“Interaction Online”: Book Review

“Interaction Online: Creative activities for blended learning”

I was excited to receive one of the latest publications from Cambridge University Press, Interaction Online . The book is co-authored by Lindsay Clandfield, who has written other titles including the successful Global coursebook series, as well as Jill Hadfield, who has written the recognisable photocopiable resources: Communication Games . As with other Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers series, this latest publication is edited by Scott Thornbury.

“Interaction Online” is aimed for teachers who are keen to incorporate an aspect of online interaction as part of their course. It also encourages use with not just face-to-face courses but also with online or blended learning courses. As you read further into the Introduction of the book, the authors focus on interaction and tools to promote online interaction. These suggested tools include message or chat services such as WeChat or WhatsApp, audio or video tools such as FaceTime or Skype as well as discussion forums or message boards. The Introduction is logically organised and well paced with suitable information for any reader who is keen to implement an element of online interaction with their course. The final section of the Introduction provides a comprehensive breakdown of suggested interactive online activities in their corresponding chapters: ‘Personal interaction‘ (Chapter 2), ‘Factual interaction‘ (Chapter 3), ‘Creative interaction‘ (Chapter 4), ‘Critical interaction‘ (Chapter 5) and ‘Fanciful interaction‘ (Chapter 6).

The initial Chapter which looks at ‘Setting up and managing online interaction‘, looks at platforms for consideration when developing online facilities to support student-to-student online interaction: do you use social media sites (Facebook, or Google +) or do you use a devoted virtual learning environment (VLE) such as Edmodo or Moodle? This chapter further considers rules of use for an online community, encouraging participants to post profile photos or having clear instructions for tasks. It is very thorough and supportive and it will require readers a period to reflect and then incorporate suggested ideas when developing a system for online interaction.

Within Chapters 2-6, each lesson suggestion is accompanied with detailed aims, levels, timing, staging and the preparation required. Readers can follow the procedure given with the lesson. Some of the suggested lessons throughout the chapters include a variation on the task which readers could incorporate to personalise the lesson. Chapter 2, ‘Personal interaction‘, focuses on the interaction of personal information such as sharing personal stories, sharing photos or reacting naturally to such information. There are 13 lesson ideas within this particular chapter and my favourite lesson within this chapter is “Finish my sentence” (p.34-35), whereby students are prompted with the start of a sentence, ‘After class I’m going to …‘, and they must complete the end of the sentence about themselves.

The following chapter, which focuses on ‘Factual interaction‘, involves the sharing of information on a factual topic. There are 19 lesson ideas such as finding out information about a festival or presenting information about a country. This focus of lessons could accompany exam preparation quite well, particularly for the reading and writing elements of an exam such as IELTS or FCE.

Chapter 4, ‘Creative interaction‘, encourages interaction between students to create a story, poem or advert. There are, just as in the previous chapter, 19 lesson suggestions which the reader could use in class. The ideas behind this chapter focus on projects and tasks which are familiar especially with young learners: “Design a festival” (p.94-95), “Art Monologues (creating a story from portraits or pictures)” (p.85-86) as well as many other tasks. Yet, Chapter 5, ‘Critical interaction‘, essentially encourages students to voice their opinion or ranking items or ideas, a total of 15 topics. You have the common ideas such as a “Balloon debate” (p.127-129), “Making improvements” (p.137) or “Cause and consequence” (p.154-155). Most of these tasks take a period of a week or so.

The final chapter for online lesson activities, ‘Fanciful interaction‘, involves students in role-plays or rewriting parts of a story with interactive activities such as “Fairy tale rewrite” (p.166-167) or “Murder mystery” (p.171-173). There are 13 suggested tasks within this chapter a reader could incorporate online.

Chapter 7, ‘Feedback and assessment‘, focuses on the use of online feedback and assessment, with ideas about how to go about delivering feedback. There are some useful thoughts about how feedback could encourage or promote online interaction as well as error correction techniques. The final chapter within the book, ‘Task Design‘ suggests different ways the reader could create their own tasks to generate useful and invaluable online interaction. It is logically structured and readers will be guided with some choices to consider before creating personalised tasks for students.

Overall, the latest publication further supports previous series by Cambridge University Press associated with technology such as Language Learning with Technology or Language with Digital Video . If you are a teacher who is keen to develop confidence and techniques associated with online teaching or online courses, then this book would be one to get.

Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers

Why No Asian Face?

No Asian Face

You would think in this day and age with technology, the internet and people travelling around the world more than ever before that people would be more exposed to those from a range of different backgrounds, colours and creeds. Unfortunately, from a recent job advertisement on Ajarn Recruit, it is not the case. There is currently a job advert seeking an English teacher, but their main require: “no Asian face“!

We want you to be part of our teaching TEAM. We treat all team members with care and respect and want this to be a rewarding experience for all who join us, even if only for a year.

It is appalling that the recruitment website hasn’t taken the advert down and that the organisation seeking a teacher, which prides itself on treating “all team members with care and respect“, is willing to assess an applicant based upon their ethnicity rather than their suitability or experience to do the job.

China is currently a wonderful country to teach in and as more and more organisations and schools in this fantastic country seek English speaking teachers, it shouldn’t lose the fact that English teachers can be from different countries whose first language is not English but can also be different ethnicities. Not all English speakers are white. In the UK, there are indeed a huge Asian community. Is this school really seeking to isolate itself against one ethnicity? Do they really think that if they employ an English teacher who is Asian that it would have a negative impact on the school? If the answer is yes, then I would not be willing (if I was looking for employment) to work with them. There are plenty organisations in China which employ English speaking teachers from a range of European and Asian countries. These are the organisations which will thrive in the years ahead while those organisations that decide to focus on their image will not evolve or change with the times and will eventually find themselves extinct.

I think it would be wise to assess current recruitment practices with your current or potential school. You could ask the school whether they recruit teachers whereby English could be their second language. At my current school, I am proud that we recruit teachers from European countries. It is empowering to see that there are professional organisations out there, not just in the UK but also abroad. Also, with the job board on this website developing, jobs which are submitted are then reviewed before being posted. I hope that jobs which are submitted are inclusive and supportive for professional English teachers, whether English is their first or second language. I believe it is the responsibility of any recruitment website to educate schools on their employment practises and the term “no Asian face” is offensive to not just Asians but to all professional English teachers.

So, where does this leave the “no Asian face” job post? Hopefully without professional applicants.

British Food: Lesson Activities

Blog Post Image

In this post I have developed material for teachers to incorporate into lessons related to food – not such a good idea if you have any Arabic learners as Ramadan has just started. This particular lesson lasts around 45 minutes and is a good task for learners to become more aware of British food.

Lesson Staging

  1. Start the lesson by writing up some discussion questions on the whiteboard:
    • What is a popular dish from you country? Can you describe it?
    • What do you normally have for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
    • What is the most unusual thing that you have ever eaten?
  2. Put students into small groups or pairs and get them to ask each other for a few minutes. Monitor and provide feedback at the end of the quick discussion activity.
  3. Next, ask students what British food that they know and board up some of the food that they suggest.
  4. Tell students that they are going to learn a bit more about British food and will have to match the name of the food to the picture.
  5. Hand out the first worksheet (page 1) and get the small group or pairs of learners to guess what food is which. Monitor and support where necessary.
  6. Once students have finished elicit possible answers and correct where required.
  7. Tell students that they are going to read about these types of English food but now need to match the descriptions to the food. Hand out the second worksheet (page 2).
  8. Again, monitor and support students before eliciting possible answers.
  9. You could personalise the lesson by getting students to describe food from their country. Students could write and find pictures to help. It would be a great project.

I hope that this lesson is useful. The material is available to view, download and print below.

Making The Most of Conferences

IATEFL Banner

It is that time of year where a vast group of English teachers venture to the UK to continue their professional development for the IATEFL Conference. This year it was held at Glasgow. I believe it was five years ago, in 2012, when I went to the IATEFL Conference in Glasgow to give my talk based upon my research for my MA in Dogme ELT. You can read more about my dissertation and research in this post.

Anyhow, attending conferences can be overwhelming, challenging and intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. This post looks at the best ways to make the most out of conferences and how to make the most of your time.

1. Before The Conference

It is best to start your planning early. Look at what talks will be of interest of you. For example, if you are very enthusiastic about phonology, then it makes sense to attend talks about this area. However, if you do not know too much about teaching teenagers and you are curious, then go ahead and attend a talk about this. So before the conference, decide on talks you would like to attend and talks which would not be of interest, yet be open and pursue areas of teaching which could develop you professionally whether they are of interest or not.

2. Speak To Others

One very important thing to do before, during and after the conference is to chat with other attendees. It may initially appear quite difficult to speak with other attendees during a conference but it is really a great chance to network and to share your experiences with other professionals. You will also meet a range of people from different backgrounds who may have some ideas to help with your own professional background and, if you are anything like me, you can also feel a new sense of enthusiasm after speaking with other teachers with refreshing ideas just by chatting to other attendees.

3. Notes & Handouts

It can rather overwhelming going to more than four or five talks in a day, with difficulty remembering who said what and what was learnt. One thing I try to do to help me remember is taking session is to make notes about it, take handouts and, if possible, ask for a copy of the presentation – don’t forget to say “thank you”. Most speakers (myself included) now are happy to share their talks and workshops online for other professionals to refer to when needed. I feel that there is a lot to be learnt from conferences but it can be a minefield remembering what was learnt so try to organise handouts and notes accordingly.

4. Feedback

Our school has a policy for those teachers who have attended conferences and this is to offer a feedback session to all other teachers. It can be really useful to consolidate what was learnt during the conference and to reiterate what was mentioned during particular talks and workshops attended. It helps reinforce professional development and fosters an open environment for all teachers and staff.

5. Write About The Talk

When I first started going to ELT-related conferences, I found it beneficial to write about the talks that I had attended and the general overview of the conference. Many bloggers such as Sandy Millin and Peter Clements have written various posts about the IATEFL 2017 Conference in Glasgow. Again, blogging about conferences and talks will lead to other bloggers reading your posts, will remind you of what you watched and your experiences as well as connect with other bloggers who are also interested about the particular conference or attending that conference.

6. One Final Note

You are attending a conference to interact and learn more about the subject, so I would recommend to put your phone on ‘Airplane’ mode. You can use it to take photos but don’t lose yourself in your phone with emails or on social media. It can become a distraction and you are likely to come across as unapproachable. Speak to other attendees and see what you can do. Finally, enjoy your time at the conference and have fun!

Why Should Teachers Blog?

The-Beginners-Guide-to-Blogging

Last week, I was inducting some new teachers into our school: preparing them for their teaching career for the year ahead. We looked at various areas about teaching: classroom management, get to know you activities, games in the classroom, etc. The final area we looked at was about continuing professional development (CPD). We looked at formal and peer observations, attending workshops, contributing to workshops as well as blogging. All teachers with varying years of experience, including a teacher who had just completed her CELTA (or equivalent), had only come across the mainstream websites related to English language teaching (TEFL.com, Dave’s ESL Cafe or Teaching English) yet had not really considered blogging a tool for CPD.

What is a blog?

A blog is a website which is updated frequently and resembles a journal or diary. Most ELT bloggers used their personal website to reflect on teaching, suggest lesson ideas and activities, develop teacher networking, create a professional portfolio of achievements as well as to promote their own services either as an online English teacher or as a freelance teacher trainer.

Why should teachers have a blog?

Nowadays, people use their own blogs to write about experiences and opinions on a range of topics and interests. So a blog can be a personal space for teachers to share their ideas of teaching and to better reflect on what could be improved in the classroom. However, I have now found that initially it was a lot easier to draft up some ideas of posts about varying lesson ideas yet after more and more recognition, I have noticed that I now only want to write a post which is going to be recognised or bring in the number of visitors to my blog. Nevertheless, teachers can use a blog to connect with teachers, not just within the staffroom, and are not constrained by a physical location. Therefore, blogging teachers can communicate and share ideas, experiences and reflect on teaching and the overall profession with those that are based somewhere else in the world. Coupled with the fact that blogs encourage readers to leave comments or likes as well as offer tools to subscribe for future posts, promotes self-support.

What should I blog about?

When I started blogging, all I wanting to do was to create a diary of my teaching and to develop my written ability as I had decided to undertake an MA in English Language Teaching at the time. My very first blog post was just about a quote that I heard about language learning and I connected it to my teaching in such a somewhat cringy fashion. I deleted this blog post some years later, unable to really appreciate something that I first posted but it gave me direction and I suppose that if I had never really started blogging, this website would not be around now. After reading other blogs and deciding on a suitable focus, I have found the best areas to focus on:

  • The Top 10 Ways To …: This type of post allows me to think about an area of teaching and think of my favourite ten things associated with it. You can combine this with something associated with lesson planning, project work, pairing students, etc. You are not constrained by a topic but with a title such as “The Top 10 Ways To Get Students Working” will really grab the reader’s attention and offers practical ways for readers to incorporate ideas into the classroom.
  • How To Teach …: If you are struggling on one area of teaching, you can think about writing a blog post about. Again, similar to the idea above, you are not constrained by any particular idea. So if you are struggling with young learners in the classroom, why not read up a little bit more about it, plan a lesson, reflect and then write your post on “How To Teach With Young Learners”?
  • Teaching … In 5 Easy Steps: Do you want to think about the best way to teach a particular skill such as listening or reading as well as a specific grammar point? Then the best post would be to demonstrate your own ideas about this. You may get a reader thinking about something related and will thank you for your insight or you may get another reader who could offer a different idea about this and give you some further inspiration.
  • The Book Review: This is a solid blog post. If you buy a book or you read one in your staffroom, why not review it on your blog? It is simply and easy. You never know, you may get some publishers wanting you to review a new book or coursebook and you might be lucky enough to sent a free review copy. But don’t forget, it’s important to honour that support by publishers by posting up a book review.
  • The Lesson Plan: One of the popular posts that I seem to have on my website, and I really should tidy it up a bit more so that they are a bit more accessible to readers, are those of lesson plans. You can write up your own lesson plan with all the staging, materials and handouts included or attached/embedded to the post. Some teachers have devoted an entire website to lesson plans and lesson ideas. This is a great way to develop your own resources and to get feedback from other teachers who try it out for you. A real learning curve for materials development. Some publishing house may snap your ideas up and incorporate them into a new coursebook and ask for your help by finishing a chapter or the entire coursebook.
  • Learning English: As you can focus your entire blog to English language teachers, you can also dedicate part of your blog/website to English language learners. You can have a very simple lesson and include some tasks or self-study components for your own learners to supplement their own learning from the classroom but share it with the rest of the English learners in the world.

So you can see from the above six ideas that you are not really limited by anything apart from your own imagination. You can use some of the tried and tested ideas above to write your very personalised ideas and reflections about English teaching. In a future blog post, I shall look at what platforms available for blogging and things to consider when setting up your very own blog. I hope you have enjoyed this post, as it is slightly different to my normal blog posts, and let me know your own experiences of blogging. Anyhow, what ideas do you have when blogging? Why do you blog? What are the best areas to consider when blogging?

Teaching Ideas for Word Stress

pronunciation-practice-activities
“Pronunciation Practice Activities” by Martin Hewings

So the past few months, I have been focusing more and more on pronunciation for all levels of learners, no matter whether they are young learners or adult learners of English. Anyhow, I tried out a new lesson idea today which was partly inspired from the wonderful book, “Pronunciation Practice Activities“, written by Martin Hewings. I would recommend any teacher worth their salt to purchase this book, as it offers some great pronunciation lesson ideas which could be incorporated into class immediately.

Most teachers would identify word stress with the teaching of new vocabulary or as a technique to support pronunciation for problematic lexical items. This is all well and good but it reminds me of a teacher reacting to issues rather than proactively focusing on areas of language learning. Personally, if a teacher is able to develop a lesson based around pronunciation and developing learners’ awareness of pronunciation, so much the better. There is by no means anything wrong by reacting to pronunciation issues as they arise but I think it would be a nice change of focus when we remind learners that there are some basic principles that they can learn no matter how large or small the lexical item. Nevertheless, lets look at one lesson idea which is published in “Pronunciation Practice Activities“.

The key aim for the lesson it to identify words by their stress patterns and I first introduced this by writing the following on the whiteboard:

  • photograph (Ooo)
  • photography (oOoo)

I asked learners to tell me how many syllables there were in each word and I broke it down by underlining each syllable. Afterwards, I drew small circles above each to illustrate the syllable and then I elicited from students the stress location within the word, rubbed out the corresponding small circle and replaced it with a large circle – look at the stress patterns in brackets next to the words.

The next stage of the lesson was to draw a person, and I named this lady Sarah. I told the students that she travels a lot for business and that she has been several countries over the past few months on business. I wrote up a list of countries in random order on the whiteboard: Estonia, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and Venezuela. I told students that they need to determine which countries she visited in order by matching it with the corresponding stress pattern. I then drew stress patterns numbered 1-8:

  1. Oo
  2. ooOo
  3. oOoo
  4. oO
  5. O
  6. ooO
  7. Ooo
  8. oOo

I put students into pairs and asked them to match the words to the stress patterns. I monitored the learners and afterwards elicited from the groups each country from 1-8. As I mentioned before, it was the first time that I tried this activity. It worked really well and the students enjoyed the change of pace.

stress-patterns
What words related to ‘countries’ or ‘jobs’ could you write in the table?

As an extension, I decided to draw up a table on the whiteboard, asked learners to work again in pairs and write down some country names within the table (see the image of the table above). I elicited different country names and expected word stress patterns from the class and we all were drilling the pronunciation of country names. As a final activity, we looked at jobs and using the same word stress patterns. It was successful and the learners left the class with a smile on their face.

Finally, I had this idea which I will use in the very future: you could create a flashcard activity whereby students have to match vocabulary with the corresponding stress patterns such as with a flashcard game (pelmanism), calling out a word and having the stress patterns up on the whiteboard and students run up to the whiteboard and then try to grab it before the other team or just using different stress pattern cards and you call out a topic and go round the class, eliciting vocabulary related to the corresponding stress pattern. I could record a future lesson using some of these ideas, so you get a better idea on how you could use these ideas in a future lesson. Food for thought, hey?

Anyhow, over to you now! How do you incorporate word stress in the classroom? Do you have any favourite activities? How do you get learners more aware of word stress?

Real English Lesson: Functional Language

I recorded this lesson at my work of a fellow teacher preparing learners with functional language for debates and expressing points of view. It was a great lesson and I was so grateful being able to observe and record such a valuable lesson. I now thought that I will share this lesson with you all to see how my colleague is able to engage, motivate and support learners during a lesson. Enjoy!

Edit: One reader requested the handout which was used during the lesson. This can be viewed below.