Teaching inside Google Classroom

It was time to plan the review class for test 1 of my 3B group. This group of mine has 16 students enrolled and some of them are not as participatory as I'd like them to be. There is the worksheet that we always get in our boxes and which we can use for that particular class. In my head, just as, I believe, in many of my colleagues' heads, this is one of those classes that are usually expected to be exactly the way they have always been: students get the worksheet, they work on it, they compare answers, teacher checks it. It's either this or the other version of assigning it as homework beforehand.

This time, however, I wanted to try something new. Speaking to Ana Netto, I found out that herself, Bárbara Duarte and Talita Lima had been creating these digital tasks on Drive (forms, docs and quizzes) and had been willing to conduct a review class entirely inside Google Classroom. That's right. In class! So I decided to join them. Why not?

Ana shared the stuff they had already put together and I made some other things. In total, they were simple things like editable docs and google forms used as quizzes. I made these challenges in the form of assignments in Google Classroom and, instead of posting them, I scheduled them to be automatically posted at 2:20 p.m. on the day of the class. This way, my students wouldn't see it before the right time. Once they got to the classroom (the physical one), all these assignments previously scheduled had been posted.

Since many of them have the GC app in their mobiles, they arrived in class intrigued and curious, asking about this bunch of activities that had been posted there. The only thing I told them was "get your notebook and a pencil, and follow me". They all queued up behind me and did so. We went to the room next to the Resource Centre at the Lake Branch, the one with special desks that can be rearranged in any way.

There, I had them work in pairs. Each pair shared an ipad. They all accessed our Google Classroom and took up one challenge after the other. Each challenge had been numbered, so they just had to follow the order. As soon as a group had finished a challenge, I would release its answer key for that particular group in the classroom stream tab. The students would go back to the stream tab and check it. Then they would move on to the next challenge.

Would I do this again? Definitely yes. Why?

• The students were not only engaged but also very excited about doing the tasks. At times, they even celebrated for having chosen the right answers when they cheked the answer key.
• It was a completely self-paced class. Some students moved faster than others and had the chance to do other things at the end and extra activities in the book.
• I almost didn't feel my own presence in the room. I think the students felt more independent just by being in a different classroom set and teaching approach. By facing challenges, rather than a worksheet,  they didn't feel they had to report to me all the time. Because of that, the class was naturally student-centred.
• I believe my students had a greater sense of importance and urgency in this format than in the traditional one of doing a worksheet. As a result, they developed time management and collaboration skills as they pushed each other towards being more focused in order to finish the tasks. That definitely contrasts with previous experiences in which students would notably show reluctance and disinterest.
• I felt a way more fulfilled as a professional since I was finally able to help my students build their autonomy and potential in class.

In this experience, the students might never notice what we do: the fact that they don't care as much about getting the answer key after they've done the worksheet as they care about taking up challenges and being able to solve problems by themselves.

Lucas Gontijo

Public School Teacher Development Program - Graduation Speech

On March 10, we held a ceremony to celebrate the conclusion of the Public School Teachers' Development Program, a course designed and delivered by Casa Thomas Jefferson with a grant from the Regional English Language Office (RELO), U.S. Department of State. 

We would like to share with you the speech that Ana Paula Alves Torres da Costa gave on behalf of all of her colleagues. It summarizes what these professionals have gained from the program and how they plan to incorporate what they learned into their teaching. We are sure these teachers will have a great impact on their students' lives and we are honored to have had the chance to work with them. 

Here is the speech:

First of all, I would like to thank the American Embassy and Casa Thomas Jefferson for the opportunity we all had to know one another, to share experiences and to discuss so many relevant topics concerning our daily routine in our classrooms. It was a great moment in which my colleagues and I were aware of the needs and challenges one may face and discuss some possible solutions concerning the teaching and learning of a foreign language. We sure had a great time together! And we could speak English, above all, and it was amazing! After our initial discussions, which included what the best way of teaching English is, we were constantly challenged through the texts and their reported experiences on teaching English around the world.

Thus, all texts presented led to different reflections on our teaching practice. The use of authentic materials, for instance, was something that affected me in the beginning of my career, as I thought it was impossible to use such materials with our students. But you know what? I did not know the word adaptation at that time, so, for a long time, I gave up on using these materials.

During PSTDP, however, my colleagues and I had moments of strong reflections about our approaches in some issues. The teaching of vocabulary and grammar, for instance, has challenged us to teach these skills effectively in an inductive way. As a result, many texts were read and we have always looked for alternatives – either listening to one another, listening to other teachers’ suggestions or learning from other teachers’ readings around the world. In addition, our reflections on the use of listening and vocabulary tasks led us to conclude that they provide effective communication and can interfere directly in our students’ interests, motivation and comprehension. The use of vocabulary helps us communicate in a more effective way – it’s the key to communication.

That is where it finally led us to the final topic Breaking Habits. A good way to break habits depends on the kinds of activities we plan for our classes. It’s just one of the first steps to challenge our students in different ways. Learning can be fun, but to reach that, we need to go beyond our books. Some of us have tried working with games, songs, group work, comic strips, TV series, you can name it, and it was awesome! Students must identify themselves in the activities and, as a result, get deeply involved in the task.

All tasks developed during the course have helped us create alternative tasks to each one’s classroom practice, as we experienced so many times by our teacher’s guidance. I remember the pleasant atmosphere and how much we laughed together. Moments like this make our jobs memorable and rewarding. The PSTDP course certainly represented a way to improve and develop our English practice in order to make us reflective teachers and always willing to grow.

Moreover, it helped us identify learning problems and work on our students’ needs. In short, we have learned some important lessons: that all activities can be adapted to any level of instruction; we believe no activity is time consuming; and our students’ aims and motivation will differ and interfere in our daily practice. So, let’s make English meaningful for them! Let’s help them broaden their horizons and possibly show them new ways of life, despite their own reality. It has to do with getting a positive perspective of life and seeking new experiences, right? After all, learning a foreign language can lead our students to a life experience.

Finally, we assure our commitment in order to help our students to become critical thinkers so that they can become better citizens and motivate others to do so. Even in good days or bad days, facing troubles or looking for answers, let our students know English has changed our lives and can certainly change theirs! That is certainly a huge challenge, isn’t it? Way to go!

Learning Styles as Myth

by Rosana Garcia (Writing for Teachers)

People learn in different ways and educators have to be aware of it when planning classes. Therefore, teachers must match their teaching styles with their students’ learning styles to achieve a significant learning (Doyle and Rutherford, 1984).

These are some of the ideas that have become very popular among learning style researchers. There are over 71 different theory models. The most common theory is related to sensory preferences, by Walter Burke Barbe (1926). The modalities can be divided into three main areas: visual, auditory and kinesthetic (movement-oriented). Visual learners absorb information by taking notes and observing the body language and facial expression from the teachers. Auditory learners are more sensitive to tone of voice, pitch, speed and other nuances; they learn best through talking, discussing, listening to lectures and reading aloud. Kinesthetic learners learn best by executing physical activities and can be easily distracted if they sit still for long periods.

Another well-known theory related to experiential learning, developed by David A. Kolb (1984, as cited by Putintseva, 2006), is rearranged into Accommodator, Converger, Diverger and Assimilator. These four approaches form a learning cycle from experience, to observation, to conceptualization, to experimentation, and back to experience.  

A personality-based model was built by B. McCarthy and H. Gardner (1990, as cited by Putintseva, 2006), who identified four learning styles: innovative, analytic, common sense and dynamic. Innovative learners aim for personal meaning while learning, whereas Analytic learners are reflective on facts and aim for intellectual development. Common sense learners aim for practical and straightforward solutions, while Dynamic learners make use of deductive thinking for hidden possibilities.

Although these theories of learning style seem valid at first, some well-respected researchers have debated their limitations and utility. Robert A. Bjork and colleagues (1999, p. 105) claim that “any credible validation of learning-styles-based instruction requires robust documentation of a very particular type of experimental finding with several necessary criteria.” They add that “an important feature of processing in a specific cognitive style is that when one encounters a stimulus that is presented in a non-preferred modality, one mentally converts that information into his or her preferred modality.” Stephen Downes (2009, as cited by Finley, 2015), considers the learning style approach “very narrow and based on a narrow "instructivist" definition of teaching as a form of instruction to produce content recall.”

There are few studies that have provided enough evidence for learning styles as valid, but many studies that prove these theories as myth. According to Christian Jarrett (2015), the learning style is still widely believed because teachers like to think they are sensitive to their students’ needs. Besides, it is more comforting to rely on the success or failure of a class based on a wrong teaching style.

I believe that, by observation, interaction and engagement in different activities, teachers can get the most of their students regardless of their learning preferences. Teachers should challenge their students to go beyond their comfort zone of learning. This could be achieved by offering a range of activities within a learner-centered, communicative approach. 

References:

Tatyana Putintseva - The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XII, No. 3, March 2006.

Rebecca L. Oxford - Learning Styles & Strategies/Oxford, GALA 2003.

Joy M. Reid - TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 21, No. 1, March 1987.

Christian Jarrett (2015) - https://www.wired.com/2015/01/need-know-learning-styles-myth-two-minutes

Todd Finley, 2015 - https://www.edutopia.org/article/learning-styles-real-and-useful-todd-finley

Walter Doyle and Barry Rutherford - Theory Into Practice Vol. 23, No. 1, Winter 1984 

Walter B. Barbe - Psychology and education of the gifted, 1926.

H. Pashler, M. McDaniel, D. Rohrer, and R. Bjork - Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence, Vol. 9, No. 23, 1999.

Google tools help me deliver better classes

Google tools help me deliver better classes

Google tools are here to enhance our classes by allowing us to come up with creative solutions and alternatives that will make lessons a lot more real and interesting to the students.

For instance, for my Access class last Friday, my students were working on Present Simple questions on food vocabulary, such as “Does Linda like potatoes?” and “What does she have for breakfast?”.

Instead of just doing what the book suggests, that is, having them turn to their peers and ask random questions as they look at the pictures in the book, I decided to use a Google Form that I had created previously, containing only the name of each food in the questions. They accessed the form through the link bit.ly/doyoulikefood. You can also take a look.

My students, then, used the iPads and went on interviewing each other, marking the answers on the form and finally submitting it. They switched roles so that everybody would interview and be interviewed. Important detail: the first question in the form was “What’s your name?”. That would allow me to take my students’ experience to a final follow-up.

As soon as they all finished interviewing each other and submitted their responses, I opened the Google Spreadsheet that had been previously selected by me as the destination to which their answers would be sent. The spreadsheet contained one first column with their names and the next ones with each answer recorded by them about their personal tastes on food. To view it, click here.

Believe me, it was an awesome feeling of fulfilment to see their expressions of surprise when they realised that their personal answers had been saved somewhere and that I was projecting them on the screen. By then, I had already written some prompts on the board that would help students form questions and engage in conversations with their peers.

My next move was to model the next activity by showing them that they could ask questions about somebody in the spreadsheet and find the answers to the questions there. I randomly picked one of my name cards and asked a question about the selected student: “Does Maria like Chinese food?”. Everybody’s eyes turned towards the spreadsheet and they were all able to deliver the answer quickly: “No, she doesn’t”.

After having my students pick a random name card, they worked in pairs asking and answering questions about a third classmate as they used the prompts and analysed the spreadsheet on the screen.

The fact that Google Forms can collect answers and immediately save them in a Google Spreadsheet is only one of the captivating features that Google Tools for Education offer. There is so much more that can be facilitated in class through their use. If you still haven’t found out what you are capable of through them, why don’t you have a try at it?

Lucas Gontijo

The 1st THOMAS Google Certified Educator Level 1 Bootcamp

Teacher Fernanda Oliveira tells us about the Thomas GCE Level 1 Bootcamp.

Taking part in the Google Certified Educator Bootcamp was a very rewarding experience.  There were lots of fascinating insights into the Google tools and the different and innovative ways of using them with our students. We not only had the chance to learn about the GSuite tools, but also to share ideas on our online classroom and during our face-to-face meeting.

We began the Bootcamp by doing 13  online tasks  and  Clarissa also assigned extra tasks so that we could have the chance to practice and learn a bit more. It was gratifying to realize the possibilities of collaborative and creative work students can do by using the GSuite tools.

Our face-to-face meeting  was also full of insights (and fun!). We had planned to work on 18 challenges in the morning and in the afternoon that day, but we were able to do everything within 3 hours. With the support and guidance of Clarissa, Leonardo and Paola, we worked collaboratively and did not leave anyone behind that day. We were exhausted, but very proud of what we had accomplished in the end.

Lots of creative and innovative ideas popped up during the Bootcamp and we are  looking forward to using them to make a positive and meaningful difference in our students’ lives next semester. The sky is the limit, Google Educators!

Fernanda Oliveira

Engish as a World Language

Raquel Cunha

(Blog Post written as a final assignment for the course Writing for Teachers)

Because of globalization, the English language has become part of our everyday lives (we see it in labels, TV commercials, jobs, studies, internet, outdoors etc.). English has no longer been defined by the number of people who speak it, but how powerful and influential it is in the world. This is due, mostly, to the power that the countries that speak it have, not only economically and academically, but also in the entertainment business and culture. Now, some questions that we may ask ourselves are: “Who does the English language belong to?”  “Is there a right way to pronounce it?”, “Does every country have their own English?”, “How does Brazil fall in the world of English?”

Before we go any further, it is important to know what process took place in order for the language to become what it is today. Taking into consideration that a language is a living thing, which is born, grows, evolves and may even die, we should also understand that it influences a person’s personality, and a culture may also influence its language.

The English language came to be around the V century, developed by the Anglo –Saxons. Along its history, it incorporated elements from other languages, including Latin. Though it is a very influential language today, it wasn’t always so. For a very long time, English was restricted only to the British territory and French was the lingua franca used for trade and diplomatic deals. However, with the expansion of the British territory, English was imposed on people who lived in their colonies (HOWATT, 2004).

Today, English is considered a world language or a lingua franca, which means that it is the language of common communication between different nations. It is the language that is used on the Internet, in movies, in music, on businesses, for diplomacy, for international politics, and it is the key to a successful trade.  It has become that most taught language outside its country of origin.

Although you may say that the English language belongs to the countries that have it as their mother tongue, this statement is not entirely true. It can also be seen as a successful resource for speakers of other languages to communicate with each other. So, the English language today belongs to the world. Gimenez (2006) states that it is necessary to make a disconnection between English and specific countries because speaking and being like a native is not something necessary. There are a variety of Englishnes in the world.

The influence that the language has in some countries is so great that a study conducted by EF EPI in 2016 has shown that their people have ranked very highly in fluency. However, they have added their own accent, which can be recognized easily. Thus, it is important to remember that there is not a right accent of English. Many are accepted and people should not be embarrassed or afraid of it.

We, Brazilians, can also see the influence of the mother language in our intonation when speaking English. It influences rhythmically, musically, and also in the jokes and cultural aspects. It is something that we, Brazilians, should not worry about and, instead, we should embrace it as our trademark and a positive influence upon a language.

However, a study conducted by EF EPI shows that Brazil still ranks way behind in the fluency of English. Out of 72 countries, we rank number 40 in fluency, falling behind Argentina, which ranks number 20 (the best in all Latin America). This means that we are still not very influential and this also may restrict our economic and business relations with the rest of the world.

This low rank may be due to many factors, one of them being the precarious public school system. A high level of functional illiteracy in the country may also limit the learning of a new language. The study also showed that women in Brazil are slightly ahead of men when it comes to dedication and fluency. On the other hand, the same research showed that Brazil has started to make small and recent changes to improve this situation.

Now, here are some questions that we can reflect upon on the subject, “World English”: What are some of the patterns that you have noticed in the spoken English of the Brazilian speaker? Have you noticed the influence in any other nation’s accents (that does not have English as their official language) in entertainment, in culture or even in business? How important is it for a nation to be fluent in the international language in order to grow economically?

References:

EF Education First: http://www.ef.com.br/epi/ June 21, 2017.

Howatt, Anthony Philip Reid, and Henry George Widdowso (2004). A history of ELT. Oxford University Press.

Gimenes, Telma (2006). English in a New World Language Order. Londrina UEL

Why we should teach the five-paragraph essay

Maurício Peixoto
(Essay written for the course Writing for Teachers)

In the course Writing for Teachers, students asked to work on writing for exams. To make this a type of meta-assignment, they were given references in favor and against the five-paragraph essay and had to to write a five-paragraph essay expressing their point of view on the topic.  Here is Maurício Peixoto's essay, which he chose as his best piece for the course. 

Why does the five-paragraph essay cause so much discussion among some teachers? In fact, it is used in most standardized exams such as the TOEFL and the CPE, so students must be well prepared to take them. On the other hand, there are educators who think that this kind of essay is not effective. The point is that teachers are supposed to prepare students to succeed in writing every sort of genres, the five-paragraph essay included.

Students have to be able to take proficiency tests properly. They also need to learn how to write a 5-PE because it is a well-organized way to structure their ideas. In addition, they follow a pattern of writing without spoiling their creativity, once students are allowed and encouraged to expose their ideas about a topic. Writing this kind of essay enables students to learn the conventions of writing, which will lead them to get ready for producing other genres as well.

In contrast, students are exposed to situations that require a different approach. They will probably be asked to write a report at work or a letter of complaint to some company, for example, and a 5-PE will not be effective. Focusing on the format and structure of a 5-PE, the students might not be able to write different genres and they may have their creativity blocked. Having that in mind, teachers need to have genre awareness and provide students with it too.

It is clear that learning how to organize and structure the ideas is fundamental; however, it is also important to be able to deal with the several writing demands. Teachers should continue teaching how to write a 5-PE so students can be able to take standardized exams and succeed in them. They also have to learn how to write different genres. There is no reason to exclude the 5-PE, nor teaching this genre only. It is a matter of balance. 

In conclusion, there are arguments in favor and against teaching the 5-PE. Students must be genre aware and the five-paragraph essay is one of them. It is also a good starting point to learn the other ones. The discussion about whether to teach it or not leads to nowhere. It has to be taught due to its importance on international exams, and also because it confines students’ ideas and focuses them on the structure of writing. On the other hand, other genres have to be present in writing courses so students can succeed in all real-life situations they face. 

Belonging to a Global Tribe of Connected Educators

Last Friday, October 20, I had the pleasure to facilitate a session in the Braz-TESOL Brasília Half-Day Seminar. Fellow teacher Leonardo Sampaio partnered up with me in this session called “Become Google Certified Awesome!” The purpose of our session was to demonstrate a little bit of the impact that becoming Google Certified Educators has had in our classes. It was a hands-on session, which took some participants by surprise, for some of them might have been expecting to hear us talk about the Google certification process, hence the title of the session. But we like to surprise people, so off we went on a collaborative 45-minute journey. (Quick and intense! Phew!)

Participants worked in trios, and each trio had an Ipad. They went into a Google Classroom we created especially for the session and were asked to discuss what 21st-century is, in their view, and how digital tools may facilitate 21st-century learning in the EFL classroom. After discussing within their groups, they had to write down a summary of their thoughts in the discussion stream of the task. Groups were then invited to read what other groups wrote in the discussion (inside their Google Classroom) and respond by writing comments.

The next task enticed participants’ creativity, for they had to access a collaborative Google Slides presentation, locate their group’s slide containing a crazy and unique image, and discuss what they thought had not gone as expected in the image. They had to write down a statement in response to that question about their image. Once they were done with that, groups were invited to look at other groups’ slides and write down 3rd conditional sentences inspired by the situation statements.

We finished our 45-minute session with a great video about 21s Century Learning and the 4 C’s. We asked participants to reflect on the tasks and activities they had engaged throughout the session to identify whether the 4 C’s had come up in their experience together, to which they said “Yes!” At the end of the session, Leonardo and I shared our views on how becoming Google Certified Educators has impacted our teaching practices and the learning experiences we facilitate in our classrooms. We feel that the very process of studying the units in the Google Training Center, which were made by teachers for teachers, helped us get in touch with a million ways teachers all around the world have been applying these tools in their classrooms in order to enhance the 4 C’s.

And what’s more, for me, the most valuable thing in having become Google Certified Trainer is to become part of a community of educators who are committed to facilitating learning experiences that help our students become global collaborators and creators of knowledge. After all, it’s never about the tech, it’s about the learning. It’s never about the tool, it’s about the pedagogy and, above all, it’s ALWAYS about the people.

Visual Literacy

Luis Francisco Dantas

(Final assignment for the course Writing for Teachers)

According to Kress & van Leeuwen (2006), expressing something verbally or visually makes a difference. Thus, in an era of multiliteracies, teaching ELLs how to read, interpret, analyze and synthesize information via visual input is imperative. Individuals use a variety of means in order to communicate.  This way, skills in the realm of visual literacy have proven to be essential.  In modern times, they may tend to be a matter of survival, especially in the workplace and academic environments. This is not different in the field of language learning.

Despite all the appeal means of communication dispense to imagery and visual design, EFL/ESL students still need to be aware that images, written language, and speech are realized differently. More and more, visual literacy is seen as an essential part of instruction for multimodal learning. Like linguistic structures, visual structures point to particular interpretations of experience and to forms of social interactions (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 2).

It is also essential to analyze visual literacy from a neuroscientific perspective. According to Zull (2002), our brain is a "seeing" brain, so educators need to understand the power of visually-rich classes to facilitate learning through concrete examples that rely on the many different sources of imagery.

Along more than twenty years in the field of teaching English as a foreign language, I could notice that the ability to read images was something my students seemed to benefit a lot from. But where to start? How to introduce this kind of teaching into our pedagogy? Would the syllabus and the tight schedules allow me to introduce these notions into our teaching programs? I must confess these were my biggest worries at the time I started teaching English through art and visuals, along with regular course books and handouts. Confessions apart, I admit it was a tough decision, but at the same time, I must say it was also the best I have ever taken in my career. At the beginning it was mostly an attempt to explore the world of culture and the beauty of visual arts. Eventually, it became a desire to show my students that a language is much more than its written or spoken expression.

Through the use of art in the classroom, learners are taught that by reading images, they can explore different kinds of messages and their meanings. Moreover, in many occasions, pupils are free to create their own narratives regarding what they see and explore their knowledge of the world and creativity in meaningful tasks. They are encouraged to understand that art pieces are also seen as texts to be analyzed and understood.

Teaching through visuals is deeply rooted in the idea that images are also seen as complex visual signs (SANTAELLA, 2012), whose elements are initially perceived simultaneously, but that need a gradual and more detailed analysis in order to have their meanings unveiled. According to Santaella (2012), images are cognitive elaborations that need to be interpreted and read. Taking this notion of text into account, I have been working with a variety of images and exposing my students to pieces of work encompassing different fields of the arts.

We have experienced classes with the livelihood of Kandisnky’s shapes, traveled through the surrealism and dreams of Salvador Dali, the mystery of Da Vinci’s Monalisa, the appeal of Picasso’s Guernica and the piercing colors of Frida. Above all, we have done all this promoting the use of English as our main means of communication. Throughout the years I can also notice how much we can do for our students in order to make them widen their horizons in the sense of acquiring general culture, as well as expressing their own feelings and impressions more openly and confidently using the lens of art. I have also seen children shifting from boredom to impulses of joy and creativity while exposed to pieces of art such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night, being also able to create their own representation of it and share this experience with their peers.

One of the theoretical constructs in which this teaching approach is based has to do with the concept of multimodality. According to Iedema (2003), this term was introduced aiming at reaffirming the importance of taking into account the semiotic modes that go beyond written language, such as imagery, music, gestures, among others. This way, images contain a series of aspects which can be perfectly explored in a language class and that will make students learn more effectively and experience meaningful communicative situations. This has been true in all the classes in which I proposed the study of imagetic representations. Students are able to explore the colors, the various characters in the paintings, the perspective and different angles chosen by the artists to tell their stories through art works.

The concept of ressemiotization, which consists of the transference of the works of art from their original context, such as art galleries or museums, and  their consequent adaptation to teaching environments, has made the process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language more colorful, more meaningful and, consequently, more effective in terms of learning results.

References:

Iedema, Rick. Multimodality, resemiotization: Extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual communication, 2003

Kress, G, & Van Leeuwen, T. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. New York: Routledge, 2006

Santaella, L. Leitura de imagem. São Paulo: Melhoramentos, 2012

Zull, James E. The art of changing the brain enriching the practice of teaching by exploring the biology. Learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC ,2002.

CONFIDENCE BUILDERS

In Hearts in Atlantis(2001), another movie adapted from a Stephen King’s novel, a kid, Bobby Garfield, has his summer adventures guided by this strange old man, Ted Brautigan, who happened to run away from some people called “low men”, who were secret service officers. This is an extract from one of their conversations:

Bobby: Ted, "my father never bought a drunk a drink". What does that mean exactly?

Ted: It means he was a good man, he was honest, and he never added to the troubles of the world. Okay?

The more I live, the closer I get to the feeling we all should try to never add to the troubles of the world. As teachers, we are in touch with lots of people; each one, a universe in himself. How can we go about doing our business in a world which is so increasingly busy? How can we ourselves handle our own personal and professional issues, and yet not add to the problems of this crazy corner of the galaxy?

In my opinion, patience is the most important tool for a teacher nowadays. Of course, it’s always been in every good professional’s toolkit. Nevertheless, more than ever, it has worked wonders to save me from potentially troublesome situations in the classroom. But patience is too abstract a concept to explain, isn’t it? It’s there when you stop and listen to your students. I mean, listen. Not pretend you do while you’re thinking of the next question. There is a difference and your students, like any human being, feel that. Also, it’s there when you are flexible in your activities. By giving people a chance to catch up, you can make them do an exercise or retake a test. In the end, it’s better for the learning process than if you just give him or her a zero. What if you’re pressed by time constraints related to bureaucratic work that needs to be done? Check if you can do what you have to and then fix the student’s score. Flexibility shows your students that you’re in tune with this overwhelming lifestyle we all share.

My students did not do homework? Zero. But, why punish them again in their participation, if they’re going to get a lower grade for not being exposed to the material taught? Why punish them now if life is going to do this in time, either in their academic or in their professional field? Why get overly stressed over this here? Tell them this. It works for me. Not immediately, though. In the end, this is education, what works out immediately in education? So, why not take time, too, in the classroom to listen to your students’ interests and build your class around what they bring up in these conversations? While preparing your classes, leave some room for pockets of conversations, in which you can tell a personal story and be the role model your students need. Relax. If you want them to feel comfortable, they have to feel you are, too. Otherwise, you’ll sound fake. And they need to trust you. They won’t trust one who doesn’t do as he says.

We are, in essence, confidence builders. Rapport is the technical word for it. If you don’t have it, learning takes place, but not so easily. Being kind is one of the ways to build rapport with your students. Be real. Tell them about your difficulties day in day out, and they will relate with them. In addition, don’t take for granted that every time a student fails, it was because they didn’t study. Everybody has their priorities, and if his choice didn’t work out, it would be better if you helped him come up with some better alternative for the next test or unit.

The heart of the matter is we all could benefit from a little humanity. All around us, it seems the world is getting crazier. By giving your students a chance of experiencing a lighter atmosphere both in the classroom and in their academic life, we can make a difference. In other words, not add to the troubles of the world. (Text written by Themer Bastos, August, 9th, 2017)

Teaching Writing with Global Intermediate: an analysis of the features of its writing activities

Here is another coursebook recommendation report, this time written by Lucas Gontijo Silva, for the course Writing for Teachers. Do you agree with him?

1.   Introduction

Global Intermediate is the coursebook currently used in the second part of the intermediate course at Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brasília, DF. The book is filled with activities that focus on all four skills of language competence: listening, reading, speaking and writing. However, when we carefully analyse and test its use on a regular basis, we are able to confirm that some activities fall short: the ones that focus on writing.

Although the book provides extra writing lessons (pp 16, 28, 40, 52, 64, 76, 88, 100, 112 and 124), it still does not equip students with the necessary material to help them work on their writing skills within the regular lessons carried out in the course. The intermediate course at Casa Thomas Jefferson does not include those pages on its syllabus. As a result, the coursebook in question cannot be sufficient in order to meet the needs of a skills-based course that also has to focus on writing.

Effective and fruitful writing activities can be recognized in a coursebook that is meaningful for the students who make use of it, a coursebook that is genre-based, a coursebook that provides them with scaffolding and planning for writing, a coursebook that contains good models and authentic texts, and a coursebook that is furnished with follow-up activities.

2.   Background

The intermediate Course at Casa Thomas Jefferson is mostly an environment for young students that range from the age of 13 to the age of 17. The students at issue are characterized by having quite an amount of school load and some extracurricular activities. They usually demonstrate more facility with the passive skills, i.e. reading and listening. However, some of them also struggle with those skills, besides speaking and writing. They are also at a stage in which they are still forming social and academic competencies, such as punctuality, responsibility and respect. Because of that, teachers commonly have to deal with homework neglection and deviant behaviour.

Taking this audience into account, writing activities must be able to catch students’ interest and prove their relevance and immediate applicability to the students’ lives. As follows, I will point out specific criteria that should be considered while examining the quality of the writing activities of a coursebook and will also analyse Global Intermediate in view of it.

   

3.   Literature Review

Many things must be considered when we think of what makes a language teaching course good and effective. When it comes to teaching writing, there are mainly five aspects that should be considered in an EFL skills-based course: whether the approach is genre-based, the use of scaffolding, the use of follow-up activities, the presence and usage of good modelling and, finally, whether writing is meaningful and relevant to the students.

A.  An approach to genres in writing

A genre-based approach to teaching writing is essential in order to create language awareness in our students. As Reppen states (2002), after analysing different types of texts and their distinct characteristics, students are able to thrive as writers, assess their own pieces of writing, and engage in peer-feedback more productively. According to her (p. 323), through genre-guided activities, students manage to see different texts from different perspectives, taking the writers’ purposes and the readers’ needs into account.

B.  Scaffolding

Hyland (2007) affirms that scaffolding directly relates to interaction between peers, which enables them to grasp the activities better. As claimed by him (p. 158), as students interact and discuss the topic through scaffolding, they develop an independence from their teacher’s “direct instruction”. Widdowson (1978) also expresses the great value of scaffolding by describing it as a “gradual approximation”. Students, therefore, become better writers when they are “actively encouraged to follow through a series of preparatory steps” (Scrivener, 1994, p. 157) producing then the final piece of writing.

C.  Follow-up

Another important aspect about teaching writing is the implementation of follow-up activities, that is, those that are done after the students have produced their pieces of writing. The writing process is not finished, and the students are encouraged to evaluate each other’s texts. Seow (2002) affirms that that strategy is a means to stimulate a sense of responsibility in them.

D.  Meaningful writing

Hyland (2007) also explains that the genre approach helps teachers plan their classes around themes or like real-life activities. Writing in order to specifically do or achieve something is what raises students’ interest and makes them see a meaningful purpose in writing. As maintained by the professor, this approach helps students learn beyond mere abilities and competencies; it makes them assimilate contextual and social elements that involve one specific genre.

E.  Modelling

Finally, the use of good models and authentic material is another extremely important aspect in teaching writing. Students benefit from being exposed to real texts and from having authentic models that inspire and encourage them to engage in writing. According to Al Azri and Al-Rashdi (2014), authentic texts “expose students to real language”, “meet learners’ needs”, “affect learners’ motivation positively” and “present authentic information about culture”, amongst other reasons.

Conclusion

All the literature mentioned above concurs in regarding writing highly and seeing it as a fundamental part of a language course. The various elements that are necessary to compound high-quality teaching or determine a great coursebook can be easily identified when it comes to writing. Such elements must be avidly pursued in order to encourage and uphold a good practice of the teaching of writing.

4.   Analysis of Data

When we bear in mind a skills-based course, we cannot overlook the skill of writing. Successful writing relies on the fulfillment of certain criteria. Coursebooks must be carefully analysed and questioned according to these criteria so that we make sure that their use concerning writing is effective and productive in a language course.

A.  Meaningful material

The age group that uses the book and the interests that surround students’ lives should be taken into account when taking a close look at the coursebook. Global Intermediate has, therefore, proven to be a book directed towards an older audience. Many teachers at the school have stated that when they go through some lessons, such as Unit 3, part 2 and Unit 5, part 2, the students tend to react in the same way, with lack of enthusiasm and boredom. This is so because young teenagers do not naturally have interest in energy sources or government collocations (the central topics of the lessons mentioned above). When it comes to the writing activities, this reality aggravates the problem, since students do not have a sufficient stimulus to engage in the writing tasks. Assignments such as writing a comment on an online science magazine can be difficult and uninteresting for students at that age.

B.  Genre-based material

Another aspect that should be appraised is whether the coursebook makes use of genre-oriented tasks. Whether the activities within the lessons provide students with contextualized tasks in which they can see the purpose of writing is extremely important. When students are told to write solely to improve their writing skills, the activity has an end in itself and becomes pointless from their perspective. There has to be a purpose in writing that relates directly to students’ lives and interests, and genre-based writing lessons are those which deliver the context and the sense of reality that students need.

The writing tasks in Global Intermediate, however, do not comprehend this strategy. The lesson tasks usually involve forming questions, writing lists or a general comment or paragraph about something. That means that students are not guided on how to write authentic texts that are used in specific contexts.

C.  Scaffolding and Planning

Good writing lessons also include scaffolding and planning. In other words, the lessons have to naturally welcome students into the writing task, rather than surprise them with an assignment that they are not ready to do. The activities must be conducted in a way that the students are gradually prepared for the assignment, and that is why instructions regarding planning must also be part of the lesson.

Unfortunately, the lessons in Global Intermediate do not bring scaffolding and planning strategies before the writing tasks. The instructions just usually tell students to write a piece of writing after they have discussed something that relates to the lesson, which is not the necessary process that students have to go through so as to produce a text with quality. Good scaffolding involves guiding students with regard to the context, the purpose, the content and the form of the text, to put it briefly. Also, the students are not given any orientation concerning outlining, map-minding or other planning strategies.

D.  Modelling with authentic texts

Since the writing tasks mostly orientate students to write a comment or a paragraph, a lack of modelling with authentic texts can be spotted in Global Intermediate as well. Although students are provided with catchy images and appealing layouts in the reading activities that usually precede the ones on writing, they still do not have great models for their own pieces of writing (predominantly comments and paragraphs). After having read texts that somehow relate to the lessons, the students are not encouraged to produce something similar to the only model that has been given in the lesson.

E.  Follow-up Activities

Finally, an effective coursebook that helps students work on their writing skills must contain at least one effectual follow-up activity through which pupils can give and get valuable peer-feedback. That is so because, otherwise, the writing section of coursebooks will always end up becoming homework assignments or assessments and students will never have the chance to actually exchange knowledge and ideas with their peers. The activities that focus on writing need to be made an essential part of the course and must be regarded by teachers and students as highly as the others that emphasize different skills. The writing activities within the lessons in Global Intermediate only instruct students to read their compositions to each other and then say whether they agree with their peers. That is not enough for the aim of developing students’ writing skills and language awareness.

5.   Outcomes

Although Global Intermediate does have a section entirely dedicated to writing after each unit, it does not have writing activities within the lessons. Since the course carried out at Casa Thomas Jefferson does not include such sections, it does not provide students with effective and productive activities concerning the skill of writing. It definitely lacks high-quality scaffolding and planning exercises, as well as follow-up activities. It also does not contain meaningful and appealing writing tasks when we consider the specific audience that makes use of it. Finally, modelling and authentic texts are not always present as well, which makes the students confused and unprepared to produce the pieces of writing that are suggested through the lessons.

Therefore, looking only and closely at its writing activities, I recommend the discontinuation of Global Intermediate as the coursebook for the intermediate course at Casa Thomas Jefferson.

References

Al Azri, R. and Al-Rashdi, M. (2014). The Effect of Using Authentic Materials in Teaching. International Journal of Science and Technology Research, 3(10), pp. 249-254.

Hyland, Ken. (2007) Genre pedagogy: Language, literacy and L2 writing instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16, 148–164

Reppen, R. (2002). A Genre-Based Approach to Content Writing Instruction. In J. Richards & W. Renandya (Eds.). Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice (pp. 321-327). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Scrivener, Jim. (1994). Learning Teaching. The Teacher Development Series Editor: Adrian Underhill. Oxford, UK: Heinemann.

Seow, A. (2002). The writing process and process writing. In J. C. Richards & W. A. Renandya (Eds.). Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice (pp. 315-320). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Widdowson, H. (1978). Teaching language as communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.