#IATEFL Glasgow Interview with Russell Stannard

Since my first post about IATEFL Glasgow I have been frantically trying to keep up with things that are going on whilst also working my usual 35 contact hours week...so up until now I have resigned myself to the fact that I am just about finding time to scoop.it thanks to Nik Peachey's inspiration the other day from his interview. It really is so quick and easy to do! I'm an addict already! In fact I found myself dreaming about how I could turn this in to an activity for my students...if only I could have seen Nik Peachey's talk...anyway I digress.

So I've found a quick 20 minutes to watch the Russell Stannard interview and summarise what he had to say. Russell Stannard, as most people know is the creator of the fantastic website teachertrainingvideos he is another inspirational figure in the ELT world for me so I was keen to see what he had to say. How pleased I was to discover that he too has the same doubts as me. I too have been setting speaking activities as homework for students. The tools Russel mentioned were Vocaroo, Mailvu and eyejot. I (most probably inspired by him) have been using Vocaroo also, Voxopop and Voicethread (check out the previous links to see what I've been doing) have also be facing the problem of  working out how to practically give students feedback on their oral work. Russell mentions the following solutions:

1. peer feedback
2. e-portfolios
3. self evaluation

Considering my students who are all adults and Spanish speakers I would certainly not consider the peer feedback as students would just not accept any kind of criticism from their peers as beneficial. However, the idea of eportfolios or self evaluation does appeal to me and I may try to pilot this in my next semester. Watch this space for my results.

Russell also mentioned a scholarship that he now offers due to donations received for his website. I think this is great initiative and think it's a wonderful way to give people an opportunity they otherwise might not have. So thumbs up for that. 

I also wanted to add that for those of you that don't already know teachertrainingvideos.com now has a facebook page so if you want to keep up with what Russell is posting then make sure you like this page.