Go with the flow

Peter Snashall shares knowledge with a receptive class.— HUACHIEW CHALERMPRAKIAT UNIVERSITY

The education website for this week is one that I am intimately familiar with. I have used it for more than five years as a resource and quick reference. It is maintained by Peter Snashall, an ardent full-time teacher who puts his heart into every lesson. Almost 10 years ago he focused his attention on the web, where he began sharing his ideas and teaching assets with others. The result is eslflow.com .

When asked what motivated him to start a website in Thailand dedicated to teaching English as a foreign or second language during a time when most people couldn't even get a reliable Internet connection Snashall, a full time English teacher at Huachiew Chalermprakiat University, says: "I started the website around 1997 because the school I used to teach at had a paucity of teaching resources and no library; plus I had a lot of good ideas that I wanted to share with others, and getting a website wasn't too expensive although the Internet, at that time, was very slow."

Teaching in the zone

The name of the site, eslflow.com, has an unusual origin. Seems that Snashall went to a Tesol conference where a lecturer talked about the psychology of being in the "flow" - which is the sensation you get when you are reading a great book and you get into a groove and are so engrossed that the reading feels effortless. Athletes sometimes refer to this intense mental state as being in the "zone". Teachers can get it too. "That's it," he said, "I'll call it English as a Second Language, being in the Flow," and the name was born.

The age of the website and the slowness of the Internet connections in Thailand at the time Snashall started may explain why the site lacks pizzazz, as it is completely devoid of graphics. Nada! Not even a masthead. It could also use a new paint job. The hot pink and moody mauve colour scheme is passe.

Easy sailing

However, what the site lacks in eye candy, it makes up for in layout and organisation. It's easy to follow, and information can be quickly accessed precisely because there are no unnecessary trappings, doodles and gargoyles that are typically found on overproduced sites.

The structure of the site is also uncomplicated and rests on a three-fold platform: Elementary, Pre-intermediate, and Intermediate. When asked why teachers, parents and students should visit eslflow.com, Snashall paused, then said, "because it has good writing, a variety of content, some great ideas, and vast resources." He's right.

For example, if you click on the Elementary tab you come to a page with headings, such as, "Teaching Elementary Greetings…", "Getting to Know You Questions & Activities…" and "Classroom Language". Under these, you will find an assortment of lesson plans, teaching tips, and activities, such as, personal information worksheets and exercises, introductions and farewells, etc. There are similar beneficial tools for food and eating, experiences, real and unreal situations, describing neighbourhoods, writing, and yes, even grammar.

Returning to the homepage, there is a wide range of cardinal categories to choose from. There are over 30 subheadings to click on and have fun with, like Icebreaker (which I really like and have used often), Business, Environment, Imagining and Wishing, Technology, Social trends, and Describing people.

Portal to knowledge

An interesting note on eslflow.com is that Snashall, despite his depth as a teacher, doesn't profess to be a know-it-all. Consequently, his site simultaneously serves as both a one-stop source and as a portal to websites specialising in teaching English.

For example, under the Collocations button, a click on the "teaching come & take" hotlink transports you not to a deeper page on eslflow.com, but to a Canadian site managed by the English Language Institute of the University of British Columbia. That site focuses on a set of contemporary, theoretical and practical applications of the role of lexical phrases in language acquisition. Ahh…just what I needed for my beginner's level class.

The site also contains the "Current Favourite English Language Teaching Lesson Links". It comprises the titles: Oral English Activities, BBC Lesson Plans, eslgold, and, my favourite, the Onestopenglish Archive link, among others.

In the Onestopenglish Archive the lessonshare topics are divided by author. You can select one of two levels: pre-intermediate to upper intermediate. Clicking on a lesson takes you deeper into the site where it is chock-full of lesson plans. The lesson plans are in portable document format (pdf), so take care that you have the pdf programme, Adobe Acrobat, installed; if not, you can download it free at Adobe.com.

The lesson plans generally challenge students to actually use the language and think about choices they must make using background knowledge. The lessonshare entitled "Trouble at the Airport" is a good illustration. It doesn't just ask students to check a multiple choice box, but to decide the best outcome from a selection of scenarios. Take this hypothetical situation: You are at the airport and prior to boarding, a security official asks you to remove prohibited scissors from your luggage.

Students are told to consider the best response to the situation. Would it be best to move the scissors to your check-in luggage, leave them at the airport property section to be retrieved on your return flight, or direct airport personnel to give them to charity. To make the best choice, the student must consider a host of tangential facts, assumptions and prior knowledge.

The aim of that lesson, according to its author, Lindsay Morley, is to practice modal verbs in an authentic travel context.

Perks and passions

Snashall says, "The most difficult and tedious aspect of running the website is the constant checking for broken links. Links to outside pages often expire.The easiest," he offers, "is receiving - in recent months - a small remuneration from the Google-linked ads that now accompany my site." He says, "that's a nice perquisite for all the years of building the site, and now the site also ranks high on the Google "hit" list."

The site is quite successful and is enjoying well-deserved popularity, but what does Snashall see as its future direction? He says, "I'm more interested now in finding things that are not designed for ESL teaching or by ESL teachers, but can be used to create even more realistic lessons - fresh things - like real surveys about pets, real surveys about shopping, using real storyboards from Hollywood movies, or whatever, and using them to create more vibrant and realistic lessons."

"My latest passion and what I'm presently most proud of on eslflow.com is the new section on environment lessons - including deforestation, water quality, global warming and disaster evacuations," he says. "Especially the stuff on sustainable transportation and turning those topics into lessons."

Eslflow.com has been a wellspring of information and resources in Thailand and elsewhere for years and I strongly recommend it as a powerful resource for teaching and learning tools. Click Ahoy!