Between all the hype and doom-mongering over AI text generators (ChatGPT and their ilk), there is a blunt reality: these products and the profit-seeking corporations that market them are not our friends and they have no place in education at this time.
Continue reading “Why I’m not excited by (or even using) generative AI”Category: Uncategorized
Don’t panic! Emergency and/or planned hybrid teaching
In the classic BBC comedy Dad’s Army about the Home Guard during WWII, one character-Lance Corporal Jones-would respond to every week’s presumed crisis by losing his cool and frantically shouting, “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” It’s a peculiarly British comedy: the series depicts one of the darkest times in recent history by both valorizing and lightly mocking the veterans and others who, too old or unwell to serve abroad (hence dad’s army), volunteered to protect the homeland from the constant yet distant threat of invasion.
In the past 2 years (2 years!), I sometimes wonder if I sound like Corporal Jones urging my colleagues-and myself-not to panic while we lurch (sorry, pivot) from in-person to online to hybrid to everything at once. Covid is both lapping at our shores and a faint dark cloud on the horizon. And it’s nothing to laugh about. I watched re-runs of Dad’s Army as a child in a (mostly) stable, (somewhat) powerful country, (largely) at peace and free of the dangers that justified Jones’s comedic panic. I live through these times without those assurances and without the benefit of hindsight. So, yeah, sometimes I panic a little.
Continue reading “Don’t panic! Emergency and/or planned hybrid teaching”Planning engaging collaborative writing tasks
My colleague Monica Farling and I published a short piece in the April 2018 TESOL Connections based on our 2017 conference workshop on collaborative writing. Check it out and let me know what you think!
Grammar Choices, 2nd Edition
Hi blog followers and casual tourists: I’m working on the second edition of Grammar Choices for Graduate and Professional Writers. What would you like to see added or changed? Continue reading “Grammar Choices, 2nd Edition”
(Reads, reading, has read): 5 smart tips for teaching grammar through extensive reading
Here’s a blog post I wrote for the OUP Global site on teaching grammar through (extensive) reading. It’s loosely tied to Q:Skills for Success, but I’ve been batting around these ideas for some time. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Source: (Reads, reading, has read): 5 smart tips for teaching grammar through extensive reading
Conferences 2017
Here’s my speaking schedule for the coming year. Come join me!
Kansas State University Intensive English Program (professional development workshop), December 15
EAP Conference at St. Andrew’s University, Scotland, February 24-25, 2017
- Workshop, “Genres That Work in the Writing Classroom”
- Plenary speaker. “Go with the Flow: Creating Cohesion in Academic Discourse”
AAAL Conference, Portland, March 17-19, 2017
- Connecting Process and Product: Mixed-Method Research into Collaborative Writing
TESOL Convention, Seattle, March 21-24, 2017 (handouts & slides here)
- “Myths of the Five-Paragraph Essay.” Second Language Writing Interest Section Academic Session, with Dana Ferris, Christine Ortmeier-Hooper, Luciana de Oliveira, Deborah Crusan, and Ann Johns.
- ” Argue, Contend, Exort: Teaching the Language of Argumentative Writing” with Silvia Pessoa, Ryan Miller, Tom Mitchel, and Sandra Zappa Hollman
- “Many Hands Make Writing Work: Planning Engaging Collaborative Writing Tasks” with Monica Farling
New book! Supporting Graduate Student Writers
A new collection which I helped edit has just been published by the University of Michigan Press. Supporting Graduate Writers: Research, Curriculum, Program Design (Simpson, Caplan, Cox, & Phillis, 2016) is the first edited volume to discuss options in designing writing support for graduate students writing in English both as their first or additional language. You can find it on the Press’s website, amazon.com, and all fine booksellers. The blurb is below the break. Thanks and congratulations to editors Steve Simpson, Michelle Cox, and Talinn Phillips as well as the amazing cast of contributors. It was a fascinating project to work on.
Continue reading “New book! Supporting Graduate Student Writers”
EAP is like riding a bike
My article from earlier this year in Modern English Teacher on integrated skills in EAP, which starts with a rather strained metaphor about learning to ride a bike, is now available online. Don’t be surprised to find a little bit of genre pedagogy sprinkled in, too, of course.
Introduction to SFL for K-12/ELL teachers
I just discovered this fantastic recording of a lecture by Mary Schleppegrell of the University of Michigan in which she introduces the use of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and argues convincingly for the incorporation of SFL metalanguage in order to give ELLs access to grade-level disciplinary texts. I’m going to use this as part of a blended course for Delaware K-12 teachers as they start to read Luciana de Oliveira and Mary Schleppegrell’s Focus on Grammar and Meaning.
New resource: Grammar books for teachers
I’ve started a page of grammar books for ESL/writing teachers as an antidote to answering student questions with “It just is …”. Please feel free to suggest good books and links I’ve missed.