TheTeacherJames

Learner Diaries: Getting to Know You

2012-03-12T20:00:00.000+01:00

Last week one of the students in my Portuguese class invited everyone around for dinner and not just any dinner, but my favourite Brazilian dish, moqueca de peixe. Unfortunately, I don't have a great rapport with the other students in my class. This is because they are all a little more advanced than me and we don't really talk to each other in class as most of our conversations are through the filter of our teacher. However, they seem like nice people and I can never resist that particular recipe. Furthermore, it was a very generous invitation and it would have been churlish of me not to go without a good reason, so I went.

Moqueca de piexe, courtesy of Carla Arena (@carlaarena).

Over the course of the evening, we chatted, as you would expect, and I found that, unbeknownst to me, Maria* teaches conversational French, that Sara spent a great month in Manaus in Brazil but didn't like Rio at all, that Bob had a lovely Christmas in London with his girlfriend, and our host Michelle paints, specialising in pictures of Brazilian life.

The thing is that we have been in the same class now for nearly a year, and it's taken me that long to find out these things. Putting my teacher hat back on, I can't help but wonder how the classes might have been different if we had gotten to know each other better.

In Zoltan Dornyei and Kata Czizer's Ten Commandments for Motivating Language Learners, they state that the following "micro-strategies" are requirements that teachers need to enact in the classroom in order to motivate their students:

1. Set a personal example with your own behaviour.

2. Create a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere in the classroom.

3. Present the task properly.

4. Develop a good relationship with the learners.

5. Increase the learners' linguistic self-confidence.

6. Make the language classes interesting.

7. Promote learner autonomy.

8. Personalize the learning process.

9. Increase the learners' goal-orientedness.

10. Familiarize learners with the target culture.

Personally, since I first read this list and its accompanying article just after I finished my CELTA, I have found that this has provided me with a fundamental guide for how to set up my classroom. My every act and utterance need to be directed in such a way as to make the learners as motivated as possible, and subsequently I hope my students will have the desire to succeed, however they define it.

Looking at numbers two, four, five, seven and eight on Czizer and Dornyei's list, it seems to me that creating a rapport between students is either fundamental or mighty useful in each case. This sense of rapport enables the students to become more involved in the class as an entity, irrespective of the subject being studied, but with the benefit that their involvement in the class increases and subsequently so does their knowledge of the language.

When you teach adults in EFL as I do, you must not underestimate the social nature of what it is that we do. Language lessons are not the most academic in the world and they are often undertaken as a social activity by people who have two hours of lessons a week and don't always have time to do their homework.** Don't misunderstand me, there's nothing wrong with that and there's nothing to apologise for. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't take our jobs and profession seriously, far from it in fact (I hope this blog is proof of that!).

But my point is this, that on a very basic level, many of our students want to enjoy their classes. They want to progress and reach their own individual goals. Our job as teachers is to help them meet those objectives in a motivating and interesting way.

To do this, we have to recognise that a class is a social construct. It is a group of people, all with different needs, objectives and learning styles. It is necessary for these people, these social animals, to do what comes naturally to us: to interact and create bonds. Essentially,
if you don't allow your students an opportunity to get to know each other, then I think you're making it much more difficult than it needs to be.

The Ten Commandments, right by my side.

*The names have been changed.

**Incidentally, I am aware that there are also learners who are quite different situations, whether they are refugees or people who've been told to improve their English or they will lose their job. I don't think this approach to motivation applies to them any less, it's just perhaps harder to justify to administrators and the like.

Guest Post: Mieke Kenis on Raymond Murphy

2012-02-28T21:00:00.000+01:00

I actually remember the first time I saw a copy of Raymond Murphy's English Grammar in Use. I hadn't been teaching long and I was sitting on a bus in Brasília, going from one class to another, when I spotted it. "Sounds like the kind of book I need to read" I joked half seriously to myself.

It then started to appear more regularly, as students would turn up to their classes with it under their arm, just in case their native speaker teacher wasn't particularly au fait with the rules behind verb + preposition + -ing, although I'm not sure where they could possibly have got that idea... ;-)

I really got an idea of the books success when I moved to Korea and saw the same piles of copies in book shops, just as I'd seen in Brazil, and I thought to myself "Man alive, I don't know who this Raymond Murphy fellow is but I think he hit the jackpot." Until recently, I still had no idea who he was. In my mind, he was a recluse, living in a solid gold house on a tiny Pacific island, surrounded by pots of cash, a bit like this.

To be honest, I think that says more about the state of my mind than anything about Mr Murphy...

Someone who has an altogether more well rounded idea about him is Mieke Kenis, known to most of you as @mkofab on Twitter. She had the pleasure of being his student 30 years ago and of being a guinea pig for what was to become the world's English language grammar bible.

Here she shares with us of her memories of her summer in Oxford with the English language learner's grammar guru...

It was the summer of 1982. The year before we had been glued to our tiny red TV set to watch what I consider the most beautiful TV drama series I have ever seen. Brideshead Revisited, based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh (1945), was serialized for ITV and became immensely popular in Britain and also in Flanders. The story, the themes, the actors, the settings, the costumes, the language and the music mesmerized and enchanted us. The young and then unknown actor Jeremy Irons played the main character, who - in a long flashback- tells the story in an off screen voice.

That rich English prose of Waugh, read by Irons, is sheer beauty turned into sound and it can still move me after 31 years as it moved the 24 year old me in 1981. The beginning of the series is set in Oxford and the city attracted me enormously.

I had just finished my first full school year as a teacher but I knew there was still so much English to learn so although I was getting married in August I was determined to do a summer course first. Of course it had to be in Oxford and so in July 1982 I travelled to England to spend three weeks at the Swan School of English.
An early prototype of what was to become the most popular ELT grammar book in the world.

I entered a world that is so familiar to many of you but that was exotic and exciting to me: an English language school. I had never seen a school building that was in fact “a house”. An intricate layout of floors, rooms and staircases, wall to wall carpets and a garden!

Whiteboards, desks put in a U shape, tea breaks and a social programme of pub crawls (new word for me!) and coach trips during the weekends. Stratford-upon-Avon: Yay!

I had booked a room in a university college building so that meant a lot of time on my own in the evenings and during weekends. Studying, reading, listening to the radio. A dream holiday in the city of dreaming spires.

On the first day of the course we had to do a placement test and I ended up in Mr Murphy’s class. Mr Murphy, Ray, was a gentle, soft-spoken and very friendly man, who welcomed us every morning while music was playing in his classroom (I loved that!). The days were full of surprises as I had no idea what to expect. We learnt new words, did some intonation exercises, he taught us idioms and phrasal verbs, we did role plays and had discussions, listened to news broadcasts and wrote about the topics we had discussed in class. He corrected our work and gave feedback.

I will be forever grateful for his lessons, for his grammar book(s) and for introducing me to Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage, which was exactly what I needed and which I still recommend to my students today.

Another prototype

I would like to conclude by some thoughts on textbooks and on grammar.

As a non-native speaker of English, and therefore still a learner, I am really thankful for textbooks.

Not everyone has the privilege to be taught by a good teacher when and as often as they would like. Over the years I have learnt a lot from various excellent textbooks. I can only thank the many authors, like Raymond Murphy, who have written some great (self-study) materials for us, millions of learners of English.

And then there is grammar. Of course we should concentrate on communication and we have come a long way since the days of grammar- based courses but I hope that native speaker teachers who call their courses learner-centered will let the learner decide on this too.

If we, learners, want accuracy, please don’t deny us accuracy. Allow us, learners, to decide how accurate we want to be or how much like a native speaker we want to sound and how much British / American culture we want to learn.

In 2004 I attended the IATEFL conference in Liverpool with a colleague. During one of the busy coffee breaks, plastic cup in one hand, heavy conference brochure in the other hand, trying to figure out where the next session would take place, I saw a man come in my direction. He had recognised me, he said. One look at his gentle face and I started stuttering that indeed I had been in his class in Oxford that summer of 1982.

Raymond Murphy.

A highly successful, bestselling author who recognises a student after 22 years, is still a teacher at heart I guess.

Mieke and Raymond are in there somewhere if you can spot them

Thanks to Mieke for her lovely account of meeting Raymond Murphy and from her description I think you can get a sense of why his book went on to be so popular.

And if you want to hear more about him and how the book came about, Cambidge University Press have uploaded an interview with Mr Murphy on their Youtube channel. I guess he's not quite as reclusive as I thought...

Many thanks to Mieke for sharing her story with us. Make sure you follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mkofab.

Postscript:

After reading this article, Raymond Murphy was kind enough to get in touch with Mieke and thank her for the article. Thanks to Ian Cook (@idc74) at Cambridge University Press for passing it on to him.

Same Difference

2012-02-21T21:38:00.000+01:00

Earlier today Mike Harrison tweeted the following question

Sandy Millin replied, as retweeted by me below, and the conversation continued...

And this made me think of a blog post I read a few months ago. I think it was a rather silly anti-dogme post, full of poorly made arguments and incorrect assumptions, and was clearly spoiling for a fight. Somewhere in the article there was a swipe at those of us who see don’t see students as being particularly different, wherever in the world you teach. The article was already irksome because of its anti-dogme stance, and this just added salt to the wound.

I’m one of those people. I’ve taught in Brazil, South Korea and now Belgium, three utterly different cultures and in very different teaching environments. And yet I have never found my students to be that radically different from each other in any of those countries. When you think it about it, it does seem unlikely that they could be so similar, but that’s what my experience bears out.

The conversation we had today gave me an idea of how this is possible. So here it is, just a thought, an idea of mine, based on my experience, the things I’ve read and the people I’ve spoken too. Not very academic and possibly wrong, but it feels right to me...

All over the world, English language learners are on the receiving of very similar teaching methodologies. At worst, they might sit in lecture rooms and have grammar classes in their own native language, followed by some translation. If they are a little bit luckier, they might have a colourful coursebook that in no way reflects their own life and invites them to discuss what they had for breakfast (a reductive stereotype I know, but you get the point).

The vast majority of students may well come through this mill before they end up in our classroom, and that’s why they are so similar, because most of them may have always had the same relationship with English language learning i.e. a boring one.

That doesn’t even take into account the fairly limited range of goals we normally encounter, which are usually related to work, travel or “because English is so useful nowadays” (and who’s going to argue with that?).

Our students are in our classrooms, having had similar prior experiences with the language and with similar objectives, no matter where in the world they live. And sure, there are some very general national characteristics that are true, but when you get down to the nitty gritty and really get to know your students, those traits really aren’t that important. On the surface my Korean students were reserved and quiet, but after a while, you discovered that for everyone quiet learner there was a class clown or show off.

So while it might sound reductive to claim that everyone is the same, it’s quite the opposite and claiming that a Japanese class needs to be taught in a Japanese way is more reductive and patronising to me. And that’s why, I reckon, with the right level of local cultural sensitivity, we can find that we don’t need to radically alter our teaching style or our expectations of students needs. The thing is, I don't approach my class as being a Brazilian one or a Korean one. Basically, I don’t teach Brazilians, Koreans or Belgians, I teach Paulo, Min Jee and Vincent.

Sorry, that was corny, but it’s true...

Video Games Unplugged

2012-02-02T15:20:00.000+01:00

I'm currently reading Kyle Mawer and Graham Stanley's Digital Play, published by DELTA, for a book review (which I'll share with you as soon as it's online). So far it's a great book, passionately and convincingly arguing for a place for video games in the ELT classroom.

The second part of the book, and the biggest, contains a myriad of activities, including ones that are about video games rather than using video games. I was particularly struck by an activity on page 39 called Game Chatalogue. The essence of the activity is that students use video game catalogues to discuss what they find interesting.

If you want more detail, you'll have to buy the book... ;-)

But I will tell you this, as I read the activity I thought this could have come straight out of another book from the DELTA teacher development series, one that some people still maintain would be dead set against technology in the classroom. And I thought that was it was very interesting to see a dogme activity there in a resource book so obviously appealing to techheads. And then I realised it wasn't the only the one, but a lot of the activities were essentially video games unplugged.

And I guess there are two main ways of interpreting this. On one hand you can say that this is an example of how Dogme ELT has had such a strong influence on classroom practices in the last decade that it is now used without even its label. Or your position may be that Dogme ELT is just a label for common sense teaching which existed long before Scott Thornbury's 10 Commandments and this is just another example.

Anyone who has read this blog before will know that I'm much more inclined towards the former than the latter, but what's really important to me is that this is a practical, clear example, free from argument and labelling which enables teachers to get on with teaching. And that's what I'd like to see more of, not just on blogs, but in resource books and yes, even coursebooks. I can dream, can't I?

Update

My review of Digital Play is now online :
http://edition.tefl.net/reviews/esl-teaching/review-digital-play/

Thinking Critically

2012-01-19T22:12:00.000+01:00

Critical thinking is a subject that I find particularly interesting. In a recent ELTchat, someone asked if it was our responsibility to encourage this kind of thinking as language teachers. My response was to say that it is our duty as educators to help develop engaged and committed learners. If our students are not able to engage with the materials in our classrooms, then why are those materials even there? I find it impossible to accept that there are students who will not be interested in anything.

But where does this inability to critically interact come from? From what I was told by friends and colleagues when I taught in Korea, it seemed that this was not the focus of their education system, rather they preferred the rote remembering and recalling of facts for tests. This seemed to leave some people unable to analyse and decipher material to the level that I would have expected.

It wasn’t a matter of intelligence, these were well educated, intelligent adults. But often when I asked them what they thought of a film they claimed to enjoy, they were unable to give me a well reasoned and formulated response beyond “It was good”, “I liked it” and so on. I’d never experienced this before and it led me to become more interested in what I learned was called critical thinking.

Of course it is worth pointing out that this problem is not unique to Korea, or just Asia, but is a problem in many parts of the world. In an attempt to understand the roots of this situation, I asked my friend and teacher Shieun Yoon MacDonough to reflect on why she, as someone who has been through the Korean education system, thinks this problem occurs.

First of all, Koreans or people from Asian countries are taught not to argue and feel more comfortable in the environment in which people all agree with each other while they do not like those who do not agree. In Asian culture, harmony is thought of as one of the most important virtues. Thus, most people are reluctant to be different from others or disagree with others to cause any conflicts. Though, people have changed a bit with new education system which encourages students to be more creative and independent, still, people don't change in a short time, I think.

Also, Korean education system asks you to give one good correct answer, instead of various different answers. Many English teachers are frustrated with people saying "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" whenever they ask "How are you?".

It could be from too much drilling or memorization of the same dialogue. Or, it could be from Korean education system. As far as I know, lots of traditional Korean teachers or students are not happy when they hear students being creative (or being a smart-ass, as they might say). They believe students' showing different thoughts or opinions is equivalent to challenging teachers or being a show-off. I remember some of the smart students not being favored by teachers at school because of this.

Lastly, I believe the lack of knowledge in the second language also contributes to the problem. Not because they do not understand you (or your question) or because they do not really think deeply about your question, but because they fear the teacher’s next question (which might complicate the conversation between them and the student), EFL students may give the simplest answer possible. Well, I did, when I was young. :)

Shieun’s perspective is insightful because she doesn’t just back up some pre-conceived notions I had, but also posits an interesting problem with her last point. Being brought up in an education system like the one she describes does not only diminish the skill of expression, but it also reduces the confidence required to assert your own opinion, even if you have the necessary linguistic and intellectual ability to do so.

And further than that, it is a system that reinforces the status of the teacher as the font of all knowledge, a position that is untenable within a constructive learning environment. So not only does the student have to develop critical skills in a system that doesn’t encourage them, they also have to work on their ability to express them in a foreign language to a figure that they’ve been taught their whole lives to treat as the oracle. No wonder they struggle.

A big thank you to Shieun for her contribution. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Silent Movies

2011-12-20T19:30:00.000+01:00

I love to use short films in my classes. They add colour and variety to the lesson in a way that I’ve found students really enjoy. Furthermore, due to their brevity, you get the opportunity to share an entire narrative with students in a very quick way that is difficult to achieve with other media.

The following films are ones that I think have great potential for use in the ELT classroom. The one quality that they all share, apart from their length, is that they contain little or no dialogue. This is crucial to me, as most of the time I don’t want to use them as traditional listening activities just as I don’t generally like to use literature for explicit vocabulary acquisition. To me, the joy of the narrative form is in the characters, the story, the mood, the message and the opportunity to react with an opinion.

By using videos which have hardly any dialogue, if any at all, the distraction of language is removed. The students can then focus on the much more important task of reacting to the content with their own beliefs, ideas and their own language, which you can then work on together.

With each of the films I have written a brief idea for how it could be used. The great thing about them is that they are open to all kinds of interpretations depending on where and who you teach. If you have any ideas of your own you'd like to add, I'd love to read them, so please leave a comment.

Oktapodi

I used this film in a movie review writing class, and it was a hit with my adult students.

Idea: Students often find it hard to retell a narrative. Show the film once and ask the students to collaborate on summarising the events of the story. You can then show the film again and ask them to fill in their blanks.

Plot Device

This is also a great film to use if you're teaching movies. Make sure you show it until the end!

Idea: As you show the film, ask your students to write down as many of the movie genres they see in the film as they can. After you've collected all the genres, you can ask them to add any genres that weren't included.

Loose Fit - Table Beggar

Here's a music video that gives you a unique look at identity.

Idea: Stop the video at 1:10 and ask the students to guess what they think the man looks like. You can ask them to write a description or draw a picture.

Idea 2: There are many interesting questions that this video raises:

Who is the man?
How did this happen to him?
Has he always been like this or has it just happened?
What is wrong with him - is his problem literal or metaphorical?
What kind of life do you think he has had?
What do you think he should do next?

The Gift

This is the most grown up of all the films due to the fact in contains a couple of acts violence, although nothing I would consider inappropriate in my adult classroom. Again this is a film that poses a lot of questions.

Idea: The most obvious area of interest in the film is 'the unicorn'. What does that mean? What is in the box? Why does the android apologise to the box?

Idea 2: A boy finds the gift at the end of the film. Ask the students to speculate what will happen to him after he collects the box from the lake.

Conversation Piece

I have to declare a vested interest here. This film is directed by one of my oldest friends, but it's not here out of nepotism. It's a unique, fun film, the like of which you and your students have probably never seen before.

Idea: Ask the students to write a script so the 'dialogue' of the film is replaced by actual spoken words. They can then perform their version along with the film for the rest of the class.

Bridge

Here's one that's probably best used with kids. Again, just make sure you show it all the way to the end!

Idea: Cooperation is the theme here, so play the video until 1:57 and ask them what they think is going to happen next. Will the rabbit and the racoon react in the same way as the moose and the bear, or will they do something different?

Guest post: Loving the Greens - Montessori and Dogme Part 3

2011-12-15T12:59:00.000+01:00

In the third and final part of Yitzha (Icha) Sarwono’s guest blog post, she will show us how she uses teaching booths as part of her unplugged Montessori teaching. You can read part one here and part two here.

Other than group presentation, I also provided booths for them to come and perform activities that have got something to do with vegetables. As I tried to apply Dogme teaching as well as staying in Montessori environment, I give them time to work on project that they like while in the mean time trying to stay on the theme of vegetables. And this is what I set up for them:

Vegetables muscle work: I prepared carrots, tomatoes, cucumber and long beans. They can choose between grating the carrot, slicing the cucumber, cutting the tomatoes or long beans. I did however pay very close attention when they were using the knife as I had to make sure they didn’t hurt themselves. They loved this booth so much that each one couldn’t wait for their friend to finish their turn.
Logic booth: Here I asked them to sort between red beans, soya beans, and green beans. They had to group the beans in a small bowl, then paste some of it on a worksheet that I have prepared for them based on the group. Though not all like the pasting part, they sure enjoyed the sorting time.
Grammar booth: As I was aiming for them to learn more about singular and plural, I laid down the vegetables in singular and plural form and then asked them to do the same. Though they still had difficulties with the vocabulary but since they knew the first letter of each word, they could match each vegetable with their writing.
Culture lesson: I asked them to place the fresh vegetables aside the picture of a cooking where they have to match them; carrot in a picture of soup, long beans in a picture of gado-gado (traditional Indonesian salad), potato in a picture of mashed potatoes and spinach in a picture of a sauté spinach.
Math: aside from addition I was also repeating the last lesson which is ‘less’ by asking them to put less vegetables in the provided mat next to their pair which was the same type of vegetables but with ‘more’ numbers than the one they had to complete.
Cooking booth: as my goal was to get them to eat vegetables, I set up a cooking booth where we made mashed potatoes and baked broccoli with cheese. They helped me mashed the steamed potatoes and mix them with milk, cheese (lots of cheese! :D ), butter, spices like oregano, salt, and pepper and also a secret ingredient which was a mix of pureé broccoli and spinach! Thanks to the huge amount of cheese, the mashed potatoes were a hit! I did baked broccoli with cheese too, but of course as they could see the greens under the cheese, not too many of them would love to eat them all up, they usually just gulped down the cheese and left the curly broccoli alone.

Well, I can’t say that this has changed the way they see the greens, as they still consider them to be an alien, but during this lesson I do hope I can let them to at least learn to get to know them better.

A big thank you to Icha for sharing her experiences with us. Make sure you read her blog and follow her on Twitter too.

Guest post: Loving the Greens - Montessori and Dogme Part 2

2011-12-14T12:54:00.000+01:00

In part one Yitzha (Icha) Sarwono described how the central elements of Montessori define her teaching. In this part, she tells us about she became interested in Dogme ELT and how she has tried to implement it in her own class so far.

What first attracted me to Dogme teaching was the fact that it allows both teachers and students to explore more on what they really need instead of following a text book. I think Dogme is somewhat similar to Montessori in term of its focus which is on the students. I don't use any textbooks at all, just worksheets that are made based on what the students need to achieve so it varies between each student. We give them one and a half hour each day to explore what they want to work on while teaching them one on one. I will focus on their academic teaching while my assistants help them in exploring more on other aspects like practical life, culture etc. And then we'll have circle time where we will discuss about the topic and etc.

As a teacher I’ve always tried to find a way to make my class understand the lesson that I’m trying to get across, and for years I’ve tried to apply ways that I thought will make the learning process more fun as well as engaging for them. But of course aside from the lesson, I’ve always tried to build them up in couple of aspects that I could also achieve, like their confidence for example.

For the past 2 years I’ve been involved in teaching kindergarten Montessori classes. One of my main concerns is actually what they have during snack time. It is almost impossible to see them having vegetables in their lunch box! They seem to prefer having bread, rice and chicken nuggets, or jelly for their snacks. Of course our school has always provided either fruit or milk for them but still even though I’ve tried so many times to introduce greens to them. I found out that many of them have actually never got a proper introduction to vegetables at home.

So, for quite some time I have been having lunch along with them, hoping for them to see what I have in my lunch box (and you can bet that I bring vegetables with me everyday!). Starting with introducing them and saying how delicious they are to my tongue to sharing some of my veggies to them. But of course it hasn’t always been easy as they mostly refuse to try my food. So I thought that I’d try dedicating a whole week to get them to meet and get to know greens very well, as vegetables is one of the lesson we learn in school too.

And as I’ve been sort of introduced to Dogme teaching, and find it quite interesting to apply it on my Montessori class, I thought I would try to apply it to teaching about vegetables. So I set up my goals and planned my lesson and this is what I’ve done in classroom during presentation and circle time.

Topics: As Vegetables are my topic of the week, I bought all the fresh vegetables that we are most likely to find and use to cook for our food at home, brought them to classroom and introduced them all to my students. I mentioned how good they are to our body. I laid them out one by one and explained them all. One thing is for sure though, some of my students kind of dislike the smell of the green stuff!
Science: We put a handful of green beans into two bowls. In one bowl, I asked them to put dry cotton among the beans and in another, wet cotton and then put them by the window, to meet the sunlight. I told them that in few days, we’re gonna see the difference between two bowls. They were very surprised and happy of course to learn that the bowls with the wet cottons has produced great looking growing bean sprouts! While the other one stayed still as a collection of green beans.
Outside: I took them to our outdoor playground and got them to play with the dirt! Literally! As I gave them hoe, shovel, spade and some seeds and let them dig the soil and plant what they want. It was a hit! And I got to work on their hand grip for motoric skills. In their culture lesson I could introduce them to different seeds and what would become of them should they grow nicely
Construction art: As carrot is probably one of the most popular vegetable for them, we made paper maché carrots. It’s actually ended up as a 3 days project but my students loved it so much!
Printing art: We made veggie printing pizza. I prepared cardboard in a round shape like a pizza, then prepared lots of vegetable and spices like french beans, onion, garlic, carrot, and mushroom. The children dipped the veggie and spices to their chosen paints and then print them on the cardboard pizza.
Math: As we learnt about addition, I got them to do it by using the french beans. They loved it so much and when later I gave them some worksheet with pictures of vegetables on it, they were gladly doing it.

In tomorrow’s third part, Icha will give some more practical examples of how she has adapted Dogme for her classroom by creating teaching ‘booths’.

Guest post: Loving the Greens - Montessori and Dogme

2011-12-13T13:09:00.001+01:00

This is part one of three guest posts this week by Yitzha (Icha) Sarwono, a kindergarten Montessori school teacher in Jakarta, Indonesia. We were recently discussing Dogme during ELTchat, and as I have no experience Montessori teaching, I asked her to write about the possibilities for teaching unplugged in her particular situation. I started by asking her about the main elements of Montessori (as quoted on Wikipedia), and how they apply in her classroom:

Mixed age classrooms, with classrooms for children aged 2½ or 3 to 6 years old by far the most common

In the theory, it can be like that, but in Indonesia it is quite impossible since the parents are still demanding the grouping based on level and that is what is going on in my school, though they can be mixed too sometimes, usually when we are lacking in teachers!. Actually, my superior just came today and she told me that my class is ready to be mixed with others as they are very cooperative and has understood the concept of Montessori.

Student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options

Yes, each day I give them around an hour an a half for them to choose the activity that they want to do, be it from math, language, culture, practical life or others. While some of them do that, I'll work on them one on one on the area where I need them to give more attention. SO for each student it can be different area. For example, my student Aliffa needs to work on her writing, while Keshia needs to work on her phonics and reading. I make notes on the area they have mastered and the one they need to build. And that is why Montessori works well in classes with different states of ability, since teachers still have time to focus on students. Of course it needs teachers who can really dedicate themselves to work on it and that is why many teachers (at least in my school) avoid being the Montessori teachers, for the responsibility is very high. But this is also the point where I think Montessori and Dogme teaching can run well together.

Uninterrupted blocks of work time

Yes, this is so true in the real Montessori classroom. When the child is tired and doesn’t want to continue on working on one thing/project, we'll take a break and let them continue the other day, so there is no time limit really. Most of the time, we got them to work on a project that will make them understand more on what they're learning. But of course the choices are theirs to make on which ones they want to do 1st.

A Constructivist or "discovery" model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction

We come to class with either with real objects (like me bringing vegetables to class, for example), models/toys or if we couldn't find them (like now when I'm teaching about insects) we bring photos to the classroom, so they will never have to imagine what they look like, they can feel them, see them and explore them. When they learn about hundreds or thousands, they will hold a bunch of beans with the exact number, or when they learn about shapes, they will hold the material. So when the concept got into them, they will remember it well. In my experiences (because I have taught in classical based school before) this kind of materials do help them a lot, like before we build a word, I will show the material that we're going to spell, and then instead of writing it, we use what we call LMA (large moveable alphabet) that will be arranged based on the word we're building on. So, they will not only be in touch with the object but also with the forms of the letters we're using. Whenever I teach them some early grammars, this will also work better as they can experience them first hand.

Specialized educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators

Each school, even each class, develops their own lesson plan as they are the one who knows what their students need. We have guidelines on what is our goal for that week but of course all teachers will also work on what their students need. This is what I’ve mentioned before , about the worksheet. We don't really have real test for them as they are still kindergarten but as Montessori has no particular workbook to use too, what we -the teachers- will prepare is a worksheet according to what they're learning. For instance, for my student Aliffa I'll give them more writing exercises or projects, and for Keshia I'll ask her to spell words together with me and then have her write them down on what we call pink line paper, so she'll remember it. So each students have their own personalized and customized worksheet. Tough job for the teachers of course, but I suppose this is needed to make sure all are treated well and fair. Of course for some material like logic exercises or culture, we can have the same worksheet for all.

The second part of Icha’s post will look at practical examples of how she teaches, and how she thinks it overlaps with Dogme ELT.

What's the Time?

2011-12-09T19:01:00.000+01:00

It’s funny how something that seems like a fairly inconsequential idea at the time can end up becoming something that you integrate into your teaching and you can’t believe you didn’t think of it before. For example...

Being of an unplugged persuasion, I never pre-teach vocabulary. Rather, I let the students tell me which words, phrases, expression, chunks, sentences and so on they’d like to check. I’m not exactly sure why anyone thinks they are aware of exactly what language the student doesn’t know before they've even had a chance to check a text.

Anyway, here’s a phrase I’ve used countless time when showing a video to my students:

“Watch the video and make a note of any language that you’d like to check after.”

Seems pretty innocuous doesn’t it? However, built into that sentence is an inherent contradiction that is very unfair on the student. What if I put it like this?

“Watch the video and write down all the things you don’t understand.”

When I put it like that it seems pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it? Exactly how are the students supposed to write down things they don’t know? And if you’re showing a video or playing some audio, it’s easily avoided. Just make sure the students can seem the countdown as it plays, and ask them to make a note of the times they’d like to go back to in order to check on a doubt.

As Ceri Jones commented when I mentioned this as part of a previous post:

“It’s such a tiny, simple thing on the surface, but it really lets you do so much. Just as you can use a reader response code to unlock the student’s internal dialogue with a written text – and to pinpoint difficulties in understanding – so you can use a code with the numbers to access the student’s reactions to an audio text – and to go back and revisit the points of difficulty ...a small advantage (that) can yield tremendous results.”

Learner Diaries: Reading Woe & Writing Joy Part 2

2011-11-30T19:49:00.001+01:00

I wrote here about how I battled with a story given to me by my Portuguese teacher. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you read that first, or this post won’t make much sense.

Feedback, or Should I Say Correction?

So having expressed my displeasure at the difficulty of the story to my teacher, I was interested to see how he would react. I wasn’t too concerned about his response as while he may have flaws as a teacher, but he doesn’t seem to have too many as a human being, so I felt that he would deal with it in a positive way. Fortunately, I was correct in my assumption.

His first reaction was to reply to my email. He said he was grateful for the feedback which was very important to him (which begs the question “why doesn’t he ask for it then?!”) and that he was surprised, not just to receive an email from me, but by the length and by the quality of my writing, which I was pretty happy about as you can imagine.

Later before the lesson, he gave me a print out with my errors corrected, which I hadn't asked for but was more than happy to receive. We then discussed, as best I could within my linguistic limits, the content of my email, and how we both recognised how difficult it was to teach multi-level classes. He was completely open to my suggestions and actually seemed pretty pleased to have someone to talk about these things with. As I know, the freelance teacher’s life can be lonely... (but I have my PLN to save me!)

Outed

At the beginning of the class, he brought up the subject of my email and my suggestion. I didn’t mind this too much, but it was a little bit embarrassing. Firstly, even though most of the other students agreed that it was very difficult, I was the only student who hadn’t actually finished the story (of course, reading the story all the way through is one thing, but understanding it and then appreciating it are others). This did make me feel a bit like the least able student, which may be the truth but luckily being a teacher makes me able to deal with that fairly comfortably. However, it’s still not the most pleasant situation to be in.

In general the reaction to the idea could best be described as.... well, lukewarm. No one was offended by it, but they weren’t that thrilled by it either. I had to remember that this is a pretty unusual idea for most students, so I presume that what they see is a lot of unnecessary work when they could just be given a text by the teacher. That’s why the teacher has to really sell an idea like this to the students by being enthusiastic after having thoroughly thought the idea through. As this seemed to be a new idea for my teacher too, I don’t think he put enough into it to convince the other students.

The Long and Winding Speech

We then discussed my idea, or we at least tried to, until one of the chattier learners decided to take this opportunity to tell us all about her favourite website and why it’s so great. Unfortunately the teacher didn’t step in and curtail this particular diatribe which went on for far too long, and somewhat sidetracked the conversation. Being a teacher makes you acutely aware of how distracting these kinds of ‘speeches’ can be. Sometimes the students can be too student centred, unfortunately.

The teacher came back to the theme at the end of the lesson, and he came to a compromise. For homework, he asked us to go to that particular website (so I’ll find out just how wonderful it is for myself...), choose an article and write a paragraph explaining why we chose it. What we’ll do with those paragraphs, I’m not sure, but I’ll email mine to him in advance. It’s a pretty good activity, much better than before, and a huge step in the right direction.

Lessons Learned

So what have I learned from this experience? Quite a lot, I think...

Students shouldn’t be reticent about telling their teachers what they think, but also teachers should be bold enough to combine an acceptance of these ideas with a confidence in their own ability.
If the teacher doesn’t entirely believe in an activity, then either he/she has to work at understanding it more, or they should get rid of it completely.
Sometimes someone can have the potential to be a great teacher, but without the right guidance, training, mentoring and reflection, the students are only going to see glimpses of it.
The wrong text to the wrong student can have a catastrophic effect, one that really can’t be underestimated and I think often is.
Don’t let students prattle on. That’s not student centred, it’s quite the opposite because the other students are the ones who are suffering.
If you’re going to make changes to the class at a student’s behest, don’t ‘out’ them. Talk about it in general terms, and allow them to tell the class if they wish.

And for my own learning...

Speak to my teacher more about teaching. I think he’ll enjoy it, it’ll make my classes a bit better, and I’ll get to talk about my favourite subject in Portuguese.
Make suggestions slowly. I’m not going to overwhelm him with the last twenty years of language teaching approaches (I wish I could!), but I can hopefully make small incremental changes that will help everyone. First thing I’m going to do is ask him to give feedback on my writing by only underlining my mistakes and not correcting it for me.
Write more!

And finally, I hope you can see how much I get from studying a foreign language. Aside from actually acquiring an another language, I also get an immensely satisfying and fulfilling training course, which encourages self reflection and personal development. As a language teacher, I can’t understate how valuable I think it is.

Part one of Learner diaries: reading woe & writing joy

Learner diaries: Reading, stories & vocabulary.

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Minimal Materials Blog Challenge: Vocabulary Revision with Post It Notes

2011-11-25T15:41:00.001+01:00

Richard Gresswell (@inglishteacher) has been running a minimal resources blog challenge over on his ELTbites blog. Here are his rules:

“Describe an activity that requires no more than the teacher, students, and possibly making use of the board, pens, and paper. Describe the activity aims and procedure concisely in no more than 200 words.”

So here’s my entry, a simple vocabulary revision activity I did last week with a class of two business students...

In the previous lesson, one of the language needs that emerged was how to express an opinion. In the next class I wanted to revise the vocabulary that we had worked on.

I gave each student a pad of post it notes and asked them to write something that someone could have an opinion about, serious or light, on the sticky side up, without letting their partner see. I had written an example on each pad to help them (the book you’re reading, your boss).

I’m assuming post-it notes are allowed in the challenge. It seems pretty minimal to me, but I could have easily used torn up paper and shuffled them like playing cards.

As they wrote each note, they gave it to me and I stuck it to a small whiteboard I have.

Post it notes stuck to the board.

After they had written 6 notes each, I asked them to choose a note from the board. Because they had written on the sticky side up, they couldn’t see what they were choosing.

They then asked their partner a question based on this subject.

This was a little twist that they weren’t expecting. I like to include these kinds of twists as it keeps them on their toes, and also revealed that they need some help in formulating these kinds of questions, something I’ll come back to in the next class.

They took turns in answering the partner’s questions, expressing their opinion each time with the new vocabulary.

To read more entries in the challenge, head over to Richard’s blog:

http://eltbites.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/5/

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Learner Diaries: Reading Woe & Writing Joy

2011-11-24T22:44:00.000+01:00

The Wall

I wrote here about the importance of finding the right level of difficulty in a reading text for your students, and after trying and failing with my current Portuguese reading homework, I'm returning to the theme.

I realised that this text was was going to be a struggle too far when, in just the third sentence I found nine words that I didn't know. That's right, nine out of twenty. If that's not a barrier to student engagement I don't know what is. In fact, it's not just a barrier, but a mile high wall that I had no intention of climbing.

Firstly, I reacted to this sentence by typing it into Google translate and this is what I got:

"Already hardened tissue were small crusts of bread glued to it by the dribble resurfaced now in remembrance of the cradle."

As you can see, it didn't help much. Sure, I can get the general idea but that's no way to read a story, especially by one of Brazil's leading writers.

My next reaction was to throw the story to one side and forget about it. Seriously, I don't mind a bit of a challenge, in fact I expect it (as alas not enough teachers are aware of the idea of extensive reading and the level of input being -1, not +15) but this was a joke. I'm not going to wade through a text that deep and difficult in the knowledge that at the end I'm very unlikely to understand the story, and I might have picked up a couple of words of vocabulary. There are better, much less time consuming ways of achieving the same thing, and many better ways for me to spend my time.

The offending text, with all due to respect to Ms Lispector.

Clarice Lispector, ai ai ai...

My third reaction was to write an email to my teacher. I had often thought of doing this before, but this was the straw that broke the student's back. In my email, entitled "Clarice Lispector, ai ai ai..." (Clarice Lispector is the name of the author), I explained to my teacher that I really wanted to read the story but it was too difficult. I showed him the example of the sentence that put me off, and said that while I'm ready for a challenge, this was too much.

I acknowledged that maybe for the other the learners in the class the story may have been fine, but for me it was too difficult. I went on to explain, one teacher to another, an idea for how I have taught multi-level reading classes (simply, ask the students to find one text each, give them all to the students in the next class and ask them to choose one that interests them). I have avoided doing this so far because I didn't want to appear to be telling him what to do. As another language teacher I had to be sensitive, I think.

From Woe to Joy

It took me 45 minutes to write the email, and when I finished I realised something unexpectedly positive had just happened. I had sat there and written out a complete email, expressing some fairly complex ideas, without stopping, in Portuguese. I knew that it was unlikely to be perfect, but I also knew that it wasn't that bad either. I was fairly confident that I had expressed myself clearly and made the teacher understand what I was thinking. Seems like a very worthwhile homework activity to me.

And secondly, and most importantly of all (and I really can't downplay the importance of this), I had enjoyed it. I can honestly say that it is the first time I had enjoyed doing any kind of 'work' in Portuguese. There's been homework that I've tolerated, and some that I've loathed (hello grammar exercises), but I don't remember actually enjoying it before. And I can't tell you how much satisfaction I get from that because my learning of the language that I would dearly love to be fluent in has been frustrating and annoying and trying and all the things that I don't believe language learning should be. I finally enjoyed it, and I have to exploit that in the future.

So the question that remains is how my teacher reacted to my email. Watch this space...

Teaching Business People to Tie Their Shoes

2011-11-21T19:30:00.000+01:00

Here’s a video I’ve been using with my business students. It uses a very short TED talk by Terry Moore, all about tying shoes:

What I love about his video is how he takes something so commonplace and mundane and makes his incredibly intelligent audience realise that they are doing it wrong. He does this with great wit and flourish, before ending with the moral of his story which is the real message behind his talk.

“That sometimes a small advantage someplace in life can yield

tremendous results someplace else”

It’s a simple message, but can create a very fertile topic of conversation with business students. Below you can see how I’ve been using the video.

1) Give the students a shoe each (if that’s not practical, give them a piece of string which they can imagine is attached to a shoe). Ask them to tie the lace. Ask them to swap shoes and check each others knots. Get some feedback on how good they think the knot is.

At this point you’re probably going to get some strange looks from your students. Just give them a smile and tell them to trust you!

2) Show them the video.

3) After they’ve seen the video, ask them to go back to the shoe and reevaluate their partners efforts.

4) In pairs, ask them to practice tying the shoes. Can they tie a better knot?

5) Before showing the video again, ask them to identify the main thing we can learn from this video (“That sometimes a small advantage someplace in life can yield tremendous results someplace else”)

6) Normally I prefer to get my students to write their own comprehension questions, but this time around, just as a one off, I made them for reasons I’ll explain at the end.

Give them some comprehension questions (see the attached handout):

How does he describe the TED audience? (intellectual, worldly, savvy, and innovative.
What was the problem with the shoes? (he was tying them wrong, they had round nylon laces)
What did he think he would have achieved by the age of 50? (the ability to tie his shoes)
What are the differences between the two knots? (one is tied on the weak axis, the other on the strong; the weak one goes down the long axis, the strong across the transverse axis; the bow goes in the other direction on the weaker form; it looks better)

7) Tell them you are going to play the video one last time. Ask them to make a note of the time whenever they have a language point to raise. This could be new vocabulary, interesting sentences, useful phrases etc.

I ask the students to note down the time as opposed to the language because it doesn’t seem reasonable to me to ask them to write down something they potentially don’t know. You can just go back in the video and ask them to point it out to you during feedback.

8) Get feedback and deal with any vocabulary that emerges. You can also point out any other language points that you noticed in the video that may be useful and that they missed.

9) Discuss the issue in groups. Again, I would prefer to get the students to generate their own questions, so I would begin by putting one of these questions on the board and letting them go from there:

- Can this rule be applied to anything in your life / workplace?
- Do you remember a situation where a small change made a big difference in your professional life?
- Is there anything in your current work where you think a small change could make a big difference?

This discussion is an opportunity for them to practice new language that has emerged from the video, so encourage them to try. You can make notes during the discussion in order to give some feedback after it is over.

As I said above at point 6, I decided to break my own rule and make a handout for this particular activity. This was because of Jason Renshaw’s materials design masterclasses. I have always admire his gorgeous materials, so I, along with some other people, encouraged him to give those of us who have battled with Word some tips in creating our own materials. He has more than delivered, creating a whole series of detailed instructional videos that go beyond the mere tips I was asking for.

The handout below is my effort based on his first three videos. I can’t believe how much better my materials look already. Imagine what they’ll be like after I’ve watched all twelve! Feel free to download and use the handout.

How to Tie Your Shoes

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Great city, great conference: TESOL France 2011

2011-11-14T14:23:00.001+01:00

Last weekend was the 30th Annual Tesol France Colloquium in Paris, and as that is just a short hop over the border for me, I had to be there. And with so many of my PLN in attendance, I really didn’t have a choice!

There are so many things you get out of attending a conference like this that it’s hard to summarise. Here are some of my observations...

Luke Meddings takes us on a dogme tour of Paris

Luke Medding’s fascinating plenary compared the city planning of Paris with the planning of a lesson. I loved his analogy of how we explore cities and language. And in case you are wondering why we dogme fans keep banging the drum for this particular approach to teaching and learning, there are still many misunderstandings about dogme teaching that won’t go away, and I heard them repeated at the conference. It’s the usual stuff (dogme = anti-technology, it’s only for experienced teachers and so on) and it’s the reason why we have to keep making people aware of what dogme teaching really is, or indeed, isn't.

Cecilia Lemos during her excellent presentation on writing

Someone really needs to find a way for us to be able to attend simultaneous sessions. How can I choose between Mike Harrison or Vladimira Michalkova? Or between Elizabeth Anne, Cecilia Lemos, Divya Brochier or Nick Robinson? Or Matt Ledding, Marisa Constantinides, Mike Hogan or Fiona Mauchline? And that was just on the Saturday!

Poland is producing some great teachers. Both Ania Musielak’s drama session and Weronika Salandyk’s session on vocabulary revision were brilliant and full of useful ideas. I just wish I could have got to see their compatriots Milada Krajewska or Ania Kozicka as well, but hopefully I can make it to IATEFL Poland next year instead.

During Weronika Salandyk's extremely useful presentation on vocabulary revision. (Thanks to TESOL France for the photo)

Willy Cardoso is one clever chap. His talk, which questioned the whole idea of how we organise our classrooms, both literally and figuratively, incorporated both practical ideas, and theories from outside ELT, even outside wider education. I’m still digesting it now, to be honest. He used a term, ‘enabling constraints’ which continues to fascinate me. I’m going to come back to this many times, I think.

The other speakers I saw (Mike Harrison, Cecilia Lemos, Dale Coulter, Fiona Mauchline, Shelly Terrell, and plenary speakers Geoff Tranter and Stephen Brewer) all educated, informed and entertained me, and I thank them for their fantastic presentations.

Dale Coulter having a well deserved breather during his great session on reflective practice.

Bethany Cagnol and her team were magnificent. It was a great conference, extremely well organised with a fantastic line up of speakers. Congratulations to everyone involved.

Me with Bethany Cagnol, president of TESOL France and all round legend. (Thanks to Ania Musielak for the photo)

As amazing as all the presentations were, the main reason to go to a conference like this is the people. Brad Patterson has written a lovely post on this subject, as has Matt Ledding, and I couldn’t agree with them more. Something special happens when the PLN comes together and it leaves all of us changed for the better. Until next time my friends...

Le PLN on Le Metro (l-r Dale, Ania, Me, Mike, Hieke, Shelly, Dave, Matt, Brad & Mike). (Thanks to Cecilia Lemos for the photo)

And finally... English teachers in Belgium need to be given an opportunity like this.

Some other Paris posts:

Vicky Loras gives us a day by day breakdown (day one, day two, day three).

Mike Harrison’s thoughts.

ELTchat goes to TESOL France.

Dale Coulter’s talk on reflection and journal writing for teachers.

Brad Patterson (again!) is thinking about classroom management.

The recollections of Arjana Blazic

Shelly Terrell reflects on a great conference.

Ceri Jones is feeling the echoes of Paris.

Learner Diaries: Reading, Stories & Vocabulary.

2011-10-24T16:57:00.002+02:00

This is a picture of my Portuguese homework, which I'm showing to you as a cautionary tale. If you give a text to your students and it has as much highlighted text in it as mine does, the chances are that they are not really reading the story. They are more likely to have their heads in the dictionary than they will be getting involved in the narrative, questioning the characters motivation or attempting to understand the author's point of view, all things that fiction is supposed to provoke.

When reading becomes solely about vocabulary acquisition, so many opportunities for debate, discussion, engagement and real intellectual stimulation are missed. So do your students a favour and give them texts they will actually enjoy reading. Trust me, I'm telling you this from a student's point of view.

Blogoversary & Blog Challenge: What's Your Story?

2011-10-21T13:00:00.000+02:00

Last weekend it was my first blogoversary. A big thank you to everyone who has stopped by, retweeted the links, added me to their blog roll and RSS feed, and commented. The following post is part of Vicky Loras’ blog challenge and it seemed to fit with my first proper post from just over a year ago. In the challenge she asked us to reflect on one of the options below:

Have you made a big move?
A career change?
Have you been teaching and living in a country for a long time, but have seen changes in yourself as a person, educator or both?
Are you thinking of a change in the future?

I’ve written about a moment when everything changed for me. I hope you find it interesting (and not too self-indulgent!).

Time to decide...

I studied Media Studies, specifically television production, at university. I studied it because I was, and still am, an avid consumer of the media and the arts. I also am very interested in the interaction between the media and society, and how their complicated relationship affects our daily lives. The fact is however, that academically I wasn’t a great student and in the end, due to a number of factors some of which were my fault and some which were not, my final grade reflected this. This experience has undoubtedly influenced my current belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with how we approach our education system, but that’s too complicated to explain here.

I worked on films for the year after I graduated, and while I enjoyed the work a great deal, I didn’t feel particular comfortable in that world and with those people. I was a shy man in a world of self-aggrandisers and show offs and it wasn’t for me. (I did meet some very nice people too, but they weren’t generally the ones who could get me work.) I also wasn’t prepared to spend years without any money, waiting on the slightest glimmer of a break. I just didn’t feel cut out for it. The problem was that I didn’t know what it was I supposed to be doing instead.

To pay the rent, I took a temporary job. It wasn’t interesting at all, but the money was pretty good and I could keep myself supplied in records. Somehow, and I still don’t know how, I ended up doing that supposed temporary job for three and half years. As I sit here and type this I still find it completely inexplicable that I worked there for that long. I know we’re not supposed to have regrets, but I can’t help but wish I’d made more of that period of my life.

And the question remained: “What am I going to do with my life?” After a mercifully brief stint in a bank, I got a job in a massive central London music, film and video game store. I enjoyed it there, largely, working my way up to the position of buyer, but it didn’t fulfil me. It was a job, I didn’t hate it and it paid enough, but I hadn’t found what Sir Ken Robinson calls the Element.

The fact is that I was searching, like so many of my generation, for a job that satisfied us creatively, morally and professionally. We wanted to do something interesting, worthwhile and valuable, but those jobs are not easy to come by or even to define. The idea that I would become a teacher and live abroad was so remote in my thinking, I hadn’t even considered it as an option. It just didn’t figure at all, for reasons I’m still not sure about.

But move abroad and teach I did. For personal reasons, I had the opportunity to move to Brazil and I lept at the chance without a seconds thought. That really isn’t an exaggeration either, I literally said yes to moving there without any pause for reflection or time to think. I didn’t need a couple of days to mull it over, or to ponder over my decision with a cup of tea. I didn’t speak to my Mum or my friends, I just said yes and it all hinged on that moment.

I think my lack of hesitation came down to the fact that I was searching for something and an opportunity presented itself. I was craving a change, an adventure, something needed to take my life by the lapels and shake it around. I didn’t know what I was going find, but I knew it was definitely going to be different from what I’d left behind.

Moving to Brasília, I had no choice but to become an English teacher and luckily for me, I adored it. Everything fell into place and I could look back on the previous ten years and see how everything should have gone, how I should have read the signs and studied English Literature at university, how I should have gone to a far flung corner of the world when I graduated to teach English to a room full of exotic kids, how should have got the bug and taken my CELTA and started along the unpredictable career path that is TEFL.

Unfortunately that never happened, but if it had, I wouldn’t be here now and I wouldn’t be half as grateful for discovering my Element, the thing that I love doing more than any other, which is teaching English.

If you’d like to read about my first ever class, read this post from October last year:

http://theteacherjames.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-i-accidentally-started-my-teaching.html

Read more entries in this challenge by heading over to Vicky’s blog:

http://vickyloras.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/blog-challenge-whats-your-story/

ELTchat Summary by Edith Occelli - How can you teach Business English with minimal experience of being in the business world?

2011-10-17T23:28:00.000+02:00

The following ELTChat summary was written by Edith Occelli, but as she doesn't have a blog of herown, I offered mine so she'd get the opportunity to share it witheveryone. I'm sure you'll agree that she's done a fantastic job. You canfollow Edith on Twitter at @EdithOccelli.

ELTchat - How can you teach Business English with minimal experience of being in the business world?

Last Wednesday's ELTchat 9pm discussion focused on the interesting (albeit controversial) topic of Business English and whether it is possible to teach BE classes having no business experience. The conversation was fast and furious and, as a newcomer, it really amazed me how much ground was covered in a single hour @_@ I just hope I can squeeze all the main points in this summary ;)

The discussion kicked off with chatters attempting to define Business English and what it constitutes. Definitions varied from the broad Communication skills for business contexts to more specific things like learning business terminology and working towards internationally recognized qualifications.

Then, after a brief "hands up" revealed that many participants had experience teaching BE classes, chatters jumped in to discuss one key question: Is business experience required to teach Business English?, a query that had no straight answer but for which everybody gave their opinions.

Some said it "Yes, it is":

· "advanced learners need expert in business to teach them English"

· "Personally, when I'm the student I prefer when my teacher has personal experience in the field & learning from their anecdotes"

· "We definitely need business skills. Some are acquired in coaching + through experience, but many we really do need to learn"

· "I think advanced students (& co.s) are looking for more & more specialist training need ROI!"

· "How about teaching things like negotiation, doing a SWAT analysis, or creating special docs? Doesn't teacher need that experience?"

· "I believe that it is very difficult to truly be a BE language expert w/o direct experience of nuances of BE language :-D"

· "If I want to learn BE I would trust a business expert rather than excellent ET"

· "I think that those Ss who want both to stay ahead in the field will pay more for teachers with experience"

Whereas others said it was not really a requirement:

· "I've never had that problem. They know you're not a business expert & don't expect it from you (thankfully!)"

· "There's a common misunderstanding that bus sts need business classes. They don't, they need to improve their bus lang skills"

· "I can see how it'd help but not necessarily"

· "Much has been said abt business, but a lot of learners just want to be fluent"

· "No but you need to understand concepts"

· "No but they do expect u to be a language expert who knows how professionals communicate"

· "I think it's going more & more towards specialist + elt but as the ELT expert in what might be a partnership it can work"

· "I think is less about content and more about successful communication"

Still, some other thought it was first necessary to clarify what was being meant by having "business experience"?

· "But what IS an expert in business? There are many different types of business experience as the Ss we're teaching, right?"

· "Teachers ARE in business if they work 4 a private school - this exp can be milked too - esp'ly if u have admin responsibilities"

· "I find it hard to believe that nobody has BE experience. If you've worked somewhere, you have experience to draw from"

And the conversation flowed all over the place with both sides passionately defending their views:

· "Advanced Ls need expert in bus to teach them English > really? they want 2learn English not business!"

· "Chances are that ss knows more abt their business than you. Your role is to help them express that knowledge in English"

· "But you won't help them in using E if u r not an expert in bus especially advanced bus learners"

This went on for a few minutes until some people skilfully pointed out that:

· "Different BE students can have very different needs and goals"

· "What do business learners need from English ?---> - a question must be asked before figuring out what to teach"

So that all chatters were (at least partly) right since the need for experience depends on different factors (e.g. context, level, type of class, Ss goals, company requirements, etc).

From this, a new subtopic ensued with chatters discussing different BE contexts and learner expectations:

· "I would seperate business english from general english for business people. BEng more specialized"

· "I find most advanced bus stds know the tech language and flounder with gen/soc English"

· "Some customers looking for a hybrid - a kind of business CLIL - then teacher obviously needs the relevant subject knowledge"

· "The scenario is different if we have to teach them abt doing businees w/ other cultures - we may have more experience here. "

· "At our institution, the Business studies teachers teach Business Communication so we can send Adv. Learners there"

· "But when bus stds arrive in the UK to work what they need is vocab, idioms, social language mostly"

· "I find it more of a coaching role - helping sts succeed in their career"

· "Teaching business English has become a branch of business consulting"

· "What we have found is that in 1-2-1 the focus is much sharper on BE - in grp classes sponsored by company they want other stuff too"

Once this variety had been established, the conclusions were:

1. The majority of BE students want increased fluency and English for social situations.

2. Business expertise is only a requirement for some types of (specialized) BE classes. However, it is always an advantage ;)

3. Most ELT professionals, even those without "business experience", can adequately support BE students when forming a partnership with their learners.

Later, after taking this most interesting of detours, chatters set up to share their advise on the main topic of the evening which was: … (drumroll) How to teach BE with minimal experience of being in the business world.

Here is a selection of the TOP TIPS:

1. Get a good start: find out everything you can about the learners' roles and their companies, fish for ideas, take a course in BE, etc.

· "if you've never been in Business but find urself teaching BE - do a thorough needs analysis and Profession analysis"

· "Company documents extremely useful - for bigger clients we also send sb to spend a day in company "

· "I did the IH Business English Teaching (BET) certificate. Useful, and avail to non-IH teachers too http://t.co/PiCrRuVw "

2. Stay informed: take an interest in business and current affairs, read widely, join groups, etc.

· "Reading articles to stay up-to-date, watching business channels on tv, listening to podcasts and news"

· "I think joining in some LinkedIn groups also helps to observe the communication. A lot of business is communication"

· "Definitely the #besig hashtag, webinars, and website are full of great information http://t.co/29mdITil"

3. Use your learners' expertise: ask them to explain, to give you examples, etc learn from them!

· "Ask your students to provide as many real examples of the English they need to deal with emails, reports, brochures, calls"

· "Get the students to show you around - ask intelligent questions - ask Ss to bring in documents they have to handle in English"

· "A good idea to get them to teach you the processes while you feed in the language"

4. Draw on your experience: whatever jobs you've had identify similarities, transferable skills, etc and use them.

· "That's what I did - I used my experience as a 'worker' when teaching to the managers!"

· "True If you can teach "How much?" in a supermarket context for GE teaching Negotiation for BE is much the same"

· "I worked in supermarkets, shops and offices before becoming a teacher. It was very informative when I started teaching "

5. Be humble: know yourself, recognize gaps in your knowledge and be willing to learn.

· "Teachers shouldn't pretend to know more than they do about business"

· "we need to know our strengths (& weaknesses), listen carefully and intelligently, spot the areas where Ss need support"

· "whenever I taught I found myself learning lots to help my learners - I even learnt binary math!"

Chatters also agreed essential points for all BE teachers (and GE for that matter) this were:

1. Having "face validity" (smart looks)

2. Providing authentic practice for Ss

3. Conducting a thorough needs analysis

4. Tailor classes to fit in with Ss lives (E.g. mp3, online learning, etc)

5. Promoting inter-cultural awareness

Some common problems like mismatches between learners Vs company wishes, compulsory coursebooks, and working with lower language levels were also briefly touched upon:

· "We generally tell company shd be a balance of BE and Non BE stuff otherwise lose the Ss - in there but out to lunch in their heads"

· "books I've used seem very vocab heavy, with little practice of it. Books were company requirement. 2 units = 1year"

· "S/s I taught, their language was not on the level to do business expert type stuff w/ they really needed basics…"

Finally, participants suggested some wonderful Business English activities:

· "Take me on a tour. My students loved doing that when they learned the right language. Useful for some"

· "Take all of the numbers from a reading text & use them to describe trends / patterns etc (from Teaching Unplugged)"

· "Crisis real time role plays. Feed information to groups which they deal with in real time. Each has an assigned role"

· "With Skype classes you can have sts prepare, call a headhunter and practise real conversation"

· "How about writing to an ISP re. spam or phishing email that came to their account?"

· "Get them blogging. They can practice writing various business writing"

· "Design a Facebook Page or website for their company? "

· "Designing dream teams with famous business people, balloon debates etc"

· "I use industry relevant docs, video, pdf them, and then annotate in a virtual class, record it - with courses"

· "can give students exposure to experts through podcasts etc"

· "Do a TED search on their subject area of expertise - try to find good short videos 3-6-9mins for authentic listening"

· "How about case studies for business courses.. do any of you adapt some for BE purposes?? I think they made do good classroom activity "

· "try to hooks stds up with s'one their field with whom they can discuss the role in English"

· "Get them to do pecha kuchas if a class - or their presentations if involved in presenting"

Overall, I think it was a very productive session and I'd like to thank everyone for your great contributions. Special thanks go to Shaun, Shelly, and Marisa for their skilled moderation and for giving me the opportunity to participate and write this summary. I'd also like to thank Berni for her endless inspiration and encouragement, and of course, James who kindly let me post this on his blog =).

Wish you all a great week!

Links to resources shared:

http://www.poorlittlenell.com/english.html#p8

https://www.esl-library.com/lessons.php?section_id=50

http://www.englishclub.com/business-english/

http://podcast.ft.com/

http://www.time.com/time/podcasts/

http://www.economist.com/audiovideo

http://www.bized.co.uk/

http://www.businessballs.com/

http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/methodology/english-for-specific-purposes/english-for-specific-purposes-how-to-teach-business-english-using-the-internet/146486.article

http://drtonymyers.blogspot.com/2011/10/presentation-zen-and-art-of-being-two.html

http://www.theconsultants-e.com/training/resources/cert-ibet.aspx

http://newtitan.ja.org/

http://hbsp.harvard.edu/

http://www.businessenglishpod.com/

http://www.ihonlinetraining.net/ihbet.html

http://edition.tefl.net/ideas/business/describing-company-and-job/

http://yeoresources.org/Documents/Files/Barnga.pdf

Thanks again Edith for your wonderful summary. If you’d like to do an ELTChat summary of your own, and you don’t have a blog to post it to, don’t hesitate to ask and I’ll host it for you.

Blog Challenge: Compare and Contrast Photos

2011-10-03T12:42:00.003+02:00

I previously mentioned in my Free iPad Apps for the ELT Classroom post that I used these photos in a recent class, and Brad Patterson's compare and contrast photo blog challenge gives me the opportunity to go into a little bit more depth about how I used them.

Taken from the Guardian eyewitness iPad app

Taken from the Life magazine iPad app

It was the day after the riots in London escalated and became international news. My student (in a one to one class) is an anglophile, having lived in London for a year, so there were was only one topic of conversation in that lesson. She's an intelligent person who is prepared to speak about almost any subject and can really engage with meaty subjects.

The conversation turned from what happened to how and why it happened. In my opinion, these are complex social matters that cannot be discussed glibly and I was delighted that we were able to have such a high level conversation. I made the point that I think there are some serious problems within British society that will take generations to solve, if the population is willing.

Where the photos came in was that I was quickly and vividly able to illustrate my point. The first photo was taken during the riots, a stunning image that captures the intensity of what happened. The second was taken in 1940 as London came under attack during the Second World War. The point I wanted to make with these similar images was that a huge project of rebuilding was undertaken with political consensus after the war, so there is no reason that it couldn't be done again. I think that by using these similar images I was able to reinforce my point without needing to resort to rhetoric or time consuming online research.

The lessons I learned from this were:

images can be compared to emphasise arguments, which could be the grounds for an interesting activity in the future.

we don't always have to think of these resources as the seed of an activity. We can just as easily use them during our natural conversation with the student in all manner of ways (to illustrate, to explain and to refute for example).

never underestimate the students ability to engage in high order thinking. Their difficulty may be in the ability to express those thoughts, but that doesn't mean they won't surprise you if you give them the opportunity. It also displays how much you respect them as an individual, not just as a student.

don't be afraid of expressing your own opinions. Obviously you have to be able to read the situation and react sensitively, but in general my students are paying to have lessons with me and if I can, I will be myself. Conflict isn't good, but conversation and the sharing of ideas is always healthy.

You can read plenty more posts in this blog challenge. Go to Brad's original post for links (here).

A Weekend in Zug

2011-10-01T14:16:00.001+02:00

Beautiful Zug

On September 17th I was fortunate enough to attend the English Teachers Association of Switzerland Special Interest Groups Day in gorgeous Zug, just a short train journey from Zurich. Among the many fascinating attendees were Mike Harrison, Ania Musielak and local resident Vicky Loras. As a way of reflecting on our weekend at the conference, we asked each other two questions to answer on our blogs. You can read Mike's answers here, Vicky's here, and my and Ania’s below.

First up, my answers...

Mike’s questions

Did anything surprise you about the conference? What and why/why not?

There were no surprises for me, but since they are not always a good thing, I was pleased about that. I expected a well run, enjoyable conference with great presenters and that’s what I got. The venue was perfect (apart from the lack of wifi!) and the whole event was very well put together.

Tell us one interesting thing you learnt about teaching.

Only one? I really enjoyed Anthony Gaughan’s demonstration of a simple and effective dogme class. There are a lot of misunderstandings and misrepresentations of what dogme is and how it works, so it was great to see such an excellent example in action. Anthony is an excellent presenter and I would encourage anyone who gets the chance to go and see him.

Despite appearances, Anthony's talk was well attended!

Vicky’s questions

Who did you meet for the first time there?

This was only my third ELT conference, and my second with a PLN, so it was a chance to catch up with some friends I’d met at IATEFL (Ania, Vladka Michalkova) and spend time with people I’d only met briefly (Mike, Ken Wilson, Mike Hogan). It was also great to meet some people for the first time. Vicky is well known to everyone on Twitter and the PLN for her energy and enthusiasm, so it was fantastic to find out she’s just like that in real life! Chuck Sandy’s appearance was also a pleasant surprise as I didn’t know he was going to be there until I saw his Facebook status update that morning. I look forward to seeing him in Paris in November.

What did you like the most about Zug?

It wasn’t the weather! From what I saw of it, Zug is a lovely small town. I just wished I could have stayed there longer, and that the weather had been kinder on the Sunday morning when I had some free time. I’ll have to make up for it next year.

Ania and Vicky enjoying Zug's nightlife

Ania’s questions

Which idea taken from the conference have you already used with your students (or are planning to use)?

It’s tough to choose just one. I’ve been very influenced by Ken’s suggestion that we need to choose more thought provoking and engaging materials for our students to read (see this blog post to learn more). I also really liked some of your (Ania’s) practical suggestions for positive feedback and reinforcement. Using the coloured blocks as a way for the students to subtly express how they’re feeling about the activity is a great idea, and the demonstration of sandwich feedback was very effective. And Mike Hogan showed us that we can use business with beginners, which is something I'll be looking at more closely.

Did you have enough time for networking and meeting friends?

There’s never enough time, is there? But since we got to meet up from Friday night to Sunday morning, I can’t complain! I find that the opportunities to meet up with everyone, which have been facilitated first by Twitter, then by blogs and Facebook, mean that the social aspect of a conference is just as important as the presentations. It all adds to a really rewarding weekend.

Now it’s Ania’s turn...

Mike’s questions

Did anything surprise you about the conference? What and why/why not?

I was surprised by how friendly and open everybody was. And not at all afraid or shy to participate in the workshops (well, some needed a push, like a bag of candy as a reward, yes James, I’m talking about you ;) ). I also felt very comfortable when it comes to finding my way around the venue – IATEFL Brighton was a huge event and I often got lost!

Tell us one interesting thing you learnt about teaching.

I would have to say that Ken Wilson’s workshop on drama gave me a lot of new ideas. As I use drama in my classes, I always look for some activities, especially for elementary students, that can help them open up. And Ken proved again that even the most basic conversations (like “What time is it?”) can be delivered with flare and passion. He made us use two (very old) mobile phones and have this exchange in an angry mood, which we later switched to a calm one.

Ania in action.

James’ questions

Apart from giving your own presentations, why did you want to go to the conference?

I love attending conferences as they provide me with so many ideas that I can use in my classes. Observing other teachers motivates me to be a better educator. Conferences are also a wonderful opportunity to talk to friends and share our thoughts about teaching (well, not only teaching ;) ). But I guess I would have never come if it hadn’t been for Vicky and her encouragement and huge help.

Apart from your own presentations , who were you most looking forward to seeing present?

As Vicky Loras, Mike Harrison and Vladka Michalkova were presenting at the same time as me, I couldn’t attend their sessions. But I was really looking forward to seeing Ken’s plenary and his drama workshop (which was amazing, but that is not surprising as he’s the Drama King ;) ). I was also very happy that I managed to attend Anthony Gaughan’s session on recycling vocabulary which showed how to use the language that occurs on the lessons.

Vicky’s questions

Who did you meet for the first time there?

Oh, so many people…But I loved meeting Chuck Sandy and Andreas Grundtvig face to face.

What did you like the most about Zug?

It’s such a wonderful city, I love the lake, the open-air restaurants and the castle in the Old Town. I also liked the chocolate and delicious cakes served in cafes – the apfelstrudel was yummy. Next time I’m going to try the Kirschntorte which is strongly spiked.

Ania, James, Mike and some swans.

Free iPad Apps for the ELT Classroom

2011-09-21T22:00:00.000+02:00

One of the great things about having an iPad in the classroom is the quick and immediate access it gives you to relevant and authentic content. It’s the perfect tool for a materials light, one to one teacher like me because something interesting can crop up in conversation and I can almost instantaneously bring up a great resource to share with the student.

Recently, a student told me that she was tired of all the lies in the media and I jumped on YouTube and showed her a clip of Bill Hicks talking about “the truth” (she’s the kind of student who’s not offended by Bill Hicks!) Another time she told me that her favourite place in London was Waterloo Bridge, and one minute later she’s listening to Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks.

So it goes without saying that YouTube is an essential app, but since I’ve had my iPad for a couple of months now, I thought I’d compile some of the apps that I’ve found most useful in the classroom, or see potential in although I haven’t had the opportunity to use them so far.

BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!

Images

Here I go, banging on about the Guardian again, but their Eyewitness is a beautiful and simple app that have used several times. It’s a ‘picture of the day’ app, so every 24 hours there’s a new sumptuous image that could be used in a variety of ways. The photograph below was very useful after the London riots, especially used in tandem with the next app.

The app from Life Magazine has collections from their extensive photography vaults. It begins with a handy map of the world, so you can check for pictures for the area your students are interested in. You can also search by theme. I used the collection of London during the war photographs to contrast with the riot photo from the Guardian app.

For more images, you could also try the Heritage app for pictures from UNESCO world heritage sites.

News

For news, there are plenty of interesting apps that give you quick and easy access to what is going on the world. BBC News is clear and easy to use, as is the Channel 4 news app. I also like the News360 app because you scroll through news stories by picture alone, and could get the students to choose a story based on nothing other than the image. Newsy is also a good source for up to date content.

Hitpad is another interesting way to access what’s going on in the world. It presents the news in a series of streams (news stories, videos, tweets, photos and web). It’s a great resource for getting information on a topic from a variety of sources.

Video

ShowYou aggregates a variety of different and unusual videos from a range of sources (which you can preset, if you wish). It has an almost unlimited potential to give you something interesting to use with your students. Square Eyes is a similar app.

Videojug specialises in ‘how-to’ videos, so if you’re looking to use an instructional videos, they have a huge selection to choose from.

And of course there is TED, which has two apps, the normal TED app and, especially for learners, a fantastic app with subtitles. The script scrolls at the bottom of the screen, and can be used to control the video. So if the learner wants to go back because they didn’t understand a particular phrase, they just touch that line in the script and the video will jump there. I think it’s pretty obvious how useful that could be.

Business

For business students, you can download copies of the Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine and Entrepreneur magazine for authentic and interesting materials.

Books

If you’re lucky enough to use literature with your students, there are thousands of free books available. However most of them are out of copyright, and being over 80 years, they may present a challenge even for advanced learners. My favourite books app, apart from the native iBooks app, is the aptly named Free Books, which is browsable by topic area, such as epic epics, banned books, ghost stories, pulp and young readers.

Other great book apps include Shakespeare, Poetry (a random poem generator), Stanza, and the British Library’s beautifully presented 19th Century Books app.

Teacher Tools

From a more obvious educational standpoint, there are some lovely whiteboards apps such as Screenchomp, where you can record what you write or draw and send it to the students, and ShowMe, which is very similar. I’m also very curious about SpeedGrader, which seems to allow you manage your classes homework, amongst several other things, but since I’m teaching one to ones at the moment, I haven’t really explored.

Finally, I’m not a fan of using the phonetic chart in my classes, but if you are, then you really need to download Macmillan’s gorgeous app. Not only do you have the chart in your hand, but you have the sounds too, in either British or American English.

I’m always looking for new apps, so if you have any that you’d like to recommend, leave a comment below. Thanks.

Getting to know you activity: personality test

2011-09-09T16:52:00.000+02:00

At this time of year, it seems appropriate to share a ‘getting to know you’ activity. I came across this quickfire interview (for want of a better word) with the singer Emmy the Great in the (occasionally NSFW) music magazine The Stool Pigeon:

I thought it would make an interesting way to introduce yourself and the students to each other at the beginning of a new class. Obviously, you need to make your own (I dream of having a class where I can discuss the relative merits of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy vs Bill Callahan!), but I think it’s easily adaptable for any type of class.
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!

Here’s how I’d use it in my classes:

1) Give the students the following on a handout:

2) Explain that this list is a way for them to find out more information about each others personalities. Write the first line on the board. Explain that on each line there are two choices which could be considered opposites, using the line on the board as an example.

3) Explain that you want to make sure they understand all the choices before they make a decision. Ask them to read them to read the options and discuss any problem vocabulary with a partner. Do a CCQ to make sure they understand exactly what you want them to do, especially since you don’t want them to take the test yet.

4) Get feedback and discuss any new vocabulary as a class. Make sure that you don’t give anything away about your own personality at this point.

5) Now ask them to individually take the personality test, highlighting or underlining the choice they think best reflects their personality.

6) Once they tests are complete, ask them to compare their answers with their partners and discuss their similarities and differences.

7) As a class, get some feedback from the pairs. Ask them to share some of the similarities and differences they found.

8) Ask everyone to stand up. Tell them that you are going to divide the class into two groups, so we can find out more about each other. Choose one of the lines from the test and divide the class into two groups by the preference. For example, you could ask the ‘cat people’ to stand on the left and the ‘dog people’ on the right. Put them into smaller groups if there are too many people on one side, and ask them to discuss why they chose cats over dogs or vice versa.

9) Do this three or four times with different lines from the test.

10) To sum up, ask the class if there was anyone who was in the same group every time, or 3 times.

11) Now ask them students in small groups to create four or five (depending on the size of your class) personality quiz choices to find out more about you. Once they’ve finished, depending on time and the size of your class, go round the class and answer the personality test questions they’ve written for you.

Note: There’s a danger that this part could become too teacher centred (“Now it’s your chance to learn alllllll about me...”), but I think this can be avoided by not spending too much time on it and by doing the activity after they’ve had the chance to speak to each other first. You’ve already shown them that they are the priority. It’s also worth remembering that the students really do want to learn about you, so I think in this early class you can be a bit more egocentric than usual.