L1 in the L2 classroom: from a sin to a possibility

 (cross-posted from http://isabelavillasboas.wordpress.com/)

As most people trained in the mid-80´s, I used to completely avoid using or referring to L1 in the L2 classroom. After all, as Scott Thornbury (2010) reminds us, the arguments against it are that:

• translation encourages a dependence on the L1, at the expense of the learner constructing an independent L2 system;
•  translation encourages the notion of equivalence between languages, yet no two languages are exactly alike (although languages from the same language family may be similar in lots of respects);
•  the L1 system interferes with the development of the L2 system;
• translation is the “easy” approach to conveying meaning, and is therefore less memorable than approaches that require more mental effort, such as working out meaning from context;
•  the “natural” way of acquiring a language is through direct experience and exposure, not through translation.

I confess to having taught numerous groups of true beginners without ever, ever speaking a word in Portuguese, our common native language, in class. After all, what if they were in the U.S or the U.K, right? No one would speak their language there, so we had to simulate this L2 environment. At that time, I truly and naively believed that native speakers were the model for an L2 classroom and that students’ L1 was mostly an interference to be avoided. I’m sure this belief was also reinforced by the fact that English in regular schools in Brazil, public or private, was based solely on translation and was very ineffective, so doing anything similar to that should be avoided at all costs.

It was only in the mid-90’s, when I first read what would be one of my most cherished methodology bibles, Douglas Brown’s (2007) Teaching By Principles, that I came across the idea that “the judicious use of the L1” can be beneficial. Wow! That was already quite a stretch for me. But still, in the Methodology classes I taught, I always emphasized the word judiciously, and explained that it was really an exception, when there was no other way to explain a word or concept.

As time went by and a growing number of experts began defending the idea that the native language can be a facilitative tool, rather than just a hindrance or an interference (Atkinson, 1987; Auerbach, 1993; Cook, 2001; Nation, 2003), I slowly began to rethink my beliefs about this issue and, as a teacher, adopt a greater tolerance towards the idea that we can use this tool learners already have, their native language, to help them learn a second language. Rather than a hindrance, the L1 can sometimes be a springboard, or maybe the key to understanding. When teaching the present perfect, for example, I started to show my students that in Portuguese you say “I have read that book” and “I read that book yesterday” using the same verb (li), the reason why it was difficult for Brazilians to understand the concept of the present perfect. I would thus warn them that relating it to Portuguese wasn’t going to help. Conversely, when Portuguese could indeed help them understand something, I began signaling this to students, saying, “It’s just like in Portuguese.” With children, the idea of giving them a few minutes in the beginning of the class to share whatever they felt like sharing about their lives in the native language became more acceptable. After all, they weren’t proficient enough to express themselves the same way in English, yet they really needed the emotional bond.

Even so, my understanding of the debate about the role of L1 in the L2 classroom was still very pragmatic and “apolitical”. It was only when I became more familiarized with Critical Applied Linguistics (Pennycook, 2001), the Local Versus Global English debate and World Englishes, and the Non-native-English-Speaking-Teacher movement (Braine, 1999) that my view of the topic expanded. I began to understand all the historical, theoretical, and political reasons behind the “English-only” policy, clearly explained by Mahboob (2011) and summarized in an earlier post. The fact that sharing the same L1 with my students was a strength rather than a weakness really empowered me and made me rethink my role as a teacher and teacher trainer and developer. I also enhanced my understanding that there was a difference between using translation as a method and using the L1 system as a reference for students, a facilitator. 

Though I had “seen the light”, I also still had many doubts:

•  How far should the teacher go in resorting to the L1 when it can be facilitative without transforming the communicative classroom into a translation-based one?
• Might the teacher’s reference to students’ L1 make them feel more comfortable to use their L1 in class and not make as much effort to communicate in the L2, wasting the only time they have to do so (in the case of an EFL environment)?
• Might an excessive comparison or reference to the L1 hinder the development of students’ automaticity in the foreign language, creating an unnecessary “L1 bypass” in their brains?

Paul Seligson’s plenary in an event recently held at my ELT Institute – the 2^nd Alumni, CTJ, and Ibeu TEFL Conference – shed some light into this discussion and helped clarify it for me in certain ways. He reasonably argued that “L1 is a tool to be used appropriately like any other, and its use needn’t be verbal.”  It can involve parallel processing or systematic contrastive reflection, for example. He suggested a number of awareness-raising activities that involve students making comparisons between their L1 and EFL without having to say a word in their L1. For example, students can think about whether the stressed syllable in each of the months in English is the same or different from in Portuguese. This can be done between Portuguese and English because the months in the two languages are of Latin origin. Thus, we can capitalize on the fact that Portuguese is a Romance language, that as much as 60% of English is Latin-based, and that there are more cognates than false cognates between Portuguese and English. Students can be trained to notice cognates and near cognates and work out their meaning from context. This can be done without even using the L1 in the classroom, but rather, just asking students to think about it. Seligson (2013) also argues that if we capitalize on the vocabulary that is Latin-based when teaching beginners, we can speed up their learning and give them a sense of being able to communicate adequately sooner, even if the words they’re using aren’t necessarily the most frequently used by native speakers.

Some of the key ideas put forth by Seligson (2013) are:

• Highlight, use, and build on students’ strong, existing linguistic intelligence, addressing them as “insiders”, knowers, not “empty vessels” or aliens from another language planet.
• Consider making reference to L1 whenever it might help; celebrate and accelerate where things are similar, prioritize what’s harder, and make humorous links.
• L1 is a tool to be used appropriately like any other, and its use needn’t be verbal, e.g. parallel processing, systematic contrastive reflection, etc.
• Accelerate presentations using L1 contrast or references to give them more time for practice.
• Anticipate mistakes early on in lessons to help students avoid them.
• Use cognates to provide much richer text and input, and be explicit when you’re using cognates.
• Make systematic use of contrastive pronunciation to help break the habits they have acquired from L1.
• Our goal is to create successful language switchers, not just turn them into native speakers.

I opened this post with Thornbury’s (2010) list of arguments against the use of L1. Now here is his list of arguments in favor, which certainly inspired Seligson in his plenary:

• New knowledge (e.g. of the L2) is constructed on the basis of existing knowledge (e.g. of the L1), and to ignore that is to deny learners a valuable resource.
• Languages have more similarities than differences, and translation encourages the positive transfer of the similarities, as well as alerting learners to significant differences.
• Translation is a time-efficient means of conveying meaning, compared, say, to demonstration, explanation, or working out meaning from context.
•  Learners will use translation, even if covertly, as a strategy for making sense of the L2, so it may as well be used as an overt tool.
• The skill of translation is an integral part of being a proficient L2 user, and contributes to overall pluralingualism.
• Translation is a natural way of exploiting the inherent bilingualism of language classes, especially where the teacher is herself bilingual.

Just the other day I was teaching a group of low-intermediate adults and we came across the word “confident”, a false-cognate in Portuguese. Unhesitatingly, I pointed out that confident meant confiante, not confidente in Portuguese. Twenty years ago, I would probably not have resorted to translation and tried to explain the word in English. Maybe half of my students would have understood it, while half would still either be in doubt or think that it meant confidente.

As you can see, I’m now a believer and, as a teacher, I think I can make informed decisions about when to use or allow the use of L1 in my classroom. However, as a teacher trainer and developer in an ELT Institute with over 250 teachers, many of whom are novice, I confess I’m still reluctant to openly advocate the use of L1.  My fear is that the arguments above become an overgeneralization for any use of the L1 at any time, both by the teacher and the students. This would go against our institutional pedagogical principles, which emphasize the need to maximize L2 use in the classroom and authentic communication in L2 and, above all, our students’ expectations. Thus, apart from L1 use for classroom management purposes and others presented by Mahboob (2011), Seligson’s idea of having students think about their L1 rather than actually use it in class might be a sound suggestion.

And you? How do you feel about this issue as a teacher? And as a teacher trainer/developer?

References

Auerbach, E. (1993). Reexaming English only in the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 27, 1, pp.

9–32.

Atkinson, D. (1987). The mother tongue in the classroom: A neglected resource? ETL Journal, 41,

4, pp. 241–24.

Braine, G. (Ed.). (1999). Nonnative Educators in English Language Teaching. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by Principles – An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy – 3^rd Edition. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Cook, V. (2001). Using the First Language in the Classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review, 57(3).

Mahboob, A . (2011, August 31). Using local languages in English language classes [Web log post].  Retrieved from http://www.nnestblog.blogspot.com.br/

Nation, P. (2003) The role of the first language in foreign language learning. The Asian EFL Journal 5 (2). Retrieved from http://asian-efl-journal.com/quarterly-journal/2003/06/30/the-role-of-the-first-language-in-foreign-language-learning/#thethe-tabs-1-4 (August 04, 2013).

Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical Applied Linguistics – A Critical Introduction. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Seligson, P. (2013). Advantaging Brazilian Learners. Plenary delivered at the 2^nd Alumni, CTJ, and Ibeu TEFL Conference.

Thornbury, A. (2010, April 21). T is for translation [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/t-is-for-translation/

 Images courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

Practical Ways of Developing Fluency

What do you do when a student asks:

“How do I improve my fluency?”

I attended the 2nd Alumni, CTJ, & IBEU TEFL Conference last week.  One of the speakers, Michael McCarthy, talked about how fluency is one of these terms where everyone knows what it means, but have difficulty in defining it:  Think about readiness.  Think about spontaneity.  Does the speaker have their independent ideas about the subject at hand? Fluency means “not causing strain to either the person listening nor feeling strain while speaking”.

Ok, so what does that look like? Here are some terms you need to know:

• Speed of delivery--how many words per hour does your student speak? Casual conversation is 10,000 words per hour!  Your student doesn’t have to speak that fast when it comes to giving speeches, however.
• Pauses--your student should not pause for longer than half a second!  A big “NO NO” is pausing when it is your turn to speak or in the middle of fixed phrases such as “You know what I mean?”  You don’t want to say “You-- know-- what-- I mean.”
• Dysfluency--getting lost in your thoughts.  You say, “What was I talking about?”
• Automaticity--that knee-jerk reaction when it comes to having response to fire off right away.
• Confluence--the ability to carry out a conversation in a way where you create opportunities for your listener to understand when your turn is almost over so that they are ready to start their turn--and they provide you with that same courtesy!

Let’s go back to the original question: “How do I improve my fluency?”

Here are some of my ideas:

• Have your student find a reading passage that they really respect or enjoy and have them read the passage.  It should be a fairly decent length so that it can’t be done in two minutes.  Have them read the passage aloud for two minutes and mark where they stop. The following week, have them read aloud again for two minutes and mark it again.  How many words did they improve?
• Have your students keep up with current events.  A great conversationalist knows what’s going on in pop culture, sports, science, politics, and art.  Have them reflect on what they read and talk about it.  Have them share their opinions with the class. Moderate a short debate!
• Provide them some fixed phrases, 3 word chunks, and other fillers.  Ask them to insert these a few times during class discussions.  They can be things that open phrases such as “Well, basically...” and other words that will create the end of the turn such as “.. you know what I mean?”.  They have to use them quickly (speed of delivery) and automatically!
• Also, teach them how to stall for time such as saying “The whatcha-ma-callit?” or “thinga-ma-bob” and other phrases that native speakers heavily use when they are trying to claw their way through a conversation.  Give them works such as YEAH, OH, RIGHT, WELL, and BASICALLY and teach them how to combine them in to “Oh, right” or “Yeah, that’s right” or “Well, yeah” or “Well, basically”. Use these to avoid pauses and stall for time to think! Other great words are “actually...” and “I mean...” when used to elaborate further on what you’ve already said.
• Great speakers don’t think about what they’re going to say next while their partner is speaking. Instead, they listen to what is being said and react to some part of that.  Model how to do this for them and have them practice.  Give them useful phrases such as "I hate to disagree, but..." and "I see what you mean..." The better they are at creating flow, the more fluent they will become.
  
  
  What are your ideas? Post them in the comments!

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) – Why should you try?

                              

It is two thirty in the afternoon. The teacher is introducing a new and important topic and almost all students are attentively looking at and listening to him. A couple of students, however, seem to be somewhere else. A teenage boy is looking at his lap with a silly smile on his face. The teacher suspects this has nothing to do with his class because once he is not telling any jokes at the moment. A teenage girl on the other side has her right hand inside her bag and is also involved in some kind of very important task. The teacher also knows it is not part of the class because he has not assigned any task yet. He has not asked students to make any sort of inventory of the content of their school bags. This scene looks familiar, doesn't it? The two fictional students are definitely texting or checking their social networks on their mobile phones. How can a teacher handle such distractions? How to deal with the handheld devices our students are bringing into our classes? In this post I will try to give some hints on transforming these gadgets into our allies and discuss some of the benefits of doing so.

The first solution that comes to our minds when facing class distractions due to the use of portable devices is banning them completely from coming into the temple of our classrooms. Banning can range from not allowing students to bring such gadgets to class to collecting them upon their arrival to asking students to turn their gizmos off while in class. However, we can ask, is banning handheld devices the solution?

Since students have to carry their mobile phones to communicate with parents, it becomes practically impossible to forbid them from bringing portable devices into the classroom or asking them to turn their gadgets off. The option of collecting mobile devices upon arrival is not very practical either and adds one more throng into the challenging task of achieving effective classroom management.

Banning not being an option, one thing the teacher can do to avoid episodes of disconnection from class is to make a contract with students telling them when they will be allowed to check their phones. One idea would be telling learners to restrict such activities to a time when they are done with written tasks and are waiting for the remainder of the class to finish and do a peer to peer check out. In regard to this rule, it is important to inform them that they should not rush through tasks to have extra time to use their devices. Such rule would mean never using mobile gadgets while the teacher is explaining something or when the class is involved in communication activities.

Once the teacher has addressed the banning issue and established a contract with his or her students, it is time to look into some alternatives to have students use their devices for other things than checking their social networks, chatting in their native language or playing games. Doing so will make them really happy and will probably reduce their craving for using their devices for other things than getting engaged in learning activities while in class.

There are some activities in which a teacher can substitute paper and pencil for a more engaging and fun task done using a mobile device. Writing does not have necessarily to be done in notebooks. Consequently, paragraphs can be written using mobile phones and be sent immediately to the teacher or afterwards for correction. A teacher will probably be surprised with students’ dexterity in using a mobile phone tiny keyboard to write a paragraph or a short message. You can also suggest a tour around the school to investigate or catalog new vocabulary. Images can be used to construct narratives or to simply describe pictured objects. Besides that, learners can record themselves and by doing this improve their pronunciation and intonation once they have the opportunity to play back and see how they sound. As you can see, there are lots of opportunities to use handheld devices in class.

Using students' devices bring many advantages. First, we can say that it solves the logistic and economic problem of having one mobile device for student. Why does the school need to buy these gadgets when students already possess their own. Second, it saves time once the instructor does not need to instruct the class on specific features. Third, it allows diversity instead if the unification of class sets of laptops or tablets. Finally, it sends a strong message of acceptance and inclusion to students once the handheld device they carry with them almost everywhere is being valued by their teacher and transformed into a powerful learning tool.

References:

My colleague Erika Oya and I gave a presentation on the topic of BYOD in Brasilia at The 2^nd Alumni CTJ and IBEU TEFL Conference. See our slides on Prezi 

Hockly,N.(October 2012). Tech-savvy teaching: BYOD. Modern English Teacher, volume 21(number 4). Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/2065524/Tech-savvy_teaching_BYOD

Technology in the Language Classroom

 

                                           photo credit: Bent Kure via photopin cc

by Jose Antonio da Silva

According to an article on Wikipedia, the history of education if considered as passing down traditions from one generation to another is probably as old as the history of civilization. However, as developmental psychologist Peter Gray reviewing the history of education in a 2008 blog post reminds us, the idea of universal education arouse in the 17th century. It was then that, according to him, learning started being children’s “work” aided by the expertise of adults. If in the beginning of its history methods and techniques for teaching were mostly dictated by the adult in a position of power, as time went by the pendulum shifted to cater more and more to the needs of learners no matter how old they were. The advent of computer technology made this relationship even more complex once these machines gave tremendous power to students and placed higher and higher demands on teachers. So, the objective of this post is to address some issues related to the integration of technology into the EFL class.

An EFL teacher who started teaching in the early 90s in an institution that tried to keep up with the latest technological gadgetry would probably have at his disposal a slideshow projector, a tape recorder, and a TV set with a VCR on the corner. By the end of the decade, the only item remaining would be the TV set, the others would have been replaced by a computer on the teacher’s table connected to the TV set which still might be connected to a more modern VCR. Fast forward ten more years and changes in this area are dramatic. The 21st century has brought with itself a lot of progress in this field and things have not stopped evolving since then. Computer technology has miniaturized and thus become ubiquitous and accessible to almost anyone. In Brazil, according to a National Household Survey (PNAD) study, the number of Internet users in the country increased by 10 million between 2009 and 2011. As more and more technology makes its way into students’ lives and the classroom, teachers have more and more trouble coping with these demands. The solution to this problem may lie in finding ways to use this same technology not only as a means of delivering content, but as a way of practicing inside class, and lastly of extending learning beyond classroom and into students daily lives.

The first issue with such widespread use of computer devices and connectivity arises with students bringing their portable devices into class. If such devices are connected to the web, teachers are divided between asking students to turn their devices off or using them in class for practicing language and generating content. The argument for banning is reasonable and is supported by some educators (Yamamoto, 2007). Devices can be a distraction and really make students lose focus and let a teacher literally talking to the walls. However, as Nicky Hockly (2012) claims, adopting a BYOD (bring your device) approach gives students some autonomy and creates a ground for negotiation between teachers and students. Students can use the photos they have in their mobile phones to talk about themselves and show to classmates what matters to them. Alternatively, they can go around school on photo treasure hunts and do similar activities. The audio capabilities can be used to record conversations that can be replayed in class or used to assess pronunciation or other skills.

In contexts that are low tech and students do not carry fancy mobile devices there is always at least a computer lab. If such facility is not available, students can be encouraged to use their computers at home. The idea is to move from a push content mind set to a pull content one, an approach in which teachers see learners as active participants and producers or content. So, instead of adopting a closed LMS environment in which educators exert control and push content to students, a teacher can opt for the so called web 2.0 platforms that allow more freedom and customization, allowing the teacher to push content from learners. The flipped classroom (Gerstein, 2012) idea advocates exactly that, using blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking and other media to get extended practice and student generated content. Once teachers connect students and their classes to the web, his initiative allows them to see themselves as 21st citizens that are no longer just consumers of content, but as creative and active participants in making their own learning, creating content, and contributing to the learning of others.

References

 Gerstein, J. (2012). The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture. Kindle Edition. Gray, P. (August 2008). A Brief History of Education. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200808/brief-history-education

Hockly,N.(October 2012). Tech-savvy teaching: BYOD. Modern English Teacher, volume 21(number 4). Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/2065524/Tech-savvy_teaching_BYOD

Yamamoto, K. (January 2008). Banning Laptops in the Classroom: Is it Worth the Hassles? Journal of Legal Education, Volume 57 (Number 4). Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1078740

Wikipedia, History of education, Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education

Reflecting on Mlearning

This semester I had a plan for myself: I wanted to use technology in a simple way to help my students connect to me, to each other, and to the content we were working with. But, I wanted to do it in a way that would not overload me. I still need to evaluate the results and reflect upon what I have done in class, so I I put a brief checklist together to make sure I am using mobile devices in a way that really engages my learners and boosts their learning processes. Please, feel free to comment and leave your feedback, for we are a learning community which needs to stick together in order to make the most of the technology we have available for our students.

The checklist

easel.ly

The tasks

mLearning - The One Ipad Classroom

I had the wonderful opportunity of going go to Dallas last March to attend the TESOL 2013 Convention.  It was great, not only participating in workshops, plenaries, and a variety of presentations, but also meeting other English teachers and exchanging ideas and experiences with them.

Before choosing the presentations I wanted to attend, I focused on the ones which involved technology in the classroom or the ones related to practical activities for EFL classes. After attending so many presentations related to these topics, I came across the theme: The one iPad classroom.  The concrete ideas I was introduced to made me feel enthusiastic to use more technology in class. In this post, I would like to share some of those ideas related to the use of only one iPad in an English class.

Although we are in the 21^st century and technology is all around, teachers still face difficulties in having computers available for each student in all the classes of the course. Having iPads in the classroom is a trend, but not the reality we have today. Only few schools offer iPads to the students’ use in class, and even then, teachers have to share those iPads with their co-workers.

What I would like to show here is that, if a teacher has his/her own iPad, she/he can make use of it in class and benefit students with technology. Or, if the school provides one iPad for teacher use only, it is still possible to make a profitable use in class.

Here is a list of apps that can be used in class and my suggestions for their uses.

PingPong ScoreBoard Lite (Lin Huangchun)

This app is wonderful to score points when using a game in class.  The teacher does not need to stand and score the points on the board anymore. The teacher may use the projector for the game, and the iPad for the score.

Stick pick (Buzz Garwood)

This app helps the teacher to call on students in a fun way.

Timer (Francis Bonnin)

This app is very useful to establish time for the activities. Students can keep track of the time they have to do the activities.

Bola de Cristal HD Free (CATEATER, LLC)

It is useful if you are working the second Conditions. Students formulate questions, the teacher shakes the iPad and the students see the answers in the projector. They usually have a lot of fun.

Word Game: Taboo – Free (Yasarcan Kasal)

Students sit in pairs, facing one another. One student sits back to the boards. The teacher projects the word on the board and the other students has to describe the word avoiding the taboo words.

Tap Roulette (Laan Labs)

Students have a lot of fun. It is useful to decide which student answers the question, or in many other situations. Up to 5 students tap the iPad using one finger and the program chooses only one person.

Doodle Buddy for iPad – Paind, Draw, … (Pinger, Inc.)

The teacher can call on one student at a time, offer an iPad pen, and ask the student to draw something related to what is being studied so that the other students have to guess. The image is projected on the whiteboard.  Alternating students, they have a lot of fun.

Dice!  (Russel Gray)

Games are part of our classes. Teachers can vary the way of scoring them by giving dice (in the iPad) so that students have to roll it and get the points. They have a lot of fun!

Books 

there are many free books for young children which you can project on the board and read to your students or even play the audio.

Dictionaries 

Having one iPad available in class when working with literature books reading, facilitates students access to the meaning of the words. The iPad can be connected to the projector so that the other students of the groups have access of the definition of the words.

These suggestions will provide an opportunity for teachers to reflect upon the use of technology in the classroom taking into consideration the many ways of using iPads with students, even if there is only one in class.

Dare, innovate, ask experts, read for extra information, but put in practice everything you know and see what can happen if you have the will to go beyond.

After pointing out these suggestions, I would like to add that I strongly believe teachers must never give up going the extra mile and looking for challenges to enhance their careers. I would like to thank Casa Thomas Jefferson for giving me so many opportunities to improve my teaching skills and make myself a better teacher.

Teachers, it's Talking Time!

Attending an international conference is such a rewarding experience. You learn so much and you exchange so much knowledge. There were many presentations I loved, but I’d like to share one that I found particularly interesting.

This presentation had a curious title: “Let the Teacher Speak!” At a time when most methodology books, teacher developers and evaluators insist on the importance of reducing TTT (Teacher Talking Time),  and of providing more and more opportunities for students to speak, this title sounded... well, peculiar.

However, there was nothing peculiar about the presentation. On the contrary, the presenter, Dr. Brian Tomlinson, a prolific writer since the 70s, had some very interesting points to make. First and foremost, he argued that the issue was not how much the teacher talks, but what he/she says, or in his own words, “it’s not the amount. It’s the quality.” He added that, perhaps, what needed to be reduced is Teacher Teaching Time, but Teacher Talking Time should actually be welcomed.

The reasons why a teacher should speak more in a class are: (1) it provides exposure to the target language; (2) it engages learners cognitively and affectively; (3) it develops a positive rapport, and (4) it provides communicative feedback. I started thinking of my own classes, and I realized that this is true. Students do engage when we tell them anecdotes. They start seeing us as human beings, and they can relate to that. It gets them thinking and isn’t it something that we often complain about; that students don’t think?...

Of course, Tomlinson doesn’t propose that we turn our classrooms into mindless chit-chat hubs. Remember he mentioned quality, not amount! He proposed some activities that include a great amount of teacher participation, such as reading a poem or a short story and engaging students in a conversation about it. It’s OK for us to talk in the classroom. We should remember that, for some students, the teacher is the only model they have to go by. The important thing is not to lose the teaching/learning perspective.

IATEFL 2013 - Pronunciation for Listening

One of the talks I attended at IATEFL was Pronunciation for Listeners – Making sense of connected speech, by Mark Hancock. I already knew Mark from his blog and his published materials, so I made it a point to attend his talk. It was certainly worth it!

The best part was to know that I wouldn’t have to copy anything or take pictures of the slides. I already knew that Mark is all about sharing his materials and his talks and was certain that, later on, I would find everything online.

Sure enough, in his ELT page with Annie McDonald, Mark has posted the handout and the recording of his talk.  Thus, rather than reading my summary of his presentation, you can experience it first hand.

Mark’s talk was useful in demonstrating to the audience that pronunciation is also a listening skill and that it isn’t always easy for students to know where one word ends and the next begins when they listen. Thus, we need to train our students to listen, and to do so, we need to develop in them an awareness of the supra-segmental features that come to play in natural speech, such as elision, assimilation, and the like. To this end, Mark suggests a series of what he calls micro-listening activities that are really fun.

Among my favorite ones presented at IATEFL was the –ed = t maze. Students have to work their way through the maze by going from one –ed = t combination to the next. The interesting thing about it is that he presents the verb and an object that starts with a vowel so that they can practice the elision that is so common in verb + object combinations such as “booked a room”.

Check out the recording of his talk and his handout. He also has an article and an interview on this topic. Make sure you also explore his website full of rich resources for effective pronunciation teaching.

IATEFL 2013 - On Listening Tasks and Tests

Attending and presenting at both TESOL and IATEFL conferences was a rewarding experience.  I always have two different perspectives when I attend and when I conduct a workshop. Attending a conference is a moment in which you see new trends in language teaching. We have contact with different and often revisited  viewpoints of what we sometimes  believe are unchangeable truths, and we have the priceless opportunity to meet old and new friends, professionals  who have a lot to share with you. As a presenter, I feel that a conference is a moment for networking and assessing the repercussion of the material you have been developing. Both are very motivating and make us want to share and learn even more. It is a never ending endeavor. I am sharing here an enriching presentation that I attended at IATEFL Conference in Liverpool, 2013 - Listening tests and tasks versus listening in the real world – by John Field (Oxford University Press). The talk outlined the types of mental processes involved in listening. Then it evaluated whether recorded material, formats, and items of conventional second/foreign language tests really tapped into this processes. Finally, suggestions were made for new forms of teacher-designed test and task that are more closely linked to real-world communication needs and to the listening construct.

Listening is a process taking place in the mind of the listener. The only way we can test the skill – or check understanding in the classroom – is indirectly - by asking questions. ELT teachers have to ask questions for three reasons: to test, to check understanding and to diagnose listening problems. This already distances the behavior of a learner or test candidate from that of a real-world listener. Then, what does a language test actually test?

We know that it is crucial for the learning process to consistently develop and assess the listening skill. We must, therefore, have in mind that it is impossible for a test to replicate the circumstances of real-life language use, but it is reasonable to ask to what extent a test (directly or indirectly) elicits from test takers’ mental processes like those that they would use in a real-world situation. This is a critical question in tests that claim to predict how well a candidate will perform in a real-world context, such as an academic institution, a professional position or an immigrant situation.

Cognitive validity is a well-established idea and educational researchers in the U.S. have investigated and questioned the following aspects of testing. Does a test of physics show that the learner can think like a physicist? Does a test of logical thinking test what it claims to test? Does a test in Medicine just show that learners have mastered facts – or does it show that they have the ability to diagnose? These intriguing questions lead us to reflect upon what listening consists of.

According to Mr. Fields, the model of expert listening starts with a speech signal – decoding and word search – and is followed by word parsing – separating the sentences into grammatical parts, such as subject, verb, etc. – which eventually leads to meaning construction. This model may question whether present listening tests / listening tasks materials elicit behavior from the listener that is like real-world listening processes, if they are comprehensive enough to cover most or all of the processes involved in listening, and if they are graded in a way that reflects learners’ development as listeners. He concluded that listening tests / tasks materials provide listeners with scripted (or even semi-scripted) recordings with little resemblance to natural everyday English, actors who mark commas and full stops, lack of hesitations and false starts, quite long utterances and regular rhythm, and voices that do not overlap. Aside from that, test setters sometimes put in distractors, making the recording much more informationally dense than a natural piece of speech would be.

The difficulty lies in the recording itself. Test designers and teachers tend to judge the difficulty of a piece of listening and even what points of the information to focus on by referring to a taspescript. However, these decisions also need to be made when listening to the recording. What parts of the recording (words or points of information) are prominent and easy to recognize? What characteristics of the speakers might make the recording more difficult? To choose recorded materials, teachers  have to take into consideration if it is authentic, recorded, scripted or improvised, analyze how now naturally the speakers include hesitations, for example, how fast they speak, how precisely the speakers form their words, the degree of formality, accents, if it is a dialog/conversation/interview, the frequency of the vocabulary uses, the complexity of grammar, the familiarity with the topic, the length of the recording, how dense the idea units are in the recording, how clearly structured is the overall line of argument and how concrete or abstract are the points made.

Mr. Fields concluded by affirming that conventional formats – multiple choices, gap filling, visual matching, true/false, multiple matching, identifying the speaker who said - require the listener to map from written information to spoken, eliminate negative possibilities as well as identify positive ones (multiple choices and True or False), read and write as well as listen (gap filling), and engage in complex logistical tasks which take us well beyond listening (multiple matching). He also claims that lower level learners understand far less than we assume, listen out for prominent words and try to match them to words in their vocabulary, are dependent on picking up salient words rather than chunks and whole utterances, a tendency that is increased by the use of gap filling tasks that only focus attention on word level.

He finally suggested that we provide items after a first playing of the recording and before a second. This ensures more natural listening without preconceptions or advance information other than the general context.  He insisted that we keep items short, since loading difficulty on to items just biases the test in favor of reading rather than listening. He made sure we use tasks that allow the test setter to ignore the order of the recording and to focus on global meaning rather than local detail. The information provided by Mr. Fields may not be new to many of us, but it always wonderful to listen to a specialist confirm or deny our assumptions, basing his conclusions on accurate research and studies. That is why attending a conference can make a difference in our lives.

Reminiscing on IATEFL 2013

An international teachers' conference makes room for quite a hectic audience. There are English teachers
coming from all corners of the world, all in search of professional growth, new academic ideas and technologies and the acknowledgement of being on the right track regarding teaching and teaching methodologies.

Although there are not many new proposals regarding TEFL for the current tendencies, there is still a lot we
can learn about the teaching of English. In fact, there is always something to learn or recall. One of the lectures I attended and enjoyed very much was Edmund Dudley's "High-achieving Secondary Students". Mr. Dudley is a teacher and teacher trainer working in Hungary. His main concern is to teach the student as a whole. In this process, he focuses on the environment of the class so that it can "nest" students positively and help them overcome any obstacles they may have in the process of learning English. However, he has stated such obstacles may actually not even refer to difficulties in assessing language. It has been the object of Mr. Dudley's studies and involvements the fact that there may be lack of motivation for learning even among those students considered high-achievers. Among the many aspects of teaching pointed by Mr. Dudley, he has suggested that our attitude towards the learning situation be able to bring out the challenge, the relevance, the value and the novelty of lessons. In his presentation, each of these topics was associated with an array of examples and ideas on how to promote creative learning.

Another presentation which was highly motivating for me was Gavin Dudeney's piece on technology. Still a
bit of a challenge to me, technology is more present in our lives on a daily basis than we even realize. Just
as we turn lights on and off, start the car, use the dishwasher, the air-conditioner or heater, or simply change
channels on TV, for example, in quite casually habitual, if not automatic daily attitudes, we also make use
of technology in a much more routine-like manner than we can acknowledge. Most people start their days
making use of the cell phone, smart phones, connections to social networks, or the accessibility to intranet
at work or the Internet for more personal endeavors, to name a few only. Our day is filled with opportunities
for using technology, being the classroom the one place which offers the most fruitful chances for efficacious,
audaciously creative teaching and learning.