The Image Conference

The image Conference, Organized by the BRAZTESOL Brasilia team was a perfect combination of keynote presenters, great atmosphere and interesting, colorful, dynamic sessions. Workshops  were delivered in 45 minutes. I was not sure at first I would like my session to be so short, but I enjoyed the format as a participant because I got to see much more, and as a presenter because  Denise De Felice and I had to do our  best to be concise and efficient in our delivery. 

Here is a peek of some of what happened in the conference.

http://www.pinterest.com/danilyra/the-image-conference/

From Images to Deep Learning

 A Whole Brain Perspective

A new bridge between neuroscience and language teaching is being built, and teachers today can learn more and more about the learning brain. Images, videos, and games have always been explored in the language classroom in different, creative ways, but teachers  are now becoming aware of how tasks affect the brain biologically, how emotions trigger or hinder the learning cycle, and how knowing all that can help teachers design more engaging tasks. Many of the ideas here were inspired by the book The Art of Changing the Brain.

Play with the images to to create a story.

Listen to the story and check how different they are.

We asked participants to reflect on what Hamilton`s problem was by showing a series of "why" questions. It was very interesting to see the "why" technique in action. The audience starts to feel the power of brainstorming as one more "why" on the slide projects the impression that the group needs to keep collaborating, thinking to reach a high order conclusion.  

Here is what the audience said

He was asked to do what he couldn`t do.

He was not motivated enough

He was too passive

The kind of exposure he got was always the same

He never got a chance to actually be a more engaged student

because of the way he had been exposed to input, he became too passive

He never got the chance to actually be a more engaged student

because of the way he had been exposed to input, he became too passive.

Ham`s problem according to The Art of Changing the Brain.

"Ham`s mind was in the past, it depended on sources outside himself, and thus he had no power. He had no control over his own learning.
I am not saying that he didn’t need information or that he should abandon his television programs. Experience and information are necessary parts of learning. They are the raw materials for it. But by themselves they are not enough; they are about half of what it actually needed.
The structure of the brain tells us this. There is a part for receiving, remembering, and integrating information that comes from outside. And there is a second part for acting, modifying, creating, and controlling. If we are to learn in the way that transforms, we must use both of these parts of the brain. 
"Ham needs better communication between the back and the front of their cortex, between temporal cortex and prefrontal cortex. But since the prefrontal and temporal cortex are so distant from each other, you might wonder if the connections between them are strong. Maybe it isn’t so easy to keep balance. Maybe the front and back parts of our brains don’t talk to each other much.But, again, the actual physical structure of the brain gives us new insight. In fact, some of the most obvious wiring in the brain is designed exactly for this front/back connection.
You could confirm this yourself with the simplest of dissections of one of the cerebral hemispheres. If you were to gently slice open the top of one hemisphere from front to back and a few centimeters from the midline, you would see large tracks of fibers running along from back to front. And if you dissected carefully, you would find four major bundles of nerves that carry signals between front and back.We can also see this bridge in the learning cycle, as shown in the illustration below. It carries us over the line that separates the experience and reflection part of the cycle from the abstraction and active testing part. Data enters learners through concrete experience where it is organized and rearranged through reflection. But it is still just data until learners begin to work with it. When learners convert this data into ideas, plans, and actions, they experience the transformation I have described. Things are now under their control, and they are free of the tyranny of information. They have created and are free to continually test their own knowledge."

A concrete example

A Practical Example

Concrete experience
Abstract hypothesis

Reflective observation
Transformation line

Reflecting back

Compare the two tasks below and reflect on what happens in the learners` brain. Which task engages students` brain more deeply?

Task 1 - look at the images and create a story. Compare it to the actual story.

Task 2 - Listen to the story and put the illustrations in order.

Our point - there is nothing wrong with the tasks, They are just different. It all depends on the teacher`s objectives. Task one helps to engage more areas of the brain as compared to task 2, which may help to promote deeper learning.

Here are some posters we can ask students to make. Having students  manipulate language and images to create  posters engages the learning brain more deeply than just showing students a poster that someone else created.

From image to deep learning2.ppt

More PowerPoint presentations from Daniela

What can you do with a chair?

What other purposes, other than teaching, can you use a chair for?

After delivering this workshop, our aim is to keep thinking about the learning cycle and tasks can engage the learning brain more deeply.

Thanks Denise De Felice for being my partner and inspiring change in me.

Thanks Cleide Nascimento for illustrating the story.

Thanks Katie Cox for lending us your storytelling expertise.

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Song Activities for the EFL Classroom

Music is undeniably a great and effective tool for language learning. We can use songs to encourage language awareness in many different levels, from semantic aspects to grammar structures. It can also lighten up our classes and motivate our students to practice English in fun ways.

Our CTJ teachers Jorge Alexandre and Cleide Frazão presented a while ago in one of our seminars about different ways to use songs in the classroom. The presentation became a project and now teachers can retrieve ready-to-use musical resources in their classes with just one click!

Check the wonderful activities and artifacts that Cleide is constantly creating and sharing with our Educational Community.

http://songactivities.blogspot.com.br/

http://songactivities.blogspot.com.br/2013/10/subject-x-object-pronouns.html

iPads in the Classroom - Unmissable mLearning Resources

If you are starting with the use of iPads in the classroom and have no idea where to begin, there are lots of blogs and resources you can rely on to filter interesting apps and to find activities to suit your pedagogical needs.

I highly recommend some blog posts/resources for you to get started:

How to Take Control of Tablets in a Networked Classroom
http://www.tabletsforschools.co.uk/classroom-management-how-to-take-control-of-tablets-in-a-networked-classroom

Habits of an Effective iPad Teacher
http://ipad4schools.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/ipad_teacher_habits_poster_v2.pdf

I have iPads in the Classroom. Now What?
http://langwitches.org/blog/2013/06/10/i-have-ipads-in-the-classroom-now-what/

A compilation of iPad Resources
http://www.thedigitaldogpound.com/ipad-resources.html

iPad Project Blog
http://blog.yorksj.ac.uk/ipadproject/ipad-apps/

Examples of Popplet as a Pedagogical Tool
http://skillsnack.weebly.com/popplet-examples-from-our-teachers.html

Examples of the Use of the iPad at Casa Thomas Jefferson
http://online.thomas.org.br/blog/?p=744

Apps Review
http://teachingwithipad.org/app-reviews-2/

There are tons of other sites that you can use to begin your iPadED journey. However, focusing on the small steps to achieve initial success will make you feel more confident to take more future risks and make transformative uses of mobile devices in your classes.


crossposted on http://collablogatorium.blogspot.com 

Nowadays, there are many tools to help a teacher justify his/her choices in class. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a useful tool that helps us reflect upon our classroom practices and learn any content area. The revised version is really speaking to a lot of educators who use it, and it seems to be useful because it links a variety of technologies  that address different levels of educational objectives. A wise start is to look at the activities I am already implementing and see what objectives they touch on. With that in mind, I can aim at the right direction and deepen my learning to higher brain processes. Most of the tasks I have used in class so far fall into the bottom of the Taxonomy (remember and understand). Although these tasks  help students practice basic skills, there are other options I need to address to make sure I use the iPads to reach the higher levels of the Taxonomy.  I designed a chart to help me visualize all the apps I have available and how they can be used for each category. The following image might help me apply The revised Bloom`s Taxonomy in my practice because they give me some basic ideas on very broad objectives for each category.

Using AppsAt the bottom of Bloom`s Taxonomy

Remembering

Apps that fit into the ‘remembering’ concept include those that improve a student’s ability to recall facts or words, list, retrieve, find, name, recognize, identify, locate, and define terms or concepts.

Repeat

WordFoto is an easy and fun app for the language classroom. Students take pictures and write words and sentences that will appear all over the image. The app is light and students do not need more than 5 minutes to get the work done. The app only accepts up to 10 words.

Teachers are usually very creative and we all can surely find many fun ways to explore the pictures, but here are three ideas.

1 - Relay race - students make lines facing the board. The last student in line has an image and has to whisper the sentences to the student in front of him. Students keep whispering till first student in line hears it and writes the sentence down on the board. 

2. Put all the images on a presentation and have a silent dictation.

3. Show all the pictures and take them away. Play some music and let students write down all the sentences they can remember. Stop the music and check students` work. 

Recall

Flashcards are no longer tied to paper. Now with the help of flashcard makers we can give our students the chance of recalling vocabulary items easily. We can prepare the flashcards with the app and make sets, or we can import sets from a site called - Quizlet. We can ask students to take the quiz as warmers to games, writing or speaking tasks. 

Describe

We can use the camera native app for a number of activities, but I like the simplicity of memory games. I was teaching "going to", and there was a picture in the book that students had to describe all the about to actions people in the picture were doing. I asked students to pose for a picture to have a similar task and motivate them to practice the target structure and have fun. They love working with their own pictures! Screen Chomp is basically a doodling app with markers.

I was teaching adverbs of frequency and frequency words to talk about routine. To transition from sentence level to discourse level, I used an activity suggested on Cleide Nascimento`s blog - Draw My Attention to contextualize the topic, and asked students to reorder the activities according to their daily routines and narrate the slides. I `ll use their work as resource for follow up activities.

 Draw

With Screen Chomp students can record audios or videos or upload a file, and then use the drawings tools to jolt down ideas, label, point out, etc. I have used it as a way to brainstorm ideas as a pre-writing activity.

Educreations is a useful tool that can be used in many different ways. I used it to practice vocabulary items in a simple way. I asked students to draw clothing items with the app and then used their work to practice the words.

Coming soon, moving up towards higher thinking skills 

Undestanding

Role Playing to Prompt Writing Tasks

App: IMovie

Number of iPads: one per group 
Level Teens 4

I have a very creative and hectic group of teens, who is into technology and loves playing games. My students engage really easily in tasks that have a digital component, but they tend to disconnect whenever they have to deal with more traditional ones. I decided to bring some of their creativity into play and asked them to roleplay the dialogues in unit 5. I gave each group an iPad and asked them to record themselves roleplaying the dialogues. I played the video with the sound off, and asked students to write the dialogues down as a graded exercise. In the following classes, they asked me to watch the videos again and again. I believe this repetition helped them internalize the structure because they have all done really well in this part of the oral test this morning.

By teacher Dani Lyra

Appitivity - Young Learners and Educreations

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7008/6660141777_f3c5978a8e.jpg

The young learners we have in our classrooms nowadays are digital natives. It means that they were born during or after the general introduction of digital technology.  They are familiar with computers, mobile devices and internet from an early age.  I have been using the Ipads in my Kids group and they simply love it!

For the first activity I used Educreations. We were practicing vocabulary related to the beach, but the teacher can adapt and use this activity for any kind of vocabulary practice. 

Here is the activity:
  -  Take the Ipads beforehand and open the app (Educreations).

·         - Make it ready-to-use (click on “new project” and you’ll see a blank page).

·         - Make sure Educreations is logged in (branch’s account). So, it’s easier to access the students’ projects later and share or embed it on the web.

·         - After doing the activities you have prepared for the Circle Time (songs and chants) use the Ipads to review content. In this case: vocabulary.

·         - The children are already on the floor.

·         - Divide them into pairs and explain they are going to work together, taking turns.

·         - Open your Ipad (before giving the kids their devices) and show them how they have to proceed.

·         - Tell them you’re going to speak up a word and they´ll have to draw it. (model)

·         - After drawing they have to touch the REC button and say the sentence using the word. (model)

·         - They have to pause touching the REC button again. (model)

·         - On the bottom of the page, right side, they touch the arrow that goes to the next blank page. (model)

·         - Everybody waits for the second word.

·         - Use the same procedure for the rest of the words.

·         - After the last slide you have to save their projects. (Ask your aid for help)

·         - Save the project with the students’ names and the class. (e.g.: Maria and Julia – K02)

·         - Save it public.

EXAMPLE:

·         - Teacher: “It’s a bucket.”

·         - Students: draw the bucket.

·         - Students record their voices saying: “It’s a bucket.”

·         - They pause.

·         - They go to the next slide.

Educreations puts the slides all together and makes a short video. They really enjoy watching their project and their classmates’ projects. Below you can see one example:

After class, the teacher can access the branch’s account and click on ‘Welcome, CTJ’. You’ll see all the projects saved. Click on the project you want to use and you’ll be able to share or embed it.

I have created a digital portfolio using the free pbworks WIKI - http://kidsteacherika.pbworks.com. On the WIKI, I created a page for each student and embedded their projects there. In the end of the month, I sent the link to the parents. Another idea (from Carla Arena) is to create a page for each project and send the link through “Registro Escolar” to all parents at once. This is a screenshot from one of my student’s page:

Teacher Talking Quality

Robert O’Neill has questioned a basic idea of EFL teaching that too much teacher talk is bad and therefore more 'student talk' can be achieved by reducing teacher talking time. In contrast, he introduces the idea of teacher talking quality; it’s not the time the teacher spends talking, but the quality of the teacher’s talk*. O’Neill certainly makes a valid point, yet it requires further elaboration.

First, the idea that decreasing teacher talking time (TTT) will increase student talking time (STT) needs to be addressed. One can imagine a teacher doing various things, e.g., telling stories, partaking in speaking activities, and giving instructions. Should a teacher avoid talking when it comes to piquing students’ interest; relaying some culturally relevant anecdotes; explaining how an activity is going to work?  I don’t see how a seasoned teacher could argue that TTT should be avoided when it comes to these situations.  TTT versus STT becomes important when considering speech which does not result in student learning. Such speech from teachers would therefore be lacking in quality and efficiency, but what does that look like?

STT and TTT have to do with time, which is easily measured. O’Neill has proposed the acronym TTQ (teacher talking quality). Quality in comparison to time is not quite as objective, which is why I believe the discussion of TTT x STT seems to be a recurrent theme in TEFL.  That’s not to say that quality can’t be measured. One could design a rubric for scoring the quality of teacher talk just as we’ve developed a scoring rubric for the writing assignments we give to our students. This TTT rubric should give points to a teacher who uses elicitation, gives practical and clear explanations, checks for understanding by asking concept questions, allows students to be responsible for their self-directing their speech, organizes students into speaking pairs or groups, and tolerates silence long enough to give students time to formulate a response. Likewise, this TTT rubric should take points away for a teacher who speaks for many minutes without elicitation, gives explanations full of terminology, transitions to an activity without first asking questions that check student comprehension, controls or dominates discussion to the point where students have limited involvement in the learning process, or impatiently reinitiates talk without giving students time to process so as to formulate a proper response.

Above all, teachers need to be humanistic and understand that although silence can be used as a technique in specific instances (allowing the student time to find their words), being silent all the time is not natural and doesn’t cater to everyone’s learning needs. Students who seek clarification or wish to share their experiences with the class should be welcomed with a warm response from the teacher. In fact, teacher talk can include current issues in comparison to dated textbooks or audio, disseminate relevant content, and fine-tune language to a level that is readily comprehensible based on that student’s level of language development. We also can’t forget that the teacher’s English is a source of input for our students to process both consciously and unconsciously.

 To summarize, it’s safe to say that there are some strong points to O’Neill’s argument for TTQ. When TTT is dry and monotonous, void of elicitation, or needlessly complicated, it becomes obvious why TTQ is so crucial.  That is not to say that TTT shouldn’t be limited at times when students are capable of some learner autonomy; they can guide their own discussions, which both further involves students in the learning process and develops their speaking skills when it comes to turn-taking or discovering the meaning of vocabulary or grammar rules for themselves. English classes can’t be all about the vocabulary and grammar, however.  Teacher talk is needed to build rapport with our students so that they not only learn the language but are given opportunities to use the language in ways that are meaningful and humanistic. In the end, it bodes well for the teacher who recognizes when it is necessary and not necessary to talk during class, duly combined with the idea that when TTT is warranted, it is done with our students’ learning needs in mind.

*Robert O'Neill – IATEFL, April 2004

Compositions and iPads in the Classroom

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/

I would like to start by pointing out that this post does not refer to essays, since they are too long and it would take forever to type 5 paragraphs on an iPad (at least for an old dog like me). However, if we are dealing with single paragraphs or shorter compositions, it works brilliantly. 

Let’s take the first composition topic of 3B, for example. The students are supposed to write about a place that they would recommend to tourists. The example in the book is the Great Wall of China, but students can choose any place they have visited, be it in Brazil or anywhere else in the world.

After handing out the iPads, you could start by asking them to find a picture of that place (using Flickr – creative commons pictures, for example). After that, they can start writing their paragraphs. They can check spelling and find alternative words using a Thesaurus dictionary. Also, they need to write about the history of the place and give suggestions to tourists. This could easily be done with the travel apps that we already have in our iPads, and/or with the help of Wikipedia.

In the end, they can send their final product straight to your email account. This activity will keep the students focused and they will have fun doing it. What a great way to refute the students’ preconception that compositions are boring.

By teacher André

iPad Tip of the Week - Kids Apps

Many teachers report that they fear taking the iPads to use with their kids because they might get wild, ipads might get dirty, might break... In fact, from what I´ve observed, it is quite the opposite. With a good lesson plan and classroom management, iPad classes with kids are a tremendous success with engaged and excited kids.

Teacher Fernanda Mello with a group of enthusiastic students using ipads for the first time

When teachers dare and take the iPads to class, they always mention how fun their classes were and how enthusiastic kids became with the mobile devices. Some of the little ones innocently even ask if they can take the iPads home!

 Did you know that we have a Kids folder in all iPads? We have apps to practice colors, the alphabet, shapes, stories, animals, numbers, transportation, food, besides the other ones for students to draw and write.

CTJ iPad Kids Folder 

Some classroom management tricks to work with ipads in a kids´ classroom:

- think of your pedagogical goal for the activity and check the choices of apps you are going to use

- test the app before your class

In class:

- Ask students to sit on the floor

- Give instructions and project on the board the steps to access the app 

- set the rules for good ipad use

- hand in the ipads

- carry out the activity

- consider the kind of follow up activity you will do with the students. It could be just asking questions and practicing with them, or if it is a drawing/project, there could be a show and tell moment. In this case, make sure everybody puts the ipads on the floor and close them as they listen to their peers. 

By taking these steps, your class will be a smashing hit!

So, I´d like to invite all of you to consider including an ipad activity the next time you prepare a class for your Kids, Kids Fun, Top Kids and Junior classes. Remember that the Ed Tech Monitors at your branch are ready to give you a hand to plan for an effective approach to using iPads in the classroom. 

App of the Week - Educreations

Educreations is one of those apps that are king in the classroom.
It is easy to use, really intuitive, and it gives a blank screen for students and teachers to record, draw, insert images.

Some activities that you can use Educreations for:

- students record examples of what they´ve learned
- students can talk about likes/dislikes, physical description of characters they draw...
- students can tell a story
- students can have a map in Educreations, one gives the directions, the other draws the way as they record the instructions to get to a place
- students can practice a dialogue
- students can interview each other and add images as they go along
- students can work on their book projects, drawing and recording a scene of the book
- teachers can use the app as an interactive whiteboard, even recording what they did as they explained something and then send it to the students
- teachers can record a lesson (explanations, tutorials) and send it to students

Learn how to use the tool and schedule some time during your lesson to add some Educreations fun to your classes:




Here are some examples of what teachers did with their students using educreations. Browse through the lessons our students and teachers have worked on in Educreations: http://www.educreations.com/profile/894009/?page=1

Browse through lessons from other teachers and students to get inspired at http://www.educreations.com/browse/

APPtivity of the Day - Using Dictionaries in the Classroom

Sometimes we think that we can only schedule to use the iPads when we feel confident enough, have practiced many times how to open, close, use the features in certain apps. We practice so much that we give up as insecurity increases exponentially when we give a thought about the students we have, the little time we have in our schedules, added to the responsibility of those devices in nervous hands.

WORRY NOT!

Ruben Puentedura´s model for tech incorporation can be a relief for teachers in the sense that it is OK to start with substitution practices that enhance the learning experience towards a more informed and bold move towards transformative uses of tech in the classroom.

So, instead of the distress of considering tech possibilities and never having the fearlessness to try it, start with a fun and very simple activity and then move on to more challenging activities. 

Did you know that in our CTJ iPads we have fantastic dictionaries you can use with your groups?

Here are some:

The first one on the list (LDOCE 5) is an expensive paid app which is worth every penny for the quality of its digital version - Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 5th Edition. 

You can´t imagine how much fun my teen students have had with this app. We searched for some words they were studying, I asked them to check the pronunciation of American x British English and to see if there was any relevant difference. They could see the words in use, including collocations and idiomatic expressions. 

The activity was nothing new, but the teens spent some minutes having fun with the language and exploring the possibilities of use. We then played a game in which I´d say the word, they needed to check the meaning and come up with an example different from the dictionary´s. 

Later in the semester, when they had to write paragraphs, they asked me if they could look up for synonyms in the dictionary! 

Now, if it worked with a rambunctious group of teens, imagine exploring the wonders of the dictionary use with our adult groups! You could explore high frequency words (identified in red in the app); you could have a treasure hunt, pronunciation work, definition game. The world of possibilities using digital dictionaries in class is simply limitless...In addition to making your lessons more engaging, your students will start noticing the possibilities of the devices they use in their daily lives to learn English. 

So, the first part of your tech integration ladder is done: substitution activities using a dictionary app. 

Ready for the challenge?

What kinds of activities with dictionaries do you envision with your groups?

Let us know when you plan a lesson using the dictionary apps and what the outcomes were. 

Tip: Dictionary.com is a very good free app that your students can download to their smartphones and tablets.

Setting Guidelines for IPad Usage in Class

I was browsing through my reader when I came across a short but relevant post on Eudemic. The author tells us  a short story to convey the message that every house has different practices, and that  teachers should not assume all our students will have been taught the same way to take care of the expensive devices we bring to class. One thing is for sure: we do want students to use the IPads to be creative and enjoy the lessons, but we also want them to be careful and keep the devices fully functioning. The solution? The post aforementioned suggests we clearly communicate device usage guidelines to students. I`ll download a larger sized version of the  graphic below available at Teachers Pay Teachers (free) because it is well designed and very informative, go over the rules with students and use the IPads happily ever after.

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/

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