IH Journal: Issue 53

To complete my current sub-skills series, I discussed ways of encouraging language learners to use cohesive devices in writing.

Issue 53 makes interesting reading with articles dealing with the latest developments in ELT: artificial intelligence (AI), plural-lingual classrooms, and Brexit's effect on the landscape of ELT in Europe.

How can teachers convert extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation? I've been trying to seek answers to this question, and I've found one in Christopher Walker's article.

Read the IH Journal (Issue 53) here.

Here is the direct link to my article - Developing the Sub-skill of Using Cohesive Devices in Writing.

Encouraging students to use complex sentences in speaking

How can teachers encourage students to use complex, more advanced grammatical structures in speaking?

Over the years, I've come across various classroom ideas ranging from giving students a checklist of target language items to tweaking the task requirements so that students have to produce certain advanced grammatical structures.

I've also heard some teachers complaining about the contrived nature of the above ideas. While these may force students to produce the target advanced grammatical structures in the lesson, students are unlikely to be able to use such structures naturally once they leave the classroom. What's the missing link then?

If language production involves formulation of mental ideas prior to realisation of such ideas with language, teachers need to connect grammatical structures to their use(s).

Here are four ways in which students can use complex grammar or sentences in speaking:

• add information about someone/something using the (non-defining) relative clauses;
• give examples using the conditional structure;
• introduce contrast by using subordination or concession (e.g. Although and Despite), rather than co-ordination (e.g. But and However); and
  
• give opinion using the 'which'-relative clause in the tail part of an utterance.

 

Teaching students with dyslexia

I've just been to a webinar by Boelo van der Pool, who was invited by International House World Organisation to talk about dyslexia and ADHD.

Here are some key ideas I was able to take away:

• Although there is no international agreement on certifying dyslexia, it is believed that around 10-15% of the population have varying extents of this 'learning difference'.
  
  
• Language learners with dyslexia may process information more slowly; they tend to be creative as they think outside the box rather than follow the conventional way of interpreting ideas.
  
  
• To target the way in which dyslexic learners process information, teachers can adapt written texts by:
  
  1. aligning the text left, not justify
  2. using a less fancy font, such as Arial, Tahoma or Verdana
  3. increasing the font size slightly
  4. increasing the line spacing, e.g. 1.5 instead of 1.15
  5. further dividing a text into shorter paragraphs by topic or idea
  6. using a plain, non-white background colour (or recycled paper for the whole school!)
  
  In short, textual information should be presented in a way that is easier for both dyslexic and non-dyslexic learners to locate. (No cramming!)
  
  
• Other techniques that aid dyslexic learners include using visuals to aid learners' understanding of a text and using colour coding consistently.
  

IATEFL Brighton 2024 - Day 3

I only spent half a day at the conference as I had planned for a quick trip to see my mum in Manchester before the working week starts again.

This morning's plenary session was given by Letizia Cinganotto, who summarised some of the recent developments in ELT as well as teaching other languages (LOTE, languages other than English). This acronym is commonly used in Italy but not elsewhere. Despite the clarity of the surrounding context, I suspect that some in the audience might not understand what LOTE stands for and would therefore benefit from a brief explanation. Having said that, one theme that emerged from her talk was the shift towards pluralism in language teaching and learning. In addition to her listing the approaches and the competencies already familiar among the ELT circles, she mentioned several classroom projects under 'plural-lingual' approaches with which her university in Siena had experimented in different countries. She argued against monolingualism and suggested a change of our mindset away from monolingual perspectives. Finally, she made a reference to the PISA 2025 Assessment Framework, which aims to include 'plural-lingualism' as one of the key competencies.

Marianne Jones shared her experiences of dealing with emergent language under the following three approaches/methods: weak-end TBL, strong-end TBL and Dogme. She used a fitting analogy of 'chips' for the target language and 'mayonnaise' for the emergent language. (I personally like salt and vinegar in real life.) She walked the audience through a sample task under each of the two TBL lesson frameworks, explaining her criteria for responding to her students' emergent language: 1) errors leading to miscommunication (i.e. communication breakdown); 2) the lack of 'task'-specific language. Finally, she invited teachers to consider their own filters when it comes to the achievement of learning aims in a lesson. This affects the way in which teachers respond to their students' emergent language in the classroom, if at all. On a personal note, having experimented with all of the above approaches extensively, it was an excellent opportunity for me to compare notes with her. I also found out she had worked as an English language teacher in Rome, Italy, whereas I am based in Milan.

IATEFL Brighton 2024 - Day 2

The plenary talk today was given by Zarina Subhan, who recounted some of her experiences regarding how she had been perceived by people from all over the world. Her talk was thought-provoking, and I could immediately relate my personal experiences to hers. Both of us are British; Zarina moved to the UK with her parents from India when she was a child, whereas I'm British by birth in the colony/overseas territory of Hong Kong and went to school and university in the UK.

In her talk, she mentioned how one's perception of self-worth can be affected by external factors such as other people's assumptions. This can affect how language learners feel about themselves when they speak English as their non-first language. After that, she went on to talk about how ELT learning materials often define 'normality' by assuming the position of what most people render 'acceptable', such as 'conventional' hairstyles or Anglicised names. The implications for future ELT materials, she argued, are of the notions of diversity and inclusion. Just as I was wondering if this had all sounded like a one-way street, she emphasised that these two notions should represent a two-way process. To facilitate this process, teachers can encourage learners, especially teenagers, to consider their own (un)conscious bias and examine the status quo using coursebook materials. English is therefore used as a medium rather than the mere goal in language teaching and learning.

Mary Rice shared numerous classroom revision activities for lexis in her talk. (She is a Hugh Dellar fan.) For the more controlled activities, teachers can use the following types: matching sentence halves, gap-fill, cloze passage, dictogloss, taboo, categorising (based on personal responses: words I like and words I don't like), sentence construction with dice rolling (with a list of words under each number, from 1 to 6), back to the board, and testing each other.

For the freer activities, teachers can use sentence construction tasks (with students' own choice of lexis from their notes), long turn speaking tasks with a bingo grid of words on a specific topic, and writing a short blog article. The most interesting activity, however, is 'world map' in my opinion. In this activity, students choose a number of words to place on the world map, and they have to justify their choices. This helps them to form mental or emotional associations, which facilitates their memorising newly taught or learnt lexis. Overall, she suggested that the best approach to revising lexis be the use of short mini-review activities scattered across various lessons during a course.

Chris Jory and Herbert Puchta's session on differentiation looked at both theory and practice. They identified four things which teachers can apply in differentiating their teaching practice: 1) content; 2) product (expected task outcome); 3) process (way/style of learning); 4) environment (materials and their mode, in terms of multimodality). They also mentioned the impact score of differentiation, at above 1.25, as something that dwarfs the positive impact of other teaching practices on learning.

After that, they provided several examples of differentiation in practice. For language systems, teachers can use substitution tables, increasing the level of challenge by asking students to produce sentences with language beyond the given model. For language skills, they showed us a task combining multiple types of response items, such as T/F/NG and short answers. They also gave us insights into how materials writers can grade up or down a text, by using a picture story with textual descriptions for lower levels (i.e. a text in the style of comic strips), or including additional information, more complex sentence forms, and more precise or idiomatic vocabulary items for higher levels. Having said that, I wish they had included differentiated practice to cater for students' different reading speeds. Finally, they played the audio of a text recorded by a rapper artist, in order to illustrate another way in which grammar can be presented. On a side note, teachers can consider including up to seven syllables in each chunk when drilling in lower-level classes. This is due to the learners' limited cognitive capacity to process information (i.e. decode and encode) containing more than seven syllables.

After lunch, I went to two group forums, one on pedagogy with artificial intelligence (AI) and the other on freelance teachers. Rasha Halat shared five classroom ideas with ChatGPT: 1) text interview of a (dead) famous person; 2) fact-checking statements generated by ChatGPT that purport to be facts (with discussion); 3) playing the devil's advocate in asking ChatGPT to write malicious content, with post-task reflection and evaluation; 4) discussion about the inherent bias in AI-generated visual images; 5) discussion about a deep-fake video - the one with our late Queen Elizabeth II by Channel 4 sprang to mind. She invited the audience to question our use of AI in terms of ethics, role in facilitating planning, teaching and learning, and the gap in digital literacy. Finally, she shared an AI tool for teachers to check the CEFR level of lexical items: Cathoven.

In another forum, Claire Bowes and Lauren Martin shared their tips for content creation and content writing in the context of attracting private students. Claire mentioned five content pillars from which teachers can select when establishing their own identity on social media: 1) educational; 2) entertaining; 3) inspirational; 4) promotional (keep this small!); 5) engagement. These pillars are by no means mutually exclusive to each other. To keep the online conversation going, the teacher's 'call to action' (CTA), such as a question inviting the audience to generate their personal responses, should be clear, concise and aligned to their content. She emphasised that the key to success is about building, engaging and staying tuned to a community, whereas going viral can only go so far as to increase one's visibility on social media in the short term. Finally, she mentioned two strategies for targeting markets: blue ocean (new, unsaturated markets) and red ocean (existing, saturated markets). To embark on the red ocean strategy, teachers should focus on content quality (values to offer), as well as monitor and adapt to current market trends.

Lauren focused on the textual side of content creation. She mentioned that the quality of written content should be 1) unique; 2) specific; 3) memorable. While it may be useful to analyse why other competitors have done well, this can be ignored in favour of two other foci in the teacher's messages: 1) what you do well or differently; 2) what your potential students want. To cater for the students' needs, teachers can think of their roles in terms of a problem solver whose role is to help learners move closer towards their intended goal with the English language. This can subsequently be turned into a website or profile tagline.

In the final session of the day, Ian McMaster mentioned seven strategies for successful working in international teams. As someone who has always thrived better in a more diverse English-speaking team, I shared my experiences of struggling in monocultural environments in Italy with a few other participants. His chosen seven strategies are: 1) listen well (wait longer before jumping in); 2) reserve judgement; 3) be curious (about what others have to say); 4) look for positive intent in others; 5) be clear and explicit; 6) ask for clarification and clarify; 7) express complicated ideas with relatively simple language. In terms of teaching, teachers can implement these strategies implicitly. He mentioned two such lesson ideas: 1) give learners thinking time in brainstorming activities before pair/group discussion; 2) scaffolded discussion about visual images (describe at face value, interpret what you see, and evaluate various ideas). Finally, teachers can use good 'critical incidents', defined as negative examples that lend themselves to multiple solutions and that are relevant to the learners' professional context, in communication training.

IATEFL Brighton 2024 - Day 1

This is my first time going to the IATEFL conference and it's been wonderful to hear so many different ideas being shared. Despite being on my own and thinking that I didn't know many people, I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a few familiar (and new) faces at the conference.

My conference talk, bringing intercultural awareness into the classroom, went swimmingly in the afternoon. I was over the moon to see 80-plus people in the audience - a full house with several people standing. Based on the audience responses mid- and post-talk, I'm glad my talk was well-received and that the audience enjoyed listening to my sharing of practical classroom activities.

I also went to plenty of other talks.

Vicky Saumell's opening plenary was on artificial intelligence (AI). She highlighted some key features of Generative AI. Then she gave us some useful insights into the impact it has had on four groups of key stakeholders in ELT: teachers and teacher trainers, managers and administrators, material writers and illustrators, and publishers and editors. Finally, she raised some issues of Generative AI regarding ethics, ease of access, sustainability, inherent bias, and copyright among others. She invited the audience to ask themselves questions about how Generative AI should best be used.

Jon Hird's session on spoken grammar was helpful for teachers who would like to teach natural language beyond coursebooks. He highlighted the key features of spoken grammar: simple discourse markers, generic words (general words or 'place holders'), informal tags, contracted forms, ellipsis, fronting (in the context of heads and tails), reduction of the auxiliaries 'does' and 'did' to '-'s' and '-'d', and idea units (a succession of short phrases that are simply spoken next to each other and that are sometimes linked by a conjunction). He shared some common task types with which learners can practise using the features of spoken grammar. These include noticing/highlighting (for heads and tails), gap-fill (for the replacement of specific words by 'place holders'), sentence transformation (fronting and co-referential pronouns), and Q&A dialogue (reduction of 'does' and 'did').

Mark Carver and his colleagues from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland shared what they had done in an initial experiment with pre-sessional students. In this experiment, authentic texts from real lectures were used to assess the students' listening skills summatively. Their aim was to find out how well the students could understand such lectures by engaging in interactive discussion as a means of testing. In their attempt to ensure validity and reliability in the summative listening tests, various sources, including IELTS band scores, the CEFR scales and Bax's Text Generator, were used to provide a referential framework for the test results. An interesting point was raised regarding the inclusion of spoken discussion and extended written responses in the assessment, and how this could have affected the reliability of scoring. Finally, the audience discussed the practicality of proctoring/invigilating the students doing the listening tests on computer - lock-screen windows can be useful to prevent cheating.

Amy Coryat's session on the transition from IELTS preparation to university was insightful. She highlighted the additional challenges that international students often face in the context of studying at British universities. IELTS is just the beginning of their learning journeys. Reporting on the survey results of postgraduate students at the University of West of England, Bristol, she identified the key factors affecting the students' learning experiences. When it comes to writing essays and dissertations, she noted that many international students were completely unfamiliar with genres (i.e. a lack of knowledge), as well as the academic style of writing. Finally, she mentioned some factors other than language that affect the students' learning experiences, such as cultural differences and finding suitable accommodation. She proposed three ways that universities can better support international students: 1) pre-sessional language support; 2) open communication channels with academic staff; 3) development of academic skills such as reading subject literature.

The final session I went to was Anna Young's six-step cycle of experimenting with metacognition. In the context of teacher development, she shared one of her experiences of using this cycle to help teachers implement the metacognitive strategies of their own choice in teaching. Metacognition refers to the act of learning about how one learns new knowledge, which involves a degree of self-awareness.

 

Using metacognitive strategies as an example, she walked us through the six stages: 1) discover (introduction to a new teaching method or technique), 2) decide (teachers' own choice of the aspect of the method or technique for implementation), 3) design (paper record of teachers' own decision), 4) do (implementation of the chosen aspect - this involves the teacher's modelling 'metacognitive talk', i.e. the act of verbalising one's strategy for successful task completion, for the learners), 5) debrief (internal sharing of the experiment, preferably with feedback from the students as evidence), and 6) disseminate (external sharing at conferences or in journal articles). For the 'do' stage, she gave us some useful classroom ideas: an error log with the error, the correct form, and the cause of error (writing skills), student-generated personalised mnemonics (spelling), and self-evaluation/reflection form with criterion statements (spoken presentation).

 

This 6D cycle modelled on Savannah Richardson's (2022) is said to be effective with both experienced and new teachers. In fact, it can make differentiated professional development a lot easier to implement in language schools where a one-size-fits-all approach to input sessions would risk disengagement among the more or highly experienced teachers.

All in all, it was a wonderful day in Brighton. The sun came out in the afternoon - it was quite warm at 14 degrees despite a constant 'breeze' (just a bit of a breeze) from the Channel!

 

(It's been very nice to pop home, which is the UK, and the first thing I did this morning was to treat myself in cooking a half English breakfast. By the word 'half', I mean bacon, Cumberland sausages, baked beans and scrambled eggs. Not a proper one without hash browns, mushrooms and toast, I know! Sorry if this sounded too indulgent.)

TEYLT Worldwide (Issue 1, 2024)

Here is a short text I've written for the latest IATEFL YLTSIG publication, TEYLT Worldwide. It is a subscriber-only publication (ISSN: 2520-2596). In my text, I recounted and reflected on my experience of using ChatGPT in a writing skills lesson.

I've personally found the following articles very useful:

• Adrienn Szlapak's one on the use of first language (L1) in the primary classroom use - I've been trying to learn more about English as an Additional Language (EAL). In her article, Adrienn explains what EAL entails in a clear, detailed manner.
  
• Annie Altamirano's one on differentiated instruction - I've learnt some concrete ideas for using differentiation in the classroom. Annie shares her experience with lots of hands-on ideas.
  

 

Learning by doing - and teaching

I was teaching several week-long English immersion courses at a local high school in outer Milan last month. The students and I met for three hours every morning, and there were more or less than 20 teenagers in each class. Their level was on average early B2 Upper-Intermediate.

In our lessons, the students explored teamwork, collaboration and communication through listening, reading and spoken discussions in English. For the final lesson, the students needed to complete a mini-project.

While spoken presentation is obviously the go-to option for the mini-project, I decided to experiment with something different in my final week. Adding to their spoken presentations, the students needed to design an activity, which involves teamwork, collaboration and communication (in English), for their classmates. Not only did they have to talk about the above three topics, but each group of students also took turns to be the 'teacher' in planning and running their own activity. The rest of the class, of course, had the opportunity to put theory into practice.

It might be a bold move, but the students did very well. One group came up with a problem-solving puzzle that involves moving a wolf, a sheep and cabbage across the river; another group designed a revision task (with material!) modelled on what the class had done on good and bad teamwork. Finally, a tech-savvy group of students designed a Kahoot quiz to revise what they had learnt about teamwork, collaboration and communication.

What better way to learn something than by doing (and teaching) it?

Dealing with sensitive topics in EFL classrooms

I was teaching a class of 18 Italian-speaking teenagers earlier in the morning. Today's lesson was part of a week-long English immersion course at a local high school in outer Milan.

As the main topic was 'diversity, inclusion and equity', I had already foreseen some common issues that would possibly come up in this three-hour lesson. Little did I know there would be an outspoken seventeen-year-old making awkward comments on race and ethnicity. Without repeating his unsavoury words, 'genes' was mentioned multiple times, a question about whether one is '100%' of a nationality was directed at another student, and a view that represents virtually no difference to the one held by a controversial Italian politician, Matteo (surname withheld), was expressed.

While an adult's instant reaction might be one that rightly dismisses the student's ideas, I used a more empathetic approach in this instance. Rather than put the student in the spotlight and dictate how that student should think, I neither invalidated his experience nor approved of his ideas. I didn't say his ideas were completely wrong or mine were correct. What I did was simply introduce a different perspective that lies beyond his current frame of reference. I also asked guiding questions that made him question his own beliefs.

Problem with true/false reading comprehension tasks

I was teaching a group of Upper-Intermediate (B2) teenagers earlier this week. As a lead-in to the reading tasks, my students discussed whether video games serve any educational purpose or they are just pure entertainment. The 'gist' task was naturally one in which my students compared their ideas to those of the writer.

Then came the true/false reading comprehension task. I was feeling uninspired by it, so I decided to change this second reading task on the spot. Rather than use the coursebook, I asked my students to map the writer's arguments for and against, as well as the supporting examples, in the form of a skeleton plan. After that, they worked together to make their plans more concise by focussing only on the key arguments, akin to writing the index page of an extended academic essay.

After the task, my students reflected on their level of comprehension of the text. We agreed that a true/false comprehension task focuses their attention on various individual sentences, but it never challenges them to dig deeper into the writer's ideas and develop a holistic understanding of the text.