Symphony in Slang: Excellent resource for teaching idioms

Thanks, Victoria, for this excellent cartoon as a wonderful resource to teach idioms and phrasal verbs!

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-Ot92Yfovvvg/symphony_in_slang_1951_dir_by_tex_avery/

To be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.

I can´t cut the mustard.

To go back to a hole in the wall.

To be beside yourself.

To be short pants.

To be all thumbs.

To fit sb like a glove.

To eat like a horse.

To give sb the slip.

To be on sb´s heels.

To put your foot in your mouth.

The cat got your tongue?

To feel mighty blue.

To burn sby up.

It´s raining cats and dogs.

To have a bunch of little ones.

To play music by ear.

To spend money like water.

To die laughing.

To turn your back on .

Thanks, Dani Z., for compling the list of idioms!

EINSTEIN on CRISES

Let's not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things. A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring progress.

Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born form the dark night. It's in crisis that inventive is born, as well as discoveries, and big strategies. Who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome. Who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent, and is more respectful to problems than to solutions. Incompetence is the true crisis.

The greatest inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they attempt to find the solutions to their problems. There's no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony. There’s no merit without crisis. It's in the crisis where we can show the very best in us. Without a crisis, any wind becomes a tender touch. To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead.

Let us stop, once and for all, the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being willing to overcome it.

WHOLE LANGUAGE AND ADULTS

Whole Language and Adult Education. ERIC Digest.

This Digest argues that Whole Language theorists and adult education theorists have much in common, much to say to one another, and much to learn from one another.

"Whole Language" (WL), a theory of language instruction that was developed primarily in terms of helping young children learn to read, has now been extended to middle- and secondary-school levels. Andragogy, "the learning of adults," is a specific theory of adult education, conceived more or less in contradistinction to pedagogy, "the teaching of children." When one juxtaposes these two universes of educational discourse, however, one finds that the commonplaces of WL and of andragogy as theories of instruction are similar, if not identical. "In both fields the same debates rage about the whole language approach versus the word recognition, decoding, or phonics approach," as well (Sticht & McDonald, 1992). Recognition of this parallel of theories has arisen relatively recently, although work done by the National Reading Project could be said to have been moving in this direction for 20 years. Teachers whose students are adults, such as ESL teachers, ABE teachers, prison educators, and workplace trainers have been among those who see the match between WL theory and its andragogical implications (Connell, 1992; Weibel, 1994; Peyton & Crandall, 1995). Prison educators have observed the galvanizing impact of whole literature on the incarcerated, prompting strong, existential responses, engaging them in literacy learning. The National Family Literacy Center in Louisville, Kentucky, makes use of WL as an ideal means to teach literacy to adults and to children at the same time. Thus, what began on the one side as a theory about children learning to read, and on the other side as a theory about adults learning as adults, may be seen to coalesce in a statement about humans learning.

David Kring, reflecting on Constance Weaver's WL approach in "Reading Process and Practice" (1988), observed the similarities between WL and adult education and commented: "As the discussion turns to WL in the text, I almost feel as though it is a discussion of Adult Ed foundations...As we discuss the problems of a failing education system for the children, perhaps we might ask how we could teach children using adult ed methodologies; but, then, it appears that WL may have already achieved this!" (Kring, 1994).

WHAT IS WHOLE LANGUAGE?

According to its advocates (Brockman, 1994; Strickland & Strickland, 1993), WL is a new paradigm of progressivist instruction in continuity with Rousseau's romantic naturalism, John Dewey's democratic pragmatism, Jean Piaget's observation that children learn on their own, and Lev Vygotsky's and others' social constructivism collaborative interaction in learning. Among other aspects, WL involves transactional models of teaching (as opposed to transmission or banking (Freire) and learning (interaction with text and language, collaboration with co-learners, engagement for learning on account of real reasons).

Students learn to read by reading whole pieces of enjoyable literature and maintaining the natural wholeness of language (as opposed to prepackaged worksheets and skill-and-drill behaviorist approaches). Student-centered learning (as opposed to scripted curricula imposed by authorities from outside of the classroom) takes place as students construct their own meaning of the world around them (as opposed to memorization or imitation or reproduction of the teacher's knowledge); learning is risk-taking, exploratory, welcoming of the potential in errors for new learning.

The text focus is on authentic and meaningful texts (student-produced texts, as in the language experience method; invented spelling; self-published texts; and context-specific texts of high interest with immediate application to young readers' lives). Learning to read is reading for the sake of comprehension, with real purposes in mind, and learning to write is writing for real audiences; learning to read and write is integrated with simultaneous (as opposed to sequential) learning in other disciplines in across-the-curriculum fashion and in context with the development of other abilities (reading-and-writing to learn; listening and speaking as part of reading and writing; language learning in terms of other content areas).

The teacher in a WL classroom is seen as a facilitator, demonstrator, and co-reader, an active participant in the learning community, who teaches students rather than subject matter and who watches for teachable moments of student readiness to learn. Assessment in the WL classroom takes place collaboratively and individually as students evaluate themselves and others, guided by, and in communication with, their instructor, for the purpose of adding to the learning experience and growing (as opposed to supplying authorities and other stakeholders with statistics).

WHAT IS ANDRAGOGY?

Andragogy as a theory of adult education is represented in numerous entries in the ERIC database; it is most often associated with the name Malcolm Knowles, who did not invent the term but did bring it into currency (Houle, 1992). Knowles summarized andragogy as follows:

The theoretical presuppositions of andragogy are that andragogical learning is increasingly self-directed in the learner. The learner's own experiences are used as a rich resource for learning... Readiness to learn arises from life's tasks and problems.... Motivation is the adult learner's own internal incentives and curiosity. The procedural elements of andragogy include a climate of relaxed, trusting, informal, warm, mutually respectful, and collaborative support. Planning, diagnosis of needs, and setting of objectives, while designed primarily by the teacher, are carried out by both teacher and learners through mutual assessment and negotiation and learning contracts and projects sequenced by the learner's readiness. Learning activities include inquiry projects, independent study, and experiential techniques. Evaluation is based on learner-collected evidence, validated by peers and facilitators, the latter being expert in applying criterion-referenced norms. (Knowles, 1991).

THE TWO UNIVERSES OF DISCOURSE ARE ONE

Andragogues and WL advocates alike will recognize the respective descriptions of their two camps, and they will assent to the assertion that both WL and andragogy concur in the following--self-directed learning (Grow, 1991), the sense that the learner's interest and needs, abilities, and styles of learning are controlling the learning experience (as opposed to the teacher and the learning experience controlling the learner), is of uppermost importance. David Caverly corrects rhetorical excess on both sides to say that neither andragogy nor WL is wholly "self-directed," but that both are, in a Vygotskian constructivist sense, "learning communities" in which the teacher/expert "guides but does not limit" the learning of the student/novice (whether adult or child), and "both novice and expert grow and learn" and the goals of both are realized (Caverly, 1994).

In both environments, learning is focused within the context of the learner's world of reference in terms of his or her own needs, interests, desires, aesthetics, and social-political aspirations (as opposed to "covering a curriculum" or studying only what the teacher dictates as important to be learned). Adults, when they have not been infantilized by returning to the school room, demand that their learning be according to their own agenda, and this means that the teacher as facilitator must be co-responsive, rather than autocratic, in negotiating the syllabus and planning the work. WL advocates know that children have their preferred agendas, too, and that good teachers take this into account when planning the curriculum.

In the andragogical classroom, adult students learn as much from one another as they do from the teacher, and they tend to nod off if the teacher lectures for too long. In both classrooms, small group discourse multiplies the learning conversations and the communication of knowledge, giving voice to more people than the teacher only. Children and adults alike love to express themselves, and this many-sided discourse continues in the response and commentary of written dialogue journals. Although children have shorter lives upon which to draw, they, too, learn from one another's life experiences, multiple perspectives, respective knowledges--what they bring to their reading is as important as what they take from their reading.

In both the WL and the andragogical classroom, the teacher is not the only source of truth. Real-world reading material is brought to class by students, whether newspapers and forms from work by adults or favorite storybooks by children, and learning becomes participation in "the literacy club." In this way, natural language and interests gain equal time in the hierarchy of the classroom. Learning becomes a collaborative transaction in which all work together, reading real life/authentic/whole literature, producing one's own real/authentic texts, as a part of making up one's own meaning with a little help from friends.

WL theorists and andragogues alike recommend the reading of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), to make the pedagogy of children more andragogical, and to keep the andragogy of adults from being oppressive. The net result is that education becomes transformative (Mezirow, 1991).

REFERENCES

Brockman, Beth (1994). "Whole Language: A Natural for the Adult Education Classroom." [ED 376 428]

Caverly, David (1994). Private communication with the author, June 19, 1994.

Connell, James V., Ed. (1992). Summary of Research on Implementing Whole Language Learning in Adult Basic Education Settings. [ED 355 357]

Grow, Gerald (1991). "Teaching Learners to Be Self-Directed." Adult Education Quarterly, 41(3), 125-49. [EJ 428 043]

Houle, Cyril O. (1992). The Literature of Adult Education: A Bibliographical Essay. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. [ED 351 572]

Knowles, Malcolm (1991). in Adult Education: Evaluation and Achievements in a Developing Field of Study. John M. Peters, ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. [ED 353 467]

Kring, David (1994). Private communication with the author, November 4, 1994.

Mezirow, Jack (1991). Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. [ED 353 469]

Peyton, Joy, and JoAnn Crandall (1995). "Philosophies and Approaches in Adult ESL Literacy Instruction." ERIC Digest. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Foreign Languages and Linguistics. [ED 386 960]

Sticht, Thomas G., and Barbara A. McDonald (1992). "Teaching Adults to Read," in What Research Has to Say about Reading Instruction, S. Jay Samuels and Alan E. Farstrup, eds. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. [ED 340 011]

Strickland, Kathleen, and James Strickland (1993). Uncovering the Curriculum: Whole Language in Elementary and Postsecondary Classrooms. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. [ED 365 949]

Weibel, Marguerite Crowley (1994). "Literature, Whole Language, and Adult Literacy Instruction: A Lesson from the Elementary Classroom." Adult Learning, 6(2), 9-12. [EJ 492 497]

TEACHING ADULTS - ANDRAGOGY

10 Characteristics of Adults as Learners

The following information was taken from course content written by Dr. Gary Kuhne for "ADTED 460 - Introduction to Adult Education," a course offered through Penn State's World Campus.

Characteristic #1 - Adults Generally Desire to Take More Control Over Their Learning Than Youth

Adults tend to be self-directed in their lives, although responsibilities with jobs, families, and other organizations can remove a degree of their freedom to act. Adulthood brings an increasing sense of the need to take responsibility for our lives and adults strongly resent it when others take away their rights to choose. This fact is clearly seen in educational efforts among adults. When not given some control over their learning, most adults will resist learning and some will even attempt to sabotage education efforts. They do not like being relegated to a "passive" position.

Implications:

• Always seek to include the adult in the planning of educational efforts.
• Allow for self-assessment and evaluation
• Understand adult learners desire a peer relationship with instructors, rather than a hierarchical one.
• Recognize that adults also expect greater availability of instructors.

Characteristic #2 - Adults Draw Upon Their Experiences as a Resource in Their Learning Efforts More Than Youth

The adult's experience is a key resource in any learning effort. Adults have a greater reservoir of life experiences simply because they have lived longer and seen and done more. This is a critical distinction between adults and traditional learners. Consciously or unconsciously, adults tend to link any new learning to their prior learning, a body of knowledge that is rooted in their life experiences. They evaluate the validity of new ideas and concepts in light of how the idea or concept "fits" their experience.

Implications:

• Take the time to get to know more about the experiences of our learners and seek to help them to link new ideas to such prior learning.
• Encourage discussion on how new ideas fit the experience of learners.

Characteristic #3 - Adult Tend to be More Motivated in Learning Situations Than Youth

Higher motivation is linked to the fact that most adult learning is voluntary. Adults are making personal choices to attend schooling, even when such schooling is tied to professional development or job skills. Whenever an individual is able to choose to learn, s/he is much more motivated to learn.

Implication:

• Spend less effort trying to motivate adult learners and concentrate our time on facilitating the learning they are already motivated to pursue.

Characteristic #4 - Adults Are More Pragmatic in Learning Than Youth

Adults are particularly motivated to learn information that seems immediately applicable to their situation and needs. They tend to be frustrated with "theory" that needs to be stored away for future use or learning for the sake of learning. Certainly there are exceptions to this principle, but the percentage of exceptions is quite low.

Implications:

• Tie the content of programs to the application needs of the learners.
• Always use needs assessment strategies
• Weigh the content of education toward the utilitarian, not the theoretical.

Characteristic #5 - In Contrast to Youth, the Learner Role is Secondary for Adults

For most adults, the "student" role is a minor and secondary role. This is in sharp contrast to traditional age learners for whom the learner role is both their primary social role and the main basis for their self-identity. Adults fulfill multiple roles and these multiple roles inevitably create conflicting and competing demands on the adult learner. Multiple roles cause most adults have far less time and energy to read, study, or learn.

Implications:

• More flexibility in adult education programs than in traditional education.
• Give assignments far ahead of time
• Accept that jobs and families can create obstacles for the learner, and be willing to extend deadlines for assignments.
• Accept that the learners will not see their educational efforts as necessarily the highest priority in their lives
• Accept that learners will be preoccupied at times with other roles and responsibilities.

Characteristic #6 - Adults Must Fit Their Learning into Life's "Margins"

Adult roles take energy and time to fulfill. Everyone faces the reality that there are limits on their energy and time. An important principle to understand is that learning takes time and energy. If an adult is going to undertake a learning activity, s/he must realistically evaluate his/her life and see there is actually room for the added demands of the learning. Adult learners must learn to carve out some margin in their lives to allow learning to occur, a process of priority setting. If the existing demands on an adult require all the energy they possess, then the learning will be compromised.

Implication:

• Adult educators must prioritize student advising to provide guidance to help learners to be realistic about the demands of learning and provide time management and study suggestions.

Characteristic #7 - Many Adults Lack Confidence in Their Learning

Many adults have had somewhat negative learning experiences in their traditional schooling. For a variety of reasons, they feel inadequate when comes to learning through formal educational programs. Still other adults, who may have done well in their earlier schooling, still lack confidence for further schooling efforts due to what they perceive as rusty study skills, poor reading skills, test anxiety, or other such learning barriers.

Implications:

• Employ learning strategies that build higher confidence in adult learners.
• Take the time to teach better study skills and ways of improving reading comprehension.
• Use collaborative learning approaches in the classroom can do much to alleviate anxiety.(i.e., turn the classroom from a competitive environment to a collaborative one)

Characteristic #8 - Adults are More Resistant to Change Than Youth

Learning often involves changes in our attitudes or actions. Adults tend to be somewhat resistant to such changes because life itself teaches us that change is not always for the better and that many of the outcomes of change are unpredictable. Youth tend to be more idealistic and are often open to change just for the sake of change.

Implications:

• Adult learners need more explanation of the "why" of changes, not just the "how."
• Link new concepts to older, understood, and accepted concepts for adult learners.
• Seek for incremental changes through our education efforts rather than global changes, allowing the "proof" gained from such incremental change to encourage the adult learner to explore yet more change.

Characteristic #9 - Adults Are More Diverse Than Youth

Adults vary from each other as learners in terms of age and experiences much more than traditional age learners. Such differences can be used as a powerful resource for adult learning. Through collaboration in small groups, adults can benefit from their variety of experiences. Dialogue with other adults enables adult learners to perceive more nuances of application, and possible problems with new concepts, then could ever be gained from private reflection.

Implications:

• Allow more time for interaction between adults to allow learners to network together to sharing of perspectives and experiences.
• Make effort to present material in a variety of ways to accommodate different learning styles.

Characteristic #10 - Adults Must Compensate for Aging in Learning

Aging brings with it a number of physical complications that can impact on adult learning efforts. The percentage of such complications increases with age. As we will see later, such complications are not really due to intelligence. Although the speed of learning tends to decrease with age, the depth of learning tends to increase. In other words, adults tend to learn less rapidly with age, but what they learn is learned at a deeper and more integrative level. As adults age, vision and hearing can also create barriers in educational programs. As adult educators, we must pay much more attention to sound and lighting when dealing with adult learners.

Implication:

• Pay more attention to the physical learning environment to compensate for aging issues.