ELT Experiences

eBook Available: "Prompting Authentic Interaction in the ELT Classroom"

2012-02-18T08:01:00.000-08:00

When I was leaving to go to Romania, a few weeks before I decided to get myself a MacBook Air. Soon afterwards, I found that Apple had released the free iBooks Author and decided to download this. I was toying with the idea of creating a free book containing many lesson ideas and then decided that an eBook that focused on Dogme ELT would be most appropriate (considering that my MA dissertation was on this subject). Having a keen interest to publish a book about teaching in South Korea, I thought this would be good practice to write for a new platform. I have managed to test the eBook on the iPad 2 at the British Council in Romania and the content is impressive and I particularly like the scroll bar at the bottom of the page which a reader could use when looking for lesson ideas. Essentially, this eBook is free for all iPad users. I shall be incorporating an iBooks badge that will be linked to the eBook and do hope to receive feedback. For those people that do not have an iPad, there is also a PDF version available to download below. Nevertheless, this raises the question whether books aimed for language teachers, or course books for this matter, should be published for a range of tablet devices. There is nothing stopping authors bypassing the major publishers and trying to self-publish and market their own books. However, publishing with reputable publishing houses does offer the author little worries other than just writing the book and allowing the editors and publishing team to market and distribute the books. I look forward to reading further eBooks published by other ELT professionals and seeing what the community can offer and produce.

Dogme ELT eBook (PDF Version):
Prompting Interaction in ELT

The Wrong Passport - Lesson Plan

2012-02-14T06:05:00.000-08:00

When I was flying to Romania, I packed all my things the evening before but when I arrived at the airport, I had picked up my son's passport. However, when I was waiting for the taxi to bring my passport up to Heathrow Airport, I was thinking how suitable this situation would be in the classroom to promote and develop conversation for unexpected situations. It kind of reminds me of the Mr Bean at the Airport scenario:

After a week, I planned my first lesson and decided to include this as a typical 'dictogloss' activity. 'Dictogloss' is best described by Wajnryb (1990) as something that is borrowed from the more traditional dictation activity, where learners "jot down familiar words as they listen ... then pool their resources to reconstruct their version of the original text" (ibit. pg.5). Thus, I decided to write a short piece involving me getting the wrong passport for learners to listen to in class and for them to recreate their version of the incident. After students have, within groups, recreated the incident in their own words (with the possibility of reviewing grammar or certain phrases: for example, a group of learners wanted to look at the difference between "The flight was supposed to leave at ..." and "The flight was due to leave at ..."), there is the option to get students to guess what happened next (and the language of modals is a usual indicator for language here). Finally, there is an opportunity for more exploratory teaching (aka. Dogme ELT discussion) from this topic but I hope the following lesson plan offers some further ideas for your classroom.

Aim of Lesson
To get learners to listen, note down and reconstruct a story that the teacher has prepared.

Sub-Aims of Lesson
To review grammar, phrases and lexis involving the airport. To prompt discussion involving unexpected situations or accidents.

Level of Learners
This activity works best for any level from Pre-Intermediate or above, preferably teenagers or older.

Progression of Lesson
1. Start the lesson by telling students that you are going to tell a short story and that they need to just listen.
2. Once you have finished the story once, get students to individually write down any words or phrases that they remember (no sentences just yet).
3. Read the story for the second time and get learners to make a note of any other phrases or words that they remember.
4. Next, tell students that they need to individually write their version of the story in their own words (either the first person or third person is fine, as long as they can recreate the story and it reads well).
5. Once students have written their story, group students into pairs or small groups and nominate a team leader. The team leader is responsible for writing the final version of the story.
6. When students have written the story, hand out a copy of the story to the learners so that they can compare any differences.
7. Monitor students and their writing for any key differences with regards to grammar or phrases and note anything on the whiteboard.
8. Review and scaffold any differences if necessary.
9. The next part of the lesson is to get students to work in their groups to predict what happened next in the story. Note down any of their ideas on the whiteboard before revealing.
10. OPTIONAL - If you wish to incorporate discussion in the classroom, you could learners (if they are willing) to share their experiences of an unexpected situation that has arisen during their travels. As with Dogme ELT, monitor and scaffold language that has emerged during the classroom conversation.

What I wrote for the 'Dictogloss' activity is available to view below. It would be great to hear your ideas regarding 'Dictogloss' and whether you have incorporated a similar lesson before. The best thing about 'Dictogloss' is that it is very materials-light and promotes recycling vocabulary and reconstructing a story after several attempts. The students feel a sense of achievement afterwards and it is highly motivational.

On Thursday 2^nd February, I was flying to Romania for the first time. I packed everything the night before and checked that the taxi would pick me up. I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning for my taxi would collect me at four thirty. I arrived at Heathrow Airport at 6 o’clock in the morning and was checking in. The flight was due to leave at 9:45am but I realised that I didn’t have my passport: I had my son’s passport!

Quick Update: Arriving in Bucharest

2012-02-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Romania last Thursday having decided to work for the British Council in Bucharest. I know very little of Eastern Europe and I consider it a challenge to extend my professional experience (having not taught any Romanians). When I arranged for the taxi to collect me and take me to the Airport from Eastbourne, I remember checking everything but I didn't check my passport. It turned out that I picked up my son's passport without checking and had to arrange for my passport to be driven up to Heathrow. My passport arrived at the Terminal 45 minutes prior to my departure and ran straight through security and to the flight gate. Hopefully, this is the first and only mistake for my posting in Bucharest (but this is a great lesson plan for a future discussion "what happened next?" lesson). On the flight, I was approached by a person and he asked me by name (apparently he knew me) and introduced himself as the Director of the British Council in Romania. I don't know how he recognised me but it was a good introduction to the country.

I arrived at Bucharest Airport and was greeted with lots of snow. It was cold and icy and the driver took me to the car where I could put all my luggage in the boot. The Director of the British Council was collected. After about an hour, I arrived at my temporary accommodation and unpacked. I was later called by my line manager and go out with staff for an evening meal. Everyone was so friendly and helpful. All the staff at the British Council have helped me get into a routine and assisted in getting me a mobile phone and offered invaluable advice. The next few days were a bit of a blur where I went to the Centre, received a formal induction and met various staff.

I now have my first class tomorrow and have planned these today. Obviously I am naturally nervous but I know that I will get into a routine. I have been offered different types of classes: Young Learners, Adults, University, etc. The British Council in Romania is offering the equivalent of the CELTYL Extension Course offered by Trinity and hope to do this course. I have met some teachers that are currently studying their Masters, which brings memories back of assignments, etc. I am very busy but I hope to update readers on my experiences in Romania and offer an insight to teaching in a Eastern European Country.

Lesson Plan - "Old Wife's Tales"

2012-01-12T03:55:00.000-08:00

Here is my first lesson plan for 2012 and something related to "Old Wife's Tales". I created this lesson after watching a video on YouTube about Fan Death. For those that might be unfamiliar, Fan Death is described by Wikipedia:

Fan death is a widely held belief in South Korea that an electric fan left running overnight in a closed room can cause the death of those inside. Fans sold in Korea are equipped with a timer switch that turns them off after a set number of minutes, which users are frequently urged to set when going to sleep with a fan on.

The Korea Consumer Protection Board (KCPB), a South Korean government-funded public agency, issued a consumer safety alert in 2006 warning that "asphyxiation from electric fans and air conditioners" was among South Korea's five most common seasonal summer accidents or injuries, according to data they collected.

When I first arrived in Korea, I found it very funny that Koreans would not bat an eyelid and tell me off if I kept my air-conditioning on in my closed apartment (especially over the summer months when it was quite hot and humid). Anyhow, the lesson plan is below:

Aim of Lesson

To learn, discuss and share more about popular UK and additional country's "Old Wife's Tales".

Level of Learner(s)

This lesson is aimed for learners at levels of Intermediate or above (B1+).

Progression of Lesson

1. Start the lesson by writing on the whiteboard: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" and ask learner(s) if they have heard of this saying. This should activate learners' schema and provides a good example of an 'Old Wife's Tale'.

2. Ask learners if they have a similar saying from their country and transcribe their examples on the whiteboard.

3. Tell students that they will be re-writing sentences and there are eight sentences which need to be reformulated and handout the following below. Advise students that they must complete the handout individually.

Old Wifes Tales Reformulation

4. Monitor students to see if they are working well. Once students have finished, start pairing students together and get them to check their reformulation in small groups/pairs.

5. Elicit from learners the sentences and transcribe their answers on to the whiteboard. Check for errors and encourage self-correction from the learners.

6. Once the correct sentences are on the whiteboard, ask learners which sentence they think is true or false (all are false apart from the last one). Try to ask learners why they think some are true or false. Some language may emerge so be flexible for following the class.

7. The next part of the lesson is to show a video about "Fan Death" and a common Old Wife Tale from South Korea. If there is a learner from South Korea, get them to explain what Fan Death is (but they may not be familiar with this - so a bit of understanding is required).

8. Show the video below:

9. Get students to talk about the video and whether they think Fan Death is true or false. Korean learners may be quite direct in their opinion of fan death so some sensitivity is required but hopefully the video will encourage some debate in the subject. Some language that may arise from the discussion could include: asphyxiation, vortex, etc. The best thing about the video is that it is a cartoon and takes quite a funny look at Old Wife's Tales.

10. Finish off the lesson to talk about funny beliefs and get students to share their country's beliefs. Perhaps you could start off by providing an example that British people will not walk under a ladder as it is considered bad luck.

Have fun and enjoy the lesson and I look forward to hearing further ideas about how the YouTube video could be incorporated in lessons. I am aiming this lesson to share cultural ideas and beliefs in the effort that it improves understanding with the learners in the classroom.

Reflection of 2011 - The #11from11 Challenge

2011-12-21T06:09:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it. The year has literally flown by and I sit with wonder with a cup of coffee thinking about what I have actually done with the time. Having read Mike Harrison's blog post reflecting on his 11 posts from 2011 (challenged by @yearinthelifeof), I thought I should take up Adam Simpson's challenge and write about 2011: it would offer some aspect of reflection and highlight what has been achieved during the past 12 months. So without further ado, here is a reflection of my top 11 blog posts from 2011.

January
MA ELT - Assignments Complete: This was a brief blog post that reflected upon my studies at the University of Sussex and it is quite nice to look reflect on what I was focusing on during the beginning of the new term. It is nice to look back and take stock of the Advanced Practical Teaching course (with my Dogme experimental observed lesson). It is nice to see that I had posted/achieved what I planned to focus on: posting about the IATEFL in Brighton, wrote further book reviews. Unfortunately, it was rather ambitious to write a weekly ELT related blog post and this was not fully exploited.

February
Pronunciation & Language Learning: This is one of my favourite blog posts this year and I continue returning to it to retrieve the same lesson plan (Pronunciation Phone Numbers) for my own YL/Adult classes. It is successful and the learners love doing this lesson again and again. It is also useful for readers to learn more about pronunciation and get some idea about pronunciation aims from the perspective of learners as it also included a little research analysis.

Using Newspapers in Class: This was an earlier blog post in February and it was reflection on the use of newspapers in the classroom as I had a formal observation at the University of Sussex as part of one of my courses. In this blog post there were some images of my Teaching Practice portfolio and the materials that I prepared in class. Also included in the blog post was the PowerPoint that I prepared for the lesson and all necessary materials that were required so that other readers could do this lesson if necessary.

March
Unplugged Teaching Practice - Formal Observations: During March, I was focusing on Dogme ELT for my Teaching Practice and it was the first ever time that I attempted a Dogme-related lesson. Furthermore, I was having it being recorded and was also observed ... so the pressure was on. In this blog post I included my formal lesson plan, a video of Scott Thornbury, a self-evaluation of the lesson as well as a poster promoting a Dogme talk by Luke Meddings. I suppose had it not been for attempting the Dogme lesson, I would not have researched Dogme ELT for my dissertation.

April
The 2011 IATEFL Brighton Conference: Life As A Steward - Day One: Having applied to volunteer as a Steward at the 2011 IATEFL Brighton Conference, I was requested to attend a training morning at the weekend and then start stewarding for the start of the conference. It was a wonderful chance to meet so many people that I met in the twittersphere/blogosphere. I always remember so many boxes piling up by the entrance in preparation for the rest of the week. Thankfully, they all had disappeared the following day.

May
Teaching Unplugged - My First Video: This was a blog post focused on my Dogme ELT Teaching Practice from March 2011, which was recorded. Having received the entire recording of my lesson, it was really useful to watch it back and look at how the lesson developed. Over the following two months, I edited the video to a more manageable viewing of eight minutes. It was so nice to share this with my readers.

August
Dogme for Elementary Japanese Learners: Whilst I MA classes had finished, I had some time to write my dissertation (which was focused on Dogme ELT) as well as teach part-time. I was provided the opportunity to teach at the University of Sussex with Japanese Learners that had visited for two weeks. It was so nice to incorporate my research in the classroom and decided to share a case of emergent language with Japanese Elementary Learners. I have used this example within many teacher training workshops ... so it is an incredibly important blog post that I hold close to.

September
Dogme ELT - Dissertation Short Summary: Having completed and submitted my Dogme ELT dissertation, I decided to share an abridged version for all those people that helped directly or indirectly with my research. It provides readers the opportunity to view a short summary of the dissertation and offer ideas for their research (if they are undertaking an MA or other related course).

October
iPad Game Lesson Plan: "Jetpack Joyride": Having read (prior to reviewing the book) "Digital Play", I was inspired to create a lesson plan that included some form of game. It was a challenge but I decided on an iPad game called "Jetpack Joyride" and also included a video that was available to watch on YouTube. I used some of the images of the video on the basis of a storyboard. I used this in class the following day and the Young Learners were really receptive and enthusiastic to use a game in class.

"Digital Play" - Book Review: The second blog post during October that I consider important is the book review of "Digital Play". This book I found pushing the boundaries of gaming in the language classroom and have personal experiences of this in South Korea by playing on my son's Nintendo in Korea or visiting a Korean PC Café. It was so nice to receive a copy of this book and write one of the first online book reviews.

December
Zeitgeist 2011: A Lesson Plan: My final blog post for this challenge has to be the Zeitgeist 2011 YouTube videos that I decided to use as a basis for a lesson plan. It received some interest from my PLN and appeared to prompt a conversation-driven, materials-light approach to teaching. I used this lesson with my private language learners and although they are teenagers, they were incredibly motivated and keen to share about their experiences during 2011. It seems fitting to have this lesson included as a final of my eleven best blog posts.

Naturally, there are many blog posts that I would like to include in this list but the above the best eleven posts during 2011. Nevertheless, I look forward to 2012 and am wondering what the next year will bring in terms of achievements but you can rest assured that I will be sharing my experiences, thoughts, lesson plans and book reviews in the future. The biggest event in my diary for 2012 is my IATEFL Talk on Dogme ELT in the Classroom on March 23, so I look forward to seeing you all in Glasgow in a few months time. Finally, I would like to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year.

Zeitgeist 2011: A Lesson Plan

2011-12-15T14:27:00.000-08:00

As 2011 draws to an end, it is a time of reflection, consideration and possibility for the future. This lesson plan is aimed at B2-C1 level students and may work with selected teenagers, but it may be more successful with adult learners. Possible language which may emerge could be associated with reflection and talking about the past (There was a Tsunami in Japan, There were the Arab Springs during 2011, etc) as well as talking about what the future might bring (In 2012, I would like to ..., In the next 3 months, I want to ..., etc).

As with all material, it is suggested to be sensitive to the learner's background and choose examples to scaffold that are appropriate: perhaps the talking of natural disasters might not suit Japanese learners. However, learners may have a story to tell and I suppose you are the teacher that knows your learner better than anyone and can make the choices that are suitable and appropriate for your learners.

Context & Introduction to Topic

When starting the class ask students:

what they have achieved during 2011
what is their most memorable event during the year
what was the most surprising element of 2011
learner or teacher resolutions for 2012

Monitor language for correct tense usage, monitor language as well as boarding and scaffolding emergent language

Zeitgeist 2011 YouTube Video

Tell learners that they are going to be watching a video but put learners in pairs or small groups
Describe to each pair or group of learners that before they watch the video, they need to work together and think of five important events that happened in 2011
Elicit possible important events during 2011 from the learners and write their suggestions on the whiteboard
Tell learners that they are going to watch a video that is related to 2011. The learners need to watch the video and check to see if any of their suggestions are in the video.
Play the video.
Once the video has been played, ask learners to mention what events that were suggested (and transcribed on the whiteboard) are in the video.
Elicit any other important events from 2011 the learners and add these to the whiteboard (if the learners can remember some of the other important events in the video).
Play the video for a second time.

Discussion Time

Once several events from 2011 have been written on the board, tell students that they are going to be working in groups and have to re-order the events in importance (one being the most important and the last one being least important). All learners within the group must accept the order of importance.
Monitor learners for suitable or potential language that could be used to scaffold (I think ... is the most important, Why do you think ...?, What do you think?, etc).
After learners have completed the re-ordering activity, get several groups together and to compare results with the potential to debate.
Allow sometime once the debate/discussion has finished for feedback and error correction.

As ever, any feedback on this lesson plan would be greatly appreciated.

Classroom Activities to Prompt Authentic Interaction

2011-12-12T13:19:00.000-08:00

I remember when I first started teaching in South Korea, I was handed the course book and quickly thrown in a classroom full of young children. My heart was pounding and my head was spinning. It was only a few days previously that I flew into the country with my family and I was still trying to find my place in this wonderful country. Nevertheless, after a number of months I gained confidence and tried to read more about teaching from various websites to give me more ideas. However, I quickly found that to prompt authentic interaction and conversation between the learners or the learners and myself was increasingly difficult. I decided to use various articles that would interest the young learners but found that the 50 minute class was too short to take advantage of this. In the end, I started using games and activities to relax and prompt authentic interaction in the classroom. I suppose at the time, I was unaware of a Dogme ELT movement and was trying to keep teach myself at the same time. On a side note, for budding teachers wanting to experience a different culture and get a job, English language teachers are employed in Korea with the only requirements for applicants to have a degree in any subject and an interest in the culture/language. I suppose I am, what is now referred to, as a backpacker EFL teacher.

Anyhow, I suppose the greatest challenge for any language teacher is to get learners to converse and interact in the target language. As I have a keen interest in authentic conversation and autonomy in the classroom, I got "Teaching Unplugged" in 2010 and this provided the basis of developing activities to prompt authentic and Dogme-esque moments in the classroom. The lesson ideas require very little preparation, limited materials and the focus is on getting the students conversing in the hope that there is emergent language that can be scaffolded. I have relied upon these activities with various classes and the learners have always been receptive. Some of the activities have been customised from "Teaching Unplugged" and give credit to such a wonderful and inspirational book.

Dogme ELT - Lesson Ideas

I hope you get the opportunity to incorporate some of the lesson ideas in your classroom.

BELTE 2011 - Saturday 15 October 2011

2011-12-04T15:14:00.000-08:00

Opening talk for the BELTE 2011

This blog post has been on my to-do list for over a month and I am really glad to eventually put pen-to-paper (or fingers-to-keyboard). I travelled to Brighton for the annual BELTE (Brighton English Language Teaching Event) last month with the aim to meet some familiar faces and catch up with those that I met (albeit virtually) on Twitter. Gordon Watts pulled out all the stops when organising the event (in association with Sussex Director of Studies Association) and there were some big names presenting during the day.

Nevertheless, when I arrived at the main building for the annual BELTE, I was provided with a free bag of goodies (an IELTS book, some publicity material as well as a summary of speakers for the day). As expected, there were various publishers and representatives in the main hall of the school. There were some people (teachers and publishers) that I recognised and we had the chance to catch up. It was wonderful to see the LTC Eastbourne (whom I work with quite regularly) as well as the charity that I volunteer for on Saturdays, English in the Community, present at the BELTE. For the opening of the annual event, the Mayor of Brighton, Anne Meadows, was present and provided some warm words of encouragement for the ELT industry. After the opening of the event, I had the privilege to chat to Jeremy Harmer who was going to give a talk on Dogme ELT and was able to share some views and opinions of this technique of language teaching. Also present was Mike Harrison which I met at previous EFL Conferences, including the BELTE 2010.

Annie detailing the elements of Academic Writing

The first talk that I decided to attend was focused on "Principles of Academic Writing" by Annie Broadhead. It was an useful talk but I felt that it focused too heavily on the alignment of writing with ESOL Examinations, rather than providing any useful lesson ideas or lesson recipes which could of been incorporated into future ESP classes. Nevertheless, it reconfirmed the idea that ESP classes are expected to produce genuine results within a specified time period and the pressure on teachers could be overwhelming. However, the speaker providing some great ideas for teaching Academic Writing such as looking at cohesive and linking devices, incorporating the CEF (Common European Framework) into classes as well as developing student autonomy when they check their own written compositions.

Jacqui sharing her ideas on rapport in the classroom

The next talk that I attended was "Rapport and Empathy in the Learning Environment" by Jacqui Dowding. This was an incredibly useful talk as Jacqui introduced the importance of developing rapport and empathy within the learner classroom. She introduced the idea of rapport and empathy, then provided attendees to discuss how they develop rapport with their students. When I first started my CELTA course at the British Council in Seoul, I was advised to initially develop rapport with the learners as everything else falls into place. However, I was left wondering how to develop rapport. This workshop offered to plug in the gaps and answered this question. It was incredibly useful to learn further techniques and ideas to develop rapport. Some of the ideas presented in the talk was to include humour, share forth comings as well as learn more about student backgrounds. Unfortunately, with humanistic as well as sociolinguistic forms of teaching and learner backgrounds, it is intangible and can be elusive. I suppose the largest aspect to consider when developing rapport and empathy within the classroom, is to be more approachable in classroom and seen as a friend to help and guide students on their road to language learning. It would have been useful to receive some teaching ideas or a cookbook of teaching recipes to incorporate in the classroom to develop and extend rapport with learners. Most teachers are aware of the common GTKY activities but I have never really looked at improving my classes devoted to developing rapport. However, I suppose there is an important correlation between rapport with learners and improving a conversation-driven approach to Dogme ELT (and apologies if I try to draw a distinction between the two but I believe firmly that this is definitely the case).

Mike Harrison making notes on his iPad

The following talk that I attended was focused on "Teacher Observations: What is a good teacher? And who says so?" by Vic Richardson. This talk looked at an initial video of a newly certified EFL teacher, teaching a range of learners from a coursebook and we were requested to share our opinions of the teacher (a pretty bold approach to assess a teacher from a one minute video clip and whether it was successful). Nevertheless, the talk progressed towards detailing what makes a 'good' teacher and whether there is a distinction with an 'expert' teacher. Vic determined that there indeed there was a difference and an expert teacher:

can identify essential representations of their subject
can guide learning and provide feedback
can monitor learning and provide feedback
can attend to affective attributes
can influence student outcomes

When comparing to "Teaching Unplugged" (2009), it becomes apparent that these characteristics are similar to teachers willing to pursue Dogme ELT. For example, a Dogme ELT teacher adheres to the following principles:

establishing a classroom dynamic that is conducive to interactive talk
orientating lessons to the learners' needs and interests
setting up activities that are language productive
providing the necessary scaffolding to support talk in a second language
recording, reviewing and recycling instances of learner language

Essentially, an 'expert' teacher is one that incorporate traits not that dissimilar to Dogme ELT. However, one must question the suitability of assessing and observing teachers as Dogme ELT, as is other forms of humanistic teaching, intangible. Furthermore, how can someone observe and grade a teacher if they are seeking something which is intangible as is Dogme? I put this question to Vic but his answer was less than adequate. Perhaps he was not expecting such a question but it got me thinking whether Dogme can be assessed and whether it is either possible to observe possible Dogme-moments in the ELT classroom. I would welcome for Vic to respond to this question that I initially put to him.

Does anyone know what this Dogme lark is?

The final talk that I attended was "Teaching unplugged beats Acquisition? What to teach to whom, with what and why?" by Jeremy Harmer. It was definitely a talk that I wanted to attend as it was related to my MA Dissertation and it would offer me the opportunity to listen to this particular area of ELT. This talk was suitable for those teachers that were new as well as those that had much experience of incorporating Dogme ELT. Jeremy conveyed well the principles of Teaching Unplugged and used video interviews within his presentation so that those around the world could share their experience of Dogme ELT. This demonstrated that Dogme was incidental and happened when teachers were least expecting it. Next he introduced the idea of language acquisition with reference to multiple intelligences. He questioned whether teaching unplugged would suit a particular set of learners and whether more structured and regimental forms of learning with greater aims be best for other learners. It was an interesting concept and found that it provided greater scope to consider. Nevertheless, it was great to finally hear about Dogme out of the context of my Dissertation.

It was an incredibly rewarding day and I look forward to next years BELTE Conference. There was talk that the next BELTE will try to include some form of technology or twitter feed. This would be really useful and I hope that this is really the case. It was wonderful to meet so many teachers in such a wonderful location.

"English Grammar Today: An A-Z of Spoken and Written Grammar" - Book Review

2011-11-02T11:23:00.000-07:00

It was a pleasure to receive a copy of "English Grammar Today", which is written by Carter, McCarthy, Mark and O'Keefe, and was keen to put it to good use. I have found that this grammar resource book really useful with mainly adult language learners and there are some great material in the workbook which complements coursebooks. Anyhow, my most recent book review was published in the IATEFL Voices magazine and really appreciate everyone that helped. It has really made my birthday receiving IATEFL Voices through the post.

IATEFL Book Review 2011

"Digital Play" - Book Review

2011-10-18T05:13:00.000-07:00

It was a wonderful feeling to finally have "Digital Play" (DELTA Publishing), land on my doormat and I was keen to start reading the book. The book is co-authored by Kyle Mawer and Graham Stanley and interestingly Graham has a "Digital Play" blog which contains a wide source of teaching ideas and posts dedicated to digital learning in English language teaching. Meanwhile Kyle has created a Wikispace dedicated to teaching pedagogy and the incorporation of popular online and console gaming and it has been awarded an Edublog Award.

Nevertheless, "Digital Play" is predictably split into three sections each called Part A, Part B and Part C. As with other books in the DELTA Teacher Development Series, Part A provides some background knowledge to technology and gaming with language learning, Part B offers a range of activities and lessons to incorporate digital play within the classroom and finally Part C suggests areas of reflection and consideration for schools and educators to consider syllabus design and the inclusion of digital play in language classrooms.

Part A
The key concept behind the inclusion of digital games and language learning is not necessarily new but there are some terms, such as 'edutainment', which "cause some educators to shudder" (Mawer & Stanley 2011, p.7) and have some negativity associated with them. When I was teaching in South Korea, edutainment was offered to many language learners and it was considered by many students to be more beneficial than the traditional language classroom. However, many teachers based in Korea negatively viewed edutainment and that the teacher was considered to be more of an entertainer than a teacher. Nevertheless, if language lessons are considered by the learner to be entertaining, it would be plausible to suggest that the learner's affective filter is reduced and the lesson (or the key purpose) is more memorable. The authors also suggest that many learners' lives are dominated by computer games, the internet and game consoles with "much of [the learners'] ... talking about them with friends" (p.7). Furthermore, the authors consider, within Part A, the appropriateness of computer games and society with various issues such as violence and stereotypes. The interesting response to violence within computer games, among many, view "the relationship between violent computer games and aggressive behaviour" (p.8) as clear. More recently, a scientific study attempted to link computer games to changes within childrens' brains that causes detrimental effects (Telegraph 2011). However, there is an awareness that some games, particularly those that have an educational benefit, which assists children or language learners such as "treating post-traumatic stress disorder, boosting intelligence and developing the memory" (Telegraph 2011). Mawer & Stanley (2011) highlight the educational benefits of computer games and digital play within the language classroom and suggest that many schools have been slow to respond to advances within technology: "pupils sitting in rows with textbooks" (p.9). This is also supported by Sir Ken Robinson talking about changing the paradigms of education:

Much of Sir Ken Robinson's talk about the disadvantages of the 19th century structure of education is also expressed within Part A of the book and it is wonderful to see Mawer & Stanley (2011) consider changing the traditional language classroom to the benefits of their learners. Nevertheless, towards the end of the first section of the book, Mawer & Stanley (2011) provide a glossary as well as a guide to digital play, pages 21 to 32, in the language classroom, which is invaluable for those new to incorporating games in their lessons.

Part B
The following section of the book offers various ideas and activities for the reader to consider when deciding on using digital play within the language classroom. The authors provide activities for the connected as well as the non-connected classroom, with four chapters within this part of the book and over 90 lesson suggestions for activities. Personally, I found the book a great source of inspiration and I decided to prepare my own lesson with the use of an iPad, iPod or iPhone based game within my personal classroom. When combining the book with Stanley's blog of Digital Play, there are over 100 teaching activities and ideas to consider. It is such a wealth of information, possibly too much for the new teacher, but well worth the investment to read and consider for future lessons. One of my favourite lessons available on Stanley's blog was related to gaming soundtracks and can really prompt students to converse in a subject that is of immediate interest to them.

Part C
The final section of the book provides some further information to consider and reflect upon, such as classroom management (setting up the classroom, classroom layout, etc) for using digital play with learners. Other areas of this section include pedagogy and references to further reading, which also complements the first section of the book.

Finally, "Digital Play" has become one of my most popular books to refer to when planning or reflecting on the use of technology in my own classroom and I would recommend any experienced, or non-experienced, teacher to consider purchasing it in the future. It is a great book that complements other DELTA Teacher Development Series such as "Teaching Online" or "Teaching Unplugged" and is a wonderful resource for any budding technophiles.

iPad Game Lesson Plan: "Jetpack Joyride"

2011-10-16T16:39:00.000-07:00

I recently received a copy of "Digital Play" (a book review will be available in the near future), which is written by Kyle Mawer and Graham Stanley, and was inspired by this book to prepare an EFL lesson which incorporated an iPad/iPhone Game. The game that I decided to focus on is called "Jetpack Joyride", created by Halfbrick (the company behind many popular iPad/iPhone games such as Fruit Ninja), and is an addictive yet simple game which involves the use of flying through a level. It is controlled by simply pressing the iPad or iPhone with your finger and is incredibly intuitive. All material required for this lesson is detailed below. The only preparation required for this lesson is printing out the material below and cutting up the Story Board Images for distribution for each group of students. There is a video that is required for the lesson and it is accessible via YouTube and is also available to view below.

Jetpack Joyride Lesson Plan

Jetpack Joyride - Story Board Images

Image Story Board Template

Jetpack Joyride - Rules

Please feel free to let me know what you thought of the lesson and also provide feedback if you managed to incorporate this within your class. I understand that not everyone will have access to an iPad or iPhone but for those that have this game on their smartphone or tablet, it may offer possible ideas to incorporate games within the EFL classroom. A Wordle for the lesson is provided below and you could incorporate it in the lesson (perhaps as a context creator or to prompt students to write the rules/objectives of the game).

Jetpack Joyride Wordle

Nevertheless, have you used digital games within your classroom? Can you see the future of tablet games within the EFL classroom or is this sort of activity basically a repackaged form of edutainment? I am keen to hear opinions from other teachers about whether we should be getting learners to play games for language learning or focusing on the basics of language learning. That being said, I will be using this lesson with a group of Columbian teenage learners and will provide feedback very soon.

Learning One-to-One

2011-10-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

It was a pleasure to receive a copy of "Learning One-to-One" (2010) written by Ingrid Wisniewska and is published by Cambridge University Press. As with many of the other Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers, this book offers many wonderful ideas for teaching one-to-one based lessons. I would recommend any newly qualified or veteran teacher to purchase this book as it provides a new perspective on one-to-one lessons. Furthermore, I was offered the opportunity to write this book review for the first Journal of Second Language Teaching and Research and was provided some invaluable advice from Darren Elliott (who also has a really insightful blog) during the review writing process. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book for its simplicity and valuable ideas it provides for any teachers. My full book review is available to read below.

Learning One-to-One - Book Review

Gordon Watts: BELTE 2011 Interview

2011-09-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

Gordon Watts is the Director of English Teaching & Training at Bellerbys College Brighton and is located by the Brighton Train Station. Gordon was kind enough to participate with an interview about the BELTE 2011, which is being held on 15 October 2011 between 9:15am and 6:00pm. Further information about the BELTE 2011 is available here. There are some great talks for the day and it looks a really fascinating event. Anyhow, the interview with Gordon about the BELTE is below:

Question One: Tell me about yourself as well as your involvement with the BELTE.

After being in retailing and manufacturing, I got bored and retrained to be an EFL teacher in the early nineties. I worked mainly in the field of Business English in the UK, France and Austria. I have been working at Bellerbys College for about 15 years and have been instrumental in developing training and the English content of our Foundation course.

I have also opened a school in Kazakhstan for one of our agents and been Marketing in China. Furthermore, I am a long established IELTS examiner within Brighton, Eastbourne, Portsmouth, Southampton, Guildford and Middlesex Uni as well as Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Beijing. I also examine Skills for Life and Cambridge Upper Main Suite. I have a CELTA; DipTEFL and MATESOL.

Question Two: What is the history of the BELTE?

After Bellerbys and EmbassyCES English departments were merged in our new building, I was running training for all staff. Staff were paid to attend training on Friday afternoons, so it seemed sensible to ask publishers to provide some training. We had a variety of speakers (Hugh Dellar, Michael Swan and Catherine Walter, Peter Moor, Paul Seligson, Adrian Underhill, etc.) at some of our sessions and I wondered if this idea could be pushed further. I came up with a proposal which senior management agreed to; the idea was to see the outcomes of the first BELTE from a variety of angles (business; marketing; EFL and local community relations, etc.).

The event has no budget and is self-funding with any profits paid into the Building Futures charity which builds schools in developing and disaster struck countries. I also proposed a meeting of Sussex DoSA that by supplying the labour on the day and co-producing the event, the profile of the Association would be raised and hopefully attract new members. The first BELTE was held in 2009 and was adjudged by the 320+ attendees as being a success. The main ‘name’ speakers were Michael Swan, Peter Viney, Adrian Underhill, Sam McCarter, Sue Kay, Pete Sharma, Jane Allemano and Luke Meddings: an all-star cast focussing on skills and technology.

Studygroup then agreed to continue their support (media promotion, promotional material design and print and use of building) and agreement to run the event indefinitely was reached. The next BELTE was improved by the introduction of a Q/A panel, rather like Gardeners Question Time, delegate bags with freebies and SDoSA t-shirts. The focus this time was on exam skills in EFL, EAP and ESOL which resulted in many visitors from the state and support sector of the language field. Several of the original ‘names’ agreed to re-visit and Sue O’Connell, Mary Spratt and other writers and behind the scenes speakers were recruited.

Question Three: What makes the BELTE unique and different compared to other EFL related conferences?

The main difference is that it is FREE, there is no pre-booking; the atmosphere is very ‘Brighton’ and the format is based on a comfort zone with no pressure. For example, the speakers are there for the teachers, not necessarily to promote a book/website (the exhibitors on the stands are available to do that). As mentioned, the event is for teachers primarily, not managers, DoS or owners. It is a mad day that people may find exhausting but exhilarating.

Question Four: Tell me more about the BELTE 2011.

The best thing for me to do here is mention the two websites www.eflinsussex.co.uk and www.studygroup.com/BELTE and point out that exam preparation and CPD are the main thrusts this year. Four new exhibitors have signed up at the last minute and for the first time local teachers are presenting. For the first time we area blogging and tweeting (courtesy of Martin Sketchley and Russell Stannard).

Question Five: In what capacity is Sussex Director of Studies Association involved with the BELTE?

The Sussex DoSA, as mentioned before, is co-promoter, source of labour for the show and provides emotional support when planning gets a bit hectic. I do the entire organisation myself and deal with exhibitors, promotional materials, etc (so this does happen!) and a generator of interest in member schools, via personal contacts etc. The membership has increased recently to 22 schools so there must be some force at work!

Question Six: How can the BELTE benefit EFL teachers?

Receiving free training from experts and well known writers, being able to see all principal materials publishers all under one roof, being entertained and educated free of charge, making new/renewing contacts, exchanging ideas and experiences are all essential to the modern ELT teacher in all fields. Next year, we will be looking for more input from our own teachers to work alongside or even in competition with the big guns.

Question Seven: What is the future of the BELTE?

Already we have been oversubscribed by speakers; there will be a series of midweek evening training sessions, mostly during the Spring, promoted by SDoSA as well as Member Schools. The first training sessions will be at Studygroup but this will not always be the case. Publishers will provide speakers and promotion, schools provide venues and refreshments, promotion to Member Schools and are advertised as co-promoters with the publisher on direct email shots etc. We are probably going to call these sessions SussexmELTs (mid-week evening English Language Training Sessions). I imagine that next year may the event expand with maybe a BELTE day and an e-BELTE day; as more schools are investing in technology, the direction will be in this direction but with a focus on the real event on the ground.

Dogme ELT - Dissertation Short Summary

2011-09-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

It was an arduous, yet educational, experience developing the research and writing the dissertation and I am now glad that it is complete. The most difficult process was to develop a qualitative survey that would complement and assist with the aims of the research. Further information about the development and composition of the Dissertation Surveys can be found earlier in the blog. Nevertheless, I uncovered that the aim of the research was answer the following questions:

1. To what extent are teachers applying elements of Dogme ELT?
2. What are teacher and student attitudes towards the three basic principles of Dogme ELT?

It was necessary to develop surveys to find out teachers' and students' attitudes towards the three key principles of Dogme ELT as well as their experiences. Once surveys were completed, teacher interviews were arranged with two participants that had completed the corresponding teacher survey. These two teachers were working at different schools and had different teaching experiences.

Anyhow, I would like to thank all those that participated with the survey and support that I received from family, friends and colleagues. A short summary of my dissertation is provided below and I would welcome any feedback. If you have questions regarding the research, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Dogme ELT - Dissertation Short Summary
Dogme ELT - Abridged Research (2011)

Research for English Language Teachers

2011-09-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

I have just about finished my MA in English Language Teaching and am due to hand in my Dogme ELT dissertation. It has been a very long and arduous process, but is extremely rewarding. The biggest thing that I will take away from my MA is the process of developing and undertaking research which would add value for my learners (whoever they might be) as well as develop my knowledge of language acquisition and language learning. This is integral because as teachers, we all strive, within our boundaries, to achieve and it is natural to reflect upon the processes of teaching as well as learning. It is this reflection and opinion upon reflection and striving to achieve that teachers consider to undertake some form of research. Dörnyei (2010) suggests that the essence of primary research is a natural process:

"Asking questions is one of the most natural ways of gathering information and, indeed, as soon as babies have mastered the basics of the mother tongue they launch into a continuous flow of questions, and keep going throughout the rest of their lives." (Dörnyei 2010 p.1)

It is recognised that the most popular form of research is the use of the survey/questionnaire (Dörnyei 2010) and that it is used by many teachers and EFL professionals. Additionally, according to Nunan (1992), a “purpose of a survey is generally to obtain a snapshot of conditions, attitudes, and/or events at a single point in time” (p.140). However, there is a distinction made by Brown & Rodgers (2002) between 'surveys' and 'questionnaires' and that questionnaires are referred to under different names (Dörnyei 2010). Brown & Rodgers (2002) suggest that Survey Research would incorporate the use of questionnaires as well as interviews (p.11). However, Brown (1988) earlier stated that 'surveys' focus on "a group's attitudes, opinions, and/or characteristics" while some consider the use of questionnaires for quantitative based research. Nevertheless, the majority of English language teachers, who decide to undertake research (for one reason or another), would end up deciding to incorporate some form of 'qualitative research'. Essentially, quantitative researchers study “simple counts such as frequency of occurrences to … test scores or prices” (Saunders et al 2003 p.327), while qualitative researchers studying “things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or to interpret” (Denzin & Lincoln 2000: in Richards 2009 p.149).

Once a problem or an area of research has been decided upon, the next step would be to decide on creating some form of survey. Surveys could incorporate various questions: closed or open forms. The advantages for closed questions is that they offer some structure and the teacher undertaking the survey can analyse the results within the limited answers. However, some participants may decide that the answers from closed questions could be too restrictive and not that adaptive for those completing a survey. However, open questions would allow participants space to answer questions in their own way and personalise the survey. Yet, the analysis of answer may become slightly more taxing as the researcher would not be able to draw any statistical information from answers. Nonetheless, the most suitable survey should contain a mixture of both closed and open questions but the key is trying to use the correct closed/open question within the survey. For example, if you wish to learn more about the number of years experience participants have of teaching EFL, a closed question would offer some provision of analysis. I would recommend that those wishing to undertake research, have a look at previous questionnaires from other secondary sources to gain some ideas. However, I have attached a copy of my Dogme ELT Survey for Teachers and Students below for those to peruse and get some ideas.

Teacher Based Survey
Final Survey for English Language Teachers

Student Based Survey
Final Survey for Students

The next step, after creating a survey, would be to pilot it with selected individuals. This would ensure any errors are ironed out and invaluable feedback is provided. During the Dogme ELT research, my pilot study was undertaken at the University of Sussex with fellow teachers and students. The feedback that I received was incredibly invaluable and I was able to amend some of the questions (particularly for the Student's Survey). Once feedback and advice has been received, amend the questionnaires. There are always going to be unexpected situations occur during the research process. During the Dogme ELT research, one school decided they were unable participate as it was the Summer season and consequently their busiest period. Another school decided not to assist with an Interview and I was left with interviewing two teachers instead of the ideal three that I wanted. However, it teaches you to expect the unexpected when incorporating any form of action research. Obviously, if you are able to complement the surveys with some interview with selected participants, this would improve the validity and quality of the possible results. Nevertheless, what can you do with the results that you have collected? Well you could publish the results for your school, provide a teacher workshop, print your research in a specific journal or share your experiences on a blog yourself.

Some online surveys offer some great possibilities for small scale surveys and the following websites should be useful:

Fluid Surveys - they offer free surveying opportunities with opportunities to link others to complete via Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Survey Monkey - an online surveying tool with invitation links via Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Google Surveys - an increasingly popular way to survey but requires some perseverance to build the survey.
Twit Poll - this is a simple solution and is used every week for the ELT Chat.

I would recommend any newcomers to research in English language teaching to purchase some of recommended reading. It would provide further information. I hope this post helps those other teachers seeking to research some problem or wish to learn more about their teaching or their learners. Please feel free to ask any questions about EFL research.

Recommended Reading

Brown, J. D. (1988) Understanding Research in Second Language Learning. Cambridge: CUP.

Brown, J. D. & Rodgers, T. S. (2002) Doing Second Language Research. Oxford: OUP.

Dörnyei, Z. (2010) Questionnaires in Second Language Research: Construction, Administration, and Processing. Abingdon: Routledge.

Nunan, D. (1992) Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge: CUP.

Dogme for Elementary Japanese Learners

2011-08-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

Although the past few months have enveloped me in reading, research and writing for my Dogme Dissertation, I have found enough time to teach for two weeks part-time. I have been teaching at a local university and was kindly asked to teach Japanese learners. They arrived last week and I didn't know what to expect. However, since I had spent the past few months reading and writing about Dogme ELT, I really wanted to put this into practice with the class. The first day was spent relaxing the students and providing an environment whereby we could all get to know each other.

Nevertheless, I was provided with Macmillan's "Move" which is a wonderful coursebook with some great ideas and tries to link the CEFR with learning objectives. However, I feel the coursebook falls short with some of the selected topics. For example, there are hardly any topics about food, sports or education (albeit sparingly). As I had never used this coursebook before, I thought I would give it a go. I prepared a lot of material to be used on the SMARTBoard in my classroom with reading, images, etc but I started to think why I really had to go through the process of trying to improve a coursebook which was not really suitable for closed groups. I must mention that I believe the coursebook is professionally written and has a lot of possibilities for classes but I noticed that for the Japanese young adults, it wasn't that suitable. Anyhow, I persevered through the first week with a combination of coursebook and complimentary material.

I know there was an ELT Chat about Dogme and whether this was possible with Beginners. I hope the rest of this blog post provides an opportunity to suggest that Dogme is possible with Elementary and hopefully with Beginners if there is patience and perseverance. The first Dogme related moment occurred during the third day when the class were describing their home-towns (a topic that was selected from the coursebook) and a Japanese student mentioned:

There is Army base in home-town but not there now.

I knew exactly what the student was trying to say and she tried her best to convey her message but she didn't have the linguistic knowledge for accuracy. So I stopped with the coursebook (and mostly the lesson plan) and I transcribed her utterance on to the IWB. I tried to elicit and check if any other students were aware of the correct form with the above sentence. There were a few students shaking their heads and a bit of silence, so I made the leap and thought that I would scaffold the language that had emerged in class. I wrote the following statement on the board:

There used to be an Army base in my home-town.

I underlined the phrase 'used to' and drew a timeline to ensure that students were aware of the above statement. Once the timeline had be drawn, I checked students' understanding with the use of CCQs (Concept Checking Questions). The next part of my Dogme-styled lesson was to drill students the structure and provide them with a couple of personal examples about myself: "I used to be in the RAF", "I used to live in South Korea". I asked students to make a note of some personal examples and write them down. Once these were written, I got the students to mingle and compare their sentences. There was a lot of chatter in L1 but mostly L2 about some of the statements. Once students settled a little bit, I decided to elicit any interesting facts that they had learnt about each other. The whole lesson lasted about 45 minutes but it was a nice distraction for the students to learn something that had emerged from themselves at the beginning of class and was relevant. I checked other coursebooks to establish when "used to" is normally taught and it is generally introduced for Pre-Intermediate or Intermediate learners. I suppose emergent language and the teaching of language is not predictable. It changes and develops from interaction among the other people in the classroom.

Finally, the first difficulty that I faced with these learners was trying to develop their conversational skills. I have tried to work very hard to improve interaction with the use of continuation questions. For example, a topic that the learners wanted to focus on today was related to sports. The students were provided with an opportunity to practice speaking. I was making a note of the emergent language that was suitable and language that needed scaffolding (I don't want to be overly critical with the learners and demotivate them - so best to provide the best of both), writing language and phrases on the board. I really did feel that the students made some great progress today and they felt more comfortable conversing in English with each other. Interestingly, the second part of the lesson (which lasts for an hour and a half) focused on conversation and there was a lot of interaction between all the people in the class. Before I knew it, the lesson was over. I enjoyed the lesson so much that it flew by.

The whole experience of incorporating my research into the classroom has been a rewarding experience and I thank the learners in the class for being so flexible and open to the personal approaches and techniques that I decided to incorporate during lessons. A final note to add, my dissertation will be submitted in the coming weeks. I will be sharing some of the procedures and materials that were used during the research in due course.

Dogme ELT - Beginning of the Research Analysis

2011-08-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

I have started to collate and analyse the information that I have received from the 15 teacher surveys and the two teacher interviews in relation to my research into Dogme ELT. Although it is very early days, I thought I would share the initial research findings.

The first part of my teacher's survey questioned teachers on their experiences and qualifications. Fifteen teachers responded to my surveys from three different schools in East Sussex, UK. The majority of the teachers had between 10 to 15 years experience of teaching EFL. However, most respondents only held a Certificate in EFL, such as a CELTA or a Trinity Cert TESOL. Various questions are raised but it is beyond the scope of this survey to assess the reasons or implications of CPD. The final part of the first section of the survey, I tried to find out how teachers describe their roles within the classroom. One respondent described the role of the English language teacher as:

"To facilitate the acquisition of language specific to the needs and requirements of the learners"

Harmer (2007) describes a facilitator as “a particular kind of teacher, one that is democratic rather than autocratic, and one who fosters learner autonomy” (ibid: pg.108) with the use of various tasks and activities. Thornbury (2006) describes the role of ‘teacher-as-facilitator’ is one where they provide “learners with the language they need to construct their own conversations” (ibid: pg.79). Obviously, the humanistic opinion of facilitation is related to Dogme ELT in its relation to task-based learning.

Research Graphs

Further Reading

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

Thornbury, S. (2006) An A-Z of ELT: A dictionary of terms and concepts used in English Language Teaching. Oxford: Macmillan Education

Brief Posting About Dogme ELT

2011-08-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

I have been rather quiet with my personal blog, mainly due to personal MA commitments. As some of you maybe aware, I have been researching and writing up Dogme ELT for my dissertation (as well as a few posts about my final few days at the IATEFL Conference at Brighton). It has been an incredibly useful experience and I have learnt a great deal more about Dogme ELT. I will obviously be writing a summary post about my research and any findings (if any), from the research. Anyhow, to whet your appetite there is a video below of Luke Meddings presenting at the British Council about Dogme ELT earlier this year.

I shall finish this brief blog post with a quote from Leo van Lier (1996) who summarises the incorporation of Dogme ELT incredibly well:

"The term 'balanced' suggests that in most cases a lesson which is so tightly planned (and implemented) that there is no room at all for improvisation, and conversely, a lesson which is not planned at all and therefore entirely improvised, would generally be considered unbalanced and perhaps not terribly effective (though one must be very careful, of course, not to generalize unduly)." (ibid: pg.200)

It is interesting to note that van Lier (1996) tried to implement an 'unplugged' principle (albeit a 'balanced' approach) of teaching EFL years before "Teaching Unplugged" was published. I would recommend any teacher interested or experienced with Dogme ELT to try to purchase van Lier's book: it offers a fresh and different perspective with the principles of teaching unplugged.

Further Reading:
Lier, L. v. (1996) Interaction in the Language Curriculum: Awareness, Autonomy & Authenticity. Harlow: Longman Group Limited.
Meddings, L. & Thornbury, S. (2009) Teaching Unplugged. Surrey: DELTA Publishing.

Dogme ELT - Writing a Survey/Questionnaire

2011-06-19T14:40:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the incredibly short blog post but I have recently been rather busy preparing for my research and dissertation on Dogme ELT and have made some fantastic progress. More recently, I submitted by Research Proposal and received some positive feedback from my supervisor. Nonetheless, I thought I would share some more updates regarding my research as I have just completed writing my first ever survey/questionnaire for English language teachers.

Questionnaire for English Language Teachers (Pilot v1)

Apologies for the break in format/font style in the document. It appears that Scribd are not being to supportive with this file attachment (so no comments about style of fonts please). It would be greatly appreciated to receive feedback and advice on my survey in relation to Dogme ELT.

*Edit - I have removed the questionnaire for the time being as it has been continuously updated. I will provide the final version in a future blogpost. For those that are interested; my supervisor handed out the pilot questionnaire (with the updated questions) to students as well as teachers (both different questionniares). I will create a final version of the questionnaire based upon the information received from the answers. I am making progress and will start the official research soon and will also be writing my dissertation shortly. I am continuously reading, making notes and thinking about principles of language teaching and best practice but hopefully with more reflection and thought, it will develop in my dissertation.

Teaching Compound Nouns - Lesson Plan

2011-05-26T06:09:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was required to teach 'Compound Nouns' to my current group of Chinese Young Learners. They are intermediate students and are rather autonomous: they only require a little instruction or guidance. Nonetheless, it was the first time that I had formally taught 'Compound Nouns' in class and I spent one evening last week thinking what was the best way to introduce it. I referred to English Grammar Today as well as English Vocabulary in Use which offered some guidance for lesson activities. Again Sue Annan provided some invaluable advice and emailed me some possible material which was greatly appreciated. In the end, I decided that preparing my own material whilst referring to the books and advice provided by Sue was more beneficial.

For the lesson, I decided that a matching exercise was useful. I handed out strips of words to groups of three or four students and they then had to match compound nouns together ('bus' + 'stop', 'mother' + 'tongue', etc). The matching worksheet is provided below but it requires printing, photocopying and cutting up (just a little more preparation than usual). Once vocabulary was matched together, students transcribed their answers on the whiteboard and then into their notebooks. Nearer the end of the first lesson, we played a quick game whereby I gave students a topic and they had to think of their own compound nouns. Topics included 'jobs', 'travel', 'kitchen', etc.

To reinforce the teaching of compound nouns in the second lesson, I had prepared a wordsearch puzzle for the young learners and they were really keen to complete it. They were seeing who could complete the puzzle the quickest. In the wordsearch, the nouns which were introduced during the matching exercise were repeated. Towards the end of the second lesson, I decided to do one more ten minute game. To begin with, I demonstrated the game to all the students. The students have to guess what compound noun is being acted. The rules of the acting game included:

No talking to the students
You are only allowed to mime or act the noun
Two students are invited to the front of class with one student being one noun and the other student being the other noun
Students sitting at their desks must raise their hands if they know the answer
The student that guesses correctly can choose who can go up to the front of class

The game was great fun with the students really getting into acting as a 'bus' and another student miming a 'driver'. This activity was suggested by a colleague at LTC Eastbourne and something that I will 'keep up my sleeve' for a future lesson on compound nouns/adjectives.

I really appreciate some of the tweets that I received from my PLN to help with preparing my lesson. I would really encourage all my teachers to get on Twitter and extend their PLN. Some of the tweets I received are below.

Some of the activities suggested above was not done but it will remain a possibility if I do a future lesson. Please feel free to use the material that I have shared which is available below.

Matching Activity

Marmite made illegal in Denmark - Lesson Plan

2011-05-25T17:49:00.000-07:00

The Telegraph (2011) - Marmite made illegal in Denmark

Background Information
Although I have a blog post on the 'back-burner' about the teaching of Compound Nouns (which I taught a week ago with the assistance of Sue Annan with lesson ideas), I thought I would share a lesson that I will be teaching with my Chinese students tomorrow.

I recently read about Denmark banning Marmite from their country due to legislation. I thought it was material worthy for the classroom and decided to work on the newspaper article for the lesson. To begin with, I read the article via The Telegraph. Next I opened up Wordle and started to put in some vocabulary which I thought would provide just enough information for students to guess the news article and formulate their own brief description. Then I copied and pasted the article into MS Word twice and then with one copy I started filling underlined sections from the vocabulary that was typed into Wordle. Finally I downloaded an image of Marmite from Google to upload to my iPad. So how do you go about using this material in class? Read on to find out.

Lesson Plan

Ask students if they know of any famous British brands. Some could include Cadbury's (before Kraft bought I suppose), Burberry, Roll's Royce, etc. Once brands have been brainstormed and transcribed onto the whiteboard, ask students if they know about Marmite. If not, you could prepare a jar of marmite on a small piece of toast for students to taste. They could describe what they think. At this point, you could then introduce the marketing slogan (You love it or hate it).
After the initial brainstorming and Marmite introduction, you move on to the vocabulary. Handout the Wordle (provided below with Required Material). Get students to guess the news story in pairs. Alternatively, you could get students to write up a story using the vocabulary from the Wordle.
Once some predictions have been mentioned and compared by students, you could introduce the story. Perhaps a small dictogloss activity for the initial paragraph ("According to the marketing slogan ...") but it depends on the teacher and the students receptiveness during the class.
Tell students that you have been a bit crazy and decided to delete all the words in the article which appear in the Wordle. Explain that students must try to put the story in order in pairs/groups of three or four.
Monitor the class and ensure the activity is progressing well. Help students if required.
At the end of the activity, using an IWB or OHP to show the original article. Compare this with the students' versions.
Nearer towards the end of this lesson, you could provide students the opportunity to look up some difficult vocabulary in an Advanced Learner's Dictionary and allow some time for them to make a note of difficulty vocabulary within the article (slogan, vitamins, minerals, insane, etc). You could end the class with a classic chair in front of the board, one student sitting down and a word or phrase is written on the whiteboard, all students have to explain this and the individual student needs to guess the word or phrase. This will allow students the opportunity to repeat vocabulary that was new or introduced during class.

Required Material
The material that is required for the lesson is provided below.

Newspaper Wordle

Newspaper Article
Marmite Made Illegal in Denmark

Please let me know what you think of the lesson plan and the material. It would be great to hear how successful the lesson was in your lesson.

My First Lesson - Chinese Students

2011-05-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday morning, I started my first formal lesson with 18 Chinese students in class. I normally do not have so many in class but as there are a huge number of Chinese visiting for my local language school (LTC Eastbourne) for four weeks English lessons (as well as a limited number of classrooms), this has contributed to a large number of students in class. Nonetheless, no matter how many times or how long I have taught I usually get the usual question bugging me; what should I do for a first lesson? I know there are a variety of lesson recipes that suggest suitable first day lessons: find the odd sentence, sentence stars, find somebody who, etc. I decided to take a different approach to my first lesson and I really wanted to set a standard for the Chinese students for consecutive lessons.

For the first 45 minute lesson, I decided to do a dictogloss activity. Dictogloss is described by Willy Cardoso as "a classroom dictation activity where learners listen to a text, usually a short one, and then reconstruct it". I wrote a day before a short text about myself (name, age, family, hobbies, etc) and read this out during the first lesson. The students listened to the text and then made a note of particular language or keywords that they thought was more memorable. After a few minutes, I read the short passage again and then asked students to work in pairs and compare notes of keywords/vocabulary. Students worked in pairs to reconstruct the text. After five minutes, I grouped students into fours or fives and asked them to nominate a team leader. The team leader was responsible for writing the group text and the other members of the group had to help with grammar, vocabulary, etc. Once the students had finished the short text, I asked the team leader to nominate someone to read out the text to the class so that they could recognise differences in grammar and vocabulary. There was some discussion between the pronunciation between 'cycling' and 'skating'. My text originally said 'My hobbies include cycling, chess and learning languages' but some students misunderstood the word 'cycling' for 'skating'. Finally, I got students to write out their own introductions on a piece of paper which I collected at the end of class with my own text (which was written on the board at that point of the lesson) as a template. The Chinese students were incredibly receptive to the dictogloss activity and is something which I will incorporate in future lessons.

The next two lessons I decided to focus on pronunciation, partly due to a lack of incorporating pronunciation in my past lessons. I photocopied a phonemic chart for each student (something that Adrian Underhill recommended during his talk at the BELTE last year) prior to the lesson and decided to work on the alphabet. Although my students are what I consider an Intermediate level, their pronunciation requires some work. When students were spelling their names, I had difficulty understanding particular words which were being spelt. I decided that introducing the alphabet (which all the students should know) was quite interesting. On the whiteboard I drew a table which was split between seven parts. At the top of the table I wrote out seven different phonemic symbols and introduced these vowel sounds to the students. I got the idea of this activity from Memory Activities for Language Learning (2011) which is written by Bilbrough and is published by Cambridge University Press as part of the Handbook for Language Teachers collection and includes a CD-ROM (a recently published book for teachers that I would recommend purchasing). Nonetheless, the activity which inspired my lesson is illustrated below. If you scroll down a little, you can see the grouping of particular letters of the alphabet with vowel sounds. I have noticed that this activity is a useful lesson for absolute beginners or intermediate students.

Memory Activities for Language Learning (Bilbrough, 2011: pg.136)

To end I decided to finish the lesson on a more relaxed note but related to pronunciation. Thus, I decided to use the tried and tested method of Pronunciation Phone Numbers activity (which I have introduced in previous blogposts). The students were really relaxed and they were using their own Phonemic Chart to help them with their own pronunciation. They produced some really useful language and were starting to 'sound out' minimal-pairs: bat/bet, bite/bait, etc. I demonstrated to students what was expected then finally getting pairs of students to practice among each other. In the end, I got half of the class to go up to the board and then with another partner, listen to the coded phone number (from words) then try to decode it (to numbers) and write their answers on the board. When students were coming up to the board, I noticed that other students were incredibly focused on pronouncing correctly. Whether this is suitable or not is another question but overall the students were aware of their own pronunciation. At the end of the class, for the last two minutes, I chose difficult minimal pairs and got students to pronounce particular words with another similar word (bat/bet or bite/bait). Instead of doing the normal routine of modelling the pronunciation, I got students to pronounce it first and then model their language for other students. This was one trick that I learnt from Underhill during the 2010 BELTE. I also got one half of the class to pronounce one word and other half to pronounce another word to demonstrate potential differences and I asked "Did you hear the difference? Did you notice the difference?". I believe that this really encourages students to become more aware of their own pronunciation and learn to accommodate other students' pronunciation (whether they are a closed or open class).

So this is a quick reflection of the first day of teaching with the Chinese students. I have almost three more weeks of teaching with the students and I will be blogging about the potential experiences of teaching teenagers for an extended period. I hope to incorporate more Dogme ELT (as well as more pronunciation) in class without too much detriment on the quality of the lessons. If there are any lessons that readers recommend, please do not hesitate to suggest. It would be greatly appreciated.

Teaching Unplugged - My First Video

2011-05-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I was lucky to get my first attempt at teaching a Dogme ELT lesson recorded. I received a copy of the recording from the language department at the University of Sussex. With this video, I copied to my PC, edited some of the clips and then made it more suitable for YouTube. A copy of the video is available to watch below.

A copy of my original lesson plan and reflection is available to read on my blog. This will hopefully provide further information about the lesson that I prepared for the formal observation. Some of the language that was encountered during the lesson included:

Did/Do you know about ...?
I don't ... much but ... (I don't exercise much but I watch TV)
I just heard that ...
I'm aware that ...
First Lady
International Women's Day
Mother's Day
The Iron Lady

This is a brief summary of the language that emerged during class and hope it's a good illustration how useful an unplugged lesson can be. Finally, I have been wondering whether Dogme ELT could be a useful topic to research for my MA Dissertation and will be posting more information regarding this in due course. I will be seeking teachers and institutions to answer some questions so please feel free to contact me if you wish to be included in my study. You never know, I might be presenting my findings in next year's IATEFL Conference.

"Is Dogme ELT Worthy for Research?" - MA Dissertation Ideas

2011-05-04T04:05:00.000-07:00

Although I have a blog post on the 'back-burner' about the last few days of the IATEFL in Brighton, I have more pressing issues. Yesterday, I submitted by Advanced Practical Teaching portfolio and the ELF/World Englishes assignment. I spent many hours into the early morning writing, proofreading, editing and changing my assignment but am glad that it has been submitted and I can forget about it at the moment. Unfortunately, I have to think about my dissertation and the areas that I would like to focus on with my research.

Yesterday afternoon, I was spending some time with a great friend and colleague on the MA Course discussing our various ideas for research. We were enjoying our second, or it could have been our third, pint in the University bar and we were reflecting on our teaching practice. Somehow we ended up talking about the Dogme Teaching Practice that I done and the Dogme Symposium that he saw during the Brighton IATEFL Conference. Nevertheless, that got me thinking about doing some research on Dogme and Teaching Unplugged and got on to Twitter to share my ideas. I got a Tweet pretty quickly from Thornbury about research and he recommended a blog-post.

Anyhow, I am thinking about some areas to focus on during the research and my senior recommended that I start by writing down questions that would want answering. Some questions are written below:

Is Dogme ELT worthy in the classroom?
Dogme ELT: What is the opinion of teachers, students and schools?
Is an 'unplugged' approach to teaching recognised by many?
Initial Teacher Training: should Dogme ELT be included?
Dogme ELT: is it a 'fairy-tale' method?
Dogme ELT: fine in practice but difficult in theory?
What are the views of Dogme ELT?
Is Dogme ELT really a method for teachers?
What are the teachers, students & schools attitudes to Dogme ELT?
Is Dogme ELT another way of teaching or another way of being a teacher?

The questions that I have posted are initial ideas I have but hopefully from further reflection, thought and consideration, perhaps more questions will be created. There are some areas that Thornbury suggested in his "R is for Research" blog post that question possible limitations of a Dogme ELT research that provides evidence that an 'unplugged' approach works.

During the last semester on my MA Course, Dogme ELT was introduced during a 'postmethod' seminar and was only spoken about for a short time in passing. The Additional Reading below was a list of references for my final seminar/lecture on post-methods which included Dogme ELT. What I can see is that there is a lack of academic debate about Dogme ELT and its possible success as a method. There appears only two types of people visible when they discuss Dogme ELT: those that promote and incorporate Dogme ELT in their teaching & those people that dismiss it as a non-method which cannot be academically analysed or scrutinised. Perhaps academic research would really put Dogme ELT under the spotlight, to assess whether it can be a suitable classroom method/tool/etc. I started to look at various academic journals and I have noticed there is almost nothing about Dogme ELT in ELT Journal or the Applied Linguistics. Anyhow, it would be really interesting to find out the opinions of others and whether Dogme ELT can be adequally researched. Thank you for reading my ramblings.

Additional Reading
Akbari, R. (2008): 'Postmethod Discourse and Practice.. TESOL Quarterly, 42/4; pp 641-652.
Bell, D. (2007) 'Do teachers think that methods are dead?. ELT Journal, 61/2; pp 135?143.
Brown, H. (2002) 'English language teaching in the post-method era: towards better diagnosis, treatment and assessment.; in Richards, J. & Renandya, W. (eds) Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice. Cambridge: CUP.
Canagarajah, S. (2006) 'TESOL at Forty: What are the issues?. TESOL Quarterly, 40/1, 9-34.
Howatt, A. (2004) A History of English Language Teaching. (2nd ed.) Oxford: OUP.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994) 'The postmethod condition: (e)merging strategies for second/foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 28/1; pp 27-47.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006) 'TESOL Methods: Changing Tracks, Challenging Trends.. TESOL Quarterly, 40/1, pp59-81.
Lowe, C. (2003) 'Integration not eclecticism; a brief history of language teaching, 1853-2003.. IH Journal. Available at: www.ihworld.com/ihjournal (Accessed 15 March 2011)
Meddings, L. & Thornbury, S. (2009) Teaching Unplugged: Dogme in English Language Teaching. Peaslake: Delta.
Norton, B. & Toohey, K. (eds.) (2004) Critical pedagogies and language learning. Cambridge: CUP.
Prabhu, N. (1990) 'There is no best method -why?. TESOL Quarterly, 24/2; pp 161-72.
Richards, J. (1990) 'Beyond methods', in Richards, J. (ed) The Language Teaching Matrix. Cambridge: CUP.
Thornbury, S. (2006) An A-Z of ELT. Oxford: Macmillan.
Thornbury, S. (2009a) 'Methods, post-method, and métodos.. Available at: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/methods-post-method-m%C3%A9todos
Thornbury, S. (2009b) 'Dogme: nothing if not critical'. Available at: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/dogme-nothing-if-not-critical
Widdowson, H. (2003) Defining Issues in English Language Teaching. Oxford: OUP.

The Online CELTA - Is It The Future?

2011-04-18T15:37:00.000-07:00

Cambridge ESOL (www.cambridgeesol.org), 2011

During the IATEFL Brighton Conference this year, I was incredibly lucky to speak to Jim Scrivener privately about the 3rd Edition of Learning Teaching which is due to be officially published very soon. Nonetheless, when speaking to him, he did mention about the Online CELTA that will also become available for potential EFL/ELT professionals. I happened to know very little about this and was curious about the Online CELTA and I also enquired at Cambridge ESOL (at the Conference and Exhibition Centre) to find further information.

My initial reaction to an online TEFL course was of immediate interest and fortunate to hear of the current developments of Teacher Training. Why not make the CELTA online with some form of teaching practice? The DELTA became modular and it is, I guess, natural for courses to naturally develop in this technological world. However, I decided to read a little more and think about the possible benefits for trainees. I guess the benefits for trainees is that they are able to undertake the course in their own time (between 10 weeks to an academic year), there is an active online community among trainees and trainers as well as the potential for trainees to take part-time work to support their ambitions. What about the potential flaws I then proceeded to ask myself? Well, I guess my first question was "Is there going to be a possible perception (albeit negative) among current ELT professionals between the Online CELTA and the standard in-house four week CELTA course?". Yet, current post-graduate courses such as MA's and Diplomas are being offered online and I have grown used to distance learning (which was really established by Open University initially), so why should there be any resistance to change with the CELTA course towards an online version? Granted, on the face of it some managers may see the online essense unsuitable with a perceptive comparison to the 'four week in-house course'. Let us not forget that the Online CELTA is not going to replace the in-house course and it should still be available; Cambridge ESOL does suggest that it aims to "increase access to CELTA" as well as "complement existing provision".

It is natural for managers and educators to compare their training with online versions but let's not forget that the Teaching Practice will remain in a Centre offering face-to-face feedback (with the Teaching Practice Tutor) whilst the Online Course Tutor will feed in suitable theory "ensuring a [complementary] tight fit between theory and practice". When speaking to a few people at the Conference, their opinion of the Online CELTA was that it was inferior to a four week in-house course and that we were offering the course to any person with a slight interest in teaching. It is recognisable that those teaching in South East Asia only require an undergraduate degree (within any subject) to allow them to get a teaching Visa and teach. It is a good opportunity for current teachers in such circumstances to undertake a professional course and continue with employment. If this developent in Teacher Training does provide the profession the opportunity to 'unpack' the 'backpacker' image of EFL, particularly in South East Asia, so much the better. Brief information about the 'backpacker' image of EFL teaching is illustrated on Scott Thornbury's blog. Additionally, as educators, we should remember to 'practice what we preach' and that if we are expecting learners to embrace a Blended Learning approach to language acquisition, we should expect to change our current perception of Teacher Training to embrace such approaches.

During the IATEFL Conference, there were a lot of talks and seminars about technology for learners, the use of multitasking with Twitter as well as blogging for teachers. Interestingly, Jenny Johnson looked at the development of teachers at a distance during the IATEFL this year. It is an interesting time for educators and I will be watching the development of the Online CELTA this year. Nonetheless, what are your opinions of an online course? Does the online course have the same gravity as a four week in-house teaching course (such as the CELTA)? Is this the natural development of technology in teacher training and should be embrace it? For those as Director of Studies (or in Managerial positions), would you employ a teacher who had just completed an Online CELTA course? Why or why not? It would be interesting to hear the opinion of those that are teacher trainers as well as those that are keen to undertake a CELTA course but would like to offer their opinion why an online version may be a good idea. Finally, Shaun Wilden looks at the very issue of face-to-face teacher training and the possibility of trainers becoming online with "Is a good f2f trainer automatically a good online one?"

Further Reading
http://www.atimod.com/e-tivities/5stage.shtml
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/ctl-resources/Teaching-in-the-online-environment/Starting/Course_design.html
http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/ca/digitalAssets/113946_The_prepar...
http://www.lichfielddc.gov.uk/icele/site/scripts/documents_info.php?docu...
http://www.jerrythekes.com/works/2-articles/27-what-makes
http://www.suite101.com/content/qualities-of-a-good-trainer-a99357
http://www.blogs.english4today.com/?p=78
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Queiroz-OnlineTeachers.html