Learning to learn languages

It usually takes most language learners weeks, if not months, to make changes about how they learn English. But the group of older teens who I've been working with this week has been a pleasant surprise.

We're on Day 3 of a language 'immersion' week. I still remember being slightly baffled by how some weaker students in this 'B1' group turned out to be more like A1/A2 in their listening/reading comprehension and spoken production. (Their initial production was merely short simple sentences.) There must be some kind of mental block, I think, and I was trying to figure it out as our first lesson went on. Halfway through the lesson, it became clear to me that most of them don't use English at all in their everyday life. Their exposure to this language outside the classroom is next to none, and a few were even too embarrassed to speak in English for fear of sounding ridiculous. I also noticed that all of them almost always used word-for-word translation, and I could easily see the students working things out aloud.

Towards the end of that lesson, we sat down and spent 5 minutes trying to understand why they found English challenging. I also provided my 'diagnosis': 1) blanket use of word-for-word translation; 2) false assumption of a 100% regular connection between sound and spelling (which I picked up on when monitoring a brainstorming/listing activity); 3) learning the meaning of new words out of context.

Fast forward to Day 3, it was rewarding to see one of them making the effort - taking notes conscientiously, asking questions, seeking help from his classmates, and applying his newly equipped study skills to language learning. After all, it was his change of attitude that mattered most to teaching and learning. It feels as though another person has been rescued from the abyss!

Student success: C1 and C2

Super congratulations to Sara C, who passed her C2 Proficiency exam with flying colours (Grade A), and Enrico DM, who passed his C1 Advanced.

Two pieces of splendid news on the same day!

Making the hangman game more student-centred

It came about from a spontaneous idea when I was teaching earlier this afternoon. It was with a group of Pre-Intermediate young teens - we were working on vocabulary on the topic of 'food' (ways of cooking, to be precise).

The students were doing a matching task with visuals. Based on what I've seen, most students usually struggle with 'oven', 'pan' and 'saucepan' (word and pronunciation), which were shown by the visuals on the coursebook page. So I decided to devise a hangman game on the spot. From my past observations, this game tends to be teacher-centred in that each student would be given a turn to say a letter while others would sit around and wait for their turn.

With that in mind, I was thinking of ways of making the hangman game more student-centred. Why couldn't my students have the answers and let their classmates guess the word?

• I drew an oven, a (frying) pan and a saucepan on the whiteboard.
• I wrote the answers on pieces of paper.
• I gave each student a piece of paper with the answer. (like an information-gap activity)
  
• I asked my students to copy what was on the whiteboard.
• I let my students play the hangman game in groups.

The result? Compared to the lockstep, teacher-fronted format, the level of student engagement was much higher. It generated some excitement among my students when they were down to the last chance. Poor hangman - two casualties and two close calls!

Dogme journey - where I am now

It happened long before the pandemic hit us. I was only 5 months into EFL teaching when Teacher P walked in the staff room and recommended the book Teaching Unplugged to me.

I then read it over the summer months - I'd started out properly as an EFL teacher in March 2019. Since then, I've incorporated some Dogme elements in my lessons. Dogme, an approach proposed by Scott Thornbury, is largely based on the socio-cultural theory of learning. One of Dogme's signature characteristics is 'relevance to the learners' through the use of learner-generated, not coursebook-imposed, contexts.

While I've never taught a proper lesson in the Dogme approach, I've frequently provided personalised contexts to my language practice activities. I call this 'Dogme Lite' - a kind of soft Dogme. I've also worked with some Business English learners who came to the lesson with their immediate needs and material, from which I would try to identify any (pattern) of emergent language or language which is crucial to giving them the tools to succeed. Having taught quite a few lessons like these, I think it's time to start thinking how I can deal with emergent language in a more systematic way.

Incidentally, I was teaching a Conversation class last Saturday. It was the first conversation class of the year, and the participants started with some 'catching up' (What are you up to? - that sort of stuff). At some point, the topic of soaring energy prices came up in their conversation. Instead of detecting the participants' emergent language, I think I jumped the gun by exploiting the topic for a role play. In this role play, the participants as government minister, representative of a consumer rights group, and CEO of an energy company had the objective of reaching a mutually satisfactory agreement from their differing positions. The activity took off and the discussion went for a good 15 minutes - feedback was duly given.

With hindsight, I think the Conversation lesson looked more like a strong-end Task Based Learning one. The original idea of Dogme is that once the emergent language has been identified, there will be some sort of focus work (cognitive theories come into play here) and practice activities devised on the spot. The Dogme journey continues ...

Hybrid lessons: a laptop and a speaker

It all started with an email this morning - one of the students ('Student G') had to remain in self-isolation due to pandemic regulations, and she would join the afternoon lesson online from home.

Despite my modest knowledge of the hybrid classroom/lesson, I'd never taught one up to this point. So I spent the whole morning trying to visualise the logistics in the classroom and think through a number of key questions in my head. How would my students be working together? What would Student G need so that she could follow our lesson successfully? How could I make sure the sound was all right for all students? How would I deal with unexpected issues with technology? Where should I place my laptop?

In the end, I decided to do it like this:

 

(Note that I'm using Student G as a kind of 'hyponym' of those who join an in-person lesson synchronously from their home.)

• I put the lesson's digital material (handouts and information-gap task cards) in a shared folder on OneDrive, so that I could share the link with Student G prior to the lesson.
  (N.B. The material is numbered 1 to 4 for easy reference.)
  
  
• I place my laptop in such a way that the webcam could capture all students working in the classroom. I also projected the online meeting on the classroom's television, so that all students could see Student G.
  
  
• I connected my laptop to a stereo speaker and set the audio at a level which was audible but wasn't intrusive, so that all students could hear Student G talking and vice versa.

 

What worked well: some reflections

• Instructions - clear, succinct instructions with the usual checking questions work just as well as in any online or in-person lesson. In a hybrid lesson, however, it would be a good idea to 'chest' the material for Student G in front of the webcam (hold it for a few seconds) before moving back to the physical classroom. It also helps when eye contact is made with both Student G and other students when giving instructions.
  
  
  
• Arrangement (pairwork and groupwork) - once the laptop is set up at a stationary place, it would be easy for any student to move to the 'workstation' space for pairwork. Groupwork might be tricky depending on pandemic regulations and how many people one can fit in front of a webcam. As usual, it would work better by moving the students to a new type of arrangement before giving instructions. (In our case, it was convenient because we had worked on Can you + verb (base form)? a couple of weeks before. Student A, can you move here? Thank you.) I also asked my students to speak up when they were working with Student G, even though the laptop's microphone was able to pick up my voice from afar. (N.B. The online meeting's noise cancellation setting was put on its lowest.)
  
   
• Attention spread - I got this useful tip from one of the webinars I've attended. (A big thank you to those teachers who shared their experience of teaching hybrid lessons!) Generally speaking, there is a tendency for the teacher to focus on either Student G or other students for the extended period of time. When I was teaching this hybrid lesson, I tried eliciting answers directly from Student G (Yes, Student G?) as well as the rest of the class (with a follow-up question: Student G, do you agree?). Similarly, this technique was applied to post-task feedback giving.
  
  
  
• Listening - to avoid issues with echo, I muted the laptop's microphone while I was sharing sound with Student G in the online meeting. This worked smoothly since other students were able to listen to the audio through the stereo speaker at the same time.
  

What could have been better

• Monitoring - It felt as though I wasn't monitoring Student G sufficiently, but it was the noticeable difference between the in-person and the online modes which created this false impression. In a hybrid lesson, post-task pair check will take on greater importance since it represents the crucial moment for monitoring Student G's answers. Another useful monitoring tool is the chat in the online meeting, which I'm going to address in the post-task feedback.

• Post-task feedback - I had to rely on whoever was working with Student G to make sure she had the correct answers. I've also thought about other means of giving Student G feedback: chat, virtual board, screen sharing the answer key, showing the whiteboard through the webcam or Teacher Talk. Given its bad reputation, Teacher Talk may sound less desirable, but it is actually less time-consuming than other means of giving feedback on a shorter lesson task - and it is purposeful Teacher Talk. Screen sharing the answer key would be useful if the lesson task is longer or the answers more complex. The reason why I decided not to use the chat was that it would have effectively meant I needed to give the same feedback twice (physical whiteboard and chat), but I'm open to different opinions.
  
  
• Technology - my students and I did with bare essentials - a laptop and a stereo speaker. What would have been better was a second camera/webcam facing the physical whiteboard directly, but it wasn't too time-consuming to rotate my laptop.