Ih Journal 1i5f6j

IH Journal of education and development

Issue 45

Autumn 2018

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IH Journal – Issue 45

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IH Journal – Issue 45

Contents EDITORIAL

Welcome, Chris Ożóg............................................................................................................................4 YOUNG LEARNERS

Column: Pulling rabbits out of hats! Xana de Nagy...............................................................................6 Six top tips for new younger learner teachers, Amy Gower..................................................................9 Ten things I wish I had known when I started teaching very young learners, Claire Elliot...............13 CLASSROOM IDEAS

Making room for improvement, Beci Green and Luisa Ceccinato.......................................................16 Using electronic concordancers in the classroom, Dana Taylor............................................................20 Creative speaking – storytelling to learn to speak, Maria Conca.......................................................24 Helping learners to get their message across, Tatsiana Khudayerka...................................................28 MANAGEMENT

Working with new teachers: The things they say (part two), Sandy Millin...........................................32 MODERN LANGUAGES

Обучение Аудированию И Чтению: Базовые Категории И Структура Типичного Урока, Andriy Ruzhynskiy............................................................................................................................. 35 TEACHER VOICES

One more step towards ELF, Anna Golc................................................................................................40 Working with a VIP (Visually Impaired Person), Helen Rountree........................................................44 Kissing a stranger: Cultural competence, James Egerton....................................................................48 EXAMS

Column: What I wish I had known when I started teaching exam classes, David Petrie....................52 REVIEWS

How Vocabulary is Learned by Stuart Webb and Paul Nation, Will Greenwood................................55

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IH Journal – Issue 45

Welcome From Chris Ożóg

Welcome to the 45th edition of the International House Journal. We’ve been busy in IHJ Towers putting this latest edition together for you and I’d like to start with a big thank you to all out writers. We have a highly practical, yet thoughtful, collection of articles from committed teachers keen to experiment and share their ideas. There will be something for everyone in the following pages and I hope you enjoy reading. We start with three articles about younger learners (YLs). Regular columnist Xana de Nagy pulls some rabbits out of hats by sharing some tried and tested favourite activities, as well as some sources for new ideas. New to the Journal, Amy Gower follows up with her tips for new YL teachers, something Claire Elliot picks up by moving the focus to VYLs. All three pieces are good to read for new and experienced practitioners alike and would make good additions to set reading on training courses such as CELTA or your in-house IHCYLT. Moving on from younger learners to adults, we have a bumper and varied Classroom Ideas section this time. New writers Beci Green and Luisa Cecchinato share their ideas for what to do if teaching in a particularly large space, reporting on their experiences at IH Torres Vedras. Though discussing teen classes, their ideas are germane to younger learners or adults alike. Dana Taylor takes things from the classroom to the computer and back to the classroom again with a well-researched yet accessible look at using electronic concordancers in class. There are good ideas to try here but, as I mentioned to Dana in private correspondence, my one

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lament about concordancers is that the websites for researching them, such as the excellent LexTutor, often have dated or difficult to navigate interfaces (with notable exceptions, e.g. www. just-the-word.com). This will certainly put off younger teachers brought up with web 2.0 and smart phones, as well as those of a more mature vintage unused to working with computers, and is something developers aiming at teachers would do well to consider. Continuing in the classroom, returning writer Maria Conca reports on her experience of using storytelling in class, having a devised a storytelling syllabus herself, and shares a number of ideas to take into your classroom tomorrow. Tatsiana Khudayerka, another writer making her Journal bow, writes about a related topic: communicative competence. These two articles pair well and Tatsiana’s piece would certainly be a good starting point for candidates exploring speaking as part of their preparations for Delta Module 1 or 2. I have already added it and Maria’s to my Delta reading list to help candidates understand some theory and spark some ideas for speaking lessons.

EDITORIAL

From the classroom to the Director of Studies’ office, Sandy Millin follows up her last piece with part two of her series on working with new teachers. Sandy takes the approach of noting the types of things that novice teachers say and then providing her advice to them. Such advice could be very useful post-CELTA or as part of induction of less experienced teachers in your school. Our Modern Languages article this time is on receptive skills lesson shapes and is written in Russian by Andriy Ruzhynskiy. Andriy is an experienced teacher and trainer, and his contributions are always welcome in the Journal, be they in English or Russian. Russian-speaking teachers of English should also find some food for thought here, so do share with any you know. In our Teacher’s Voices section, Helen Rountree’s first article for the Journal is a fascinating, practical and comionate piece about working with a Visually Impaired Person (VIP) for the first time. Helen talks us through the challenges, the learner’s desire to be treated no differently to anyone else, and the classroom activities she tried as she did her best to incorporate the VIP with as little disruption for her (the VIP) as possible. This is not a topic much written about and so I am delighted Helen took the time to write up her experiences for us all to learn from. We also have James Egerton returning with his take on the importance of teacher cultural competence for those peripatetic teachers amongst us, and first-time writer Anna Golc rounds off the section with her views on the importance of English as Lingua Franca (ELF). Anna looks back to her own experience as an English language learner, something many readers might relate to, and fast-forwards to her life as an English language teacher. In so doing, she provides an interesting personal reflection on her developing ideas. Our final classroom section is exams and regular columnist David Petrie, who offers a more

personal take on exam teaching this time. David’s articles are always thought-provoking and this one is no different, as he muses on his own development as an exam teacher. Taking some key points in exam teaching, David looks at how he’s come to understand these over the years and the implications for teaching. Last but not least, Will Greenwood reviews How Languages Are Learned (Nation and Webb), a new book in the OUP Handbooks for Language Teachers series. Will’s review is thoughtful and accessible, and he writes from the point of view of a teacher who found the book useful. If you’re considering developing your teaching of lexis, you could do much worse than start with Will’s review here.

Chris Ożóg Chris Ożóg is a teacher, teacher trainer and writer, based in the wonderful city of Kobe, Japan. He’s been involved in English Language Teaching for long enough now to have white hairs appearing, usually working for International House, and is the current editor of the IH Journal. Chris also tutors on online training courses with NILE, Bell, IHWO, and Distance Delta.

Welcome • IH Journal • Issue 45

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Column: Pulling rabbits out of hats By Xana de Nagy

Strange title? Yes, I agree. Surely the rabbits don’t like it and it’s not their purpose in life. However, this is what teaching feels like at times. On occasion it can feel like we are constantly expected to come up with new and/or different ideas for our lessons. However, our busy schedules mean that often we don’t have time to stray very far from the coursebooks and the materials they provide. You’re probably thinking, why is that a problem? Coursebooks these days, and in particular young learner coursebooks, are crammed full of lovely materials, activities and extra resources. Sometimes, there are even too many to get through in the time we have. I would agree, however, all of us still need or want to put something of ourselves into each lesson and I know that a question I often hear in the staffroom is, ‘Do you have any ideas for…?’ So, what do you do when you have no ideas? Where do you get your inspiration? Here are some of my go-to sources.

something similar? Do you have a system for sharing ideas that has worked, or even for alerting each other to ideas or materials that haven’t worked?

•• A noticeboard in the staffroom with material or an idea of the week.

•• A troubleshooting section, with comments

and/or questions about materials that have been problematic; such as: Can anyone help with…?

•• A mini informal weekly get-together where teachers share a ‘new’ idea that they have tried out in class.

•• Book of the week – recommendations for

storybooks or other supplementary materials

•• Online teachers’ resources such as Edmodo where teachers can help each other out.

Teachers We are lucky enough to work in thriving schools with teachers who have varied experience, so the first port of call would obviously be the staffroom. Asking colleagues what they have done in similar situations, with similar classes and levels, is by far one of the best solutions. Does your staffroom have an ideas board or

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Training Most schools run in-set training sessions during the academic year for teachers. This could be the seminar programme or something more formal like the IHCYLT or another YL course. Training often provides us with new ideas,

YOUNG LEARNERS

inspiring us to try something completely different or even reminding us of something we already knew but had forgotten about.

Make the most of this by:

•• Trying out one new idea that has been

mentioned in the sessions with one class each week and reporting back to others on the course. Was it a triumph or a fail and why?

•• Reading more about an area that interests you and sharing this with colleagues, in a seminar or something similar.

•• Keeping a notebook with a list of materials

and ideas that are mentioned so that you can easily refer back to it during the year.

•• Becoming familiar with one great YL online

resource like www.carolread.com. This is full of ideas even though she hasn’t added to it recently.

The coursebook As I mentioned earlier, most of us rely on the coursebook and the accompanying materials to help us structure our lessons and provide the necessary activities and materials we need.

•• Use the teacher’s book wisely, make use of

the extra activities and resources. These can often be used for other classes as well. Can they be adapted for a different level?

•• Be selective to avoid repetition – you don’t

have to use everything that is provided. Does it suit your class? Have you done an activity like that before? Did the children enjoy it? Did they find it difficult?

•• Share ideas with colleagues – who is using the same book? Did they do anything different with a particular unit?

•• Check out the publishers’ online resources.

Most of them have excellent additional ideas and activities.

Going online How often do we just type in what we need and rely on the virtual world to help us? I know I do. Do you have a favourite site/blog/podcast to inspire you? Share these with your colleagues. In addition to the above. Here are some favourites that may be worth exploring: https://kahoot.it/ https://www.storylineonline.net/ https://www.spellingcity.com/ https://supersimpleonline.com/ https://www.penpalschools.com/ https://flipgrid.com/ https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

Recycling ‘old, tried and tested’ ideas When I am really stuck, there are some ideas I keep coming back to, I think this is the same for many of us. We know they work and with minimal adaptation we can put a new spin on them.

Here are my top 5:

•• Find someone who – why not get the

learners to make their own. Give them each a card and get them to write down three things about themselves. They then have to get up and find someone who is similar to them in some way. You could leave this completely open or tie it to a topic or language area you are teaching. One example from a colleague (and trainee) who tried this recently, is to have the children write down three of their favourite things. They then had to stand up, walk around and ask: ‘What’s your favourite X?’, until they found someone who had something the same as them.

•• Letters Game – again this could be done off the cuff or by using sets of letters. Learners work in groups to spell/write words – use it for spelling, recycling or practising

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vocabulary by providing definitions and getting them to think of the word and write it, etc.

•• Noughts and Crosses or extend to play a

version of ‘connect 4’ – no need to explain this one, everyone knows it. If you want it to cover more, you can always extend the grid and add an element of fun by having groups ‘blocking’ each other. Use it to practise grammar, vocabulary, speaking (they have to speak on a topic for 30 seconds to get their symbol in the square) or anything else.

used for any level and any age group, all you need is a set of cards which can have pictures and or words. You can even get the children to make the cards first, adding an element of listening and spelling.

•• Reading races – another favourite which

can be adapted to most levels and ages. Lift the material off the page and add some movement to the lesson. Can be used for reading, grammar or vocabulary exercises, speaking, writing and so on.

•• Pelmanism – memory games, ask and answer There may be little that is new here but maybe one to collect pairs, find your partner, etc. Can be

might just be your ‘rabbit’ this week. Have fun!

Xana de Nagy Xana is a teacher/teacher trainer in Lisbon. She started teaching in 1984 and training in 1990. She spends most of her time working on CELTA courses, but also trains on IHCAM, DELTA, IHCYLT courses and runs sessions for state school teachers. She has always had a special interest in teaching children and has a MSc in TEYL.

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Six top tips for new younger learner teachers By Amy Gowers

There are many things that I love about teaching young learners; not at the very least their enthusiasm, their amazement about (almost) everything, their willingness to participate and even the challenges all of these present but I can see why some teachers might not find the chaos of a YL classroom enjoyable. This article is only an overview and all of the ideas presented will be expanded on in future articles. I’ve got lots of experience with teaching YLs, from playgroup aged children to teens, and I’ve used these experiences to compile my list of six top tips for new brand-new teachers of YLs to help them feel more comfortable and at ease in the classroom. I’ve started ing on my experience to colleagues at IH Bydgoszcz and wanted to also share it with a wider audience.

1) Establishing Routines Establishing routines is the number one tool in the YL teacher’s tool kit. Establishing routines and sticking to them can help with almost every area in the classroom, most importantly classroom management. Many of the students in YL classrooms aren’t at the level where they can understand everything that happens or why, and they definitely don’t understand everything the teacher says. Having routines established early on gives the students a concrete framework in which to work and behave. They can understand

and rely on routines to make them feel safe in what may be an unfamiliar situation. Routines help students become aware of teacher expectations and they also provide them with a way of following the lesson without having to understand the concept of time. Three routines I use are: a. Start of the lesson: the students put anything

that can cause a distraction (coats, bags, phones, etc.) on pegs or at the back of the classroom and their books and pens stay under their chairs out of sight but close by. Keeping everything out of their hands keeps them focused on the teacher and the lesson.

b. Giving instructions: the students sit back

on their chairs and put their hands on their head. Getting the students to go back to a “neutral” space away from the excitement of an activity allows the teacher to ensure that all the students are paying attention. Asking them to put their hands on their heads stops them from distracting each other and ihworld.com

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touching any materials that may be out. c. End of the lesson: the students collect their

will feel more comfortable and therefore more open to learning. Of course, some students may choose to sit at a table and chair and that’s fine, the point is to give them the option.

2) Letting students make decisions

Naming activities can also be useful. When it comes to the drilling and repetition sections of the lesson, for example, the students can decide which activity they want to play, e.g. the ‘ball game,’ the ‘fly swat’ game or ‘flashcard circle.’ This gives them the impression that even though it is the teacher who decides what they learn, it is the students as a unit who decide how.

bags and coats and sit back on their chairs. Ensure that the classroom is tidy and the students are calm before letting them leave.

Children who are able to make their own decisions become more invested in the result of that decision and are more likely to follow through with a task due to their emotional and personal investment in it. This mentality can also be applied in the YL classroom. Giving students options and allowing them to make decisions which affect their learning leads to the students becoming more engaged in the lesson and in the activity.

This can be done in a few very simple ways such as allowing students to decide where they want to sit in a classroom: on the floor, on a chair or at a table. When the restriction of the traditional table and chair setting is removed, most students 10

3) Repetition This might sound obvious but repeat, repeat, repeat. Practise makes perfect and repeating structures and language is incredibly important for language retention. New teachers may think that YLs become very bored very quickly and it’s true. Children do have a short attention span and often don’t like sitting in one place or concentrating on one thing for too long. There are ways of getting the students to repeat language without losing them to a life of boredom. For example, keeping the target language or target structures the same but changing the drilling activity will make the students think that they are doing something completely different. Even small changes such as position in the classroom, from sitting to standing or changing partners, can revitalise their enthusiasm in an activity. Other ways, such as changing interaction patterns to pair work, small group or mingle activities, can also create a new dynamic. Other small changes to repetitive activities can work too. For example, with drilling, the

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teacher can have the learners use different voices, change the volume (whisper, shout), or play with emotion (learners repeat the language while laughing or crying), all of which lets them play with the language. Another drilling idea is to add the learners names into a drill, making it more personalised and more engaging. For example, the students are learning emotion adjectives (sad, excited, scared, angry, etc.) and the teachers starts to drill them in a sentence, e.g. “Anna, are you sad?”, “Norbert, are you excited?”. The students always enjoy lessons when they are more personalised, with the focus on names being especially helpful at the beginning of a term or if you have new students and need to revise everyone’s name.

4) Be fair Being fair means being consistent. Consistency is a word which always comes up when teaching YLs and teaching in general and being consistent can mean different things. Consistency, as far as behaviour management is concerned, means treating each student the same and applying the same rules to every student. However, it also means being a trusted judge. Imagine this: you’re playing a competitive game with your students, you haven’t been paying attention and accidently award a point to the wrong team. It was an innocent mistake but now you have a mutiny on your hands. Regardless of language and level, unfairness is international and if the children think you’re treating them unfairly in a game or competition they will be the first ones to let you know. Being consistent and fair in the classroom improves rapport and helps build trust between the students and the teacher, as once the students trust in a teacher’s decisions they trust in the teacher themselves. Paying attention when allocating points and rewards within games and competitions and not showing favouritism for a particular team (I was once accused of unfairly awarding a point to the

girls’ team because I am also a girl) shows the students your decisions can be trusted. Being clear about rules, noticing when rules are broken and following through on consequences is also extremely important.

5) Don’t be afraid to lose control Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mean losing control of the class completely; I mean knowing when periods of controlled chaos can benefit the classroom and the students’ learning. Being overly strict and micromanaging every aspect of the classroom leaves no room for linguistic freedom. The students aren’t able to use the language in a way which is important and meaningful to them. Loosening the reins, if you will, also affords opportunities for students to interact and engage with each other naturally, helping them develop their social skills and well as language skills. Letting the children run slightly wild, as long as you can regain control, is never a bad thing. Here are some examples of activities that can help create controlled chaos in the classroom:

•• Running/shouting dictation: These activities

are basically the same but with a small difference. Vocabulary or sentences are displayed around the room and students are in pairs or groups. One student writes while the other either shouts the phrase across the room (shouting dictation) or runs backwards and forwards between the sentences and their partner (running dictation).

•• Teacher-student swap: Students love taking

on the role of the teacher and love feeling in control. Asking students to set up activities (once the rules of the activities have already been properly established) gives them a sense of control and allows them to use more English. Asking students to give instructions, e.g. touch the card / run to (vocabulary), is another way of releasing control.

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6) Keep the pace up You have a beginner class of 8-to-10 year olds who are learning farm animals. You’ve sat them in a circle and you’ve drilled from flashcards; you’ve said a word and they’ve touched the correct card. You’ve noticed that the students are getting restless and are starting to mess around but you still haven’t finished drilling all the vocabulary. What should you do? First of all, there’s no point labouring an activity. The students clearly need a change of pace so give them one: keeping pace up within a classroom is very important to keep distractions and behavioural problems to a minimum. Activity changes and employing a variety of activity types keeps the students interested and curious about what’s going to happen next. Keeping the pace up doesn’t have to involve a never-ending flow of energy from the teacher. Setting time limits, 3-4 minutes is usually fine

for most activities, helps stop the students from becoming disengaged or bored with an activity. Taking advantage of stirrers (activities which are usually physical and dynamic and get the students out of their seats) and settlers (activities designed to calm the students and provide some time to digest input and reflect) also provides a balance in the classroom and ensures that all students, introverted and extroverted alike, are catered for. Settler activities, which may take the form of pelmanism, a written record or individual book work, among other ideas, can be just as engaging as stirrers. Indeed, giving students a little “down time,” although that may sound counterproductive to keeping pace up, gives the lesson variety. This list of six top tips is by no means exhaustive, but it may just be enough to give a brand new YL teacher the foundations they need to start to love the chaos. Good luck!

Amy Gowers My name’s Amy Gowers and I’m in my second year at IH Bydgoszcz and my fourth year teaching. I taught in Tokyo, Japan for a language school and in the UK for a charity. I completed the MA TESOL at University of Manchester two years ago and in my final thesis I focused on YLs in a mainstream UK educational setting. I conducted my research in two separate primary schools and spent time observing students in both schools. I am very interested in teaching young learners and have over nine years’ experience working with children (from ages 3 – 17) both in educational and non-educational settings.

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Six top tips for new Younger Learner teachers • IH Journal • Issue 45

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Ten things I wish I had known when I started teaching VYLs By Claire Elliot When I first started teaching children under 6, I found them to be enormously challenging, probably because I spent no time with young children outside of work. Here are some of the tips and tricks I’ve picked up from colleagues and experience.

1. Don’t panic! VYLs often spend most of their time with a family member or carer. Some VYLs find the classroom exciting, some go quiet, some cry at first. If any of them are really distressed, consider inviting whoever brought them to come in with them for the first few minutes. that they take their cue from you, so if you look worried, they’ll be worried. Use a steady, positive sounding voice, smile and give them time. When you’re teaching VYLs, accidents aren’t out of the question either. Make sure you know who to go to for help and don’t worry about them not instantly producing the language you wanted them to, because…

2. They are learning so much more than English Their parents have signed them up for English classes but they’re learning much more. Social skills like turn-taking and sharing are developing, as are motor skills. All these abilities are

important and we can work them into our classes; for example, games like Simon Says or musical statues help them develop self-control and gross motor skills. An easy way to develop empathy is to ask how characters are feeling at different points in a story. Tracing, puzzles and circling are all beneficial to fine motor skills.

3. You don’t need a puppet I have seen colleagues using puppets to squeals of delight from VYLs. I tried but I always felt selfconscious, so I work a bit of silliness and surprise in with other methods. Pretend to mix up the colours or other vocabulary, make silly faces when they use L1, or surprise them by gradually revealing a flashcard and letting them guess what’s in the picture. Surprise and laughter help engage your VYLs and make English fun.

4. Change the pace Settle and stir is the mantra for VYL and YL classes. Basically, what it means is that students need a variety of activities to keep them

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engaged and avoid boredom. Their age will dictate how long they can concentrate for but as a starting point I’d say around 5 minutes for VYLs. This doesn’t mean you have to make lots of materials: VYL books generally come with a variety of materials and you can recycle games/songs/activities from one class to the next. Alternate between activities that require movement (songs with actions, games, matching) and quieter activities like listening to a story, doing something on paper or watching a video. If you can see them getting restless, change the pace to keep them interested. Playing a song or even classical music while they do individual tasks can help them focus and reduce L1 chit-chat. The layout of your classroom also has a big impact. A change of location can signify a change of pace, e.g. songs standing in a circle, book work in their chairs, pairwork on the floor, etc. If zones are not an option, something as simple as moving the chairs into a small semi-circle will make a big difference because it will make monitoring easier while leaving space in the centre for group activities or pair work.

5. Exploit materials through repetition Anyone who spends time with young children will know that they love to repeat their favourite things - songs, stories, TV programmes. They learn their first language through copying so their brains respond to repetition. I drill vocabulary five or six times before we move on to the next item. Once you’ve done that, holding a flashcard and letting your VYLs guess which card you are looking at allows for lots of repetition and doubles up as a handy filler or fast finisher activity. There are great ideas online about exploiting stories but one easy follow up to reading a story is to miss out words (say, the vocabulary of your current topic) and get them to fill the gaps orally. 14

6. Balance change and routine Although VYLs love repetition, we have to notice when something they are repeating is no longer challenging. For example, text books often have a start of class song. At first this is a useful part of the routine; however, once you see that they are fairly confident with the song, it’s time to add something: a new verse, different actions or muting the recording at regular intervals so they sing without help. The same goes for a starting routine, keep stretching them. I start by asking “Can you jump/run/swim, etc.?”, adding in new actions through the year, and ultimately allow the VYLs to ask the questions.

7. Be flexible VYLs find it difficult to manage their emotions and as such we need to be willing to accept that sometimes they can’t or don’t want to do what we have planned. If one day a student doesn’t want to in a song or an activity, as long as they are safe and not disruptive, let them. Generally they participate more as their confidence grows and you might be surprised by how much they pick up when quietly observing their classmates. They’ll produce language at different rates too so you should be willing to accept “ball”, from weaker students, even if your long term goal is “It’s a green ball.” With regular repetition, they’ll get there in a few classes.

8. Putting your coat on is difficult when you’re 4 I thought I was establishing routines by getting my students to line up outside the classroom before they came in, asking them questions, etc. But still chaos reigned and I felt stressed. It took me a while to realise that because VYLs are still developing motor skills, you need to build time in for things that, as adults, we don’t think about:

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putting their coats on, finding the right page in books, tidying up, etc. These are important skills that require time and patience so factor it into your planning.

9. Make things easy for yourself When I first taught VYLs, I would come up with a craft project, demonstrate it, and then try to help each individual work through the steps. It was stressful. Often it would go awry and I’d end up running around the room. Instead, break it down into stages. If you can, get them sitting in a circle with you, so they can watch step one, then do it. When they’ve finished, they put their materials down and then do step two, and so on.

10. Focus on the positive Behaviour is a key part of classroom management with VYLs. Most teachers use a behaviour chart, often with some kind of reward for good behaviour (I give them a sticker or a

stamp on their hand). Make sure your behaviour chart is visible and the consequences of their actions (good or bad) are instant – they won’t by the end of the class. Use your voice and facial expression to reinforce or discourage behaviour as VYLs are used to reading these cues in L1. Once you have established the rules, stick to them but try not to react emotionally. I don’t give instructions or start an activity until everyone is quiet, with nothing in their hands. However, I don’t get annoyed either. I sit calmly, praising those students who are ready and with an even voice ask others to cross legs/ put pencils on the floor etc. This takes a lot of time at the start of the year but is a worthwhile investment because VYLs are easily distracted. It can be discouraging to have one child in the class who isn’t doing what you asked, but if you focus on that behaviour, you risk others misbehaving to get your attention. Praise the behaviour you want, and others will soon in. This goes a long way to making English classes a positive experience.

Claire Elliot Claire is a teacher at International House and has taught in the UK, , Spain and Switzerland. She has been at IH Cordoba for seven years, teaching all ages and levels. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, learning languages and travelling.

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Making room for improvement By Beci Green and Luisa Cecchinato

IHTwo, one of the premises of International House in Torres Vedras, is used both as an Examinations Centre and for teaching exam classes to teenagers and young adults, so it is a particularly large space. There are two large classrooms both equipped with projectors and whiteboards and a recreational garden area at the back. Teaching groups in a large space can be a challenge, but it can also be an enriching experience: an opportunity to rethink lesson planning and experiment as a teacher. Last year we both had teenage B1 groups at the same time, and in this article, we shall show how such a large space can be used, make suggestions regarding teaching and types of activities and consider the impact on students’ learning.

The Classrooms Large rooms can be intimidating both for learners as well as teachers, so it’s important to create a welcoming, intimate environment that everyone can come to own as quickly as possible. As Krashen points out, maintaining low anxiety is crucial for learning and aids second language acquisition (Krashen 1982), so getting off on the right foot is essential. One way to achieve this is by designating an area with sofas, chairs and tables where students can relax and socialise with each other before the start of class and during breaks. Learners also appreciate having paper, colouring pens, puzzles, word cards to review and reading material such as articles and books at their disposal. Playing 16 ihworld.com

background music is another strategy we have used to drown out any uncomfortable silences and of course different styles of music can be used to calm or energise. Moreover, teaching two groups of the same level at the same time can be a golden opportunity for them to make new friends and chat in English. Of course, an added bonus is having ample wall space to display lots of work in different sections (for example written work, vocabulary charts, class rules, project work, notice boards) which can instil a feeling of pride in the work created by the groups.

Seating Scrivener suggests that “changing seating arrangements can help students interact with different people, change the focus from you when appropriate and allow a range of different situations to be created within the classroom” (Scrivener, 2011:61). With this in mind, in a large classroom various table/seating

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configurations are possible. We often used the horseshoe plan, such as the one in fig.1 (double horseshoe when team teaching), and clusters as in fig.2 (3 or 4 tables put together for group and project work). As long as there are sufficient tables available, this means the learners can easily transition from one work space to another without the disruption of having to reorganise tables. When a particular activity demands change, tables can be repositioned, for example into rows, circles or railway carriage layouts. Having a larger classroom space means the teacher has greater flexibility when making decisions about seating. This is also an excellent way of changing the pairing of students when planning the seating configuration so students have a wider variety of interaction. Using separate zones allows for the creation of distinct areas when doing more controlled work, mingling activities and group work. As a result, students feel reenergised and motivated moving from one area to another while at the same time a sense of purpose, community and collaboration is developed.

Activities Does having a bigger space mean a teacher can use a wider range of activities? Perhaps not, but it can be a positive factor to take into consideration when planning your lessons. Here are some ideas that lend themselves to larger rooms.

Photo Stories and Role-Plays These can be set up and planned in small groups as normal, but in the follow-up stage students can be allocated a section of the room to practise and then act out to the rest of the class. This means that noise levels are less intrusive and

fig.1

fig.2

distracting and the teacher can also hear while monitoring, whereas in smaller rooms close proximity can result in a wave of inaudible babble making it hard to give helpful !

Surveys and Questionnaires These activities lend themselves perfectly to large rooms as the extra space allows for movement and, once more, room to listen clearly. It’s also easier for the teachers to monitor as there is less noise.

Theatre – Acting Out a Play The teacher can choose a play, write one themselves or better still, have the students write one and act it out on a designated stage area. Most students really enjoy doing this and shy students can be assigned roles behind the scenes. We’ve found it a great way for learners to use English in a different context, grow in confidence and have fun.

Revision Stations You can use the cluster layout of desks for speed revision - each work station has a revision task that students have to complete within a time limit. Having a larger space gives the students space to work without distractions and really benefit from the lesson. Making room for improvement • IH Journal • Issue 45

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Dictations Running dictations come into their own in larger spaces - where students can actually run (within reason!)

Brain Breaks If you are lucky enough to have an outdoor space, you can take the class outside. It’s a wonderful way to dynamize the learners. You can play vocabulary games, do brain breaks in the fresh air, yoga to stretch or quick simple exercises to energise. Students can also lead sessions if they feel confident. The outdoors provides situations where they can learn new vocabulary and show there are other learning opportunities outside the course book.

Outdoor Activities Using a garden can enable students to focus on nature to work on language and vocabulary. Students can also take photos to describe (useful exam training) and work on projects that involve specific target language, such as comparing plants, deg an ideal garden, creating a story using objects from outside as well as making scavenger hunts.

Teacher/Student Benefits Because of room size and table availability, we were both able to use this experience to peer and team teach on several occasions during the year. When we did any team-teaching, we had to factor in the logistics of ing the classes together for tasks or activities. We found that ing the classes after a break is often the best way to achieve this or at a pre-planned time. Often the task would be set up in the individual class with the students having full knowledge that they would be collaborating with another class. This enabled us to work on personal aims which consequently helped us to develop our own teaching. It was also insightful to get a second opinion on students who were having

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issues on the course or simply to evaluate a learner in the other class. From the students’ perspective, they also had access to two teachers with different personalities, teaching styles and accents teaching, monitoring and helping in the same room which was beneficial.

And Finally At the end of the course we carried out a reflection questionnaire to gauge students’ opinions on their experience having lessons in this spacious building. We asked them to give their opinion on the space they had to use, the seating arrangements, the type of activities they enjoyed the most and least and the effects of having t classes. The was overwhelmingly positive. For them it did not feel like a school but a place they had made their own over time. It was wonderful for us to witness their growth in confidence and how they learnt to take full advantage of the space available, improving not only their English but also their social and negotiating skills through activities carried out in the class. What started out as an empty shell became a joyous, vibrant, creative school space which students made their own and undeniably left their mark.

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References: Scrivener, J. (2011) Learning Teaching (3rd Edition), London: Macmillan

Beci Green Beci has been working at International House in Torres Vedras since 2015. In that time, she has had the opportunity to team teach two Cambridge Exam classes and really valued the experience and challenges that this entailed. It was a fantastic opportunity that enriched her teaching development. In 2016 she took the IH CYLT and is enjoying putting her experiences into practice. She is enjoying life in Portugal, experiencing all that it has to offer.

Krashen, S. (1987) Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition, Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall

Luisa Cecchinato Luisa has been teaching English for over 15 years and has worked in language schools in the UK and Switzerland. She is now based in Portugal where she teaches English to young learners and adults at IH Torres Vedras. She is currently working on her Delta. Her interests include teaching exam classes as well as the development of and changes in language.

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Using electronic concordancers in the language classroom By Dana Taylor

In this article, I will identify uses for corpus tools in the language classroom and critically reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of concordancing as a teaching strategy. I will also offer recommendations for English language teachers to use concordancing in their own classrooms. In recent decades, researchers (e.g. Kheirzadeh & Marandi, 2014) have investigated ways in which language corpora and concordancers help English language learners (ELLs) develop sociolinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge for success in academic and professional contexts. According to Anwardeen, Luyee, Gabriel, and Kalajahi (2013), concordancing tools are “computer programmes that search collections of (usually) authentic spoken and written texts, known as language corpora, for lexicogrammatical patterns and norms of the discourse community presented in concordance lines” (p. 84). ELLs can employ a concordancer to check, learn, and share vocabulary. They do this through comparing their understanding of lexis and grammar with real-world sources from general or specialised corpora.

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My teaching and learning context I teach an internship course for post-secondary ELLs offered by the International Academy of Business Studies (IABS) in New Zealand. (Identifying details have been changed, and pseudonyms are used for the organisation and its courses.) My Work Placement (WP) course s students in developing applied language and job skills. WP students need to identify and analyse genre-specific target language features, owing to the challenges they face decoding and producing authentic professional communications. For example, my students need to use contextual lexicogrammar and sociopragmatic structures when writing business letters and reports. They are also under pressure from family to obtain a job after graduation, leading to a strong focus on self-directed learning and employability skills in IABS courses (senior manager, personal communication, September 12, 2018).

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Corpus tools for English language learners Utilising corpus tools for vocabulary development and communicative competence would be a new strategy for my WP students. In the past, ELLs have identified the rhetorical and lexico-grammatical devices of model job application letters in order to replicate these— along with statements of their attributes and achievements—in their own cover letters. Thus, concordancers should provide WP students with meaningful examples of functional words and phrases in correct context and appropriate sociopragmatic to serve the rhetorical purpose of—in the case of writing a cover letter—being offered an interview (Chen, 2004).

Needs-based teaching resources Chen (2004) found that free online concordancers, such as WordSmith Tools (Scott, 1996) and Lextutor (Cobb, 2004), ed teachers’ design of instructional resources from authentic texts. ELLs used keywords to locate example concordance lines from a corpus, notice target language patterns, and guess and check grammatical rules in correct context. WP students would probably benefit from using a general corpus in conjunction with a small, teacher-compiled corpus of business letters.

Data-driven learning The data-driven learning afforded by concordancing encourages ELLs to identify language patterns. According to Yoon (2008), students take ownership of language learning by noticing common formulaic expressions (e.g. I look forward to speaking with you) and collocations (e.g. speak + with [+ someone]). Hafner and Candlin’s (2007) study of students using a concordancer to write legal papers provided pedagogical implications and instructions for concordancing, which would help me design concordancing activities.

Concordancing presents the following advantages and disadvantages to teachers and ELLs in tertiary contexts:

Advantages of concordancing Autonomous learning. ELLs’ autonomous use of concordancers helps develop vocabulary, grammar, and genre knowledge in authentic, meaningful contexts. Yoon (2008) reported that, by using corpus technology, students became aware of their difficulties writing genre-specific texts in English. WP students would indeed benefit from a concordancer if it became a language-checking tool for autonomous selfmonitoring per Gavioli and Aston’s (2001) recommendation. Exploratory learning. Hafner and Candlin (2007) found that concordancing gave ELLs motivation for lifelong exploratory learning because it satisfied their personal and professional curiosity about new words. WP students could use the concordancer as a problem-solving device to notice collocations, conventions, and connections between grammar and vocabulary in professional texts. This may also allow them to transfer word knowledge and usage patterns to their pleasure reading and academic writing.

Disadvantages of concordancing Need for learner training. Chen (2004) warned that the immense data accessed by corpus technology might overwhelm ELLs. Therefore, learners need to receive concordance training to become critical participant-observers: engaging with the text, inferring patterns, and reacting pragmatically (Gavioli & Aston, 2001). Learner training will be important for my WP students, as it will help them focus on noticing language patterns instead of just obtaining models of professional texts (Hafner & Candlin, 2007). Barriers to students’ use. Yoon (2008) observed that barriers to students’ use of concordancing were their English proficiency and/or lack

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of access to corpus technology. This could result in students being put off by the effort required to read and decode concordance lines. Nevertheless, Hadley (2001) recommended that ELLs access concordancers independently to gain adequate exposure to target language found in authentic texts.

Conclusion and recommendations

•• Enter the title of your text in the small box. •• Paste your text (e.g., from a textbook, document, or website) into the large box.

•• Click ‘Submit’.

b. Use the concordance to help students

identify collocations, idioms, subject-verb agreement, tenses, conjunctions and other language patterns. Here are two sentences that emerged from the concordance of a job application cover letter:

In summary, specialised and general corpora – I have BEEN a customer of ABC Sales for give ELLs access to high frequency, contextual several years. vocabulary from relevant general, academic, and – I have always BEEN impressed by the professional sources. WP students are exposed quality of service. to culturally-bound formulaic expressions in the workplace, so form-focused instruction There are opportunities here for ELLs to guess should help them notice collocations and and check rules for the present perfect simple word meanings, thus building their language tense. They could then create their own example awareness and sociocultural understanding sentences. (Yoon, 2008). Although corpus tools are   freely available to my students, I will need c. To help ELLs become language researchers, ask to spend time creating classroom materials them to go to lextutor.ca, click on Concordancer to integrate concordancing into the WP > Clean Sentence Concs, and then enter a course. Concordancing will require effort on word of your choice, or theirs, into the box. my students’ part, too, since corpora-based For example, for the word ‘fabulous’, the language learning will be unfamiliar to them. following two sentences emerge: However, as Hadley (2001) observed, data-driven concordancing could prove a useful and relevant “hotel row”, teaching strategy for WP students to improve palm-studded their vocabulary knowledge and writing skills for Miami Beach and FABULOUS beaches plus academic and professional success. surroundings the Miami feature Seaquarium and Following are my recommendations for using Parrot Jungle. concordancers in your ESOL classroom: a. Access a concordancer and practise with

a sample text before trying it with your students. Here are the steps for one concordancer, Cobb’s (2004) Lextutor:

•• Go to the Lextutor website, https:// lextutor.ca/

•• Click on ‘Concordance’. •• Click on ‘Text-based Concordances’. 22

With the end of the trial Diane disappeared from New York ... it was no longer fashionable to be seen with

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FABULOUS “Lady Harrington”.

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References: Anwardeen, N. H., Luyee, E. O., Gabriel, J. I., & Kalajahi, S. A. (2013). An analysis: The usage of metadiscourse in argumentative writing by Malaysian tertiary level of students. English Language Teaching, 6(9), 83-96. Chen, Y. H. (2004). The use of corpora in the vocabulary classroom. Internet TESL Journal, 10(9). Retrieved September 4, 2018, from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Chen-Corpora.html Cobb, T. (2004). Range for texts v.4 [computer program]. Accessed September 15, 2015 at http://www.lextutor.ca/cgi-bin/range/texts/ index.pl Gavioli, L. & Aston, G. (2001). Enriching reality: Language corpora in language pedagogy. ELT Journal 55(3), 238-246.

Hafner, C. A. & Candlin, C. N. (2007). Corpus tools as an affordance to learning in professional legal education. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6, 303-318. Kheirzadeh, S., & Marandi, S. S. (2014). Concordancing as a tool in learning collocations: The case of Iranian EFL learners. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 98, 940-949. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.503 Scott, M. (1996). WordSmith Tools v.1 [computer program]. Accessed September 15, 2018 at http://lexically.net/wordsmith Yoon, H. (2008, June). More than a linguistic reference: The influence of corpus technology on L2 academic writing. Language Learning & Technology, 12(2), 31-48.

Hadley, G. (2001). Concordancing in Japanese TEFL: Unlocking the power of data-driven learning. Retrieved September 25, 2018, from http://www.nuis.ac.jp/~hadley/publication/ jlearner/jlearner.htm

Dana Taylor I’ve taught ESOL in New Zealand since 2003. I hold an LTCL Diploma (TESOL) with Distinction and a Master of TESOL Leadership with Distinction. I’m currently working towards a PhD in Applied Linguistics. As Assistant Dean, I manage business and tourism programmes, teach vocational English, and train teachers.

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Creative speaking – Storytelling to learn to speak By Maria Conca

Storytelling, along with Creative Writing, has become very popular in ELT practice in recent years. Possibly, this is because creativity is everywhere and seems to be a benchmark to measure learnercentred teaching practice (Richards, 2013). Particularly, Storytelling has become for some practitioners a teaching method; others still consider it a classroom resource or a performative activity. While I was teaching another storytelling course to YLs, I had an epiphany. I had noticed that my young learners had significantly improved their writing during a storytelling course, in which they had been exposed to stories told by myself or recorded storytellers from various sources. For each story, taught in stand-alone lessons, I had designed and used a series of activities to get YLs motivated to listen again, understand further details, interpret and imagine how the events unfolded. They then had to think about what happened next, what would have happened if things had gone wrong or just differently, how they could have changed the storyline to re-write, end or continue the story. All these discussions led to a fluency activity in which I asked learners to re-tell the story using prompt cards showing words or chunks extracted from the original text. As a variation to that, I often asked learners to create or just re-invent the story using different prompts of their choice or from a given set. 24 ihworld.com

When asked to re-invent the story, it was inevitable for them resorting to writing first. Written prompts, plenty of time and some creative writing techniques were crucial to prepare for great storytelling. Well, the results were incredible: learners were able to recycle vocabulary and chunks from the original input and seemed to handle textuality and language structures more naturally. It looked as if oral fluency had fed into written fluency and the other way around. I wondered: why can’t a Creative Writing task turn into a Creative Storytelling activity that fosters language use while shifting the output mode from written to oral? All I had to do was give it a try. There were some issues to be taken into consideration though, for which I had some possible solutions (see table overleaf). Creative Speaking stems from a Creative Writing task, in which learners will first create a story to tell from prompts of different kinds (visual, aural, tactile, multisensory, personal, etc.) set in a clear

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Issues

Possible Solutions

Mixed abilities & levels of language proficiency

Collaborative writing Process writing

Lack of motivation

Activities to promote creativity

Lack of appropriate language tools to express their ideas

Scaffolding Repair strategies Low-anxiety environment

context or inspired by a negotiated theme. The teacher will employ process and collaborative writing techniques leading to an individual piece of work so that everyone is involved and feels entitled to give that personal touch to the final product that makes each story unique and interesting to tell or listen to. When does storytelling become ‘creative’? How? By adding characters, twists & turns, props, shifts in time or place, a change of mood/tone selected by the teacher beforehand. These can be omitted features of a pre-existing story or just new elements, which learners will gradually integrate into their storytelling. Learners will have to adapt to the unpredictable creatively, and resort to their language resources to avoid a breakdown. How does Creative Speaking help improve fluency, accuracy or self-confidence? I’ll give a brief of what research says in the next paragraph.

How Creative Speaking Promotes Fluency, Accuracy & Self-confidence If Storytelling is ‘the art of narrating a tale from memory’ (Dujmovic, 2006 p.1), Creative Speaking is the moment when memory fails or some unpredictable elements come up and creativity steps in. Creativity is a problem-

solving exercise that increases learners’ levels of motivation and self-esteem (Richards, 2013). In Storytelling, the delivery is crucial, as it often is a performance requiring rehearsal and preparation (Dujmovic, 2006). As learners take up the role of a performer with a real or imaginary audience, storytelling clearly provides a motivating context for learning, especially for YLs. Rehearsals and preparation offer the opportunity to learn to perform in a low-anxiety environment, in which, however, there is still room for repair or improvisation. Researchers and practitioners claim that storytelling enhances language learning by ‘enriching learners’ vocabulary and acquiring new language structures’ (ibid.), in this respect it can promote accuracy. Creative Speaking uses rehearsed storytelling as a springboard for non-rehearsed, spontaneous talk that may spark from the unpredictability of real-life communication. It is a realistic, fluency activity that fosters flexibility, adaptability and the ability to use language resources effectively. Creativity can ‘rekindle’ interest (Richards, 2013 p.2) and avoid demotivation or lack of engagement. All learners are ‘capable of some degree of creativity’ (Maley, 2007 p.8) if tasks require an individual contribution to them. How can we elicit learners’ creativity in the language classroom? Richards (2013) quoting Maley (1997) says that the use of ‘a variety of different literary and non-literary sources’ elicits ‘creative thinking and behaviour’. It develops the ability to discover, invent, ‘find new ways of looking at what is familiar’ (Maley, 2007 p.8) and make ‘creative connections’ (Richards, 2013 p.2). The key here is ‘creative’ not the language ability or the process the task will focus on, e.g. speaking vs. writing, expressing vs. thinking. Tasks with ‘creative dimensions’ (ibid.) facilitate language learning. These tasks involve ‘openended problem solving’ (ibid.), which can adapt to the learner’s response in of individual choice, flexibility and personal content. Such tasks require learners to express their own imaginative world by adding their original thoughts and ideas to others’ or their own

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stories. A continuum of fantasy and creative language use require challenging, intriguing tasks, with a novelty element that will engage

with its contents. In the next paragraph, you will find an overview of lesson ideas and activities for Creative Speaking.

Practical Ideas Learner Profile: YLs/Teens/Young Adults

Age range: 10-17

Level: A2-C1

Creative Writing – Creating original scripts Writing a story from prompts

Objects/Realia (Tactile/Personal) Magazine cut-outs (Visual) A song (Aural) Characters (Real or Fictional) A network of multisensory associations A joke A text read out loud A selection of words from a text read or heard

Manipulating texts

Turn an extract from prose into a dialogue Edit a dialogue from a play into prose Re-write a poem into a short story Turn a graphic novel into a text (poem, blog post, a newspaper story, etc.) Change the plot of a story using one of the seven basic plots (Booker, 2004) Add a turning-point action, a conflict or a hero/heroine Add yourself/a friend/a family member/an animal as characters Add a memory or an experience, a dream you’ve had

Creating original stories

Haiku or poems A newspaper story A short story, a fable, a tale or a mini saga

Creative Speaking – Creating stories to tell Turning a piece of writing into a tale

Tell a story from: A diary entry into an anecdote A newspaper story told in different mood, tone or pace A short text with different voices/characters told from different points of view A famous dialogue told in reported speech (News report, in court, gossip)

Manipulating texts through storytelling

Change the tone of a story e.g. make it funny/funnier or scary/scarier Change time, place, people involved, opening or ending based on selfdirected or teacher-led prompts

Telling a story from original scripts created

Change your story following teacher-led prompts on cards, sounds or props Listen to your partner’s story & re-tell it to a different partner changing some elements following prompts on cards, sounds or props

Note: Some of these ideas were taken or adapted from Maley (1997), Spiro (2007), Everett (2005, Wiki) 26

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Conclusion Interaction-based and open-ended elements in the language classroom can help learners cope with unpredictable real-life communication. Tasks that trigger learners’ creativity are crucial for language learning and the acquisition

References: Booker, C. (2004). Seven Basic Plots. Continuum Dujmovic, M. (2006). Storytelling as a method of EFL teaching. Available online https://hrcak.srce. hr/file/17682 - Retrieved on 28/09/2018

of skills that they will need for the future (Richards, 2013). Creative Speaking as an extension to Storytelling and/or Creative Writing seems to be a feasible option to make learning more enjoyable and your teaching more learner-centred.

Maley, A. (1997). Creativity with a small ‘c’. In Clyde Coreil (ed.) The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning and Teaching, 4. http:// www.njcu.edu/cill/journal-index.html - Retrieved on 28/09/2018

Everett, Nick. (2005). Creative Writing and English. The Cambridge Quarterly. 34 (3):231242

Richards, J. (2013). Creativity in Language Teaching. https://www.professorjackrichards. com/wp-content/s/Creativity-inLanguage-Teaching.pdf - Retrieved on 28/09/2018

Everett, Nick. Creative Writing Wiki. https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_writing

Spiro, J. (2007). Storybuilding. Series Editor Alan Maley, OUP

Maria Conca Maria has been teaching English for over 11 years in the UK and in Italy, where she’s based and has been running her self-owned language school since 2011. She took her CELTA at IH Rome in 2007 and completed her Delta at IH Newcastle and Distance Delta IH London in 2016. She works a Teacher, CLIL & Primary Education Teacher Trainer, DoS, Senior Academic Manager, Course Designer & Consultant. Her main interests are YLs, Teaching Listening & Speaking, CLIL, Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and ELT materials development. She tweets at @MConca16.

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Helping learners to get their message across By Tatsiana Khudayerka

Quite often when learners face linguistic problems they fail to attempt to solve them due to insufficient knowledge of available strategies. The article focuses on various communication strategies and ways of helping students be better at them. Speaking is often considered by learners simply as practice of grammar and lexis they have learnt. However, spontaneity of speaking affects the speaker’s ability to plan and organise their message and requires a decent level of communicative competence. Dörnyei and Thurrell point out that strategic competence is an important part of communication in both L1 and L2; however, it is vital for foreign language speakers, because its lack ‘may for situations when students with a firm knowledge of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary are unable to carry out their communicative intent’ (1991 p.17).

Communicative Competence Communicative competence consists of three component competencies: grammatical (knowledge of the language code), sociolinguistic (sociocultural rules and rules of discourse), and strategic, which is defined as ‘verbal and nonverbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient competence’ (Canale and Swain 1980 p.30).

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Strategic competence is achieved by using communication strategies and activated when a speaker is unable to express what he wants to say, because he lacks necessary linguistic resources. Communication strategies include two main types of strategies: achievement, or compensatory strategies and reduction, or avoidance strategies (Faerch and Kasper 1983; Bygate 2015; Dornyei and Scott 1997). Both these types aim to compensate for a problem of expression. We use achievement strategies when we try to solve a communicative problem by attempting to find different ways of conveying the message and thus compensating for the language gap (Bygate 2015 p.42). There are three main categories of communication strategies (2015 pp.43–44): Guessing strategy, which includes:

•• Foreignizing, i.e. using an L1 word by

adjusting it to L2 phonologically and/or morphologically (e.g., adding it to a L2 suffix). For example, Russian ‘shashlik’ for English ‘barbeque’.

•• Word coinage refers to the strategy when a

learner replaces an L2 word with a created L2 item, based on his knowledge of rules (e.g., footballist for footballer).

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•• Code-switching, or language switch refers to a feels that they need help, they make use of the situation when a learner uses the L1/L3 word or expression with L1/L3 pronunciation in L2 speech, e.g. French Voila! (Dornyei&Scott 1997 p.189).

•• Literal translation means translating literally a lexical item/structure from L1 to L2. For example, a Belarusian speaker may say ‘for whom how’ instead of ‘to each his own’.

Paraphrase involves using the knowledge of the language to find an alternative way to express the idea. It includes:

•• Circumlocution, which means describing or exemplifying the object or action, e.g. ‘It becomes a gas’ instead of ‘evaporate’.

cooperative communication strategy of ‘appeal’. Appeal for help can be direct or indirect.

•• Direct appeal means asking the interlocutor an explicit question concerning a gap in L2 knowledge, e.g. It’s a kind of race, in which er.. they run and jump over those things. What’s the name?

A speaker can also provide a syntactic frame to elicit the correct word (Bygate 2015 p.46). S1: His face is covered with hair. He’s wearing a moustache and a... S2: A beard.

•• Approximation, or using a lexical item, which

expresses the target lexical item as closely as possible, i.e. shares semantic features with the target word. For example, ‘shoes’ instead of ‘loafers’.

•• Using general words, i.e. extending a general,

empty lexical item to contexts where specific words are lacking (e.g., the overuse of thing, stuff, make, etc.) (Dornyei&Scott 1997 p.188).

The above-mentioned strategies can be described as non-cooperative, since the learner tries to solve the problem by employing their own resources. When a strategy involves the learner’s appeal for help to their interlocutor, it is called co-operative (Dornyei&Thurrell 1991 p.18).

Co-operative Strategies Faerch and Kasper note that ‘although problems in interaction are necessarily shared problems and can be solved by t efforts […] it is up to a speaker to decide whether to attempt a solution himself or to signal his problems to his interlocutor and attempt to get the problem solved on a cooperative basis’ (1983 p.67). If a learner faces a communicative problem and

Willems specifies the components of cooperative strategy. A speaker may request: a. repetition if he hasn’t heard or understood

the interlocutor, e.g. Pardon? What?

b. clarification in order to get the explanation

of an unknown lexical item, by asking a clarification question, e.g. What do you mean?; echoing a word with a question intonation; using statements, e.g. I don’t understand or imperatives, e.g. Repeat please

c. confirmation to see if he has understood the

interlocutor correctly, e.g. Do you mean..?

•• Indirect appeal refers to trying to elicit help

from the interlocutor indirectly by using verbal or non-verbal means, e.g. I don’t know the name (rising intonation, pause, eye , etc.) (Dornyei&Scott 1997 p. 191).

Further Communication Strategies Apart from the strategies mentioned above, Faerch and Kasper (1980), Bialystok (1990), Tarone and Yule (1989) emphasize the

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importance of the following communication strategies: Nonverbal strategies are employed when a learner replaces a lexical item or an action with mime, gesture, facial expression and sound imitation or accompanies a verbal strategy with a visual illustration. (Dornyei&Scott 1997 p. 190). Time-gaining strategies involve knowledge of fillers and hesitation devices. These are vital because they let the speaker gain time to think and fill pauses when a communication difficulty occurs (Dornyei & Thurrell 1991 p.19). The most frequent native English fillers and ‘prefabricated’ responses are well, er, ah, uhm, of course, so, actually, well, etc. Reduction strategies are activated when a speaker has poor linguistic or strategic competence and therefore can make a deliberate decision not to speak or alter the original message:

•• Topic avoidance, or message reduction

refers to reducing the message by avoiding problematic language, e.g. conditionals, or topics or leaving out some relevant information through lack of vocabulary.

•• Message abandonment refers to the

situation when a learner begins to talk about something, but leaves the message unfinished if he comes across a linguistic obstacle, e.g. It’s an insect er.. a big one, with wings…er.. It’s like a big grasshopper… well, never mind.

•• Meaning replacement, or substituting the

original message with a new one, because a speaker is not capable of executing it. (Faerch and Kasper, 1983 p.44).

In the Classroom My teaching experience shows that lower-level students encounter several major problems, i.e.

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insufficient knowledge of fillers and hesitation devices, lack of paraphrasing strategies and reluctance to use co-operative strategies. What can we do in the classroom to have learners employ achievement strategies?

Using Audio In order to raise learners’ awareness of fillers and hesitation devices a teacher chooses a recorded authentic conversation. Students are given a task sheet with common fillers. They listen to the dialogue and tick the fillers they hear. Afterwards they discuss, which fillers are used and why it is important to use them in speech. Alternatively, a teacher records two conversations with and without fillers. Students listen and discuss which one sounds more authentic and why. A teacher then might give them a script and get the students to make it sound more natural by adding necessary fillers.

Making a Game A ‘Taboo’ game works well to encourage the usage of circumlocution and approximation as an alternative way of describing and object/ idea. A learner should explain the word to their partner(s), using some prefabricated chunks, e.g. It’s a thing..., It’s a kind of…, You do it when…, etc. After the game, the teacher elicits the strategies they used to win, e.g. giving a definition of an item, explaining what it looks like, paraphrasing, etc. Alternatively, the students replay the game and come up with as many definitions of the word as they can. Both tasks provide a variety of structures to accomplish the task and compensate for a lack of knowledge.

Working with Dialogue Practice To develop learners’ strategy to ask for help from a communication partner a teacher selects a dialogue that they know, picks out the most important content words and writes them in the form of a skeleton next to the name of the character, e.g. John: failed exam. The teacher then

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CLASSROOM IDEAS

boards the dialogue and pre-teaches/elicits the questions that the students can ask if they have forgotten/don’t know the word and boards them too, e.g. What do you call it? What’s the word for?

appealing for help. After the first round the students change roles and repeat the task. The activity helps students notice that both partners contribute to achieving a communicative goal.

The students look at the skeleton and practice reconstructing the dialogue. As a real task they act out the dialogue again and Speaker A decides which words s/he doesn’t and therefore has to elicit from Speaker B, by

I strongly believe that strategy training exercises have real measurable benefits for L2 learners. They train them to be flexible and able to cope with unpredictable nature of spoken interaction.

References:

Strategies in a Second Language: Definitions and Taxonomies. Language Learning, 47/1: 173 – 210.

Bialystok, E. (1990). Communication Strategies. Oxford: Blackwell. Bygate, M. (2015). Speaking. Oxford: OUP. Canale, M. and Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing. Applied Linguistics, 1/1: 1 – 47. Dornyei, Z. and Scott, M. (1997). Communication

Dornyei, Z. and Thurrell, S. (1991). Strategic Competence and How to Teach It. ELT Journal, 45/1: 16 – 23. Faerch, C. and Kasper, G. (1983). Strategies in Interlanguage Communication. London: Longman. Tarone, E. and Yule, G. (1989). Focus on the Language Learner. Oxford: OUP.

Tatsiana Khudayerka Tatsiana has been an English teacher at IH Minsk since 2007. Her academic background includes an MA in Education from Belarusian State Pedagogical University, and the Cambridge Delta (2016). She has taught a variety of levels and courses. Her professional interests include motivating students and helping them become autonomous learners, teaching Business English and D.

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MANAGEMENT

Working with new teachers: The things they say (part two) By Sandy Millin

Since becoming the Director of Studies at International House Bydgoszcz, over 90% of the teachers I’ve worked with have fallen into the category of novice teachers, having less than three years of experience. Most of them have recently completed the CELTA or Trinity CertTESOL, and many are living abroad for the first time. I also have very strong memories of my own experiences of this period of my career, and of how overwhelming it could be, both in positive and negative ways. In the first article in this series, I described ways to help new teachers settle in. In this article and the previous one, I have listed some of the things I typically hear them say, and the kind of advice I give in response. There are four ideas in the previous article, and another five in this one. Thanks to Shannon Thwaites, one of the new teachers I’ve worked with at IH Bydgoszcz, for extending my list of problems and solutions.

I can’t explain grammar New teachers often try to learn about grammar using reference books, but I think that language banks in coursebooks are actually the best place to start. It is easy for new teachers to fall into the trap of learning lots of information about grammar points and then trying to tell the students all of it, even if they don’t really need to know it. Using a language bank helps them 32 ihworld.com

to avoid this. They are designed to be accessible to students so they contain the right amount of information for the level, explained using language at the correct level. This is a good starting point for teachers to decide what is and isn’t important to include in their lesson. New teachers could also watch YouTube presentations of other teachers explaining the same grammar points. This is a great way to get ideas for how to check language and use resources, e.g. the whiteboard. If you are in a ive staff room, it is a good idea to get into the habit of asking your colleagues how to work with a particular grammar point. Finally, new teachers should be reminded that it is impossible to anticipate all of the problems that students might have with a grammar point the first time they teach it. Each time we work with particular language, we become better at

MANAGEMENT

predicting what students will find difficult and working out how to help them with this.

My students keep speaking their own language, not English When I first started teaching this is something that I was very obsessed with. I didn’t realize that the main reason my students were speaking Czech was because my instructions really weren’t very clear and they didn’t understand what I wanted them to do. I came up with lots of different strategies to try to make them speak more English, but what I really needed was somebody to observe the lesson and point this out to me. Now if I hear new teachers with the same complaints the first question I ask them is when and why do students speak their own language. I encourage the new teacher to think about whether they are speaking, for example Polish, because they don’t understand instructions, because they don’t have sufficient language to perform the tasks, or simply whether they are so excited by the task itself that they don’t want to wait around to think of the English and instead try to complete it as quickly as possible in their own language. If teachers have used these ideas and students not speaking English is still a problem, one idea which I have found works quite well is to give the students targets. For example, they can aim for five minutes only in English. One student is responsible for timing the five minutes, and if they reach it they are allowed to speak their own language for one minute. If they don’t reach it, the five minutes restarts and they must try again. It is also important to remind teachers that it is very tiring to speak in a foreign language for a long time. They shouldn’t just wait until the students have annoyed them and then snap at them for speaking their own language. Instead they should be fair and consistent and give students the that they need to speak English.

I can’t control the kids in my classes Most teachers coming into our school have never worked with groups of under 16s before. We help our teachers to plan lessons which are engaging as possible to reduce the likelihood of things spiralling out of control, but it can still be a challenge, especially if a new teacher doesn’t feel particularly confident being in charge. One of the most useful things I got out of studying the IHCYL (now the IHCYLT – Certificate in teaching Young Learners and Teenagers) was the idea of planning alternate stirring and settling activities, raising and reducing energy levels. I suggest that new teachers think in of five-minute blocks, and we have a template with nine such blocks on each side, and break in the middle, which they find to be a useful framework. For classroom management, we have two schoolwide points systems that have been in place for many years: one for 7-11 year olds, the other for 11-15 year olds, and regularly remind teachers to stop low-level disruptive behaviour as soon as possible. To aid consistency, it can be useful for teachers to write a list of what they consider to be acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and decide where their ‘line’ is. Obviously this will vary in some ways from class to class, but it can act as a starting point when deciding which behaviour to reinforce and which to stop. Finally, we encourage new teachers to peer and video observe to see how others manage behaviour, and particularly how they get attention in order to give instructions and round off activities.

I wish… Every profession has an apprenticeship stage, whether you are a doctor, chef or cleaner. Teaching is no different. When you’re in your first job, it’s difficult to have a sense of perspective on what is and isn’t normal, possible or desirable in your workplace or job. It’s easy to spend a lot of time wishing that things could be different:

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different groups, fewer split shifts, no classes at X o’clock, less travel, etc. As managers, it’s important to remind ourselves of this, and that any dissatisfaction expressed isn’t necessarily aimed at us, though sometimes it might feel like it! Help teachers to understand the benefits of working where they are, and the range of experience that they will be able to put on their CV when they move on. The first year will be a challenge, but every year after that, things will get easier, and as teachers build up experience, they should improve their chances of finding jobs which better match their wish list. Having a range of experience also helps them to refine their wish list and work out what they need and want from their careers. It’s important to remind new teachers that if they really don’t feel that a particularly school or job is right for them, or even that teaching isn’t right, they should do their best to try something else. There are a huge range of opportunities out there, and being unhappy because you’re constantly wishing things could be different is not good for anyone.

There’s nobody to help me

to find people to them when they’re first starting out. The first challenge is to it that help is needed – bottling it up doesn’t help anyone! It can feel like everyone is so busy that they won’t have time to help, but it’s always worth asking just in case. If they really are that busy, they will say so, but most people can manage at least a few minutes to help out someone else in need, or they can suggest a later time when they will be free. If there are other teachers around who are working with the same book or level, new teachers can ask for planning or try to meet with colleagues and plan together, potentially saving work for both of them as ideas and materials can be shared. Managers can help this process by suggesting who could work together, particularly in a larger school where new teachers may have a lot of colleagues to get to know. Another important arena to explore is online communities, for example #ELTchat or #ELTplaybook on Twitter, or the Teaching English British Council Facebook group. As I often say, if you can’t work it out by yourself in five minutes or less, ask somebody else!

Luckily in IH schools, this isn’t normally the case, but for some new teachers it can feel hard

Sandy Millin Sandy is the Director of Studies at International House Bydgoszcz in Poland. She is also a CELTA trainer and materials writer. In February 2018, she self-published ELT Playbook 1, a book of tasks to help new teachers settle into their career and begin to build up an online network. You can find more information on her blog: http://sandymillin.wordpress.com

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MODERN LANGUAGES

Обучение аудированию и чтению: базовые категории и структура типичного урока By Andriy Ruzhynskiy

Данная статья призвана дать начинающим преподавателям-практикам отправную теоретическую базу для планирования и проведения эффективных уроков по обучению аудированию и говорению. И начнем мы с базовых категорий. Первое, что надо уяснить – это то, что аудирование и говорение не являются пассивными видами речевой деятельности. Мозг слушающего или читающего всегда ведет активную работу по восприятнию и переработке информации, и эту работу уж точно никак нельзя назвать пассивной. Дальнейшее обсуждение данной темы логично представить по частям – аудирование и чтение. Итак:

АУДИРОВАНИЕ Основные особенности

•• получение информации не только из

звучащего текста, но и из выражения лица, мимики, жестов, фоновых звуков, ситуации, окружения

•• использование фоновых знаний о

ситуации, теме и используемых языковых средствах (произношении и грамматике) для предсказания содержания звучащего текста

•• различение границ слов и словосочетаний, что особо важно для передачи смысла

•• понимание и интерпретация смысла

слов и словосочетаний (что основано на произношении, разговорной лексике, аграмматичных высказываниях, сокращениях и тп)

•• характеристики адресата

Основные характеристики урока •• содержит серию предтекстовых заданий, активизирующих фоновые знания студентов о ситуации, теме и языковых средствах аудируемого текста. Студенты могут таким образом предсказывать содержание аудиотекста

•• дает студентам возможность получить

информацию о типе аудиотекста и заданиях к нему перед прослушиванием

•• предполагает обязательную постановку цели (задания) перед каждым прослушиванием текста, что может включать следующее:

◦◦ получить общую информацию

(например, О чем они говорят? Они говорят о кино или о театре?)

◦◦ получить конкретную информацию

(например, Какие сеансы этого фильма?

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Сколько фильмов идет в кинотеатре?)

◦◦ выполнить определенное задание

(например, решите, какой фильм вы хотите посмотреть)

•• содержит реакцию слушающего: сделать записи, ответить на вопросы, принять совместное решение и тп.

•• строится на материале со следующими характеристиками:

◦◦ интересная и ценная для студентов тема ◦◦ уровень сложности соответствует уровню студентов

◦◦ по возможности использует фоновую

Типичные предтекстовые задания

•• обсуждение картинок с целью активизации фоновых знаний

•• мозговой штурм фоновых знаний

студентов по обсуждаемой теме с созданием лексической карты

•• обсуждение реалий, связанных с темой обсуждения (например, меню из ресторана или репертуара кинотеатра)

•• введение так называемой блокирующей

лексики (той, которая может помешать выполнять предложенные преподавателем задания).

информацию

◦◦ говорящий в идеале доступен

Типичные текстовые задания

◦◦ по возможности аутентичен

Задания на понимание общего содержания:

обозрению

•• дает студентам возможность прослушать текст несколько раз, и каждый раз студенты имеют различные задания, от более общего к более специфическому

•• содержит послетекстовые задания,

которые включают работу над другими видами речевой деятельности и умениями (говорение, чтение, письмо, грамматику).

Типичные материалы

•• Аутентичные: радиопередачи, записи

(например, автоответчик кинотеатра, объявления в аэропорту), видеозаписи ТВ шоу и фильмов, лекции, телефонные разговоры

•• Полу-аутентичные: неподготовленные

записи, ролевые игры с носителями языка, говорящими в естественном темпе

•• Подготовленные: методически

препарированные, адаптированные аудио- и видеозаписи.

•• выделить основную идею текста •• выбрать среди нескольких предложенных основную идею аудиотекста

•• определить ситуацию и основную тему по фоновым звукам

•• определить, сколько людей разговаривают •• по интонации голосов определить отношения между людьми

•• расположить основные идеи в логическом порядке или использовать граф для определения основных частей текста

Специфические задания:

•• идентифицировать конкретные или ключевые слова в аудиотексте

•• текст врассыпную (собрать его после прослушивания)

•• определение интонации (утвердительная, вопросительная)

•• поднять руку, когда слышите определенные слова

•• выполнение определенного задания, 36 Обучение аудированию и чтению: базовые категории и структура типичного урока • IH Journal • Issue 45

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например, заполнить форму, проследить маршрут по карте, принять заказ и тп.

•• найти соответствие между описанием и картинкой.

Задания на детальное понимание:

•• ответы на конкретные вопросы •• заполнить пропуски в тексте •• диктовка некоторых деталей из отрывка аудиотекста

•• определение ошибок •• краткий пересказ (устный или письменный)

•• составление конспекта прослушанного текста

•• запись ключевых слов.

Типичные послетекстовые задания •• •• •• ••

ролевые игры чтение диалогов вслух интервью выяснение информации (например, в турагентстве, в кинотеатре, бюро проката автомобилей, в ресторане)

•• чтение и/или пиcьмо на тему, связанную с темой аудиотекста

внешнего вида, заголовков, иллюстраций

•• использование фоновых знаний о теме,

типе письменного материала (например, письмо, объявление, стихи) и языке (лексика и грамматика) для составления прогнозов о содержании текста

•• на уровне элементарной грамотности,

декодирование букв с целью понимания слов

•• выделение слов или словосочетаний,

несущих основную смысловую нагрузку

•• понимание и интерпретирование этих слов и словосочетаний

•• использование нужных стратегий

в зависимости от типа материала и цели чтения (например, сканирование телефонной книги в поисках нужного номера, чтение репепта приготовления блюда в деталях, просматривание статьи в газете)

Основные характеристики урока

•• содержит серию предтекстовых заданий с целью подготовить студентов к

◦◦ использованию их фоновых знаний ◦◦ предсказыванию содержания текста ◦◦ выбору адекватной стратегии чтения

•• - содержит задания на развитие следующих навыков:

•• обсуждение темы •• выполнение грамматических заданий к

◦◦ прогнозирование и предугадывание

•• обсуждение возможного продолжения

определения основного содержания текста

аудиотексту

аудиотекста.

содержания текста

◦◦ просмотровое чтение – с целью

◦◦ изучающее чтение – с целью поиска специфической информации

ЧТЕНИЕ Основные особенности

•• получение информации из текста: его

◦◦ языковая догадка (угадывание смысла из контекста)

•• имеет познавательную ценность

(изучение лексики и новой информации на русском языке)

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•• построен на материале со следующими характеристиками:

◦◦ интересная и важная для студентов тема

◦◦ уровень сложности текста соответствует уровню студентов

◦◦ по возможности, аутентичен (оригинален)

•• содержит задания, которые включают следующее:

◦◦ получение общей информации

(например, сколько фильмов можно посмотреть сегодня в кинотеатре)

◦◦ получение специфической, конкретной

информации (например, каковы сеансы тех или иных фильмов)

◦◦ логические рассуждения и обсуждения (например, решите, какой фильм вы будете смотреть)

•• требует реакцию читающего: сделать

записи, ответить на вопросы, принять совместное решение и тп.

•• дает студентам возможность и залания прочитать текст несколько раз

•• включает послетекстовые задания,

которые направлены на развитие других видов речевой деятельности.

Типичные материалы

•• Аутентичные: газеты и журналы,

программы представлений в театре или цирке, меню ресторанов, рекламные проспекты и листовки, прайс-листы, объявления в газетах, аналогичные материалы интернета, ТВ программы, письма носителей языка

•• Подготовленные: адаптированные тексты для чтения, обработанные с целью отработки того или иного языкового материала.

Типичные предтекстовые задания •• На уровне элементарной грамотности:

соотнесение заглавных и прописных букв, первой буквы слова и картинки; поиск слов одной тематической группы (например, продукты питания); соотнесение звучания слова, знакомого студентам, с его графической формой; выстраивание логической последовательности картинок слева направо

•• Элементарный и базовый уровни:

преподаватель выясняет у студентов, что они знают об этой теме; студенты составляют лексическую карту для данной темы; студенты работают со словарями с целью поиска значения ключевых слов текста, затем они сортируют слова по категориям; студенты рассматривают и обсуждают иллюстрации к тексту; студенты обсуждаю заголовки, расположение текста, иллюстрации, и затем делают прогнозы относительно содержания текста.

•• Средний и продвинутый уровни: виды

работы, перечисленные выше, + студенты составляют вопросы, на которые они надеются получить ответ в прочитанном тексте; студенты пишут небольшое сочинение на тему текста.

Типичные текстовые задания

•• поиск специфической информации в тексте

•• чтение текста и пересказ партнеру

(вариант: используйте зрительные опоры или палочки для пересказа)

•• чтение частей текста или похожих

текстов в раздельных группах, и затем представители разных групп делятся прочитанным в новых группах

•• нахождение соответствий между текстом и иллюстрациями; выполнение задания, основанного на материале текста

38 Обучение аудированию и чтению: базовые категории и структура типичного урока • IH Journal • Issue 45

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(например, заполнение формы, решение, что заказать и тп)

•• лексические игры с новыми словами из текста

•• закончить предложения из текста •• выстраивание предложений текста в

логическую последовательность (в текст) и затем – проверка по оригинальному тексту

•• составление собственных вопросов к тексту и задавание этих вопросов одногруппникам

Типичные послетекстовые задания

•• студенты пишут продолжение текста •• сочинение с использованием новой •• •• •• ••

•• составление конспекта прочитанного •• использование картинок, графов, списков

лексики

обсуждение текста прослушивание материалов по теме текста создание альтернативного финала текста рассказ о том, что происходило до начала текста.

для передачи содержания текста.

Andriy Ruzhynskiy Andriy is a Teacher Trainer at International House Kharkiv, Ukraine. He has 15-year experience of teacher training in a least 15 countries (CELTA, SIT TESOL, IHCTL, CAM). Andriy regularly takes part in conferences and workshops for teachers. As IHWO Russian Coordinator, he moderates Russian Online Resource Centre and provides help to Russian teachers at IH schools all over the world.

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One more step towards ELF By Anna Golc

Teaching English as a Lingua Franca is not a new concept in EFL. This article focuses on pronunciation in ELF, describes its importance and offers a few practical ideas on how to incorporate it into the language classroom. Whilst studying English in high school, about fifteen years ago, all of my textbooks included sections devoted to the culture of Englishspeaking countries, mainly the United Kingdom. I clearly pictures of red phone boxes and double-decker buses, articles about British festivals and drinking tea. The assumption was that I would one day travel to the UK and use the language to talk to native-speakers. Fifteen years have ed since then and the reasons that we teach English have evolved so much that we don’t tend to see those culture sections in course books anymore. In fact, some course books have even started introducing different non-native accents in listening materials. We now better understand that a lot of students are learning English to communicate with the whole world, not just with native-speakers. The focus is shifting from EFL to ELF – teaching English as a Lingua Franca – a language used for communication across cultures and mainly between those who have different mother tongues. There still is, however, a lot more we can do in of teaching pronunciation in order to prepare our students to face the challenges of using English as a world language.

Why Change it at All? Why not? It is unrealistic to teach only one accent, both receptively and productively, and expect our students to understand and be understood in English everywhere they go. Since there is such a wide variety of native-accents that we can teach, why should we consider a perfectly intelligible French accent in English any worse? Teaching ELF is about raising awareness of the diversity of the different “Englishes” used all around the world. Another significant argument worth mentioning relates to the make-up of those who actually speak English: native speakers make only a small fraction of all people who can communicate in English. In the EU 94% of secondary students are learning English. After Brexit, only 1% of the EU population will be native-speakers with English most likely remaining one of the official languages of the union (O’Grady, 2017). It seems clear that, given current trends, ELF will continue to gain importance.

First Step Imagine an Italian winery doing business with Australian and Chilean companies. During

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the employee’s English lessons, a textbook focusing on British English, both in listening and pronunciation exercises, is used. In this scenario, an important step was clearly omitted: needs analysis and follow-up. At the beginning of a course it is, of course, important to get to know the learners, check in what situations they use English outside of the classroom, who they talk to and what they actually want to learn. It is clear that this winery’s employees need to be able to understand Australian and Chilean accents in English; therefore, these are the accents to which they should be primarily (but not exclusively) exposed. In of pronunciation, Laura Patsko and Katy Simpson in their blog ELF Pronunciation describe an excellent way of analysing what problems need to be addressed with a particular group of learners (Patsko, 2013). Since many students will expect to hear and learn British or American pronunciation during lessons, as with anything else in the classroom, it is crucial to talk to students and explain why certain materials and activities are being used. Of course, certain students might strive to sound like a native-speaker, especially when they want to integrate in a native-English country, and, if that is what they want and need, then they should be encouraged and ed to achieve their aim.

Listening Textbook listening materials are no longer as native-speaker centered as they used to be, but

it is still necessary to bear in mind our learners’ needs and to expose them to different accents, especially the ones they have with in real life. This should allow students to exercise their flexibility and practice their understanding of various accents. Listening to international speakers may also normalize having a non-native accent in English and increase our students’ confidence when speaking. I believe that it is also a good idea to discuss those accents and their characteristics with the learners so they are consciously aware of them and in order to improve their bottom-up listening skills. In multilingual groups all students listen to and get used to their classmates’ accents during each lesson. Teachers of monolingual groups, however, need to make special efforts to provide that opportunity to their students. Materials with a meaningful content that may be used to expose students to alternative models of English. For example, teachers could use:

•• News from around the world – It is important to not only listen to accents our learners will deal with but also to learn about the way of life in the places they are from. According to Bayyurt and Akcan, news from across the world represent the diversity of linguistic norms as well as cultural values of the place (Bayyurt and Akcan, 2015: 40).

•• Katy Simpson’s myenglishvoice.com. A

website with ready-to-use lesson plans

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featuring videos of people from around the world speaking English.

•• Ted Talks by people with different accents in English, YouTube videos, also available with subtitles.

•• Speeches and interviews with singers, actors, politicians, etc., from different parts of the world.

•• ‘Skype dates’, WhatsApp audio conversations, sharing video recordings with IH students from different parts of the world.

Pronunciation Having an accent helps some people to feel that they remain themselves even though they’re speaking another language. A speaker’s pronunciation can tell us much more about the person than the words they are saying, for instance, their regional, social and cultural background (Ożóg, 2017). Our learners should be aware of the fact that it’s ok to have an accent as long as it doesn’t break down communication. Jennifer Jenkins published a list of features, based on her research, that are necessary in order to be understood in English (Jenkins, 2000). The book is eighteen years old, yet textbooks still insist on teaching RP or, less frequently, American English pronunciation. In ELF, being intelligible is the main goal of pronunciation, unless our students strive specifically to sound more like native speakers. When looking at pronunciation exercises in a coursebook, I would always consider whether it aids with intelligibility or helps to sound more like a native speaker. If being easily understood is what my students are striving for in pronunciation then instead of drilling the ‘th’ sound we should focus on the features of our learners’ pronunciation that Jenkins (2000: 132) describes as crucial to being intelligible:

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•• Nuclear stress •• Vowel /ɜː/ and length of vowels in general •• Consonant sounds and consonant clusters. According to Jenkins (2000), consonant sounds are important to be intelligible in English, so, for instance, working on the difference between ‘r’ and ‘l’ sounds with Japanese students is crucial. It is, however, equally important to raise awareness of other nationalities that their Japanese interlocutors may have problems pronouncing them so instead of working towards perfect RP pronunciation we are working together towards better mutual understanding in a global sense. Of course, not all accents can be taught to all students and this is why the needs analysis mentioned before is useful when teaching or correcting features of pronunciation that are problematic to your students.

And Finally During the last week I have used English to speak to people from Ireland and Britain, as well as Italy, Switzerland, Mexico, Ukraine, Greece and a variety of other non-English speaking countries. Fifteen years ago, my school wasn’t preparing me for these sorts of interactions – perhaps it should have been. Given that English is used so widely today, I can only imagine what it’s going to be like in another decade or two. Teaching English as a Lingua Franca merely means helping our learners to step into that world.

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References: Bayyurt, Y. and Akcan, S. (2015). Current Perspectives on Pedagogy for English as a Lingua Franca. Walter de Gruyter Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an International Language. OUP O’Grady, C. (2017). After Brexit, EU English will be free to morph into a distinct variety. The Guardian. [Online] 25 September. Available from: www.theguardian.com/science/ blog/2017/sep/25/without-uk-influence-euenglish-will-be-free-to-morph-into-a-distinctvariety [Accessed: 5 October 2018]

Ożóg, C. (2017). “I don’t have an accent” said Alison from Sussex. World of Better Learning. [Online] 7 August. Available from: http://www. cambridge.org/elt/blog/2017/08/07/dont-havean-accent/ [Accessed: 22 October 2018] Patsko, L. (2013). How to do a needs analysis with a multilingual class. ELF Pronunciation. [Online] 21 November. Available from: https:// elfpron.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/needsanalysis-multilingual/ [Accessed: 4 October 2018]

Anna Golc Anna has ten years of experience in teaching, is DELTA-qualified and has an MA in English Philology specialising in teaching. She currently works in IH Rome, and has taught in Poland, China, Spain and Ireland before.

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Working with a VIP (Visually Impaired Person) By Helen Rountree

Over the summer I taught a group of Japanese university students on an English and Culture summer course at Kent University. One of my students, ‘C’, was visually impaired. It was a steep learning curve for me as I’d never worked with a VIP before. I learnt so much that I wanted to share some ideas from my humble four weeks’ experience in this journal article in the hope that it will help others. First a bit of background… The class was intermediate and aged 18-21 from a university in Kobe, Japan. C is blind rather than partially sighted and in the classroom she used a Braille copy of the textbook and a PC reader which converts text files to audio so she can listen to the text. She also used a Braille note taker to record notes and answers to exercises. The amazing learning staff at Kent university also showed her the Seeing AI app (www. youtube.com/watch?v=bqeQByqf_f8) on her phone which can ‘narrate the world around you’. This helped with visuals in class and her new environment in England. I used quick-draw paper (also called swell paper) for timelines, graphs, phonemic symbols, etc., to produce tactile images. C also had a learning assistant in class to navigate her through the lesson - finding the materials she needed or guiding her during activities with movement. A lot of advice online suggests the first step to inclusion is to ask your student what they 44 ihworld.com

need. Before the course started C, myself, her learning assistant and the technology staff at Kent University met to discuss classroom accommodations. When I asked C how I could best accommodate her, her reply was ‘please treat me the same as the other students’. So how do you do this? The main idea I experimented with was building visual impairment into activities for all students, rather than changing activities to accommodate the visual impairment of one student. Wherever possible in my lessons, I tried to make being blind a benefit rather than a hindrance. Below I’ve written about some activities I adapted for use with VIP students. I’ve used the specific examples I used with my class but they could be easily adapted for different levels/language/ content. I’m not an expert on visual impairment and of course every student is different, but these activities are those that worked well in my particular context and got positive from my students.

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Vocab-definitionpicture matching Context: British food vocabulary Materials: Worksheet A with descriptions and vocab, worksheet B with pictures and vocab 1. Split the class in half.

As / Bs

2. Give As, including your VIP,

Example worksheet from www.eltexperiences.com description of food items including what they look like on one side and the meal names on the other. Video lesson (Your VIP can have a digital copy to be read by a PC reader or could use the Seeing AI app activities to scan it.) Context: As You Like It by Shakespeare

3. Give Bs pictures of the same food items and

the meal names

4. As match description-food name, Bs match

photo-food name

5. As check together. Bs check together 6. Demo with an A student. You as B. Stand

Materials: Animated Stories cartoon from Dailymotion.com (www.dailymotion.com/ video/x53ssfj), worksheet A with character descriptions, worksheet B with individual pictures of characters 1. Introduce names of main characters

up and describe the first picture on the B worksheet without showing it to A!

2. Play sections of speech from each character

Teacher: I can see potatoes, peas and chicken on a plate. I think it’s roast dinner What does your description say? A: My description says a common dinner for Sundays, including meat, potatoes and vegetables. Yes I think it’s roast dinner. Check together the picture-description-name match up 7. As-Bs together describe their picture/read

their description and check their answers

8. Open class and follow up question

(e.g which dish would you most like to try?)

and ask Ss to listen and imagine what the characters look, behave and dress like. (Useful for adjectives of personality and appearance!)

3. Ss compare ideas 4. Split class As / Bs 5. Give As (including the VIP) descriptions

including the name, appearance and personality of one character each. (For example: Duke Ferdinand is an aggressive ruler with a bad temper. He is an old and rich man with a luxurious cloak, a crown and many servants) PC reader, Seeing AI or similar technology can read the description to VIP student.

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4. As describe what they can see and Bs listen

and circle any words that As use

5. Swap. Bs describe. As listen for vocab. VIP

doesn’t swap but listens to 2nd B or learning assistant describe again. Their partner or learning assistant can help circle the words on the vocabulary sheet or they can take notes if they have a Braille notetaker

6. The whole class watch together, shouting

out words when they see them from either sheet - A/B

6. Give Bs picture of 1 character each 7. Ss should find their partner by mingling

and describing their picture/reading their description and then sit down together

8. Open class check the matching having each B

describe their picture and each A read their description. For each character replay the section of speech from start but with visuals so that VIP can associate voice with character and all students can check their ideas about looks, behavior and clothing

Part 2 Video activities Materials: Animated Stories cartoon from Dailymotion.com (www.dailymotion.com/ video/x53ssfj) , worksheet A & worksheet B with vocabulary sets appearing in the video 1. Split class again As / Bs. Give each a different

worksheet with vocabulary words appearing in one scene of the video. (PC reader can read it to VIP)

2. As together, Bs together check they

understand the words and look up definitions / ask if they’re not sure.

3. As face the screen, Bs face away. If possible

put your VIP in a group of 3 (ABB) or if they have a learning assistant, as mine did, pair them together

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Object drill Context: adjectives of personality for talking about family Materials: A lexical set students have already encountered, a different object for each student 1. After encountering a new lexical set, give

each student a different object - a pen/ phone/pencil case, etc.

2. Give each student one written word from

the lexical set and tell them to say their word/phrase to their object 3 times (Do this yourself first as students will feel silly but it’s a good way to correct pronunciation before the game!)

3. Have students stand in a circle and the

objects round the circle. Encourage them to feel, look at and each object. Continue until everyone has felt each object*

4. Demo: Say your word and your object to

a student. That student says their word and you take their object. Repeat with another 2-3 students

5. Ask students to mingle and their vocab

objects

6. After 2-3 minutes have students stand back in

the circle keeping the object they have in their hand. Go round the circle checking the correct vocab-object combinations by asking students

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•• Check in with your VIP regularly for

to describe the object and say the word 7. Return each object to its rightful owner

*This part is very important as it gives the VIP a tactile reference to the word they are being told

on activities, their needs, etc., but not so often that it singles them out from the rest of the class. Try to make it a class wide when possible.

•• Be prepared for each lesson and where

General Tips

•• See describing things as a natural part of your activity set up and boardwork.

•• At the start of each class, or if you move

students around ask them to each say their name so that your VIP has a sound map of where everyone is sitting- especially if they’re unfamiliar with the voices in the class (a good way to do the !).

•• Don’t change the classroom layout too often.

possible send documents ahead of time for VIP to familiarise themselves with before the lesson.

•• Sounds obvious, but talk directly to your

student not ‘through’ their learning assistant/ friends. Just because they’re visually impaired doesn’t mean they’re invisible!

•• When possible build tactile elements into

an activity for the whole class, e.g. If you’re introducing food vocab, bring in the food.

Helen Rountree Helen has been teaching at IH Bydgoszcz for several years and is the current ADOS. This is her 6th year as an ESL teacher so she has a range of experience with different groups, abilities and exam classes. Every summer she returns to England to work at university summer schools. She has almost completed her DipTESOL and would like to specialise in SEN teaching in the future.

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Kissing a stranger: Cultural competence By James Egerton

Why work for International House? Among a plethora of reasons is the great opportunity to move from one to another around the world; barring disgrace at one IH post of course, in which case said individual will be tarred and feathered, and mentioned only in hushed whispers like Voldemort’s in staff rooms across the IH network. For the vast majority of IH colleagues though, this opportunity remains open, and while pedagogical proficiency must be proven through qualifications, what about cultural competence in understanding what students might respond best to? After all, being linguistically competent but culturally oblivious can cause a range of problems for both learner and teacher, and as I’ll discuss further on, there are more proactive ways to prepare for new cultures than through trial and error.

Have you ever kissed a stranger? My inspiration for this article came at the beginning of a CELTA course I was observing here at my new home at IH Rome in September. With the noble aim of encouraging students to mingle with the present perfect, a trainee showed me her plan to include ‘Have you ever kissed a stranger?’ in the question list - on Day 3 of their acquaintance! Cold, cautious and prudish after two years in Latvia had re-exposed my Britishness, I balked and blushed (did I gasp a couple of times?) and asked said trainee if this was overstepping personal boundaries. 48 ihworld.com

My concern was met with confusion - “Who is this new guy? Has he just escaped from the Vatican down the road?” - and was shown to be groundless, as the students didn’t bat an eyelid at the question and happily shared their personal stories. This left me to reflect on my current cultural incompetence, and wonder what else might fly while teaching in Italy. Indeed, less concern about encroaching on personal boundaries allows for a much greater range of topics, and leaves more of students’ mental capital to invest in communication and language focus rather than stepping on egg shells.

“Your experience is limited, young grasshopper! It proves nothing!” Guilty, your Honour! I’m a relative novice, having only been teaching in Spain at a private academy (2012-2016), IH Riga in Latvia (20162018) and now at IH Rome. This is why I asked several IH colleagues past and present about their experiences of TEFL-ing within a variety of cultures, to add some more perspectives to my own.

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I’m aware of the fallacy of solely relying on anecdotal evidence, but here are several other viewpoints to sit alongside my own before we consult academia...

Kelly Brennan, IH Palermo (London School) to IH Riga: ‘My first comment after teaching a class in Latvia was ‘wow they’re quite serious’. Sicilians, on the other hand, were

Chris Jones, IH Apollo Hanoi to IH Rome: ‘I’d been led to believe Vietnamese students would be near-silent in class, lest they make a mistake. On the contrary, as long as the topic was well chosen (definitely not politics or celebrities who aren’t Taylor Swift), the students were keen to communicate, and not overly concerned with being accurate.’

very keen to showcase their talents from the word “go”... Some of my tried and tested hilarious anecdotes were met with a blank stare or a raised eyebrow in Riga.’ Sam Goldie, IH Bydgoszcz to IH Sevilla: ‘In general , Polish students are certainly more intolerant of ambiguity and you get a lot of classes that need warming up before they’re welcome to share. In a nutshell, Spanish students are hard to shut up and Polish students are hard to get talking.’ Robbie Hancock, IH Santiago de Compostela to IH Riga: ‘I think some of the “lighter” activities didn’t work as well in Latvia as the Spanish are a lot more “light-hearted” on the whole. I also found that some of the Latvian/ Russian students’ desperation for constant correction could get in the way of an activity.’ Lisa Wilson, IH Toruń to IH Palermo: ‘Polish teenagers on the whole tended to be more informed about global, political and social issues than here in Sicily.’

“All anecdotal! Where’s the academic research?” A caveat to start: national stereotypes are as lazy as they are silly: the majority of Brits don’t sit down for 5 o’clock tea, not every American is a gun-slinging redneck (etc.). In the worst cases, stereotypes are weapons for racial discrimination. Every person is an individual, with their own motivations, expectations and baggage, and the colour of someone’s port (or anything else for that matter) is no precise indicator to their behaviour. That said, several large-scale studies have consistently uncovered variation in average personality around the world due to genetic, environmental and political-historical factors (Jarrett, 2017); knowledge of which can facilitate the key TEFL business of cross-cultural interaction (Allik and McCrae, 2004). This is why, while never taking our eyes off the individuals in front of us, I think that more attention should be paid to cross-cultural personality research to inform our choices as educators, especially when getting used to a new culture in the first months. So where to look? There are several models and studies available, but one which I particularly like is the Lewis Model of Culture (Richard, not Michael!). This was introduced to me by the brilliant ILC IH Brno DoS Dave Cleary at the Trainer’s Weekend earlier this year (next Trainer’s Weekend in February 2019!). Kissing a stranger: Cultural competence • IH Journal • Issue 45

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to navigating the world’s economies’ (Wall Street Journal cit. CultureCatch, 2009). Of course, many individuals deviate from the national average (note Chris’ testimony of his Vietnamese learners differing from the Lewis Model characteristics), particularly considering employment. But what are the implications for teaching English? Well, for starters: consider the difference between the typical classroom of Chinese and Portuguese students; or the ramifications for one person from each culture doing pair work in a multicultural group.

So what you’re saying is...?

*For an interactive demo of how the model works visit https://secure.cultureactive.com/help/demo.lasso

The Lewis Model is based on data drawn from 50,000 executives at residential courses and more than 150,000 online questionnaires to 68 different nationalities, so although it’s an extensive numerical pool, it could be considered socio-culturally skewed and, like any study, it’s incomplete (“I was never asked!”). But despite its imperfections, the Lewis Model remains a handy reference trusted worldwide in a range of industries, for example in the financial sector as ‘the authoritative roap 50

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Language translates but content doesn’t. At IH, we expect trained, professional teachers with excellent knowledge of language and pedagogy, but cultural awareness of the teaching context is usually learned on the job (often through a drawn-out cycle of trial and error). Of course, as was the case with the CELTA trainee, cultural awareness is second nature to teachers who share a culture with their students, but is worth serious investigation if not. How open is the average student in this culture, and how might this affect your teaching techniques? How might they process language – logically or emotionally? What might your students be comfortable discussing? As Tomalin and Stempleski argue (cit. Sadtono, 2009), ‘communication, language, and culture cannot be separated’. So if real communication

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is to take precedence over teacher ‘delivery’, we should focus on who, not just what we teach: understanding a person’s culture and identity is paramount in creating an optimal learning atmosphere and choosing relevant and engaging topics. Indeed, when kissing a stranger sounds standard in one place and saucy in another, it’s more than the English language that we need to take into in the classroom. Consulting the Lewis Model of Culture can really help with this.

Many thanks to the following IH colleagues past and present who helped me by sharing their experiences (in alphabetical order, not favouritism): Alycia Messing; Chris Jones; Flo Feast-Jones; Kelly Brennan; Lisa Wilson; Robbie Hancock; Sally MacAndrew; Sam Goldie.

References: Allik, J. and McCrae, R.R., 2004. Towards a Geography of Personality Traits: Patterns of Profiles Across 36 Countries in Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology 35 (4), January 2004, pp.13-28. Available at: http://bit.ly/2zuS95p (Accessed 15/9/2018) Cross Culture, 2015. The Lewis Model – Dimensions of Behaviour. Available at: http://bit. ly/2PCe1WF (Accessed 13/9/2018) CultureCatch, 2016. A Global model of Cultures – A Trusted Approach. Available at: http://bit. ly/2SS1xJg (Accessed 25/9/2018)

Mendoza-Denton, R., 2012. Cultural Stereotypes, or National Character? Available at: http://bit.ly/2JDeiTA (Accessed 15/9/2018) Sadtono, E., 2009. Cross-cultural Understanding: A Dilemma for TEFL. Available at: https:// idoc-pub.cinepelis.org/publication/46141814/ (Accessed 19/9/2018) Wurgaft, L.D., 1995. Identity in World History: A Postmodern Perspective in History and Theory, Vol.34 No.2, Theme Issue 34: World Historians and Their Critics (May 1995), pp.6785. Available at: http://bit.ly/2yQcJNR (Accessed 15/9/2018)

Jarrett, C., 2017. Different Nationalities Really Have Different Personalities, BBC Future. Available at: https://bbc.in/2RAAf8y (Accessed 15/9/2018)

James Egerton James is a Delta-qualified teacher and teacher trainer currently working at International House Rome Accademia Britannica. He studied French and Spanish at university before teaching in Spain for four years and Latvia for two, before arriving in Rome a few months ago. He has taken regular in-house teacher training sessions, is an IHCYLT course tutor, a CELTA TinT until Christmas, and has presented several webinars and IH conference talks. He blogs on ELT at www.jamesegerton.wordpress.com.

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Column: What I wish I had known when I started teaching exam classes By David Petrie

As I write, it’s the start of the new school year and I have been thinking about my new classes and what I want to do differently this time round. This led to a more general reflection, thoughts on how my teaching of exam classes has changed over the years, and to the things it would have been useful to know when I started teaching exam groups. My first exam group was an IELTS class in China that I tandem taught and as I recall I was responsible for speaking and writing, while my colleague was responsible for reading and listening. Everything I knew about IELTS could have probably been written on a post-it-note with room to spare and my approach back then was very simple: follow the book.

The book is not the syllabus Neither is the exam. To draw an analogy, it’s a bit like training animals to jump through hoops for the circus – the hoop is the exam and the coursebook is a manual on animal jumping techniques. Students should know what the exam looks like, but to make the exam the focus of everything is to do the students a disservice. Likewise the book. Coursebooks have to cover all the bases and include a suitable range of grammatical structures, vocabulary sets, example

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tasks and so forth as possible. Slavishly following the book forgets the fact that the students all come into the class from different starting points and it is unlikely that all the students will need to review all the content. As the teacher, we have to find out what our students need in order to be successful and to focus our energies on that. There are three main ways of doing this: needs analysis, diagnostic testing, and classroom observation. In general or business English classrooms, needs analysis is mostly concerned with trying to find out what the students want or need to achieve while in the exams class this goal is largely predetermined by the exam. The needs analysis process can then be used to find out what the students think their strengths and weaknesses are – where they have or lack confidence in their abilities. Diagnostic testing can then give the truth (or not) to these assertions. This could be in the form of a sample exam paper, but this can be time consuming and lead to a lot of additional marking and

EXAMS

evaluation. Some grammar and vocabulary books include entry tests to help learners identify which bits of the book to focus on, these could be adapted and used with a class. Probably the easiest way to get a quick overview is to ask students to do some writing for you as a homework task. This gives students time to think about the vocabulary and grammar they want to use in a way that spontaneous speech does not and should therefore (theoretically at least) represent a higher level of productive ability. Finally, classroom observation can tell you a lot. If all your students are happily using a range of past tenses to describe what they did on the weekend, you can probably skip the unit that reviews past tenses.

Problems with speaking usually have little to do with speaking In needs analysis questionnaires that I get back from students, the majority tend to be concerned about their speaking. For example: “I want to improve my conversation skills” or “I can’t express myself when I speak”. In practice, students clearly do know how to speak, they can do it in their own language and while there may be issues with interaction patterns and turn-taking, they can usually perform the mechanics of speaking. What they tend to lack is vocabulary, and this is why they find it difficult to communicate their meaning. In issue 43 of the IH Journal, Magnus Coney looks at the differences in learning planned items versus emergent items and notes that in his research, learners tend to retain emergent items at a much higher rate than with planned vocabulary exercises. For me the takeaway from this research is the impact that “incidental” vocabulary can have on a learner’s lexical resource, and it points to a way that we can help our learners improve: by making a point of finding opportunities in the lesson to reformulate what learners are saying, or to provide what

learners want to say, and by making a record of this on the board and by coming back to these items in subsequent lessons, perhaps by beginning each lesson with a review activity or game. As well as us helping learners to review all this new language, learners also need to be encouraged to do more for themselves in this regard. There are now lots of apps and websites that students can work with, such as Quizlet, to build their own vocabulary sets and to spend five minutes here and there reviewing and testing themselves on the new items.

Practice needs a purpose With apologies to Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an exam student in pursuit of a good exam, must be in want of practice.” This is a theme I return to, having written about it in this journal before, but it is true that exam class students want to do exam practice (the more so the closer to the exam they get) and it is equally true that unless that practice is handled appropriately, it is largely pointless. To give students a sample exam task and for them to do it, being then told the answers, perhaps gives them practice in the mechanics of making choices but it does not help them to get better at doing the task. For this to happen there needs to be a process of reflection and self-evaluation. In my previous article I suggest asking learners to complete a hot questionnaire before giving them the solutions. An alternative, and possibly more time efficient, is colour-coding the answers as the learners hear/see them. I ask learners to bring pens or pencils in four different colours, for example as with a highlighter pen set. Then as we review the answers the learners colour code their responses as follows: Green for an answer they knew instinctively, Yellow for an answer they knew but had to work out, Pink for an answer they got wrong but they think they know why, and Blue for an answer they got wrong and they don’t know why. This then sets up an informed reflection on the task:

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the students compare their answers and can explain to each other why answers are correct or incorrect (thus also turning into a communicative activity). It allows me to monitor for any common problems and to focus group on specifics, and this, to go back to the earlier point on classroom observation, allows me to focus future lessons on what is needed. There is another question that I like learners to try and answer after doing something like this: “What do I need to do next?” This throws the focus back onto the learners to try and make positive change or to seek development, rather than relying on me for all the answers, though obviously I do try and talk to the students about their ideas. It also tries to give learners a clear development goal in relation to the exam task – something concrete, meaningful and achievable. The next time we work on a similar task or part of the exam, I ask students to refer back to their notes and goals, and to review them before attempting the task again. I should say I do not

go through this cycle every time, but strategically throughout the course.

And yet more besides… The premise of this piece is the advice I would give to my younger exam teaching self, just about to walk into that IELTS classroom in China, and there is so much more that I could mention and which I didn’t then know I needed to know. Discourse patterns and paragraphing in written texts for a start… But I think that whether teachers new to exam classes get the they need is very often an institutional thing and it can be difficult to to ask for the help when you are busy with a hundred and one things to do, just as it can be difficult to to give that help. So if you are new to exam teaching, or relatively new to it, I hope you find this helpful and if not – go and bother your Director of Studies for their thoughts on it all!

References: Coney, M. (2017). A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. IH Journal, [online] (43). Available at: http://ihjournal. com/a-little-knowledge-is-a-dangerous-thingby-magnus-coney [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Petrie, D. (2017). Does practice make perfect? IH Journal [online] (42). Available at: http:// ihjournal.com/does-practice-make-perfect [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

David Petrie David Petrie teaches in Coimbra, Portugal and is also teacher trainer with IH OTTI. He is DELTA qualified and has a MA Applied Linguistics & TESOL. Professionally, his interests lie in the area of teaching exam classes and ways of using technology in teaching. He blogs about this and everything else ELT related at www.teflgeek.net and can also be found on twitter as @teflgeek.

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Column: What I wish I had known when I started teaching exam classes • IH Journal • Issue 45

REVIEWS

Review: How Vocabulary is Learned by Stuart Webb and Paul Nation

Reviewed by Will Greenwood

As the authors point out in the introduction, there has been a huge amount of research on vocabulary in recent years: it has been estimated that 30% of all research on the topic has taken place since the turn of the century. A comprehensive review and summary of the evidence of how vocabulary is best learned and taught, presented in an easily digestible form, that can be put into practice by busy working teachers, is certainly very welcome. And that is what Webb and Nation have presented us with here. After discussion of which words should be learned, and the vocabulary demands of various text types, the authors provide a very useful analysis of the factors that determine the difficulty of learning a word, or the learning burden. They then go on to discuss incidental and deliberate learning, and the advantages of both. This is followed by an analysis and assessment of vocabulary learning activities, a discussion of the challenges of different learning contexts, and a discussion of autonomous learning strategies. The authors then discuss the optimal design of teacher-led vocabulary learning program, based around ‘the principle of the four strands’ – that vocabulary learning should include meaning-focused input, meaningfocused output, language-focused study and fluency work. Finally, they present a wide-

ranging and very useful list of resources. As one would expect, the book is comprehensive and thorough. It is also well-designed for teachers, with a minimum of jargon, many thoughtprovoking reader tasks, and useful suggested reading lists for each chapter. The authors carefully assess many different vocabulary learning exercises, analysing the specific purposes to which they should be used, and detailing the research that s them. Nevertheless, it has to be said that there is little that is revolutionary about many of the ideas suggested. As you might expect from what is principally a compendium of the relevant research, there are no quick fix solutions, magic bullets or grand unifying theories. Most of the activities and methods presented and analysed will have been used in some form or other by most teachers; some are probably as old as language teaching itself. This is not intended as criticism, and it is certainly not to suggest that the book will not be directly and immediately useful for classroom teachers. It is likely that every teacher will find something here to help them. For me, the overriding benefit of the book was to put together what I already knew, and plenty that I didn’t, into a coherent whole. It gave me the knowledge and, above all, confidence to construct an

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organised and systematic vocabulary program, and to share the rationale with learners, safe in the knowledge that I had solid theoretical and empirical .

a renewed sense of meaning and purpose. Autonomous learning strategies – including lexical notebooks and flashcard apps – have been embraced with a new enthusiasm.

For example, using the vocabulary levels test (described in the book and available on Stuart Webb’s website), learners got a rough idea of their present vocabulary knowledge. I could then present to them the scale of the vocabulary challenge needed to achieve their specific aims (in this case, IELTS band 6, which will probably demand a receptive vocabulary of perhaps 3-4000 word families). Online tools, detailed in the book, allow me to assess and select materials of an appropriate lexical level, and know which words can reasonably be ignored or glossed.

In conclusion, this book has had a very positive effect on my teaching of vocabulary, and has benefitted my learners a great deal. I highly recommend it to any teacher serious about developing their own knowledge of vocabulary learning and committed to helping learners achieve their vocabulary aims.

This clarity and transparency has had a powerfully motivating effect: given a clear view of the scale of the task, learners can see that while it is large and difficult, it is not endless or unachievable. And crucially, I have been able to explain and justify classroom activities in of how specifically they will contribute towards these learning goals, giving vocabulary activities

How Vocabulary is Learned by Stuart Webb and Paul Nation is out now

Will Greenwood Will has taught in schools in Taiwan, Ecuador, Vietnam and the UK, mostly focusing on academic English and exam classes. He is currently working for IH Tbilisi.

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Review: How Vocabulary is Learned by Stuart Webb and Paul Nation • IH Journal • Issue 45

IH Journal – Issue 45

Feeling inspired? Write for us! If there is a teachingrelated topic you feel ionate about, we would love to feature it in the next issue of the IH Journal, coming out in Spring 2019. Please send your idea to Chris Ożóg – [email protected]

We are also taking submissions on a range of topics for the new IH World online blog. Topics include language learning, studying abroad, CELTA, teacher training, industry voices, and many more! Please [email protected]

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