ELT Chat on CEFR - a summary and reflection

From the Author:

Dear All,
The blog has been permanently moved to teflreflections.wordpress.com You can find the ELT Chat summary here: http://teflreflections.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/elt-chat-on-cefr-a-summary-and-reflection/

I'm not going to publish anything on the blogspot address any more, and I'll delete the blog within a week or two. So if you'd still like to follow my posts (I hope you do), please visit the wordpress version and click follow there: teflreflections.wordpress.com You can also find regular updates on the posts on the new blog's FB page by clicking here.
Thanks for reading and commenting on the posts here, and I hope to see you soon on wordpress.
Best,

Marek Kiczkowiak

To praise or not to praise - that is the question

This week I've read two fascinating posts on giving praise to our students. The first was a guest post from Tereza which appeared on Sandy Millin's blog. You can read it here. In a nutshell, the author questions the benefit of giving praise, especially in excess. Originally from the Czech Republic, Tereza's now living in the US and she's been puzzled by the amount of excessively positive feedback she's got from her teacher who was "super impressed" with anything she did. It would seem she was an incredibly talented genius - at least if she was to believe all the feedback.

Tereza then goes on to argue that too much praise can be counter-productive. She writes:

"I have already lost the sense of what is meant honestly [...]. I basically have no measure whether I did well or bad because I always get a perfect evaluation. You have no idea whether people like you or how high they think of you because they always say you did a fantastic job. At the beginning, it makes you feel good, like you are really special, you do really so well. But with time, you get tired of that because you already see through it".

On the other hand, the second post by Lawrence Hilton, which can be read here, praises praise, even if it's to be excessive. With a beautiful analogy to desert flowers, Lawrence argues that positive feedback is like rain - it can turn a desolate, sandy landscape of a desert into a beautiful see of blossoming flowers. He would rather err by giving too much rather than to little praise to his students. After all:

"If they are not going to get praise and encouragement from the teacher at every step along the way, from where are they going to receive it?"

I was taken by both articles, because they persuasively argue their points. They were also very thought-provoking and they led me to reflect on my own teaching practice a bit.

I think both Tereza and Lawrence are right. Giving feedback is much more complicated than we might initially think, and there are good lessons to be learned from both articles.

It is definitely true that giving too much praise can be counter-productive. Students will very quickly see through it. They know they didn't put much effort into their homework, but the teacher still was "super impressed". This can lead to one of two things:

1. I don't need to work hard to get good grades/positive feedback, so why bother making more effort?
2. Maybe my teacher is right and I'm simply the best, so why bother making more effort?

In both cases, the result is a rather negative one. Other students will also probably realise that all are getting super positive feedback, despite varying quality of their work. It can't be motivating for a very strong student if the teacher is equally super impressed with their work, as with that of a very weak student.

As Lawrence, points out, though, if we don't praise our students, who is going to? We do need to encourage them:

"Foreign language students have to overcome their own feelings of insecurity, lack of confidence, feelings of shyness and fear of making mistakes. [...] A teacher has to instill the confidence and how can one do that without complimenting and praising the efforts that we are witness to in class?"

I agree with Lawrence that there are times when excessive praise (if given sparingly and judiciously, though) can work miracles. Sometimes you meet students who are terribly shy, lacking in confidence and their own abilities to the point of "I will never succeed" attitude. As a teacher, we need to encourage them to become more (but not too) self-confident. And a good way of doing it is by giving them slightly more positive feedback than they deserve.

However, we need to stop somewhere. We can't continue praising if there's nothing to praise for. But when and how?

In my opinion, we should be honest with our learners. We need to give praise when praise is due, but moderate it according to the student's performance. Students need to know what they did right, and what went wrong. Otherwise, if they only hear positive feedback, they won't know what to do to improve and do better next time. And if whatever our students do is fantastic and brilliant, we will be in a serious need of inventing even "more impressive" adjectives to praise them.

I also believe that the majority of students are far more robust than we think. Telling them they're wrong, or that they've made a mistake, is unlikely to cause tears or depression. Of course, the under-confident ones should be spotted and encouraged with highlighting positive feedback first. But if a student fails to do a task or make a mistake, we do need to tell them. How we do it, is a different kettle of fish and a good subject for a new post (here you can read my post on correcting students' writing). It goes without saying, though, that students expect us to point out their errors and help them improve.

An important consideration is also to respond to the content, rather than just the language. All too often, we focus on correcting errors and fail to notice the story the student has just shared with us. take a look at an example of feedback I recently gave to my 1-1 IELTS student on a recording he sent me. The student has struggled with fluency, is quite daunted by the speaking part and lacks a bit in confidence. We've been having classes for 3 weeks, twice a week 90mins:

"A very good effort, Ery! I used to do a lot of swimming myself. Really good exercise :) I might get back to it some time soon.
You structured your speech very well. You used good fillers to avoid pauses. You used some more complex sentences and there were a lot of error-free sentences. A good summary at the end as well. Keep up the good work and do more speaking, please. You've been improving, and it would be great if you could send me a recording like this at least every 2 or 3 days (it can even be more spontaneous if you don't have time to rehearse.
Some suggestions:

• at the end of sentences the intonation should go down/fall to indicate the sentence is finished 

• try to use substitution to avoid repeating go swimming or swimming so often, i.e. I do it/this sport/activity, I practise it/this sport

BTW, we say go swimming, not *go for swimming. Really looking forward to more recordings from you!"

I avoided using any extreme adjectives such as: fantastic or incredible, because his speaking was far from it. I commented on the content to let him know I actually listen to WHAT he says, not just how. There's quite a lot of positive feedback, because he needs to know what he already does well. Otherwise, he might fall back into his bad habits.

On the other hand, I included some suggestions. I didn't use the word error or mistake, because they have a negative overtone, while "suggestions" or "to improve" are neutral. But I think it would be wrong to overlook the errors and say: I was super impressed. You're really fluent. You're English is fantastic; because this is simply not true, and both me and the student know it.

To sum up, the key is a balanced feedback. Praise should be given when it's due. And it should be adjusted to the student's performance. We can't be super impressed with everything all the time. It's just not fair to the student in question, and to others who might be much better. And we definitely need to let the students know how they can improve and what the mistakes are. Otherwise we risk creating over-confident learners whose English is too impressive to continue working on it.

Checking understanding - practice

In a previous post I listed 7 practical ways of checking understanding. Now it's the time to put these ideas into practice.

Just to quickly remind you what they were:

1. CCQs.

2. Timelines.

3. Clines.

4. Personalisation.

5. Extension.

6. Translation.

7. Do you understand?

Below is a list of 10 sentences. The underlined phrases represent the target language whose meaning you have already presented (for ideas on presenting and clarifying meaning of target language read this post). However, now you want to check and make sure that the students have actually grasped the meaning.

Use each of the 7 techniques for checking understanding at least one. Justify why you decided to choose this particular technique and not a different one (as described in the previous post, some lend themselves better than others to certain language issues).

I haven't posted my suggestions, because I'd like to hear from you in the comments section. I don't want to influence your choices either. I'm also hoping I can learn a lot myself from your ideas and suggestions. Finally, for each example there's definitely more than one correct answer, so it should be interesting to see how different teachers approach each language point.

If you don't have time to do all 10, choose the examples that interest you most, or that are the most tricky.

Good luck! Looking forward to your suggestions and comments!

1. He’s sleeping under the table. vs. He always sleeps under the table.

2. I have to put up with lazy students.

3. I used to live in Poland.

4. He can take off any accent.

5. I’ve been drinking since midday.

6. I hope we’ll have finished this exercise by 2pm.

7. I’m still not used to the traffic here.

8. That can’t have been him.

9. He swerved to avoid hitting a pedestrian. 
10. Should you have any doubts, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Be fluent in 6 months - first update

From the Author:

Dear All,
The blog has been permanently moved to wordpress. I'm not going to publish anything on the blogspot address any more, and I'll delete the blog within a week or two.
So if you'd still like to follow my posts (I hope you do), please visit the wordpress version and click follow there: teflreflections.wordpress.com You can also find regular updates on the posts on the new blog's FB page by clicking here.
Thanks for reading and commenting on the posts here, and I hope to see you soon on wordpress.
Best,

Marek Kiczkowiak

At the end of January I posted a series of three posts in which I discussed the idea that perhaps we can all learn languages much quicker than most people would have us think. Having reflected on my own learning experience (I speak 6 languages) and having seen and read about various polyglots, I first suggested that there are 5 language learning myths which prevent us from learning faster and achieving fluency by acting as a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are:

1. I haven't got the talent.
2. I'm too old.
3. I've got bad memory.
4. I need a complete immersion program abroad.
5. I haven't got enough time.

All 5 are only bad excuses which most of us tend to make at some point. And they all hamper our learning process. Here read more about why I think they're only bad excuses which stop you from ever achieving your language goals.

In the post that followed, I suggested a 5 step action plan based on positive and successful language learning experience me and other polyglots have had. They're quite simple and definitely not rocket science:

1. Make the language a useful tool.
2. Make mistakes.
3. Exposure is the key.
4. Use it or lose it.
5. A language parent/buddy.

Finally, as I'm a natural sceptic and a disbeliever in everything supernatural (and learning a language in 6 months seems such a feat), I decided to test the advice on myself. My mission has been to become fluent in Portuguese in 6 months. You can read more about it here (i.e. what I mean by fluent, why 6 months and why Portuguese).

And as I'm a language teacher, one of my main goals is to see whether I might discover any techniques or tricks which I can later use with my students to help them learn languages faster.

So it's been two months since my mission statement. I promised I'd give monthly updates, so I'm sorry you've had to wait for twice the time (if actually any of you have been waiting). You might be wondering then how far I got with my Portuguese. Well, here's a video of me speaking it so you can judge for yourself.

It's the first time that I've actually recorded a video, so please bear with me if it doesn't look or sound super slick. It'll be better next time round, I promise :)

 Here are some questions I thought most people might have after watching the video:

1. What did I say?

   Absolute gibberish! ;) I wanted to put subtitles but haven't figured out how yet, so if anyone knows, please let me know. I basically spoke about why I recorded the video, how I've been studying so far and what my sticking points are. I've probably amde hundreds of errors, so if you speak Portuguese, please point them out.

2. How much have I been studying?

   Depends. But in the strict sense of the word I haven't really been studying at all. I haven't got a grammar book and I don't go to language classes. On average I've probably done about 10 to 20mins a day, but there were two weeks when I couldn't study at all.

3. How have I been studying?

   I've been using Memrise (read my post about it here) to learn new words more effectively. So far I've probably learned around 600 hundred words and phrases, which is not bad for 8 weeks. I've done a small bit there on the basic conjugation of a few verbs to get an idea what it's about. I also watch Brazilian TV on the Internet regularly. I chose O Globo, because it seemed to have lots of free videos available. I'm also doing a language exchange, however, I've only managed to have 4 meeting so far, so definitely this is something I need to do more regularly.

Now it's a good time for me to reflect on the process to see what I've done well and what I can do better in the next couple of weeks.

1. It's going to be more difficult than I initially thought.

   Sorry to start with something a bit disheartening (note that I'm still convinced I can reach my goal). If you read my mission statement, you know I speak Spanish. It has been a definite advantage, as there are many words that are similar, but at the same time it's played against me a bit. At times I'm not sure whether I speak Portuguese or just Spanish with a Portuguese accent. A lesson I've learned is to notice the language patterns and use them to generate new words (for example, -ción is always (or almost) -são or -ção in Portuguese). However, overall it might be quite tricky to speak Portuguese without the influence of Spanish on it.

2. Make mistakes and pay attention to the corrections.

   Often students don't even notice that they are being corrected and just go on making the same mistakes over and over again. Of course, worrying too much about being 100% correct can be counter productive too. But I definitely think it's crucial to ask your language buddy to correct some of your errors (perhaps make it focused, e.g. past tense). And you should repeat the correct version a few times so it sticks. When you say the phrase you've had problems with again, be aware of the error you've been making and make a conscious effort to say it correctly.

3. Notice language patterns and imitate them.

   Noticing new language is also very important. If you hear a new phrase, ask what it means, record it if possible (I usually take a little notebook with me to the language exchange). The crucial part here is that you imitate this new language as soon as you get a chance. For example: A: The concert yesterday was class! B: Class? A: Yeah, it was brilliant. A: Oh. I went to a... class concert two weeks ago! It looks very straight forward but a lot of students don't take the opportunity to use the new language. The language kind of goes through one year and exits through the other. So the lesson here is: don't rely on the limited language that you have, but go beyond it. Imitate, imitate and imitate!

4. Out with grammar - in with vocabulary!

   Don't get me wrong. If you want to be 100% correct you might have to study some grammar at some point. However, I don't think it's as important as course books authors would have you believe. Especially at low levels.There are so many grammar points that are utterly useless for successful communication. My advice is to learn whole chunks of language or even whole utterances that carry communicative meaning (e.g. 'What's your name?' 'Can I have the bill, please?'). So far, I've picked up most of the grammar as I went along. Most importantly by repeating the patterns I hear on TV or from my language buddy (see point 2 and 3). For example, if I hear he's speaking about the past, I pay attention to how he conjugates the verbs, so I can quickly give it a shot myself.

5. Enjoy it!

   It's easier said than done, but a positive mindset is the key. Learning should be fun, so make it so. Choose topics that interest you (i.e. if you're crazy about cooking, start with food, cooking and restaurant vocabulary). And if you feel tired or demotivated, flick on a film or a short video. You don't always have to be consciously studying. Watching a fun video on youtube can be as good or even better than toiling over a boring grammar point.

Sticking points and action plan (apart from what I've already been doing):

1. Pronunciation.

   There are certain sounds that are very tricky for me. I've been trying to imitate how people speak. So far I think I'm definitely communicative and intelligible, but far from natural and correct pronunciation.

2. Do more language exchange.

   It's the key. Once a week is OK, but it doesn't give me as much practice as I need if I want to really be fluent in 6 months.

3. Watch videos with more natural/colloquial language.

   I've been watching mostly news and short journalistic reports and I can already understand almost everything. The problem is when people speak quickly on the street in a more unprepared and natural way.

4. Talk to myself.

   That's a tip one of the polyglots, Sid Efromovich gave in this video. He says he always talks to himself in the language he's learning in the shower (so nobody can hear him). It might sound silly or egocentric, but it gives you valuable practice and language rehearsal time, which together with normal language exchange can improve your fluency.

I'll try to post another update in about a month. If you have any questions or suggestions, please comment below. I'd  love to hear about your language learning experiences and whether you've found any of the tips helpful.

Tchau! Até mais!

Some FAQs and some very subjective answers

In this post I've tried to gather some of the most frequent questions I've been asked in the last few weeks on my blog regarding the topics of getting a (better) job, teaching qualifications, job hunts and the best/worst countries to work in. The answers I offer are entirely subjective - as the title suggests - so feel free to disagree and say so in the comments section. I hope, though, that at least some of them will come in handy and help you get a better job or develop professionally.

If this list is not exhaustive enough and there are still some questions nagging you, please let me know in the comments section and I'll do my best to answer them.

1. What are the initial qualifications I should take?

   Whether you like it or not Cambridge CELTA or an equivalent (e.g. Trinity TESOL) is a must if you want to easily find an EFL job abroad. A university degree in TEFL might do as well, but just to be on the safe side I'd definitely recommend doing the CELTA or Trinity TESOL. The reason is that they are internationally recognised, so you don't need to worry about validating your degree. In addition, there's really plenty you can learn from the course, even if you've already completed some university level courses in methodology. For me the CELTA is infinitely more practical than the courses in TEFL I did in university. If this still doesn't convince, you'll see a massive difference in positive job responses after completing the CELTA or an equivalent. There's a myriad of options for taking the courses, and you can read more about them here. I'd personally suggest a face-2-face month long course at a respected institution, such as International House, British Council or Bell.

2. Where should I look for jobs?

   
   Probably the biggest and the most popular search engine is tefl.com There are thousands of job openings around the world, all regularly updated. It's a bit of a pain to create the on-line CV, but once you've got it, applying for jobs is really easy and quick. If you have a specific country or even city in mind, you can search for schools there on this website. Emailing the school directly or calling, even if they're not currently looking for teachers, can often pay off. Both International House and the British Council post job openings on their websites. If you have time during the summer, there are plenty of job openings in the UK. And if you are aiming higher and have a DELTA or an MA in TEFL, look for pre-sessional EAP courses. There are numerous job openings in universities in the UK advertised on jobs.ac.uk and baleap.org.uk.

3. Which school should I apply to?

   Of course, it all depends on your preferences: some people like small institutions, others prefer bigger ones. Some will want to work in a bustling metropolis, whereas others dream of a quiet place in the countryside. No matter what your preferences are, though, consider applying first to respected and well-known language chains, such as IH, BC or Bell. On average, they offer higher salary, better working conditions and excellent professional development programs (not to say that independent language schools don't). You will get to work with qualified and experienced teachers and will be able to learn a lot in the process. Of course, they are all franchises so the quality and standards might vary, but none of them will go below a certain - usually very high - standard. For me the biggest plus, though, of large organisations is that you can easily transfer to another school at the end of your contract, without the hassle of having to write cover letters, send CVs around and search the web.

4. Are some countries better for EFL teachers than others?

   This is a question I've recently been asked a few times, but I find it very hard to answer, because there is no right response to it. It all depends, I guess, on what you're looking for and what kind of person you are. I've worked in 6 countries and they all have their pros and cons. You can read more about my experiences there in this post. There are still many places I'd like to teach in, so if you'd want to know my really subjective and biased opinion on it, then here it is. One of the "musts" on my list is South East Asia. I've just heard so many great things about it that I have to go there at some point. If at some point I feel like another adventure, I'll probably head back to Latin America, preferably to South America. If I needed to make a lot of money quickly, I'd no doubt choose the Middle East. If you're not a native speaker, than stay away from Spain, Italy, France, Korea and Japan, at least at the beginning of your career. Not that you can't get a job there (IH and the BC tend not to discriminate), but being treated as an inferior, constantly scrutinised, looked down upon and compared to a native speaker can be really frustrating and will most likely put you off. Speaking of which, the UK is probably the most NNEST-friendly country I've ever worked in. You might find this post interesting: 10 questions to ask before deciding where to teach English abroad

5.  What post CELTA qualifications and courses are worth taking?

   I'd say by far the best one out there is the Cambridge DELTA. I might be biased because I've done it myself and so I know little about other options, but nobody ever said that this post would be objective. It really does open new doors of opportunity for you. There's a host of positions you can be considered for only if you have the DELTA (or an equivalent) such as Director of Studies, Assistant Director of Studies, Senior Teacher, Teacher Trainer or EAP lecturer. I think it's also a necessary step any teacher who seriously thinks about professional development should take.  If this doesn't convince you, you're bound to see a huge difference in the number of positive replies to your job applications. And an increase to your salary.

6. What other professional development options would you suggest?

   Uff! There's so much stuff out there that I don't even know where to start. A quick look on the BC professional development site will give you a myriad of suggestions. Another good option is the IH teacher training website. Again it all depends on your experience, preferences and time and money constraints. One of the best options for free professional development is blogging. I've only been doing it for a short while, but it can really make a big difference. There are plenty of fantastic blogs around (links to some you can find here on my blog). Watch out for the BC monthly blog awards for innovative teaching ideas.They make a great read and you get a selection of excellent bloggers to choose from for further reading. There are also numerous free webinars going on, on-line conferences and courses that sometimes I wonder when I'll ever have time to attend just a small fraction of them.

7. I am a NNEST and I've come across so many native-only ads that I don't know what to do any more. Will I ever get a job?

   I know how you feel. I've been there myself. But cheer up - you can get a job. I have. And not just once, but several times. Before I cut to the chase, let me briefly explain the problem to some of you who are not aware of it. In a nutshell, a quick look on tefl.com tells you that over 70% of job ads are for native speakers only (regardless of their qualifications or lack thereof). In countries such as Spain, Italy, South Korea and Japan this figure is even higher. You can read why I think this is wrong here. So how as a NNEST do you get your dream job, assuming you're a fully qualified teacher?
   
   Within the EU such job ads and hiring practices are illegal. Contact an anti-discrimination agency - they often offer free legal help and advice. Join a support group on FB: e.g. Budapest NNEST. Write about it and get it published. But above all - be persistent! Believe in yourself! Stand up and speak out against discriminatory ads! Don't let the recruiter turn you down just because you're a NNEST - write back to them, argue, and if need be explain - in a non-threatening way - that their recruitment policy is illegal. Soon I'll published a more detailed post on what can and should be done by NESTs, NNESTs and language institutions to fight against discriminatory recruitment policies within TEFL industry, so stay tuned. Finally, as a qualified NNEST, your best bet might be respected language chains such as the BC, IH and Bell, as well as language schools and universities in the UK, as they all tend to be discrimination free.

Teaching 1-1 - the advantages.

Since I started freelancing in the Netherlands four months ago, I've been almost exclusively teaching 1-1. Of course, I'd taught it before, but never so much in such a short time. And the more I've taught it, the more I've liked it. Of course, I there are definitely quite a few things about teaching groups, such as being able to pair students up, do mingles and ladders, that I miss, but I've started to realise more and more that teaching 1-1 can be not only fun, but also very challenging and rewarding.

For a teacher just fresh off the CELTA course the perspective of doing 90 minutes 1-1 can be a really daunting one (at least it was for me). You're simply not prepared for it! You're taught how to do all those fun pair and group work activities, but interacting with only one student is a different kettle of fish altogether.

But with time you find out that in many ways 1-1s can be as fun (or even more) as group classes. They can also be much easier to teach. After all, you only have to discipline one student ;). Of course there's always the challenge of individually planning the course, choosing the right materials and living up to student's expectations which are usually much higher than in a group courses. I'll talk about these challenges and the ways in which we can tackle them in the future posts on 1-1.

In my first post on 1-1, however, I wanted to share with you my enthusiasm and show you the bright side of things. Because I really think that despite the initial challenges, teaching 1-1 offers teachers and students some undeniable benefits.

So why do I like teaching 1-1?

Because it's easier for the teacher to:

1. Respond to the student's mood and be flexible about your lesson plan

2. Be more natural and spontaneous

3. Respond to and upgrade the emerging language on the spot

4. Give very personalised and detailed feedback

5. Tailor-make the materials to fit your student's interests and needs, thereby increasing their motivation and engagement

6. Monitor student's progress more closely and include regular feedback sessions

7. Involve the student in the process of creating the course and setting the objectives, making them much more relevant and motivating

8. Give the student more responsibility for their learning

9. Do field trips

10. Be flexible about the course objectives and goals, and revise them as the student progresses

11. Avoid covering material which is demotivating or irrelevant for the student

12. Go at the student's pace rather than following the deadlines set by a generic syllabus

13. Focus extensively on a particular task which is relevant to the student, e.g. giving presentations, without worrying about other students snoring in class

14. Offer the student choices and flexibility about what and how they are taught

15. Get the student to bring materials to class (e.g. an article they need help with or would like to tell you about)

16. Work intensively on particular language difficulties even over several classes

17. Train the student to become a better learner.

    Of course, this is by no means an exhaustive list. So if you have any comments or things you'd like to add to the list, please let me know. I'd love to hear what you love (or hate) about teaching 1-1.
    
    
    And if you're keen to read up a bit on 1-1 teaching, take a look at:
    • Osborne, P. 2005. Teaching English One to One. Keyways Publishing.
    • Wilberg, P. 1987. One to One: A Teacher’s Handbook. LTP.

My 2014 EFL resolutions

It's been a while since my last post, but Christmas holidays don't really give you too much time for things other than eating and lounging around on the sofa, with your brain half switched off. So, in a way I'm glad the festive slumber's all over (and I think both my liver and my stomach are too).

I was thinking about the best way to restart the blog in the new year, and I've decided that the most appropriate, if not the most imaginative, would be with some New Year EFL resolutions.This blog has given me a great chance to express myself and to reflect on my teaching practice, and I think I've benefited a lot from posting regularly.

However, there's still a lot of room for improvement. And writing down the resolutions might force me to actually follow them, as I can always go back and re-read this post. So off we go then.

This year I'm going to:

1. do a bit more of what I preach.

   This is not to say I haven't, but I think my eyes have been bigger than my stomach. Now that I look back at the posts, there are many activities and ideas I was meaning to introduce to my classes, but never did. Lack of time. Laziness. Conformity. The usual excuses. But I'm going to be better. Perhaps I'll write less. Or write more about things that I can immediately put into practice. Or that are more relevant to my day-to-day teaching practice.

2. plan my classes more thoroughly.

   Ok, don't get me wrong. I do plan my classes, as I imagine any English teacher does. However, I've become rather slack. Probably the last really through lesson plan I wrote was for DELTA LSA 4. Of course, you can't write a 10 page lesson plan for every class. But more than a running order on a loose piece of paper is needed. One of the things I need to focus on more is anticipating students' problems better. I should also be more thorough when planning how to clarify meaning. A good starting point are the tips given by Adam Simpson here.

3. read at least one EFL blog post a week and reflect on them by either implementing the ideas in my classes or/and blogging about them.

   Since I became a freelancer and set up the blog, I've been slowly discovering what a treasure trove of EFL ideas blogs and the Internet in general can be. But I can be a bit slack and there are so many great blogs I would like to read (apart from the regular non-EFL reading that I'd also like to do), that it can be a bit overwhelming at the beginning. So that's why I've set a low target to start off with. If I read too much, it might just go over my head. Or be forgotten too quickly. And just reading is not enough, I think. Unless I put the ideas I read about into practice, I won't know if they work. Or even worse - I will just forget about them. So I'm going to try to reflect on every post I read either through blogging about it, or through putting it into practice.

4. teach my students HOW to study.

   To somebody who's a teacher and a language learner, all the good learner practices might seem so obvious that we fail to notice that to some of our students they sound Greek. I've got students who clearly have no clue how to study a language effectively. So they struggle. But not because of the language content. The basic mechanics of studying and learning go beyond their heads. I need to build some basic learner training into my teaching routine. At times, something as simple as asking the student: WHAT did we do and WHY did we do it? might just do the trick and make them more aware of the learning process. The first thing I'm planning to do is to teach some of them how to be more gritty.

5. learn from my mistakes.

   Do you find yourself falling into the same trap over and over again? If your answer is now, then you're lucky. And I envy you. I've noticed that more often than not I am able to notice my mistakes, but I don't pay enough attention to them and the next time round I'm likely to fall into the same pitfall. It's quite irritating. Especially the second or third time round. So, I'm going to write down the mistake(s) I've made in my lesson planning/procedure/clarification/instructions/etc. and make a conscious effort to avoid them/it next time. I might use a post-it note and place them somewhere visible for me during the lesson, e.g. the lesson plan/running order.

Ideally, I would like to find time to comment and self-reflect on theses resolutions at least twice during the year by writing a post. And I'd love to hear from you about any teaching resolutions you've made and how you're planning to put them into practice.

Happy New Year!

Let's be gritty about our teaching

Yesterday I was browsing through Ted.com when I came across this fascinating talk about education by Angela Lee Duckworth, which completely captivated me: "Grit - the key to success".

Soon after she started teaching first graders, Angela realised that the students who performed best in tests were not necessarily the brightest or the most intelligent. On the contrary, some of the smartest kids in class would have some of the lowest scores in tests. It lead her to think that IQ was not what separated the high- from low-achievers. She became convinced that all students can learn practically anything, as long as they work long and hard enough, a belief I wholeheartedly agree with.

In order to find out what formed the real difference between succeeding and failing, she went on to do a PhD in psychology. She studied kids, West point cadets and salespeople, among others, trying to determine what made some more successful than others.

In all cases there was one key characteristic that made the difference. But it wasn't IQ or social intelligence. Nor good looks or health.

"It was GRIT".

But what is this mysterious trait that we would all want to have?

To quote Angela, "Grit is passion and perseverance for your long term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future — day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years — and working really hard to make that future a reality.”

The long term aspect of grit is crucial. Especially for us, language teachers, and language learners. Language is not learnt within weeks or months. It takes years of hard study. For example, typically it takes about 800 contact hours to get to C1 level, that is about 8 years if you study twice a week for 90 minutes.
8 YEARS!

That's indeed a long-term commitment. Strong but short-lived motivation won't do. You need GRIT. And a lot of it.

So how do we become gritty?

Unfortunately, the honest answer is: nobody's sure.

One idea, developed at Standford University by Carol Dweck, is called "growth mindset". This idea assumes that the ability to learn is not unchangeable, but that it is possible to develop and improve it. In a nutshell, Dweck has shown that if children are taught how our brains responds to new challenges, how they develop and adapt, these kids are less likely to give up when faced with failure.

This is because they have learned that failure is not permanent. Nor is it negative. It's just a natural and inevitable part of the learning process.

So what does it mean for us, EFL teachers?

As Angela puts it, teachers "need to be grittier about making our [students] grittier". We should make our learners aware that learning a language is a long and difficult process (great post by Luiz Otavio) and that there will be ups and downs, but that with enough grit, we can all get to the end.

The best starting point (or at least the one I'm planning to start with next week) might be to watch the video with your students, and introduce the concept of grit (lesson plan coming). We can then do the questionnaire that Angela used in her research to find out how much grit our students have. With the results in mind, we can hopefully find out what drives and motivates them, and help them discover their gritty side!

I'm not sure if it's going to work. But I'm going to try. And if I fail the first time, I'll try again. I hope you do too.

Let's be more gritty about our teaching methods!

PS If you're interested in becoming part of Angela's ongoing research program, you can volunteer as a data collector for your school here
PS 2 Emma Segev prepared an interesting practical follow up to this post. She uses the video described here, and another TED talk to motivate learners and show that failure is not the end of the world, but a learning moment. Recommended :)