Sample Learning Guide: Podcast

by AJ

Listen To This English Podcast

This weekend I've been doing a lot of thinking about learners. I realize that while I do love teaching, I really want to start providing more help and resources for students.

In my opinion, learners are the most important people in education. Not teachers. Not schools. Not administrators and bureaucrats. Not textbook publishing companies. Learners.

I've also come to realize that language learners are the people I really want to reach- not teachers. Unfortunately, the education industry is broken, and I don't think it can be fixed by teachers. Learners are the one's who will fix education. They will fix it by abandoning traditional language education in favor of independent learning methods that work. They will fix it by creating their own learning communities.

Learners are the most open to these ideas because they have no power to preserve, no job to justify, no bureaucracy to maintain. The learner cares only about one thing-- actually learning the language.

And so, over the next few months I will be shifting my focus from teaching to helping learners (unfortunately, these are not the same thing :( I will be working on a new website/blog/podcast that will be focused on learners and their needs.

And I will start creating conversations, audio essays, and audio stories-- with transcripts and wordlists.

As practice, I just created a study guide for the conversation I had with Steve Kaufman a few weeks ago. I've included it below- as four jpeg images.

English learners- I'd love to hear your comments and suggestions on how to improve these guides. In the future (starting in October), the guides will also include Japanese translatioins of the key vocabulary & phrases.

Listen To This Podcast Conversation














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