#flashmobELT – Believe it or not!

Here’s a short speaking activity I’ve used with many levels from pre-intermediate upwards to practise making past simple questions. It works best with adults from multicultural backgrounds.

1. Students sit in groups of four or five.

2. Teacher gives each group a set of question cards. I use “Have you ever…?”, the more outrageous the better.

3. Student A picks a card, reads the question, and must answer “Yes, I have.”

4. The other students now have 90 seconds to ask questions using the past simple to discover if student A is lying. e.g. “Where was the table? Why did you dance on it? Who was there?” etc.

5. Student A answers all the questions trying to make the others believe that he’s telling the truth.

6. When time is up, group votes whether A was telling the truth or not.

7. Repeat.

Like I said, I’ve found that this works better with older students as they’ve had more life experiences so it’s difficult to tell if they are telling the truth or not. The students love it and things can get pretty loud. I’ve used it to highlight the difference between present perfect questions about life experiences and past simple questions about a particular experience.

Please let me know how you get on if you decide to use it.

Enjoy 🙂

#flashmobELT – my life in 20 lines

So I’m pretty new to the blogosphere, twittosphere and many other spheres besides, and I’ve been trying to make connections with other ELT teachers. I want to build up a network of like-minded individuals who can help and direct me as I aim to develop and grow as an educator and implement ideas I’m getting from my DELTA/MA in ELT.

Anyway, I heard about his new group, #flashmobELT, that had just started out, with teachers posting lesson ideas on a wall, trying out some of the suggested ideas and letting others know how they got on. As the group is still in its infancy, it seemed like a perfect place to jump in.

The first idea I tried was posted by a guy called James from www.theteacherjames.com. You can see it below as it appeared on the wall.

the activity as it appeared on the lino wall

My pre-intermediate class had just finished a unit in the coursebook about biographies and it seemed like a perfect time to try this out. As you can see, very little set-up was needed. All I had to do was write ‘My Life in 20 lines’ to use as an example. Writing my example was harder than I thought because I had to decide what to put in, to give it an authentic personal feel, and what details to leave out so my mostly conservative students wouldn’t be too offended or shocked.

In the original idea, James thought that the students could be directed to notice that the first 19 sentences were in the past simple and the final one was the present continuous. I know that my students are reluctant writers and I thought that they could do with a bit more scaffolding. I felt that with a little more language focus before the writing, my students might produce something a bit more complex than they were used to. So, I showed them the example I’d written and we dissected it together with a few directed ‘noticing’ questions.

When I gave the students my story, I asked them the following questions.

What verb tenses are used? In 1-19? In 20?

What comes after ‘started’?

What comes after ‘wanted’ and ‘decided’?

What have 2, 7, 10 and 14 got in common?

In sentence 8, what happened first? What was the result?

After we had discussed and answered the questions, I gave the students 40 minutes to write their 20 line autobiographies. The results were impressive. Most of the students wrote much more accurately than they usually do. They also tried to use more complex sentences. They enjoyed the task and I think it was a success. Tomorrow, for the first ten minutes of class, I will read out some of the bios and get the other students to guess who wrote it. Should be fun.

Thanks #flashmobELT!

21 Questions for Language Teachers [part 2]

This is part 2 of a response to a post on The Steve Brown Blog. You can find part 1 of my response here.

11.          What is it that managers don’t understand (or have forgotten) about teaching?

Hmmmm, I don’t know. I am now a ‘manager’, having been recently given the position of principal at the small language school where I teach, and I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything :). Maybe I just haven’t been in the position long enough.

12.          Are teachers automatically accountable for their learners’ progress and achievement in learning?

I guess they are partly accountable but it is ultimately the student who is in control of his/her own learning. Teachers should be trying to find ways to accommodate and motivate the different learners they encounter. They should understand that not everybody learns the same way at the same speed. They should present students with a variety of tools for language learning, from which the students can choose whichever suits them best. Once the teacher is doing all of the above then I believe that they have fulfilled their end of the bargain.

13.          Do different students have different learning styles? If so, does this mean anything?

Yes, see above answer.

14.          Is it OK for teachers to have different teaching styles, or should we all teach the same way?

It’s good that students get a variety of different teachers and thus different teaching styles throughout their learning. This means that students who find difficulty with one particular teacher/method realise that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

On the other hand, I teach the way I do because I deem this to be the most effective way I know. Does this mean that I think other teachers are less effective? I don’t think so.  In fact, almost every time I observe somebody else teaching, I learn something new or remember something I used to do but had long since stopped doing.

There is no perfection in teaching only progress.

15.          Does the learning process actually matter, or is it all about the achievement of outcomes?

There is much to be learnt from how we learn something. The biggest part of the learning process is arguably making mistakes. Knowing that it’s ok to make mistakes and realizing that it’s next to impossible to learn a language without doing so is very important. Realizing that your pathway to fluency is built from mistakes and corrections is half the battle in learning a language. Students who realize that it’s ok (in fact, essential) to get stuff wrong sometimes, are much more successful in language learning, and possibly happier too.

16.          How does your answer to 15 impact on the way you teach?

My classroom is hopefully a non-threatening environment where everybody feels comfortable enough to try something new, make a mistake and figure out how to learn from it. We all work together towards learning, teacher and students alike. There is little competition between students and apart from friendly games, none is encouraged.

17.          How often do you worry that you’re not a very good teacher?

Once a month/week/year, I don’t know.

If I’m honest, I don’t. But I do worry that I’m not the best teacher I could be, especially when I see myself roll out that same old lesson because I was too busy/tired to come up with something new.

18.          If your answer to 17 was Never, does this mean you’re not a very good teacher?

I really don’t know.

19.          Why do so many teachers want to become teacher trainers?

Money, glory, status, new challenges. Maybe because they presume their students will all be motivated. Maybe because they think that they can have a greater effect on the world by training teachers (pyramid scheme).

20.          Is it true that bad teachers often end up as managers?

I’m not sure. I guess you could go the other way too and say that some good teachers make bad managers. Being able to teach a class where ultimately you decide how it’s done, doesn’t necessarily mean that you can manage a group of teachers with different ideals, problems and sometimes different pedagogical views.

21.          Is our role simply to teach our subject, or do all teachers have another, more wide-reaching responsibility?

It depends. I think with young learners it’s important to realise that we are moulding the person and not just teaching the subject, but with adults, maybe less so. It is important to make sure that the learning environment you control is inclusive and open. We are not teaching a class, we’re teaching people.

21 Questions for Language Teachers [part 1]

This is a response to a thoughtful post on the excellent Steve Brown Blogwhere he posed 21 questions  for language teachers. Here are my answers. He said that his own answers were always changing as I guess mine will too. I’ve split my response into two posts. You can find part 2 here.

1.            Is language an academic subject or a practical skill?

Both, but it’s not a 50/50 split.

Seeing as language can be learnt through immersion, with little or no instruction, I’d say that it is more of a practical skill. While it’s possible to become knowledgeable in many academic disciplines through reading alone, I don’t believe that this is so with language; you may learn a lot about the language but your ability to produce it, manipulate it and use it depends on the amount of time you spend practising it. I guess it’s like sculpture. You can read study a lot about the history and techniques of sculpture but without actually using your hands and a chisel, and making a few mistakes first, it’s highly unlikely that you will be able to sculpt something beautiful.

2.            How do you turn learning stuff into being able to do stuff?

As a teacher, showing the students how and when they can use the grammar/language they’ve just learnt, providing semi-controlled opportunities for practice and eventually free tasks where the students can use what you’ve taught them (if they choose to).

e.g. There’s no point in teaching the first conditional without teaching that it can be used to make predictions. Then, giving the students predictions that they have to complete i.e. If I get into university…   Eventually, you can follow up with a political debate. Split the class in two groups and get them to write an election manifesto. This should encourage the use of the first conditional without forcing it upon the students.

3.            How do you know if you’ve taught a good lesson?

Good? For the students you mean? I guess all lessons should ultimately be evaluated from the students’ point of view. I have a few questions that I ask myself after the lesson when I’m passing judgement on it ;).

Were the students challenged?

Were they involved in the lesson?

Is anything that they learnt of use to them outside this lesson/class?

If the answer to all of these is ‘Yes’ then I think it was a good lesson.

4.            If your students like you, does this mean you’re a good teacher?

No, but it may help them learn more from you.

5.            If your students don’t pass the tests, does this mean you’re a bad teacher?

No.

6.            Is a detailed lesson plan a pre-requisite for a successful lesson?

Absolutely and positively not, but it helps, especially if you have the freedom and confidence to depart from it when needed.

7.            How do you measure successful teaching?

I really don’t know and will have to think more about this.

8.            Does being a teacher automatically give you a professional identity?

I unsure what you mean by a professional identity. Does it help me to identify with other teachers, their issues etc.? Yes, I guess so. I understand where they’re coming from and can empathize with some of the difficulties they may be having, irrespective of the subject they teach.

9.            How do you know your students have learned anything from your lessons?

It’s pretty difficult. I mean, what’s learnt is seldom equal to what was being taught.

Getting my students to keep a reflective journal has helped. At the end of each week, I get them to answer a number of short questions (like the ones suggested by Harmer (2007)): What did you most enjoy in this week’s lessons? What did you learn that you did not know before? What did you find most difficult in last week’s lessons? What questions would you like to ask about what we have learnt?

Reading these gives me an important insight into what’s going on in the minds of the students, what’s being learnt and what needs revising.

10.          Can students learn language without being taught grammar?

They can learn to communicate in a language, yes. I have done so in both Thai and Italian. But to progress beyond making yourself understood, and into actually controlling and possessing a language, then, no. Some grammar instruction is essential. Without it, many students are perfectly comprehensible but full of fossilized grammar mistakes.

Part 2 of my answer can be found here.

Bibliography:

Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th ed.) Harlow: Pearson

 

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

I was asked to run my first ever teaching workshop last Wednesday at the small language school where I work. The topic was ‘Promoting Learner Autonomy”, and I had a few days to put something together that would keep us going for an hour.

Now, to be honest, I wasn’t really nervous. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I knew that whenever I found it, I’d be able to say it (one of the benefits of being Irish, I guess). I’ve never had any qualms about speaking in public.

Actually, I was more worried that my mouth might get carried away with itself and I’d end up talking at my colleagues for an hour, rather than talking with them.

This is actually what I look like.

So off I went to the Leeds Met library to get some reading materials and hopefully a few ideas. As I was looking along the shelves, trying to ignore the noise from the pair of idiots sitting on computers who must have thought ‘library’ meant ‘cafe’, I was thinking “What is learner autonomy really? What does it mean? Is it learners doing things for themselves? How do you teach that?”

The more I thought, the more I came to realise, I don’t know what learner autonomy is, or at least I can’t put what I understood it to be into a coherent comprehensible definition. And if I don’t have a clear idea of what it is, do my colleagues? And if none of us is really sure what it is, how can we teach it?

The first topic of the workshop was decided there and then: Define Learner Autonomy. Maybe after we had figured out exactly what it was, we could find out how to ‘promote’it.

On the day of the workshop, we found it easier to define what it is that an autonomous learner does than what learner autonomy is, and this is what we came up with.

An autonomous learner can

– make decisions about what he/she wants to learn.

– make decisions about how to learn it, which strategies to use.

– find out the answers to problems by co-operating with friends, searching reference books, internet.

– actively look for opportunities to learn/practise the language.

During my reading, both before and after the workshop, I found that Scharle and Szabo (2000) put it best when they said that

autonomous learners ”accept the idea that their own efforts are crucial to the learning process, and act accordingly.”

The underlining is my own, but I love this word. CRUCIAL, that’s it exactly. You can lead a horse to water….

I’ve spent a lot of time since considering my role in the classroom and I’ve come to the realisation that it is not really my job to teach the students English. I can teach them some vocabulary, some grammatical structures, some functional language. We can ‘do a listening’, ‘do a reading comprehension’, practise making the past tense. But how will any of this help them in the long run? What lasting effect will it have on their learning?

By Andypham3000 at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I had an epiphany. I figured out what I really should be doing in class: teaching my students HOW to learn English, not teaching them English. I mean, ideally, my students should be able to use what they learn in my class to continue learning long after they finish the course, leave my class, and return to the far-flung corners of the world that they come from.

My goal as a teacher should be to facilitate learning, to provide students with the tools and methods they need to continue learning without me.

Now that I know what to do, I just need to figure out how best to do it.

(to be continued)

Bibliography:

Scharle, A. & Szabo, A., 2000. Learner Autonomy – a guide to developing learner autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.