English Teaching Magazine

TEACHINGENGLISHENGLISHTEACHINGprofessionalprofessional

Issue 85 March

2013

• practical methodology

• fresh ideas & innovations

• classroom resources

• new technology

• teacher development

• tips & techniques

• photocopiable materials

• competitions & reviews

The Leading Practical Magazine For English Language Teachers Worldwide

The coursebook as trainerPeter Levrai

Demand-high teachingJim Scrivener and Adrian Underhill

Let there be light!Steve Brown

Focus on fluencyDiana Mazgutova

w w w . e t p r o f e s s i o n a l . c o m

BUSINESS ENGLISH PROFESSIONAL

THE NEXT BIG THING? 49Reet Soosaar provides her students with hands-onexperience of project management

DIFFERENTIATION IN THE 52BUSINESS ENGLISH CLASSROOMLouis Rogers caters for individual needs

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF GRAMMAR 61Ken Milgate thinks we need to get our grammatical house in order

KEEPING A REFLECTIVE 63TEACHING JOURNALDominick Inglese promotes professional reflection

TECHNOLOGY

TWEET, TWEET! 66Lesley Lanir has a taste for Twitter

WEBWATCHER 70Russell Stannard explains what Dropbox can do

FIVE THINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO 71KNOW ABOUT: DIGITAL LITERACIESNicky Hockly explores some new skills we now need

REGULAR FEATURES

TALKBACK 20

LANGUAGE LOG 40John Potts

IT WORKS IN PRACTICE 42

SCRAPBOOK 54

REVIEWS 58

COMPETITIONS 41, 72

INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION FORM 32

MAIN FEATURE

THE COURSEBOOK AS TRAINER 4Peter Levrai identifies a symbiotic relationship betweenmaterials writers and teachers

FEATURES

SMALL WORDS, BIG PROBLEMS 9Isabel Haller-Gryc believes a deeper understanding of determiners is desirable

FABLES AND FAIRYTALES 13James Venema finds folktales a fabulous resource

DEMAND-HIGH TEACHING 16Jim Scrivener and Adrian Underhill wonder whether we are aiming high enough

LET THERE BE LIGHT! 18Steve Brown shines his torch on Underhill and Maley’s‘dark matter’

LIGHTENING THE LEXICAL LOAD 26Samuel Barclay gives his students a break

TESTING, TESTING, 1 2 1 28Emily Edwards assesses the assessment of individualstudents

FOCUS ON FLUENCY 34Diana Mazgutova suggests strategies for stepping-upspeaking skills

FROM RESEARCH TO REALITY 2 38Magnus Coney finds that timing is key to remembering

OVER THE WALL 46Alan Maley charts the changing nature of reading

IN IT UP TO YOUR EARS 2 56Mark Hancock creates his own listening materials

TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

SAVING THE PLANET (IN ENGLISH) 22Betka Pislar awakens her students’ ecological awareness

KEEP QUIET! 24Laura Besley indicates that hand signals are helpful for class control

Contents

• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 85 March 2013 • 1

Contents

Includes materials designed to photocopy

ˆ

Editorial

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Helena GommEditor


Editorial

Rayford House, School Road, Hove BN3 5HX, UK

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Pages 27, 30–31, 39 and 54–55 include materials which are designed to photocopy. All other rights are reserved and no part of this publicationmay be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

2 • Issue 85 March 2013 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

Just the other day, I received an email from

someone who wanted to have an article published

in English Teaching Professional, which he

described as a ‘leading trade magazine’. I was surprised,

if not a little shocked, by this description, but it set me

thinking about the ways in which English teaching is a

profession rather than a trade, and about all those

people who have contributed to its status as such.

In the same week that I got this email, I was sent details

of International House’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

Over this long period, the staff and trustees of IH have

worked tirelessly to improve the level of teaching and

training all over the world, maintaining the outstanding

reputation secured by the founders, John and Brita

Haycraft. I thought of all the people who have been

through the doors of IH. Some are now well-known

figures in the world of ELT; some are simply very good

teachers.

In January, Penny Ur and Simon Greenall were both

awarded an OBE for services to language teaching in the

Queen’s New Year Honours List, and it is good to see

people who have contributed so much to our profession

receiving official recognition. Interestingly, Penny Ur

wrote the main feature of Issue 2 of ETp, back in 1997.

Her title? ‘The English teacher as professional’.

In Peter Levrai’s main feature in this issue, you will meet

a teacher called Bob: not a high-flyer – not even, at first,

a teacher with a particular sense of vocation. Like many

before him, Bob drifted into language teaching at the

end of his university degree. But he liked what he found;

he developed his skills and he made teaching his life.

So let’s also raise a glass to the Bobs of our profession

and to the many unsung heroes who have made, and

continue to make, major contributions to the reputation

of English language teaching: the army of teachers,

trainers, materials writers – even editors – who see what

they do as so much more than a trade.

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M A I N F E A T U R E

The coursebookas trainerThe coursebookas trainer


Meet Bob

Love them or hate them,commercially producedcoursebooks are with us andwill remain with us for the

foreseeable future. As our professioncontinues to grow and evolve, so toomust these coursebooks and ourattitude to them.

Peter Levrai identifies

a key role for the commercial

coursebook.

Bob studied philosophy at universityand, when he graduated, he realisedthat the world was not beating downhis door to give him a job. A friend hadmentioned teaching overseas as anoption and, for want of anything betterto do, Bob signed up for a four-weekCELTA course and bravely stepped intothe unknown, armed with what littlegrammatical knowledge he couldremember from school (noun: namingword; verb: doing word; adjective:describing word).

The first school he worked for didn’thave a staff development programme –as long as the students weren’tstampeding down the stairs withcomplaints, everything must be goingOK. Nor were there many experiencedolder colleagues to learn from as therehad been a mass walk-out the yearbefore. But it was a great job: a bunchof new teachers with no idea what theywere doing, but doing it together.

His second school did runworkshops, whenever anyone could bebullied into running one. There was the‘warmers, fillers and coolers’ sessionfor when a teacher had five minutes tokill in a lesson. Then the ‘runningdictation’ session, which saw a rash ofsweaty students racing round thebuilding trying to find the slips of texton the walls for their particular lesson,made more complicated by the factthat virtually every teacher in thebuilding was doing the same activity at

the same time. A session on ‘listening’introduced music to the school,Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner being thego-to tune for teaching the presentcontinuous.

Fast-forward a few years, and Bobis still in the profession. He’s become aCambridge ESOL examiner and donesome in-company work, as well asworking as a senior tutor, then directorof studies. He’s put together a lot ofsupplementary material and somebusiness-oriented short courses. Ifasked about his teaching method, heprobably wouldn’t articulate it muchbeyond ‘communicative’ and, ifpressed, it’s unlikely he’d come out withan academically sound definition ofwhat that actually means. What hemeans by it is the importance of gettingthe students interested and gettingthem to talk to each other, getting themengaged with the topics andcomfortable expressing their ideas. He’snever been to a conference, picked upthe ELT Journal or TESOL Quarterly, ortaken the DELTA. Everything that he hasdone is based on that initial four-weekcourse and then the years ofexperience built on top of that.

He is also, by the way, an excellentteacher, his classroom the one that newteachers are sent to observe. Heconsistently gets very positive feedbackfrom students, who not only enjoy theirlessons but also develop their languageskills.


� � �

Bob is not representative of everyteacher, but he is by no means unique.Although many teachers spend yearslearning to teach English and extendingtheir qualifications, it is eminentlypossible for a native speaker to succeedin our profession (ie stay employed)without taking anything other thanentry-level ‘qualifications’. Dependingon the organisation you work for, theremay be no pressing need to be aware ofthe major debates dominating theindustry or to keep up-to-date with thelatest theories and principles proposedby the experts. Indeed, as Michael Swanconfesses on his website:

‘I feel bound to confess that, as Idrifted into English language teachingand applied linguistics with noprofessional training in these areas, Ihave no qualifications whatever for thework that I do. If I applied to myself fora job as a research assistant, I wouldhave to turn myself down.’

If this is the case – if teachers arenot necessarily informed by theory orqualifications – just how do theydevelop and grow as professionals?

CentralityPut simply, teachers develop theirprinciples and methodology by andlarge in the classroom. It’s notconferences, journals or academic textsthat directly inform teacher practice; it’swalking into a lesson and making it outthe other side, day after day. It’sdiscussions with colleagues, experienceswith classes, the different coursebooksand materials we use.

For a lot of teachers it is thecoursebook, more than anything else,which broadens their repertoire ofclassroom practice, which raises theirawareness of language, which providesthe basis for both what they teach andhow they teach. Indeed, in a lot of casesthe coursebook may be the only supporta teacher has when in front of a class ofstudents.

The centrality of teaching materialsis nothing new. Despite the debatewhich surrounds the issue of whethercoursebooks should be employed or not,teaching materials have always been withus, providing a scaffold for what happensin the classroom. They serve certainneeds, from helping structure andmanage a lesson, to providing a widerframework that the lesson fits into andserving as a map as to what will happen

in a course. So, too, do coursebooks savebusy teachers preparation time theymight not have and provide a basis thatstudents and teachers can use tonegotiate what they will study.

Coursebooks are often criticised forbeing methodologically unsound andfor failing to embrace the implicationsof the most up-to-date research. But onthe theoretical side, how can it bepossible to produce a course to keep thesociolinguists, genre analysts, corpuslinguists, multiple intelligence advocates,learning style gurus, post-methodeclectics, task-based-learningproponents, new grammarians and SLAtheorists happy? And on the practicalside, what material can serve the teacherstepping into their first-ever class inVietnam and an MA-qualified teacherin Spain with 20 years’ experiencebehind them? How can material connectwith the Iranian businessman trying tonegotiate a deal with his Chinesecounterparts and a Venezuelan nursehoping to emigrate to Canada?

This need to be for all the people allthe time, or at least judged by all thepeople all the time, is the central dilemmafor material developers. Whatevermaterial you produce, there is no way itcan reach universal acceptance. Ourknowledge of language acquisition andapproaches for encouraging acquisitionmost effectively are imperfect and,consequently, this means we can onlydevelop imperfect materials. Every choicewe make has the ‘opportunity cost’ ofthe myriad of other options not taken.

ConstraintsIf coursebooks as they are are inadequate,that means there has to be someinnovation to enable materials to fulfil therole they find themselves in. However, thisinnovation is more easily envisaged thanimplemented. Any significant change incoursebooks could meet resistance frompublishers, teachers and students. There

are also physical constraints limitinginnovation, ie there is linearity to a bookwhich to some extent imposes linearity onthe content. So while there is a need forinnovation, it is more likely that this willbe an evolution, rather than a revolution.

The obvious thing to look for is ane-solution, as digital platforms canescape the confines of the linear page.As Jonathan Turner states, e-learning is‘short, targeted, task-driven andepisodic’, which would seem in line withthe major trends in teaching at themoment. Using a digital platform,students can select the material theywant, to deal with whatever languagepoint or function is most relevant tothem at the time. This ‘pull system’counters many of the criticisms ofprinted coursebooks, in that there is noimposed syllabus and no assumptionsabout the stages of languageacquisition. Students can pull what theywant from the system, when they want,if indeed they recognise what they wantor, more pertinently, what they need.From Turner’s description, it seems as ifthe digital solution is the holy grailmany publishers are currently searchingfor. One concern with this is that whileresources are invested in thedevelopment of an e-solution, printedcoursebooks might well continue asthey always have, each generation arepetition of what was successful before.

ChoiceCuriously, when reading about teachingmethodology one encounters surprisinglylittle direct reference to second languageacquisition theory or developments inthe field of learner styles. Theorisingabout methods seems centred onteachers, while theorising on learning iscentred on learners. Obviously, SLA isin teaching method theories implicitly,in the call for learner autonomy, etc, butit leaves the materials developer caughtin a cacophony of competing voices,theories, proposals and techniques.

Theorising aboutmethods seems

centred on teachers,while theorising onlearning is centred

on learners

For a lot of teachers it is the coursebook, more than anything else, which broadenstheir repertoire ofclassroom practice

Section Content


� � � What is more, there is no one singlemethod which embodies the perfect wayto teach, nor are we ever likely to findone, as B Kumaravadivelu points out.This lack of a single solution is at thecore of the post-method movementwhere, rather than providing a methodfor teachers to follow, the aim is to ‘helppractising teachers develop their owntheory of practice’. Kumaravadiveluproposes that pedagogy be informed bywhat he terms macrostrategies, rangingfrom contextualising input topromoting autonomy, which the teacherthen puts into practice throughmicrostrategies they develop themselves.

Helping teachers develop their ownmethodology, and students their learnerstrategies, should, therefore, be at thecentre of modern teaching materials. Interms of choosing an approach ormethod, the material writer has to

abdicate responsibility. Crucially, it isn’ta choice that has to be made at thematerial generation stage but at thematerial activation stage by the teacher.What the material writer can do ischerry-pick from the methods of thepast. As Nigel Harwood points out, thematerials writer has to embrace pluralityand be aware that the coursebook shouldno longer represent a script to befollowed – it will be put into operationin different ways by different teachers indifferent contexts. Consequently,material writers need to make sure theirmaterials are flexible and open toadaptation. It is through this principle ofusing multiple approaches that a vitalstep in teacher development takes place.Exposure to different ideas and differenttechniques which can be employed toreach the same goal will lead to better-equipped teachers who can employalternative strategies if a planned activity

is not working or seems unsuitable for aparticular class and learning point. Sotoo can this multiplicity benefitstudents, who will also develop a widerrange of strategies they can use invarious learning situations.

ChallengeThere has to be space in materials, anawareness that they are not the be all andend all of what is needed. And ratherthan filling that space with an increasingrange of workbooks, CD-ROM activitiesand online extensions, perhaps whatwould be better is leaving the space as itis, in fact, encouraging learners andteachers to see the spaces, see what ismissing, and enable them to producelocal solutions.

The single biggest challenge thatcoursebooks have to overcome is thelimitation of pre-determined linearity,which is at odds with what we know oflanguage acquisition. The proposal ofthis article is that linearity can beovercome through offering choice. Acoursebook should be a collection ofinputs (texts, audio, video) with eachinput supported by a selection of tasksand activities to promote differentoutputs, drawing on various aspects ofteaching methodology and SLA theory.These activities could be categorised asshown below:

● Language exploration – activities todevelop understanding of meaningand context

● Focus on form – activities to raiseawareness of language structure andfunctions

● Vocabulary building – activities todevelop knowledge of lexical itemsand chunks

● Learner strategies – activities todevelop student strategies forprocessing and producing language

● Language production – activities tolead to student production, iediscussion, roleplay, writing

An initial needs analysis at the start of thebook could guide students and teacherstowards the categories of activity thatmight be most beneficial, and this couldbe revisited as the course continued.There would be no set prescription as towhich, if any, of the activities should bedone. and to overcome the concept oflinearity the book could be providedinto four sections, as follows:

In this way the advantages of e-learningcan be mimicked in print, allowingstudents and teachers to pull thesyllabus they want from the material,rather than having one imposed.

ConsiderationsCentral to the success of this type ofcoursebook would be the guidance inthe teacher’s book and students’ book.It’s not enough to offer choice: thepurpose of each option has to bearticulated clearly so teachers can makean informed evaluation of what mightbe most appropriate in their classroomand so the students themselves candetermine the most effective ways forthem to engage in the process ofimproving their English, according totheir learning style or learningpreferences. More than a languagecourse, the suggestion is thatcoursebooks evolve into a languageacquisition skills training manual forboth teachers and students.

As to the input texts themselves,there will be a place for fully authenticmaterials (texts generated without theintention of use in the ELT classroom)but authenticity in and of itself is notthe most important consideration.There will also be scope for materialswhich have been enriched to highlight aparticular feature or make it moreaccessible to learners. It’s not so much aquestion as to whether the inputs areauthentic or fabricated, so much as howengaging they are and if they are trulyrepresentative of the language thestudents will have to deal with.

There has to be space in materials, an awareness that they are not the

be all and end all of what is needed

A Input written text, audio, texts picture or video

inputs

B Suggested activities to go withactivities specific input texts

C Template activities to be usedactivities either with any of the

input texts or with texts sourced locally by the students or teachers

D Reference grammar referencebank and genre models

for writing

The coursebookas trainerThe coursebookas trainer

[email protected]

Peter Levrai has beenteaching overseas since1995 and his main areaof interest is thedevelopment of tailoredtraining solutions. Theauthor of a coursebookused in the oil industry,he has recently beendeveloping an academicpresentation course.

As a practical example, look backat the story of Bob at the start of

this article. Its purpose was to highlightthe disconnect many teachers have fromthe theoretical debates at the heart ofour profession, but if we consider itnow as an input text, it lends itself toexploitation in different ways:

● Perhaps we might want to focus onthe use of idiom, or the use of tensesin narratives.

● University students might want toconsider the appropriacy of thelanguage for an academic paper andperhaps rewrite it in a more formallyacademic style.

● There could be a discussion (pre- orpost-reading) as to what makes agood teacher.

● Students could be encouraged toreflect on how their educationprepared them for what they aredoing at the moment, or how theyhope it will benefit them in the future.

● There could be a reflection on thetypes of classroom activity studentsfind useful, raising awareness oflearning styles and kinaestheticlearning.

● It could be used to open a discussionon how people plan their careers, orthe importance of life-long learning.

Many possible activities spring from asingle item of input and it is impracticalto do them all. However, rather thanmaking the choice themselves, thematerials writer should present themany, leaving the all-important choiceas to which activities to do to thestakeholders in the context.

ConsequencesThis positioning of material as a sourceof teacher development has majorimplications for the materials writer. Ifteachers do not have a ‘method’ whichthey impose on material, then the

methodology of the materials itselftakes on even greater significance.Rather than teachers simply being themediator of the coursebook, goingthrough the activities in a pre-determined way and the studentsfollowing along, the relationship has tobecome more dynamic, with thecoursebook offering a buffet of options,but the actual decisions as to what isconsumed determined in the classroom.

At most, coursebooks are ajumping-off point for teachers andlearners and, as such, their primefunction should be enabling the learningexperience to blossom outside the scopeof the materials. This can be achieved byawareness-raising, for both teachers andlearners. That is not to say materialsnecessarily need lengthy explicitexplanations of the theories whichinform them but, through the promotionof different types of task and activity,they can enable the teachers and learnersto exploit any input or situation forlanguage acquisition purposes.

� � �

In sum, when writing the coursebook ofthe future, it becomes less a case ofwhat language the coursebook teachesand much more an issue of how well itencourages teachers to refine theirteaching techniques and students todevelop their learner strategies.


Harwood, N ‘Issues in materialdevelopment and design’ In Harwood, N(Ed) English Language Teaching Materials:Theory and Practice CUP 2010

Kumaravadivelu, B ‘TESOL methods:changing tracks, challenging trends’TESOL Quarterly 40 (1) 2006

Swan, M www.mikeswan.co.uk/elt-applied-linguistics

Turner, J ‘Can commercially producedblended materials be globallysuccessful?’ Keynote Presenters 56 2009

The positioning of material as a source of teacher

development has majorimplications for thematerials writer

!

TALKBACK!TALKBACK!

ENGLISH TEACHING professionalPavilion Publishing and Media Ltd,Rayford House, School Road,

Hove BN3 5HX, UK

Fax: +44 (0)1273 227308Email: [email protected]

This is your magazine.We want to hear from you!

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 published

contributions receive a prize! Write to us or email:

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IT WORKS IN PRACTICE�


Do you have something to say about an article in the current issue of ETp? This is your magazine and we would

really like to hear from you. Write to us or email:

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Writing for ETpWould you like to write for ETp? We arealways interested in new writers and fresh ideas. For guidelines and advice,

write to us or email:

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It really worked for me!

Did you get inspired by something you read in ETp? Did you do

something similiar with your students? Did it really work in practice?

Do share it with us ...

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ETp


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G R A M M A R

Small words, big problemsSmall words, big problemsIsabel Haller-Gryc activates an appreciation of the use of articles.

Although determiners, whichinclude articles, are littlewords, they can cause bigproblems for learners of

English. Choosing the proper article ordeterminer to precede a noun is usuallyquite simple for native speakers.However, for those whose L1 is notEnglish, this simple task can hampertheir mastery of the language; yet manygrammar books fail to provide adequatepractice of this skill.

An unhelpful drillThe following excerpt from a drill activityfor practising articles is a typical exampleof a grammar practice book exercise:

This activity requires the students todecide between four choices (sometimesmore if other determiners or quantifiersare included) but often leaves themguessing rather than truly understandingwhich is the correct answer. Furthermore,gap-fill activities like this imply that only

one choice is correct, and disregard thefact that article choice is reliant on otherfactors and may vary from person toperson. This can be seen best by lookingat Martha Kolln’s discussion regardingchoosing determiners. She presents thefollowing paragraph and poses thechallenge of inserting determiners infront of all the nouns that require them.

Dorothy was little girl who lived on farmin Kansas. Tornado struck farm andcarried her over rainbow to land ofMunchkins. Soon afterwards she metscarecrow who wanted brain, tin manwho wanted heart, and lion who wantedcourage. On way to Emerald City fourfriends met wicked witch who cast spellon them in field of flowers. Witch wantedmagic shoes that Dorothy was wearing.When they reached city, as you recall,they met wizard. Story has happy ending.

If several people completed thisparagraph, their versions would mostlikely not be exactly the same,demonstrating that article usagedepends on perspective and context,and not always on rules.

Merely relying on gap-fill activitiescan be problematic, especially forstudents at beginning levels, for thefollowing reasons:

● Article usage often depends oncontext rather than rules andsometimes not enough context isgiven to help the students make aneffective choice.

● Gap-fill activities often lead studentsto believe that an article is requiredand they often forget that just

because there is a blank, it doesn’tmean they have to complete it with anarticle: there are many situationswhen no article is needed.

● Gap-fill activities do not promotecritical thinking (especially if nodiscussion follows the activity);instead, they may promote guessing.

● Gap-fill activities do not offerexamples of correct article usage innatural language.

To help students become moresuccessful in dealing with articles and tohelp them understand the patterns andexceptions, a better approach thateliminates the need to choose – but,instead, has the students analysereading passages to determine why thearticles in the text were chosen – will bepresented here.

A more helpful approachBefore a lesson on articles can begin, it isimportant that the students understandsome concepts related to nouns. First,they must be able to identify countable/uncountable nouns, singular/pluralnouns and common/proper nouns. Thisunderstanding is crucial, as studentsneed to be aware, for example, that everysingular countable (common) noun musthave some kind of determiner in front ofit (eg a possessive or an article). Anotherinstance of the importance of theseconcepts is illustrated by the fact that aand an can only be used with countablenouns, whereas the, which is slightlymore versatile, can be used withcountable and uncountable nouns but

Choose the correct definite orindefinite article: the, a, an or x(zero article).

1 I saw _______ cat. ________ catwas being chased by _______ dog.

2 Please meet me at ______ trainstation in _____ hour from now.

3 My father won _______ award forbeing _________ fastest runner inhis school.

4 I bought _______ new coat, but_______ sleeves are too short.

� � �


[email protected]

Isabel Haller-Gryc iscurrently the K-8 ESLSpecialist for thePullman School Districtin Pullman, Washington,USA. She previouslyserved as the CurriculumCoordinator and aninstructor at WashingtonState University’sIntensive AmericanLanguage Center. Sheholds an MA in TESLfrom the University ofIdaho, and has over 12years of experience inteaching ESL.

not with most singular proper nouns. Itis clear from these few examples thatunderstanding nouns is crucial tounderstanding how to use articles.

Once these features related to nounsare understood, a discussion of how todetermine ‘definiteness’ must follow.Many grammar books use the termsdefinite and indefinite and thisterminology can be very confusing forstudents, so explaining what they meanis necessary.

Indefinite articles a/an refer to nounswhich are unknown to the listener orreader when they are first used in aconversation or story. The definitearticle the is used for nouns that havealready been introduced and are alreadyknown or understood. Students usuallyhave no problem understanding thedefinition of indefinite articles versusdefinite: determining what is known orunknown is the difficult part. So at thispoint the sources of definiteness need tobe explained. John Kohl lists these as:

1 The noun has been previouslymentioned.

2 A superlative or ranking adjectivemakes the noun’s identity specific.

3 The noun describes a unique person,place or thing.

4 A modifying word, phrase or clausefollows the noun and makes it clearwhich specific person or thing you arereferring to.

5 The context or situation makes thenoun’s identity clear.

After attributes related to nouns and basic‘rules’ that apply to articles have beenpresented, the students should at least, forinitial practice, be directed to analysereading passages instead of completinggap-fill activities. The following processworks well to encourage discussion andcritical thinking.

ProcedureAssign a simple reading passage thathas lots of nouns that appear with andwithout articles. Have the students gothrough the text and underline all thenouns. Then have them go back throughand highlight all the articles, if possibleusing a different colour for each

different type of article (a, an, the).Once all nouns and articles have beenidentified, put the students in pairs orgroups to discuss each noun. If it doesnot have an article, a reason must begiven (eg it’s a singular proper noun ora plural indefinite common noun). If itdoes have an article in front of it, then,again, the students must explain why.

The short paragraph above and theexplanations that follow demonstratethis process.

This example does not represent allthe situations that students willencounter, but is meant to show theprocess of this approach. This process ishelpful because it provides an exampleof a text that already has correctlyplaced articles, and it requires thestudents to think critically about whyeach article (or lack of article) iscorrect. When implementing thisactivity, you should select passages thathave varied article use to maximise theopportunities for discussion.

� � �

Even advanced learners find choosingwhich article to place before a noun adaunting task. However, grammar

books are filled with endless gap-fillactivities that require students to dothis. Offering an activity that promotesdiscussion can help the studentsunderstand the thought processinvolved in choosing articles and toappreciate that although article usage ispartly determined by rules, the contextand the shared knowledge of those whoare participating in the communicationalso play a key role.

Kohl, J R ‘Article usage’www.rpi.edu/web/writingcenter/esl.html

Kolln, M Rhetorical Grammar:Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects(4th ed) Pearson Education 2003

Explanations1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15 and 17We do not normally use an article withcity names, state names and people’snames.

6 We use the definite article with asuperlative adjective.

7 We use the definite article with placenames that are plural.

11 We use an indefinite article with asingular countable noun when the nounis just ‘one of many’ and is thereforeindefinite.

13 and 14 When a place name is the

name of a geographical region, we usethe definite article.

16 We do not normally use an articlewith university names. *If the word of ispart of the name (eg the University ofNorth Carolina), we need to use the.

18 We use an indefinite article with asingular countable noun when the nounis just ‘one of many’ and is thereforeindefinite. We use an because it isbefore a vowel sound

19 We use the definite article the whena noun has been mentioned previously.

Small words, big problemsSmall words, big problems

Isabel Haller is from Monroe, New York, which is located about 50 miles north of 1 2 3

New York City. New York City is the largest city in the United States.4 5 6 7

Now Isabel lives in Pullman, Washington, which is a small town in southeastern 8 9 10 11

Washington in the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. Pullman is home to12 13 14 15

Washington State University. Isabel works as an ESL Instructor at the university.16 17 18 19

ETp


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I N T H E C L A S S R O O M

Fables and fairytalesFables and fairytales

A closer look at the morals of the stories can uncover

very different and oftensurprising messages

James Venema

suggests we surprise

ourselves and our students

with some very special

stories.

be based on modern versions and on acultural filtering that can leave out lesserknown, and occasionally less digestible,stories. Furthermore, a closer look at themorals of the stories – explicit in the caseof most fables and usually implicit in thecase of fairytales – can uncover verydifferent and often surprising messages.

Both the familiarity of fables andfairytales and their ability to surprisepresent opportunities to facilitatereading, listening and discussion in theEnglish classroom.

‘There can be no good fable withhuman beings in it. There can be nogood fairytale without them.’ (G K Chesterton)

There are probably few places inthe world which have not beenpermeated by fables andfairytales. A teacher need only

show an image from The Tortoise and theHare or write the word Cinderella on theboard to start students from Germany toJapan, from Greece to Mexico, off on thestories. This familiarity is an obviousadvantage in facilitating reading and/orlistening comprehension that manyteachers may already be taking advantageof. However, some of this familiarity may

Fables‘So in all the fables that are or are notAesop’s, all the animal forces drive likeinanimate forces, like great rivers orgrowing trees. It is the limit and theloss of all such things that they cannotbe anything but themselves: it is theirtragedy that they could not lose theirsouls.’ (G K Chesterton)

While fables may be common to manycultures and languages, one cannotbegin a discussion on fables withoutreference to Aesop. Yet there remainquestions and controversy regarding theauthor of the original Greek fables.Most historians attribute the fables (orthe majority of them) to Aesop, a slavein the ancient republics of Greece, bornaround the sixth century BC and laterfreed – as a reward, perhaps, fordazzling audiences and readers with hisstories. Whether he is real or fictional,the author or the collector of fables, thesole author or one of many, does not,for our purposes, really matter. Thepower of these fables to entertain andinstruct remains.

The fables are typically short andalmost always contain animal characters.There are normally three parts: thesituation in brief, a choice of action and,finally, the result and evaluation. Theevaluation, whether overtly written orimplied, is key as the stories are primarilyvehicles for instruction. Therein lies therationale for animal characters. Whereaswith humans it might be difficult torefrain from assuming complexity inmotives and character, the animals


� � � remain trapped within their owncharacterisations. A lion will always bestrong and ruthless; a fox cunning andspiteful; a crow silly and vain. Whereanimal characters try to change whoand what they are, the inevitable resultis failure and, often, their downfall.

The morals are by reputationtimeless and universal, but can also bejarring to the modern liberal mind.Thus, the lovesick lion who stripshimself of claws and teeth to satisfy theprotective father of the girl he adores isthen sent scornfully packing with abrandished club by the same father inThe Lion in Love. The wolf, afterrepeatedly failing to find an excuse toabsolve his conscience, goes ahead anddevours the helpless lamb in The Wolfand the Lamb. And the farmer’s gooddeed in nursing a snake back to healthis rewarded with a fatal bite in TheFarmer and the Viper. The overall themeis clear: the world is a dangerous placethat is divided into the weak and thestrong, and one must use cunning andbe street-smart to survive. Foolishidealism and wishful thinking can onlyresult in one’s own downfall.

Fairytales‘Self-sacrifice becomes the prudentcourse of action [in fairytales]. There isa puzzling irony here. The tales implythat it is wrong to set greater value onwealth than on goodness, yet materialrewards are given to those who setthe least store in them.’ (P Gila Reinstein)

The origins of fairytales can be traced tofolklore. The literary fairytale with whichwe are most familiar evolved from oralfolktales to a written genre, becomingmost famous in the works of Perrault inFrance, the Grimm brothers in Germanyand Andersen in Denmark. In thetwentieth century they underwent anothermetamorphosis – or ‘Disneyfication’, ifyou will – in modern animated film. Inaddition, movies and children’s booksoffer further versions, often adapted so asto be more palatable to modern westernvalues. The original stories from whichthe fairytales are derived were often notintended for younger, more sensitive ears.

Thus, in an earlier version of Little RedRiding Hood published by Paul Delarue,called The Story of Grandmother, theheroine unwittingly cannibalises hergrandmother, strips off and burns herclothes and climbs into bed with the wolf,before finally engineering her own escapeby protesting the need to relieve herself.And in an earlier version of SleepingBeauty, called Sun, Moon and Talia, byGiambattista Basile, instead of ahandsome prince and a chaste kiss, weencounter a rather sordid king who,upon encountering the sleeping beauty‘gathered the fruits of love and left herlying there’, only to return much later tofind her miraculously awake and withtwo children. The king ‘redeems’ himselfby stepping in at the last minute toprotect the sleeping beauty from thevengeance of his bloodthirsty queen,intent on serving the girl and thechildren to her husband for dinner!

Stories like this (particularly thesuggestive parts) were deemed unfitting asthe fairytale evolved into a written genrespecifically aimed at children. Therefore,

in updated versions of Rapunzel by theGrimm brothers, Rapunzel’s deceit isuncovered by a slip of the tongue ratherthan the tightness of her clothes,indicative of pregnancy. Somewhatsurprising to the modern reader is howmuch violence survived the editingprocess. Thus, Cinderella’s sisters, in theGrimm brothers’ version, cut off theirown toes and heels to fit into the slipper,only to have their deceit uncovered bythe blood dripping from their shoes;and they are subsequently rewarded fortheir ill-treatment of Cinderella byhaving their eyes pecked out by birds onher wedding day. And the heroine ofAndersen’s The Little Mermaid suffershaving her tongue cut out in order tobecome human. Of course, these partsof the story didn’t survive the editingboard of the Disney writers.

Whereas fables offer a cynical visionof a world where only the cunning andruthless survive, fairytales rewardmeekness and obedience in their femalecharacters with magical rewards. Thus,Cinderella’s humility and stoicism in the

Fables and fairytalesFables and fairytales

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[email protected]

James Venema iscurrently an AssociateProfessor and teachercoordinator at NagoyaWomen’s University inJapan. He is interestedin curriculumdevelopment as wellas the development ofprofessionalcommunities ofteachers.


face of bullying and taunting by herstepsisters and stepmother is rewardedby the intervention of a fairygodmother or, in the Grimm version, amagical tree and birds. Charm isrewarded over cunning. Self-sacrifice isrewarded over cynicism. And magicprevails over all obstacles.

The ELT classroomFables such as The Tortoise and theHare, and the moral they convey, may befamiliar to most readers, but select fablesstill have the ability to surprise withtheir cynicism. Three notable fables arealready cited above and can be foundonline at the Project Gutenberg Ebookof Aesop’s Fables (www.gutenberg.org/files/11339/11339-h/11339-h.htm). Aquick perusal will uncover more fablesconveying the same rather harsh worldview. Since fables, as well as fairytales,have been around more than longenough to avoid copyright law, teachersare free to copy and paste (and evenadapt) the stories to suit their students’needs. Indeed, while fables are short, thelanguage tends to be literary and dated,so some gentle rewriting can make themmuch more accessible to lower-levelreaders. Fables, with their short simple

stories and standard format, are anideal form to inspire prediction,storytelling or some creativerevisionism. Before telling a fable orgetting their students to read it, teachersmight consider presenting the studentswith a picture from which they can pre-tell the fable. There are some high-quality illustrated editions of Aesop’sfables, such as that by Charles Santore.Those teachers without access to sucheditions can always search online forpictures, and will typically findthemselves with a wealth of images tochoose from. Where students areuncomfortable with the moral of thefables, they can be encouraged to revisethem to alter the message. There aresome examples online, my favourite(despite the inaccurate subtitles) being aYouTube video revision of The Ant andthe Grasshopper at www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKFsnfK0Ao0.Fairytales, because of the prevalence

of watered-down versions in modernmass media, offer an even greateropportunity to surprise or shockmodern readers. A number of examplesare already noted above. For more

examples, Folk and Fairytales, edited byMartin Hallett and Barbara Karasek,offers a wonderful anthology of classicfairytales and folktales, as well as worldstories that bear a striking resemblanceto their European cousins. Many of thestories are also available online and canbe easily adapted by teachers to makethem more accessible to students. Thereare, of course, more modern versions ofthe classic fairytale available, such as thepost-feminist interpretation in theillustrated children’s book The PaperBag Princess, or the more recentrevisions as graphic novels in the seriesby Stone Arch Books. Whereverdifferent versions of fairytales arefound, there is the opportunity to askstudents to compare and contrast, andperhaps choose their favourite version.

Fairytales are abundant in film,from early animated versions such assome of the Betty Boop films by MaxFleischer (where copyright is also void)– if you can stand the sexism– to theubiquitous Disney films, to morecreative works, such as those based onLittle Red Riding Hood: Neil Jordan’sThe Company of Wolves and thebeautiful short film Little Red RidingHood by David Kaplan (based on themore shocking original story by PaulDelarue). Hollywood’s fondness forfairytale adaptations shows no sign ofabating, with the release in 2012 of twoadaptations of Snow White, entitledMirror, Mirror and Snow White and theHuntsman. For a thorough reference offairytale and film (up to 2011), TheEnchanted Screen by Jack Zipes is anexcellent resource.Students can also be asked to

compare and contrast the messages offables and fairytales. Which genrestudents prefer as a vehicle forinstructing children may depend on theirsocioeconomic status, at least accordingto an article by Reinstein. She writes

Chesterton, G K In Vernon Jones, V SAesop’s Fables: A New Translation AvenelBooks 1912

Hallett, M and Karasek, B (Eds) Folk andFairytales Broadview Press 2011

Jordan, N (director) The Company ofWolves 1984

Kaplan, D (director) Little Red RidingHood 1997

Munsch, R and Martchenko, M ThePaper Bag Princess Annick Press 2007

Reinstein, P G ‘Aesop and Grimm:contrast in ethical codes andcontemporary values’ Children’sLiterature in Education 14 (1) 1983

Sanders, R (director) Snow White and theHuntsman 2012

Santore, C (illustrator) Aesop’s FablesDilithium Press 1988

Sing, T (director) Mirror, Mirror 2012

Zipes, J The Enchanted Screen: TheUnknown History of Fairytale FilmsRoutledge 2011

Fables, with their short simple stories and standard format, are an ideal form toinspire prediction,storytelling or somecreative revisionism

that inner-city adult students found thatAesop’s fables offered valuable lessonsin survival, and they disdained theimpractical, idealistic messages infairytales. Conversely, middle-classstudents from a state college foundAesop overly cynical and preferred thecloistered, more secure world offairytales for teaching valuable socialskills such as kindness, loyalty and love.

� � �

For teachers searching for authenticstories for the classroom, fables andfairytales may warrant a second look.Despite their ubiquity, or even becauseof it, they still retain the ability toentertain, enlighten and surprise. Asgenres with explicit or implicit messages,often undergoing revisions over time,there is also the opportunity forinterpretation, for comparison and fordiscussion – even for rewriting. So goback and dust off some of those‘children’s stories’: you just might besurprised by what you find. ETp



Demand-highteachingDemand-highteachingJim Scrivener and Adrian Underhill propose making learning visible.

In the Matrix series of films, theprotagonist, Neo, lives within ahappy lie – though he has doubtswhich he struggles to investigate.

When he is offered a choice betweentaking a blue pill (which will maintainthis illusion) and a red pill (that willallow him to see the underlying truth ofthings), he takes the red pill – andsuddenly realises that what seemed‘normal’ was just a front, an illusion, aPotemkin village.

Teachers, trainers and writers in ELTsometimes feel uneasy about aspects ofour work – and it can be difficult toknow whether and how to articulatethis. A magazine like this keeps offeringus red pills to wake us up. Here is one.

IllusionsMany would say that ELT now has awell-developed methodology, withsophisticated skill sets, techniques andactivities and an intelligent take on thelanguage and what should be taught.Our current methods ‘work’, teachersare friendly, lessons have been preparedto shared standards, materials arecolourful and interesting, methods are‘received contemporary’ (ie familiar andacceptable), activities are ‘interactive’and students happy. But have we takenour eye off something else?

Where is the detailed attention tothe learning going on in the learner, asopposed to the teaching going on in theteacher? Are our learners as fullychallenged as they can be? Are weteaching below the ‘learning level’ ofthe students, perhaps because of apreoccupation with something else?

Do our sophisticated coursebookssteer teachers towards attending to themechanics of task rather than to thelearning? We turn pages, check throughanswer lists, tick off syllabus items.Might we get lulled by an illusion thatlearning has been accomplished?

If you ask teachers ‘Are your studentschallenged to their full potential?’ theymay respond with ‘Perhaps not, but Idon’t want to push my students too hard’or ‘Perhaps not, but I don’t want to putthem in the spotlight or make them feelbad’ or ‘‘Perhaps not, but I am ahumanistic teacher and so I …’, etc. Itmay be that they are reacting againsttheir own experience of being pushedand demanded of, in ways that were nothelpful, engaging or enjoyable. But leavingaside unreasonable demand, what qualityof demand can we put in its place?

QuestionsAt the IATEFL conference in Glasgowin 2012, we started sowing a meme. Wecalled it demand-high teaching – but itcould have other names. It is the beginningof an inquiry. It isn’t fixed or concreteor certain – but it does take a stand and

argue. It isn’t a method or anti-method –but it has a view on how any method isapplied. We are proposing small tweaksto where we are, not wholesale reboots.

Our initial question is simple:

● Is whatever I do enabling my studentsto be challenged to their full humanlearning capacity?

Other questions swiftly follow from thisstarting point:

● What is my role in helping them to befully challenged? How can I tell whenthis is happening?

● Have the tasks and techniques I use inclass become rituals and ends inthemselves? Do I need to shiftpreoccupation from running asuccessful task to optimising learning?

● What small adjustments can I make tooptimise the doable demand on thestudents’ learning processes? What isthe minimum tweak necessary at anypoint in any lesson to shift an activityinto the challenge zone?

ProposalsHaving started asking these questions ofourselves, we want to invite others toask them of their own classes too. Wealso want to offer our own proposals,not as right answers or solutions, but asexperiments to be tried, tested,amended, rejected or improved. We’resuggesting that ways forward might beat three levels:

a) a shift of attitude: especially theexpectation that learners are capable ofmore than we typically ask of them;

Where is the detailedattention to the learninggoing on in the learner, as opposed to theteaching going on in the teacher?


[email protected]

Adrian Underhill is afreelance consultant and trainer, working onCPD, organisationaldevelopment andfacilitation skills. He is apast president of IATEFL,series editor of theMacmillan Books forTeachers series, andauthor of SoundFoundations and ThePronunciation App,published by Macmillan.His current interestsinclude the role ofimprovisation in teachingand leadership, andexploring and developingthe notions of ‘darkmatter’ in our lessons (see ETp Issue 82).

[email protected]

Jim Scrivener is Head of Teacher Developmentfor Bell. His publicationsinclude LearningTeaching (Macmillan), twobusiness coursebooks for OUP, Teacher’s Booksfor Straightforward(Macmillan), TeachingEnglish Grammar(Macmillan) andClassroom ManagementTechniques (CUP), whichwas overall winner of the HRH The Duke ofEdinburgh ESU EnglishLanguage Book Award2012.

b) a change of focus of teacher energy:moving from preoccupation with themechanics of activity, task andmaterial towards making the learningitself visible;

c) tweaks in technique: well-tunedinterventions and higher skill sets ofclassroom management.

Demand-high does not mean ‘makingthings more difficult’. It’s a doabledemand that comes precisely at the pointwhere the learners are capable of takingtheir next steps forward – and helpingthem to meet that demand, rather thanignore it. This contrasts with pastexperiences we may have had of teacherssimply making things more difficult: anundoable, probably unhelpful, demand.Demand-high does not mean asking formore of the same. It is asking for different.

We watch Jim’s one-year-old childexploring the world and his owngrowing abilities. No one has to tell himto try to stand up, balance, climb on achair. He is naturally working at theedge of his capacity; he doesn’t wastetime working below it. He is engaged,living in the moment of immediateunfolding learning. For an adult, too,engagement – when it happens – has aquality of worthwhileness about it thatopens up something, moves youforward, solves and resolves. But adultshave other distractions and can find ithard to engage as fully as an infant.Often, it doesn’t just happen by itself.

LearningTeachers have a role in facilitating thatengagement by exerting some degree ofpush at just the right place in just theright degree at just the right moment.The activities and the materials are nolonger the end in themselves; in ademand-high classroom they are justthe scenario, the location in whichsomething else, something immediate,something more important, moreexciting and more valuable happens.

Here is an example of demand-highinquiry focusing on one small (butcrucial) area of a teacher’s work –working with answers to questions:

When a student gives a correctanswer, do you tend to acknowledge it,maybe with a rubberstampingvalidation comment such as ‘That’sright’ or with praise or echo, and thenmove on to the next question? This wayof working has the advantage of beingquick and successfully ticking the ‘rightanswer’ boxes. But could it be coveringup as much as it is uncovering –creating a comforting illusion thatlearning is happening?

What if, instead, we involved manymore students in thinking about andunpacking the question and answer, andin listening to each other? What if weused techniques such as postponing ourown validation of responses in order toleave them (and any further responsesto responses) hanging – not as anabdication, but to replace them withpushing, nudging interventions that forceeach student to think, re-question,readjust at their own level: to one student,a question to make her question herown answers; to another, a correction;to another, a hint towards an insight; toanother, a different word choice. As theteacher holds open this space (whichmay last a few seconds or a couple ofminutes), the group co-creates a learningstory and, as it opens up, participants canstart to inhabit the territory and move tothe frontier of their own learning zones –which, in turn, alters the perspectives ofeveryone else. The teacher starts to see thelearning processes, as may the students.This is demand-high because, instead ofextinguishing the question before it getsgoing, the teacher has let the questiondevelop, following the contours of thestudents’ unfolding insights.

� � �

None of these techniques is new orunfamiliar – but we are proposing that

If you are interested in demand-high,have a look at Jim and Adrian’s website:demandhighelt.wordpress.com.

Engagement has a quality of worthwhileness

about it that opens up something, moves you forward, solves

and resolves

We assume that one person giving ananswer means thateveryone has ‘got it’ and we can move on

when used together, with the purpose ofmaking learning processes visible, theycan be immensely powerful.

Yes, it takes time, but perhaps thefirst version – the swift answer check –takes up too little time, creating a sweetblue pill illusion where we assume thatone person giving an answer means thateveryone has ‘got it’ and we can moveon. But is this a kind of falseness incontemporary methodology, so familiarthat we hardly stop to notice itsdisconnection from learning? The rightwords in the right order are only onekind of right answer. And saying ‘yes’to the first person who gets that doesn’ttake us very far.

‘Demand-high’ challenges some ofthese blue pill illusions. We ourselvesfind this demanding. As Morpheus saysin The Matrix:

‘Red pill or blue pill? After this thereis no turning back. You take the blue pill:the story ends, you wake up in your bedand believe whatever you want to believe.You take the red pill … and I show youhow deep the rabbit hole goes.’ ETp



Let there be light!

Let there be light!

Steve Brown revisits

the reasons we are not

reactive enough in our

teaching.

In Issue 82 of ETp, AdrianUnderhill and Alan Maley putforward the suggestion that we, asEnglish language teachers, are

perhaps not placing enough importanceon the ‘dark matter’ of teaching, that isto say the unpredictability of theclassroom situation. In practice, lessonplans tend to act merely as a startingpoint, and the ‘real’ teaching exists inthe teacher’s ability to improvise. Mostexperienced teachers will be familiarwith scenarios where unplanned lessonsegments become critical in terms ofmaximising learning.

Real learner engagementThe idea that teachers need to consider,value and respond to studentcontributions has been widely acceptedfor many years. Many well-knownapproaches like the Silent Way,Community Language Learning andTask-based Learning and, morerecently, Dogme all rely on learner inputfor course content, and they allencourage the teacher to allow thestudents to use language first beforereacting appropriately to the moment.More recent ideas, such as the use of‘future-self guides’ (proposed by ZoltánDörnyei and Ema Ushioda and by JillHadfield) and ‘demand-high’ teaching(described by Jim Scrivener and AdrianUnderhill), also support the need forstudents to be more involved in thedevelopment of their own learning and,crucially, for teachers to focus activelyon this.

Essentially, what all of the aboveideas have in common is the importanceof real learner engagement. We need toensure that learners are involved, andthat the teacher is giving them whatthey need. Again, we go back to thedark matter of teaching: the importanceof the moment, the teacher’s ability toidentify what is going on with thelearners and also to know how torespond.

Principles versus realityIf we consider Underhill and Maley’sarticle along with the ideas that havepreceded it, we can conclude that thefollowing principles need to be valuedhighly in ELT:

● Learner needs and goals are ofprimary importance in a programmeof study.

● Classroom dynamics are key elementsin a successful learning environment.

● Course content should be dictated (orat least informed) by learner needs.

● Teachers need to value learners’contributions within lessons.

● What is learnt during a lesson cannotbe predicted.

● Teaching skills lie less in the ability toplan, and more in the ability to react.

However, in many (perhaps most)English language teaching contexts,what tends to happen in practice is thefollowing:


● Courses follow pre-determinedsyllabuses which are often veryprescriptive in terms of content.

● Courses tend to be driven by the needto cover language points and practiseskills, with little priority given todeveloping classroom dynamics.

● The relationship between coursecontent and achievement ofindividual learning goals is not alwaysclear.

● The production of lesson plans withclear aims and logical, linear stages isregarded as good practice.

● The success of a lesson is determinedby the achievement of a set of pre-determined aims.

● Global coursebooks, which are bynature generic and not specific toanyone’s needs, play a major role incourse content.

So perhaps we need to ask ourselveswhy we are still doing all of this. Whyare we spending so much time planninglessons when good teaching practiceentails digressing from the plan andreacting to the moment? Why decideour aims in advance when there’s noway of knowing what the students willactually learn? Why follow a syllabusthat doesn’t take the needs of thelearners into account? Why usematerials that were written by peoplewho don’t know anything about ourstudents? Why place so muchimportance on the teaching of specificlanguage points when, as Underhill andMaley point out, ‘We cannot predictover the long term what, or when orwhether, any given learner or group oflearners will learn from our teaching’?

The reality of the realityHere are three reasons why valuingunpredictability has so far only had alimited impact on teaching practice:

It’s not how we’re trained.Cambridge ESOL, Trinity and otherTESOL qualification-awarding bodiesplace lesson planning at the forefront ofgood practice. Trainees are activelyencouraged to spend hours identifyinglesson aims, sourcing materials thatcontribute to their achievement andcreating a set of stages that follow alinear progression, culminating in a stagewhere the students demonstrate that they

1

are able to use the language that is beingtaught. Aims tend to be very narrow,often focusing on a single language item.Any deviation from the plan is generallyseen as a bad thing. If something comesup that was unexpected, the implicationis that the trainee didn’t ‘anticipateproblems’ sufficiently.

Other criteria, such as adheringclosely to timing, preparing conceptchecking questions and even planningwhat your whiteboard will look like, allcontribute towards the development ofteachers who regard the prediction oflesson content not only as possible, butas being fundamental to good teachingpractice.

When teachers complete thesetraining courses, it is understandablethat they continue to plan lessons in thesame way, despite the time constraintsthat are put on them. Teachers are soconditioned to value planning duringtheir training experiences that the ideaof walking into a class without a plan isregarded as daunting, or evenirresponsible.

It’s not easily measurable.In a world where everything needs to beevidenced, it is hard to argue a case forvaluing the unexpected. As describedabove, TESOL qualification-awardingbodies expect to see ‘evidence oflearning’. The idea that a teacher canwrite a plan and follow it through,showing that the students learnt whatwas taught along the way, fits nicelyinto this construct.

Many English language teachingorganisations find themselves having tomeet criteria set by accrediting orinspection bodies (British Council,HMIe, Ofsted, ISI, etc). Such bodieslook for evidence of good practice andthe inputting of quality measures. As a

2

result, inspectors expect to see syllabusdocuments, lesson plans and folders(either paper or electronic) containingcourse materials.

Teaching institutions that valueunpredictability are very difficult tomeasure in terms of quality; if successhinges on how teachers react atindividual moments, how can this bedocumented? And, perhaps moreimportantly, how can it be standardised?Syllabus documents and materialsfolders are a means of ensuring thatteachers stay ‘on-message’ in theirlessons and that each course can be seento cover a particular range of languageand skills. However, the more a course isstandardised, the less flexibility there isto ensure it caters for its students.

When it comes to assessment – themost common way of measuringprogress – standardisation plays a bigpart in ensuring tests are both reliableand valid. All stakeholders prefer anassessment that allows the candidate tosay ‘I have achieved this level’. This lendsitself to the creation of assessments thatare pre-designed and pre-approved andwhich, inevitably, wash back into coursecontent: the focus then turns towardswhat the students need to do to pass thecourse, rather than what the courseneeds to do to support its students.

It’s not commercial.It goes without saying that there is a lotof money in English language teaching,and publishing companies are amongthe main beneficiaries. One of thereasons for this is the phenomenon ofthe ‘global coursebook’.

There is a general acceptance that itis OK to have a ‘one-size-fits-all’approach to course materials – the samebooks are used all over the world, withall kinds of students. Maybe this isbecause it is convenient for us; aslanguage teachers, we can go anywherein the world and still be familiar withthe materials being used, and we can

3

� � �

In a world where everything

needs to be evidenced, it is hard to argue a case for valuing the unexpected

Why are we spending so

much time planninglessons when good

teaching practice entailsdigressing from theplan and reacting to

the moment?


� � �

[email protected]

Steve Brown has beeninvolved in Englishlanguage teaching since1993 and has worked inFrance, Mongolia,Romania, the CzechRepublic, Hungary, SouthAfrica, Spain, Malaysiaand the UK. He has beena Director of Studies, anda teacher trainer onCambridge CELTA andTrinity TESOL courses. Heis currently CurriculumLeader for Languages atClydebank College, nearGlasgow, UK.

use the same tried and tested activitiesno matter who is sitting in front of us.However, there are also clear benefits topublishing companies in creating asingle book that can be marketed anddistributed globally.

Whatever the causes or motives, wenow have a situation where the mostcommonly used materials have beencarefully designed to be suitable foreveryone and are, therefore, specific tono one. John Gray says of globalcoursebooks: ‘… content is limited to anarrow range of bland topics … “one sizefits all” means the exclusion of the local.’

It may be convenient and, on thesurface, useful for teachers to have sucha range of published materials toemploy in their teaching. However, whatoften happens in practice is thatpublished coursebooks provide us witha safe option, stifling creativity and anydesire to exploit teaching moments thatdigress from the materials. ScottThornbury and Luke Meddings pointedout these limitations in this way: ‘If …you take the view that language[learning] is contingent on the concerns,interests, desires, and needs of the user,then the argument for coursebooks startsto look a bit thin.’

We should also consider thecommercial success of teacher trainingcourses. The most widely respectedTESOL qualifications are, in businessterms, very successful brands. A majoroverhaul of these qualifications (egplacing less focus on planning and morefocus on post-lesson reflection) wouldbe costly and could also jeopardise thesuccess of the brand.

� � �

To a large extent, CommunicativeLanguage Teaching has become avictim of its own success. It is now verymuch part of the establishment, andteaching practice is bound up with somany other factors that we have becomelimited by the constraints placed on usby trainers, employers, inspectors,publishers and broadly heldmisconceptions.

The importance of reactive teachingand being able to respond to learnercontributions has been acknowledgedand widely accepted for some time now.It is also true that these ideasoccasionally find their way into TESOLcourses, learning programmes andpublished materials. But any such focustends to be on the fringes of aframework that prioritises planning andpre-determined programme design.

To get to grips with the ‘darkmatter’ of teaching we need to bring itinto the light and, for this to happen,the whole organisational approach toEnglish language teaching needs to bere-examined.

Dörnyei, Z and Ushioda, E Teaching andResearching Motivation Longman 2011

Gray, J ‘The global coursebook in Englishlanguage teaching’ in Block, D andCameron, D (Eds) Globalization andLanguage Teaching Routledge 2002

Hadfield, J ‘A second self’ EnglishTeaching Professional 78–82 2012

Scrivener, J and Underhill, A ‘Demand-high ELT’http://demandhighelt.wordpress.comaccessed 17/09/12

Thornbury, S and Meddings, L ‘Theroaring in the chimney (or whatcoursebooks are good for)’ ModernEnglish Teacher 10 (3) 2001

Underhill, A and Maley, A ‘Expect theunexpected’ English TeachingProfessional 82 2012

Let there be light!

Let there be light!

TALKBACK!TALKBACK!Phil Wade’s article on needsanalyses (‘If you don’t know meby now…’ in ETp Issue 83)reminded me of the importance ofdevoting time to discussingneeds with students. As Philsuggests, I often spend the entirefirst lesson discussing mylearners’ needs – why they areattending an English class, whatthey feel they are good at inEnglish, what their objectives areand what both they and I can doto help achieve these objectives.We also discuss which subjectsinterest them. This time is neverwasted.

However, it can be difficult topredict what one will want orneed far in the future. It may,therefore, also be useful to spenda few minutes at the end of eachlesson to discuss the followinglesson: What do we need to workon next? Is further practiceneeded? Was anything less usefuland why? This can help us betterrespond to our learners’ needs –and not just in terms of language.

Discussing the students’ needswith them requires flexibility fromthe teacher and willingness togive up some power in makingdecisions. However, letting thelearners guide you as they let you guide them enriches theclassroom experience for bothparties. After all, isn’t teachingand learning about dialogue?

Christina Rebuffet-BroadusGrenoble, France

Do you have something to say about an article in the current issue of ETp? This is your magazine and we would really like to hear from you. Write to us or email:

ENGLISH TEACHING professional,Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd, Rayford House, School Road,

Hove BN3 5HX, UKFax: +44 (0)1273 227308

Email: [email protected]

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We have becomelimited by the

constraints placed on us by trainers,

employers, inspectors,publishers and broadlyheld misconceptions.

��TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS


Saving the planet(in English)Saving the planet(in English)S

lovenia lies in a relatively safepart of Europe. It is amountainous country with anabundance of forests, lakes and

rivers with fresh, clean water. In the areaaround my primary school there is littlepollution, so the majority of the pupilsenjoy a healthy natural environment.Whilst this is great for them, it has thedownside that they are not really awareof the environmental problems thatsome other countries face.

However, some parts of Sloveniawere recently struck by heavydownpours, followed by severe flooding.There was damage to property and insome places people’s lives were at risk.One such area was not far from us.After this catastrophe, my pupilsbecame more interested in the impactof severe weather conditions on thelives of people and animals. They startedasking questions about what causeschanges to the weather.

I decided to take this opportunityto increase my pupils’ environmentalawareness at the same time as helpingthem to improve their knowledge ofEnglish, so I devised a series of lessonson the topic of ecology.

DiscussionI started by instigating a class discussionin which I invited the pupils to list allthe natural disasters they had readabout in newspapers or seen in TV

documentaries. The most frequentlymentioned events were tsunamis,floods, hurricanes, droughts and fires.Next, I put them into groups of fourand asked them to discuss (in English)the reasons why at least two of thesecatastrophes had occurred. This provedto be a good start as they wereprepared to listen to each other and towork together.

Ecology is already part of ourschool curriculum.When we discussedthe impact that people have on theenvironment, the pupils themselvesrealised that this topic had also comeup in a chemistry class.

QuizNext, I asked them to answer thefollowing short, easy and fairly light-hearted quiz on environmental issues(in some questions, both answers werecorrect):

Why should we separate therubbish in our homes?

a) to please our mothers

b) to help the environment

Why should we try to growvegetables in our gardens?

a) to get a sun tan while workingin the garden

b) to get healthy food with nochemicals

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Why should we save water andenergy?

a) to help our planet

b) to help our parents pay the bills

Why should we use eachplastic bag as many times aspossible?

a) to save natural resources

b) to produce as little rubbish aspossible

Why should we cover oursaucepans when we arecooking?

a) to save energy

b) to use as many kitchen utensilsas possible

VocabularyI encouraged the pupils to list all thethings we can do to avoid wastingenergy and natural resources andcreating pollution. They needed someextra help with vocabulary so Iintroduced several useful verbs, nouns,adjectives and adverbs for talking aboutthe environment, and they wrote thesein their wordbanks. These includedverbs such as separate, pollute, waste,recycle, reuse, damage and reduce; nounsand noun phrases such as acid rain,alternative energy, waste material,pollution, heat, natural resources and

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Betka Pisslar shows that learning English and ecology can go hand in hand.

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rubbish; and adjectives such asenvironmentally friendly, biodegradable,non-biodegradable and renewable.

We then watched a documentaryon environmental issues. The pupilslearnt about alternative ways to makeelectricity, such as solar cells, windgenerators and wave power, and thedifficulties associated with them. Theywere already familiar with solar panels,and some mentioned having these onthe roofs of their houses. However, theinformation on wave power and windgenerators was completely new tothem.

ListeningAt the beginning of the next lesson, welistened to some environmentaliststalking about deforestation, pollution,the increase in carbon dioxide in theatmosphere and the causes of the holein the ozone layer. The pupils madenotes as they listened and picked upsome new vocabulary and expressions.

SpeakingThe speaking activity which followedwas one that I had been preparing forsome time by collecting newspaperpictures on environmental issues. I hadmanaged to find pictures of deforestedareas, traffic and factory pollution,rubbish and animals facing extinction.I brought these to class and asked thepupils to work in pairs and to describeeach picture, explaining what hadhappened. This involved quite a lot ofrevision of tenses.

CompetitionAll the above activities were ratherserious in tone, so I also planned somemore amusing things for the pupils todo. I had a class competition to revisethe use of irregular verbs on the topicof ecology, which they enjoyedimmensely. It involved dividing the classinto two teams and getting a memberof each team to come up to the boardand circle the correct past participle ofeach verb.

We also did a fun activity wherethey had to race against the clock toput the new vocabulary in the correctgroup (verb, noun or adjective) – thewinner being the pupil who managed to

put the largest number of the words inthe correct group in the shortest time.

ExperimentThe next activity enabled the pupils todiscover, through a simple experiment,how much pollution there was in theirenvironment. I prepared three whitecards and put some greasy moisturisingcream on each. I then asked the pupilsto put the first card near the busiestcrossroads in the town, the second inthe school grounds and the third in arecreational campsite in the forest notfar away from the town. After five days,they collected the cards and comparedthem. As they correctly predicted, thedirtiest card was the one from thecrossroads, while the other two werequite clean. The pupils were happy tofind out that we live in a reasonablyclean environment.

ActionThe final part of the project was toinstigate some positive action. Thepupils were invited to think about howthey could help the environment andwhat they could do at home to save the planet. They were asked to discussthis with their families and to come upwith some written ideas for homework.The majority of their suggestionsinvolved using bicycles instead of cars,buying and using fewer productscontaining chemicals, separating rubbishmore often and saving electricity byturning lights and appliances off whennot in use.

I also wanted them to take part insome joint activity as a class. Afterdiscussing what we could do, we agreedon collecting waste paper for recycling.A large container for paper was placednear the school and we got the localradio station to make an announcementinforming people about our plan.People were asked to put their wastepaper on their doorsteps and the pupilswent round collecting it. The pupilswere extremely excited about takingpart in this project. They all went roundcollecting paper, even though they hadto do it in their free time. In two daysthey collected nearly 7,000 kilograms ofwaste paper, which was then taken to arecycling centre. We also decided that

this year we would use waste paper tomake Christmas cards for our families.These activities gave them a strongsense of achievement and they wereextremely proud of themselves. Notonly had they done something good forthe environment by collecting wastepaper but, as the recycling centre paidthem for their contribution, they hadalso earned some extra money whichthey could spend on a school trip atthe end of the year.

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The pupils involved in this project allshowed improvements in theirknowledge and use of English vocabulary.They practised listening, speaking andwriting in English, which allowed themto learn many new expressions andgrammatical structures. They also becamemore self-confident and proud of theirknowledge of English. Cross-curriculalinks with chemistry, biology and socialstudies also proved useful to them.

In addition, the pupils became moreinterested in environmental issues andmore careful in their own use of theworld’s resources, which wasdemonstrated by changes in theirbehaviour at school. I noticed that theystarted to turn off the lights in theclassrooms and in the hall when theydid not need them. They even suggestedwe should have separate rubbish bins inthe classrooms for different types ofwaste. Collecting waste paper aroundthe town gave them a real feeling ofachievement, and they were proud oftheir ability to arouse ecologicalawareness in their own families and inthe people of the town.

Through this experience, they sawthat it is possible for each individual todo something to benefit the world welive in.

[email protected]

Betka Pislar is a teacherof English at Ziri PrimarySchool, Slovenia.

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ETp

� � �I’ve found that hand signals work reallywell for VYL. The instruction is clear,without me having to use my voice. Also,signals can be very effective for low-levellearners as they are more or lessuniversal. However, if you make up signalsof your own, you must be consistentwith them so the students know whatto expect and how to behave.



[email protected]

Laura Besley taughtbusiness English inGermany for two yearsand has also taught inthe UK. She is currentlyteaching at the BritishCouncil in Hong Kong.

StorytellingHand movements are also great forinteractive storybook reading. I like bookswhich have a repeated line (or one youcan easily invent) so that the children havemore of a role in the process. I alwaysmake up a signal for the line they are torepeat. For The Very Hungry Caterpillar byEric Carle, the line is ‘But he was stillhungry!’When I get to it, I rub my tummyand say ‘But he was still hungry!’ I thenindicate that it is their turn and rub mytummy again as they say the line, too. Thisinteractive method is more fun, as well askeeping the students more focused.

ETp

Keep quiet!Keep quiet!Laura Besley signals the way to achieve a calmer classroom.

Teaching Very Young Learners(VYL) can be more than a littlechaotic at times. Still at an age

where they are full of energy, most ofthe students want to run around andmake as much noise as possible! Thisarticle will focus on how to achieve acalmer classroom environment – not byshouting or even talking, but primarilythrough using hand signals tocommunicate. This is firstly because Idon’t like shouting (and I may lose myvoice by the end of the day!) andsecondly because I don’t think it is theright way to communicate with children.Too much shouting goes over theirheads and eventually becomes ineffective.

Getting the message acrossIt is absolutely critical that VYLclassrooms are as safe as possible foryour students. No matter how manyhealth and safety checks you do, thereare always going to be elements ofdanger when young children arepresent, and you have to remain vigilantat all times. In my classroom, childrenhave to remove their shoes and it isvery important, therefore, that theydon’t run as they could slip and fall over,possibly hurting themselves. I also don’twant to have to shout ‘Stop running!’ ahundred times per lesson. The first timenew students are caught running, I kneelin front of them, look them in the eye,hold up one finger and say clearly ‘Norunning’. I check that they understand,and tell them this is their first warning.If they do it again, they have to sit on achair to calm down. Over time, theyknow that as soon as I put up my finger,I mean ‘no running’. This way I don’t haveto shout, and I can communicate what Iwant from one side of the classroom tothe other. This obviously does dependon them looking at you when they’rerunning, but nine times out of ten theydo, because they know what they’re

doing is wrong and I think there’s a partof them that wants those boundaries tobe reinforced. They want to be told thatwhat they thought was wrong is, indeed,wrong. Then it all makes sense again.

Getting quiet when you need itPart of getting children to be quiet isgetting them to focus on you.You don’twant them looking out of the windowor talking to their friends. There’s nopoint in just telling them to be quiet:the second you remove your focusfrom them, they will continue withwhat they were doing previously.

At the British Council in Hong Kongwe use five easy signals to get thechildren to look, listen, stop talking and sitnicely with their arms folded/hands still. 1 eyes looking (mime binoculars)2 ears listening (cup ears)3 lips closed (one finger on lips) 4 legs crossed (show them how to sit)5 arms crossed or hands still (again, show

them what we want)

The first few times you do one of thesesignals you might have to repeat itseveral times, doing the actions alongwith saying the words, to get everyoneto join in. Positive reinforcement workswonders, so you should praise thosestudents who are doing what you’veasked. In time, you shouldn’t need to saythe words, miming the actions will tellthe students what you want from them.

Getting quiet when you want itAnother way of getting students to bequiet is to count down from five, usingyour fingers. When I get to zero, Iexpect them to be quiet. Again, thefirst couple of times you do this, somechildren will immediately understandwhat is expected of them, and otherswill carry on regardless. It’s importantto praise the children who haveunderstood and are quiet, as the otherswill want this praise, too.

If the students are playing or tidyingup and I want them to regroup ontothe mat, I also use this same technique.Depending on how much time I thinkthey realistically need to get finishedand ready, I count faster or slower. Theamount of time you give them needs tobe fair, otherwise they’ll just abandonwhat they’re doing. For example, ifthey’re tidying up and can hear youcounting down, they may start to panicthat they won’t be back on the mat intime. They want the praise, sticker orwhatever it is you offer in return forgood behaviour, and will probably justdrop everything and sit on the mat.This is definitely not what you want!

Getting them in lineWhen I want my students to line up, Iget them to hold out their hands likean aeroplane. This stops them pushingeach other.


V O C A B U L A R Y

Lightening the lexical load

Lightening the lexical loadSamuel Barclay makes life easier for his students.

Learning vocabulary is one ofthe most demandingchallenges facing a foreign-language student. Moreover,

for many it can seem like a tediousbattle against a never-decreasing enemy:no matter how many words areacquired, there are always more waitingto be tackled. However, there are somethings we can do as teachers to ease theburden of learning lexis.

Choose material at anappropriate level

Does the following scenario soundfamiliar? When doing a reading task,you notice your students refer to theirdictionary for every unknown word. Onseeing this, you decide to devote someclass time to the ‘discovery strategy’ ofguessing meaning from context. Most ofthe students seem to get the hang ofguessing meaning from context, andyou’re confident that they will resist thetemptation to open the dictionary nexttime they encounter an unfamiliar item.However, to your dismay, in the verynext class nothing has changed. Research has shown that we need to

know more than 95 percent of thewords in a text in order to be able tocomprehend it. This means, accordingto Liu Na and Paul Nation, that ourreading will be seriously affected if morethan one word in every 20 is unknown.Therefore, before we start instructing ourstudents in discovery strategies, we needto check that the source of the problem

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isn’t the lexical difficulty of ourmaterials. There is an excellent programfor checking the vocabulary level of textsat www.lextutor.ca. Furthermore, becausewe cannot be sure that our assumptionsabout our students’ vocabulary levels arecorrect, it’s worth conducting thevocabulary levels test which is alsoavailable at this website. Armed withthis data, we can ensure that thematerials we use are at an appropriatelexical level for our learners.

Choose target wordscarefully

Do you ever find that you confusewords with similar meanings? That youcan’t remember whether à gauche meansleft or right? Research by ThomasTinkham has shown that if items areintroduced at the same time asantonyms, free-associates (car – bus –taxi), words in the same semantic set(Monday, Friday, Sunday) or synforms(words that sound or look alike), it willmake learning much harder. We need to ensure that similar items

are not allowed to interfere with eachother. We can achieve this by spacing theinitial presentation of such items overseveral lessons (activities with relatedwords could be used to review items afterthey have been encountered separately).For example, rather than teaching thedays of the week in one class, spread outtheir teaching according to some scheme(eg teach Monday on a Monday, Tuesdayon a Tuesday, etc). If it is impractical to

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space the teaching of related items, usea mnemonic device to reduce theinterference effect. Most importantly, asPaul Nation points out, we need to tellour learners about interference, so thatthey can avoid it when studyingindependently.

Develop your students’awareness of affixesAnti-telecommunicator – althoughyou have never seen this string of

letters before and will not find it in anydictionary (indeed, it isn’t a recognisedEnglish word), can you guess what itmight mean? Did you use yourknowledge of prefixes (anti – against)and suffixes (or – changes verbs intoagent-nouns) to decipher its meaning(perhaps a person who dislikes talkingon the telephone or maybe one whohates talking to people in call centres)? The most common affixes in English

deserve explicit teaching because theywill help students to guess the meaningof, and learn, words of Latinate orGreek origin. There is a chart ofcommon affixes on page 27.Try to introduce one or two affixes in

every class. This shouldn’t overburden thestudents’ memory capacity, and will showthem that you consider developing affix-awareness to be important. I typically usean exercise like the one in Figure 1, as ituses acquired vocabulary to introducenew information (ie not overburdeninglearners) and it implicitly shows thestudents that they can use word-parts toguess the meaning of unknown words.One way to apply affix-awareness to

vocabulary acquisition, as recommendedby Nation, is to instruct the students toconceptualise the meaning of an item interms of its affixes (see Figure 2). Thiswill provide a frame on which themeaning of the item can rest.

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telecommunication

tele___________ tele means _______

tele____________

review – to look at something again

anti-telecommunicator – someonewho is against communicating with people far away

Figure 1: An exercise to introducethe prefix tele

Figure 2: Examples of conceptualisingmeaning in terms of word parts

[email protected]

Samuel Barclay is alecturer in EFL at EhimeUniversity, Japan. Hisresearch interestsinclude learner dictionaryuse and L2 vocabularyacquisition.


Use imagesWe can use images to support theacquisition of new vocabulary. Researchhas shown that when items are presentedwith a translation and a picture, itincreases the chances of long-termretention as the word makes a doubleassociation: one with the translation andone with the image. We can encourageour students to imagine a word that theyare learning, or to draw a representationof its meaning. I often assign eachstudent a word (from a list of targetwords) for which they have to prepare apicture before the next class. I then usethese pictures to review the vocabularyand for future vocabulary tests.

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Liu, N and Nation, I S P ‘Factors affectingguessing vocabulary in context’ RELCJournal 16 (1) 1985

Nation, I S P ‘Learning vocabulary in lexicalsets: dangers and guidelines’ TESOLJournal 9 (2) 2000

Nation, I S P ‘Ten best ideas for teachingvocabulary’ The Language Teacher 29 (7)2005

Tinkham, T ‘The effect of semanticclustering on the learning of secondlanguage vocabulary’ System 21 (3) 1993

Common affixes and their meanings

Prefix Example Meaning Suffix Example Meaning

ab- abstract from, away -able amendable forms adjectives from transitive verbs; means ‘can be done’

ad- advocate to(ward) -al topical forms adjectives from nouns (sometimes adjectives)

com- communicate with -er researcher forms agent-nouns from verbs

de- depress down, away -ful insightful forms adjectives from nouns

dis- distinct apart, away -ic specific derives adjectives

ex- export out, beyond -ify unify derives verbs

in- input in(to) -ise/ize globalise forms verbs from adjectives

inter- interval between, among -ity integrity derives nouns

mis- misinterpret wrong(ly) -ive positive derives adjectives

pre- preliminary before -less structureless forms adjectives from nouns (mostly); means ‘without’

pro- project forward -ly voluntarily forms adverbs from adjectives

re- revise again, back -ment supplement forms nouns from verbs

sub- subordinate under -ness awareness forms nouns from adjectives; means ‘state of being [adjective]’

trans- transport across, beyond -ous enormous forms adjectives from nouns

un- unregistered not -tion investigation often forms nouns from verbs

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Because the task of learning lexis issuch a large one, we need to help ourstudents become more efficient learners.Indeed, we should do everything we canto make the acquisition of vocabularyas easy as possible for them. I hopethese four pieces of advice will help youdo that. ETp


Testing,testing, 1 2 1

Testing,testing, 1 2 1Emily Edwards assesses her solo students.

This is my third and final articlein a series exploring one-to-one teaching. The first articlediscussed ways of doing needs

analysis and planning a syllabus while,in the second, I presented somestrategies and worksheet templates formaking one-to-one lessons enjoyableand communicative. A third and equallyimportant part of learning a language,but one which I think teachers oftenforget about or overlook in one-to-onelessons, is testing. This article will lookat a range of different ways of testingyour one-to-one students so that youcan do your best to help them makeprogress and get the most out of theircourse of lessons.

Types of testingTesting language students is importantin all types of class. In many generalEnglish courses, for example, studentstake tests to assess whether they areready to go up a level. Then there areexternally-assessed language exams suchas Cambridge PET, FCE and CAE,TOEIC, TOEFL and IELTS, whichlearners take to prove their level oflanguage ability. But why would one-to-one learners need to be tested?

Firstly, let’s have a look at the twomain types of assessment. ArthurHughes’ book on testing, which is areally useful resource, gives thefollowing definitions:

● Formative assessment is used tocheck a student’s progress during acourse, and this includes giving themfrequent progress tests, but alsoreviewing and revising new words orlanguage on a regular basis.

● Summative assessment is used to‘measure what has been achieved’ atthe end of a course, which generallymeans giving the student(s) a final,probably quite formal, test coveringthe content of that particular course.

Another important and common termis proficiency test, which is a testdesigned to assess a student’s languageability, whether or not they have taken acourse of lessons. Examples are thoseexternally-assessed exams mentionedabove (FCE, TOEFL, IELTS, etc).

Testing one-to-oneOK, so this theory and terminology isall well and good, but what does itmean in practice? Why does this matterto one-to-one students? I must admit

that when I first started teaching one-to-one classes, I thought testing mystudents was quite a strange idea,posing several obstacles. Since the wholepoint of one-to-one lessons is that theyshould be tailored to that one learner’sneeds, wants and goals, then ‘ready-made’ tests from textbooks or practiceexam books are normally not relevant(unless, of course, the student’s aim is totake a proficiency test such as IELTS, inwhich case using examples of this testwould definitely be useful). Also, theresult of any test taken by a one-to-onestudent to measure their progress can’tbe measured against anyone else (as itcould be in a group learning context),so does that score really mean anything?In addition, there is the issue of theteacher having to design a testthemselves, which can be a bit dauntingto say the least!Choosing one-to-one teaching as the

topic of my DELTA extendedassignment made me think much moreabout the whole concept of testing. Irealised that one-to-one students, justlike any other language learners, need tomake progress and to have ‘evidence’ ofthis progress, perhaps even more sobecause they’re often paying quite a lotof money for the lessons. The goodnews is that teachers do not need to(and shouldn’t!) spend hours designingdetailed and individualised tests,because there are many simple ways ofchecking progress that will benefit boththe student and the teacher. One important point to note here:

I’ve found that if the course principlesor aims have been set clearly at thebeginning (see the first article in thisseries), this makes testing your studentmuch easier, because you should beassessing them on what they wanted toachieve.So, there are two types of testing

that you need to think about whenplanning assessment tasks for your one-to-one student: testing progress(formative assessment) and end-of-course testing (summative assessment).

Testing progressIn my view, testing progress is the mostimportant aspect of assessment in one-to-one lessons, and should be done, ifnot each lesson, then every five to tenhours of the course. Actually, asPriscilla Osborne points out, the natureof one-to-one courses makes testing


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progress easier than in group teaching,in that the teacher can providepersonalised feedback in a variety offorms on an ongoing basis. Anotherplus point is that the student can beactively involved in the assessmentprocess through self-monitoring andself-assessment, which helps them tobecome more autonomous and moreable to assess their own progress andfuture needs. The table on the rightshows a variety of useful methods forchecking progress in one-to-one lessons,and these can be used each class orevery few lessons, as you think isnecessary. It’s a good idea to establishrituals for revision and reviewing eachlesson, and then keep monitoringprogress to help you adapt the course sothat it continues to meet the student’sneeds.One of the ideas in language testing

theory which I’ve found to be especiallyrelevant to one-to-one assessment isauthenticity: Lyle Bachman and AdrianPalmer define this as the extent towhich the test is similar to real-life or‘target’ tasks the student will have toperform. So if a student will need togive a business presentation, theyshould be tested on doing just that: apresentation. If a student wants to beable to make phone calls to make travelreservations, write academic essays orbusiness emails, or simply haveconversations with strangers, thenpractice versions of these ‘tasks’ shouldbe used as their tests, if possible.

End-of-course testingAt the end of the course of lessons, it’simportant to finish up with a sense ofcompletion and of goals achieved. It’salso essential to point out to yourstudent that the language journeydoesn’t end there, and that there aremany ways they can continue toimprove. Below are some ideas of whatto do as ‘summative assessment’:

Five steps to testingone-to-oneTo sum up, there are five steps that youcan follow to help you plan and carryout practical and useful testing methodsin your one-to-one language classes:

Use course aims/goals as the basisfor testing, and ask yourself what youactually need to test your student on.

Think about what your student needsto do in the ‘real world’ – can you designa simple test or task based on this?

Keep all the material you use withyour student in a folder, and then usethis to make a quick quiz or,alternatively, get your student to lookthrough the folder or lesson notes

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themselves and write a summary ofwhat they’ve learnt.

Use a range of techniques for testingprogress, such as the ones suggestedabove, to keep lessons interesting andvaried.

Do include some kind of summativeassessment and evaluation to finish thecourse in a professional way and to giveyour student useful suggestions forcontinuous learning and improvement.

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[email protected]

Emily Edwards works as a senior teacher atEnglish LanguageCompany, a languageschool in Australia. Shehas recently completedthe Cambridge DELTA aswell as an MA in AppliedLinguistics, and herparticular interests aresyllabus design,motivation, EAP andteacher training.

Informal oral and written feedback (see Worksheet 1 on page 30 for anexample)

Vocabulary games/reviews

Self-assessment and self-editing (see Worksheet 2 on page 30)

Collection of written work in a portfolio

Short tests/quizzes – designed by theteacher

Formal formative tasks – these couldbe ‘ready-made’ tests or simple tasksdesigned by the teacher (see Worksheet 3 on page 31)

Visit to a café, company, college, etc(as relevant to the student’s current orfuture real-life situation)

To point out strengths and weaknessesin the student’s work

To review and practise new vocabularyin a fun way

To develop autonomous learning, sothat the student can identify their ownmistakes in the future

To allow the student to see progressmade and areas still to develop, and toencourage autonomy

To review work done during a block offive to ten lessons

To assess whether course objectivesare being met – if the student needs totake a proficiency test such as IELTS,then examples of this test can be used

To find out if course objectives need tobe adapted, and to develop thestudent’s confidence

Type of progress test Reason for doing it

Use a test related to what the learnerneeds to do next (eg an IELTS test,performing a certain task, giving apresentation).

Get your student to present a portfolioof their written work to you.

Ask your student to complete a self-evaluation of what they have learntover this course.

Make a learning plan together for yourstudent’s future (see Worksheet 4 on page 31 for anexample).

Testing Evaluation

Bachman, L and Palmer, A LanguageTesting in Practice: Designing andDeveloping Useful Language Tests OUP1996

Hughes, A Testing for Language TeachersCUP 2003

Osborne, P Teaching English One-to-oneModern English Publishing 2005


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Worksheet 1 Informal feedback on each lesson

(The teacher keeps a copy of this sheet to hand out during the lesson, and writes notes or examples as the student talks/writes.)

Date: ...................................................... Lesson: ..............................................................................................................................................................

Worksheet 2Reflecting on learning:

self-evaluation at the end of each lesson(The teacher gives the student these sentence starters at the end of a lesson, the student completes them

and this could lead to a useful discussion about progress.)

Speaking and writing

I said/wrote … I should have said/written …

New vocabulary Grammar points

Testing, testing, 1 2 1

● The thing(s) that I enjoyed most in this lesson was/were ...

● The thing(s) I learnt today that I did not know before was/were ...

● The thing(s) I am going to do to help me remember what I learnt today is/are ...

● The thing(s) I found most difficult in today’s work was/were ...

● The question(s) I would like to ask about what we have done is/are ...

(From Harmer, J The Practice of English Language Teaching Pearson Education 2007)


Worksheet 3Roleplay cards to check progress

(The teacher makes and cuts up role cards according to whichever situations the student will soon find themselves in, or for which they would like to practise – in this example, the cards reflect a set of lessons on giving directions,

sightseeing in Sydney, making small talk and checking understanding in confusing situations.)

Worksheet 4Developing an action plan for the future

(The teacher uses this review at the end of a course to focus the student on their learning plan for the future.)

What are your strengths now after completing this course?

● I’m really good at ...

● I’m good at ...

● I have learnt how to ...

What areas do you still need to improve by yourself in the near future? How will you do this?2

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Area to improve How will I do this?

eg I need to keep developing my vocabulary. eg Read news articles, highlight five new words per article,and look up the meaning in a dictionary.

Testing, testing, 1 2 1

You’re in a café, and you see an old friend whom you

haven’t seen for a few months. Ask her how she is, and

compliment her in a few ways.

You’re at Town Hall, outside QVB. A tourist comes up to you

and asks for directions to Central Station. Explain how to

get there.

You’re at Circular Quay and you want to go to Darling

Harbour. Ask someone for directions, and check that you

understand what they say.

You’re talking to your boss, but you don’t understand

something he just said about your shifts next week …

You’re at Central Station. A tourist, who has just arrived in

Sydney, comes up to you and asks you to recommend the

best attractions to see in one day. Give him some advice.

You’re at the supermarket and on the phone to your friend,

who’s giving you a list of things to buy for her. You get a bit

confused …

What can you do to improve your English while studying/working at ..........................................................? Write some ideas in the circles.

3


S P E A K I N G

Focus onfluencyFocus onfluencyDiana Mazgutova considers the best ways

to boost oral skills.

‘... fluency constitutes the highest pointon a scale that measures [one’s] spokencommand of a foreign language.’ Paul Lennon

According to Roger Ascham(1515–1568), Queen Elizabeth I’stutor, ‘Knowledge of languagesbeyond one’s mother tongue

[is] important for gaining access to theintellectual and artistic wealth of Europe,and indeed the rest of the world’. Thoughsome of the methods he suggested toattain language mastery might appearirrelevant today, human aspiration to beproficient in more than one languagehas increased substantially. It might notbe the case that the majority of peoplebecome highly proficient in their L2. Infact, there often exists a fluency gapwhich causes learner frustration.However, although dysfluency can neverbe completely cured, there are strategiesthat teachers could incorporate intotheir teaching that would help them todevelop their learners’ oral skills.

Contexts for developingfluencySome people think of fluency as aphenomenon that emerges naturally andtherefore does not need to be explicitlytaught. It is often assumed to be theresult of living in a foreign country –and it is certainly true that prolongedexposure to language in a native-speaker culture facilitates thedevelopment of oral skills. Paul Lennon

Formulaic sequencesFluency can be enhanced by teachinglearners prefabricated chunks of languageor formulas, eg collocations, phrasal verbsand idioms. Several researchers indicatethat the use of what Francine Chamberscalls ‘automatised chunks’ of languagecan enable students to express their ideasat greater length. This is because theformulaic sequences reduce the amountof language processing that the studentshave to perform as they speak. It is also important to recognise the

benefits of teaching awareness-raisingstrategies. For instance, language chunks,once presented, could be broken intoparts, and the students’ attention couldbe directed to each of these parts so that,as Elizabeth Gatbonton and NormanSegalowitz put it, they become moreaware of the formula’s ‘internalconstruction’ and, as a result, may beable to reproduce it with less effort later. Different tasks aimed at promoting

automatic production of formulaicsequences have been suggested. Oneexample is a Disappearing text activity.First, an interesting text containing avariety of formulaic constructions is

1

cites the case of two learners ofJapanese: the one who had been born inJapan and had lived there till the age of12 was found to be more fluent, thoughless accurate, than the other, who hadstudied the language in an educationalsetting but had only lived in Japan forthree months. In fact, it is clear thatmost students who study abroad make,as Nel de Jong and Charles Perfetti putit, ‘measurable progress in speaking,especially in terms of fluency’. However, not all students have the

opportunity to gain extensive exposureto English by travelling overseas, andalthough it is arguable that fluencyshould be explicitly taught in theclassroom, it unfortunately rarelyreceives much attention. It is important,therefore, to consider how fluency couldbe enhanced in a non-native settingwhere students do not have unlimitedexposure to the target language.

Tasks for developingfluencyMarian Rossiter and her colleaguessuggest that explicit teaching of oralfluency could be built around ‘formulaicsequences to increase mean length ofruns and discourse markers to provideonline planning time and reduce thelength and frequency of silent pauses’.Additionally, they recommend free-production tasks and consciousness-raising activities as being likely tocontribute to learners’ fluencydevelopment.

displayed on the board. The teacherreads the text aloud, before instructingsome of the students to read it aloudthemselves. The formulaic sequences aregradually deleted, and the students areasked to reproduce the whole text,including the formulas, from memory.

Task repetitionTask repetition is seen as one of thebest ways to develop fluency because itincreases familiarity with language –and familiarity leads to fluency.Whenever learners repeat somethingthey have said before, they are no longerhaving to generate the content fromscratch, so their cognitive resources arefreed up. One of the benefits this islikely to bring is fluent speech, with lesshesitation and decreased pausing. Inaddition, when a particular structure isbeing used repeatedly, its retrieval from

2

Fluency can be enhanced by teachinglearners prefabricatedchunks of language

or formulas


the memory is greatly facilitated. Whenthe cognitive load is lightened, moreresources become available for use infurther speech production. I should make clear that by task

repetition I don’t mean drilling orreproducing the same languagemindlessly. In order to promote learningand to encourage fluency, the repeatedtask should have a clear and meaningfuloutcome. One very popular activity thatincorporates repetition and can beadapted for fluency developmentpurposes is Find someone who … . Thistask, in which students have to ask eachother questions in order to find someonewho matches each item in a given list ofcriteria, contains an information gap,but may be seen to lack an element ofgenuine communication. Gatbonton andSegalowitz propose some ways to turnthis type of activity into a communicativetask. They suggest that a further ‘overallgoal’ could be introduced, eg to find outthe common traits that the other studentspossess, as well as specific informationabout them. Then, the learners would bedoing the initial activity but, at the sametime, seeking a response to a broaderquestion of common backgrounds.Another noteworthy repetition task,Poster carousel, has been described byTony Lynch and Joan Maclean. Throughthis activity, which involves repeatedconversations with different speakingpartners, learners may not only fostertheir oral fluency, but also improve theirgrammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

Pre-task planningIt is often argued that when students dosome initial written planning of whatthey are going to say, their cognitiveload is lightened and the focus switchesto the act of communication, resultingin increased fluency and shorter pausesbetween utterances. So it is importantthat students should be allowedadequate time to prepare what they aregoing to say.

3

Setting time limits Setting time limits on the oral activitiesthat students do in the classroom maybe a helpful technique for improvingoral fluency because it forces thestudents to speak faster with lesspausing. A 4/3/2 task gives them anopportunity to deliver the same speechthree times in succession, but with lesstime to do it in on each occasion, thuscombining the benefits of task repetitionand time pressure. The learners work inpairs, one the speaker and the other thelistener. The speaker talks to the listenerfor four minutes on a particular topic.Then the pairs are changed, with eachspeaker giving the same information toa different listener within a three-minutetime limit. This is followed by a further

4

change of partners and a two-minutetime limit. Students’ fluency increasessubstantially by the time they have toproduce the shortest, two-minute speech.The content and language have becomemuch more familiar to them and,importantly, their confidence whenspeaking has grown.

Consciousness-raisingtasks

Consciousness-raising activities – wherestudents are exposed to and asked tofocus on a variety of fluency-relatedfeatures, such as formulaic sequences,discourse markers, pauses and hesitation– are another way of facilitating fluency.For example, students might be asked toaudiotape a short conversation betweentwo native speakers, transcribe it andidentify any particular fillers used in therecorded speech. As a follow-up activity,they could tape-record a similarconversation of their own with a peer andcompare the use of fillers in their ownspeech with that of the native speakers.

� � �

In order to help them develop oralfluency, students need opportunities toconverse in English. They should be

5

[email protected]

Diana Mazgutova taughtEAP at the Institute forEnglish LanguageTeacher Education inUzbekistan before movingto the UK to take her MATESOL. Currently she isteaching English at theInternational StudyCentre and workingtowards a PhD in AppliedLinguistics at LancasterUniversity, UK. Her mainareas of interest includetask-based languageteaching, academicwriting instruction andsecond language testingand assessment.

encouraged to work in pairs and groups,should be provided with stimulatingtopics for discussion, and should betaught formulaic sequences which theycan produce automatically. Techniquesto assist them include task repetition,allowing time for pre-task planning andusing awareness-raising activities. Inaddition, where possible, teachersshould help their students to get moreopportunities to interact in Englishoutside of the classroom. Perhaps theycould be encouraged to conduct surveysand have telephone and face-to-faceconversations with English speakers intheir community on a regular basis. Allthese strategies will contribute towardsboosting their confidence and fosteringtheir oral skills.

Chambers, F ‘What do we mean byfluency?’ System 25 (4) 1997

De Jong, N and Perfetti, C A ‘Fluencytraining in the ESL classroom: anexperimental study of fluencydevelopment and proceduralization’Language Learning: A Journal ofResearch in Language Studies XX 2011

Gatbonton, E and Segalowitz, N‘Rethinking communicative languageteaching: a focus on access to fluency’The Canadian Modern Language Review61 2005

Lennon, P ‘Investigating fluency in EFL: a quantitative approach’ LanguageLearning 40 (3) 1990

Lynch, T and Maclean, J ‘“A case ofexercising”: effects of immediate taskrepetition on learners’ performance’ InBygate, M, Skehan, P and Swain, M (Eds)Researching Pedagogic Tasks: Secondlanguage learning, teaching and testingPearson Education 2001

Rossiter, M J, Derwing, T M, Manimtim, L G and Thomson, R I ‘Oral fluency: theneglected component in thecommunicative language classroom’ TheCanadian Modern Language Review 66(4) 2010

Setting time limits on the oral activities that students do in the classroom may be a helpful technique

In order to promote learning and to encourage fluency, the repeated task

should have a clear andmeaningful outcome

ETp



From researchto realityFrom researchto reality 22Magnus Coney continues his series on putting

theoretical insights to practical use.

In Issue 84 of ETp, we looked athow new topics should be relatedto previous ones to make themmore memorable. In this article, I

will discuss in which part of the lessonthis can be most effective.

ResearchTry this simple activity devised byMadeline Hunter (cited by David

Sousa). You will need a pencil and atimer, set for 12 seconds. When you startthe timer, look at the list of words below.When the timer beeps, cover the wordsand try to write as many of them as youcan in the spaces to the right of the list.Make sure you write the words in thecorrect position in the list (the first wordnext to 1, the second word next to 2, etc).Ready? Start the timer.

How did you do? Most people find thatthey remember the first few words andthe last couple of words best, and havemore problems with the ones in themiddle, from about 6 to 8.

As the activity above hopefullydemonstrated, people tend to rememberthings from the beginnings and endingsof learning episodes the best, aphenomenon known as the primacy/recency effect. It has been documentedin numerous studies (eg those by KlausOberauer and by Marc Howard andMichael Kahana), although the reasonfor it is unclear. It is generally thoughtthat the first things you learn areunconsciously reviewed for the rest ofthe learning episode, while the lastthings we learn are more recent andtherefore memorable.

RealityThe beginningWe all know how difficult it can be toget a lesson going. There’s homework tobe collected, a register to be taken,messages to be read out, and so on. Ifyou work in a private language school,you may start your lessons with aninformal chat about the weekend orwith some kind of warmer. But is thisreally what we want our students toremember from the lesson?Clearly, it would be better to get

straight to the point at the beginning ofyour lesson, to take advantage of thatextra attention and then perform themore administrative tasks later.Alternatively, considering what welooked at in the previous article in thisseries, the beginning of the lesson is agood time to get straight intoconsolidating an earlier topic which will

then lead you into the new topic. And ifyour students know that your lessons getoff to such a flying start, hopefully they’llsoon realise it’s better to be on time.Try these suggestions:

Thinking starter: Put a picture orquestion on the board related to thetopic of the lesson to get the studentsthinking straight away.

Table tasks: Have worksheets out onthe tables that the students can startdoing as soon as they come in. This is agood way to review previous lessons –and it also worked wonders forbehaviour in one of my more unrulykids classes!

Give the password: Tell your studentsthat they can’t come into the room untilthey answer a question. Make it aneasy-ish review question so it doesn’ttake too much time!

The endAs with the beginning, the end of alesson can often be filled with manynon-learning-related tasks, such ashanding out homework or playing agame (sometimes with no connection tothe rest of the lesson) to use up anyspare time. However, this period mightbe much better spent reflecting on whathas been learnt. A good plenary sessioncan save what might otherwise be aweak lesson, if it is used to revise andconsolidate the learning. A final free-practice activity can also be effective,but I think students benefit from havingsome time to reflect on and organisetheir learning. The following suggestionsare from Mark Meier and Ted Panitz:

One-minute tests: The teacher asks aquestion such as What was the mostuseful thing you learnt today? and thestudents have a minute to write theiranswers. The teacher collects the papersand uses them for assessment.

Think–pair–share: The teacher asks aquestion like the one above but, thistime, the students think about it for awhile, then compare ideas with apartner before sharing their ideas withthe rest of the class.

Metacognition: The students can alsobenefit from considering how and whythey learnt a particular item/skill. Theprevious two techniques could include aquestion related to this.

Another possible activity is to ask theclass to write (in pairs) a brief lessonoutline for a (real or imagined) absent

KEF 1 ______________

LAK 2 ______________

MIL 3 ______________

NIR 4 ______________

VEK 5 ______________

LUN 6 ______________

NEM 7 ______________

BEB 8 ______________

SAR 9 ______________

FIF 10 ______________

!


[email protected]

Magnus Coneycompleted his CELTA in2005 and, since then, hasworked in London andItaly. He is currently veryexcited about finishingoff his final DELTAmodule, specialising inone-to-one teaching.

www.daveswhiteboard.com/archives/2589

www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/secondary/math/download/file/How%20the%20Brain%20Learns%20by%20David%20Sousa.pdf

http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~psxko/Oberauer.2003.JML.pdf

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~shimlab/1994_GersbergShim_JEPLMC-serial.pdf

http://psych.stanford.edu/~jlm/pdfs/HowardKahana02JMP.pdf

http://reference.kfupm.edu.sa/content/c/o/contextual_variability_and_serial_positi_97126.pdf

http://home.capecod.net/~tpanitz/tedsarticles/endingcourses.htm

student, or to create their own shorthomework task.

Above is an example of a reflectionworksheet which students could be askedto complete towards the end of a lesson.After completing it, they share theirideas with a partner, then with the class.

� � �

You may have noticed that this articlestarted by mentioning the key point ofthe previous article, and applied it tothe theme of this one. Now I’ll finish byreiterating the point that the beginningsand endings of lessons are what

End-of-lesson questionnaireYou have three minutes to answer these questions:

students remember the most, so we needto make sure they learn something inthese periods. If you only remember thebeginning and ending of my article,hopefully that will be enough! ETp

What did you learn today?

Why did you learn this better than other things in the lesson?

What errors did you make? What are the correct forms?

How will you remember what you learnt today?

Do you have any questions about today’s lesson?


LANGUAGE LOG

John Potts charts the intricacies and idiosyncrasies,

the contradictions and complications that make the English language

so fascinating for teachers and teaching. In this issue, he suggests that just because

we’re always doing something, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing.

Alanguage point that often comes up in

intermediate or upper-intermediate coursebooks

and language practice books is the use of

always combined with the present continuous,

forming sentences like He’s always leaving the fridge door

open and I’m always losing my keys. This grammar point is

frequently analysed as expressing annoying or irritating

habits, and these examples would certainly support that

interpretation.

In one best-selling grammar practice book, the main

example is I’ve lost my phone again. I’m always losing

things, with the explanation that this means that I lose

things very often, perhaps too often, or more often than

normal. Other examples are You’re always playing computer

games. You should do something more active (= You play

computer games too often) and Tim is never satisfied. He’s

always complaining (= He complains too much).

And a popular grammar and usage reference book has

similar examples: She’s always smoking and coughing.

Ugh! and I’m always losing my glasses, with the

explanation that this combination has the sense of

‘continually’, and that we often use it to describe a habit

we don’t like.

But is this the whole story? Does be always doing necessarily

require a habit to be seen negatively, as too frequent or as

one that we don’t like?

For example, see this recent post from a website that

specialises in giving advice about relationships. I’ve

shortened the text for reasons of space:

My boyfriend lives by himself. Sometimes I’ll go over and

buy everything and cook dinner. I’m always buying him little

things for his apartment that he needs ... I feel like I’m also

more inclined to do thoughtful things because he’s so good

to me, always taking me out to dinner and buying me gifts

here and there ...

When we look at the textbook examples above, we can see

immediately that the ‘too often/too much/don’t like’

elements certainly fit: the habits are ‘negative’ and the

always doing does express the speaker’s dislike (etc). But

that’s not the case with the web post: it’s hard to see these

as annoying or irritating habits, or as ‘too often/too much’

or as ‘disliked’. In fact, it’s clear that the woman regards her

own behaviour positively, as she later describes it as being

thoughtful, and she definitely likes her boyfriend’s

behaviour – ‘he’s so good to me’.

So what’s going on here?

If we take the ‘irritating/annoying habit’ question first, one

clue lies in the words very often and continually used in the

explanations above. If someone has a bad habit and does it

very often or continually, it’s likely other people will find it

annoying or irritating! But suppose it’s a nice habit, an

attractive or endearing one? By the same token, people will

find it ... attractive and endearing. In other words, this

explanation is based on the vocabulary items that describe

the behaviour (losing my phone, smoking and coughing,

complaining, buying gifts, taking me out) – not surprisingly,

we usually find negative habits irritating and nice ones

attractive. So it isn’t the grammar in those sentences that

determines whether the habit is seen negatively, it’s the

vocabulary and what it means.

At this point, let’s look at the continuous aspect, and what

it does. The concept of the continuous is in contrast to that

of the simple: I’m wearing a suit today compared with

I always/usually/sometimes/rarely/never wear a suit. A key

feature of continuous aspect is that it marks the verb

activity as incomplete in some way, and this may have

various implications. Here, it shows that wearing should be

considered as a specific instance (today) rather than as a

universal or general case, as in wear. The continuous tells us:

Always + present continuous


COMPETITION RESULTS

18 6 22 9 1 15 26 12 1 22 22 7

6 6 17 12 10 13 3 19 11 12 24

5 21 1 1 16 13 17 1 8 12

3 22 3 3 6 1 1 11 12 10

12 22 9 22 9 18 6 3

24 22 17 1 1 9 1 6 3 13 9 25

1 1 21 15 22 1 17 13 11

12 3 24 1 15 15 5 24 22 3 1

3 24 1 12 15 24 24

7 5 15 15 13 22 3 22 22 19 19

21 1 9 22 2 3 12 13

5 24 1 17 13 3 15 13 3 4

17 1 20 1 6 5 23 22 22 18

13 13 24 22 3 18 5

19 1 9 5 8 16 14 1 5 24 22 12 15

G R O T E S Q U E O O P

R R V U M I N D F U L

A B E E H I V E C U

N O N N R E E F U M

U O T O T G R N

L O V E E T E R N I T Y

E E B S O E V I F

U N L E S S A L O N E

N L E U S L L

P A S S I O N O O D D

B E T O W N U I

A L E V I N S I N K

V E X E R A Z O O G

I I L O N G A

D E T A C H J E A L O U S

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

E W N K A R P C T M F U I

J S H V G D X B O Z L Y Q

6 1 18 6 1 9 15 5 6 1 9 16 1 3 5

9 12 6 5 24 7 6 22 7 1 6 9 25 22 11

18 6 1 25 16 5 13 6 15

R E G R E T S A R E T H E N A

T U R A L P R O P E R T Y O F

G R E Y H A I R S

Congratulations to allthose readers whosuccessfully completedour Prize Crossword 55.The winners, who willeach receive a copy ofthe Macmillan EnglishDictionary for AdvancedLearners, are:

LANGUAGE LOG Always + present continuous

John Potts is a teacher and teacher trainerbased in Zürich, Switzerland. He has writtenand co-written several adult coursebooks, andis a CELTA assessor. He is also a presenter forCambridge ESOL Examinations.

[email protected]

Michael Swan, in Practical English Usage, introduces

another facet of ‘specialness’ with these examples: When

Alice comes to see me, I always meet her at the station and

I’m always meeting Mrs Bailiff in the supermarket. The

former is analysed as a regular, planned arrangement,

whereas the latter indicates accidental, unplanned

meetings. Again, the continuous is used to indicate that the

supermarket meetings are in some way ‘different’ – not the

routine sense of arranged meetings but, instead, with a

special flavour of coincidence or chance or serendipity.

So, we can use always and the present (or past) continuous

to customise those frequent and characteristic habits that

we feel deserve special treatment: as my students would

say, when we want to ‘pimp them up’. It’s the ideal form for

us to use when we want to reveal our own quirks and

idiosyncrasies, too: Pimp up your habits? I’m always saying

things like that!

Don’t assume that I always wear a suit! Today yes, but

perhaps it’s a special occasion, like a wedding or an

interview.

It follows that frequency adverbs are (usually) used with

simple forms, because they are concerned precisely with

these general cases, placed along a line from always to

never. And so if we use the frequency adverb always with a

continuous form, we must be doing so deliberately, to show

something special. We must want the reader/listener to

understand that this habit is not a general, common-or-

garden habit, but something different and individual. A habit

that has a special quality, one that’s worth drawing attention

to. Something with a unique personal stamp.

With this mind, all the examples we’ve seen make perfect

sense: whether the habit is irritating or likeable (or eccentric

or amusing or quirky or whatever), we can show this by

using the continuous form to mark it as such. Take this

example from a blog (posted in November 2012):

It’s Xmas (all) year round for me (be)cause I’m always

buying random stuff I want, whether it be for the house or

for me.

Here, we see the writer describing their own characteristic

behaviour, something that’s typical and special, something

that marks them off from other people.

Gilles Baggi, Malvaglia, Switzerland

Anaïs Bouque, Clamart, France

Danuta Hohner, Röthenbach, Germany

Maya Majewska, Poznan, Poland

Luz Díez Martín, Valladolid, Spain

Armelle Masson, Villebarou, France

Maria Mastrangelo, Alife, Italy

Krystyna Pawlowska, Sosnowiec, Poland

Michaela Seserman, Leeds, UK

Ali Souli, Le Kef, Tunisia

Charles Dickens

Swan, M Practical English Usage OUP 2005


IT WORKS IN PRACTICEIT WORKS IN PRACTICE��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.Don’t forget to include your postal address.

All the contributors to It Works in Practice in this issue of ETp will receive copies ofEngland by Rachel Bladon and The Unites States of America by Coleen Degnan-Venesswith Chantal Veness, published by Macmillan. Macmillan have kindly agreed to besponsors of It Works in Practice for this year.

Quote, unquoteSome time ago, I chose a set of quotations

in English which I thought would interest

my students, and I then printed them out

and laminated them. These quotations are

short, funny and said by a famous person,

as this seemed the best way to ensure that

they attracted the students’ attention.

Every week I put one or two of them on my

classroom door. After a week they are

moved to a noticeboard inside the

classroom and replaced with new ones on

the door.

The quotations can be used as a

springboard for different activities, either

forming part of the main lesson or as an

additional activity for early finishers. For

example:

● Choose a quotation and change it into

reported speech.

● Choose a quotation and comment on it.

● Say which of the quotations you don’t

agree with.

● Create your own quotation on the same

topic.

● Find the circumstances in which the

quotation was said.

● Find five other quotations about the

same subject.

● Find five other quotations by the same

person.Katarzyna Wiacek

Minsk Mazowiecki, Poland

� � Read, draw and speak This task is a good way to vary a

reading lesson and to bring some

creativity into the process. I’ve

used it with a class of adults at

elementary level, but as adults can

be reluctant to speak (although

mine did cope with the task

successfully), it might work better

with teenagers. The task will work

best if you have several reading

texts on one topic, and you will

need to group the students

according to how many texts you

have.

In my case, the reading texts were

four short extracts about street

markets in different countries. The

texts contained similar information

(name, size, products, etc). I

decided that simply going through

the texts would be tedious, so after

doing the usual pre-reading routine

(discussion and introduction of new

words), I divided the class into four

groups (one for each text) and

distributed large sheets of paper,

coloured pencils and felt-tip pens.

I assigned one text to each group

and told them to read their text

and draw the information presented

there. The main idea was for them

to write as few words as possible

(ideally, just the name of a market)

and, instead, try to draw everything

they found interesting and

important about ‘their’ market. I

set a time limit of around 15–20

minutes and told the students that

they should try their best to

produce pictures which would help

them later to present the

information to the class.

At first, the students were surprised

and a little puzzled but, after

reading their extracts, they set to

work, cooperating well in their

groups. First, they decided what to

draw and who should draw what. I

monitored the process, helping with

ideas and reminding them of the

time limit. Each group then

described their markets to the rest

of the class, using only their

pictures as prompts. The reading

texts used the present simple, and

the students used the same tense

to describe them, which made the

task fairly straightforward:

afterwards, they confessed that

they were amazed at how easy

speaking can be!

This task could be expanded by

following up with a discussion

about which of the markets they

would like to visit and why.

Anastassia IvanovaTall inn, Estonia


Low-tech but high-value�

� Making groupwork workA problem that teachers in Japan face when doing groupworkis that those students assigned the role of group leader areoften quite passive and do nothing to get the members ofthe group working together. As a result, some members ofthe group will start doing the exercise on their own, somewill do nothing. I have found that groupwork is best done inthe following manner:

First, the students stay in the same groups throughout thesemester. At the beginning of a lesson, each group chooses aleader by playing ‘rock, paper, scissors’ (the winner is theleader). At the beginning of a group activity, all the

members of a group except the leader have their textbooksclosed. They then move position so that they can all see theleader, who reads out the instructions and solicits answersfrom the group. When the activity (a vocabulary matchingexercise, for example) is completed, all the group membersopen their textbooks and, as the teacher goes over theexercise, they write the correct answers.

I have found that all the students stay active and on-task ifI do groupwork this way.

Tom AndersonYokohama, Japan

I teach on a BEd degree programme in

the Gulf region; I am also a dedicated

CLIL teacher because my students are

concurrently studying English in support

of their studies and, as a content

specialist with a background in teaching

EFL, I am always aware that the technical

language of the content demanded by

the programme is higher than the

students’ overall language proficiency.

In my Human Development course, my

sessions cover holistic development in

early childhood. The students learn about

the value of play-based learning and toys

as learning tools. Perhaps the most

powerful tool for play in early learning is

the simple wooden unit block. When I

introduce this, the students always

express a mix of horror and surprise: they

themselves are technically savvy and

always tell me that their two-year-old

brother or sister is already using an

i-Pad. So, what follows is that I put the

simple unit block to the test and give the

students hands-on experience with a box

of blocks. Time and time again, I have

found not only that the students agree

that the unit block is a powerful vehicle

for child development, but also that it

engages the students themselves

naturally in the four Cs of CLIL: content,

communication, culture and cognition. I

have rarely seen my students so engaged

in creating, negotiating and using

language to describe and discuss as

when they avidly build something with

blocks cooperatively in groups. I have

witnessed a Burj Khalifa replica being

built at record speed and with finesse,

accompanied by a multitude of exclusive

villas with accompanying Lamborghinis

in the drive. Not only this, but students

have started to explain to me what they

are building and have initiated

storytelling in the form of Arabic fables.

Many have added extensions to their

buildings by taking an item from their

handbag or pocket. Most recently, a

student applied some lipstick and a

paper hat to a block, which caused much

hilarity and engagement amongst the

whole class. Even the more hesitant

students have enjoyed building,

discussing and reporting back.

Interestingly, student reflections have

not only involved discussing the learning

of content, but also language.

As the teacher, I have done very little

other than interject a few questions, and

perhaps provide some clarifications of

vocabulary. I have simply stood back and

enjoyed the language as it emerged from

what proved to be a very liberating

language-generating activity for all

those involved. I have also been

entertained by some creative

storytelling and learnt some interesting

Arabic fables. I was stunned to discover

that not only do unit blocks hold

remarkable power for early learners,

they also do so for CLIL language

learners at college level. The joy on the

students’ faces as they went round

photographing their efforts and

admiring their constructions made we

wish that I had let them build higher

and longer. In future, I aim to create

further avenues to explore the language

prompted by the remarkable wooden

unit block and to encourage the

students themselves to use this tool with

their learners.

Simple wooden unit blocks are not easy

to come by these days, but it really is

worth trying to find them; Lego is a

lesser, though acceptable, replacement

and could certainly be used. After all,

the power of the unit block lies in its

potential to develop cognition and to

create and use language while employing

culture and communication to the

fullest. I would urge any and all English

teachers to explore the power of this

simple play-based learning tool and

realise its potential through creating for

their learners applications for learning

and language development.

Fiona Baker Abu Dhabi, UAE

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03/13


Over the wall ...Alan Maley reflects

on reading in an

electronic age.

In this, my third article on books aboutreading, I have chosen to focus on twoessentially ‘humane’ titles. These arebooks which convey something of the

complex reality of the act of reading froma very personal viewpoint. I had originallyintended also to include Nicholas Carr’sThe Shallows: How the Internet isChanging the Way We Think, Read andRemember and Stanislas Dehaene’sReading in the Brain. Both are highlysignificant books which enhance ourunderstanding, in the former case, of theeffects of instant, electroniccommunication on more deliberate formsof reading and, in the other, of how brainscience is changing our perceptions ofwhat happens when we read. Both arebooks well worth reading. I chose not toinclude them this time, partly for reasonsof space and partly to remind myself ofthe original purpose of Over the wall. Thisseries was not originally conceived toreview highly technical, professional booksbut, rather, to stimulate readers’ awarenessof a wide range of books which touch,however peripherally, on the teaching wedo and on the kind of people we are.

The Pleasures ofReading in an Age ofDistractionIn The Pleasures of Reading in an Age ofDistraction, Alan Jacobs makes animpassioned case for reading for thesheer pleasure it brings. He takes astrong stand against the idea of readingas some kind of duty – what he calls the‘eat-your-vegetables lists of approvedtexts’. This attitude has little to do withreading – rather with ‘having read’ (andticked titles off the list). By contrast, headvocates ‘reading at whim’. ‘Read whatgives you delight … and do so withoutshame.’ He disapproves both of theadmonitions of ‘experts’ like HaroldBloom, who turn reading into a moralimperative, and of scientific approacheslike Dehaene’s: ‘When I encountered[their] accounts of these psychologicalprocesses, I was nearly disabled as areader.’

He writes compellingly about theneed to develop a readerly response towhat we read, and quotes the 18th-century scientist Lichtenberg: ‘A book islike a mirror: if an ass looks in, you can’texpect an apostle to look out.’ To do this,we need to re-discover the relish of‘slow’. ‘It’s what you’re reading thatmatters, and how you’re reading it, not

the speed with which you’re gettingthrough it.’ What is more, ‘… if you thinkof reading in this way, as a means ofuploading data, then reading will alwaysseem too slow’.

Jacobs has some interesting thingsto say about Kindle too, not all of themnegative, but he is critical of the claims ofproponents of multi-tasking. For him, wedo not multi-task, we shift back and forthamong tasks, leading to ‘continuouspartial attention’. A key quote from DavidFoster Wallace emphasises thedevelopment of conscious choice, ratherthan information-grazing: ‘… learninghow to think really means learning how toexercise some control over how andwhat you think. It means being consciousand aware enough to choose what youpay attention to and to choose how youconstruct meaning from experience.’

A large part of the book dwells on theimportance of developing different modesof reading for different purposes and onthe ability to screen out the importantfrom the welter of information that targetsus. Jacobs is also clear that becoming areader should be separated from theacademic learning of how to read – it hasnothing to do with the institutional ritualsof ‘education’. He doubts whether it canbe taught, but knows it can be acquired,if only by a minority.


[email protected]

Alan Maley has worked inthe area of ELT for over40 years in Yugoslavia,Ghana, Italy, France,China, India, the UK,Singapore and Thailand.Since 2003 he has been a freelance writer andconsultant. He haspublished over 30 booksand numerous articles,and was, until recently,Series Editor of theOxford Resource Booksfor Teachers.

Like Susan Hill (see below) Jacobsadvocates more silence, and emphasisesthe importance of solitude in the act ofreading, but acknowledges theimportance of the social dimensions ofreading, through sharing books withother like-minded people, whether inreading groups or in virtual environments.Like Hill, he also recommends re-reading,partly for the way it enables us to re-evaluate the same book at two differentpoints in time.

Inevitably, as readers, we criticallyevaluate what we read. He recommendsthe generous suggestions of W H Auden:‘For an adult reader, the possible verdictsare five: I can see this is good and I likeit; I can see this is good but I don’t like it;I can see this is good and, though atpresent I don’t like it, I believe withperseverance I shall come to like it; I cansee that this is trash but I like it; I can seethat this is trash and I don’t like it.’

Apart from its accessible style andpungent, thought-provoking opinions,this book also refers to a very wide rangeof other books touching on reading –many of which I shall want to read!

Some of the chapters (all of themshort and written in an engaginglyaccessible style) refer to writers: CharlesDickens, Kingsley Amis, Jane Austen, IanFleming, Roald Dahl, Iris Murdoch, theAngry Young Men, Virginia Woolf,Elizabeth Bowen, W G Sebald, ArnoldWesker, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy.Others are more focused on genres:travel writing, humour, diarists, the shortstory, children’s books, anthologies,picture books, spiritual books. Still othersdeal with reading-related topics such aslibraries, the key importance of booktitles, the value and pleasure of learningpoems by heart, on scribbling in themargins, on book covers, on setting upher own small publishing company …

On the act and art of reading she isforceful, and even scathing at times. Oninternet reading she states: ‘Too muchinternet usage fragments the brain anddissipates concentration so that after awhile, one’s ability to spend long focusedhours immersed in a single subjectbecomes blunted. Information comes pre-digested in small pieces, one grazes onendless ready-meals and snacks of themind, and the result is mental malnutrition.’She asserts that getting back to properreading was ‘like diving into a deep, coolocean after flitting about in the shallows.Slow reading as opposed to Gobbling up’.In her chapter ‘Slow, slow, slow-slow, slow’she questions, ‘Why has reading turnedinto a form of speed-dating?’ Fast reading,she contends, ‘will not allow the book toburrow down into our memory and becomepart of ourselves, the accumulation ofknowledge and wisdom and vicariousexperience which helps to form us ascomplete human beings’. She has strongviews about unreadable (for her) books: ‘I am bored by Jane Austen.’ A whole

Howard’s End is on theLandingSusan Hill’s book is a pleasure trove forreaders. It arose when she was lookingfor a book which was not where sheremembered it being. Her search throughher bookshelves made her realise howmany books she had not read, so shedevoted a year to catching up: ‘I wanted tore-possess my books. A book which is lefton the shelf is a dead thing but it is also achrysalis, an inanimate object packedwith the potential to burst into new life.’

The book is an inspiring ramble – andsometimes a romp – through the land ofbooks. It is highly personal, and blendsthe books themselves with the placesand circumstances in which they wereread, the authors she has also met andher evaluations. Her journey ‘inevitablyled to my thinking, remembering,ordering, assessing, my entire bookreading life’. And later in the book shereflects: ‘Just as my genes and the soulwithin me make me uniquely me, so I amthe unique sum of the books I have read.I am my literary DNA.’

chapter is devoted to books not read andnever to be read or re-read. But sherecognises, quoting Lord David Cecil, that‘you cannot force a taste on someone else,you cannot argue people into enjoyment’.(Surely a strong case for allowing learnersto choose what they read!)

Her book stirred the fallen leaves ofmemory for me, and had me reachingback into my own bookshelves, andlooking forward to books I have not yetread.

� � �

The Extensive Reading (ER) movementhas tended to emphasise copious and,therefore, fast reading as a way ofreinforcing, acquiring and extendingtarget language proficiency. This isundoubtedly valid, and well-substantiatedby research. However, these two booksremind us that there is also a reflectiveside to reading. Where both ER andthese books share common ground is inthe sheer enjoyment that reading canfurnish.

Carr, N The Shallows: How the Internet isChanging the Way We Think, Read andRemember Atlantic Books 2009

Dehaene, S Reading in the Brain PenguinBooks 2009

Hill, S Howard’s End is on the LandingProfile Books 2009

Jacobs, A The Pleasures of Reading in anAge of Distraction OUP 2011

It really worked for me!

Did you get inspired by something you read in ETp? Did you do

something similiar with your students? Did it really work in practice?

Do share it with us ...

[email protected]

ETp

Advertising


� � �

The next big thing?The next big thing?

BUSINESS ENGLISH professional

Students find this project work

motivating; they enjoyworking on an idea theyhave come up withthemselves and seeing its development step-by-step

Reet Soosaar’s

project launches her

students into the world of

the entrepreneur.

For the last three years, I havebeen teaching business Englishat a college of furthereducation as part of a course

on entrepreneurship and projectmanagement. This course is extremelypopular, probably because the studentsfind the content interesting and theycan see its relevance to their prospectivefuture employment. Students areadmitted to the course on the basis ofthe results of the state examinationsthey take before leaving high school andno aptitude tests are administered. Sohave they got what it takes to beentrepreneurs or project managers?Although some of the first-year

students do have some experience ofteamwork, having previously beeninvolved in school projects, the majorityof them seem to have quite a vagueunderstanding of what their futureprofessions might entail. At the start ofthe course we discuss their expectationsof their future jobs and what therequirements of those jobs might be.However, it is difficult to know how bestto give them an idea of what a project isand what project management involvesbefore they start lectures. I also wonderwhat they themselves expect from theirbusiness English classes. I have come to the conclusion that

practice and hands-on experience arenecessary to bring out my students’entrepreneurial qualities, so I haveintroduced into my lessons a one-monthproject involving the development, launchand marketing of a new product orservice. We still use reading texts, dovocabulary exercises and roleplays andall the other things you would expect ofa business English course, but these aredone within the context of the project,

which aims to teach the students thebasics of project management at the sametime as developing their language skills.Students find this project work

motivating and inspiring; they reallyenjoy working on an idea they havecome up with themselves and seeing itsdevelopment step-by-step. Althoughthey have a lot of fun doing it, there is aserious purpose and each year I amamazed at their creativity. I have seensome great innovative business ideas –new products and services with suchintriguing names as Wonderwall, Mini-projector, Laughter Club and Pet Café,to mention just a few. Perhaps one daythey will actually materialise! It iscertainly true that in the last three yearstwo former students have started theirown business after graduation. I hopethat the feeling of accomplishment theyhave at the end of the project willencourage them to have a try in thistough business world.

The studentsThe students in my classes generally havea good command of English, which is agreat advantage because they don’t needto be taught basic communication skills.It is also helpful that some already knowwhat teamwork is and have some of theinterpersonal skills required for project-based learning. During the project, the students

work in teams of four or five and thereare usually four or five teams per class.

The softwareIn their teams, the students useZohoprojects project managementsoftware. This helps them to work incollaboration, sharing ideas anddocuments online. This particular


� � �

[email protected]

Reet Soosaar has beenteaching ESP at PärnuCollege in the Universityof Tartu, Estonia, for 15 years. Her interestsinclude blended learningand integrating contentand language throughproject-based learning.


software is very good for promotingunderstanding of project work andacquiring content knowledge, and usingit also helps develop the students’ ITskills. The project is simple to monitorand facilitate – I can check the students’progress easily, seeing what they areworking on, how their ideas aredeveloping, and where they could usesome extra help. Sending messages to theteams to keep them informed abouttasks, deadlines and meetings is also easy.

The organisationThe goal of the project is to develop andlaunch a new product or service, completewith marketing and advertising. We haveonly one month – 20 contact hours – tocomplete it. All the classes (which aretermed project meetings) start with awarm-up activity to set the atmosphereand establish the goal of that meeting.Typically, half the time is devoted to anintroduction of the topic (projectmanagement, product development,marketing and promotional tools) andthis involves text reading, comprehensionand discussion, and the introduction ofkey vocabulary. The rest of the time, eachteam works on a series of authentic,practical tasks related to their ownproduct or service, which have to becompleted by the next project meeting.

The tasksThe tasks enable the students to acquirecontent-based knowledge and skills.They include brainstorming ideas for aproduct or service and describing it;writing a project plan; carrying outmarket research; compilingquestionnaires to determine whetherthere is a market for this product orservice; composing a marketing mix forit; writing a progress report; creating apromotional tool that will attractpotential customers; and preparing apresentation of the product or servicefor the last meeting of the whole class. Iprovide worksheets for all the tasks, withdetailed guidelines and clear instructions.

The assessmentAssessment is formative. The wholeproject is divided into tasks, which areassessed separately and contribute tothe final grade. Throughout the project,continuous peer-assessment is used withregard to teamwork and thecontributions made by team members;self-assessment is used with regard tohow well the students cope with thetasks. Assessment criteria are suppliedfor oral presentations, writtenassignments and teamwork.

The conclusionsIn my experience, there are manyadvantages to using integrated andproject-based learning. First, there isthe effect on the students’ motivationand the relevance of the content tothem. Students can see they really aresynthesising theoretical and practicalknowledge. Surveys conducted between2009 and 2011 showed that 100 percentof the students thought that using projectwork was good for learning project-management and marketing/advertisingskills and for acquiring specific contentvocabulary. Their assessment of theteamwork was varied, depending on thelevel of contribution made by individualteam members. The students reportedthat they valued the whole process ofthe project and appreciated its creativity.They also suggested a range ofpossibilities for developing the project infuture: ways of making it more real andextending it in terms of both topics andtime. Most valuable was the fact that thestudents gave some negative feedback aswell as positive; this is worth more thanagreement with everything that theteacher has planned.

RecommendationsHere are four recommendations forturning your students from simple usersand transmitters of information intocreators and authors of knowledge whoconstruct their own understanding of thecontent by transforming it to suit theirown particular context and purposes:

Design meaningful tasks with adistinct and visible end result.Students like challenging andmeaningful tasks which enable them touse their imagination and creativity and

1

which allow them to invest something ofthemselves in the end product. The bestway to increase motivation is to give thestudents tasks in which they can see theend result of their efforts.

Design collaborative tasks andput the finished work on publicdisplay.Students like tasks where they worktogether, learning from each other,seeing different solutions and analysingand defending their opinions. Workingtowards a goal also develops theirinterpersonal and teamwork skills. Theend product, which comprises all thecompleted tasks, should not only beseen by the teacher, but should also bepresented to the whole class. Firstly, thiscan be done by getting the teams to makeoral presentations, but video recordings ofthese presentations can also be made anduploaded to the project website for laterpeer review, discussion and feedback.

Design tasks which enablerecycling of all the language skills. In this project, the students are engagedin authentic tasks that require them toread articles in order to writesummaries or reports; to producewritten plans for their work; to listen topresentations, write reviews, discussprogress, and so on. Practice of avariety of different language skills andrecycling of key vocabulary andstructures will help to improve theirgeneral language ability.

Cooperate with your colleagues. Discuss the possibilities for new projectideas or case studies with the contentteachers or programme managers fromyour institution. Find ways to includeseveral topics from the business Englishsyllabus. By working together as a teamwith a common goal, you can come upwith some excellent ideas – to saynothing of the fun involved.

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The next big thing?The next big thing?

ETp


Differentiation in the businessEnglish classroom

Differentiation in the businessEnglish classroom


Louis Rogers deals with diversity.

Differentiation is not somethingunique to English languageteaching – or indeed tolanguage teaching in general.

It is, perhaps, a term associated mostcommonly with mainstream education inschools. Initially, at least, it addressed theissue of dealing with different abilities inone classroom, in particular with helpingthe weakest and challenging the strongest.And that is probably still the predominantinterpretation of the term.However, the issues which

differentiation encompasses havegradually grown to include many widerconcerns and contexts. In some ways,the term has become so broad that itconsiders almost everything the teacherand the students do in the classroom.For example, Diane Heacox definesdifferentiated instruction as changing thepace, level or kind of instruction teachersprovide in response to individuallearners’ needs, styles or interests. CarolTomlinson defines it in terms of content,process and product. Remove content,product and process from the classroomand there is little left, other than acollection of people in a room!If differentiation has become an

almost all-encompassing term, whichaspects are particularly relevant tobusiness English settings and whatimpact can they have on the content,processes and product we use in theclassroom? In this article, I will outlinea number of the key issues related todifferentiation and assess their relevanceto the business English classroom.

higher level. Or if level is not the issue,but needs and goals are, then a similarapproach could also be used. Forexample, those students who areinterested in developing their languageability rather than cultural knowledgecan be given further work on forms,whereas those with a greater interest inculture or communication styles can begiven a further text on the same topic.To a certain extent, some good teacher’sbooks will provide activities to enableteachers to differentiate in this way. If

Differentiatinginstruction In terms of content, different resourcescan be given to different learners. Forexample, if you are using a coursebookwith a text on a given topic, then theoriginal authentic text (often referencedin the acknowledgements) or perhaps amore challenging one on the sametheme can be given to students of a

not, finding multiple sets of materialsobviously places a much greaterdemand on the teacher. Using multiplematerials will also create issues withclassroom management when feedbackon an activity is conducted.In terms of the process, all the

students might be given the same task orresource but not be expected to carry itout in the same way. For teachers, this isperhaps the easiest method with which todifferentiate as it requires little planningand they are in control of the markingcriteria. However, inevitably somestudents measure their success againstothers and they will quickly realise theyare below the level of their classmates.Finally, in terms of product, the

same task is given to all the students,for example preparing information forvisitors, but different students are askedto present it in different ways, eg via ashort email, a phone call or apresentation. This allows for a range oflanguage needs to be met from the samestarting point. This approach is usefulfor helping the students to work ontheir own needs or weaker areas.However, for the teacher it can be verytime-consuming and challenging.

Differentiating businessEnglish instructionBusiness English is quite a loose andbroad term that can mean manydifferent things in different situations.However, one thing that nearly allbusiness English courses have in

Initially, differentiationaddressed dealing with different abilities in one classroom, in particular with helping the weakest and challenging the strongest



[email protected]

Louis Rogers is aCourse Tutor at theUniversity of Reading,UK. He is the author of@Work (intermediateand elementary levels),published by Richmond,and co-author of OxfordEAP (B1+), published byOUP, and SkillfulReading and Writing(Level 2), published byMacmillan.

common is that they are needs-drivenrather than syllabus-driven. As a result,the adaptation of materials is one of thekey characteristics that defines the veryheart of business English teaching. Inparticular, adapting or selecting thecontent to meet the students’ needs andrelating those to the product thestudents need to generate in their rolesat work is integral to the success ofmost courses. Carol Tomlinson arguesthat research has proven that studentsare more successful when they aretaught based on their own readinesslevels, interests and learning profiles.Whilst business English may feel

more specific than general English, it isstill very broad – and proponents of anESP approach would perhaps argue thatit is too broad. In 1978, Gerry Abbottcoined the term TENOR – TeachingEnglish for No Obvious Reason – with arather cynical take on the validity ofhaving a broad syllabus. However, manyof us find ourselves in a situation with awide variety of needs and abilities inone classroom and the challenge ismeeting these to the best of our ability.

Differentiating businessEnglish learnersWhile the issues of differentiationmentioned above are common to manylanguage teaching situations, there aresome areas in which business Englishprovides particular challenges for theteacher, some of which I would like tooutline here:

BusinesspeopleIt can often be the case that you areassigned a class of six or sevenbusinesspeople who work for the samecompany. They have been tested asbeing at the same level and, becausethey work together, a decision is madeto place them in the same class. Thisgroup is now your ‘Insurance Englishintermediate class’. However, very soonafter this initial label is applied, allsimilarity in the learners’ needs quicklydisappears. Each person has an entirelydifferent role and uses English fordifferent purposes. One personnegotiates in English frequently – noone else does. Another person readscontracts in English – no one else does.Trying to meet everyone’s needsbecomes incredibly challenging.

Pre-work learners Perhaps none of the students in yourclass currently uses English to do a job.However, half want to improve theirEnglish because they intend to study fora year in another country, while theother half want to improve theirEnglish in order to do an internship inan English-speaking firm next summer.

Attendance Of course, erratic attendance can be anissue in any course, but it is such afrequent issue in business English thatthe same group of six or seven studentsare never in the class together. A spreadin the levels that is not particularlynoticeable when everyone is there canbecome startlingly obvious when onlytwo or three students turn up and theyinclude the strongest and weakest in theclass. Furthermore, because of thesporadic nature of the attendance, yourlesson plan, which meets the aims ofthree to four of the students, suddenlyappears less valid as only one of thesestudents is actually present.

Dealing withdifferentiationDifferentiation is not a new concept,and to any experienced business Englishteacher it will probably just sound like a description of their day-to-day role.However, the greater the flexibilityteachers can have in their content,product and processes, the more likely it is that the students will benefit. Thechallenge can lie in identifying keylesson aims that will benefit all thestudents but, at the same time, bedifferentiated to each student’s needs.

● One example would be teaching pre-intermediate students the presentcontinuous for future arrangements.This structure and aim is likely to berelevant to all the students. However,the tasks set could be devised to meeta variety of needs. Any number of themain communicative aims of abusiness English classroom – namelymeetings, emails, presentations andtelephoning – can be given todifferent students as an output task,depending on their personal needs.

Many business English courses falldown by focusing on the genre, forexample ‘meetings’, rather than the

Abbott, G ‘Motivation, materials,manpower and methods: somefundamental problems in ESP’ ELTDocuments 103 The British Council 1978

Baumann, A S, Bloomfield, A andRoughton, L Becoming a SecondarySchool Teacher Hodder and Stoughton1997

Heacox, D Differentiating Instruction inthe Regular Classroom Free Spirit 2001

Tomlinson, C A How to DifferentiateInstruction in Mixed-ability ClassroomsAssociation for Supervision andCurriculum Development 2001

function, such as ‘agreeing anddisagreeing’. Focusing on functionsrather than genres allows teachers morereadily to set multiple aims in onesituation.

● To give another example, ‘culture’ isoften taught within an individual unitand does little beyond covering somegeneral stereotypes. Culture can bedefined in many ways, however, andmany definitions combine language asan element of culture – not simply thelanguage itself being different butalso the differences in how peoplecommunicate in different cultures.Integrating communication strategieswith functional language could beanother way of meeting differentneeds within the language classroom.

� � �

Differentiation ultimately has manylimitations, as it requires additionalplanning and time and raises classroommanagement issues: it can be difficult toadminister one summative assessmentto all the individuals in a group.However, with the right planning andan effective set of materials available,differentiating in this way can be veryeffective in developing each student’sability. ETp


SCRAPBOOKSCRAPBOOKThis issue’s Scrapbook is about water going downhill.

No, I’m not referring to the declining quality of the stuffthat comes out of the tap but, quite simply, to rivers.

We have all seen a river, however small (more on relativesizes later). Some of us live close to one, some live on thebanks of one, and some, such as those in Bangkok, live ontop of one! Water has a huge fascination for so many people,and the varied forms and sizes of rivers add to this allure.

The long and the short of itWe are obsessed by size: the Nile is well-known as the world’slongest river, at some 4,160 miles (over 6,600 kilometres), but Iwonder what you would guess as the length of the shortestnamed river? The Reprua, in Abkhazia, at only 18 metres (59 feet)long can probably claim that title! (Anything shorter wouldperhaps qualify as a puddle!)

Thinking of the word puddle brings to mind the number ofwords for water that English has, particularly at the smaller end ofthe flowing water scale: there are rivulets, brooks, rills, streams,becks and burns, to name but a few.

Grand rivers inspire grand adjectives, such as mighty andmajestic; their sheer power inspires even more purple prose,especially where flooding caused by bursting of the banks isconcerned.

Rivers are important in so many ways; their associatedecology is vital to the balance of life on our planet, while thesimple fact of their position has given rise to the placement of somany of the world’s great cities.

How many of the following eight cities can you match with therivers they stand on?

Prague a) Moldau b) Main c) Elbe d) Vistula

Florence a) Po b) Arno c) Ebro d) Tiber

St Petersburg a) Spree b) Moskva c) Volga d) Neva

Lisbon a) Tagus b) Po c) Porto d) Ebro

Dublin a) Dublin b) Mersey c) Liffey d) Shannon

Khartoum a) Limpopo b) Niger c) Congo d) Nile

Moscow a) Moskva b) Sumida c) Danube d) Volga

Washington D Ca) Ohio b) Potomac c) St Lawrence d) Hudson

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However, fascinating as rivers may be, it is when they dosomething strange or spectacular that we become really hooked.For instance, rivers flow downhill, yes? That means invariablytowards the sea, and always in one direction. Well, actually, notalways …

Reversing riversThe Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake in SoutheastAsia, and its feeder, the Tonle Sap River, exist as an ecologicalanomaly. In early June, at the start of the annual rainy season,the water level of the Mekong River rises spectacularly enoughto divert part of its flow off its course to the South China Seaand redirect it into the Tonle Sap River. This forces the currentof this 100-kilometre-long river to reverse direction, beginning aprocess that by the end of October will see the area of theTonle Sap Lake grow from 2,500 square kilometres to as muchas 12,000 square kilometres, with its boundaries extendinganywhere from 20 kilometres to as much as 50 kilometresinland and its depth increasing from a mere two metres to asmuch as ten.

There are several other examples of this ‘unnatural’behaviour, one of which is the Wye River in the UK, whichdischarges into the River Severn, which in turn discharges intothe sea. Partly due to the Severn’s extremely wide mouth, it isvery susceptible to tides. The combination of these factorscauses the pressure of water at high tides to force the surfacewater of the Wye River to change direction regularly twice aday for an hour or more. The effect is not as extreme as withthe Tonle Sap, and it is only the surface water that changesdirection, with the river continuing to flow downstream beneaththis layer. Nevertheless, you are treated to the spectacle ofsurface debris proceeding downstream in a stately and

© iStockphoto.com

/ Matthew

Dixon


Scrapbook compiled by Ian Waring Green

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

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

majestic fashion, only to be seen a little later making equallystately progress in the other direction in the occasionalcompany of a puzzled-looking duck!

To the sea, to the sea!In our minds, the ‘natural’ order of things where rivers areconcerned requires a source, a visible path and a successfuljourney into the sea. This doesn’t always happen, much to ourmystification.

There are several cases of rivers apparently wasting theirefforts to reach a sea, and the best-known is probably theOkavango Delta in Botswana. This is a very large inland delta,formed where the Okavango River reaches a tectonic trough in the central part of the Kalahari. Every year, approximately 11 cubic kilometres of water spread over the 6,000–15,000 squarekilometre area. Approximately 60 percent goes to sustaining plantlife, 36 percent is evaporated (freeing it to come and rain on poorunsuspecting souls like us in the UK), 2 percent percolates intothe underground aquifers and 2 percent flows into Lake Ngami.The area is perhaps most noted for its plentiful wildlife, whichattracts many tourists to this area and is sustained by the watersof the delta.

Hidden riversI mentioned underground aquifers, and this is another source ofwonder: some rivers don’t do as they are supposed to, but diveunderground for most of their length. There are many naturalexamples, and many spectacular cave systems created bysuch phenomena, but in our haste to expand major cities inspite of natural obstacles, we covered up quite a few ourselves.Notable examples include:

● the Dommel, which lies underneath ’s-Hertogenbosch in theNetherlands;

● the Neglinnaya River, which runs through a series of tunnelsunderneath the central part of Moscow;

● the Tank Stream, which flows underneath Sydney;

● the Bièvre, buried in tunnels underneath Paris.

I have in front of me a map of the underground rivers inLondon, and they number over 20 – other cities built on thebanks of major rivers may well have similar numbers.Incidentally, talking of London’s major river, the Thames, do you know why it is pronounced /temz /? Originally it waspronounced as it is spelt, but one of the Georges (Kings ofEngland, thoughtfully imported from the continent) had such aheavy Germanic accent that he couldn’t manage the soft ‘th’sound – so the /temz / it has been ever since!

Going downhill fastThe other thing that water does which captures our interest iswhen it stops going along at a reasonable and steady gradient– and jumps. There are some amazing waterfalls around theworld, and here are a few statistics:

The world’s highest waterfall is Angel Falls in Venezuelawith a drop of 3,212 feet (979 metres).

Victoria Falls is thought to have the greatest volume ofwater flowing over it, but even at over one mile (1.6 kilometres)in width, it is dwarfed by the Chutes de Khone, on the MekongRiver in Laos, with a span of over six miles (10 kilometres).

Jumps and plungesMost of us like playing with and in water, but some take it toextremes: on October 24, 1901, a 63-year-old school teacher, AnnieEdson Taylor, was the first person to go over Niagara Falls on theAmerican–Canadian border in a barrel. She did this as a publicitystunt and she survived, bleeding but virtually unharmed. Soon afterexiting the barrel, she said ‘No one ought ever do that again’.Despite her advice, 14 people have intentionally gone over the fallsin or on a device since her historic ride. Some have survived intact,but others have drowned or been severely injured. Survivors of such stunts face charges and stiff fines as it is illegal, on both sidesof the border, to attempt to go over the falls. Nevertheless, thisfoolhardiness still goes on today – as recently as May 21, 2012, anunidentified man in his early 40s became the third person to survivean unprotected trip over Horseshoe Falls, one section of Niagara.Eyewitness reports indicate that he deliberately jumped into theNiagara River after climbing over a railing!

Answers 1 a 2 b 3 d 4 a 5 c 6 d 7 a 8 b

© iStockphoto.com

/ Milos Mokotar


P R O N U N C I A T I O N

In it up to your earsIn it up to your ears 22Mark Hancock insists that working with authentic recordings is a valuable investment.

In Issue 84 of ETp, I looked atvariations in authentic speech thatcause comprehension difficulties for

students. I focused firstly on variationsrelating to connected speech and,secondly, on those relating to accent,and I presented some awareness-raisingactivities to prepare students for thesevariations. In this issue, I will turn myattention to authentic recordings andhow these can be exploited to developpronunciation as a listening skill.

Micro-listeningJohn Field argues that the typical listeninglesson, featuring a text plus a series ofcomprehension questions, tests ratherthan teaches. He suggests that listeninglessons should also include a close-upfocus on very small segments, or micro-listening. This will help to make thestudents more aware of the characteristicsof speech described in my article inIssue 84. Published listening materialsrarely feature segments of authentic textextracted for micro-listening, so youmight like to make some yourself.

Creating your own materialsIn order to create your own micro-listening materials, you will need someaudio-editing software. Audacity is onesuch product and it is available freefrom http://audacity.sourceforge.net. (Analternative is Wavlab.)In Audacity, when you open an MP3

file with your audio text, you will seethe audio file shown as vibrations alonga line, as in the example here:

Click on the green ‘Play’ button atthe top to listen and watch the display.Then identify a very short segment thatyou wish to focus on because it is likelyto be difficult for your students tounderstand – this may be because of

connected speech features or because ofthe speaker’s accent. Highlight thatsegment on the display in much the sameway as you would highlight a piece oftext. You can then copy it and paste itinto a fresh file. You can paste it multipletimes so that your students can hear itrepeatedly – an ‘acoustic drill’ – or youcan paste lots of different segmentstogether which all share one commonfeature – an ‘audio-concordance’.

Acoustic drillsWe usually think of drills in connectionwith spoken production, with multiplerepetition to train articulation. Thesame idea could be transferred tolistening – for ear training. Identify andcopy a segment of a listening text asdescribed above, pasting it repeatedlyinto a new file three or four times withhardly any gap between them. Theeffect of the multiple repetition is tomake the pronunciation of the segmentextremely noticeable and memorable.You would probably choose a numberof these problem segments from anygiven authentic audio text. You can alsomake slowed-down versions of youracoustic drill in Audacity by clicking onthe ‘Effect’ tab and choosing ‘Changetempo’. A slowed-down version willreally enable your students to analysewhat they are hearing.

Audio concordancesIdentify a feature of your text which isnoticeably frequent and potentiallyconfusing for an apprentice listener.Copy multiple examples of this feature,plus a small amount of the co-text to theleft and right of each example, and pastethem into a fresh file. Once you have acollection of such snippets, it will soundsomething like the audio equivalent ofthe typical concordance display, with thekey word in a vertical column and a littleof the co-text to the left and right.When you play this audio

concordance for your students, it willmake the targeted feature very noticeable [email protected]

Mark Hancock has beenan English teacher since1984, working in Turkey,Brazil, the UK and nowin Spain. He has an MSc in teaching Englishfrom Aston University,UK. His books onpronunciation includeEnglish Pronunciation in Use Intermediate andPronunciation Games,both published by CUP.He also regularlyuploads pronunciationmaterial and articlesonto his website: http://hancockmcdonald.com.

and thus raise awareness of it. Forexample, working with a podcast from aradio station, I found a discussion withmultiple occurrences of the wordactually, which was radically reducedand elided. I made the following audioconcordance. The word actually istranscribed roughly as it sounds:

… do you achly know …… if you achly highlight …

… have you achly met them all …… but it sachly …

By hearing these various instances ofthe same word, pronounced a littledifferently every time, the students get afeel for the variability of itspronunciation. The fragments in theabove example were all edited from asingle authentic text. However, there isno reason why you shouldn’t createaudio concordances from manydifferent audio texts to get a biggersample of the target feature, presentedin a variety of voices and accents.

� � �Like any other preparation of classmaterials, making these micro-listeningswill take time. This is particularly true ifyou are new to the software. However, thetime spent familiarising yourself with itis an investment which will pay off later,when you’ll be able to edit classroomaudio much more quickly.

Field, J Listening in the LanguageClassroom CUP 2008

ETp


ReviewsTraditional Folk Songsby David A Hill and Andrew C RouseHelbling Languages 2012978-3-85272-433-1

Songs have long been a popularresource for language teaching, and forgood reason. At their best, they offerenjoyable exposure and interaction withthe language in context. They havepotential spin-off value for languageskills – in particular, pronunciation, lexisand grammar – as well as for culturalbackground and world knowledge. Andthey are highly memorable. Equallyimportantly, songs (and especially folksongs) touch the fund of human feelingswe all share – love, death, disappointment,loss, deception, pain, joy ... There is alltoo little of this in many publishedmaterials.

But although there have been anumber of books on the subject, the use ofsongs has mostly remained a ‘wet Fridayafternoon’ option, and teachers havetended to be left to their own devices.Moreover, although traditional folk songsare often used, there has not been areadily accessible collection for teachers todraw upon. This book is, therefore, mostwelcome, and its subtitle –15 folk songsfrom Britain and Ireland to liven up yourlessons – is true to its word.

The collection comes in a ring-boundphotocopiable format, with a CD-ROMwith the words, music and other printedmaterial, and an audio CD with thesoundtrack. The 15 songs include manywell-known favourites, such as Cocklesand Mussels and What Shall We Do withthe Drunken Sailor? as well as somewhich will be less familiar, like So Early inthe Spring.

Each unit of the book is based onone of the songs and there is a standardunit structure. The first three pagescontain detailed lesson notes and answerkeys for the teacher. Next, the lyrics andmusical score for the song open thestudents’ part of the unit. There are thenone or two worksheets directed to a CLILexploitation of the text. These arefollowed by two further worksheets: oneexploring the song through various kindsof questioning and one with moredetailed language work. The last of theworksheets in each unit is headed

Performers’ Corner. This focuses on awell-known singer (eg Van Morrison, PeteSeeger) or group (eg The Dubliners,Pentangle) associated with the song, andprovides information about otherrecordings and artists for those who wantto explore further.

The songs themselves are well-recorded and pleasing to the ear and,most importantly, clearly enunciated,so they are easy to follow, with orwithout a script in hand. There is anice variety of modes, from singleunaccompanied vocal, sung by thetwo authors, to two voicesaccompanied by violin and guitar.My only small regret was that therewas no female voice. Apart fromreasons of gender balance, someof the songs are sung by a femalepersona (The Trees They Do GrowHigh, All Things Were Quite Silent,etc), while others are dialogicbetween male and female voices(eg The Outlandish Knight).

There is a good range ofactivity types, leaving the teacherto decide how much or how littleis appropriate in a given classcontext. I liked the fact that theauthors do not make the molehillof archaisms and unusualvocabulary or syntax into a

mountain of difficulty. Such things aresecondary to the appeal of the songsthemselves.

In one or two cases, there isreference to a parallel literary text. I would have welcomed this as aregular feature. The Wild Rover, forexample, could have been setalongside Byron’s poem So We’llGo No More A-Roving. In othercases, variant versions of thesongs might have been used forcomparison.

Overall, I can thoroughlyrecommend this book to teacherswho wish to ‘liven up theirlessons’. And I look forward tothe next one – American folksongs, perhaps?

Alan MaleyFordwich, UK

The Book of Pronunciation by Jonathan Marks and Tim Bowen DELTA Publishing 2012978-1-905085-70-5

I don’t know if Jonathan Marks and TimBowen can write verse anything in thevein of Yeats, but this text is poetry forany teacher hoping for an all-encompassing guide to both the theoryand teaching of pronunciation. I was


Reviewsmade to realise that I know less aboutpronunciation than I thought I did. Haveyou ever elided? Do you have a rhotic ornon-rhotic accent? What exactly shouldyou do with your tongue and lips to makea fricative? Part A will tell you if you have,if you do and how. It not only explainsthese, but many other technical terms, incrystal clear layman’s language. I nowlook forward to impressing someunsuspecting colleagues with my new-found vocabulary!

This book is from the award-winningDelta Teacher Development Series and is,as the subtitle denotes, of an extremelypractical pedagogy. After beingenlightened with some of the terminologyin the early section of Part A, a schematicrepresentation of English phonemes isillustrated with sounds, symbols, spellingand stress. Included here are some usefulrules of thumb: for example, which suffixesdo and which don’t change the stresspatterns of words they are added to.

Part B is the meat of the book,handouts upon handouts, each with verypractical guidelines as to how to usethem. The first of these handouts, inChapter 1, asks the learners to considerthe importance of pronunciation andfocuses on the introduction of thephonemic chart. This is followed up with afun activity – ‘Introducing syllables’ – withthe placement of coins in different cornersof a table as each student calls out aword, eliciting awareness of syllables in anon-intellectual way. Try it out and seehow long it takes before the first learnercottons on to what’s happening.

The look of the book I feel is lessimpressive. I find the cover design far fromappealing. Why not create an eye-catchingsketch to illustrate one of the activitieswithin? The printing throughout the text isgrey and the font size very small, whichmakes it not very reader-friendly.

The CD included may be a useful toolfor non-native language teachers, but Ipersonally find letting the learners struggleto work out the stress, the intonation or therhythm for themselves far more rewarding.

On the plus side, there is that wealthof handouts, all meticulously laid out,followed by detailed procedures on tohow to apply them, which is great. Mystudents particularly enjoyed ‘Wordfamilies’, ‘Everything but’, ‘Disappearing

text’, ‘Nothing a tall’ and ‘Who’s gotthe tickets?’ If only a few more ofthese were turned into games oractivities where students weremade to get out of their seats andmove around the classroom, itwould be perfect. But saying that, Idon’t believe you could find amore well-rounded and definitivetool for the application ofpronunciation in the classroom.Jonathan Marks and Tim Bowenhave created a really valuablebook, full of an abundance ofengaging, practical material.

Andy StarckTainan, Taiwan

Get on Stage! by Herbert Puchta, Günter Gerngross and Mathew Devitt Helbling Languages 2012 978-3-85272-248-1

The pressing need for plays which can bestaged with students is familiar toteachers all over the world. The mainproblem teachers face is finding engagingand relevant stories which learners reallywant to act out. Get on Stage! caters forthis need by offering a wide range of playswhich can easily be staged, along with abank of ideas on how to go about it. Whatfirst meets the eye is how complete andthorough the work of the three authors is:two seasoned ELT writers and materialsdevelopers, Herbert Puchta and GünterGerngross, have been assisted in thisendeavour by the experienced actor anddirector Matthew Devitt.

Get on Stage! has been designed foruse in the ELT classroom with students atelementary to upper-intermediate level(A2 to B2 on the Common EuropeanFramework scale), and it forms part ofthe Helbling Photocopiable Resourcesseries. The book is broken down into fourchapters, each hosting plays of differentlengths. At the end, teachers can find aquick reference guide which will helpthem to select the most suitable play fortheir class. What I found most excitingabout this resource book is its extensiveintroduction, which covers all aspects ofstaging a play and provides ideas forwarm-up games as well as the theoretical

background to why the use of dramabenefits language learners. Among thedefinite pluses of the book is that itcomes with a DVD and a CD thatincludes some recorded plays: these canbe used as listening material or as an aidto improve the learners’ ownpronunciation and intonation.

Get on Stage! is more than just acollection of plays, as the authors have alsoprovided some thought-provoking teachingmaterial. Attention has been given to thelearners’ need to understand the plot andthe language of the play before attemptingto learn their lines. Comprehension andvocabulary development worksheetsaccompanying each of the plays will helpthe students to pick up chunks of authenticlanguage, which in turn will help them toremember their lines more easily and toact more naturally.

One really needs to nitpick to finddrawbacks in this book, but I have to saythat a few of the plot ideas and endingsseem a little contrived or underdevelopedto me. I suspect that in some places theyhave been sacrificed to allow thelanguage of each play to be carefullycontrolled.

Get on Stage! made me want tostage a play with my students as soon aspossible. Perhaps this is the greatestaccomplishment of this book: it offersinspiration to teachers to inspire theirlearners.

Maria-Araxi SachpazianThessaloniki, Greece

[email protected]

Ken Milgate has overforty years’ experienceof teaching ESOL infurther education. He isa reflective practitionerwith research interestsin innovative teachingstrategies and alsoworks as a distancelearning tutor forEurolink, preparingprospective ESOLteachers worldwide.

T E ACHER D E V E LOPMENT

The building blocksof grammarThe building blocksof grammarKen Milgate identifies the need for proper grammar training.

For the second year running, Ihave a student in my CambridgeProficiency in English (CPE)

class whose principal objective is to take a GCSE in English (a publicexamination taken by students in UKschools, usually at the age of 16). Sheattends my evening class, however,because her chosen course does notinvolve any formal grammar teaching.

ExpectationsLike the majority of overseas students,she expects some grammar input on alanguage course, and the omission ofthis traditional element in school examcourses in the UK may be one of thereasons why there is so much adversecomment with regard to the level oflanguage accuracy and appropriatenessdisplayed by today’s school leavers.

ExaminationsThe Cambridge suite of examinations,which is much favoured by overseasstudents by virtue of its internationalstatus and acceptance, lays greatemphasis on grammatical structures:some of the transformation exercises atCPE level would tax native speakers.

Some years ago, a member of stafffrom another department with a degreein English Literature asked if she couldsit in on one of my basic grammarclasses prior to a year’s study leaveduring which she was to teach Englishin Mexico. At the end of the lesson shewas, in her own words, ‘gobsmacked’ athow unprepared she felt to deliver thekind of lesson that non-native speakersexpect.

A major consideration in mygrammar classes at all levels is to effectthe transfer from theory to practice in

the safe environment of the classroom.It is vital that any new structure is field-tested to prove its practical application.

EmotionsIn a recent CPE class, I introduced (atthe request of one of my students)examples of sentences using I wish andIf only to express preference and regret.It was examples of the latter thatproved particularly rewarding: my ownexamples – I wish I could go to the partytomorrow and I wish she wouldn’t use myphone so much – were dwarfed bysubsequent voluntary revelations fromstudents who had no qualms aboutmaking very emotional declarations andconfessions. Confidentiality prevents mefrom citing them all, but suffice it to saythat the constructions were the catalystfor a barrage of highly-chargedlanguage examples.

I have always contended that theport of arrival in a foreign language iswhen you can talk about your emotionsin depth. What started out as an inputof theory soon became a truly human

experience of soul-searching andcatharsis: If only I hadn’t been so nervousand I wish I had not written that letterwere authentic responses which triggeredoff further language development.

Of course, the regular features ofmy classes at this high level also includethe methodical exploitation of shortnewspaper or magazine articles: weanalyse the use of punctuation, thechoice of constructions for emphasisand the reason for verb tenses, to namebut a few examples.

� � �

It is no surprise that, in general, theBritish do not make good linguistswhen the UK educational system denieslearners the basics of sentenceconstruction; it is like expecting a builderto construct a house without first beingtaught how to lay a solid foundation.

Potential teachers of English as aforeign or second language, however,will need to ensure that their trainingincludes a study of English grammarand its teaching before they face a classof students who will expect the teacherto have an in-depth knowledge of howtheir mother tongue works on afundamental basis. The alternativemight well be embarrassed silence in aclassroom a long way from home. ETp


© iStockphoto.com

/ archideaphoto


T EACHER D E V E LOPMENT

Keeping areflective teachingjournal

Keeping areflective teachingjournalDominick Inglese relates his personal experience

of action research.

Reflection is a deep thoughtprocess whereby the personinvolved consciously ponderswhat has happened in a

particular situation. Reflective journalsare used to make a written record ofthat process and, in the context ofeducation, there are two main types:learner journals and teacher journals.

In the classroom, learner journals area fairly common assessment tool; andprofessional reflective journals are oftenused in pre-service training programmesto assist teachers in analysing the internaland external forces that affect dailyteaching experiences. They are a way ofencouraging trainee teachers to becomemore sensitive to their interpersonalrelationships with their students.

Professional reflectivejournalsVolumes of literature are devoted to thebenefits of using journals in theclassroom, most of which explain how togenerate, administer and assess studentjournal writings (see the works of MaryLou Holly, Jo McDonough, MelinaPorto, and Jack Richards and ThomasFarrell). Although vast numbers of

publications overflow with literature onthe theories and methods of engaging inreflective practice, few have concrete casestudies of professional teacher diaries,and fewer still include submissions fromyoung adult teachers. There are, however,two examples that stand out: those byMelina Porto and Jo McDonough.

Porto’s in-depth 35-week-long studyinvolves massive amounts of raw datataken from journals written by herself andher students. In an exposing statement,she demonstrates that reflective journalkeeping is beneficial, but can also bepainful: ‘Reading and rereading myteaching diaries has been an incrediblypainful experience, if not one of the mosttraumatic of my professional life so far.’

McDonough looked at the diaries offour experienced teachers and assertsthat diaries ‘help us document andformalize the everyday working experiencethat might otherwise be lost’.

My action researchprojectI am a visiting instructor at a largeprivate university in Southeast Asia(over 20,000 students are enrolled in theundergraduate programme). I teach arequired undergraduate Englishconversation course where nearly all ofthe students are aged between 19 and 23and are in their first year of college.

Having a sincere desire to implementsome of the theories that I have readabout endlessly, I decided last semesterto go beyond the requirements of myallocated duties and implement apersonally-designed curriculum, usingoriginal lesson plans consisting ofcustomised rubrics, worksheets,homework assignments and classroomactivities. I was also eager to engage inprofessional development by means ofreflective practice, so after each class Iwould write about the day’s events. LikeMelina Porto, I felt inspired to do thisaction research because I had a desire todeviate from the standard textbook-basedteacher-centred curriculum. However, Iwas too insecure and intimidated tosolicit my students’ opinions as she did!

My teaching contextTo help you understand the context inwhich I am working, here is someinformation about my teaching situation:

● I have both male and female first-yearuniversity students.

● They are mostly business managementmajors and communication majors.

● They are aged 19–23 (the average ageis 20).

● The lesson takes place once a weekfor 1 hour and 50 minutes.

● Our classroom is fully equipped witha computer and sound system hookedup to a large screen projector.

● The large projector screen dropsdown in front of the blackboard atthe flip of a switch.

● The desks are aligned in five rowsfacing the large screen. � � �

Journals are a way of encouragingtrainee teachers to

become more sensitive to their interpersonalrelationships with their students



[email protected]

Dominick Inglese has aBA in English and aMAEd in Curriculum/Instruction. A saxophoneand flute player, hefocuses on incorporatingmusic into lesson plans,especially for Englishlanguage learners. As anextension of his Master’sresearch, his ongoingproject is constructing aMoodle site for Englishlanguage learners: http://englishusingsongs.com.

� � � ● I have an internet connection,allowing me access to my website,which I use to conduct the lesson.

● The students can see the worksheetsand videos posted on my website onthe large screen.

Procedures and resultsThe procedure for my action researchproject was very simple: every day afterclass, I would write about the day’sevents, giving details about whathappened and telling myself what Iwanted to do in the next class. I keptthis journal for the first half of thesemester, during which the daily lessons

were based on popular songs. There aresome examples of my journal entries atthe end of this article.

As a result of keeping a reflectivejournal, I made several changes duringthe course of the semester and I have aclear plan on how to improve thecurriculum for the next semester. I havealso gained a profound realisation ofthe extent to which teachers have thepotential to affect their students’ lives.

� � �

As you will see from the journal entriesshown here, I felt ecstatic during thisexperience. In future action research, Ibelieve I should also get the students’opinions on the experience by conductinga survey at the end of the semester.

This article offers a glimpse into mygenuine emotions as I experienced‘feeling like a teacher’ for the first time.The results are offered here in anattempt to bridge the gap betweentheory and practice in English languageteaching.

Holly, M L H Keeping a ProfessionalJournal (2nd ed) UNSW Press 2002

McDonough, J ‘A teacher looks atteachers’ diaries’ ELTJ 1994

Porto, M ‘A teaching narrative: Mygrowth as a foreign language educatorthrough teaching diaries’ Journal ofFurther and Higher Education 32 (3) 2008

Richards, J C and Farrell, T S CProfessional Development for LanguageTeachers: Strategies for Teacher LearningCUP 2005

Richards, J C and Farrell, T S C PracticeTeaching: A Reflective Approach CUP2011



Journal entry (1) March 7, 2011

Today was the first full class in which I used the

worksheets and website I have developed to teach

English using music. There were 36 students in the class

and I asked them which song they wanted to do from

the list on my website; they chose ‘Let it Be’.

Using the worksheets, we began the lesson with the

vocabulary section. As a class, we wrote sentences for

each vocabulary word. I walked around the room as they

wrote their sentences, reading out loud ones that came

to mind as well as exemplary sentences from various

students. After we finished the vocabulary section, we

listened to the song once with our eyes closed. Next, the

students copied the lyrics of the song, in the form of a

cloze exercise, from the large screen into their

notebooks. Then we did the cloze section as a class. I

played the song, pausing after each stanza and we filled

in the blanks together. We proceeded through the song

in this manner. After this exercise, we sang the song

together. All of this took about 1 hour 20 minutes. I had

an amazing experience. I was happy and I felt satisfied

with my job and with my life.


Today the lesson plans went great! We did ‘Hello’ by Lionel

Richie. This went very well, actually, despite my original

frustration this morning with the sound not working. The

students really got into ‘Hello’. We all sang quietly. They

got the tune after only hearing it three times.

We sang R Kelly’s ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ in the next

class (1–2.50 pm) at the suggestion of one of the

students. This also went great! R Kelly’s song is very

inspirational.


I had two classes today, Thursday. The first class did

Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’ and we did ‘Closer to

Fine’ by the Indigo Girls in the second class.

The hairs on my body stood on end and I had shivers

as the first class whispered ‘Redemption Song’. This is a

very powerful song.

With the second class, I think ‘Closer to Fine’ was a

little too fast, but it is good to have a challenge.

Note: In the second class, one student sat in on the

class, even though she was not officially on the roster.

Journal Entries

ETp




This Friday I had two classes. We did ‘Sunday Bloody

Sunday’ by U2 with the first class (1–3 pm) and we did

‘Let It Be’ with the second class (3–5 pm) at one

student’s request.

I had an amazing experience in the second class.

Maybe I am just sentimental, but I felt chills when this

class sang ‘Let It Be’. After hearing this song only three

times, they could sing it with the volume turned down.


Today was a review day. Thank goodness I did not plan

on using the screen today because in both classes major

technological issues prevented me from using the

computer. In the first class, the computer worked but

the projector would not turn on, thus rendering the

computer useless.

In the next class, the computer completely died.

Luckily, one of my students had his laptop and he also

had the songs we needed for the day on it. So, that was

cool; I was not too embarrassed.

I was really impressed, especially with the second

class. There are a few really good singers in there who

naturally lead the entire class. Because of them, I think

the entire class benefited.


Today’s class was a review class. Several students were

sleeping. I don’t know what it was but maybe they were

just exhausted, sick or hungover?

So, I am trying to make everything very clear. The

midterm exam is in two weeks and I have never done

anything like this before. We will see what happens.

Journal entry (11) April 4, 2011

Today went well, but I learned something about being a

teacher. I realized that I need to write more often on the

blackboard. I should, especially, write important things

on the board that students must not forget. That way I

can say: ‘I even wrote it on the board!’

So, today I spent the first 20 minutes going over the

rubric for next week’s midterm exam. I did this to try to

make sure they understood the grading criteria. Then I

wrote on the board: ‘Now study your song.’

Journal entry (12) April 7 2011

Today was a great and busy day. The time went by fast

as both classes repeated the procedure I did with

Monday’s classes. But, this time, I wrote more details on

the board. I am going to get in the habit of writing more

details on the board.

We went over the rubric for next week’s test by

assigning groups of four to explain one section of the

rubric to the whole class. This took about 20 minutes.

With the remaining time, I went around the room and had

students practise their songs, first alone and then by

singing their song to their neighbours.

Next week is the exam!


Wow! So, today was the day we were all waiting for! Action

day! Moving day! WOW! What a great time! Everything

worked out well in today’s classes. I went shopping

yesterday (Sunday) and got snacks and drinks for the

test-day party. Students had snacks and drinks while I

did roll call, checked their papers and took photos.

Procedure: I called each pair of students to the front

of the class. They sang their song without looking at

their papers. I sat at the back and circled rubric points

on their sheets. All pairs of students did their best and,

as they sang, the other students in the ‘audience’ were

clapping along. It was awesome!

So, today was honestly the best day of my career. I

felt so natural. I felt like this is the best thing in the world.


Thursday and Friday were a great success (I think so,

and I hope my students think so too)!

As I did for Monday’s classes, I went shopping at a

nearby grocery store for drinks, cups, plates and snacks.

The Thursday class was a little disappointing but the

1 o’clock Friday class was great. It is surprising how well

many of the students sang. One student did ‘Yesterday’

and it was flawless. Several students did the same song,

namely ‘My Love’ by Westlife. This Friday class is my

biggest class, about 40 students, and it was a vibrant

experience. Two students were there just to sit in and

have fun with their friends.

The second Friday class, 3 o’clock, is my smallest

class and they also had a good time. I distributed the

snacks as in the other classes.

So, this has been an amazing experience.


T E C H N O L O G Y

Tweet,tweet!Tweet,tweet!Lesley Lanir sings the praises of a social media platform.

Teachers who once used onlybooks, overhead projectorsand blackboards now have amultitude of digital

applications available which can enhancetheir students’ learning experience andcontribute towards their progress.

Some of the digital applicationsteachers should start thinking aboutinclude social media: digital means ofreaching millions of people whohopefully share common interests.Nowadays, using social media is anexpected part of everyday life and it isn’tgoing away – today, tomorrow or in thenear future. In fact, the very opposite –it is becoming ever more powerful.

Social media andeducationEducational institutes seem to have beenquite slow in adopting social media fordigital learning. However, there hasrecently been a surge in usage, andsurveys now show that approximatelytwo-thirds of education faculties in theUS alone have used some form of socialmedia during their classes. Digital andsocial media are becoming more popularin UK schools and universities, too. Aspart of a project set up by Cisco, theRoyal Shakespeare Company, JANET(a government-funded research andeducation network) and Ravensbourne,a college in the university sector, 9,000students from 140 schools watched awebcast of Tim Crouch’s play I, Cinna,based on a character from Shakespeare’sJulius Caesar. After taking part in a livechat with the actor and director, thestudents then did their own creativewriting, producing both poems andprose.

So how can social media help youreducational institute, your classrooms,your students and you as a teacher?

What are the benefits?As ‘social media’ is a pretty newconcept and field, research into thebenefits is limited; no one has figuredout fully what is truly effective or not.Nevertheless, a growing body ofscholarly research suggests that, whenused properly, social media can boostboth learning outcomes and studentengagement. But the phrase ‘when usedproperly’ needs to be taken intoconsideration; and whether you chooseto have your students watch YouTubevideos relevant to a language point or‘tweet’ questions in class, you need toensure that you have a useful

educational language-teaching activityin mind and that your students are notembarking on a task that merelyprovides a fun distraction to keep themawake and present in the classroom.

Before you start introducing anyindividual social media into yourclassroom, it is helpful to pinpoint thebenefits of each one and to have a clearunderstanding, ahead of time, of exactlywhat your objectives are. Afterwards, anappropriate social network can beselected that fits in with those specificgoals. Obvious first choices for teachersare YouTube and Facebook. However, themicro-blogger Twitter has a lot to offer.

What is Twitter?Launched in 2006, and reported to haveover 150 million registered useraccounts, Tw itter is a relatively easymicro-blogging, social media platformthat can be usefully applied in theclassroom for specific activities. Itcombines the simple concept of socialnetworking, a resource for up-to-the-minute news and micro-blogging.Twitter users share prolifically whatthey are reading, doing, planning,thinking and making, and Twitter hasbecome a popular place to turn to for: ● journalists with breaking news;● hot tips and trends;● events and other timed happenings;● celebrity gossip.

A basic Twitter message is limited to140 characters, including spaces andpunctuation, which is why it is called amicro-blogging service. These messagescan be sent to the Twitter website viamobile phones, the internet or othermobile applications.

Each user ‘follows’ or accumulates alist of ‘followers’ comprising friends,celebrities, companies and organisations.(Newcomers to this new socialphenomenon shouldn’t despair: anonline dictionary, Twittonary, is availableto help decipher Twitter terminology.)

Users can follow other users, creatinglists of many small social networks,categorised into topics, known as aPLNs (Personal Learning Networks),which can share information among thegroup within a matter of seconds. Whena user receives a tweet they wish to sharewith their followers, they re-tweet it,thereby quickly passing along messagesor certain trends that Twitter picks up on(known as ‘trending topics’). A hashtag(the # symbol) is added by Twitter usersto identify topics that are trending at thetime or that they wish to see trending.

Before you start introducing any individual social mediainto your classroom, it is helpful to pinpoint

the benefits of each one


The hashtag symbol is placed infront of a word or a series of words tobring attention to them and group themwith other users’ tweets on the samesubject. Teachers can use hashtags tohelp them organise tweets according toa specific topic.

In addition to messages, tweeterscan send photos and video clips.However, Twitter does not host anycontent other than text tweets, so to addphotos, third-party websites such asTwitpic and TweetPhoto are used.

The feature of following others, plusexcellent search engine and taggingsystems and the possibility of addingimages, creates a user-friendly, flexibleand dynamic social medium for peopleto connect with others and to shareinformation quickly.

Twitter in teachingSo how can teachers, students andschools use the benefits of Twitter toteach, connect, notify and manage?

Teachers You can set up as many Twitteraccounts as you wish for differentpurposes. You also have to decidewhether you want your accounts to beprivate or public. However, it’s all aboutgetting noticed, so when setting up aTwitter account, you need to word yourprofile in such a way that it appeals tolike-minded people in order to attractan interested audience. Also, you shouldwrite a tailor-made introduction to yourtweets to raise interest and causefollowers to think about how useful orentertaining the linked item might be tothem personally or professionally. Thinkin terms of ‘news headlines’.

Once an account is set up, followerscan be added and rearranged into lists –for example, School staff, Englishteachers, Class A, Class A parents – thepurpose being that you can choose toopen a particular list at a certain timeso you only read the latest tweets fromthem. Otherwise, if every follower orTwitter account you are followingremains in the same feed, you couldbecome inundated with hundreds oftweets and not be able to discern therelevant from the irrelevant.

You can use Twitter to share newideas and collaborate with otherteachers, following other teacher’stweets in order to keep up with thelatest teaching trends.

ClassesYou can connect with your students anddisseminate information to them by:

● sending tweets on topics ranging frommaterial for tests and assignments tostudy tips;

● scheduling tweets to remind studentsof due dates for tests, assignments, etc;

● posting supplementary materials,such as links to articles anddocuments for after-class studying;

● creating a feed for your classroom soyou can tweet about events andclassroom news;

● joining in with other classrooms indifferent geographic locations;

● connecting with parents to increasecommunication.

Lessons You can use Twitter in lessons by:

● having your students follow the newsand take turns posting current orbreaking events;

● setting up a Twitter informationsearch or treasure hunt. Studentsfollow tweeted clues to reach whatevergoal has been set, eg a famous personor place, a grammar point;

● starting a story by tweeting a 140-character standard opener – thestudents carry on from there;

● collating ideas on one subject forprojects, tests and discussions;

● summarising material in a limitednumber of tweets;

● using Twitter rules for class discussions– each statement can have only 140characters;

● playing word games – anagrams,synonyms, antonyms, definitions, etc.

English teacher Steve Rayburn came upwith a new way to approach an old classic:He asked his class to use Twitter towrite about Dante’s Inferno. The tweetswere written as if Dante were postingthem for his love, Beatrice.

In assignments such as these, alwayslimit the number of tweets each studentcan send and the time they shouldspend doing so.

Students Students can use Twitter in lessons for:

● taking notes about classwork – asevery tweet is saved, students canreview notes at a glance;

● participating in discussions with, orposing questions to, classmates abouta class activity or upcoming test;

● exchanging class notes andassignment instructions;

● following and tweeting questions toexperts all over the world in specificsubject areas (useful for gettinginformation for projects and bookreports);

● connecting with students from otherclasses, schools and countries.

SchoolsSchools and educational institutes canuse Twitter for:

● fund-raising;● setting up meetings;● hiring new employees; ● promoting and marketing.

Twitter in practiceFor overall organisation, you may want toconsider Twitter’s popular free softwareapplication Tweetdeck (tweetdeck.com).This is a multi-column social mediadashboard/control panel for managingTwitter accounts. Here are some thingsit will do for you:

● Organise tweet information intocustomised columns and in a designthat works efficiently for them.

● Arrange those you are following intogroups, based on interests,professions, etc.

● Set up frequently-updated content(feeds) from selected sites.

● Use the numerous filters to focus ononly important information.

● Schedule tweets to allow pre-plannedposts.

● Monitor and manage unlimitedTwitter and Facebook accounts.

● Stay up-to-date with chosen informationby receiving alerts by notification.

● Receive real-time updates fromTwitter accounts.

● Save tweeted interests and topics. � � �


� � �

Lesley Lanir is afreelance writer, lecturerand teacher trainer whohas been involved inteaching English forover 20 years. Shespecialises in learningdisabilities and foreignlanguage learning. Shehas a BA in English andEducation, CTEFLA/RSAand an MA in LearningDisabilities. Her websiteis www.foreignlanguagelearningdifficulties.com.

Twitter in the classroomOnce you have got yourself organised,you can get down to some of thepractical uses of Twitter.

Here is a selection of suggestionsfrom Reg Swanson, an eLearningProject Officer who runs the blogappsineducation and who has hadsuccess using Twitter in his classroom:

Creating a news magazine withFlipboardFlipboard (http://flipboard.com) is agraphically-advanced free mediaaggregator that organises tweets, postsand links into magazine-like spreads. Itcan be used to bring together world andsocial news in a magazine format – withthe added benefits of sound.

Using Twitter together withFlipboard, Reg and his class created aclass textbook for those students whowanted to complete some furtherreading around the subjects they hadbeen working on (Picasso and thedevelopment of Cubism). They createda class Twitter account and each timeany class member found a useful onlineresource, they re-tweeted it back to theschool account. Using Flipboard, theyfed the information stored on theTwitter account into one of the contentpages. Eventually, the students had allof the resources they needed in a formatthat resembled a magazine.

Creating magazines and e-books with ZiteZite (www.zite.com) is similar toFlipboard and is ideal for group projects.Teachers can set up different chaptersor areas of interest. Each group couldbe allocated a sub-topic and asked toproduce a chapter within a book by re-tweeting the relevant tweets theyidentify around a specific concept orissue. Reg Swanson recommends this asa way to quickly produce an e-bookspecifically designed for a class unit.

Both Flipboard and Zite can be used tocreate a class newspaper.

Crowdsourcing The idea of ‘crowdsourcing’ is that youmake a problem public and use a crowdto solve it or come up with helpfulideas.

Teachers can crowdsource a realproblem in their classes, school orcommunity. The students could startwith brainstorming possible solutionsthemselves and then put the question toother classes using Twitter. Parentscould also be included.

Biographies andautobiographies The students are asked to write a 140-character autobiography or to completea biography of a famous person withinthe 140-character limit.

Twitter debatesThe students contribute to a writtendebate on a given topic or question.With only 140 characters at a time inwhich to give their opinions, they needto be clear about what they want to saybefore they start to type. Reg found thistype of written debating format to be aconfidence booster for a number ofstudents whose speaking skills were lesswell developed.

In their 2012 Free Education TechnologyResources eBook, EmergingEdTech(www.emergingedtech.com/2010/02/100-ways-to-teach-with-twitter) recommendteachers use the following free apps:

Twitpic (twitpic.com) Twitpic allowsusers to upload photos or videos andshare them directly to Twitter, creatingmany possibilities for teachers. Forexample:

● posting visual content related toclasses or coursework;

● keeping classroom penpals connected;

● developing class projects that requirethe students to connect photos withspecific subjects or themes.

Twtpoll (twtpoll.com) Twtpoll is apolling and survey tool that can beshared with Twitter followers, Facebookfriends or email contacts. Teachers can:

● poll students about their thoughts onclass materials and subjects;

● use the poll as an educational toolabout voting and democracy.

GroupTweet (grouptweet.com)GroupTweet enables teachers to create aclassroom Twitter group, where anyonewho is authorised and has a Twitteraccount can contribute.

A GroupTweet classroom accountcan focus only on students, or can beused to aid communication betweeneducators, students and parents.

Twitter may at first glance seem to be adigital medium that has no realpurpose. However, it is a great tool thatis growing in popularity amongsteducators. The idea of composing andsending small posts of 140 characters orfewer to a group of your followers is anovel way of connecting, informing andupdating. Teachers may be under theimpression that this is yet anotherpassing fad and feel that within theirbusy day they simply don’t have thetime to learn about Twitter. However, Ihope the benefits and functions listedabove will give a taste of how Twittertools and applications can enhance bothteachers’ and students’ ability tocommunicate and share ideas.

More Twitter sources and resourcesfor teachers:

http://twittonary.com/

www.onlinecollegedegrees.org/2009/03/19/100-tips-apps-and-resources-for-teachers-on-twitter/

www.emergingedtech.com/2010/02/100-ways-to-teach-with-twitter/

http://appsineducation.blogspot.co.il/2011/06/can-you-use-twitter-in-your-classroom.html

http://edudemic.com/2010/11/25-important-twitter-guides-and-apps-for-teachers/

www.slideshare.net/MmeNero/twitter-101-twitter-for-teachers

http://appsineducation.blogspot.co.il/2011/06/can-you-use-twitter-in-your-classroom.html

www.onlinecolleges.net/2009/08/10/25-twitter-projects-for-the-college-classroom/

www.onlinecolleges.net/2009/08/10/25-twitter-projects-for-the-college-classroom/

www.theconversationprism.com/media/images/twitterverse-poster-highres.jpg

Tweet,tweet!Tweet,tweet!

ETp


WebWebwatcher Russell Stannard explores

how can make your life easier.

These days, we often hear about ‘cloud computing’. Theidea of this is that we can load more and more of ourcontent onto purpose-built servers instead of saving it on

the hard disk of our computers. Most of us are already using thecloud when we do things like upload video onto YouTube orwork with Google Docs. Even using Blogger means you aresaving content on the Blogger server and using a Bloggerapplication on the cloud. In this article we will look at a simple,easy-to-use, cloud-based file-sharing application calledDropbox, and explore some of the uses it can have for teachers.

What is Dropbox?Dropbox is an application that gives you a free account whereyou can save up to 2GB of digital content. You sign up initiallyusing your email address and, afterwards, you can sign in at anytime to access your content. This means you can easily find yourfiles from any computer: a friend’s laptop, the universitycomputer, even an internet café. This is clearly a hugeadvantage, and one I often make use of when I am working indifferent countries and on different computers. For example, if Ihave a talk prepared, I can save it on Dropbox and then accessit from anywhere in the world.

However, the most powerful aspect of Dropbox is thatfolders saved on it can be shared. So, for example, each studentin a class can share a folder with their teacher and the teachercan then access any content put into that folder. This can bereally useful for e-portfolios: a student can upload mindmaps,recordings, videos, essays, etc into a single folder where theteacher can access them.

Of course, this can also be done the other way around: theteacher can create a folder which is shared with their students,thereby creating a class folder where students and teacher canupload content. This can be an alternative way of distributingmaterial to students. For example, a teacher who wants thestudents to read a certain article before the lesson can upload itinto the class folder where all the students can access it quickly.

Shared folders allow content to be accessed by anyone whoshares the folder, and anyone who shares the folder can addcontent, but all users must have Dropbox accounts.

Possibilities for linkingAnother feature of Dropbox is the ability to link. Links are veryuseful because they allow a certain folder, and the contents ofthat folder, to be shared with anyone, even if they don’t have aDropbox account. However, with shared links, only the creator ofthe folder can add content. So if it is only the teacher who has aDropbox account, the students can still access the content ofthe teacher’s folder if they are sent a shared link, but they can’tupload anything themselves. Links to Dropbox can be added toMoodle sites, written on the board or distributed in the way youusually do with any normal links on the internet.

Possibilities for uploadingDropbox also has a very simple app that you can download to makeit even easier to upload files to your folders. You can even have theapp on an iPhone or iPad. This opens up all sorts of possibilities.For example, if you use an iPhone to take pictures in class, record

Russell Stannard is a Principal Lecturer in ICT at theUniversity of Warwick, UK, where he teaches on theMA in ELT. He won the Times Higher EducationAward for Outstanding Initiatives in Information andCommunications Technology in 2008, TEFLnet Site ofthe Year in 2009 and a 2010 British Council ELTonaward, all for his popular websitewww.teachertrainingvideos.com.

Keep sending your favourite sites to Russell:[email protected]

your students speaking or even take some video footage, this canimmediately be uploaded onto Dropbox where it can be sharedwith your students. Likewise, any recordings or videos that thestudents make can all be uploaded into the one area.

If you use the app on your folder, it simply feels and workslike any normal folder on your computer. So you can right-clickwith your mouse and create folders, delete folders and copyfolders just as you do on your computer. You can also drag anddrop content into the app. This makes the process a little fastersince you don’t need to log onto the internet to access yourfiles. However, everything is synchronised so it doesn’t matterhow, where or when you add the content: it will be availablefrom any computer at any time, either by logging into thewebsite or using the Dropbox app.

Possibilities for teachingIf your school or institution doesn’t have a virtual learningenvironment, sharing digital content with your students can bedifficult. If you get your students to create Dropbox accounts,then it is easy to share a folder with them where they can accessmaterials. Of course, you can also have folders inside folders,so, for example, you can have a class folder for each class youteach, and inside each class folder you can have weekly folderswhere the students can find the class content. This way,everything stays organised.

If the students are doing group projects, they can create afolder, which they can then share amongst the members of thegroup. Any content they want to share with the rest of the classcan then be added into the class folder and accessed byeveryone. This works well when students want to share interestinglinks, articles and images that they have found on a given topic.

If students create their own folders, which are then sharedwith the teacher, these can be a great place to upload feedbackas well as to access the students’ work. Only the studentconcerned and the teacher can access the folder and see thework and the assessment. The student does not have to handanything into the teacher; they just drop their work into thefolder and the teacher can access it, read it and then providefeedback. If set up properly, this can save a lot of time.

I have made some help videos for using Dropbox. You canfind these at:www.teachertrainingvideos.com/dropbox/index.html

If you sign up for Dropbox on my recommendation, I get some extra space on my account for recommending you, so if you can, please do it at:www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTEyNTI1NDAxOQ?src=global9

ETp

Dropbox


1 Digital literacies ... why not‘literacy’?

Basic literacy means being able to readand write. But in our increasingly digitalworld, simply knowing how to read andwrite in the traditional sense is not enough.Technology has brought a wealth ofinformation and opportunities to us indigital format. Of course, we still need toknow how to read and write, but we alsoneed a wider range of digital competencesor ‘literacies’ if we are to fully participateas digital citizens in the 21st century.

2 What exactly does ‘digitalliteracies’ mean, then?

Essentially, digital literacies is an umbrellaterm for a range of skills: not just technicalskills, but also a keen awareness of thesocial practices surrounding theappropriate use of technology. Here’s asimple example. Let’s imagine that weneed to create a worksheet with imagesin a word-processing program for ourstudents. This involves: 1 Knowing how to create a documentand how to insert images into it. 2 Knowing what images we can or cannotuse. This involves an awareness of copyrightand of alternatives such as CreativeCommons (http://creativecommons.org/).We also need to know how to attribute acopyright-free image.

People frequently think that digitalliteracies involve only the first point – whatwe might call the ‘tech’ stuff. But equallyimportant is the second point – what wemight call appropriate social practices.

3 Can you give me more examplesof these digital literacies?

The example above already includes anumber of literacies: you need to knowhow to work effectively with images andtext in a word-processing program tocreate something (multimedia literacy), andyou also need to know how to search forand find appropriate copyright-free images(search literacy). These are just two digital

literacies from the whole range that weneed. A detailed consideration of eachliteracy is beyond the scope of this article,but let’s take a brief look at a few of them:

Focus on language: multimedialiteracyKnowing how to understand, critique andproduce multimedia is a skill needed toparticipate fully in Web 2.0, where we areno longer just consumers of mediaproduced by others, but potentiallyproducers too.

Focus on connections: personal literacyThis literacy comes to the forefront in socialnetworking spaces. For example, how doyou portray yourself in social networkssuch as Facebook? How do you manageyour online footprint, and shape and projecta desired identity in these spaces?

Focus on information: search andinformation literaciesIn many ways, these are two of the mostimportant literacies for any learner toacquire – the ability not only to findinformation amongst the mass of sitesand sources afforded by technologies,but also to evaluate the reliability andveracity of that information.

Focus on (re)design: remix literacyThis refers to the trend of ‘remixing’pictures, videos and other media to createsomething new. Understanding ‘remix’ iscrucial to an understanding of digital media.

4 What have digital literacies gotto do with English languageteaching?

Well, everything. Quite apart from theemphasis put on the acquisition of ICT skillsin all areas of education in many countries,we are teachers of the language of globalcommunication. And that communicationis increasingly digitally mediated. If ourlearners are to be fully functional citizens inthe 21st century, they need digital skills. Wecan promote these skills in parallel withteaching English. Digital skills and Englishcan help many of our adult learners get

Nicky Hockly has been involved in EFLteaching and teacher training since1987. She is Director of Pedagogy ofThe Consultants-E, an online teachertraining and development consultancy.She is co-author of How to TeachEnglish with Technology, LearningEnglish as a Foreign Language forDummies, Teaching Online and Digital Literacies. She has publishedan e-book, Webinars: A Cookbook for Educators (the-round.com), and she maintains a blog [email protected]

ahead in the workplace or prepare ouryounger learners for better future jobopportunities. And equally important, theycan make our classes a lot more relevantand interesting in the here and now.

5 How can I bring digitalliteracies into my classroom?

Incorporating a focus on digital literaciesin our English language classes does notmean throwing out everything we’vedone to date and starting anew. Quite theopposite, in fact. English languageteaching lends itself extremely well tointegrating digital literacies. For example,how about replacing that rather uninspiringcoursebook reading with a web page froma spoof site? At the same time as helpingour students develop their reading skills,we can help them evaluate the reliabilityand veracity of online information – a keyelement of information literacy.

How to do this? Choose a websitefrom a list of spoof or bogus sites (eghttp://goo.gl/ive5b) and set a readingtask. See if your students spot that thesite is a spoof, and then analyse theelements that show that it contains falseinformation. These will include not just thecontent, but possibly the layout, coloursand font used on the site (the ‘look’), thelack of links to credible sources, the URLof the site itself, and so on. One of myfavourite bogus sites is about the fictionalPacific Northwest tree octopus. You candownload a detailed lesson plan on howto use this spoof site with your studentsfrom http://goo.gl/bN66W.

T E C H N O L O G Y

Five things you always wanted to know about

digital literacies(but were 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 explains what

digital literacies are.

ETp


Prize crossword 58To solve the puzzle, find which letter each number represents. You can keep a recordin the boxes below. The definitions of the words in the puzzle are given, but not in theright order. When you have finished, you will be able to read the quotation.

VERY FREQUENT WORDS*** To hit something with your foot*** To move your feet and body in timeto music*** ___ Sir, With Love (film starringSidney Poitier)*** The part of a plant that growsunder the ground *** To employ something, such as atool, to do a job*** ___ Whom the Bell Tolls (novel byErnest Hemingway)*** A change that is produced in oneperson or thing by another*** Five children and ___ (children’sbook by Edith Nesbitt)*** A system of words, numbers orsigns used for sending secretmessages *** ___ fools and horses work (Englishproverb)*** A piece of information known byonly a small number of people andkept to themselves*** To come out of something or frombehind something*** A planned activity involving a lot ofpeople, especially police officers *** A building, usually where onefamily lives *** In a way that is fair and the samefor everyone

12 14 24 2 14 11 25 14 18 5 14 4 9 7

9 13 1 13 2 19 6 18 18

13 3 3 1 13 17 14 2 18 11 6 13 4

17 14 23 14 2 10 14 3 5 10

14 10 24 13 26 10 25 26 12 14

2 11 13 14 13 24 13

15 6 24 15 11 16 26 12 11 8 18 4

21 6 11 9 12 12 9

13 21 13 4 14 26 14 20 26 18 9 9 7

9 3 18 4 24 14 26 22 18

7 13 9 15 6 6 2 13 4 6 24

14 3 3 4 2

L

D U

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

D L

U

10 13 11 13 25 14 18 5 14 4 1 13 2

11 25 14 24 9 6 23 18 11 14 25 14 9 9

1 13 2 11 25 14 24 13 23 17 18 4 7

ETp presents the fifty-eighth in ourseries of prize crosswords. Send yourentry (completed crossword grid andquotation), not forgetting to include

your full name, postal address and telephone number,to Prize crossword 58, ENGLISH TEACHING professional,Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd, Rayford House,School Road, Hove, BN3 5JR, UK. Ten correct entrieswill be drawn from a hat on 10 June 2013 and thesenders will each receive a copy of the second editionof the Macmillan English Dictionary for AdvancedLearners, applauded for its unique red star systemshowing the frequency of the 7,500 most commonwords in English (www.macmillandictionary.com).

Mark Twain

FREQUENT WORDS** One of five digits at the end of the foot ** Unusual in a way that attracts attention ** To prohibit something** A straight surface with one end higher thanthe other** Morally right or supported by a good reason

FAIRLY FREQUENT WORDS* A device for fastening clothes to a washingline * A kind of oxygen high in the Earth’satmosphere* To expel air from your throat with a suddennoise, especially if you have a cold

LESS FREQUENT WORDS– Clear and simple; often used of anexplanation – To start a fire by lighting small items that willburn easily – A female sheep – A large tree with hard yellow-brown woodand white flowers – Two letters denoting an example– A long bridge across a valley– UK slang for a pound– Lacking experience of life – The yellow part of an egg – Someone who behaves badly but is still liked – The resting place of a wild animal– A member of a Germanic tribe who came toEngland in the 5th century AD– Relating to the firmament; divine– Humorous because it is the opposite of whatyou would expect – Chinese principle representing the malequalities of light and heat– A large north-American bear

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