Featured Teacher

7/22/09

First, tell us who you are and what your site is all about.

First off, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my website with you and your audience. My name is Stephen Tom, and I have created a website called, Teacherlinx.com. Teacherlinx is about improving education by providing a platform for teachers to share lessons and ideas.

The site is mainly for teachers. Teaching is a profession that will be in continual growth, and hopefully those who use Teacherlinx will find that the greatest way to improve education is through sharing lessons that have helped students grow.

What's been the most rewarding or challenging aspect of making the site?

Thus far, the most rewarding aspect of Teacherlinx has been it’s users feedback. Almost everyone who I show the site to tells me, “What a great idea.” But, it’s the actual sharing of lessons and resources that has been the most rewarding for me. Allowing Teacherlinx to preview our users to the most up to date news and allowing them to interact with that to voice an opinion has been very rewarding.

In terms of challenge, of course getting the site out there to the public has been a challenge because we are a small team. However, we have managed to do quite well in gaining almost 700 users within three months of marketing.

I understand teachers can upload materials to your site to share with other educators. You must have seen a wide variety of activities and worksheets by now. Can you tell us, what makes for a good quality worksheet (activity etc.)? Is there one example in particular that stands out?

Well, we do have a number of both worksheets and lessons, but in order to create an effective lesson, one must first and foremost be aware that if they would use the lesson, then it’s most likely another teacher would. Users should be aware of the readers. We actually had a very controversial lesson entitled, “The Bill of Rights Rap” that got a lot of attention on blogs. It was an adaptation of the Bill of Rights submitted by a History teacher that had many gun activists upset because it insinuated  people had an option rather than a right to bear arms. It got a lot of play on the radio and on blogs. Check it out:

http://jberggren.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/another-reason-why-the-government-should-not-run-our-schools/

We’ve spoken about the website itself but not a lot about you as a teacher. Could you introduce yourself and a little about your teaching experience? 

After graduating from UCLA with a bachelors degree in English, I went straight to attempting to get my credential from Cal State L.A..  I first started in the field of education by getting hired as a Day Care Aide for the Arcadia Unified School District. As a day care aide, I learned a lot about how to deal with elementary school children. I would tutor them after school and play sports with them to get them interested in football, basketball and baseball.

After working about a year as an aide, I started substitute teaching for both the Los Angeles and Monrovia Unified school districts. Subbing was definitely a huge challenge, but I did learn a lot about classroom management and conducting a daily lesson. Once I finished my credential as I was subbing, I immediately got hired to be a seventh grade English teacher in Los Angeles.

My experiences before teaching full time did help, but it really wasn’t enough to fully prepare me for an entire school year. I had a very rough first two years, but I stuck it out. Many teachers who I got hired with left the school. I believe out of 8, only 2 remain including myself. My dedication to the students and sticking with the school has definitely helped me grow as a teacher. I have learned from my mistakes, and each year gets a little easier due to my past experiences.

Are you working with a team? What would you like so say about them?

I am working on Teacherlinx with a team of 5 members including myself. We are all interested in education and have a passion to improve it. With our combined input, we have developed the site. Our members include; our programmer, Mike Brich, who has built the site functionally. Vivek Srinivasan, who is in charge of marketing. Tarun Raj is the President, who presides over the design and sales. May Cheung is our promotions and Public Relations director. I (Stephen), look over the teaching ideas and content of the site. Overall, a great team and I would not have it any other way.

Introduce us to Culips and the Culips team.

Sure! Our goal at Culips is to provide ESL students and teachers with a really helpful resource that’s also a lot of fun to use. Our podcasts are designed to help students learn conversational English the way it’s actually spoken in day-to-day life, and also to introduce people from other countries to elements of North American and Canadian culture that we think are particularly interesting or unique.

We’re based in Montreal, Canada, but we’ve all had experience living in other countries, and it was our passion for learning about other languages and cultures that brought us together. Most of our team actually first met in a French class, so we all know how challenging it can be to learn a second language!

We spent lots of time trying to think of a name that was original and that really represents what we’re all about. The “Cu” part of “Culips” stands for “culture” and the “lips” part represents language and speaking. Culips is a distinctive name, so people tend to remember it, and it’s easy to find us in an internet search!

What makes your podcast stand out? What can students & teachers get that is different from all the other podcasts out there?

One thing that I think is really special about our podcasts is the way that our hosts’ personalities really shine through. When you listen to our episodes, you learn about slang, idioms, culture, and a bit of grammar, but you also get to know the hosts as people, almost like you’re learning English from friends. We always try to speak the way we actually do in our everyday lives, and I think that’s really important for ESL learners out there. It’s hard to learn to speak naturally and casually from books or from really formal, academic resources.

What sort of challenges have you faced in making the podcast and website?

I think our main challenge is finding the time to do everything. Culips is our passion, but unfortunately, we’re also passionate about having enough money to pay for things like food and rent! We all have full-time jobs outside of the website, but we share the dream of one day being able to make a living from Culips, and having the best of both worlds: making money from doing something that we love.

What is the Culips philosophy to podcasting and teaching ESL?

Well, we think it’s important to hear fluent English speakers speaking casually and in an unrehearsed way, and we think that learning a second language can (& should) be a lot of fun!

We do prepare our episode topics in advance, but usually we only use a rough outline. Our conversations are genuine and we don’t read from scripts. A lot of what you hear on our podcasts is completely spontaneous. Sometimes we actually have to pause and re-record a part because someone says something funny and everyone is laughing too hard to continue!

Most importantly, we want to give students a chance to learn lots of informal, natural phrases and expressions that they can actually use in casual conversations. We’d much rather teach people different ways to describe a hot girl or guy than teach them the correct way to use the verb “shall.”

There are millions of academic and business English resources out there, but we want our listeners to feel as though they’re learning English from a friend rather than a professor or a textbook.

How do you see teachers and students using Culips?

We try to provide a variety of different options for our listeners. We hear from quite a few teachers who use our podcasts as part of their conversation classes or as a listening activity. Some ESL students just download our podcasts and listen to them on the way to work or at the gym. Other students also download the Lipservice files that go along with each podcast. Each of these files includes a full transcript of the episode and provides more detailed explanations about some of the things we talked about in the podcast. It also includes a quiz to help students test their understanding of the words and phrases discussed in the show.
Could you tell us more about what great things are going on on the website?

Our website offers a lot of fantastic tools and information in addition to the podcasts. For every podcast there’s a Lipservice, which I talked about earlier. We also have a blog, where we write about whatever is on our minds at the time, whether that’s a particular idiom we like using, a trip we recently took, or a concert we attended.

For students looking for something a little more structured, in the next few weeks we’re launching an online writing course through our website, which involves lots of useful assignments and personal feedback from our terrific writing instructor, Moheb.

If you’d like to get to know the people behind Culips a little better, you can find biographies and lots of pictures on the website. And if you’d like to get in touch, you can leave comments on our podcast pages or blog posts, or write to us through the “Contact us” link on the homepage. Or you can always send an email to contact@Culips.com.

What can we look forward to in the future from Culips?

This is an exciting time for Culips. We’re launching our first online writing course soon, and we’re working on setting up an editing service in the near future.

We’re also beginning a new membership service. Although our podcasts will remain free, on January 15, 2010, we’re beginning a paid membership service for access to the additional materials (the detailed explanations, transcripts, and quizzes) provided on our website. This step will allow us to focus more of our time and energy on Culips, so that we can continue producing quality podcasts and educational material for our listeners.

                                   This month we are lucky to be joined by an
                                   incredible grammar master: Grammarman.

Grammarman, I understand you are a superhero. How did you break into the business?

Business? Fighting crime doesn't pay. I arrived in Verbo City five years ago, after traveling across space and back through time. As the last of the Galactic Librarians, I've been given the responsibility of defending the English language against the never-ending tide of careless mistakes.

What are your powers and how can I get some?

I don't have super abilities like Spider-man and Superman. I stay in peak physical shape, like Batman, and I have an intellect that is said to rival Sherlock Holmes. Oh, wait! I do have the ability to detect errors, which I suppose is similar to Spider-man's tingling 'spider sense'.

Who are Syntax and Alpha-bot?

Syntax and Alpha-bot are the best sidekicks a busy hero could hope for. Syntax arrived on Earth shortly after me. He comes from a distant galaxy and he communicates through telepathy. Alpha-bot started life as the onboard computer of my spaceship. When I arrived in Verbo City, one of my first tasks was to build him an android body.

When I read your stories this name Brian Boyd pops up a lot. Who is he? Is that your alter-ego?

You'd be surprised how many people think that Brian Boyd and I are one and the same person. I can assure you this isn't a Clark Kent / Superman thing. I have no alterego. Brian Boyd writes and draws the stories of my adventures, although sometimes he has help from guest creators, such as the recent 'Episode 54'.

Comics are tons of fun. What is the advantage of using them to fight bad grammar?

Well, like you say, they're loads of fun - so they're engaging for students. Comics can help readers to understand a higher level of story telling, because the pictures support the text. Also, stories told in comic form can achieve some things that aren't so easy to do in other forms of story telling. Your imagination is your only limit - if you can think of something, you can make it into a comic.

How can teachers use your comic in the classroom to help save their students from grammar gaffs?

The comics work on two levels. Students can enjoy reading the adventures simply as a comic for reading practice. Then each episode ends with a puzzle. I invite the reader to help me solve the grammar crime by looking through the story again for clues, mistakes or answers.

You've had so many adventures. Do any stand out as particular favorites?

Episode 21 is a favorite of mine. It's right there on the Grammarman website, but I've tucked it away in a secret, hidden corner. If you search around the site a bit, it shouldn't take you too long to find it.

I saw some of your comics on your website. Where can I find more issues?

There are more than 50 episodes of the comic in print, but I don't want to put them all on the website just yet. They appear in newspapers and magazines in Thailand, Canada, Russia and Malaysia at the moment. In the past they've also appeared in China, Argentina and Brunei. Brian Boyd has mentioned the possibility of a Grammarman book, but there are no concrete plans for that yet.

Grammarman who are your heroes?

One of my big real-life heroes is Barack Obama. He's a master of the English language, a great communicator and I think he's the greatest president America has seen for a long time.

What daring grammatical adventures can we look forward to?

There are lots of exciting stories in the pipeline. One of them is 'Citadel of Snakes', featuring a slippery villain named Sir Pentine. My arch-nemesis Wrongo has been up to his old tricks recently, so I expect he'll be causing more trouble before long ... and prepare for chaos in Verbo City in the upcoming mega-adventure, 'Monkey Mayhem'.