The sun kept shining and Day 3 began with a morning plenary talk that spoke many a teacher's minds. As an active teacher who spends a good part of his week in the classroom, I cannot help feeling there is often a lack of time for classroom research. I suspect, moreover, many teachers have a low appetite for long webinars and conference talks, especially when the 'academic stuff' bears little relevance to their teaching practice(s).
Teachers and classroom research: ownership, relevance and conceptualisations
In his excellent plenary talk, Daniel Xerri from the University of Malta discussed how to bridge the (widening) gap between practice and research. He first explored the connotations of the word 'research' by citing different ideas, one of which refers to 'the process of finding out something one doesn't already know'. Subsequently, he mentioned several purposes of conducting research: 1) to solve problems in the classroom (by David Nunan); 2) to extract information from the participants; and 3) to adopt a reciprocal flow of information between academic researchers and practitioners.
Daniel first provided a critique on the second purpose. He said that such views of the role of research risk marginalising the practitioners, i.e. English language teachers. Furthermore, he also highlighted issues such as access to published research findings behind paywalls.
Returning to the first purpose, Daniel adapted from Nunan's idea and suggested a slight change of perspectives when it comes to classroom research: 1) treating the classroom as a research site; 2) seeing teaching practices as areas for inquiry; and 3) focussing on reflective practice.
Daniel also advocated for widening ownership of research. It should represent a process of co-constructing knowledge between the researching teacher and their colleagues, i.e. 'by teachers for teachers' (Richard Smith, 2018), or between academic researchers and a team of teachers. In classroom research, therefore, one should adopt the view that not only academic researchers but also teachers in the classroom can produce knowledge. Consequently, Daniel highlighted the need for democratising research and value teacher-created knowledge more. This can address the current imbalance in the power structure in the field of research.
Finally, Daniel suggested several solutions to bridge the gap between research and practice.
- One of them is research-practice partnerships that prioritise needs in teaching practice. For such partnerships to work, there has to be consistent participation from teachers over an extended period, as well as mutual respect between academic researchers and practitioners.
- To go further, language learners can also be involved in classroom research as co-researchers. To evaluate Nunan's idea, Daniel proposed that any research should not just be concerned with finding solutions in teaching. The learners can be tasked with finding (new) ways of collecting evidence, e.g. creating surveys or questionnaires, analysing the collected data, etc.
Nevertheless, Daniel emphasised that classroom research ought to be a voluntary process. It is a means of professional learning for teachers so that they can improve their teaching practice through inquiry. This in turn can lead to improvements in the students' learning outcomes. To conclude his plenary talk, Daniel shared an acronym that captures the characteristics of classroom research: PRACTICE (practical, relational, accessible, collaborative, teaching-drive, integrated, community-oriented, empowering).
Forum on plurilingual approach to teaching and learning English
To continue the theme of multi-/plurilingualism, Slavka Progranova recounted how she conducted a project with the aim of experimenting with a plurilingual approach. This took place in English lessons at a primary school in Switzerland. More precisely, the teachers adopted an integrated (multilingual) approach that treats different languages as the subject matter. (I missed the full reference here and was only able to jot down 'Kofler, 2019', but a quick search on the internet led me to the Innsbruck Model.)
Consequently, the learning objectives for this project were informed by the Innsbruck Model, e.g. 'language awareness' and 'use of strategies'. The learning materials used were the student's book, workbook and other resources. Nevertheless, these materials did not incorporate the 'sociolinguistic' aspect of language learning, as suggested by the above model.
Slavka then showed us some lesson activities and textbook samples that adopt the integrated multilingual approach:
- a textbook page containing a specific information listening task (focussing on times of the day) and a speaking task (describing your daily routines), with the language model provided in English, French and German
- a self-evaluation task for the learners to reflect on how they have developed understanding of lexical items (by choosing from a given list of strategies in a multi-/plurilingual approach)
In terms of training teachers to teach in a plurilingual approach, the following areas were targeted: 1) language skills, 2) knowledge of multiple target languages, 3) comparative or contrastive analysis of different languages, 4) knowledge of available materials, and 5) effective teaching practice in context.
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Melisha Robinson shared ideas for adopting a plurilingual approach in Young Learner (YL) classes at British Council India. She introduced us to her way of seeing the fine difference between the words 'multilingual' and 'plurilingual'. In her view, the latter word contains an additional element of 'connection' between multiple languages. This was said against the backdrop of an English-only environment in her teaching context.
She suggested various classroom ideas that implement a plurilingual approach:
- creating a linguistic profile of the class (with star ratings on the students' self-perception of their language proficiency of the languages they speak)
- giving learners a choice between using English and another language to do certain parts of a task (N.B. The final task output ought to be in English.)
- drawing learners' attention to the (transferable) strategies they use in their first language, e.g. with lexical expressions, paralinguistic features, strategies for asking follow-up questions in conversations or challenging others' ideas, etc.
- using translation or translanguaging in clarifying or mediating comprehension of messages, summarising an English-language text in another language
Melisha also pointed out some possible concerns among other stakeholders. Questionnaire results showed that while most parents agreed on the benefits of a plurilingual approach in YL classes at British Council India, they would like to see the learners' first language being used judiciously in the classroom, i.e. if it does not affect learning progress. On the other hand, teachers may be confronted by learners' bias against their own first language(s) in English lessons. Nevertheless, she stated that the use of the learners' first language(s) usually has a positive effect on teacher-student rapport.
Emergent language - the what, why and how
In her talk, Leandra Meddings reflected on her own experiences of dealing with emergent language in the classroom. Emergent language is defined as the unplanned language that the learners produce in meaning-focused interactions, including 1) errors that require rephrasing; 2) exceptionally 'good' expressions beyond most learners' current level; 3) accurate but simple language that can be upgraded.
As there is often too much emergent language to focus on, she suggested that teachers can give priority to language that 1) may cause communication breakdowns; 2) represents the learners' persistent errors; 3) is prone to L1 interference; and 4) is relevant to the context of communication.
Leandra also reflected on when teachers can deal with emergent language in lessons, including speaking practice, writing tasks, students' contributions in whole-class feedback, story time (Young Learners), and spontaneous interaction at the beginning of a lesson.
To go further, she suggested that teachers can keep a record of the learners' emergent language. This would be useful for giving delayed feedback in the same lesson or for revision activities in future lessons.
Giving post-observation feedback with the head and the heart
In the context of spoken feedback, Anna Hasper, one of IATEFL scholarship winners this year, explored the emotions involved in trainer-trainee interactions. She used her workshop to raise awareness among teacher trainers of the causes behind their trainees' responses.
She first established the formative role of post-observation feedback as bridging the gap between the teacher's current and future, desired teaching practice. She also briefly touched on a dialogic approach (i.e. 'telling' rather than 'imposing') to conducting feedback meetings.
Anna then explored the three systems in Dr Paul Gilbert's emotional regulation model: drive (motivation), soothing (management of distress), and threat (threat detection and protection mechanism). In post-observation feedback meetings, one of these three systems can be triggered by various factors, such as the situation, the trainee, and/or the facilitator. For example, when spoken feedback fails to be kept separate from the person, there is an imbalance created in the perceived power dynamics between the trainer and the trainee. Another example is when the trainee's expectation differs from reality, the threat system may kick in as a self-defence mechanism.
Finally, Anna said it is important to take into consideration the trainees' cultural or individual attitudes towards giving and receiving feedback. This can be addressed by establishing clear expectations of feedback meetings with the trainees. Teacher trainers can also ask their trainees to discuss their attitudes towards feedback, such as its role in teacher development and past experiences of post-observation meetings.
CHUNK versus CORE: two different approaches to teaching vocabulary
In his talk, Dr Crayton Walker from the University of Birmingham argued that the terms 'phrase' and 'chunk' are too vague in academic research. He further criticised Michael Lewis's notion of 'collocations as an arbitrary linguistic phenomenon' by suggesting otherwise.
Dr Walker then showed us a diagram that illustrates the different lexical categories under the general term 'chunk'. The types of chunks are, therefore, as follows:
- collocation: grammatical, lexical, idiomatic and semantic
- pattern: frame and grammatical
- phrase: fixed, semi-fixed, lexicalised and compositional
In terms of learning vocabulary, he believed that it is our semantic memory that matters more than other types of mental association.
To illustrate his point, Dr Walker used the word 'draw' to show its multiple core meanings: drawing a picture (literal) and drawing a breath (metaphorical/figurative). The core meaning of a word, therefore, is constructed from the phrase in which it appears. Subsequently, he raised the question as to whether one can draw any connection between different core meanings of a word. To this end, he suggested an activity with the use of corpus:
Planning
- Sentences with 'draw' are grouped by pattern or phrase, e.g. draw + noun + from (pattern 1), I draw the line at (phrase 2), draw on + possessive pronoun + noun phrase (phrase 3), draw + noun + from a + noun phrase (phrase 4), etc.
Teaching
- Learners study the sentences with 'draw' in each group. They decide whether the word 'draw' carries the literal or figurative core meaning, or even another meaning (i.e. miscellaneous).
By focussing on meaning as well as form, Dr Walker demonstrated the difference between chunking and chunking for a reason. Chunking, in Michael Lewis's (1986) sense, refers to the recognition of chunks and focuses more on form than meaning, whereas chunking for a reason involves a radial analysis of meaning with examples taken from a corpus.
Using thematic analysis to inform EAP essay writing practice
Ben Nazer from University College London (UCL) outlined the issues that his students in pre-sessional (postgraduate) courses have encountered in writing research essays. In this context, research essays are defined as secondary research in which the students analyse and compare three or four different sources and make their evaluation. He also referred to Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis (2021), which adopts a qualitative approach to research.
His main concern was on how teachers and students conceptualise the writing processes, as well as their opinions on various kinds of teaching. Some teachers focused explicitly on the process in the form of a flowchart. This approach, as Ben argued, does not really reflect the real act of writing as a non-linear process of editing and rewriting drafts. He, therefore, suggested a usable process model for teaching and conceptualising the writing processes of research essays:
- identify the relevant sources
- comparing sources and establishing own position (i.e. developing an argument where necessary)
- continuous cycle of writing, reflecting and editing
Forum on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
Maria Daviati recounted her personal journey from a teacher of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to CLIL textbook writer. The catalyst for Maria's adoption of CLIL-styled teaching was her dissatisfaction with EFL textbooks. She experimented with using stories to engage her students. This gradually expanded to using stories as content to focus on language. To this end, she illustrated the link between language-oriented topics and content-based instruction. Maria mentioned some examples in the context of the United Nations (UN) sustainability goals, such as exploiting the topic of 'food' for hunger issues, 'economy' for consumerism or digital literacy (e.g. creating an online professional profile, writing a CV, etc.), and 'social issues' for justice or inequality.
In doing so, Maria suggested that learners can develop 'metaskills' as well as soft and hard skills. These metaskills, in her terminology, are feeling, sensing, dreaming (i.e. imagining), and making/creating.
Supporting young multilingual learners with content-based instruction
Akin to CLIL, English as an Additional Language (EAL) is an emerging field of ELT as English-language instruction is becoming more common across the world. Adrienn Szlapak, an expert EAL practitioner from St. Joseph's Institution International School in Malaysia, demonstrated what teachers can do to support multilingual learners whose first language is not English.
She highlighted three key challenges that multilingual learners at British international schools often face: 1) subject content; 2) language of learning; and 3) language of instruction. To illustrate these challenges, Adrienn showed us a quiz question written entirely in Hungarian.
With the support of a bilingual glossary (preferably with visual images of the key vocabulary items), teachers can help the learners to mediate the meaning of subject content, i.e. access to academic content. At the same time, by judiciously using a language that the learners understand, it can lower their affective filter and thus enable their cognitive growth.
Adrienn suggested other ways in which EAL teachers can support the learners:
- With the think-pair-share routine, the learners can use their first language in the first two stages. When they share their ideas with the whole class, however, it should be done in the target language (i.e. English).
- Teachers can adapt the definitions of vocabulary items from dictionaries by using frames that assume a personalised thus relatable tone: verbs (When you ..., you ...), adjectives (It's someone/something who/that ...), and nouns (It's something that ...).
- Substitution tables to guide the learners on syntax or order of sentence components.
Finally, Adrienn mentioned five principles of effective EAL teaching (Bell Foundation, 2024): 1) multilingualism as an asset; 2) high expectations; 3) an integrated approach to learning content and language; 4) effective and holistic assessment; and 5) social inclusion.