Prawn, as a practising English language teacher who does believe he works hard to help learners construct and construe meaning I'm a little bewildered at your comments. I also think the easiest thing in the world is to write a quick negative comment about somebody's efforts and would love to hear / read something more constructive about your own methodology (if it exists that is)...

prawn1111 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

more 'communication' and 'motivation' drivel from the krashen/ ellis etc crew and their bewildered ilk. if you actually taught them how to construct and construe meaning in english they could choose to write their own blogs without needing you to 'let' them. you can cover your classroom walls a foot thick in any nonsense you choose, but it will never compensate for what you are not doing: teaching.

bcgstanley (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Interesting comment, prawn - I'd love to know why you don't think letting students communicate to other students through blogs isn't a good way to motivate them. Perhaps you could also let everyone know the best way to teach language as you obviously think you know how to do so.

prawn1111 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

"blogging appeals to language teachers because it can open up classroom walls". i got this far and was violently ill. this is all utter drivel and just another way for pseudo-educators to divert attention away from the glaring fact that they simply are utterly bewildered about how to teach language.