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!

How to get your class punning

English is unimaginably flexible. And its appetite for puns seems insatiable. As does that of English speakers.

There's a real art to punning. Ingenuity. The double meaning. Playing with connotations. Like this one (very teacher nerdy, I know):

What happened when Past, Present and Future walked into a bar? (answer at the very bottom)

And in my opinion puns are inextricably linked to the very nature of the language and the people who speak it. For example, my native language, Polish, is much less suited to punning. And we're less skilled at it.

Like any other language skill, then, punning can, and I think should, be taught. I still remember the first few times (still not a good punster, though, I must admit) that I manage to come out with a pun, making my English mates laugh their heads off. The sense of language achievement was great.

So why not start your next class with a pun? Or even better: 24 nerdy puns that are bound to make you chuckle (and your students too, as soon as they realise the subtlety of the double meanings that make those plays on words funny).

Some reasons why I think the activity described below is actually useful and productive, apart from being fun:

• understanding puns is a sign of high proficiency in the language
• discovering the double meaning pushes students to think beyond what they already know
• puns have a much higher surrender value than many obscure things course books make us teach our students (when was the last time you used, or heard somebody else using, the future perfect continuous?)
• being inextricably linked to the language, puns bring you a step closer to understanding the way English speaking people are
• the activity is motivating and engaging
• solving the meaning of the pun or creating your own, gives a real sense of achievement
• a breath of fresh air
• writing your own pun can be very challenging, and a great exercise in language use
• can make students more aware of: homonyms, homophones, the double meaning
• gives students a chance to play and experiment with the language
• forces them to think outside the box and to be creative
• gives the students ownership over the language

A running order for a simple activity:

1. Put the beginning of any of the 24 nerdy puns on the board. For example:

2. Ask the students to discuss the questions in groups/pairs. Tell them to be as creative as possible.

3. Feedback as a class - choose the funniest/most bizarre answer.

4. Show them the answer (I wouldn't expect even quiet chuckles at this point - unless the class is quite advanced - but rather befuddled looks, which probably say: my teacher's a bit weird...):

5. Put sts in pairs again. Ask them to discuss:

• What was or felt tense in the bar? (the atmosphere)
• What are Past, Present and Future in English? (tenses; technically Future is not, but let's not split hairs over it, shall we?)
• Is tense a noun or an adjective? Can it be both? (yes it can, it's a homonym)
• What is the double meaning of the word: tense?
• How is the double meaning used to make the answer: "It was tense" funny?

6. Feedback on the questions as a class.

7. Elicit and clarify the terms: "play on words = puns", and "to pun"

8. Do one or two more puns following steps 1 - 6.

9. Discuss:

• Do puns exist in your own language?
• Do you find them funny?
• Why might it be useful and important to understand puns in English?

10. Students write their own puns (pairs or individually). If you think they're not strong enough, scaffold the writing:

• give beginnings or endings of a few puns - the students only recreate the missing parts
• do a sentence extension, where the students only need to put in the correct grammar

11. Vote for the best pun!


The answer to : What happened when Past, Present and Future walked into a bar?

It was tense.

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 :)

MORE effective learners - how can we imitate them?

This post is primarily dedicated to and aimed at students who I hope after reading it can reflect on and improve the way they learn languages, in order to become more effective and successful language students. Having said that, it's important that we as teachers know what it means to be a good language learner, so that we can better advise our students. So I hope that both teachers and learners will find something interesting and practical in this post.

Writing about the characteristics of a good learner has been on my mind for a while, and ever more so since Teaching English - British Council published this poster: "Your languages 5-a-day". The trigger was Marisa Constantinides' post, which I've read recently. And ever since I started teaching, the question of how to learn a language more quickly and effectively has probably been the one I've been asked most often by my students.

Firstly, it is common knowledge that learners are different. And so the learning habits and preferences of our students will differ too. Some are more visual, whereas others prefer to hear things. Some dread making mistakes, while others don't really care.

Students also come from different backgrounds, have different interests and hobbies. They also learn at a different pace. Some flying through the levels, others struggling to grasp even the most basic concepts.
This is all true, and good teachers always do their best to accommodate for all those differences, leaving nobody behind.

However, the question is: why are some learners better and faster than others?

Many of my students hide behind the evasive: "Teacher, I'm just not good at languages..." Of course, innate talent might be playing a role, but I think this response is all too often just a lame and lazy excuse (please excuse me if I'm being too harsh here), or a by-product of years of unsuccessful learning (perhaps caused by poor teaching, bad habits, or both) - read more about this and other language learning myths here. I always tell my students that if I've managed to learn a foreign language, then you can do it too. You might achieve it more quickly or more slowly, but you can, even if you think you don't have a flare for languages.

So since there are successful language learners, what we can do is to analyse what they do to make learning easier, and then imitate those patterns as closely as possible, "and cultivate [them] in all our students" (Harmer 2004: 41). Sounds simple, doesn't it? Because it really is.

Before you read on about the characteristics of good language learners, I suggest you do this quiz first (originally designed by Marissa Constantinides, put in an interactive form by David Mainwood), which analyses how good a language learner you really are. Once you've done it, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page for the results.

So what are these magical characteristics that we want to imitate?

Different authors have suggested an ever growing number of them, mostly averaging around a dozen. For example, Marissa Constantinides compiled a very comprehensive list of 17, which you can read more about here, and which I think is really informative, as it puts together information found in various reference books.

My approach has been slightly different, though. Since I want my students to benefit from the post too, I've tried to simplify the list, and group all the features into 5 broader character traits, which will hopefully be easier to remember and to put into practise. So if you'd like to learn languages MORE effectively, you should be MORE:

  

Motivated:

• find a language area or topic you WANT to learn (e.g. food)
• look for exercises and tasks which YOU find motivating
• think WHY you're learning and HOW you can BENEFIT from it in the future (make it specific and personal)

Opportunistic:

• jump at every OPPORTUNITY you have to practise the language you're learning outside the class
• find somebody for a language EXCHANGE (this website is a good start)
• immediately try to USE the new language (e.g. a word, a phrase, new grammar) in conversation or in writing

Reflective:

• reflect on WHAT you've learned and what problems you've had (e.g. you can start a learning log)
• pay attention to your MISTAKES - don't dread them; but rather LEARN from them
• pay attention to your classmates' and your teachers' language and try to NOTICE positive language patterns which you can IMITATE
• KNOW your strengths and weaknesses - you can always ask your teacher to help you identify them

Experimental:

• take language RISKS and avoid your comfort zone- when you learn a new phrase, try to use it as soon as you get the chance, and ask for feedback
• experiment with and look for NEW WAYS of saying the same thing (e.g. synonyms) and expand your vocabulary
• TRY OUT different exercises and learning strategies and identify the one which works best for you

For all those who are more visual, Bren Brennan has prepared a great inforgraphic which nicely summarises the MORE characteristics mentioned here, as well as adds a few others, such as the need to record vocabulary. Thoroughly recommended!

Some very good tips on learning English grammar from English guider.

 

Quiz results:

If you scored 70% or more of a answers than you are indeed a good language learner. If you have scored 90% or more, then you're a language learning machine! If you scored less than 70%, don't worry! You're like the majority of language students. Read about the MORE Characteristics above to learn what you can do to become a better language learner.

The real deal

If you're like me, you try to use authentic materials in your classes as much as possible. The most common arguments in favour of authentic listening or reading texts (in comparison to course book materials) is that they:

•  are more engaging
• provide a "real" model of language
• give practice with texts students will encounter outside the class
• are topical and up-to-date
• provide a greater sense of achievement when tackled successfully
• can be carefully picked to match student's interests OR the student can choose the text themselves

Of course, there are many other advantages, as well as clear disadvantages (e.g. too difficult, too long), which are listed in detail, for example here. However, in this post I would like to focus on something different.

The question I want to pose has been hinted at in passing in one of my previous posts. Remember the A from the TAPEs? AUTHENTIC with a capital "A". But what I'd like to advocate are authentic TASKS rather than authentic materials, or preferably combining the two.

My premise here is that as teachers we should focus more on designing authentic tasks, rather than looking for an authentic text to use in the class just for the sake of using it. We have to remember that "different texts call for different treatments" (Nuttall, Ch. 1996: 153), and try to design the tasks accordingly.

So what do I mean by authentic tasks? Consider this piece of course book material from NEF Up-Int p.30. The text itself is perfectly authentic, however, what about the task itself?

All 3 questions are typical comprehension tests (1. Gist; 2. Lexis; 3. Implied meaning). Not that they are wrong, but the problem is they

• do not really teach the learner how to approach this genre (a short story) in the future
• are not an authentic response to this genre

So how can we make the task more natural? "A good rule of thumb, [...], is to first consider the sort of things a target reader is likely to do with [the text]" (Nuttal, Ch. 1996: 153). In other words, ask yourself: how would I read/listen to this text in real world? How would I respond to it?

Coming back to our example, one of the most natural reactions to a story/anecdote is that you retell it to your friends later on (possibly altering it, either consciously or unconsciously). The simplest authentic task would be then (presumably after a gist listening, but not necessarily, all depending on the level of your sts) to ask students to retell the story in groups. Then they could check it with other groups, and listen again to the original to see if their versions differed. Can you think of any other tasks that would be more authentic responses to the text than the original course book exercise?

As Wilson (2006: 39) rightly puts it, "listeners cope with different types of listening by preparing themselves according to the conventions and expectations of the genre". Students then must be made aware of those conventions and taught how to react naturally to certain texts. After all, nobody answers true or false questions when listening to a friend telling a funny story over a pint of beer down the pub, do they?

Below then are some typical text types and suggestions for an authentic task to do with your students. Not a definitive list, of course. And not to say that the classical T/F questions should be abandoned completely. There is always some room for them. However, when designing listening or reading tasks, we should ask ourselves more often: how would I react/respond naturally to this text in the real world? WHY would I listen or read it? And how can I design the tasks to reflect this?

Some of the most obvious advantages of authentic tasks are:

• they resemble tasks learners will have to perform in English outside the class
• they are more meaningful
• often there is no right or wrong answer, which avoids the disappointment and frustration of getting the answers wrong
• they provide learners with skills they can use outside the class
• they prepare them to attack similar texts more effectively in the future

So when you read it through the list, think why these tasks are presumably more authentic than a typical T/F or multiple choice question. And try to think of other authentic tasks either for these genres, or for other ones. I'd be more than happy to include your suggestions in the post :)

1. Story:

• retell your partner
• T or student pauses the recording, the student reacts (e.g. That's incredible/sad/unbelievable. etc.)
• T pauses the recording at different points and asks students a question which will involve them in the process of telling the story: e.g. What do you think X looked like?

     2. News article:

•  read the title and decide if it's worth reading and why
• skim through the paragraphs and find one which you'd like to read in more detail
• skim through, and retell the news to your partner
• compare the presentation of news in two different newspapers

     3. Interview:

• respond yourselves to the questions
• find one surprising/interesting piece of information and read more about it on the internet

     4. Dialogue:

• ask for clarification when you don't understand
• try to interrupt politely
• T stops the dialogue, the students respond appropriately (i.e. to practise functional language or adjacency pairs)

     5. Lecture:

• use the information from the ppt to identify the main points of the lecture
• pause after signposting language and predict what information comes next
• take notes
• summarise the content using the notes or convert them into an essay

Read up on reading and listening task design:

• Nuttal, Ch. 1996. "Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language". Heineman
• Willson, J.J. 2008. "How to teach listening". Person