Milan English blog

Maggie Rose whips up a storm of talent with a Milan-centric Tempest

2024-05-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

English Theatre Milan are staging a new version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest on 4th and 5th May. The themes of the play span conflict and reconciliation, the clash of cultures and colonialism, as well as revenge, magic and… Milan! As ETM point out in their publicity for the show “Our production is unique in another way; its very title, The Tempest in Milan, indicates links between this tragicomedy and Milan. The lead characters Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, his daughter Miranda, and brother Antonio, come from Milan, and the name of our city is mentioned over twenty times. We hope this interpretation will contribute to making Milan a ‘Shakespearian’ city as it well deserves”.

The fruit of ETM’s annual workshop, this staging of The Tempest in English marks something of a first in Milan. The cast is composed of both professionals and non-professionals, mostly native English speakers, hailing from the USA, UK, Ireland, Iran and Italy.

Led by Maggie Rose, who teaches British Theatre Studies at Milan State University (L’Università Statale di Milano), this production marks a departure from ETM’s previous projects: a veritable “research lab” drawing together contributions from a variety of disciplines. Artist Betta Marzorati has designed a backcloth for the Banquet scene; a group of students from the Brera School of Set Design (Scuola di Scenografia) have designed the Banquet and lent their expertise to both the props and costumes. An intern from the Catholica University of Milan (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) forms part of the impressive team assembled by Maggie and ETM.

The play is directed by Maggie Rose with Melissa Marino doubling as both Assistant Director and the character of Stephano. The cast include: Tommaso Bavestrelli (Caliban), Amy Barton (Prospero), Manfredi Costa (Gonzalo), Julia DiBona (Sebastian), Giulia Gibbon (Ariel), Verlie Anne Jones (Trinculo), Hugo McCafferty (Alonso), Melissa Marino (Stephano), Shila Pakbaz (Antonio), Daria Popa (Miranda) and Eugenio Scotti Camuzzi (Ferdinand).

The music is led by Amy Barton, artistic director of the Youth Choir of Milan and soprano with the Milan Singers.

Banquet Design: Beatrice Di Vincenzo, Margherita Magnoni, Matilde Paganini, Martina Toia (Scuola di Scenografia, Accademia di Brera)

The show is produced by Sal Cabras of ETM and Julia DiBona is Assistant Stage Manager

The performance will take place on two nights: Saturday 4th May at 8pm at All Saints Church, via Solferino 17 (which recently hosted Justin Butcher in the J Productions presentation of The Devil’s Passion) and Sunday 5th May at 4pm at CAM, corso Garibaldi 27, the former convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which features a beautiful portico by Bramante.

Find out more: visit English Theatre Milan for full details.

Fritters, Blinis and Bristin: an Evening of Comedy - Review

2024-01-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

J Productions, the brainchild of theatre impresario Julia Holden, returned to Milan’s Teatro Filodrammatici on Wednesday 24th January, serving up a highly unusual and memorably tasty comic concoction. Directed by Justin Butcher and featuring an excellent ensemble cast (Stephen Guy Daltry, Rupert Mason, Jennie Eggleton and Butcher himself) Fritters, Blinis and Bristin: an Evening of Comedy offered food for thought and laughs galore.

You’ve definitely heard of fritters. You've probably heard of blinis (even if you've never eaten one). But Bristin?? Unless you’re a hard-core fan of Dario Fo (winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature), I doubt that word will ring a bell. Fear not, however - all will be revealed soon.

So, hopefully you've worked up a healthy appetitie: let’s tuck in.

The programme was in two parts beginning with the fritters and blinis (the latter being East European pancakes buttered and served with smoked salmon or caviar. Anton Chekhov couldn’t get enough of them when he visited Siberia – and even wrote a story about a blini to die for). Before the interval, we were treated to three Chekhov one-act plays, vaudeville farces in fact. Farce may not be something you associate with the angsty samovar-centred drawing-room-and-veranda-based tragedies of Russia’s best-known dramatist. But apparently he churned them out when he was getting started (although his English Wikipedia page barely mentions them).

Russian blinis with red caviar, sour cream and dill. Image: Cooking the World

Accompanied by Stephen Guy Daltry on the accordion, the show kicked off with a selection of Russian songs, which were also interspersed throughout the fritter- and blini-based segment as palate cleansers of sorts. (The company’s Kalinka got the audience clapping in time to the music: a slightly odd sensation, given the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. It should be noted, however, that the J Productions presentation of Under Milk Wood starring Guy Masterson-Mastroianni, staged in the same theatre in 2022, was in aid of Ukrainian refugees. Justin Butcher himself is an outspoken champion of human rights.)

Audience at the Teatro Filodrammatici

The first course in this Russian section took the form of a monologue entitled The Evils of Tobacco. A twitchy, snuff-taking gentleman, the henpecked husband of a penny-pinching harridan who rules her academy for young ladies (and hubby) with a rod of iron, is supposed to be delivering a scientific lecture warning his audience of the dangers of the “noxious weed” but he is constantly sidetracked from his main aim, griping and sniping at the woman who has made his life a misery. Rupert Mason’s delivery was flawless: the taut, nervous husband gradually takes the audience deeper into his confidence, finally uttering howls of long-suppressed despair before finally realising he has gone too far and withdrawing back into the straitjacket of his quiet desperation. In fact, as with all three fritters and blinis on offer here, the laughter has a bitter aftertaste of the kind we associate with the best 1970s British sitcoms: Steptoe & Son, Rising Damp, etc. People trapped in situations that would be tragic if they weren’t funny. (Mr Blini, anyone?)

Rupert Mason as the ageing vaudevillian and Stephen Guy Daltry as the prompter in Swansong

Next up was Swansong. An ageing actor (Mason again) finds himself alone in the theatre after the audience has left and the lights have gone out. He is startled by what he takes for an apparition: a ghostly figure combining Scrooge in a long white nightshirt and cap holding a candle with at least one of the Christmas ghosts: it turns out to be the theatre's old prompter (played by Daltry) who reveals that he sleeps in the theatre at night. Initially wallowing in self-pity, the old vaudevillian eventually rouses himself and relives his on-stage triumphs, belting out his greatest hits, including Hamlet and King Lear with the prompter feeding him his lines. As the has-been harangues the storm in the heath scene from Lear, the prompter drums up some thunder on a tambourine. They make an odd couple that recalls Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser, memorably brought to life on screen by Albert Finney as Sir, gradually sinking into dementia with his very own Fool at his side, the eponymous dresser, Norman (played by Tom Courtenay).

Jennie Eggleton, Stephen Guy Daltry & Justin Butcher in The Bear

The final dish of the first half was The Bear. A peremptory creditor (played with enormous energy by great-coated and booted Justin Butcher) blusters his way into the drawing room of an impoverished widow (Jennie Eggleton) who owes him money. Shoving aside the ineffectual butler (Daltry), the ursine landowner works himself up into a rage, demanding a huge sum of cash to pay the interest on his mortgage. Ignoring the increasingly desperate pleading of the widow, the Bear installs himself in the drawing room, calling for drinks and making himself at home. Eventually, the outraged lady of the house challenges him to a duel and has her late husband’s duelling pistols brought down to the drawing room. Standing back to back, Widow and Bear prepare to face off and settle it once and for all. (I won’t say what happens next, in case you catch the show at a later date – but it’s a neat comic sleight of hand by the author of the better-known tragedies The Seagull, Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard.)

Justin Butcher & Jennie Eggleton in Chekhov's The Bear

More Russian tunes and even some dancing – and thus ends the first section of this highly original evening with the audience licking its fingers and dabbing them at the fritter and blini crumbs left on the plate / stage.

Stephen Guy Daltry, Ruper Mason, Justin Butcher & Jennie Eggleton in One was Nude...

All of which brings us to the main course and dessert combined: Dario Fo’s One was Nude & One wore Tails. It’s basically a shaggy dog story played out on stage. Starting with two Italian streetsweepers having a lopsided philosophical debate – taking in the meaning of life, the universe and everything, the conversation between the smarter of the two and his more synaptically-challenged mate leaves the latter flummoxed but somehow convinced that he is actually a manifestation of God. This wide-ranging banter probably works better in Italian or even in the salad of dialects that Fo lovingly assembled and dressed with wordplay, folk wisdom and all the other ingredients of his (re)creation of the language of the medieval giuillare (or wandering jester) and the fabulatore, the figure of the working-class storyteller that he came to revere and sought to model. While the evening’s fritters and blinis are decidedly Russian, “Bristin” is actually another culinary reference with a deeply personal significance for Dario Fo. It means “pepper seed” and was the nickname of his grandfather, a yarn-spinning itinerant merchant whom the young Dario accompanied on his rounds, sitting beside him on his wagon, soaking up the old man’s tall tales and learning his storytelling technique by osmosis.

Stephen Guy Daltry & Justin Butcher in Dario Fo's One was Nude...

The ‘Nude’ in One was Nude & One wore Tails refers to an ambassador (Daltry) who finds himself in a compromising situation following a swift exit from an amorous encounter. Still wearing his top hat – and nothing else – he takes refuge in the street sweeper’s bin. The one in 'Tails' is a man in a tux who cycles round town and goes into posh restaurants to sell flowers. There is also a lady of the night (Eggleton in shiny red mac and fishnets) who’s concerned about the Vice Squad. Authority comes in the form of the policeman (actually a Carabiniere played by Mason) who has a key role in re-establishing the bourgeois order that the anarchic action threatens to overturn.

Rupert Mason, Stephen Guy Daltry & Justin Butcher in One was Nude...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a nude ambassador in a bin must be in want of black tie so he can go home without alerting the suspicions of his wife. However, the proletarians he encounters during his naked odyssey end up bearing the brunt and taking the punishment for his misdeeds. (Here endeth Fo's riotous socialist lesson, which was the sort of thing that got him arrested and hounded by the authorities for most of his career, right up to the point when he won the Nobel and became pretty much untouchable. It's difficult to find a comparable figure in the English-speaking world: Dario Fo's career is intertwined with the rollercoaster politics of Italy in the 20th century.)

Rupert Mason & Jennie Eggleton in One was Nude & One wore Tails

The plot of One was Nude is convoluted and – as you might guess – farcical. At one point, the copper chases the ambassador (his modesty protected by a shopping bag worn like lederhosen) to the strains of The Benny Hill Show theme. (A thumbs up here for the excellent sound production, which also included comic-style sound effects when the rozzer administers some “hands on” policing to the street sweeper (and / or the flower seller – it’s a bit hazy now, your Honour).

Stephen Guy Daltry & Justin Butcher in One was Nude & One wore Tails

Reprising his role as accompanist, Daltry takes up his squeeze box again and the audience is invited to sing along to a rousing chorus of Bella Ciao, the Italian partisan anthem better known to younger audiences as the song that The Professor teaches to his city-named accomplices in the Spanish Netflix series Casa de Papel (unimaginatively rendered as Money Heist in the English version).

Stephen Guy Daltry, Justin Butcher, Jennie Eggleton & Rupert Mason in One was Nude...

Following a number of well-deserved curtain calls, Butcher came out onto the stage (now in civvies) and thanked Julia Holden, the theatre and the audience for the opportunity to bring Dario Fo in English back to to the stage in the city that he is most closely associated with. For Justin Butcher, this is obviously something of a mission and he has acknowledged Fo as his greatest theatrical influence.

Poster with members of the cast: (anti-clockwise) Jennie Eggleton,
Justin Butcher, Rupert Mason & Stephen Guy Daltry

Overall, this was a deliciously satisfying evening of outstanding theatre featuring bravura performances by a group of highly talented actors, great music, brilliant costumes (especially the streetsweepers’ bowler hats – although I might be biased), a beautiful venue and “a lorra lorra laffs” (as the late, great Cilla Black might have put it).

As always, I await the next J Productions presentation with baited breath!

Your humble scribe (left) with the Welsh Cultural Attaché to Milan, Mr W. McHoya

Robert Dennis

January 28th 2024

Milan

About the Author

Robert Dennis is a Business English teacher based in Milan. He has been teaching for over 30 years both in the UK and in Italy. A long-time collaborator with John Peter Sloan, Robert published “Business English” (Gribaudo) in 2020. The book was launched with “Il Sole 24 Ore” and sold in newsstands throughout Italy. Robert has a website for people who want to learn Business English: payasyoulearn.com. The site features keywords and phrases, audio and exercises to help professionals improve their language skills. A graduate in English from Oxford University, Robert is also a translator and regular contributor to EasyMilano.com, the online magazine for expats.

Northern Italy pays special tribute to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with unexpected downpour

2022-05-28T14:52:00.002-07:00

Torrential rain falls in Milan as Italians salute Her Majesty's 70th year on the throne.

Only yesterday, the city of Milan was as humid and clammy as the armpit of a commuter holding onto the handrail of a suburban train. As pigeons struggled to find cool, shady spots and cats lounged luxuriously, thermometers turned blood red as the unrelenting heat slowly reduced the city to a burnt frazzle. But in a surprise move, the region has decided to send a positive post-Brexit message to the people of Britain and to Her Majesty the Queen in particular as she marks her 70th glorious year on the throne.

With perfect timing for the weekend, co-ordinated rain and hailstorms were delivered, completely crushing even the vaguest notion of enjoying a day out or just having a walk to the shops. Taking its cue from the UK, Lombardy has suddenly turned itself into a miserable, sodden island of depressed people glued to the TV and hunting for jumpers they had carefully packed away for the summer.

“I really feel like I’m back home in London,” said one long-term British resident of Milan, as he added two heaped spoons of tea leaves and one for the pot to the heavy brown ceramic teapot on his kitchen table. Sales of Marmite in the city’s expat shops have spiked and demand for crinkled orange cagoules at the region’s lakes has soared. Reports of disconsolate people sitting in caravans and playing Cluedo have yet to be confirmed, but it is understood that a woman in wellies with a Labrador was seen trudging across Piazza Duomo under a Radio 1 Smiley Miley golfing umbrella.

“We want to show the people of Great Britain that there is more to Italy than sunshine, outdoor aperitivos with Aperol Spritz and elegantly-served appetisers. We too are capable of producing gloomy, rain-soaked Saturday and Sunday afternoons when it actually seems like a good idea to sort your socks and underpants for the week ahead, rather than attending a chic gathering on a rooftop terrace with a DJ in a dinner jacket and a spectacular sunset,” said a spokesperson for the Lombardy Regional Planning Committee.

While appreciated by the loyal subjects of Queen Elizabeth, the gesture on the part of the Milanese is not expected to interfere with the preparations for Republic Day on June 2nd, which should see hordes of cheerful Italians basking in bright sunshine. However, the traditional Bank Holiday deluge in the UK may still be averted due to the extended length of the break, which includes two extra days of festivities to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Since public holidays almost never fall on a Thursday, the fine weather that invariably accompanies the working week in Great Britain should still be available, even though people will be outside in the street sitting at long tables and toasting the Queen with plastic cups of lukewarm Tesco’s prosecco.

© Robert Dennis 2022

robertdennis.it

Funny Conversation: the Swab Test

2022-05-02T13:12:00.003-07:00

Mary is talking to Salvatore.

Mary: Hi, Salvatore. How’s it going?
Salvatore: Oh, hi Mary. Fine thanks, what about you?
Mary: Yeah, not bad. So, what have you been doing?
Salvatore: Well, yesterday, I made a tampon test.
Mary: (drops her cup of coffee and there’s a loud CRASH!! and coffee goes all over the table). I beg your pardon???!!!!!
Salvatore: What do you mean… I beg…?
Mary: Oh, erm, “I beg your pardon” is a very formal way of saying “Excuse me?”. You say this when you haven’t heard what someone said – or you don’t understand it.
Salvatore: Oh, I see. Say it again.
Mary: (drops her coffee again) I beg your pardon???
Salvatore: I made a tampon test.
Mary: Er, what do you mean?
Salvatore: Well, I went to the clinic and I made a test…
Mary: Sorry, do you mean, you HAD a test? … You DID a test?
Salvatore: Yes, that’s right. I did a test.
Mary: For what?
Salvo: To see if I’ve got coronavirus.
Mary: Oh, I see! So, you did a swab test?
Salvo: What’s that?
Mary: Well, a swab is like a big cotton bud.
Salvo: A cotton bud?
Mary: Yeah, it’s a sort of stick with a piece of cotton wool on the end.
Salvo: Oh, you mean a cotton fioc?
Mary: A what?
Salvo: A cotton fioc. You know, like Johnson’s cotton fioc.
Mary: I’ve never heard of that.
Salvo: Oh, I thought that was the English name.
Mary: No. No-one in the English-speaking world has EVER used the expression “cotton fioc”. We say “cotton bud” in the UK and in America they say “cotton swab” or “Q-tip”.
Salvo: Oh, that’s strange.
Mary: So, what happened?
Salvo: Well, they put this big… cotton BUD in the back of my throat and up my nose and made a sample.
Mary: Do you mean they took a sample?
Salvo: Yeah, they took a sample.
Mary: Ah, OK, I see.
Salvo: So, you don’t say tampon test?
Mary: (drops her coffee again). NO!! That’s a really strange thing to say, Salvo.
Salvo: Er, why?
Mary: Well, a tampon is something that women use once a month.
Salvo: (silent, mouth open) Uh?
Mary: Yeah, a tampon is “un assorbente”.
Salvo: Oh my God!
Mary: So, when you said you did a tampon test, that sounds… hmm, really strange, Salvo, unless you work in a company that makes tampons.
Salvo: Oh my God!! I’ve been saying to all my international colleagues “I am doing a tampon test” and no-one replied.
Mary: Yeah, I’m not surprised.
Salvo: So, I should say “I did a swab test”, then?
Mary: Yeah, exactly. You did a swab test, not a tampon test.
Salvo: Hmm…. English is really confusing, isn’t it?
Mary: Yeah, I suppose it is. Anyway, what was the result?
Salvo: It was negative.
Mary: Oh, well, thank God for that.
Salvo: Yes, indeed.

Vocabulary and Notes

How’s it going? - Come va?

I beg your pardon? - Mi scusi?

have / do a test - fare un'esame / test (NOT "~~make~~ a test")

a swab test - test del tampone

swab - tampone

cotton bud - cotton fioc (marca di Johnson & Johnson in Italia)

cotton wool - ovatta

cotton swab - cotton floc (US)

Q-tip - cotton fioc (US) di Unilever)

take a sample - prendere un campione

tampon - un assorbente

I did a swab test - ho fatto il tampone

anyway - comunque

result - risultato

Under Milk Wood comes to Milan with a stunning performance to help Ukraine

2022-04-06T17:31:00.015-07:00

Guy Masterson-Mastroianni in Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, J Productions

Tonight was a rare opportunity: the chance to see the incredible Guy Masterson-Mastroianni performing all 69 roles of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood in a special charity performance for Ukraine at the Filodrammatici Theatre in Milan, thanks to Julia Holden and J Productions.

Guy Masterson-Mastroianni was absolutely incredible, transforming himself physically and vocally into all the characters of the 20th century classic set in the fictional Welsh town of Llareggub (or "Bugger All" in reverse). With minimal staging – literally, just a chair – and a few props (sunglasses, pint glass), Guy brings the story to life, switching between the various personalities that inhabit Thomas’s dreamscape – from the blind Captain Cat, reliving his seafaring times, to the baker Dai Bread with his two wives, the Mrs Dai Breads, and from Organ Morgan, obsessed with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach to Polly Garter, pining for her dead lover. Masterson-Mastroianni’s performance veers from a portrayal of skipping and chanting children in the playground to surly, hawking fishermen on the quayside, and from the poetic Reverend Eli Jenkins’s sermons to Sinbad the lovestruck publican at The Sailors’ Arms, who yearns for schoolteacher Gossamer Beynon.

The lighting and audio were matched flawlessly, with the almost cinematic precision of sound effects and atmospheric music by Matt Clifford, combining to create a rich, lyrical texture complementing the performance (in English).

Guy Masterson, who is actually the great nephew of Sir Richard Burton, was inspired to become an actor by his great uncle’s rendition of Under Milk Wood, which was commissioned by the BBC in 1954 as a radio drama by Dylan Thomas and later adapted for the stage. Guy has performed the piece over 2,000 times and, as he told us after the show, it is actually a “symphony” which carries him along with its intricate rhythms. Running at 100 minutes, his performance is not only a dramatic tour-de-force but also an impressive feat of memory in its own right.

All proceeds from the show, which was supported by law firm Trevisan & Cuonzo, will go to helping Ukrainian refugees.

Robert Dennis
https://robertdennis.it/

Guy Masterson-Mastroianni, Julia Holden and the J Productions team

Guy Masterson-Mastroianni with Robert Dennis

Swingin' London comes to Milan, courtesy of Mark Worden and Alfredo Marziano

2021-11-30T15:55:00.002-08:00

Swinging London

A Field Guide

by Mark Worden and Alfredo Marziano

The term Swinging London entered the language in 1965 when Time magazine ran a cover story on the subject. More than fifty years later, the idea is still very much alive. This book takes the reader to the places that made London swing.

Fully illustrated throughout, Swingin’ London: A Field Guide looks at some of the most important locations in the scene and reveals what became of them. It is based on extensive research and entertaining reminiscences by the bright young things who frequented them. They include Private Eye cartoonist and A Whole Scene Going presenter Barry Fantoni, Groupie author Jenny Fabian and musician Brian Auger, as well as some late greats like actress Anita Pallenberg, ‘Social Deviant’ Mick Farren, artist Duggie Fields and album cover designer Storm Thorgerson. The result is an affectionate and informative tribute to a bygone era – a time when London appeared to be the centre of life on earth.

Multi-media Presentation

Après-coup, Porta Romana provided the perfect setting for Mark and Alfredo's presentation of Swingin' London on Thursday 25th November 2021, with music and video clips from the interviews, entertainingly and expertly narrated by Mark (mainly in Italian with some English for good measure). He was also joined on stage by James Clough, who shared some reminiscences from the heady days of the 1960s. It was a truly memorable evening and a chance to see "old" friends and make some new ones.

Swinging London: A Field Guide by Mark Worden and Alfredo Marziano is available in both print and digital format (Kindle) from Amazon, IBS.it and in all good bookshops. It's the perfect Christmas gift for anybody visiting or living in London who wants to explore this fascinating part of the capital's history.

39 fashion words: video and language activity

2021-07-19T17:40:00.015-07:00

Do you love fashion? Are you excited by great design, colours and textures? Do you like to create a unique look that expresses your personality? Watch this video from payasyoulearn.com featuring 39 words that you can use to talk about fashion! Learn some useful vocabulary that you can use to talk about looking your best in the day and going out in the evening. Then, try the vocabulary exercises which use all the words and phrases from the video. You have to choose the correct verb – and sometimes the correct form of the verb – to complete the sentence.

Try this exercise to help you learn 37 action verbs in English!

2021-07-12T14:54:00.008-07:00

How often do you, run, walk or ski? Have you ever surfed or been skydiving? Do you ever rush, scream, sprint or ride a bike? If you look out of the window, can you see people bustling about?

Watch this video, created by Robert Dennis, and then try this vocabulary exercise which uses all the verbs from the video. You have to choose the correct verb – and sometimes the correct form of the verb – to complete the sentence.

Good luck! I hope you enjoy this practice exercise.

Check out the other videos in my YouTube channel Business English. Remember to “like and subscribe”!

Welcome to Milan! Robert Dennis walks and talks in the city centre

2021-06-07T10:45:00.005-07:00

Welcome to Milan! In this video, Business English teacher Robert Dennis talks about where he's from - a "leafy suburb" just outside London. Find out what "commute" means, experience some street life in Italy's business capital, Milano, and spend a few minutes in the company of Robert.

Check out the Business English YouTube channel for some useful and fun videos to help you learn English!

Business English di Robert Dennis: il corso più facile per fare strada!

2020-11-07T14:36:00.002-08:00

Cercare un impiego, presentare un curriculum e sostenere un colloquio, partecipare a riunioni, trovare le frasi giuste per una e-mail o per una conference call. Ti piacerebbe avere sempre qualcuno accanto che ti suggerisca esattamente cosa dire quando parli in inglese, magari quando incontri nuovi clienti o colleghi stranieri, oppure quando sei in collegamento con Londra o New York? Qualsiasi sia il tuo livello di inglese questo manuale, che tu ci creda o no, contiene tutte le risposte. Guidato dal Job Genie, il “genio del lavoro” che fa capolino fra le pagine del libro, disporrai sempre delle tecniche e delle parole giuste per un inglese commerciale chiaro ed efficace. «Cari lettori, siete fortunati ad avere tra le vostre mani il miglior libro di business English pubblicato in Italia!» John Peter Sloan.

Scritto da Robert Dennis, tradotto di Marta Castano, con illustrazioni di Sara Pedroni e una prefazione di John Peter Sloan, "Business English" è pubblicato di Gribaudo.

"Business English" sarà in libreria e anche disponibile online su Amazon, Feltrinelli.it, IBS.it, ecc, il 26 novembre.

Foto: Claudia Marinangeli

International Business Day: an enlightening seminar to help companies and professionals succeed in the global market

2017-07-10T09:03:00.001-07:00

"Spurred by the presence of friend John Peter Sloan, celebrated writer, author, actor and comedian famous in Italy for bringing to the fore the importance of English (my great passion) and the prospect of getting acquainted with his colleague from London, Robert Dennis, a teacher specialising in Business English, I attended the International Business Day, a seminar organized by H Advice Business School on Wednesday, June 28. The venue was Sicindustria Palermo and the event was sponsored by Giuffrè Fiscopiù. ..."

Read the full post by Leonardo Cascio of LCM Your Global Partner...

International Business Day: an "enlightening" seminar to help companies and professionals succeed in the global market

Riverstone and Interpret the Future team up again with OpenKnowledge at the Social Business forum 2016

2016-07-05T14:56:00.001-07:00

Now in its ninth year, the Social Business Forum, Europe’s premier speaker and networking event dedicated to social business, will take place in Milan on the 6-7 July 2016. Held once again at the Marriott Hotel in the capital city of fashion and design, SBF16 features a unique offer of visionary keynote speeches, success stories and discussion panels organized in a Free and Premium Conference. The Free Conference includes the keynote speeches in the mornings of July 6th and 7th delivered by outstanding and internationally-known experts.

The theme of this year’s Social Business Forum is the Platfirm Age: Plug your Business – Play your Future. The focus of many of the keynote presentations will be on how platform-companies, such as Airbnb, Facebook and LinkedIn, have revolutionised traditional business models and developed continuously-evolving structures where value is co-created with users / customers.

All the keynotes will be simultaneously translated by Interpret the Future, the Social Business Forum’s longstanding specialist interpreting partners. This year, the team includes ItF founder members Loredana Nano and Alice Bertinotti. Daniela Negru will also be in the booths helping the team to provide a highly professional conference interpreting service. The project is managed by Robert Dennis, director of Riverstone Language & Communications.

Find out more...

Written by Robert Dennis
Robert has published an online business English course. Sign up for the free edition here.

An Empowering experience at the Piccolo: VIP event to launch the new integrated Cambridge English course

2015-06-02T14:17:00.001-07:00

On Monday 25th May 2015, Cambridge English held a VIP presentation of their new Empower course. The event was a great opportunity to see the books and get some hands-on practice with the online materials and testing package, integrated with the publisher’s own learning management system. The afternoon also provided a nice networking opportunity and a chance to meet other English language professionals in the suitably dramatic setting of the Piccolo theatre (near Piazza Cordusio in central Milan. The theatre is a satellite of the larger Piccolo in the city's Lanza district).

Cambridge English Empower is a new general adult course that combines content from Cambridge University Press with validated assessment from Cambridge English Language Assessment. As Chris Jory, Publishing Manager of ELT adult courses at CUP pointed out, this makes the course unique and marks a new chapter in the closer integration of course materials and testing from one of the main ELT publishers and testing organisations.

The first thing that you notice about Empower is the fresh and exciting graphic treatment Cambridge have lavished on the course. In particular, gone are the rather tired standard images used to accompany the text in traditional class-based course books. Instead, Cambridge have commissioned and gathered a wealth of really exciting and unusual visuals, including photos that have a strong narrative content and that can be used to stimulate class discussions. Chris’s presentation featured a montage of images including a backpacking biker’s tour of South America, a busker dressed as a chicken playing the double bass and a beach house perched precariously on a raised platform. All of these images immediately invite the wh- questions that trigger active discussions between students and in whole class discussions. (Who are these people? What are they doing – and why? etc.)

Indeed, the emphasis of Empower is very much on eliciting personal experiences and encouraging students to talk about their own lives and to discover the life stories of fellow students. As language teachers, we know that this is always the most enjoyable and rewarding aspect of classroom teaching – and the visually-rich materials of Empower will certainly help teachers and students to have these discussions.

The structure of the course is actually fairly conventional. Chris was at pains to point out that although the course features innovation in terms of its visual design, integration with technology and the testing package, in pedagogical terms it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. In fact, it allows time-poor teachers to teach “off the page” with minimal preparation and follows a tried and trusted communicative pedagogical approach.

The course also features naturalistic and engaging video content, which can be used in both in class and for students to watch in their own time on a range of devices.

Clare McCallum, Head of ELT Marketing Europe and UK Sales at Cambridge University Press, spoke about how Empower dovetails with Cambridge’s other academic activities: language assessment and testing. This is undoubtedly the main innovation of the series for teachers as well as teaching institutions: a course book from a heavyweight publisher that is designed to plug straight in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Cambridge has also drawn on its insights from English Profile, its collaboration with the Council of Europe, that provides a ‘profile’ or set of Reference Level Descriptions for English. For example, each chapter of Empower features the “Can do” objectives for the appropriate level on the “Getting Started” page.

Since the blended learning approach is now becoming standard in all course books, teachers have come to expect online resources that are both effective and easy to use – and here as well, Cambridge has delivered with a suite of digital materials that allow a high degree of personalisation. Indeed, making everything as personal and relevant for the individual student is now the main challenge in a publishing industry that has recently been likened by Nick Robinson of ELT Jam to a supertanker changing direction. The shift towards individualised learning and adaptive technology is clearly in evidence in Cambridge’s design of the assessment component of its course. Empower allows learners to take up to 25 different paths through its testing software and features a range of intelligent technologies, including voice recognition and software that can assess fluency based on a speaker’s propensity to hesitate, for example.

Technology and big data also feature in Empower’s use of the Cambridge English Corpus, a multi-billion word collection of written, spoken and learner texts drawn from a huge range of sources: newspapers, the web, books, magazines, radio, exams, schools, universities, the workplace and everyday conversation. The CLC also includes the Cambridge Learner Corpus - a unique 50 million word collection of exam scripts written by students taking Cambridge exams all over the world.

Marcus Tubby, an ELT Consultant at Cambridge University Press based in Italy, demonstrated the assessment package in action and walked participants at the event through the Cambridge Learning Management System. Using PCs provided by Cambridge, we were given the chance to try out the live demo of the course and the platform, which includes a range of useful tools such as individual and class enrolment, as well as a Grade Book with exhaustive analyses of student and group performance. While some teachers might find all the number crunching and endless graphics of pie-charts a bit bewildering, obviously, this is the way the industry / professions is moving – and for schools, especially those providing training to corporate clients, having this kind of instant feedback on individual students is a huge boon.

Along with the other major ELT publishers, Cambridge has been at pains to make their course and the integrated technology as user-friendly as possible. However, at the digital chalk face most teachers will need increasing support as well as training to really capitalise on the benefits of this innovation.

The event concluded with a delicious buffet and a chance to chat and mingle with the VIP participants and the speakers. Russell Lewis, Marketing Manager at CUP, Italy was also on hand with members of his team to answer questions and demonstrate the live version of Empower. The particpants received an information pack which, in addition to sample chapters from the course, included a "fold-out" USB key containing a link to the Cambridge Empower site.

Robert Dennis
Director, Riverstone Language & Communications

You can see all the photos from this event in a special album I have created on Flickr. (Please note that if you would like to use these images, you can contact me and I will be happy to share them with you - but some "link love" or an attribution is always appreciated!)

BESIG Bonn: Inspirational talks, quality networking and some great beer - a personal view

2014-11-21T19:18:00.001-08:00

Note: this is the first instalment of my report from Bonn. I'm working on some more "content-focused" reports about teaching-related material and developments, which will appear probably on the Riverstone blog and in the Milan Business English Network. This is basically an informal snapshot of my immediate impressions of the event and the experience of being in Bonn itself. RD

The 27^th IATEFL BESIG Annual Conference took place in Bonn, Germany on the 14-16^th November 2014. It was a great opportunity for business English teachers and other professionals working in the sector to meet, exchange ideas and get up to speed on all the latest developments and technology fuelling our industry.

The event was held at the Sankt Augustin Campus of the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, just a short tram ride away from the centre of Bonn itself. The vast majority of BESIG events have been in Germany, mainly due to the fact that the most active members of the organisation are nearly all based in German-speaking countries. It may also be due to the fact that English teachers, like all expats, tend to adapt to their adopted locations and take on the characteristics of the people where they live. So, although there was a BESIG Annual Conference in Milan in 2006, the Italian presence at BESIG has been less noticeable than that of our more dynamic colleagues in the European economic powerhouse of Germany.

Having said that, though, I did meet Richard Nicholas, who teaches English at Bocconi University in Milan, and took part in his workshop on training students to "hit the ground running" with immediately-useful spoken English skills. Richard drew extensively from his publication "Heads Up", which he co-authored with Mark Tulip and Louise Green.

The IATEFL and BESIG teams all deserve special mention, especially Cornelia Kreis-Meyer, Marjorie Rosenberg , Andrzej Stesik, Rob Szabó, Clare Hart and the many other people who helped to make the event a huge success. I’m sorry if I’ve missed out anyone really important – but I’m basing most of this on my experience as a first-time attendee gradually exploring the hinterland of IATEFL, BESIG and the many other Special Interest Groups. I think one of the interesting phenomena of the digital age is how the full picture of the activities of a group of highly professional people all working in a relatively small sector gradually emerges via various social media channels. This experience then forms the "digital backdrop" to the live international events.

Since I spend an increasing amount of time online it was interesting to make direct contact with so many people that I have come to know or know of through the proliferation of websites, blogs, Facebook pages and tweets, etc that taken together form the ecosystem or cloud of knowledge that we all inhabit these days.

I was also very impressed by the team of helpers from the university itself, who shepherded lost souls from room to room and provided the all-important information about where to find food, drink and other essential amenities.

Paul Emmerson gave a great talk on his new business English venture, BEhereBEthere, which features high quality resources for learners that the best-selling author has made available to students via a site which is 100% under his control. One of the key benefits of BEhereBEthere is the videos of Paul’s own students that he has posted along with exhaustive supporting materials, including detailed language notes and exercises. During his presentation, Paul explained aspects of his developing strategy, which is to build a unique and uniquely useful free resource for business English learners on the web and to gradually introduce premium features. This freemium model is now an established feature of many online English sites, services and apps and the whole question of business models was a recurring theme throughout the talks and chats taking place in and around the conference itself.

Paul also shared some invaluable insights into how he uses Google Analytics to learn more about where visitors to BEhereBEthere are located. Given Paul Emmerson’s undisputed status as a major star in the business EFL publishing firmament, it was interesting to see how he is making the transition from published author to self-publishing web entrepreneur (webpreneur?). I think the key thing that was clear from Paul’s talk is the passion and commitment he brings to business English – and his genuine interest and engagement with students. Technology and social media in this context become incredibly powerful channels for content producers to connect directly with students (and fellow teachers) – much more directly than is possible through passive media, such as print or CD-ROM. However, as one audience member put it, once the content genie is out of the bottle the question of how content producers can monetize their creations (or, indeed, whether they can at all) becomes critical.

As perhaps the “most photocopied man in the world”, Paul Emmerson knows more than most people about the problem of piracy and loss of revenue through vast armies of well-meaning teachers whacking his books under the copier. (During one of the dinners at BESIG, I suggested to Paul that he should perhaps consider some sort of deal with Canon, Xerox or any of the other companies that have helped to spread the Emmerson brand around the globe. In fact, he could even produce his own Paul Emmerson-branded photocopier, bundled with exclusive content for any language school that buys one. Another idea we kicked around was having some PE advertising on the underside of the copier’s flap – since there must be at least a million “flap views” a year in various schools around the globe. Why not have some inspirational Paul Emmerson quotes and a link to BEhereBEthere for people to read while they snag pages from Email English?)

Pete Sharma spoke about the development of the business English course book from print to digital. (Fuller report about this talk coming soon.) The last time I had the pleasure of watching Pete speak was a few years ago at the PSA Symposium at the Consulate General in Milan. As well as being one of the leading experts in the world on blended learning Pete is also a marvellous conference speaker and simply a great communicator. He has a sort of magical rapport with his audience and I think this is one of the reasons why face-to-face communication will always be important – despite the onward march of videoconferencing and Skype. His gestures are also incredibly expressive – and, like all foreigners living in Italy, I have become something of a connoisseur of how people talk with their hands. So, if you want to see and hear someone communicating cutting-edge ideas about education in a memorable, absorbing way, I urge you to check out Pete’s forthcoming speaking engagements.

Other highlights of the conference included a talk about the importance of lexical chunks by Jeanne McCarten in the plenary session. Paula Mulanovic's session was entitled "Teach like TED" and offered tips for teachers of business English. Cleve Miller of English 360 spoke about blended learning for business English: how to design it, deliver it and sell it. It was also nice to meet Valentina Dodge from English 360 too. I also ran into Bob Dignen of York Associates, who spoke about virtual teams and virtual meetings as well as presenting "Ten top tips for successful communication" with Ian McMaster. There were so many talks that it would have been impossible to do more than scrape the surface, but that's BESIG, I suppose. The overwhelming impression you get from attending a conference like this is just how diverse and constantly evolving the business English ecosystem actually is.

One of the great things about a conference is the opportunity for chance meetings which subsequently prove providential. One such random encounter was meeting András Petz of Anglofon, a specialist legal English firm based in Budapest, Hungary. I happened to be sitting near him on the tram to the campus and overheard him asking someone which stop to get off at. I went over and we struck up a conversation, which resulted not only in meeting a really nice person and a dedicated professional but also in attending his presentation and discovering the very impressive range of resources he has created with his team in Hungary. These include a book on the Terminology of Civil Law, which is linked to a wealth of online material specially designed for legal professionals who need to improve their knowledge of English. We both agreed to stay in touch and hopefully collaborate on some interesting future projects.

Bonn is a truly lovely city, with many historical and cultural associations. As the former capital of the Federal Republic of Germany (or West Germany as it was known before reunification) the city retains a certain gravitas as well as a legacy of imposing administrative buildings and headquarters, including almost twenty UN institutions. My hotel room had a commanding view of the Rhine and the Kennedy Bridge and the occasion also allowed me to explore the historic centre of Bonn. The classical architecture of the University buildings and the Hofgarten (Court Garden) are very impressive and the city is also a place of pilgrimage for music lovers visiting the house where Beethoven was born. The Marktplatz (market place) is dominated by the Alte Rathaus, or old town hall - simply stunning:

It was also great to spend some time chatting to other delegates in the canteen of the Hochschule as well as in some of the city locations. I had a memorable dinner with Alex Taylor of TJ Taylor, the language school based in Milan with centres in the UK and Ireland, at the First Flush Tea Room, which is also – despite the name – a restaurant serving exotic delights such as pumpkin curry (excellent). We also had tea – everyone gets a teapot of a different design – and sampled the local Kölsch beer, which was equally outstanding. We continued our conversation in Brauhaus Bönnsch, a traditional Rhineland pub serving Kölsch in strangely curved glasses, complete with finger-grips to make imbibing just that much easier. I also managed to squeeze in a visit to Cologne to see its massive and overpowering Cathedral, whose twin spires loom above the station and somewhat cramped squares below. Unfortunately, it was raining quite heavily, which just seemed to add to the sense of oppressive weight towering overhead – and it was actually something of a relief (architecturally speaking) to be standing in front of Milan’s far more forgiving, though equally impressive, Duomo (cathedral) later the same day.

I flew back to Milan with most of the Italian contingent including freelance business English teachers Louise Goodman and Andy Townsend and our BESIG chat continued well after we had touched down.

Based on my first experience of BESIG I can honestly say that this was a great experience and for any business English teachers - freelance or otherwise - I would strongly recommend signing up to BESIG and checking out all their events, including regular webinars with experts from the field of business English.

I'll post an update soon when I have sifted through all the notes and stacks of material I accumulated during the conference. Stay tuned!

CircleMe friends and fans celebrate the new look for the “made in Milan” app

2014-06-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended the launch party of the 2nd Generation of CircleMe products for web and mobile devices. CircleMe is the “made in Italy” social network that allows you to share your passions for culture and media with a network of trusted people who share your interests.

Situated alongside one of Milan’s canals, the site of the former Richard Ginori porcelain factory, which dates back to 1830, now plays host to a cluster of creative businesses, including the Italian headquarters of CircleMe. (The company also has a London branch based in Silicon Roundabout in the City). The completely redeveloped Richard Ginori complex, which covers an area of over 60,000 square metres, also houses companies such as Strenesse, Momo Design, Della Rovere, la Fornarina and MDF as well as communications agencies and photographic studios.

Il Circolino, a chic bar located in the ex-Richard Ginori centre and a favourite haunt of CircleMe staffers, provided the perfect setting for an evening of relaxed chat with CircleMe users and friends and the chance to discover the new Second Generation apps for PCs, tablets and phones.

With the mercury hitting 36C on the hottest day of the year so far, we sipped complimentary ice-cold drinks and enjoyed an excellent barbecue from Il Circolino’s budding chefs. The CircleMe team mingled with guests at the venue, which features a glass floor through which you can watch the table football matches taking place downstairs.

Making it new
CircleMe has completely updated its interface and introduced a new user-experience that builds on the app’s existing ability to curate your passions and share them with a network of people you can “trust” (CM's equivalent of friending). The app now boasts 1 million interests that you can “love” (by clicking on the famous CircleMe heart icon). Over a thousand stories and new content items are added every day from 6,500 sources and two hundred thousand interest groups.

A brand new feature of the CircleMe experience is the Calendar, which allows you to access a customised calendar featuring all the nearest events linked to your unique set of passions. There are already 55,000 events in over 4,500 locations mapped onto the CircleMe Calendar.

As Giu D’Antonio, CEO of CircleMe pointed out as he demonstrated the new app on a widescreen Mac to guests at the party, you can flick through a virtually endless feed of stories, news and updates relating to your passions – anything from your favourite bands to the latest must-see movies. A new feature is the categories menu bar than you can swipe in from the side. This allows you to refine the view to specific groups of passions based around particular media, such as Music, Books, Movies, etc

As Startupbusiness reported recently when the network’s Android app went live, CircleMe has signed an agreement with Kiver to distribute music online in mp3 format, which users can download according to their passions and their level of activity on the network. The downloads on offer include music from leading artists. (For example, glancing at the app, I see I can download free tracks from artists such as Katy Perry, Lana Del Rey, The Killers, Queen and The Rolling Stones, etc.)

Users can also benefit from a tie-up between CircleMe and moo.com, the UK-based online business card printing service, which rewards users with 50 free cards personalised with their passions.

CircleMe has been growing steadily. According to WiredItalia it is strongest in the UK, US, Italy, France and Brazil.

Niche and easy does it

While CircleMe has expanded considerably and added a wealth of new features it remains something of a niche product in the face of the “big beasts” of the social networking world: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, etc. However, as Giu pointed out, the aim of CircleMe is not for users to simply grow ever-larger networks of contacts, but rather to deepen and enrich the experience of sharing passions within a trusted circle of like-minded people.

I personally think CircleMe could do more in this area to build on the existing functionality of its apps, especially the ability to “plant” a passion by adding geo-location data and its under-utilised “To do” option. As I explored in an earlier post on this blog, I also think CircleMe members could have a more pro-active role in curating information and content, which uses a “push” model to provide an updated feed to users’ devices based on their passions. I would like to see more of a physical community developing around CircleMe – and I think one way they could achieve this is to have more live events, such as this excellent party, as well as providing opportunities for users to meet up at gigs and special screenings of films they have "loved". There are considerable opportunities for combining CircleMe’s ability to gather and share cultural passions with a more face-to-face experience, which would involve users and allow them to be more active.

A night to remember

So, overall this was a great evening and a nice chance to meet the lovely CircleMe team, who are all passionate and committed about their app. I’d like to say a special thanks to Giu, Elena and the CircleMe team – as well as the excellent Il Circolino – for their hospitality.

Looking forward to seeing you all again at the next event!

#bewhatyoulike

Italian students come face to face with British universities at the first Education UK Fair in Milan

2014-03-04T22:30:00.000-08:00

A conversation that could change your life: students find out what's on offer from top British universities at the Education UK Fair, organised by the British Council

There has never been a better time to study in the United Kingdom: that was the message coming loud and clear from the first-ever Education UK Fair that took place in Milan recently.

The highly innovative - and free - event was organised by the British Council and Education UK, the official website for international students who are interested in a UK education. (In 2012 the website received two million unique visitors worldwide.)

Held over two days (28th Feb - 1 March 2014) in the comfortable surroundings of the Atahotel Executive in the rapidly-developing Porta Nuova business district of the city, the Fair was a unique opportunity for prospective university students to meet face-to-face with representatives from many of the UK’s leading educational institutions.

In Italy, personal contact is everything. So this was a great way for British universities as diverse as Oxford, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Anglia Ruskin, among many others, to explain their unique advantages to a significant number of highly-demanding Italian students and soon-to-be school leavers, as well as the parents who want to give their offspring the best start in life – and who will, in most cases, be footing the bill. (By the way, an extremely useful document provided by the organisers of this event was the list of scholarship (borse di studio) schemes on offer, which prospective students and their parents should definitely read for homework.)

Four of the top six universities in the world are in the UK (World Rankings, QS)

When I was there, on Friday afternoon and early evening, the event looked very well-attended with people queuing patiently ten deep (or more) for the opportunity of speaking directly with reps from an impressive selection of British universities including a large contingent from the University of London, business schools, colleges and independent schools – as well as the team from the British Council itself and other education-related organisations that helped out with the event. (Click here for a full list of all the institutions that took part in the Education UK Fair.)

The Fair comprised two main sections: an exhibition of the institutions and their representatives in the main conference hall and in a smaller, adjoining hall a rolling programme of excellent presentations by speakers from universities, the British Council and educational publishers, as well as independent consultants. (See the next section for a report on the Friday presentations.)

Another very popular feature of the event was the British Council "personalised counselling" stand, where visitors had the opportunity to meet expert teachers ready to provide some tips on writing a great Curriculum Vitae and the all-important letter of presentation - in perfect English, of course.

97% of UK graduates are employed one year after finishing their course. (BC)

Presentations by expert speakers at the Education UK Fair, Milan (Friday 28th February 2014): A summary

The programme started with Michael Flynn of Oxford University Press, whose presentation was entitled “What’s new in language testing? Streamline your English test experience”. (Unfortunately, I missed this talk but if anyone reading this was attending – or, Michael, if you happen to see this – I would be very happy to receive a summary or a link to the slides, etc.)

I came in halfway through a talk by Nadia Macdonald, Deputy Director International of Coventry University’s London Campus. Nadia was showcasing Coventry University’s London Summer School, which looked excellent and very reasonably priced, too. She was also keen to point out the huge cultural benefits of studying in the UK – a theme emphasised by most of the speakers. The UK – and especially London – benefit from an enormous range of cultural activities, such as theatre, music, art galleries and museums as well as fantastic sporting facilities.

Students also had the opportunity to hear (in Italian) what university life in the UK is like “from the horse’s mouth”. Italian students from Verona who have been studying in Britain provided some excellent insights into university life. They belong to the Ateneo Europa programme, the first “student to student” information network related to education in Europe and organised by the Fondazione Maffei, a Verona-based cultural foundation.

Students listening to students from Ateneo Europa (Verona)

The Importance of English

Jane Hoatson of the British Council, who is a Cambridge oral examiner and an experienced teacher trainer, explained how to apply to a UK university. In particular, she focused on the application procedure, which in the UK operates through a centralised system run by UCAS, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. Jane’s talk included a detailed description of the online applications process. She also spoke about the importance of English for Italian students who want to study at a British university or college. While students have to meet the entry requirements set by each university or institution as regards their final school exams (which in the case of Italy will usually require a minimum level in the maturità exams), applicants will also need to demonstrate they can speak and understand English, a theme which was picked up in the following presentation.

Jane Hoatson, British Council: Your application will depend on your personal statement

One vital aspect of applying to a UK university that can be a real “make or break” factor is the Personal Statement that potential students have to submit as part of their application. Jane stressed the absolute importance of this statement and the need for applicants to stand out from the crowd by demonstrating their unique personal qualities and their attitude not only to study but to life in general. Perhaps one of the main differences between studying in the UK and education in Italy is that British universities are really interested in the “whole person” – not just academic ability. This is especially true at the top universities, especially Oxford and Cambridge, which look at a candidates complete profile – including any distinctions in their artistic, sporting or volunteering activities – as well as academic excellence. However, without really good English, no student can progress very far in the British education system – but most universities run pre-sessional courses that can help prepare learners for the demands of studying in an English-speaking environment.

Studying in the UK is a highly rewarding experience - and it's a lot of fun too!

The next speaker was Margaret Fowler of the British Council. As Director Examinations, British Council Italy, Margaret is responsible here for promoting and organising IELTS, the International English Language Testing System, the world’s number one English language test, taken by over 1.5 million people every year across the world.

There are several key benefits of IELTS for Italian students who intend to study at UK university. Firstly, you can register up to 14 days before the exam itself and the results will arrive in the comparatively short time of 13 days. IELTS is recognised and often preferred by universities in the United Kingdom. The exam is also recognised by Italian universities in terms of awarding credits. As well as in the UK, IELTS is recognised in other English-speaking countries including the US, Canada and Australia. (This is particularly important if you intend to study in one of these countries.) While other Cambridge exams, such as a the First Certificate, Advanced and Proficiency are intended to demonstrate a candidate’s all-round language ability, IELTS is specifically a test of Academic English. (By the way, it is very important to make sure you take the Academic version of IELTS if you are applying to a university. The General Training version is primarily intended for immigration purposes.)

Margaret Fowler, Director Examinations, BC Italy: UK universities prefer IELTS

In a detailed exposition of the exam (which I am planning to write up as a separate blog post focusing on IELTS and English language exams in general), Margaret took the audience through each part of the exam and discussed some general strategies which will be of great help to students. Perhaps the most important of these – and certainly, in my experience of preparing candidates for the IELTS exam (and most other English exams) – is what you do in the Speaking Test. Without doubt, for Italian people studying English, this is the most problematic part of the exam and the thing they dread more than anything else. Margaret’s advice on this part of the test is invaluable: the examiner is not interested in your opinion of – or even your knowledge – about the topics they ask you to talk about. Instead, they are only concerned with how you express yourself (although what you say should be relevant: don't invent your own questions). Students should use paraphrasing strategies when they can’t think of the right word or what to say (e.g. “I don’t remember the exact word for this, but it’s something you use to…”, etc).

Candidates in the Speaking Test should also show off their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary - especially conversational phrases. As Margaret put it: the examiner can only credit you with your brilliant knowledge of English if you actually demonstrate it in the exam. While the Speaking Test is a highly contrived, artificial situation it is basically ten minutes where you need to focus on HOW you say things rather than WHAT you are saying (which is the exact opposite of most situations in life).

(IMPORTANT: Check the IELTS score you need to achieve in order to study at a particular university. This can vary from one institution to another, but typically a university will ask for a score of around 6/6.5 at IELTS. For medical students and people taking other professional courses it can be higher, e.g. 7. However, universities can also exercise some discretion, so even if you don't have exactly the right level you might still be able to study there - or you may be offered a pre-sessional course which includes English training. The main thing is to ASK before you apply.)

UK-educated international graduates achieve markedly higher average salaries (BIS)

The final speaker on Friday was Annette Duerdoth, a Consultant at the Higher Education Advisory Service. Annette’s topic was the importance of studying in the UK – particularly at top independent schools – and the main differences between “A” Levels and the International Baccalaureate. Annette started her talk by asking the audience to decide whether the top schools she highlighted, such as Stowe School, Malvern College and Charterhouse, offer students the “A” Levels or the IB. The general picture is that there is a wide diversity, with some schools offering only “A” Levels or only the IB, while at others students can take either form of exam. While the vast majority of school pupils in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have different systems) aiming to go to university take “A” levels, the IB is only taken by students at a handful of schools, mainly private or fee-paying ones. (Confusingly, in the UK there are a number of top schools known as “public” schools that are actually private. Yes, I know: bizarre, isn’t it?)

(Note: this is not really an issue for Italian students, but there is an ongoing debate in the UK about the academic/educational "value" of "A" levels (and GSCEs, which most people take at 16). Newspapers and politicians are always concerned with "grade inflation", since there is a consistent trend for exam grades to rise every year - and an endless debate about the reasons for this: are the students getting better or are the exams getting easier? The IB has been promoted as a possible alternative to "A" levels - which are sometimes referred to as the "gold standard" in UK education. Another blog post on this, I feel...)

Annette Duerdoth, Higher Education Advisory Service: IB is rare but highly regarded.

As Annette explained, the main difference between “A” levels and the IB is that whereas “A” level students typically take exams in only three subjects (although some students take more – especially at independent/private/”public” schools), the IB has a much wider curriculum and is more similar to the broader range of subjects studied by Italian and most other European students in their school-leaving exams (such as the maturità in Italy).

The profile of an IB learner can defined as follows: they are inquirers; they tend to be more knowledgeable and open-minded than their “A” level counterparts; they are thinkers, communicators and risk-takers, who are on the whole caring, balanced and reflective. (Dare I say it, but that description could be taken as one that tends to apply more to Italians (and most other Europeans) than the British – or Americans. While our education system has evolved to produce pragmatic specialists who can go straight into narrowly-defined university courses and even more specialised careers, the Continental system has been designed to produce all-rounders: elegant thinkers who have a much wider view of the world and a longer historical perspective, especially when it comes to classical history. (Perhaps I could just interpolate into this digression - this is becoming "Tristram Shandy" - a personal observation based on my experience of living in a country where education is still largely modelled on the classical system (and which the IB philosophy reflects). While a business meeting in the UK or the US will typically be a brisk, focused affair where people who know their onions – and have been produced by their respective education systems to operate effectively and under pressure in a specific field to do just that – and get on with it, in Italy a meeting is much more of a social affair; and one where, for example, it is not unusual for a technical manager or financial number cruncher to suddenly draw an analogy with the current situation and a moment from the First Punic War – and no-one sitting around the table will bat an eyelid; nor will the remark be accompanied by the sound of jaws dropping onto the table - or the silent squeak of eyeballs rolling in their sockets - as would happen in London or New York.))

If you've just skipped that last bit, the main point to note that here is that while the IB is obviously a higher species of exam and the fruit of a more enlightened educational approach, it is also a lot tougher than "A" levels. (Although education and exams in Italy are more punitive than "Anglo-Saxon" ones in general). Therefore, candidates intending to study at university really need to be aware of all their options and the best plan of action before they choose either “A” levels or the IB.

Annette included in her presentation a quotation from the Financial Times blog referring to the IB. It is highly pertinent to the main topic of the Education UK Fair, i.e. getting into university:

“Not subject to government tinkering, this international currency is particularly strong, with top IB scores worth the equivalent of six A grades at A level and one A at AS. Not ideal for the pupil who has always wanted to drop maths, the IB does put you significantly ahead in the global race for the best universities.”

The Education UK Fair continued on the Saturday (1st March), although I only attended the Friday session. However, many of the presentations on the first day were reprised by the speakers. You can see the full list of presentations here. I would just like to mention one talk which caught my eye: “How to write a good CV in English” with Keryn Paviour-Smith of the British Council. (Again, if you attended this or if anyone has some feedback about it, I would be very interested to hear it. Not least because of Ms Paviour-Smith’s very impressive professional background, which combines human resources roles at top companies with Business English teaching. I’m sure her talk was excellent and I will be looking forward to seeing her speak at future British Council events.)

Employers worldwide consider UK graduates among the most 'employable' (QS)

Final result: First class, with honours

Overall, then, this was a very well designed, organised and executed event of the kind that the British Council excels at. The participants I spoke to were all highly positive and it is very clear that the UK is one of the main destinations for Italian students who want to give themselves an advantage in their future career and life. If you are considering applying for a university course (or any type of study in the UK), the most important thing is to find out as much as possible before you go – and this event certainly provided a very useful starting point for serious students who are contemplating one of the most important decisions they will make in life: where to go to university.

If you are reading this now and kicking yourself that you didn’t attend the Fair, I hope my summary gives you an insight into the event – and, in any case, you can find a wealth of further information and guidance from the Education UK website and via the ever-helpful British Council itself.

I have no doubt that the Education UK Fair will become a regular feature of the Milan calendar – falling quite neatly between Fashion week and the forthcoming Salone Mobile (“Design Week”). The timing is also crucial, as Jane Hoatson pointed out, given that there are strict deadlines for applying to UK universities (and that in Britain a deadline really is a deadline).

Looking forward to Education UK 2015 in the next, critical, “EXPO” year in Milan!

A UK university education gives you a significant advantage in the job market.

The UK has a rich, diverse culture where you can gain an international perspective.

Links to related websites:

British Council
Education UK

Incidentally...

2014-02-11T19:43:00.000-08:00

“Los Olvidados” (“The Forgotten Ones”) is a film shot in Mexico in 1950 and directed by the great Spanish visionary, Luis Buñuel, who in 1929 had made the haunting, dream-like surrealist film “Un Chien Andalou” with Salvador Dalí. “Los Olvidados” is a kind of social realist picture, at times almost like a documentary. The story concerns a group of street kids subsisting in a desolate, crumbling Mexico City. The main characters are El Jaibo, an anarchic Jack the Lad who is basically amoral and his gullible sidekick Pedro, who actually has a conscience.

The film is pretty depressing actually. Most acts of kindness or humanity are met with indifference or lead to tragedy and overall the movie paints a picture of life as nasty, brutish and short.

Now, I don’t intend here to explore the various themes of the film and Buñuel’s cinematic treatment of his subject (although I will just mention the surrealist dream sequence that seems almost out of place in the otherwise bleak realism of the film). Instead, I just want to draw your attention to one little scene which is almost inconsequential but highly memorable. A man has two dogs dressed in little costumes with hats, which he takes around the slums to entertain people with and earn a few pennies. The street children go crazy when he comes and all shout out “the dancing dogs, the dancing dogs!”. You then see a few minutes where the camera is basically held on these bizarre, absurd but poignant dogs dancing for the crowd.

I’m sure academics and film historians have written very significant interpretations and analyses of what this scene means. (It is, in fact, one of several references to and actual appearances of dogs in the film.) It is an interesting bit of cinema verité: obviously, the filmmakers must have seen the dancing dogs while they were shooting or perhaps they knew the owner or just ran into him. However, the thing that struck me most about this scene was the fact that it was really quite incidental. It just happens to be there and doesn’t really add much to the plot. In fact, once you’ve seen it you just remember it as the bit with the dancing dogs, even if you can’t really say how (or where) it fits into the film.

There are in fact a lot of scenes, characters or things that just happened to get included in films largely at random and which don’t really drive the plot or mean much more than themselves. But somehow they stick in the mind simply because they are strange or poetic. Perhaps they function as symbols or metaphors, but often they are really just opportune (and opportunistic) bits of footage where the director of the film just thought they worked.

Here’s another one. In “Stromboli” (also made – coincidentally – in 1950), Ingrid Bergman plays Karin, a displaced Lithuanian woman who finds herself in an internment camp at the end of the Second World War. She conducts a romance with a Sicilian fisherman through the wire fence of the camp and ends up marrying him. They return to his home village, which is tiny and religiously conservative, on the island of Stromboli, near Sicily. The local women are very unimpressed by Ingrid Bergman and her free-spirited attitude to life. (At one point she is sent to Coventry and impugned for her lack of “modesty” after she decorates the fisherman’s cottage with a mural.)

Like “Cleopatra” (1963) starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, "Stromboli" is more famous for what happened off-screen than on. Bergman fell in love with the director, Roberto Rossellini, and they had an affair while they were making the film. (The US was scandalised when Bergman gave birth to Rossellini’s son – they weren’t married – in the same month as the film’s release.) The couple tied the knot later (in Mexico) and went on to have twin girls – Ingrid and Isabella. Isabella Rossellini, of course, is the woman whose main credits include her role in David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” (which also relaunched Dennis Hopper's film career) and the fact that for many years she was the face of L’Oréal.

Now, again, this isn’t really a critical study of "Stromboli". I will just note that it’s a strangely wooden, halting piece of storytelling that never really gets going on an emotional level. Instead, what you remember when you watch it are the incidental, “background” set pieces, which include actual footage of the volcano on Stromboli erupting at the end while Ingrid Bergman is clambering over the rocks on her way to freedom. The most powerful scene, however, is where all the men of the village go out fishing. They row out to sea (at night?) and when they arrive at the fishing ground they spread out a huge circular net – and wait. This is a village where fishing is de rigeur and it’s communal. It’s also for men only (although the impudent Karin rows out to join her husband, much to the surprised delight but also social embarrassment of her husband). Eventually the fish arrive and then the men start heaving the net upwards, with all the biggest fish thrashing around as the haul nears the surface. The men sing as they work and they all (literally) pull together. Once the fish are at the surface the men then set about clubbing and spiking them in a truly horrific scene, which the uninvited Karin/Bergman is also forced to observe – along with the viewer. (This is definitely one of those films you want to watch after you've had your dinner - especially if it's tuna.)

As with the dancing dogs, once you’ve seen the Stromboli fishermen you’ll never forget them. And again, this is really an opportune bit of documentary reportage spliced into a much weaker movie. The power of the scene comes from the fact that you’re not watching actors but real people at work doing what they have been doing perhaps for centuries. In fact, although this kind of real-life scene is common in post-war Italian neo-realist film-making, it’s always surprising when you actually see it. You get the same frisson as from looking at old photos where people stare out at you from the past as if through aspic. Or when you see something personal and poignant in a museum like a child’s doll or a pair of gloves with a hole in one of them. It’s really something human, not artificial or contrived. It’s like hearing someone scream or cry: it bypasses the intellect and the rational mind and hits you in the stomach or touches your heart.

I’ll just add a third and final incidental scene from another black-and-white post-war classic. This time it’s Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 “Bicycle Thieves” (“Ladri di biciclette” in Italian) which like the other films is a story of ordinary people trying to survive in a bombed-out, post-traumatic world of concrete rubble and shattered ideals. In “Bicycle Thieves” a young married man with a small son living in Rome has the possibility of getting a job putting up film posters for the newly-resurgent movie industry – but only if he has a bike. He and his wife knock their heads together trying to think of how they can come up with the money needed. Eventually, she decides they have to pawn (or hock) their linen. Again, it’s one of those scenes that creeps up on you without warning and then sends you reeling with a sensation of shock and pity with historical fascination and poetry all mixed in.

The pawn shop is huge. It’s basically a warehouse and when the woman hands over the bundle it gets taken through a huge stack of towering shelves and carried up a ladder onto a perilously high rack. There’s linen everywhere – thousands of uniform bundles all packed onto shelves and waiting to be redeemed. Indeed, this one really is symbolic – the shock of the scene is partly that you could never have imagined such a huge pawn shop – but also historical in the blow-to-the-stomach way described earlier: it seems as if the entire working-class population of Rome have pawned their belongings (which they probably had). I suppose the place must have been well-known to the film-makers (I haven’t really looked this one up) or maybe they just heard about it as they were filming. Anyway, the effect it has on the viewer is devastating – and, although it happens in a different way – so is the ending, which of course you will have to watch for yourself. (Let me just say here that it’s one of the saddest endings of any film ever made – so have some Kleenex handy; you’ll need it.)

Well, there you have it. I’m not really sure what these scenes mean – or if they were consciously intended to mean that much, but they are all equally memorable and although you can’t imagine these films without them they don’t really function as indispensable narrative devices. In fact, that’s partly what them makes them so interesting: they’re just there. They simply sit in their respective places and will forever jump out at an unsuspecting audience or viewer and have the same or at least very similar effect for ever.

I think this is a topic I’ll be returning to – not necessarily from films, but from novels, paintings and other media. I like the idea of having a collection of memorable but inconsequential moments; of people, animals and places that just happen to have been included in a larger narrative; of odd, vivid memories that seem both random but significant and suggest a life beyond that of that the immediate film or book and its characters.

Incidental but memorable: dancing dogs from “Los Olvidados”, the fishing scene from “Stromboli” and the pawn shop from “Bicycle Thieves”

Note: I checked a few facts while writing this post (mainly dates), but I haven’t re-watched the scenes described to ensure that I have recalled them exactly. However, the emotional impact they make is unmistakable – so in this sense they’re like other trace memories in life: a feeling that stays with you, even if the exact details are slightly fuzzy.

Yes, the cold winds of recession are still blowing; but here in Milan things are hotting up for smart, creative firms...

2013-09-06T18:09:00.002-07:00

I’ve just realised it’s been almost a year since I posted in this blog. That’s mainly because my focus has been elsewhere recently – in particular on Riverstone Language & Communications, the Social Business Forum, Interpret the Future and a number of other cool projects I have been working on. Right – so it’s time to bring you up to speed with what’s been happening here in Milan.

Well, the summer is over and here in this city that means that everything is really getting going again. Despite concerns about the economic situation (not to mention the political one) the business capital of Italy is revving up – and although confidence is not what it once was, these days there is a surge of interest and business activity being generated by Milan’s vibrant startup scene. It’s true that Italy’s traditional manufacturing sectors are facing huge challenges in the form of cheaper competition from abroad, depressed global markets for consumer goods and the cumbersome bureaucracy that tends to characterise the Italian business context; but on the plus side, Italy has a vast reservoir of talent, inventiveness and intelligence that it can put to good use. It is this country’s wealth of human capital that drives it – in conjunction, of course, with its legacy of beautiful landscapes and great food.

Milan is a post-industrial city
that has reinvented itself as
a powerhouse of creative energy
Image: Wikimedia Commons

In the last few years Milan has seen something of a renaissance in the form of new kinds of knowledge-based businesses as well as more dynamic – if smaller – companies that are tapping into the country’s wells of brainpower and creativity. They are also attracting more international talent – and, indeed, one of the key strengths of this city is its relative diversity compared to other cities in Italy. I have been lucky enough to work with several of these firms (see below for some examples).

I am proud to live in Milan and to have met a large number of highly-motivated and creative people from many different sectors: I have taught and worked as a communications consultant alongside finance executives, marketers, designers, lawyers, doctors, academics, technology specialists and professionals from many disciplines - as well as entrepreneurs in the city’s growing startup scene.

I have also been able to develop contacts and find new business opportunities via social networking, which has also meant getting to grips with an ever-changing array of new social media tools and platforms (as well good old-fashioned face-to-face conversation!). During this time, the Milan Business English Network, which I founded three years ago, has been a great way of meeting people and getting in touch with companies that are doing fascinating and ground-breaking projects.

Riverstone Language and Communications is an innovative and highly flexible training and development and organisation, which I established with Helen Fish, an entrepreneur from the UK who is now working on her own exciting project. Riverstone also provides bespoke language services and informal networking events that bring people together who are interested in English and business communication. The Riverstone Network is a growing resource that is helping its members – mainly freelancers – to develop their careers.

Currently, I am involved with a number of companies as a communications consultant. I’d just like to highlight two of these here, both of which are typical of the kind of small, highly able and passionate businesses that fuel this city's success:

Firstly, there is OpenKnowledge, which I believe is an example of all that’s best about Milan (including the company's international outlook - it has offices in London, Shanghai and Sydney). It’s basically a small but growing corps of highly focused and experienced consultants as well as recent graduates from top universities. The company's mission is to help mainly large corporations adopt the social business paradigm. OpenKnowledge has been a pioneer in bringing the social business message to the corporate world and for the last six years it has organised the hugely successful Social Business Forum – Europe’s leading event in this field, which attracts high-profile keynote speakers such as IBM Vice President Sandy Carter and has welcomed over three and a half thousand visitors in its short history (so far!). This year Riverstone became a Marketing Service Partner of the SBF and was responsible for managing a team of brilliant, young interpreters as part of the Interpret the Future project.

Another company I collaborate with on a regular basis is the award-winning Reverse Innovation. They are a young, dynamic design agency which provides amazingly creative designs for structural packaging and communications for major corporate clients as well as some smaller firms. I work closely with Reverse and their highly-effective press manager to make sure everything they say to the world in English is crystal clear and hits just the right note.

So, what's on the horizon this autumn, then? In addition to our sparkling aperitivos, the Milan Business English Network will be presenting a series of informal business discussions and networking sessions. These will be by invitation-only and will address some key Milan themes: social media (and social business); technology and innovation; fashion and design; marketing and communications; as well as medical / pharmaceutical and legal topics.

If you aren’t already a member of the Milan Business English Network, please join our group and find out about all the activities we are organising and how you can develop your professional network – as well as improve your communication skills in English.

I would also like to invite everyone to read NetworkMilan.com – the online news magazine of the MBEN. (Check out our special feature on "People and Wine" from earlier this year.)

If you need English for your work or travel – or you’re just interested in learning the world’s “lingua franca” – please get in touch with me. (See the contacts section of the Riverstone website for details.) You can also find me on LinkedIn – or just google the words “Milan”, “business” and “English” and you’ll find most of my groups.

I wish everyone a great autumn (if you’re in the northern hemisphere) – and if you’re in Milan, please drop into one of our events or give me a shout. I’m nearly always somewhere in the centre – usually with my laptop and an “Americano” coffee.

Between now and Christmas it will get much colder - winters in northern Italy can be bitter - but I will be kept warm by the energy coming off this most vibrant, resourceful and stylish of all European cities.

Viva Milano!

Robert Dennis

CEO and Head of Innovation, Riverstone Language and Communications

Milan brains at work: Designers and problem solvers at UX Bootcamp Milano,
an event realised by Sketchin in collaboration with Frontiers of Interaction 2013,
Italy's leading international technology and innovation conference at Talent Garden Milano.
(I wasn't involved in this event. I just think this picture sums up what makes Milan great!)
Photo: Luca Mascaro

Pete Sharma rocks Milan (with a little help from his friends): full report from the PSA Symposium, 2012 (Part 3)

2012-10-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

Finally we reached the “main attraction” of the Symposium: Pete Sharma’s keynote presentation “New developments in language teaching and learning in the digital age”. As the founder and Director of Training of PSA, as well as being the author of the best-known book on integrating technology with language learning, Blended Learning (written with Barney Barrett), Pete’s reputation goes before him; and yet, as a public speaker, he is incredibly down to earth and is at pains to avoid the kind of hype that is often associated with web 2.0 and technology in general.

He started by describing some of the various hats he wears (apart from his PSA one) including his work as an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) lecturer at Warwick University.

PSA Symposium 2012 at the British Consulate-General, Milan

Referring to the difficulties earlier on in the Symposium, Pete said that there will always be technical problems, however advanced the technology gets. How we manage those problems is as much a part of the process of changing habits and attitudes as is the actual introduction of the technology itself.

Pete sketched out the main structure of his talk. Following an overview of blended learning, he would introduce a number of statements, take a critical analysis of several technologies, and then consider some current controversies concluding with practical ideas about effective, successful blended learning.

Picking up on many of the themes in the earlier talks Pete invited us to step back and take a critical look at blended learning and the use of technology in education in general. This is indeed a new era, and yet the basic needs of students (and teachers) have not fundamentally changed. While technology has brought new opportunities as well as challenges, it is very much a tool to be used to help students rather than an end in itself. The choice of technology and its implementation are key questions for any teaching and learning organisation; however, the key questions will always remain the same: how do we help our students learn, what is the most effective way of organising the language learning classroom – and how do we keep our students motivated and inspired to learn?

Technology adoption lifecycle by Bohlen, Beal and Rogers

The increased use of technology has, though, changed and complicated the language learning - and teaching – environment. Teachers must now also be adroit in exploiting technology and yet, as was mentioned several times during the Symposium, students tend to be more familiar and comfortable with hi-tech than teachers (although Pete questioned whether the “digital immigrants v digital natives” tag is now falling out of favour). Another crucial aspect of blended learning is that technology is constantly evolving and there will always be innovators, early adopters and digital laggards (as suggested in Rogers’s Bell Curve) with the majority of people somewhere in the middle.

As web 1.0 gives way to web 2.0, user generated content (UGC) is becoming the norm (as we saw in all three of the previous speakers’ talks). Content is becoming more collaborative and social and extends well beyond the classroom.

Blended learning can be viewed from multiple perspectives: students, teachers, schools, publishes, authors and, of course, the various players in the technology industry. Who is driving the push towards the increased use of technology? Who stands to benefit most? Are we moving too fast – or not fast enough? These are questions that have to be resolved – and may never be adequately answered.

The only constant in the equation, however, is change itself: the one scenario that can be discounted is that language teaching will stay the same. Technology has already changed irrevocably the way language are taught. Just about every school is wired to a greater or lesser extent (and many, indeed, are wireless). Course books and dictionaries now depend heavily on corpuses and digital wordbanks that tell us in detail how native speakers really use the language (not just how prescriptive grammarians tell us we should us it).

With at least 32 separate definitions of what blended learning actually is, the average language teacher could be forgiven for a sense of confusion often bordering on bewilderment that often greets the term “Blended Learning”. Hardware (often in the form of interactive whiteboards) has been in the vanguard of the revolution, with virtual learning environments (VLEs) and learning management systems (LMSs) following hot on their heels. Is all of this actually necessary? How much demand is there for all this whizzy hi-tech magic? One of the most refreshing things about watching Pete Sharma talk is that he give you the feeling that you are actually in control: by shifting the focus from the hardware and the software to what students and teachers want to achieve you actually feel empowered and able to make much clearer – and better informed – choices that are right for your own teaching environment and students.

Sharma is even healthily cycnical about his own status and the business he is in. Referring to the title of his book “400 ideas for interactive whiteboards”, co-authored with Barney Barrett and Francis Jones he muses on the figure of 400 - why that number exactly? And what about schools that aren’t equipped with an IWB? His new ebook, Apptivities (also written with Barrett) helps the professional reader to get on top of another new buzzword technology: m-learning or mobile learning, where students can learn on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Pete has a very useful visual which crystallizes the “trinity” of the three main concepts in blended learning: it’s an iceberg with the three corners labelled Knowledge, Skills and Attitude. He asks each member of the audience to rate themselves on the their level of digital knowledge / skills – between one and five. Most people fall somewhere in the middle, but of course the most important point of all three is attitude: this is the key determining factor, rather than specific know-how or ability.

Attitude is more important than knowledge and skills because this relates most closely to the fundamental questions: Why do we teach? What’s the best way to teach? How can technology help me to teach better? This isn’t about techniques and tips (although practical expertise is significant, of course). This is about motivation – both the teacher’s motivation and their willingness to embrace new technology that they can use to deliver better teaching and content to their students.

There will, for example, be detailed questions about different types of IWB and basic difficulties: Can you use finger to move things round the board or do you need a special pen? And what’s the best type of board to use? etc). But these depend on having a positive and open attitude in which the teacher is also willing to learn. Some educators may simply be technophobic, but even among the majority there is a healthy scepticism about technology – and, as Pete points out – that’s good. It’s good to be critical of any teaching approach or methodology. Everything we do or bring into the classroom should be assessed critically and we should always be on our guard for fads or unrealistic promises.

Audience at the PSA Symposium, Milan

The fact is that we are living through a major paradigm shift in which the teacher as the source of all knowledge is giving way to education as the activity of training learners to learn and discover things for themselves. This too opens up an increasingly wide divide between the digital haves and have-nots. (Pete points out that in Spain, for example, school equipped with the latest digital projectors still have chalk blackboards lurking behind the screens – and they are still used.)

It has taken time for technology to arrive in the classroom. IWBs for example have taken ten years to come through. But there are also some surprising facts about the distribution of technology around the world: Mexico, for example, is the country with the greatest number of IWBs.

Language courses can take various forms, for example students can learn in a traditional face-to-face setting with a teacher present; a blended learning context which involves some face-to-face lessons and interaction with a computer; and distance learning where the whole course is delivered online (possibly with some teaching over an internet connection, e.g. via a video link or Skype, etc).

How important is pedagogy in a blended learning context? Experienced classroom teachers with limited knowledge or experience of technology should never feel stupid when confronted for the first time with a blended learning environment. Instead, they should remain healthily sceptical and ask the questions they would ask about any proposed learning approach or methodology: What is it? So what? How do I use it? Everyone who uses an IWB needs training – and this should be structured into teacher training courses and in-service training. You should never just accept something just because it exists: always question the benefit of new technology and ask “How does this help me to teach more effectively – and how does it enable my students to learn more efficiently and increase their motivation?”

The way you see blended learning depends on your viewpoint

The great thing about technology is the affordances it gives to the teacher and learner, i.e. the things it lets you do. Pete quizzed the audience to find out how many people have access to or have use an IWB – the not-necessarily representative sample (since the people present have voted with the feet and attended an event about blended learning) was about a third. Pete looked at some of the pro’s and con’s of IWBs. Firstly, a lesson on an IWB can be more memorable and engaging (if the material is well presented and appropriate). Another advantage is its “saveability”. Once you have created a lesson for an IWB you can just “pull it out of the drawer” and run it. On the down side, IWBs can have quite a steep learning curve – and, of course, they don’t come cheap. As with all types of technology in schools, there is a cost-benefit ratio and the person furthest from classroom has the cheque book.

Schools might get distracted by current debates and fashions surrounding technology (e.g. “Should we get and IWB or wi-fi?” which can end up becoming a kind of “Don’t have fish, have meat” argument). Again, any choice about investing in technology and deploying it in an educational environment should start with the basic question: how does this benefit the learning process and enable both teachers and students? All other considerations should follow on from this fundamental consideration.

Distance learning – perhaps the most “extreme” form of blended learning where the teacher is “in the machine” e.g. on Skype - can actually produce better results with students on distance courses outperforming those doing a conventional, “on-site” course. As Pete emphasises, when you put teachers and technology together you get an equation that is more than the sum of its parts (“1 + 1 > 2”).

Technology when used appropriately and in a way that respects students’ needs and expectations can be highly motivating. New platforms, such as M-learning, where students can access course material via their mobile devices – and also use these in class – can work particularly well, but again, as with all blended learning it has to be “embedded” into a course rather than simply “bolted on” as an extra. It is this ability to truly blend the technology into the learning process that represents the greatest challenge, but also opportunity, for the teaching profession.

As Nicky Hockley of the Consultants-E has demonstrated, teachers need to be aware of the scales and dimensions involved in m-learning (e.g. depending on whether students are in class or on the move and whether they are using their own devices or equipment provided by the school as class set – e.g. tablets).

Most students no longer carry printed dictionaries around with them: they are far more likely to access an app on their smartphone. Studying on the move, e.g. listening to an IELTS test on a train, for example, is both a natural and motivating way to learn. New and exciting technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) which allow users to view the world through the “digital lens” of their handheld device (e.g. by displaying text or playing audio when a particular location or object is viewed through the device’s camera) also opens up a whole new dimension of possibilities for educators.

Switched on to m-learning

And, of course, there is the big question at the heart of m-learning: is it a good idea for students to be allowed to keep their phones switched on in the language class? Obviously, it will be very difficult to an m-learning activity if the phone is off; but what about if students are always tempted to check their facebook page while in class?

These questions are as much cultural and social as they are pedagogical or even to do with technology. How wired should the classroom be? Do we want “fully-enabled” classes with every possible plug and play device hooked up – or should the classroom be a sanctuary where phones remain taboo and only human communication is allowed? Pete cited The Flipped Classroom, which takes the line that instruction should take place at home and “homework” should be done in the class: students come to the lesson having already studied the material at home.

Some of the anomalies of blended learning include the fact that productive skills (speaking and writing) have been influenced less by technology than receptive skills (reading and listening). Will this change? Should there be more “heads up” learning in class, where students interact with the teacher and each other while “heads down” activity, such as doing exercises, is reserved for homework (or should this be flipped?)

Collaborative social media such as blogs and wikis can be a great way of encouraging students to write outside of the class, but can also be the focus for in-class teaching. Response devices (such as those described by Valeria in her presentation for SMART) can give a language class the feel of a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”-style quiz programme.

Overall, blended learning has gone from being a buzz word to a range of practical considerations about What? How? Who? Where? etc. Investment in educational technology has been greatest in the public (or “state”) school sector – where the “customers”, i.e. the students, have little say about whether or not they want it and how it should be organised. Universities still lag school in their use of technology for learning. And, of course, in the private language teaching sector many school still lack even the most basic equipment (e.g. IWBs) and there is little or no agreement on questions such as whether m-learning should take place in the class or outside. The debates raging around resources and funding also impact heavily on the uptake of technology in education – but at the same time new generations of students that are perfectly au fait with technology take it for granted that resources will be available online and that learning should fit in with their digital behaviour (which includes ubiquity of access, gaming, messaging and the ability to share anything with anyone). Of course, as more digital natives go into teaching, the sight of the hapless teacher staring with horror at the complex array of buttons and plugs on the desk before them will eventually become trace memory of the educational world.

..............................................................................................

Open Forum at PSA Symposium, Milan 2012
From left to right: Seth Dickens, Paul Rogers, Pete Sharma,
Fabrizio Colombo and Cathy Smith

Finally, Seth Dickens, e-learning consultant and a PSA associate, chaired the Open Forum where many of the themes raised during the Symposium were widened out to include the thoughts and experiences of the audience.

One question was “Will people still be writing with a pen?” in the future, which took us into the whole debate about the impact technology will have on the way we communicate in general, not just in the language classroom.

Attendees were also keen to discuss the platforms and content they had discovered during the Symposium. Emer Gibson, Sales and Marketing Director of Engage Language Services (which I have founded with Emer), questioned Paul Rogers about the online safeguards of the Little Bridge community. Paul pointed to the fact that although all messages created by users typing are monitored, messages composed by using the drop down menus are not moderated. (These can also be a good way of enabling beginners to make sentences.)

The main discussion in the Forum was how useful is technology for students? Does it help language learning? The overall feeling was that it does enable learning, but it has to be used appropriately and teachers have to have the support and training necessary to use it effectively.

The language teaching world is also somewhat behind the game in terms of deploying new technology. One speaker pointed out that if someone had been frozen 100 years ago and was brought back to life, where would be the best place to them out with inducing too much culture shock? A church, maybe? In fact, the ideal location would be the language classroom as it hasn’t really changed in over a century.
Is technology a threat to teachers? Will it eventually replace them? Seth pointed out that technology really provides a set of tools to help teacher; it’s main aim is not to replace human teachers, but to empower them. Luke from Richmond ELT agreed that there is actually very little research about this question: we just don’t know if doing a drag and drop exercise online is better than filling in the blanks on paper, for example.

There was also some discussion about who is actually driving the push for more technology. Book publishers might seem to have the least motivation – but as Luke and Cathy from Richmond both pointed out online is now inseparable from print as media converges. Technology providers such as SMART obviously have a vested interest, but their success is largely demand-led: they are responding to the growing need felt by schools and teaching organisations for adding greater functionality to the classroom.

Chris Heron, an educational entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of People Communicate Ltd, an innovative online learning platform, asked how will technology change the business model of the language teaching industry? This is a question that has largely been overlooked in the debates that have raged for and against blended learning, but surely one that will become more pertinent as the use of computer technology and digital media in education becomes the norm.

Finally, Pete Sharma said that new technology always has unexpected consequences and that although the current debates reflect our present concerns, no-one can say for certain what the impact will be in the future of the “digital revolution” that is currently taking place in the language teaching world (and beyond).

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Following a thoroughly informative and lively morning – and having vindicated the role of technology by finally managing to get the presentations running – everyone moved out onto the British Consulate-General’s spacious and elegant terrace, where a buffet and sparkling white wine was served. The networking and discussions were both intense and highly useful.

A special mention should be made for Francesca Amami, Trade Assistant, UK Trade & Investment at the British Consulate-General Milan for her splendid effort in handling the invitations. Valeria Notari, Senior Trade Advisor and Head of E&T Unit, UK Trade & Investment Italy was also involved in the preparation for this highly successful event.

In conclusion, this was a very worthwhile and well-designed event that gave everyone present a great deal of insight into the impact of new technology on the language learning world. We look forward to seeing Pete Sharma – and everyone else involved in the Symposium – back in Milan very soon.

Buffet and informal networking at the British Consulate-General, Milan

Pete Sharma rocks Milan (with a little help from his friends): full report from the PSA Symposium, 2012 (Part 2)

2012-10-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Hold that thought: Luke Baxter of Richmond ELT

Next up were Luke Baxter and Cathy Smith of Richmond ELT, the Oxford-based publisher that is also part of the Santillana Publishing Group which is in turn owned by Prisa, the world’s leading Spanish and Portuguese-language business group in the fields of education, information and entertainment.

Richmond chose to ponder the theme of convergence and Luke started off by quoting the business technology consultant Ifeanyi O. Asonye, who defined convergence as 'the priming of underlying digital technology components and features such as voice, texts, video, pictures, broadcasts, presentation, streaming media, global connectivity and personalized services; the combination of all of these features and abilities from multiple electronic systems into a simplified, converged and computer-mediated communication system to enable individuals to interact, play, communicate, collaborate and share information in many new and different ways'.

As an experienced EFL teacher, Luke brought along some realia to underline how “old media” from the real world – books and vinyl records are now available on just about any digital platform, including the cloud. Newspapers and maps can be accessed from an iPad and even analogue gadgets such as a compass and a spirit level have been transformed into digital versions as apps.

In the field of language learning this process of convergence is well under way as content from books, audio and CD-ROM activities is gradually integrated with Virtual Learning Environments.

Luke Baxter and Cathy Smith of Richmond ELT converge on
the British Consulate-General, Milan for the PSA Symposium

Convergence is also changing both attitudes and behaviour towards learning. As Luke pointed out, when he taught English in Spain, students used CD-ROMs but their teachers really knew exactly what they were doing with them. As learning becomes more integrated this kind of self-study activity can be managed more effectively by teachers with access to students’ activity profile and results (e.g. via the Learning Platforms accompanying several Richmond series – and also in Little Bridge, as we heard earlier).

Cathy demonstrated media convergence in action by introducing delegates to The BigPicture – Richmond’s new course for young adults. This includes wordlists, transcripts and online resources available through the Learning Platform, which has a special interface for teachers. Some of the features designed to enhance learning (and make teachers’ lives easier) include the ability to create drag and drop exercises, detailed student record-keeping functions, e.g. attendance and instant scores on exercises.

Cathy and The Big Picture Learning Platform

The Big Picture also features specially-made videos, Richmond Vodcasts, which are integrated with the course content. Other highlights include the Big Picture blog and the Forum which has a social networking interface. The Test Studio allows teachers to generate tests based on material from any part of the book being used in class and to get instant feedback from students, who can complete tests on the learning platform. Test material can be created as Word files or made interactive.

The Learning Platform also boasts an audio player where students can do listening activities either with or without the audio script. The Teachers Book for each course can be found online and there is a wealth of ready-made extension activities available.

Continuing with the theme of convergence, Luke looked at the (even) bigger picture of how new technology is impacting on teaching languages. He started by considering the Cloud, which, as he pointed out, is not really a new concept. Web mail accounts, such as Hotmail, which send messages to your account not your computer, have been around for a long time. Services such as Google Cloud and Dropbox now allow us access our media wherever we are. This is a huge boon for teachers working in different places who no longer have to cart books, student records and audio devices around. Integrated learning environments, such as Richmond’s, allow teachers to use different media in more flexible and productive ways. (The “golden age of EFL” when students would sit patiently watching their teacher spool through cassette tapes to find the right bit are now becoming a distant memory.)

The challenge for publishers is to get the content right and produce material that can work both in class and at home or on the move – which is increasingly where a lot of learning and practice takes place (a point picked up during the Open Forum later). Mundane but valuable “heads down” activity, such as grammar exercises can more profitably be done outside of the classroom, while valuable class time can be spent on more engaging activities, such as discussing language problems. (This is especially true nowadays as there is less and less time available for class teaching.)

Richmond's New Framework series for adults and young adults

However, publishers also face an increasing threat from the phenomenon of convergence and digitalisation. While photocopying may become less of an issue as more content goes online, the publishing industry increasingly faces the problems that have beset the music industry. Trying to retain ownership of the music, as Luke pointed out, the music industry nearly managed to kill itself. Publishers should make material available in the cloud, but also ensure that they can generate sufficient revenue from it.

In order for content to appeal to both students and teachers it should be social, updated, fresh and alive. Interest can only be sustained if there is a constant supply of new material , podcasts and blogs. Sourcing and distributing this content sets publishers an extra challenge.

As with Little Bridge, Richmond’s Learning Platform allows students to interact socially. Indeed, it is this social element of online learning that could become the most significant factor in the convergence of “old” and “new” media, a process that could still up to five years in the ELT publishing industry.

The gradual process of media convergence (Richmond ELT)

It should be noted that convergence does not mean “total digitalisation”. There will always be books, for example, and publishers such as Richmond have no intention of completely abandoning printed or “optical” media (CDs / DVDs etc). The key thing is to make content available on as wide a range of platforms as possible – including online – and to give teachers and students the widest possible choice in how they decide to access material. Cathy and Luke pointed out that they themselves are a good example of convergence in action: while Cathy still has a Filofax, Luke is fixated on his iPad. People are free to choose the medium they are most comfortable with.

Interested in Learning Management Systems? Read my write-up of the Pearson / British Council Digital Transformation in the English Teaching World event earlier this year on NetworkMilan.com, which featured Pearson's LMS / VLE MyEnglishLab.

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Valeria Mordenti of SMART Technologies at the PSA Symposium

Valeria Mordenti, Marketing Manager Italy and South East Europe at SMART Technologies, spoke (in Italian) about solutions for teaching foreign languages using SMART’s Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) known in Italian as Lavagne Interattive Multimediale (LMI).

She started by giving an overview of the company and its mission. As the creator of the world’s first interactive whiteboard in 1991 SMART remains the world’s leading provider of this technology to mainly educational institutions around the world. (It has just under half of the IWB market according to a 2010 study by Futuresource Consulting.)

SMART has been providing solutions for the education,
business and government communities for 25 years.

SMART is based in Calgary, Canada, and has offices worldwide. More than two million SMART Board interactive whiteboards are used by over 40 million students and their teachers, and SMART products are used in more than 175 countries. The company has over 1700 employees, of which 500 work in R&D (40% hardware, 60% software R&D). SMART is the market leader in collaborative solutions for education

SMART’s global distribution network includes 300 resellers in North America and 65 distributors worldwide. Over 400 SMART resources are available for sales, service training and support through its Ecosystem network. SMART Ecosystem Network (SEN), a community designed to nurture the growth of companies and individuals interested in working with SMART. The network provides technical resources, accreditation programs and marketing support to its members, ensuring they are given the resources they need to develop and market software and content that work well with award-winning SMART products, such as the SMART Board interactive whiteboard, the SMART Table interactive learning center and the SMART Response interactive response system.

SMART’s company mission is to improve the learning and teaching experience through the use of technology in lessons. To achieve this objective, the company brings vast technical experience in both hardware and software. It also has extensive experience and know-how in the areas of integrating technology in educational contexts; pedagogy and methodology; and, of course, in implementation and support for its products and services. SMART is also particularly strong in developing online communities, particularly those in the Ecosystem Network.

What will the school learning environment look like in the future?

Valeria then painted a picture of how SMART technology is currently used in different learning environments and she also looked forward to consider what the school of the future will be like.

Typical learning environments include the classic situation of a teacher standing at the front of a class arranged in rows. Another environment is group learning where students work more collaboratively (often the case in communicative language classes). More modern settings include personal learning, where different technologies and devices are integrated and customised for each individual student and finally remote learning, which allows students to share material without the need for the teacher being physically present.

SMART solutions can help educational institutions and
teachers transform the classroom as we know it.

The challenge for educational institutions in the 21st century is to transform the classroom as we know it today, while retaining the benefits of traditional teacher-led instruction. The needs of educators themselves are changing. Digital natives now represent the majority of students in today’s classrooms and the relationship between students and computer technology is growing ever stronger. Encouragingly, the levels of IT competence among teachers is generally increasing and the role of personal devices in education (netbooks, tablets, e-readers, smartphones) is set to increase.

In SMART’s vision the class of the future will integrate the various learning environments into a single system in which teachers can move easily from environment to another. This will allow them to create and share materials and use them to teach. They will also be able to check students’ progress in learning and provide support both in and outside the classroom.

While SMART is very much a technology company, it recognises that educational institutions often make basic errors when they decide to introduce or upgrade their computer technology. The most common mistake is to consider the various phases as separate projects without a coherent strategy or familiarity with the software architecture that supports the whole system. There are four main “sub projects” that need to be viewed within a single frame. These are: selecting IWB technology, accessing content on the system, intergrating personal devices and setting up distance learning. While the development can happen in different phases it is critical that the choice made at the outset is correct.

The main advantages of the SMART platform are that it is easy to implement and easy to extend later. The architecture at its core emphasises ease of use. And, of course, the SMART classroom is an integrated learning environment which allows training and professional development to take place, as well as community resources to be accessed and developed. Additional services and support are also easily accessible.

The SMART software architecture has three main benefits. These are that the system is:

1. Open – Software Development Kits (SDKs) to integrate 3rd party applications and its Application Programming Interface (API) allows third party developers to create resources that can be integrated into the LMS and VLE.

2. Interoperable – SMART works with a wide range of platforms and operating systems including Microsoft, Apple, Linux and cloud-based services. It uses standard file formats to allow the widest possible use of existing and new material.

3. Scalable – based on a modular concept using software plug-ins that can be downloaded and customised, it is easy to extend and integrate new SMART hardware components and devices.

The SMART architecture also allows ICT solutions to be developed over time. It is able to meet new demands in training environments and it also “future proof” as technology evolves.

SMART has a range of software solutions designed to complement its state-of-the-art hardware. These include its SMART Notebook collaborative software; SMART Sync classroom management software; SMART Response CE assessment software; SMART Notebook SE (Student Edition) software; and the new SMART Classroom Suite, the first integrated learning software suite specially created for teachers and students, which organises and simplifies all entire teaching and learning activity.

The company also provides a range of complementary hardware including the SMART document camera which allows a teacher give students a close-up of both documents and 3D objects on the screen. The SMART Response handheld devices allow students to give instant feedback and take part in “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire”-style votes and quizzes, which can be highly motivating. Other technology on offer includes SMART Audio and the SMART Wireless slate, an input device specially adapted for class teaching.

Despite the relative lack of research about the efficacy and impact of new technology in the classroom, SMART’s IWB has been studied by Fabienne Gérard and Jamey Widener [1]. The authors of the study found that the SMART IWB can facilitate both the learning and teaching processes by supporting oral skills and cognitive processes and by sustaining student motivation and encouraging emulation. However, the researchers also pointed to potential problems with the technology if teachers are not properly trained in its use. (The study also highlighted certain practical problems relating to pens, which have to replaced in the pen tray in order for the system to recognise that the teacher no longer wishes to write on the board.)

Overall, then SMART’s interactive whiteboards in conjunction with their supporting software and community resources can provide a bridge that allows the benefits of computer technology to be accesses while encouraging human-to-human communication. Its SMART classroom enhances new kinds of learning and it brings the internet into every foreign language class. The technology also provides access to authentic documents and both represents and encourages a major shift in attitudes and practice in modern language learning and teaching practices.

As a postscript to her talk, Valeria added an example of SMART technology in action in the language learning classroom. She showed us “Teacher's Kitchen”, a resource created by Maite Cervera, Susana Zaera at Colegio Montserrat, which allows students to followa recipe in a bilingual class.

Using the Document Camera, the teachers created “A Tasty Salad” that included some useful lexis along with video “explanations” (e.g. chop, slice, etc). The lesson also involved a multiple choice component, which students could complete using their SMART Response devices. (Ingredients that you don't find in a salad: a) Vinegar b) Olives, c) Flour d) Pepper e) Lettuce – if you’re not sure of the answer, you’re either a) not a very good cook b) English or c) both!)

1. Gerard, F., &Widener, J. A SMARTer Way to Teach Foreign Language: The SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard as a Language Learning Tool[online]. Edcomapss. 1999. [cit. 2011-06-17]. Available at: http://edcompass.smarttech.com/en/learning/research/SBforeignlanguageclass.pdf.

SMART Board 885ix interactive whiteboard system:
Up to 4 students can work together anywhere on the surface

Pete Sharma rocks Milan (with a little help from his friends): full report from the PSA Symposium, 2012 (Part 1)

2012-10-14T12:14:00.002-07:00

Pete Sharma (left) talking at the PSA Symposium, Milan 2012 with Fabrizio Colombo,
Area Manager Italy, Greece & SEEU at SMART Technologies (centre) and
Cathy Smith, Sales & Marketing Director of Richmond ELT (right)

The theme of this “mini summit”, presented by Pete Sharma Associates at the British Consulate-General in Milan on 5th Ocotber 2012 was “The Impact of New Technology on Language Teaching”. It's almost a law of nature that whenever the subject of a conference is to do with technology, the gremlins will swarm. Such was the case with the Symposium, although to be fair to the people who came Milan to present their sites, materials, equipment and ideas, the technical problems that beset the first part of the proceedings were due rather to the extra-robust security at the British Consulate-General, rather than with any flaws in the technology on display. Indeed, the all the speakers who appeared early on were not only prime examples of British stiff upper lip, but also inadvertently underlined an important point: while people can manage without technology, technology on its own cannot substitute for real, live humans (especially the redoubtable techies who were on-hand to sort everything out) - at least, not yet.

Vic Annells, the British Consul General in Milan (left), addressing
the PSA Symposium, with presenter Byron Russell of PSA (right)

Byron Russell, a PSA director, kicked off the event by welcoming everyone and explaining that Pete Sharma Associates is an international blended learning consultancy that aims to help people get over their fear of technology. In addition to its consultancy activities, PSA runs online courses and helps institutions integrate technology into their learning programmes.

Byron then introduced Vic Annells, the British Consul General in Milan and Director of UK Trade Investment Italy. He apologised for the tech difficulties and reassured everyone that the tight security at the British Consulate General is necessary in these difficult times, a point which everyone present accepted. Having recently completed an online course himself at Cambridge University, Vic was very enthusiastic about the motivating power of technology in the educational sphere.

Paul Rogers, founder and Director of Little Bridge (left)

With the original running order re-jigged, it fell to Paul Rogers of Little Bridge to open the batting, a task which he accepted manfully despite some continuing technical hitches.

Paul introduced us to Little Bridge, which is a virtual world which young learners can explore and learn English in a highly engaging, entertaining and safe environment. Paul explained that he has a background in school teaching, at both primary and secondary level, as well as in universities. He has taught French, German, Spanish and English. The key to getting children involved in language learning, he feels, is to capture their imagination.

Teaching in the language classroom is somewhat strange. Paul likened it to teaching someone to swim without actually getting into the in water: what’s missing is the reality.

A bird's eye view of Little Bridge (plant not included)

Little Bridge is a small town, with a quintessentially English look and feel (stone buildings nestling among trees and hedges), but with a modern, diverse cast of characters that make it inclusive and accessible for a wide range of learners from around the world.

The beauty of Little Bridge is that every story, song and activity is related to the Little Bridge world. This gives language learning a context, which is especially important for maintaining interest among young learners.

According to Paul there are two key requirements for language teaching. The first of these is motivation: all learners, not just children, have to want to learn if they are going to succeed. The second requirement is practice. However, given the constraints of school life and the competing demands of other subjects, there just isn’t enough classroom time for children to get the amount of practice they need in order to really develop their language skills: Little Bridge aims to address both of these issues, by providing kids with a highly absorbing and motivating virtual world and also the opportunity to gain extensive language practice both within and outside the classroom.

Little Bridge is matched to the CambridgeEnglish: Young Learners levels (Starters, Movers and Flyers).

Inside the Little Bridge School

Paul took us into the School, where learners can access activities from familiar-looking drawers in the classroom. Activities include songs, speaking and extras. There is also a range of accompanying materials, including books, audio, worksheets. This is significant and proved to be one of the main themes of the Symposium: how “old media” works both alongside and in conjunction with the brave new digital world. Little Bridge in this context forms an actual bridge linking traditional media with new online resources that together form a continuum. (By the way, Little Bridge takes its name from the hump-backed bridge at the centre of the town.)

Little Bridge caters for a group of people who are for the most part perfectly comfortable with new, interactive forms of digital media: children. They are also some of the most demanding and critical consumers of learning resources. “We have to rise to the expectations of the kids,” says Paul.

One of the main features of Little Bridge is its wealth of different activity types – essential for holding the very limited attention span of its young guests. Interaction is at the heart of the project. For example, you can record yourself taking part in dialogues and then play them back (normally a relatively simple task which somehow even the Consulate General’s fiendish security managed to thwart on the day).

Little Bridge is multi-sensory. Every unit contains a song, which is played from a cool animated mp3 player.

Learning in Little Bridge is carefully structured: it’s highly enjoyable, but it’s not “just” fun. Of course, learning should be enjoyable and motivating but there also needs to be a pedagogical backbone and logic to the learning that is taking place.

An interactive exercise on Little Bridge - with Domino (left)

There are however, some nice touches that are tailored to a younger audience. For example, Paul demonstrated a gap fill exercise in which the learner has to drag and drop the correct word. In addition adult voice saying either “Yes” or “No”, there is also a dog Domino, Little Bridge's mascot, who sits in the corner of the screen and helpfully nods or shakes his head.

This kind of instant feedback is critical in maintaining interest an attention. It also encourages learners to take more risks and be prepared to make mistakes, which as Paul pointed out, is how we learn, e.g. you learn to walk by falling over. “Mistakes get a bad press,” he said. One of the advantages of interactive, online learning is that you can make your mistakes in private.

However, Little Bridge also has an integrated Learning Management System. All the results from every activity undertaken by learners is sent through to the LMS, where the teacher can analyse an individual student’s progress and keep a check on how the entire group is performing.

Little Bridge supports learning with a naturalistic and engaging enviornment

Another subtle but very powerful feature of Little Bridge is that it uses sophisticated non-verbal – often visual – cues to support learner’s understanding and create a rich, naturalistic context for communication. For example, in a relatively straightforward dialogue between a boy and a girl we discover that the girl has been shopping and as bought a tee-shirt. While the language is fairly simple and well adapted to the learner’s level, the reaction of the boy when he sees the less-than-covetable fashion item the girl has bought is one of exaggerated horror (that would roughly be rendered as “Yeech!” if it were in a US sitcom). In another example, the sentence “I don’t like table tennis” is set in a mini animated drama in which the ping-pong ball glances off the table edge past the bemused player. Reactions, expressions and “collateral” content that isn’t verbalised tend to provide human depth and naturalness, even though the grammar structures and lexis (vocabulary) employed are pitched at an accessible level.

Manufacturing content: the Grammar Factory in Little Bridge

Another area where Little Bridge can appeal to children is grammar - again, another area of language learning that more often than not is greeted in class with groans rather than grins. Paul suggested that grammar is really a short cut to the underlying concepts of what’s going in the language: it allows us to understand what’s going on behind the scenes. Little Bridge aims to make grammar more engaging and not just treat it as a separate part of learning the language. The Grammar Factory looks like real fun: it attempts to demystify grammar by presenting it as matter-of -fact set of structures and procedures all beautifully animated with industrial machinery, robot arms and conveyor belts. Watching bits of language being transformed in the Little Bridge Grammar Factory induces a strangely calming, almost hypnotic state in which grammatical structures literally appear before your eyes: it’s almost like watching a cognitive process externalised and set in a friendly, non-threatening environment – a grammar factory.

Little Bridge is used in schools worldwide, for example the US, Scandinavia, Turkey, Russia, where it is a mainstay of English teaching in some of the largest schools in St Petersburg). Every school in Mexico has Little Bridge.

The feedback from teachers has been both positive and insightful. ‘Our students talk about the characters as if they are friends’ is a typical comment.

Another important feature for learning English in a global context is that you can switch the whole platform between British and American English. This is significant especially in regions where US English is the preferred variety, such as Asia.

(Chatting to Paul later, I asked him if they had considered making a version of Little Bridge which looks more American – Little Bridge, USA? However, he told me that international students are quite happy with the typically British look and it is the ability to switch between UK / US English that has proved more significant.)

Learners can create their own character and room in the
safe, moderated Little Bridge community environment

As with all the other platforms and products presented at the Symposium, the social element of blended learning is an integral part of the Little Bridge experience. All users can access the online community, which is moderated to ensure safety. All comments on the community have to be in English and there is a messaging system (DigiTalk) that allows children to share their experiences and feelings about learning English in the Little Bridge microcosm. (You can find more discussion of this in the Open Forum section of this report.)

Perhaps the main advantage of Little Bridge is that it can be used both at school and at home, allowing students to maximise practice time away from the classroom but also to benefit from their familiarity with the environment in classroom activities. Teachers can also save valuable time as all results are sent to the LMS, which cuts out the need for endless marking.

"Friendly English" by Derek Allen: a hilarious and moving book written with warmth and a unique sense of humour

2012-10-01T17:19:00.001-07:00

I’m currently reading Derek Allen’s “Friendly English”, published by Sperling & Kupfer. It’s a unique blend of autobiography and English language exercise book. It covers many topics normally ignored by conventional language books, e.g. sport (especially football), religion, (real) family relationships and humour. What comes through from this book is Derek’s personality and quirky sense of humour. Written in a conversational and richly-idiomatic style, “Friendly English” is the reading equivalent of spending a few hours in Derek’s company (which is always a delight!).

As with the originator of the “English tailored for Italians” genre, John Peter Sloan (with whom both Derek and I have worked on the Speak Now! series), Derek has managed to strike a careful balance between entertainment and education. Just as John’s brand of humour and insights reflect his experiences of living in Italy and interacting with Italians, so Derek has also captured the magic and absurdity of being an Englishman in Italy in his own way. (There are many moments that will strike a chord with British expats, such as myself, and which Italian readers will also find revealing.) However, Derek’s approach and voice differ markedly from those of John. “Friendly English” is an incredibly personal and revealing account of key moments in Derek’s life, many of which are both moving and surprising at the same time. (I even found myself laughing out loud at certain points – not something you usually do with an English language course book!) Derek is a natural raconteur and storyteller. He also wears his learning lightly and is able to explore some quite deep subjects with a typically light touch.

The overall impression you get from reading “Friendly English” is of a wry sense of humour combined with a genuinely warm and forgiving personality (i.e. Derek Allen!).

Here’s a typical example of Derek’s finely-honed comic writing skills chosen at random from the book: I’m only 1.65 metres tall and as a result I have a full length portrait in my passport instead of the usual “face and shoulders”.

The book also offers some beautifully-observed details that open a window onto the strange and wonderful place that is Italy. Here’s Derek describing an “epiphany” moment while visiting Trapani in Sicily during his tour of the South:

I was walking along the promenade minding my own business when an old couple sitting on a stone bench called me over with their hands. The man was peeling a peach and wanted to offer me a piece, so I sat down and shared the fruit with them. We couldn’t really communicate at all – we were all gestures and broken-toothed smiles beside a deserted midday beach. I don’t think I’d ever experienced anything so completely unlooked-for in my life.

"Your Bard, mate!" Derek in Shakespearean
mode from the "Speak Now!" series

However, “Friendly English” is also a well-structured English language book with a wealth of exercises, glossaries, notes, quotations, snippets of history, puns galore and odd facts. You can either read it through as a narrative and sequential course – or you can just dip in and read snippets. (It’s a great “bog read” – a book you can read on the toilet (!) as well as the perfect thing to read when you are moving around the city on the metro or tram.)

Click here to order your copy of "Friendly English" on Amazon.

You can find out more about "Friendly English" and stay up to date with Derek's English activities by visiting the "Friendly English" page on Facebook.

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UPDATE: Derek will be presenting “Friendly English” at the Mondadori Multicenter in Piazza Duomo, Milan on Thursday, 18 October 2012 at 18:30.

Meet Derek Allen and have your copy of “Friendly English” signed by the author!

Find out more: http://www.facebook.com/events/122437037906020/?fref=ts

Learning how to market yourself should be part of every EFL teacher training course

2012-08-08T13:25:00.000-07:00


Sandwich board: Even the most passionate and enthusiastic teacher has to be able to earn a crust. (Image: Boston Street Characters, 1859 via Wikimedia Commons)

Every year an increasing number of newly-qualified English teachers enter the profession, many of whom will be heading abroad to find work. The training courses they have done – CELTA, Trinity College, etc – will have equipped them with a basic knowledge of how to survive in the EFL classroom; how to field those tricky questions about the Present Perfect; and also given them an insight into key teaching areas such as classroom management, preparing materials and maybe a taster of some linguistic and educational theories. Clutching their shiny new certificates this cohort of newbies will mainly be applying for teaching jobs in language schools and possibly with companies. A lot of teachers will also want to teach private students and find work on a freelance basis.

While the training courses they have taken provide a good foundation on which to build their career as teachers in terms of the language and teaching, how many of these bright-eyed hopefuls will have the business skills and resources to really thrive in their new profession? The answer, sadly, is not many. Of course, people who already have a business background and have decided to branch out into teaching (either as a form of escape from the corporate world or maybe because of a life-event, such as retirement or moving to another country for personal reasons) will be able to apply their knowledge to their career. Others will pick up ideas and tips along the way – and, generally, learn the hard way (often by realising that if they continue to work as an employee for a school they have virtually no chance of earning a decent salary without a Stakhanovite workload of contact hours).

As a freelance business English teacher who has learnt the hard way rather than coming from a business background, I am in a good position to see the problem clearly. I have termed this the “missing middle” – basically, a vacuum of know-how and strategy that teachers find themselves facing when they try to branch out on their own. Some people just rely on word of mouth and building up their clientele locally via their ex-students and contacts; others try their hand at social media to find people willing to pay to them to teach; and a small minority will actually decide that it’s much more profitable not to teach at all, but rather to set up a school and focus on developing the business side while others take care of the teaching.

The truth is that most teachers are generally ill-equipped to build up a business based on freelance teaching. Luckily, there is a now an eco-system of online resources, blogs and websites where teachers can network and share ideas. But even here, finding the information and contacts you need requires a lot of dedication and input from the individual teacher.

Wouldn’t it be useful if every teacher entering the profession had at least a basic grounding in how to sell their language and teaching skills? I am not suggesting that every freelance English teacher needs to do an MBA in order to make a living. I just think it would be really helpful if at the end of their training course there was a module / component on how to take all this fantastic knowledge and the teaching techniques you have acquired and plug them into a system or structure that can help you earn a decent living.

This mini-crash course in marketing yourself could include:

·         Understanding how the EFL market is structured
·         Different types of trader (e.g. self-employed sole trader, partnership, limited company)
·         How to find an accountant and sort out your tax status, contributions, pension, etc
·         An introduction to Google, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), copywriting
·         Using social media to promote yourself and your business
·         Networking, LinkedIn and membership of professional organisations
·         Information on how to specialise and find more lucrative sectors (e.g. Business English)
·         Other information and ideas relating to the specific market you want to work in

I have also floated the idea of a publically-owned brand that freelancers could use to promote themselves as a profession; as well as being involved in the production of high-quality EFL materials distributed under a Creative Commons licence (using the freelancers’ brand).

I would be very interested to hear the opinions of other freelance EFL teachers regarding this suggestion. And I would be very much like to hear what people involved in teacher training think as well – especially Cambridge, Trinity College, the British Council, FE, IATEFL, BESIG and other organisations based in countries other than the UK.

Have your say here by leaving a comment. You can also air your opinions on the Global Business English Network on LinkedIn.

Note: I have developed some of these ideas further on my English Revolution! blog ("Justice and luxury spa holidays for freelance English teachers... NOW!")

Team Writing: a new project for people who want to write well in English... together!

2012-07-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

Would you like to improve your writing skills in English, connect with other professionals and raise your profile? Freelancers, bloggers, students and teachers, welcome!

Team Writing: Join us!

Good writing is a both an art and a science. It’s an ability you can be born with – but it’s also a set of techniques that you can learn. Anyone can write: it’s not always easy to say exactly what you mean, but with practice you can get better. It’s also more fun when you do it with other people.

I am starting a project, called Team Writing, which is for people who want to write collaboratively and produce interesting material other people want to read. This is a not-for-profit exercise – you won’t receive any money, but you won’t have to pay anything either. It’s just a group of people who like writing.

Team Writing will take place online and will make use of various different tools for collaboration. The most important part of writing is what you actually do BEFORE you start: organising your ideas and material, finding sources, links and images, etc. We will use collaborative platforms such as Google Docs to share our ideas and resources.

For the actual writing itself I would like people in Team Writing to experiment with different collaborative writing tools. These will allow us to work together on the same text, but they also have several advantages, such as the ability to comment, edit other people’s work, rank or rate material and generally provide an overview of the project and its development over time.

One of the main things about this project is the ongoing discussions that take place around the writing itself and the comments generated by working together. These can sometimes be more instructive and entertaining than the text itself! This will also be a great opportunity to discuss problems and share ideas about writing and expressing yourself clearly.

Finally, we will publish the material we have created collaboratively. The easiest way to do this is by using blogs, which also allow other people to comment on the article or post and share it as well. (We can also use self-publishing platforms such as Slideshare.)

Why should you get involved with Team Writing?

There are a number of reasons why you might want to be part of this project:

· Improve your English: this will be of interest mainly to learners of English as a foreign language and non-native speakers, but many of the discussions will also be useful for native speakers who need to sharpen their knowledge of how to use English grammar and vocabulary accurately.

· Develop your skills as a writer: this applies to both native and non-native speakers of English. You are not automatically a better writer because you’re a native speaker. Some of the greatest writers in the English language (e.g. Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov) learnt English as a foreign language but went on to become literary titans. You can always pick up some tips and techniques as a writer. And even professional writers and journalists have editors.

· Gain experience of working on a collaborative creative project: while most people will just visit the group and stay for a short while, there will eventually be a “core” team of people who spend quite a lot of time and effort working on the material produced by Team Writing. These writers will benefit most from learning to collaborate online and use a wide range of digital tools. The skills and knowledge you gain from working with Team Writing will impact directly on your ability to find paid work outside of the group – e.g. as a copywriter, editor or other job that requires strong writing and editing ability.

· Networking opportunities: Team Writing will attract people who are interested in developing their network of collaborators and professional contacts. If you work in (or would to like to work in) social media, marketing or any field that requires the ability to co-operate effectively with other creative people, Team Writing will enable you to get to know the other members of the team and to share useful contacts and job opportunities. Team Writing will also make use of business social networking sites such as LinkedIn.

· Promote yourself as a writer: The best way to show people your ability as a writer is to write for blogs and websites where people can find your work. You may already have your own blog. (If you don’t, start one now – it’s easy!) The members of Team Writing will be able to share and link to the material they have worked on. Having a series of co-authored articles in your portfolio (and on your blog) will demonstrate to potential employers and clients that you are a serious professional with the ability to collaborate in a team and produce high-quality written material.

Organisation

Team Writing is not a company or association: it’s just a group of people who like writing. There are no real rules about what you can and can’t do, but as with any group there will tend to be people with more experience and knowledge and others who need to learn and acquire greater skills. The main direction and focus of Team writing will be determined by the people who spend more time and energy on writing the material (as well as supporting, editing and commenting). I imagine that eventually some fairly distinct groups will emerge in Team Writing. These groups will be determined by the interests and ambitions of the people in them. However, I have already thought about some of the topics and themes that writers for Team writing will be interested in. These include:

· Social media: a group dedicated to writing about social media topics. This will include bloggers and people who are either working in social media or an area that involves using social media tools (e.g. online marketing, public relations, etc)

· New technology and startups: this group will overlap with social media and the type of material written here will be mainly focused on using technology to improve the way people live and work. We will also look at new and creative ways that people are starting their own companies and funding them (e.g. venture capital).

· English language learning: mainly for students and teachers. Subjects will include: online learning; new, social approaches to learning English; business English; global culture and the impact of English.

· National and local interest: I am based in Milan, Italy. I tend to write about things that have some connection to either Milan or Italy in general. I am also collaborating with Danielle Dalkie, who is organising Network Roma. As a web-based project, however, Team Writing is open to people based anywhere in the world. However, if you are a freelancer, social media professional, language teacher or learner, you will probably want to find people in your location so that you can use your writing to make contact with partners and clients mainly where you are based. It will be interesting to see how this develops. I can see a network of groups springing up, all drawing on and feeding into the main Team Writing “cluster”.

We can also write about social and cultural topics, science, music, history, food, fashion... anything, really. But I suspect that the main value of this group will be topics that are quite closely related to people's activities as freelancers and social media practitioners.

Copyright and intellectual property

Of course, a group of people writing together raises the question of who owns the material produced. Since we are not a commercial organisation and we do not intend to sell our writing, I think the best solution is to make whatever we write available under a Creative Commons Share-alike licence. (You can find more information about Creative Commons here.)

There are lots of issues about intellectual property and blogging (e.g. the sometimes controversial use of copyright images used to illustrate a post). This will be part of our discussion and could also be the theme of a series of posts itself.

Team Writing and English Revolution! / Open Source English

I am developing a parallel project (currently with the working title of Open Source English). I have also created a blog: English Revolution! The main idea of this project is to create a set of free, high-quality materials for English learners and language teachers. These will be available under a Creative Commons licence and will be the main tools for “Open Source English” teaching, a professional movement modelled on the Open Source community in the world of computer programming.

OK, you’re interested. How do you get involved?

All you need to do is contact me, Robert Dennis, and tell me a bit about yourself: who you are, what you want to achieve and what sort of things you are interested in. I will then give you access to the collaborative tools and platforms used by Team Writing. This is not a completely open group: there will be some selection based on what you want to do. You will also need a fairly good level of English. (Unfortunately, this is not a language training course, although you will be able to improve your English by taking part.) I envisage a sort of floating community of writers with people joining and drifting away, coming back, introducing friends and colleagues, etc. Over time, the core Team will emerge and other members of the group will take over some of the administrative roles (e.g. setting up blogs, groups, wikis, etc).

Contact me now! Send an email to Robert.dennis@gmail.com or join any of my groups on LinkedIn or Facebook. I don’t need your CV, but it would help if you can provide some background information about yourself and links to your blog or website, if you have one.

The perfect blend? Pearson and the British Council team up for "Digital Transformation in the English Teaching World"

2012-06-25T12:26:00.000-07:00

The Melià, Milan: great setting for a "cool" event

It was a blessed relief to step from the sweltering June heatwave engulfing Milan into the cool and spacious Melià Hotel last week, the setting for “Digital Transformation in the English Teaching World”, an event co-hosted by Pearson Longman and the British Council. Informative and inspiring speakers opened up the possibilities offered by integrating new technology with more conventional approaches to language teaching in a series of engaging presentations. The sizeable audience was made up mainly of teachers and other language professionals from universities, private language schools and the swelling ranks of freelance English teachers. (I was one of the very small minority of token men in the audience: ELT is obviously a woman’s world.)

Delegates at the Pearson / British Council event "Digital Transformation
in the English Teaching World at the Melià Hotel, Milan, 20 June 2012

Joint effort

Co-hosts of "Digital Transformations
in the English Teaching World"

As you might expect from a conference co-hosted by Pearson, there was quite a large emphasis on the products and platforms they have developed, in particular the My EnglishLab learning management platform, as well as the materials Pearson has produced for this system. But there were also contributions from the British Council on how it is increasingly employing digital technology in the vast undertaking of providing testing and certification for the many thousands of candidates who take IELTS, Cambridge exams and other tests every year.

Digital literacy: what native digital speakers know

Nicky Hockly

Nicky Hockly, Director of Pedagogy at The Consultants-E, a Pearson Longman author and a renowned international teacher trainer talked about the importance of understanding digital literacies in today’s web-enabled learning environment: these literacies affect how we perceive, interpret, judge and use online content. With examples of how to use existing material from the web as a way of encouraging students to understand how material is presented, as well as the language itself, she also explored the use of video and even texting in the classroom. (We were all intrigued by the case of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, which Nicky used to show how context can impact on credibility)

She introduced techniques such as subtitling video and using “literal videos” to engage learners (particularly younger ones). One of the themes of this conference was the wide gap that exists between teenagers who are “native digital speakers” and older people who have had to learn (rather than acquire) their web skills the hard way. Typically, it is the students who are more web-savvy – with teachers lagging behind (although there are exceptions). One of the benefits of this situation is that both teachers and students have knowledge they can both bring to the party and share – making the teacher-student relationship less “asymmetrical”.

Txt: the way we communicate is being transformed by technology

Using authentic video with English learners

Antonia Clare

Antonia Clare, one of the authors of Pearson’s Speakout series, presented “Effective learning from authentic video content”. A collaboration between Pearson and the BBC, Speakout enjoys the huge advantage of incorporating video and other material from BBC Worldwide and BBC Learning English. The coursebook content dovetails with the MyEnglishLab platform and provides some very impressive features, such as the ability to watch a video and access the complete transcript in a scrolling panel underneath. (Each sentence is highlighted as the language is spoken.) Antonia talked about using video as a springboard to encouraging students to talk about their own lives and experiences. Speakout (intermediate) includes voxpop conversations in the street with people from both Barcelona and London. She pointed out that students could make this kind of video themselves using readily-available consumer technology (flip cams or camera phones) and post it on a video-sharing site where it could be used as the basis of further language activities, such as subtitling (with the corrected text appearing at the bottom of the screen). Again, while this event was a showcase for Pearson’s platform, the speakers all provided examples of how (largely free) social media sites and services can be combined with professionally-produced classroom materials (books, DVDs – as well as the online content in systems such as MyEnglishLab).

Blended learning – something of a buzzword currently, but not always understood or appreciated in practice – can therefore be seen as a way of bringing many different strands together: online content, material produced by students themselves as well as more conventional tests and exercises. While blended learning increases the opportunities it also brings new challenges, such as keeping activities focused on learning rather than the technology becoming an end in itself.

What's occurrin'? Antonia presents "Gavin and Stacey" from Speakout

One of the most well-received sections of Antonia’s presentation was the video from the award-winning BBC TV series, “Gavin and Stacey” (where Gavin’s first day at work is unintentionally sabotaged by a succession of well-meaning calls and visits by relatives and friends). The Pearson-BBC tie-up is obviously a huge coup in terms of bringing this type of genuinely entertaining and engaging material into the classroom in such a way that Intellectual Property (IP) rights are respected. The crossover between mainstream media and language teaching is something that Pearson in particular has exploited by means of the media giant’s existing holdings, such as the Financial Times (which provides the content backbone in the widely-used Market Leader series), as well as its Economist-branded Intelligent Business textbooks for language learning.

Technology to empower but not replace the teacher (MyEnglishLabs)

Chris Morris

Chris Morris, a Pearson international teacher trainer on new digital initiatives showcased MyEnglishLabs with the theme of “Informed teaching and personalised learning”. Chris flagged up further the divide between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” that was something of a leitmotif throughout this event. Despite the “brave new world” of digital technology and all the benefits it has to bring to the classroom some teachers are suspicious – if not downright terrified – of the impact it could have. Chris pointed out that technology will “empower not replace” the teacher: in fact, it can be liberating, by doing away with routine tasks such as endless marking and correcting of textbooks. In his presentation of MyEnglishLabs Chris showed how the platform can allow the teacher to assign online homework which students can complete at their own pace – and even on their mobile phone, if they download the app. Exercises can be selected for an individual student giving the teacher "fine-grained" control over their personal syllabus. MyEnglishLabs contains over twenty activity types, including various types of exercises (gap-fill, word search, etc), tests and comprehension practice linked to the course content. From the teacher’s perspective, perhaps the main benefit of this system is that it gives you an overview of all the material students have completed as well as their progress and scores. The teacher can “zero in” on those areas of a student’s language that require particular attention. This can also help in planning future courses by showing those areas where students in general are having difficulty (a point that also featured in the British Council section of "Digital Transformations" in the context of exams - technology is reducing the random element in ELT materials and activities, which can only be a good thing).

MyEnglishLab live and direct during Chris's presentation

MyEnglishLabs is an impressive platform that certainly reduces the drudgery of routine activities such as assigning and marking homework, testing and providing additional practice – and it’s always a joy to see someone demonstrate technology which they are genuinely enthusiastic and even passionate about. However, I personally have always been slightly underwhelmed by these systems when I have actually tried to base a complete course around them. MyEnglishLabs seems quite similar to English360 – the newly-independent course management system that features ELT material from Cambridge English (in particular). I suppose that both these systems and other similar products are of most use to large institutions where administration and the ability to monitor the performance of large numbers of students is critical (i.e. schools, colleges and universities). These “large customers” (who will inevitably produce the bulk of the revenues for providers of learning management systems, such as MyEnglishLab and others) work on a more industrial scale – and the automation at the heart of these management systems can produce not only savings in terms of teacher time, energy and even costs (especially as regards photocopying and printing), but also produce benefits for the students – not least by allowing a high level of individual customisation. With smaller schools, specialist training companies and freelancers, there is less need for this kind of “enterprise” technology.

The other key factor is that while these systems are often described as “intuitive” by developers and vendors, they can actually impose quite a large burden on the teacher who must add “system administrator” to their ever-lengthening list of roles. I haven’t really explored MyEnglishLabs in depth yet – but while the presentations were impressive, especially in terms of content – I would like to know more about the training and support that goes with the system. I often find that a “social” approach works best in these situations: an active online community is usually the best source of knowledge and support when you get stuck or are seeking inspiration.

Teachers can see progress through course material and grades at a glance on MyEnglishLabs

Going online: how the exam process is going digital (British Council)

Margaret Fowler talks about digital technology and the British Council

Margaret Fowler of the British Council spoke about the impact of computer technology on the exams that the BC administers and manages in Italy and worldwide. With many exams now available in either paper- or computer-based versions, students can choose which form to take. (Currently, only ESOL exams e.g., PET, BEC, FCE, CAE and KET are available in computer-based format. There is no computer-based version of IELTS yet.)

There are some slight differences. In the computer-based exam (and others), students use headphones for the listening section, for example. (Interestingly, while this can increase confidence when compared to listening to audio output from loudspeakers, it doesn’t actually affect grades.) The test takes less time as there is no need to transfer answers to another sheet for marking. Basic word-processing functions such as copy and paste and word count are also available for the writing section, although some candidates may find it uncomfortable to scroll through the reading passages.

Exam security has gone high-tech too. All candidates are photographed on the day of the test and the images are stored in a central database in the UK: these can be used to verify someone’s identity in the case of doubt about a "dodgy" certificate or someone's claim to be the awardee. Digital technology is also crucial to the development of exams run by the British Council: for example, the Cambridge Learner Corpus, a database of exam scripts (completed papers) that incorporates a treasure-trove of student errors, can be plundered to help exam writers understand which areas of the language students need to focus on. And any so-called “jagged profiles” or anomalies between language skills (e.g. an unusually low mark in a reading or listening paper for an otherwise strong candidate) will be immediately picked up by the analytical software used to crunch all the exam results.

The British Council’s exams service is increasingly in demand. There has been a 20% rise in the number of people taking CambridgeProficiency (CPE) - currently celebrating its 100th anniversary - this year. Margaret’s presentation included some striking images of the (truly) industrial process that underlies this success: warehouses stacked full of completed test papers and high-security printing, for example. With the increasing use of computer-based exams, however, these could eventually become a legacy of the “dead tree” age of information (and it would help the environment a bit, too).

The secret to a successful conference on digital technology: expert hosting

Russell Lewis thanks Antonia Clare

The whole event was kept moving along at a brisk pace by the very capable Andy Barbiero and Russell Lewis of Pearson, who wove the various sections together with both wit and veuve. (I’d like to see more of these guys presenting Pearson’s materials: they’re obviously both great at winning professional audiences over with their enthusiasm, knowledge of the products and sensitivity to what classroom teachers need.) Both Pearson and the British Council had stalls well-stocked with books, brochures and leaflets covering a range of issues of interest to English teachers. Helpful and informative representatives from the two organisations were also on hand to field queries and provide details of new products and services. The event was a welcome opportunity for some useful networking in addition to the excellent presentations. (And, by the way, it was all free. Not bad!)

Andy Barbiero of Pearson in the hot seat during a simulation of a classroom activity

So, following this brief introduction to how digital technology is transforming the English teaching world, it was back into the cauldron of the Milan heat (happily weighed down somewhat by a free copy of MyGrammarLab, which all the delegates received). But as I left the air-conditioned oasis of the Melià I certainly felt that I had gained a good insight into how Pearson and the British Council – among many other companies, organisations and individuals working in this field – are helping language teachers and students to benefit from the many advantages that technology can bring to our profession.

Pushing the right button(s): Longman Pearson's "MyGrammarLab"