Et Professional March 2018.pdf

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Issue 115 March 2018

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A new look at listening

Ken Lackman and Danny Norrington-Davies

Student survival Katy Jones

Idiom of the day Michaela Casey

Teaching large classes Hall Houston and Andrew Starck

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Contents MAIN FEATURE 4

Issue 115 March 2018

LANGUAGE

54 Idiom of the day

A new look at listening

Michaela Casey decides to help her students decode confusing expressions

Ken Lackman and Danny Norrington-Davies present a procedure for practice

TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS 19 Hello, my name is ...

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LISTENING

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FEATURES

Ben Moorhouse learns his students’ names

Micro-drilling

22 Stacks of fun

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Mark Hancock finds that transforming the familiar into the strange can be productive.

Alex Case reviews a range of building block games

IN THE CLASSROOM

12 Smart football

55 Messing up your teaching

Tien Minh Mai acts as referee as his students fight it out on the pitch

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57 Teachers as lighthouse keepers

Jennifer Fennema-Bloom introduces an information-exchange activity

IN THE CLASSROOM

17 Value Added Teaching IN THE CLASSROOM

26 Teaching large classes 1

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Hall Houston and Andrew Starck begin a new series on teaching big groups

IN THE CLASSROOM

29 Students’ stories 5

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Paul Bress tells teachers to give a little extra

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15 Speed dating for all

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David Heathfield shares a sinister story of sneaky snake slaughter

33 Student survival

Dave Watton uses oblique strategies to promote creativity

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SPEAKING

IN THE CLASSROOM

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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

59 Teacher, trainer, coach – which am I really? Ben Dobbs and Michelle Hunter pinpoint the practice and role of the coach

TECHNOLOGY 62 Keep talking ... or else! Robert Dormer gets his students to go out with a bang

66 Five things you always wanted to know about: group messaging apps Nicky Hockly encourages rapport and cooperation amongst her students

67 Webwatcher Russell Stannard examines the research behind the boom in video usage

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Katy Jones puts her students in peril

RESOURCES

38 Hot off the press!

Christine Jayasinghe recommends her students to read all about it

READING

41 Developing reading skills Emma Tudor focuses on useful sub-skills

IN THE CLASSROOM

52 Vocabulary: principles and practice 7 Hana Mohammad Almutairi promotes ‘pushed output’

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Daniel Xerri shines a light on two different callings with common features

REGULAR FEATURES 44 46 48 68

IT WORKS IN PRACTICE REVIEWS SCRAPBOOK NOT ONLY, BUT ALSO ... Chia Suan Chong asserts that technical mastery needs to be enhanced with communication skills Includes materials designed to photocopy, some of which can now be downloaded from the ETp website (see page 3)

Issue 115 • March 2018

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Editorial but listening to people in an attempt to guide them into reflecting productively on the problems they face and to enable them to come up with their own solutions.

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Good listening is one of the building blocks of good communication, another theme that runs through this issue of ETp. Chia Suan Chong highlights the necessity for us to go beyond teaching the mere mechanics of the English language in order to prepare our students for situations where good communication skills are vital.

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And talking of building blocks, take a look at the activities using blocks that Alex Case recommends. His article is one of those for which there are now downloadable resources available from the Resources section of the ETp website. See page 3 for details.

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The renowned pianist Alfred Brendel once pointed out that the word listen contains exactly the same letters as the word silent. Not being concert pianists, few teachers would want a roomful of silent students; well, probably not all the time – unless, perhaps, like Hall Houston and Andrew Starck, a single class can have as many as 160 learners! However, many of us would like our students to be better listeners. In our main feature, Ken Lackman and Danny Norrington-Davies outline their technique for improving their students’ ability to decode and understand what they hear by making them more focused and more strategic in the way they approach listening. They start with the bigger picture, getting their students to predict what is likely to be said, based on all the information they have on the situation and on the speaker involved.

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By contrast, Mark Hancock, with his ‘micro-drilling’ technique, starts his students off with the smaller picture, homing in on the minutiae of connected speech, working from the premise that learning to produce something may actually improve someone’s ability to hear it when it occurs later on in a listening text.

Helena Gomm Editor Email: [email protected]

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Michaela Casey’s ESL students frequently understand the literal meaning of the words they hear, but fail to decode their idiomatic meanings. Her ‘idiom of the day’ strategy prepares them for the sort of language they will hear when they get to college, even if it isn’t entirely successful in getting them to produce accurate idioms themselves!

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Another aspect of listening is featured in Ben Dobbs and Michelle Hunter’s article on coaching. They point out that the essence of coaching is not giving advice or feedback,

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ENGLISH TEACHING PROFESSIONAL Published by: Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd, Rayford House, School Road, Hove BN3 5HX Tel: +44 (0)1273 434943 Email: [email protected] Fax: +44 (0)1273 227308 Web: www.etprofessional.com © 2018, Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd ISSN 1362-5276 Editor: Helena Gomm Email: [email protected] Editorial Consultant: Mike Burghall

Advertising Sales Manager: Margarida Ribeiro Tel: 020 3137 8583 Email: [email protected] Publisher: Emma Grisewood Photos: All pictures from Gettyimages.com unless otherwise stated

Subscriptions: Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd Email: [email protected] Web: www.etprofessional.com/etp-subscriptions/ Numéro de Commission Paritaire: 1004 U 82181. Prix à l’unité = EUR14.75; à l’abonnement (6 numéros) = EUR59. Directeur de la Publication: Emma Grisewood

Pages 31 and 48-50 include materials which are designed to photocopy. All other rights are reserved and no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Designer: Emma Dawe

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Issue 115 • March 2018

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ONLINE RESOURCES

Resources online

Go to etprofessional.com/resources for your extra printable resources, ready for use in class. ONLINE RESOURCES

Making shapes from blocks Cards to cut out

T-shirt

moon

circle

shorts

window

cube

glasses

table

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square

nose

sofa

snake

leg

radio

mountain

happy

spoon

tree

fat

boot

sun

rectangle

sock

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giraffe

ONLINE RESOURCES

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D.........................

Water purification drops

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F.........................

bed

caterpillar

ear

bath

lion

hand

fork

hill

sad

hat

flower

tall

G.........................

H.........................

Making shapes from blocks

Oblique strategy cards

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Why did / has / have / is /are / will .........................................................................................................?

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When did / has / have / is /are / will .......................................................................................................?

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Where did / has / have / is /are / will ......................................................................................................?

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Who did / has / have / is /are / will .........................................................................................................?

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Which (+ noun) .......................................................................................................................................?

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How many / old / long ...........................................................................................................................?

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How much is the new ...................................................................................................... going to cost ?

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Who said ............................................................? / Who said that .......................................................?

Avoid using the board for the whole lesson.

I will include a ‘live listening’.

I will use dictation.

Include a focus on academic register today.

Only students can write on the board during this lesson.

Today, we will work on time management.

Play a game.

Be strict with the students in this lesson.

Today, good pronunciation is king!

The students will tell stories.

Make the students laugh!

Speak as little as possible in this lesson.

Sorry, no PowerPoint in this lesson.

I will surprise the students in this class.

Write the students’ ideas on the board.

I will not ask the students any questions today.

Tell the students a story.

There will be lots of error correction in this lesson.

Incorporate a topical news item into this lesson.

Use a set of Cuisenaire rods today.

The students will be out of their seats for a significant portion of the lesson.

The students will memorise something.

Ask the students to research a topic on their mobile devices.

The students will watch a video clip.

The students will decorate the walls of the classroom today.

Set strict time limits for activities.

The students will collaborate on a piece of writing.

The students get to make a decision about what we do in class today.

The students will learn something from each other.

The students will copy carefully from the board.

The students will count the number of questions asked in today’s lesson.

Give the students a chance to develop their fluency.

Tell the students a joke.

We will look at an online resource today.

The students will read a text quickly.

Notice how well the students use articles in this class.

10 What is ................................................ going to do next / after ............................................................?

Q.........................

N.........................

R.........................

K.........................

O.........................

S.........................

2 Watch again. Match the tools with the pictures.

o poncho o backpack o headband

P.........................

T.........................

o gloves o water o cigarette lighter purification drops o hammock

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A machete o map o o two compasses o knife o two water bottles o mosquito net

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‘Student survival’ by Katy Jones

11 Which ......................................................... . (eg island / famous band) is / are in the news this week ?

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‘Stacks of fun’ by Alex Case

What did / has / have / is /are / will ........................................................................................................?

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Water purification drops

B.........................

necklace

ONLINE RESOURCES

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1 Watch the video. Put a tick next to the tools you see and hear about in the video.

✔

sweater

pyramid

Question stems

Jungle survival tools

A.........................

oval

chair

Accompanies ‘Stacks of fun’ by Alex Case, page 22

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ONLINE RESOURCES

stairs

12 How did .................................................................................................................................................? 13 Where is there a .................................................................................................. (eg pollution) problem? 14 Who arrived from / left for ......................................................................................................................? 15 What happened on / in / at ...................................................................................................................? 16 On page .........., who / what / when / where / why / how is / are .........................................................? 17 On which page is / are............................................................................................................................? 18 In the top / bottom right / left picture on page ........., who / what is / are .........................................? 19 In the caption on page ..........., who / what ............................................................................................? 20 In the advertisement for ......................................................, what is .....................................................?

‘Hot off the press!’ by Christine Jayasinghe

www.etprofessional.com

‘Messing up your teaching’ by Dave Watton

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Jungle survival tools

Question stems

Oblique strategy cards

Accompanies ‘Student survival’ by Katy Jones, page 33

Accompanies ‘Hot off the press!’ by Christine Jayasinghe, page 38

Accompanies ‘Messing up your teaching’ by Dave Watton, page 55

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Online resources

Tracker

Digital issue

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MAIN FEATURE

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A new look at listening

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Ken Lackman and Danny Norrington-Davies suggest a six-stage strategy to improve students’ skills.

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here have been many criticisms of the way that listening is taught in the language classroom (including those voiced by John Field and by Michael Swan and Catherine Walter), with much of the argument centring on the suggestion that teachers spend too much time testing listening skills, rather than developing them. On a practical level, not enough decoding work is done to help learners develop the ability to cope with the speed of authentic speech, and teachers are not spending enough time exploring the issues their learners have with decoding skills and the causes of miscomprehension. In general, according to Sheila Thorne, there is too much focus on what is said, rather than how it is said. There is also an issue with the overuse of closed comprehension questions, eg true/false, multiple-choice or questions with one-word answers. Firstly, these questions are often not particularly cognitively demanding, as they frequently test word recognition rather than understanding of the speaker’s message. In addition, because the questions are pre-prepared, they only focus on parts of the text chosen by the materials writer, ignoring the possibility that a 20-year-old university student in China may not have the same response to a text as a 40-year-old Brazilian student studying in the UK. The fact that there is a ‘correct’ and an ‘incorrect’ response can also be demotivating.

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Issue 115 • March 2018

Comprehension questions can play an important role in the classroom. For example, they give the learners a purpose for listening and help them bring a level of external knowledge to a listening situation (and of course some students will need to deal with these types of questions in their exams). However, a major issue is that they do not prepare the learners for independent listening outside the classroom. Therefore, we believe that the way that teachers help their students approach listening needs to be looked at again. We hope that the ideas outlined in this article will go some way to producing more focused and strategic listeners, and will move listening away from simply providing more practice in testtaking skills.

Listening outside class The key idea is that the L2 listener learns and practises strategies that can be used when listening outside the classroom. It can be assumed that when someone consciously chooses to listen in the real world, they usually have a specific purpose. They are also likely to have some knowledge of the speaker, the topic or the genre of the text they are about to listen to. It is, therefore, useful to train students to use that information, not only to activate their background knowledge, but also to help them predict

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MAIN FEATURE

content and engage more with the material they are listening to. This should promote a greater focus on content, as well as providing the students with useful strategies to use when going forward. The following procedure is designed to make this process more overt, whilst also giving the learners more agency over what they focus on.

I’m a relationship builder. When you think of a relationship builder, don’t you just automatically think ‘architect’? Probably not. That’s because most people think architects design buildings and cities, but what we really design are relationships, because cities are about people. They’re places where people come together for all kinds of exchange. And besides, skylines are highly specific urban habitats with their own insects, plants and animals, and even their own weather.

Stage 1: Becoming familiar with the genre In the classroom, the teacher starts by helping the learners explore the genre of a text they are about to listen to. This is an important stage, as an understanding of the characteristics of the genre will enable the students to anticipate important text features such as content, organisation, register and style. For example, in a recent lesson with an intermediate class, the students were informed that they were about to listen to a TED talk. The TED website describes their talks as ‘devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks’. Based on this simple description, and a bit of background about TED as an organisation, the students concluded that a TED speaker would speak uninterrupted and would present one or more new and interesting ideas. They also concluded that sometimes the speaker would use language particular to a specific field.

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Stage 3: Composing questions After the students contemplate the content of the text through the procedures outlined above, it’s time for them to create their own listening tasks. Because the goal of this procedure is to train the students to become better, more focused and strategic listeners, they are instructed to draw on their new knowledge about the speaker, genre and topic to create their own comprehension questions. We have tried four different methods of doing this, and each is described below.

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For the listener, anything anticipated about the text based on genre characteristics can be combined with information gleaned from the title of the talk. In the same lesson, the class was asked to think about a TED talk entitled ‘Buildings that blend nature and city’. The students logically assumed that the speaker would talk about ways to combine nature and city in architecture and, based on knowledge of the genre, they figured that the architect would have some novel ideas for doing that. That idea alone was more than enough to focus the students on the most important content in the talk.

Based on listening to the first 30 seconds just once, the students determined that the speaker was middle-aged, a native-speaker, probably from the US and a working architect. They also concluded that the speaker felt that architects create relationships between cities and people and that she was probably going to talk about how they did that and why it was important. This is a lot of useful information, but the likelihood of the students getting that much was greatly enhanced by the work done in the genre and speaker familiarisation stages. Because we want our students to become more strategic listeners, we therefore took some time after this stage to get them to reflect on why it is useful to do these pre-listening tasks.

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Because our classroom procedure was designed to mirror as closely as possible what one might do before listening to this talk in the real world, the students were also asked to look at any images that accompanied the talk. In this lesson, this was an image of an unusual apartment building with undulating balconies that created patterns reminiscent of those that would be found in nature. Obviously, the building was chosen by the creators of the talk to reinforce the content and, for our purposes, it assisted the title in encouraging the students to focus on the relevant content. TED talks, like many other published spoken-word genres, use visuals and titles to provide clues about the content and arouse curiosity about it. It therefore makes sense to train students to use these visual clues to help them focus before and while listening.

Stage 2: Becoming familiar with the speaker This stage involves the students listening to just the very beginning of the talk. As John Field points out, language learners should always be given some time to get used to the recorded voices of L2 speakers. In class, the students were asked to listen to the first 30 seconds of the talk, as transcribed in the box at the top of this page, and to think about the speaker’s age, nationality, first language, work life and ideas and the purpose of her talk.

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Method 1: Each individual student is asked to write a set number of questions that they think will be answered, based on their knowledge so far. For example, each student writes five questions and they then simply listen for the answers. To encourage a deeper involvement with the text, the teacher can stipulate that questions answerable with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ be avoided or limited. Even deeper involvement would have the students adding a personal response question. For a TED talk, this could be Do you agree with the speaker’s ideas – why or why not? Method 2: A variation of this procedure has the students writing the pre-set number of questions in pairs. This technique has the benefit of getting the students to discuss and agree upon questions that they feel are likely to be answered or that they would like to be answered. Each student in the pair then has an identical list of, say, five questions, and they listen individually for the answers. Method 3: A further possibility is to have pairs or groups of students writing their agreed-upon questions on flip-chart paper. Their papers can be displayed on the wall and then each individual student selects a pre-set number of questions most likely to be answered, from all the papers. The students can also agree on a personal response question. Method 4: This version requires that the students initially work in groups of three or four. (These will later be re-formed

Issue 115 • March 2018

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MAIN FEATURE

so that new groups are created, containing one student from each of the original groups.) Before they listen to the talk, the members of each of the original groups are told to write a pre-set number of questions. All group members must agree on the questions, and each student should write them down. When the recording is played, the students listen for the answers to their questions. After listening, they discuss the answers in their groups before moving on to the next stage.

causes of miscomprehension. A useful way of doing this is to give them a copy of the script in which clusters of words that contain connected speech features or potential difficulties are gapped. Alternatively, an un-gapped script could be given to the students, and they could be asked to read while listening and underline any instances of connected speech that they hear.

Stage 4: Post-listening

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Asking students to create their own questions is not a new idea. However, encouraging them to use specific strategies when doing so, and then exploring the effectiveness of those strategies and the questions they create as a result, is an important addition to this technique.

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Not only have our students been totally engaged in the texts and what their classmates have gleaned from the recordings, they have also got better at drawing on the genre, the speaker and any visual clues to predict content and approach texts with a clearer purpose. Through the evaluation of their chosen questions in the feedback stage, the questions they create have become more focused and effective. This has led to them being able to get more out of listening and, as suggested earlier, their enthusiasm for sharing what they have learnt has provided additional motivation and focus while listening. Taken together, we believe these approaches will go a long way to helping these learners become more successful, independent and strategic listeners in the future. n

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For the other methods, the post-listening stage is done as a mingling activity. After the students have listened to the text, they ask each other how many of their questions were answered, what those questions were, and what they heard in answer to them. The students are also given one additional task of remembering who had the most questions answered. The timing of this stage is variable as, for large classes, it is not necessary for each student to talk to everyone in the class. With the intermediate class mentioned above, the students showed remarkable engagement in sharing whatever they had learnt from the talk. It seemed that their initial enthusiasm for this interactive stage encouraged them to try to comprehend more in subsequent listening lessons using this approach, and their desire to share what they had learnt while listening has never seemed to diminish. This suggests that the students are more interested in what they and their classmates gain from a listening than in getting the answers to pre-set questions.

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For Method 4 above, new groups are formed with a member from each of the original groups. Each student in the new groups tells the others what questions they wrote and what answers they heard for those questions.

Stage 5: Feedback

Field, J Listening in the Language Classroom CUP 2009 Swan, M and Walter, C ‘Misunderstanding comprehension’ ELT Journal 71 (2) 2017 Thorne, S ‘Debunking authentic listening’ Modern English Teacher 21 (2) 2012 Ken Lackman was a senior teacher in charge of developing materials at the Caledonian School in Prague from 1996 to 2002. He then spent five years as the Director of Studies at EF Toronto. Now he is a freelance teacher trainer and presenter. [email protected]

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Following the mingling activity, the teacher finds out who had the most questions answered. That student is then asked to read their questions and the other students are instructed to think about why each question had a high likelihood of being answered. For example, with the TED talk mentioned above, a good question was What are the speaker’s ideas for building a relationship between nature and cities? When the student who wrote this question read it to the class, the teacher elicited why it was an effective question. The class also explored why the student had created the question. This included how aspects of the genre, the title of talk and knowledge of the speaker and topic had helped the student compose the question. This stage continues with the teacher asking other students who had a lot of questions answered what they found in the text and how they had come up with their questions. Finally, the students are asked to give feedback on the personal response questions. After four weeks of this strategic feedback, the intermediate class showed definite improvement with targeting their questions, in terms of more accurately anticipating the content.

Stage 6: Decoding After the previous stages, where the students have processed the text for meaning, they are asked to listen to the text again, this time with a task designed to help them decode the actual words the speaker used and home in on possible

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Issue 115 • March 2018

Danny Norrington-Davies is a teacher and teacher trainer at International House London and a teaching associate at King’s College London, where he works on the MA TESOL. His first book, Teaching Grammar: From Rules to Reasons, is published by Pavilion. [email protected]

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05/02/2018 09:51

LISTENING

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Micro-drilling

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Mark Hancock advocates a productive rather than receptive approach to detailed listening.

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n his book Listening in the Language Classroom, John Field suggested that the traditional comprehension approach to listening tests the product of listening but does nothing to teach the process. He suggests an alternative approach, which he calls ‘micro-listening’, in which the learners pay attention to the spoken language up close and in detail – focusing on what Richard Cauldwell calls the ‘sound substance’. Micro-listening activities involve taking very short snippets of audio recordings and listening to them carefully. Cauldwell goes into great detail about the surprising features of spoken English which learners can be made aware of through this approach.

It is often said that listening comes before production – that in order to pronounce something, the learners must be able to hear it first. This sounds like common sense, but I don’t think we can always assume it to be the case. Sometimes learning to produce something improves a learner’s ability to hear it. I would like to suggest that, if we want to focus on the sound substance of English, we can do it productively as well as receptively. If micro-listening is a receptive approach, is there a productive equivalent? In this article, I am suggesting that there is, and I will call it micro-drilling.

Figure 1

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Issue 115 • March 2018

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LISTENING

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Figure 2

Hidden words

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Figure 3

Making it strange

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What is interesting about the Gestalt loop experiments I asked you to do above is the way they turn the familiar into something strange. This is potentially very powerful for language teaching purposes. It can be very difficult to hear the sound substance of the language objectively – instead, we tend to ‘hear’ what we expect to hear. The mind imposes a pre-conceived order. For instance, we may think we hear gaps between words where, in reality, the sound stream is continuous. We may think we hear three distinct letters in and where, in reality, it is something more like am. The Gestalt flip from peaches and to chizampea forces us to notice how the reality differs from our expectation. It draws our attention to the weirdness of the sound substance, and this is an important step in raising awareness.

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In order to get a handle on what micro-drilling is, try the following experiment. Say peaches and peaches and peaches and peaches ... without stopping. Say it with stress on the first syllable of peaches and with a weak form of and (with the ‘d’ elided). After a while, you’ll notice a hidden nonsense word emerging from the sound substance: chizampea – with the stress on the last syllable, rather like chimpanzee. This can be represented as in Figure 1 – in this sound stream, we can hear either the black-on-white phrase or the white-on-black.

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We can do the same thing in reverse – begin with the nonsense word and see how an actual English phrase is hidden within it. Try saying jizanorin jizanorin jizanorin over and over again with the stress on the third syllable. After a while, you may notice that the following alternative way of interpreting the sound stream emerges: oranges and oranges and oranges. This phrase seems to emerge magically from the mist of the sound substance.

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Gestalt loops

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Let’s call these repeated sound stream segments which can be interpreted in two ways ‘Gestalt loops’. Gestalt is a movement in psychology often associated with ambiguous images. For instance, you may be familiar with the silhouette image of two faces, face to face, which can also be interpreted as one white vase against a black background (see Figure 2). You can flip between seeing the image as faces or as a vase, but you can’t see it as both at the same time. Gestalt loops are an auditory equivalent of this ambiguous image – the black-on-white phrase or white-on-black phrase in Figure 1. You can flip between hearing it one way or the other, but you can’t hear it both ways at once.

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Micro-drilling in class Let’s see how micro-drilling can be incorporated into a lesson activity. By way of an example, let’s say we are working with Fruit Rhyme (see Figure 3). This is a rhyme designed to work over the melody of the French nursery rhyme Frère Jacques. The melody is represented by the position of the words on the musical stave. It is written to highlight the pronunciation of plural endings, which may be pronounced /s/, /z/ or /ɪz/ – there are examples of each of these in the rhyme.

Stage 1: Traditional drilling We can start working on this rhyme with a traditional drilling format. Notice that on each line in the song, there is a phrase repeated twice. This will work well with a ‘call and respond’ drill format, with the teacher

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Stage 2: Micro-drilling

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At this point, you can start to break the phrases down into smaller segments. These may include words or only parts of words. You may call out the following segments for the class to repeat, for example. I will write them as they are pronounced.

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1 chiz 3 am peachiz 4 zam peachiz 5 pear zam peachiz

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6 pear zampear zampear zampear

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7 chizampea chizampea chizampea

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Notice that the segments do not necessarily correspond to words. For example, 1 has only the second syllable of peaches, and 4 has only the last phoneme in pears, followed by the reduced form of and and peaches. Breaking the sound substance down into unexpected fragments is an important part of micro-drilling, since the objective is to make it sound strange.

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Segments 1–5 are single phrases, but we can also use multiple repetitions of very short segments, as in 6 and 7. These produce a Gestalt loop, where nonsense words seem to emerge out of the sound substance. This amplifies the ‘making it strange’ effect.

Stage 3: Putting it all together As a final stage, return to the complete rhyme. Get the class to chant or sing it all together, or with half the class singing the call and the other half echoing with the repeat.

Stage 4 (optional): Nonsense words Write chizampea on the board. Say it repeatedly and ask the class to repeat until they can identify the

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Issue 115 • March 2018

hidden fruit (peaches). Write a couple more nonsense words on the board such as zampear and jizanorin. Ask the class to identify the hidden fruit in these. Finally, let the learners create their own nonsense words out of repeated fruit and vegetables, for example zanunyun from onions and onions.

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calling out each phrase and the class echoing with the repetition. You can choose to do this without the melody to begin with, and add it in gradually (or not at all, depending on how you feel about singing!).

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LISTENING

A final tip: It is useful to practise micro-drilling yourself before doing it in class, because it is not as simple as it may appear. It does require a little practice. The knack lies in breaking the phrase down into fragments without distorting the natural sound shape of the fragment. Most of us have a tendency to subconsciously ‘tidy up’ the pronunciation when we focus our attention on it. However, with a bit of practice, you should be able to utter snippets of speech as if they had been mechanically edited out of a recording. It’s worth it – learners seem to find it fascinating to play with the sound substance in this way. Meanwhile, for the teacher, this provides a way we can actually teach listening, rather than just testing it over and over again in listening comprehension exercises. n Cauldwell, R Phonology for Listening Speech in Action 2013 Field, J Listening in the Language Classroom CUP 2009 Mark Hancock started teaching English in 1984 and has worked in Sudan, Turkey, Brazil and Spain. He has a degree in Teaching English from Aston University, UK. His books include Pronunciation Games, English Pronunciation in Use Intermediate, Authentic Listening Resource Pack (with Annie McDonald) and PronPack 1–4. [email protected]

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IN THE CLASSROOM

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Smart football ■■

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your prompts with vocabulary they have learnt recently (or whatever you want to revise). The game can also be played with general knowledge questions if you prefer. Each turn in the game involves two players only, and will consist of a duel between midfielder and midfielder or defender and striker or striker and goalkeeper. The aim is for the students to react to your prompts or questions quickly and correctly, get the ball (a magnet or something that will stick to the board), pass it to their next line of players and try to move it down the pitch until finally they defeat the goalkeeper and score a goal.

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his activity can be done with students of any level and any age, although it works best with young learners and teenagers. The students don’t even have to be particularly interested in football for it to work. The aim is to create an exciting classroom atmosphere for a revision lesson, to teach some vocabulary related to football and to foster cooperation within teams and the development of tactics and strategies that will enable the teams to put their players in the best positions to win the game.

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Tien Minh Mai sees Lady Gaga take on Adele in a fun football game.

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It will take between 20 and 40 minutes to play the game and it doesn’t require anything in the way of materials. The only preparation you will have to do is to draw up a list of questions designed to revise recently-taught language and to draw a football pitch on the board with stick figures representing the players of two teams (use different colours). You can have as many or as few players as you like, but the teams should have the same number of players (see below for how to deal with an odd number of students).

At the kick-off, each team chooses one of their midfielders to take part in the first duel. You then ask a question or give a prompt. For example, if they have been studying food vocabulary, you might say They’re yellow and monkeys love them. The first student who answers Bananas wins the ball and it is moved to their team’s next line of players (the strikers). The next duel is between one of the strikers of the team with the ball and one of the defenders from the opposing team. If the striker wins, the next duel is between one of that team’s strikers and the opposing goalkeeper. If the goalkeeper wins, the ball goes to one of the defenders of the goalkeeper’s team who then has to duel with one of the strikers again.

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After each goal, the team captains may change tactics by changing the positions of their players.

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The winning team is the one which has scored most goals when the allocated time for playing the game is over. If the game is a draw, you can conduct a penalty shootout, with a series of duels between each goalkeeper and all the opposing players. If the game is still a draw, you might just flip a coin to decide the lucky winner.

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During the game, you play the role of the referee. Your decision on whether an answer is correct or not and which student got it first is final. You may give a yellow card to any student who cheats by shouting out the answer to a teammate and a red card to anyone who does this more than once (they are then out of the game). If you like, you can appoint a commentator. This is particularly useful if you have an odd number of students in the class. This person can give a running commentary on the game. For example:

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Teach the terms for the various positions in football: goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders and strikers, plus red card, yellow card, referee and penalty shootout.

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The game

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The photo on the next page shows the pitch in a game played by one of my classes in Vietnam. You will see that some of the students are using their own names; some have chosen the names of their favourite footballers; others have chosen to be singers.

Once you have drawn the pitch and the players on the board, divide the class into two equal teams. Decide which team is going to be which colour and allow them to choose a team name and appoint a team captain. In the game shown in the photo, the red team have chosen to be Vietnam and the black team Spain. Each team member draws their own face and writes their name (or the name of someone they want to be) under one of their players. They should discuss as a team who to put in which position: goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders and strikers. Explain to the class that they are going to play a game of ‘Smart football’, which requires them to respond quickly to

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especially when the students have to write down answers to gap-fill exercises: a football game is much more fun and may help the students to remember new language better.

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‘Vy gets the ball, now, who will you pass it to, Vy? Neymar? OK. Now Neymar has the ball. Who will defend? So it’s Hiên against Neymar. Listen to the prompt … Incredible answer from the striker Neymar. Now he’s facing the goalkeeper, Phúc …’

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Vietnam (red): Phúc, Linh, Hiên, Ronaldo, Messi, Adele, Bruno Mars Spain (black): De Gea, Lady Gaga, Thành, Toàn, Vy, Neymar, Beyoncé

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IN THE CLASSROOM

Variations

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With higher-level classes, you could choose a student to be both the commentator and the person who asks the questions or gives the prompts.

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The game could be used to revise pronunciation (minimal pairs) or everyday phrases.

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If you have a lot of space, you could put the students in position around the classroom and use a real ball, which they have to pass to a team-mate after giving a correct answer.

Benefits

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To increase language practice, the winner of each vocabulary duel could be asked to make a sentence using the answer.

Playing ‘Smart football’ can benefit students in a number of ways: ■■ Enjoyable learning. The students can play the roles of famous footballers such as Messi and Neymar (or singers like Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars) while revising language. They feel as if they are participating in a real football match, and they cheer when a team-mate wins and are disappointed if a team-mate loses. They feel guilty when they receive a yellow card. This enjoyment enhances their extrinsic motivation. ■■

A more positive learning experience. This activity can be done to check that the students have done their homework. Checking homework is often a negative experience,

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■■

Teamwork. ‘Smart football’ involves teamwork: each player tries to win the duel to contribute to the success of the whole team. It develops team spirit and cooperation.

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Fair play. Girls and boys have an equal chance of winning, as the game requires quick thinking rather than physical strength. The winner is the person who outsmarts their peers.

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Strategic learning. The students can discuss useful strategies for winning the game: Where should they put their better players and their less capable players?

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Learner autonomy. I have occasionally seen some of my students playing ‘Smart football’ at break time, testing their vocabulary themselves, without any input from a teacher. n

This game was inspired by resources at https://premierskillsenglish. britishcouncil.org/.

 ien Minh Mai has an MA in Applied T Linguistics and is a lecturer of English at Ho Chi Minh City Open University, Vietnam, where he is also a teacher trainer in regional projects. His professional interests include digital literacy, online professional development and creative pedagogies. [email protected]

Issue 115 • March 2018

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Sitting still for long periods is not hugely conducive to learning. We slow down physically and mentally. This book explores ideas for helping students switch on and switch off, and so enhance their learning potential.

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SPEAKING

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Speed dating for all

Jennifer Fennema-Bloom suggests a way to improve communicative confidence and fluency.

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eachers of oral communication skills know that, to be successful, they need to facilitate activities that provide their students with sufficient repetition and practice time to develop communicative confidence and fluency. A common technique used in speaking classes is oral presentations, where one student speaks while, hopefully, their classmates are all actively listening. However, it is not realistic to expect all the students in the class to be attentive to the one individual, making active listening difficult to achieve within a group setting.

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What causes individuals to lose interest in listening can vary. However, two likely reasons are a lack of interest in the topic being presented and, more commonly, the speaker’s lack of confidence and their inability to command the attention of their audience.

A speed dating activity

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My solution is a modified form of ‘speed dating’, consisting of a timed pairwork activity in which the students take turns to present and listen to a partner, before exchanging partners and repeating the same discourse again and again until the material, language and discourse are delivered more confidently and fluently. This format provides more speaking opportunities, while making it much harder for the listener to disengage. The content set for this activity will depend on the age and level of the students. It has been used with ‘show and tell’ in a bilingual kindergarten; for information exchange in a basic English skills course; for practising giving informed persuasive arguments in an intensive English language programme focused on Cognitive Academic Language

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Proficiency (CALP); and all the way up to an exchange of annotated bibliographies in graduate school, with native- and non-native-speaking graduate students. The important factor, as with silent sustained reading for development of vocabulary and reading skills, is the repetitive sustained speech act required from the speaker. The following example illustrates the classroom set-up and management of this activity: Time: One to two minutes per speaker (this can be adjusted, depending on the amount of sharing necessary to cover the assigned topic) repeated ten or more times. Content: Each student should have an individual item, article, story or researched topic. This example is from an intermediate speaking course in which the students were asked to research the topic of vitamins and minerals. For homework, they were each asked to fill out the following chart on the particular vitamin or mineral that was assigned to them: Name of the vitamin/mineral: Variety spectrum: Prevention/treatment of: Factors for deficiency: Deficiency symptoms: Toxicity symptoms: Natural source: Recommended dosage:

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SPEAKING

3 Once the charts are completed, ask the students to sit in rows. Assuming that there are four horizontal rows in the classroom, rows A and B and rows C and D face each other as partners. If space allows, have the students sit with a chair dividing each pair. 4 Give each pair a total of four minutes (two for each student) to tell the other about the information in their completed chart. Set the timer at two minutes and inform the students in rows A and C that they will talk first. At the end, call time and tell the students in rows B and D that it is now their time to talk, again for two minutes.

If you are not convinced that this activity is worth incorporating into your classroom for the improvement of your students’ fluency and communicative confidence, perhaps the following feedback will help change your mind: ‘The first time we did this information exchange speed dating activity, I was mad. I didn’t want to talk. I am shy and would rather listen to the teacher’s lecture. I was so nervous that in the first two rounds I read my annotation straight from my paper. The third time, the teacher took away my paper. I had to remember what was important from my article! I really didn’t say it well. My partner said, “Don’t worry, you’ll say it again and again and you’ll get better.” I really did! In one lesson I could feel that my English improved! By the third or fourth lesson I really felt my listening improved too! When my teacher called on me to share the article I liked the best, I was able to tell her why.’ TESOL graduate student (Arabic speaker)

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5 Once both students in each pair have spoken, and as with the concept of speed dating, two of the rows (rows A and C) stay where they are while the students in rows B and D move to the next seat and begin the two two-minute exchanges again. Gradually reduce the time at the end of each dyadic turn to one minute per student, as they become more comfortable and thus quicker in exchanging the information.

Feedback

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2 Either in class or for homework, ask each student to research their vitamin or mineral and complete the chart.

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1 Hand out copies of the chart and assign a different vitamin or mineral to each student.

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Procedure:

Advanced students can be instructed to take notes as they listen to their partners. Then, after every three rounds, individual students can be called on to share what they heard about another person’s topic. Selecting students at random for this ensures that they all take notes on each speaker they listen to.

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Objectives: 1 to give the students adequate practice in speaking through repetition; 2 to increase fluency and confidence; 3 (in this example) to practise using information to make an informed persuasive oral argument.

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‘Information exchange speed dating made us talk so much. This was my second time taking advanced communication skills in preparation for the IELTS. We talked so much in class on a variety of topics that when I sat for the IELTS spoken test I was confident and had so much speaking practice that I finally passed the test!’ Student in IELTS speaking preparatory class (Chinese speaker)

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6 Repeat this exchange until you feel the students are comfortable with this phase of exchanging information. Then stop the activity. Write a prompt on the board – in this example, Convince your partner that they should take this vitamin. Provide a mini-lesson on persuasive oral argument structures, using the prompt you wrote on the board and a completed vitamin/mineral chart, which wasn’t assigned to any of the students, as an example.

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7 Allow the students four to five minutes to construct their own persuasive argument for taking the vitamin/mineral that they were assigned.

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8 Begin the information exchange ‘speed dating’ format again. This time, the students must make a persuasive oral argument for why someone should take the vitamin they were assigned. The purpose of the exchange should no longer centre on what they found out about their vitamin/mineral, but instead should focus on using only the information that will help them make their argument. 9 Walk around the room, monitoring the students and stopping any pairs that need refocusing on the prompt. By repeating the information exchange in a ‘speed dating’ format, each speaker becomes more confident and concise in their presentation with every turn. Giving a prompt, as in the above example, and gradually decreasing the time allowed to exchange information helps the students to understand that not all information known on a topic is necessary to construct a persuasive argument.

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‘At first I hated this activity. Why should I practise speaking? I’m a bilingual Hindi/English speaker. Through repetition I realised my rate of speech was too fast and that’s why my native professors and international classmates did not understand me. I used each turn to practise slowing down and pronouncing each word. It really helped me a lot.’ Student on college pre-admission intensive English language programme (Hindi/English speaker) ‘The activity was fun. We got lots of practice time and I learnt a lot about different topics. I liked how our topics changed in each lesson and that most of them centred around useful information like local attractions, local history, health and nutrition. I practised speaking and I learnt information from my partners that helped me adjust to life in my new community.’ Student on adult education ESL course (Hausa speaker) n  ennifer Fennema-Bloom is an associate J professor and director of the Graduate TESOL and Applied Linguistics Program at the University of Findlay, Ohio, USA. She is also the author of the Wego Foundation Step into English textbook series. [email protected]

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IN THE CLASSROOM

Value Added Teaching

(eg active listening and turn-taking), and then set up a freer practice activity in which these can be practised, followed by targeted feedback. Such work needs to be revisited time and time again before significant progress is made.

5 Facilitate further research

reading (eg information about the exhibits); ■■ listening (to a tour guide); ■■ speaking (asking the guide questions); ■■ writing (filling in a questionnaire or writing a report after the visit).

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1 Teach ‘content’

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Gone are the days when a typical lesson would be based on the lives of a fictitious British family (with a father who goes out to work, a mother who stays at home and their two children, a boy and a girl). These days, most students expect to learn something about the real world in their English lessons. This can be done through general discussion of current issues, or through reading and listening texts, with a focus on useful vocabulary for talking about those issues. Your students should feel that they’ve not only learnt important new English words, but that they can also contribute to a discussion on a topic that is relevant and interesting.

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(If you are working in a country where English is not spoken, exhibitions and galleries may provide audio guides in English, which could prove useful.)

3 Encourage creativity

Over the last few decades, teachers have tended to reduce their dominance of the classroom, and rightly so. After all, it’s not the teachers who need to practise their English, it’s the students. One way of increasing motivation and participation is to ask your students to perform creative tasks, such as imaginative writing, drawing or designing. For example, you could get them to pair up, draw a bird’s-eye view of a studio flat, and then dictate the plan to another pair, who have to draw it. If the second pair have problems understanding, they have to ask questions. This is highly motivating, not just because there is an ‘information gap’, but because the students themselves have created the product they’re describing, so they have a sense of ownership.

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Against this background, how can English language teachers ensure that their lessons are adding value to the core product of teaching skills, grammar, vocabulary and phonology? Here are six key ways:

In the UK, for example, students could be motivated to learn by visiting museums, stately homes or castles. In such places, they will be able to practise all four skills:

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ELT isn’t, of course, immune from this trend towards constantly adding value. If you compare an English lesson today with one taking place 50 or even 25 years ago, you’ll not only see a big difference in methodology, you’ll also notice that a much more complex product is being offered.

2 Take your students on cultural trips

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he rate of inflation in the UK is measured by comparing the current prices of a hypothetical ‘basket of goods’ with their prices 12 months before. So if a TV was £100 last year, and it’s now £110, the inflation rate is 10 percent. But is that really true? The fact is that this year’s television will most probably have a number of new functions – so, effectively, customers are getting more for their money. A fundamental tenet of capitalism is that value keeps on being added to goods and services, fuelled by the fact that a number of companies are competing in the same market place.

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Paul Bress encourages teachers to enhance their lessons.

Not all your students will have exactly the same amount of interest in the topics covered in class. Some may not be inclined to carry out more research, but others will. They could simply use a search engine, but it’s helpful if you write a few weblinks on the board to guide them. You’ll need to research the sites beforehand, of course, making sure that the language is at an appropriate level, any text is coherently written and that the content is suitable.

4 Develop soft skills Many students will already have some expertise in their chosen area of study or work, but may not be very good at communicating that knowledge to others (even in L1). The ELT classroom is a good place to learn how to do this well. One way to facilitate this is to elicit the kind of soft skills that promote communication

6 Establish continuity by reviewing previous lessons In the past, students were sometimes happy to see each lesson as a ‘one-off’. If a teacher was absent, a replacement teacher might teach a lesson that didn’t necessarily fit into the curriculum. These days, students are more like consumers and have much higher expectations. They will be psychologically reassured if they are told how all the different components of their course are linked together. So in each lesson, the teacher must be mindful of everything that’s been taught before and constantly check the students’ memory of items taught months back. This may seem a daunting task, but it’s really worth the effort.

t t t Each generation gains knowledge from the previous one, but then improves it – by adding to it, deleting parts of it or modifying it in some way. Teachers who rest on their laurels are, more and more, becoming a thing of the past. Even the most reluctant are being forced into the twenty-first century and learning the need for Value Added Teaching. n Paul Bress lives in Herne Bay, UK, where he teaches English to overseas students, writes novels and paints. His novel The Crisp Packet is published by The Conrad Press and you can see his paintings at artfinder.com. [email protected]

Issue 115 • March 2018

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Dynamic delivery Dynamic delivery service service

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TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

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Hello, my name is … Pu b

Ben Moorhouse gets to grips with another multitude of names.

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hen a new term, semester or year comes around, most of us face the exciting but challenging task of getting to know a new class of, hopefully, eager and keen English language learners. We also get the exciting but challenging job of getting to know their names, as well as their interests, abilities, experiences, knowledge and learning styles. This is relatively easy if you have classes of five or six learners, but many of us have much larger classes, with students from different countries whose names may not be familiar to us. Getting to know our learners’ names is vital for building rapport, managing discipline and demonstrating that we value our learners as individuals.

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In this article, I’ll suggest some ways to use nametags, personalised trading cards, games and songs, to help you and your learners get to know each other’s names quickly, while also learning a little bit about each other.

1 More than just a nametag Getting students to wear nametags seems a relatively straightforward idea but, surprisingly, teachers often don’t use them. They can be worried that the students will be offended that they need to rely on nametags, but I have found this untrue: students are well aware that it takes us time to learn their names. During the first session with a new class, you can ask the students to make their own nametags or place tags. To make the

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Figure 1

nametags more meaningful and individual, they can include different personal elements. Here are some ideas:

Symbol, picture or phrase This activity requires the learners to draw a symbol or picture or write a phrase that they feel represents them on their nametag (see Figure 1). Once they have designed their nametags, they can be asked to introduce themselves and explain what the symbol, picture or phrase says about them. I even do this with my university students and it is really fun. They often think of amusing

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TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

or interesting things to draw, and none of us has any idea what it is until they explain it. The introduction goes something like this: I’m Ben and I drew a dog because I love my dog, Gizzy. You can ask younger learners to draw one thing they like; it could be an animal, food, hobby, etc.

Hello, my names are …

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This activity requires the learners to write all the names that different people call them, eg full name, first name, surname, nickname, maiden name and/or family relationships (see Figure 2). This is a great activity to get the learners to think about all their different identities and what name they have in each identity. They can then be asked to introduce all their names and the context in which they are called them. Mine goes something like this:

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Figure 2

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My name is Ben, my brother calls me bro, my niece calls me Uncle Ben; if I’m naughty, my mum calls me BENJAMIN!

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Rhyme and alliteration

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Figure 3

Young learners love to play with their names, finding words that sound similar and others that start with the same sounds. So we can make the most of their names to help develop their phonemic awareness. On their nametags, they can be asked to write a word that starts with the same letter or rhymes with their name. Of course, we have to be culturally sensitive during this activity, as well as careful that the learners don’t say impolite or rude things. However, it can be really fun and they can introduce themselves using their alliteration or rhyme. My name is easy for this one: Ben Ten, Ben Again, Ben Hen, Big Brave Ben, etc.

2 Personalised trading cards This is an idea I got from a good friend of mine, Chris Gadbury. He uses this activity at the beginning of the year with his new classes of young learners. Each student is given a blank ‘trading card’, where they can write their name, age, interests, hobbies, likes, dislikes, special interests or other information they want to share or you want to learn about them (see Figure 3). You can include a photo or space for them to draw a picture of themselves. You can then collect them to get to know their names and interests. The cards can also be used in class. The learners pass them around and read about their new classmates. You can ask them to use them to learn new things about a classmate; it could be something special, something they have in common or a skill they would like to learn from their classmate. Afterwards, the cards can be displayed in the classroom. Young learners love trading card games like Pokémon, so this will really interest and excite them.

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TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

Chris also uses them for teachers’ workshops as an ice-breaker activity. He has made a downloadable template at his website: www.magicstorybooks.com. You can find a free ‘Trading card creator’ at www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/ student-interactives/trading-card-creator-30056.html.

Find someone who ...

3 Games with names

4 can say hello in four languages.

Games are a great way to help learners learn names, as they include meaningful and engaging repetitions. They can also help develop language knowledge and skills. Here are a few games that work well with both young and old learners:

5 can sing ‘The wheels on the bus’.

Names

1 has a pet. 2 can juggle. 3 was born in April.

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6 likes ice cream.

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Give the learners a bean bag or soft toy and get them to throw it to each other. When they catch it, they have to say their own name. You can modify this so they need to say the person before them and who they will throw it to, eg She is Anna, I am Ben, You are John.

Below are a couple of other simple chants that I have used with my learners. In the first one, one person hides (in a cupboard, under a desk) and the class says the chant. You can repeat with different learners in the class. The second one can be done in a circle, or the learners can nominate the next person to say the chant.

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Name toss

Super Simple Songs has a great version of the song on YouTube that can be used with young learners: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzKY5YHnOTg.

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Get the learners to line up alphabetically by the first letter of their names. This can then be modified to other letters in their name, eg the second letter or last letter.

Figure 4

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All in a line

Where are you?

This is a classic ice-breaker game. Give the learners a list of things they need to find out about their classmates (see Figure 4). This can include personal information, skills, experiences and preferences. They have to go around the class and ask questions to find someone who answers yes to one thing on the list. They have to find a different person for each thing. They can then share what they’ve found. It’s really fun if you use skills, like juggling, speaking different languages or singing, as you can ask them to prove it!

Class (ask a learner to hide) Peter, Peter, where are you?

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Find someone who ...

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Young learners love songs and chants in the classroom, and they get even more excited and engaged when we personalise the songs with their names. It really helps them link the words of the song to its meaning. One of my favourite songs to use with young learners is the classic rhyme ‘Who took the cookie from the cookie jar?’. Who took the cookie from the cookie jar? Class (sing) Who took the cookie from the cookie jar? Ben took the cookie from the cookie jar! Ben

Who me?

Class

Yes, you!

Ben

Not me!

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Then who?

Ben

Tom took the cookie from the cookie jar!

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Peter (Peter comes out) Here I am, here I am. How do you do? etc Who can you see? Teacher Peter, Peter, who can you see? I can see John looking at me. Peter

John, John, who can you see?

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t t t Use nametags, games and songs to help you and your learners get to know each other – and have a lot of personalised, fun and meaningful English language learning in the process! n Benjamin Moorhouse is a lecturer of English language education at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. He has extensive experience of teaching young learners. His research interests are English with young learners, L2 homework and L2 literacy. [email protected]

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TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

A s k c a t S

set of blocks is my number one aid for most young learner classes with students aged from three to seventeen. Blocks are the next most fun alternative to ball games, but they are much easier to control than balls and it is easier to focus the class with them. In addition, blocks can provide the perfect ending to a game when a tower the students have built falls to the floor or they run out of blocks. You can also use blocks as a reward to improve effort and behaviour, for example giving out one block per correct answer during the first half of the class to be used in a stacking game later. And when your students become bored with stacking, there are also plenty of other blocks games you can use, such as making shapes by putting the blocks together.

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Alex Case uses blocks for games and language practice.

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The blocks you use may be large or small, but they should not be too difficult or too easy to stack. So it is probably best if they don’t have smooth hard sides or rounded corners, but they shouldn’t be the interlocking kind like Lego. They might be plain or coloured, or have pictures, letters or numbers on the sides – whatever works for the activities you want to do.

Stacking games The most obvious activities to use with blocks are stacking games. In these, the students use the blocks to build one or more towers (see below for different rules on how to do so). In order to add a block, each student has to perform some kind of language task. I often start using blocks from the very first young learner class, usually with simple personal questions. In the first stage, the students stack the blocks while asking and answering the usual What’s your name? How are you? questions. Once they run out of suitable questions, we often move on to asking What colour is it? and What’s this?, perhaps talking about any pictures on the blocks. When the tower eventually falls, in the next round we do the same but with the students not allowed to copy any previous questions, instead having to ask something different each time. In the final round(s), I then do the same with more

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TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

fifth block on the tower (after the blocks representing never, almost never, rarely and sometimes have already been placed).

targeted language, eg just Do you …? questions if the last class was on the present simple, or just Do you want to …? if we are going to spend the lesson on future desires.

Stacking races

Rules

The students race to stack a tower to a given height, trying again if their tower falls or if they stacked to the wrong height until someone manages it successfully. For example, if you say the word September, teams of students have to race to make a tower that is nine blocks high, to represent the ninth month. This also works for more than one number, eg making one tower of three blocks and a second tower of fifteen blocks for Quarter past three.

 re the students allowed to stack their blocks next to, in A front of or behind the present tower, or will they be building a single one-block-wide tower?

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 re they allowed to straighten up the blocks that are already A there, or must they just place their next block without moving any previous ones (the latter being more challenging but more fun)?

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If only part of the tower falls, will they destroy the tower and start again, or just carry on stacking on top of whatever is left?

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For towers higher than about 15 blocks, the students will need blocks that fit together, such as Lego, but there are ways around this. One possibility is for each column to represent one figure in the number, eg three blocks then five blocks then two blocks for Three hundred and fifty-two. For times, you could also have one block in the minutes tower for each five-minute segment of time, eg three blocks and then nine blocks for the time Three forty-five.

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Rules which you will have to think about before using stacking games in class include:

The stacking games I use can be classified as:

Don’t reach …

1 Counting higher and higher

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2 Maths challenge 3 Drilling 5 Making statements 6 Giving instructions

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These are described below, with a few variations and some of their many uses.

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4 Question and answer

1 Counting higher and higher

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As the students take turns adding a block to the top of the tower, they also take turns continuing to count up a sequence, eg the first student saying One and placing the first block, the second student saying Two and placing the second, etc. Alternatively, one person can stack and count on their own and see how far they can get before they make a mistake or the tower falls down. The students can also go through the sequence more quickly by going up in twos, fives, tens, etc, or going up as much as they like each time as in the ‘Don’t reach’ variation below.

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Stacking works for any language that in some way is getting ‘higher and higher’, including days of the week and names of months, and also less obvious points such as adverbs of frequency (never, almost never, rarely, etc) and adverbs of degree (very slightly, not very, fairly, etc). For any of these, you can also get the students to say whole phrases or sentences like There is one block, There are two blocks, etc. You can also combine counting higher and higher with some of the other games below by asking the students to make true statements about their partner with the next word in the sequence in order to be able to place the next block, eg being able to place the third block if they say You have three sisters and it is true. The same thing also works for questions, eg getting the answer Often to the question How often do you get up late? to be able to place a

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In this variation on stacking, the students can go up as much as they like each time, eg One o’clock, Twenty past two, Twentyone minutes past two and then Quarter to four. To make them think more about what they are saying, I also tell them that there is a limit that they should not go beyond, eg that all dates must be before Christmas Day. The game stops if the tower falls or someone goes beyond that limit, and a student misses their turn if what they say is actually lower than the previous thing that was said. Counting higher and higher stacking games work for: ■■

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Frequency expressions (twice a week, etc)

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There is/There are

2 Maths challenge For some of the language points above you can also play a kind of ‘maths challenge’ game. For example, one student might say Plus 20 minutes when the previous block was Eleven oh five and the next student then needs to work out that the answer is Eleven twenty-five in order to be able to place their block. The students can also set each other longer and longer challenges, eg Ten plus twelve minus seventeen times two (equals ten). Especially with this version, I tend to make the person who

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TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

that block, eg Do you like cats? or Do you have four chairs in your kitchen? You can then play later rounds of the same game where only no answers mean that a block is added, or where they try to get the answer I don’t know.

challenges their partner also lose a point if they don’t know the answer either. Maths challenge games work for:

Fractions and decimals

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Times

Stack the answers

3 Drilling As the students add blocks to the tower, they test each other by, for example, saying the infinitive of a verb for their partner to say the past simple, saying a gradable adjective for their partner to say the corresponding extreme adjective, or saying a character adjective for their partner to say the opposite. This works best if the number of students or teams means that the person who is challenging and the person who is being challenged naturally changes each time, eg three students per group if they are practising appearance adjective opposites (tall, short, etc), or two students if they are practising comparatives and superlatives (big, bigger, the biggest, etc).

As explained in the ‘Stacking higher and higher’ section above, you could also ask the students to get the next word in the sequence as an answer in order to be able to add the next block, eg having to get the answer Quite a lot to the question How much mess is there in your bedroom (right now)? to be able to add the fourth block (after the blocks representing none, very little and not much have been added). If your blocks have pictures, numbers or letters on them, the students could also ask questions to try to get those things in their partner’s answer, eg a word starting with A by asking What’s your favourite fruit? and getting the answer Apple to be able to stack the A block.

Infinitive and past simple and/or past participle

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Adjective and comparatives and/or superlatives

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Gradable and extreme adjectives

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Cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers

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 imple and more complex ways of saying times (three S forty-five/quarter to four, etc)

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One or more of these question and answer games work for: ■■

 asic personal questions (How old are you? Where do you B live? etc)

Opposites (appearance opposites, etc)

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Since and for expressions (since 1997, for 30 years, etc)

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Do you have/Have you got ...?

Decimals and fractions (a half/zero point five, etc)

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Can you ...?

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Have you ever ...?

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Are you ...ing?

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Did you … (yesterday/on Sunday)?

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Will you/Do you think you will ... (if ...)?

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Do you want to/Would you like to …?

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Do you like …?

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Is there/Are there … (in your house/this room)?

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What colour ...?

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Questions about friends and family

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As explained above, I often get my students asking and answering basic questions while stacking blocks from the very first class and then do the same with questions related to the language point of the day. Before playing such games, the teacher needs to decide if the blocks will be placed on the tower by the person asking, by the person answering or by both. The advantage of having both the questioner and answerer add blocks is that the tower quickly becomes tall, adding to the excitement of the game. However, it can mean that rounds end very quickly, particularly with classes who aren’t good at stacking or can’t be bothered to place their blocks carefully, in which case it’s better to add only one block per question and answer pair. You can also slow the tower down further by adding other rules on when blocks are placed, such as the ‘Make me say yes’ game below.

Make me say yes The students ask each other yes/no questions, and blocks are only added if their partner says yes. If they enjoy placing the blocks, let the questioner do so as a reward for getting a yes answer. Or, if they get nervous about placing the blocks in case the tower falls, a better rule is for the answerer to place the block if someone makes them say yes. If the blocks are coloured and/or have pictures, numbers or letters on their sides, the questions can include that aspect of

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Answer me

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Drilling stacking games work for many points including:

The students ask each other questions, and the answers that they receive decide how many blocks are placed, what colour blocks are placed, etc. For example, if their partner answers Three to the question How many brothers and sisters have you got?, three blocks are added to the tower, and if the answer to What colour is your pillowcase? is Red, they can add that colour block (if available).

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5 Making statements These games are simplest with the students making statements describing the tower as it presently is (There are four blue blocks, etc) in order to be able to add one more block. You can also play a game that is similar to the ‘Make me say yes’ game above: the students have to make a true statement, such as You have two brothers, to be able to place the next block or blocks. This works for all the same language points as the question and answer games above.

6 Giving instructions The students tell each other where the next block should be placed, how many blocks should be added, what colour blocks should be

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the violin, for V) or ask questions to get answers starting with those letters (What’s your favourite flavour of ice cream? to get vanilla, for V) in order to play the stacking games above. There are also quite a few extra games you can play. For individual letters, the students can race to find the letter that is said or the first letter of the object that is held up (finding a block with P on it if you hold up a pencil, etc). If the blocks have letters on all six sides, you can also use them like a kind of letter dice. This makes it possible to play games such as having the students racing to shout out or touch an object that starts with the letter that comes up when the block is rolled.

added, etc with instructions like Can you put the blue block between the red block and the yellow block, please? or just Put the blue block between the red block and the yellow block. This works for: ■■

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Other games with blocks

Combining letters from several blocks, the students can race to spell a given word or the name of an object which you show them. They can also work in groups to try to make as many words as they can from the letters on the blocks you have given them. Depending on what blocks you have and how many and which letters they have on them, it may also be possible to play a version of Scrabble, where the words have to fit together in the shape of a crossword. It is also possible to change the blocks to make any of these games easier, eg by putting stickers on some of the sides of the blocks to add more high-frequency letters like E.

1 Making shapes from blocks Depending on how many blocks you have, the students can arrange them into two- or three-dimensional shapes to represent: figures (the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc);

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the spelling of short words (c + a + t, etc);

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 yllables and word stress (three blocks in a row to s represent I-ta-ly, or one block and then a tower of two blocks to represent BraZIL, etc);

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(approximate) shapes, such as square, oval and pyramid;

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 ome objects with very simple shapes, such as animals, nature s (flowers, etc), household vocabulary, clothes and body parts;

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some simple adjectives, such as tall and long.

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Games with this technique include getting the students to race to make the right shape depending on what you or another student says, or racing to guess what the shape represents.

2 Pictures on blocks

With blocks that have numbers on the side, the students can race to find and arrange the right numbers to match things they hear or read, such as the first of December. If the blocks have numbers on every side, they can also be used as dice.

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Note that with some of the shapes, such as oval, it is better to make an outline of the shape instead of a solid shape.

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You can combine the pictures on the sides of blocks with many of the games above. For example, in order to be able to stack the block with a picture of a cat on it, the students could be asked to:  nswer questions, such as What’s this? or What colour is a the cat?

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follow a partner’s instructions on where to put the cat, eg Please put the cat in front of the number 2.

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The most basic non-stacking game with picture blocks is simply racing to find the picture that represents a word that has been said or shown. The fact that only one side of each block is on top at any one time can also be useful. For example, the students could make a story from the top picture of each block, either after throwing them like dice or just choosing the best of the six sides each time.

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Many of the games I have outlined above rely on you, the teacher, telling the students what shape to make or what sequence of letters or words they have to follow. You can, of course, create cards with the numbers, clock times, dates, words, objects or whatever you intend to use with your blocks. The students can be asked to pick a card and must use what is written on it to determine what they then do with their blocks. n Accompanying this article and downloadable from the ETp website at https://www.etprofessional.com/media/30625/ etp-115-alexcase.pdf is a set of cards to use with a game in which the students make shapes from blocks. Cut out one set of cards for each group of students. Once a card is chosen, the students can either race to make a suitable shape out of their blocks or write the name of what they think is being made out of the blocks in front of them.

Alex Case teaches in Japan and publishes his teaching materials and ideas at http:// tefltastic.wordpress.com. [email protected]

3 Letters on blocks Many blocks have letters on at least one side, in which case the students can try to make true statements (Your mother can play

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Issue 115 • March 2018

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IN THE CLASSROOM

large classes

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Jim Scrivener classifies a large class as a class with 26 to 45 students, and a very large class as one with over 45 students. Nevertheless, as different teachers have different concepts of what constitutes a ‘large class’, it is a challenging term to define. For a teacher accustomed to teaching very small classes, 20 students might be a large class. Meanwhile, to a teacher who has taught classes of 50 students for many years, a class of 20 might seem quite small.

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In Taiwan, where we live, stagnant population growth means that there are schools in rural and mountainous areas which are so small that the teachers will soon outnumber the students. Yet we have taught classes that go far beyond the limits of a very large class (in one case, a class of over 160 students). Stacey Marcus, writing for MELTA (Malaysian English Language Teaching Association), highlighted one of the most comprehensive reviews of class size, carried out by Gene Glass and Mary Lee Smith in 1979. Their report, which included 300 separate studies, came to the conclusion that classes of no more than 20 students was the ideal. ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) guidelines agree that low numbers are essential, but reduce the figure to an optimal of 15. The benefits of smaller classes are succinctly

Issue 115 • March 2018

This is bad news if, like us, you are faced with the daunting reality of very large classes, which, as Glass and Smith stress, is what ‘teachers worry about ... more than anything else’. But the good news is that other findings suggest teaching methodology and the attitudes of both teachers and students can go a long way to combatting the negative aspects of large classes – and may even outweigh them.

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How large is large?

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summarised in the words of the researcher Allan Odden (as quoted by Stacey Marcus): ‘research on class size and student achievement supports dramatic – and only dramatic – class size reductions.’

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ll over the world, teachers cope with groups of students of 50 or more, and, in some cases, over 100 students packed into one classroom. Large classes are a challenge for any teacher. Anne O’Brien highlights the reaction of a veteran teacher from Detroit with 25 years’ experience who, faced with several large classes, declared, ‘I’ve won awards. I am a champion teacher ... this is the first time I’ve felt inadequate’. In this series of articles, we will address this situation, giving suggestions for making it more manageable.

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In the first of a new series, Hall Houston and Andrew Starck agree that big can be beautiful.

While we have certainly not had 100 percent success with every large class, we have learnt a lot from teaching them and hope to share our experiences and offer some advice. In this first article, we will present an overview of the good and bad aspects of teaching large classes.

Tribulations We will first explore some of the more aggravating facets of teaching large classes. The following problems are not present in every large class, but they are quite common.

Mixed levels A fundamental challenge is the extreme range of levels often found in large classes. Teachers might be unsure which level they should choose for their teaching material, especially in contexts where the students are not given placement tests. Students who find the class easy can end up feeling bored, while those who find the class too challenging can become frustrated.

Feedback It is difficult for teachers to give much feedback and support to the students, in the way that can easily be done in a smaller class setting, and they often find themselves giving general feedback in a teachercentred way. As a result, some students might find the feedback irrelevant to them.

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IN THE CLASSROOM

Class management

Triumphs

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As Scrivener points out, most of the interaction in a large class involves the students at the front, and the back of the classroom is a magnet for those who would much rather do something else (eg play games on their phones, chat in L1 or sleep). This can often make teachers feel annoyed, as they can clearly see some students ignoring their instructions.

though their students may not spend much time at all looking at their comments and corrections. Teachers with a full teaching schedule in which every class has frequent written assignments might spend a great deal of their weekend marking homework.

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It is difficult to achieve much personal interaction with individual students, and a number of students can even feel left out and get the impression that the teacher really doesn’t care about them.

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Despite the numerous difficulties of teaching a large class, there are several positive aspects worth mentioning.

Opportunities

Classroom limitations

Creativity

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A large class can sometimes be chaotic and disorganised. Some students may not understand the teacher’s instructions or might not hear them clearly, so it takes longer to get an activity started. Also, when it’s time to move on to another activity, it might take more time than usual to get everyone’s attention.

One great thing about teaching a large class is that the students never run out of people to talk to. Large classes are often extremely heterogeneous, so the students have numerous opportunities to converse with people with different personalities, experiences, beliefs, opinions and lifestyles, which means that each interaction can be fresh and new.

Large classes often take place in crowded classrooms, with little space for anyone to move around and desks bolted to the floor. This limits the type of activities that can be used. If there’s no room for a kinaesthetic activity or a mingle activity, the teacher might be tempted to spend most of the lesson assigning worksheets or doing teacherfronted practice.

Homework One more problem is the amount of time spent on grading homework assignments. Many teachers spend long hours every week marking papers, even

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Another benefit is that large classes keep teachers on their toes. They must use their creative skills to deal with the unique challenge of a busy classroom. This often results in many new insights, as teachers come up with innovative teaching strategies that never occurred to them before. As Natalie Hess puts it: ‘These are the classes that compel us to find better ways of setting up routine tasks. These are the classes that make us think, create and grow as teachers.’

Cooperation In large classes, higher-level students often step in to assist lower-level students, which mean that there

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IN THE CLASSROOM colleague out for coffee or a meal, and get some fresh ideas, not just on how to manage the large classes but on developing material or the whole education system in general. Furthermore, you can download a copy of Maximising Learning in Large Classes, a brilliant book on teaching large classes, available free from the British Council.

are many co-teachers. This can be very beneficial, as the teacher can’t be everywhere and respond to every student. It also has the added bonus of motivating the higher-level students to communicate with their lower-level peers, helping explain harder passages or honing their translating skills if their classmates cannot understand what the teacher is saying. Instead of getting bored, they can gain a greater sense of purpose within the class.

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If you are just beginning to teach a large class, we would like to share some general tips that can help you adjust right away:

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1 Don’t be overwhelmed by the class size. New teachers can find it rather daunting to see so many students in one classroom. Maintain a calm disposition, even if you are all nerves inside – hopefully these will soon wear off. Keep smiling and give the students a chance to get to know your personality and teaching style. It might take a few weeks to get used to teaching a large class, but before long you will feel more comfortable and may come to enjoy it.

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2 In a very large class, it’s nearly impossible to monitor every student. However, taking a few seconds every now and then to give a quick perusal of the classroom and assess the state of awareness of the students is invaluable. There will be students with questions marks stamped onto their foreheads, those who are preoccupied with smartphones and others who look ‘out to lunch’. This is when you can gain their attention and ask them if they need anything repeated. Even if you don’t get many replies, it’s a good idea to review what you have just been teaching. You may be surprised just how few of the students took it in the first time. 3 If you are encountering serious problems, seek advice from colleagues. There will always be some friendly souls who can give you some keen insights, based on their own experience of teaching at the same institution. Invite a

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ACTFL ‘Maximum class size’ www.actfl.org/news/ position-statements/maximum-class-size Glass, G V and Smith, M L ‘Meta-analysis of research on class size and achievement’ http://journals.sagepub.com/ doi/abs/10.3102/01623737001001002?journalCode=epaa

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Strategies for success

In the next part of this series, we’ll talk about one of the major problems encountered with large classes: the cold, impersonal nature of a classroom with over 25 students. We’ll suggest some ways of helping build a community and giving the class more of an intimate, small-class feeling. n

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The positive spirit of a class with mixed backgrounds and levels that works well together can be enhanced in further ways. Leading a big group in a grammar chant or drill and hearing the voices in unison can be a joyous experience. Likewise, roleplays and drama activities tend to be more dramatic and more fun with larger classes. The teacher can encourage applause and positive feedback so each group feels appreciated and everyone participates in each other’s performances.

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Team spirit

Hess, N Teaching Large Multilevel Classes CUP 2001 Marcus, S ‘Large class size: strategies for success’ www. melta.org.my/index.php/11-melta-articles/195-large-classsize-strategies-for-success O’Brien, A ‘Large classes can be a large problem’ Learning First blog https://learningfirst.org/blog/large-classes-canbe-large-problem 2011 Odden, A ‘Class size and student achievement: researchbased policy alternatives’ Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 12 (2) 1990 Scrivener, J Learning Teaching Macmillan Education 2011 Scrivener, J Classroom Management Techniques CUP 2014 Shamim, F, Negash, N, Chuku, C and Demewoz, N Maximising Learning in Large Classes British Council 2007

Hall Houston teaches undergraduate students at National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences in Taiwan. He is also a teacher trainer for Cambridge English. His books include Provoking Thought, Brainstorming and Creative Output. [email protected]

Andrew Starck lectures at Southern Taiwan University. The courses he teaches are far-ranging: from Contemporary Philosophy to English Songs. He has presented a variety of workshops all around Taiwan. In his spare time, he enjoys painting and salsa dancing. [email protected]

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Students’ stories

IN THE CLASSROOM

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Mapping a story

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You can learn Fern’s story ‘Turtle and Snake’ by listening to me telling it on YouTube at www. youtube.com/watch?v=0pRfrV4jmtY or by reading it at the end of this article.

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One of the most effective strategies for remembering and retelling a story is ‘storymapping’. I first learnt this technique about ten years ago in a workshop led by storyteller Chris Smith.

Preparation: As you rehearse telling the story, follow the same storymapping procedure you are then going to invite your students to follow:

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ften the quietest students in a class turn out to be the best storytellers. I was teaching an academic English class a module on presentation skills and started out by inviting the students to prepare and tell a short folk tale, to give them some experience of speaking in front of their peers. In the class was Natthakan Charoensuk, a young and softly-spoken Thai woman, who calls herself Fern while in the UK. The contrast between Fern’s gentle telling and the bluntness of the Thai folk tale ‘Turtle and Snake’ which she chose to tell was fascinating. We all leaned in close to listen and then burst into laughter at the brutality of the ending.

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In the final week of the course, I asked the students to complete a short survey on storytelling in the classroom. Fern wrote:

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‘This helps me to improve my pronunciation. I try to speak more clearly to make the listener understand me. Furthermore, I have more confidence to tell stories in English to other people than in the past. I received feedback from my teacher and classmates, so I know I have to improve the way I pronounce the ends of words. It’s good to listen to stories from other countries and listen to different accents.’

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David Heathfield maps a brutal tale of animal cunning.

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On a blank sheet of A4 paper, sketch a sequence of five pictures that retell the story. Take no more than three minutes – rough sketches work much better than detailed illustrations.

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Connect the pictures with arrows to make an easy-to-follow storymap.

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Practise telling the story, first holding and referring to your storymap, then visualising and imagining the pictures.

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Then ask them to listen to you telling the story. As you tell the tale, visualise your storymap pictures.

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When you finish, give the same pairs a minute to react to the story you have told, comparing it with what they predicted before. They might want to talk about how easily clever Turtle outsmarted aggressive Snake.

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Discuss the fact that most people imagine pictures when being told a story, and ask if any students did not see pictures in their mind’s eye while you were telling them ‘Turtle and Snake’ (some students may imagine the story more through auditory and/or kinaesthetic channels).

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IN THE CLASSROOM

pointing out that there is no single correct way of mapping a story.

Tell the students that you did a storymap with five pictures when learning ‘Turtle and Snake’, but show them just the back of your piece of paper so that they choose their own images to draw. Show them another piece of A4 paper with five empty spaces linked by arrows and tell them that they will do their own storymap after listening to you telling the story a second time.

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Ask the students to compare their first and second tellings of the story. Most students have an increasing sense of ownership and grow in confidence each time they tell a story.

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Now invite your students to tell ‘Turtle and Snake’ a second time to a different partner. Suggest that this time they put away their storymaps and see the pictures they drew in their mind’s eye as they retell the story.

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Explain that an effective way of remembering and retelling a story is storymapping: sketching a sequence of images linked by arrows.

iscuss together how useful storymapping is D for remembering and organising a story. Find out whether the students told the story using the same words you used – the mapping stage makes it more likely that they will be finding their own way of telling the story. The students could now show their partners their maps if they want to and compare them with each other’s and with yours.

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Tell the story again, and recommend that the students keep their eyes closed and notice the mental images they make while they listen. Students who did not see pictures in their mind’s eye last time are more likely to be able to make mental images this time, now that you have focused their attention on them.

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Distribute sheets of plain A4 paper and ask all the students to spend three minutes making their individual storymaps, with five pictures linked by arrows. While they map the story, the students process and retell the story internally.

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Some students are likely to complete their storymaps within the three minutes with time to spare, but you will probably need to urge others to draw more quickly.

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Now ask your students to sit face-to-face in pairs and get ready to take turns to tell their first version of ‘Turtle and Snake’. Encourage them to look at their partner and refer to their storymap without showing it to their partner. It’s a good idea for the student who is feeling more confident in each pair to go first.

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Remind the students that listening closely will support their partner’s storytelling. They can prompt their partner if they request it.

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After the students have all told the story for the first time, you can reveal your own storymap,

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Allow time for the students to discuss the effectiveness of storymapping and how else they can apply it in their English learning. For some students, it may turn out to be a hugely beneficial technique, not only for learning a story but also for note-taking and planning writing.

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Point out that the more times they tell the same story, the more it will become their own and the better it will be. Ask them to retell ‘Turtle and Snake’ to different people they know outside the class, and to report back on what those people said about the story itself and about the way they told it.

t t t Now your students will be ready to select, prepare, rehearse and perform short tales they have chosen themselves. The procedure described above is demonstrated at www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pRfrV4jmtY, where Taiwanese student Yuhu Ho, who is a professional artist, is told, maps and then retells ‘Turtle and Snake’. Pictures from his beautiful storymap are on the next page.

David Heathfield is a freelance storyteller, teacher and teacher trainer. He is the author of Storytelling With Our Students: Techniques for Telling Tales from Around the World and Spontaneous Speaking: Drama Activities for Confidence and Fluency, both published by DELTA Publishing. He is a member of The Creativity Group. www.davidheathfield.co.uk

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IN THE CLASSROOM

Turtle and Snake (a tale from Thailand) Both wanted to be king.

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Turtle and Snake both lived in the forest.

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One day, Snake came and bit Turtle, but Turtle’s shell was too hard.

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Snake said, ‘Turtle, you are so strong. Why are you so strong? I cannot kill you.’

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Turtle said, ‘I am strong because every night I cut off my head, and then in the morning I have a new head.’ ‘Can I see? Can I watch the ceremony?’ said Snake.

That night, Snake came. Turtle held a knife in his hand. He pretended to cut off his own head, but really he put his head quickly inside his shell. The next day, Snake came to Turtle and said, ‘Oh, Turtle, I want to be strong like you. I want to cut off my head, but I don’t have a hand to hold the knife. Please, Turtle, please cut off my head with your knife.’ That night, Turtle came with his knife. He cut off Snake’s head. Turtle became king.

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‘Very well.’

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MyCPD tracks your reading, research and reflection. Take control of your continuing professional development with MyCPD.

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Free to English Teaching professional school and individual subscribers.

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Find out more at: www.etprofessional/mycpd

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Teaching English

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English for Health and Social Care Workers

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A study guide for speakers of other languages and English language teachers in health and social care Ros Wright and Richard Cresswell This unique guide supports non-English speakers and their teachers to ensure that as health and social care workers they reach the communication standards required by the Care Certificate. This resource comes with accompanying audio.

Order at www.pavpub.com/english-for-social-care-workers/ Order now for £24.95 For institution volume discounts contact us now at [email protected] ISBN: 978-1-911028-07-9

IN THE CLASSROOM

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to escape the zombies who have taken over his city, and who needs to meet, communicate and cooperate with strangers in order to survive. It seems to be a world where the globalisation of English has met its purpose – everyone who can converse in English has a higher chance of saving humanity!

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Such a theme can be brought to life and delivered to students through different applications. A PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation can work well. I have also found that producing an interactive quick-fire quiz using Kahoot! (www.kahoot.it) can be highly effective. This can be displayed on an interactive whiteboard if you have one; the students read the displayed questions and answer them using a smartphone or tablet.

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any people who are new to teaching are guilty of holding a common preconception about teenage students: that they are surly, lazy and don’t want to be there. However, it is often the case, as I discovered in Vietnam, that teenagers are simply overburdened with homework, exams and extracurricular activities in preparation for those all-important university applications. Late-night studying sessions can be the reason for lack of participation in class, especially when the content holds no interest for them and has no relevance to their lives. Of course, not all students of this age display indifference to learning English, but if the tools for critical thinking, problem solving and, most importantly, fun are not provided, you may be faced with a room full of sulking sixteen year olds.

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Katy Jones tosses her teenagers to the tigers.

Preparation You will need to prepare the following: ■■

A list (or pictures) of seven or eight items that could be considered useful when encountering danger or setbacks – for example, food, a first aid kit, a torch, matches, bottled water, etc – from which the students choose their ‘survival kit’.

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A number of specific situations within the main scenario (a world taken over by zombies). These could include running out of water, food shortages, a power cut, a zombie face-off, an injured team-mate and finding new land to settle on. For each situation, four possible courses of action should be offered, which the students have to choose between. Each course of action should result in either an increase in lives or a loss of lives, according to how sensible you think it would be, but this information should not be displayed to the students. (There is an example on the following page.)

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Something I have found to be particularly appealing to teenage students are ‘survival scenarios’, where the students have to discuss and make choices in order to survive a dangerous (but fictitious) situation. Of course, motivation is key when looking to engage apathetic students. Some teachers like to use prizes: small rewards like a pencil or sweets. With older classes, however, I’ve found that the students are happy to compete for a sense of achievement: simply to be the winner. For this reason, these classes are perfect for ‘survival of the fittest’ activities, and scenarios that work particularly well are ‘Zombie apocalypse’ and ‘Jungle survival’. The activities described in this article can be completed in 60–90 minutes, depending on class size, and they focus on teaching the second conditional to pre-intermediate level students.

Zombie apocalypse If you are well-versed in teaching through ‘survival’ methodology, you may be familiar with English for the Zombie Apocalypse by Lindsay Clandfield and Robert Campbell. If not, this book teaches the usual language functions and communication skills found in most coursebooks, but the activities are linked by a unifying storyline – that of a man trying

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Procedure 1 Allow the students to get into groups of about three or four. Set the scene by explaining that the city they live in has become overrun by zombies and that they must survive by answering a series of questions.

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Preparation You will need to prepare the following: ■■

A copy of the worksheet that accompanies this article for each group of three to four students. This can be downloaded from https://www.etprofessional.com/ media/30628/etp115-katyjones.pdf.

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A number of specific situations within the main scenario (survival in the jungle). For each, an ideal answer should be devised which employs one or more of the tools shown in the Mykel Hawke video (see below). Points should be allocated to the question, according to how many of Hawke’s tools are used. So, for example, if the ideal answer involves a knife and a compass, the question is allocated two points. Make posters of your ideal answers, but don’t display them until after stage 4 has been completed. There are some examples on the next page that you can use.

Example

B Catch rain C Steal from shops

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A group who had earlier chosen water for their survival kit might give the answer If there was no safe drinking water left, we would use own our supplies.

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5 Reveal the number of lives gained or lost for each option after the students have responded, and watch them scream with happiness or sheer disappointment. The most sensible, practical and safe option should result in the most lives, with the second most practical option having the next biggest number. For answers which are impractical or detrimental to the students’ survival, lives should be taken away. In the example above, I would award answer D three lives, C two lives, B minus one life and A minus two lives. Typically, a teacher’s moral compass would not condone theft. However, in this fight for survival, I think stealing water would be a more efficient and safer option than catching rain or drinking from rivers. 6 Once all the situations have been presented, count the total number of lives each team now has, to reveal the rulers of the post-apocalyptic world.

Jungle survival Again, teenagers will revel in decision-making to ensure they can overcome the dangers that arise in the jungle. The lesson is well-scaffolded to ensure that the students are prepared for

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A Drink from rivers and streams

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Procedure

1 Put the students into groups of three or four and give them five minutes to write down one tool they could use in the jungle for each letter of the alphabet. When the time limit is up, the groups swap lists and mark each other’s. If you have time, get the groups to write the list they have received on the board. This will help you check spelling and incorrect words, and also ensure that no groups are cheating by marking correct words as incorrect. The group with the most correct answers is the winner of this activity.

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You are currently safe from zombie attacks. However, water supplies across the city are already running severely low. What would you do if there was no safe drinking water left?

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4 Present your situations one at a time, together with the four possible courses of action the students can take (but not the increase or decrease in lives allocated to each one). Tell the groups that they must discuss which option they will choose and answer using the second conditional, either in spoken form or written on a mini-whiteboard that they can display to the class.

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3 Explain that each group will begin with five lives and that they either lose or gain lives, depending on the action they take in each situation they face. Lives gained or lost can be marked on a scoreboard visible to the class. The team with the most lives at the end is the winner.

the final production task: compiling a jungle survival guide for those wishing to explore such terrain. The activity could be used for practice of modal verbs should and could for giving advice and making suggestions. The stages outlined here can be adapted to suit the level and size of your class.

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2 Tell each group that they must first choose five items for their ‘survival kit’. Give them the list to choose from. Explain that they need to be prepared for all the eventualities they could face in an apocalyptic situation, and advise them to choose items with different uses. Make sure they understand that if an incident arises which requires a particular item and they don’t have that item, they won’t be allowed to choose the option that uses it.

2 Give each group a copy of the worksheet. It shows pictures of various tools, including those mentioned by Mykel Hawke, a US army special forces captain, in his video on jungle survival, together with their names. Play the video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAJYgvgAewA) in which Hawke explains the tools he uses, and tell the students to mark the tools he mentions. Play it again, if necessary, then reveal the answers (A, B, E, F, G, J, K, L, M, N, Q, R and T). Allow the students to watch for a third time to match the words with the pictures. Again, reveal the answers and address any errors (A machete, B headband, E water purification drops, F cigarette lighter, G map, J mosquito net, K poncho, L two compasses, M hammock, N knife, Q two water bottles, R gloves, T backpack). 3 The next stage involves the students responding to your series of survival situations. These can be presented via an IWB or flashcards, or simply read out. Explain that each dangerous situation has been allocated a number of points. These points correspond to the number of tools in the expected answer. For a team to receive all the points, their answer must include the same tools as the correct answer, as well as being grammatically correct – you could insist that they use a particular structure, such as the second conditional. Explain that they must write down their response on paper and they are only allowed to use the

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IN THE CLASSROOM

tools in the video.

Examples

4 Once all the dangerous situations have been presented, tell the groups to swap answers. Meanwhile, display the posters of your ideal answers around the room. Tell the students to find the correct answers pinned up around the room and mark the other team’s answers. Emphasise they are not to give full marks unless the answer correctly uses any structure that you have specified.

1 A  hungry tiger is standing in the middle of your path. What would you do to protect yourself? (3 points) Here, a correctly formulated answer, using the second conditional and worth all three points might be If a hungry tiger was standing in the middle of our path, we would use the lighter to start a fire and back away slowly. If we were attacked, we would fight back with a knife or machete until the animal had stopped. 2 Y  ou need some drinking water, but all you can find is a muddy puddle in the jungle. (2 points)

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5 The group with the most points wins. If groups are tied, present them with a final situation. You or the other remaining groups may choose the best answer to decide which group are the ultimate jungle survivors.

(Put the water from the puddle into your water bottle then use the water purification drops to make it safe to drink.)

(Use your machete or knife to cut through the vines whilst wearing your gloves.)

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4 You are walking and it starts to rain heavily. (1 point) (Put on your poncho to stop you getting wet.)

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5 T  he rain stops but you suddenly realise it has washed away the path you’ve been following. (1 point) (Use your compass to find the direction you were following or to retrace your steps and find a familiar place to start your journey from.)

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6 Y  ou pass by a river. A small fish jumps out, lands on the ground beside you and dies after some time. You need to cook it. (2 points) (Take out the fish’s organs with a knife and clean it in the river. Find wood and use the lighter to make a fire. Hold the fish over the fire with a stick until cooked.)

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6 If time allows for a final production activity, the students can be asked to make a survival brochure, outlining the essential tools and action necessary in the event of danger in the jungle. Mix the groups up, so that the students are given the opportunity to hear ideas that may differ from those of their original groups. The groups may complete their brochures either on paper or using a tablet or computer, if available. Once finished, get the groups to judge each other’s work and decide which is the most useful brochure, based on the information provided.

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3 Y  ou have just started your journey through the jungle when you become tangled in some vines. (3 points)

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7 The sun goes down and you can’t see anything. (3 points)

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In my experience, both the Zombie apocalypse and Jungle survival activities provoke engagement and interest in the students, whilst enabling them to practise skills such as critical thinking and speaking fluently. When teenagers are provided with the chance to have control over an outcome and escape the reins of reality, it’s a sure-fire way to make them sit up and tune in. n

8 J  ust as you get into your hammock, you spot a snake. It bites you on the thumb! You are unsure if it’s poisonous. What do you do? (2 points) (Stay calm and wrap the headband tightly around the hand to slow the blood flow to the heart. Use your knife to make small cuts on either side of the bite and start to suck your thumb to extract any venom.) 9 Y  ou slept for ten hours in your hammock but you feel absolutely exhausted. Your mouth is dry and your head hurts. (2 points) (Immediately drink water from your water bottle. If you don’t have any left, go in search of water and use your water purification drops to make it drinkable.)

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There is a downloadable worksheet to accompany this article. Subscribers can download it from https://www.etprofessional.com/ media/30628/etp115-katyjones.pdf

(Start a fire with your lighter near a suitable spot to stay overnight. Use the light of the fire to set up your hammock. Don’t forget to wear your headband to stop heat escaping from your head.)

Clandfield, L and Campbell, R English for the Zombie Apocalypse The Round 2014 Katy Jones studied English at Newcastle University, UK, and after graduating took a CELTA course. She is currently teaching English in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to students of all levels and ages through communicative and engaging activities within the classroom. [email protected]

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ETpedia 1,000 ideas for English language teachers

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“… a one-stop treasure trove of ideas. Especially useful for new teachers, it should provide plenty of inspiration for last-minute classes …”

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EL Gazette

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ETpedia is the perfect practical companion for any English language teacher. With thousands of ideas across seven titles, it offers inspiration, useful teaching advice, activities to use in the classroom and much more.

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The ETpedia series:

BEST SELLER

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ETpedia ETpedia Business English ETpedia Young Learners ETpedia Materials Writing ETpedia Technology

New in 2018: ■ ETpedia Exams ■ ETpedia Teenagers

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Order now: www.pavpub.com/english-language/ Email: [email protected] Call our orders hotline: +44 (0)1273 434 943

Explore our newest ETpedia titles, coming in 2018! ETpedia Exams offers 500 ideas to help you support your exam students and ensure that not only do they perform to the best of their ability in exams, their general level of English also continues to improve.

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ETpedia Teenagers gives you 500 practical ideas, tips and activities to help you teach, manage and engage your teenage learners.

NEW

E166-10-14

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NEW

Explore the ETpedia blog at: www.myetpedia.com

RESOURCES

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‘Stories in the news’ This activity takes about 60 minutes, although each segment can also stand alone as a lesson warmer or wrap-up. Extending it by having the learners design their own quizzes will require more time. You will need one or two recent newspapers.

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ewspapers are a readily available resource which teachers often use to supplement their coursebooks, spark interest in a topic or spur discussion. In his book Using Newspapers in the Classroom, Paul Sanderson lists several benefits of having students engage with newspapers as a learning tool. Among these are their authenticity and their potential for developing reading skills. Newspapers also appeal to students, as most of them will find something of interest in the variety of subject matter offered.

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Christine Jayasinghe finds newspapers to be a useful resource.

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off the press!

Part 1: Images with captions and headlines

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Preparation: Cut out eight to ten interesting pictures with their accompanying headlines or captions. Aim to have a mix of headlines and I have noted several additional advantages from captions. Paste each picture on a separate sheet of having used newspapers as a teaching and learning paper and label them with letters. Paste the resource. The first is that the students experience a headlines and captions separately on sheets of paper and label them with numbers. Keep one boost in confidence in knowing that they are engaging with real-life L2 materials – even more so picture aside, together with a headline and a caption, one which matches the picture and one if they have already read or heard about the same which doesn’t, as an example so you can events in their own language. Daily and weekly newspapers are also rich in topic-related vocabulary demonstrate the activity. and are ideal for raising awareness of common Procedure: collocations and language chunks. For example, in ■■ Elicit any interesting news stories the students an article on global warming, you might want to may have read about recently or watched on draw the students’ attention to expressions like television. Display your example picture and elicit climate change, think tanks, reliance on fossil fuels, a description of it. rise in natural disasters and worst-case scenarios. ■■ Put the students into pairs: A and B. Call the As A newspaper-based activity that I have designed to the front and show them Picture A. Tell them (‘Stories in the news’) involves both listening and to run back to their partners and describe what reading comprehension, in addition to vocabulary they have seen. Both students in the pair then development, and it promotes the sub-skills of write a description in their notebooks. prediction, skimming, scanning and reading for detail. ■■ Repeat the activity, with the Bs coming to the It was initially intended for a class of teenagers at B1 front to look at Picture B, then the As looking at level, but I have used it since with both adults and Picture C, and so on. When all the pictures have young learners from A2 upwards, modifying it, of been shown, get the pairs to join other pairs and course, to suit the students’ needs and abilities. I have to compare their descriptions. also devised a bank of generic question stems that ■■ Show the example picture again, and pass round busy teachers can draw on to create a newspaper quiz the example caption and headline. Elicit which one – and use as a model for their students to generate matches the picture and check that the students their own quizzes with which to test their classmates. understand the meanings of caption and headline. You will find this on the downloadable template that ■■ Display the other captions and headlines around accompanies this article. This can be accessed at the ETp website at https://www.etprofessional.com/ the room. Tell the students to walk around the media/30626/etp115-christinejayasinghe.pdf. classroom, looking at their own descriptions and

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RESOURCES

Part 2: News stories, images and advertisements Preparation: Download the question stems template from https://www.etprofessional.com/media/30626/ etp115-christinejayasinghe.pdf and use them to produce a set of questions for a short quiz, based on some pages of a newspaper. Cut out the questions so that each is on a separate numbered paper strip. Alternatively, prepare a worksheet of questions (useful as a model for the students if you want to get them to create their own quizzes). Label the newspaper pages with letters. Display the newspaper pages on the walls of the room.

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Put the students into new pairs and give each pair a question strip. Tell them to find the answer together, write it in their notebooks and return for another question. Remind them that they must note down the number of the question and that their answers need not be in order. If you use a worksheet, the students walk round with their partners to find the answers. Give them an appropriate time limit to do this.

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Check the answers with the class. If you wish, extend the activity by telling the students to write their own questions based on newspaper pages you give them (or that they have brought in, if you have told them to do so in advance). This can be done in groups or pairs. The quizzes are then exchanged and a time limit set to see how many questions are answered.

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Notes: For more capable classes, include some pages from which no questions have been set as distractors.

Part 3: Highlighting vocabulary in news headlines Preparation: Look through the headlines in a newspaper and select some lexical items that you would like your students to know or revise. Prepare

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Display the selected pages on the wall.

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Put the students into teams (a maximum of four teams, otherwise there will be too many students milling around). Assign numbers to each student in the teams. Ask all the students numbered 1 to stand up, and ask them a question. They race to locate the appropriate page and find the answer to win a point for their team. Continue the activity with the other students.

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End the activity by checking the meaning and pronunciation of the chosen vocabulary, which the students can record in a notebook if they wish.

Notes: With lower levels, give each group one or two newspaper pages with five or six prepared questions, so that they are under less pressure to find the answer. Award points for each correct answer.

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With repeated use, teachers will find it becomes easier to shape these activities to meet the needs of their own students. The benefit of recycling the whole exercise, or parts of it, is that it will familiarise the students with English language newspapers, encouraging them to make use of this resource on their own to expand their vocabulary, to notice recurring patterns of language and to keep themselves up-to-date with current affairs. With digital editions of newspapers becoming easily accessible, the students can also transfer the skills they gain in these classroom activities to their online learning experience. n

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Procedure:

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Notes: For lower levels, reduce the number of pictures and permit the students to return to look at the images, if necessary. At the demonstration stage, highlight the structures There is ... and There are ... and the use of the present continuous for describing pictures. For higher levels, include three or four extra captions and headlines as distractors.

Procedure:

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Finally, pass the pictures round for the students to check. Elicit keywords in the headlines and captions that helped them decide on their matches. Check the meanings and pronunciation of any unfamiliar words.

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Put the students into small groups to compare their choices.

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questions based on the formula On page x, what ‘[letter of the alphabet]’ + verb ... ? For example: On page 7, what ‘H’ destroyed 150 houses? (Answer Hurricane). Use one question to demonstrate the activity. Number the selected pages for display.

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jotting down the numbers of the matching captions or headlines.

Sanderson, P Using Newspapers in the Classroom CUP 1999

There is a downloadable template of question stems to accompany this article. Subscribers can download it from https://www.etprofessional.com/ media/30626/etp115-christinejayasinghe.pdf Christine Jayasinghe teaches at the British Council in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She has the CELTA, TYLEC, DELTA and an MA in Linguistics. Currently, she is exploring more ways of fostering the 21st-century skills of collaboration, creativity and critical thinking in the classroom. [email protected]

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Teac h i n g E n g l i sh

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Best Practices for Blended Learning

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his comprehensive handbook supports language teachers and school managers in developing and running Blended Learning courses. The authors bring their years of experience to this ever-evolving and highly-complex field of ELT to offer systematic guidance on the various technologies available to language teachers, as well as offer a framework to help you choose which of the many learning platforms available is suitable for your context and goals. The handbook also contains practical teaching ideas which blend traditional classroom input with online activities.

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By Pete Sharma and Barney Barret

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Pete Sharma and Barney Barrett

Whether you are a language teacher or teacher trainer looking to start blending your classes or an academic manager looking to improve learning outcomes in your institution, Best Practices for Blended Learning offers the information and support that you need.

To order online visit: www.pavpub.com/best-practices-for-blended-learning Price: £28.95 Order code: T265

ISBN: 9781911028840

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READING

Developing reading skills

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and experience to help understand the text. This focuses more importance on understanding the meaning of a whole text, rather than structures or items within it. As Jim Scrivener points out, if a word is not understood, the learners may be able to guess the meaning from the overall context. Alternatively, it may not be necessary to understand every word in order to understand the gist.

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Scanning

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Scott Thornbury defines scanning as when a learner reads a text in search of specific information and ignores everything else. For example, when we read a train timetable, full comprehension of the entire text is not necessary, we only need specific information contained within it. This skill is also part of top-down processing, and it is often used to locate quickly a specific piece of information from within a great deal of information. It is useful for finding dates, names, specific facts or statistics without having to read the full text. Scanning involves running the eyes rapidly over several lines of print at the same time, while keeping the target key words in mind.

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he methodology of teaching reading to ESL and EFL students has developed over the years, starting from the traditional approach, which focused on specific language used in a reading text (bottom-up processing), with the learners decoding the letters, words and grammatical structures of individual sentences. Later, a cognitive view that enhanced the role of background knowledge in addition to what appeared in the text was preferred. Then, ultimately, the metacognitive view, which Scott Thornbury identifies as being based on the control and manipulation that a reader can have on the act of comprehending a text, came to prevail. As Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada point out, there is a strong correlation between reading and academic success, so it is important to encourage the skill of reading in the classroom and, in addition, to help the learners to develop subskills while they are reading, in order to improve their language acquisition and increase their comprehension. These subskills include predicting, skimming and scanning.

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Emma Tudor identifies the problems and offers some solutions.

Predicting

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Predicting is an activity that the learners carry out before reading a text, in which they try to guess something about what they are going to read. This helps activate their ‘schemata’, which can be defined as the assumptions we make about the world, based on what we have already experienced and how our minds organise this information. Schemata can be triggered by names, words or images – for example, pictures brought in by the teacher to set a context. This experience can help the learners predict what the writer will say in a text, particularly, as Geoff Petty asserts, if they share common presuppositions. Schemata can also be used to resolve difficulties and help the learners make sense of individual sentences, which can help with better comprehension of a whole text. According to Eric Glendinning and Beverly Holmström, ‘With practice, learners’ predictions will become more accurate’, so it is important to provide practice opportunities in the classroom.

Skimming Skimming is when a learner reads a text quickly to obtain the gist. It is common in reading newspapers, messages and e-mails. It demonstrates part of top-down processing, which considers the text as a whole, and where, as Thornbury says, the learners use their discourse knowledge of how different texts are organised, as well as schemata relating to their own knowledge

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Problems, solutions and teaching suggestions 1 Learners make poor predictions The learners may have had little practice in making predictions and may lack confidence when it comes to contributing their thoughts. Also, as Christine Nuttall points out, they may predict wrongly, which means that when they read the text they could misunderstand its true meaning. Solution: Provide the learners with continuous practice in prediction activities to help them develop their skills. Teaching suggestions: ■■

Use speculation activities, where the learners look at pictures of people in different situations and make predictions about what has happened to the person in the picture.

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Use activities where the learners make predictions about their peers. Give the learners some questions about their classmates. First, they must predict their classmates’ answers. Then, they ask their classmates the questions and compare the answers with their own predictions. You can also ask the learners to give reasons for their predictions, in order to help develop their thinking.

Issue 115 • March 2018

41

READING

2 There is a mismatch in presuppositions

finding a correct answer by scanning a train timetable and finding a correct answer to a question about the meaning of a poem. A correct answer can be found easily from a timetable, and this is very different from reading a poem, where the text as a whole conveys the meaning. By exposing our learners to a variety of text genres and raising their awareness of the skills needed to understand them, we can encourage them to practise and improve these skills during reading activities. ■■

Solution: Take care to choose appropriate materials, with topics and themes that your learners can relate to.

3 Learners want to know every word

Learners do not automatically transfer the strategies they use when reading in their native language to reading in English. They tend to read much more slowly, stopping to look up every unknown word, and they read from top to bottom, not skimming or scanning to find the information they need. This is a time-consuming and unnatural way to read, which may cause them to lose motivation and engagement.

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Some learners feel the need to know the meaning of every word in a text. However, every time they check the meaning of a word, they interrupt their reading and thinking. Christine Nuttall believes that learners should be discouraged from using dictionaries, because the usual tendency is to use them far too often.

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Group or pair learners of varying backgrounds when doing activities, so they can share their schematic knowledge.

5 L1 reading strategies aren’t transferred

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Find out what topics your learners are interested in at the start of the course, through a needs analysis questionnaire. Throughout the course, take note of the material and topics that they have responded well to, and use this to inform future lesson planning.

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Teaching suggestions: ■■

To help learners practise comprehension techniques, try a jigsaw text activity. The learners work in pairs and are given two different parts of the same text, with Learner A missing information which B has, and vice versa. They must communicate with their partner to identify correct or incorrect answers, making comparisons with each other’s information. This awareness-raising and self- and peercorrection helps the learners recognise what they can or cannot understand from the text.

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The writer and reader may not share common presuppositions. As schemata are different for each individual, there may be a serious mismatch between those of the reader and the writer, making a text too difficult to make predictions about. EFL and ESL learners may come from cultures and societies which are very different from those of the writers of English texts, so there will be differences, not only in language, but also in presuppositions and previous knowledge about a topic, as well as more intangible things, such as opinions, beliefs, values and assumptions, many of which will only be shared by people brought up in the same society.

Solution: Encourage learner autonomy and reading outside class.

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Teaching suggestions:

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Solution: Provide activities and techniques that emphasise the importance of reading for gist. Teaching suggestions:

Limit the use of dictionaries to only five words per text, so the learners have to decide which of the unknown words are key to understanding the text. This develops their skill in recognising which words are most important for meaning and teaches them that it is often not necessary to understand some of the words in a text. It also keeps them focused on understanding the gist before analysing a text in detail.

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4 Learners don’t realise they have misunderstood

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It is sometimes difficult for learners (and their teachers) to identify what they do and don’t properly understand in a text – and why and how they can learn from their misunderstandings.

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Some comprehension questions may not actually require much comprehension in order to find the correct answers, so learners whose answers are marked as correct may be unaware that they haven’t actually understood the text properly. As Christine Nuttall says, it is difficult to identify how much of a text needs to be understood (often depending on the genre and purpose of reading), and it is not easy to measure whether or not sufficient understanding has been achieved. Solution: Train your learners to be more aware of what they have not understood. Teaching suggestions: ■■

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Ask the learners to complete a questionnaire, stating what they would like to focus on in class and what they can do outside class to help their reading. This is a simple trick to raise awareness that learning is their individual responsibility.

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Allow opportunities for practising different reading activities in class, using online articles, newspapers and other authentic material. This demonstrates that the learners can continue doing such activities in their own time. A big part of learner autonomy is finding opportunities to use English outside class. Set weekly reading homework, such as writing a summary of a newspaper article they have read that week. This gives them freedom to choose what they read and encourages learning autonomy. n

Glendinning, E and Holmström, B Study Reading (2nd edn) CUP 2004 Lightbown, P and Spada, N How Languages are Learned OUP 2006 Nuttall, C Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language Macmillan 2005 Petty, G Teaching Today, A Practical Guide (4th edn) Nelson Thornes 2009 Scrivener, J Learning Teaching Macmillan 2005 Thornbury, S An A to Z of ELT Macmillan 2006  mma Tudor has expertise in regional E academic management, materials development and teacher training. She is currently the Director of Academic Management, North America with EF Education First. [email protected]

Different types of text require different levels of understanding. Demonstrate this by showing the learners the difference between

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Issue 115 • March 2018

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10% discount code:

ETP2018 Teacher Training

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Book your 2018 training today and save 10% nd

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Teacher training courses for professional development Certificate in International Business English Training (Cert IBET) (2 weeks)

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Methodology: Teaching Young Learners (1 week) Methodology: Spice Up Your Teaching Ideas (1 week)

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Methodology Revisited (2 weeks)

Methodology for Teachers Working with CLIL (1 week)

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Making use of Technology Tools (1 week) Technology Enhanced learning (2 weeks)

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Diversity in Education I: Intercultural and Communication Skills (1 week) Diversity in Education II: Designing Intercultural Programmes (1 week)

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For 35 years we have been delivering language, communication and leadership training to professionals from our training centre in York and at client locations throughout the world. Since 2006 we have also been offering professional development courses for teachers and trainers, delivered by leading trainers and authors.

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IT WORKS IN PRACTICE ed ia

More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all worked for ETp readers. Try them out for yourself – and then send us your own contribution. All the contributors to this issue will receive a digital subscription to Modern English Teacher.

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5 Demonstrate the game by saying head and encouraging the students to make the corresponding gesture. Students who make the correct gesture can remain standing, but tell any who make the wrong gesture to sit down. Explain that the game will continue with you calling out words and the students making the correct gestures until the last remaining student standing up is the winner.

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Jeff Au, Suzuka, Japan This game tests the students’ listening skills and practises vocabulary for body parts, using a set of pre-taught gestures. Depending on the level, you can keep it simple (arm, leg, etc) or use more difficult vocabulary (nostrils, chin, etc). The game ensures that the students are up out of their seats and active, and they enjoy the competitive aspect of it.

4 Get the students to stand up and repeat every word after you, at the same time making the correct gesture. Repeat this step, so that the students have a clear understanding of the words and matching gestures.

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HEADS, SHOULDERS, KNEES AND NOSTRILS

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This activity is meant to be repeated over a period of time (eg half an academic year) so that the students have time to absorb the material and improve their listening abilities.

Procedure

2 Repeat the vocabulary drill.

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1 Prepare a vocabulary handout with your chosen vocabulary and decide on a set of gestures, one for each body part (see below). Go through the handout with the students and have them repeat the words after you. Ensure that they have the correct pronunciation and intonation.

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3 Ask the students to stand up and go through the vocabulary once more, but this time introduce your chosen gestures. It is useful to have two versions of the handout: your version, with notes on the required gesture for each word, and the students’ version, which only lists the vocabulary.

6 Call out words at random from the list. For the first few rounds, go slowly so that the students can get used to the activity. At the beginning, each time you use this activity, go through the vocabulary handout with the students first. Over time, as the students get better at it, you can phase out the handout and go straight to saying the words only.

Handouts Here are some basic suggestions for words and gestures to put on your handouts, which you can adapt as you wish: head (touch the top of your head); hair (mime brushing your hair); eyes (point to one eye); forehead (touch your forehead); nose (touch your nose); lips (point to your lips); teeth (open your mouth and show your teeth); ears (touch both ears); tongue (stick your tongue out); cheeks (touch your cheeks); eyebrows (touch your eyebrows); neck (point at your neck); shoulders (rotate your shoulders); elbow (mime elbowing someone out of the way); arm (wiggle your arm); hand (wave your hand); tummy (rotate your hand on your tummy as if you’re hungry); knees (bend your knees); leg (shake your leg); toes (bend down and touch your toes)

Variations

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Issue 115 • March 2018

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 or a more challenging activity, increase the speed of F the game.

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 ick random students to stand at the front and call out P the words.

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 ave a competition amongst the students who call out H the words, to see who can outwit the rest of the class and have everyone sitting down the fastest. n

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IT WORKS IN PRACTICE

ADDING A SPARK TO READING

Numbered lines This activity works well with short texts or a part of a text. It practises the skills of skimming and scanning and also helps the students develop their listening skills. I have used it with adults and higher-level classes, as well as young learners.

Rubbish!

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 sk the students to number the lines in a text. Ensure A that they all have the same numbers, because otherwise the activity will not work!

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 all out a word from the text, and ask the students to C read the text as quickly as possible and find the word. When they find it, they shout out the line number. To make the activity more challenging, you could give out a definition of a word and tell the students that they have to identify the word and the line number.

This activity is particularly good because it develops both reading and listening skills.

Separation

This activity works well with all ages and levels.  rite on the board all the words in the title or first line of a W text in one continuous line, with no spaces between them.

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 sk the students to read what you have written, try to A separate the words and decipher the title or sentence(s). For example, you could write up Readingisgreatfun (Reading is great fun). n

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 ext, put the students into pairs and get one of them to N read and change some words in the text while the other follows and shouts Rubbish! if they spot a change.

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 ead part of a text in your coursebook aloud, and ask R the students to follow silently in their own coursebooks. However, as you read, change some of the words in the text. The students have to shout out Rubbish! when they notice that something has been changed. (Before you start, you might want to drill the pronunciation of rubbish because, in my experience, some students tend to shout out rabbit!)

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Who says that reading has to be boring? Here are three ideas that really work and help to boost interest when dealing with a written text. I have used these activities with young learners, but they could be easily adapted to suit older students.

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James S Heal, Seville, Spain

ALPHABETICAL SMALL TALK

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AUTHENTIC VIDEOS

 sk the students to shout out words beginning with a A specific letter – but don’t tell them why at this stage. For instance, you might ask them to say words beginning with the letter B, and they might say things like banana, Brazil, beach, butterflies, and so on. Write their suggestions on the board.

 ut them in pairs and tell them they are going to P choose one of the words on the board, and that they are going to speak for a minute about it. The first time they do this is hilarious, as they will not be expecting it, and they will probably find that they have to speak for a minute about something really weird or trivial.

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James S Heal, Seville, Spain I have done this activity with all levels of students, although it works better with higher-level classes, as the students have more language at their disposal. It is a great way to develop fluency, to get the students used to making small talk and to give them practice in speaking without any preparation.

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 epeat the activity twice or three times, eliciting words R beginning with a different letter each time. The second time you do it, the students will know what to expect and they will choose more suitable words!

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 chedule time at the end for an error-correction slot in S which you can deal with any mistakes.

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 ith higher levels, follow a similar procedure, but give W the students a list of linkers or other language structures and encourage them to use them during their conversation. n

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James S Heal, Seville, Spain This idea kills two birds (or even three!) with one stone: it provides the students with exposure to authentic materials and it helps develop student autonomy. It also raises awareness of the different types of English that they might encounter. It is something that I have been doing with my advanced-level students, but it could easily be adapted to any other level. The activity involves making each student in turn responsible for bringing a short video in English (five minutes maximum) to class on a certain day. They are also asked to create some questions about their video, so that when the other students are watching it and listening to it, they have a real reason for listening. My students have to send me their videos in advance, so that I can evaluate them and look into the grammar used in them, the connected speech features and the pronunciation. I can then use this information to work on these areas in class. As the students choose their videos based on their likes, tastes and preferences, you also cater for different types of students. This has become a regular section in my lessons, and it takes no longer than 15 minutes. n

IT WORKS IN PRACTICE Do you have ideas you’d like to share with colleagues around the world? Tips, techniques and activities; simple or sophisticated; well-tried or innovative; something that has worked well for you? All contributions win a prize!

Write to us or email: [email protected]

Issue 115 • March 2018

45

Reviews ‘Creative Interaction’, Chapter 5 ‘Critical Interaction’ and Chapter 6 ‘Fanciful Interaction’. In the language classroom, mobile phones are rarely encouraged – and they are often banned completely – but the authors have taken a different approach, particularly in Chapter 3. In the activities ‘Wit and wisdom’ and ‘Connections’, to name but two, after initial warm-up exercises, the students are encouraged to use the internet in pair or group races, to see who can be the first to find the endings of witticisms or discover the most connections between Barack Obama and Jackie Chan, followed by two famous people of their own choice.

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by Lindsay Clandfield and Jill Hadfield CUP 2017 978-1-316-62917-8

courses. They start with tips on how to get familiar with online platforms, including the writing out of clear instructions for the students to follow, in order to enable easy access to the forums. Chapter 1 also includes an interesting section on ‘Setting up rules for engagement’. Here, there are some valuable guidelines for ‘Netiquette’, or online etiquette. To paraphrase the authors: as the students are operating in a foreign language, it is easy to misuse language or misinterpret meanings, leading to misunderstandings of various degrees. In this section, stress is put on the importance of mutual respect and the avoidance of angry or abusive language.

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Interaction Online: Creative activities for blended learning

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Interaction Online has been specifically designed for teachers using online platforms who wish to enhance their students’ abilities in communication and interaction. Each of the 75 activities has been carefully thought-out and is explained with clarity, and there are follow-up exercises to stimulate the students’ participation and further desire for interaction. Many of these activities can also be adapted for offline, face-to-face communication in the everyday classroom setting. In the introduction, Lindsay Clandfield and Jill Hadfield point out that ‘while education technology has made considerable advances since the 1990s, the same weak interaction in online courses prevails’. This book not only addresses this problem, but also brings into play a plethora of fanciful, critical and creative interactive ideas.

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It is in Chapter 2, ‘Personal Interaction’, where you jump into the activities with ‘A sense of adventure’. In this activity, after looking at an introductory in-class picture, the students are asked to find their own picture of a sport or activity they would or would not like to participate in, for example kite surfing or boxing. They then post the picture online, together with a few reasons for wanting or not wanting to do it. This is followed by some tasks involving agreeing or disagreeing with the reasons. Finally, by checking all the students’ reactions, conclusions can be drawn as to who in the class is the most adventurous.

Don’t be put off by the dark, impersonally digital look of the cover design or the rather academic introduction: if you are new to online courses, Chapter 1 is just for you. The authors give excellent information on how to both set up and manage online

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Issue 115 • March 2018

In another activity, ‘Coat of arms’, the authors broach the field of creative design. This begins with showing the students pictures of coats of arms and explaining that each one has different images which symbolise the important values of the family which uses it. This then develops into a design project, with the students choosing personal symbols for their own coat of arms and guessing what their online partner’s symbols might mean. Later, with further online interaction, the students can suggest mottos for each other’s coats of arms.

The book is nicely rounded off in the final two chapters, ‘Feedback and Assessment’ and ‘Task Design’. Both these chapters will be particularly useful for teachers who are not so familiar with online teaching forums or how to assess them. The authors give some excellent models of how to incorporate feedback techniques, using specific examples from activities in the book. Throughout, encouragement is stressed as a vital key. Lindsay Clandfield and Jill Hadfield have pieced together an amazing array of fascinating activities in this book, all of which have easy-to-follow instructions, and which include fun tasks to keep both students and teachers on the edge of their seats, revved up for more ‘interaction online’. Andrew Starck Tainan, Taiwan

The wealth of activities continues through Chapter 2 up to Chapter 6, with a different take on the forms of interaction in each chapter. Chapter 3 is ‘Factual Interaction’, Chapter 4

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REVIEWS

The learning environment of the classroom is the theme of Part 2, ‘The Learning Context’, which explains and describes the important features of building a motivating classroom space one by one. Chapter 5, ‘Teacher behaviour’, demonstrates how starting and ending lessons properly, maintaining a proper pace and giving feedback in the right way can all have a profound impact on motivation. Chapter 6, ‘The learning environment’, focuses on the physical environment of the classroom. This chapter offers clever ideas about using space and wall space and decoration, as well as multisensory spaces and the social environment. Learner roles is the theme of Chapter 7, which talks about giving students more independence and freedom in class. Chapter 8 is titled ‘Motivating materials’, and it recommends a number of ways of exploiting coursebooks, digital media and content-based materials. The final chapter of Part 2, ‘Task design’, looks at the role of lesson planning and motivation, and advocates adding elements of creativity, challenge, choice and collaboration.

Each chapter is greatly enhanced by tips, which are featured in short sections titled ‘Getting It Right’. For example, Chapter 5 has a ‘Getting It Right’ section with valuable suggestions for dealing with students who come in late. Another brilliant feature of every chapter is the ‘Try This’ box, featuring a quick, low-prep activity based on the theme of the chapter. For example, in Chapter 9, there is a clever activity called ‘Presentations X Factor’, where the students critique video recordings of presentations live in the classroom. Each chapter concludes with a brief section called ‘Why This Works’, explaining some of the concepts behind the chapter theme and offering ideas for further exploration. The book contains a glossary, which will help readers understand terms such as locus of control, self-efficacy and temptation bundling. The author also includes a list of useful websites for readers who want to know more about the topics in the book.

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Motivational Teaching offers a wealth of tips and ideas for increasing motivation in the language classroom. The book is intended for teachers of primary and secondary school students, but many of the techniques and tasks could be used with adult learners as well. In fact, the author’s stated aims include raising learner motivation across ages, abilities and backgrounds.

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Motivation is an area of teaching that all teachers strive to improve on. Motivating a group of students can be quite a challenge, as what one class might find motivating others might find highly demotivating.

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by Nick Thorner OUP 2017 978-0-19-420042-4

improving our own motivation as teachers, such as enriching the school environment and working together with colleagues in workshops and action research.

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goals. In this chapter, the author recommends using activities involving the ideal future self, the ‘ought to’ self, and the present self. Chapter 3, ‘Seeing progress’, emphasises getting students to dwell on how much they’ve learnt, employing goal setting and progress orientation. Part 1 concludes with Chapter 4, ‘Motivating specific behaviours’. This chapter provides numerous tips for changing and improving students’ behaviour, such as increasing awareness, giving rewards and modelling.

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Motivational Teaching

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The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, ‘An Individual Learner’, focuses on the learners and how we can help them become more motivated. Chapter 1, ‘A love of language learning?’, provides information about intrinsic motivation, or learning out of enjoyment or interest. Thorner here suggests ways that teachers can help their students to find enjoyment in learning, such as emphasising the pleasurable aspects of learning and language. Chapter 2, ‘Reflecting on the future’, is about instrumental motivation, or learning with an eye on

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Part 3 is entitled ‘Issues In Motivation’, and goes into the background factors that relate to motivation. Chapter 10, ‘Students as individuals’, covers age, gender, aptitude and special educational needs (SEN). Chapter 11, ‘Student background’, shows how a student’s family background, cultural background and learning background can affect motivation. The book reaches a satisfying conclusion with Chapter 12, ‘Teacher motivation’. This chapter provides a number of ideas for

I enjoyed Chapters 6 and 8 the most, as I often seek out alternative ways of using the classroom environment and materials to keep my students motivated. I plan to try out some of the ‘Try This’ activities from Chapter 8 next semester with my university students. Overall, I was impressed by this book. It gave me much food for thought on the topic of motivation, from many different angles. It’s clear that the author is knowledgeable on the subject of motivation, and is skilled at developing fun, enjoyable activities that teachers will find useful. The only quibble I had is that the chapters are quite short, and at times, I wished they went into a little more detail on some topics. However, the book does contain a wealth of useful information for any teacher who wishes to increase motivation in his or her classroom. Hall Houston Luzhu, Taiwan

Issue 115 • March 2018

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SCRAPBOOK Less is more, we are often told. When it comes to prose or a piece of music, I would tend to agree: the perfectly-crafted piece should have no extraneous words or notes, and the overall effect should be diminished if any are removed.

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However, just at this precise moment, I find myself disagreeing strongly with this dictum. Why? Because I have just bought a new computer – a laptop, to be precise. It is very elegant, and it is so powerful that it would have run an entire continent in the middle of the 20th century, BUT ... it’s thinner than my forefinger.

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Gems, titbits, puzzles, foibles, quirks, bits & pieces, quotations, snippets, odds & ends, what you will

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An inside job?

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I feel cheated. I want something that looks the part: you know, chunky and imposing. After all, this philosophy of shrinking doesn’t apply with cars! No, if you spend a lot of money on a powerful car, it has either got to look like a big hunk of a 1950s kitchen appliance on (immense) wheels, or, if it’s sporty, it must be long, wide and low – and preferably a virulent shade of yellow.

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Last year, I bought a memory stick with a capacity of 64 gigabytes – I seldom use it because it is so small that I worry about losing it, or even swallowing it! However, I have discovered that there is technology that is actually designed to be swallowed. Nanorobots are tiny machines which can perform tasks at nanoscale dimensions. To give you an idea, a nanometre is one billionth of a metre! A good comparison is, apparently, the size of an apple relative to the size of the Earth …

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Nanorobots have given rise to the field of nanomedicine, where there are numerous potential medical applications for these tiny automata, including repair of damaged tissue, unblocking of arteries – perhaps even the construction of complete replacement organs. If you’ve got robots buzzing about inside your body fixing things, then I would think that the smaller the better – less is definitely more!

Not much for your money? As the Duchess of Windsor is once reputed to have said, ‘You can never be too rich or too thin’. When it comes to watches, it would seem that she was right. For years, watch companies have been competing to produce the world’s thinnest watch. Up until this year, the thinnest mechanical watch was the Master Ultra Thin Squelette. At 3.6 mm thick, it is exactly the thickness of three CDs, yet ‘squelette’ (skeleton) doesn’t mean that you only get the bare bones of a watch (the word referring, rather, to the fact that you can see its innards). The watch actually contains 119 components, yet the movement – the actual business part that does the ticking – is only 1.85 mm thick. Naturally, this degree of thinness doesn’t come cheap: around $61,000 for the white gold version and around $75,000 if you want diamonds, too. Just a few months ago, this record for thinness was broken by the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept watch. At a mere 2 mm in thickness, it is thinner than a one Euro coin. It may not come in a diamond-studded version, but you know what they say: Less is more!

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A waste of time?

More or less modern?

The phrase ‘less is more’ is relevant to our business lives, yet many of us still have a tendency to over-explain, send lengthy emails and book hour-long meetings that have only 20 minutes of real content. The problem is that much of what we say in these contexts is ignored. Research has found that the average professional receives 304 emails per week, checks their smartphone 36 times an hour and gets interrupted every eight minutes (or 50 to 60 times per day). Given that, it’s not hard to imagine why our attention spans are shrinking – from 12 seconds in 2000 to a mere eight in 2012.

So what is the origin of the phrase ‘less is more’? It became very well known in 1947, when it was adopted by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a proponent of simplicity in style, as a precept for minimalist design in architecture. Yet it goes back even further than that. It seems that it was a proverbial phrase in the 19th century, and it is first found in print in ‘Andrea del Sarto’, a poem by Robert Browning, written in 1855. This consists of a dramatic monologue from the painter Andrea del Sarto to his wife Lucrezia, in which he laments the fact that all he produces now are flawless reproductions; he feels these don’t match works painted by others with less finesse but greater soul:

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Who strive – you don’t know how the others strive To paint a little thing like that you smeared Carelessly passing with your robes afloat – Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, (I know his name, no matter) – so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia ...

‘On the fragrance side, I think it’s important that it’s not overpowering ... I think it’s important to see the person before you smell them. Less is more.’

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Meanwhile, others distinguish between those items which we need more of and those where we could do with less. Emilia Wickstead makes this point:

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After running around the pitch for 90 minutes with ten other sweaty players, he should know.

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Over the years, the phrase has been applied to myriad situations, including that of perfume. Footballer David Beckham is reported to have said:

‘Red lipstick aside, I firmly believe that less is more in terms of make-up.’

A dead duck?

In recent years, the unbridled enthusiasm that once surrounded choice seems to have cooled. Far from wanting more items to choose from, it would appear that we actually want fewer. In The Guardian, columnist Stuart Jeffries says he believes that what is happening now evokes visions of Monstromart, the mega-supermarket in the popular American cartoon ‘The Simpsons’, whose slogan is ‘Where Shopping is a Baffling Ordeal’.

Less may or may not be more, but more is definitely more expensive:

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Choice is king – or is it?

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A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgery. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird’s chest. After a moment or two, he shook his head and said, ‘I’m very sorry, your duck has passed away.’

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Psychologist Barry Schwartz argues that beyond a certain point, ‘choice no longer liberates, but debilitates’. He cites an influential study which found that shoppers at a high-end grocery store were far more likely to purchase jam after they had visited a sampling booth featuring six choices as opposed to 24 choices, along with later research that produced similar results with chocolate and speed dating!

‘Are you sure?’ the distressed woman asked. ‘Yes, I am sure,’ the vet replied, ‘your duck is dead.’ ‘How can you be so certain?’ she protested. ‘I mean you haven’t done any tests on him or anything. He might just be asleep or in a coma or something.’ The vet sighed and left the room, returning a few minutes later with a brown Labrador. As the duck’s owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on its hind legs, put its front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. It then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook its head. The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room. A few minutes later he returned with a cat under his arm. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. It then sat back on its haunches, shook its head sadly, meowed softly and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, ‘I’m sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100 percent certifiably, a dead duck.’ And turning to his computer terminal, he hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman. The duck’s owner, still in shock, took the bill and exclaimed, ‘£150 just to tell me my duck is dead!’ The vet shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been just £20, but with the lab report and the cat scan, it’s now £150.’ Scrapbook compiled by Ian Waring Green

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Less is more? This activity involves putting parts of a text in order, to make a story.  hotocopy and cut out the cards, jumble them and distribute them to the students (some of the texts are longer than others, so you P could give the longer ones to stronger students). There are ten cards. If you have more than ten students, put them into groups. If you have fewer than ten students, give some students more than one card. Keep one intact copy for yourself, to act as the answer key.

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 ell the students that they mustn’t show their cards to the other students. They should read their texts aloud and try to work out the order of T the story. (Depending on level, you may need to pre-teach some of the vocabulary, such as scoffed, middleman, processor and cannery.)

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When they have finished, ask them to read out the complete story in order.

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Elicit the moral of the story and the students’ reactions to it.

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 ut the students into pairs and ask them to roleplay the conversation between the banker and the fisherman. Encourage them P to do this without looking at the text.

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The banker scoffed. ‘With my business expertise, I could help you do better,’ he said. ‘You should spend more time fishing and, with the money you get for the fish, buy a bigger boat. With a bigger boat you could go further out to sea and catch even more fish. And then you could buy more boats. After a while, you would have a large fleet of fishing boats. Then, instead of selling your fish to a middleman, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery.’

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The fisherman was amazed and asked if he could do all this from his small fishing village.

The fisherman asked him how long all this would take, and the banker replied that it would take about 15 to 20 years. ‘But what would I do with an enormous company?’ asked the fisherman.

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The fisherman answered that it hadn’t taken him very long – a couple of hours at most. The banker then asked why didn’t he stay out at sea longer and catch more fish.

‘Well, no,’ replied the banker. ‘You would need to leave the village and move to the city, from where you could run your expanding business more easily.’

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As the fisherman pulled the small boat up onto the sand, the banker saw that inside it were several large fish. He complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it had taken him to catch them.

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A rich investment banker went on holiday to a small village on the coast. He was standing on the long sandy beach one bright sunny morning when he saw a fisherman bringing his boat ashore.

The banker laughed and said, ‘That’s the best part. When the time is right, you could sell your company and become very rich – you would make millions!’

‘Well,’ the fisherman said, ‘most days I sleep late, fish a little, spend time with my children and sit in the garden talking with my wife. Then, in the evening, I stroll into the village, where I go to a bar, drink some wine and play dominoes with my friends. I have a full and busy life.’

The banker replied, ‘Then you would retire. You could move to a small fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, spend time with your children and sit in the garden talking with your wife. In the evenings, you could stroll into the village and go to a bar, drink some wine and play dominoes with your friends.’

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The fisherman replied that he stopped when he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The banker then asked him what he did with the rest of his time.

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‘Millions?’ said the fisherman. ‘Then what?’

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Teac h i n g Gr a m ma r

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From Rules to Reasons

SUB TITLE ideas and advice for Practical

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working with grammar in the English language classroom

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By Danny Norrington-Davies

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eaching Grammar: From Rules to Reasons is a book which offers teachers an alternative view of grammar to that found in many traditional resources, setting out how this can be used in a language classroom.

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The book suggests that teachers need to consider and teach grammar differently, as opposed to a traditional fixed system of rules that students learn one-by-one. The author, Danny Norrington-Davies, believes that instead, grammar is far more dynamic than traditionally perceived, is used differently in various situations, and is based on choices rather than simply on rules.

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Not only does Teaching Grammar: From Rules to Reasons offer this alternative perspective on how to teach grammar, it provides teachers with the correct tools to do so. It offers both the theory of the method, and practical techniques for applying it. Teaching Grammar from Rules to Reasons provides both experienced and less experienced language teachers the resources that will enable them to use this teaching method. It will allow grammar to be taught not as a single goal of instruction, but to help students achieve better comprehension and enable them to genuinely communicate more effectively.

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This book contains: „ Vital reasons to learn grammar in the classroom, and methods of doing so; „ 18 lesson examples that can be used at a variety of levels; „ Guidance on designing lessons and creating materials; „ Photocopiable texts and tasks, lesson plans and procedures, and suggested activities for learning.

To order online visit: www.pavpub.com/teaching-grammar-from-rules-to-reasons

Price: £29.95 Order code: T242

ISBN: 9781911028222

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What?

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So, what is pushed output? As the name implies, it involves pushing the learners to produce language. Swain suggested that learners need to be ‘pushed’ to produce language that conveys messages in a precise, coherent and appropriate manner. In vocabulary teaching, pushed output could be simply saying or writing lexis to convey an intended meaning in the appropriate context. This minimum knowledge is enough at the very early stages of word learning, as it provides a foundation onto which additional lexical knowledge can later be built. In traditional vocabulary instruction, we tend to present the words first and then let the learners practise these words in one-way activities, in which one learner has all the information and shares it with the others, with no individual output from the other students – as, for example, in an activity where one student describes a picture to the whole class. These one-way activities, although common in ELT, only allow for receptive practice of the form–meaning link, and mostly ignore other aspects of knowing a word, such as register, collocation and productive word

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knowledge. If we want to increase our learners’ vocabulary production, planning a lesson full of two-way activities in which they are expected to exchange information for the activity to be completed is a good place to start (an example of this type of activity is an information gap). Keith Folse in 2006 demonstrated that two-way activities facilitate negotiation of word meaning, which can lead to lexical production and the development of spoken productive word knowledge. Developing automatic processing of this aspect of word knowledge is vital if we want our learners to become fluent language users.

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he overarching goal of most ELT classrooms is to help the learners produce more appropriate and more fluent language. That is, we want more of the right words coming out of our learners’ mouths or flowing from their pens. Even though this idea is central to the majority of ELT programmes, it is by no means a given that the learners will reach this goal. In fact, it is unfortunately the case that many do not. What we’re talking about here is the importance of output. This can be quite stressful for learners, especially at the initial stages of language learning. However, it intuitively makes sense that practising vocabulary in speaking and/ or writing allows for more creativity and for more lexical experimentation. This is at the heart of the ‘pushed output’ hypothesis, developed by Merrill Swain in 1985. It emphasises the role of production in the learning of both grammar and vocabulary.

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In the seventh part of this series on the insights to be gained from research into vocabulary learning, Hana Mohammad Almutairi recommends ‘pushed output’ instruction as a means to greater vocabulary production.

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Vocabulary: principles and practice

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IN THE CLASSROOM

Why? Producing vocabulary in the classroom may prompt functions that lead to lexical development and provide the learners with opportunities to develop their lexical competence. Swain presented three major functions of output in the classroom: noticing/ triggering, hypothesis testing and metalinguistic functions. When producing, the learners may notice gaps in their underlying lexical knowledge. For example, they may notice that they don’t know how to express a meaning at the moment when they are attempting to produce it. This activity of conscious recognition, or awareness, of a linguistic problem may, in turn, trigger the cognitive processes that allow the learners to generate linguistic knowledge that is new or that consolidates their existing knowledge, as a way to find a solution to this problem. This could be achieved by directing attention to relevant input, such as a dictionary or perhaps to a classmate. The second point, hypothesis testing, relates to users seeing output as a low-stakes trial run for producing partially-learnt words. In essence, they are testing their hypotheses about how lexical items are used. In practice, this means that the learners test out new vocabulary they have encountered and determine whether it is comprehended by their interlocutors or not. Also, this production allows for not only the testing of new vocabulary but also affords

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IN THE CLASSROOM

In order to encourage vocabulary production, there are numerous strategies teachers can use to create environments conducive to effective production. For production to be effective, engagement with something or someone is integral. This can be developed by focusing on activity design features, including the following: ■■

Information distribution

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Amount of unknown vocabulary

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The lexis used in the activity (other than the target words) should be controlled, so that it is all known. Qualitatively better vocabulary production will occur when unknown items are presented in a comprehensible context. ■■

Presence of an input sheet

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Production involves some kind of input (such as an activity sheet or a text). However, this input should be controlled to allow the maximum use of learnt vocabulary in the output. ■■

Opportunity to prepare and plan the output Paul Nation and Stuart Webb point out that since we are aiming for higher-quality production, it is a good idea to give the learners time prior to output for planning. This will likely lead to more considered production and more effectively allow that production to be pushed. It is also likely to put the students at ease.

Additionally, teachers should try to incorporate shared activities into the classroom, using pair- or groupwork. This fosters peer reliance and creates an atmosphere that is less intimidating and perhaps less potentially

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So, it’s up to us to work with our learners and provide them with more pushed output opportunities, so that they produce more vocabulary more often in the classroom. It is important to build on the existing receptive lexical knowledge our learners possess, so that they are able to use what they know. This involves developing greater depth of knowledge and numerous aspects of the word-knowledge construct. One way to achieve this is to utilise pushed output activities. Simply put, we need to push our learners to use vocabulary in class, to communicate more successfully and to produce more appropriate, higher-quality output. n

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As Michael Long puts it, ‘the task-essential information is distributed between all the learners, who must share and integrate it’ for the task to be completed.

Of course, classroom variables are also vital – a pushed activity is contingent on a positive classroom environment in which the learners are allowed to produce vocabulary without the fear of making mistakes. The feedback given to them should also be carefully considered, to ensure that it is constructive and motivating.

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Effective second language learning depends on language instructors and interlocutors ‘pushing’ learner production, so that they achieve qualitatively more than they would be able to if they remained in their comfort zone. Traditional instruction emphasises input and the reproduction of that input: the teacher says something and the learners reproduce it correctly. There is a problem here, though, as, if the learners do not have a lot of input, their output will be similarly limited and perhaps insufficient for lexical development.

Another important point about activity design is whether an output activity should be open or closed. Open activities have an extended focus and allow for the discovery of language, but with no specific predetermined linguistic goal. Closed activities are those with a very specific focus and a narrow objective. Keith Folse suggests that guided shared activities should be closed, because the nature of a closed activity offers more opportunities for negotiation and provides a goal for the students to work towards (ie the completion of the activity).

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embarrassing for individuals. These activities should be demanding, but ultimately manageable – difficult or complex activities need to be scaffolded by breaking them into chunks, which is likely to ease the cognitive burden and the anxiety of the learners.

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opportunities to reflect on the words they used, which is a metalinguistic function, the third point. Rather than merely using vocabulary, then, this reflection involves actually talking about the words used – the negotiation of meaning and any register or collocational restraints. Through this dialogue, learners are able to engage more with the language, which can positively influence language development. As Richard Donato and James Lantolf put it: quite simply, learning can take place through dialogue with others.

Donato, R and Lantolf, J ‘The dialogic origins of L2 monitoring’ Pragmatics and Language Learning 1 1990 Folse, S K ‘The effect of type of written exercise on L2 vocabulary retention’ TESOL Quarterly 40 2006 Long, M H ‘Task, group and task-based interactions’ University of Hawaii Working Papers in ESL 8 (2) 1989 Nation, I S P and Webb, S Researching and Analysing Vocabulary Heinle Cengage Learning 2010 Swain, M ‘Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development’ In Gass, S and Madden, C G Input in Second Language Acquisition Newbury House 1985 Swain, M ‘Three functions of output in second language learning’ Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics: Studies in Honour of H G Widdowson 2 (3) 1995  ana Mohammad Almutairi is a PhD candidate at H University College London, UK, and a lecturer in ELT at King Abdul-Aziz University, Saudi Arabia. Her research is on the role of production in ELT vocabulary classrooms, with a particular focus on learning single-word and multi-word lexical units from speaking. [email protected]

Issue 115 • March 2018

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LANGUAGE

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‘What part of that expression don’t you understand, Lian?’ I asked warily.

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She replied, ‘I thought a fan was someone who likes something. Remember you said you are Red Sox fan?’

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Relieved to be getting off so easily, I explained the double meaning of the word and deftly steered us back to the president. Even more deftly, Lian steered us away again: ‘But how can shit hit the fan?’ I was sure she and the others had heard the word used as an expletive – international students seem to have an eager ear for American swear words – but, as with fan, there was that other meaning they weren’t aware of. I explained it matter-of-factly before asking, ‘Now, whose turn is it to read?’ Unable to visualise the image of the idiom, and apparently determined to do

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Student 1: We have big exam tomorrow. I am so basket case. Student 2: Don’t worry. You will cut and dry it. Student 1: You’re right. I guess my feet are cold. Student 2: You need to laid back. Let’s go out for lunch. Student 1: Where you want to go? Student 2: Pizza Palace. They got good grubs there. Student 1: I have no money! I flat broken. Student 2: Don’t sweating. I will float you alone. Student 1: Thanks! Let’s go. I going to eat your fill.

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After doing online searches on websites such as learnenglishfeelgood.com, two students a day were tasked with presenting their chosen idioms in sentences, and the others tried to decipher their meanings – not always a piece of cake. Most of my students had been trained to memorise, not to conjecture and, faced with bizarre expressions, they tended to clam up. I often had to coax them to take a shot at it: ■■

Alice is a dead ringer for her mother. (Alice kill her mother with ring?)

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I looked up at her and then back down at the textbook, thinking for a moment that I had dozed off and missed an unlikely turn of phrase from the father of our country. When I finally realised that her statement was just the product of a wandering teenage mind, I was about to give the standard ‘let’s stay focused’ response when I noticed that Lian had piqued more curiosity among the other kids than President Washington had. So I decided to go down the ‘teachable moment’ route, although I had never gone down one quite like this before.

Soon afterwards, I read an article about the confusion some international college students experience at the hands of our idiom-laced language. Professors, classmates, everyone they encounter understands the other meaning of words and phrases that, interpreted literally, make no sense. I decided then that when my students got to college, they were not going to be behind the eight ball, out of the loop or in a bind. They were going to know the score. And so I started ‘Idiom of the day’.

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y ESL class was stumbling through a prosaic reading passage about George Washington when Lian, a ninth-grader from China, suddenly said: ‘Ms Casey, I don’t understand the expression The shit’s gonna hit the fan.’

Getting to grips with idioms

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Michaela Casey ensures that when the chips are down, her students don’t get the wrong end of the stick.

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of the day

Before I could respond – and at that point, I’m not sure I could have – a Korean boy whispered, ‘Maybe, a big mess?’

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so, Lian persisted: ‘But what happens when the shit hits the fan?’

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His future in the company is up in the air. (Maybe he will be pilot?)

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Eat your heart out, Frank – I’m going to Paris. (Frank must be so hungry?)

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Stick to your guns, Pete. It’s the only way to win. (Shoot them?)

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The car she bought is a real lemon. She should return it. (Yellow?)

More often, I had to explain the idioms, but this was a tough gig, too. I mean, why is a lady killer a man that women like? How do you run a fever? And what’s with hang and all those prepositions – on, in, around, up, out …? It was like trying to make someone get an inside joke. Occasionally, the students wrote dialogues using their favourite idioms, because I wanted them to get their feet wet with these expressions. A typical one read something like this:

Clearly, they weren’t acing it and, after reviewing my corrections, they did rewrites. They were accustomed to this, because I had often reminded them that their usage errors, spoken or written, would stand out like big tomato sauce stains on new white clothing. Nonetheless, they enjoyed being in the ballpark and finally being in on the secret language surrounding them. More importantly, they were learning to take a stab at something they didn’t know. They’d come a long way on the endless road to colloquial fluency, as they showed one warm day toward the end of the year: ‘Ms Casey, can we have class outside?’ ‘No – you won’t pay attention outside.’ ‘We will! We will!’ ‘Do you think I was born yesterday?’ ‘What is born yesterday?’ ‘Think. Who was born yesterday?’ Furrowed brows all around – then, the dawn. ‘LITTLE BABIES!’ ‘Right. And what do little babies know?’ More furrowed brows – another dawn. ‘NOTHING!’ ‘Bingo!’ ‘What is bingo?’ n Michaela Casey taught adolescents in special education, college preparatory and ESL programmes for 40 years. Since retiring, she has published a book, The Old Overholt and Other Stories, set in her native Boston. She lives in rural Maine with her husband. [email protected]

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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

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t all starts on a cold, dark, January day when I stumble upon a TED talk by author and radio presenter Tim Harford. There I am, back at my desk after the Christmas holidays, in urgent need of inspiration, enthusiasm and fresh teaching ideas. I watch with interest as Harford proposes a simple but profound theory: that life’s messy problems can inspire creative responses. Harford illustrates his proposition with an anecdote about the renowned jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, booked to play at Cologne Opera House before a sell-out audience. Somehow, the wrong piano has been installed. The upper notes are thin and tinny; the bass notes are weak and thuddy. Jarrett initially refuses to play, but relents out of sympathy for the young concert promoter. He improvises three pieces, adjusting his style of playing to compensate for the inadequacies of the ailing instrument. The result? A critically acclaimed performance, which becomes the best-selling piano album of all time!

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Dave Watton experiments with creative approaches, chosen at random.

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Messing up your teaching

If a messy problem can push a musician’s creativity to new heights, could it also work in the language classroom? To answer that question, I want to share an idea I have developed to ‘mess up’ my teaching. The essence of the idea is to deliberately disrupt the often predictable everyday routine of classroom life by introducing a random element: a set of oblique strategy cards. My intention here is to demonstrate the potential of the cards to nudge us out of our everyday routines, experiment with more creative teaching approaches, and encourage small but meaningful adaptations to our lesson plans and learning outcomes.

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Oblique strategies It’s one thing to have a messy problem thrust upon you; it’s another to disrupt your creative process deliberately. But Tim Harford advocates just that, drawing on another example from the world of music. Brian Eno is a much sought-after record producer, having worked with the likes of David Bowie and U2. One of Eno’s specialities is his ability to unblock musicians’ creativity. With this aim in mind, he created a range of studio instructions, such as ‘The band swaps instruments’ or ‘Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element’. Although the instructions aren’t always popular with the artists, they succeed because the musicians are nudged out of their comfort zones. Interestingly, Eno’s original instructions were written on the studio wall as a kind of checklist for when musicians got stuck. But the list didn’t work because it wasn’t messy enough. Instead, Eno created a pack of cards with the instructions written on them to be picked at random. He called the pack his ‘oblique strategies’. I wondered what would happen if I tried something similar. What if I created a set of cards with random instructions to follow in my next lesson? I quickly brainstormed a list of 30 to 40 ideas. For example: ■■

things colleagues do in their lessons but I don’t;

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example, ‘The students will be out of their seats for a significant portion of the lesson’ did not work in a timed writing practice class. But ultimately, any unhelpful strategies could be rejected – I was after all their master, not their slave.

Looking back, I can see that the strategies I brainstormed boil down to three main types: adding (incorporating a technique or activity into the lesson); taking away (depriving myself of a tool or technique); and focusing (on a particular area, such as a grammar point). The strategies embraced a variety of aspects of teaching: methods and approaches, classroom management, study skills, teaching techniques, a focus on skills and a focus on language.

Benefiting from the strategies Over a sequence of lessons, the benefits of using oblique strategies became palpable. They added value for my students beyond the learning outcomes that I had identified at the lesson planning stage. They discouraged staleness, keeping me sharp and on my toes, rather than just delivering another lesson. They added variety, a welcome element of surprise, spontaneity and unpredictability, as enshrined in one of the strategies: ‘I will surprise the students in this class’. They were developmental, encouraging me to experiment with approaches and techniques new and old, such as storytelling and peer teaching. Finally, they brought out my ‘professional artistry’ – what Donald Schön defines as the ‘kinds of competence practitioners sometimes display in unique, uncertain, and conflicted situations of practice’. I have always felt that my best teaching emerges spontaneously, as I respond to classroom events as they unfold. My oblique strategies challenged me to apply my knowledge and experience in the joy of the here and now.

Tell the students a story.

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Today, good pronunciation is king!

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The students will learn something from each other.

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The students will decorate the walls of the classroom.

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Incorporate a topical news item into this lesson.

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I will not ask the students any questions today.

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There will be lots of error correction in this lesson.

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I will speak as little as possible in this lesson.

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Set strict time limits for activities.

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Today, we will focus on time management.

Implementing the strategies

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Having typed up and printed out the strategies to create a set of 40 cards, I needed to work out how I was going to use them. I decided to plan my lessons as normal, and choose a card at random a few minutes before the start of the lesson. The idea was to integrate the strategy into the lesson – to augment the plan, rather than replace it.

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The results were immediate. Before my first lesson, I picked up the ‘Today, good pronunciation is king!’ card. The lesson focus was academic writing skills and, normally, pronunciation would not have been foremost in my mind. But as I walked into the classroom and started chatting to the students, I was sensitised to the intelligibility of their speech in a way I otherwise wouldn’t have been. Before the class got fully underway, I included a quick two-minute focus on consonant–vowel linking.

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Another small but significant addition to a lesson followed a few days later. I had prepared a listening skills class on the topic of organ donation. ‘The students will decorate the walls of the classroom’, the card instructed. As I was eliciting the names of organs that can be used in transplants, an idea came to me. I handed out sheets of flipchart paper and pens and asked pairs of students to illustrate and annotate different organs. The classroom walls took on an unusual new look for the next few days! As I continued to experiment with my self-imposed oblique strategies, I watched my enthusiasm for teaching being rekindled. Yes, the cards presented a challenge: I needed to think on my feet. And yes, they were sometimes unhelpful – for

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You can download more of Dave Watton’s oblique strategies from the ETp website at https://www. etprofessional.com/media/30627/etp-115davewatton.pdf where they are presented as photocopiable cards for you to cut out and use.

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Sample oblique strategies

What next? Colleagues have suggested that I could encourage my students to create and use their own strategies in class. I’m looking forward to experimenting with that idea. I know that oblique strategies will not suit every teacher or teaching situation. They certainly invite a change of mindset: that of welcoming disruption rather than resisting it. But oblique strategies are not about jettisoning your lesson plan or sabotaging your lesson, they are about tweaking it. I encourage you to try them out. Just make sure that you personalise the strategies to your own context and teaching style. I will leave the last word to Tim Harford, who declares: ‘Disruptions make us more creative!’ And being more creative has to be good. Doesn’t it? n Harford, T ‘How frustration can make us more creative’ www.ted.com/ talks/tim_harford_how_messy_problems_can_inspire_creativity 2015 Schön, D The Reflective Practitioner Basic Books 1983

Dave Watton teaches on the Foundation Pathways programme at the University of Birmingham, UK, and coordinates presessional CPD. He previously taught in Spain and Korea, where he worked for the British Council as a teacher trainer and young learners course manager. [email protected]

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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

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Up to 1991, operating the lighthouse at Sumburgh Head was the responsibility of a series of keepers, after which date the light was automated. Given how difficult life could sometimes be for those stationed at a lighthouse, only a few people were deemed to be cut out for the job of a keeper. One display at Sumburgh Head reproduces a Northern Lighthouse Board advertisement from 1960. It describes the profile of a lighthouse keeper, and many of the things it says about keepers can, at times metaphorically, be applied also to English language teachers.

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The advertisement starts by affirming that ‘Not everyone is suitable to be a light keeper. The good light keeper has, or acquires, the temperament necessary for the job, which involves residence close to the sea and has much loneliness and isolation in its composition’.

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Teaching is also a profession that requires a sense of dedication. Being devoted to one’s duties and the learners’ education is immensely important and has to be sustained on a continuing basis throughout one’s career, especially since teaching can sometimes be a thankless job that leads to feelings of isolation. For some people, teaching is also a calling, though not one that everyone gets to experience. However, as Dylan Fenton points out, seeing teaching as a calling is somewhat problematic, given that it is based on the assumption that teaching consists of dispositions and abilities that are innate and thus impossible to nurture.

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ELT and lighthouse keeping

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fter attending the IATEFL conference in Glasgow in 2017, I spent a few days in the Shetland Islands in the far north of Scotland. This provided me with the opportunity to reflect on the learning I had engaged in as part of this invaluable professional development event. On one of my walks, I visited the lighthouse at Sumburgh Head. Designed by Robert Stevenson, the grandfather of the famous Scottish author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped, the lighthouse was built in 1821. It stands 91 metres above sea level and its light, flashing every 30 seconds, is visible 23 nautical miles away. On my visit to Sumburgh Head, I realised how the job of a lighthouse keeper resonates in some ways with what we do as English language teachers.

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Daniel Xerri sees the light at Sumburgh Head.

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Teachers as lighthouse keepers

Vigilant According to the information at Sumburgh Head, a lighthouse keeper’s ‘primary duty is to watch at night, to ensure that the light flashes correctly to character and to keep a fog watch throughout each 24 hours, so as to be ready to operate the fog signal in the event of poor visibility’. The job entailed discipline and hard work, given that the keeper had to regularly wind the light’s turning mechanism, so as to ensure the safety of mariners sailing off the coast. If a keeper were to fall asleep, tragic consequences could ensue, so it was considered a grave offence.

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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

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Likewise, as Scott Thornbury asserts, English language teachers are usually encouraged to develop a sound knowledge of pedagogy, a high level of proficiency in the language, and a well-honed awareness of the underlying systems of English for them to teach effectively. They are typically appreciative of the impact that English has on people’s lives and, hence, seek to empower their learners by providing them with the means of using it in as competent a manner as possible. According to Sarah Mercer, besides their knowledge, skills and beliefs as language teachers, they are also valued for developing positive relationships with their learners. And, as Carrie Furrer, Ellen Skinner and Jennifer Pitzer assert, such relationships have the potential to have a beneficial effect on their learners’ academic success.

The futurist Michio Kaku decries the saying ‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach’. He suggests that although teachers might need to adapt to the needs of future technological societies in which intellectual capitalism will be maximised, these societies will generate jobs requiring qualities such as creativity, artistic ability, innovation, leadership and analysis. Contrary to what happened to lighthouse keeping, teaching is unlikely to become obsolete any time soon because, just like communicative ability, these qualities are still best fostered by teachers engaging in essentially human ways with their learners. Perhaps one of the advantages of being English language teachers is that while teaching the language, we can also help nurture so many other key qualities. n

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According to the advertisement, ‘a light keeper must be a man of parts. He will acquire a good working knowledge of engines, at stations with radio beacons and radar, about radio telephones; from his study of the sea he will respect its immense power; he will be a handyman of varying proficiency but mostly of a high standard; he will be a useful cook and a good companion’.

Teachers deal with a complex and palpable collection of thoughts, emotions, experiences and interactions, which all play a pivotal role in language learning. As Sarah Mercer points out, facilitating the language learning experience is an inherently social activity: it involves communication and collaboration, and requires socio-cultural competence. This implies that teachers will still be needed in the future, especially if English language learning is seen as a vehicle for the mastery of 21st-century skills.

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teachers might one day experience a similar fate, with computers and robots taking over the duties associated with language teaching. Whether this will happen or not is still uncertain. However, unlike lighthouse keepers, English language teachers are not just guardians of a stationary mass of matter.

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Just as a lighthouse is an important means of facilitating navigation, so the English language classroom enables learners to follow their educational journey with profit and without scuppering their chances of future success. For this to happen, teachers have to be constantly attentive to their learners’ needs and illuminate the way forward. By being vigilant with respect to any difficulties the learners might have or any problems they are likely to encounter in mastering the language, teachers are able to facilitate the smooth passage of the learning process.

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Lastly, in the advertisement it is declared that ‘a light keeper will not make a fortune, but he will be at peace with himself and the world’.

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Correspondingly, most English language teachers know that, in spite of how significant their role is in equipping their learners with the knowledge and skills needed to communicate effectively, in spite of how vital they are in cultivating the minds of learners, their salaries and working conditions are not usually commensurate. Nonetheless, if they possess a strong sense of dedication to their profession and to what can be accomplished by means of it, teachers will persist in their endeavours to touch other people’s lives through what happens in the language classroom. They will also strive to keep growing as professionals, so as to be able to guide their learners on the best educational journey possible. Given how invested most English language teachers are in what they do and who they are as professionals, it is only right that their efforts should be better supported and recognised.

Fenton, D ‘Let’s stop referring to teaching as a calling’ The Huffington Post https://goo.gl/CpuDfO 2016 Furrer, C J, Skinner, E A and Pitzer, J R ‘The influence of teacher and peer relationships on students’ classroom engagement and everyday resilience’ In Shernoff, D J and Bempechat, J (Eds) National Society for the Study of Education Yearbook: Engaging Youth in Schools: Empirically-based Models to Guide Future Innovations 113 Columbia University Teachers College 2014 Kaku, M Physics of the Future: How Science will Shape Human Destiny and our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 Doubleday 2011 Mercer, S ‘Connecting minds: Language learner and teacher psychologies’ Plenary at IATEFL Conference Glasgow 2017 https:// goo.gl/yPB0Sm Mitra, S ‘Schools in the cloud’ Plenary at IATEFL Conference Harrogate 2014 https://goo.gl/z4oEwO Sumburgh Head ‘Light keepers’ https://goo.gl/UOy7RG 2017 Thornbury, S About Language: Tasks for Teachers of English (2nd ed) CUP 2017

Daniel Xerri is a lecturer in TESOL at the University of Malta, and the chairperson of the ELT Council within the Maltese Ministry for Education and Employment. His website is www.danielxerri.com. [email protected]

As mentioned earlier, keepers no longer operate the lighthouse at Sumburgh Head, as automation has made this job redundant. Sugata Mitra and others have suggested that

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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

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Ben Dobbs and Michelle Hunter pin down the meaning of coaching.

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What coaching is not

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While it may be used as part of a leader’s style or actions, coaching is not synonymous with leadership or management. Managers who fail to coach (or train or mentor) their staff, fail to understand the potential coaching has. However, managers who are permanently in a coaching role or mindset will experience challenges to their management and leadership and obstacles on the road to completion of team, departmental or organisational objectives.

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Firstly, let us look at some erroneous perceptions of coaching and misuse of the word:

Coaching also has limits, with certain areas of subject matter or challenges falling outside the scope of coaching: coaching cannot be used as a substitute for direct or decisive management and leadership in cases where immediate decisions are needed or action is required – in the case of a crisis, for example.

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he term coaching has become ubiquitous. We can frequently hear it at conferences, maybe we know of institutions which offer coaching, or know of individuals who brand their services in this way. We may offer it as part of our own services, or employ the techniques of coaching as part of teaching or training. However, the term, the implications of its use and coaching’s exact nature are still often misunderstood.

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Teacher, trainer, coach – which am I really?

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‘I am coaching a group of 13 year olds on vocabulary. The theme of the week is Halloween.’ (seen on online social media)

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‘We observed each other’s lessons and then coached each other with feedback.’ (heard as part of a conference presentation on peer observation) ‘I am not a language teacher. I am a language coach!’ (declaration on online social media)

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‘When coaching, I am training my staff to be better.’ (leadership course participant)

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‘I coached her and she came to the right decision in the end.’ (a Director of Studies) ‘He’s not sleazy, he just needs some coaching.’ (another Director of Studies, regarding a disciplinary matter)

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‘Coaching is about giving advice, right? When I have a problem, you can give me counselling, can’t you?’ (a communication course trainee) ‘I can’t see any difference between coaching and teaching.’ (an angry conference delegate as he walked out of a presentation)

For a manager, coaching can be used to change attitudes or behaviour by driving reflection, but it is inappropriate in matters of discipline, misconduct, complying with legislation or in place of induction or training how to do a job. In the same way, it would not be suitable in the classroom to help students with matters such as how to pass an examination, in terms of the hard skills and knowledge they need, though coaching will certainly help students make decisions, build their motivation and confidence and choose what exactly they will do or say. Coaching is also not counselling or therapy. Again, this strays beyond the professional remit, expertise and ethics of coaching. If this is what someone being coached requires, referrals should be made.

Teaching, training and coaching So, do I teach, train or coach? What is the difference and does it matter?

These examples reveal deep misunderstandings of the methodology, the ethics and the nature of coaching. Coaching does not involve direct input, nor does it involve feedback.

Unfortunately, teaching, training and coaching are often treated as equivalent. The reality is somewhat different and, for reasons of methodological correctness, branding and ethics, the differences in practice and purpose must be acknowledged.

Pedagogically, coaching cannot be utilised as a substitute for teaching input. Therefore, vocabulary or grammar cannot be ‘coached’; they can only be taught or trained and, while coaching can be used as part of teacher development, direct feedback is not a coaching technique.

Teaching, in the broader sense of the term, is traditionally about the imparting of knowledge from teacher to student. It can sometimes lack a degree of interactional activity, though with experienced teachers, interaction and communication do come to the fore.

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Training suggests more activity and feedback, rather than imparting of knowledge. Training courses will involve input and an approach that is largely task-based, with large amounts of reflection and feedback from peers and trainers. Coaching is used largely erroneously in a language teaching context, as coaching is about question asking and answering, not instruction, input or feedback.

Coach: [Nodding] Can you tell me more about that?

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is the process of asking typically open, non-suggestive questions and having them answered (with the answer to one question informing the next);

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is oriented towards an agreed goal;

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is not a leader–follower relationship (though it can be);

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is non-directive;

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focuses on the person being coached finding their own solution to a problem;

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is a conversation with meaning and direction;

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is interpersonal and requires trust;

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involves active, empathic and facilitative listening;

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does not give an example to emulate;

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is not about advice giving, as the coach will/may not be an expert;

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may be an event (ie a coaching session);

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may be a management or leadership style;

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challenges perceptions and motivates;

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does not involve input, direct feedback, telling or training;

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supports and helps while allowing the person being coached to retain power and autonomy;

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uses silence for thought;

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requires standards of ethics and professionalism in terms of confidentiality, non-disclosure, scope and expectations.

Coach:  What possible solutions are there to this? Teacher: I have tried …

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is a supportive relationship between a coach and the person being coached;

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Teacher: Their phones are a big distraction, and no one really pays attention. It worries me a lot as the exams are getting nearer and they need to do well.

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Coaching example 2

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A trainer is using coaching techniques to coach a course participant during one-to-one training. It must be noted here that coaching is not used as a substitute for teaching input, but as a way to help the student make decisions and build confidence: Coach: W  hat are you assuming that makes you think you won’t be able to perform in the oral exam? Client:  That I won’t be able to speak about the topic and will fail the whole exam.

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Teacher: I’m having a lot of problems with students using phones in class.

Coach:  What problems does this cause?

True/pure coaching:

You have the right to advertise your services as a coach if you are qualified as such. This is not elitism, but a matter of accuracy, ethics, expectation management and good practice. However, there is no monopoly on coaching strategies or techniques, and anyone is welcome to use them. Nevertheless, if you are a manager, teacher or any other professional who utilises such approaches and methods, this does not give you the right to call yourself a coach, simply by virtue of their usage. Someone who brands themselves as a coach should be qualified in the field, or at least working towards some form of qualification or accreditation.

Issue 115 • March 2018

Coach: So, what do you want to talk about today?

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What coaching is

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A Director of Studies is coaching a teacher:

Teacher: Yes, OK. Well, it starts as soon as the lesson begins. They all listen for a few minutes, then one phone comes out, then they are all doing it. It’s really annoying me. I tell them to put them away but they don’t see it.

We invite you to consider the definitions given and our ideas about coaching below, and to reflect on what you are really doing in your professional capacity.

Am I a coach?

Coaching example 1

Coach: W  hat would you do in a real situation if someone tried to talk about something you were unfamiliar with? Client: I would change the subject. Coach: O  K, so what actual phrase could you say in the exam to bring the topic of conversation onto something you are confident about? Client: I haven’t heard about that, but it reminds me of ... Coach: K  nowing that you can take control of the conversation and change the topic, how much more confident are you of passing the exam? Client: Yes, I can do that. I think it should be OK in the exam now.

What form can coaching take? Coaching can be any of the following (and possibly more): 1 An event or intervention, which will typically take the form of a session, usually one-to-one, between the coach, who may be an external service provider, and the person being coached. For example: An external coach meets for an hour every week with a top-level manager, in order to support the manager’s leadership of an international project. 2 A management and leadership style, as appropriate, using techniques of coaching to manage and lead. As a note of caution, coaching is not always appropriate with some personalities and situations. There will be cases when a manager needs to be directive, to mentor, or to give a direct instruction or explanation. In times of crisis, for

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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

It is important to recognise that input-based one-to-one training is not coaching. The nature of training is based on task and reflection and feedback, which coaching is not. When working one-to-one, coaching may be used as part of the trainer’s or teacher’s methodology and approach, particularly during a reflective phase, or could be used as pure coaching. Coaching questions may also be deployed to find out more about a course participant whose work you know little about, in order to use that student as a resource, by drawing on their ideas, experiences, expertise and thoughts.

instance, or when strong and difficult decisions are needed, coaching is not appropriate. For example: A manager wishes to develop staff decisionmaking and responsibility; empowering and reducing dependence, while still maintaining their own accountability. They delegate a task and use coaching to support. 3 An approach to stakeholder engagement, using coaching strategies to connect with others and their requirements. For example: A manager talks with an agent about their problems and challenges, and tries to get to the real issues and needs of their clients.

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Coaching also has a place in the lesson observation process. Following observed lessons, coaching questions can be used in a non-directive, non-leading way to drive genuine reflection instead of direct, directive or potentially judgemental feedback. Coaching can give a teacher the power to find their own path to success, rather than that prescribed by an observer.

4 A methodology, with selected strategies used in part at appropriate moments where coaching does not need to be made explicit or even mentioned.

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For example: In a one-to-one training session, a trainer uses coaching questions to find out more about a trainee, their role, objectives and level, as well as to develop the relationship by showing interest.

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During courses, coaching techniques can be used with one-to-one sessions and groups as part of methodology. Coaching questions allow a trainer to find out about individuals, explore and challenge realities, create an open and motivated group, and provide the trainer with a source of language production for feedback.

So, think critically, creatively and mindfully as a teacher, trainer or manager about how you can use coaching. Consider when it is appropriate and, importantly, when it is not. Coaching can be used in classes or outside, with matters which are academic or pastoral (within ethical limits) and it is a useful tool for finding out more about others and their needs and challenges, as well as for driving communication, showing interest and building relationships.

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6 A conversation. Coaching techniques and questions can be used with anyone – be they internal or external stakeholders – in order to show interest and get down to identifying real views and issues.

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For example: A manager uses coaching with teaching staff to help them find their own solutions to their own challenges and to develop tolerance and motivation.

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5 A system for development, which relates to how people are helped and developed in order to grow as leaders, aid tolerance, develop creativity, change attitudes, build trust, develop relationships and air problems in a safe environment.

For example: A coaching mindset used on a daily basis in conversations to show interest and engage with others.

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7 A culture in an organisation which brings together all of the above ways of coaching, used at all levels and to approach numerous workplace situations.

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For example: Coaching at all levels of an organisation as part of its culture: managers coaching staff and workers coaching each other. This can facilitate success and assist in, for example, reducing staff turnover.

What does this mean in pedagogical contexts?

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Coaching can be used in multiple environments and organisations, yet it has unique potential in academic settings and pedagogical environments. As a management style, coaching can be used to change attitudes, develop leaders and build teams, grow tolerance and coping, support both students and colleagues, and drive creative processes. Coaching can also become the standard way that stakeholders – internal or external – are engaged with. Coaching can also be used on both entry to and exit from an organisation. As part of task-based business English training content, coaching can be used as an activity and source of linguistic and communicative production. This is especially useful on short, intensive courses, both for variety and true-life relevance.

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Coaching is a useful management development tool. It is also an eminently helpful way of being. Why not nurture a coaching mindset in yourself and lead by example towards a wider coaching culture within your organisation, creating thinking partnerships with colleagues or a mentor to help grow your own development? n Ben Dobbs is an independent in-company trainer and coach who is also accredited to run the Cert IBET teacher training qualification. He specialises in areas of communication and business functions ranging from language to intercultural and interpersonal skills, coaching and leadership. [email protected]

Michelle Hunter has been teaching business English in companies and universities in southern Germany since 1999. For the last six years, she has been incorporating coaching skills and techniques into her teaching and training. The experience and learning gained from practising as a learner-coach informed her recent MA research project: exploring a coaching approach to teaching in business English university classrooms. [email protected]

Issue 115 • March 2018

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Keep talking ... or else! I

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TECHNOLOGY

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Robert Dormer introduces an element of dynamite into his lessons.

ncorporating into our teaching products which have not been designed with the ESL/EFL classroom in mind can be a tricky business. However, from time to time, some really fun, useful and – perhaps most importantly of all – pedagogically-sound products do present themselves. Information-gap activities are nowadays a familiar feature in many classrooms and, increasingly, technology-mediated tasks are establishing themselves as reliable, rewarding tools. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a game that combines the strengths of both these trends, and it has been an explosive hit in my classroom. I feel sure there’s real potential for your students to benefit from it, too.

The game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, like all good information-gap games, requires teams to work together and share information in order to solve a common goal. One team takes control of a 3D, procedurally-generated and fully interactive ‘bomb’, and by communicating with another team, which has sole access to the ‘manual’, they attempt to disarm the various modules.

The modules There are a wide variety of different modules, each presenting a unique challenge. The earlier modules tend to be comparatively easier than those appearing later, ensuring that the next level is

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TECHNOLOGY

Using the modules The modules are entirely independent of each other, and can be solved in any order. The range of puzzles is truly eclectic, calling upon diverse skills under the pressure of time, and I strongly recommend you search for the many fun videos available on YouTube to get a feeling of why this game has been so wellreceived and is so widely enjoyed.

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Getting the game

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Single-computer licences are, unfortunately, the only option at the moment, and the game retails through Steam, Google Play and, directly, through its own website. The price per licence is around $15. After purchase, the game can be directly downloaded and installed on your preferred device. It works with touchscreen tablets and desktop and laptop computers, as well as many of the most recent mobile devices. The game has also

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always pushing the participants that little bit further. Early levels have tasks that require, for example, the students in possession of the manual to ask questions about the number of wires and their colours, and various details found around the bomb, such as serial numbers, batteries, etc. Successful negotiation of this particular challenge requires careful examination to discover the required information, and accurate language choices to convey it. An example of a later module is a puzzle that requires the students to distinguish between very similar-sounding sequences of words, sometimes negotiating the inevitable confusion through spelling, and sometimes by accentuating certain parts of the phrases.

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Initially designed as a party game, it has now attracted an active ‘modding’ community, with many bespoke modules available through the Steam computer game community platform. Since I first started using this game, over 120 custom modules have been made available for free, with some that are particularly suited to ESL/EFL users, and there is even a small but growing number of custom modules specifically programmed for English learners. The more tech-savvy can use the free modding toolkit to create their own modules and levels – you can even modify the appearance of the game itself! More details of the game, including a demonstration video, can be found at www. keeptalkinggame.com/. The manual is available as a free, downloadable document at www.bombmanual.com/, so teachers can take a look before deciding to buy.

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TECHNOLOGY

levels of the game won’t be necessary and, at times, I have simply let the students work in groups to figure things out for themselves.

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However, once the first few levels have been completed (usually not without some explosive failures!), the game becomes significantly more challenging. I use a system whereby, in order to proceed to the next level, a team must observe three rules: speaking only in sentences, using only English, and not looking at the other team’s computer or manual. However, they are allowed to contravene any or all of these rules in practice runs, in which they can prepare the required expressions and get to understand the different modules (later levels are randomly generated within certain parameters, so this works well). During the preparation, one member stands at a whiteboard positioned behind the team, and can write any expressions/phrases needed for a certain module. (In real time, using L1 then working together postattempt to change these into English is a good strategy.)

Scaffolding for language classes

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Other uses for the game

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become particularly popular for use with virtual reality devices, such as Playstation VR and the Oculus Rift system. But, whatever system you prefer to run the game on, installation is smooth and simple, and there is a convenient and visually intuitive introduction to the controls, which obviously is quite important for second-language users.

When the teams are ready to attempt a level within the rules, they can ask the teacher to observe them. As usual, competition amongst groups helps to increase both focus and enjoyment. I strongly recommend that during this period of ‘self-scaffolding’ the later levels, you circulate and offer advice for the structures they need to negotiate the increasingly complex problems.

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The potential of information-gap tasks to enhance the language learning experience is broadly acknowledged. Recently, the added value of technology-mediated task-based approaches has been highlighted. I have found that use of this game has been extremely effective as a technology-mediated task, providing both ample opportunity for student-led resolution of tasks and a clearly-defined outcome: ie preventing the bomb from exploding!

I have used the game for genre-based writing classes (eg procedural instructions, technical writing, etc). My students are science and technology majors, so this is particularly useful for their write-ups of experiments. Additionally, I have started replacing some parts of the more traditional ‘communication tests’ (interviews, self-introductions, speeches, etc) that I use with my lower-level classes with this activity, and I am in the process of reviewing data collected in a needs analysis (based on their lab work) to help me use the modding system to design my own bespoke modules. I have also been experimenting with using video and audio recording, which not only improves accountability but allows the students to revisit their performance, deciphering the causes of breakdown and improving future attempts.

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However, while the game has potential for use across the gamut of language ability levels, I have found that some preparation, provision of examples and scaffolding will maximise the chance of a positive reaction. One useful strategy is to make an example video (the one I used is available at https://goo.gl/9qoz51); it works very well if the students can see their own teacher playing the game. Also, I created worksheets to help the students with the basic set of questions they need in order to solve the easier modules at the start of the game.

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The manual doesn’t contain too much difficult vocabulary, but with all the instructions for 11 different modules, as well as details of the information to be found around the bomb itself (batteries, ports, etc), it is quite a hefty tome, with a daunting amount of new information and vocabulary. Given this, I split the manual into sections, ensuring that at least two students covered any one section, to ensure overlap. The students are assigned the task of writing the meaning of any difficult words or expressions above the line in their part of the manual. This works quite well as a pre-class, homework activity. I then scan and re-combine these parts to form a new, annotated manual for use in class. Combined with the scaffolding worksheets and demonstration video, this annotated manual has been enough to support my beginners in engaging with the game, with generally very positive results. However, with many classes, this level of scaffolding for the earlier

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M M M In short, this game can be used as it is, as a fun, impactive one-off session, or scaled up to a more integral and time-consuming curriculum component. With technology-mediated tasks and gamification being some of the hottest trends in English language teaching, I fully expect this game to be used in more and more contexts. We’ve certainly had a blast with it, and I hope that you can find a way of making it work for your students, too! n

Robert Dormer is Associate Professor of the Global Studies programme at Hiroshima Women’s University in Japan. His research interests range from L2 motivation, classroom use of technology, and genrebased tasks to international relations historiography. [email protected]

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modernenglishteacher Digital library Tracker

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Bringing the latest research to your classroom

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Want to provide the teachers in your school with the latest developments in English language teaching?

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Packed with interesting and relevant articles and resources Modern English Teacher offers support to teachers who want to apply the latest research to their teaching practice and have their own CPD programme, all in one place.

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Visit www.modernenglishteacher.com to explore further. Save more with a 2 or 3 year subscription. For more information contact [email protected]

TECHNOLOGY

Five things you always wanted to know about

group messaging apps What are group messaging apps?

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How can I use one with my learners?

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your learners start using the app to organise social occasions among themselves, or to share links of interest, photos of themselves, and so on. You can also encourage the sharing of personal information, for example by asking them to post one photo with a caption of something interesting they did over the weekend. Learning more about each other is an important part of improving rapport within a class.

What about using the app for language work?

Set short, simple and achievable tasks in the app for your learners to do out of class, based on a vocabulary area or on a grammar point. For example, you could type a question in the group app and ask your learners to answer it in a single line. Use questions that are relevant to a current or recent language point, for example: What are you doing right now? Take a selfie and describe what you are doing in the caption. This practises the present continuous. Or: Tell us one thing you are going to do this weekend (going to for future plans). Or: What’s the biggest/ smallest object in your room? Take a photo and share it with the group (superlatives). Try to integrate some use of multimedia, eg by asking your learners to share a photo or a short audio recording. This makes it a lot more interesting for everyone. Other simple, language-based activities include sentence completion or word association on a specific vocabulary area.

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Group messaging (or ‘texting’) apps can be used by a group of people to share messages via their smartphones. While SMS texting allows individuals to communicate, a group messaging app allows an individual to communicate with a group, and also to share photos, audio and video easily with that group. Currently, two of the best-known group messaging apps are WhatsApp (www.whatsapp.com) and Telegram (https://telegram.org). However, to create a group in either of these apps, you first need to add people to the contacts list in your phone – and for this, you need their telephone numbers. If sharing telephone numbers if not advisable, a group messaging app like GroupMe (https:// groupme.com) will enable your learners to join a group via a single code, with no exchange of telephone numbers needed.

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(but were too afraid to ask)

In this series, Nicky Hockly explains aspects of technology which some people may be embarrassed to confess that they don’t really understand. In this article, she looks at how to use messaging apps with groups of learners.

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Once you’ve created a group for your learners in your chosen app, think about how you’d like to use it, and plan out several weeks of activities as a trial period. There are essentially three main ways to use a group messaging app with learners: for administrative purposes, for developing rapport and for language development. Keep in mind that it’s most effective to set short but regular activities in the app for out-of-class work. You don’t want your learners to feel that the group messaging app is forcing them to do yet more tedious homework!

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How and why would I use one for administrative purposes?

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You could use the app to remind your learners about homework, exam dates, deadlines for essays or projects, or for things like a class cancellation or a change of room. You can also share links to online resources and images (for example of a class schedule) via the app. The advantage of using a group messaging app over email, is that the learners are likely to receive the information immediately and, in most cases, they are more likely to actually look at the information. Email is much easier to ignore!

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How can using a group messaging app contribute to class rapport? How about doing something simple, such as using the app to celebrate your learners’ birthdays? Find out the dates of all your learners’ birthdays at the beginning of a new course (assuming they don’t mind). Post a Happy Birthday message to each learner on their birthday, in the app. You will find that the rest of the class will join in with congratulatory messages. Make sure that you don’t forget any of their birthdays, though! You may also find that

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t t t Before you start using a group messaging app with your learners, though, ask them what they think about the idea and whether they would like to try it out. Set a timeframe (eg a month) and then ask for feedback on the experience to date. Based on this feedback, adjust your use of the app. Getting buy-in from your learners at the beginning, and then listening to their feedback, will make the project much more likely to succeed! n Nicky Hockly is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E, an online teacher training and development consultancy. She is the prize-winning author of several books about language teaching and technology, most recently Focus on Learning Technologies (OUP). and ETpedia Technology (Pavilion). The Consultants-E (www.theconsultants-e. com), offers online educational technology training courses for English language teachers. [email protected]

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TECHNOLOGY

Webwatcher

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ideo is everywhere, and the amount we create and consume is rising at an incredible rate. You will doubtless have noticed more and more video content being used in education, and the signs are that its use with students will continue to grow.

conversational style); Voice (it is better if the narration is not delivered by a machine, but by a friendly human voice).

Design Other researchers have focused more on the design of the videos. Birgit Loch and Catherine McLoughlin looked at the principles of self-regulated learning theory and made a series of suggestions about the stages which should be included in a video:

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Intuitively, most of us feel that video is a great way of delivering learning material, but is there any research that shows that students retain more information through video than they do, say, by looking at pictures and reading a text? The answer is yes.

Planning and goal setting: Provide an overview of the content at the start of the video and activate prior knowledge, perhaps by giving a context.

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Reflecting on self-knowledge and task achievement: This might include things like asking the students to think of questions that were not answered by the video, getting them to reflect on what they have learnt or perhaps asking them to prepare questions on what they would like clarified. The work of Loch and McLoughlin and the guidelines laid down by Richard Mayer can help us to think about the way we approach creating video content.

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Richard Mayer describes a number of experiments which compared different ways of delivering information. In one, he took two groups of students, and presented the first group with a series of slides, each of which had both text and pictures on them. These students, therefore, had to look at the pictures and read a text associated with them. The second group saw a series of slides with the same pictures, but there was no text on them: the text was delivered as an audio commentary instead. When, later, both groups were asked to recall the information from the text, the second group remembered more than the first. A further interesting point was that the students in the first group could not remember the pictures they had been looking at, because they had put all their attention into reading the text. The second group recalled the pictures more easily, as they didn’t have to read anything, but just listened to the commentary as they looked at the pictures.

Monitoring processes and metacognitive control: Ask the students to think about what they hope to get from watching the video, and make sure that at key points in it there are questions or maybe even tasks set for them to do.

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Dual channels Video offers a combination of both visual and oral information, so not all the content is being transmitted through just one channel. Allan Paivio refers to video content as ‘dual-coded information’, as part of it is received through the aural channel and part through the visual channel. The basic argument is that each channel has limited capacity and can easily be overloaded, so by using two channels to deliver information, there is less chance of cognitive overload.

Russell Stannard explores why we like video so much.

Principles

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Mayer went on to examine a range of issues that might have an impact on the amount of information students recall after a video presentation. He then outlined a series of principles to consider when either creating or using video. These have had considerable influence on the design of video content for education. Mayer’s principles are: Coherence (it is important not to have distractors on the screen – eg pictures not associated with the narration or text); Redundancy (people learn better from visuals and narration rather than visuals and text); Temporal contiguity (it is important for the narration and visuals to be presented simultaneously); Segmenting (videos should be presented in short segments, rather than as one continuous video); Multimedia (people learn better if they have access to words and pictures, rather than words alone); Personalisation (people learn better if the narration is in a

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Student-created videos More and more teachers now get their students to create videos, using their smartphones or free screen-capture technology like Screen Cast-o-Matic. Student-created videos often involve higher-order thinking skills: the students can record themselves giving a presentation, doing interviews, reflecting on a lesson, talking about how they approach learning English, discussing a topic, etc. These types of activities get the students processing and using knowledge. They often require a bit of creativity in the way they are set up, but they can be very rewarding. n Loch, B and McLoughlin, C ‘An instructional design model for screencasting: engaging students in self-regulated learning’ In Williams, G, Statham, P, Brown, N and Cleland, B (Eds) Changing Demands, Changing Directions Proceedings Ascilite Hobart 2011 Mayer, R E Multimedia Learning CUP 2009 Mayer, R E and Moreno, R ‘Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning’ Educational Psychologist 38 (1) 2003 Paivio, A Mental Representations OUP 1986 Russell Stannard is the founder of www.teachertrainingvideos.com, which won a British Council ELTons award for technology. He is a freelance teacher and writer and also a NILE Associate Trainer. Keep sending your favourite sites to Russell: [email protected]

Issue 115 • March 2018

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Not only, but also • • • Chia Suan Chong looks at what English teachers teach apart from language. In this issue, she looks at communication skills.

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When dealing with the subject of culture in the classroom, we must be careful not to reduce it to over-simplified cultural stereotypes: merely identifying the practices, eg the festivals or foods, of certain countries. In order to truly help our students manage diversity in an international arena, we must first foster an environment conducive to reflection, developing self-awareness of how we communicate and the ability to see how our perceptions of things around us are subject to multiple factors, which are heavily influenced by our upbringing, our cultural norms and our resulting values and beliefs.

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Alongside the cultivation of self-awareness should be the development of a curiosity and an understanding of how others might see the world and the values and beliefs that underlie their norms and expectations. Through the use of critical incidents, case studies and different cultural frameworks, we can help our students consider how they can adapt to and accommodate the people they encounter when communicating in English internationally.

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When our students use English in the future, they will most probably be using it to communicate with people who do not share their mother tongue. These could be people whose first language is English or people with a different L1. They are likely to be from a different country, community or cultural background.

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So what does teaching communication skills actually comprise? Effective communication is about being clear, getting your message across, ensuring your intentions are not misunderstood, listening actively, asking questions and clarifying when necessary. Communication is also very much about interpersonal skills: the ability to build relationships, create trust, give and receive feedback in a productive and cooperative manner, deal with misunderstanding and collaborate with others who are different from ourselves.

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might not enjoy the same level of success when used at a street stall in Hong Kong. When communicating across cultures, there is the possibility that our attempts to build trust and intimacy might seem inappropriate; our efforts to give constructive feedback might be perceived as aggressive; our enthusiasm might appear overly-informal and false; and our bids to resolve misunderstanding might be seen as confrontational.

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It might seem obvious that language teachers should also be teaching their students the skills of communicating effectively. However, this is not always the case. While the right grammar and vocabulary can go a long way towards helping our students communicate, mastery of the technical side of the English language in no way equates to being an excellent communicator.

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Our students will most likely be interacting with people different from themselves: people with different values and attitudes, practices, norms and expectations. Such diversity increases the likelihood of misunderstanding and miscommunication, making it all the more important to ensure that our students are equipped with skills that could smooth and facilitate the communication process.

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Chia Suan Chong has been ETp’s resident blogger since 2012, and you can find out more about communication skills on her blog at etprofessional.co.uk. [email protected]

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The interpersonal skills that we may have developed in our own communities might work for us when dealing with people who share our language, or our norms or beliefs, but our tried and tested ways of making small talk at our local post office in Oxford

Perhaps with an increased communicative and intercultural competence, our students might come to see that accurate use of grammar and vocabulary is not all that contributes to their ability to communicate effectively in English.

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Issue 115 • March 2018

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www.natecla.org.uk

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Conference Aston, Aston University, Birmingham

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Friday 6th & Saturday 7th July 2018 Don’t miss this leading event in the ESOL teaching calendar!

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Stimulating plenaries - exciting guest speakers from the field of English Language Teaching.

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Extensive resources exhibition with leading publishers, exam bodies and ELT training providers.

Main sponsor:

Supporting sponsors:

Inspiring workshops - practical teaching, materials development, resources, research and more. Invaluable networking opportunities, delicious food & informal, friendly social activities.

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