A good laugh for teachers and students… Enough said.

There is an interesting article for students and teachers from any country today’s, The Korea Times. Rafael Sabio, an English teacher in a TESOL graduate program, touches on two main points in this second part in his series titled To Improve English Education. In this part he argues that

• pedagogy must be improved; and
• schools should recognise qualifications and experience and pay accordingly.

While the article is about English education in Korea, I know from my experience teaching in Japan that the dialogue between the author and the readers taking place in the comments is relevant to English education in Japan and, I would presume, other countries.

Second Life zapped my avatar today–totally fried it, and several times too! It was like something from a science fiction movie. I was wandering around different English study islands in Second Life when, all of a sudden, zap. An electric orange grid lit up and repelled my avatar, like force shields protecting Star Wars space craft from enemy fire, and displayed the message “No Entry” not once, but repeated hundreds of times across the screen.

But, magistrate, I was only curious, only looking around. I didn’t realise that I was entering a forbidden zone. Besides, there were signs inviting visitors to look around. I’m sorry…

The Second Life tutorials are done, so what next? I started by sending my avatar, Asa Mornington, out to explore rather aimlessly. I don’t recommend this; it got boring quickly. I found a lot of islands (Second Life is made of a bunch of little islands) that are still, I presume, under construction, because they don’t look all that complete. What I didn’t find while wandering aimlessly was a lot of people or
anything to do.

After my rather bitter experience with the Second Life sign up procedure, I was ready to jump in and start doing things in Second Life. I launched the Second Life client software for the first time and… got a message that there is a new version of the Second Life client software. It seems that they don’t give you the newest version of their software when you register your account. No big deal, 15 minutes later on my wireless connection and I was ready to go.

Normally I wouldn’t write about signing up for a service, but Second Life pulls one of my privacy pet peeves in their sign up procedure and they do a very crummy job of it. Well, if I’m going to write about the good, I’m going to write about the bad.

On the first registration page, they ask for your birth date and give a reason for requiring the birth date.

Please provide an accurate birthrate for your own protection. We ask your birthrate to verify your account if you ever forget your Second Life name or password.

I came across an article from the BBC titled “Virtual worlds threaten ‘values.’”The substance of the article is based on film-maker Lord Puttnam’s keynote speech at the Virtual Worlds Forum.

Puttnam expresses concern about children “think[ing] of themsleves as not much more than consumers” noting that many of the virtual worlds for children are created and run by toy makers. Unfortunately, the BBC article doesn’t go into the substance of Puttnam’s arguments, but anytime a politician starts talking about morals you can expect a lot of hot air. However, Michael Parsons, writing for the Times Online, was impressed by “how evolved Lord Puttnam … [was] in [his] understanding of the scale, scope, and importance of this new medium.” I would be very interested in seeing the full text of Puttnam’s speech, but I haven’t had any luck finding it online.

There are a number of people teaching languages in Second Life. Over the next few months, I plan on observing, and possibly taking, some language lessons in Second Life. When I do, I will most certainly share any interesting uses, ideas, and advantages that Second Life has for language students.

Today was not about learning languages, though. It was about learning how to do stuff in Second Life.

What’s Exam English?

Exam English is a website for people studying or thinking of studying for an English proficiency test. It has materials covering TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS, BULATS, CPE, ECPE, LTE, CAE, FCE, LTE, ECCE, PET, and KET exams. Exam English describes the different elements of each exam and has online practice tests simulating some parts of each exam.

What Exam English Does Well

Exam English is probably the best place to go when you are deciding which exam to take. It provides samples that cover every major international exam.