This is my Delta LSA on writing. This was my external assignment. I got a pass. I am sharing it with you so you can get an idea of what a writing LSA could look like. Please do not copy anything from my assignment. Plagiarism is not taken lightly and Cambridge has zero tolerance of it.

There are a few problems with the formatting/font due to the fact that this post is a copy paste of a word document.

1. Introduction

My teaching experience has shown me that helping learners to become good writers can be quite challenging. At an intermediate level, when their grammar and lexis become richer, producing texts that are well written is quite hard. In fact, at this level they also become familiar with different genres, register and tone, making writing texts more difficult for my students.

Writing emails may be an everyday task for some of my learners and semi-formal emails is a common genre in their course books. In this assignment, I zero in on helping my learners improve their writing of semi-formal emails (booking a hotel via mail) which can be transferred to their real needs as they may need to contact a hotel and reserve a room. It is also a genre that has distinct features like formulaic expressions, the layout is different, structures used can be more demanding (e.g indirect questions).   In fact, semi-formal emails can be quite tricky as they share features of formal and informal emails so distinguishing the differences is integral (see section 2 on learner problems).

 “Fundamentally, writing is learned rather than taught, and the teacher’s best methods are flexibility and support” (Hyland 2002, p.78) which is why it is imperative that I train my learners to activate and use writing strategies (see section 1.3) necessary for effective writing whilst encouraging their efforts. All the above are reasons why I chose to write the paper.

1. Literary review

1.1. Two productive skills: Writing versus speaking

Speaking and writing share common features but there are many differences. In order to understand writing, methodologists often compare writing to speaking.

Street 1995, cited in Hyland, 2002-exact copy of table

Such a dichotomy neglects distinct differences of spoken and written genres. Biber (1999, cited in Hyland, 2002 p. 50) found that features like the present tense, deletions which are characteristics of spoken speech are also found in written genres like narratives and personal letters. On the other hand, elaborated references like relative clauses, which frequently occur in written text, are also prominent in interviews and public speeches (spoken genres) ibid. Therefore, Hyland (2002, p.51) concludes that, ”these descriptions require more delicate, more socially informed, and more  genre-sensitive frameworks than simple comparisons between exposition and conversation allow”.

1.2. How we write

No matter what someone is writing whether it is an email reserving a room or a shopping list, it is done in the following way; people plan, draft, edit and then provide a final draft. Sometimes someone may re-draft or re-edit and the time spent may vary from almost no time to even days (process wheel-Harmer 2007, p.6).

Image taken from Harmer, J. 2004, p.6

1.3. Writing Micro and Macro Skills

Brown (2004, cited in Damayanti n.d) composed a list of writing micro and macro skills which are the following:

Micro skills

Produce

• graphemes and orthographic patterns of English.
• writing speed according to purpose.
• acceptable string of words following word order rules.

Use

• acceptable grammar.
• cohesive devices.

Express

• meanings in different grammatical forms.

Macro skills

Use

• the appropriate conventions and rhetorical forms of writing.
• a pool of strategies like assessing audiences’ interpretation, paraphrases and synonyms, editing etc.

Convey

• links and connections between events and express ideas such as main idea and supporting information
• culturally specific references in the written texts

Distinguish

• between implied and literal meaning

Accomplish

• the meanings of functions of the texts based on form and purposes                                                       Brown (2004, cited in Damayanti n.d)

1.4. What affects our writing

According to Harmer (2007, p. 16-26) the way people write is affected by

• genre features
• text construction
• cohesion (lexical and grammatical)
• coherence
• register

1.5. The email

• Follow the style/conventions of letters, faxes.
• Use grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, capitalization as in any other type of communication.
• Everything in capital letters equals shouting.
• Keep messages short and to the point as many people receive many emails.
• Edit emails just like any piece of writing.                                                               (Ashley, 2005)

1.6. The semi-formal email

We send semi-formal emails to people we do not know well, colleagues, tourist information offices, hotel managers. Formal emails are sent to people of authority which we do not know well for example, the mayor, the president, a human resources manager when applying for a job. Informal emails are sent to our friends, people we know well and have a friendly relationship with. The language in semi-formal emails is closer to that of formal emails as the writer may use a friendly tone but still needs to be polite, friendly but quite formal regarding language.

Language:

Semi-formal greeting/Salutation:

Dear John,

Dear hotel manager,

Semi-formal sign off:

Yours sincerely,

Yours faithfully,

Kind regards,

Thanks,

Introduction

• Reason for writing:  Departure date will be on (date, including the day of the week) at (time).

• Arrival date will be on (date, including the day of the week) at approximately (time).
• I am writing to book a room/I am writing to reserve a room (room type) in your hotel for (number) nights for (number) guests                                                               From: sites.google.com/site/hotelbookingsonline/Home/sample-hotel-reservation-letter

Main body

• Information included in different paragraphs:

• Room type information
• List of any special requirements/needs
• Booking/requesting/enquiring about special facilities                                     From: sites.google.com/site/hotelbookingsonline/Home/sample-hotel-reservation-letter

                                                                           Conclusion

 Thank reader for prompt attention/assistance.

Thank you for your prompt attention to the above. I look forward to receiving a letter confirming my reservation.                                                                                            From: sites.google.com/site/hotelbookingsonline/Home/sample-hotel-reservation-letter

• Requesting information ( mixture of direct/indirect questions Could you also inform me ….?I would also like to know if… 

• I would also like to know whether
• Do you know ….?
• Could you also tell me….?

• Thanking for information: Thanking you in advance for this information                            (Taken from: www.sites.google.com Поликарпова Римма Николаевна writing hints and tasks 10-11)

• I would like to thank you in advance for this information
• Avoid using contractions/emotional language-emoticons

Layout example of a semi-formal email

                                                                                         (Ashley, 2005)

2. Learner Problems and suggested solutions

Formal (semi-formal) versus informal language

In semi-formal emails, students have difficulty using the appropriate formal language. As semi-formal emails are closer to being formal than informal it is necessary to train learners on the differences between formal and informal language. Learners who have languages which have formal grammar structures when writing formally (e.g in Greece we use  εσεις-esis- which is the formal pronoun you and shows respect) may have difficulty understanding that a pronoun for example, does not suggest formality whilst special structures do.

Suggested solutions:

A teacher could:

• give learners very informal sentences and ask them to write a more formal sentence and then pass it over to the next student going from “ I need some information…” to I would like some information” etc. When the last student gives up or the sentence written is more informal than what the previous student wrote, the learner who provided the final formal sentence gets a point (English club, 2012).

Evaluation: this is a semi controlled task which practices writing in the form of a game so it can be fun. Chain sentence exercises require good planning on behalf of the teacher as some students may end up with piles of papers. Game like activities can be appreciated by all learners especially kinesthetic ones. The purpose someone is learning English may affect the learners’ attitude towards the task as more exam oriented classes may mistakenly view this as a waste of time as they are preparing for exams and not learning English for fun.

Problems with word order-syntax

Weigle (2002, cited in Watcharapunyawong & Siriluck 2013) claims that,

 L2 writing can be more difficult if syntactic properties of the two languages are very different, which makes L2 students rely on their first language when writing in a second language (ibid).

Greek learners in particular have difficulty with word order as in Greek word order is freer than in English (Papaethymiou-Lytra, cited in Swan and Smith 2002). From my own experience, my Chinese learners have difficulty with word order too as there are not many tenses and there is not a particular word order in Chinese.

Suggested solutions

In order to help learner with the syntax of semi-formal written English a teacher could:

•  show learners sentences and ask the learners to identify the parts of speech and by using discovery methods ask them to form the rules of syntactic patterns of for example, indirect questions which are prominent in semi-formal emails. They could also fill out syntactic grids and have a visual representation of the syntactic patterns.

Evaluation: activities that engage learners in discovery method learning are an effective way to help learners realize the rules that govern the language. Such activities are appreciated by learners who like to learn rules and have an arithmetic perception as in my view, syntax is often like math. It is more appropriate for adult learners already acquainted to the syntactic patterns.  This type of task could be used as a lead in activity to freer productive activities.

• Another alternative suitable for younger learners is filling out open ended sentences which give the students the beginning of a sentence and they have to fill in the ending. Students cold listen to a song  and then fill in the missing information. After that they are asked to mimic the sentences with their own examples focusing on the target lagage.

Evaluation: younger learners may not be familiar with syntactic patterns and may lack the maturity to understand such tasks like syntactic grids. That is why drilling tasks, which are a controlled way of learning, may be more effective.

Problems with spelling

Greek spelling is phonetic with almost one to one phonetic correspondence, but this is not the same in English. This can affect the writing semi-formal emails as spelling is integral! In order to help learners with their spelling a teacher could:

• Practice spelling of difficult words like request/information/query with spelling bee games if the learners are young or by having a running dictation activity.

Evaluation: this is a fun and creative way of teaching spelling and young students enjoy it. Unfortunately it cannot be done on a day to day basis as it can be quite noisy and may be discouraging for weaker students as they may not be able to win.

• Another way I practice spelling with my learners is through dictation. I usually get them to check their own spelling or exchange with a classmate as I think this helps them notice their errors rather than me using red ink over their papers. I also get them to write sentences in chunks so they can also practice the way words collocate with each other.

Evaluation: This is something my learners are used to and has proven to be an effective way of learning new words. It is a dry activity though and not very productive. Also it is questionable if the learners remember the words after a while.

Problems with punctuation

Students have difficulty with punctuation especially when there is not an L1 equivalent (there is no semi colon in the Greek language) or when different punctuation marks are used for different reasons e.g the position of the comma.  In this case a teacher could:

• ask students to look at a text and notice where the punctuation marks go, asking them to punctuate something and a combination of the two (Harmer 2004, p. 52).

Evaluation: Noticing activities raise awareness which is essential when learning how to use punctuation marks and using discovery methods to explain their usage is a better way to establish acquisition. They can be lead in activities to productive activities like writing their own email and using the appropriate punctuation.

Problems with coherence

Students may have problems with lexical coherence or grammatical coherence. In the case of lexical coherence a teacher could:

• Train learners on lexical cohesion at a paragraph level. She could jumble up sentences of an email and ask the students to put them in the correct order. Then the learners could circle the words that connect the text lexically.

Evaluation: jumbling up sentences makes the exercise like a puzzle and gives the teacher the opportunity to make this type of task like a game. This is a very controlled task which does not allow much productivity on behalf of the learners but it does facilitate raising awareness and noticing. It is appropriate for all types of learners who are learning English for various purposes.

As far as grammatical coherence is concerned at a paragraph level, a teacher could:

• Use (open) cloze activities like those in the FCE exams. She can delete the words from a formal email and ask her learners to fill in the gaps with the missing words.

Evaluation:

Gap filling activities have been used for many years now and are a great way to tap into learners’ prior knowledge, activate schematic knowledge and make use of the students’ grammatical knowledge. Their difficulty level can change from quite easy, if they only have to put the verb in the right tense, to more challenging, if pronouns, reference words are missing. Such activities are more suitable for exam preparatory classes.

                                        Problems with cohesion

Many students have difficulty connecting their ideas and giving a flow to their text especially when they do not really engage in writing in their L1. In this case a teacher could:

• Rearrange/cut up a text and get learners to put it in the right order.

Evaluation: game like/puzzle activities are enjoyed by most students no matter their age. Putting a text back together may be a fun activity which forces students to look at the way the ideas are connected. They look at main ideas and supporting ideas and how they all connect at a text level. This is a controlled activity that could be used in presentation stages of the semi-formal email.

• A teacher could also get the students to read a text and underline the main ideas and supporting information.

Evaluation: this is an awareness raising activity which gives the students a visual representation of what goes where and the connection of ideas. It is necessary especially when students have difficulty putting a paragraph together. Such an activity is appropriate for all types of learners.

3. Conclusion

Helping my learners with their writing skill is a very demanding task which requires a lot of effort. Once learners start to learn how to write though the texts they produce can make satisfy the teacher and make the learners feel that they have achieved something very important. They can express themselves through a text!

References

Ashley, A (2002) Oxford handbook of commercial correspondence (pdf file) Available at: < http://www.cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej35/r1.pdf> [Accessed at 09.11.2013]

Damayanti, Y (n.d) Micro and Macro skills found in the writing exercises of the Bridge English Competence for SMP Grade. Academia edu. Available at: http://www.academia.edu/1139509/MICRO_AND_MACRO_SKILLS_OF_WRITING_FOUND_IN_THE_WRITING_EXERCISES_OF_THE_BRIDGE_ENGLISH_COMPETENCE_FOR_SMP_GRADE_VIII_PUBLISHED_BY_YUDHISTIRA  [Accessed: 18.11.2013]

English Club 17 n.d. How To Teach Formal And Informal Language [Online]. Available at: http://edition.englishclub.com/tefl-articles/how-to-teach-formal-informal-language/ [Accessed: 18.11.2013]

Harmer, J (2007) How to Teach Writing: Malaysia. Pearson Longman.

Hotel Bookings Online n.d. [Online] Available at: < https://sites.google.com/site/hotelbookingsonline/Home/sample-hotel-reservation-letter>  [Accessed: 19.11.2013]

Hyland,K. (2002) Teaching and Researching Writing: Essex. Longman.

Sites-google.com n.d Useful phrases-How to write formal emails [Online] Available at: < https://sites.google.com/site/vktgenglish/polikarpova-rimma-nikolaevna/writing-hints-and-tasks-10-11-forms/useful-words–how-to-write-formal-letters> [Accessed: 10.11.2013]

Swan, M. and Smith, B. (2002) Learner English 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Watcharapunyawong, S & Usaha, S. (2013) Thai EFL Students’ Writing Errors in Different Text Types: The Interference of the First Language English Language Teaching; Vol. 6, No. 1.

Under the umbrella of English for Specific Purposes you will find Business English and Academic English. In both contexts, students are asked to give presentations. Have you ever wondered if there is a difference between presentation skills for English for Academic Purposes and Business English? If you teach in both contexts, should you emphasize the same things? In this blog post you will find 10 top tips to give your students when presenting in an academic or a Business English context. Two teachers collaborate. I will give you my top 10 tips for presentation skills (EAP), and Philip Saxon will give his top 10 (BE). Will our tips overlap? Let’s see. What do we tell our students?

English for academic purposes

Often in university students give presentations about their research. This is the advice I give to students who are preparing to give a presentation in an academic context.

1). Your presentation is about your research. You know it better than anyone else, so do not panic.

2). Pay attention to your slides. They are the tool you will use to help you present. Avoid using too many animations and be careful of the pictures you use. Do not have wordy slides.

3). Follow the structure of a presentation. Have an overview, an introduction slide or background information slide, the main part of your presentation, a conclusion, references and a thank you/questions slide.

4). Cite your sources on your slides. Plagiarism is an academic offence and it extends to presentation skills as well! Don’t forget to have a reference slide.

5). Pay attention to your voice, rhythm and pace. Your voice is the way you will attract and engage your audience.

6). Jokes are great, but in EAP they are not the best way to start a presentation. If you want to be more dynamic, interesting, and engaging, as I said earlier, pay attention to your subject, your voice, and ask rhetorical questions. In EAP, there is no need to be ”haha” funny.

7). Use signposting language. You need to guide your audience through your presentation. You can use words like:

Let’s move on to the next slide/ moving on to the next slide/ moving on/ at this point we will discuss…

8).Whilst your slides should not be too wordy, you still have to be able to elaborate on your ideas and research. The information shared on your slides is not enough to give the depths/parameters of your research. You need to be able to do this yourself, orally.

9) Think of your audience and what type of presentation this is. Do all the people in the audience know the specifics of your subject or are they from a more general background? If your audience is of a more general background, then you may need to clarify some key terms/definitions/topic.

10). Plan and practise. Once you have finished practising, practise more.

 So, having seen EAP presentation skills, let’s move on to Business English. Does context actually affect the teaching of presentation skills?

Business English presentation skills

In business, people very often give presentations about the launching of a new product, sales,  annual company goals and so on. What skills/techniques and strategies are important in a business presentation? It’s time to look at what advice Philip Saxon gives his Business English students.

1) Be interesting! Have something you want to share with the audience as a gift. If it matters to you, it may well matter to them.

2) Be clear whether your presentation is a talk or a workshop. There is no such thing as an “interactive presentation”. In a talk, the audience has the floor during Q&A at the end. In a workshop, breakout discussion activities may happen along the way.

3) Sketch your structure – and take your time over it. You can use pen/paper and “go analogue” at this point.

4) Engage your audience. Hook their attention at the beginning; thereafter, interact with them regularly. Invite them to see things your way. It builds rapport.

5) If you’re a leader, you can opt for impact techniques and look strong. BUT it can distance you from your audience. If you’d rather not risk that, you may prefer to build rapport as in 4.

6) Treat your visuals as an equal partner. Both of you should tell half the story and complement each other, never compete for the audience’s attention. The audience can’t read and listen at the same time, anyway: research has shown this.

7) When ready, practise in front of a trusted friend. They can offer constructive criticism and advice. Plus, you need to know how well you’re managing your time.

8) Anticipate audience questions – tip 7 can also help with this.

9) Mind-map your initial ideas. But then condense it to a key message! If the audience should remember one thing from your talk, what should it be? You should sum up with this.

10) Treat each live presentation you give as a learning experience. The best presenters all made mistakes to begin with, but they were persistent. You can succeed, too!

So, while the top tips we gave are not the same, there are some meeting points.

Points in Common

Planning is essential. It affects the effectiveness of a presentation. Students need to know what they are going to say and when. If they do not plan, they will also be unprepared. This leads to the next common feature; practising. If students want to be comprehensible and feel happy with their presentation, they need to practise. Practise makes perfect, doesn’t it? Being dynamic and interesting is also very important. These are oral presentations, and the audience needs to find the presentation appealing. That’s why your students need to attract attention. Finally, slides are an integral part of a good oral presentation. This is why students need to be careful of what goes on them. 

I hope you enjoyed this post. Feel free to comment or add your top tips in the comments section below. Special thanks to Philip for giving his top tips.

A bit about Philip: Philip Saxon teaches English as a Foreign Language in both university and in-company settings in Budapest, Hungary. A Warwick graduate (he obtained an MA with distinction in 2014), his interests these days include teacher training and teaching languages with technology. His blog can be found at http://englishforauthenticpurposes.blogspot.co.uk/.

Till next time…….

Painting lesson post 3

I have been having painting lessons for a couple of months now. I started because I wanted to do something different, avoid burnout and get out of the house a bit more ( I am an online teacher so the last ‘goal’ was really important). I have really been enjoying the classes and while I definitely am not a first class talented painter, I am quite pleased with what I have done so far. One more reason I decided to start painting was because I wanted to challenge myself. I am colour blind and painting for a colour blind person is……….pushing it.

When I started painting lessons, I struggled, but yesterday’s lesson was great and I learnt a lot about colours and how to match them. I now look at colours as if they are math. Yeap, you read correctly, I said maths. While I am unable to actually ‘see’ the colours, I think I can now paint without knowing what exactly I am using.

Lists, numbers. Red + blue=purple

My painting teacher sat with me and we wrote down the names of all the colours and the corresponding tube numbers. Before moving on, I need to say that the batch of colours I have has the names of colours written in funny names (or is that Italian?) So, for example, when a tube had the name ‘Siena Bruciato’  and the number 3 on it, I wrote: this means a red, orange, browny colour- number 3.

My list of colours was ready. My teacher then told me how to use colours and which colours are warm and which are cooler tones. Warm colours in painting are red and yellow. Blue is a cool tone. We use warm colours in the foreground, and cool colours in the background of paintings. You can make a colour cool or warm depending on how much paint you use when you are mixing colours. So, if I want to use purple for example, and I want it to be a cool tone, I use more blue (background colour), if I want it to be warm, I use more red (this will pop out in a painting). I also learnt that green is a neutral colour. White is used to make lighter versions of a colour (something like toning down). There are different types of whites and the best one is Titanium white (don’t ask me why, just accept it, welcome to my world) and black should be avoided. If you want to use black, it’s better to use a dark blue.

So, now I can paint without being able to ‘see’ the colour. The only difficulty I have is making the same shades of colours from one painting lesson to the other. You see, I cannot measure the drop of paint that goes into the colours, so if I put red and blue together to form purple, I won’t be able to make the exact same colour next time, cause I won’t be able to ‘see’ the colour. I have two solutions for that, one I have already tried the other is a thought.

Solution 1= make a shade and use it all in one session. Finish painting whatever you have started with the same blob of colour.

Solution 2= I need to invent some sort of paint measuring device. The only thing I can think of is either a spatula that is used to put make up on or the thing we use to measure medicine, but then my whole painting is like math will turn to painting is like chemistry so I would probably have to rewrite the whole post. That’s why I am sticking to solution 1.

My 1st painting. I have strayed from the original Van Gogh. This is Jo’s room. It still needs work. Painting is hard 🙂

Till next time………

I have been teaching for many, many years and only recently have I started blogging. It actually seems natural for me as a teacher to write about my teaching experience and the issues that come up during sessions. I do spend 24/7 talking about work, so why not blog about it? Why not be an educational blogger?

Why I started blogging

I must say that when I was a child I had a fascination with libraries and books. Instead of playing with dolls, I often played “librarian”. I also liked writing, and made my own book when I was 9. I wrote a story and drew pictures. I was very proud of my accomplishment. I was a writer. So, I always had the book/writing bug in me. Blogging came into my life many years later. I actually started blogging as part of my Delta training. My Delta tutor suggested I write a blog post about what it was like to be a Delta trainee and I did. I really enjoyed it.

Blogging for me

There are many teachers who blog. I am one of them. But what is the motivation behind blogging? Don’t I already spend many hours teaching? If I am already talking about my work, why spend more time writing about it? Well, for many reasons.

First of all, I get to write about what I love; teaching. Talking shop with my friends is what I do on an everyday basis. Blogging allows me to do the same thing but with people from around the world. That is actually an extra bonus. In fact, I connect with people through blogging. I have ‘met’ people from all around the world because of blogging. My professional learning network has grown a lot because I blog. Interacting with teachers from all around the world gives you the chance to learn from their experience.

It’s also like writing a diary that’s public and educational. In your diary you write about your everyday life and so on. In your blog you share your thoughts. I am quite informal when I blog. My friends actually tell me that it is as if I am out for coffee with them and chatting about work. I like that. It is the only way I can keep going. I am myself when I blog.

Blogging also gives me the chance to reflect on my classroom practice and see what worked and what didn’t work. The fact that I have to sit down and write about a lesson makes it more tangible for me and allows me to take a closer look at my teaching habits. By writing about my teaching I can put my finger on what went wrong or what went well. This allows me to improve as a teacher. It is like looking into a mirror but instead of a mirror, it’s my own blog entry. A visual representation of my teaching.

Because I blog on a regular basis, I like to try new things, to look for activities and share them with other teachers.  Comments on my blog posts reinforce this. I learn from other teachers’ experience and there are always occasions when teachers add a link to a blog post which may inform my own teaching. I learn a lot because I blog.

It is also like having an e-portfolio, a way to save your own teaching ideas and try them out once again. So for example, you have a lesson on conditionals next week, if you blog about lesson ideas and have written a post about fun activities for conditionals, you can go back to this blog post and get ideas! Recording your great teaching moments, the interesting activities are like a think tank for yourself!

Is it a hobby?

Well, that’s a good question. If it is a hobby, I definitely take it very seriously and when I blog, I am in the zone. Ideas often float in my head. It actually often keeps me up at night. I must admit. You know how we stress at night about things that happened in class. As a blogger and I teacher, I often wake up at night with an idea and I think, “Hey, I need to write this down” And I do. I now have a notebook on my nightstand so if I have an idea, I take notes, and then go back to my notes in the morning. The best posts about my teaching are those ones. The ones that are a product of a lot of ideas bubbling in my head during the day….. and the night.

Final thoughts

Blogging does take up a lot of time. I don’t regret it though. I think all teachers should blog. It is the best reflective practice you could ask for. Teaching is all about learning. Educational blogging is about learning through your teaching. Am I good at it? Don’t really know. One thing I am sure of though is that I enjoy it. It’s fun. Try it already, will ya?

This article first appeared in Iatefl Hungary’s The mELTing Pot. Many thanks to Beatrix Price and everyone at Iatefl Hungary for giving me the chance to write about one of the things I ❤  doing.

Till next time…..

Engagement and practice in classroom learning, language and technology

Joy Egbert

Joy started her talk with an example of how people think they can learn a foreign language. She shared her story. Joy is American, so when she got invited to present at Iatefl, she thought it appropriate to learn British (British as a foreign language as she said). So, she decided to watch episodes of Doctor Who in an attempt to pick up a few words. She didn’t learn much though.

Why?

The people in the TV show were talking too fast and she didn’t always catch what they were saying. There was no support, no feedback, no social interactions. There was no engagement.

Engagement matters. If you want to learn something, you need to be engaged. Engagement in technology is also important. Joy talked about her experience learning Spanish on a website called Plato. She didn’t manage to learn a lot because it was all about drilling and not very interesting for her.

So, the next question that Joy Egbert mentioned needs to be asked is, how can we engage the learners? We need to understand how languages are learnt. According to Spolsky (1989) knowledge and skills in the future are a result of knowledge in the present. This is connected to abilities, motivation and opportunity (see pic for actual slide). The teacher is the provider of opportunities. The more opportunities we provide, the more chances of learning.

Screenshot of Joy Egbert’s slides

Joy Egbert then talked about how important it is to also understand why students are unengaged. This may be because they are unmotivated by the ‘opportunities’ to learn. For example, drills, lists of words, incomprehensible tasks are not engaging. What the teacher wants to see in the classroom is students participating, being focused and engaged.

Principles of engagement

1). Authenticity (authentic to the learner)

2). Connection to life

3). Provide social interaction or deep individual focus

4). Offer practice and Feedback

5). Challenge/ Skills balance

In terms of technology, Joy Egbert pointed out that technology cannot do something by itself. It provides resources, support and opportunities among other things. This leads to the next part of the talk which had to do with ‘issues’ with technology. Issues have to do with no use of technology at all, no pedagogy regarding technology and no principles of usage.

Engaging lessons

Lessons will be engaging for our learners if we know our learners. We need to know who our learners are, their interests, their jobs, what they like and don’t like. If we do not know who our learner is, it is difficult to plan.

1^st Principle- Authenticity

Choose material that will be interesting for your learners. Different material for different learners. In terms of reading texts, choose for example, different reading texts based on the learner. If one learner likes animals, choose a text about animals. If the other one like fashion, choose something about fashion. Once you have chosen the right reading material for example, move on to different activities that will appeal to each learner. Different types of technology for each learner. If your learner likes writing, use word documents. If your learner likes videos, go for an exercise based on a YouTube video.

Website recommendation: Fakebook

2^nd Principle: Connection

Why is connection important? Well, students need to know how what they are learning is connected to their life and studies. The teacher needs to say, “This connects to your life this way…. “ Be explicit. Your learners will not always see the connection. You should tell them.

Website recommendation: Big huge lab website

3^rd Principle:  Social Interaction

Make sure your students interact when doing activities. If you are using technology, a simple task on a website for example, something that has a drill, get one learner to look at the screen, the other to face the other way. One learner reads, the other types and so on. Get the learners to work with each other. Another thing to consider in terms of interaction is to give students a reason to interact. If one learner is presenting something, the others should be taking notes because later on they will be doing something with the notes.

4^th Principle: Feedback

Feedback needs to be on time and relevant. In terms of technology, choose different types of feedback based on the type of learner. One learner may like text feedback, the other may prefer voice feedback.

5^th Principle Challenge/Skills balance

Make sure the challenge is not too great and that the skills are appropriate. Take into consideration what the students can do. It is very important to work on your students’ weaknesses as well as strengths.

You won’t be able to engage all your students all the time. If you mange to engage let’s say 80% , that’s great!!

Technology

Once again, Joy Egbert pointed out that technology cannot do anything on its own. Teachers need to look at technology and work on it,/ with it. There is a lot of technology which has to do with different interests. Teachers need to evaluate the technology.

Screenshot of Joy Egbert’s slides: Evaluating Technology

Website recommendation: Popplet

If as a teacher you think technology is too hard or you do not have time, choose something simple like email writing for example. Why emails? Well, they

• Are free
• Are safe
• Include loads of attachments etc

Closing remarks

When thinking of technology, teachers need to think of, not what is better but who it is good for. Technology needs to be used effectively. It needs to meet goals. If it doesn’t help, then the teacher shouldn’t use it.

Joy Egbert

Frozen in thought? How we think and what we do in ELT.

Donald Freeman ‘s plenary

Donald Freeman began his talk with the phrase  “being frozen in thought” which he explained as being stuck in the way we think. He moved on to talk about a notion that exists. The notion of thinking and reasoning in teaching. This is how we use ideas to explain and justify/ give reasons for the way we think.

Reasoning

Reason about something is an internal process while give reason for something has to do with addressing the public.

How Annie the teacher is connected to myths of teaching

Annie is a teacher of Spanish. Donald visited her to give guidance and make suggestions regarding her teaching. It was a Friday afternoon before a vacation and the teacher started with group work which didn’t go that well. She then moved on to pictures. Again not much success. Then she reached for Bingo and finally the students were engaged. After the observation, Annie said, “Bingo is the only thing that works”.

Why did Bingo work? (Donald Freeman’s thought bubbles)

Donald Freeman’s thought bubbles after hearing “Bingo is the only thing that works”

What does this show? Teacher thinking is connected to how we induct teachers. It has to do with the ways of organizing minds and our public actions.

This brings us to the main part of the talk. Myths. Teaching Myths. “It’s important to mention that these myths are not right or wrong” said Freeman. We just need to question them.

But first, let’s see what Donald Freeman said about why myths exist.

• They organize our work
• Help establish meaning of what we do as teachers
• They create communities that accept the same myths. They bring a shared understanding

1^st Myth: Direct causality

Teaching makes learning happen. Think of it like a game of pool during which the teacher shoots balls.  One ball propels the other. The teacher hits different balls, hitting different aspects/ learners. So, according to this myth, learning takes place. We actually organize our schools as if that works, but classrooms don’t actually work this way.

 But the teacher creates opportunities. The teacher moves are connected to the learner moves. Teaching is more a relation of influence and less a relation of cause and effect.

2nd Myth: Sole responsibility

“ When things work/don’t work” we, the teachers,  have responsibility. How? Well, among other things, the teacher:

• Makes critical decisions
• Plans
• Prepares material/ content

So, the teacher has responsibility. In this myth, teaching is like a game of chess. The teacher makes a move, then the learner makes a move. The moves the students make reshape the moves that the teacher makes (decision making). There is an interaction between moves.

But responsibility is distributed not really shared. One move/ decision / action shapes the next move. This creates an opportunity to teach for the teacher, to learn for the learner. When the moves line up, it is seamless. If the moves don’t line up, then we see the sole responsibility surfaces.

Myths 1 and 2 have to do with all teachers/ educators. Myth 3 is connected to English language teaching.

3rd Myth: Proficiency is the goal of English language teaching

The right thing about this is that we create opportunities for the learner to learn. What’s frozen in this case, is the relationship between the classroom and how we think it travels outside the classroom.

Proficiency in the classroom is grounded in an assumption of nativeness. Nativeness is associated with language proficiency and non-nativeness with striving for nativeness. The problem with these terms is that both are misleading. Nativeness is geopolitical not linguistic, and proficiency is conceptually a problematic idea. In fact, proficiency tries to describe how people get good at a language, and this will follow them outside the classroom. But how do we define getting good at a language? Language is like water. Language is connected to time, place and experience. Language travels. How can we describe a language that travels? We use the concept of general language proficiency when we refer to what students can do, but this is classroom bound. How does this connect with the outside world? Think of a suitcase. What’s in the suitcase (classroom language) does not reflect what’s outside the suitcase (the world), it extends it, it is part of it.

Screenshot of Freeman’s slide. Sculpture in Florence, Italy

The relation between what’s in and out of the suitcase is what researchers refer to as horizonal knowledge. What’s in the suitcase is part of what’s outside the suitcase (look at the picture).

Horizonal knowledge

Example of horizonal knowledge in mathematics: Deborah Ball teaching 2^nd graders to subtract. Students were asked to create rules of how subtractions work. A child came up and said, “You can never subtract a bigger number from a smaller number.” So, what do you say in this case? It is right for 2^nd graders, but later on it’s not quite right?

 Horizonal knowledgee in the language classroom is the suitcase problem. In the classroom we give language attributes it doesn’t have (like putting it in the suitcase). We give it grammar, skills, voice, levels and so on.  All these allow us to chart the relationship of what is happening in the classroom and what hopefully will happen outside the classroom. According to John Trim, “Funny things happen to language when it goes to school”. We call this suitcase general language proficiency.

But there is not just one proficiency. We should be looking at proficiency plurals which are always situated in particular contexts and are bounded by a particular social practice.

Donald Freeman then moved on to talk about Bit.fall

Bit. fall

What is Bit.fall? It’s a sculpture by a German artist (Julius Popp). He explains it as, “A machine that controls falling drops of water that creates words”. What’s the connection to the classroom?  That’s what we do in the classroom. We have words that are like drops and we hope that they will turn back to water outside the classroom.

Bit fall-ing for teachers.

Donald Freeman talked about research that has been carried out regarding a version of English that teachers can use when teaching. A panel managed to discover what some of this language may be. Thus, the language for teachers was bound (like in a suitcase). This lead to the understanding that, general language proficiency for teachers and language in the classroom are different. So, in the case of teacher talk we have specific contextual proficiency in the classroom.

 Donald Freeman concluded his talk by pointing out that these myths have elements of truth but also elements of distraction. He concluded his talk with two final slides, food for thought..

Closing Remarks

Screenshot of Freeman’s slides.

Screenshot of Freeman’s slides

This was my first attempt to write a blog post as a Manchester online registered blogger for the #Iatefl 2015 conference. I tried my best to give you some of the main points of Donald Freeman’s talk. For more information and to watch the video, press here

Ageliki is a dear friend of mine. I met her during my Delta course. She is a very motivated person and teacher. I admire her for the hard work and passion she puts into everything. Here is her #youngerteacherself guest post.

What advice would I give my #youngerteacherself?

Well, I have been teaching English for more than fifteen years, now. When I was just a newbie, my tutor recommended that I should go by the course book, and so I did. For many years I don’t ever remember leaving anything out …the years were passing by and experience taught me as well as my everlasting professional development that I should add elements such as ‘fun’ songs, and meaningful and interesting things for the learners. My students passed their exams BUT there always was something missing…. and that was the way I taught ….dry language input!

Two years ago, I started doing the Cambridge Delta, this transformed me as a teacher and it was really a breakthrough in my teaching practices. I can say one thing to my younger self. I should have done it much earlier; I would have felt more resourceful and therefore more confident as a teacher and my students would have benefited immensely from that.  Delta made me think of the importance of providing a rather authentic context whatever I teach, the importance of learner exact needs, student centered lessons, feedback issues on a variety of performances, PRONUCIATION, how to develop as a listener, a reader and as a learner, to mention but a few! Further more, I am a musical type learner so pronunciation with its beats and stress and intonation really mean to me a lot! David Crystal clear attitude towards the evolution of the pronunciation from the Shakespearian times to global English we speak today, makes it an important chapter as well as many other scholars and authors in the field.

How languages are learned? Well, S.D. Krashen says it all, “Compelling, comprehensive input!” If I knew then, what I know today, I would have done away with course books and I would teach language from everyday authentic material starting from newspapers, news broadcast, articles. Exactly, what my students do in order to get informed by the current news in their tongue language, still better, the kind of input that interests them. This is where I start, now. Teaching needs to be fun, fun and fun!

One last thing: I just hope I could become a better and better teacher/model for my students.

Bio: Ageliki works in the private sector for a language school. She is a freelance Elt teacher. She is attending a Cambridge Delta course and is also studying European civilisation at Hellenic Open University.

Flowers in a vase

If you too want to take part in the #youngerteacherself challenge but don’t have a blog, feel free to write a guest post on my blog. If you do have a blog and write something, tweet me (@joannacre) or leave a comment here.

Till next time…..