Hello, bloggers! Welcome to your sixth and last blogging assignment of the semester! This time, you will be able to choose between the following two topics to write your own blog posts:
Topic A: Tell us about a career-oriented website you enjoy visiting. Include this information:
- Describe the website and provide the link.
- How often do you visit it?
- Explain why you like the site.
- Who would you recommend it to?
- Upload pictures
Topic B: Tell us about an expert/person in your field that you admire. Include this information:
- Why do you admire this person?
- What has this person done/contributed?
- Provide a short biography of this person
- Upload pictures
Make comments on 3 of your classmates’ posts + a comment on mine too.
Word Count: 150 words
TOPIC B
Most people fail to learn a language before they even begin. Want to know why?
Because they haven't gone on a journey with Dr. Shane Dixon.
Dr. Dixon is a beloved language instructor and the primary designer of the Arizona State University’s online TESOL certificate program.
I admire him because thanks to his online program, 150000 teachers from all over the world have had the opportunity to become better English language teachers, myself included.
One of the important things he teaches at the program is how to engage learners with your body in terms of your hands, in terms with your eye contact, even with your voice. Something that many university teachers don’t know how to do. Which is weird! It’s like if they misunderstood the importance of teaching in general and what it can do for learners.
In fact, academics tend to think of bodies as only transports for their brains. Have you ever tried to understand that kind of a professor who just likes to give content rather than recognizing that maybe your body can be used in a way to engage a learner? Well, this is why I admire him, because he helps us reflect on the resources we have right here, which is kind of a revolutionary thought, specially for university teachers, since most of them haven’t really considered their body as an instrument or technique for instruction.
Dr. Dixon has done many things like getting a master’s in English language planning and policy from Brigham Young University, and later a PhD in educational technology from Arizona State University because he thought it was pretty horrible, to be quite honest. He thought that most online learning platforms were pretty poor in their strategy and in their technique. Once again, all he saw was that talking head, that professor, this I just giving out content. Which is well boring! And if something is not engaging, then it’s often not relevant to the learners themselves.
Have you heard this story before? You get a master’s degree, and you immediately enter the workforce, and you get your first job, and you’re like “well, that didn’t help at all!”. That sort of disconnect in terms of what we’re learning in academia and how it translates in real life is what encouraged him to follow those studies.
His contributions don’t stop there, Dr. Shane Dixon has also designed teacher training programs for groups from China, Korea, Japan, Iraq, Peru, and Mexico, and has created language programs for companies such as General Electric (Brazil), LG (Korea), and Toyota (Japan).
He is also the author of three books and several articles, including the Amazon bestselling 100 TESOL Activities: Practical ESL/EFL Activities for the Communicative Classroom.
Finally, I would have provided a small biography, but no information about his life is available on the net. I can provide a picture of him instead. ;)
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| Dr. Shane Dixon |
Dr. Shane Dixon is truly admirable!
ResponderEliminarI really liked the ideology of Dr. Dixon and I agree with him on many points, many times the educational system fails to deliver all the tools to their students because in the end they only want them to get good grades and not necessarily learn.
ResponderEliminarThe truth is that I find wonderful the contributions that Dr. Dixon makes for education, both for teachers and students throughout the world, which helps in an important way to learn English.
ResponderEliminarDefinitely Dr. Dixon is a great teacher, a very admirable person who has achieved a lot in life, it's a blessing have been able to train with him as a teacher...
ResponderEliminarDr. Dixon's online program has helped many English teachers all over the world, a truly admirable contribution.
ResponderEliminarI like the vision that Dr. Dixon has, I have always thought that body language and tone of voice are something fundamental in the communication between people, especially between a teacher and his students, because when a teacher knows how to take advantage of all the resources he has, he knows how to capture the student's attention to such a level that one can like the subject matter.
ResponderEliminarVery interesting the work that Dr. Dixon has done, it is very valuable everything he has achieved helping a large number of teachers in the world.
ResponderEliminarDr. Dixon is undoubtedly an agent of change, it is admirable that with his program he can help thousands of teachers to be better!!!!
ResponderEliminarIt's admirable everything he has done to change and improve the tools used to teach English, especially because there is undoubtedly a lot of hard work behind it
ResponderEliminarDr. Dixon's work is admirable. And also that of the teachers who strive to teach us and make us understand what we learn.
ResponderEliminar