Differentiated teaching: random thoughts

It's only Tuesday but this week has already been a very busy one - with the start of both EFL and EAP courses.

While it is true that students in every class have varying abilities, differentiated teaching has taken on a new meaning for me since I began to teach a multilingual EAP class with students from various learning backgrounds. Some followed traditional schooling in their home countries, whereas others went to international or English-medium schools at home and abroad.

How do you give more or less balanced attention to both the stronger and the weaker students? How do I give all students appropriate challenge by stretching a task in both directions, i.e. grading it up and down at the same time?

I suspect that I'll be able to find the answers to the above questions in a few months' time. For now, here are some ideas for differentiated teaching that I've tried out:

• speaking activities - giving the weaker students sentence frames orally or in written form
  
  
• online self-study resource as extra homework for the weaker students
  
  
• enlisting the help of the stronger students when something needs explaining again for the weaker students
  
  
• grammar review (matching sentences to their meaning/use) - giving the weaker students the answer key for backward engineering while requiring them to write new sentences
  
  
• hybrid approach - strong-end Task-Based Learning with the stronger students and weak-end Task-Based Learning with language input with the weaker students

Reflections on teaching EFL (1): task setting

Instruction checking questions (ICQs)

This is a core area of focus in initial teacher training courses. I'm sure a lot of teachers have strong opinions about ICQs and, rightly so, you can imagine that some students may find it patronising to be bombarded by these questions. 'The exercise is self-explanatory. Do you mean I haven't understood how many questions there are?'

Beyond the assessed lessons on teacher training courses, my response to whether ICQs should always be used is, not surprisingly, 'it depends'. The purpose of asking ICQs is to make sure that students have understood the forthcoming task or activity. Ollie, one of my CELTA trainers, put it nicely, 'ICQs are used to guide students towards completing a task or activity successfully.' I've seen confused students because of the lack of ICQs. I've also seen an excessive use of ICQs in assessed DELTA lessons, which feels redundant but which ticks the right boxes to get a Distinction for its own sake.

When should ICQs be used in real teaching? Before I decide whether to use ICQs, I consider both the task or activity itself and the students in my class. For tasks or activities with a straightforward format or type of responses, it may be better to let the students get on with their work. I sometimes anticipate the most likely student errors, in terms of task format or responses, and ask ICQs accordingly. 'Do you need to change the verb form?' This prevents students from copying the given verbs without engaging their brains.

If I'm teaching large groups of teenagers or university students, the use of ICQs helps me to set an appropriate tone in the classroom. For the weaker students, they can either confirm their understanding of my instructions or correct themselves. Most students don't really understand the purpose of ICQs - why would they? That's why I've decided to signpost it clearly with the phrase 'Just checking, ...' before I ask one. In online lessons, I nominate individual students to respond to my ICQs as everybody usually stays silent in order to avoid speaking over one another. This is less of a problem in face-to-face lessons as body language can be more easily read. I've realised that 'nominating for correct answers' does not apply here - it's relevant to checking answers in post-task feedback, not to eliciting responses to ICQs.

If I'm teaching one-to-one courses or small groups of business English students, I will check their understanding of complex tasks or activities such as role-play practice. 'Before we start, let's make sure ...' I've taught business English students who are senior managers of multinational corporations in Italy. You know, people with C-something-O job titles. If one or two students are struggling to understand what to do in a task or activity, they don't shy away from asking me directly. I think this is actually a more natural way of communicating with them. After all, we ask for clarifications and also clarify our messages in everyday life, don't we? The same logic goes for teaching one-to-one courses. Having said that, I still use the imperative structure and consciously keep teacher talk concise in my instructions.

Pairing or grouping of students

In the context of pair or group work, teachers can pair a stronger student with a weaker one, or ask two stronger or weaker students to work together. What is often missing in most discussions is the 'when' - when it would be more effective to use either grouping arrangement.

I find it helpful to consider whether a task or activity is closed and open.

In a closed task, the response to each question is either right or wrong. Most closed tasks are also individual tasks by nature. By pairing a stronger student with a weaker one, the faster finisher can help their pair partner after the individual part of a task. As the teacher, I can intervene and offer further help as needed.

In an open task such as spoken discussion or 'freer' language practice, there is no singular correct response. I've found it more effective to let two stronger or weaker students work with each other. In this arrangement, it's also easier for the teacher to offer the weaker pair(s) targeted support. When I tried the opposite way, the stronger student would often feel dissatisfied and the weaker one stressed because of frequent communication breakdowns.

I also consider other factors, such as rapport and personality. You'll be surprised that some teenagers still struggle to know all of their classmates' names after weeks of learning together in the same class. Unfortunately, this kind of cliquey group dynamics isn't always avoidable as students prefer to stick to their friends in pair or group work. Some of them may initially refuse to work with other classmates. The student-student rapport seems weak, which in turn affects the teacher-student rapport down the line. When I'm confronted with classes like this, I usually mix different students early on in the course so that they learn to work with different classmates. I also create plenty of opportunities for them to mingle with each other in personalised practice activities - beyond the first get-to-know-you (GTKY) lesson.

For students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), I've tried pairing them with their 'study buddy' in pair or group work. This is an idea I learnt from Dagmara Tanska's session on inclusive teaching (2025), in which she shared some strategies for teaching students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The way I identify study buddies is by observing which classmates a SEND student tends to get on with and work well with.

Demonstration and modelling

In my first few years of teaching, I relied on giving instructions verbally and underestimated the power of modelling a task or activity. Of course, it depends on task complexity and my students' familiarity with the task format. Most textbook activities are self-explanatory, but anything that involves visual or kinaesthetic elements lends themselves to task demonstration. Students are generally able to follow suit when they're shown a clear example of the target responses. In my experience, task demonstration works particularly well in Young Learner classes and with students at lower language levels as verbal explanation is likely to confuse matters.

I've also asked strong students to demonstrate communicative activities. Some students don't like being in the spotlight, whereas others may volunteer to model a task or activity with the teacher but struggle a bit 'on stage'. To prevent this from happening, I usually plan ahead and find an opportunity to talk to a strong student in the previous activity. 'Are you happy to demonstrate the next activity in front of the class with me?' I tell them what to do or say briefly. I also ask them whether they'd like to practise the task demonstration with me before the real thing.

Attention grabbing

My initial thoughts about attention grabbing were largely negative as I associated it with student misbehaviour. Why would the teacher need to grab their attention if they were already paying attention?

The longer I teach, the more I realise that attention grabbing is also related to turn taking. We cannot assume that students understand automatically it's the teacher's turn to speak. Attention grabbing is, therefore, an integral part of classroom-wide discourse management, if you like.

What attention grabbing signal works best? I think it's very much a personal choice. My go-to signal is the phrase 'thank you, everyone'. Please don't ask me why I keep thanking my students - this must have something to do with sociolinguistics. I've briefly tried using a desk bell, but some teachers find it patronising. In Young Learner classes, students may run to the bell and ring it for fun, which is actually counterproductive in terms of classroom management.

Chris Roland suggests using a mascot or toy animal with teenage learners - I'd say it works very well and saves the teacher's voice too. The louder the teacher shouts, the louder the students talk. His attention grabbing signal involves the teacher raising the mascot so that students know by the visual cue it's the teacher's turn to speak.

The end of the beginning: moving from EFL into EAP teaching

Results day is always a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. After months of waiting, I have finally received news that I completed my final DELTA module. For those who are not familiar with this teaching qualification, DELTA stands for Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages* (see below). It is a regulated qualification awarded by the University of Cambridge. I am, therefore, DELTA-qualified six years into my teaching career.

After teaching EFL in various contexts - business English, exam preparation, CLIL and topic-based courses - for six years, I feel this is a suitable moment to look back on my teaching and reflect on my professional learning to date. Starting from this September, I shall focus more on teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at universities in Milan and Bozen, Italy. It is a new challenge that I am very much looking forward to taking on. I won't leave the EFL world altogether - I shall keep doing what I have done at the British Council in Milan.

Over the next twelve months or so, I am planning on sharing some of my key learning points in teaching EFL in a series of blog posts. These posts are not meant to be comprehensive lists of do's and don'ts, but rather my brief accounts of exploring specific areas of teaching and learning. You are more than welcome to contribute your ideas too!

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* To give you some background context, many to-be English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers undertake pre-service training to gain an initial qualification. Most people go for the Cambridge CELTA or Trinity CertTESOL, either of which is offered globally through private language schools as teacher training centres. I did mine at International House Milan when it was still a thriving place for teachers and trainee teachers alike. After several years' teaching experience, ideally in a variety of EFL contexts, teachers who plan to make a long-term career in this field can choose to obtain a further qualification. The choice is rather between the Cambridge DELTA or Trinity DipTESOL.

IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 - Day 4

This is the final day of IATEFL. I went to fewer sessions as my own talk was scheduled for the slot after lunch.

From paper-based to online testing: opportunities, challenges, and lessons learnt

Dr Elena Gandini from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) shared her experience of rolling out online/remote EAP-light (English for Academic Purposes) B1-C1 exams. These exams are used by several British universities, including UCLan, for the dual purpose of admissions and language proficiency assessment. Despite the inevitability of online testing during the coronavirus pandemic, she mentioned the case for continuing with it as the digital format can cater for a more diverse range of test takers.

One of the initial challenges was the logistics at the test site. The bandwidth was insufficient to cope with a large number of test takers in a single sitting. Elena suggested that paper-based tests would be more suitable to a large cohort of test takers, whereas online tests would work better with small groups or individual test takers.

Although the vision of the test developers was shown to align with that of the institution (i.e. the university), some other challenges included 1) different priorities among the stakeholders; 2) issues with the online platform; 3) equity issues if online tests were taken in the test taker's own home (e.g. computer setup with benign plug-ins being flagged as candidate malpractice, lack of webcams that can take a 360-degree room scan, test takers with children at home, etc.); and 4) comprehensible online format/layout of tests. In this regard, some students skipped the rest of a listening test after they had completed the first section; this means that they had to retake the test.

Finally, Elena summarised the lessons learnt from the shift to online testing. Every stakeholder's priorities should be clarified prior to test development; there should also be iterative piloting and test familiarisation for the students. In terms of test taker experience, anecdotal evidence has shown that the students tend to use skimming more when reading on the screen. In terms of test performance, there has been an improvement in listening skills but a slight decrease in reading skills. Furthermore, the most common mistakes in writing tests have changed due to a shift from handwriting to typing.

 

Five burning questions to education from a young changemaker

In this closing plenary talk, Harry Waters and his daughter Alicia Waters Galán explored ways in which children and teenagers can be empowered to advocate for positive change. They asked valid questions about the role of educational institutions in facilitating or stifling young people's voices, and the ability of national curriculums or syllabuses to address contemporary issues (e.g. environment and sustainability), among other things. Harry also showcased some of the initiatives that Alicia had undertaken on the theme of environmental protection.

IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 - Day 3

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.

IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 - Day 2

After my first IATEFL conference in Brighton last year, I knew what to expect with the timetable and the event format of Edinburgh 2025. It was lovely to visit the capital of Scotland again after my last day trip in 2007 or 2008. The heatwave caught me by surprise - it was 19 degrees in early April, which is virtually summer for me. As one of my British Council colleagues says, it's always sunny in Bonnie Scotland!

I joined the conference from Day 2 afternoon as I had examining work in Italy in the days running up to it. Here are the notes on the sessions I attended at the conference:

 

Forum on translanguaging pedagogy for multilingual learners in global contexts

I wanted to learn more about plurilingualism as this is one of the current hot topics in ELT. At the forum on translanguaging, Lina Mukhopadhyay reported on a classroom research project in low-resource primary schools in India. This project was sponsored by the British Council and conducted by researchers from the University of Cambridge. Lina mentioned that monolingual pedagogy, such as English as a Medium for Instruction (EMI), is very challenging as the students in that part of India speak different first languages and grow up in multilingual neighbourhoods.

The aim of the classroom research project was to discover whether translanguaging, or a multi-/plurilingual approach, would enhance the students' reading comprehension skills. To this end, expository texts were preferred over narrative texts as the latter type of text usually has a predictable textual structure, hence an unreliable instrument for measuring reading skills in this context. Lina then recounted the procedure for using a plurilingual approach to developing reading skills:

Planning

• Step 1 - the teacher carries out a lexical analysis of the text to identify any 'blocking' vocabulary.
• Step 2 - the teacher writes bi-/multilingual instructions for the reading tasks.

Teaching

• Step 3 - pre-task discussion with pictures of the 'blocking' vocabulary as prompts to 'enhance lexical coverage' (breadth or range)
• Step 4 - reading tasks, e.g. comprehension questions, vocabulary tasks to 'enhance lexical depth', etc.
• Step 5 - post-task discussion about the text
  

Lina also mentioned some scaffolding tools that are compatible with a multi-/plurilingual approach to teaching and learning, including 1) multilingual glossaries, 2) personal vocabulary banks (with 'words in English', 'example of use', and 'words in another language'), and 3) mediation of the students' ideas in the first language by the teacher (i.e. translating such ideas into English) in discussion tasks.

The result of this preliminary project, however, is inconclusive as the controlled group (monolingual pedagogy) actually performed better than the experimental group (multi-/plurilingual pedagogy). Only 25-30% of the students in the controlled group exhibited issues in their reading comprehension, whereas 45% of those in the experimental group did. Lina argued that the reason behind the contradictory result was that the students in the controlled group came from more privileged social backgrounds.

 

Forum on social and emotional learning: insights, challenges, and implementation (SEL) 

After the forum on translanguaging, I joined the second half of the forum on Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), at which Sanaa Makhlouf identified some overlaps between five SEL competencies and four CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) competencies. She showed us some lesson activities that integrate both teaching methods/approaches:

• researching and spoken presentations about Nobel Prize winners
• spoken presentations on the theme of 'I understand each other'
• spoken presentations or role play on the theme of emotional intelligence (EQ)
• mindfulness activity with self-awareness (SEL competency) - writing a list of own emotions

While SEL is said to benefit the students' academic success and enable them to build meaningful relationships, Sanna suggested that this method also requires a change of mindset on the teacher's part. Leticia Moraes further pointed out that teachers are role models in the classroom, especially in Young Learner (YL) classes, as children often mirror adults' actions and behaviour. In terms of teaching techniques, she suggested that students be given choice in their learning process, e.g. the ability to choose between two options of a task.

Responding to a question from the audience, the panel of speakers, which included Suha Khader, pointed out that teachers should take cultural differences into account when integrating Social-Emotional Learning into the classroom. For example, teachers should look out for any students who, due to their personal background or belief, may not initially feel comfortable with group work.

 

Learners' video production: key competencies in the attention economy era

In her talk, Sylvia Karastathi, who was representing LanguageCert, described how she used spoken presentations to raise her students' awareness of the 'attention economy'. She outlined the characteristics of this new kind of economy, such as low attention spans and low threshold of boredom, among other things. Regarding the material for spoken presentations, Sylvia introduced us to the educational resources designed by the European Association of Viewers Interests (EAVI).

In some of the spoken presentations that Sylvia showed us, the students explored various themes in a film, discussed the social context of specific objects in use, and reflected on the messages behind films.

 

What teachers love about cohort-based asynchronous teacher development courses

Katja Preston from International House World Organisation (IHWO) shared three key elements that contribute to successful asynchronous group courses for in-service teachers. These elements are taken from the Community of Inquiry Model (Anderson, Garrison and Archer, 2001), which explains how a classroom community can contribute to the successful construction of personal meaning.

For an asynchronous group course to be successful, Katja took us through the three elements one by one: 1) teaching presence (e.g. tutor support), 2) social presence (e.g. discussion forum), and cognitive presence (e.g. flexibility of time). At each stage, we were shown excerpts of the participants' feedback on the teacher development courses they had done with IH Online Teacher Training Institute (OTTI). The course participants' feedback attests to the presence of each element so that there is evidence of meaningful learning experiences in an asynchronous online environment.

 

Task-based learning for teachers and trainers: demystifying practices, exploring principles

In this workshop, Jane Willis, author of A Framework for Task-based Learning (1996), revisited the original conception of the TBL(T) approach.

• Pre-task
• Task - Planning - Report
• Analysis - Practice

She emphasised that the greatest amount of learning comes not from the 'task' itself but from the post-task stages: 'planning' (for the report) and 'reporting' (on the completed 'task'); feedback is given during the planning stage as well as the post-report 'analysis'. These stages are said to be overlooked by many language teachers who (claim to) use TBL in their lessons, or series of lessons.

Judith Hudson suggested how teacher trainers can incorporate TBL elements in the teaching practice (TP) part of pre-service training courses, such as CELTA or CertTESOL. The procedure she has used with her trainees is as follows:

• Pre-task: some relevant background reading and short video clips of a similar lesson
• Task: lesson planning
• Planning: assisted lesson planning with input from the tutor/trainer
• Report: mock teaching practice (TP)
• Analysis: feedback on mock TP
• Practice (adapted): written feedback to the trainee

IH Journal: Issue 54

Issue 54 makes interesting reading with articles dealing with multilingual/plural-lingual approaches and 'pull-out' English as an Additional Language (EAL) support in British international schools.

For IELTS preparation teachers, there is a treasure trove of lesson activities for all four language skills.

Read the IH Journal (Issue 53) here.

Here is the direct link to my article - Reflection on teaching Young Learners. Thank you to Adam Lewis for introducing me to Colourful Semantics by Alison Bryan! This is an approach to clarifying language that provides a systematic link between syntax and semantic meaning.

Feedback on writing tasks in large classes

This post stems from a conversation I had with my colleague over a pint a few months ago. We were talking about ways of giving feedback on students' writing that are considered sufficient for large classes.

When teachers have a small class of learners to work with, it is relatively easy to give each individual detailed feedback. Some teachers use correction codes, whereas others may provide comments along the lines of 'good points' and 'things to work on'.

In large classes, however, this approach is time-consuming at best and impractical at worst. What I usually do is to read through each student's written work first - it usually takes me a minute or two to read a 250-word essay or article. This gives me a brief idea of a student's strengths and weaknesses. Then I spend another few minutes or so writing my overall comments. In a class of 15 students, it usually takes less than two hours.

To deal with language errors, I select sentences from various students' written work - both good examples and sentences with errors - and compile them in a single Word document. In the next lesson, my students discuss these sentences; they often recognise their own writing! This discussion task is a form of delayed error correction with peer correction in the feedback stage.