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ENGLISH EACHING T professional
Striking a balance
Michael Swan
Issue 70 September 2010
The Leading Practical Magazine For English Language Teachers Worldwide
Reported speech rules, what rules?

Dave Willis
More than please and thank you

Mark Hancock
The tourist trap!

Rebecca Norman
practical methodology fresh ideas & innovations classroom resources new technology teacher development tips & techniques photocopiable materials competitions & reviews
w w w . e t p r o f e s s i o n a l . c o m
Contents
MAIN FEATURE STRIKING A BALANCE
Michael Swan puts the language back into language teaching
A FAIR DEAL FOR ALL 4

Laura Loder Bchel addresses the needs of the already fluent
25
TEACHER DEVELOPMENT FEATURES REPORTED SPEECH RULES, WHAT RULES?

Dave Willis explodes the myth of tense backshift
FROM TDU TO CPD 8

Bahar Gn investigates the impossibility of pleasing all the teachers all of the time
53
TEACHER PLUS 12
Sue Leather and Andy Hockley consider how teachers can become managers
55
ACTIVE WORD POWER
James Venema makes the most of vocabulary notebooks
CARRY ON READING!
Britt Jepsen applauds authentic materials
14 E-LEARNING
TECHNOLOGY 57
Blanka Klimov outlines the benefits and demands of online courses
CORPUS DELICTI 1
Chris Payne celebrates the corpus
16
SEX EDUCATION
Rose Hickman advocates an all-inclusive classroom
19
FIVE THINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT: MICROBLOGGING

Nicky Hockly looks at a trend thats getting bigger all the time
60
EAP: AN ALL-ROUND CHALLENGE 2

Louis Rogers improves his students seminar skills
28
THE TOURIST TRAP!

Rebecca Norman captures some keen conversationalists
30
WEBWATCHER
Russell Stannard describes some quick and useful online tools
61
OVER THE WALL

Alan Maley recommends books dealing with disability
34
REGULAR FEATURES PREPARING TO TEACH ... Grammar

John Potts
LEARNING DISABILITY 4
Lesley Lanir describes reading difficulties
37
40
TACKLING THE REAL WORLD

Andrew ODwyer takes his students out for some playful practice
46
COMPETITIVE GAMES
Rose Senior
63
MORE THAN PLEASE AND THANK YOU

Mark Hancock looks at how we teach students to be polite
49
SCRAPBOOK REVIEWS COMPETITIONS
42 44 41, 64
TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS A PRIMARY READING PROJECT

Betka Pislar sees her students reading blossom
Includes materials designed to photocopy
23
INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION FORM
32
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010
Editorial
I
n our main feature, Michael Swan describes trends in English language teaching in terms of a pendulum swinging between two extremes: form and meaning, Also concerned with real language usage is Mark Hancock, who describes ways in which we can teach our students about politeness conventions in different situations. Taking a more humanistic approach to language teaching, Rose Hickman appeals to us to make our classrooms places of inclusion and safety for all students, whatever their gender or sexual orientation. Andrew ODwyer, for his part, sees opportunities outside The other articles in this issue represent some of the many different viewpoints on the way in which language should be taught. Dave Willis wants to make things easier for students by abandoning the teaching of rules which he believes dont actually work. Britt Jepsens school students read authentic materials from the word go, and Chris Payne also advocates looking at real-life language. He favours the use of concordances to reveal not just the frequency of words and collocations but how they are actually used. James Venema then explains how students can record and remember new language efficiently.
Helena Gomm Editor
helena.gomm@keywayspublishing.com
and he would like to see more emphasis on the actual teaching of language. Nevertheless, he comes to the comforting conclusion that most good teachers pick and choose between the methodologies and materials on offer to create a mix that works for them.
the classroom to get his students to practise the language they are learning and to see real language in use, while Rebecca Norman brings the language of the outside world inside by luring tourists into her conversation classes.
ENGLISH TEACHING professional

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Issue 70 September 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
M A I N
F E AT U R E
Striking a balance
Michael Swan talks to ETp about the pendulum swings of language teaching.
You have said that language teaching should be about teaching language, and that this idea can sometimes get lost. Can you explain? Teaching things is difficult; its much easier to do things. Because of this, theres a perennial danger that the activities language teachers use for consolidation and fluency practice can become an end in themselves, so we can lose sight of what, if anything, our activities are actually supposed to be teaching. As we move up the levels, this can happen more and more easily. With intermediate and advanced students, it can really be quite hard to make clear decisions about what to teach which elements of grammar, vocabulary, phraseology, and so on the students most need, or precisely which skills and sub-skills really need improvement. So at this stage, the temptation is to take refuge more and more in activity-based teaching, and doing things can take over completely by default. If the students are using English, and having fun, they must be learning, mustnt they? This tendency has been powerfully fuelled by the communicative movement that has dominated language teaching for the last 30 years or so, with its emphasis on language in use. Its done an awful lot of good, but it has also reinforced and legitimised our liking for doing things in the classroom, and taken the focus even further away from looking systematically at the language itself. We need to remind ourselves that language teaching does mean teaching language: making sure that students are exposed to the highest-priority language forms (words, fixed phrases, structures, aspects of pronunciation), that they learn and practise these forms, and that they become skilled at using them fluently and appropriately. Theres a question of balance here. Its no good if students learn a lot of forms and cant use them (which often happened with older approaches, and still does in some teaching contexts today). But its equally unconstructive if students are made to concentrate on using language without being given a systematic knowledge of the language they are supposed to be using. I remember you once suggested that teaching reading skills is mostly a waste of time. Yes, this was the topic of a talk that Catherine Walter and I gave at IATEFL two or three years ago. In fact, I think all so-called skills teaching needs to be looked at very carefully. Of course, we do have to ensure that our students practise using the language they learn, so that they can deploy it easily and fluently in real time for their communicative purposes. Work on the so-called four skills is vital. But in the 1970s and 80s, the four skills suffered a conceptual explosion. Reading, for instance, was typically analysed into up to 20 sub-skills, all of which soon arrived in textbooks, along with exercises carefully designed to teach these sub-skills to learners who were assumed to lack them. And this battery-of-skills approach still goes on
today: any number of current teaching materials purport to train students in skimming, scanning, understanding text structure, predicting their way through text, and so on and so on. I think a reasonable position (and one that is increasingly supported by research) is that students already have domain-general comprehension skills; that those who are literate in their own language (that is to say, a large proportion of students) are already able to apply these skills to written text; and that what they need is language to apply these skills to, and facility in handling that language. If students seem to have trouble comprehending an English text that is apparently at their level they can understand all the words but dont get the whole picture, so to speak this is likely to be a question of processing capacity: so much of their working memory is being used for low-level decoding that they cant build a higherlevel mental representation of the text as a whole. As decoding becomes more automatic, capacity will be freed up, and they will increasingly be able to access their existing comprehension skills. But this takes the time it takes. Training students to transfer skills like skimming, scanning, identifying main points and so forth which they mostly already possess in their mother tongues is unlikely to speed things up very much. Unfortunately, many teachers and course writers love work of this kind: it keeps everybody busy and gives people something structured to do with texts. (Texts, spoken and written, can of course be enormously useful for language-teaching purposes if they are used properly but thats another story.) So, as far as reading skills (and others) are concerned, lets not waste time teaching people to do things they can do already. (And dont get me started on the notion that you can teach students to guess vocabulary from context.) How about task-based learning? Communicative tasks are and have been for a long time an important language-teaching tool. What is special about task-based teaching is the view that such tasks, where the focus is on meaning rather than language, can do nearly everything that a task syllabus will enable students to acquire most or all of the linguistic elements that they need. Its recognised that such naturalistic language use may need to
be supplemented by some extra focus on form, but traditional systematic syllabus-based grammar teaching is strongly discouraged in the task-based model. The academic literature in this area is full of very tendentious terminology. Language-based, teacher-dominated, sentence-level, transmission model, product, memorisation, repetition and drill are dismissive expressions they refer to supposedly bad and discredited pedagogic attitudes. Good concepts the applied linguistic equivalents of democracy and motherhood include meaning-based, learner-centred, holistic, discourse, discovery, process, interaction, negotiation and strategy. I think we need to take issue with this terminological polarisation, and with the associated mindset. What exactly is wrong about a language-based approach to language learning and teaching? We wouldnt criticise a music teacher for making her lessons musicbased, would we? And why is process good and product bad? If I sign up for lessons in, say, Turkish, product is exactly what I want: a knowledge of Turkish. The process involved is valueless unless it gets me where I want to go in language learning, to travel hopefully is not better than to arrive. And is learner-centred automatically good and teacherdominated automatically bad? Of course not. It depends on what you are teaching, who to, when and where. Task-based learning, and the theories on which it is based, may certainly be valid for a certain kind of situation one where your students have plenty of time to work at their English, theyre in an input-rich environment, or theyve learnt the language for years and know far more than they can use. But one needs to question its value for the more typical teacher, working, lets say, in a secondary school in a non-English-speaking country, teaching poorly-motivated students in classes that are probably too big, with perhaps three hours contact time a week for maybe 35 weeks a year, maximum. For such teachers, costeffectiveness is crucial. A syllabus of tasks alone, unsupported by structural and lexical syllabuses, simply cant be relied on to throw up all of the toppriority language that students at a particular level need to learn. They wont even be exposed to half the language they need, let alone have a chance to use it enough to fix it in their minds.
So should the academic focus be on identifying what it is that students need to know? Of course, this will be different in different contexts. Is it possible to say this is what you need to know? Yes, selection and prioritisation are vital. And these need to be approached from two directions. Coming at it from the form end, one asks which are the most widely-used structures in the language; which are the thousand commonest words, which are the next thousand commonest words, and so on; which aspects of pronunciation are going to be crucial, if any, for the target group of learners. Thats something weve been doing pretty well for centuries. We know perfectly well that we have to teach the present tenses before the subjunctive, or the names of the colours before words like putty or catatonic. Then, coming at
A syllabus of tasks alone, unsupported by structural and lexical syllabuses, simply cant be relied on to throw up all of the top-priority language that students need to learn
it from the use end, we can very reasonably say thats its all very well teaching them all these words and structures, but does it enable them to ask for a cup of coffee or to deal with an enquiry from a customer? Can they actually put these things together to handle whatever everyday language functions and real-life tasks are relevant to their purposes? This perspective got a lot of attention in the 1970s when people invented needs analysis, and it gets a lot of attention now through the Common European Framework and its can do statements. The danger, with our current focus on language in use, is that (as happens in some foreignlanguage teaching in Britain) one half of the dyad the formal element may be downgraded in favour of the other. So learners may practise can-do scripts, so that they can write a letter to an imaginary penfriend or show someone round their home town, or whatever.
But they may learn to operate each script without being able to generalise their knowledge to other different and unpredicted situations, because of gaps in basic grammar or vocabulary missing items that fell through the language-in-use net. In the typical three-hours-a-week situation, theres very little room for the more peripheral issues that currently occupy some sociologically-oriented language-teaching theorists. Certainly, we shouldnt dismiss a concern with what one might call the human side of language teaching: our recognition that students are individuals (with all that that implies for their learning), and also social beings (with all that that implies for their learning). This was a valuable dynamic in the early days of the communicative approach. It encouraged teachers to get their students practising language by talking about things that mattered to them, rather than simply parroting meaningless sentences about John, Mary and the garden. (Though it could sometimes go too far: if you get the students to let it all hang out and talk about, for example, their deepest fears, you can move dangerously close to casting the teacher in the role of the incompetent amateur therapist.) What worries me now is the extent to which the human being focus may actually take over from language teaching. Under the influence of current theory, we may risk spending so much time training our students to become better learners and better-rounded human beings teaching them social and negotiating skills, training them in learning strategies, making them increasingly autonomous and so forth that we may find ourselves short of time for actually teaching them what they want to learn. Some of the more extreme pronouncements that come from the sociolinguistic end of the profession actually make me wonder if the scholars in question are really thinking about language teaching at all. Allwright, in his 2003 book on Exploratory Practice, makes the remarkable statement that we should above our concern for instructional efficiency, prioritize the quality of life in the language classroom. Kumaravadivelu, in a book published in 2006, lists what he calls ten macrostrategies for language teaching. These include things like facilitating negotiated interaction, ensuring social relevance, raising cultural consciousness and activating
L A N G U A G E
Reported speech - rules, what rules?

Dave Willis doesnt see the problem.
any of you will have seen exercises and tests where learners are required to change direct speech into reported speech. I can remember asking students to do activities like this:
Rewrite the following in reported speech. Remember to change the tenses: 1 We will be leaving home at six tonight so we will arrive at about half past seven. Joan and Peter told us ___________ ________________________________ 2 I will see you tonight after I have finished work. Mary said ______________________ ________________________________
they are doing has nothing in common with the way we report things in real life.
What the grammars tell us

The rules for reported speech, sometimes called indirect speech, have been set out very clearly by respected grammarians. Michael Swan and Catherine Walter, for example, in their useful students grammar tell us that:
Tenses and pronouns (I, you, etc.) change in indirect speech if the time and speaker are different. For example, present tenses become past; I may become he or she; my may become his or her.
This is a fairly mechanical exercise. Students change the tenses according to the rules they have been taught. They also change time references according to a given set of formulae to produce the following:
1 Joan and Peter told us they would be leaving home at six that night so they would arrive at about half past seven. 2 Mary said she would see me that night after she had finished work.
The prestigious Cambridge Grammar of English by Ron Carter and Michael McCarthy is one of the best reference grammars currently on the market. It informs us that:
When the indirect speech is perceived as referring to the past, the tense in the reported clause usually changes to a past form of the tense of the original speech. This process is known as tense backshift.
Students who have been well drilled should have little problem applying the rules they have been taught, but what
Coursebooks and student grammars regularly produce guidance of this kind, explaining that yesterday may become the previous day, next Wednesday becomes the following Wednesday, and so on.
However, there are three problems with these formulations: They are based on the mistaken assumption that we recall and report exactly what we have heard. If we cannot recall the tense used in the original, how can we possibly shift it back into the past? They imply that there is something unusual about the way in which we use tenses in reported speech. Some coursebooks try to list all the changes we need to make, explaining how present simple must be changed to past simple, present continuous to past continuous, and so on. Learners come to believe that there must be something mysterious and challenging about reported speech to justify this level of detailed treatment. They can become extremely complex. For example, if someone mentions next Wednesday and the original speech takes place on Thursday 1st April and is reported on Saturday 3rd April, then next Wednesday is still next Wednesday. If it is reported on Wednesday 7th April, then it would probably be reported as today; if reported on Thursday 8th April, it could be reported either as the following Wednesday or as yesterday. So giving rules about how to report next Wednesday is really quite complicated. Fortunately, as we shall see later, there is really no need for all this.
We cant tell from this exactly what the chair said. It might have been:
OK, folks, dont forget that the next meeting will be on the last Monday in May, not the usual second Monday in the month. So thats the 31st, not the 10th. Can you all take a note of that?
or
I read an article about that in The Guardian. It said
Or it could have been:

I regret to inform you that due to unforeseen circumstances we will be unable to meet as usual on the second Monday of the month, that is Monday 10th May. I have arranged instead that we meet on the last Monday, that is the 31st of May. I hope this doesnt inconvenience anyone unduly.
and off you go. You would not even try to remember the article word for word. You would summarise what it meant. So lets get away from the idea that reported speech involves some sort of mechanical processing of someones original words. Let us recognise it for what it is a summarising rather than a reporting process.
What about all those tenses?

Heres an excerpt from a letter from a young woman to a language school:
I am a 21-year-old student at Birmingham University. Im in the final year of my English course. I am taking my final exams next month and will graduate in July. I plan to take a year off and Id like to travel round the world. Unfortunately, I cant afford to travel unless I earn some money on the way, so I want to learn to teach English as a second language so I can make some money while I am abroad
Nobody, including the secretary who wrote the minutes, would be able to recall the precise words. Even if they could, just try applying the rules to change one of the above into reported speech and see how ridiculous they sound. And there is another problem: if we did recall and report exactly what was said, then the minutes would be slightly longer than the original meeting.
A false assumption
The rules given for reported speech are based on the assumption that we recall exactly what was said on a given occasion and then go through a process of tense backshift. But of course, we very rarely recall exactly what was said, so there is no way we can apply tense backshift. There are occasions when we try to recall exactly what was said in a court of law, for example, or when we are accused of having broken a promise but fortunately, these occasions are very few and far between. Most of us are familiar with meetings in which the minutes of the last meeting are circulated. These minutes contain summaries of what was said at the previous meeting, things like:
The chair reminded everyone that the next meeting would be postponed until Monday, 31st May.
The rules given for reported speech are based on the assumption that we recall exactly what was said on a given occasion
Report or summary?
If we dont recall what was said, then how do we report speech? I think its clear that we dont even try to report exactly what was said we summarise it. We very rarely remember precisely what was said, but we do recall what was meant. Think of a conversation you had recently and think how you might tell someone about it. Almost certainly you will be unable to remember the exact words, but you will probably be able to remember the content and, thus, be able to offer a brief summary. Summarising is something we do all the time. We say things like:
I saw an interesting programme on the TV last night. It was about
Lets imagine that the writer took a course and not only learnt to teach English, but took it up as a career. Fifteen years later, she was asked how she became an English teacher. She might say something like:
Well, I suppose it all started when I was about 20. I was in my final year at university and I wanted to travel after graduation. But I couldnt afford to travel unless I earned some money
All the verbs here are past tense forms. But thats not because its reported speech. Its because she is talking about something that happened 15 years ago. Of course she uses past tense forms. And if she were reporting or summarising the contents of her letter, the tenses would be past tense forms for the same reason: because she is talking about the past. The fact is that the tense system works in exactly the same way when we are reporting or summarising as it does in the rest of the language. There is absolutely no need for a special set of rules about reported speech. And there is no such thing as tense backshift.
Reported speech - rules, what rules?

Choosing the right form
Sometimes, however, we have to choose between a past form and a present form because either one is possible. So if last week Mary said to you:
I am going to stay at the Ritz because its the most comfortable hotel in London,
Theres no need to tell learners that I may become he or she, my may become his or her. If they know the way personal pronouns work in English, they just put that knowledge to work. They dont have to stop and think about how to change the pronoun I, and what to change it to. They dont think Now when Mary was speaking, she said I, but I am not Mary, so I cant say I. And you are not Mary, so I cant say you, so I must say he or she, and since Mary is female, I must say she. They simply know that they are talking about Mary and they know that they should refer to her in the third person as she.
exactly the same way as it does in the rest of the language. There is no need to make life difficult and confusing for learners by telling them that there is something different and complicated about reported speech. We have quite enough to do in the classroom without making life any more difficult for our learners.
you could report it as a narrative:

Mary said she planned to stay at the Ritz because it was the most comfortable hotel in London.
On the other hand, you could take it as telling us something about the Ritz Hotel and say:
Mary said she planned to stay at the Ritz because it is the most comfortable hotel in London.
The important thing is that the choice of tense forms follows the same logic as in the rest of the language
And if we are talking about something that was happening next Wednesday, we dont need to take out the calendar to tell us when the original words were uttered and how to refer to the day in question. If the day in question was yesterday, we say yesterday, if it is tomorrow, we say tomorrow and if it was a couple of weeks ago, we say a couple of weeks ago. One of the few sources to recognise the true nature of reported statements is the Collins COBUILD English Grammar, which tells us that:
You are more likely to report what (someone) meant than what (they) said. There are many reasons why you do not quote a persons exact words. Often you cannot remember exactly what was said. At other times the exact words are not important or not appropriate to the situation in which you are reporting.
We normally use the present tense for something that everyone agrees is still true. We might, for example, say:
They wanted to climb Scafell Pike because it is the highest peak in England.
But if we think the statement is mistaken, we would use a past tense form:
They said they wanted to climb Helvellyn because it was the highest peak in England, but actually the highest is Scafell Pike.
So what do we do about it? Stop spending inordinate amounts of time on unnecessary and misleading rules. There are plenty of opportunities in class for learners to summarise. They can do research on the internet or in the library and report it in class. They can interview people inside and outside class and report what they have to say. Basically, they will get the right tenses and the right deictic forms in place. If they dont, then its an indication that there is something wrong with their understanding of these systems themselves, not a problem with reported speech. Perhaps you believe it is useful for learners, as a mechanical revision exercise, to transpose a text from present to past time, or perhaps they need to do something like this for examination practice. If this is the case, then you might spend time in class doing the kind of exercise I exemplified at the beginning of this article. But you should see it for what it is a useful but artificial pedagogic device, not an exercise with communicative relevance outside the classroom. ETp
Carter, R and McCarthy, M Cambridge Grammar of English CUP 2006 Sinclair, J Collins COBUILD English Grammar HarperCollins 1990 Swan, M and Walter C The Good Grammar Book OUP 2001
Dave Willis has published widely on language description for ELT, including Rules, Patterns and Words: Grammar and Lexis in English Language Teaching (CUP). He is also the author of the grammar on the British Councils LearnEnglish website: http://learnenglish.british council.org/book-page/ learn-english-grammar. dave@willis-elt.co.uk
So the choice of tense here is affected by what we want to emphasise and what we believe to be true. It has nothing to do with reported speech. But the important thing is that the choice of tense forms follows the same logic as in the rest of the language.
and:
So what about next Wednesday?

Just as there is no problem with tenses in reported speech, so there is no problem with other deictic systems of the language the systems that show how things and events are situated in time and space relative to the speaker.
Whatever the tense of your reporting verb, you put the verb in the reported clause into a tense that is appropriate at the time you are speaking.
This makes it clear that there is nothing problematic about the deictics of reported speech in English, including the tense system. Everything works in
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V O C A B U L A R Y
Active word power

James Venema explains how to use vocabulary notebooks efficiently.
earning vocabulary is sometimes seen as progression from passive to active. When a learner first meets a word, they might check its meaning, perhaps in a bilingual dictionary. Further exposure will result in a deeper relationship as the learner encounters conjugations, tenses and forms as well as different meanings, common collocations and members of the same word family. From this perspective, even a single word can present a rather daunting source of study.
encompass the precise meaning of a given word very accurately. Where the English definition is too daunting, students should be prepared to look closely at the examples of text in which they encounter the word (more on examples later). Ideally, information about pronunciation would involve writing the word in phonemic symbols. At the very least, the students will need to note the number of syllables as well as the stressed syllable. While SYLL-a-ble is recognisable in quite a number of accents and less than perfect pronunciation, syll-A-ble will be less so. Finally, noting down the form of a word will be critical in helping students to use it accurately. After all, if a student is not aware that syllable is a noun, they are likely to produce some rather peculiar sentences using it. Some students may also want to pursue word families and write some variations of a word, such as phrase and phrasal. Others might like to write down some common collocations straight away. However, it is important not to send the
Active vocabulary
Students will, however, need to move beyond passive knowledge to actively using a word well before they have learnt all its possible variations, usages and meanings. A vocabulary notebook, with example sentences combined with student-written original sentences, can provide a structured first step in developing their active vocabulary. However, a poorly-produced vocabulary notebook is, at best, not very helpful and can, at worst, lead to error fossilisation. For this reason, it is best to provide some guidance on vocabulary notebooks that can set the students on the way towards vocabulary learning independence.
Choosing words The first step is the selection of words for active use. It is important to note here the difference between active and passive use, since writing their own original sentences is the students first move towards being able to use a word effectively. Exposure to a wide selection of words is critical. Reading materials, vocabulary lists and regular classroom teaching all provide rich sources of vocabulary. It is important that the students choose the words themselves since they are best able to make a decision on what words would be useful to them. Usefulness in this context implies that a student believes they will encounter opportunities to use the word. In some cases, a student may already be familiar with the word chosen, but would like to move beyond passive knowledge to being able to use the word actively. While I will continue to use the singular form of word in this article, the selected items may often include twopart verbs as well as longer phrases. Noting information Once a word has been selected, the students will need some basic information about it. This should include, at the very least, meaning, pronunciation and form. While translations are a useful start for meaning, they may not
Writing their own original sentences is the students first move towards being able to use a word effectively
students down the slippery slope of knowing everything about a word before attempting to use it. After all, the goal is simply to help them begin expanding their active word vocabulary, not to enable them to become linguistic experts on the word selected. Writing example sentences The next step is to imbed the selected word in some kind of structured context with example sentences or phrases. Reading materials provide the most obvious context. Vocabulary textbooks typically provide example sentences and/or phrases. Where the original context might be more ephemeral, say a conversation class, or where the students need additional information, they can also look up the word in learners dictionaries, all of which will provide good examples of the word in use. Advanced learners can even make use of an online corpus, such as the
12
British National Corpus. What is critical here is that the context provides important lexical information while not overwhelming the students with data. I always encourage my students to copy the example sentences they encounter into their notebooks before beginning to write their own original sentences. This is the best way to ensure that they attend to important information on usage, including grammatical patterns and collocations, when they move on to write their own sentences. Writing original sentences The obvious next step is for the students to begin writing their own sentences. While the question of what a good original sentence might be involves, to a degree, some subjective opinions, there are useful guidelines that can help students improve the overall quality of their vocabulary notebook. I always have my students ask themselves the following three questions: Am I really trying to communicate something with this sentence? Meaning is a key part of retention, and the attempt to express real meanings in original sentences will help students retain the word and sentence for future use. As a guide, I tell them that they should be able to use their original sentence to launch a small conversation. After all, if they are writing the original sentences with some image of who, where, when, why and how, there will usually be more meaning behind them than what they actually encapsulate in a single sentence. Using real meaning as a starting point is also one way of guiding students in the selection of useful words. If they are unable to think of something to communicate with the word chosen, the chances are that they have not selected a particularly useful word. Are there clues to the meaning of the word given in the original sentence? While it may not always be possible to write sentences that would make good cloze questions in a test, it is possible to note unhelpful sentences such as:
My father was angry yesterday.
The attempt to express real meanings in original sentences will help students retain the word and sentence for future use
lexically complex, including the preposition for followed by a verb in the ing form. This relative complexity probably better replicates the demands of real-world usage. It is important to note that the students ability to produce accurate original sentences such as these without direct teacher help will be, to a considerable degree, dependent on the examples in which they have previously encountered the word. This brings us to the final, critical, question. Does the original sentence use grammatical patterns and collocations from the copied example sentence(s)? If one of the goals of having students write original sentences in a vocabulary notebook is vocabulary learning independence, then the effective analysis and use of copied example sentences will be critical. Looking up the word furious in the Longman Active Study Dictionary, one finds the following sentences (among others):
She was furious with me. Im absolutely furious that nothing has been done.
using only an object, they would need the following example sentence:
He was furious at the courts decision. (Longman Active Study Dictionary)
In the absence of such an example sentence, the students may attempt to write the following:
My teacher was furious that the cheating in the test.
In fact, I have found that the expression of meanings not encapsulated in copied example sentences is the most frequent source of errors. In order to maintain a modicum of student independence, a teacher can encourage the students to limit their original sentences to the patterns and meaning provided in the example sentence(s) they have found. This has the downside of limiting them in what they are able to say. In effect, the students will need to choose useful example sentences rather than useful words. The alternative is to train the students in the effective use of language resources, primarily dictionaries. While a more time-consuming endeavour, this has the advantage of encouraging long-term learner independence. A complete overview of what dictionaries have to offer is beyond the scope of this article, but a good place to start is the dictionary guide typically found at the beginning of most learners dictionaries.
When students read these sentences, they should note: Furious collocates with absolutely. You can be furious with someone. The reason for being furious can be given with that followed by a grammatically complete clause, with both a subject and a verb. They now have enough information to write a wide variety of accurate sentences. It is important to note that the example sentences they find and copy will, to a large degree, form the parameters of the ones they can attempt to write for themselves, at least with some confidence in accuracy. For example, if students wanted to write that somebody was furious about something
The effective and accurate use of vocabulary is a central component of language competence. While a students active vocabulary typically only constitutes a fraction of their total knowledge of vocabulary, it is important to encourage them to continue to expand on the words they are able to use effectively. A vocabulary notebook, with both copied example sentences and student-written original sentences, can be a structured means to help students towards vocabulary learning independence. ETp
James Venema is currently an Associate Professor and teacher coordinator at Nagoya Womens University in Japan. He is interested in curriculum development as well as the development of professional communities of teachers. venema@nagoya-wu.ac.jp
Encourage the students to write instead:

My father was angry with me for coming home late yesterday.
Not only is the meaning of angry clearer in the second example, which should help facilitate retention, it is also more
13
R E A D I N G
Carry on readng!
Britt Jepsen sees the benefits for increased confidence and competence of giving students authentic texts.
instruction on the ability to understand short, simple texts on relevant and meaningful topics, with the support of audio and visual media.
Goals
In the light of the demands of the curriculum and insights into how successful readers interact with texts, a set of general learning goals for the reading component of an English language course could include: the ability to read a range of texts in English; the ability to adapt a reading style according to purpose and apply different strategies (eg skimming, scanning) as appropriate; the acquisition of knowledge about language (eg vocabulary, structure) which will facilitate development of greater reading ability; the building of schematic knowledge in order to interpret texts meaningfully; the development of awareness of the structure of written texts in English, and the ability to make use of such things as discourse features and cohesive devices in comprehending texts; the ability to take a critical stance with regard to the content of texts. (Adapted from Hedge, T Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom OUP 2003)
eachers often avoid the use of authentic reading material. Some of the reasons they give for neglecting or avoiding it are as follows: There is simply not enough time in the week. I have the exam syllabus to get through. The students prefer to keep to the coursebook; they like to know how far they have progressed. It is difficult and takes time to find suitable texts and materials. In this article I intend to present some of the benefits of reading authentic material, with the focus particularly on extensive reading as an ideal resource for English teaching.
Curriculum
I teach in Denmark, where the overall aim when it comes to getting students to read in English is to give them the opportunity to produce language (oral and written), based on what they have read. The Communicative Approach to language teaching has had a major impact on teaching in Danish schools. Its five major elements are each represented in the curriculum: linguistic competence; pragmatic competence; discourse competence; strategic competence; fluency. Reading is involved in working towards all these elements and emphasis is placed from the early stages of English
Levels
Naturally, for students at lower levels it is more difficult to find suitable authentic texts, though I do believe that it is possible. Recipes from cookbooks for children, poems, letters, invitations, postcards, cartoons, simple short stories, etc, will all yield useful reading practice and, more importantly, the students find original materials much more interesting! Young learners are usually easy to motivate and they enjoy most of the materials and tasks presented in class, since the English language is still new to them. With higher-level students who have better language competence, it is important to focus on motivation, reading purposes and the value of extensive reading. To find or create valid reading purposes for texts presented in class might be the key to motivating the
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students to read texts which would not normally interest them. These purposes can be contrived to create interest. And where there is some freedom of choice, interest will be a key criterion in selecting texts for learners.
They can progress in their reading ability. They can become more independent in their studies. They can acquire cultural knowledge. They can develop confidence and motivation to carry on learning.

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Purposes
The list compiled by Wilga Rivers and Mary Temperley of purposes for reading is a useful tool for teachers to use as a framework for text selection. They should be able to find authentic material to match each of these purposes: to get information; to respond to curiosity about a topic; to follow instructions; for pleasure and enjoyment; to keep in touch; to know what is happening in the world; to find out when and where. If reasons for reading are missing from textbook tasks, one of the most useful things teachers can do for their learners is to create purposes which will motivate them to read.
Reading syndicates
An example of a useful procedure to support extensive reading is the reading syndicate, in which members of a group read different books and then share their experiences. The outcome is often a peer conference in which students can take on the roles of asking questions as well as answering them, and this tallies with the aim of giving students an opportunity to produce language based on what they have read. Reading syndicates combine the motivation engendered by the fact that the students may have chosen the books themselves, genuine classroom interaction among changing groups of learners, and potential student recommendation of books to their classmates.
IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
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Extensive reading
Intensive reading activities in the classroom are intended to train students in the strategies needed for successful reading. The pedagogical value attributed to extensive reading, however, is based on the assumption that exposing learners to large quantities of material will, in the long run, produce a beneficial effect. Furthermore, extensive reading can be a highly productive step towards autonomous learning and greatly increases a students exposure to English which is relevant where class contact time is limited. If we are persuaded by Stephen Krashens view that learners need to be exposed to large amounts of comprehensible input which is meaningful, relevant and interesting, in a stress-free environment, then clearly individual extensive reading outside class time has value. The opportunities that extensive reading affords learners of all ages and levels of language proficiency makes it a useful resource: Learners can build their language competence.
In summary, the reading of authentic English texts with students of English as a foreign language has several benefits. Indeed, it is possible to construct a teaching programme based mainly on authentic texts which offers purposeful engagement with reading and is likely to prove motivating. In addition, it will build the learners competence and confidence to carry on reading in English outside the classroom not as part of the course, but for fun! ETp
Rivers, W and Temperley, M A Practical Guide to the Teaching of English as a Second or Foreign Language OUP 1978 Krashen, S D Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition Pergamon 1982
Britt Jepsen has been involved in teaching English for eight years. She also teaches PE and Spanish at secondary level. She is currently working at a primary school in Skuldelev, Denmark.
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15
R E S O U R C E S
Corpus delicti 1
Chris Payne confesses the error of his ways.
think of as common are actually infrequent. Teachers can consult a corpus or a corpus-informed dictionary in order to ascertain which words are used most frequently and to keep abreast of language change. We have been taking authentic material into our classrooms for many years, in the form of books, newspapers, magazines, leaflets, etc. Today, many of us use what is arguably the worlds biggest corpus, the internet and its search engines, to find topical or engaging texts for our learners.
Frequency
Thanks to corpora, we now have more information than ever before about the differences between spoken and written English. A corpus allows us to observe important variations in the frequency of many words and structures between these two ways of communicating.
orpus delicti is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as the facts and circumstances constituting a crime. The crime committed in this case was my own of not incorporating corpusinformed language into my classes.
Context
As well as informing us about the frequency with which grammar and lexis occur, corpora can give us an insight into the preferred context in which words occur some words, such as cause, might be used mainly in a negative context. This is sometimes referred to as semantic prosody.
What is a corpus?
A corpus is a carefully laid out collection of real examples of spoken and written language stored on a computer. Because the language found in a corpus has actually been used, it consists of descriptive rather than prescriptive language. The information that corpora contain is typically presented in the form of word frequency lists and concordances. Concordances display the key word in context in example sentences. Corpora are used to create and inform multifarious teaching resources. These include: dictionaries, reference grammars, grammar practice activities, exam practice tests and an array of materials for teaching vocabulary and lexical sets, collocations, phrasal verbs and idioms. Some coursebook writers also use corpora by consulting word frequency lists.
Collocation
Corpora also show us the most common collocates and colligations of words. The box on page 17 shows the first few concordance lines for the word crime from a spoken corpus of British English. It is immediately clear that the collocation crime prevention is a frequent one.
Prioritisation
Corpus evidence is extremely useful for teaching vocabulary. Vocabulary learning creates an enormous memory load for our students, and it becomes an Augean task unless we have a sound organising principle. The Collins Cobuild Corpus shows that a core vocabulary of 2,500 words accounts for about 80 percent of the words in spoken and written texts. With the help of a corpus, we can identify these words and teach them as a priority to elementary levels.
Why should we use corpora?

Authenticity
Corpora are a valuable resource of authentic language for all teachers. Although we tend to trust our intuitions about grammar and vocabulary, corpus evidence shows that these intuitions are sometimes flawed, and that words we 16
Recycling
Words need to be revisited several times and in different contexts to increase the chance of them being truly acquired.
To your discussion on erm possible Nazi war crime trials coming up. Yes. My Coming up fairly soon of course is the National crime Prevention Week and I think we ought as Sentences. Lets have sentences which fit the crime. Because there are murders and murders arent But the theft element you know this rising in crime in breaking into shops Yeah. Erm er for example has been working to prevent crime or if your group leader at school in the Bangkok. The crackdown on switchblade crime in Glasgow. Wholl win and wholl lose Just want stay in the game? When petty crime I just want to come back I want to come Mm If theyd promised to reduce crime Mm and they dont deliver Which are a large reason for the rise in crime in the first place Okay. So you have and hospitable and generous. Is crime quite serious there and what about the drugs private sector people er either crime prevention which there are quite a few I mean how much do they know about the kind of crime prevention work Only a significant role and I think sort of crime prevention as a Of agencies which can have an influence on crime prevention as possible erm largely Re likely to have any impact on the instance of crime the fear of crime that you can to then Of were having to go back what is crime prevention. It is particularly
Stephen Krashen recommends extensive reading as an aid to vocabulary acquisition and retention. This is undoubtedly good advice, but the use of a concordance can be even more effective because learners are presented with a word in multiple contexts which can be read in very little time. It would take even the most omnivorous reader far longer to encounter as many examples and contexts with extensive reading.
speaking to children and non-native speakers of English outside the classroom. It should be axiomatic that some language needs to be adapted and redesigned for the specific purpose of learning English. Clearly, learners can benefit considerably from language content concocted specifically for teaching. Also, in the unpredictable environment of the classroom, we often have to think on our feet and use our own bespoke examples of language.
to use some corpus-informed content, this will ensure that what our students learn is truly representative of the target language.
What can we learn from a corpus?

Corpus evidence can further our own and our students language awareness. Of course, some data will confirm what we already know, such as the fact that question tags (isnt it? arent they? etc) are almost exclusively found in spoken English. But most corpus findings will enable us to make more informed choices about what grammar and lexis to prioritise and teach, and when to teach it. Let us look at some examples of frequency and semantic information we can obtain about a word. Space allows me to cite just a few examples, but some of the following findings may be of interest.
Communication
If we aim and claim to teach communicatively, as most of us do these days, then our learners ought to be exposed to language that is used in real communication outside the classroom. We can liken learning a language to learning to drive. Sooner or later, a learner driver will need to leave the relative safety of the local industrial estate and drive in real traffic. Likewise, our learners will be in a better position to cope, when the need for communication arises outside the classroom, if we can offer them a diet of actually-used language in our lessons. We cannot always rely on a coursebook to give them the natural-sounding English they need. When the onus is on the teacher to supply more authentic language, a corpus can be a useful tool.
Our learners will be in a better position to cope outside the classroom, if we can offer them a diet of actually-used language in our lessons
However, despite there being justification for a certain amount of simplified content, we should reflect on how much of it we use. It is not desirable to expose learners to an excess of contrived content. Students who encounter simplified language too often could end up learning English that is not just simplified, but simply restricted or, even worse, distorted. If our teaching situation permits us
Frequency information
The future continuous is 300 times more frequent than the future perfect. The zero conditional is the most frequently occurring pattern out of the different types of conditionals. Seven prepositions are in the top 20 most frequent words. Here they are in order of frequency: to, of, in, for, on, with and at.
Simplification
It is natural to simplify language. After all, we simplify our English when we are
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IN
THE
CLASSROOM
Sex education
Rose Hickman looks beyond the limitations of the assumptions.
n my article in Issue 69, we saw how being one gender or another has an effect on our experience of a class and how a teacher may counteract gender inequality. Id now like to look at the English language, gender and sexuality in class in more detail.
Whose English?
We dont all use English in the same way, nor do we all find that it meets our needs when it comes to expressing our experience of life, gender and sexuality. This is one of the reasons why the content words of the language are adapted and added to so frequently. But interestingly, although sexualities that differ from the sociallyapplied hetero norm, and behaviours that break the supposed gender rules, are becoming more accepted, the
And in the middle of this minefield of debate about our language and cultures are our students, who come from cultures and languages that have their own debates. Teachers, therefore, need to know a little about the issues in the language they teach and those in the L1 and culture of their students. Their students will, after all, be trying to negotiate between what they know and what they learn, in two languages/worlds.
Who are our students?

I work in Spain, where I often see girls get irritated or give up when they are pressured to be quiet by boys, and boys who dont like the image they know theyre supposed to fit. I see those who have same-sex parents and dont want to talk about their families, just in case. And those who identify as gay, lesbian or transsexual, who stay suspiciously quiet at certain moments in conversations. We should not assume that everyone in our class is heterosexual or wants to be identified as either male or female. I recently saw a T-shirt produced by a group of students at Barcelona University. It said: 2 lesbians + 3 gays + 1 transsexual + 4 bisexuals + 15 heteros = my class. Our students certainly seem to be well aware of who is in our classes!
Teachers need to know a little about the issues in the language they teach and those in the L1 and culture of their students
language to describe them respectfully is slower to appear. Even something as basic as Ms is still ridiculed in some quarters and hasnt managed to replace Miss or Mrs. Steven Pinker maintains that attempts to introduce gender neutral words like hesh [a pronoun encompassing he and she] ... have failed because function words resist change. I believe it is important to understand that it is not the words themselves that resist change, but the society they function in.
What are we teaching?

Teachers are automatically part of a society that produces and reproduces cultural beliefs; we are part of the process of transmitting a message of equality or stereotyping. We need to be aware of our role in this. If we accept equality as our preference, we need to realise that doing nothing to combat inequality is equivalent to being part of the cause. One effect of not taking into consideration who is actually in the classroom, and not regarding them as individuals but as one homogeneous, non-differentiated blob, is to overeducate and over promote specific groups,
19
Sex education
according to Alistair Mant, and research suggests this will mostly benefit males Id add heterosexual males at that. All learners would surely benefit from learning respect for everyone and acquiring the social skills necessary to work with others. I believe these skills are already being introduced into the curriculum in some schools in some countries. We could also integrate this into our language classes in our given contexts and cultures.
which could damage the image of themselves or their company? Students need the knowledge to avoid inadvertent sexist practices such as adding a Mr to all the names on a computerised mailing list or addressing all adult women as Mrs Family Name.
Including everybody
The problem of inequality in language is even more subtle than use of greetings or personal pronouns. When speaking of how we need background information to make sentences understandable, Steven Pinker gives the following example: Woman: Im leaving you. Man: Who is he?
All learners would surely benefit from learning respect for everyone and acquiring the social skills necessary to work with others
What can we do?
Managing our classes
Being in tune with our students needs doesnt only consist of being able to identify such things as Paul is weak on prepositions, but also Paul doesnt seem to work well in groups, I wonder why, and what I can do to make him feel more comfortable. Class management is an umbrella term for many aspects of our job; we can include within it organising our classes so that no one feels left out or uncomfortable.
Doing it differently
We know that our learners are never only learning a language, and some teachers are exploiting this in course content. Feminist English courses have existed in Japan since the 1980s, including learners in the content while addressing gender, as well as linking the content to the use of English and Japanese. This is a challenging idea, bringing up problems we encounter every day. Jacqueline Beebe asks, Should we teach Japanese students who in their first language would use san or sama, courtesy titles which do not distinguish by sex or marital status, to take up a new sexist practice in English
The way the missing background information has been understood is that it is a heterosexual situation, but by no means everybody would assume this. Shouldnt we also teach the neutral it to cover all possibilities? Where I work, Spanish speakers do not tend to know that it can sometimes refer to a person. It is not just gender roles that are supported and promoted by popular belief and the language we teach. Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick claim there is a part played by language and language use in sustaining heteronormative social arrangements. Every day we use our L1 to perform and perpetuate standardised norms in society that have no basis in reality for many people, and we teach that way, too. Some ELT books have gone some way to addressing gender role issues, but they have yet to even begin to tackle the sexuality issues. I would suggest that just as girls are negatively affected by stereotyping, so too are people of certain sexual orientations, and they are losing out by being ignored in class. I really think its time to address both gender and sexuality issues in education.
of family, so how will that affect how we teach certain items of vocabulary, like family itself ? The way we teach language is often through majority kinship patterns (my cultures case having one male and one female parent), and we tend to ask questions like What are your mother and fathers names? However, not all children fit into this kinship pattern. And what about children who are living in state care? We could be perpetuating an unequal and possibly uncomfortable situation for more students than we realise. Because of this, I teach the words mother and father, but use guardian in my questions. I also do not automatically assume a child means parents when they say my fathers, and tend to bring it up at the end of an activity to clear up misunderstandings without putting a specific student on the spot. It is not my wish to cause difficult moments for individuals, but it is important to include all and promote equality. We are educators in general as well as English teachers, after all
Just as girls are negatively affected by stereotyping, so too are people of certain sexual orientations, and they are losing out by being ignored in class
Learner needs include the need to know about the rules for social discourse, appropriacy, etc, which is a strong argument for including issues around gender, sexuality and kinship when we teach. Ultimately, the learners will be using the language in a society with many different types of people. Learners need to know how to address people in English correctly in modern times, and they need to feel included, even when they feel different.
Reconsidering learner needs

There is always a need to be aware of the culture in which we teach, and even more so when approaching possibly taboo issues. However, I believe we should not hide behind these difficulties as an excuse for ignoring aspects of life which reflect reality for some students. Kinship patterns can be different, depending on where you teach, but the assumed two-parent, married, heterosexual binary system is not the great majority that many would have us believe. There are many different types
Knowing our stuff

Do we actually know if a word has different connotations in the students L1? I once had a conversation with a teacher about homophobia and he said he had not heard any examples in his classes. Hed been working in the country for seven years, but it turned
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A word can mean different things in different cultures, so its connotations and the actions we take upon hearing it used will be different
out that he didnt know the offending words in L1 to look out for, so how could he possibly spot any problem? We enter into dangerous territory. Teachers are also part of society and have their own views but are we not at least supposed to be impartial? That would mean making an effort to inform ourselves. When we do nothing, a message is still being given. As Adrienne Rich expresses it, ... in teaching we need to be acutely conscious ... to ensure that language will not be used to ... keep others silent and powerless. A word can mean different things in different cultures, so its connotations and the actions we take upon hearing it used will be different. So if a child has same-sex parents and within their world hears words like gay as positive, when they hear the same words used pejoratively in class without this being challenged, it will be no surprise to see that child stay silent at times, as well as other lamentable reactions. Also, for those students who have no (known) contact with gay/lesbian people, allowing the pejorative use of the word
in class could confirm their idea that gay = bad is some kind of universal truth. Shouldnt teachers make an effort to be aware of the possible problems?
A little help from your friends

If you decide to tackle these issues, here are some ideas to get you started. The most obvious place to begin is with your teacher colleagues: dont assume they have no views on the subject. Keep each other informed of what is going on in your classes, discuss problems and share ideas. To raise the issues in class, you may find the book Taboos and Issues by Richard MacAndrew and Ron Martnez a good source of lessons on these themes. You can also find information on the internet to provide topics for lessons or class discussions. If you think it will be too difficult to address these issues with the whole class, start by putting the students into small, carefully-chosen groups and give them some questions to discuss. Hold an open-class feedback session afterwards, but set a written homework assignment for individuals. Learners often say things in private that they wouldnt say in public: let them know their work will only be read by you.
It just takes the desire to promote equality and a little extra effort, not even a great deal of planning, to make a change. Even simply adding the odd question here and there that doesnt assume everyone is the same, and making it clear your class is a safe zone where students know they can speak openly and safely will help. Above all, we should insist that everyone is represented in our institutions equality and anti-bullying policies. ETp
Beebe, J Sexist language and English as a foreign language: A problem of knowledge and choice The Language Teacher 22(5) JALT 1998 Cameron, D and Kulick, D The Language and Sexuality Reader Routledge 2006 MacAndrew, R and Martnez, R Taboos and Issues Thomson Heinle 2001 Mant, A Intelligent Leadership Allen & Unwin 1997 Norton, B and Pavelenko, A Addressing gender in the ESL/EFL classroom TESOL Quarterly 1996 Pinker, S The Language Instinct Penguin 1994 Rich, A On Lies, Secrets and Silence W W Norton & Company 1995
Rose Hickman is a DELTA qualified teacher who has taught English to children, teenagers and adults for 15 years in Barcelona, Spain. She coordinates external exams and provides guidance for new teachers. Her personal research interests include gender in education and the built environment. hickmanrose@yahoo.com

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21
TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS
A primary reading project

Betka Pis lar encourages good reading habits from the start. s
s a primary school teacher of English in Slovenia, and a passionate reader myself, I have always tried to pass on my love of reading to my students and motivate them to start reading in English. I find that the children I teach are naturally interested in what is going on in the school. They are open to new ideas and willing to take part in any activities offered to them. So I developed a project to get them involved in reading.
The plan
I set the following objectives: to encourage the students to develop and expand their vocabulary; to motivate them to read books in English; to improve their reading skills; to help them to associate learning and reading in English with having fun; to increase their creativity; to incorporate new activities in my teaching. To meet these objectives I decided to encourage my pupils to read at least three books in English.
The project
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My project was targeted on three classes of 20 nine year olds who were in their first year of learning English. I began with these questions: Who read bedtime stories to you when you were a little child? Do you remember the title of the first book you read in Slovenian? What book are you reading now? What is your favourite book?
I then showed them my favourite nursery book when I was a child. These questions proved to be a good start as they aroused the students interest and made them discuss their reading habits (this was done in their mother tongue). The next step was to show them the books I had chosen for them to read in English. To avoid expense, I deliberately chose books that were available in the school library. These were simplified texts adapted from traditional fairytales, such as Goldilocks and The Three Bears, The Sleeping Beauty, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, etc. I brought the books to class, put the students into groups of four and gave each child in a group a copy of the same book. First, I asked them to look at the covers and to read the titles. The students found the books extremely attractive as they were all fully illustrated, and they felt reassured as they had very little text. I then asked them to throw a dice and to open their books on the corresponding page. For example, in one group a child threw the dice and the number was five, so they all opened the book Goldilocks and The Three Bears on page five. After reading this page they were asked to say what they had read. I helped them by asking them questions like: Who are the people in the story? What animals are there? What does Goldilocks do? Where do bears go? What do bears eat? The students answered the questions and pointed to the people and things in the book. I explained some new words to them. However, some of the students tried to guess the meaning of new words with the help of the pictures. When all four children in the group
had had a go at throwing the dice, the groups swapped books and repeated the activity with a new book. Working in groups meant there was plenty of discussion and exchanging of ideas, which was fun for the children. The activity also aroused their curiosity they were eager to read the entire book and to learn what happened next. I explained to them that they would read the books at home. At the end of the lesson I invited them to visit the school library in the next lesson.
2
I planned the visit to the school library beforehand with the librarian, asking her to show the students the shelves with books in English and to explain the rules of the library. She did that at the beginning of the lesson. The students were allowed to borrow each of their three books for one week. After the presentation, the students were allowed to browse the books for a few minutes, which they enjoyed immensely. Then they sat at the desks in the reading corner of the library. I had prepared a few amusing vocabulary exercises for them to do and they read their books and did some of the exercises in pairs. These exercises encouraged them to use and recycle words they met in the books. Afterwards they did some more vocabulary exercises which involved looking up new words in a simplified EnglishSlovenian dictionary. Then we looked at the other dictionaries in the library, giving the students an idea of the dictionaries that were available in there. Back in the classroom, I explained what I would like them to do after they had borrowed and read each of the three books.
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A primary reading project

3
My after-reading activities were given to the students on a worksheet which had an obligatory part and an optional part. They were asked to do these activities at home or after lessons in the school library. The instructions for the obligatory activities were as follows: 1 Write the title of the book in English. 2 Find any new words in the EnglishSlovenian dictionary. 3 Write what the story was about in five to seven sentences. The optional activities were meant to encourage the students to be creative and to give them the opportunity to do things that they liked doing. I asked them to do at least two of the following: 1 Write what you liked or didnt like about the book. 2 Do an illustration with coloured pencils or water colours. 3 Write a new ending for the book in three to five sentences. 4 Make a new cardboard cover for the book. 5 Rewrite one page of the book in the form of a cartoon story.
4
flower on the poster. They could write the title of the book they had finished on the petal if they wished. Then I asked them a few comprehension questions about what they had read. The students were very keen to complete their flowers as quickly as possible. They became quite competitive at the same time as they read. Each lesson, we read together the names of those who had already completed their flowers on the poster. Reading the books, doing the worksheets and completing the flowers gave them a strong sense of achievement. They went to the library very often, and when all the books in the library were out, some of their parents even went to libraries in neighbouring towns to get the books for their children.
introduced some new songs and rhymes, which proved motivational.

6
The final part of my project consisted of a survey, which I carried out with the students in all three classes. I wanted to discover more about how they read and learn. They were asked the following questions: How often do you go to the library? Who usually helps you to read? Do you discuss the books you read with your parents or schoolfriends?
betka_pislar@t-2.net
24
At the beginning of the following lesson, those students who had read one of the books at home and done a worksheet, brought their worksheets to school. I checked them and gave them each a paper petal, which they stuck on their
Betka Pislar has taught English to young learners, secondary school students and adults for over 20 years. At present she teaches English and French at the Ziri Primary School, Ziri, Slovenia. Her main educational interest is motivating primary school children to learn.
I brought a large cardboard poster to the next lesson and put it on the wall next to the board. I then gave each student a small, round piece of paper, and asked them to write their name on it, colour it and stick it on the poster. I explained that it represented the centre of a flower and that they would get a petal for each worksheet they finished to add to their flower on the poster. After bringing me all three worksheets, their flower would be complete. That would mean all their tasks had been done.
In fewer than two months, 53 children out of 60 had read all three books, done the worksheets and consequently completed their flowers on the class poster. After talking to the remaining seven children, I realised they either had less support from their families or they were not interested in reading at all. I tried to persuade them to start reading and I also prepared some additional fun activities to encourage them. In class we watched some extracts from films which had been made of the chosen stories, and we dramatised some of them. We even made cardboard puppets, and students who had already read the books acted out some scenes from them. I also
The students involved in this reading project nearly all discovered that reading in English can be a lot of fun. They started by reading simple English texts, which as their English improves will gradually become more advanced. Peer competition was an important factor: more active children encouraged those with less motivation. They were so busy competing that they didnt realise how much they were reading! It was noticeable that their vocabularies expanded and that they went to the library more often. Gradually, they started borrowing books which were not even on my list. They realised that by reading more books they also learnt more English. Completing a flower on a class poster and doing worksheets was also an incentive, especially to those with more creative skills. Some of them produced really nice work, with magnificent illustrations and beautiful handwriting. All these activities gave them a strong sense of achievement, which resulted in increased selfconfidence and personal satisfaction. ETp
A fair deal for all

lessons. Language awareness and cultural activities can be used which give the students the opportunity to share songs, games, stories and traditions from their own culture or those they have experienced. It would be good to let every child lead a game in the language they speak at home. The role the community can play in schools should also not be forgotten. In Switzerland, parental involvement is being highly encouraged at the moment. In some communities, one might see, for example, a South African father coming once a week to the English class and taking his child and a few more to another room to read them stories. Cooperation Finally, native speakers can be used in many ways in cooperative learning contexts to their own benefit and to the benefit of the class. When assigning roles in groups, they can be the writer, as they should be expected and encouraged to write more. They can also be the mediator, as this requires more formal English and use of language such as Yes, thats right. However . They can be put in charge of materials so that the other students have to come up and ask for things, in a shop-like setting. They can be made responsible for ensuring the whole group speaks in the target language, and they can be the resource person with the dictionary.
can be created for the native speakers which have more of a focus on spelling and writing. With gapped texts, the same text can be given to all the other learners, but with more gaps for the native speakers to complete, or with an additional section where they have to do some extra writing or take the activity or activity reflection one step further. Extra worksheets from language classrooms in English-speaking countries (from www.abcteach.com, for example) can be kept in a special binder and used as supplementary materials for the native students. Organisation Organisationally, it is a good idea to have the native speakers sit where they are not facing any language support on the board or on the wall. This ensures they dont have the information right at their fingertips. Furthermore, the teacher could have monolingual dictionaries for the native students and bilingual ones for the others. Independence Schools aim not only to teach content, but also social skills and skills for life. The ideas listed above help to support language development as well as social development. However, some children may need more social development than content development, others not. Depending on the situation, it might be useful for the native-speaking child to develop their local language skills, so teachers should be prepared to give support in the main language of the school. The following ideas might be used for one lesson a week for those learners who can work more independently. Working on a computer can help native speakers set their own pace in language learning activities. In addition, computer work allows these children to keep up with the typical language development of their peers in Englishspeaking countries. There are numerous sites, such as www.discoverykids.com, www.funbrain.com and www.pbskids.com, which offer educationally relevant and challenging materials for independent work. Furthermore, letting children read books of interest in English and getting
them to write reports can support their skills in their mother tongue and in their second language, too. Allowing them to choose an independent project, such as making a poster about a country they have lived in, can help promote cultural and linguistic knowledge and can lead to a product that can be shared with the class. Materials While the normal textbook used with the rest of the class can be followed, choosing another textbook for independent work can be a good idea. Publishers, such as Teacher Created Materials and Scholastic, offer a wide range of textbooks for children in English-speaking countries. If the parents have enough money, they can be asked to purchase an e-book of interest to their child that can be printed out and used in class. Teachers with native speakers in their class should perhaps take the time to find the language curriculum from the country their child is from. Helpful websites include: www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/ela/ 0601.pdf and www.ncpublicschools.org/ curriculum/languagearts/scos/.
Individual benefits
The above ideas fully integrate the native speakers into the class for the benefit of all. The following ideas are more for the benefit of the individual, though the child still belongs to and can work alongside the class. Differentiation The first suggestion involves the preparation of handouts. It is useful and relatively simple to prepare at least two versions of a handout, with less language support (model sentences, word banks, etc) on the ones for the native speakers. In addition, handouts
26
Teachers in many countries need to have a repertoire of ideas for working with native speakers in the foreign language classroom. I hope this article has sparked some creative ideas for integration and differentiation, which can benefit all the children. Every language in the classroom should be recognised and shared, and children of all language backgrounds should be provided with opportunities to improve their mother-tongue competence within and outside the classroom. ETp
Laura Loder Bchel studied Bilingual and Multicultural Education at Northern Arizona University in the USA and has been an instructor at the Zrich and Schaffhausen Universities of Teacher Education in Switzerland for the past seven years.
laura.loder@phzh.ch

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EAP
An all-round challenge 2
Louis Rogers teaches his students seminar skills.
Worksheet 1 and ask them to divide them into these categories: Beginning a discussion Clarifying points Managing the discussion Closing the discussion
3 Ask the students to work in small groups. Get them to decide who in their group is going to chair the discussion, and give this person a set of the cards used in Stage 2. Give each other person in the group a set of the cards used in Stage 1. Then ask them to discuss one of the topics below (or any other topic you feel would be of interest) using as many of the phrases as possible. Award one point per phrase used by each student. Possible topics The only reason to learn a language is if the language will help you gain a good job. Parents, not teachers, are primarily responsible for their childs education. The most effective way to support a homeless person is to provide them with money.
n an academic setting it is often important to consider several different perspectives on a topic. These perspectives will often come out of the background reading that the students are expected to undertake before a seminar. However, I find initially that many of the students find it difficult to move beyond their own perspective on a situation, even if they have been presented with different viewpoints in a reading text. The first task presented here provides students with language which they can practise using in their seminar discussion. Whilst it is arguable how authentic some of these expressions may be, I feel they do give students a framework of language to use. The second task encourages the students to consider a wide range of perspectives on a topic. It also encourages them perhaps to modify their opinions after hearing different arguments. The third activity provides them with the opportunity to reflect on their own participation, in order to set personal learning objectives for future seminars.
part in a seminar on the topic they have been preparing. Whilst the seminar is happening, one student from Group B should focus on one from Group A and complete the table in Worksheet 3 below. Then repeat the process with the students from Group A observing those from Group B.
Task 1
1 Give pairs or groups of students the first set of expressions cards from Worksheet 1 on page 29. Ask them to divide the cards into the following functions: Partly agree Disagree Agree 2 Give the pairs or groups of students the second set of expressions cards from
Task 2
1 Give half the class (Group A) Seminar topic A from Worksheet 2 on page 29 and the other half (Group B) Seminar topic B. Ask the students to work in pairs and to think of arguments for or against their topics and to decide what sort of people might hold these opinions (more than one person may hold each opinion). 2 Put the Group A students into smaller groups of four to six and ask them to take
After your students have completed the seminar activities above, or any other seminar activity, encourage them to reflect on their experience using questions such as these: Everyone 1 Are you satisfied with how you participated in the discussion? 2 How do you think you could improve? 3 Did any person dominate or not take part? 4 How could you help to include others and stop some people dominating a discussion? The chair How well do you think the discussion went? How do you think you could improve as chair? ETp
Louis Rogers is a course tutor on the International Foundation Programme at the University of Reading, UK. He has previously worked in Italy, Germany and Portugal, where he taught General English, Business English and Academic English. l.j.rogers@reading.ac.uk
Worksheet 3 Seminar observation

Student
Main arguments presented
Did they listen to others opinions? Yes No
Did they modify their viewpoint? Yes No Did they focus on winning the argument? Yes No
28
Worksheet 1 Language focus

Set of cards 1
Yes, you have a point there. Im afraid thats not how I see it. I completely agree that ... But surely Im not sure I entirely agree As X said ... Im sorry but I dont agree that ... Maybe, but X put it well when he/she said ... You have a point there but ... I can see what you mean but ... That may be true, but
Set of cards 2
Lets start by So what you are saying is ... X, do you have anything to add to Ys point? To sum up OK, so lets begin. Could I just check what you mean by ...? Moving on So to kick off Im not quite sure I understand what you mean. I dont quite follow you. So, lets move on to the next topic. Is there anything else to cover?
I didnt quite catch that. OK, X, would anyone else like to comment? In conclusion
Shall we stop there?
Worksheet 2 Different roles and perspectives

Seminar topic A
Work with a partner and think about the following topic: Tobacco should be made illegal. Who might have an opinion on this topic? What are arguments for and against? Who might present this argument? Use your ideas to complete the table below. What might be an argument against this? A lot of people would lose their jobs. Who might have this opinion? Governments, employees of tobacco companies
What might be an argument for this?
Seminar topic B
Work with a partner and think about the following topic: Developing countries should not have to restrict CO2 emissions in the same way as developed countries. Who might have an opinion on this topic? What are arguments for and against? Who might present this argument? Use your ideas to complete the table below. What might be an argument against this? Who might have this opinion? Leaders of developing countries
What might be an argument for this? Restricting emissions for developing countries may limit their development and ultimately limit their standard of living.
29
R E S O U R C E S
Rebecca Normans students go abroad without going anywhere.

he most natural way to learn a language is to be plunged into a situation where it is needed for communication, but this situation is difficult for students to find in their home country. We cant send all our students abroad for experience, but we can try to bring the world to them.
The tourist trap!

the same information while their recent attempt and any new words that have come up are fresh in their minds. To reduce confusion when rotating, it helps to arrange the small groups around a large circle. Roam around the room, collecting vocabulary for the board and clarifying where necessary. You can announce an additional question once in a while. I often discover additional questions when I overhear groups straying into interesting areas. After five to 15 minutes (shorter for introductions, longer for a juicier topic or when the noise level indicates that something interesting is taking place), ask the tourists to rotate clockwise. If the students need to be mixed up too, ask one from each group to stand up and rotate anti-clockwise. Ten minutes before the end of the class, call everyone into a big circle and ask if anyone heard anything interesting, or anything that they didnt understand. I alternate between calling on students and tourists to ensure that my students speak, too, and sometimes I write main points or words on the board. Some tourist volunteers talk too much and over the students heads. Advise them ahead of time to tolerate long pauses and to remember how hard it is to formulate a sentence in a foreign language that one doesnt know very well. Another tactic with the intractably loquacious is to announce that at the end the visitors will tell the whole class what they learnt from the students.
Topics
I find it is helpful to set a clear and limited topic. More advanced students will digress into more interesting topics, while the lower-level students will be glad of the structure. As I have enough tourists to run a conversation class every day, narrow topics allow us to recycle with variations without getting bored: if your first topic is something large like Culture, youve pretty well made any future cultural topic into a boring repeat. Instead, break it down into small subtopics. Elementary Low-level students appreciate having new conversation partners so they can repeat old topics for further practice. Rotate quickly, every five minutes. Introductions. Add specific questions or leave it open. You might remind everyone to make sure they can pronounce their partners names before they rotate away.
Tourists as resources
For years I have run a conversation class here in Ladakh during the tourist season, inviting visitors to the country to join in. These classes are separate from my regular English lessons, giving my students a chance at conversation in small groups. This is hugely popular with the students, and the improvement to their spoken English is remarkable. If you teach in an area with a lot of backpackers, you may be able to recruit them to help with such classes. By backpackers, I mean travellers with flexible schedules. I have also made fruitful connections with several foreign student travel groups. Travellers usually appreciate the chance to interact with locals outside the tourism industry, and many are eager to volunteer. Try putting up A4 posters in popular backpacker restaurants. I found that when I asked our local staff to put these up, I got fewer responses than when I did it myself: they didnt have a sense of where the backpackers gravitate. We want to trap as many of them as we can, in the nicest possible way, of course! Give a fixed time, rather than just Call for details, to get impulse visitors saying Hey, look, lets go there this afternoon! Have them come a few minutes before class so you can greet and orient them.
Tips
For low- and intermediate-level students, mix the groups up every few minutes. It keeps the talk going, since some students are unable to maintain a conversation for much longer, and all the students then get a chance to repeat 30
Photos. If the students and/or tourists have photos from home, I ask them to bring them in. If the tourists dont have photos, sometimes we find a photo book about their country in our library. Props give low-level students an encouraging experience of communicating, even if they cant make full sentences. Maps. I give a map to each group and then redistribute the maps after ten minutes. These might include local maps that students have to explain, or world maps for the tourists to show where they are from or where they are travelling. Intermediate Exchanging factual information works best. I have found these topics among the most successful early ones: Family. Topics might include: Who lives in your house? Is that common in your country? Were your parents and grandparents born in the same town? What age do children normally move out of their parents house? Is it considered good if a son lives with his parents when he is 30 years old? My region still has a fairly traditional family structure, and my students are amazed by the mobility and creative family structures of the West. Plants and animals. What plants and animals does your family have? My students come from farming families and are surprised at what the foreigners say to this, while the tourists appreciate learning about local farming. This topic uses the simple present tense. Education. Young people always enjoy comparing education systems. I do this topic early in the year, and again later after teaching the past tense, asking the students to make general statements in the present tense, and describe their own personal experience in the past tense. Start with vocabulary for the tourists as well as your students, as terminology varies widely between countries. Generations. What are the major differences between your grandparents lives and your own? This topic also focuses attention on past and present tenses. Chores. I use this topic when the tourists are also students. What chores do you do in your house? Do boys and girls do different things? Who cleans/cooks/washes the clothes, etc? I like to add questions that I know might surprise one side or the other, such as Who brings water to your house? Who shovels the snow? Clothing. I use this topic with visiting foreign student groups to sensitise them to how they should dress so as not to offend the locals. Poverty. Are there poor people in your country? Who? Why? After five minutes for factual exchange, I announce two additional questions: Does anyone help poor people? Have you ever done anything to help someone poorer than yourself? Gender. This topic always generates a lively (and generally noisy) discussion. Are there certain jobs that women shouldnt or cant do? This topic emphasises modal auxiliaries. Advanced When students are able to communicate more, you can use more abstract topics and opinion questions. Let your imagination fly! Topics to avoid Food tends to flop, with each side reciting a litany of food names to blank-faced partners. Avoid anything that might be embarrassing or offensive to your local students. My female students are shy about dating and sex, and in some countries, political topics are better avoided. Avoid religion for intermediate students they have trouble expressing abstract concepts and answering the Why questions, and its frustrating to garble ones deeply-held personal beliefs. Contrived topics and games are less intrinsically motivating than discussing ones own life, world and opinions.
Tourists as tutors
Tourists with good-enough English can be used as small-group tutors. For example, you can have them work on a particular pronunciation point for the first five or ten minutes, but be sensitive to your particular tourists and dont make non-native speakers teach points that they themselves have difficulty with. Words or tongue twisters on the board give everyone a clear task to work on. To turn the tables and raise my students confidence, sometimes I have them teach the tourists a tricky pronunciation point from the local language.
For the learners, this conversation class is like going abroad for an hour a day, having to use English for real communication. It is a great favourite with my students, and with the tourists, too. ETp
Rebecca Norman has been teaching English to rural students in an alternative education programme in Ladakh in the Indian Himalayas for 18 years.
BeckyLadakh@gmail.com
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09/10
Over the wall ...

Alan Maley considers ability and disability.
n this article I shall be looking at two novels, two autobiographies and one non-fiction manual, all dealing with disabling conditions. It may seem unusual to introduce this set of books on various forms of disability. Perhaps that is symptomatic of an era when we are all so much more aware of disability and more positively engaged with it. However, I hope it may also prompt us to become more aware of our own and others disabling conditions, with beneficial effects on the way we deal with them, and make us more conscious of the way disability in one area may be compensated by exceptional gifts in others.
The Story of My Life

The case of Helen Keller is perhaps the best-documented of all accounts of disability. The edition I am reading of The Story of My Life includes a section of letters and a supplementary account of her life and achievements, so it goes well beyond the relatively short basic text (only about 110 pages long). As is well-known, at 19 months, Helen Keller lost both her sight and her hearing in a childhood illness. At the outset, Gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different, until she came my teacher who was to set my spirit free.
Essentially, the book is an account of the remarkable education she received at the hands of her tutor and companion, Anne Sullivan. Apart from the inspiring story of how she overcame her disabilities, acquiring not just one but several languages and becoming a leading public figure in the life of her age, there are strikingly radical observations about the condition of being disabled: the way to help the blind or any other defective class is to understand, correct, remove the incapacities and inequalities of our entire civilisation Technically we know how to prevent blindness but socially we do not know how. Socially we are still ignorant. The book is also notable for its lyrical passages, which celebrate her appreciation of the natural world largely through her other senses of touch and smell, which were clearly hyper-sensitive,
probably to compensate for her loss of sight and hearing. The book remains a remarkable account of one persons triumph over physical adversity.
Deaf Sentence
In Deaf Sentence, David Lodge dissects with his customary humour and intelligent observation the life and woes of retired Professor of Linguistics, Desmond Bates. As he observes, Deafness is comic, as blindness is tragic. The early part of the book, especially, contains some highly comic observations on the fate of becoming deaf and its consequences for social intercourse: What would be the equivalent of a guide dog for the deaf? A parrot on your shoulder squawking into your ear? And there is a good deal of witty wordplay with well-known literary quotations. However, as the novel moves on, the emphasis shifts away from the predicament of deafness to a more general concern with how to cope with an ageing father, and with the plight of being retired. The disabling effects of advancing deafness are what gets the novel off the ground and are thoughtprovoking for anyone who suspects their auditory acuity may be duller than it once was, but the issue of how we cope with life when we are effectively useless is more sobering still.
iStockphoto.com / Steven Robertson
This is an era when we are all so much more aware of disability and more positively engaged with it
34
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Imagine that you are unable to move your limbs, or to talk, or, indeed, to communicate at all with those around you, while maintaining full consciousness. This is locked-in syndrome and is the fate that befell Jean-Dominique Bauby following a massive stroke at the age of 44. The former editor-in-chief of Elle was confined to his bed and wheelchair at the Naval Hospital in Berck-sur-Mer, totally cut off from communication with those around him but with his mind racing re-living his past, outraged by his present condition, humorously philosophical, aware of how pathetic and repellent he has become: What kind of person will those who only know me now think I was? So how do we know this? He was able to open and close one eyelid and, with the patient help of his specialised nurse, managed painstakingly to send messages to her by indicating which letter of the alphabet he needed to make up the words of the book he wrote. The result is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, translated from French by Jeremy Leggatt, a terrifying account of his condition and a testament to his courage. It also raises the uncomfortable question of how many patients who appear to be in a deep coma are, in fact, conscious of what is going on around them, but powerless to communicate. There is a film of the same title which is, if anything, even more terrifying than the book.
finding his way to the station, he has to work everything out from first principles. In order to exert some control over his life, he has developed routines and rituals, which he cannot bear to have disturbed. He is obsessed by numbers and by total accuracy: I am 15 years, three months and two days, he replies when asked his age. But he has brilliant visualisation skills and can solve quadratic equations and other mathematical problems in his head something he often does to calm himself down. The story of the difficult relations with his estranged parents and the effects of his unusual behaviour on those he
These books remind us of how difficult it is to empathise, rather than merely to sympathise
meets is told by him in a manner both highly comic and with a bitter edge. Finally, he succeeds in getting an A in A-level maths but what sort of future awaits him in a world he still does not understand and which offers him little tolerance?
leading to panic and to the building of compulsive solutions such as mnemonics (like the Alphabet Song) or heavy concentration, which do nothing to resolve the essential problem. Davis describes dyslexia and its results, then moves to the unusual but, according to his claims, effective ways of diagnosing and treating it by teaching the dyslexic to turn the disorientation on and off at will. These practical procedures are described in great detail, and would only be comprehensible in the context of a real dyslexic undergoing treatment. The main messages for me from this unusual book were that dyslexia is not all negative and that it is treatable given the right conditions.
If nothing else, these books remind us of how difficult it is to empathise, rather than merely to sympathise, with conditions we do not fully understand. ETp
Bauby, J-D The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Harper Perennial 2008 Davis R D The Gift of Dyslexia Souvenir Press 2010 Grandin, T Thinking in Pictures And Other Reports from my Life with Autism Bloomsbury 2006 Haddon, M The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Jonathan Cape 2003 Keller, H The Story of My Life (Ed Berger, J) The Modern Library 2004 Lodge, D Deaf Sentence Penguin 2008
Alan Maley has worked in the area of ELT for over 40 years in Yugoslavia, Ghana, Italy, France, China, India, the UK, Singapore and Thailand. Since 2003 he has been a freelance writer and consultant. He has published over 30 books and numerous articles, and was, until recently, Series Editor of the Oxford Resource Books for Teachers. yelamoo@yahoo.co.uk
Thinking in Pictures
Thinking in Pictures, which is Temple Grandins insiders view of autism, largely corroborates the symptoms of the fictional Christopher. Hers is part autobiography and part detailed information about autism. She became, in spite of her condition, or perhaps because of it, a highly-successful animal scientist. The book is both an inspiration and a valuable source of information on the condition.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Christopher, the protagonist and firstperson narrator of Mark Haddons novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, suffers from a form of autism. He has problems with social interaction and becomes uncontrollable when he panics, often acting violently, as when he is touched by a policeman early in the story, or groaning in an alarming way. He cannot bear to be touched, hates crowds and does not look at people when he speaks to them. He has total recall of whatever he sees and has a head full of detailed information, most of which he cannot use to make sense of new situations: I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,507. In fact, if he encounters a new situation, like buying a train ticket or
The Gift of Dyslexia

Autism is widely regarded as sharing many of the symptoms of dyslexia. Ronald Davis book The Gift of Dyslexia is of interest partly because it also gives an insiders view of dyslexia and partly for the diagnostic and treatment tools it offers. The description offered of dyslexia makes the powerful point that, besides its negative consequences, it is a positive gift, and Davis cites the cases of many highly gifted people who were also dyslexic. Interestingly, some of these, such as Einstein, are the same as those claimed by Grandin to have been autistic. The fundamental cause of dyslexia in relation to reading and writing is disorientation,

35
IN
THE
CLASSROOM
locating and identifying the middle sound of the word: //. Although these are simple examples, these essential phonemic skills are needed in order to appreciate how the individual sounds of words are represented by letters that are sequenced in a specific order. This is known as understanding the alphabetic principle or cracking the code and is needed in order to take the first step in the reading process. Due to their phonological deficits, learning the alphabetic principle and thus remembering which specific speech sounds correspond to which letters and letter combinations is more than a challenge for dyslexics. As Sally Shaywitz points out, after proficient readers have seen a letter and articulated the sound it represents a few times, an exact neural representation of its form and sound becomes imprinted in the occipito temporal automatic reading system, situated at the back of the brain. Subsequently, just seeing the letter in print activates immediate retrieval of all its relevant information.
cerebrum
Learning disability 4
Lesley Lanir considers disabilities in reading.
ammy, 11 years old, reads slowly and awkwardly. Shes been learning English for three years, yet every word still remains an effort and her reading is full of errors. Sometimes she confuses the order of the letters or misses words or jumps lines on the page. Trapped at the level of decoding, she cant seem to make headway. In the same class, Guy enjoyed rhyming games, learnt the alphabet fairly easily and seems to have reached the stage of reading without any decoding errors, yet he just doesnt understand short passages even though he gets full marks in vocabulary quizzes. Quite the reverse, Anna and Tony are reading quietly, simultaneously decoding the text and comprehending the writers message. Their classmates Tammy and Guy, however, demonstrate difficulties at each of these stages and are examples of students whose primary learning disability is reading.
impairments, lack of intelligence or poverty. Decades of research have established that dyslexia is caused by specific neurobiological dysfunctions in the language areas of the brain, causing phonological limitations. These malfunctions prevent dyslexics from perceiving and remembering speechbased information accurately and manifest themselves in poor sensitivity to: rhyme; syllable divisions; distinct language sounds. Reduced awareness of spoken-word sound structure also means that dyslexics cannot identify, segment, locate or manipulate a words individual speech sounds, known as phonemes, since for them the distinct borders between each phoneme seems blurry. For instance, the word man is made up of three distinct phonemes /m/, // and /n/. A person who has dyslexia would find it difficult to say: another word that rhymes with man; how many syllables man has; how many sounds it is made up of; its individual sounds.
frontal lobe Brocas area
parietal lobe
Wernickes area temporal lobe cerebellum
occipital lobe
brain stem
occipito temporal automatic reading system
What are reading disabilities?

Reading difficulties are commonly referred to as dyslexia dys means difficulty with and lexia, words or language. Originally, dyslexia was known as word blindness because it seemed that only a problem with sight and visual memory could explain why some people confused letters, swapped them around, turned them upside down or reversed them. Interestingly, sight problems are not at the root of this reading disorder, which affects nearly 20 percent of the population; neither are speech or hearing
In addition to weak phonological awareness, a dyslexic would have problems: taking the first sound away, eg /m/ from man, and replacing it with another sound to create a different word, eg /p/ to make pan, or removing the last sound, /n/, and replacing it with /t/ to form mat; manipulating the three sounds //, /m/ and /n/ to form a new word, such as nam;
Dyslexics, however, are unable to supply perfect imprints to this automatic storage place because the language information they receive through their dysfunctional phonological system becomes distorted or degraded and lost in the neural system. Instead, brain imaging studies conclusively point to the fact that dyslexics overuse the slower decoding systems at the left frontal area of the brain Brocas area and compensatory systems on the right side of the brain, but underuse their automatic reading system sited in the left hemisphere at the back of the brain. As Shaywitz puts it, it is almost as though there are no connections between these systems.
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Learning disability 4
pre-frontal cortex (word analysis/ articulation) Brocas area frontal lobes left side corpus callosum Wernickes area (word analysis) occipito temporal automatic reading system (word form) parietal lobes right side
5 Develop reading comprehension skills
by: building up vocabulary; recognising language structure and syntax; internalising comprehension strategies. (Adapted from Suzanne Carreker) This fifth point will be discussed in depth in my next article.
1
For phoneme location, say /m/ then man. Have the students say where the sound /m/ appears: at the beginning, end or not at all. Teach phoneme deletion by showing a picture (eg man) and asking the students to say man without the /m/ (an). Practise phoneme substitution by saying man and asking the students to repeat the word. Then ask them to replace the sound /m/ with /t / and say the new word (tan). After substituting beginning sounds, move on to end sounds; for example, replace the /n/ with /t/ (mat).
2
Understanding that words are made up of different sounds
occipital lobes
These neurological dysfunctions result in: difficulty learning and remembering letters and their corresponding sounds; decoding errors; slow and painful reading; poor spelling; slow or erroneous word retrieval. Also known to accompany poor reading skills are: memory problems; slow information processing; handwriting difficulties; trouble with coordination (confusion between directions, misunderstanding temporal adverbs); poor organisation and sequencing skills (messy bag, untidy desk, difficulty learning the order of the alphabet, days of the week, etc).
Developing phonological and phoneme awareness is paramount. Decades of studies conclude that phonological processing deficits are the primary cause of reading disabilities and also emphasise that phoneme awareness is an essential factor in the process of learning to read. Teachers need to draw attention to language sounds by inserting ten minutes of phonological practice at the beginning of lessons. Firstly, developing sensitivity to rhyme, then moving on to teaching syllables. Once students have mastered these exercises, working on distinguishing individual language sounds has to be tackled. This is the hardest phonological task but it is crucial in order to move to the next stage of learning to read. Working on rhymes: Have the students practise identifying if words or names follow a rhyming pattern or not. Make picture cards, for example bat, hat, cat, man, bed, and ask the students to group those cards that rhyme and those that dont. Ask the students to produce their own words that rhyme and dont rhyme. Working on syllables: Clap or tap out the number of syllables in words. Say one syllable of a word and ask the students to finish it, eg ta ble, fin ger, etc. Get the students to identify how many syllables there are in the words you say. Working on phonemes: For phoneme identification, say a sound, for example /s/, and display several pictures, asking the students to point to the pictures which begin with this sound, or have three sounds, or end with this sound, etc.
Mastering decoding
In order for dyslexics to master the alphabetic principle and begin the reading process, the remedial programme has to be: Multisensory, using a mixture of seeing, hearing, speaking, writing, moving and touching. Based on phonics, teaching letter/ sound (grapheme to phoneme) and also sound/letter (phoneme to grapheme) associations, using the most common sound/letter correspondences first. Structured; it has to be logical, systematic and progressive. Incremental and cumulative; learning has to be gradual and must build upon preceding knowledge. For example, first introduce highfrequency consonants with one predictable sound (such as b, m, t and d), one at a time. After a few consonants have been acquired, the short vowel sounds of the letters i and a can be added. Words and nonwords can be created by showing the students how to blend sounds together and create one-syllable words, for example, m-a-d, b-a-d, d-a-d. Then progress to small sentences: Mad bad bat bit dad. Repetitive; there has to be plenty of over-learning to create and strengthen strong neural pathways. The remedial method developed by Kathleen Hickey or the OrtonGillingham programme developed by Anna Gillingham and Bessie Stillman both use these systems and can be adapted to teach foreign language learners.
How can we help?

In order to learn to read, students with dyslexia need to do the following:
1 Understand that words are made up
of different sounds/phonemes.
2 Master decoding by:
learning the alphabetic principle associating sounds with written symbols; blending the sounds into syllables and words; becoming skilled at decoding words and reading groups of words.
3 Receive word structure instruction. 4 Improve their fluency and read with
speed, accuracy and expression.
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Giving instruction on word structure
Once a few sounds and symbols are acquired and can be blended together, morphological instruction should be gradually introduced. Word structure knowledge boosts reading fluency, increases the students knowledge of word meanings and aids spelling and vocabulary acquisition. Both Shaywitz and Carreker assert that developing the students word analysis and syllabication skills and encouraging them to focus upon roots and affixes so as to perceive language as chunks rather than individual sounds and letters prevents memory overload. Teach: the six kinds of syllables 1; the five syllabication rules 2 ; word roots; common prefixes and suffixes; inflections which create nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
1 Kinds of syllables 1 Closed consonant(s) follow(s) a short vowel (eg man, and) 2 Open one long vowel is at the end (eg she, he) 3 Vowel/consonant/silent e consonant is between a long vowel and a silent e (eg make, five) 4 Double vowel two vowels combine to make one sound (eg meat, tail ) 5 Consonant + le (eg table, puzzle) 6 R combination vowel combined with r (eg art, term) 2 Syllabication rules 1 Two consonants between two vowels: divide the syllables between the consonants, eg prob/lem, fin/ger 2 More than two consonants together: divide keeping the blends together, eg hun/dred, mon/ster 3 One consonant between two vowels: divide after the first vowel, eg pi/lot, hu/man 4 If previous rule doesnt create a word, divide after the consonant, eg doz/en, sol/id 5 Divide vowels, eg po/em, di/et
at least four correct readings are necessary for automatic word recognition to take place. Foreign language learners with reading disabilities not only have to rely on distorted neurological perception and slower neural pathways but also on areas of the brain that are not designed for word storage or retrieval. Therefore, in order to create any kind of accurate mental impression, these learners need massive exposure to the printed word both orally and visually. To facilitate reading fluency, teachers and students have to go through many sessions of modelling and repeating word lists, sentences and then short passages to improve accuracy and increase word speed retrieval. Modelling and feedback are essential in helping students pronounce words properly and build more accurate neural models; trouble articulating words indicates that exact neural representations have not been formed and that further repetitions have to take place. As reading accuracy and rate improves through repeated reading to over 100 words a minute, comprehension will improve because fewer mental resources are invested in decoding.
word dictation; sentence dictation;

6 introducing morphological instruction.
This article has explained why reading disabilities exist and given essential guidelines as to what to include in a remedial reading programme. Space does not allow for more detailed instructions, but a plethora of reading materials and internet sites are available for further guidance. Some of my favourites are listed below. The next article in this series moves on from decoding and fluency to the next stage of reading instruction: developing reading comprehension. ETp
Books Augur, J and Briggs, S (Eds) The Hickey Multisensory Language Course Whurr Publishers 1992 Birsh, J R (Ed) Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills Brookes Publishing Company 1999 Carreker, S Teaching reading In Birsh, J R (Ed) Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills Brookes Publishing Company 1999 Gillingham, A and Stillman, B W The Gillingham Manual: Remedial training for students with specific disability in reading, spelling, and penmanship Educators Publishing Service 1997 Hornsby, B and Shear, F Alpha to Omega: The AZ of Teaching Reading, Writing and Spelling Heinemann 1989 Levine, M A Mind at a Time Simon & Schuster 2002 Shaywitz, S Overcoming Dyslexia Knopf 2003 Websites www.ortonacademy.org www.dyslexiaaction.org.uk www.ldonline.org www.allkindsofminds.org/ http://candohelperpage.com www.spellzone.com www.greatleaps.com www.edict.com.hk/lexiconindex/ frequencylists/words2000.htm www.wordfrequency.info/
Lesley Lanir is a freelance writer, lecturer and teacher trainer who has been involved in teaching English for over 15 years. She specialises in learning disabilities and foreign language learning. She has a BA in English and Education, CTEFLA/RSA and an MA in Learning Disabilities. lesleylanir@gmail.com
Remedial teaching
A 50-minute beginners remedial reading lesson plan may consist of the following:
1 phonemic exercises; 2 sequencing tasks naming and
ordering the alphabet using wooden or plastic letters;

3 phonics instruction:
reviewing letters/sounds already learnt; introducing a new letter/sound or reviewing sounds still not being retrieved automatically;
4 developing fluency:
In addition, start working on automatic recognition and reading of the most common irregular and regular words, eg the, one, of, too, have, does, was, there, and so on.
4
Improving fluency
repeated reading of lists of words formed from all the letters already learnt; repeated reading of short sentences constructed from the above words; repeated reading of frequent vocabulary (words that can be decoded but have to be learnt before their letters/letter combinations are introduced, eg he and sight words that cannot be decoded);
5 spelling practice:
Our overall goal in reading is to understand the writers intended message. Fluency turns decoding into comprehension. For the normal reader,
sound dictation (the teacher produces a sound, the student has to write the letter);
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D E S I G N E D
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PREPARING TO TEACH ... Grammar

John Potts reviews some of the components of teaching a new grammar item.
Language analysis: four things to consider

1 FORM This refers to how a tense (or other grammar structure) is constructed: eg present continuous = present simple of be + present participle. It also refers to irregular forms (eg past simple, past participle), and the formation of questions and negatives. 2 MEANING This is concerned with deeper concepts of aspect, etc, rather than simply surface messages. For example, I think hes being silly = this is temporary behaviour, specific to a particular occasion, and may not be typical of him. 3 PRONUNCIATION The basics are sounds, stress and intonation. A more complex analysis of pronunciation includes features such as elision, weak forms, assimilation, etc. 4 WORD ORDER/SYNTAX/PATTERN This looks at a tense or other grammar structure as part of a longer utterance (eg a clause or sentence). Things to consider include the position of adverbs, dependent prepositions and complement patterns (eg whether it is followed by an infinitive or a gerund).
Situations and contexts

Grammar structures need a context for them to make communicative sense; otherwise they remain just that grammar structures. Here are some approaches: 1 Reading texts can provide the context and you may not need more than one example in the text, provided that its meaning and function are very clear from the context. 2 Listening especially anecdotes told by the teacher: these can be amusing or dramatic, and allow the learners to stop and question the teacher as the anecdote unfolds. Songs can also be a good vehicle, and may appeal to younger learners. 3 Situation and/or dialogue building: a classic approach but still very useful. The teacher builds the situation/dialogue with the learners (perhaps using visuals and/or realia, too) and then elicits/provides the target language as the punch line. 4 Advertising slogans and other short authentic texts (eg instructions on packaging, etc) you can teach the imperative using the instructions on a box of pasta!
Telling, illustrating, guiding or discovering?

The approaches outlined above all involve elements of illustrating the language. The teacher tries to guide the learners towards the meaning and function of the new language, so that they can discover these for themselves rather than simply being told what it means. These approaches may take more classroom time, and certainly require the learners to focus and work harder at constructing the meaning (with the teachers help). Telling is quicker but the learners need to do very little mental work and, as a result, little may finally stick.
Language awareness: four things to consider

1 FUNCTION This relates to what the speaker/writer seeks to do with the language, what message they want to send; for example: apologising, narrating, making a suggestion, giving advice, etc. 2 WRITTEN, SPOKEN OR BOTH Many grammar structures are equally at home in both spoken and written language, but some are usually spoken (eg How about going for a pizza?), whereas others are usually written (eg Should you need further information ...). 3 APPROPRIACY In addition, some structures may be inappropriate in some contexts (eg you wouldnt (normally) tell your boss that she had better be careful about what she says). 4 USEFULNESS Some structures may simply not be very useful in most everyday contexts. For example, how important is it to devote class time to teaching Were I to do this ...?
L1 and L2
1 Mistakes (of form, meaning, pronunciation or syntax) may often be due to L1 interference. For example, a typical mistake made by speakers of many European languages is to use the present perfect where the past simple is needed and this can be traced back to their mother tongue. 2 Conversely, learners may overuse a form such as the present continuous, simply because they dont have that form in their own language. 3 And learners may confuse two similar-looking structures in English; for example: I used to get up early and Im used to getting up early. 4 On the other hand, sometimes a form and its meaning may be very close or even identical to the learners L1, and so they can be compared.
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PREPARING TO TEACH ... Grammar

The old and the new
When your learners are no longer beginners, they have a basic repertoire of grammar structures and their concepts. You can build on what they already know, using it as a platform for new grammar structures. For example, you can establish a situation/context in the present, and review and consolidate the present continuous. Then you simply switch the time zone from now to yesterday/last week and elicit the past continuous to replace the present continuous. This approach works very well with many other forms past perfect, future continuous and future continuous, was going to, wish constructions, perfect modals, passive tense forms, etc.
Drilling and practising

Learners also need to feel confident about the form and pronunciation of the new language. Drills and controlled-practice activities (both oral and written) help to achieve this, especially at lower levels. They neednt be boring both can be lively, fun and communicative.
Using and personalising

In the end, learners have to produce language from their own resources and not only in controlled-practice exercises. A step towards this production is the personalising of language so that it takes on individual meaning for each learner. The example with used to above illustrates this for me when I was 17, I had extremely long hair (almost to my waist!). But my learners probably didnt, so they need their own personal example(s): I used to have dyed hair/be very shy/like Walt Disney (etc). Finally, theyll need opportunities to use the language in fluency activities, such as problem-solving tasks, discussions, roleplays, etc.
John Potts is a teacher and teacher trainer based in Zrich, Switzerland. He has written and co-written several adult coursebooks, and is a CELTA assessor. He is also a presenter for Cambridge ESOL Examinations.
Clarifying and checking

Its important to clarify and check the meaning and function of the new language, for example by asking a set of concept questions. These should be prepared in advance theyre very hard to think up on the spot! They should be kept few, short and simple with equally brief answers. For example: Our teacher used to have long hair. 1 2 3 4 Did he have long hair in the past? And does he have long hair now? So something has changed? Do we know when? (Yes.) (No.) (Yes.) (No.)
There are other ways of clarifying and checking using Total Physical Response, visuals or Cuisenaire rods, for example. Combined with a clear context, and in tandem with a guided-discovery approach, concept clarification and checking help the learners to feel confident about their grasp of the meaning of new language.
johnpotts@swissonline.ch
COMPETITION RESULTS
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Congratulations to all those readers who successfully completed our Prize Crossword 40. The winners, who will each receive a copy of the Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, are:
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Wolfgang Alkewitz, Iserlohn, Germany Georgeta Bradatan, Bridgend, UK Alison Hyde, Wolverhampton, UK Elisabeth Jendraszczak, Vendme, France Laura Neuhoff, Iserlohn, Germany Emeline Parizez, Paris, France Patricia Rfenacht, Bottenwil, Switzerland Stella Tatchum, Paris, France
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Veronique Valires, St Sauveur, France Roy Wilson, London, UK
George Orwell
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SCRAPBOOK
Gems, titbits, puzzles, foibles, quirks, bits & pieces, quotations, snippets, odds & ends, what you will
Legal eagle
arate hit 1 In 2009, Daniel Noble was arrested for two sep ressive when he ly agg and run incidents. He was extreme a psychotic . In court, his lawyer claimed it was was arrested of what? ption episode caused by an overconsum c) Orange and guava juice a) Herbal tea and milk d) Coffee and energy drinks b) Milk shakes and smoothies Ysidro, 2 A massacre at a McDonalds restaurant in San of 22 people, deaths California, in 1984 resulted in the lds for gunman. His widow sued McDona including the itive did she ch food add contributing to his actions. Whi responsible? claim was partially c) Monosodium glutamate a) Sodium chloride d) Antioxidants b) Red food colouring with a 3 Which peoples used to resolve legal disputes head-butting contest? c) Blackfoot Indians a) Zulus d) Mongols b) Inuits of Justice 4 It is commonly believed that representations eyes, holding a d over her (a robed woman with a blindfol other) are in one hand and a sword in the set of scales ough not on deities, alth based on a number of classical not one of icular. Which of the following is any one in part to be based? those on which she is believed c) Themis a) Fides d) Justitia aea b) Astr
Answers ed this the Starbucks defence. 1d Not surprisingly, the media nam onalds and her husbands former 2c Etna Huberty sued both McD She jointly responsible for his actions. employer, alleging that they were , mate used by McDonalds in food claimed that the monosodium gluta as a d in his body caused by his years and the high level of metals foun case judge didnt accept this, and the welder, triggered his violence. The was dismissed. felt that someone else had 3b Until fairly recently, an Inuit who d of would inform the person concerne committed a wrong against them turns head-butting the other, until this fact, and then each would take . The last person standing was the one fell and could not get up again winner of the legal dispute. to faith and honesty. Justice is said 4a Fides was the goddess of good sun ea, Maat (daughter of the Egyptian be based on Themis, Dike, Astra nations Themis, none of the original incar god Ra) and Justitia. Except for d symbols of Justice (blindfold, swor of these deities possess all three his goddess who advised Zeus after and scales). Themis was a Greek of and Astraea were both daughters purge of the old Pantheon. Dike a set of sword, whereas Astraea carried Themis and Zeus; Dike carried a fold. scales. Justitia simply wore a blind
Courtroom quotes
Are you married? No, Im divorced. And what did your husband do before you divorced him? A lot of things I didnt know about. Mrs Jones, is your appearance this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? No. This is how I dress when I go to work. What happened then? He said, I have to kill you because you can identify me. Did he kill you? No.
Are you sexually active? No, I just lie there.
Are you qualified to give a urine sample? Yes, I have been since early childhood.
Now, you have investigated other murders, have you not, where there was a victim?
Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods? No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.
Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people? All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
Could you see him from where you were standing? I could see his head. And where was his head? Just above his shoulders.
Do you recall the time that you examined the body? The autopsy started around 8.30 pm. And Mr Dennington was dead at the time? No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him.
Do you have any suggestions as to what prevented this from being a murder trial instead of an attempted murder trial? The victim lived.
You were there until the time you left, is that true?
Can you describe the individual? He was about medium height and had a beard. Was this a male or a female?
How many times have you committed suicide?
Were you present when your picture was taken?
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Silence in court!
It is often said that if barristers allowed the jury to draw their own conclusions instead of trying to discredit witnesses through close questioning, they might win more of their cases. Here are two examples. A witness was testifying in court in a case that involved one man biting off the ear of another man during a fight. After giving testimony which was very bad for the defendant, the witness was cross-examined by the defence barrister: Barrister: You said that you saw the defendant and the plaintiff in a fight? Witness: Yes. Barrister: You then said that you were concerned for your safety and that, because of this concern, you sought shelter elsewhere? Witness: Yes. Barrister: You further stated that during this time of seeking shelter, you turned your back on the fight? Witness: Yes. Barrister: And then you testified that that was when the defendant bit off the plaintiffs ear? Witness: Yes. Barrister: Well, that makes for an interesting question, then! If your back was turned to the fight, then you obviously must have had the plaintiff and the defendant out of your field of vision. Is that correct? Witness: Yes. Barrister: Well then, did you see the defendant bite off the plaintiffs ear? Witness: No. Barrister: (smugly) Then how do you know that the defendant bit off the ear of the plaintiff if you did not see him do it? Witness: I saw him spit it out. (Dead silence) Barrister: Ah ... no more questions. A man who had crashed his car at a roundabout was accused of reckless driving. The driver maintained that he had been driving within the 30-miles-perhour speed limit and that faulty brakes had caused the accident. The only witness was a woman who had been walking along the road at the time. When questioned by the prosecution, she testified that the driver had approached the roundabout at about 60 miles an hour and had then lost control and crashed. The defence barrister, seeing that the woman was over 80 years old and wore thick-lensed glasses, moved in for the kill, smirking all the time at the jury: Barrister: May I ask how old you are? Witness: I am 85. Barrister: Eighty-five, I see ... Now you testified that the defendant approached the roundabout at about 60 miles per hour. Is that correct? Witness: That is correct. Barrister: I see. And I notice that you wear glasses. Witness: That is correct. Barrister: Were you wearing your glasses at the time of the accident. Witness: No, I wasnt. Barrister: I see. Well, then how could you possibly tell what speed the driver was doing? Could you, in fact, even see the car? Witness: Well, young man. I certainly could see the car as these are reading glasses and there is nothing wrong with my distance vision. As to how I could tell what speed the driver was doing, before I retired I worked as an airline test pilot. One of the skills I learnt in that job was the ability to judge speed and distance. Barrister: (weakly) Yes, but that was planes ... Witness: Precisely. That is why I testified that he was doing about 60 miles per hour. I actually judged it to be 63 miles per hour, but I made an allowance for the fact that it was a car rather than a plane. The driver lost his case.
Legal language
How good are you at Latin lega l language? What does each of these terms mean?
1
A aver et tener a) to make or break b) to have and to hold c) to own or convey d) to relinquish or abandon Ab actis a) in context b) in relation to the proceedings c) in action d) in title Ab agendo a) unable to act b) unable to inspect c) unable to listen d) unable to convict Abamita a) defendant b) victim c) great-great-great-aunt d) imposter
Abarnare a) to take away by force b) to escape detection c) to uncover and disclose a secret crime d) to declare an interest in Accedas ad curiam a) You are to go to the clerk. b) You are to go to the jail. c) You are to go to the church. d) You are to go to the court.
Answers 1b; 2b; 3a; 4c; 5c; 6d
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iStockphoto.com / DNY59
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English360
www.english360.com The English360 platform plays an integral role in the activities of my company, City Professional English. It is the means by which we deliver our linguistic and non-linguistic didactic material, and also our central administration point. It has allowed us to offer innovative pedagogical material in a timely and efficient manner, saving costs and hence improving our financial returns in an industry not known for its ROA (return on assets)! As City Professional English is a bespoke company, all our materials are written by our language coaches for each client project. It is essential, therefore, that we have the means to develop and thereafter present these materials in a professional manner to our clients. After founding the company we looked into developing a system ourselves but the inherent time lag in development, as well as the high costs involved, encouraged us into the market place to search for a readily available system. English360 immediately caught our attention. Literally within minutes, one can begin to create activities on the system using traditional formats, such as gap-fill, matching and multiplechoice, to name but a few. The platform is simple and easy to interact with, which is testament to the ability of the software designers. For instance, one can have hundreds of students all diligently doing their homework, but who will mark all their work? English360 does the marking instantaneously and provides reports at the click of a button. It therefore saves a great deal of time. Of course, the system is not perfect; there are areas that need improvement. There could be a greater range of
exercise formats to allow for more intricate activities. There is also not enough flexibility given to the school in deciding what a student will see on their homepage. But probably the most significant problem is the limited range of coursebook material on the system that can be used instead of creating original exercises and courses. Most schools use coursebooks and although Cambridge University Press, which is represented on the English360 platform with over 9,000 activities from 35 titles, is an excellent source of high-quality course material, there are several other excellent publishers not present on the system. However, in my opinion, English360 overcomes all these problems in a convincing manner by offering the most important element for a school owner
in this regard. This gives me great confidence that they will continue to strive to overcome difficulties and improve the system. To evaluate the English360 platform, go to www.english360.com and sign up for a free Educator account where you can try your hand at creating personalised courses for your learners. Mark Olding Verona, Italy
Check Your Aviation English

by Henry Emery and Andy Roberts Macmillan Education 2010 978-0-230-40205-8 Apart from its use in training students who work in the aviation industry, this book provides fascinating insights for the lay person into the behind-the-scenes workings of airlines and airports. Many of the units are necessarily based on the more dramatic incidents and special situations that occur in the aviation world, as these are the ones where communication between those involved needs to be spot on, with no room for any kind of misunderstanding. As a result, the recording scripts at the back of the book alone make gripping reading. Designed for classroom use as a supplementary text or for self-study, Check Your Aviation English provides 30 units of listening and speaking exercises to help aviation professionals, particularly pilots and air-traffic controllers, achieve and maintain Level 4 of the International Civil Aviation Organisations language proficiency requirement. The units all follow the same structure, beginning with a photo of an aviation-related incident, which the students are required to describe and interpret. Helpfully, the accompanying CDs (attached to the inside back cover) contain sample answers to these opening activities as well as recordings for the subsequent listening comprehension exercises; these give practice in the twin language focus of plain English and ICAO phraseology. The second exercise in each unit is based on a recording related to flight operations and is aimed
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at improving plain English proficiency. First, the students are asked to identify the main theme of the recording and then a second part focuses on the details. The third activity involves listening to a radiotelephony exchange containing a mixture of plain English and phraseology. Students have to answer a number of questions about what they hear. The fourth exercise practises clarification techniques. Students in a class will work in pairs to roleplay a dialogue. Those working independently are advised to think about what they would say in the given situation and can then check their answers at the back of the book. The fifth exercise checks the main vocabulary the students will need to talk about the subject of the unit. First they have to match items to definitions, and then Anyone who flies would be comforted to know that those in charge of the plane had the language skills taught and practised in this book in order to deal with any emergency or non-routine situations that might arise! Lorna Ampthill Vendme, France
A History of Ireland for Learners of English

by Tony Penston TP Publications 2010 978-0-9531323-2-4 Most major publishers of ELT materials produce series of graded readers to promote extensive reading and engage learners in enjoyable ways of practising their English and increasing their vocabulary. The main attraction of such readers is that they are generally short and largely fictional, either simplifications of works of literature or original stories written specifically for learners. Students can read them fairly quickly, thus gaining the satisfaction of reaching the end without too much effort, and can easily tell if something is going to interest them or not and if the reader they have chosen, or which has been chosen for them, doesnt appeal, they can move swiftly on to another one. So it is that, when faced with a 120-page, self-published book on the history of Ireland, presented as a reader for learners of English, and with a very dour, almost monochrome cover, my heart sank a little. My first reaction was that a student would have to be very interested indeed in Irish history to want to plough through this. The catch-all phrase on the back cover would also be enjoyed by native speakers who prefer a less formal style of English rang alarm bells, too: writing graded readers is a skilled business, and although the aim is to produce a text which sounds natural as well as being simple enough for learners to understand, I have come across few that would be genuinely satisfying for any native speaker of the language.
they use the target words to complete a text. The unit ends with a discussion activity. There are progress tests after every five units and the full recording scripts and answers to all the exercises are available at the back of the book. Presumably this book has been produced as a supplementary text to Macmillans own coursebook Aviation English, also written by Henry Emery and Andy Roberts, but it could be used in conjunction with any other course aimed at aviation professionals.
Nevertheless, having undertaken to write a review, I began reading and was pleasantly surprised. This would not be an easy read for students, even those at intermediate level (for whom it is intended), but it would be a rewarding one. The language is not all that simple, but the book is divided into small manageable sections with useful vocabulary exercises, quizzes, etc to break up the text. It is also extremely well illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs and maps. I still think students would have to have quite a strong interest in the history of Ireland to want to read it to the end, but there is a pleasant mix of straightforward historical narrative and more personal stories about the characters involved, and the text is interspersed with some fascinating and quirky facts. I personally learnt a lot from it. Language students actually studying in Ireland and keen to find out the historical background of their place of study, and those with an interest in politics, would probably get the most out of reading the book, and its structure would allow for dipping in and out and focusing on the parts of main interest if reading from cover to cover was not an option. Helena Gomm West Meon, UK
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OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
Andrew ODwyer champions the teaching of language in context.

t was football-speak for look out, a phrase Id used a litany of times on the pitch. It could have been said in so many other ways be careful, head up, man on. Even watch out would have sufficed. But, the look of confusion on Joss face was enough to confirm that the meaning of watch your house had been well and truly lost on him, and a warning I had shouted on innumerable occasions led to an irreparable mistake: we gifted possession to the opposition and well, Id rather not reveal what happened next! It wasnt Joss fault, of course. It was his first exposure to football in another country, after all.
Tackling the real world

have in a classroom is extensive. Learners possess almost blind faith in teachers who teach with confidence. We can convince even the most sceptical students with our absolute conviction.
workplace. However, contextualising doesnt need to be shoe-horned to the extent that the students sole exposure to English as a language of communication occurs in a four-walled room. The classroom is adequate, but it is not enough. Students who have fun acting out some of the aforementioned scenarios often lament their inability to make them work in the real world.
Interaction
So, how do we best contextualise what we teach our students? I believe we achieve this by stepping outside the classroom. There, the most common interaction that occurs between adult students and teachers, almost inevitably, involves alcohol! We join our students for a drink and converse with them in a relaxed atmosphere. This works to a degree. But, why is alcohol the constant pre-requisite
The classroom functions as a portal into the real world, the world which our students actually inhabit
to confident communication? It is the laziest approach to language immersion that we humans employ. Surely, we can do better. OK, I accept that our students wouldnt appreciate us tagging along on a date, prodding them a little in moments of uncertainty! Im sure they would rather take their chances in this particular social exchange! However, there must be something more we can do to assist them better.
Context
How can we achieve this most satisfying result? The answer is context. Our students work in pairs and groups on a daily basis. We ask them to act out roleplays to employ new structures. I have always operated, though, under the mantra that the classroom is not the real world. How can it be? Students dont meet their friends in the classroom. I have yet to witness a student buying a coffee or ordering a pizza from the relative comfort of their chairs. I cannot imagine the classroom being an ideal setting for a romantic date although many a student has had their heart stolen by a dashing teacher, which renders my previous assertion a little dubious at best! As teachers, we tend to contextualise within the confines of an almost parallel world. The classroom functions as a portal into the real world, the world which our students actually inhabit. Without doubt, the ability of teachers to contextualise is severely limited by the very nature of our
Conviction
The classrooms we enter every day are hives of activity. It would not be amiss to say that, as teachers, we have the chance to mould our students, particularly our less-fluent ones, in whichever way we see fit. This is not an exaggeration. The teacher can debunk any language-learning myths their students will no doubt have acquired during their pursuit of improved English. That glorious phrase But my teacher in school told me still gets a regular airing in my classes. The power (for want of a better word) that teachers
Immersion
Socialising with students is the key. My golden rule is: anywhere but a bar! A kick-around on a Friday evening is a great personal pleasure: there is always a smattering of native speakers, so it is an environment which encourages the use of English. It doesnt always work, but it does ensure that there are some language barriers in place. Those with little knowledge of football may not appreciate that a five-a-side pitch is a melting pot of emotion a thriving babble of communication! Men with
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egos find it very difficult to remain quiet in this testosterone-fuelled environment so it is ideal for language practice! So, what activities can you do with your students? The best ones usually require the least imagination: Organise a game of football, tennis or rugby. Take your students to the cinema or theatre. Sample the delights at your local food emporium (a guaranteed stimulant of chat). Go to a lecture. Attend a cultural event. Go shopping. Dont fall into the trap of assuming that language and socialising dont mix. These experiences are invaluable for students, even those with only a limited grasp of English. I believe we accomplish two crucial breakthroughs with these activities: We provide our students with a genuine opportunity to use their English outside the classroom. The students gain a context within which they can explore and utilise their communication skills. Teachers need to step out of the comfort zone. Roleplay is the thespians biggest deception. It works on a certain level. However, we can do more for our students. Few, if any, of them would object to being invited for a cup of coffee, or to play five-a-side in the evening. Students welcome these opportunities.
they can now function in day-to-day tasks. Think about it: How many of us learnt to ride a bicycle indoors? Making the transition from teaching to contextualising is not difficult. Incorporate techniques that you use to develop other topics: Brainstorm vocabulary in the lexical area. Focus in particular on idiomatic language phrasal verbs, collocations, colloquialisms that the students may encounter. Employ roleplay as a means to an end, rather than as an end in itself. Step out and be creative! Let the students use what theyve practised in the real world.
classroom we shared. And that is important. It doesnt matter what anybody says. Teachers who care, who are willing to do that bit extra, have a far greater impact on their students.
Confidence
This type of immersion is like teaching a child to ride a bicycle. We teach them the basics. We never leave their sight in the beginning. We push them along. We offer them support when they need it. We anticipate their problems. The child demands of us: Dont let me go! We assure them we would never consider doing such a thing. We do it, though, eventually. Weve given the child what we can and its up to them to try to conjure up a formula that enables them to function alone. Its not magic. Its pretty easy, but they dont realise that. The student is no different. By contextualising, we instil confidence in them, and mould them a little, so that
Vocation
It is nave of a teacher to think of their role as being limited to a pre-approved timetable and venue. Teaching is still considered a vocation. The best teacher I had at school was my history professor. He also coached the rugby team on which I played. That didnt make him a better teacher, but it gave me the opportunity to witness him in a different context. I appreciated that he was passionate about his work and that he could instil some of that passion in me. In fact, I respected him more as well, because I saw him as somebody who cared, a person whose expertise and skills extended beyond the
Context only exists in the real world. Jos has finally unlocked our coded parlance! I was playing football last Friday when he screamed at me to watch my house. (Incidentally, watch your house means you are about to be tackled.) I did a double-take. I was astounded! A photograph of that moment would have been priceless just to witness the amazement etched into my brow! I did look up alright, but that was the limit of my reactions. My amazement turned to despair as I gifted possession to the opposition and well ... you can guess the rest! ETp
Andrew ODwyer taught for six years in Dublin, Ireland, but has recently relocated to Budapest, Hungary, where he works as a primary school English teacher for Janikovszky va ltalnos Iskola, and with International House and Dover Nyelviskola. He believes that the key to competent, confident and contextual communication can be found within the motto Theres the official way ... then theres the real way. andrewodwyer@gmail.com
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Phillip Burrows
L A N G U A G E

Mark Hancock recommends ways to increase students awareness of politeness conventions.
ay please! children are often told, after saying something like Give me a biscuit. If they ask why, they may receive the explanation Because its polite. We English teachers sometimes do the same. A student asks, Why do English speakers say Would you mind ? when theyre not really asking a question? and we say, Because its polite! I think we could do a lot more than this to increase our students awareness of how politeness works in English. The more they are aware of it, the more they are empowered to use it in a way that works best for them. In this article, well look at what politeness is, when it is used and why. Then well look at how to make these insights more apparent to students.
politeness includes the entire spectrum, from convoluted indirectness through to brief and direct. They call the former negative politeness and the latter positive politeness. Speakers choose which degree of politeness to use from along this spectrum, according to what relationship they are trying to achieve with the listener.
Friends and strangers

In politeness terms, the significance of a persons choice of words is determined by when they use them: the context. This includes who they are talking to and what they are talking about. Typically, if you approach a stranger with a request, you use negative politeness. For example, you might say, Could you close the door, please? The question form gives the listener a getout; it implies that you accept their right to refuse. However, if you are speaking to a very close friend, you can be much more direct, such as Shut that door its freezing in here! This is known as positive politeness; it implies that you are too intimate to require careful indirectness. Interestingly, a speakers degree of intimacy with a listener is not an objective fact. It is something they create through the politeness strategies they use. For example, if you use positive politeness with someone you do not know very well, you may be able to create an atmosphere of intimacy between you. Its a risky strategy, though, because your listener may interpret your directness as rude and pushy, and your relationship will be on the rocks.
The learner may be a competent user of politeness strategies in their L1 but fail to recognise and transfer the same strategies to the L2
Power and authority
Choice of politeness strategies also depends on whether the person you are speaking to is in a position of authority. Typically, people talking to a superior are careful and indirect. If, on the other hand, they are talking to a subordinate, they may be very direct indeed. An employee might say to a boss, Would it be possible for me to have this by tomorrow?, while the boss might say to the employee, I need this by tomorrow.
Positive and negative

We often think of politeness as being long-winded ways of saying simple things, like Would you mind keeping your voice down? instead of Shut up!. The long version is polite, the short version is rude, we say. This is not quite true, however. According to social anthropologists Brown and Levinson,
Strategies and conventions

From the point of view of language learning, there are two important factors here. First of all, the learner may be a competent user of politeness strategies in their L1 but fail to recognise and transfer the same strategies to the L2. Secondly, the politeness conventions in the two cultures may differ. For example, in Madrid it is commonplace for a customer to walk into a bar and say in
The more students are aware of politeness, the more they are empowered to use it in a way that works best for them
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Spanish, Give me a coffee. In Britain, a customer using such a direct imperative might give the impression that they think they are superior to the person behind the bar. The server would be entitled to think, or even say, Who do you think you are? In Spain, the direct imperative in this context may be positive politeness, implying something like Were all in this together as equals, so we can dispense with airs and graces. Its good to be aware of these potential differences!
Activity 1
Look at the photocopiable activity on page 51. In the cartoon, we see the beginning of a conversation in which a boy tries to convince a girl to go out with him. We can see the boys question and the girls response but, in addition, we can see what the girl is thinking. The difference between what she thinks and what she says is interesting because it reveals the politeness strategies she is using. For her openly to display her horror at the prospect of going out with Josh would be very offensive. Instead, she finds an excuse why she cant go out and then pretends to be interested in Joshs reason for asking. This reflects the general politeness rule that if you are giving the answer that your interlocutor wants to hear, you can be direct and sincere, but if youre giving the answer they dont want to hear, you may need to be tactful and indirect. In the table, we can see how the conversation in the cartoon continues, including the contrast between what Emma says and what she really thinks. You could ask the students to identify the politeness strategies in Emmas replies. They could also have some fun deciding what Emmas real thoughts were in the last two boxes of the central column. Some classes may enjoy dramatising the dialogue, with the person in the Emma role giving her thoughts as a whispered aside, before switching to a polite smile and giving her response.
In any interaction, a speaker must judge what kind and degree of politeness to use, and modify the wording of what they want to say accordingly
So how can we go about increasing students awareness of politeness? One very effective strategy in language teaching generally is to show what you are focusing on by showing what it is not. For example, you can focus on the vowel sound in bet by showing it is not the same as the vowel sounds in bit or bat. You can focus on the meaning of the tense choice in Shes arrived by contrasting it with She arrived. I believe you can use the same strategy to focus on politeness.
Activity 2
Look at the photocopiable activity on page 52. Text 1 is a polite email from a woman who has had an overseas student staying in her home. The woman, Margaret, is writing to the student, Sonia, with a couple of queries. The writer and addressee are people of more or less the same status, and they know each other a little, but they are certainly not close friends. For this reason, Margaret uses a tone which is politefriendly. Text 2 is a thought bubble containing the same content as the email, but showing what Margaret really thinks. In the classroom, you could use this material to raise awareness of some of the issues involved in politeness choices. First of all, ask your students to read the email and imagine the context. Who are the writer and addressee? What is their situation? How well do they know each other? Then ask them to read the thought bubble version of the message
Saying and thinking

In any interaction, a speaker must judge what kind and degree of politeness to use, and modify the wording of what they want to say accordingly. Consequently, there may be a difference between what the person says and what they really think. This contrast lies behind my suggestion of showing what politeness is by showing what it is not. Lets have a look at how this could work in two samples of classroom material, the first activity from a spoken interaction lesson and the second from a lesson focusing on writing.
and say how it is different from the email and why. Here are some insights they might come up with, or you might elicit or explain: Margaret is writing to accuse Sonia of something. In her thought bubble, she does this directly. In her email, she uses face-saving strategies that is, she makes her accusations very indirectly so that Sonia is not upset by the suggestion she has done something wrong. Margaret begins by showing an interest in Sonias experiences since they last met. She finds something pleasant to say about Sonia by thanking her for a bunch of flowers. When the accusation begins in the second paragraph, Margaret tries to make it seem trivial something small and unimportant. She also avoids directly accusing Sonia, by suggesting that she herself, or her dog, may be responsible for the problems. Finally, she ends on a positive note by expressing a desire to maintain their relationship. In the thought bubble, all of these strategies are conspicuous by their absence. Its important to note that the thought bubble version of the message is not wrong. It would probably be impolite in this particular context, but in may be polite in another. For example, close friends may address each other very directly in this way, and this directness is a positive politeness strategy. If you wrote an email like Margarets to a very close friend, it might seem cold and distant negative politeness can have that effect when used inappropriately. It is interesting to discuss with students when and with whom they would use these politeness strategies, as there are likely to be similarities and differences between cultures and even between individuals. As a follow-up to the discussion of politeness strategies, students could use the same strategies to make the contents of Sonias thought bubble (Text 3) into a polite email. ETp
Brown, P and Levinson, S Politeness CUP 1978
Mark Hancock is a teacher and writer based in Madrid. He started teaching in 1984 and holds an MSc in Teaching English from Aston University, UK. His most recent coursebook, written with Annie McDonald, is English Result (OUP).
markhancock@telefonica.net
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More than please and thank you Activity 1 Responding to invitations
Josh: Invitation moves

Hi, Emma. Are you doing anything on Saturday? Well, Im thinking of going to the ice rink. Would you like to come?
Emma: Real thoughts

Oh no. Hes going to invite me out! I cant think of anything worse than going to the ice rink with you! Yuk! Id rather starve than have lunch with you! (you decide)
Emma: Tactful refusals

Oh hi, Josh. Well, Im rather busy, actually. Why? Oh, that sounds great, but Im afraid Ive got to study for an exam on Monday. Thats very kind of you, Josh, but I really cant Im sorry, Ive got a very busy week with one thing and another OK, thatll be nice. Bye!
Oh come on! Ill buy you lunch as well. Well, OK, how about one day next week, after the exams over? We could go to the cinema. OK, never mind. We can do something the week after next instead. Ill give you a ring
(you decide)
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Phillip Burrows
More than please and thank you Activity 2 Polite emails

Text 1
Dear Sonia I hope you had a good journey home. Did you have a chance to look around London when you were passing through? Im sorry I was out when you left so I wasnt able to say goodbye properly. It was a nice surprise to come home and find that lovely bunch of flowers in a vase on the coffee table. Thank you for that. Im just writing to ask you about a small thing really. I was wondering if you used the computer at all before you left? Its not a problem if you did, but Ive had trouble getting onto the internet since you left. A box appears on the screen asking for a password. Do you know anything about that? Im sure it was my own fault I probably pressed the wrong button or something. Not to worry, I can ask my son; hes good with computers. Oh, and one other small thing while Im writing. I dont know if you remember the Sopranos DVD we watched the night before you left? I was wondering if you have put it somewhere because the disc isnt in its box. Perhaps the dogs taken it outside! Well, thats all for now. It was really great having you to stay and I hope youll come again some time or, who knows, maybe well come to visit you! All the best Margaret
Text 2
Hey, Sonia, what the hell have you been doing to my computer? I cant get my internet connection to work properly. What is this password youve put on it? And another thing you havent walked away with my Sopranos DVD, have you? I cant find it anywhere, and I know you rather liked it Marge
Text 3
Hi, Marge. I havent touched your computer! I bet its something your son did to it. He was always playing around with it. That boy should get out more! As for the DVD, I bet itll be in the DVD player if you look there. Sonia
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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
Bahar Gn suggests that winning teachers approval is fundamental to a successful development programme.
From TDU to CPD

structured developmental activities for the teaching staff. The activities conducted in the last five years include classroom observations, workshops (trainer-led as well as teacher-led or led jointly by trainers/teachers), swapshops, short courses and in-service certificate programmes. The types of the activities offered were determined by the trainers of the unit as well as the school administrators, and the teachers opinions were asked (workshop topics, for example) through questionnaires. When being observed by a more senior colleague, teachers argued that the classroom situation was unnatural. Teachers thought that the workshops were too frequent, unsuitably scheduled, insufficiently practical and tended to be repetitive. They wanted the workshops to be optional, but expressed interest in being involved in workshop presentations. They indicated that the swapshop meetings, group discussions of the following weeks teaching material, were too frequent and not very effective.
y 20 years experience as a teacher educator, most of which has been INSET (in-service education of teachers), has taught me one thing: you can never win with teachers! I am aware this is a strong comment to make, but maybe after reading the following true story of a Teacher Development Unit (TDU) in a university setting in Turkey, you can see why I make it, and maybe, if you are a teacher educator yourself, you will even agree with me, simply because you have had similar experiences in your own work context.
Background
All teacher development programmes in English language teaching settings are aimed at achieving the same goal: to contribute to the teachers professional development. Institutions try different routes to achieve this common aim. Some try informal methods, such as allowing the teachers to discuss their common concerns and brainstorm possible solutions to commonly-shared teaching problems. Others do it more formally, with a structured teacher development programme in place. As Richard Watts has pointed out, such programmes are often geared towards the interests of the course organisers and/or the authorities rather than those of the teachers themselves. According to Richard Rossner, in most teachers opinions, teacher development has to be bottom-up, not dished out by managers according to their own view of what development teachers need . The TDU in our institution was established to provide in-service support and development to enable English teachers to achieve their full potential, operating on the premise that teachers who continue to learn are more effective. Since the school was established six years ago, the TDU has been organising
Teacher development programmes are often geared towards the interests of the course organisers rather than those of the teachers themselves
Teachers attendance at workshops was mandatory. This was the situation when a decision was made to carry out a feedback study on the effectiveness of the TDU activities three years ago. What follows is the story of that study and what happened in the next two years.
Re-thinking the programme

Taking all the feedback obtained into consideration, the TDU Activity Programme was redesigned for the following year. Observations for developmental purposes did continue; workshops became optional and were fewer in number. The workshop programme was advertised, and those who were interested signed up for the workshops they wanted to attend. Teacher involvement in the preparation and presentation stages of workshops continued, and swapshop meetings were abandoned for that academic year. Towards the end of the year, another feedback questionnaire on the TDU activities conducted that year was given out, but yet again, the teachers indicated that they didnt think the TDU programme had been very useful. Their reasons this time were: Observations themselves, as well as the post-observation feedback sessions, could cause stress on the part of the teachers when trainers were critical and feedback was non-constructive. Teachers thought workshops should be more practice-based rather than theoretical; also the pace of the
Feeding back
Feedback obtained from the teachers through questionnaires, structured interviews and focus groups showed that, despite some overall positive comments, they were not entirely happy with the development activities for the following reasons: Although many teachers found classroom observations useful, some believed that observation was only suitable for less experienced teachers.
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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
From TDU to CPD

programme did not allow them to implement the practical ideas that were provided in some of the workshop presentations. Some teachers stated that the number of workshops had dropped dramatically that year, and that they would prefer more frequently conducted workshops, like the weekly ones in the previous year. As for the teacher involvement in workshop preparation and presentation, a few noted that it was sometimes difficult to refuse when asked by a trainer to prepare and present a joint workshop, and that they had to do it unwillingly.
period of three years, moving from taking a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach, suggesting that effective professional development is teacher-oriented and that (as Naashia Mohamed expresses it) involving teachers in the planning and the delivery of the programme is fundamental to its success. Unfortunately, however, the feedback obtained in the second year showed flaws in this kind of bottom-up approach as well and, as a result, in the third year both top-down and bottomup approaches were adopted.
Another re-think
After going through a state of confusion as a result of the conflicting feedback, the TDU members and the management decided to adopt an approach combining the principles of both topdown and bottom-up processes in designing the in-service programme. (Perhaps we were hoping we could catch the teachers somewhere in the middle!) The following year, as well as regular mandatory observations, extra observations took place on the basis of requests from teachers. In planning the workshop programme, trainers prepared two tracks: one group of practical, optional workshops, where teachers signed up, and another group of compulsory ones for all teachers, determined according to the trainer observation results and the perceived needs of the teachers. Teacher involvement in workshops continued almost in the same manner; except it was the willing teachers this time who approached the trainers and indicated an interest in getting involved in workshops.
The aim in any teacher education programme should be to engender favourable attitudes to growth and change among teachers
In the light of this experience, it might be claimed that a successful teacher education programme should be both top-down and bottom-up, and that taking teachers views into account can have a positive impact on both the teachers professional development and the institution, and is, therefore, important. The aim in any teacher education programme, maybe combining the principles of the two opposing approaches, should be to engender favourable attitudes to growth and change among teachers. However, an even more important implication for all teacher education programmes, as with the one in our institution, would be to propose adopting a new Continuous Professional Development programme (CPD) based on individual teachers needs. Past experience in our TDU showed that we should abandon the one-size-fits-all kind of programme, composed of snapshot observations, presenting one for all workshops, circulating conference/ seminar announcements, sending teachers to odd conferences, etc simply because they do not fit! As Keith Harding points out, each teacher is at a different stage of professional development; therefore
their needs differ. This suggests that teacher educators, by tuning into the teachers needs, should be aware of individual expectations and approach each teacher with a different menu for professional development. The trainers main responsibility should be to help the teachers to increase their awareness of weaknesses and strengths, ie to become effective, reflective practitioners, and they should be able to identify individual CPD needs and provide relevant activities to meet them. This would avoid the mistakes of the past one big menu for the entire staff and having a teacher development unit in an institution would be worthwhile not only for the teachers but also for trainers and administrators; eventually leading to development of the whole school.
I am happy that in our institution we are now getting closer to establishing a new CPD programme, after the period of painful confusion over what it is teachers really want for their development. I find myself looking forward to feedback from teachers on the CPD system in the next two or three years. Maybe one day we will win their approval. Hopefully, then, we will all be winners! ETp
Harding, K CPD Modern English Teacher 18(3) 2009 Mohamed, N Meaningful professional development English Teaching Professional 42 2006 Rossner, R When there is a will facilitating teacher development IATEFL Teacher Development SIG Newsletter 18 1992 Watts, R J Planning in-service training courses: institutional constraints and non-native EFL teachers perceptions International Journal of Applied Linguistics 4(1) 1994
Bahar Gn currently works at Izmir University of Economics, Turkey, as the Assistant Director of the School of Foreign Languages, where she is primarily in charge of teacher education programmes.
Feeding forward
This three-year reflection on a teacher development unit in a university setting brought out some points which any institution with a TDU of a similar nature might find it interesting to consider. It was interesting to note the change that the TDU had to undergo over the
bahar.gun@ieu.edu.tr
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Teacher plus
+ + +
Looking for new experiences within the profession? Interested in different ways of developing beyond the classroom? Hoping for tips on how to extend and enrich your professional life?
Teacher Plus is a series which focuses on specific areas in which you can step outside the strictly teaching sphere.
Getting into ELT management

Sue Leather discusses becoming an ELT manager with Andy Hockley.
n Issue 69 of ETp, I wrote about writing materials for publication, which, I argued, often grows naturally out of teaching. This time, I turn to management, another area which, for many of you as teachers, seems like a natural career progression. After all, when you look at what you do as a teacher, it is evident that your work incorporates some key management skills. As well as spending a lot of time managing people your students your work includes the need for effective communication, time management, organisation of human and physical space and resources, and record-keeping. In short, managing the diverse and ever-changing nature of the classroom is essential in facilitating students learning, and it is vital that all teachers develop management strategies in the classroom. So teachers are managers, then, arent they? Well, maybe. Needless to say, though, becoming a Course Director, Director of Studies or Principal of a school will require the further development of some of the skills you already have, and the addition of some new ones. So how can you decide if management is really for you? What kind of training can you get? How can you go about getting into management? To help me answer these questions, I discussed with my associate Andy Hockley, an ELT management consultant and trainer, some of the issues around getting into management.
involved in management. The first one is that developing yourself and learning new skills is always a good thing to do whatever direction that professional development takes you in. In addition, most teachers have, I hope, experienced good management and leadership as well as, I fear, bad management. Going into management can allow you to take some of those lessons learnt from being a beneficiary or victim of management, and apply them yourself. Its also a path to take that has an obvious structure in place in many language schools you can cut your teeth on coordinating a level, move on to being a senior teacher and then perhaps to an ADOS position. This gives you a clear path to follow, but also means you can decide at various stages whether management is for you.
What do you give up by going into management?

Andy: Well, obviously one thing you give up is the classroom experience, which can be difficult to cope with. Many recently-appointed managers struggle between wanting to do as much teaching as possible and realising that they just dont have the time. Another thing that new managers often tell me is how difficult they found the transition was from colleague/peer to boss. However much people assume their relationships with their colleagues will not change, in subtle or perhaps not so subtle ways they will. This will be the case regardless of whether you enter a management position in the school at which you were previously a teacher or if you take up a post elsewhere. Sue: Yes, I agree that coping with your different role can be hard. I suppose thats one aspect that training could help with. You mentioned one path into management being to take on different responsibilities at school level. But what about training and formal qualifications for ELT management?
Managing the diverse and ever-changing nature of the classroom is essential in facilitating students learning
Sue: Yes, I agree with that. In addition, I think that going into management is one means of having an effect on teaching at a different level from just being in the classroom. In that way, its a bit like going into teacher training. Its about changing perspective. I think that can be very enriching, and certainly you can gain a lot. I think most people are aware that going from teacher to manager has some downsides, too. One of the things I noticed when I first became a manager, for example, was that I missed the classroom, missed that daily contact with my own students. You probably did, too.
What kind of management courses are available?

Andy: Obviously there are lots of general management courses around, up to and including an MBA (Masters in Business Administration), but there are also a few courses specifically for the language teaching field. Perhaps the most wellknown, and certainly most internationally portable, is the International Diploma in Language Teaching Management (IDLTM), which is a qualification jointly certified by Cambridge ESOL, the University of
Why go into ELT management?

Andy: I think for many people, as you say, it does seem like a natural career progression, but beyond this Id say there are some very good reasons for getting
55
Teacher plus
Getting into ELT management

Queensland, Australia, and SIT (School for International Training) in the USA. Then there is the DELTM (Diploma in English Language Teaching Management), run by English UK. International House London also runs a modular online course in ELT Management. Sue: I think the ELT management field has definitely developed in the last few years, and there is certainly more specific training available. I think its also worth mentioning the support organisations such as the ELT Leadership and Management Special Interest Group of IATEFL (see below), which has a newsletter and an online discussion group and organises workshops. I think such groups can be a very useful source of information about current issues and training possibilities. So, after the training, what about the jobs? You mentioned earlier the different levels of management. What are your thoughts on the range of management jobs within the profession?
Council, though probably one would be unlikely to get a job as a teaching centre manager with the BC without prior experience. However, in my experience, the vast majority of people get involved in ELT management and take their first management position within the school that theyve worked for as a teacher whether that be at a private language school, a university language department or a state school. One quite common way to get your first management position is in a summer school. Many summer schools in the UK, say, tend to be looking for a DOS or an academic director, and they will often draw those managers from a pool of experienced teachers rather than qualified or experienced managers. Another possibility is to ask your current boss if you can shadow them for a while, perhaps volunteering to take on some extra responsibilities; see if they will act as a mentor to you. Sue: I got my first management job in the school I worked for as a teacher. I had my training on the job, and only later got some formal training. There was actually a lack of formal training for managers in ELT at that time, which is what made me start a local organisation, and then a national one, to address the need for support and training. As you say, though, thats quite a common route into management. I agree with you too that managing a summer school is a way that teachers frequently get their first management experience. Its also a very good one, because you can put your toe in the water and see if you really like it.
ELT management is a challenging and exciting career path, and one that provides great scope for professional development. Whichever route you take into it, we hope this article has given you some starting points. ETp
ELT Leadership and Management Special Interest Group of IATEFL http://eltm.iatefl.org/ ELT Leadership and Management Special Interest Group Discussion Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ managersELT/
Sue Leather is an educational consultant, trainer trainer and writer. She has delivered talks, workshops and courses in over 25 countries for the British Council and other organisations. She was the founder of the ELT Management Special Interest Group of IATEFL and of the Directors of Studies Association movement in the UK. sue@sueleatherassociates.com Andy Hockley is a teacher trainer and educational management consultant and trainer, based in Romania. He was involved in the creation and development of Cambridge ESOLs International Diploma in Language Teaching Management, and regularly trains on the course as well as other ELT management courses and workshops round the world. andy@sueleatherassociates.com
How do I get a job in ELT management?

Most obviously, there are Directors of Studies jobs in various schools round the world within networks like International House and Bell, for example. These jobs can be applied for online through a central site. Also, of course, the British

TALKBACK!
Writing for ETp


56
T E C H N O L O G Y
E-learning
Blanka Klmov finds that online tuition places new demands on online tutors.
-learning courses (using multimedia technology to deliver tuition) have become an indispensable part of acquiring new knowledge, particularly at tertiary level. Almost all the universities in the Czech Republic now offer them, both for their own students, and also for the general public such courses are attractive to universities as they can be an additional source of income.
and the teachers can concentrate more on listening and speaking activities in class. In our Academic Writing course, the students meet a teacher once every two weeks to discuss and clarify any mistakes they have made in their essays.
Tutoring
The e-learning courses, however attractive and cheaper they might seem, require a new approach to teaching. Consequently, the traditional role of the teacher is changing, with the result that the understanding of the word teacher itself has altered. In the e-learning courses different names are employed, for example coach, leader, moderator, facilitator, mediator or tutor. In this article we will use the word tutor. Catherine Gerrard emphasises several features which differentiate online tuition from traditional tuition. Online tuition: places greater emphasis on written skills; produces a more formal tone; does not follow a linear conversation, but instead promotes multiple conversations; does not confine teaching to specific times; places greater emphasis on studentstudent learning; requires tutors to develop new ways of encouraging participation; requires tutors to assess the worth of online contributions.
learner motivation Motivating factors can include job satisfaction, enhanced job performance, financial rewards, possible promotion, and success in tests and examinations. time It is necessary to create a level of interest in self-study that can compete with the other activities in the learners lives. learner support A close link between self-study and classroombased tasks, regular contact with a tutor, contact with fellow students and access to a language support website are all important. affordability The comparatively low cost of self-study is attractive to employers. study materials Materials must be highly accessible and easy to use.
E-learning
The Faculty of Informatics and Management at the University of Hradec Krlov has been intensely involved in the application of e-learning since 1999, as the teachers see this as a way of improving the quality of their teaching. We also find it contributes enormously towards increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the educational process, and it enhances learner autonomy. Our e-courses are created in a virtual learning environment called WebCT. At present, more than 150 e-courses are offered, with more than 45 of these being English language courses. Some of them, such as Written Business English, can be taught completely online.
Tutorials
Usually, there are only three face-toface tutorials: an introductory tutorial, where the students meet their tutor who will guide and support them through the whole course, a mid-course tutorial, where the students usually discuss with their tutor any problems they have come across when doing their assignments, and the final tutorial, where the students work is evaluated orally by the tutor. This is particularly suitable for distance students and those doing their main courses at other universities. Some students attend regular classes and use the e-courses for revision, going over the information taught in class again and doing additional practice exercises. Finally, there are blended courses which combine online and face-to-face teaching. Conventional face-to-face teaching is sometimes necessary for the development of speaking communication skills. Students can, for example, do reading and writing tasks on their own,
Tutor tasks
E-learning tutors have to perform a wide variety of tasks: Organising, delivering and evaluating tutorials; Providing students with explicit and clear instructions and a study guide; Helping students to overcome obstacles so that they achieve their learning objectives; Correcting, evaluating and delivering feedback on the students individual assignments and returning them, ideally within three days; Resolving potential study conflicts; Supporting and encouraging the students in their studies by e-mail and discussion; Reacting to enquiries and giving advice; Sometimes creating the content of the e-learning course, which makes them responsible for its quality.
Self-study
Each part of an online course starts with self-study information input and concludes with tasks, quizzes or assignments. Self-study is very important for our students. As Ian Badger has pointed out, the time available for learners to spend on improving their language skills will always be limited. For many learners, there will never be enough time or money available to attend regular language classes, but all learners can find the time and money for self-study. There are several key factors which influence successful self-study:
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E-learning
Tutor skills
Steve Wheeler has listed seven skills that e-learning tutors should possess: They should be able to support and encourage learners; They should not be afraid to take risks with new technologies; They should be able to transfer good teaching skills into online contexts; They should be good communicators in any medium; They should be non-conformists; They should thrive in a culture of change; They should have the ability to see the big picture.
assessing performance; providing feedback. The particular structure of each of our lessons is: Title; Goal a short statement motivating the participants to study the particular lesson; Prerequisites previous knowledge required to master the lesson; Skills to be learnt a description of the knowledge to be gained in the particular lesson; Body the content in the form of texts, exercises and questions; Tasks, quizzes or assignments ways in which understanding can be assessed in order to provide feedback.
seems to be that the students who opt for e-learning language courses tend to be those with lower levels in the target language. This makes it impossible for some students to finish the online course.
Problems
At the introductory tutorial, students are acquainted with the e-subject, its content and requirements. Furthermore, they are shown how to use the WebCT virtual learning environment. Unfortunately, it is often the case, in our experience, that not all the students participate in the introductory tutorial. This can cause
Tutor roles
Zane Berge has identified four main e-tutor roles: Pedagogical or intellectual roles. These are the most important in the e-learning process. The e-tutor uses questions and probes for student responses that focus discussions on critical concepts, principles and skills. Social roles. These involve the creation of friendly and comfortable social environments in which students feel that learning is possible. Managerial or organisational roles. These involve setting learning objectives; establishing agendas for the learning activities; timetabling learning activities and tasks; clarifying procedural rules and decision-making norms. Technical roles. These are possibly the most daunting for academics. They involve becoming familiar, comfortable and competent with the ICT systems and software that compose the e-learning environment.
Instructions for working in the e-learning environment should be written clearly and concisely, and all the students should be made aware that they need to read them thoroughly
slight problems later on, not only for the tutor but also for the students themselves. The principal issue seems not to be problems with the operation of the virtual environment, but students being unsure of where to find all the necessary information and which tools of the virtual environment to use. Those students who were not present (and sometimes even those who were) at the introductory tutorial often dont read the syllabus, information about the goals of the subject or announcements about the mid-course tutorial. As a result, they miss the deadlines of some assignments. This means that they dont receive any marks for these assignments. Another problem
Online teaching/learning is part of a contemporary trend towards personalisation and individualisation of learning which has been made possible by advancements in information technology. However, it imposes great demands on its creators and the tutors who deliver it. They must necessarily comply with new requirements if they want their e-learning tutoring to be a success. E-learning can be challenging for students as well as tutors. To avoid problems like those outlined above, instructions for working in the e-learning environment should be written clearly and concisely, and all the students (both present and absent) should be made aware that they need to read them thoroughly before they start work on the online course. Moreover, students should be told not to be afraid of contacting their tutor if they are not sure how to handle particular tasks or assignments. If this is done, e-learning can be a successful experience for both tutors and students. ETp
Badger, I Self-study and the business learner Talk given at the 37th Annual IATEFL Conference, Brighton 2003 Berge, Z L The role of the moderator in a Scholarly Discussion Group (SDG) www.emoderators.com/moderators/ zlbmod.html Accessed 27/8/2009 Gerrard, C Promoting best practice for e-tutoring through staff development In Proceedings of Networked Learning: Third International Conference, Lancaster University and University of Sheffield 26th28th March 2002 Wheeler, S Learning with es http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/ 2009/05/7-skills-for-successful-etutor.html Accessed 27/8/2009
Blanka Klmov teaches at the Faculty of Informatics and Management of the University of Hradec Krlov, Czech Republic. Her main field of interest is teaching business English. In addition, she runs courses in the culture and history of Britain and the USA, and academic writing. blanka.klimova@uhk.cz
Pedagogy
There is no particular pedagogical approach recommended for e-courses. However, certain principles are worth following. The whole course should be divided into separate lessons, with the structure of each lesson following these basic learning steps: informing of objectives; presenting content;
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T E C H N O L O G Y
In this series, Nicky Hockly
Five things you always wanted to know about
explains aspects of technology which some people may be embarrassed to confess that they dont really understand. In this article, she explains microblogging.
microblogging
(but were afraid to ask)
Blogging yes, but micro? Does this refer to very small blogs?
In a way, yes. Microblogging consists of very short messages (or updates) you send out via the internet, of no more than 140 characters (not words!). For this reason it is also known as blogging for lazy people. The content of your microblogging messages is necessarily short (some would say superficial). Probably the bestknown microblogging tool at the moment is Twitter (www.twitter.com).
Britney decide to follow you (which is, lets face it, unlikely) they wont be reading your tweets! Twitter has spawned (sorry, hatched) a whole range of related vocabulary, which you can bandy around if you want to sound like you need to get out more: tweeple (people in your Twitter network), dweet (a tweet sent while under the influence of alcohol), mistweet (a tweet you later regret), twitterati (cool A-list tweeters who have thousands of followers) You can read more about Twitter in Issue 60 of ETp.
used by the class out of the classroom to chat, share links and resources, send in assignments or do quizzes.
What about microblogging and professional development?
Ah, Twitter! Ive heard of that. What does that do?
Its a bit like SMS or text messaging. You send out a short message via your Twitter account, and all of your contacts (or followers in Twitter parlance) will be able to read it if they are logged in as well. Here are some examples of messages (known as tweets) I have sent in the past week: @harrisonmike BBC has good podcasting sites for Eng lang learners incl lower levels http://bit.ly/IZaLQ Working on final proofs of new book w @lclandfield Teaching Online (due out soon). How many more Ts can I cross before going mad? Social learning? Yes, it exists http://bit.ly/dCiy1d ~ @foxden#Elearning Four ways with webinars http://bit.ly/cl10JN #elearning #edtech Back from 3 days on beach heaven! Andorra tmrw but slow vodaphone dongle means bad connections & no Twitter :-( Tweets are typically a mix of the personal and professional. Twitter requires you to have followers, and you also need to follow people yourself. If you follow someone on Twitter, you will be able to read their tweets, but they will only be able to read your tweets if they follow you. So you could decide to follow someone famous like Barack Obama or Britney Spears, and you will be able to read their tweets. But unless Barack or
Is Twitter the only microblogging tool?
Twitter is certainly the most popular (and therefore best-known) of the microblogging tools, but there are other odd-sounding ones, including Tumblr, Plurk and Jaiku. They all work on the same principle you send out a short update of a maximum of 140 characters, and the people in your microblogging network can read it.
If we have Edmodo for students and the classroom, we have Twitter for teachers outside of the classroom. As a far more public forum, Twitter is particularly suited to creating professional networks. There is a large and active English language teaching community in Twitter already, and all you need to do is to join them to be able to tap into a wide network of expertise, sharing and support. Once you are connected to a critical mass of other teachers from around the world in Twitter, you start to see the benefits. Here is how to do it: Create your own Twitter account at www.twitter.com. Find at least 50 people (teachers) to follow. Do this by following one person already in Twitter, then look at who they are following, and follow the same people! You can use my network follow me at @theconsultantse. It will take you a few weeks to get into the swing of Twitter. Try to allocate, say, 15 minutes twice a day in which to read tweets from your network and to contribute your own ideas, comments and links. For me it has become my most important and up-to-date source of ongoing professional development.
Nicky Hockly has been involved in EFL teaching and teacher training since 1987. She is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E, an online training and development consultancy. She is co-author of Learning English as a Foreign Language for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons) and Teaching Online (Delta Publishing). She maintains a blog at www.emoderationskills.com and you can follow her on Twitter at @theconsultantse. Contact Nicky at nicky.hockly@theconsultants-e.com and let her know of any other ICT areas youd like her to explore in this series.
How does microblogging relate to the classroom teacher? Can I use it with students?
There is one microblogging tool which is particularly useful for educators. Edmodo (www.edmodo.com) is, in fact, known as Twitter for teachers. One of the big advantages of Edmodo is that you can very easily set up a closed group for your students, and all they need to join the group is an access key (password). There is none of the hassle involved with following and being followed by others. Edmodo allows you to share files, assignments and videos easily, and to create polls for your students. If your students have laptops or internet-enabled smartphones in the classroom, you can send them handouts, links, embedded videos, and so on, via Edmodo at the precise moment these are needed in class. No more writing long web addresses on the board, or handing out worksheets all this can be done online in your now-wired classroom. A tool like Edmodo can also be
60
Webwatcher Web
T
he flood of useful technologies and tools on the internet never ceases to amaze me. It really is hard to keep up with so many great pieces of software. In this issue I want to focus on some quick, useful tools that can help either you or your students. They are all very simple to use and you can demonstrate them to your students very easily.
Russell Stannard celebrates

sites which seem simple but do so much.
Find words that rhyme: www.rhymes.net

When you are preparing lessons about pronunciation and you quickly need to find some words that rhyme, this useful tool will come to your rescue. You just key in a particular word and it provides you with a collection of words that rhyme with it. These are divided into groups according to how many syllables they have. The site has some other interesting sections, too, and it is really worth exploring.
abbreviation of Association in the term Association Football with er added to the end. I also looked up London, Fosbury flop and hallmark. I received very clear and easy-to-read explanations of the origins of these words. Just key in the word you are interested in and click on the OK button. I love learning about the origins of words and it can make teaching vocabulary so much more interesting. I can see potential for students to use this tool, too.
Find the most popular words in English: http://quizicon.com/100-Most-CommonEnglish-Words-Quiz.html

What a fun tool this is! It gives you five minutes to think of the most common 100 words in English. You simply press the start button and begin writing in the words you think will be on the list. If they actually are in the top 100, they will appear immediately on the screen. This is great fun to do with students. It is very easy at the beginning (everyone can predict that words like a, the, and, that and but will be on the list) but it gets harder and harder, and you are limited to just five minutes. I have used it several times in class and it has gone down really well with my students.
Find a verb conjugation: http://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugationenglish.html

This can be very helpful for students who need to find certain verb forms or conjugations. Simply key in the word, click on Search and it produces a large table with all the different conjugations. The site does a lot more and can also be used for French, German and Spanish.
Use a talking dictionary: www.languageguide.org/english/

This is a superb visual dictionary. Just click on the category you want and a page will open up with lots of pictures related to that topic. Roll your cursor over the pictures and you will hear the words pronounced and see them spelled out on the screen. The words are very clearly pronounced and the level of detail is excellent. Encourage the students to print the sheets out and learn the words. They can listen and repeat them, too, to get extra pronunciation practice. There are also other languages on this site. My students really like this and find it very useful. You can find free help videos, which I have created, that will show you step-by-step how to use these tools, plus a few more, at: www.teachertrainingvideos.com/10simple/index.html
Russell Stannard is a principal lecturer in ICT at the University of Westminster, UK. He won the Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding Initiatives in Information and Communications Technology for his website www.teachertrainingvideos.com. He was also one of the winners of the 2010 British Council ELTons awards.
Print out some flashcards: www.eslflashcards.com/

This site is amazing. It offers numerous sets of illustrated vocabulary flashcards and they are all free. You can see the list of sets in the middle of the screen. Hover your cursor over the name of each set to see what words are covered in it. Click on the name to see the cards. You can choose from three different ways to download them: either one card, two cards or nine small cards per page. The quality of the pictures is extremely good and there are plenty of cards to choose from. Provided you have a printer, this is a superb tool.
Look words up quickly in a dictionary: www.easydefine.com/

The more I use this tool, the more I like it. Imagine you are a fairly high-level student and you are reading a text. Lets say there are ten words in the text you dont understand. Just key the words into Easy define and it will search for all ten words at the same time and give you a dictionary definition for each one. This can save you a lot of time as you can do multiple searches and then print out the resulting definitions. It is not perfect and the definitions tend to be quite high-level, but it is a very useful tool.
Keep sending your favourite sites to Russell: russellstannard@btinternet.com

The ETp website is packed with practical tips, advice, resources, information and selected articles. You can submit tips or articles, renew your subscription or simply browse the features. www.etprofessional.com
Find the origins of words: www.etymonline.com/index.php

This is a great site if you want to know where a word comes from. I keyed in soccer and it informed me that it is an
61
In this column
Rose Senior explains why certain teaching techniques and
class management strategies are effective, and identifies specific issues that can assist all language teachers in improving the quality of their teaching.
Competitive games
ompetition is something we learn recently-studied words for one of their effort out of their students, worrying that about early on in our lives: teammates, who is seated in front of them valuable teaching time will be lost if they toddlers competing for the same with their back to the board (on which the allow anyone to relax for a single moment. toy, youngsters seeing who can teacher has written the word to be defined). Keeping classes under constant pressure is run fastest, and so on. Children quickly Word-swat is another favourite often counterproductive since students learn of the excitement of games, such as because of the physical activity involved. tend to switch off, with the result that little desperately rushing to grab a seat in Two students holding plastic fly swats further learning takes place. Competitive musical chairs or shouting to teammates stand on either side of the board, which is team games provided they are to pass the soccer ball. Children also learn filled with linguistic items from the lesson. conducted in a spirit of friendliness and fun how exhilarating it is to win a competition The teacher then defines one of the items, can function as much-needed pressureparticularly if the reward the student being the first to swat the release valves, particularly at One technique for comes in the form of a prize correct one winning a point for their team. the end of lessons when and how devastating it is It is always tempting for students to students have worked hard. enlivening collaborative to be the loser. They also become too serious about winning, so Classes can easily be tasks is to include a learn how humiliating it is to although we should praise the winning divided into teams: those let teammates down or to competitive element sitting on the left of the room team, we should also say something such come in last in a race. In as Well done, everybody! That was a versus those on the right, for view of the strong motivational power of close/well-fought/exciting contest. We example. Allowing each team to choose a competition, shouldnt we encourage must remain constantly alert to the fact distinctive name for itself puts students in competition in our language classes? that students can blame weaker the mood, as does the behaviour of the Most students are familiar with pairteammates for their failure to win and teacher, who can exclaim, And now, and groupwork, but they do not always that individuals can use class competitions everyone, for the greatest word game of all collaborate with their peers as designed to provide light relief as an time! If possible, use props: a vertical enthusiastically as they might. One opportunity to settle scores with rivals. We spinning wheel (like a roulette wheel) technique for enlivening collaborative tasks should therefore ensure that the containing the letters of the alphabet; fly is to include a competitive element. composition of teams changes on a regular swats; bells and buzzers for panel Brainstorming activities become instantly basis, and that at all times members to press; funny hats for Keeping classes an overall spirit of more dynamic when conducted in a competitors; matchsticks or competitive spirit. The teacher can say, for friendliness and generosity counters for the scorers, and so on. under constant example, Right, everyone, you have two prevails within the room, But of course competitive games pressure is often with class members minutes to come up with as many English can be conducted successfully words for jobs that you can think of, without any props at all. counterproductive following our example by starting ... now! When the time is up, each applauding the winners. If In the Letter of the alphabet group says how many words they have we give a reward, it should be something game, the teacher calls out, The name of thought of, the group having thought of the such as a packet of sweets that can be an animal (or sport, or item of clothing, or shared as widely as possible. most words being the winner. A more inpiece of furniture or any other category) In sum, competition, with its innate depth version of this competition (which beginning with . . . (spinning the wheel) ... power to enliven and motivate, can be used encourages creative thinking) is to have the the letter S! The first person to call out a to advantage by any language teacher who groups read out their lists of jobs, but only word beginning with that letter scores a wishes to boost the collective energy levels scoring points for jobs that no one else has point for their team. Alternatively, points of their classes. Like any technique, thought of. Variations on this theme include can be scored by simple word recall or however, it must be appropriate for the having groups of students think of as many mental activity: a word that means the class and must not be over-used. ETp words or concepts as possible associated opposite of heavy, a word that can be with common words, such as mouse, foot formed by the letters EZIRP, a word or tree (with or without the aid of beginning with the prefix dis-, etc. dictionaries). Teams can support their elected panel who The overall atmosphere in language sit at the front with bells and buzzers, classes can sometimes become ready to work out the answers to linguistic Rose Senior is a language teacher educator who runs workshops and presents at oppressive, particularly at the end of the puzzles posed by the teacher. conferences around the world. day when everybody is tired. Teachers A popular vocabulary revision game rsenior@iinet.net.au. often try to squeeze every last ounce of requires each team to provide definitions of
63
Prize crossword 43
ETp presents the forty-third in our series of prize crosswords. Send your entry (completed crossword grid and quotation), not forgetting to include your full name, postal address and telephone number, to Prize crossword 43, ENGLISH TEACHING professional, Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Ltd, PO Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 8HD, UK.
14 9 16 9 22 7 11 25 9 22 7 11 5 9 6 11 25 17 26 9 21 9 5 5 17 8 3 11 8 13 17 10 11 11 8 7 21 16 3 10 23 6 9 6 14 9 25 17 8 9 11 13 3 14 9 8 5 10 11 20 11 20 2 6 10 17 8 5 5 10 10 5 7 5 16 26 10 22 5 10 14 14 19 25 10 18 18 17 1 7 8 17 14 10 17 10 8 1 20 11 19 9 15 13 9 8 3 17 8 18 9 1 5 11 17 5 11 9 25 8 13 11 20 17 3 14 9 5 11 9 10 16 12
Ten correct entries will be drawn from a hat on 10 November 2010 and the senders will each receive a copy of the second edition of the Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, applauded for its unique red star system showing the frequency of the 7,500 most common words in English (www.macmillandictionary.com).
14 1 18 17 10 10 17 5 20 1 7 10 18 25 13 17 17 5 5 12 7 11 9 10 13 9 1 10 5 19 13 19 10 25 10 26
N
10 24 11 25
H
9 4 17 22 5 17 10 8 10 14 20
G K Chesterton
1 14
2 15
3 16
4 17
5 18
6 19
9 22
10 23
11 24
12 25
13 26
H
20
N
21
L
To solve the puzzle, find which letter each number represents. You can keep a record in the boxes above. The definitions of the words in the puzzle are given, but not in the right order. When you have finished, you will be able to read the quotation.
VERY FREQUENT WORDS *** Preposition of place, used with home *** To push air through something (such as a whistle) with your mouth *** Someone whose job is to treat people who are ill or injured *** Used for stating the purpose of an object or an action *** To put something in someones hand *** Something that you hope to achieve *** To allow someone to have or do what they want (formal) *** A word used for referring to a man or boy who has already been mentioned *** Preposition of place, used with bed *** The object form of I *** A book about imaginary events *** Touching a surface or an object *** Used for saying what is the right thing to do (usually followed by to) *** An official, elected group of people in some countries who meet to make laws *** To show something by holding out your finger *** To take something that belongs to someone else without permission *** A long sticky band for joining things *** Used to form the infinitive of a verb *** The day after today *** A hard white object inside your mouth *** The failure to use something valuable in an effective and beneficial way *** To finish first in a competition (3rd person singular) *** To want something to happen FREQUENT WORDS ** A personal quality that attracts people to you and makes them like you
** Books and stories about imaginary events and people ** When skin or bone grows back together and becomes healthy again ** A cover for a container ** A gas that all animals breathe ** To fail to include something, either deliberately or because you forget ** A colour between red and yellow ** Rest and enjoyment ** To make a legal claim against someone FAIRLY FREQUENT WORDS * A continuous, but not very strong pain * To hit something hard, making a loud noise * A container for putting rubbish in * An amount of light from the sun * A sailing boat LESS FREQUENT WORDS Edition (abbreviation) To leave your country in order to live in another country A strong clear alcoholic drink made from grain and juniper berries A journey to Mecca that Muslims make as a religious duty The ability to solve problems in new and clever ways Original Equipment Manufacturer (abbreviation) A piano that plays music by itself Post office (abbreviation) A Latin word used in expressions such as sine __ non Teenage (abbreviation) To hit, harm or destroy something, usually using a weapon or equipment developed by modern technology
64

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ENGLISH EACHING T professional

Issue 70 September 2010

The Leading Practical Magazine For English Language Teachers Worldwide

Reported speech rules, what rules?

More than please and thank you

The tourist trap!

A FAIR DEAL FOR ALL 4

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT FEATURES REPORTED SPEECH RULES, WHAT RULES?

FROM TDU TO CPD 8

ACTIVE WORD POWER

James Venema makes the most of vocabulary notebooks

FIVE THINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT: MICROBLOGGING

EAP: AN ALL-ROUND CHALLENGE 2

THE TOURIST TRAP!

OVER THE WALL

REGULAR FEATURES PREPARING TO TEACH ... Grammar

TACKLING THE REAL WORLD

MORE THAN PLEASE AND THANK YOU

SCRAPBOOK REVIEWS COMPETITIONS

TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS A PRIMARY READING PROJECT

INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION FORM

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010

ENGLISH TEACHING professional

Editorial Consultant: Mike Burghall

Issue 70 September 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

Issue 70 September 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010

Reported speech - rules, what rules?

What the grammars tell us

Issue 70 September 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

Or it could have been:

What about all those tenses?

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010

Reported speech - rules, what rules?

you could report it as a narrative:

So what about next Wednesday?

Issue 70 September 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

Active word power

Issue 70 September 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

Encourage the students to write instead:

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010

Issue 70 September 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

ENGLISH TEACHING professional

Writing for ETp

Visit the ETp website!

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010

Why should we use corpora?

Issue 70 September 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

What can we learn from a corpus?

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010

Who are our students?

What are we teaching?

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010

Reconsidering learner needs

Knowing our stuff

Issue 70 September 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

A little help from your friends

ENGLISH TEACHING professional

Writing for ETp

Visit the ETp website!

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010

TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

A primary reading project

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 70 September 2010