Modern English Teacher [31 (1)] 9781913414894

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Volume 31 | Issue 1 | January/February 2022

www.modernenglishteacher.com Online Resource Centre Digital Library

Bringing the latest research and practical ideas to your classroom

Starting afresh l Teaching metaphors l Presentation skills l Classroom research l Critical thinking l Sociocultural competence

l Virtual observation l Visualisation l Teaching EAP l Online learning l Fluency practice

Mitchell Bradford Rachel Appleby Steven Donald Laura Hadwin Sharon Hartle

Charlie Taylor Irina Malinina Vera Nistor Sean Burgoine Nick Michelioudakis

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Te a c h i n g E n g l i s h

TITLE

SUB TITLE

An Introduction to Evidence-Based Teaching in the English Language Classroom Theory and Practice Carol Lethaby, Russell Mayne and Patricia Harries

Do you want to learn more about the evidence, or lack of evidence, supporting common teaching strategies and procedures? An Introduction to Evidence-Based Teaching in English Language Classroom compiles the evidence in one place for you, rather than scattered across a variety of sources: online blogs, conference reports and disparate journal papers. This practical and accessible resource begins by identifying what ‘evidence-based teaching’ is. It then outlines the key strategies, briefly describing how and why they are supported by evidence. Finally, it moves on to show the practical application of these strategies in ELT with concrete examples and activities. This book is designed to be a supplement to any initial or in-service teacher education course as well as for teachers at any level who are interested in evidence-based teaching in English Language classes. You should read alongside core teacher training texts, in order to be able to examine common teaching practices.

Order now: www.pavpub.com/pavilion-elt/teaching-english/an-introduction -to-evidence-based-teaching-in-the-english-language-classroom Price: £39.95 Email: [email protected]

Call: 01273 434 943

ISBN: 978-1-913414-89-4

[ Editorial ]

Editorial A note from the editor

W

elcome to our brand new Modern English Teacher incorporating English Teaching professional. By putting the two magazines together we have managed to offer you the best of both worlds, from the practical ideas of ETp to the more research-based articles of MET. There was always a lot of overlap, we both used many of the same contributors and our values were always similar, helping teachers help their classes learn better. So I am confident that nothing will be lost by the merger, there can only be gain. As I write this I am coming to the end of another semester teaching here in New Zealand. Over the last sixteen weeks we have had a six-week and a two-week period of live teaching and the rest of the time we have been in lockdown. Knowing my classes before we went online made it much easier to maintain the courses. They both had good textbooks which could be adapted for Zoom and most of the classes enjoyed the change of timetable and the fact that they did not need to travel to campus. There was, on the other hand, heightened anxiety as the lockdown continued and as we experienced the drop in pace which is seemingly inevitable when you teach online. The low point of the semester was a perfectly delivered oral presentation which I failed to record, meaning the student had to do it again. Was it perfect the second time? Not quite, but good enough to achieve her qualification. January will be, therefore, a fresh start. We will probably be teaching face-to-face again but international students will continue to be taught online so this blend of teaching has slowly become the norm, not only here but for many of you too. One of the benefits of online teaching is the fact that it is hard not to notice how you are teaching – you see and hear your every word and gesture. I am sure this has led to an upsurge in classroom observation, something which can only be a good thing. I think it has also heightened our awareness of our learners’ emotional states, all those negative feelings which surround

learning – anxiety, boredom, irritation, doubt and so on. By noticing them, we are keener to find ways to alleviate them, which is bound to pay off in the long run. Since our last issue I have spoken at a conference for the first time since the pandemic started and it was great to share ideas, albeit on Zoom again, with colleagues throughout the country who have similar issues to me. The community of teachers is very welcoming and supportive and I would encourage any of you who are feeling a little isolated, to attend online webinars or workshops. My topic was fluency activities – by no means a new area, but it was good to put some ideas out there for people to consider and possibly adapt for their own classes. As a little taster for you, what do you think connects these four things; a form of transport, a prefix meaning under, a Swiss bank and another word for a flash drive? This sort of activity encourages thought, collaboration, conjecture and, above all, fun. I think as we move forward and start afresh in 2022, we should all make sure that our lessons are fun, we have all been through too much serious stuff over the last couple of years and our teaching should be the highlight of our learners’ day. Wherever you are and whoever you teach, I hope you find support and warmth in the Modern English Teacher community. Think about writing for us if you want to – if not, enjoy the magazines and the digital resources we have available. The answer, by the way was they all use the same three letters – BUS, SUB, UBS and USB! Wishing you a great 2022.

Published by: Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd, Blue Sky Offices, 25 Cecil Pashley Way, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex BN43 5FF  Tel: 01273 434943 Email: [email protected]  Web: www.modernenglishteacher.com Modern English Teacher title and all editorial contents © 2022 Pavilion Publishing and Media Published: January, March, May, July, September, November ISSN: 0308-0587 Printed in Great Britain by Micropress Editor: Robert McLarty Email: [email protected] Design: Phil Morash, Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd Editor-in-Chief: Kirsten Holt, Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd Email: [email protected]

Robert McLarty @ModernEnglishTeacherMagazine @ModEngTeacher

Advertising Sales Manager: Charlotte Baseley Email: [email protected] Subscriptions processed by: Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd. Subscribe on our website, through major subscription agencies or contact: Subscriptions, Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd, Blue Sky Offices, 25 Cecil Pashley Way, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex BN43 5FF Tel: 01273 434943  Email: [email protected] Photos: All pictures from Gettyimages.com unless otherwise stated Pages 12–16, 24–28 and 47 include materials which are designed to photocopy. All other rights are reserved and no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Volume 31  |  Issue 1 January/February 2022

06 Editorial

In my opinion

01

35

A note from the editor

Starting afresh

06

Contents

Positive online learning

2

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Lucas Kohnke offers some advice on supporting our learners’ emotional wellbeing.

Becoming a tech-savvy teacher

12

Dini Rosita Sari describes her transformation to a technically competent technology user.

Visualising ourselves into stronger educators

17 21

Laura Hadwin looks at ways of slowing down, reflecting and moving forward.

It pays to learn George Murdoch considers the benefits of language learning for teachers.

Dealing with ‘elephants’ in the online classroom Jeffrey Dawala Wilang considers the importance of an empathetic approach

Online learning

24

Lessons we can learn from Emergency Remote Teaching

29

Sharon Hartle plans for digital teaching in the future.

Classroom observation: some ethical issues Steven Donald looks at some of the implications of online teaching.

Teaching writing

31

From chaos to order Thomas Ziegelwagner shows how to help students organise their writing.

The biggest threat to ELT: the brain drain

38 40

Matthew Hallett looks at some of the issues which encourage teachers to leave the profession.

What is teaching? Christopher Walker describes his quest for the perfect metaphor.

Fostering sociocultural competence Charlie Taylor discusses the importance of culture and context.

Global voices

42

Teachers from around the world talk about their teaching situations

It works in practice

46

Some ideas for you to take straight into the classroom

English for Academic Purposes

48

Peer mentoring for teachers

51

Vera Nistor discusses how to implement an effective peer mentoring programme for academic staff in the English department.

Teaching EAP at a Sino-Foreign University

56 60 62

Mitchell Bradford describes some of the challenges he and his colleagues face.

It’s all about the content Sean Burgoine offers more techniques for improving presentation skills.

Critical thinking – where to start Nick Michelioudakis gets his students to start questioning their own beliefs.

They just need to be more fluent Robert McLarty suggestings ways of improving learners’ spoken fluency.

www.modernenglishteacher.com

A warm welcome!

W

elcome to the very first issue of the new-look Modern English Teacher (MET), incorporating English Teaching professional (ETp)! For previous MET subscribers, we are delighted to offer you even more issues each year, as well as significantly more content online. For those who had previously subscribed to ETp, we hope you find your updated subscription as useful, and as full of practical ideas, as you had come to expect, alongside plenty of exciting new content and the latest research. Finally, for new subscribers: welcome!

12 Young learners

64 68 72

40

Generating events 2 Chris Roland makes things happen before and during class.

Japanese young learners’ sense of agency Mari Nakamura and Keiko Sakui describe an online intercultural exchange project.

Inclusion and teaching English Irina Malinina sees ELT as a ‘treasure trove’ for other subjects.

Approaches

74

Applying the FMU framework Flora Debora Floris describes her approach to teaching grammar. Your new or updated MET subscription aims to support and empower you, wherever you are in the world. As well as the new-look magazine, don’t forget you can explore:

Research

77

Applying the research Naheen Madarbakus-Ring and Stuart Benson continue to show how research is used in learning and teaching.

Reviews

82 85

The book I always refer to Rachel Appleby chooses her go-to title.

60

Fortune – a video-based drama for English language learning

86

Mark Rooney

All of this is included in your subscription, so take a look around, and explore all the resources available to you. Plus, enjoy this very first issue of the new-look MET, we hope you like it!

Caroline White

Live Online Teaching: Creative activities for delivering language lessons remotely Rachel Connabeer

Best wishes, The Pavilion ELT team

CPD Essentials

88

Bite-sized professional development using this issue of MET Some prompts to help you reflect on your learning from reading this issue and track your professional development.

www.modernenglishteacher.com

• The Digital Library, with past issues back to the early days of both magazines •  MyCPD, our online CPD tool, to help you record, reflect on and demonstrate all your continuing professional development

Activities for mediation – building bridges in the ELT classroom

87

• Our updated Online Resource Centre, with thousands of articles from both MET and ETp all in one place

72 Volume 31

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[ Resources Online ]

Resources online Go to modernenglishteacher.com/ resources for your extra printable resources, ready for use in class.

[ Resources Online ]

[ Resources Online ]

[ Resources Online ]

My Inspirational A+ Educator

A framework for blended learning design

Evaluating Information Sources

Name of educator: __________________________________________________________

The creative dictation activity can be used to see how blended learning can be planned with a specific teaching/learning aim in mind. This exercise might be chosen if the content aim is to work on physical descriptions and narrative skills, and the pedagogical aim is to enable learners to practise the language required to do this by providing them an integrated skills activity that will encourage them to express their own meanings.

Evaluating Information – Applying the RADAR Checklist

Teaching and Learning Context: Primary school/Secondary school/University/Professional training/Colleague/Mentor/Other

1) Attitude and approach

The ‘what’ then would be ‘descriptions and narrative skills’; the ‘who’ the particular learners. The learners are given choices in an activity like this both of where or when they do the activity and of which skills they want to practise or which language they choose to use. The story itself may not be suitable for all groups and this is where specialized knowledge plays a key role. Teaching for young learners is not the same as teaching a Business English course. It could however be adapted by created a suitable frame for the particular context you work in.

2) Activities and assessments

The ‘how’ and the ‘where’ involve choosing an activity that is suitable for those specific learners, for the digital context (independent study or f2f interaction) and that is a valid choice to teach what is required. This simple framework, which we have called the W-Framework, to reflect the use of Wh- questions, is not designed to be completely linear but it does provide a starting point for planning blended digital resources. In the table below this can be seen with key considerations that were considered when considering the timetable fit for this activity.

Attributes

Details

Significance

Evaluation questions

Yes

No

Spotlight on past resources

Don’t know

Relevancy Does the source relate to the topic?

Authority

In this issue, our English Teaching professional throwback resource is:

Is the author or organisation who produced the information clearly shown? Are they qualified / experienced enough to write on this topic?

Date

Does the source show the date when it was first published? Can you see if the information has been revised or updated?

3) ‘Aha’ moment

4) Application: Current teaching

Question

Answer

Notes

What?

Description (adjectives) and narrative (past tenses). Specific language or skills work determined by learner choices. Exam practice for the oral component: one minute monologue.

Level (Intermediate). The level is related rather to expectations of the type of language that may be produced and can be altered according to specific groups.

Who?

Young adult university students (aged 19-21)

In the North of Italy with good internet access. The choices may be different in contexts with problematic internet access.

How?

Blended: flipped creative dictation activity online then f2f discussion in breakout rooms with final open class feedback and language points to extend. Further exercises provided on adjective use and collocations for followup study work.

Breakout work needs to be monitored unobtrusively for language points and key observations to be collected for feedback in the final stage. Errors were related to the ‘target language’ description adjectives and past tenses.

Flipped creative dictation activity available online for free learner access both before and after the f2f session. The f2f session timetabled by the university with the choice to attend via Zoom or onsite.

In our context we were working in a hybrid delivery system which provides more learner agency. Some who may not have been able to attend physically could attend online.

5) Application: Future teaching Where?

Does your topic require only current information?

Accuracy

Is the information supported by trustworthy evidence (references, statistics, data etc.)? Are there spelling or grammar errors, or questionable evidence? ONLINE RESOURCES

Reason

Viral marketing videos

Does the writer make the reason of the article clear?

Part 4: Our viral marketing video: Ideas Work with a partner. The two of you are going to create and direct a viral marketing video. Your video must get viewers to think critically about a social issue or issues.

Does the opinion of the writer appear fair and unbiased?

Take 15 minutes to brainstorm your ideas. You will discuss your viral video plan with your classmates during a minipresentation mingling session. Afterwards, you will take your ideas from this brainstorming session and put them onto a ten-slide storyboard plan. You will be given a separate handout to organise your storyboard.

Can you find any clear political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional or personal biases?

a) social issue(s) j) Promoting your viral marketing video (How will you ‘get the word out’? What SNSs will you use? Why?)

6) Apply: Steps to take to incorporate into future teaching

b) product or service

c) setting / locations (Where, when, places)

In this way a traditional activity which was revolutionary in its heyday has been adapted to take advantage of the advances in technological resources. This has ultimately led to greater choice and agency for learners within the framework of the teaching aims. In turn, by planning in this way we are moving away from the simple focus on what the technology can do and integrating digital resources into a more principled learning design that puts the focus firmly back on the learner, their competence and their needs.

i) estimated cost to make the video (Consider the location, number of people, famous actors, etc. Make a guess.)

d) music (Type of music, popular or unknown song? Famous musician? Why?)

h) most surprising or interesting part of the video

Visualising ourselves into stronger educators by Laura Hadwin

www.modernenglishteacher.com

Lessons we can learn from Emergency Remote Teaching by Sharon Hartle

www.modernenglishteacher.com

Check the RADAR: Evaluating Sources for Academic English by Thomas Entwistle

e) major & minor character roles (Famous people? Unknown actors? Local people? Animals?)

g) visual images used & meanings (What does each image represent?)

www.modernenglishteacher.com

‘Viral marketing videos’ by Sean H Toland

My inspirational A+ Educator

A framework for blended learning design

Evaluating information sources

Accompanies ‘Visualising ourselves into stronger educators’ by Laura Hadwin, page 12 https://www. modernenglishteacher.com/ media/39690/met_311_online_ my_inspirational_a_educator. pdf

Accompanies ‘Lessons we can learn about Emergency Remote Teaching’ by Sharon Hartle, page 24 https://www. modernenglishteacher.com/ media/39692/met_311_ online_a_framework_for_ blended_learning_design.pdf

Accompanies ‘Check the RADAR: Evaluating Sources for Academic English’ by Thomas Entwistle, page 47 https://www. modernenglishteacher.com/ media/39691/met_311_online_ evaluating_information_ sources.pdf

f) main message

www.etprofessional.com

Our viral marketing video: Ideas Accompanies ‘Viral marketing videos: cultivating 21st-century skills’, by Sean H. Toland, ETp 126. https:// www.etprofessional.com/ viral-marketing-videos You can find other past resources from ETp in this section too.

Your subscription to Modern English Teacher gives you full access to modernenglishteacher.com, which includes:

Digital Library 4

Volume 31

Issue 1

Online Resource Centre

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Online Resource Centre Digital Library

Enjoying your subscription to the new-look Modern English Teacher? Why not upgrade your subscription? Do you think your school could make use of one of our institutional subscriptions? Or perhaps you already have a school subscription but it doesn’t quite meet your staff needs at the moment? We can offer exclusive discounts to help you upgrade your subscription so that it works for you.

Contact us to discuss how we can help: Email: [email protected]

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Institutional subscriptions offer: ■ Print copies of the latest magazine issue for your staff room (subscription permitting) six times a year, plus digital copies for your education management team, teachers and teacher trainers, wherever they are working ■ Individual logins for the Online Research Centre with thousands of articles in one place, going back to the early days of Modern English Teacher and English Teaching professional, searchable by topic, keyword and author, for your teaching staff to read and explore ■ Access to the Digital Library with past issues of both Modern English Teacher and English Teaching professional ■ Access to MyCPD for each member of your teaching staff (subscription permitting) so they can easily log their individual professional development, which can then be downloaded or viewed online for meetings with management, such as observation feedback sessions or appraisals

Find the subscription that’s right for you at www.pavpub.com/pavilion-elt

Tracker

[ Starting Afresh ]

Positive online learning

S

ince the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, most students have been studying remotely in one form or another. The combination of the stress from the pandemic and a new learning environment has taken a significant toll on their emotional well-being. While some are thriving, others are barely surviving the isolation, feelings of vulnerability and confusion and disruption of schooling and daily activities. Students are in front of the computer from 8am to 4pm at a minimum, and this increase in screen exposure has produced eye strain, headache and digital burnout. Moreover, the sudden shift in lifestyle has led to loneliness, frustration, anxiety and even depression. As teachers, we can’t ignore our students’ changing lifestyles. We should look for indicators that students are struggling and reach out to support their mental health during online learning, not just focus on delivering course content. This article focuses on how we can foster students’ emotional well-being.

How can we identify emotionally struggling students? As front-line professionals, we are responsible for identifying emotional and mental health issues and supporting our students. In the face-to-face classroom, students are observed by peers, teachers 6

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and others. Now, online, we live in unobserved anonymity, which can lead to frustration, annoyance and anxiety. Common signs that students are struggling emotionally fall into three groups: ■ atypical behaviours (suddenly becoming irritable, short-tempered, obsessive) ■ unusual behaviour (writing bizarre discussion posts, being out of touch with reality, odd work content) ■ academic performance (late assignments, not returning emails or work, ongoing displays of anxiety about assignments) Also, look out for students who suddenly become very silent, turn off their camera and microphone and seem to no longer be willing to participate in activities. These can be signs they are having a rough time. Negative emotions can trigger anger, boredom or anxiety, decrease students’ willingness to interact and communicate with you and their classmates and make them lose interest in learning. We must look for ways to provide a positive and emotionally supportive learning experience.

How can we support students? There are several strategies that we can incorporate to help students with their emotional well-being. These strategies

Lucas Kohnke Offers some advice on supporting our learners’ emotional wellbeing.

also work to build rapport beyond the academic content of the curriculum. 1. Start your lesson with a positive quote Choose a quote such as ‘When things go wrong, don’t go with them’, or ‘Everybody is a genius’, and have students make a personal connection between the quotes and their own lives or current events. Alternately, ask students to share why they agree or disagree with the statement. Having a brief discussion with your students may help them look at things optimistically. I have also found it beneficial to build a lesson around a positive quote. For example, if the quote includes a metaphor, students can label it and explain its meaning, or if it has challenging words, students can practise inferring the message in context. 2. Use humour in your classroom When students are laughing, they are paying attention. Don’t be afraid to be funny! Humour is particularly important in online learning to create an open atmosphere and reduce student anxiety. Consider showing a quick clip from a popular TV show, sharing a funny comic to illustrate an important point or telling a humorous anecdote to help emphasise a significant issue. Just remember that the humour should be positive and appropriate. First, ask yourself: ‘Will this alienate or embarrass any of my students?’ www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Starting Afresh ]

If the answer is ‘yes’, try one of the other strategies in this article. 3. Encourage free talk Providing students with a learning environment in which they can chat, laugh and relax is important. Students will more often confide in each other than in their teacher. I have found that setting aside a couple of minutes during each lesson for students to chat freely helps them to relax and participate more willingly in the lessons. Bring in the positive quote or comic as a topic for them to chat about. Leave the main room or put them into breakout rooms to make clear that this is their time and that you won’t disturb them. Don’t forget to chat with each student individually at other moments during class to see how they are doing, addressing them by name. Ask them questions, such as what they like the most and what they do not like and how those things make them feel. 4. Build a word wall or word cloud Using Lino (http://en.linoit.com/), Padlet (https://padlet.com/), or Mentimeter (https://www.mentimeter.com/), ask students to share anonymously how they feel or what they are struggling with. You might be surprised to find that many students have the same feelings, providing an opportunity to choose one and have everybody share their thoughts and experiences. I have also found Google Jamboard (https://jamboard.google.com/) very effective: you can display pictures of facial expressions and emotion words, asking students to match a picture with a word to express how they feel. If students indicate that they are angry, tired or stressed, stop and take a break from learning and talk to them to understand why they feel a certain way. This provides another opportunity to check in with them. If you incorporate Lino and Padlet in your lessons, you can include a motivational message (e.g. ‘The starting point of all achievement is desire’) on the digital wall to start each activity. 5. Stand up and step away from the screen Students need a break from the classroom. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stressed when spending a long time in front of the computer. Create intentional moments in your lessons for your students to relax and reboot. If they have a short break every 20 www.modernenglishteacher.com

minutes, they can concentrate better and motivate themselves to pay attention for a set amount of time; they are less likely to be fidgety or inattentive. This can help them become more positive, productive and successful. Try to incorporate physical activity during your online classes as well. I have found it helpful to ask students to stand up, raise their hands, swivel their chairs, or touch their foreheads to keep their minds off the negativity. Students enjoy seeing their classmates moving on the screen and having a break from only looking into the camera. 6. Share your feelings Talking about feelings in a language classroom isn’t usual practice and it can make students and teachers feel uncomfortable and awkward. Setting the tone by sharing your own experiences, however, is likely to elicit feelings if you provide everyone with a chance to share. We are not superhuman, so share your experiences and help students understand how you felt and how you managed the situation. Putting compassion and understanding before content can help our students relate to and understand others’ experiences and deal with their own. 7. Individual or group contact Many students feel isolated in the online classroom. Encourage individual/group tutorials and/or office hours to ensure that each will be heard. In these smaller gatherings, students have control over the questions they ask and the feedback they receive. In addition, the low-stress environment gives students a safe space to share their thoughts. There is no pressure from peers around making mistakes or taking risks. If you notice a student struggling, encourage conversation by saying, ‘It seems as if you are having a rough time’, or ‘I sense that you are stressed out’, showing concern without confrontation. Having a quick chat with a student can help them to look at things optimistically. 8. Check in with emojis Another simple way to connect and check student emotions is to use Google Forms, Poll Everywhere (https://www. polleverywhere.com/) or the built-in poll function on your videoconferencing platform (e.g. Zoom, Microsoft Teams) for a quick check-in. Ask a simple question like ‘How are you feeling today?’ and offer

options such as ‘I’m great’, ‘I’m doing all right’, or ‘I’m having a hard time’. You can also offer a choice of emojis (happy/sad/ confused faces). It can be good to leave an open-ended option that lets students write in how they feel. 9. Last lesson of the week In your last lesson of the week, give the students 10 minutes in which each can share the highlight of their week (whether it occurred in or outside of class). This allows everyone to reflect on a positive experience; I have found that sharing positive experiences boosts happiness. You can also incorporate Lino or Padlet and create a motivational wall, asking learners to post a positive and encouraging message. Alternatively, ask your students to post a positive goal and look back at it at the end of the next week. Celebrate success—this will energise your students. Students need emotional support more now than ever. However, don’t forget to look after your own mental health. As you are caring for your students’ wellbeing, you might feel an increased sense of frustration, demotivation or anxiety. Talk to your colleagues and keep in touch through weekly or bi-weekly (online) coffee chats. Keep an optimistic perspective and sense of control and remember, ‘every cloud has a silver lining’.

Conclusion This article introduces a few ideas to get you started thinking about creating an emotionally supportive online classroom environment. Online learning can be a lonely experience, so keep the classroom climate positive, fun and stress-free. By incorporating these simple strategies, you can show your students that you care and are there to provide a positive learning experience to brighten their day.

Lucas Kohnke is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Language Education, The Education University of Hong Kong. Over the past 15 years, he has taught English in China, Thailand, South Korea, Oman, Afghanistan and Hong Kong. Email: [email protected]

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[ Starting Afresh ]

On becoming a tech-savvy EFL teacher

I

n this much increased educational technology era, teachers are not expected to become an ‘expert in technology but, rather, that they be expert in designing the best teaching-learning experiences for specific children, utilizing a variety of media’ (Radvak, 1968: 143). However, there are probably teachers who feel uncomfortable or even cynical about all this emerging innovation in educational media and technology in the classroom. How do I know? Because I used to be one of them.

could do was to hinder the occurrences of deep as well as meaningful learning. As a result, when my fellow English teacher had incorporated technology at all possible times during his teaching, I, on the other hand, maintained my traditional English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching style. A wisdom which I later realised was inadequate in meeting my students’ expectations of discovering their full potential, especially in an era where technology seems to be at the centre of everything.

When my colleagues were deeply immersed in a workshop on the new digital tool that they could use in their classroom, or merely having a light afterwork conversation about cutting-edge educational media, I was foolishly holding onto a belief that teaching and learning should be centred just around the instructional design. Teachers, therefore, should focus all their attentions, devote their time, and multiply their efforts in planning the teaching and learning activities without necessarily taking the students’ individual needs into consideration, including their needs for various educational media and technology.

As much as I was stubbornly defensive about the advancement of technology in language learning, I could not help questioning my old practices. I then read several articles on technologyenhanced language learning, did a small survey about how my students perceived the use of technological resources in the classroom, and learned a lesson or two from this newly attained information. Alas, I was suddenly aware that my conventional teaching style was apparently not so relevant anymore. My students turned out to enjoy technology integration in their learning a lot more than I thought.

It is such a shame to admit that I used to think that technology should be kept to a minimum, especially in a language classroom. In my reckless opinion at that time, the only thing that educational technology 8

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Dini Rosita Sari Describes her transformation to a competent technology user.

Issue 1

Listening to my students’ voices, and in order to disrupt my kind of ‘old-fashion’ teaching, I forced myself to utilise diverse educational technology in www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Starting Afresh ]

allows students to use their smart phones to draw a virtual line to match the extracted words and their definitions. This matching activity was done prior to the main listening activity as an individual, group, or a whole class challenge (I personally prefer the whole class challenge as it increases the fun).

my classes, particularly educational technology I had never been used before. This article is about my journey toward becoming a much better tech-savvy EFL teacher. The tips I discuss here are especially for those language teachers who are new to educational technology and simply have no idea where to start.

1. Educational technology resources for ice breaking There is a myriad of emerging educational technology on the market nowadays. Yet, although it implies that we, teachers, benefit from the variety of resources, this could also lead to confusion when choosing the most appropriate ones to be used in our classrooms. This problem happens when we are merely tempted to use the seemingly sophisticated technology without actually understanding its purposes and potential. My initial strategy was to focus on one particular stage of teaching and learning pedagogy in which little technology intervention is likely to give significant impact. My choice was for the ice-breaking activities. This could be in a form of warm-up activities or online quizzes that we administer to freshen the EFL learning atmosphere in the middle of a lesson. For example, in my listening class the other day, I extracted several vocabulary items from the listening script, ones that I thought might cause frustration on the part of my students. Then, I created an interactive worksheet as the media for a matching game using the Liveworksheets educational platform (go to https:// www.liveworksheets.com/). This online worksheet www.modernenglishteacher.com

As predicted, the integration of educational technology in this scenario might be modest, but the effect it had on my students was enormous. It ignited enjoyment, increased learning mood, and above all, enhanced my students’ learning experience. Another piece of good news is that the process of producing this super useful interactive worksheet is pretty effortless. You can make it within your last five-minute preparation! Other alternatives: ■ Apart from a matching game, in this Liveworksheets platform, you can make a drag and drop interactive worksheet, multiple choice worksheet, and even one that includes audio, which can be personalised in accordance with your teaching needs. ■ You can try Quiz Bot in Telegram to create a quiz with several multiple-choice questions to check your students’ prior knowledge or maybe just to ask them do a quick survey or a trivia! (Go here to learn more: https://telegram.org/tour/quizbot). ■ If you want to give an open-ended question for a discussion, instead of asking the students to answer it orally, why not try to make use of Padlet? Create your personalised virtual bulletin boards and ask students to share and post their written opinions there (see https://padlet.com/). This activity is good to help those usually shy students to be more confident in expressing their opinion.

2. Elevate summative assessments to the next level Whether it comes in a conventional paper-based type or a computer-based one, summative assessments are generally intense and intimidating, thus causing Volume 31

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anxiety. Wait, what if we could make it more interesting? What if completing an end-of-unit test could feel more like playing a game? After some time of deploying various technological resources in my language classroom, I have gained more confidence to do exploration in this area. Normally, especially during this online learning due to the pandemic, I administer summative tests by using the available online forms. There really is nothing wrong with it. However, I noticed that my students treated this kind of test like a big enemy, one which that they met once and didn’t want to see again for good. So, I planned to do something a little bit different once in a while. It was our reading class and we had just finished discussing an entire unit of a personal letter text. In order to know their reading comprehension, a summative test in a form of multiple choice was conducted. Then, I came up with this idea of having a reading test by using Quizizz (please go to https:// quizizz.com/admin), a platform to create a gamified test, lesson, or presentation. On the test day, the quiz was played live and the whole class joined as players. Surprisingly, my students looked more relax and engaged, but still focused, during the assessment. As a matter of fact, after the class several students asked me if they were allowed to re-do the test just out of interest.

Other alternatives: ■ You can create a test with several different question types, from multiple choice, matching, true/false, or sentence completion with the Liveworksheets portal that I discussed in the previous section. It is interactive, fun, and without doubt transforms our summative assessment.

3. Conclude your lesson in an exceptional way Just recently, I registered myself in training for creating a digital interactive media by using the Smart Apps Creator, an educational app builder for smartphones or web. As it was conducted online and using asynchronous learning methods, I was required to actively learn the modules independently which turned out to be pretty hard. Since I have been learning to utilise diverse educational technology in my language classroom for quite some time, I somehow felt excited and rather challenged. I studied and directly applied the newly obtained knowledge day and night. On the fourth day, I was confident to say that I had mastered most of the instructions in the app builder. It wasn’t really that difficult, but it does require a lot of creativity in designing the digital multimedia. Generally, teachers create or use this type of interactive digital media, replacing the traditional module, to enable students to study at their own pace at home. Therefore, it is normally given at the beginning of a class. My revolutionary practice was using this interactive multimedia to conclude a unit of a lesson. I created a web-based interactive multimedia serving as a summary which covers all aspects of the unit (you can see the media I produced for this purpose by following the links provided at the end of this article). I also added a simple multiple-choice quiz as a formative assessment. The link to this web-based multimedia was then shared in the digital classroom at the end of the lesson. Giving students an opportunity to review their learning with the assistance of this technological media has indeed transformed my teaching. Of course, due to its complexity in designing the media, a novice tech-savvy teacher may require a longer time to create one. So, maybe you can look for another alternative to conclude your lesson technologically and share your experience with me in the future issue of this magazine.

4.  Reflections of applying technology in a language classroom We embrace technology in our class not just because we are able to, but because it is a manifestation of our responsibility to provide 10

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students with relevant learning activities in the 21st century, regardless of the advantages it instils. Furthermore, preparing the best learning experiences by utilising various media has helped me better understand the meaning behind ‘teachers are lifelong learners’. Along the way, I made notes on the things we might want to consider while planning our transformed language classroom with the help of these technological resources: ■ Consult with our instructional design that is tailored to the language learning principles prior choosing the appropriate technology to support our learning activities. Let’s say, if educational pedagogy were the map, then technology would be the transportation. We can obviously reach our destination with the map regardless of the type of transportation, however we can make it far more effective by selecting the correct one. ■ Utilising various educational media and technology in one go may look sophisticated, but if we fail to make meaningful connections between them, it can be perceived as greediness. Keeping things simple and proportional is the best option for a novice tech-savvy teacher. Don’t worry, our creativity in using the technological resources in the classroom will likely grow with time. ■ It is important to employ educational technology to help students with their individual learning. Equally important is to consider the use of technology to increase collaboration between students to solve a problem, as it strengthens students’ sense of belonging to the learning community. In order to do this, we can first identify the instructional design for a group project and then think about what kind of educational media and technology can be employed to transform the activities. ■ Teachers are not content creators, despite our competence in operating technological tools. Hence, don’t be too hard to yourself if you are not able to operate those cutting-edge technological resources just yet. John Dewey, the philosopher, stated that the learning experience should include a cognitive presence (the learner), a social presence (the learning community) and a teaching presence (the teacher). So, our main focus must be on our presence as a language teacher, instead of the use of technology. Kirkwood and Price (2014) argue that technology benefits students in terms of its ability to provide rich learning resources and encourage students’ high involvement. Moreover, in this millennium, students who are digital natives themselves demand a language learning environment that relates to their nature, making the use of educational technology inevitable. Indeed, while instructional design remains at the core www.modernenglishteacher.com

of any language teaching and learning, we cannot ignore the need to supplement the learning activities with effective educational technology. Therefore, as a competent 21st century EFL teacher, we should plan our technology-enhanced language teaching based on these questions: ■ how can we design educational technology to enhance our students’ learning? ■ how can we use educational technology to improve our teaching practices? ■ how can we use technology wisely and proportionately in our language classroom? All in all, technology has enormous potential to transform a language classroom and make it even more student-centred. However, the use of any educational technology regarding this objective must always be informed by good educational pedagogy. Otherwise, language teachers would end up using it without actually making meaningful changes or progress in their classroom practices. I am one of those people who believe that technology will not be able to replace the role of a ‘real’ teacher. But I am now also aware that teachers who are not technologically literate have a big risk of being replaced. This suggests that learning to make use of technological resources effectively in our class is another way for us, teachers, to survive.

References Kirkwood A & Price L (2014) Technology-enhanced learning and teaching in higher education: what is “enhanced” and how do we know? A critical literature review. Learning, Media and Technology 39 (1) 6–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.201 3.770404 Radvak B J (1968) The Teacher and Technology. Theory Into Practice 7 (4) 142–145. https://doi. org/10.1080/00405846809542143 Multimedia I created using Smart Apps Creator 3 for my students: https://04favzkz8gmzfyw1zvyliw-on.drv.tw/MPI%20Teks%20 Prosedur%20Fix/ https://04favzkz8gmzfyw1zvyliw-on.drv.tw/MPI%20 Analytical%20Exposition%20Fix/

Dini Rosita Sari is an English teacher at Sekolah Menengah Atas Negeri (SMAN) 1 Nunukan, North Borneo, Indonesia. She has been teaching English to various levels of students since 2008. Her professional interests are ELT materials and instructional design, teaching reading and technologyenhanced language learning. Email: [email protected]

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Visualising ourselves into stronger educators

T

he pandemic has transformed our lives, and there are few, if any, areas of our lives that have not been affected. It has led to much more time alone, which for me has led to deeper reflection on my role as an educator. This reflection has also been inspired by conversations about what post-pandemic education could and should look like. I have been thinking a lot about the teachers, college instructors, university professors, teacher trainers, colleagues and mentors that have influenced my life and teaching. Perhaps, I have also been thinking of these people more as I have really missed seeing them on a regular basis since switching to online teaching. I have also been

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Laura Hadwin Looks at ways of slowing down, reflecting and moving forward.

thinking about the importance of slowing down to reflect on my core teaching values, as well as

considering which teaching strategies I want to continue to use in the future. Additionally, I have been doing a considerable amount of reflection in a relatively informal manner, but I wanted a more structured approach. Simultaneously, there has also been a much greater emphasis on self-care, and I have been incorporating more mindfulness and relaxation techniques personally and professionally. This inspired me to create a guided visualisation activity to reflect on the educators who have inspired and both directly and indirectly influenced my teaching and learning. www.modernenglishteacher.com

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  ...., actively reflecting on who we are and who we want to become can reveal insights into our attitudes, approaches, activities, and assessments. 

may present themselves, but these are important, and it is useful to notice why and how these memories arise. Visualisation tasks require us to disassociate from our analytical and rational minds and access our intuitive selves, which is something we are often not encouraged to do. Connecting to our deeper emotional selves can reveal dormant aspects hidden from our active awareness. The worksheet, script, guided visualisation recording and links to accompanying relaxing meditation music are available here: auroraenglish.wixsite.com/english/guidedvisualisation Teacher identity is a complex and dynamic area, and much of what experienced teachers do is tacit and implicit. However, actively reflecting on who we are and who we want to become can reveal insights into our attitudes, approaches, activities, and assessments. In order to explore these areas more deeply, it is very helpful to understand where we have come from. This requires authenticity and vulnerability, and Brookfield (2015) discusses how these are key traits in successful educators. He highlights the importance of actively demonstrating authenticity and vulnerability to connect with and support our learners, and I have shared my teaching and learning successes and struggles with colleagues, trainees, and learners. I believe this creates stronger connections between us and allows us to find comfort in our shared struggles, while also contemplating future teaching and learning strategies. This ultimately increases credibility as it becomes apparent that we have all had to learn and grow to become the educators we are today. Guided visualisation activities involve entering into a relaxed state and listening to a series of prompts which lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves or a situation. They often focus on imagining a desired future, and this activity allows for that, but it is based on reflecting on our prior educational experiences as learners, as well as the educators who have influenced our development. This visualisation activity can be used by both pre- and in-service teachers. It features aspects of free association, in which seemingly random events and experiences www.modernenglishteacher.com

Pre-task 1) Introduce the task by sharing an anecdote of an inspirational educator. Discuss how and why this person has influenced your teaching. If you are doing this activity independently, think about any stories you’ve heard about inspirational educators or begin to think of your inspirational educator. 2) Explain that trainees/teachers are going to do a creative guided visualisation activity to discover more about the educators who have influenced them. They will listen to you as you lead them through the visualisation activity or you can play my recording. I also recommend using music, and there is a lot of relaxing music available for free online. Emphasise that being in a relaxed state can open up their imaginations and bring unconscious ideas into consciousness. If they are comfortable, closing their eyes can be very beneficial, but for some people, closing their eyes can make them uncomfortable, so this is optional. They will reflect on the educator and consider how they can incorporate some of the educator’s attitudes, approaches, activities, and assessments. 3) Create a worksheet or print the one below from my website. Trainees/teachers will use this as a guide to organise their thoughts by making brief notes after the visualisation. Hand out the worksheet before the visualisation, so they know what they will be reflecting on. After the visualisation, they will share the notes with a partner or the group. Volume 31

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My Inspirational A+ Educator Name of educator: __________________________________________________________ Teaching and Learning Context: Primary school/Secondary school/University/Professional training/Colleague/Mentor/ Other Attributes

Details

Significance

1)  Attitude and approach

2)  Activities and assessments

3)  ‘Aha’ moment

4)  Application: Current teaching

5)  Application: Future teaching

6) Apply: Steps to take to incorporate into future teaching

4) Determine whether you will focus on one specific area of education or allow trainees/teachers to choose one or a few. Each visualisation, reflection notes and feedback take approximately forty-five minutes, but this could take longer depending on how communicative the group are. If you have time over the course/term, I recommend choosing a few areas such as compulsory education (Primary and secondary), post-secondary and professional. It would also work well to sequence these in the reverse order as the memories are more fresh and easier to access. It might also seem more meaningful and relevant to do the most recent first and more of a nostalgic activity to think about ourselves as younger learners at the end, but it also depends on the area of education the educators work in. 5) Ask trainees/teachers to get comfortable by preparing a hot beverage, getting a cosy blanket and finding a comfortable seat, which may even involve sitting on the floor and leaning against a wall or lying on the floor. They also need a notebook and a pen. 14

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6) The activity starts with a breathing activity and then moves onto the guided visualisation. If you are reading the script, speak slowly and calmly, as this gives trainees/teachers time to bring the memories to their minds.

Task Reflection script ‘This guided visualisation activity is an opportunity to learn something new about yourself. You will deepen your teaching by reflecting on an inspirational educator who shaped your teaching and learning. You will examine your attitude and emotional responses to this educator and the experiences you had as a learner in their class. You will consider the effects of their attitude, approach, activities, and assessments, and whether there was a specific teaching and learning moment that stands out for you. So, before we start, prepare yourself by getting a hot beverage, a warm sweater, a cozy blanket, cushions www.modernenglishteacher.com

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or any other items to make yourself as comfortable as possible. If you need to pause the recording to do this, please do so.

university, your professional training or even a mentor or colleague. You will just choose one inspirational educator for this visualisation.

Okay, now find a comfortable seat. This may be sitting on the floor and leaning against a wall, or sitting cross-legged on the floor on a cushion. You could also sit on a sofa or chair with your feet placed on the ground, or if it feels better, you could even lie on the floor.

Continue to breathe. Take deep full breaths, and as you breathe, become more and more aware of the state of your body and the quality of your mind. Let your breath become more smooth and effortless. Feel the flow of air moving into your lungs and then back out into the world. With each exhale, imagine you are releasing any negative or restless thoughts that may be lingering in your mind. This increased focus will allow you to more thoroughly immerse yourself in the visualisation.

This guided visualisation will take about twelve minutes. We will begin with a breathing activity to relax, centre and ground ourselves, and then we will move onto the visualisation. Once you’re settled, close your eyes or soften your gaze. Now tune into your breath. Notice it without trying to change it. Also, become aware of whether your breath feels relaxed, tense or neutral without trying to change it - just notice it and be with it. Now, inhale through your nose and then exhale through your nose or mouth, whichever is more comfortable. Continue to take deep, full breaths. As you breathe, become aware of the state of your body and your mind. Where is your mind? Is it focused on your breath or on your body? Is your mind at ease with your thoughts and the present moment? Try to unite the breath and mind by focusing on the breath and simply breathe in and out. Let’s now do a breathing exercise together to further relax. In this exercise, the exhale will be longer than the inhale. When the exhale is longer than the inhale, it promotes relaxation in the body. Let’s do four sets of these to really centre ourselves. Let’s start: we are going to inhale for four: one, two, three, four, and hold, and exhale for five: five, four, three, two, one (Repeat this four times). Is your body holding tension anywhere? If so, bring attention to this area without judgment. Feel a sense of comfort and calm travelling up through your chest, into your neck and head and then down and out into your shoulders, arms, hands and fingers, and then down into your ribs, stomach, legs and feet.

If your mind wanders away from the visualisation and the inspirational educator at any point, know that it’s natural. It’s the nature of the mind to wander – just simply bring your attention back to your inspirational educator. Now you can see your inspirational educator in your mind’s eye. What does this person look like? How old are they? What are they wearing? What are they doing? What kind of gestures do they make? Can you notice or remember any of their facial expressions and mannerisms? What does their voice sound like? What are some aspects of their personality that you remember? So, now you have an image of this educator in your mind. We are going to go further back and recall a specific time they inspired or influenced you. Take a few moments to recall this. Where are you? What city and country? What year or decade is it? What time of year and day is it? Now you are in a classroom. It may be a school, college, university or language school. What does the room look like? How is it decorated? What objects are in the room? Tables? School supplies? Games? Books? Windows? Is there anything on the walls? Posters? Images? Are there other people in the room? What are you doing? Are you sitting, standing, talking, watching, listening? What are you wearing? How do you feel? Do any emotions arise as you are in this moment?

Use your senses now to focus on your present surroundings. What physical sensations do you feel? Can you feel the air on your skin? Your body touching the ground? Do you hear any sounds in the room? Do you hear any sounds outside? Can you smell anything? Do you see any colours or shapes behind your eyelids?

Think more about your inspirational educator. What is an activity that you particularly liked and found interesting, engaging, meaningful or innovative? What did you do in the activity? What were the materials? What was the purpose? Why do you enjoy it? Why are you drawn to it?

Now, you need to decide which area of education you will focus on for your visualisation. Is your inspirational educator from a primary or secondary school, post-secondary, whether that is college or

Does your inspirational educator use humour, kindness, passion, questions, dramatic behaviour, props, videos, music or other techniques to engage the class? Do they listen or do they mainly talk? If they

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are talking, what are they talking about? Are learners busy doing tasks? How does the educator organise and direct the learning and the class? How does your inspirational educator make you feel? Are there any other important aspects or details of this classroom and learning experience that come to your mind? Now visualise yourself standing in front of this person and look into their eyes. What do you see? What would you say to them? Would you like to ask them anything? Now, thank them for their educational service and inspiration to you. This guided visualisation activity has been an opportunity to reflect on your inspirational educator, but also to learn something new about yourself as a learner and educator. We are now going to reflect on our memories and also think about our attitudes and emotional responses to our inspirational educator and this experience. When you’re ready, take a few more deep, mindful breaths and then softly open your eyes. Sit for a few moments to acknowledge the unique experience you had during this activity. We will now make notes about our reflection.’ 7) Inform teachers/trainees that they have ten minutes to write down their responses to questions 1-6. They make notes of the ideas that have come to their mind in the chart but remind them there is no right or wrong answer. The first column is for details and the second is to reflect on the significance. The ‘Aha moment’ (Number 3) could be a key moment in the past when they realised this educator was an inspiration, or it could also be something that they recalled during this guided visualisation.

Post-task Depending on the class size and group dynamic, it is possible to work in pairs or have whole-class feedback. If the group are comfortable with one another, then sharing can allow them to apply insights from others to deepen and enrich their future teaching. They can be encouraged to notice similarities between their individual responses, as well as to observe whether patterns emerge between one another’s reflections. Participants could also create discussion questions that are meaningful to them. Additionally, they could also have some more time to think about the activity and write down the key points in a journal entry, short reflective essay or on an online discussion forum after the class. When I listened to the recording (after finally managing to relax despite initially feeling that listening to my own voice was very non-relaxing!), I envisioned 16

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my former MA instructor and subsequent supervisor at a British university. I remembered how he had shared many humorous and insightful anecdotes about his adventures in English language teaching and learning. These case studies/scenarios resonated strongly with me because they were so illustrative, and they also normalised professional obstacles. He highlighted that approaching challenges with a curious attitude can allow them to become learning experiences. He discussed a ‘relaxed formality’, and this is how I have approached my teaching since. I also remembered how generous he was with his time and his ability to listen and respond empathetically. His calm manner and wisdom are qualities I admire and try to channel in my teaching and learning. The pandemic has created a unique opportunity to rethink how we view and deliver education. There are a large number of often competing educational methodologies and theories, particularly with the rise of the internet and online teaching and learning, and educators are often inundated and overwhelmed by this. However, a considerable amount of knowledge based on our experiences is already within us, and we can access this if we take the time to be still and reflect. Many of our experiences as learners are so visceral, salient and meaningful that we should try and incorporate these into our teaching. Giving educators the tools to do this is very valuable, but transfer remains one of the largest challenges in education. This is where the ‘Application’ section is useful as it requires educators to plan how they will implement aspects of the visualisation into their teaching. To further strengthen this, follow-up discussion and check-in tasks can be scheduled for a future date. Further investigation and reflection into who we are as educators, and who and what has influenced us, will help us become more effective in our classrooms. We discuss pacing a lot in education, and the pandemic has definitely forced us to slow down. I hope that slowing down and pausing to reflect will be incorporated more into both our personal and professional lives.

References Brookfield S (2015) The Skillful Teacher: On Trust, Technique and Responsiveness in the Classroom. Jossey-Bass.

Laura Hadwin is an English language instructor at Camosun College in Victoria BC, Canada. She is interested in teacher beliefs and identity, as well as creativity in teaching and learning. She has taught and delivered teacher training in South Korea, Spain, the UK, Turkey, Qatar and Mexico. In her free time, she enjoys yoga, volunteering, and exploring our beautiful world. Email: [email protected]

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George Murdoch Considers the benefits of language learning for teachers.

It pays to learn

The relevance of teacher cognition studies One of most significant developments in the field of English language teaching occurred in the 1990s when researchers began to do studies on teacher cognition. In previous decades, the main concerns in ELT were developing and evaluating different approaches, methodologies, curricula and teaching materials. There had also been an interest in gauging the specific needs of learners and exploring the strategies that learners adopt to facilitate their learning. While much work was done on devising effective teacher training and professional development programmes, teachers themselves were not considered to be an important topic for research. So, it was quite a radical innovation when researchers began to focus on what teachers actually think about teaching. Teacher cognition is concerned with all www.modernenglishteacher.com

aspects of teachers’ professional lives and seeks to uncover their beliefs, knowledge and attitudes related to all facets of teaching, including classroom practices (Borg, 2003). While teacher cognition research has tended to examine teachers’ decision-making related to lesson planning and choice of teaching strategies and activities, some studies have looked at the personal knowledge that influences teacher performance. Typical teaching behaviours are not solely determined by pre-service training, professional development courses and attending conference workshops and presentations. Research reported by Ellis (2006) and Woods (1996) indicates that teachers’ decision-making will be influenced by their professional lives as a whole, including prior language learning experiences. This insight is supported by both Numrich (1996), who found that teachers’ own negative experience Volume 31

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of overcorrection as language learners influenced their adoption of a more differentiated approach to error correction in their own classrooms; and Johnson (1994), who reported that pre-service teachers’ lessons relied heavily on the activities and classroom management styles that they themselves had been exposed to as language learners. These research findings will strike a chord with most of us when we reflect on how our prior language learning experiences may have influenced, at least partially, the development of our own teaching approach and the type of classroom environment we seek to create.

The importance of language learning experiences Being aware of personal language learning experiences is very important for understanding and developing teacher competence. Pre-service and inservice workshops often get trainees to reflect on a critical aspect of their language learning experiences as a way in to the selected topic. In the case of nonnative speaker teachers, their extensive experience of learning English provides a particularly rich source of insights that can aid their development as language teachers. They are, for example, likely to have a keen awareness of effective learner strategies and be familiar with different ways in which a teacher can best motivate students in the classroom (as well as some that are best avoided!). Negative early language learning experiences, like not being given the chance to interact communicatively during classroom activities, can benefit all teachers in training by firing a determination to adopt more progressive, student-centred methods. Reflection on my own French language education, beginning with classes in primary school in England, makes me aware of both the strengths and limitations of a language teaching approach that systematically covered the grammar and vocabulary of the language, leading eventually to the reading of classic French literary texts in the final two years of secondary school. This approach undoubtedly provided me with a solid knowledge of the French grammatical system and a good vocabulary range, but left me significantly short of the conversational skills and broad cultural knowledge that were needed later when I found myself living and working in French-speaking countries. While English language teacher trainees at the very start of their careers may be able to draw readily on personal experiences of being students in school language classes, once teachers accumulate more teaching experience, they become heavily influenced by the curriculum, assessment system and favoured pedagogic approach of the institution in which they work. They naturally become deeply involved with their professional duties and their experience of being a student becomes an ever more distant memory. As a 18

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result, it could be hard for many experienced teachers to empathise fully with their students and consider the challenges that they may be facing to benefit from their language course. One way of trying to awaken more sensitivity to the student perspective, which is often used in teacher training and professional development courses, is to include an experience of learning an unfamiliar language for most teachers, like Portuguese or Hawaiian. Such sessions are definitely interesting and quite memorable. However, as Ellis (2006) points out, they are normally very short and pitched at a level for absolute beginners. They are a fun element of the course, but do not replicate the realities of learning a language as experienced by students. What is really valuable and desirable is for teachers to place themselves in a situation where they experience being a learner again by taking up the challenge of studying a language seriously. If teaching classes consisting of speakers of the same language, as often happens when teaching overseas, then teachers will inevitably be drawn to learning the language of that country, in order to fully adapt to the culture and be able to communicate in social situations. It can also prove very helpful in the classroom: using a few words or expressions of the students’ own language displays an interest in their culture and makes it possible to build a better relationship with the class. Some degree of familiarity with the students’ first language also helps teachers manage their classes more effectively and avoid misunderstandings. For example, when students seem to be chatting and not paying attention during a lesson, it might actually be the case that they are discussing the meaning of relevant vocabulary items or clarifying task instructions. In such situations, knowledge of the students’ own language can prevent teachers making critical or angry comments that could damage their relationship with a class.

Gaining awareness through language learning Richards (2005) views a teacher studying the language of his/her students as a form of professional development that is not sufficiently valued. It is possible to broaden this idea into a more general developmental recommendation that teachers should seek to extend their skills as linguists on an ongoing basis. It is worth considering some of the benefits that teachers gain by becoming language learners themselves. This discussion is intended to cover varied language learning situations: traditional language learning courses where teachers register for face-to-face instruction; courses which are delivered online with tutors providing instruction and feedback; situations where students study more independently, making use of online materials and resources or published course books and audio-visual materials. www.modernenglishteacher.com

Sometimes a teacher’s experience of studying a language will span more than one mode of study – I began learning Farsi decades ago by registering for a traditional course provided by a language teaching school in Tehran; more recently I have tried to improve my Persian language skills myself by following an online course, working through the units at my own chosen speed. Whatever the type of course followed by a language teacher, experiencing language learning from the student perspective raises awareness of key aspects of the process. Some of the most obvious are: the need for lessons and materials lessons to be interesting; for language points to be explained clearly; for practice to be meaningful; and for learning to be reinforced sufficiently. It also raises awareness of the importance of selecting appealing topics and themes for lessons. This will enable the learners to apply their background knowledge and life experience, thereby facilitating understanding of, and interaction with, texts to develop all four skills. Secondly, through engaging in study of a target language, a ‘teacher-student’ inevitably becomes more keenly aware of the challenges that learners routinely face. For example, when faced with a www.modernenglishteacher.com

  It is possible to broaden this idea into a more general developmental recommendation that teachers should seek to extend their skills as linguists on an ongoing basis. 

difficult reading text, you become very conscious of the importance of grammatical knowledge in trying to access its meaning. You realise, too, the absolute importance of grading reading texts carefully to ensure that the learners are not confronted with too many new vocabulary items in a reading passage. An excess of unfamiliar words can prove overwhelming and impede comprehension, unless a lot of the new vocabulary items have been seeded beforehand. It is commonly suggested that learners can use the context and inferential strategies to work out the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary (see Grabe 2009: 72), but the experience of being a language learner will quickly prove that this strategy is impractical when many new words are encountered in a reading text. Volume 31

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  Knowing their language to some extent will, as already discussed, enable us to be more sensitive to the linguistic and academic challenges learners face and better support their learning.  Thirdly, when following a traditional face-to-face course or an online language course with a tutor, you realise how important it is to receive feedback and encouragement from the teacher or tutor. It is easy to underestimate the degree of impact which teacher feedback has on students’ levels of motivation. Adopting the role of a language learner also makes a teacher more keenly aware of the need to show an equal interest in the progress of all the students in the class, and the negative impact of failing to distribute attention equally. It also highlights the positive impact of a teacher or tutor showing some degree of interest in students’ lives outside the classroom. Being a language student again makes you appreciate more fully that this interest is not a distraction from learning, but provide a basis for genuine communication and building conversation skills. Re-entering the educational process as a language student also draws attention to the importance of providing a clear set of information about a language course – an overview of different teaching units or modules; the types of learning and skills activities covered; how progress will be measured; the availability of supplementary practice materials, etc. Making clear the structure of the course at the outset enables students to prepare more efficiently and manage their learning successfully. It also helps students to settle into the course by providing reassurance about its coherence and quality. The organisation of a course can often seem very obvious to the teacher delivering the course, particularly when they have taught it a number of times before, but it is essential that it is explained to each new group of students in a comprehensible way, so as to allow them the opportunity to organise their learning more effectively.

Further benefits Of course, the value of a teacher learning another language cannot be measured purely in terms of its positive washback on pedagogic practice alone. Equally important is the fact that learning other languages boosts teacher self-esteem significantly, and that it is perceived with admiration by our social and professional peers. It can be argued that the benefits 20

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are even greater for language teaching professionals as we profess to be experts in language learning. Accordingly, it might seem strange if we are seen to be uninterested in furthering our knowledge of other languages, especially when we are living and teaching in a foreign country, or teaching classes composed of students mainly from one particular country for an extended period of time. Making the effort to learn the language of our students will show that we are interested in their country and culture, as well as making us more effective in the classroom. Knowing their language to some extent will, as already discussed, enable us to be more sensitive to the linguistic and academic challenges learners face and better support their learning. Finally, it is certainly in a professional language teacher’s self-interest to be engaged in learning another language. What better way could there be to demonstrate to a prospective employer that you are still committed to the profession and eager to develop your skills? Your talents as a polyglot will indicate the extra value you can bring to an institution, and may provide you with a vital, competitive edge over other candidates for a post who have similar qualifications and experience.

References Borg S (2003) Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what teachers think, know, believe and do. Language Teaching 36 (2) 81–109. Ellis E M (2006) Language Learning Experience as a Contribution to ESOL Teacher Cognition. TESL-EJ 10 (1). Grabe W (2009) Reading in a Second Language: Moving from Theory to Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson K E (1994) The emerging beliefs and instructional practices of preservice English as a second language teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education 10 (4) 439–52. Numrich, C (1996) On becoming a language teacher: Insight from diary studies. TESOL Quarterly 30 (1) 131–53. Richards J C & Farrell T S C (2005) Professional Development for Language Teachers: Strategies for Teacher Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woods D (1996) Teacher Cognition in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

George Murdoch’s ELT career has taken him to many countries including Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Sri Lanka, and the UAE. He has held several British Council posts and been an adviser on teacher education and developmental supervision projects. He has taught and developed language courses at several Gulf universities and has also worked in UK language schools. Most recently, George has taught EAP courses for international students at York St John and Loughborough universities. He has written articles for leading journals and presented at many international conferences.

www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Starting Afresh ]

Jeffrey Dawala Wilang Considers the importance of an empathetic approach

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Dealing with ‘elephants’ in the online classroom

motions are like ‘elephants in the room – poorly studied, poorly understood, seen as inferior to rational thought’ (Swain, 2013: 195). With the shift from onsite to online learning, this phenomenon ushered in challenging spaces where language learning and emotions should be explored. Though current research findings have identified and described disruptions in learning, little has captivated negative emotions such as anxiety, frustration, and demotivation – the ‘mother’ elephants in the online classroom. In this paper, three students from Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam were asked to write about their learning experiences in an academic language skill course in a renowned university in Thailand. The questions asked were – What are the situations that provoked negative emotions in your online class? How did you cope with those negative feelings? What should teachers do to help you overcome negative emotions? www.modernenglishteacher.com

  Currently, the pandemic is still raging, and travel is restricted in many Asian countries. Classes are mainly conducted via Zoom, so I am home where negative emotions creep back and forth within me!  Seth, Cambodia

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  As an international student in an online setting where learning convenience, learner autonomy, and flexible courses are promoted, I have experienced higher anxiety, frustration, and demotivation. Many times, I have asked myself, ‘Where am I? Does my teacher know I am waiting here?’ 

  I do not want to interrupt anyone, worrying that taking other people’s speaking turns would be impolite.  Pretty, Thailand

Peter, Vietnam

Peter, in Vietnam: As a newbie in the online learning environment, I usually feel anxious about technological defects when joining online courses. Although such platforms are perfect for online courses, there are some cases in which teachers and learners cannot access the platforms at a certain period when some of the apps are under maintenance. I usually get nervous when I wait for a long time in the online classroom and see no one join the room. I have often asked myself, ‘Where am I? Am I alone? Is this platform used? Does my teacher know I am waiting here?’. One of the most frustrating situations was caused by technological dependency on a third party. For example, when the service provider malfunctioned, I had to input the ID and password many times. Worst, my negative emotions became more serious when the platforms I used for my online presentation broke down.

What should teachers do? Willing-to-help attitude! Despite these challenges in the online classroom, the flexibility of the online courses and teachers’ understanding can easily help because teachers always commit to supporting us in any case of technological defects. For example, if one online platform is under maintenance, my teachers always encourage me to try another platform. They never mind changing the medium for learning. 22

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Furthermore, they can do anything to support students in case students face technological defects. This willing-tohelp manner from the teachers always motivates me to apply technology into learning and help me overcome anxious feelings. Share some humorous stories! Some teachers inspire us by telling funny stories related to the same situation in their previous online classes in which funny things happened. This made my classmates and me laugh a lot, which reduced our frustration. Other teachers encouraged me that I could do the presentation again. Pretty, in Thailand: Communicating online makes me feel anxious. Through virtual meetings, both teachers and students cannot see or read each other’s gestures and facial expressions, making it more challenging to understand what other people are trying to say than in face-to-face interactions. Whenever the teachers ask something in the class, it is also hard to identify whose turn it is to answer the questions. Sometimes my classmates and I start to express our opinions simultaneously, and sometimes we all wait for the others to speak first. The overlapping talk and silence in conversation make me feel a little nervous and more reluctant to speak up in the online classes because I do not want

to interrupt anyone, worrying that it would be impolite to take other people’s speaking turns. When studying online, I feel frustrated when encountering technical issues, such as unstable internet connections or problems with technological devices. It is annoying when the teachers explain essential information, but my internet is lagging, so I miss some parts of the instruction. Moreover, my computer is not very up-to-date, and it once restarted itself during class time. Changing the learning environment makes me feel demotivated. Home is a more suitable place to relax rather than to study. There are a lot of distractions at home, such as the noises from family members, the comfortable bed, or the refrigerator full of tasty food. Therefore, I find it hard to focus on learning and complete school assignments, resulting in increased procrastination and decreased motivation. Personally, demotivation is the most difficult emotion to deal with.

What should teachers do? Establish turn-taking cues! I appreciate when the teachers provide cues or signal to each student when to start speaking and expressing opinions. It helps lessen the gaps and overlaps in online conversations, giving students equal time to share their thoughts. Offer support! To cope with the frustration caused by specific technical issues, I try to stay calm and positive, reminding myself that nobody can control www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Starting Afresh ]

  Without a doubt, we become anxious, frustrated, demotivated, and eventually lose interest and give up. I suppose only a few students benefit from online learning.  Seth, Cambodia

this situation. Luckily, all of my classmates and teachers are supportive. Be ready at all times! Whenever I encounter problems from my poor internet connection or outdated devices, which prevents me from clearly listening to the teachers’ instructions or staying in the class, they are willing to answer my questions and re-tell all the information I miss. Encourage a to-do list! I try to stay motivated by writing a to-do list to prioritise what I should do each day and allowing myself to take a break, doing some activities that I enjoy, such as listening to music or watching movies. Talk to them! Additionally, talking to other people also gives me positive energy and helps me overcome difficult times. Supportive words and compliments from family members, teachers, and friends encourage me to continue learning and do great work. Seth, in Cambodia: My first experience of anxiety was that I could not converse with my friends and teachers directly. I felt anxious from having to talk from a screen. Just being in front of the screen automatically provokes my anxiety. I could not read the reactions of others from my computer screen. I could not sense or feel their expressions. In front of the screen, I can see that everyone is smiling and talking, but I’m not sure whether I am understood, and it distracts me from absorbing the actual content, which was the lessons being taught. www.modernenglishteacher.com

Frankly, it was not easy at all adapting to online learning. However, I had to overcome my challenges, in which I tried to drag myself mentally to only focus on my studies. When the screen is opened, and the meeting is conducted, everyone will pop up on my screen. I always try to drag my eyesight to only look at my image. And as the lessons go on, my vision will focus on the lecturer’s slides. When that happens I can focus on myself and the lessons that are being taught and avoid focusing on seeing the reactions of my classmates and teachers. One of the most frustrating experiences was when I thoroughly and proudly explained what I had to say to answer or present my ideas; however, my classmates and teachers could not understand what I was saying and told me to repeat. Then I attempted to say what I said earlier. Why couldn’t I repeat exactly what I said? Repeating made me more anxious, resulting in forgetting what I wanted to share.

What should teachers do? Be empathic to students! I was able to cope with anxiety in this situation because of my teachers. There were many times when I was talking in my class, and my internet connection was terrible, and my speaker and earphone suddenly broke down. What’s worse, I had to do a slide presentation as well. But what made me feel better and relieved were my teacher’s words. He told me, ‘It’s alright. There is still time. You can try and fix it’, ‘It’s alright. Take your time’, or ‘It’s alright. We can wait a few more minutes’. It is a silly feeling for me primarily since my upbringing was based on ‘masculinity’ – not accepting weaknesses.

Advise students! I lost track of all my lessons, and I could not catch up with the lessons. In addition, I was also nervous to ask my teacher to repeat it. During that period, it felt like it was an awful day, and I became frustrated with myself. In a particular task, I shouted out an answer that was utterly irrelevant to the question. After knowing my response, I felt embarrassed, discouraged, and frustrated. Frustration was indeed taking over me. Finally, my teacher told me to prioritise things. I cannot hit two stones simultaneously – I mean working in the office while studying online at the same time. So I decided to hand in my resignation and focus entirely on my studies. Now that my learning setting has been changed, I feel better and more confident with my studies, and I do not feel frustrated. Ask students’ feelings! Every class, before we begin our lessons, my teachers always ask my classmates and me these questions, ‘How are you?’, ‘How are you doing?’, ‘How is life?’, ‘Is everything alright?’. I forgot all the negative emotions and thought that my teachers were concerned with my well-being for a short moment. It might seem selfish, but I felt better. I felt motivated to continue the rest of the lessons.

Teacher acts can make students feel in the online classroom Learning online can provoke students’ negative emotions such as anxiety, frustration, and demotivation, into the classroom. However, by being empathic, offering help and support, or just talking to them, teachers could help students deal with these ‘elephants’ in online learning settings.

Dr. Jeffrey Dawala Wilang is an assistant professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Institute of Social Technology, Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.

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Lessons we can learn from Emergency Remote Teaching Sharon Hartle Plans for digital teaching in the future.

Introduction: emerging from the tunnel After a year and a half of coming to terms with remote teaching and technological spaces, digital contexts are coming in for a lot of stick, ranging from comments in the media to throwaway asides at meetings or teaching conferences. In the 2021 IATEFL Conference (held entirely online), some of the words overheard informally with reference to remote teaching were: panic, stress and struggle and interestingly the passive was quite common as well. This may mean that, somehow, we, as teachers, lost our own agency as a result of the pandemic: ■ We were forced to… ■ We were thrown into…. ■ The classroom was thrown into…

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A key problem, of course, was the speed with which many teaching contexts had to be moved. Here in Italy, for instance, we learned over the weekend of 29th March 2020 that as of the following Monday we would be teaching online. For those who had little experience of e-learning or teaching remotely this led to the inevitable result that for the following year the focus of training webinars, professional publications and training courses tended to be on the ‘how’ of using digital resources, platforms and tools. It was a steep learning curve, which involved long working hours, a fundamental lack of confidence in teachers’ mastery of many of the delivery methods being used, and also high levels of anxiety resulting from the radical disruption of normal teaching rhythms (Allen, Jerrim and Sims, 2020). Emergency remote teaching (ERT) has been described as www.modernenglishteacher.com

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Redefinition: creation of new tasks

Transformation

Modification: significant task redesign

Enhancement

Augmentation: some change in function Substitution: tech as substituting a traditional tool. No change involved.

Figure 1 The SAMR Model

being a temporary solution to a problem (Bozkurt and Sharma, 2020) and, in this sense, reactive, characterised by a lack of planning, but the challenge now is to see how it can also provide us with new opportunities (Reimers et al, 2020). If we can learn some of the lessons this situation has taught us, instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water, then perhaps we can emerge from the tunnel into a brighter future with a range of new resources to add to our learning design. In this article, the focus is on the lessons we, in my university here in Verona, have learned about digital learning design and how to plan for blended learning, whether the blend is online and onsite or between different digital contexts such as the synchronous lesson streaming ones or the asynchronous, independent study resources provided for learners to access at will. Most of the teachers at our university already had a wealth of expertise in managing the learning process in traditional onsite contexts but transferring that knowledge and skill online requires different skills and knowhow. It is not merely a matter of taking an activity, test or exercise and putting it online. What needs to be considered when designing learning for the future is how to plan for and craft the process, whilst considering the affordances of differing contexts. This article looks particularly at planning for independent study and for face-to-face synchronous contexts. www.modernenglishteacher.com

Effective frameworks for teaching in digital and onsite contexts When adapting learning design to digital contexts, which framework to adopt is of fundamental importance. The SAMR model (Puentedura, 2006) has become very popular recently because it deals directly with knowledge of and competence in digital resource use, moving from limited to expert technological competence.

  A key problem, of course, was the speed with which many teaching contexts had to be moved. 

It has been represented visually in many ways and one version is shown in Figure 1, above. In this model it is clear that the bottom of the pyramid shows the tech usage of an inexpert educator, where tools are simply substituted, so that homework instructions, for instance, may be sent by email rather than simply being communicated to learners in the classroom. The key focus about the integration of different steps in this model is on increasing enhancement of learning with technological tools until the process becomes transformed at the top with tasks that can be done by means of technology that are completely transformed from their onsite, traditional counterparts. An example of this might be the use of virtual reality or webXR (the use of virtual reality contexts via a web browser) to transport learners to a new context, such as inside a play like Macbeth, where learners can explore the

world of the play, or on virtual field trips, or it may be creating a virtual tour of the learners’ city on Google Maps, which is then published for general access. This framework was very useful at the beginning of the shift to ERT as it enabled teachers with limited technological expertise to discover and organise ad hoc ways of introducing technology into their classrooms. The focus, however, is very clearly on the technology. The founder of this model, Ruben Puentedura, has in fact refined the model, stressing the value of integrating it with another one: TPACK (Mishra and Koehler, 2006), which focuses less on technology and more on the combination of different types of knowledge: technology, content and pedagogical knowledge. TPACK is usually shown graphically in an image Volume 31

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Content Knowledge

Goal Area

Pedagogical Knowledge

Technology Knowledge

Figure 2 The TPACK Model

like the one in Figure 2. The stress here is on the combination of different types of knowledge that are required in the teaching process: knowledge of the content to be taught, knowledge of the best way to teach this (pedagogical knowledge), and technology knowledge. Technology knowledge is only the third part of this framework and is seen as something that can facilitate the other two elements. The goal is to reach the centre, where all three components come together. This would mean having an awareness of which is the best technological resource to use in order to teach specific content effectively. All this may seem rather abstract for those wanting a practical framework for the development of blended resources. It forms the theoretical background, however, for a model which we have been applying on our university language courses. We refer to it simply as the W-Frame because it relies on Wh questions: what, how, where, who. It is not a linear model but with a slight stretch of the imagination it can be read in a linear way. The starting point is the content or the ‘what’: What are the aims of your lesson? What is the target language or the skills? What do your learners need 26

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to concentrate on? It is followed by the ‘how’ of what you want to do, which is largely inseparable from the ‘where’ (or ‘in which context’), particularly when working digitally. Some tools are particularly suited to the face-to-face (f2f) contexts of working in breakout rooms, such as collaborative tasks or discussions, which involve social interaction and monitoring by the teacher, where the learners may need to ask questions directly either to their peers or to their teacher. Other tools, such as texts to read or listen to and controlled language exercises, may be more suitable for the asynchronous platforms where they are provided for independent study. ‘Where’, in this framework then is closely linked to how resources are used. ‘Who’ of course is extremely important because providing the best learning experience for your learners means knowing who they are and what they need to do with the language they are learning. The aims of your specific learners may be very different from the aims of my undergraduate/ post graduate students in Italy, which means that the very language points highlighted or types of texts provided for skills work will differ considerably. Online contexts also give us the opportunity to provide activities at different language levels to cater for differentiated learning, so that learners

can choose the level that is most suitable for them. The internet has provided us with a wealth of high quality language exercises from reputable sources such as the British Council’s LearnEnglish site (https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/) or at the BBC’s Learning English site (www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish). This means that referring students to such sites is relatively easy for teachers to do and, above all avoids a lot of work creating language exercises that simply reinvent the wheel. How such work is then integrated into f2f contexts or specific learning designs will depend on the particular teacher, learners and context.

Two ways of working online: independent study or social interaction? One of the key lessons we have learned, in fact, is that the two main digital learning situations that usually occur, as mentioned above, are often independent, asynchronous study or f2f online work via video conferencing, carried out synchronously as lessons are streamed. In the former, learners interact with materials at their own pace. This may be done simply by watching a YouTube www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Online Learning ]

video to learn something specific that the learner chooses, a TED talk about a topic they are interested in, or by doing work provided online for a specific course. The last of these is much closer to traditional onsite classrooms and is the context that has been developed perhaps the most widely during ERT. Managing synchronous online classrooms involves the same level of expertise as managing a traditional onsite classroom and requires direct, hands-on input from the teacher, together with the willingness to work together among learners. This type of classroom can be a place where there is real social interaction between learners and teachers in a way which is very different from the independent study that can be done asynchronously.

Interactivity and interaction Interaction, in fact, is not quite the same as interactivity and it is interesting to explore the difference between the two and what this may mean for the learning process. ‘Interactive’ is frequently collocated with ‘learning’, tends to refer to online study where learners interact with digital exercises and games and is seen as being ‘fun’. It may indeed be positive when such work is clearly scaffolded for learners so that the instructions are clear, the work they are doing is relevant and the feedback they receive is constructive and informative. Ego-focused feedback such as ‘Well done!’ or ‘Try again’, on the other hand, is not as helpful, perhaps, as learners are interested in knowing exactly where they have made a mistake and how to repair it. Interactivity, then, may actually be well suited to study activities such as controlled practice of new language, reviews or tests used as an element of formative assessment. Welldesigned quiz activities, for instance, with constructive feedback, can enable learners to reflect on their problem areas and set goals for their next steps. This, however, is not quite the same as interaction. Interaction can be defined as ‘reciprocal action or influence’ or ‘communication or direct involvement with something or something’ (Oxford Lexico, 2021). The stress on reciprocity here is key and interaction between people can also take place in online classrooms too, but it occurs when individuals work in pairs or in groups, communicating and negotiating www.modernenglishteacher.com

  Other tools, such as texts to read or listen to and controlled language exercises, may be more suitable for the asynchronous platforms where they are provided for independent study. 

as they co-construct knowledge. It may, in fact, go beyond this and create a real element of socialisation as well, which was extremely necessary during the pandemic. Some of our students, in fact, claimed that their main aim was to prepare for and pass exams but at the same time stressed that one of the greatest difficulties studying remotely during lockdown was managing their spaces at home. Most of them missed the social interaction of being at the university physically, going to lessons and making or meeting friends. Sharing personalised warmers, such as asking everyone to share one ‘positive moment’ from the weekend on a Monday morning, via the Zoom chat box, was one way to inject an element of humanity into the lesson and to help to create a real classroom community. The positive moments ranged from knitting (and the learners showed us what they had made) to baking bread to playing the guitar (we were also shown the bread and the guitar). In this way, the online f2f space actually enabled learners and teachers to reach out to each other through the digital screen and to take each other into a new dimension where they shared parts of their lives with each other. Although this was a very simple activity to do, it was truly uplifting and underlined the benefit of real ‘human to human’ communication of social interaction.

How can we use the affordances of different contexts in the best possible ways? Sharma and Barrett (2018) underline the benefits of considering carefully which activities can be done in a f2f context and which ones might be more suited to the online platforms. Skills work such as reading and viewing or listening can

be done autonomously, and then later extended in the f2f context, as can the independent study of new language rules. When teaching grammar, for instance, this may mean providing study materials such as explanations and controlled practice exercises on an online platform such as Moodle (https://moodle.org), Canvas Instructure (https://canvas.instructure. com) or Blackboard (www.blackboard. com). The advantages of this approach include a choice of pace and access which is truly learner centred. Learners can access the materials at any time of day or night and can spend as much time as they require to elaborate the language point they are studying. As mentioned above, however, much depends on the scaffolding of such work and the feedback provided. Seemingly obvious aspects such as providing exercises with clear answer keys are not always respected, and feedback should be constructive, helping learners to really understand what the problem is. This is particularly true of online quiz activities. If the following multiple-choice item from an exercise on conjunctions and linking words is provided: Complete the following sentence with one of the choices below: ___________ the travel restrictions imposed in the summer of 2021, we decided to fly to the UK. a) Although b) Despite c) In spite It is not enough to simply mark b) as the correct answer. Useful feedback might be:

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a. This is not correct because ‘although’ is followed by a verbal clause. E.g. Although travel restrictions had been imposed in the summer of 2021, we decided to fly to the UK. b. This is correct because ‘despite’ is followed by a noun phrase like this or ‘-ing’. E.g. Despite reading about the restrictions… c. This is not correct because the expression is ‘In spite of’ followed by a noun phrase or ‘-ing’. E.g. In spite of the travel restrictions imposed in the summer of 2021, we decided to fly to the UK. It may take teachers more time to provide such feedback initially but once the quiz has been created it can be accessed by generations of learners and will help them to better understand the language they are studying. Providing effective scaffolding and an awareness of the aims of activities and their clear roles in the overall learning design is perhaps a new competence that needs to be developed for the planning of the learning process in the future. Whilst such activities are interactive, in the sense outlined above, and learners may have more time to sort out their thoughts, this work is not necessarily the type of social interaction that is more a feature of f2f contexts.

Face-to-face contexts: the pros and cons F2f contexts such as onsite classrooms or immersive and video-conferencing spaces are the realm of social interaction. Learners have the opportunity in these spaces to work with their teachers and with other learners, developing understanding and experimenting with language together. In the whirl of a groupwork exercise so many interactions can occur, insights be understood and new directions explored. Learners analyse, evaluate, reflect and the re-evaluate, learning to apply critical thinking skills in a way that they may not do when thinking and writing alone on a discussion board. How should this work be designed in a principled way, however? How should the pieces of the synchronous and asynchronous puzzle fit together? 28

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  Well designed quiz activities, for instance, with constructive feedback, can enable learners to reflect on their problem areas and set goals for their next steps.  To return to the quiz outlined above, learners may be encouraged to study the usage of conjunctions and linking words independently and then be asked to use them and experiment in the f2f context, perhaps by giving short presentations in breakout rooms, for instance, where they can benefit from the support of the teacher and their peers. Disadvantages exist in the f2f context as well, of course, and are certainly not new. A fascinating discussion may have to be truncated because there is simply not enough time, and the level and pace of lessons is often teacher led or depends on the constraints of the curriculum or institution. This, of course, does not always allow for such an effective differentiation of learning as providing a choice of activities for independent study online.

The best of both worlds Technology alone is not the silver bullet that many may have hoped would magically transform education on its own. If the affordances of different resources are to be beneficial, educators need to apply their pedagogical and content knowledge so that we can provide the best learning options possible for our specific learners. In Italy, perhaps as a result of the widespread increase in the use of technology and online contexts that the pandemic has led to, digital has become part and parcel of many of our lives so what we need to do is to embrace it and use it effectively. Ultimately, technology works the way we want it to and it is our responsibility to use

it as well as we can. ERT was a negative experience because it was forced on both teachers and learners but it is important not to forget how many positive aspects there are to the use of technology. The very fact of being able to access online spaces from a range of different geographical locations is only one. This academic year 2020-2021, for instance, on one MA course in our department, we had participants from Italy but also from Honduras, Russia and Africa. This would not have been possible if we had not taught the course in a hybrid format. Emerging from the tunnel into the light means taking the best of both worlds: the online and the onsite and focusing on creating the best learning process possible for our learners. There is an example of a practical teaching idea of mine in the It Works in Practice section of this issue (p46).

References Allen R, Jerrim J and Sims S (2020) ‘How did the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic affect teacher wellbeing?’. Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO) (20). Bozkurt A and Sharma R (2020) Emergency remote teaching in a time of global crisis due to CoronaVirus pandemic. Asian Journal of Distance Education 15 (1) 1–6. Mishra P and Koehler M J (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A framework for Teacher Knowledge. Teachers College Record 108 (6) 1017–1054 Oxford Lexico (online dictionary) Available at: https://www.lexico.com Puentedura R (2006) Transformation, Technology and Education. Available at: http://hippasus.com/ resources/tte/. Reimers F et al (2020) Supporting the continuation of teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic OECD 1 (1) 1–38. Sharma P and Barrett B (2018) Best practices for Blended Learning. Hove: Pavilion Publishing and Media. Available at: https://www.pavpub.com/bestpractices-for-blended-learning.

Sharon Hartle is an associate professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Verona University. She is specialised in English Language teaching (ELT pedagogy) and works specifically in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) contexts. She has worked for some years in the field of e-learning and specialises in multimedia material development for ELT in Blended Learning contexts.

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Steven Donald Looks at some of the implications of online teaching.

I

n 1998, Roger Barnard wrote an article in MET (Vol 7, No. 4) entitled Classroom observation: Some ethical implications. This article has been read by several thousand people in many countries, and what he said then still resonates more than twenty years later. To summarise the main points in Barnard’s article, he pointed out that classroom observation of English language classrooms may serve a number of purposes: firstly, quality control, in the sense of an appraisal of the teacher’s performance, or of the programme itself; secondly, the professional development of teachers, either of the observed teacher, or of the observing teachers; thirdly, as a platform for classroom-based research; fourthly, a combination of any of the www.modernenglishteacher.com

Classroom observation: some ethical issues above. The article emphasised that the primary purpose of the observation should be made clear and that there should be no hidden agenda. Naturally, the article was written with face-to-face teaching and learning very much in mind. However, in the current Covid-19 situation, English language classrooms in many contexts are increasingly taught online, and this means that there is a need to reconsider the extent to which the points made in the article are still valid. In the present article, I would like to record some thoughts on some ethical issues that have arisen in my current (2021) experience of teaching General English to Japanese university students using the Zoom platform and associated applications.

Firstly, as regards quality control, there are two parties interested in appraising the quality of the online teaching: the school management, and the school’s clients, whether the actual learners or their sponsors (e.g. staff at the despatching university). In my case, although my manager and his senior online advisor could easily access the online classes, there was no direct in-house observation for quality control. The manager explained that, as the team were all experienced language teachers, and had been given tutorial guidance before starting then online programme (see below), he trusted his staff to work conscientiously and effectively in the new environment. The students in my online classes all completed end-of-course questionnaires, covering issues that they had observed Volume 31

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such as learning activities, text book used, and enjoyment of classes. To the best of my knowledge, their comments, which were mainly positive, were made available to the class teacher concerned and shared, with discretion, at weekly in-house staff meetings. These were used to help inform any future course changes. My own students reported directly to me when I personally queried the students as to how the classes were going and what, if anything, they would like to change or add. Students replied very positively and asked for more speaking and conversational activities that would give them more opportunities to use English, something they lacked in their home country. Teachers and students were informed that staff at the dispatching university would from time to time tune in to the online classes, for quality control and possible marketing opportunities, and were asked in there were any objections: so far as I know, there were none. Prior to Covid-19, visiting staff would make pre-announced personal visits (after obtaining consent from the teachers) to the classrooms to observe the teaching and to ensure that the students were enjoying themselves. For the online classes, I was told that that they would join the class for only about 15 minutes, usually at the start of the lesson. My consent was not always sought, and to a certain degree, it was taken for granted: in fact, I had no objection. (If these visitors stayed longer, the teacher could remove them.) Their image would appear on all screens but they would not intervene in the lesson itself, as their microphones were muted. No problems were reported, and the only feedback was positive commenting on the quality of the teaching and the use of New Zealand cultural content. I was not informed how or why these observers recorded the classroom data, if indeed this was done: I feel that I should know this. With regard to professional development, two months before the programme started the teachers were introduced to software by the school’s expert online teacher. They were given examples of software programmes they could use in their lessons (e.g. Google Classroom, Jamboard, Quizlet, Kahoot, Flipgrid) to take home and familiarise themselves with. This was shortly followed by the opportunity to run through various tasks with current students, with the online expert on hand 30

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  ...as regards quality control, there are two parties interested in appraising the quality of the online teaching: the school management, and the school’s clients...  to give advice and support. Immediately before the programme started, she held a staff meeting (both face-to-face and via Zoom), where she made two sample presentations/demonstrations of relevant software that could be used in class followed by a question-and answer discussion. We were told that we had to submit our lesson plans the evening before the class was to be held and were advised that this was simply in case for some reason we were unable to teach that day and therefore a substitute would know what to do. These plans were never commented on, and at no point were our lessons observed for any professional development issues. Although I was confident in my teaching, I would have appreciated having a peer – a ‘critical friend’ – observe my classes and discuss issues arising after the lesson. Such post-lesson reflections would have been professionally useful for both of us. Finally, in my experience, no observations were carried out in my online classes explicitly for research purposes, although it is possible that some observers – such as myself! – might reflect on my observational data to do some (action) research, and then publish the findings. Although I am not currently teaching on Academic English programmes, I have done so in the past, and there are now some ethical misgivings among my present colleagues that entry standards for online courses are being lowered in order to ensure that the teaching programmes are financially viable. They feel that

their professional integrity is being compromised, and say things like, ‘I know my students are not at this level, but they were allowed to enrol. I feel bad for them. I feel like we deceived them,’ and ‘There’s no way the students can pass this test. I need to make it easier.’ This latter point also raises the problem of cheating, and how it can be detected in assignments submitted online. Software programmes like Turnitin may be able to detect published work but cannot identify if assignments have been actually written by the students themselves, or somebody else. Some universities have adopted the software programme, ProctorU. which has the ability to monitor students’ screens when doing an exam, and claims that ‘Notes can’t fly, either on the student’s desk or on his or her hands or wrists, because the online proctor (a real person) can see everything in the student’s room’ (https://www.proctoru.com/, 12 October 2021). A number of online messages from teachers elsewhere (e.g. http://udreview. com/youre-being-watched-the-dangers-ofproctoru/) indicate some ethical concerns arising from its use. In short, it seems that fewer ethical issues have arisen in my online teaching experience than Barnard considered in his 1998 article, but new ones have emerged. It would be interesting to find out whether English language teachers in other contexts have had found similar, or different, issues arising in their online classes – in particular, teachers working with students from countries other than Japan. I hope that readers will reflect on their own online experiences, and share their thoughts with immediate colleagues and with the wider professional community of practice.

Steven Donald (MEd. MPhil) was an associate professor at a Japanese university for eleven years before returning to New Zealand to teach at a university language centre. He has taught General and Academic English to students from many Asian and other backgrounds in face-to-face and online contexts. His research interests include study abroad programmes, intercultural communication and experiential learning.

www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Teaching Writing ]

Thomas Ziegelwagner Shows how to help students organise their writing.

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ost of you teaching writing texts have probably had similar experiences. It seems that you, as teachers, spend much more time creating or finding useful and fitting writing tasks, correcting your students’ texts and giving feedback than your students do planning (if done at all) writing, proofreading (again, if done at all), and possibly re-writing their texts. Worst of all, many of your students seem to be making the same mistakes over and over again which can be really frustrating for your students (as there seems to be no or little progress), but sometimes almost more so for you, as teachers, who might start questioning your teaching skills and whether your working hours are really filled with useful tasks which help advance your students’ language skills.

I started having similar doubts about my teaching some time ago and decided that I had to try to change certain aspects of how I taught writing skills. I would like to share some of my findings and experiences with you in a two-part article (Part two to appear in MET 31.2). In this issue of MET I am going to focus on a main aspect that hampers good www.modernenglishteacher.com

From chaos to order   I started having similar doubts about my teaching some time ago and decided that I had to try to change certain aspects of how I taught writing skills. 

student writing in my opinion – the lack of planning which means they invest far too little time in thinking about what they would like to write, how they could organise their text, what kind of language (formal, informal, semi-formal) the task asks for and what that entails language-wise, and which useful (and often new) words and phrases, as well as linking devices, could be employed when writing the text. Although most textbooks in addition to Cambridge

writing exam tips ask students to make a plan before they start writing, this piece of advice is notoriously ignored by most (of my) students, since they are under the impression that doing so will cost them unnecessary time. However, by skipping this part, they overlook that the opposite might actually be true, i.e. that planning saves them time, as writing a text becomes a much smoother experience once you have a plan for what you would like to actually write about. By ignoring that, they often get carried away and the text writes them instead of the other way round. This might be a great experience if you are a professional writer and you get into a real flow when writing a book, like Ray Bradbury explains in the afterword of his famous dystopian novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’: I did not write ‘Fahrenheit 451’, it wrote me. There was a cycling of energy off the page, into my eyeballs, and around down through my nervous system and out through my hands. The typewriter and I were Siamese [sic!] twins, joined at the fingertips. (Bradbury 1996: 179) Volume 31

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However, this is probably a once in a lifetime experience for many writers and very likely as rare if not much rarer for our students, which unfortunately leads to texts which are often too long (if they find that they are thinking of more and more to write while writing) or too short (because they forgot to include all the aspects of the rubric in their text), incoherent, and badly structured, i.e. with no or almost no paragraphs, and often including a mix of registers. I therefore decided to invest much more time in helping my students plan and organise their texts before they even start writing. First of all, something that seems obvious but is nevertheless quite often ignored by teachers in my experience, is that setting a writing task should come rather at the end of a process of dealing with a certain aspect which should be the focus of the

piece of text to be written. This may be a language focus (e.g. passive constructions in a newspaper article), or a topic focus (e.g. a text about globalisation), or even a text that tries to practise function words like linking devices. The time spent before you set the writing task can, of course, differ from just one lesson (or even part of a lesson) to dealing with a subject matter for several lessons in order to familiarise your students with a topic. If the latter, this would likely involve working on and practising topic-related words and phrases, and giving learners the opportunity to start certain thought processes, i.e. think about the discussed topic, for example by setting different speaking tasks which ask students to discuss certain aspects of the topic matter. If, which is very likely, you ask your students to write a certain text type (e.g. an

Outline of/Plan for a text Make sure you only take down key words in each section, not whole sentences. Headline (Just a few ideas – you don´t have to write the actual headline here) Introduction (Introduce the topic to the reader) (paragraph 1) Bullet point 1 (paragraph 2) Bullet point 2 (paragraph 3) Bullet point 3 (paragraph 4) Conclusion (Sum up your findings) (paragraph 5) Linking words (Think of and take down a few linking devices which might be useful for your text) New words (Try to include a few new words and phrases which we worked on in class and go well with the topic of the text) Figure 1 Template for a Text Outline/Plan

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article, a report, an email) and not just any text, then having a look at some examples and pointing out main features of the text type required is definitely useful. Now, the difficult part for us as teachers and for our students is to try to make sure that all the time spent and all the input carries over to the writing process. This means that students really make use of the things learned and do not just fall back on writing whatever comes to their minds first and hope that they get into the zone like Ray Bradbury. One way of helping them in this area, which has worked well for me in the last years, is to give them time to plan and outline their text before they start writing. I usually prepare an outline like the one in Figure 1. This is just a template that I use and it can easily be adapted depending on the text type and the rubric of the task you would like your students to write (e.g. there will of course not always be three bullet points to deal with, or you might not always need a headline). This outline will also go a long way in helping them structure their texts well, as they can see the different paragraphs emerge from the plan. If you feel that it is necessary to instruct your students even more, you can add ‘paragraph 1’ to the introduction part, ‘paragraph 2’ to bullet point 1 (like I have done Figure 1 in brackets), and so on. You can also add little hints about how and what they are supposed to write down with each part. Usually they will not need that once they have used the outline for a few times, and depending on the text type, paragraphing may not always be so strict. Another important question is, of course, when and where this preparation for their text should happen, i.e. when and where they should work on the outline for their text. The way I see it, there are two options: you can either set it as extra homework and ask your students to hand in the text as well as the filled-in outline so that you see what they did and how they used it. This will enable you to give them feedback not only on the written text but also on how the students prepared and used the outline. The advantage of using it like this is that your students can plan and write in one go, thus there might be a good flow from coming up with ideas (outline) to putting them into practice in their text. A disadvantage might be that your students may feel that this is just some extra task their teacher has thought of and in order to minimise their own time spent www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Teaching Writing ]

  One way of helping them in this area, which has worked well for me in the last years, is to give them time to plan and outline their text before they start writing.  with that part of the instruction they might still write their text the usual way (without planning) and then fill in the outline, thus seemingly having done the task, but actually nothing useful has happened. The second option is to use the outline in class and to allow your students to do the planning during the lesson. I see two main advantages when you do it this way: first of all, it will not seem like extra homework and therefore, motivation might be higher. Secondly, you as a teacher can support your students´ planning efforts actively which can sometimes be quite beneficial. Of course, I do not mean to say that you should do the work for them or dictate in any way what they should write there. But sometimes it helps to have the teacher around to clarify what the task exactly asks of them or to reassure them that they are on the right track. My students often also come up with questions about fitting in vocabulary, and about appropriate register for the set task which might be more difficult for them to answer at home on their own or simply be ignored. If you ask your students to plan their text in school, you should allow about 10–15 minutes to do so. In my experience, if you give them more time you will have several students who will be finished quickly and not work any more, but if you allow for less time, then some students might just have written down a few words for paragraph one. As always it depends on the group, and you have to find out which time frame suits yours best. One other aspect that you should stress in order to make sure everyone is on the same page time-wise, is that they should take down www.modernenglishteacher.com

ideas in the form of key words, not whole sentences. They should understand that the idea is not to write down the full text into the outline and then write the text again as homework, as this would counter the goal of collecting thoughts and of planning your text, and as they would very likely rarely have so much time in a test situation where they should take a few minutes to outline their text before they start writing. Lately, I started giving my students some extra space on the exam instruction sheet to be able to jot down a few ideas before they start writing, and in addition, I always offer them extra points if they take a few minutes, do some useful planning, and then use their ideas in the text. The extra points usually work wonders when it comes to motivating them to do the planning in a test situation – just make sure you check that they do the planning really before writing the text and not the other way round. One final thing should be stressed to our students. It seems extremely obvious, but I have seen students ignore this piece of advice anyway, which is to really make use of the outline when writing their text. They should have their plan nearby, look at their ideas from time to time and keep ticking off things which they have already written about. This is of course not to say that they cannot include things which were not part of the plan or that they have to use everything noted down. But whatever they write can and should be checked against their original ideas and the instruction of the task in order to stay on track. In my experience, using such outlines/ plans has often several positive effects on your students’ writing. First of all, their texts will (I am almost inclined to write ‘inevitably’) be structured much better than before. Paragraphing will definitely improve, and so will very likely the overall coherence and logical sequencing of your students’ texts. If they have planned their texts well, you can also expect your students to include all the necessary aspects asked for in the instruction. In addition, you might see more linking devices used by your students, simply because the outline reminds them of their existence and usefulness. And hopefully, your students will also employ more new words and phrases which might come in handy for certain topics and text types

– again, mostly because the outline may include a list of vocabulary items suitable for the task. Naturally, such outlines will not rid your students of all the problems they may have with planning their texts, and as always with language teaching, this is also something your students have to get used to and learn how to use effectively to their own advantage, and it needs to be constantly practised. You cannot expect miracles overnight, but you can reasonably expect major improvements in the abovementioned areas if you and your students keep working steadily on planning their texts. If you are interested in finding out how to help your students improve their writing by making them proofread, use a spellchecker, and by equipping them with skills to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again, then be sure to check out the second part of my article which is due to appear in a future edition of MET. I know it can be a long and winding road but I hope I have shown you some shortcuts.

References Bradbury R (1996) Fahrenheit 451. HarperCollins

Thomas Ziegelwagner studied English and History at the University of Vienna, Austria, from 1993 to 1998 and Political Education at the Donau-Universität Krems, Austria, from 2008 to 2012. He holds an M.A. (German ‘Mag.’) in English and History and an MSc. in Political Education. He has been teaching for more than 20 years, mostly in BHAK St. Poelten, Austria. The BHAK is an upper secondary business college for students aged between 14 and 19. Students usually graduate after five years with the A-levels. One of his professional interests is teacher training which he got involved in in the last years in cooperation with the University of Vienna. He is also interested in teaching English as a working language and in CLIL, and in general, in teaching across the curriculum. In the last years he has also got involved more and more in e-learning and in facilitating the learning process with the help of more interactive computer-based activities and tasks. Another focus of his is teaching with the help of the lexical approach.

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The Pavilion ELT Teaching English Range Looking for practical methodology to support your teaching practice? The Teaching English range offers practical and accessible methodology with clear classroom applications. Whether you want a new way to teach grammar, ways to use evidence-based teaching, to integrate authentic listening, improve your English while you teach, or become a teacher trainer, we have a book to help.

Bringing practical methodology to your classroom

Want to implement more creative ideas into the classroom? It can be hard to find practical and creative ideas, especially across a wide range of different topics. The Creative Teacher’s Compendium offers an A–Z of ideas, whilst Mark Almond’s Putting the Human Centre Stage and Teaching English With Drama make use of practical theatre techniques.

Do you teach live or hybrid online lessons? Our online focused titles are here to help, whether you are fed up with online teaching or simply looking for new ways to expand your techniques. If you teach young learners or teenagers, we’ve got ideas to help, plus support for live or blended teaching.

Teaching teenagers or young learners and looking for support? Many titles now also available on Kindle

Chris Roland provides a mix of methodology, practical ideas and advice to help you teach, engage and inspire young learner and teenagers, whether online or in the classroom.

www.pavpub.com/pavilion-elt

[ In My Opinion ]

Matthew Hallett Looks at some of the issues which encourage teachers to leave the profession.

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fter ten years in the TEFL industry (where did that time go?) I have noticed an increasing problem which I think is the biggest structural threat to the industry: it has a brain drain problem. It has a massive issue with staff retention, in particular when it comes to its most qualified, experienced and excellent practitioners. There is always a teacher crisis in education if you believe the headlines – it’s a tough job, it’s tiring, lesson preparation and marking eat into your time, and so forth. There is some truth to this. For example, in the UK, 15% of www.modernenglishteacher.com

The biggest threat to ELT: the brain drain qualified state school teachers leave after one year and about a third have left after five years, according to the Department for Education 2019 census (published in 2020). When you go beyond the headlines and into the detail of the report, what you find is that the entrants into the profession (and the returners) generally cover the number who have left. So what you have is broadly a high attrition rate rather than a general recruitment crisis or jobs going unfilled. However, in TEFL the churn tends to take out a greater proportion of the highly qualified and experienced teachers than the rate of less experienced teachers in the state sector.

Over the last five years I’ve noticed an acceleration in this pattern. This observation was a subjective personal one and so, in that vein, I’ve approached this article by employing a qualitative methodology. I spoke to several former colleagues who have worked in a variety of countries and ELT contexts in order to gather their thoughts on why they left the profession or are planning to in the near future. Whilst everyone had their individual reasons, certain common themes emerged. If the industry doesn’t address these common themes, it faces a bleak future with implications for the quality of teaching and the quality of the learner’s experience. These, in turn, Volume 31

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will have financial repercussions for language schools. I asked my former colleagues how they got into the industry, what their qualifications and experiences were and what led them to leave or be preparing to leave the industry.

  After a while the realisation dawns that there is almost no opportunity to develop your career. 

Teacher 1 ‘My degree was in Business Studies but I didn’t really enjoy it. So I did my CELTA and went to work in language schools in Italy. I’ve added various certificates like the Cambridge YL extension and I’m just finishing my master’s in TESOL. I find the profession is okay in terms of what needs to be done for class and the teaching itself. However, there are a lot of things that have made me decide to leave TEFL. In general terms, the industry earns so much money around the world, especially here in Italy, but gives appalling jobs. A TEFL teacher is seen as a second-rate teacher and wages are lower than those of ‘normal’ teachers. Italian language school owners have a lack of gratitude and seldom acknowledge hard work. They don’t recognise you for doing a good job or doing a better job than others. You might get a rare word of thanks at best if you’re lucky. They don’t care about CPD, professionalism or value further qualifications. The permanent teachers here are all on the same rate whether they’re CELTA fresh or have a relevant master’s or diploma. It is profoundly demotivating and causes you to wonder why you’re doing the job, but bills have to be paid. You are regarded as an easily replaceable commodity and so they don’t care if you leave because there’s always someone willing to do the job for a terrible wage. We never had any CPD before the pandemic when management decided to use having less work as an opportunity to do an hour’s CPD session for the first time every other month. After a while the realisation dawns that there is almost no opportunity to develop your career. You start as a teacher and stay a teacher. It’s very difficult to become a director of studies and frankly, the experiences of friends and colleagues put me off. Teacher training work is not 36

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stable due to contracts and doesn’t pay much more. The mentality of running a language school in Italy is one of resistance to change that’s childish and foolish, especially when suggestions come from teachers. It is always ‘My house, my rules.’ This comes with any excuse not to give you more money. There’s never any mention of a pay rise. A colleague of mine in Umbria told me how she has had over a decade without a raise. You’re seen as cattle due to turnover. I think this is particularly exacerbated in Italian TEFL although I don’t see it being better in other countries. Many colleagues are not supported with classes and individuals with behavioural issues or other issues. But then this becomes less important to you when you realise that the poor behaviour of managers and owners irritates you much more than the lack of active support.’

Teacher 2 ‘I was recommended TEFL when I was 25 or 26. I was working in sales but didn’t see that as my long-term future. I wanted to try something different and to travel and so TEFL sounded exciting. I did my CELTA in Prague and started teaching. I enjoyed it and found I was good at it. There was a lot to learn and I enjoyed the interaction with students. I took lots of temporary jobs all over before taking a permanent senior teacher job in England. It was good for security even though the pay wasn’t great – it was the same kind of pay for a good waitress. I was motivated to push myself for a better role and so I did the Delta and moved back to Prague. It meant I got to teach new classes like exam classes and adult classes that I hadn’t taught before as well getting teacher training.

I wasn’t well paid in Czechia but I had a better standard of living than in the UK. I went to work for the British Council and almost had a proper wage! They valued CPD and have a scheme for their teachers and I loved it. I had my best treatment at the British Council. There were strict guidelines, procedures, auditors, and it was well run and organised whereas the school I worked for in Prague had a different management style. Whilst it was okay because of external accreditation procedures and requirements, the management let the school, the teachers and the students down. When I became pregnant I could work as few hours as I wanted, have cash in, and so the career was beneficial at that point. I might have stayed in TEFL teaching but for the consequences of a change in my personal circumstances. Money became a larger priority and I was working antisocial hours in the evenings and there was no way to afford childcare. The insecurity of TEFL teaching on a zero hours contract had to go. I needed the security of a permanent contract and I found a content writer post at a consultancy that came with benefits and healthcare. I know plenty of teachers who have left the TEFL industry for financial reasons like me. It can be a minefield and after a certain point you ask yourself, “why stay?”’

Teacher 3 ‘My degree was in Chinese studies and so I found a company that worked with schools in China. The school policy, not the government’s, was that you had to be a native speaker with a degree and a DBS check. No teaching certificate was needed at the start and you only needed to do a 20 hour online course. I moved after a year when the school was closed for embezzlement! I moved another year later and another year after that, and after about three years I decided to do a proper www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ In My Opinion ]

certificate when I found a proper school. I became a senior teacher and then Head of six teachers, which involved a lot of admin and training. And after six years in China the novelty of another job in another country had worn off. After five years I did Module One of the Delta and was doing Module Two when the school I worked at in Spain was closed due to Covid. I’d had positive experiences of Spain and a summer school in England. The resources were good (in Spain) and the curricula were clear. I enjoyed the interactions with students, especially the young learners and teens, and I enjoyed learning about the (English) language. But … the lesson prep, the politics, the b***s***, the instructions from non-practitioner managers was all very draining and so I stopped enjoying going to work. The weird hours of evenings and weekends are off-putting. The job doesn’t pay enough for the hassle and the inconvenience. Obviously there are things like the Delta or doing IELTS examining that can add to your wages but not much. The administration and leadership roles can boost your income but I didn’t enjoy them. For most teachers, the enjoyment is in the classroom but you don’t progress from there, salary-wise. The frustration of working where you are underappreciated, especially at the highest levels (of teaching ability), combined with the lack of appreciation and recognition wears you down. After seven years I was mentally ready to leave TEFL teaching when Covid struck.’

Summary Wages remain a consistent problem in the industry. This does not present a problem for the type of teacher a former colleague memorably referred to as ‘the CELTA backpackers’ who do the basic certificate and fancy living somewhere abroad for a few years: it is an issue for the more dedicated practitioners who have trained and studied further for a relevant master’s degree or postgraduate diploma like the Delta. Such people are the profession’s best practitioners and are frequently capable of retraining and succeeding in another, better paid profession. The teacher in Umbria without a raise mentioned earlier has had her take-home pay reduced in real terms by 19% over the www.modernenglishteacher.com

period by inflation. It’s hardly conducive to supporting a family by staying a TEFL teacher. There is also a clear pattern of poor behaviour from many owner-managers which emerges from many a language school and is common across many countries, cultures and economic environments. A reluctance to draw upon the collective wisdom of a staff room with well-qualified and experienced practitioners because it threatens an owner’s sense of self-importance is always going to be counterproductive. The best teachers are always going to leave a school where such an attitude is consistently present.

What can be done? There are always places with good leadership and good practice to tempt the serious teacher who is serious about their work and their professional development. When I was still relatively new as a teacher I had the fortune to do some summer work for one such place. Every week on a Friday afternoon there was a general staff meeting which was followed by some kind of developmental practice session. In addition to enabling people to share best ideas and new ideas, it helped develop or simply polish existing pedagogical skills. Consequently everyone felt that the school was invested in their teachers’ development and not just the bottom line: many of the teachers stayed for a considerable number of years. Also, the teachers all had an idea of what had happened and what was coming up the following week. At one point a few bookings were not confirmed at the last minute and so to keep up my hours I did administration jobs in the academic office. I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I found it a tremendously useful way of becoming familiar with their paperwork, recording procedures and where and how information was stored, so I learned a lot about the school and the business. Being viewed as someone who could help rather than ‘he’s just a teacher, he doesn’t need to know this’ was most encouraging. The work–life balance matters. If you’re working six days a week, including most evenings, you’re not going to want to do further training on one of those days.

What you want instead as someone going abroad or somewhere new is a school that makes some effort into integrating you into the local community and local culture. It’s profoundly dispiriting to find yourself in a beautiful place and unable to enjoy it properly because of your work schedule. Also, many TEFL teachers get into the profession because they want to travel: those opportunities are killed stone dead outside Christmas and summer with a six-day week or a contract that makes it virtually impossible to take several days or a week off like you would be able to in virtually every other profession. Further qualifications and specialised training such as examiner training would help retain teachers. A school offering time off to do things like the Delta, Trinity Diploma, young learner extensions (or to provide them) demonstrate they are interested in their teachers as individual professionals, and benefit from the teacher’s increased expertise as a consequence. Other ways of schools benefitting from this could be letting teachers leave a week or two earlier in the summer if they have the opportunity to have a summer school management role so that they can develop their leadership and organisational skills. Smart leaders recognise that this is all in their own reputational and financial interest because they benefit from it. It just requires a little flexibility of thought and action and the ability to see the bigger picture.

References Department for Education, Reporting Year 2019 ‘School workforce in England’ (2020). Available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service. gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-inengland#releaseHeadlines-dataBlock-1

Matthew Hallett has taught English in France, Italy and the UK and has been a Director of Studies in both the latter countries. His current professional interest outside the classroom is studying aspects of management. Black coffee, brioche and Bach remain prominent in his life. Email [email protected]

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What is teaching?

I

spent much of the summer of 2021 fulfilling my long-held ambition of becoming a teacher trainer. It was all quite daunting, as you can imagine, especially since most of my charges were new to teaching and had not yet internalised our favoured acronyms – PPP and TTT sounded like imperative commands rather than teaching shapes, and I was often greeted with blank faces when I introduced the ideas that lay behind them. When we approach a new subject, we tend to cast about for an anchor of some kind, something that we can attach fresh knowledge to so that it doesn’t drift away. What I needed was an anchor for these new teachers, so that they could relate what I was saying to their own life experiences. But the trainees all came from such varied backgrounds that establishing such a conceptual relationship proved nigh impossible. Fortunately, language comes with readymade anchors. We call them metaphors. And it is through well-chosen metaphors that we can address some of the problems of understanding that emerge in teacher training sessions, just as we might in the language classroom. 38

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The story metaphor So, what is a good metaphor for planning and delivering a lesson? The classic example is that of a story. A lesson is like a story: it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end (one might argue that a TTT lesson is like this, but with the first T acting like the sort of flashforward device you often see in movies these days, throwing you into the action briefly before rewinding to show how the characters got there). I introduced my trainee teachers to this metaphor at the start of our session on lesson planning, and they smiled and nodded, safe in the realisation that they now had something in their grasp with which to make sense of the material. There is a problem, though, with the story metaphor. It is stiflingly simple, telling you almost nothing of value. It rather goes without saying that a lesson should have a start, a middle, and an end. How does knowing that help when you’re trying to fill each part with useful activities? How long should the start be, for example, and how can you know? It rapidly became clear that the story metaphor was not fit for purpose.

Christopher Walker Describes his quest for the perfect metaphor

I spent some time reflecting on what I knew about teaching, the art of being a teacher, and the science of lesson planning. Was there a better metaphor out there to help guide my trainees?

Other common metaphors Others certainly suggested themselves readily, but like Jim Phelps selecting his crew in the original Mission: Impossible TV series, I found myself looking at and discarding each one in turn. There was the restaurant metaphor, with the starter, main, and dessert; but this seemed to cover the same ground as the story metaphor, with the additional disadvantage of being divorced from most people’s experiences of restaurants. I can’t honestly recall the last time I ordered a three-course sit-down meal. Then there was the gym metaphor, of warming up with lighter exercises before attempting anything bolder. But this looked much more suited to describing how we should introduce and manage individual activities, and not whole lessons. It’s easy to see how progressively making a series of exercises harder and having them target different ranges of motion on the same muscle group might www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ In My Opinion ]

work as a metaphor for how we take our students through a set of activities, but not necessarily for a lesson where the idea is to offer increasing freedom to use language as you move through the stages in your plan. Another classic is to consider a lesson as if it were a map – either to a simple destination, or to where X marks the spot. As a high-level metaphor it’s fine, but when you get into the details, it is close to worthless. Maps are entirely dependent on topography: a line from where you are to where you want to go means nothing without knowing what’s between the first and the last step. Following a map that takes you over a mountain range is not the same experience as following one that guides you through the streets of New York. So what use could this metaphor really be to my trainee teachers?

  I continued to reflect on the various metaphors, wondering if possibly the secret was to look beyond my own realm of experience. 

‘Who is it that you imagine is playing golf in this metaphor?’ Mouths opened. Jaws dropped. Suddenly it was clear – I was on to something with this metaphor. For some, it took a little more nudging, but with the realisation that the golfer in the metaphor is the student, not the teacher, I felt like we were getting somewhere. Here is the metaphor, then, in all its glory:

Before long, I had gathered a respectable list of potential metaphors, but none really pleased me. Something was missing – some essential element, like that pinch of ginger that can make or break a bowl of porridge in the winter.

The golf metaphor I continued to reflect on the various metaphors, wondering if possibly the secret was to look beyond my own realm of experience. I don’t know how it happened, but I suddenly found myself thinking about golf – probably for the first time in my life since I don’t even like the sport and agree with Mark Twain’s sentiments about it. But the more I thought about it, the more it fit as a metaphor. And so I introduced it in the same lesson planning workshop with the next cohort. ‘A good lesson is like playing golf,’ I said at the start. ‘Can you guess why? Think about it and tell your partner.’ And yes, I did the little hand wave to signal that the trainees should now turn to face the person next to them and talk. This is EFL, after all. Their ideas were fascinating, but I soon discovered that they’d missed one of the central components of the metaphor; I brought the discussion to a close and after listening to some feedback I asked what I imagined was the killer question. www.modernenglishteacher.com

The student is learning how to play golf; the teacher is the caddy, guiding them, selecting what they think is the best tool for each part of their learning. Before even starting to play the round, the student must know where the target is – in other words, which way to orient themselves so that they are shooting for the green. Outside of dogme lessons, you don’t decide this on the fly, and just as both the golfer and the caddy must know where they are going, so too must both the student and the teacher (with this point then leading on to a discussion of signposting lesson aims). Novice players will not know how to strike the ball well and will need help with their body posture and follow through and keeping their eye on the ball. That’s because they haven’t moved from having an explicit understanding of what they’re doing to an implicit one, based on muscle memory. The same is true for novice users of the language: they will need more guidance and drilling of simple forms so that they can internalise their understanding of form, meaning, and pronunciation. Novice players will also not be able to reach the green as quickly as more proficient players. An experienced set of golfers can clear a par four course in three or four shots, and thus an advanced class

might need only three or four big ‘stages’ in each lesson. But just as a novice might take twenty strikes of the ball to get onto the green, so too do lower-level classes need a greater number of activities – short activities, certainly, but with each one building on what came before, so that the task is manageable. The metaphor can even stretch further on this point: advanced students can move seamlessly between task types, just as an experienced golfer might as they move from the fairway to a bunker or to the green; lower-level classes cannot be expected to make that transition so easily and need much more scaffolding within each exercise to make the goal of the lesson attainable.

Conclusion Metaphors are useful tools for communicating meaning, but they do need to be well thought-out. What might superficially seem like a good metaphor – such as the story metaphor or the map metaphor – might on examination turn out to be a lot less valuable. But the important thing is that the metaphor helps the audience to reach their intended goal; and now that I have introduced and employed the golf metaphor in a number of teacher training sessions, I am confident in its efficacy, and will happily swallow my distaste for the sport knowing that those I train will benefit from my sacrifice.

Christopher Walker is a teacher and writer based in Bielsko-Biala in the south of Poland. He has been a teacher for fifteen years, and yet still finds new things to explore every day. Email: [email protected]

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[ In My Opinion ]

Fostering sociocultural competence

‘K

nock, knock….’

If you just responded with a mental ‘who’s there?’ you have demonstrated an ability known as sociocultural competence— an understanding of and ability to use different linguistic conventions across cultures and contexts. This is a skill widely overlooked in EFL classrooms. In the case of the knock knock joke, lacking this ability might have an upside, in that it could spare the learner from being subjected to groan-inducing puns; however, in some situations, the negative consequences of lacking sociocultural competence could be much more dire. Many students who excelled at learning a language at school nonetheless find themselves unable to use it effectively in real-life contexts after they graduate. This inability can cause them to feel insecure or even nervous when speaking. In some cases, their anxiety causes them to avoid situations altogether where they have to use the language. This is, of course, a serious problem, since being unwilling to 40

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use a language essentially renders all the effort, time, and expense that went into acquiring it useless. Fostering sociocultural competence is rarely a priority in EFL classes, which tend to focus almost exclusively on improving linguistic competence—the technical components of the language, like grammar or vocabulary. However, it has been argued that sociocultural competence is at least as important as linguistic competence when it comes to being able to communicate. According to some researchers, sociocultural competence can be seen as a branch of communicative competence— the general ability to use the language. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) was originally developed decades ago as a response to criticism about the prevalent language teaching methods at the time which focused exclusively on teaching rules of a language out of context and without giving students the opportunity to engage in actual communication. CLT is widely viewed as being a step in

Charlie Taylor Discusses the importance of culture and context.

the right direction from the old days of grammar translation and the audiolingual method, but does it do enough to address students’ lack of sociocultural competence? A possible shortcoming of CLT, is that the interactions occur in a single context—the classroom. The only conversation partners available are a (hopefully) supportive teacher and fellow language learners in a heavily structured environment. While the communication certainly helps build fluency, it may fall short of its goals, unless the purpose of the class is to produce graduates who are comfortable speaking in EFL classes. Cloistered practice of this kind is unlikely to equip students with the ability to interact successfully across different contexts, where students will need to navigate complex social cues, hierarchical formalities, cultural differences, regional and class vernaculars, and so forth. We all know that context is important to communication. Without context, the second person ‘you’ could ambiguously www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ In My Opinion ]

refer to a single person or multiple people; the location of ‘here’ is unknowable; and the phrase ‘that car’ does nothing to narrow down the range of possible objects. However, context also heavily influences how we speak. Few of us will speak the same way to our parents, our friends, and our boss. Nor will we speak the same way when we are delivering a speech at a conference or making conversation in a coffee shop. We switch fluidly from one variety of English to another. The level of familiarity, the amount and nature of the slang we use, the references we make, can all vary dramatically depending on the intended audience. Anybody who has ever adapted their speaking style on the phone in the presence of an uninvolved third party knows this. In the case of bicultural people, the adaptations are sometimes even more pronounced with speakers changing accents and even syntax when talking to people in their in-group as opposed to outsiders. EFL learners will be aware that such nuances exist from their experience with their native languages, so they will, on some level, know if they lack the sociocultural competence to be able to effortlessly tailor their speech to different contexts. They will instinctively know that their lack of sociocultural competence could lead to misunderstandings, like when somebody uses an idiomatic way of addressing them (e.g. ‘you want to turn down the radio’); it could hamper the speaker’s ability to express themselves (how do you politely interject yourself into a conversation?); or it could cause offence, leading to social embarrassment or even ostracism. With consequences such as these, one can certainly understand how a lack of sociocultural competence could increase Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA), leading to avoidance behaviors. For teachers of ESL classes, this will be less of a problem because their students have plenty of opportunities to practise the language outside the classroom in myriad contexts. They will be acquiring sociocultural competence at the same time as they are improving their linguistic competence. For EFL teachers on the other hand, where the surrounding community speaks a different language, the classroom is the main English language environment for their students, so the onus of fostering www.modernenglishteacher.com

their students’ sociocultural competence lands squarely on their shoulders. However, can sociocultural competence be taught in a classroom? There is much debate in SLA circles about the merits of explicit instruction, but most of this centres on linguistic features, like grammar. Surely, if it is not clear whether explicit instruction can help foster linguistic competence, then it is even more doubtful it would be useful in promoting a considerably more abstract, complex, and nuanced skill like sociocultural competence. Of course, a few rules of thumb, idiomatic expressions, taboos, and cultural niceties could certainly be taught and learned, and indeed some researchers suggest teaching the ‘target culture’ along with the language; however, it seems this course of action would be predicated on all Englishspeakers sharing a single monolithic culture. However, the environments where English is spoken are countless and diverse, and they involve native and non-native speakers from almost every culture under the sun. As such, equipping a student with a handful of explicit instructions about how to comport themselves would only really be useful if the student is planning to exclusively use the target language in one particular sociocultural context, for example, if their sole purpose for learning English is to sell vacuum cleaners over the telephone to corporate offices in North America. However, this is not likely to be the case for most EFL students. The level of sociocultural competence needed to operate effortlessly and fluently across all relevant contexts probably cannot be taught, but rather needs to be acquired through practice, situation by situation. If this is the case, then teachers need to equip students with the tools they need to be able to adapt to myriad contexts. One way to do this would be to create as many opportunities to practise the language with as many different people in as many different contexts as possible, to help students develop their skills and their confidence. They should speak English with native speakers and nonnative speakers from different cultures for various purposes. Of course, as in any

learning journey, mistakes and missteps are unavoidable, but the likelihood that somebody will take offence to a linguistic faux-pas is far lower if they have been explicitly informed they are involved in a student’s learning experience. Creating opportunities for ‘authentic’ communication will be a challenge for many EFL teachers working in communities where few English-speaking environments exist. However, bringing English-speaking guests into the classroom is a good start, (where Covid restrictions allow). Field trips to places where people speak English could also be useful—trips to offices of local foreign-owned walk-in businesses like restaurants are relatively easy to arrange, provided the students are happy to be paying customers, but teachers could also contact other types of businesses that operate in English and ask for tours or appointments. Finally, in the era of the internet, it is possible to set up exchanges with classes of students from around the world, allowing students to interact with peers from other countries in English. Of course, it will be impossible to prepare students for every situation where they might have to use English in the future; in fact, even native speakers like me sometimes find our English communication skills unsuited to a new or unfamiliar milieu. However, the more different contexts students have the opportunity to practise the language in, the more tools they will have under their belt to help them navigate diverse situations, and the greater their confidence will be that they will be able to do so. With greater confidence, they will hopefully stop avoiding situations where they will have to use the language, and they can continue improving their sociocultural competence independently after they graduate.

Charlie Taylor teaches English at National Taitung Senior High School and National Taitung University in Taiwan. His research interests include extensive reading, curriculum and material design, and the psychology of second language acquisition.

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[ Global Voices ]

Global Voices Teaching stories from around the world

David, Austria

Emma, Thailand

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My name is Emma, and I am a 25 year-old English teacher from Italy. After completing my studies I had the opportunity to become a teacher in a little private school for kids aged 3 to 16, in Trat, Thailand. Teaching in such a close knit, friendly, yet professional environment, was a real fortune for a beginner teacher like me. It allowed me to pay closer attention to the needs of the students, as well as providing an extremely useful professional training. In the last couple of years, due to the global pandemic, all classes at the school had to be split between online and face-to-face. In particular, group lessons – around 10-15 kids per class – were temporarily moved online, while one-to-one classes were kept on site. The school provided teachers with a wide range of materials to make the lessons as varied and entertaining as possible, i.e. worksheets, toys, flashcards, a big library of books for all levels, as well as a personal computer and several online platforms. A lot of attention was paid to the lesson planning process, according to a previously arranged schedule, making sure to effectively use all the available materials and then reflect back on the lessons to constantly improve the students’ experience. Despite all the challenges the school was faced with due to the pandemic, this past year has been the most enriching teaching experience for me so far. One thing I will definitely bring with me in my future career will be the attention dedicated to the phonics system, to help young students learn how to read. Not only do I believe it is a very effective teaching method, but seeing the kids quickly become able to read words and then sentences and up to entire short books, it’s also a huge confidence boost for them and extremely gratifying for the teachers. The phonic system is structured to be taught through games, songs and interactive activities. As a matter of fact, I believe the future of EFL teaching lies in a communicative, fun approach to the subject that keeps up with the evolution and widening of the English language and culture, as well as of the technologies, both for children and adults.

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Andy, Japan 

Hi, my name is Andy Boon, and I am originally from England. I am a professor in the faculty of Global Communications at Toyo Gakuen University, Tokyo, Japan. I have been teaching English in Japan since 1997. In Japan, an undergraduate degree takes four years of study. At my institution, English is a mandatory subject for first- and second-year students. In their first year of study, students take four koma of English each week (koma is a 90-minute class). At the beginning of their university education, our students can range from A2 to B1 level and are streamed in the first year according to the results of a placement test. Class sizes for core classes tend to be around 25 students. Elective courses can range from between 10

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I’m an English and Spanish teacher, teaching primarily English in an Austrian upper-secondary school. The students I teach are aged from 14–19. The older ones aged 18 and 19 are studying for their Matura (which is the school leaving certificate here in Austria). I teach them four times a week in both languages. At the moment, the typical problems that arise are to do with motivation and motivating the students to want to learn English and continue learning English outside the classroom. The materials we use centre around exercise books, listening, reading and grammar worksheets, and previous exam papers to practise for the final exam. Looking towards 2022, the challenges we face tend to lie in how we can best prepare our students for the final English exam. With Covid being rather dominant in the education field at the moment, the issues we have tend to be not knowing if we have covered enough material, whether the lockdowns and distant learning have had a larger effect on our students that we perhaps realise. The solutions come on a sort of week-by-week basis, constant communication is key to solving such issues and keeping an eye on what is going on worldwide. Keeping students and teachers informed is crucial and maintaining a level of English spoken and written throughout is also significant. I enjoy a lot about teaching, but the main thing I enjoy is being in the classroom, talking with students and seeing their improvements. Personally, I find the grammar of the tasks used for the final exam in Austria quite tricky to teach so I am always looking for ways to improve my teaching in this area. They are quite similar to the Cambridge Certificate First B2/C1 English in Use items, so if anyone has any ideas…

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to 50 students. I currently teach several different courses including a listening skills course, two conversation skills courses, two presentation and debate courses, two academic skills courses, and a business English seminar. When I am given a new course to teach, I have two options: I have the freedom to choose an existing coursebook on the market that matches the aims of the course I am going to teach, or I can choose to create my own materials. If you would like to know more about my particular teaching context, please take a look at some of the past articles I have written for Modern English Teacher (Boon, 2019, 2020, 2021).

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www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Global Voices ]

Mario, Belgium 

My name is Mario Lecluyze, I live in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium, and have been involved in teaching since 1985. I taught Dutch, our L1, and English in the first and second stages of secondary education (ages 12–15), but for the last decade I have only been teaching English. I also worked as a teacher trainer for English and CLIL, and from 2015 till 2020 I supported teachers and schools as an educational adviser for English and CLIL. Just like all around the globe, the pandemic has had a huge impact on our teaching jobs in Flanders. We had to switch from face-to-face teaching to online or hybrid lessons. It struck me how quickly educators all over the world adapted their teaching in such a flexible way, using online tools and technology to do their job. In Flanders, we are also in the process of transforming our secondary education. The government has decreed innovative attainment targets for every school subject. They are now being turned into new curricula. I was fortunate to be a member of the English curriculum commission for the first and second stages. Communication is still key in these curricula, but we were able to enrich them with creativity and literature. These items were really missing in our previous curricula. Finally, a major challenge for English teachers in Flanders is coping with mixed ability classes. A lot of our youngsters already master quite a lot of English before even being taught. They learn it from games, songs, series on Netflix, YouTube clips, etc. But, at the other end of the scale, we also have students in the same class without any affinity at all for the English language. Oddly enough, at starter’s level, there is no group in the middle. Therefore, teachers really have to find ways to cope with this. But this keeps our job challenging and fun. After all those years, I still love teaching English to these teenagers.

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Silvia, Italy 

Nice to meet you, teachers and educators from all around the globe! One of the latest Pavilion vlogs caught my eye and so … Here I am, giving it a try and seizing this new opportunity :-)! My name is Silvia Pizzola and I’m an Italian teacher of English language and culture and I’ve just moved from a catering school to a lyceum and technical institute. I was actually looking for some new challenges and I’ve been as happy as a clam about my choice to date. I’ve been teaching face-to-face classes since the start of the school year and my classes are held on a regular basis for a total amount of three hours per week. On average I have about twenty students of mixed nationalities and their level of English is pretty tiered. As a matter of fact, they’re supposed to achieve a B2level by the end of high school but it’s not so easy to make it for everyone. As for the tools, I usually employ the textbooks my school provides along with the PC and TV screen each classroom is equipped with. However, I really enjoy supplementing coursebooks with my own material, such as a few handouts or digital exercises to be done for extra practice.

www.modernenglishteacher.com

I’m really passionate about my job and so I always follow teacher-training webinars and keep updated. Moreover, I’m into new educational platforms, like Padlet or Mentimeter, and I make the most of it any time I can. As I reckon I still have a lot to work on, I’d like to improve my skills more and more: what’s better than sharing and learning from each other? That’s why my favourite motto is ‘teaching is learning twice over’! So … let’s keep teaching, let’s keep experimenting!

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Advertorial

Career quandary? Pavilion ELT is here to help...

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I’m always so busy, which leaves my lesson planning in a rut and makes it hard to stay up-to-date with new developments. I need practical new ideas and the latest research, all in one place. Time poor? Why not try a subscription to Modern English Teacher, which brings practical ideas and the latest research to English language teachers worldwide, to help give you fresh ideas or a new way of doing something for those pesky lesson plans? Our new-look Modern English Teacher is written for teachers by teachers, which means that the tips, ideas, and ready-to-go activities we bring you are all tried and tested and sit alongside accessible articles on the latest research and topical discussions. Your subscription also gives you access to our Online Resource Centre with thousands of articles on our website, our MyCPD tool to help you track your development, and the Digital Library, which combines the past issues of both MET and English Teaching professional in one place.

I’m about to start teaching in a scenario I’m not that experienced in. I really need some support!

Don’t panic! The ETpedia range has you covered, whether you’re completely new to teaching or just new to teaching in a particular context. Each ETpedia is divided into units containing 10 bite-sized tips and teaching ideas to give you real practical help with planning and preparing for your lessons. The list format makes it easy for you to find exactly what you’re looking for, when you need it – leaving you free to reflect, develop, and focus on your teaching and students.

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I want to hear regularly from other teachers as much as possible, but I’m not sure where to find that content. The Pavilion ELT and MET blogs and vlogs are free for everyone, on the MET website. A new vlog each month offers practical ideas and useful insights, and our regular blogs provide detailed insights on a wide range of topics.

Explore the Learning English and Communication Skills series for practical and accessible resources to help. With more books coming soon, these series help make communication easier, simpler and more effective.

I’m working towards a promotion, and I need to demonstrate my continuing professional development… but evidencing my progress gets so complicated. I’ve been told listing the conferences I’ve been to won’t be good enough. How about trying an intuitive, easy-to-use digital tracking tool like MyCPD? Designed to help you to be autonomous and effective in your own professional development, it gives you one convenient place to log all your professional activity and reflect on your learning. When you need a copy of your CPD record, simply click to download one. And, if you need to show how you support members of your team with their specific professional development needs, it’s ideal for that, too. MyCPD is free to subscribers of Modern English Teacher.

I’m interested in a particular teaching method or technique, but I’m not sure where to begin... I don’t have much time to search the internet so I really need easy-to-digest information with suggestions of classroom application in one place. The Teaching English series is here to help you bring methodology to your classroom. Each handbook focuses on a different aspect of teaching, from evidence-based teaching to authentic listening, and from teaching online to teaching specific age groups. Addressing both the theory and practice, these titles will give you a detailed grounding in not just the what and why of a new-toyou teaching approach, but also the how – supporting you with practical tips, activities and know-how for applying it.

Find out more at www.pavpub.com/pavilion-elt

[ It works in practice ]

More tes ted lesso ns, suggestio ns, tips a nd techniqu es which have all worked f or MET r eaders. Try them out for y ourself – and th en send us your own con tribution .

It Works

in practice

The creative dictation Sharon Hartle shows how to adapt a traditional classroom activity for online use. In the digital classrooms which have now become our ‘new norm’ we must be careful not to simply transfer onsite classroom activities to the online context. This may be possible in some cases, with a few tweaks, so that the clarification of a language point done using a digital whiteboard can be done in much the same way as it could be done in an onsite classroom, but the technology in fact gives us the opportunity to do more. Many resources give us the option of sharing that whiteboard, so the layout may be designed as a gap filler, for instance, which can be used by students after class to review the work they have done. In our classrooms there are a whole range of activities that can be adapted for online use, which means we do not have to reinvent the wheel each time we plan a lesson but just think about how the activity can be altered to get the most out of it or to make it work best for our particular learners with our specific teaching aims in mind. To illustrate this here is one example of an activity and how it has evolved in our work at the University of Verona, over the years, providing more learning opportunities as it has grown. This particular resource is based on creative dictation, and I came across it in the eighties in Morgan and Rinvolucri’s inspiring book Once Upon a Time (1983: 63). In this activity, originally developed for use in language laboratories, teachers dictate the first line of a story: ‘The husband woke up and looked out of the window’ The learners, however, do not write down the story as they would in a traditional dictation but record their descriptions in their own words, in answer to the instructions, which follow this first line: Describe the husband. The story continues guiding the learners to create their own versions within the generic framework provided by the activity. The lesson focused on learner creativity and enabled learners at various levels to define their own content within a specific framework. The aim of the teacher may have been to focus on description language or may have been to practise the use of the Past Simple to tell a story, to name just two, or it may have been to give learners the opportunity of speaking fluently or even speaking for exam practice, particularly for those exams that have a monologue as part of the oral test. The choice of which language to produce was the learners’, which was already an empowering experience for many, but how much choice was really involved? At this stage it is useful to ask the following three questions: Who chooses the skill? Who chooses the timetable What facilities are available? In the 1980s, learners did not have the type of access to content or tools that they do today, and, in fact, this lesson was designed to be used in a classroom

where the timetable fit, resources, focus on skills, length of the activity and even the specific focus on language were all determined by the teacher or by the constraints of the curriculum or school. With the development of resource centres in the 1990s, such an activity could be provided for learners to study independently or as homework, so an element of autonomy was introduced. In the early years of the 21st century, digital resources appeared such as Voicethread1, where videos could be created that users could either annotate in writing or by adding recorded comments. This was the beginning of Web 2.0 and user-generated content. Stages for building a creative dictation activity on Voicethread 1. Teachers can easily video themselves dictating the framework of the story on Voicethread; 2. The activity can be made available online and the hyperlink shared. 3. Learners access it at the click of a mouse. This means that learners can choose when and where they want to do it, how long they want to spend on it and which skills they want to practise (speaking or writing). 4. Learners watch and stop the activity to add comments (either by typing or by recording their voices. 5. Learners also access other learners’ comments and recordings very easily, at the same time. 6. Teachers then decide how to extend this activity and the learner language that is produced. Integrating independently generated learner language into a f2f interaction Such an activity could be given to learners, with instructions to, for instance, choose the three best descriptions and to bring them to the next class. In the f2f context (onsite or in breakout rooms) learners could share their ideas with their peers explaining why they had chosen particular descriptions. This is just one simple suggestion, but it illustrated the way in which the activity, when provided on a digital resource like Voicethread, very easily adapted itself to independent work followed by interaction in the f2f context in a blend that would lead to creativity of language production, choice of skills to integrate and development of critical thinking by means of the discussion which is carried out face to face. A feedback phase could also be provided in class on various aspects ranging from vocabulary choice, to linking words or error analysis. Working in this way, then, provides our learners with a lot more agency than was previously possible. The final stage in the evolution of this particular activity in our context was to transfer it to Padlet2, where content can be provided both as text for reading, and as recorded text for listening. Learners can also choose whether to reply in writing or by recording their voices. Padlet gives the learners the choice of liking particular stories or commenting directly online, promoting a greater degree of interactivity and communication between the learners themselves. References Morgan J and Rinvolucri M (1983) Once Upon a Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1 Link to our example of this creative dictation activity on Voicethread: https://voicethread.com/myvoice/thread/2003461/10581147/72301095 Last accessed 16.08.20212 Link to a template of the Padlet activity: https://padlet.com/sharon_hartle/ie7yg282ssn2

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[ It works in practice ]

Check the RADAR: Evaluating Sources for Academic English Thomas Entwistle details how to help students evaluate suitable sources for academic English.

Evaluating information is not just an exercise limited to academia. It is also a useful skill beyond the classroom in the world of work, in students’ personal lives when confronted with online news, and also in students’ own research and projects carried out in their own L1. A full-sized copy of the worksheet is available in Online Resources.

Evaluating information sources Evaluating information – applying the RADAR checklist Evaluation questions

The activity in this article aims: 1. to help students in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) contexts understand the importance of selecting suitable sources to use in their academic essays, presentations, debates, and papers; 2. to introduce learners to five criteria they can use to evaluate the quality and suitability of information they research. It is essential that students critically evaluate the information sources that they want use in their academic work. Doing this helps them to produce better supported, more rigorous academic work. However, this can often be a real challenge for students moving from general English classes at high school to EAP courses at university, students on pre-sessional courses wanting to study in an English-speaking country, and students already enrolled on EAP courses abroad. One method that has shown success in my EAP context is applying the RADAR test. The RADAR test consists of five main criteria which learners can use to critically analyse and evaluate the quality and suitability of information they have researched:

Authority

Is the author or organisation who produced the information clearly shown?

Date

Does the source show the date when it was first published? Can you see if the information has been revised or updated? Does your topic require only current information?

Accuracy

Is the information supported by trustworthy evidence (references, statistics, data etc.)? Are there spelling or grammar errors, or questionable evidence?

Reason

Does the writer make the reason of the article clear?

■ Accuracy: Is the information supported by trustworthy evidence such as statistics and references?

Does the opinion of the writer appear fair and unbiased?

■ Reason: Is the writer’s opinion fair or are there clear political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional or personal biases?

Can you find any clear political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional or personal biases?

Justin Mejia describes a fun activity which encourages creativity. This activity is an engaging and active way to get students to think about and use vocabulary and grammar. It can be a culmination activity or a fun standalone activity and works best with Intermediate to high-level teenage or university students. To prepare, find a short clip from a movie or TV show on YouTube. A clip around 90 seconds with three or four speaking characters works best. If this as a culmination activity, you could match the situation of the clip to the topic you’ve covered. In class, play the clip with the volume muted. Then, have the class brainstorm what the characters might have been talking about (or have students discuss in small groups and share as a class). Ask students to justify their answers with visual information like location, facial expressions, etc. After the discussion, put students into small groups and instruct them to work

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Don’t know

Are they qualified / experienced enough to write on this topic?

■ Authority: Is it clear who has produced the information and if it is from an expert in the area?

Screenwriters anonymous

No

Relevancy Does the source relate to the topic?

■ Relevancy: Does the source closely match the topic the students are researching?

■ Date: Is the date of publication clearly shown; has it been revised; does the topic need up to date information?

Yes

together to write a script for the scene, encouraging them to be creative or goofy. If this is a culmination activity, you can stipulate that they must use the previously taught vocabulary or grammar. Provide the students with a link or QR code to the timestamped video so they can access it on their phones for reference and timing while writing their script. Once students have finished their scripts, allow groups time to practice the script along with the muted video on their phones to get the timing down. Then, play the muted clip for the class to see while each group reads their script in turn. The results are often hilarious! Depending on the class, you could extend this activity by having students vote for the best scripts or by having them switch scripts.

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[ English for Academic Purposes ]

Peer mentoring for teachers Vera Nistor Discusses how to implement an effective peer mentoring programme for academic staff in the English department.

M

entoring is a vital part of any teacher’s professional development. Unfortunately, this is sometimes solely left to the traditional topdown model of a manager overseeing their team’s professional development. This idea, based purely on hierarchical considerations and power relations, does not take into account the importance of teachers learning from each other within a team of experienced professionals, where everybody has their own expertise and unique approach to bring to the table. Peer mentoring is considered much more successful, as it involves mentoring programmes between professionals of similar experience, exchanging

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ideas and participating in professional discussions more openly. Rosenthal and Shinebarger (2010) believe anyone can be more receptive in a relationship of equals where the mentee does not perceive the mentor as grading or judging them. According to Yomtov et al (2017), this creates a more personal, supportive relationship. In this regard, mentoring is quite similar to coaching, as a relationship that needs to be built on experience and trust. Cushion (2007) defines coaching as a practical activity within a social context, an ongoing dynamic practice. Similarly, peer mentoring keeps evolving and teachers’ professional development goals might change over time, as they are being further developed and improved. www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ English for Academic Purposes ]

  …peer mentoring keeps evolving and teachers’ professional development goals might change over time, as they are being further developed and improved. 

What is mentoring? Across the years, many researchers have tried to coin a clear definition of the process of ‘mentoring’ or ‘mentorship’, but, to this day, we still have not been able to find a consistent definition of this term. However, some common characteristics of a ‘mentoring relationship’ have been identified by Jacobi (1991) and Crisp and Cruz (2009): it needs to be reciprocal and personal, and it needs to support growth and achievement. By this support we might mean academic support or professional support, depending on the mentoring context, and, very importantly, personal support, which should include both psychological and emotional support.

Cultivating a collegial relationship while improving the quality of teaching seems to be the main idea behind any successful peer mentoring programme. As English language teachers, we tend to have many goals in common and a mentoring programme can be developed based on these common goals. The ‘collegial model of supervision’ is defined as colleagues being part of the same learning process, which becomes a collaborative experience (Glickman, 2014). In collegial models, the ‘evaluative aspect’ of the more traditional inspectional or topdown models is taken away, and, according to Rehman (2018), everybody involved in the mentoring process can feel much more relaxed. A collegial model is based on a ‘developmental approach’ (Strieker et al., 2016), where the developmental needs of individual teachers are taken into consideration when designing a mentoring programme. According to Glickman et al. (2014), in this developmental context, mentors and supervisors should assume a facilitative and collaborative role. www.modernenglishteacher.com

So, how can we implement an effective peer mentoring programme? Here are three steps that should be taken into consideration when designing one for your team.

1. Set clear professional development goals As mentioned before, a developmental approach is the most relevant one for every teacher, so finding out the professional development goals of your colleagues would likely be the first step. It is very possible that a teacher will come up with several goals they have been working on in their teaching practice, but selecting one goal to focus on at a time seems to be a reasonable solution to begin with. When designing the mentoring programme or section of the programme, we can then focus on this particular development goal. A common example of this for English language teachers would be how to develop better student-centred practice or how to become better facilitators, to help students learn better. You can sit down

with your colleague and have a nice open conversation with them about what they think they would need more help with developing. Alternatively, focus groups for a small team can also work, but oneto-one conversations are probably best, to encourage a more trusting collegial relationship.

2. Have a clear action plan After establishing the development goal to focus on, the next step is to actually design a mentoring strategy that can then be implemented for that particular colleague or within the department. This refers to the actual classroom practice used to reach the professional development goal. Also, this should enable you to monitor the area being developed in practice, in the teacher’s natural teaching context. An example we tried out in my English department within a tertiary English for Academic Purposes context was implementing a suitable learning model for our students, to improve teachers’ facilitation skills. As we were teaching adult students often preparing for postgraduate studies, academic skills needed to be understood and remembered for future study too, not just for the duration of our English course. Therefore, we thought about the metacognitive aspect of tertiary education and implemented an experiential learning model (Nistor, 2020), based on practical tasks and reflection. The teachers then used this model flexibly to suit class activities and student needs. The main idea was for teachers to take on a more facilitative role and to enable their students to reflect on these class activities. The outcome was quite positive, and students became more autonomous learners, hence teachers became more skilled in facilitation and appropriate intervention in class. Volume 31

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practice and professional development (Moon, 2004). It is equally important for both mentors and mentees to make future adjustments and improvements.

Future considerations As professional development goals are continuously evolving, the most important factor to consider when implementing any kind of peer mentoring programme is to keep an open mind and engage in open conversations with colleagues. It is crucial to have discussions on how this mentoring experience can be more effective and beneficial for everyone in the department, and, ultimately, for the students. That means implementing changes suggested by peers and making adjustments to the mentoring programme along the way, to better suit the dynamics of the process.

3. Create opportunities for open conversation Possibly the most important element of creating a healthy mentoring relationship with your colleagues is to allow for plenty of conversation opportunities along the way. From setting developmental goals, to monitoring and guiding colleagues through their teaching practice, an open conversation will connect the dots and allow this process to become a personal growth experience. Surveys seem to generally be the preferred form of getting feedback to begin with, but then one-to-one interviews would be the better suggested option to be able to get all that qualitative feedback recorded, which you can then use to design your next mentoring interaction with your peers. Focus groups with a group of colleagues involved in the same peer mentoring programme might also be suitable, especially with a smaller team of colleagues. Whichever method of interaction you choose, the main goal is to give your colleagues the opportunity to dig deeper and voice any professional or emotional concerns, as well as suggestions regarding the mentoring programme. Scheduling regular reflective sessions is crucial during this process, as no mentoring programme could be effective without ‘reflection’ on professional 50

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A peer mentoring programme also opens up endless possibilities for professional development. If a trial mentoring programme between two peers is successful, the roles should always be reversed. The mentee will get to become the mentor and will get to go through this process all over again from a different perspective. Other colleagues in the department could copy this method and become mentors for others who need to further improve their teaching skills. If this experience is proven successful in the English department, other departments from the same educational unit can replicate it and maybe even extend it to the whole institution.

  Possibly the most important element of creating a healthy mentoring relationship with your colleagues is to allow for plenty of conversation opportunities along the way.  A reflection. Scope (Learning & Teaching) (9) 51–57. https://doi.org/10.34074/scop.4009015 Rehman A A (2018) The effect of the shift in professional development models on a Saudi Arabian university context. Sumerianz Journal of Education, Linguistics and Literature 1 (3) 68–78. Rosenthal K I & Shinebarger S H (2010) Peer mentors: Helping bridge the advising gap. About Campus: Enriching the Student Experience 15 (1): 24–27. https://doi.org/10.1002/abc.20012 Strieker A, Adams M, Cone N, Hubbard D, & Lim W (2016) Supervision matters: Collegial, developmental and reflective approaches to supervision of teacher candidates. Cogent Education 3 (1) 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331 186X.2016.1251075 Yomtov D, Plunkett S W, Efrat R & Marin AG (2017) Can peer mentors improve first-year experiences of university students? Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice 19 (1) 25–44.

References Crisp G, & Cruz I (2009) Mentoring college students: A critical review of the literature between 1990 and 2007. Research in Higher Education 50 (6) 525–545. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-0099130-2 Cushion C (2007) Modelling the complexity of the coaching process. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching 2 (4) 395–401. Glickman C D, Gordon, S P & Ross-Gordon J M (2014) Supervision and instructional leadership, a development approach. Pearson. Jacobi M (1991) Mentoring and undergraduate academic success: A literature review. Review of Educational Research 61 (4) 505–532. https://doi. org/10.3102/00346543061004505 Moon J A (2004) A Handbook of reflective and experiential learning: Theory and practice. Routledge Falmer. Nistor V M (2020) Developing an experiential learning model for students of English for Academic Purposes to use in their further studies:

Vera Nistor is a senior lecturer with the English Department at Otago Polytechnic Auckland International Campus, currently teaching English for Academic Purposes to international students pursuing postgraduate studies in New Zealand. Vera has also helped facilitate academic staff induction programmes, by supporting staff in their use of experiential learning and reflective practice. Her research interests include interdisciplinary research on experiential learning and learner-centred practice and their applicability across different academic subjects. Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veranistor-a78870190/

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[ English for Academic Purposes ]

Mitchell Bradford Describes some of the challenges he and his colleagues face.

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nglish for Academic Purposes (EAP) is defined by Hyland (2006) as ‘teaching English with the aim of assisting learners’ study or research in that language’, that covers ‘all areas of academic communicative practice’ at the pre-university, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels (p. 1). It is often separated into English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP). While EGAP exposes learners to the language, skills, and activities which are believed to be ‘common to all disciplines’ (for example, writing essays, reading academic texts, and making presentations), ESAP is built around the idea that, though there may be some overlap, each discipline is www.modernenglishteacher.com

Teaching EAP at a Sino-Foreign University unique in terms of the language and skills required to be successful and thus focuses on specific fields (Hyland, 2006: 9). Teachers transitioning from general ELT to EAP often encounter difficulties. Sharpling (2002) discusses how instructors go through a ‘shock factor’ when moving to EAP which includes tutors finding materials often unsuitable or dull; and a lack of direction. Furthermore, Bell (2007) states that the teaching of EAP ‘draws on a very different set of competencies’ than teaching general ELT, which he exemplifies with the four skills (e.g. writing a letter to a friend vs. writing a dissertation) and adds that being able to teach the former does not mean being able to teach the latter (pp. 2-3). He goes

on to argue that though both kinds of teachers must have a linguistic awareness, that of EAP practitioners ‘often needs to be considerably deeper’ and this is even more important for those who teach ESAP courses where they need to analyze texts’ genre, structure, and rhetorical functions (Bell, 2007: 3-4). Other characteristics of EAP include it being high stakes, much more intensive, more writing focused, and less fun (Campion, 2016: 64). An area of constant debate in EAP is whether or not tutors must become experts in their students’ fields. Some argue that EAP teachers should learn a layman’s knowledge of their learners’ disciplines (Ewer, 1983) which Johns and DudleyEvans (1980) believe will be needed in Volume 31

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order to understand how language is used in their fields. The knowledge of specific academic fields is called a ‘crucial tool’ by Sharpling (2002) and evidence for this was found in Campion (2016) in that each participant considered lacking such knowledge as their greatest difficulty when entering EAP teaching. However, others believe teachers need not be experts in specific subjects. Adams-Smith (1983) suggests tutors be open-minded and interested in their students’ fields while Hutchinson and Waters (1987) add that teachers should be knowledgeable of the subject area’s fundamental principles. Hess and Ghawi (1997) believe the learners should bring the content while tutors provide language support. The work of an EAP teacher ‘cannot be neatly divorced from the academic and political context’ in which they are working (Sharpling, 2002: 83). Harmer (2007) states that, ‘different cultures value different learning behaviors’ (p. 87) and this is likely to be very present in Sino-Foreign universities. Cultural differences which certain EAP students may struggle with while transitioning into a Western educational culture include being outspoken and guessing in classes (losing face) as well as thoughts on plagiarism (Scrivener, 2011). Cultural differences may be particularly true for students from countries whose social and educational systems are intertwined with the ideas of Confucianism, such as China, where students are brought up through an educational system which values rote memorisation, accuracy, and discipline (Peng, 2007; Kwak et al., 2016). Furthermore, countries like China place a great amount of emphasis on exams, which tends to have negative washback on teaching (Wette and Barkhuizen, 2009). In addition, Hamp-Lyons and Zhang (2001) state that ELL students’ writing can be influenced not only by linguistic differences, but also by social/ cultural factors and that responses given to their writings by teachers are likely to be impacted by their familiarity with those factors.

Methodology Interviewing participants Eight tutors of various nationalities, teaching experience, and qualifications 52

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  Challenges ranged from linguistic differences between English and Chinese, along with how essays are organised in each culture, to contrasts in the educational culture of China and that of Western institutions.  at a Sino-Foreign university took part in the study (see Appendix A for their backgrounds and pseudonyms). All but one were interviewed privately on campus. The interviews ranged from thirty-three to seventy minutes and were semi-structured so as to provide guidance without being overly restrictive and to allow exploration of areas worthy of further inquiry. The one participant who was not interviewed, Will, was unable to take part in a face-to-face interview or one conducted by Skype. However, upon his suggestion, I emailed him adapted interview questions (Appendix B) to which he replied. In the first interview, a theme of the challenges for EGAP and ESAP being different emerged which I inquired into in each of the following interviews though it was not included in the orginal interview script.

Data analysis The participants’ responses were transcribed and anonymised. This was followed by coding and analysing the data which I approached inductively and mostly from the perspective of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) in that I allowed the data to speak for itself and the codes to appear instead of attempting to find pre-indicated themes.

Results and discussion University-specific challenges One of the most interesting findings is that none of the participants felt that their greatest challenge encountered while teaching EAP at the university was being unfamiliar with their students’ fields, which greatly contrasts the findings of Campion (2016) in which all the participants felt that lacking such knowledge was their greatest hurdle and what Sharpling (2002) deemed a ‘crucial tool’ for EAP teachers, along with being felt a necessity in some previous literature (e.g. Johns and Dudley-Evans, 1980). This may show that previous studies place too much emphasis on ESAP and may not give EGAP its due. Six respondents mentioned aspects commonly associated with Chinese students, such as being less willing to communicate and their motivation(s) being different from students in the West, perhaps due to studying certain fields only because their parents pressured them to do so, which represents the Confucian values of China (Peng, 2007). Furthermore, the influence of the Chinese education system on the way learners perform in class was reported, which one respondent exemplified with how they are taught to prepare for the Chinese college entrance exam (Gaokao). Though not the same as the CET which gave participants trouble in Wette and Barkhuizen (2009), the presence of China’s test-driven education system remains. Difficulties in helping students transition from the Chinese school education system to that of the university were also noted which provides support to Scrivener (2011), who stated that learners from cultures such as China may struggle when transitioning into a Western educational system. ‘I think the Chinese education system beats all of the imagination out of the students. I mean, the concept of a standard answer is so deeply ingrained … and I think moving students away from ideas of standard answers is one of the major challenges here’ – Emily Differences between the languages and how essays are organised were also www.modernenglishteacher.com

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mentioned. Chang (2001) points out that Chinese students may struggle with several aspects while writing in English, ranging from forming incorrect sentences to making grammar mistakes due to L1 influence. Dissimilarities in rhetoric patterns were also reported, which supports Hamp-Lyons and Zhang (2001). The challenges influenced by cultural differences support Hyland (2006), who detailed difficulties of teaching EAP in non-English speaking contexts which were often related to differences in educational cultures. Further support for Hyland can be found in similar comments from two participants about difficulties of teaching EAP in the Middle East due to different educational cultures. The findings also support Sharpling (2002), in that the work of EAP tutors are intertwined with the context in which they are teaching.

ESAP challenges Seven participants felt not being familiar with the content was challenging for them as they taught ESAP classes. However, such comments were only mentioned when I inquired into the challenges the tutors have encountered while teaching ESAP classes and not when I asked about hurdles faced while teaching EAP at the university. This may show that the participants feel knowledge of specific disciplines may only be needed when teaching ESAP and not for EGAP (unsurprisingly) or EAP overall. However, two respondents felt the content was never too in-depth and one considered any EAP tutor capable of teaching any ESAP class as long as they prepare ahead of time.

Conclusion The most mentioned difficulty about teaching EAP at the Sino-Foreign university was related to aspects of the Chinese context. Challenges ranged from linguistic differences between English and Chinese, along with how essays are organised in each culture, to contrasts in the educational culture of China and that of Western institutions. Attempting to help students overcome these obstacles and dissimilarities so as to adapt to their new educational setting was also seen as challenging for EAP tutors. Therefore, based on this study it seems that not only do EAP tutors need be familiar with the www.modernenglishteacher.com

field and be aware of how to teach it to be successful, but they should also take into account the educational and cultural backgrounds along with L1 of the students, especially if they are in a predominately monocultural setting. This suggestion is not limited to China, but should be considered in classrooms around the world. The specialised knowledge of specific academic fields which is often deemed essential for EAP tutors did not appear to be needed as greatly as would be expected based on previous literature and thus (unsurprisingly) may only be crucial for ESAP. Furthermore, in certain contexts, understanding other aspects (e.g. the educational culture of the students) might be more beneficial. Therefore, perhaps the idea of ‘specific knowledge’ should not only include familiarity of academic disciplines, but also encompass awareness of the students’ backgrounds (e.g. culture and L1). While familiarisation with academic disciplines appears to become more essential if one teaches

ESAP, knowledge of students’ culture and L1 may be just as (if not more) more necessary (particularly in monocultural settings) as it applies to both ESAP and EGAP. In the next issue of MET I will be addressing some practical solutions to the challenges I have discussed here.

References Adams-Smith DE (1983) ESP teacher-training needs in the Middle East. The ESP Journal 2 (1) 37–38. Bell D E (2007) Moving Teachers from the General to the Academic: Challenges & Issues in Teacher Training for EAP. In: T Lynch and J Northcott (Eds) Educating legal English specialists and teacher education in teaching EAP. Proceedings of IALS teacher education symposia, 2004 and 2006. Institute for Applied Language Studies, University of Edinburgh. Campion GC (2016) ‘The learning never ends’: exploring teachers’ views on the transition from General English to EAP. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 23 59–70. Chang J (2001) Chinese Speakers. In: M Swan and B Smith (Eds) Learner English: a teacher’s guide

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to interference and other problems (2nd edn) (pp310–324). Cambridge University Press.

Teaching in ESP (ELT Documents 106 pp6–23). The British Council.

Charmaz K (2014) Constructing grounded theory (2nd edn). SAGE.

Kwak D Kato M and Hung R (2016) The Confucian Concept of Learning Revisited for East Asian Humanistic Pedagogies. Educational Philosophy and Theory 48 (1) 1–6

Ewer JR (1983) Teacher training for EST: Problems and methods. The ESP Journal 2 (1) 9–32 Hamp-Lyons L & Zhang B W (2001) World English: issues in and from academic writing assessment. In: Flowerdew J and Peacock M (Eds) Research perspectives on English for academic purposes (pp101-116). Cambridge University Press. Harmer J (2007) The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th edn). Longman Hess N & Ghawi M (1997) English for academic purposes: Teacher development in a demanding arena. English for Specific Purposes 16 (1) 15–26 Hutchinson T and Waters A (1987) English for Specific Purposes. A learning centred approach. Cambridge University Press. Hyland K (2006) English for Academic Purposes: an advanced resource book. Routledge Johns TF & Dudley-Evans A (1980) An experiment in team-teaching of overseas postgraduate students of Transportation and Plant Biology. In: Team

Peng JE (2007) Willingness to communicate in the Chinese EFL classroom: a cultural perspective. In: J Liu (Ed) English language teaching in China: new approaches perspectives and standards (pp250-269). Continuum. Scrivener J (2011) Learning Teaching: the essential guide to English language teaching (3rd edn). Macmillan Education Sharpling G (2002) Learning to Teach English for Academic Purposes: Some current training and development issues. ELTED 6 82–94 Wenger E (1999) Communities of Practice: Learning Meaning and Identity. Cambridge University Press.

Mitchell R. Bradford Jr. is currently an Associate Lecturer of EAP at Xi’an JiaotongLiverpool University in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China. Hailing from Arkansas (southern USA), he studied Foreign Languages at Southern Arkansas University and obtained a TESOL MA from the University of Nottingham-Ningbo, China. Mitchell is currently finishing his Delta and applying for a PhD. He has taught various languages and culture classes in the US, Guatemala, and China. Email: [email protected]

Wette R & Barkhuizen G (2009) Teaching the book and educating the person: challenges for university English language teachers in China. Asia Pacific Journal of Education 29 (2) 195–212.

Appendix A – Interviewees’ backgrounds and pseudonyms Nationality

Began ELT

ELT taught in

Began EAP

EAP taught in

TEAP exp.

Qualifications

Amy

UK

Early 1990’s

Asia, Europe, U.K.

Early 1990’s

Asia, China, UK

+ 25

MA: Education, CELTA

Anna

NESC – Europe

Mid 1980’s

Africa, Asia, Europe, U.K.,

Early 1990’s

Asia, China, UK

10 - 15

BA: English, MA: English, DELTA

Emily

UK

Late 2000’s

South Korea

Early 2010’s

China, Middle East

5 - 10

BA: English, MA: English, some PhD studies

Jay

UK

Late 2000’s

South Korea

Early 2010’s

Middle East, South 5 - 10 Korea

BA: English, MA: A.L., CELTA, Higher Ed. Fellowship

Jim

ESC - N. America

Early 1990’s

China, Europe, N. America

Late 2000’s

China

10 - 15

BA: Foreign Languages, MA: A.L.

Pat

NESC – Europe

Late 2000’s

Asia, Europe, U.K.

Mid 2010’s

China, U.K.

2-5

2 MAs: Non-ELT, CELTA, DELTA

Sam

ESC - N. America

Late 2000’s

South Korea

Early 2010’s

Middle East

5 - 10

BA: Non-ELT, MA: TESOL, TESOL cert., DELTA

Will

UK

Late 2000’s

Asia, Europe, Oceania, U.K.

Mid 2010’s

Europe, U.K.

2-5

MA: A.L., CELTA, PgCTEAP

Notes*

ESC – English-speaking Country NESC – Non-English-speaking Country N. America – North America TEAP exp. – Teaching EAP experience A.L. – Applied Linguistics Cert. – Certificate PgCTEAP – Postgraduate certificate in TEAP (Teaching EAP)

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Appendix B – Interview questions 1. Could you begin by talking me through your career so far? a. What did you do before teaching EAP? i. Where? When? For how long? ii. How long have you been teaching ESL/EFL? b. Where was your first position in EAP? i. When? For how long? c. What has happened in your career since then? i. How long have you been teaching EAP? d. What teacher qualifications / certifications do you hold? i. General ones? – e.g. CELTA/DELTA or Master/PhD/EdD (in TESOL / A.L.) ii. EAP-Specific ones? – e.g. PgCert TEAP, or Master (in TEAP) e. How long have you been teaching at UNNC? 2. What were your impressions of EAP prior to working in the field? a. What did you think would be the greatest challenges for you in teaching EAP? b. Did you have any specific training for teaching EAP before going into the field? 3. When you began your first job in EAP, what did you actually find were the greatest challenges? a. Were there any differences between your perceptions and the reality of teaching EAP? 4. What do you think helped you to overcome these challenges? 5. Of the qualifications you have, which do you believe have helped prepare you for teaching EAP? a. Why? b. Which ones (if any) do you feel have not been so helpful with teaching EAP? Why not? 6. How do you feel about EAP-specific teacher qualifications / certifications? a. Do you believe them to be needed / helpful to be successful in teaching EAP? b. Why/why not? 7. What role do you think on the job EAP teacher training (such as an in-service or initial training) plays in preparing teachers for EAP? a. How do you think in-service/initial training prepared you for the challenges encountered while teaching EAP? b. What areas (if any) do you feel were not covered enough in in-service/initial training that should be given more attention? i. Why these areas? 8. What do you think about informal opportunities to improve one’s ability to teach EAP? – Such as observing colleagues’ classes or discussing issues with others. a. Have these helped you overcome any challenges encountered while teaching EAP? i. Which ones? ii. Why/why not? b. Do you believe these should be more encouraged to be done? i. Why/why not? ii. What difficulties may there be in doing more informal learnings? 9. What challenges (if any) have you faced while teaching EAP at UNNC that are/were different than teaching EAP in other contexts (e.g. if you have experience teaching EAP in another context – such as in the UK). a. What has helped you overcome these UNNC-specific challenges (if there are any)? 10. How do you feel about ‘learning on the job’ as you teach EAP? a. What role do you believe it plays (if any) in learning how to teach EAP? b. Why? 11. Is there anything else you would like to add? www.modernenglishteacher.com

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It’s all about the content Sean Burgoine Offers more techniques for improving presentation skills.

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ne of the more challenging tasks an EFL student will face during their time at university is presenting in English. Although some students are more confident and appear to have natural public speaking skills even in a foreign language, many lack the basic techniques required to effectively deliver their message and engage an audience. The good news, however, is that these skills can be learned. Of the many aspects that combine to make a successful presentation, including delivery, content, design and initial planning, I would like to focus on specific techniques that highly polished presenters use, highlighting to students through a project-based unit how they can incorporate them into the planning of their own presentations.

TED Talk project focus and goals The focus of this project is to examine techniques and topics used by TED Talk presenters, mainly through explicit teacher instruction, and then by having students create their own TED Talkstyle presentation to be performed in front of the class. In a previous MET article, I described how to improve student delivery when presenting using a method called ‘mirroring’ (Burgoine, 2021). This project aims to focus more on techniques, topics, and presentation design that will assist students in planning and drafting their presentation. The focus here is therefore more focused on content. While it is unlikely that any of my students will eventually do a real www.modernenglishteacher.com

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TED Talk, the purpose of the project is to make students aware of presentation structure, planning and techniques that effectively engage an audience. In the process of learning about and creating presentations, students will also be required to utilise all four skills of listening, reading, writing and speaking.

The importance of learning presentation skills Valuable experience

  In many Asian contexts, such as mine in Japan, rules of formality do not favour the informality of humour so exposure to, and imitation of, TED Talks has cultural value to students. 

Before entering university most English students in my Japanese teaching context have very little opportunity to speak English in front of their peers, and virtually no instruction on how to effectively present. Murdoch (2020) highlights how in the British context also, courses preparing students for universities in the UK undervalue presentation skills. He notes that there is little time given to teaching presentation skills and that they are almost an afterthought in EAP courses. University classes on public communication, such as the one that I teach, therefore provide valuable experience in speaking in front of the class and, if done with sufficient explicit instruction, an opportunity to improve public communication skills in English.

Benefits for improving language skills

Benefits outside the language classroom

5. Students’ motivation is heightened.

The format of a presentation as a means of conveying research or information at university has become almost as established as written reports (Miles, 2014). As a result, the need to improve presentation skills in academic domains for university students would appear to be obvious. Yet these skills also have great value outside the classroom. It is widely agreed that in a globalised business and academic environment the ability to present in English is highly prized (Evans, 2013; Murdoch, 2020). Evans, drawing on an extensive set of qualitative and quantitative data, found that English presentations are a constant aspect of professional life for Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. He also notes the many instructional books dedicated to business presentations in English that are a testament to the importance of public speaking. www.modernenglishteacher.com

Brooks & Wilson (2014) note five major advantages associated with teaching presentations. 1. Presentations are student-centred. 2. All four language skills are required. 3. Realistic language tasks are provided. 4. There is value outside the language classroom.

Although explicit instruction of presentation techniques involves periods of teacher-centred learning, group work and the performance of the presentations provide ample student-centred time on task. Also, with the writing and reading required for presentation planning, all four skills need to be applied to successfully present and participate in the presentation lessons. As opposed to conversation classes where goals can sometimes be unclear, the required task is well-defined and realistic, which has motivational value for many learners.

Why use TED Talks as a model? Although many TED Talks consist of topics where the content could be considered ESP or EAP related (science, technology, the environment), many may not be seen

as subjects that would directly assist students in future employment or in future academic pursuits. However, those who present at TED have gone through a rigorous process of multiple drafting and months of rehearsal under the supervision of professional public speaking coaches. They are therefore ideal models for analysis and imitation and many of the techniques they employ are transferable to more formal or businessrelated presentations. Additionally, as TED talks are given by presenters from many different cultural backgrounds on an international stage, students are provided with insights about international methods of presenting. An example of this international style is the prevalence of humor in TED talks, often to begin or end a presentation. In many Asian contexts, such as mine in Japan, rules of formality do not favour the informality of humour so exposure to, and imitation of, TED Talks has cultural value to students. Having students plan and perform a TED Talkstyle presentation is also highly motivating for both presenters and listeners, as students can present on issues with which they have a more personal connection. This contrasts with many presentation classes where unoriginal topics are imposed on the students (for example ‘My hometown’) or themes that interest the teacher more than the students.

1) The ‘opening’ The first focus of the project is to analyze common techniques used by TED Talk presenters. This then enables students to incorporate the techniques in their original TED Talk-style presentation later. Many of these techniques are highlighted in Donovan’s (2014) instructional book on how to deliver a TED Talk. Firstly, and very importantly, students are shown the ‘opening’ or ‘hook’ that presenters use at the very beginning of their presentation to catch the audience’s attention. There are five different ‘hook’ techniques commonly used by presenters. 1. The story (an anecdote relevant to the speaker’s topic) 2. The question (rhetorical, or to be answered in the TED Talk) 3. The quote (from a famous person) 4. The shocking fact (often a surprising or shocking statistic) Volume 31

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5. Audience participation (often a ‘Hands up how many of you….’) For each of these five opening options, the beginning part of two or three TED Talks are shown that employ this type of opening (see Appendix for the TED Talks used) without previously telling the class what the technique is. After showing only the short beginning section of each talk, ask the class ‘What opening technique do all three speakers use?’ After eliciting the correct answer from the class, continue to the next technique, reminding students to make a note of the techniques observed.

‘Opening’ practice activity After introducing each opening technique in the procedure described above, have students individually devise their own opening using one of the five techniques above. I find that at first it is best to give all students the same presentation topic, something simple like ‘Global Warming’ so that too much time is not wasted trying to think of a topic. Students then share their openings with each other in groups of three or four students. Common approaches that students typically use are ‘the shocking fact’ (‘Two-thirds of extreme weather events in the last 20 years were influenced by humans’) or the question (‘Do you know how rapidly the Arctic Sea ice is disappearing?’). Students can use their smartphones to research this in class, or it can be set as a homework task.

2) Techniques to be incorporated in the body of the presentation In the body of the presentation students should be given time to work autonomously, with guidance given when required. However, to enhance student language output and make the content more engaging, I suggest some techniques that often feature in the presentations of talented public speakers. To describe each of these features, I give a mini lecture using PowerPoint, explaining and giving examples. 1. The Catchphrase (and the rule of three) 2. Hyperbolic expressions 3. Analogies 58

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The Catchphrase Simon Sinek in his TED Talk ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action’ repeats, ‘People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it’ numerous times during his presentation to emphasise his point. More famously, Barack Obama often peppered his speeches with ‘Yes we can’: another catchphrase – one that abides by the rule of three (limiting a catchphrase or slogan to three main words). Students have used the catchphrase effectively in their presentations (‘Be true to yourself’, a presentation on being honest; and ‘Know the truth’, a presentation on the unknown suffering of foreign technical internees in Japan).

Hyperbolic expressions (exaggeration) Although a technique that is often difficult for language learners to grasp, exaggeration is a common feature in English, especially when telling a story. Examples that could be used are, ‘I’ve waited my whole life for this’, ‘I would pay a million dollars to know the answer’, or ‘He’s the best teacher in the world’. Mastery of this is not expected but students should know about the power exaggeration for embellishing a story.

Analogies Analogies are not essential for communication but are not often utilised by L2 English speakers. They can serve in making a speaker’s language more colourful. After providing the students with a couple of examples, ‘Teaching on Zoom feels like I’m teaching to myself’, ‘Eating stale bread is like eating cardboard’; give some analogies for students to finish in groups as practice such as, ‘Summer without air-conditioning is like…..’, ‘Online learning is like…..’, (one of my student’s responses: ‘Online learning is like eating cold noodles’!).

2. A hopeful picture for the future (Optimistic ending) As with the opening, show several examples of each style of ending from existing TED Talks (see Appendix for the examples I use) and ask the class to identify the common element.

‘Closing’ practice activity Again, using the ‘Global Warming’ topic, or a similar familiar topic, have students prepare a closing with one of the two methods listed above. Students can then share these among themselves in small groups.

4) Understanding TED-like style and topics Although the topics covered in TED Talks are widely varied, a particular style emerges in most of them. Donovan (2014) categorises the most popular TED Talks into three main categories with subcategories. 1. The Educators (The inventor, the life scientist, the natural scientist, the social scientist) 2. The Entertainers (The comedian, the magician, the writer, the performing artist, the visual artist) 3. The Change Agents (The activist, the authority, the business guru, the explorer, the personal guru, the social entrepreneur) After displaying these to students with PowerPoint and explaining generally how each category differs, I get students to 1) choose a TED Talk, 2) watch it, 3) identify its category, and 4) give an oral summary to their student group. The purpose of this is to familiarise students with as many TED Talks as possible to better understand the style that they will be reproducing.

3) The ‘closing’

5) Choosing a TED-like topic

Instruction on how to close a presentation follows the same approach as that of the ‘opening’. Predominantly, there are two common methods of closing a TED Talk.

Most TED Talks can be categorised into one of the groups above, yet one of the fundamental themes that runs through all TED Talks is the ‘ideas worth sharing’ mantra. To get students thinking about such an idea that they may themselves have, I get them to write down the answer

1. The ‘Call to Action’ (‘Let’s...’ or ‘We need to…’)

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to three questions before sharing them with their group.

Appendix

1. What is the greatest lesson I have ever learned?

Openings

2. What is a cause that I believe in (and how can I get others to believe in it)?

The Story

Richard St. John ‘8 secrets of success’ Simon Sinek ‘Why good leaders make you feel safe’ Sisonke Msimang ‘If a story moves you act on it’

The Question

 eau Lotto ‘How we experience awe – and why it matters’ B Simon Sinek ‘How great leaders inspire action’

The Quote

 ac Barnett ‘Why a good book is a secret door’ M Clint Smith ‘The danger of silence’

The Shocking Fact

J amie Oliver ‘Teach every child about food’ Erika Gregory ‘The world doesn’t need more nuclear weapons’ Myriam Sidibe ‘The simple power of hand-washing’

The Audience Participation

 my Cuddy ‘Your body language may shape who you are’ A Drew Dudley ‘Everyday leadership’ Arthur Benjamin ‘The performance of “Mathemagic”’

3. What is the most amazing story that I can tell? This can be challenging and take time for some students, but it often leads to an idea worth sharing for a presentation topic. It is the intention that through such an activity students will understand what topics are suitable and what are not.

6) PowerPoint …? Many TED Talk presenters rely completely on their oratory skills and don’t use PowerPoint at all, while others use it very effectively. It is a question that the teacher will inevitably be asked as students will have seen TED Talk presenters who use PowerPoint and those who don’t. I suggest, in keeping faithful to the TED style, that students who want to use PowerPoint keep it picture heavy, to support what they are saying, and text-light to keep listener attention directly on the speaker. To clarify what I mean, I show two TED Talks where the presenters use PowerPoint in this manner – John Hardy: ‘My Green School Dream’ and Stephen Ritz: ‘A Teacher Growing Green in the South Bronx’.

Miscellaneous ■ If class time allows, before the actual performance have students video their presentations and in small groups of three or four peer review the video, getting feedback from the group. ■ Depending on the level of the group, keep the presentation time short; 5-10 minutes is plenty for language learners. ■ To keep the audience focused on listening, I set an assignment based on the final presentations asking students to reflect on what they found inspiring or learned, or what techniques they noticed, or to identify points of interest. Let it be known beforehand that it’s coming!

Closings The ‘Call to Action’

Brene Brown ‘The power of vulnerability’ Angela Lee Duckworth ‘The power of passion and perseverance’ Christian Picciolini ‘My descent into America’s neo-Nazi movement –and how I got out’

Hope for the Future Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ‘The danger of a single story’ Kelly McGonigal ‘How to make stress your friend’ Julian Treasure ‘How to speak so that people want to listen’

Conclusion Apart from providing students with an opportunity to practice skills that may be required in the workplace, presenting in English and the process of planning beforehand is an effective way to get students to apply all four language skills in their learning. By focusing on observable presentation skills and techniques that can be mined from TED talks, this project gives students a tangible model to follow to dramatically improve their presentation abilities. Although many of the techniques taught are features unique to TED talks, the skills are transferable to other genres of presentations, especially those set in international contexts.

References Brooks G & Wilson J (2014) Using oral presentations to improve students’ English language skills Kwansei Gakuin University Humanities Review (19) 199–212. Burgoine S (2021) Mirroring for English. Modern English Teacher 30 (3) 68–71. Donovan J (2014) How to deliver a TED talk. McGraw Hill Education.

www.modernenglishteacher.com

Evans S (2013) “Just wanna give you guys a bit of an update”: Insider perspectives on business presentations in Hong Kong. English for Specific Purposes (32) 195–207 Miles R (2014) Issues related to teaching oral presentations in Japanese universities. In: N Sonda & A Krause (Eds) JALT2013 Conference Proceedings (pp422–426). Tokyo: JALT. Murdoch G (2020) Are presentations undervalued on EAP courses? Modern English Teacher 29 (3) 64–68.

Sean Burgoine is a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics in the International Studies Course at Kochi University, Japan. His research interests include Pedagogic Phonetics and Phonology, World Englishes, and the use of English as a Lingua Franca.

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Critical thinking – where to start

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lind and unaware of it: Does the term ‘Anton’s Syndrome’ ring any bells? I bet it does not. This is a very rare condition affecting patients who are virtually blind but who, incredibly, refuse to admit it. And they will keep on denying it, regardless of the evidence you present them with. To understand this more try and find the episode of Dr House on YouTube which dealt with this condition or simply Google it! I am pretty certain you have never come across anyone suffering from this condition. I am equally certain however that you have come across people who express crazy views which are 150% wrong and quite obviously so, yet when you prove it to them, they simply refuse to listen.

Here are some of them:

Frustrating as this is, it is extremely common. But why does this happen? According to organisational psychologist Adam Grant, ‘Questioning ourselves makes the world more unpredictable. […] Reconsidering something we believe deeply can threaten our identities, making us feel as if we’re losing a part of ourselves’ (Grant, 2021: 4). To guard against this risk, our brain has come up with all kinds of defensive mechanisms.

The false consensus effect: Every year, Professor Nicholas Epley carries out the same experiment with his students: he presents them with a list of morally dubious practices (e.g. downloading audiobooks off YouTube without paying) and asks them to say whether they think these are ok or not. However, he also asks them to predict how many people share the same views as they do. The results are fascinating: people who are in

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The illusion of knowledge: In a brilliant study (Schwartz, 1998), university students were given a hundred general knowledge questions to answer. But there was a catch: scattered among them were twenty questions which were impossible to answer, such as ‘When did the Neanderthals colonise America?’ or ‘Why did Napoleon fail to conquer Turkey?’ or ‘How many molars does a python have?’. When asked later, students claimed they were ‘on the verge’ of answering some of these questions. Then knew they had the answer – if only they could retrieve it! In most domains, we think we know a lot more than we actually do.

Nick Michelioudakis Gets his students to start questioning their own beliefs.

the majority correctly predict that most others will agree with them. Incredibly however, people in the minority also think the same thing! They honestly believe that the majority actually shares their view! Just have a look at the table opposite (table adapted from Epley, 2014: 101). Confirmation bias: In yet another study (Taylor & Gollwitzer, 1995), subjects were divided into two groups and then they were presented with a hypothetical dilemma. The first group were asked to think of arguments for both sides and then to make a decision; but with the second group, the instructions were reversed: they were asked to make a decision first, and only then to list the arguments for both sides. With the first group, the number of reasons listed were more or less the same. Amazingly however, the second group tended to list many more arguments in favour of the decision they had already reached compared to the other one! Once we have taken sides, our perception of reality changes as if by magic. Prioritising the source: In another ‘tricky’ study conducted in the US (Cohen 2003), Democrats were shown a rather www.modernenglishteacher.com

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Ethically Questionable Practices at Work

Is this ok ethically?

How many would agree?

You take stationery and other office supplies from work for your personal use

YES - 66%

62%

NO - 43%

65%

You bluff about your current salary during a job interview with a potential employer

YES - 53%

61%

NO - 47%

71%

While not actually feeling ill, you call in sick at work in order to get the day off

YES - 71%

66%

NO - 29%

64%

You pirate software from work and install it on your computer back home

YES - 94%

72%

NO - 6%

56%

While on a trip, you pay for a meal with friends and then add the bill to your travel expenses

YES - 86%

72%

NO - 14%

60%

restrictive welfare policy (usually one that Republicans would advocate) but they were told it came from their own party. Rather than scrutinise it or question it, those liberals promptly endorsed it. The same was also true the other way round: Republicans were quick to endorse a very liberal welfare policy when they were told it was actually put forward by Conservative politicians. It seems that in order to ensure we do not deviate from our beliefs, we tend to use heuristics, such as where a particular piece of information comes from. So all the evidence points towards the fact that we think we know it all and we are extremely reluctant to change our views. As Charlie Munger once put it, ‘the human brain is like the human egg’ in that, as with sperm, ‘once an idea gets in it shuts down so the next one cannot get in’. Brilliant! Now fun though all these studies may be, one might wonder whether they are relevant to us as teachers. Yet I believe they are. One of the core 21st Century Skills is supposed to be ‘Critical Thinking’. What teachers usually understand by this, is that we should encourage our students to look at the various sources of information with a critical eye. But what about turning this eye inwards? Here are some ideas: ■ Get your students to make a list of things they do not know – or at least www.modernenglishteacher.com

they do not know well. The longer the list, the better. This exercise should have the effect of making them at least somewhat less overconfident. ■ Ask your students whether they have ever changed their minds about anything. If not, that should get them worried a little. If yes, they could discuss what that was and what brought about the change. That should help them realise that a mature individual is always work in progress. ■ Ask your students whether they are right about everything. Naturally, they are going to reply in the negative. But then the follow-up question is: ‘What could you be wrong about now?’ This is tricky, as naturally, we would not hold a belief unless we thought it was true, but it should set them thinking. ■ Once they have identified one or two things they are not so sure about, the next question should be ‘What evidence would make you change your mind?’ (Grant, 2021: 72). This is the key question that is the hallmark of a scientist. Simply considering this principle of falsifiability should make your students’ thinking a lot more rigorous. To kick-start this whole process of reflection, you might want to use the following quote: ‘If you don’t look back at yourself and think “Wow, how stupid I was a year ago” then you must not have

learned much in the last year’ (Ray Dalio, in Grant 2021: 72). Another thing that might help is modelling. So far, we have been talking about students. But what about us? What about you?

A deep evolutionary rationale You might think it is strange that we should have evolved mechanisms which make us hold on to mistaken beliefs, thus giving us a distorted view of the world. Yet what matters to evolution is not how accurately one perceives reality, but how ultimately successful one is. It seems that appearing knowledgeable, consistent and loyal to our ideological ‘tribe’ far outweighs being objectively right. This is why there are still climate change deniers and anti-vaccination groups. ‘But surely these people know that they are wrong?’ you might say. Evolution has seen to this problem too: apparently, we have evolved to lie to ourselves – the better to lie to others (Trivers, 2011: 4).

References Cohen G L (2003) Party Over Policy: The Dominating Impact of Group Influence on Political Beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85 (5) 808–822 Epley N (2014) Mindwise. London: Allen Lane Grant A (2021) Think Again. London: WH Allen Schwartz B L (1998) Illusory tip-of-the-tongue states. Memory 6 (6) 623–642 Taylor S E & Gollwitzer P M (1995) Effects of mindset on positive illusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69 (2) 213–226 Trivers R (2011) Deceit and Self-Deception. London: Allen Lane

Nick Michelioudakis, (B. Econ., Dip. RSA, MSc [TEFL]) has been active in ELT for many years as a teacher, examiner and teacher trainer and he has given presentations in numerous countries. He has written extensively on Methodology, though he is better known for his ‘Psychology and ELT’ articles in which he draws on insights from such disciplines as Marketing, Management and Social Psychology. For articles or worksheets of his, you can visit his blog at www.michelioudakis.org.

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They just need to be more fluent Robert McLarty Suggests ways of improving learners’ spoken fluency.

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’ve been worrying for a while as to how it is that as students I teach study more, their fluency doesn’t increase at the same rate. The reason I started thinking about this topic was due to the number of students coming through our system who still seem to lack general all round fluency despite participating in 600 hour courses twice a year. That is a lot of hours of English! Their academic skills get better but their general fluency has a tendency to platau. I need to say at this point that I am comparing students I have taught in the past in the UK and those I teach here in New Zealand. To be fair, the vast majority of students I taught in England were in a real immersion context, they not only needed to improve their English to get on into mainstream education or work, they absolutely needed it to survive socially. For various reasons many of our learners here in Hamilton lack that contact with English outside class and

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therefore can easily spend the majority of their time in a non-English speaking world. This means that even the regular How was your weekend? often results in quite a difficult and stilted conversation. As the main performance criteria and learning outcomes at our institution are of an academic or professional nature we often find ourselves trying to build on quite shaky ground. Despite many people thinking the opposite, both academic and professional English share a huge amount with general English. Without the ideas, vocabulary and ease of expression – with all the will in the world it is hard to have a discussion or make an oral presentation. Even a simple remark like What’s new? or How are things? or How are you getting on? seems to cause problems. So what are the issues? And what am I really trying to achieve with my intermediate learners? What do they lack? To my mind the areas to look at are Hesitation, Confidence, Vocabulary, Ideas, Context, Appropriacy and Pace. www.modernenglishteacher.com

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It seems to me that the lack of fluency stems from a combination of the above. Some are obvious – others less so. I am not for a moment saying they are all teachable and that personality does not play a big part but we do need to recognise them and help them. Hesitation and confidence What causes hesitation? Lack of understanding? Lack of preparedness? Lack of habit? Lack of the right thing to say? An overkill on perfection? Again – a mix of all of these. We all hesitate in our own way but the better speakers cover it up – hide the horrible hmmmm – something usually delivered in your own language as well as everything else. We need to practise spontaneity in whatever ways we can – demanding rapid responses in a fun way. I know that sounds contradictory but spontaneity will come from practice. Then we come to confidence. Will I be understood? Have I understood? Will I make a mistake? These are the questions which taunt our learners. Activities involving pair work, regularly changing partners, encouraging them to tell stories and report back as much as possible will build confidence. From Week 1 I have students standing up and delivering one or two lines, or taking part in 4–6 line dialogues acted out in front of the class. We have time and it develops confidence. Vocabulary I asked my classes recently what their biggest obstacle to fluency was and they nearly all said shyness and a lack of vocabulary – the perfect combination. Not sure what to say, nor how to say it! I am sure we all have lots of ideas for activating vocabulary but I actually I think the key thing however is passing on the need to work alone on your vocabulary. Of all the parts of learning a language it seems to me that vocabulary acquisition ultimately comes down to the learner – how much do they read, watch, note down, record, and revise outside class? We can recycle and revise it but a big effort has to come in from the learner. Ideas This is another thorny area. How do you have ideas? Do we all have them, but some people don’t share them? I’ve often thought the expression ‘No idea’ is a bit of a cop-out. Surely everyone has ideas? I like www.modernenglishteacher.com

to encourage my students to notice things, ask questions, pass comments. Most ideas grow from other ideas and that is how a conversation flows. Any activity which encourages explanation or deduction will help here. Context and appropriacy I always look at these together because they are a couple. What to say in a particular situation and how. I think the context often gives a learners lots of clues. When you visit a supermarket here, the cashier will inevitably ask one of two questions. Any plans for the rest of the day? or How’s your day been so far? These set questions give so many clues to help the listener but so often our students miss them and reply inappropriately. Answering the question using the same tense, borrowing vocabulary from another speaker in the conversation, using short expressions to join in or prompt further discussion can all be taken from the context whether it is formal, informal, general professional or academic. Pace Fluency does not equal speed. Clarity comes from good pace, pausing to check you are being followed, adding a new bit of information after a short pause, stressing key words and easing off on others – a lot of this can be practised and as we know practice makes perfect. So how does fluency practice work – what should we be looking at? Each of the above is a direction to focus on but not to the detriment of other aspects. Let your students know where the focus is and make sure you spend a good chunk of every session looking at and practising fluency. We need our learners to have more set phrases, those little expressions which allow the conversation to move on or allow them to gain time or look for clarification or whatever they need to do. Such as? In other words. The other day. You’ll never guess. Do you see what I mean? You then have Vocabulary, Grammar and Pronunciation – the big three. Getting the best word with the clearest grammar, pronounced as well as possible. Whenever we are doing fluency

practice we are probably focussing on one of these three or a combination but we mustn’t forget that the key reason for communicating in the first place is to interact with others and express yourself in a routine casual way – How’s it going? Fine thanks. Or in a more sophisticated transaction or exchange. Looking at the diagram above gives you an idea of how complex fluency is from a speaking perspective.

In the next issue of MET I will be looking at the part listening plays in the fluency cycle and providing a set of activities to work on each part of it. Many of the activities may well be familiar to you – or open to interpretation in a different way. In the mean time, check out your teaching and notice how often and how you are helping them with their fluency. It really is the lubricant for the motor of their English. If you can include a few minutes per lesson of fluency practice you will be giving your learners the best help possible. Don’t let it be forgotten among all the other things you have to do and boxes which need to be ticked.

Robert McLarty teaches EAP at Wintec in Hamilton, New Zealand and is editor of Modern English Teacher.

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Picture 1 A class vote can be quickly scripted and carried out

Generating events 2

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n ‘events generator perspective’ is a term I have started using when talking about general ELT classes with primaryaged learners. It involves the teacher creating a situation where there is a meaningful exchange between them and their learners, based on a perceived classroom event which, whilst not necessarily a big happening, captures the learners’ imaginations. That event might be completely engineered by the teacher, or it might be their acknowledgement of something occurring spontaneously during the lesson. Most importantly, though, it involves the teacher prompting and allowing the learners to react to the event by saying something in English. This will involve preventing the other students from interrupting the speaker for a moment, so that everyone gets a turn to speak. And – perhaps even more difficult for us collectively as a profession – it will require the teacher to stop talking for a few seconds more each time, so that each of their students can start speaking.

Putting things to a vote Guillermo (the Spanish equivalent of the name William, often shortened to Guille) was a seven-year-old student of mine who had already unofficially declared himself encargado (supervisor, site manager, charge hand, foreman) when I had left the classroom, briefly, on two previous 64

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occasions. This had involved him writing down the name of any classmate he felt was not behaving perfectly while I was away. In a bold move to consolidate his position, he expressed his desire mid-class to be the encargado all of the time. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I mean, I suppose you could be the encargado for the week and then pass the role on to another student, but it really depends how the others feel. We could put it to the vote, but you have to promise not to get upset if the decision doesn’t go your way.’ Guillermo agreed and so I quickly put the following on the board (see Picture 1): I think Guille can be the encargado. I don’t like the idea. To my surprise, Guillermo received considerable support and, as at that time I did not have my customary class monitor system in place, the idea worked for me as well, so the encargado was born. We continued to refer to the post as encargado, to pay homage to Guille’s original innovation, but obviously for your own classes I recommend something like ‘monitor’, ‘helper’ or ‘deputy’. After Guille’s two lessons were up, he stood on a chair at the front of the room and repeated after me: ‘Dear people in the room, it is time for me to choose a new encargado. The encargado is …’.

Chris Roland Makes things happen before and during class.

Picture 2 An incumbent encargada choosing her successor

This has become the way that a new encargado is appointed. The new encargado (or encargada, as the term changes gender in Spanish) comes to the front of the class, kneels and is appointed. Instead of a sword on the shoulders and head, a board pen is used (see Picture 2).

The versatility of the vote Class votes can very quickly be set up around any number of issues. In the past, I have used them to establish whether particular behaviour, such as whistling, or an outside factor, such as a car alarm going off, is annoying the class in general or not. I have also polled the class on whether they wish to keep a digital classroom management www.modernenglishteacher.com

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Pictures 3 and 4 A real Spanish post box and our box for posting homework assignments

app points system, or not have a points system at all. Both of these are covered in my book Structuring Fun for Young Learners in the ELT Classroom (Roland, 2020). In addition to this, we can have votes on humorous issues. One day, some students were struggling to see past me at what I had written on the board and I was struggling to squeeze myself into a small strip of space between my teacher’s cupboard and the board so as not to obscure their view. ‘It’s all the burgers and ice cream I ate during lockdown,’ I said, slapping my belly, which had indeed grown over said period. One little boy chortled, ‘It looks like you’re pregnant, teacher.’ ‘Yes, it does,’ I replied (and it did). ‘But if I were pregnant, what should I call the child?’ I wrote on the board: Teacher, I think you should call the child …, and in an instant we had a pop-up event with accompanying, modal-verb-containing, script. Suggestions included: Chris Junior (for a boy), Christina (for a girl), Mister Food, Nico (no reason given) and Ángela and María (by the same student, not as an either/or case but because they were hoping for twins). For the more politically sensitive reader, I would like to assure you that the way in which this was done was not one that encouraged body shaming and that there was a beautiful moment in the next class when the little boy who had made the original comment came over and told me not to worry because he was a bit overweight too. He was not, but I thought the gesture of solidarity was very touching. www.modernenglishteacher.com

Picture 5 ‘I’ve done my homework. Can I post my letter?’

  It involves the teacher creating a situation where there is a meaningful exchange between them and their learners, based on a perceived classroom event which, whilst no necessarily a big happening, captures the learners’ imaginations.  Putting homework back on the agenda With various shifts to hybrid teaching, back to face-to-face, then the same cycle again, I had got out of the habit of giving my six to seven and seven to eight year-olds regular homework. For any reader who wants to put homework back on the map, this mini-event has less to do with the homework task itself but more with the way that homework is handed in. In his essay on play, Lev Vygotsky suggests that there are minimal characteristics, in terms of physicality or functionality, that an object needs to have to represent another object in play. A stick, for example, might effectively represent a horse. If it is a big stick, the child can actually pretend to ride it. A twig preserves some of the qualities of the larger stick/horse in miniature, in terms of colour and shape (the long neck and rideable back of the horse). For my purposes, I wished to represent the essential characteristics of a Spanish post box (see Picture 3) and did so with the rudimentary creation seen in Picture 4.

It is yellow. It is free standing. It is taller than it is wide and, most importantly, it has a slot for posting letters into. It is made from one of the boxes that our picturecopy paper comes in. At the beginning of the lesson, each child turns up with the worksheet that they have completed over the weekend already in a special envelope marked with their name which we prepared together. They then get to ask: ‘Teacher, I’ve done my homework, can I post my letter?’ (see Picture 5). Often, they already have their envelope out and ready before they have even got into class. During the week, you can mark the work and then they take their envelope home with a new worksheet in it to complete for the following week.

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Picture 6 Remote demonstration

and played them to the class, as an alternative to having students gather round the front. This is a great way to demonstrate craft activities to larger classes because it means that the children at the back can see more easily. If it is a workbook exercise you are demonstrating, you can also leave the clip re-running while the children are on task so that anyone encountering difficulties can use the footage as support. And if the ‘you’ that is giving instructions is on the screen, then the ‘you’ that is in the room can concentrate on making sure everyone is listening. In Picture 6, the students are watching a pre-recorded demonstration in which I show them how to draw monster faces on dried beans, which they are going to stick onto a haunted house picture. Whatever the activity, though, seeing their teacher up on the screen makes the demonstration feel somehow more real. To top it off, right at the beginning of the clip, it is worth greeting each student by name. This may involve running through your register at breakneck speed, but you will notice each student perk up as their name is mentioned.

stay in his place. Each time I looked over, he was in a different part of the room. We were trying to run socially-distanced lessons at this point, so the situation was hardly ideal. I could feel myself getting annoyed, so I decided to quickly change tack. I drew five little stick men on the board, with eyes that seemed to point in his direction and explained as follows: ‘Miguel, these are “Miguelitos” [the suffix makes the word mean something like ‘little Miguels’] and they want to be here with you. They need you to look after them. You’re our hero, Big Miguel, they are saying. The thing is, each time you leave your chair, I will say: Miguel, you’re not sitting in your chair! And I will have to wipe one of these away. It doesn’t mean they’ve been eaten or that they can’t

  To top it off, right at the beginning of the clip, it is worth greeting each student by name. This may involve running through your register at breakneck speed, but you will notice each student perk up as their name is mentioned.  come back, it just means they’ve been sent away. The aim is for you to finish the lesson with as many Miguelitos here with you as possible.’ The other six students in the room also wanted little versions of themselves and you can see what this looked like in Picture 7. ‘OK,’ I said in L1, ‘but guys, you know this is only a game, yeah? Nobody’s going to cry if you get one of your little people

Creating a classroom management event Occasionally, I have found small groups as hard – or harder – to handle as larger ones, especially if there are dramatically fewer learners in class due to unexpected circumstances. In this situation it sometimes does not seem like a ‘real’ class. On one such occasion, Miguel an eight-year-old learner, was struggling to 66

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Picture 7 Mini-avatars, similar to the lives on a computer game, for each student during our ‘try-not-to-leave-your seat’ game

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Picture 8 Each student received a house template and designed their own label for the house using the language: ‘I’m ______ and this is my house.’

rubbed out are you? You know they can and will come back when you’ve been sitting down for a while.’ For the remaining 45 minutes, the students were glued to their seats. One even asked me if they could stand up to get their pencil case out of their rucksack which was hanging on the back of their chair. Instead of ‘losing it’ with Miguel, I had successfully managed to reframe my request as a game. Sometimes you might want to create these mini-avatars for just one student and not for the whole class. On this particular day, the class suggested I have a set of ‘teacheritos’ (mini teachers) and lose one each time I sat down. I would deliberately forget from time to time and they would remind me: ‘Teacher, you’re sitting down!’

Making rewards more meaningful Many teachers give out stars for students to stick on a chart, as a reward. In ETp Issue 135, Jonny Maitland discussed a number of alternatives. As another, you may wish to try something similar to the house project I ran this year. I gave each of my learners a blank A4-sized house template that I made using PowerPoint (see Picture 8). We stuck these on the wall and, when they had successfully completed the key task of each lesson, the learners could ask me for whatever piece of furniture was on offer that day. For example: ‘Can I have www.modernenglishteacher.com

Picture 9 Sofas for learners to earn for their house

a sofa for my house?’ And I would award them with a black-and-white line drawing of that item to be stuck into their house (see Picture 9). In this way, over the course of several months, the learners built up the contents of their houses. To begin with, we had fairly simple items such as: bed, table and chair. Then we expanded to things like parasol and trampoline (for the roof patio) and bicycle for the garage. There is something novel in hearing your students asking: ‘Teacher, can I have a flat screen TV for my living room?’ It also feels intrinsically more meaningful than if they just ask for a sticker. Finally, I asked my groups what they thought we should include. An event in itself, this involved me providing the stem: ‘Teacher I think we should have …’. Suggestions included a number of things I had overlooked such as: a lamp, wardrobe, fridge, food, puppy, pony, kennel, fishbowl, baby, rabbit, clothes and people. Unfortunately, some of the line drawings were hastily taken from the internet and do not have a public domain licence so I cannot show you the finished product. In the last few lessons of the year, each child got to colour and label their house and take it home with them.

References Cowley S (2013) The 7 T’s of Practical Differentiation. Sue Cowley Books Ltd Maitland J (2021) Ain’t misbehavin’. English Teaching Professional 135 Vygotsky L (1933, 1966) Play and its role in the Mental Development of the Child translated by

Catherine Mulholland Voprosy psikhologii No. 6 1966 www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/ works/1933/play.htm Roland C (2020) Structuring Fun for Young Learners in the ELT Classroom. Pavilion Publishing

Rather than simply coming to English lessons and talking about language, our young learners need to live some language as well. With the handful of examples in these two articles, I have tried to show that, as well as the imagined scenarios, songs, games and stories that learners can enjoy from their coursebooks, we can engineer additional small communicative events to give our lessons extra depth. These events might be connected to the functional side of classroom life, to the sociological side of group dynamics or to conversations that spring up along the way. For CLIL teachers covering content subjects through English, such as science, classroom experiments and discovery learning will constitute the central events around which language can revolve in a similar way.

Chris Roland is a trainer based at ELI, a language academy in Seville, Spain, where he teaches young learners, teens and adult groups. He tutors on the Trinity Diploma course for OxfordTEFL and his recent methodology book Structuring Fun for Young Learners in the ELT Classroom is published by Pavilion. Email: [email protected]

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Japanese young learners’ sense of agency Introduction In recent years, teaching young learners has become an important area in foreign language education. Understanding young learners’ linguistic development is of great research interest. In addition, investigating how to understand and help young people become good learners is also vital as language study takes a long time and students need to learn to monitor their own learning. One such construct necessary for a good and independent learner is having a sense of agency. In The Future of Education and Skills 2030 Project launched in 2015, the OECD places learner agency, ‘the capacity to set a goal, reflect and act responsibly to effect change’ (OECD, 2019: 1), as one of the key components that are required for successful learners in a complex and rapidly changing society. Similarly, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT) also claims learner agency is at the core of its pedagogical and evaluation principles in The Course of Study (MEXT, 2017a, 2017b, 2018). 68

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Following this trend, this article reports on an online intercultural exchange project (OIE) carried out between Japanese and Turkish students and shows how the project positively impacted the Japanese students’ learner agency as well as other factors such as their motivation and cultural awareness. The report is based on action research, in which the teacher-researchers carried out the project as well as conducting a small-scale study by collecting student survey and interview data.

Project description: flat kids The OIE project was carried out by the first author Mari, the owner-teacher of a language school in Japan, following The Original Flat Stanley Project, started by a Canadian elementary school teacher, Dale Hubert, in 1995 (Hubert, 1995). In this project, Mari’s students first exchanged paper dolls called Flat Kids with students in other countries imagining that the dolls are ‘travelling’ to visit their partners. Then they went on to share photographs and videos with their partners’ paper dolls

Mari Nakamura and Keiko Sakui Describe an online intercultural exchange project.

through an online platform. Mari named this project the Flat Kids Project since Japanese students are not familiar with Flat Stanley (Brown, 1992), an American children’s book series, that the original project was based on. In September 2019, Mari started the project with a public high school teacher in Eskisehir in Turkey. At the beginning, the two teachers spent one month preparing for the project. They agreed that the goal was to promote students’ intercultural understanding and learner agency through the exchange of students’ Flat Kids, letters, text-messages, photos, and videos. The teachers further agreed that they would let discussion topics and collaborative tasks emerge and develop organically as the two schools navigated the project. This was to promote student learning by valuing their voices and also by allowing their interests to guide tasks and learning outcomes. However, the teachers agreed to limit the number of posts from each school to six per week in order to make it easy for the students to keep track of interactions with their partners. www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Young Learners ]

Thirteen Japanese students (aged 10 to 14) participated in the project and exchanged different information with 28 students (aged 14 to 15) in Turkey. Both sides of students are EFL learners with no or limited opportunities to interact in English outside classroom contexts. The project lasted for four months, from October 2019 to January 2020. An online bulletin board, Padlet, was used as an exchange platform. Due to the unstable wi-fi connection on the Turkish side, communication using Padlet was carried out in an asynchronous way. The students at both schools first exchanged their Flat Kids and introductory letters through airmail. After receiving the letters and Flat Kids from their partners, the students started to post text messages and photos on Padlet and to exchange comments digitally. The students exchanged their experiences and opinions on different topics including their daily lives, meals, school events, and neighbourhoods. They also wrote about celebrations and religious customs; for example, Christmas and New Year in Japan and Muslim practices in Turkey. In addition, the students initiated and managed a sub-project called the ‘Origami project’. The Turkish students wanted to set up a Japan Booth at their school fair and the Japanese students taught their Turkish partners how to make origami by creating YouTube tutorials and uploading them onto Padlet. (Figure 1) By the end of the project, the Japanese students had made 54 posts on the Padlet site while the Turkish students had made 120. As a final offline exchange, the students returned their partners’ Flat Kids with letters and hand-made souvenirs.

Learner reflection This section reports on the Japanese learners’ survey and interview results to show how they perceived the project. To ensure ethical requirements researching young learners, we adopted the following procedure. First, the research purpose and process were explained to the participants in L1 and their rights not to participate in the survey and interviews were clearly explained. Secondly, a consent form was sent out to the students’ guardians to inform them about the research, to which all agreed. www.modernenglishteacher.com

Figure 1 Online Exchange on Padlet

In order to gain insights into how the Japanese learners perceived the project in terms of learner agency, a questionnaire was designed to inquire about seven agency-related areas: happiness, disappointment, punctuality, conscientiousness, effort, self-efficacy and future orientation (Ferguson, 2015: 5-6). Designing the questionnaire also required considerations of validity and ethics: young learners should not be burdened with a long survey, therefore, we decided to limit one construct per questionnaire item, so the learner agency related questionnaire consisted of seven items. We added four more questions to inquire about a preference for online or offline exchange and any wishes for future projects. The

questionnaire was administered to the Japanese participants (n=13) in L1. In addition to the questionnaire, Mari conducted two interviews and Keiko three interviews with five of the Japanese students. The questionnaire results and interview data suggest that these young learners show signs of learner agency in several ways. The students’ responses to questionnaire items which correspond to the core components of learner agency are summarised in Table 1. All students responded that the OIE project gave them a sense of happiness (Question 1). Some comments added to

Questionnaire Items

Corresponding Agency Concept

YES

NO

NOT SURE

1. I had some enjoyable moments during the project.

Happiness

13

0

0

2. There were some activities that I didn’t like.

Disappointment

4

9

0

3. I made sure that I would submit my posts and respond to my friends’ posts in a timely manner.

Punctuality

10

0

3

4. I tried making my posts and comments interesting for my Turkish friends.

Conscientiousness

12

0

1

5. I researched on the internet or through other measures when I found some new words and interesting information or when I couldn’t figure out something.

Effort

12

1

0

6. I learned some new skills through this project.

Self-efficacy

6

2

5

7. This project made me want to study English harder to be more proficient.

Future Orientation

12

0

1

Table 1 Student responses to the questionnaire (n=13)

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this item suggest that they felt happy when they could engage in deep, conceptual message exchanges, which matched with their maturity level. Eight of the students elaborated on their excitement in learning about their Turkish friends’ religious practices and traditional lifestyle. For example, Student A wrote, ‘Turkish people go to a mosque and say a prayer five times a day. We Japanese give prayers anywhere, anytime without much thought. We should appreciate our religions more deeply’. Student B expressed her interpretation in this way: ‘Perhaps Turkish people value tradition more in their daily lives than people in Japan’. Question 3 suggests that the students uploaded their messages and responded to their Turkish friends’ posts punctually. This is noteworthy because the students were expected to make posts independently at home, not during the lessons. Regarding his effort to work on this project diligently, one of the students (Student A) remarked in class, ‘I can’t disappoint (Turkish friend A) and (Turkish friend B),’ to which his classmates nodded in agreement. Thirteen learners responded yes to Question 4, which enquires about students’ conscientiousness. An example below (Figure 2) shows how a student included origami in the photo, and used the pronoun you to address her friend’s Flat Kid (paper doll) in the text, as in You ate Japanese sweets. This is an indication of her commitment to produce quality work and to connect with her Turkish partners.

Figure 2 An Online Post by a Japanese Student

Question 5 indicates that the students tried to take control of their own learning. All students shared strategies to make interactions with their Turkish partners meaningful, such as starting a post with a question, asking follow-up questions, coming up with their own original topics for discussion, and exploring ways to make their photos attractive. Eight out of 13 students wrote that they researched what their Turkish friends had posted on Padlet, and others researched the Turkish language and used online dictionaries to learn how to explain Japanese things in English. The learners stated that this project motivated them to improve their language abilities (Question 7). Twelve students

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  Eight of the students elaborated on their excitement in learning about their Turkish friends’ religious practices and traditional lifestyle.  said that this project made them want to improve their English skills, and five learners mentioned their awareness of the value of English as a lingua franca: ‘I realised that English is a wonderful language because I can make friends with people around the world. I want to study harder because I couldn’t communicate with my friends very well,’ (Student C, questionnaire). ‘I was very excited when my friend understood my English and I want to make friends with students from various countries,’ (Student B, questionnaire). One of the students put significantly more effort into the exchanges with her Turkish partner than for regular writing assignments. ‘When writing a journal, I feel like I don’t have anything worthwhile to write. I feel it’s my duty to do the assignment. For this project, I could write on many topics because my friends didn’t know Japan. I was thinking what I could do to make my writing fun for them when writing to my friends.’ (Student F, interview) This data suggests that interaction with partners helped the students understand the value of English as a medium for intercultural communication and it stimulated their motivation for learning. Some interview data showed that not all students necessarily felt excited about the project at the beginning. For example, Student H mentioned that at the start she was somewhat motivated as the project seemed interesting, but at the same time it was a class project so she had to do it. However, after being involved in the www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Young Learners ]

project, she became highly motivated and enjoyed it very much and particularly liked receiving positive comments on her posts. The above data suggests promising signs that these learners developed learner agency but other data showed that the project was not free from discouraging moments for some students. Four out of 13 said they experienced some disappointments. The written comments showed that one student was disappointed because their partner’s post lacked detailed descriptions and also included spelling mistakes. She also felt anxious because she could not see her partner’s facial expressions (Student D). Two students complained about Padlet saying it was difficult to scroll up and down to locate some posts (Students I and J). The responses to Question 6 about learning new skills yielded interesting results. Student C wrote, ‘I can now think and write about Japanese culture while thinking how to effectively communicate’, and Student B stated that, ‘I have improved my presentation skills; I can use the vocabulary I know but if I don’t, I can look them up on the internet’. While these students commented on their acquisition of skills, two students responded ‘No’ and five were ‘Not sure’. In an interview, Student F mentioned that she felt regular lessons help improve her English skills more because she and her classmates shared common experiences which led to more active interactions.

Final comments The analysis of learner reflections suggests that the project promoted the Japanese students’ sense of agency and agentic behaviors. Interactions with partners of their own age who were also English language learners made them want to improve their own English abilities and encouraged them to adopt a wider range of communication strategies. In spite of this overall positive impact, the students occasionally experienced some disappointment, and their sense of selfefficacy was not affected to the same degree by all students. The current study is small in scale so the results may not be immediately applicable to other teaching contexts. However, it is hoped that this report is of value to other teachers who are interested in carrying out similar OIE www.modernenglishteacher.com

  Interactions with partners of their own age who were also English language learners made them want to improve their own English abilities and encouraged them to adopt a wider range of communication strategies. 

projects, and that it also sheds light on the potential effectiveness of such projects in helping develop young language learners’ agency. As a final note, we would like to mention the challenges of researching young learners. Throughout the study we took a position of carrying out research with children, rather than research about children (Pinter, 2017). We are aware that because of the difficulty of obtaining a large number of participants and their guardians’ consent forms, this had to be a small-scale study. Furthermore, due to the young learners’ shorter attention span and their lack of meta-language in describing their language experiences, our survey design was too simplistic to claim students’ sense of agency extensively, and the interview sessions were not as thorough as we would have wanted them to be. We were willing to work along with these limitations, though, in order to represent children’s voices as accurately as possible rather than treat them as silenced research participants. Researching young learners is still in its infancy but we believe it is important to manoeuvre these complex and challenging factors when we elicit young learners’ precious voices.

References Brown J (1995) Flat Stanley: His Original Adventure! New York: HarperCollins. Ferguson R F (2015) The influence of teaching beyond standardized test scores: Engagement, mindsets, and agency. The Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University. http://www.agi. harvard.edu/projects/TeachingandAgency.pdf Hubert D (1995) The Original Flat Stanley Project. http://www.flatstanleyproject.com/default.html MEXT (2017a) 小学校学習指導要領（平成29年告 示）解説 (Shogakkou gakushuu shidou youryou heisei 29 nen kokuji kaisetsu) [Elementary School Couse of Study Guidelines] . http://www.mext.go.jp/ content/1413522_001.pdf

MEXT (2017b) 中学校学習指導要領（平成29 年告示）解説 (Chugakkou gakushuu shidou youryou heisei 29 nen kokuji kaisetsu) [Junior High School Course of Study Guidelines]. https://www.mext.go.jp/component/a_ menu/education/micro_detail/__icsFiles/ afieldfile/2018/05/07/1384661_5_4.pdf MEXT (2018) 高等学校学習指導要領（平成30年告 示）解説 [High School Course of Study Guidelines] (Koutougakkou gakushuu shidou youryou heisei 30 nen kokuji kaisetsu) https://www.mext.go.jp/ content/1384661_6_1_3.pdf OECD (2019) OECD Future of education skills 2030 concept note. https://www.oecd.org/ education/2030-project/teaching-and-learning/ learning/learning-compass-2030/OECD_Learning_ Compass_2030_concept_note.pdf Pinter A (2017) Teaching Young Language Learners (2nd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mari Nakamura teaches young learners at her language school in Kanazawa in Japan while managing MELEP, a professional development community for teachers of young learners. She also teaches part time at Kanazawa University. Her main interests are literacy education, intercultural exchange projects, and learner agency. Besides teaching and collaborating with TEYL professionals, she loves listening to music and delights in discovering new up-and-coming artists. Email: [email protected] Keiko Sakui teaches teacher trainer courses at Kobe Shoin Women’s University, Japan. Her extensive professional interests include effective use of digital tools in language classrooms and learner motivation and identity. Her lifetime passion is learning; in her private time, she loves learning different things such as playing the jazz piano and growing organic vegetables. Email: [email protected]

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Inclusion and teaching English Irina Malinina Sees ELT as a ‘treasure trove’ for other subjects.

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started studying how we can teach English to children with special educational needs (SEN) two years ago. At that time, I became a PhD student working on the same thesis topic. For my thesis, I initiated research on how English is taught to learners with autism, Asperger syndrome, dyslexia, etc. My idea was to interview teachers of English in Russian schools, draw on their experience, develop ideas, expand on it and afterwards include it into my dissertation aimed at developing a course on teaching learners with SEN for pre-service teachers. Prior to this, I conducted field research in schools, where I spotted schoolchildren with learning difficulties in almost every class. Some of them struggled reading aloud in English, some could not write well, others were seated at the back of the class not communicating with others and completely neglected. One girl was drawing each lesson and had some unusual monotonous movements. None of the teachers made any attempts to include her into the lesson. I queried why she stayed left out and got

a reply from the teachers: ‘How can we involve her? The curriculum is beyond her skills.’ Interestingly, it was a private highend school which is expensive. I wonder if the girl’s parents knew that she just sat apart. Apart from observations in schools, the second part of my research consisted of conducting interviews with the teachers about their methods of working with learners with SEN. Admittedly, I did not get much mileage from these. The teachers were great and experienced, however I realised that they do not have much to tell me; not because they cannot teach such kids, but because they do not know how to do it. Things are obviously gradually changing in schools and inclusion is gaining ground, but a well-organised, fastidious and consistent inclusion system is not yet in place here. The question that I often hear from the teachers of English in Russia is ‘Tell me how to work with a class of learners www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Young Learners ]

  However everything can change when the teacher approaches the kids and takes part in what they do, and sits next to them, physically staying on the same level with them. 

with SEN’. When I observe the lessons of the teachers, however, I see that they sometimes struggle with teaching even neurotypical students. For example, the teacher squabbles with the learners on and off during the lesson, shouts, demands that the kids sit still, and offers them boring texts to translate sentence by sentence into L1. On top of that, the learners have no opportunity to speak or move around the classroom, do not work at the board, do not write, do not work in pairs and small groups, and the teacher threatens the kids with bad marks. At the same time, the teacher thinks that ‘out there’ there are some experts who possess some sacred knowledge on how to teach English to learners with SEN. The point is that there are actually none. If the teacher widens their repertoire of techniques, methods and approaches, becomes more flexible and sensitive to the learners’ needs and interests, makes the lessons more varied and engaging, then it is not necessary to do anything specifically tailormade for learners with SEN. Professor Martyn Rouse (2006) claims that: ‘(…) most mainstream teachers do not believe they have the skills and knowledge to do this kind of work and that there is an army of “experts” out there to deal with these students on a one-to-one basis or in small more manageable groups.’ The hard part is that it is almost impossible www.modernenglishteacher.com

to explain it to other people. Some time ago I sent my article on inclusion with some memory enhancing exercises and other techniques which we deployed in a class with learners with disabilities to a prominent referenced journal for English teachers. The reply was along the lines of ‘Yes, this is all well and good, but what you’re writing about works for neurotypical learners. How about something specific for learners with SEN?’. Time and time again I try to espouse a positive attitude towards inclusion and explain that all the principles for working with neurotypical kids are effective for learners with SEN as well. This is so much more possible in English lessons because ELT professionals have contributed to developing methods and approaches of teaching. The techniques used in language learning benefit the entire educational area and have been borrowed by pedagogical design specialists. For example, the ideas of reviewing main concepts before building on them, using familiar topics for presenting the target language, building and/or raising schemata, giving clear instructions, scaffolding tasks, and using visual stimuli, etc. Hence, English teachers are effectively equipped to teach all types of learners. English teachers can share their experience with their colleagues and lead the change. Inclusion is bound to involve the whole school with complete transformation of all tiers of school life, e.g. interaction with parents, building peer collaboration systems, developing antibullying programs, involving all teachers in being change ambassadors. Stand-alone one-class inclusion is not viable because after an English class a child goes to other lessons, and ideally the same standards and values should be maintained on all levels of school life. Inclusion is a project

for the whole school, a sort of ‘grit in the oyster’, which means refusal of the preponderance of outdated authoritative methods of teaching. First and foremost, this is refusal of the ‘didactic “lecture style” whole-class teaching’ (Rouse, 2006). Some teachers do not leave the teacher’s desk during the lesson or they remain glued to the blackboard. However, everything can change when the teacher approaches the kids and takes part in what they do, and sits next to them, physically staying on the same level with them. It works a treat, I assure you. Those who were uninterested light up and the disruptive kids get interested in what is going on. Here, ELT can also prove useful since classroom and behaviour management techniques are thoroughly covered in ELT literature as well. Thus, the ELT field may serve as a treasure trove for teachers of other subjects.

References Rouse, M (2006) Enhancing Effective Inclusive Practice: Knowing, doing and believing. Kairaranga 7 Special edition 7–13

Irina Malinina is a teacher of English who has been in the ELT field for 25 years. She is teaching a course on special educational needs on MA program at the National University of Science and Technology in Moscow. She holds a Cambridge Delta and is currently a PhD student at the Russian Academy of Education.

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Applying the FMU framework Flora Debora Floris Describes using the FormMeaning-Use approach to grammar.

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rammar is essential because it lays the groundwork for effective communication. This is depicted in Sesnan’s metaphor that if language is a ‘building’, then the words are the ‘building blocks or bricks’, and grammar is ‘the architect’s plan’ (Sesnan, 2001: 54). Without any plan, an architect would not build a building even though he has millions of bricks. In the same way, it can be said that knowing thousands of words in English means nothing if the person does not know how to use them. Therefore, it is also very important to use accurate and proper grammar to clarify meaning and intent. Knowing how and when to use correct grammar will help speakers avoid errors that obstruct the intended meaning and cause misunderstandings.

In the second or foreign language context, many language teachers focus on grammar as a stand-alone subject where grammar forms and rules are presented, and grammar exercises are assigned to their students. Often, this technique results in students who can get perfect scores on exercises but make errors when they try to communicate using the language because learners may know the grammatical rules but not the meaning and the use of the rules. As noted by Celce-Murcia & Larsen Freeman (1999: 9): Grammar is not merely a collection of forms but rather involves the three dimensions of (morpho) syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Approaches ]

Grammatical structures not only have a morphosyntactic form, they are also used to express meaning (semantics) in context-appropriate use (pragmatics). Grammar is not about form alone, as it has much to do with meaning and appropriate use as well. This further implies that teaching/learning grammar should involve more than mechanical, rote memorisation of grammar rules or forms. It should enable students to use grammatical structures accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately. Teaching should help learners gain mastery of grammar form, meaning, and use (FMU) (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999). In the sections that follow, I will present a brief summary of the FMU framework and discussions on how corpus-based teaching, task-based teaching, and cooperative learning may be used to support the FMU framework in teaching grammar.

Form, Meaning and Use (FMU) Framework The term FMU itself was coined by Celce-Mursia & Larsen-Freeman in The Grammar Book (1999).

  Corpora provide data representing real authentic English and shows evidence of how grammar is used in real-life situations.  Use refers to the context in which the language is used. Sentences that use first and second person pronouns (‘I think that you should not judge a book by its cover’), for example, are more common in spoken language or informal types of writing than in written formal or academic contexts (‘The author suggests the reader should not judge a book by its cover’). Good morning is a common greeting we use with colleagues, friends, family members, supervisors, and teachers when we see them in the morning. However, we would probably not say Good morning to our supervisor who comes late to work. These examples show that, in addition to the form and the meaning components, our learners need to pay attention to the contexts of communication. Having the correct grammatical form will be meaningless if the form is not used in the appropriate context.

Form refers to the language rules, and this is what most people think of when they hear or read the word ‘grammar.’ There are many rules in English. The present perfect, for example, is formed with have plus the past participle of the main verb; tired of is followed by a gerund, not an infinitive; clauses are classified into independent (main) and dependent (subordinate) clauses, etc. We need to follow these specific rules if we want to use the language to communicate.

The three dimensions are inter-connected and not hierarchically arranged. Knowing grammar involves knowing how to use the form to gain an intended meaning in a given context. This further implies that grammar should be taught in such a way that learners will understand the how, why, and where a correct structure can be used to achieve an intended meaning in a particular context (Celce-Murcia & Larsen Freeman, 1999).

Meaning refers to the semantic component, which is also important in communication. These two sentences, I saw someone and I am seeing someone, for example, are both grammatically correct, but they have very different meanings. This example shows how grammar contains both form and semantic (meaning) components. Our learners need to know the correct structure and use that structure to convey their intended meaning.

One of the authentic sources that can be very useful in supporting the FMU framework in teaching grammar is a corpus (plural, corpora). A corpus is generally defined as a large collection of thousands or millions of naturally occurring spoken and written words expressed by English language users, stored for the purpose of language study in an electronic database (Thornbury, 2007). Corpora provide many instances of language use in real life. Such authentic

www.modernenglishteacher.com

Corpus

data aids teachers and learners of English in understanding how words are used in the language. Corpora, for example, can reveal the syntactic environment or grammatical structures that certain words are typically found with (Thornbury, 2007). Corpora can help learners compare similar words and find the difference between these words (Woo, 2012 as cited in Jones, 2017). The words request and ask, for example, have pretty much the same meaning, but they are actually different. Corpora can show us that the words that precede and follow request and ask are different. ‘You can ask for a favor, but we don’t really request a favor. You can make a request, but you can’t make an ask’ (Jones, 2017, para. 7). Corpora can also assist students in understanding collocations. For example, a corpus can inform our students that English speakers say winding road, not twisty road or curly road (2017). Corpora provide data representing real authentic English and shows evidence of how grammar is used in real-life situations. This particular characteristic, which is not available in any of the traditional tools, is very beneficial for language learning. Therefore, using corpora might be a good idea as the information obtained can be used to provide authentic examples of how a particular grammar feature is used in an authentic context.

Task-based language teaching Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) or Task-Based Instruction (TBI), developed by N. Prabhu, offers a change from the grammar practice routines that focus more on forms to grammar lessons that are in line with the FMU perspective. TBLT itself refers to ‘an approach based on the use of tasks as the core unit of planning Volume 31

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and instruction in language teaching’ (Richards & Rogers, 20012: 23). A task in TBLT is defined as a ‘classroom activity which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form’ (Nunan, 1989: 10). A TBLT lesson, as suggested by Willis (1996), involves the following stages: Pre-task stage: At this stage, the teacher introduces and defines the topic and highlights useful words or phrases or expressions. Learners are given tasks, such as brainstorming or accessing a corpus to find out how a particular word is used in authentic language, to help them recall and learn new words or phrases that will be used in the following stages. Task cycle: At this stage, the teacher gives students opportunities to use the language they already know. Students are usually asked to work in pairs or in small groups to perform a task while the teacher monitors the group activities. When students finish completing the tasks, they prepare a report (oral or written) for the whole class on how the task went, what they had accomplished, and what conclusions they reached. Language focus: This is the final stage in which the teacher highlights specific language features or structures from the task and provides feedback on the learners’ performance and correct students’ mistakes. This is also the stage in which the teacher gives students more practice on the highlighted language features, for example, by doing corpus-based exercises. In TBLT, the focal point of classroom activities is on tasks and meanings. Thus, with the help of TBLT, our learners are prepared to acquire the competence to communicate in English.

Cooperative learning Our students should be given ample chances to produce the target language for meaningful communication, to develop the awareness of the mismatch between what they wish to say and what they say in their target language, and to reflect on their interlocutor’s language use (Swain, 1985, 1997, and 1998 as cited in Mayo, 2015). 76

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Cooperative Learning (CL) may provide an excellent platform for students to practice using their second or foreign language for meaningful communicative purposes. Unlike traditional group work, CL activities are purposely structured to put students in small groups and to get them work together to complete a particular task (Renandya and Jacobs, 2017). Furthermore, CL makes sure that each group member will put in equal effort and play a role in completing the defined task. For example, in the Jigsaw technique, each student will be responsible for mastering a particular topic and explaining that topic to other group members. The ultimate advantage of such activity is that each student will have opportunities to practise a range of language functions with people they know in a friendly, non-threatening natural setting. Though CL provides benefits for learners’ language development, some teachers have expressed their concern that students might start to ‘learn incorrect language from their peers’ (Renandya and Jacobs, 2017: 106). To this, Porter (1986) states that there is evidence that learners would not pick up each other’s errors or miscorrect each other. In the same vein, Renandya and Jacobs (2017) believe that students can still learn from each other because each person has his/ her own strengths and weaknesses as a language learner.

Conclusion All in all, the teaching of grammar in second or foreign language contexts should aim to assist students to use grammar accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately. Using corpora might be a good idea as the information obtained can be used to provide authentic examples of how a particular grammar feature is used in an authentic context. To teach grammar from the FMU point of view, TBLT might be implemented as it contextualises the teaching of grammar in a way that would lead to a naturalistic production of the target language; and CL might be used to facilitate a better language learning process. Learning grammar from the FMU perspective enables learners to see how meaning and context relate to form.

  Our learners need to know the correct structure and use that structure to convey their intended meaning. 

References Celce-Muria M & Larsen-Freeman D (1999) The grammar book: An ESL/EFL teacher’s course (2nd edn.) Heinle & Heinle. Jones T (2017) Using corpus linguistics. Retrieved on 5 July 2021 from http://azargrammar.com/ teacherTalk/blog/2017/08/using-corpus-linguistics/ Larsen-Freeman D (2001) Teaching grammar. In M Celce-Murcia (ed), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 251–266). Heinle & Heinle. Mayo MPG (2015) Collaborative tasks and their potential for grammar instruction in second/ foreign language contexts. In A Benati, C Laval & MJ Arche (Eds.) The grammar dimension in instructed second language learning (pp. 82-102) Bloomsbury. Nunan D (1989) Designing tasks for the communicative classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Porter PA (1986) How learners talk to each other: Input and interaction in task-centered discussions. In RR Day (Ed.), Talking to learn: Conversation in second language acquisition (pp. 200-22) Newbury House. Renandya WA & Jacobs GM (2017). Cooperative learning: Addressing implementation issues. Indonesian JELT 12 (2) 101-113. Richards JC & Rodgers ST (2001) Approaches and Method in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sesnan B (2001) How to teach English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thornbury S (2007). How to teach vocabulary. Pearson Education Limited. Willis J (1996) A framework for Task-Based Learning. Longman.

Flora Deborah Floris is a senior lecturer at Petra Christian University, Indonesia. Her main interests include language teacher professional development, English as an International Language, and technology-enhanced language learning.

www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Research ]

Applying the research

Naheen Madarbakus-Ring and Stuart Benson Show how research is used in learning and teaching.

I

 the second part of the series, we n profile three more graduates from Victoria University of Wellington, who will describe their research and how it can have an influence on classroom teaching.

Profile 1 Name: Thuy Bui Bio: Thuy Bui is a passionate language teacher with extensive experience in teaching academic communication and language skills at the tertiary level. She has worked with diverse cohorts of students from various language backgrounds and levels both in Vietnam and New Zealand. Her research interests are in the areas of vocabulary and reading pedagogy. Nationality: Vietnamese

www.modernenglishteacher.com

PhD Study: Promoting discovery learning of formulaic language with the aid of online resources: A classroom-based study with intermediate EFL learners Job: Senior Tutor University/Country: Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand

Why did you choose to study at Vic? In 2013 while working at Hanoi National University of Education, I obtained a scholarship to take a blended TESOL Master Course delivered by Victoria University of Wellington and the Regional English Language Centre (RELC) in Singapore. My purpose of taking this course was twofold. I wanted to refresh my research skills and see if I could cope with an intensive PhD study later on. The course turned out to be a game-changer in both my career and personal life. I gained extensive new knowledge about TESOL and, more importantly, had an

amazing chance to work with Professor Frank Boers, who later became my primary PhD supervisor when he came to teach us in Singapore. I was impressed and inspired by his professional achievements. He is not a native speaker, just like me, and he started his career as a language teacher before gradually becoming a renowned applied linguistics

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researcher. This hugely boosted my confidence and doing a PhD at Vic was just a natural next step in my career path. I was lucky to obtain Victoria Doctoral Scholarship at the end of 2014 and started my dream study in Wellington in November 2015.

Describe your PhD study My PhD thesis was on raising EFL learners’ awareness of the ubiquity and usefulness of multi-word expressions (MWEs) in language acquisition. An enthusiastic practitioner from an EFL context, I decided to do a classroom-based study to experiment with a vocabulary teaching technique called text-chunking (Lewis, 1993, 1997). The data collection was implemented among 54 Vietnamese second-year students over 15 weeks. The two classes were randomly assigned as the comparison group and experimental group. Both groups read the same texts and did the same comprehension exercises in reading lessons. While the former group had follow-up discussions, the latter would work in pairs to identify potential multi-word expressions in the texts and subsequently verify their hunches using online dictionaries or BNC-COCA. The analysis of the pretest and post-test results and survey responses showed better retention of target MWEs and better awareness of the language phenomenon among experimental students. Also, students’ pairwork discussions revealed their use of interesting strategies to identify MWEs in authentic texts. My knowledge and research skills improved substantially during my PhD journey, which has enabled me to do continuous action research in my own classes in the pursuit of more effective teaching approaches.

What is your job? I work as a senior tutor at the University Studies and English Language Division (USEL), at Lincoln University, New Zealand. I teach the pre-sessional EAP program which prepares international students for their undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Lincoln. Through this program, students not only improve

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their academic English skills but also work on their basic research skills such as searching and evaluating academic resources, note-taking, and synthesising useful information into their writing. I am currently responsible for developing a new course, Academic Communication for Undergraduates (ACEN103). In this course, I work with both domestic and international students to help them build up on their critical reading and writing skills in different academic genres, including annotated bibliographies, business reports, lab reports, and argumentative essays.

How do you use your research in your current position? Although my current job does not include a research component, adopting a research-informed approach has always been my teaching principle. With the knowledge and research experience gained from my PhD study, I have tried to apply recent research findings in my classes, especially in reading lessons. For example, I introduce my students to a reading ‘system’ with speed reading, intensive reading, extensive reading, and vocabulary development. My students are encouraged to practice this whole ‘system’, both within and outside classroom time. I also recommend a text-chunking activity in class, highlighting the importance of acquiring a broad repertoire of MWEs, apart from single words, to enhance students’ comprehension and fluency. On the research front, I am working on a journal article in collaboration with my former supervisors, Professor Frank Boers at Western University, Ontario, Canada, and Professor Averil Coxhead at Victoria University, Wellington and two other well-known vocabulary researchers. This will be the second article based on a data set from my PhD research. It is about how raising learners’ awareness of phraseology could benefit their writing performance.

How do you think your research helps your learners?

to students clearly and systematically. I believe that students learn much more effectively when they understand why they are doing what they are doing. As a language learner and a novel researcher myself, I can identify very well with my students at the early stage of their academic journey. Therefore, I can give them practical advice to overcome common issues and thrive in university studies in a foreign country.

Describe an activity you use with your students which helps them improve their English An excellent illustration of my applying vocabulary research findings in my teaching is my recommendation of the Academic Spoken Wordlist (Dang, Coxhead & Webb, 2017) to EAP students. While the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) works really well with higher level students of mine, I was searching for a less challenging academic word list for my lower-level students. I started to introduce the corresponding part of the list based on their Vocabulary Levels Test results. The students would then self-rate their knowledge of each word and set themselves weekly vocabulary learning goals. I also assign part of the chosen list on https://www.vocabulary.com for students’ self-access and practise. We review the weekly list regularly through pop quizzes or students sharing the new words they have learnt. Students find these activities very beneficial since the activities can increase their exposure to new vocabulary items and help them memorise the words better. Email: [email protected]

References Coxhead A (2000) A new academic word list. TESOL quarterly 34 (2) 213–238 Dang T N Y, Coxhead A & Webb S (2017) The academic spoken word list. Language Learning 67 (4) 959–997 Lewis M (1993) The lexical approach: The state of ELT and a way forward. Hove UK: LTP Lewis M (1997) Implementing the Lexical Approach: Putting theory into practice. Hove UK: LTP

My research provides me with a profound insight to explain my teaching approach

www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Research ]

Profile 2

During my time there, I helped the team with finalising a survey report entitled In Our Own Words which was on sexual harassment in the New Zealand student population. I also devised a survey on student mental health in New Zealand universities. This survey report, entitled Kei Te Pai, was published in 2018. I then started my British Academy Fellowship in June 2018.

Name: Khadij Gharibi Bio: Khadij Gharibi is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at UiT the Arctic University of Norway. Prior to starting this role, she was a Newton Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Essex, where she conducted a research project funded by the British Academy. Khadij is interested in both psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics of heritage language bilingualism. Nationality: Iranian PhD Study: Incomplete Acquisition, Attrition, and Maintenance of Heritage Speakers’ Family Language: Iranians in New Zealand Job: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow University/Country: UiT Arctic University of Norway/Norway Title: My academic journey from New Zealand to the Arctic

Why did you choose to study at Vic? I always wanted to do a PhD and work in academia as a lecturer. I knew how much I enjoyed teaching since I started a position at a university in Iran during the second year of my Masters studies. I also loved doing research. When I started looking for countries to do my PhD in, New Zealand was one of my top destinations. Specifically, the Linguistics and Language Studies (LALS) school was the research hub for vocabulary which I was interested in. I looked for potential supervisors and Professor Frank Boers was the first person I contacted. I was so thrilled when I received Frank’s response, saying that he was interested in my research proposal. I was then offered a PhD candidature position at LALS where I was so excited to join as a researcher – and where Professor Janet Holmes (one of the nicest human beings I have ever met) was based. I started my PhD in October 2012, and two months later, I was offered

www.modernenglishteacher.com

What is your job? a Victoria Doctoral Scholarship, which certainly marks one of the best days of my life in New Zealand.

Describe your PhD study My PhD research focused on heritage language acquisition, attrition, and maintenance in the Iranian diaspora in New Zealand. This project, which at the time was the only study on both psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics of heritage language bilingualism, was innovated by mixing quantitative and qualitative analyses to provide explanatory adequacy for discovering various aspects of heritage language bilingualism. The main contribution of my doctoral project was highlighting that psycholinguists and sociolinguists should work in partnership to better uncover the trajectories of heritage language development.

What did you do after finishing the PhD? Before depositing my PhD thesis to the library in December 2016, I started looking for academic positions in New Zealand and overseas. I was unable to secure a position in New Zealand, so I contacted Professor Monika Schmid, one of the leading figures in First Language Attrition at the University of Essex in the UK. Monika suggested applying for the Newton International Postdoctoral Fellowship funded by the British Academy. I applied for the Fellowship in February 2017 and while I was waiting to receive the result of my application (it took 6 months for a decision to be made), I was fortunate enough to be hired as a Senior Researcher at the New Zealand Union of Student Associations (NZUSA).

In the first year of my Newton Fellowship, I met Professor Jason Rothman who is a very well-known figure in Heritage Language Bilingualism. Jason advised me to apply for a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Arctic University of Norway, where he was going to be based. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are a set of research fellowships funded by the European Commission to support researchers’ careers and foster excellence in research in the European Union (EU). These actions are among Europe’s most competitive and prestigious research and innovation fellowships. I applied in September 2019 and received a successful result in February 2020. Now, I work in Tromsø as a Marie SkłodowskaCurie Postdoctoral Fellow at UiT the Arctic University of Norway. In this fellowship, I work on my current project, CLICK, with Professor Jason Rothman and Professor Terje Lohndal as my mentors (Gharibi, 2020).

How do you use your research in your current position? In the Marie Curie project, I have diverged from investigating English as a societally dominant language and focus on the impact other languages may have on Persian as a diffused heritage language in the EU. CLICK represents the first novel study on crosslinguistic influence in the context of Heritage Language Bilingualism by investigating the trajectory of the same heritage language in distinct pairings with different societal languages through an online eye-tracking experiment. In this project, I focus on Persian, paired with French and Spanish, to analyse competing and similar features in Persian morphosyntax developed by

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heritage speakers. Since I started this project, I have been working closely with world-leading scholars in our team at the PoLaR lab which enables me to inject more online research into my repertoire and gain further knowledge into conducting psycholinguistic research. This would certainly provide me with the necessary support to broaden my expertise and skills and enable me to offer cutting-edge discoveries on heritage speakers’ underlying grammars to the field of Heritage Language Bilingualism.

Will your research have any impact on English Language learning? My research has focused mainly on heritage language development in contact with different societal languages (particularly English). Therefore, it mainly contributes to our understanding of language development in general. In addition, it encourages immigrant parents to help their children develop their ethnic language along with societal languages (e.g., English).

Email: [email protected] / Khadij. [email protected]

References Gharibi K (2018–2020) Issues of Attrition and Transmission in Heritage Language Development. Newton International Fellowship British Academy UK Gharibi K (2020-2022) Cross-Linguistic Influence of Competing Knowledge: Comparative Morphosyntactic Variations in Heritage Language Development. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. Horizon 2020. European Commission.

Profile 3

and work as a researcher at a higher level. Because of this, I started thinking about pursuing and completing a PhD. Therefore, I began to explore Name: Say Phonekeo PhD scholarship opportunities for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Bio: Say Phonekeo is an English lecturer (ASEAN) as provided by the government at the Department of Foreign Languages, of New Zealand. I was so enthusiastic Faculty of Education, National University by the opportunity to apply for this of Laos, Lao PDR. His interests and scholarship. I started the process and specialisation include critical reading, then I was offered a scholarship as one of curriculum development, EFL English education development, language teaching the successful applicants in 2016. After that I began researching the names of methodology and classroom-based research. He co-published a journal article prominent researchers who had expertise in the area of critical thinking in English with Professor John Macalister entitled as a foreign language (EFL) reading. I was ‘Reading performance and perceptions of impressed and inspired by Prof. John Lao EFL pre-service teachers following a Macalister’s work in developing critical Culture of Thinking implementation’ as reading and understanding language part of his PhD project. teacher cognition. I was even more intrigued by the research achievements Nationality: Lao PDR in the Department of Linguistics and Language Studies (LALS) at Victoria PhD Study: Implementing a culture of University of Wellington. In addition, I had thinking in Laos EFL pre-service teacher found a renowned PhD programme where education: A case of reading their research was constantly recognised internationally. For these reasons, Job: Lecturer/researcher I applied to study at this university as I hoped to gain comprehensive and University/Country: National University meaningful knowledge, as well as of Laos, Lao PDR unforgettable experiences, from the opportunity. Title: Creating a culture of thinking through reading

Why did you choose to study at Victoria University of Wellington? Once I completed my Masters degree in 2009, I thought that it was not enough for me to become a university lecturer. I wanted to advance my professionalism 80

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Describe your PhD study My study had two phases. The first phase aimed to investigate pre-service teachers’ prior experiences of reading and learning to read in English, the current state of reading instruction, and the extent to

which a culture of thinking (CoT) was practised when teaching reading in the Lao EFL pre-service teacher education context. A CoT is defined as ‘a place where a group’s collective as well as individual thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as the regular, dayto-day experience of all group members’ (Ritchhart, Church & Morrison, 2011: 219). To achieve the Phase 1 aims, an exploratory study was employed and a qualitative method was utilised to collect and analyse the data. The second phase aimed to determine the effects of the CoT implementation on reading comprehension development, learning engagement, and to elicit the perceptions of learning reading in Lao EFL preservice teacher education. To accomplish the Phase 2 aims, a quasi-experimental design was adopted. The data were collected through a pre-test, immediate post-test, delayed-test, direct classroom observations, a pre-post survey, and focus group interviews. They were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods (Phonekeo, 2020). www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Research ]

What is your job? I currently work as the deputy director of the Foreign Languages Department, Faculty of Education, National University of Laos in Lao PDR. My role includes administrative work and teaching undergraduate students, master’s students, and PhD students. I teach English for Academic Purposes, General English, Writing, and Pronunciation. I also support students’ learning by using reading strategies and encouraging their own culture of thinking for them to practise communication and critical reading skills. My job also involves conducting research. I am encouraged to write articles for domestic journals.

How do you use your research in your current position? My PhD project has been supporting the work that I currently do. I have been collaborating with a few researchers at my institution to conduct classroombased research. I have also been working on journal articles to be presented at local conferences. I am currently working with colleagues to develop English teaching materials that reflect locality. Although this is not directly my research area, I find that by networking with other lecturers who work in the local area can broaden my experience and professionalism. In addition, this allows me stay in touch with others and also keep up-to-date with current and local research.

How do you think your research helps your learners? I teach four courses: General English 2, Writing, Pronunciation, and English for Academic Purposes. For these courses, I have included reading strategies and critical reading skills to encourage in-depth, meaningful discussion and interaction among students. In this way, the students can wonder about and discuss as well as summarise and evaluate the main points of the reading text. I am currently applying thinking routines (e.g., See-Think-Wonder) in the teaching of English reading (part of the General English course), to encourage learners to take their own responsibility and foster critical thinking in learning

www.modernenglishteacher.com

  My research encourages immigrant parents to help their children develop their ethnic language along with societal languages (e.g., English).  English. In using this three-step thinking routine, the students first see some abstract or concrete pictures related to the reading text. The students then think individually by noticing the pictures before they wonder in groups of three or four to discuss questions (e.g., What do you see? What do you think about the pictures? And what do you wonder about the pictures?). This thinking routine allows the students to ponder and interact with their fellow classmates before reading the text. This activity also helps activate their prior knowledge of the text to be interacted with.

Describe an activity you use with your students which helps them improve their English I strongly recommend using summarising strategies and evaluating the main points after reading a text. In this task, I first encourage my students to take notes of the main gist. The students are then asked to summarise the reading by using their own words while maintaining the original ideas of the text. They then compare the answers with their peers and further discuss any similarities and differences according to the text as the evaluation process. Finally, a representative of each group summarises the main points orally to the class, which allows for meaningful interactions to emerge between the whole class. This strategy is currently used to teach reading in my General English 2. By having students practise doing this, it has become a culture of the class. This approach can also help develop summarizing skills, foster meaningful discussions, shape learner experiences, and enhance cooperative learning in learners (Phonekeo & Macalister, 2021).

Email: [email protected]

References Macalister J (2012) Pre-service teacher cognition and vocabulary teaching. RELC Journal 43 (1) 99111. doi: 10.1177/0033688212439312 Phonekeo S (2020) Implementing a culture of thinking in Lao EFL pre-service teacher education: A case of reading. (PhD Thesis) Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Phonekeo S & Macalister J (2021) Reading performance and perceptions of Lao EFL preservice teachers following a Culture of Thinking implementation. Reading in a Foreign language 33 (1) 55-77 Ritchhart R, Church M & Morrison K (2011) Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Series coordinators Naheen Madarbakus-Ring is a lecturer at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business in Japan. She received her PhD from Victoria University of Wellington in 2021. She has taught in South Korea, the UK and New Zealand. Her research areas include listening strategies, curriculum design, and material development. Stuart Benson is an Associate Professor at the University of Aizu in Fukushima, Japan. He has taught in Japan and New Zealand. His areas of interest are ESP in nonuniversity settings, vocabulary acquisition, and corpus linguistics. His current research investigates technical vocabulary in spoken rugby discourse.

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The book I always refer to Rachel Appleby Chooses her go-to title.

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came across John Hattie only quite recently, but on several occasions: in 2017 at a talk with Zhenya Polosatova in Kiev, in an OUP position paper, and again at a mentoring event at ELTE University, Budapest. I bought the ebook but soon realised I needed a hard copy, now full of post-its and margin notes.

My second disclaimer is that it’s not specifically for language teachers. The research was drawn from studies in education in general.

This volume is not intended as a reference book (which is how I largely use it). It’s structured to be read from start to finish: Part 1 summarises 15 years’ research and the synthesis of thousands of studies on students’ achievements in schools (this became Hattie’s 2008 publication Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement); Part 2 focuses on how to run effective lessons based on that research; Part 3 comprises a series of ‘mind frames’ – implications for (teachers and) school leaders for achieving the best impacts on student learning. While the scope is huge, it’s the attention to detail I value. I dip into it when working on a project, if I’m swamped in too much information, and need to stand back: the insights offered help me rethink what I’m doing.

The book is about making learning visible: what factors do you think influence your students’ success? Using Table 1, try the following exercise: which factors do you think most influence learning?

Although it has a page-count of 286, the main text is just short of 200 pages: the rest comprises indices and appendices.

The results, based on the research, are in Appendix D of the book. You might expect class size, checking homework, and a teacher’s subject knowledge to impact highly. However, Hattie has proven that it’s the teacher-student relationships, students’ own expectations, and evaluation which rank high. A phrase which keeps reoccurring is ‘know thy impact’ – and to ‘act on this knowing and understanding’ (p. 23). The book covers numerous areas of teaching and learning activity, including motivation, behaviour and strategies. I have found the sections on questions www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Reviews ]

INFLUENCE

  The book is about making learning visible: what factors do you think influence your students’ success?  and feedback especially insightful. The index is comprehensive. Throughout, there are user-friendly summaries of successful interventions, and practical step-by-step guidance for their successful implementation. Each middle-section chapter ends with a series of exercises. In brief, Chapter 1 clarifies that ‘visible learning’ means making learning visible to both teachers and students. ‘Visible teaching and learning occurs when learning is the explicit and transparent goal, when it is appropriately challenging, and when the teacher and student both [...] seek to ascertain whether and to what degree the challenging goal is attained’ (pp 17–18). I’ll now briefly mention the content of the chapters, highlighting nuggets which have struck me as particularly interesting, rather than providing a summary. Chapter 2 summarises the research and findings detailed in Hattie’s 2008 visible learning publication. A key discovery was that almost any intervention, any change www.modernenglishteacher.com

IMPACT

Ability grouping/tracking/streaming

High

Medium

Low

Acceleration (for example, skipping a year)

High

Medium

Low

Comprehension programs

High

Medium

Low

Concept mapping

High

Medium

Low

Cooperative vs individualistic learning

High

Medium

Low

Direct instruction

High

Medium

Low

Feedback

High

Medium

Low

Gender (male compared with female achievement)

High

Medium

Low

Home environment

High

Medium

Low

Individualizing instruction

High

Medium

Low

Influence of peers

High

Medium

Low

Matching teaching with student learning styles

High

Medium

Low

Meta•cognitive strategy programs

High

Medium

Low

Phonics instruction

High

Medium

Low

Professional development on student achievement

High

Medium

Low

Providing formative evaluation to teachers

High

Medium

Low

Providing worked examples

High

Medium

Low

Reciprocal teaching

High

Medium

Low

Reducing class size

High

Medium

Low

Retention (holding back a year)

High

Medium

Low

Student control over learning

High

Medium

Low

Student expectations

High

Medium

Low

Teacher credibility in eyes of the students

High

Medium

Low

Teacher expectations

High

Medium

Low

Teacher subject matter knowledge

High

Medium

Low

Teacher-student relationships

High

Medium

Low

Using simulations and gaming

High

Medium

Low

Vocabulary programs

High

Medium

Low

Whole language programs

High

Medium

Low

Within-class grouping

High

Medium

Low

Table 1 Factors influencing learning (Hattie, 2012: 24)

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you make in a classroom, can have an impact, but this book is about knowing what the best factors are, and how to implement them. The conclusions from the 2008 research were cast as six signposts towards excellence in education, three of which are as follows: ■ Teachers are among the most powerful influences in learning ■ Teachers need to be aware of what each and every student in their class is thinking and what they know ■ Teachers and students need to know the learning intentions and the criteria for student success for their lessons (Hattie, 2008: 22) Chapter 3 summarises for me what a great teacher is: Expert teachers ... – can identify the best ways to teach their subject

  Expert teachers ... – can identify the best ways to teach their subject – can create an optimal classroom climate – monitor learning and provide feedback – believe all students can reach the success criteria.  interest has been the use of questions in classrooms. One outcome from the research highlighted how teachers often give stronger students more time to answer questions than weaker students. Another stop-and-think moment was that: ‘when students do not learn, they do not need “more”; rather, they need “different”’ (p. 93). That’s more than enough to challenge me every lesson!

Mind frame 7: Teachers/leaders believe that it is their role to develop positive relationships in the classrooms/staffrooms.

Chapter 6 discusses the learning in the lesson: ‘Learning is often “in the head” and an aim of the teacher is to help to make this learning visible’ (p. 103). Hattie suggests starting with the desired result – the success criteria – and working backwards: what is the gap between where the student(s) is/are now, and where you want them to be?

So, if you’re looking for a step-back moment, or even a minor shake-up with colleagues, a topic-focused extract from Visible Learning for teachers: maximising impact on learning (Hattie, 2012) would serve wonderfully for a reading group discussion. Happy reading!

Chapter 7 deals with feedback – a pillar in this volume. Here, feedback is made tangible and wide-reaching; not least, it must be provided at an appropriate level, and at the right time for where the student is in their learning.

Boyd E, Green A, Hopfenbeck TN & Stobart G (2019). Effective feedback: the key to successful assessment for learning. ELT position papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The mind frames encourage teachers to see it as their primary role to evaluate their effect on learning. For me, the two major messages here are about enhancing teacher quality, and for staff to work collaboratively.

–  can create an optimal classroom climate –  monitor learning and provide feedback – believe all students can reach the success criteria. I wish I could tick all those qualities; ticking some is certainly moving in the right direction. Part 2, comprising five chapters, focuses on five stages of the lesson – preparing, starting learning, the flow of the lesson, feedback and the end of a lesson. These sections help apply the research findings into the key stages of decision-making for teaching. Chapter 4 – Preparing the lesson: ‘One of the major messages from Visible Learning (2008) is the power of teachers learning from and talking to each other about planning’ (p. 67). This reminds me of favourite staffrooms, as well as the huge impact of informal online meetings, such as the BESIG Break Room, #ELTchat and #SIGTweetMeets. Hattie suggests that a topic-focused team meeting every two or three weeks, specifically discussing the impact of teaching, can impact significantly on student learning. Chapter 5 focuses on the importance of class atmosphere, and dialogue (as opposed to monologue). My main 84

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The final chapter in this middle section deals with the end of the lesson and has an insightful if short section of further opportunities for really going the extra mile (in case you hadn’t already!). Part 3, comprising Chapter 9, summarises the eight mind frames. I’d recommend this to school managers, senior teachers, and anyone wanting to understand how success is achieved. I’ll mention just two, ‘manifesto-like’ mind frames: Mind frame 1: Teachers/leaders believe that their fundamental task is to evaluate the effect of their teaching on students’ learning and achievement.

References

Hattie J (2008) Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London: Routledge. Polosatova Z (2017) ‘Motivating Unmotivated?’ Available at: https://wednesdayseminars.wordpress. com/2017/02/09/motivating-unmotivated

Rachel Appleby is a teacher and trainer based in Budapest, Hungary, with over 25 years’ experience, mostly in Business English and tertiary education. She is a CELTA trainer, and also co-author of Business one : one, the only course book series for this context, published by OUP. Her website is rachelappleby.edublogs.org.

www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Reviews ]

Reviews Fortune

Chasing Time English See page 87 for details

New Zealand based company Chasing Time English is embracing the growing online learning trend. Believing video to be the most effective way to engage modern learners, their goal is to create video content which can stand on its own as entertainment, while also providing the core material for an English language course. Their latest production is an Upper Intermediate course built around an episodic series called Fortune. The version I reviewed is available as a self-study course on the learning platform, FutureLearn. Fortune is a six-episode drama that seeks to engage its audience with intrigue, humour and tension. It follows private detective Jimmy Fortune as he tries to track down an old friend who has seemingly been kidnapped. Each episode is between 4–6 minutes long and has been created, from ‘script to screen’, in-house at Chasing Time English. Watched back-to-back all six episodes comprise about 30 minutes of content. The quality of the writing, production and acting is to a professional standard and the story is quite engaging. However, the plot is complicated and a lot of story is crammed into the 30 minutes. I needed to revisit some episodes before moving forward, and I suspect students may have to do the same. The course is advertised as taking six weeks, with three hours of work per week. However, www.modernenglishteacher.com

it is also described as asynchronous and self‑paced. My sense is that those who undertake the course will progress more quickly than the recommended six weeks. Naturally, the course could be supplemented with other materials. It is not hard to imagine how the series could be incorporated into a typical 20-hour-per-week Upper Intermediate course. While the original TV content is a unique selling point, the surrounding materials are your standard ESL fare. The lessons take the familiar coursebook arc; before each video is a vocabulary preview, each video is followed by multiple choice questions. Every episode is connected to a discrete grammar lesson and a functional language scenario. The reading and writing activities are also tangentially linked to that week’s episode of Fortune. While the materials are practical, the activities can at times be too dependent on recall memory; learners are regularly required to remember an exact phrase from an episode. While this may encourage learners to focus on the language in an episode, some more focus on meaning activities would be desirable. As it is an online course, user experience is an important factor for Chasing Time English’s content. It is part of the FutureLearn platform, which hosts hundreds of MOOCS for a range of university standard courses. Chasing Time English’s content provides the standard learning management system (LMS) experience. For better or worse, learning on an LMS is becoming a common experience in education. Fortune and its surrounding materials may be a good opportunity for ESL learners to develop their LMS literacy: an increasingly necessary skill. At times, however, this course can become a little click-heavy. Progression through the pages is logical but can feel somewhat piecemeal as each comprehension question has its own page. One wonders if some activities could have been presented together, rather than item by item.

The obvious apprehension for learning a language online is related to the lack of other people; it is hard to embrace communicative learning when you are isolated behind the screen. Chasing Time English have taken some steps to addressing this, mostly through the comments section on each page. Learners are regularly invited to comment on what they have seen in an episode, or to try some freer practice with the target language. This works well and opens up interesting avenues for learning. The level of learner engagement here is heartening. Scrolling through hundreds of learner responses, I could see the potential of exposing learners to this high volume of comprehensible input in the target language. However, a drawback is that the language is student-generated and therefore often imperfect. Of course, there are numerous ways this could be addressed to the advantage of the learning process, once awareness of the citation has been raised. Whenever assessing language courses, the obvious questions are: could I use this with my class and would I use it if I were a student? As a teacher, there are abundant ways I could exploit these materials in class, and I imagine others would feel the same. However, it is for the self-directed learner that I think the course is most beneficial. The course is engaging, logical and wellconceived. It also benefits from having the novelty factor. I enjoyed following the exploits of Jimmy Fortune and would be happy to do so in other languages. I must stress that the version of the course online is for individual self-study whereas the same content with teacher resources is also available. Mark Rooney Mark Rooney is a teacher and teachertrainer based at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

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[ Reviews ]

Activities for Mediation – Building Bridges in the ELT classroom

An example of mediating a text could be explaining a menu to another person.

Riccardo Chiappini and Ethan Mansur DELTA Publishing (2021) See page 87 for details

with digital extras!

he theory on tasks element in diately. With create your

in

The book begins with brief history of mediation in language learning, interestingly seen as early as 1978 in the works of Vygotsky. The CEFR itself is explained and gives readers a clear background of the aims of the framework and where ‘mediation’ fits in.

Ideas in Action

Three types of mediation ‘activities’ are described in the book: mediating a text, mediating concepts, and mediating communication. Graphics are used to good effect to clarify the differences, while the many similarities are also explained.

Riccardo Chiappini and Ethan Mansur

Activities for Mediation

Activities for Mediation

Building bridges in the ELT classroom

(pp. 9–11) Riccardo Chiappini and Ethan Mansur

DELTA Publishing 29.07.2021 11:00:26

Activities for Mediation – Building Bridges in the ELT classroom is published by DELTA as the latest in their series in teacher development entitled Ideas in Action. The series editor is Jason Anderson and the editor for this book is Kate Baade. The authors, Riccardo Chiappini and Ethan Mansur, are both based in Spain and experienced in materials writing for ELT. The book is aimed at classroom teachers and introduces and explains the concept of mediation in language teaching, offering practical ideas for lessons as well as ways mediation ability may be assessed. The ability to mediate is most seen as the purview of those in the legal profession where a dispute is mediated, but we are actually called upon to mediate in our everyday lives. This was acknowledged by the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for languages) in 2020 when the ability to be able to mediate language was added to the framework in ‘can do’ descriptors (Council of Europe, 2020a). The authors explain that this is part of a paradigm shift in language teaching where the ability to mediate is increasingly important in language learning. Mediation as a language tool is examined through the concept that the user of language is a ‘social agent’ and mediation helps others to build, understand and convey new information. 86

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These activities are broken down into learning outcomes which are taken directly from the CEFRCV (Council of Europe, 2020b). The CV stands for ‘Companion Volume’ which announces updates in the descriptor scales. For example, ‘Mediating a text’ includes the ability to relay specific information, explain data and note taking. Helpfully, the authors then give examples of how everyday classroom activities can develop these abilities, in this case jigsaw readings and film reviews. While both intra-linguistic and cross-linguistic mediation is specified in the CEFR, the authors give good reasons why using the L1 in the classroom could be problematic and offer ways around this. For example, a B1 descriptor from the scales for Relaying specific information: ‘Can relay (in Language B) the contents of detailed instructions or directions, provided these are clearly articulated (in Language A)’ (p. 13), could be accomplished just as well with English to English. Mediation strategies, as dictated by the CEFR, are also explained in detail, in an easy to read and understandable style. For each of the twelve strategies a description is given, followed by practical ideas on how teachers can help develop them. The authors are aware of different learner language levels and age-related differences and offer varying suggestions, for example, ‘In preparation for a mediation task, we can ask our older or higher-level students to find the key points in the source text and then underline or summarise them in a short list in their notebooks. Our younger or lower-level

students, on the other hand, may find it easier to choose the key point or points from a given list of options that we will have carefully prepared beforehand’ (p. 17). The bulk of the book is then given over to very detailed lesson plans. Of the three mediation activities (a text / concepts / communication), the first has the most materials — in fact 28 complete lesson plans, while the other two have six each. This makes sense as there are far more learning outcomes as dictated by the CEFR. The detail in the plans is impressive, and every situation seems to have been covered. Not only are the standard preparation, procedure and language outlined, but suggestions are given for differentiation, variation and extension, feedback and adaptation for the virtual classroom. The last is particularly relevant in the Covid era. Worksheets are also provided and photocopiable, but I would like to have seen some mention of alternatives to printing given the environmental situation. The plans are aimed at a good range of language level, from A1 to C1, with the majority around B1 and B2. The topics of the activities are varied and provide authentic and realistic opportunities for learners to develop their language. The titles of each plan are catchy, and I believe will evoke interest in most learners. To practise mediating a text the titles include ‘B is for Bureaucracy’ where forms need to be filled out; and ‘Debunked’ where learners research news and identify fake news. ‘Black holes’ is an example of a plan to mediate concepts, where multiple sources of information are gathered by learners and the most relevant pieces are collated. To facilitate mediation of communication, one plan is called ‘Culture Collision’ and suggests acting out an intercultural encounter to show understanding. Assessment of these activities is given much thought by the authors who acknowledge it is not without challenges for the assessor. The complexity of interactions involving mediation is recognised, as reception and production skills are required as well as interaction. Useful and specific feedback strategies are offered, including teacher-, self- and peer-led. It is made clear that assessing in an exam setting is not offered in the book, and developing skills is the main aim of the lessons. I’d certainly recommend this book to all teachers, who will benefit from the experience and expertise of these writers and offer their students real opportunities to develop authentic language skills. www.modernenglishteacher.com

[ Reviews ]

References Council of Europe (2020a). Mediation & language teaching & learners: Possible ways forward https:// www.edu.xunta.gal/centros/cfrferrol/aulavirtual/ pluginfile.php/22453/mod_resource/content/1/ FERROL_MARGONIS.pdf Council of Europe (2020b). Common European framework of reference for languages: learning, testing, assessment: Companion volume. Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg.

Caroline White Caroline White is an EAP tutor at Waikato Institute of Technology, Hamilton, New Zealand.

Live Online Teaching: Creative activities for delivering language lessons remotely Lindsay Clandfield and Jill Hadfield Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd (2021) See below for details

for synchronous online teaching using conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Teams, etc. Divided into six sections, there are over 80 activity ideas, many of which also have suggested variations, so there is something for every eventuality here.

geographical region. For younger students there will be safeguarding issues around encouraging interaction without you present as a monitor. However, if you can deal with these challenges, there are great collaborative writing projects and even mingling activities.

The six sections are: Video and Audio; Participation Tools; Shared Screen; Breakout Rooms; Combining Platforms; and Zooming Out. Each section, with the exception of Zooming Out (more about that later), starts with succinct information about the tools involved, then there are brief Technical Tips and finally concise Teaching Tips relevant to the section. Each section ends with Professional Development ideas which are broken down into three groups: Questions for reflection; Things to Try; and Things to Share. I can’t wait to try out some activities with a Teacher Development group and then getting them reflecting, trying out and sharing with colleagues. In a collaborative staffroom, I think you would quickly build up an enormous repertoire of ideas for every occasion.

All the activities in the book are suited to the communicative classroom and there are some great ideas for interacting with students and encouraging them to interact with each other. There are also really good, creative tips for checking students are engaged and active, which involve the switching on and off of cameras, remembering information students previously called on have given, and so on. Whether you have adult or younger learners, multilingual or monolingual classes, a small group or much larger classes, this book has a wealth of ideas than can be used immediately or further adapted or tweaked to suit your students.

The Zooming Out section has some great ideas for tasks for students to do away from their screens. With much school and university work still being completed online, many of my students definitely suffer from screen fatigue, so this creative section is a very necessary and welcome addition. The activities are equally as creative as in the rest of the book, so are ideal for maximising the utility of time spent away from the computer.

This 2021 offering from Pavilion Publishing is a compact 135-page treasure trove of teaching ideas for every imaginable live online teaching scenario. The adjective ‘live’ is important here because the book covers useful activities

Title

Combining Platforms was a particularly interesting section as it includes ideas for classrooms activities which are just not possible using conventional conferencing software such as Zoom. In some contexts, the information in this section may not be relevant as the students may not have access to certain apps (Whatsapp, Facebook), platforms such as Moodle, or document sharing options such as Dropbox or Google Drive. They may be unwilling to register for even a free app if they have privacy concerns, or it may not be possible access to these from your students’

Page Author

Like probably most teachers, I have been teaching online for about 18 months now, so I am comfortable with the tools I use, but I don’t consider myself a technology-savvy teacher. This book hits the sweet spot of starting at a low enough point to be comprehensible and provide useful tips and hints, but swiftly moving on to concrete, practical ideas. Many of the activities will be familiar to many readers, but it’s the way they have been adapted to suit live online teaching in all its guises which is the book’s strong point. It’s definitely a book where you are left thinking, ‘Oh yes, I used to do something like that and it worked really well’ but somehow it lapsed from your repertoire. This is definitely not criticism, it reflects the highly practical and useful nature of the activities. Frankly, I can’t wait to get back into the classroom and try the ideas! Rachel Connabeer Rachel Connabeer is deputy Director of Studies at Hilderstone College English Studies Centre, Kent. Her main interests are creative teaching, academic writing and pronunciation.

Publisher

ISBN

Fortune

85

Chasing Time English

Chasing Time English

N/A

Activities for Mediation – Building Bridges in the ELT classroom

86

Riccardo Chiappini and Ethan Mansur

DELTA Publishing

978-3-12-501744-3

Live Online Teaching: Creative activities for delivering language lessons remotely

87

Lindsay Clandfield and Jill Hadfield

Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd

978-1-914010-41-5

www.modernenglishteacher.com

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[ CPD Essentials ]

CPD Essentials

W

elcome to our new professional development page! It’s designed to help you reflect on what you have been reading in this issue of Modern English Teacher, assist you in trying out some ideas with your classes as part of experiential learning, and to give you some activities you can do with colleagues or as part of a teacher development or training session. The answer to these questions as well as your reflections can be added to your online profession development tool, MyCPD, which comes free* with your subscription (*If you are on a school subscription, please check with the account holder). We hope you find it useful.

Questions for reflection ■ Look back to pages 6–7. How well do you think you support your learners online? What ideas suggested by Lucas would work best with your learners? ■ Think about the text you read on Fostering sociocultural competence, pages 40–41. Is it something you can do with your classes? Why/Why not? If not, is there anything else you could do with your students to include real-life contextualisation and/or different cultures? ■ Re-read Visualising ourselves into stronger educators, pages 12–16. Who was your most influential teacher or coach? How old were you? What subject or activity did they teach you or coach you in? Could you learn from them now?

Things to try ■ Turn back to page 9 to remind yourself how to create a live worksheet for your students. Think about the language you are going to cover next week and what type of activity would work best with your learners. Then prepare and try it out with your next class. Gather student feedback at the end. How well was it received? What did they like best about using it? Would you do anything different next time? How could you adapt it for another class? ■ Re-read From chaos to order, pages 31–33. Follow the steps outlined with a class next week, then review. Is there anything you need to change or do differently? Make some notes so you can amend your plan, then try it again with a subsequent class and assess the results so you can see what you want to take forward with future classes. ■ Pick out an idea from It works in practice, pages 46–47. Is there anything you need to adjust to personalise it for your learners? Make the changes (if necessary), then use the activity in your next class. What worked well? Is there anything you need to adjust for future classes? Make a note, then save the activity in your teaching activity folder (if you don’t have one, think about having one – they are a good idea!) so you can use it again in future.

Things to share ■ Direct your teachers to look at pages 17–20 again, or make copies to circulate for use in your next teacher development session. Suggest everyone reads it ahead of the TD session. Ask the group to take it in turns to share a personal language learning experience, then encourage the group to identify what learner strategies were used, and whether they were used effectively. To finish, get the group to determine which strategies could be used most effectively by their students, and what they can do to encourage leaners to use them, or which strategies could prove to be a barrier to their students’ learning and explain why. ■ Discuss together The brain drain, pages 35–37. Which issues most relate to you as a group? What would you like the school to do, or for you to be enabled to do, to avoid the brain drain? ■ Present Peer mentoring for teachers, pages 48–50 in your next teacher development meeting – or ask one of your teachers to do so. Elicit the key advice then discuss whether your teachers would like to implement the practice. Allow the ideas to flow without interruption – this should be teacher led as much as possible. Then if they decide to implement peer mentoring, provide support (as recommended in the article) and facilitate teachers to do it whether they are working online (perhaps by using recordings of their teaching) or face to face. Your subscription to Modern English Teacher gives you access to MyCPD, our online professional development tracker tool. You can access it in the tab under your profile, where you sign in. You can also find out more about the tool here: www.modernenglishteacher.com/mycpd 88

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Te a c h i n g E n g l i s h

Live Online Teaching Lindsay Clandfield and Jill Hadfield

Creative activities for delivering language lessons remotely

Live Online Teaching examines best practices, outlines key strategies and provides practical activities for teaching live online so that teachers can focus on the art of teaching rather than the mechanics of using an online platform, and enjoy doing what they do best, teach. The activities are classified in sections according to the tools used to create a communicative situation and involve students. Each section includes general methodology, technical tips and practical activities. The book also includes activities for ‘zooming out’, acknowledging that sitting for a long time in front of a screen is not always optimal for learning.

Order now: www.pavpub.com/www.pavpub.com/pavilion-elt/live-online-teaching

Order today for just £29.95 Email: [email protected]

Call: 01273 434 943

ISBN: 978-1-914010-41-5

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