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Ireland still the best!

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It’s hard to believe it has been almost 5 months since Swan Training had to shut our doors due to the global pandemic. We have all experienced something we could never have imagined in our lifetime. Seriously, if this was in a movie, I would have changed the channel thinking it was a bit far fetched!

While things are slowly starting to return to some sort of normality here in Ireland, there is still a sense of uncertainty as to how things will be when we do reopen. We are still awaiting official guidelines from the government on how English language schools can operate.

There has been such a huge shift in our industry : here at Swan Training we have moved all our English and IELTS exam prep courses online, along with our Teacher Training.

Will this become the new norm or are people itching to travel again?

If you are a potential English language student wanting to travel to an English-speaking country, there are quite a few options but Ireland is the perfect destination of choice to study English. The English spoken in Ireland is clear and easy to understand. It’s also a very attractive accent !  Ireland is a safe and friendly country. In fact, Ireland was voted as the world’s friendliest country by the Lonely Planet in 2010 and Dublin is one of the friendliest cities in the world ! For young people looking for a whole new experience, Ireland boasts a young, educated, cosmopolitan population. And according to “The Economist”, Ireland has one of the “best qualities of life in the World”.

At Swan Training we have over 30 years’ experience in helping our students achieve their goals. We provide a full service of transfers, classes, accommodation and tours so that you , as a student, can relax knowing that you have made the best choice of country and best choice of school in coming to us here at Swan Training, in the heart of Dublin.

Teacher Talk 2

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Two things are generally accepted as facts in in the EFL world : Teachers talk too much and students talk too little.

Pretty much everyone agrees that students learn to speak English by speaking English, especially by talking to other students at the same level. This doesn’t always happen though. If a teacher is talking too much then students don’t have the opportunity to talk.

Some teachers talk a lot because they see themselves as entertainers whose job it is to create a good vibe in the class. It can be easy to forget, though, that the purpose of the class is to create learning opportunities for students. While a good atmosphere is essential for creating the right basis for learning, it needs to be built on. When we check on our classes, one of the things we do is see how much time the teacher spends talking. If a teacher is talking too much, we make suggestions and give guidance as to how the teacher can cut down on talking. For example, we might ask the teacher to do more group and pair work ; ask more open questions ; use non-verbal cues instead of verbal cues for directing tasks ; ask for more verbal feedback from students.

At SwanELT we always try to balance the good vibe with genuine learning opportunities.

Talking about talk 1

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15 Of The Best Health TED Talks To Better Understand Chronic PainTED talks are incredibly  popular. Around 1.5 million people view a Ted talk every day, and a new viewing begins 17 times every second. But do you know why  each TED talks last no longer than 18 minutes?  Here’s what TED curator, Chris Anderson, says :

It [18 minutes] is long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people’s attention. It turns out that this length also works incredibly well online. It’s the length of a coffee break. So, you watch a great talk, and forward the link to two or three people. It can go viral, very easily. The 18-minute length also works much like the way Twitter forces people to be disciplined in what they write. By forcing speakers who are used to going on for 45 minutes to bring it down to 18, you get them to really think about what they want to say. What is the key point they want to communicate? It has a clarifying effect. It brings discipline.

I did a search for any research that supports the idea of 18 minutes  being the optimal time for a lecture and couldn’t find any. It does feel right though. Anyone who has sat through 50 minute university lectures knows that the mind wanders away and wanders back to the lecture. But even with an 18 minutes lecture, it’s easy to find your mind wandering.

I suppose the question is : do you learn that much from a TED talk besides a broad introduction to the topic being presented ? I’ve watched quite a few TED talks on a wide variety of subjects from understanding Body language to deciphering the Indus Valley language. What I’ve learnt could be put into one or two  sentences on each topic. I’ve learned far more by asking questions on Quora  than from TED talks on the same subject.

For language teachers, I think this underlines the importance of  us not talking too much. My own experience, and that of a lot of researchers, is that successful  learning occurs through interaction, and that means lots of student talk. And not so much teacher talk.

How to Deal With People Who Talk Too Much | Savvy PsychologistAnd students, you learn to speak though speaking. Ask questions, even if you think they’re silly. It’s how you learn.

Covid Classes 2

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The feedback from our teachers regarding our online English classes is very interesting. While our teachers have adapted very well to the classes, almost all reported something unexpected : feeling very mentally tired after classes.  There’s even a name for this : zoom fatigue.

Zoom Fatigue 101: How to Prevent Virtual Exhaustion • Employment Hero

I did a quick google on it : here’s a link to searches for zoom fatigue  and I also found quite a few articles on the subject — seems it’s a common experience for those who use video conferencing for meetings. And what causes it is worth looking at, particularly on the context of EFL teaching.

Firstly, you have to concentrate more when you’re teaching online. In normal classes, there are natural breaks and pauses in teaching. These don”t really happen online as the learners’ attention is very much focused on the teacher. But, in the real world, how often do you stand within three feet of someone  and stare at their face? Hardly ever. This is because having to engage in a “constant gaze” is uncomfortable for people. In some cultures, it’s even considered to be very aggressive.

Online,  the only way to show you’re paying attention is to look at the camera and stare at the teacher. And so the teacher feels under more pressure.

Careers Counsel | How to Combat Zoom Fatigue | Careers, Careers ...

So in our classes we try to build in mini-breaks so that both students and teachers can relieve some of the non-verbal pressure they feel. These mini-breaks are scheduled, and can involve pair-work, surveys and group projects.  So far, the feedback is very positive.

Covid and Online Classes

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Coronavirus

It’s been quite a challenging time for all of us working in English language schools. Our busy schools are now characterised by classes that are empty, staff who are at home, and the the feeling that no-one quite knows how all this is going to work out, and how our schools will look in the future.

Like many schools all over the world, Swan Training moved quickly to adjust to the new demands of the Covid shutdown. One of the first things we did was to move our classes online. Usually something like that would take a couple of months to implement but, in this case, we managed it in two weeks.

Online classes have never really been that successful for language schools. We’ve tried to market them in various ways over the years but, in the end, people weren’t really that interested. Students wanted to come to Dublin and Ireland to learn English, and learning in their home country sitting at a computer didn’t really appeal to them. And so, we were quite nervous about how our students and teachers would react to our new format.Online learning during coronavirus crisis.

We survey our students on a weekly basis to find out how satisfied our students are with our services, and to pick up any issues that might be happening in class.
The first survey results from our video classes have been processed, and we’ve been genuinely delighted at the response of students to what we’re doing. There’s an overall 98% satisfaction with our video classes, and all the students surveyed would recommend the classes to friends. All the students enjoyed our classes and felt that they were learning a lot. In fact, quite a few students of ours who returned to their home countries because of COVID continued classes with us, and now want to re-enrol from their home countries. So it looks very much as if our online classes will continue, even after the Covid crisis is over.

We’ve designed a course just for them with shorter hours. If you’re interested click here for details.

So, all in all, very positive. One thing that both students and teachers remarked on: online classes can be quite tiring unless they are structured properly. In response to this, our academic team have designed classes that are more dynamic and self-directed than our real world classes, and we will be getting the opinions of students on this new approach over the next few weeks, and we’ll tell you about the results next time.