Jeremy Harmer in Dublin

I have just come back from a fantastic talk by Jeremy Harmer. Essentially the talk was about the main changes in the ELT world since the publication of the first edition of The Practice of English Language Teaching in the early 1980s to today (when the book is in its fifth edition).

Some of the key changes he explored were the developments in technology (he interestingly, and to some dismay from sections of the audience, suggested the interactive whiteboard may go the way of the fax machine - for shameless link to my own post on whiteboards, please see here), the growing number of non-native teachers (he very passionately argued that the distinction is not a valid one - that a really good language teacher is a multi-lingual teacher, irrespective of nationality - lovely to see someone so esteemed arguing the case for equal footing for non-native English teachers; echoes a lot of Marek's work in this area) along with a discussion of the various approaches, ideologies and trends that have come along in the last thirty years.

The talk was held in the teacher's club in Dublin, a venue that has seen a lot of great talks over the years (doesn't seem to get as much use of late, unfortunately). After an epic day of correcting and spreadsheet wrangling, I found the talk uplifting and I have been trying to put my finger on why exactly that was. Yes, Jeremy Harmer is an excellent speaker and he covers a really wide range of very interesting topics. But I think there was more to it than that. I am not sure if it was an overt message, but it seemed to me that the purpose of the talk was to assert the value of the teacher - that despite the changes he outlined, the need for enthusiastic and passionate teachers remains.

For instance, he spent a huge chunk of the talk describing his observations of teachers from around the world, teachers who were motivating students and delivering well thought out, engaging lessons. And as a methodologist, he argued that it was his job to observe teachers like these and report back on the good practice he observes. So in essence, what I took from it was, that as teachers, we have so much to learn from observing (and talking to) each other. And it was this message that I found very, very uplifting.

Extensive Reading - playing the numbers game

On an average week, I would probably read about a dozen 250 word essays. That's about 564 a year. So over the last 7 years, I've read....3,948 essays. And not just read; I've corrected the life out of them. The potentially dispiriting thing is that it seems like they never really get any better. If it were the same person writing all those essays, then of course you'd be worried. But those 3,948 essays are the work of hundreds of students - students who improve and move on, replaced by students who need to improve to move on. So in the halfway house that is the classroom, I've been trying to think of ways to "do" writing better.

What I'm thinking now is that I have to get those numbers up. 

At the same time, the problem I often find with students' writing is either a lack of vocabulary or a lack of ideas on a relevant topic. So, naturally, I want to get the quality up too.

If you follow Stephen Krashen on Twitter, you'll know that he posts a lot of his articles for free on his website, Krashen writes a lot on the topic of extensive reading. The idea is that tons and tons of self selected reading helps language acquisition. A bit of a wander around google (scholar) throws up some interesting free articles like this and this. Scott Thornbury has some interesting points here about extensive reading and how on its own, it isn't enough. To learn new vocabulary just from extensive reading, you need to come into contact with the word multiple times - some form of reinforcement is needed. Thornbury advocates dictionary usage as a way to top up extensive reading (from a vocabulary acquisition point of view). (NB: In this post, Thornbury mentions the 96% figure I've come across once before - apparently, this is the amount of words in a text you need to know to be able to guess the meaning of the ones you don't).

I'd guess, like many teachers, I am quite attracted to the idea of extensive reading (especially when you get to do stuff like this great idea from BALEAP conf - everyone brings a book to class, including teacher; 10 minutes of reading time, then chat about it.....sorry, would love to credit, but I can't track down the source of this great idea. Please let me know if you do. Addendum - found it! - Greg Strong talking about Fluent Reading posted by BALEAP) My concern is the self selected bit - my students have to write on a load of topics, topics that they might never be particularly motivated to read about of their own volition. The other thing is that many do not read a lot in their native language.

So in terms of getting them to write more (with hopefully more vocabulary and more developed/relevant ideas), I've been trying a bit of guided extensive reading (with a bit of listening/watching thrown in as well). Strictly speaking, this isn't exactly extensive reading - it is probably better defined as "doing a good bit more reading than you would usually do (about topics that you may not normally read about)"(c) :)

I've been trying this approach for the last month and so far it has been interesting. It is nothing revolutionary, but... 

Basically, a week before the class, I email students with the following instructions:

1. The topic for next week's writing class is ......(insert topic here)
• Read this article and highlight any relevant vocabulary (insert link here)
• Read this (different) article and highlight any relevant ideas (insert link here)
2. (Listening) Here is a Ted.com talk on this topic (insert link here)
• What are the speaker's 5 main points?
• Look at the transcript - any relevant vocabulary?
• If you were in the audience, what one question would you ask?
3. (Reading) Here is an article on this topic (insert link here)
• What is the overall point the writer is trying to make?
• What are the main ideas? What examples does the writer use?
• Does the writer talk about effects (e.g. as a result....consequently....)
• Do you notice any vocabulary that you found in the listening or other articles?
4. (Writing) Now, after doing all that reading and listening, write 250 words on the question (insert a question related to the topic here).

This is an example that we did a while ago. Here in Dublin, we had some bus strikes so the students missed class. As the concept of trade unionism was not a familiar one to them (and having seen this topic come up in an EAP exam in the past), I thought it might be of interest.

Trade Unionism example

(photo taken from journal.ie)

Reading (approx. 30 minutes)
Use google to find the answers to these 4 questions. Write a few lines to answer each question. We will discuss in  class. 
1.       What is a trade union?
2.       What are the advantages of a trade union?
3.       What is a picket?
4.       Why did Dublin Bus go on strike? 

This video might be a good place to start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNb0VYyfarc 

Listening/Speaking (approx. 30 minutes) 
Watch this Ted talk. The talk is about peaceful protests and is very interesting. http://www.ted.com/talks/will_potter_the_shocking_move_to_criminalize_non_violent_protest 
1.       Write 3 sentences to summarise the talk
2.       Write one question that you would have asked if you were at the talk
3.       Note 5 new words/phrases

Writing (approx. 1 hour)
Write a 250 essay based on this question. 

Workers in essential services (e.g. police, doctors, bus drivers) should not be allowed to go on strike. It causes too much inconvenience to the majority of people. Do you agree or disagree? 

Read these two webpages as support
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-more-people-should-go-on-strike-strikes-are-a-measure-of-our-freedom-1587089.html
http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-it-ok-for-teachers-to-go-on-strike-or-should-they-employ-other-means

The end result as I see it is that students are writing more than they did, they are reading a good bit more than they did. Are their essays any better.....
  

BALEAP - Sunday

Here are my notes/thoughts/acts of gluttony from day 3 of the BALEAP conference.

BALEAP breakfast, part 2

The key to taking full advantage of the buffet breakfast is to sit alone. Time spent talking and worrying if you have food on your face is time not spent eating. Granted, I may have appeared anti-social but I got to eat the following:

• 1 bowl of sugar puffs (they still exist!)
• 1 bowl of muesli
• 2 vegetarian sausages
• 2 vegan sausages
• 2 fried eggs
• 3 hash browns
• Tomatoes
• 4 slices of toast (2 brown, 2 white)
• orange juice
• coffee
• 3 pastries
• yoghurt
• banana
• apple

Emphasising the A and not the E in EAP - Magdalen Ward Goodbody

This talk was an overview of the development of the Academic Skills Centre at the University of Bath. As such it was a nice companion talk to the one by Mark Ingarfield. Essentially, the Academic Skills Centre has moved from being a peripheral part of the university to an embedded centre for all students (not just international ones) who need help improving their ability to use Academic English. Again, fascinating from an Irish perspective to see how these centres have successfully integrated into universities.

Talk also included this slide going through what the nice people at Bath mean when they say academic skills. 

Writing your own: How to create effective EAP materials - Julie Moore

This was an excellent workshop by Julie Moore who is a lexicographer and materials writer. Despite suffering from a severe case of BALEAP belly, I found this to be one of the more inspiring talks of the weekend (incidentally, this was also the opinion of other delegates who later breached bathroom etiquette to praise the talk).

Julie started by asking how many people create their own materials. The majority responded in the affirmative, allowing Julie to make the point that despite the wealth of materials, teachers still feel compelled to create their own stuff for class. Whether it is the lack of specific, relevant materials or an urge to be creative, the fact is that for many of us, creating original material is part of our job. The workshop was about how to do that better.

I tweeted several photos of slides from the workshop here, here and here.

In no particular order, here are some of the ideas from the workshop:

• Establish a very clear aim.
• Be critical - do your materials achieve that aim.
• Abstracts are a great source for intensive reading.
• Don't overload the material. You might see a dozen things you could do with a text but you have to be ruthless and narrow that down.
• Start with the aim and then find materials rather than the other way around.
• Think about what students will take away from the class. 
• Get someone to have a look at them.
• Always acknowledge the source.
• Think about staging your activities. For instance, adding a direction like "give reasons for your choice" adds a bit more complexity for Ss so consider at what stage to have simple and more complex tasks.

Innovating instruction: specificity and English in the disciplines - Ken Nyland

Looked at research into conventions in different disciplines. The idea that different disciplines use different structures/language/techniques and that Ss should be exposed to this, encouraged to notice the specific norms of their discipline. EAP is about equipping students with a new kind of literacy - not about topping up deficiencies in their language. This echoed the theme in many talks that EAP needs to be more specific to the discipline of the Ss. 

A very interesting talk that zipped by without me taking decent notes. Sorry. 

BALEAP packed lunch

Unbelieveable! Sent on my way with a cheese salad sandwich, crisps, fruit, water and flapjack which were enjoyed as I bounced my way back across the Irish Sea aboard this little beauty.

BALEAP - Saturday

Here are my notes/observations/impressions from day 2 of BALEAP. Again, please let me know if I get anything wrong or if I miss the point. I only slept 5 hours the Friday night so the quality of my notes deteriorated as the day went on. 

BALEAP breakfast

• All you can eat buffet including both vegetarian and vegan sausages! As I was sitting with the Sheffield crew, I wanted to make a good impression so showed some restraint
• muesli
• 2 vegan sausages
• scrambled eggs
• 1 hash brown (afraid to ask for 2)
• 2 pieces of toast
• orange juice
• croissant
• coffee
• yoghurt
• Don't feel I made the most of that buffet

Listening and Reading in L2 academic contexts - Dr Catherine Walter

• 4/3/2 idea. Read as much as you can in 4 minutes. Then try again in 3. Then try again in 2. 
• This will help to build more fluent reading.
• Translation and back translation - translate from English to your language and then back again. (remember doing something like this in class with the Vincent Price part of Thriller)
• Dispelled myths about "good readers"
• good readers guess meaning from context
• no, good readers know lots of vocab
• implication - teach vocab and vocabulary systems, not how to guess from context
• Talked about pronunciation. Often, if we mispronounce, we have a chance to correct. But if we don't hear/understand, we might not get a second chance (esp in lecture). So makes more sense to teach received pronunciation (i.e. to teach pronunciation in terms of listening to it, rather than devoting all the time to making sure Ss get the pronunciation spot on)
• Implication - do more dictation work in class. 
• Ss much less likely to abandon initial hypothesis when listening. So for example, if they hear "way" first, they are more likely to stick to that, even if later evidence suggests it was actually "weigh". 
• Ss much more likely to replace unknown words with known words.
• Paul Nation got mentioned a lot

Capitalizing on technology to promote learner autonomy in a writing course - Prof. Esther Boucher-Yip

• Blended learning model. 
• Used Blackboard to take grammar out of the classroom
• Students had access to grammar exercise/practice online.
• Used free stuff for these grammar resources
• Advocates looking at your class and thinking, what can you get out of the class and have them doing at home
• Online work supports classroom work

Delivering the discipline-specific pre-sessional that you are responsible for - Karen Nicholls and John Wrigglesworth

• Make the course as ESAP as possible. 
• Graduateness - boil down topics - filter out stuff that at least one student in the class wouldn't need as a graduate. So you are left with stuff that will be applicable to all in the class (e.g. stuff about research)
• They all have a book that they bring to their class - a book that is relevant to the genre that they wish to write in. This is their resource in the class relevant to their area. This is the meat for the skills that they work on, individual to each.
• Record your own lectures. The speaker talked about how he creates lectures himself so that they can be more tailored to Ss needs.

Teacher anxiety and content involved EAP - Dr Justin Alam

• 3 types of ESAP teacher
• 1 - avoids the content. Literary type. Instead of content, teaches skills (e.g. note taking, writing). Avoids anxiety by not dealing with content, bouncing questions back to students when they come up.
• 2 - regrets they can't always expand on answers. Would like to know more content.
• 3 - the model student. Tries to know as much as possible about the topic. Behaves like the model student, helping the students in this way. Sits in on content classes. Sometimes explains things that are not covered by lecturer. 

Exploiting corpora to address the vocabulary needs of Business Students - Andrew Preshous

• Students know "customer" but not the many collocations that go with it (e.g. "customer base")
• Mentioned BAWE and Sketch Engine
• Good for targeting subject specific vocabulary to teach Ss
• Outlined many guided discovery tasks (here, here and here) that can be used with words from BAWE

BALEAP Lunch

• All you can eat platters. Sat with very nice and knowledgeable people from University of Liverpool and Essex. Contributed very little to the conversation due to the following:
• cheese salad sandwich (2 quarters)
• egg salad sandwich (1 quarter)
• tuna salad sandwich (1 quarter)
• 2 mini vegetarian quiches
• 2 vegetarian samosas
• 2 vegetarian bahjis 
• 2 cream cakes
• water (important)
• coffee

Improving tutor feedback on online academic writing courses for postgraduates - Jill Northcott and Pauline Gillies

• Feedback is a social act
• Therefore, feedback to students on their writing should be social. Not a clinical identification of their errors - instead try to engage with what they have written.
• Engagement can be motivating for both teacher and student
• Talked about grounded theory - I know very little about that so if anyone could suggest further reading or expert grounded theory bloggers/tweeters to follow, that would be great.
• Scaffold writing assignments by giving 3 sources for an initial writing assignment

An integrated approach to EAP administrative support - Mark Ingarfield

• Behind the scenes at University of Liverpool
• Talked about points of pressure in the year - important that these are highlighted and prepared for so that staff on both sides (academic and administrative) are aware of each other's burdens and are kind to one another.
• Talked about integrating the EAP centre into the systems of the university. 
• The EAP centre and pre-sessional students are income generating. 
• Lot for Irish universities to take from this talk. A vision of how things are done in the UK and perhaps, how things could be done in Ireland.

Gala Dinner (preceded by power nap)

• Slap up meal in a suitably glamorous location
• (additional mash potatoes requested and received)
• Table quiz (did not win)
• Table quiz quibble - the question "What speed does the DeLorean need to reach to travel through time?" should not be multiple choice. 
• Dance floor annihilated - did not see that coming

BALEAP - Friday

I went to the BALEAP conference in Leicester over the weekend and it was really inspiring. I've transcribed my notes for Friday below if anyone would like to read them. I know that in most cases, you had to be there, but there might be something of interest in my scribbles.

Suffice to say, that they were all amazing speakers and it was an incredible experience.

(BALEAP - Saturday)
(BALEAP - Sunday)

I'm terribly sorry, if I've misspelt any names or misinterpreted anybody's talks. Please let me know if you would like me to amend anything or add anything. I didn't take notes during the Pecha Kucha which is a shame as it was the highlight of Friday for me.

Navigation in a complex world - Prof. Rebecca Hughes

• Academic writing is an increasingly collaborative process
• English is increasingly the language of academic publication
• EMI (English as a medium of instruction) is on the increase. Therefore, we are likely to have students coming with higher levels of English in the future.
• Consequently, they will have different, perhaps more complex needs
• Predicts India, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, China and Malaysia as the countries where students are likely to be coming from in the future
• "The deficit model is dead" - the student is not the problem. (to be honest, I'd love if someone could explain this to me or refer me somewhere - it seemed to be a theme throughout the conference)
• Delegate from Scandinavia made the point that this could lead to higher levels of English but possibly lower levels of knowledge of the content/subjects (e.g. history, physics etc)

Scaffolding reading comprehension in an L2 academic context - Vasiliki Antoniou

• The use of Moodle to scaffold academic reading tasks
• Students were guided through a series of tasks (and given prompts and reminders) in relation to specific readings (encouraging them to do different things - e.g. think critically about texts)
• Findings from research showed that the scaffolding methods students were most positive about were model answers and notifications about task updates
• Do students perhaps prefer more passive forms of scaffold (i.e. ones that require less autonomy). This was a point made and discussed in Q and A.
• Activites like mind maps were mentioned. Another activity was mentioned - MAZES. I forgot t ask what that was.

The complexities of preparing international students for group and seminar discussions - Ann Smith

• Chained tasks - don't just get them to do one task but a series of tasks that feed into one another
• The task she described was to ultimately give a presentation with the aim of persuading the audience (in this case it was a bid for a project)
• So to complete the presentation there were a series of tasks that they had to complete, all building up to the presentation (e.g. researching, planning etc)
• Oh I forgot to mention - they were working in groups - larger groups of between 5 and 7
• She considered the pros and cons of self selected groups and careful team formation/assigned groups. 
• Felt that self selection was better than random selection (e.g. you're sitting beside each other so you're altogether)
• Assigned selection is better if the project is being marked
• There was peer allocation of marks! If they all gave them the same marks, it was given back and they had to do it again. 
• The students had to log everything they did - i.e. whilst working on the project minutes had to be taken.

Becoming Metacognitive Teachers - Maggie Heeney

• What makes an exemplary teacher?
• Discussed the idea of letting students inside your head - seeing the process
• This involves thinking aloud, modelling for the students, interacting with the students and scaffolding)
• Studied a teacher - charted them over many weeks - taking notes throughout their lesson. Looking at instances where the teacher thought aloud, modelled what they were asking the students to do.
• Made a good point that teachers need to be able to do what they are telling there students to do. I found this quite salient - some tasks our students are required to do, I would struggle with. Point seemed to me to be that you have to do it yourself in order to better understand how to help someone else do it (and by thinking and reflecting upon how you do it)

The EAP of spelling learning together - Bee Bond

• talked about exploratory research - that it is very cooperative; that you don't go looking to prove something but instead to find out the answer to a question; that it is about developing understanding rather than proving.
• Different to action research
• Talked about the EAP treadmill - feeling jaded, doing the same things over and over. Without the time to develop, to tweak.
• Talked about not seeing the students as individuals, as capable of taking their education seriously (perhaps because you only see them not doing what you want them to do)
• Really good point - students are independent - they are choosing not to listen!
• So listen to students - show them that the onus is more on them.
• Bee made students co-researchers, not objects of research.
• Looked with them at why their spelling is bad. Threw the question back to the students. Tried to figure it out together.
• Discovered that beautiful joined up writing helps with spelling.
• Distinguished between scholarship (i.e. you critically evaluate what you do as a teacher) and research 

Technology tools for teaching English for Academic Purposes - Dr David Lefevre

• Says that online pre-sessional courses are going to be big stuff
• For many students, online is the only option. Face to face not an option.
• Pros - you can target who needs the help through feedback on their online submissions.
• Wondered which of the skills could be taught more effectively online and which not so much (speaking, writing, listening, reading, vocabulary)?
• Videoing lessons from experts - putting that online. Makes knowledge accessible to a far wider audience

Pecha Kucha

Once upon a time in a pre-sessional classroom in Sheffield - Elaine Lopez

• Noticed that students don't have great grammar. But we don't teach grammar in EAP
• Did a research project
• Turns out they learn the grammar anyway, even without explicit instruction

Ten Tips to Survive your first year as an EAP tutor - Emma Hillman and Zella Phillips

• Full of great observations - e.g. the new serious EAP clothes when we shift from ELT; the worries about our ability to teach academic stuff

Why you should use a randomiser in class - Hannah Gurr

• write students names on lollipop sticks - pick them out randomly so you make sure to ask different people. You don't just rely on the stronger students.
• Use an app to do the same function but more technologically.
• Great line - if my student says I don't know (as a way to avoid contributing/cop out), Hannah responds with "Ok, well what might you say if you did know).

EAP materials for prospective MSc science/engineering candidates - Jon Wordie

• Hilarious. Impossible to do justice to it here. Sorry, if you weren't there, you missed out. 

Pre-sessional migration: managing the masses - Linda Hurley

• Dealing with the large numbers of teachers coming in for pre-sessionals
• Ideas linked to beautiful paintings (again, very visual so can't do justice)
• As someone coming for Ireland where pre-sessionals don't have the same scale, I missed lots while gaping in awe at the volume of students, and teachers employed in UK universities

Accessible feedback for international students: a colourful approach - Rebecca Thomas

• The use of colour code as a way to engage students more with feedback
• Students more likely to engage with higher level feedback if colour code used (because they don't have to uncode complex language to understand the problem in the first place)

The social media diaries - Susie Cowley-Haselden (aka The EAP Archivist)

• Whitesnake
• How blogging and tweeting has helped her tremendously
• Encouraged everyone to blog - to tweet - to get involved in the wonderful online community that is out there for EAP teachers.

I like correcting

It seems like I have spent the last month either correcting, worrying about correcting or avoiding correcting. Around this time of year, the amount of corrections that need to be done starts to look ominous and a collective dread works its way around the staffroom. Whenever the topic of corrections comes up, a sigh tends to be the most common response. Weekends marred by a stack of papers lurking somewhere in the house.

But the thing is, it is the quantity rather than the process itself that I don't like. If I have a bit of time, if a bit of love (or at the very least, some care) has been put into the writing, then correcting written work is really rewarding.

You can figure out new things to cover in class, you can get to know your students a bit better, you can spend a bit more time thinking about how language works than in the heat of the spoken moment. And if you get the time to sit with the writer, you can have a really wonderful exchange.

The only problem is time. There is so little of it. And trying to get through tons of corrections in what little there is, I fear, robs you of the possible joy of correcting and denies the student the value to be gained from those meaningful responses that our better selves would like to offer.

Does anyone have any thoughts on correcting and how to make it less of a drag and more meaningful?

Nominees

Last week I went to a comedy gig in a small pub. At one point, the comedian, in the middle of a bit about how great drinking is, asked if there was anyone who didn't like alcohol. I could see he needed someone to say they weren't into drinking for the joke to work. And I happen to be a teetotaller. All I had to do was put up my hand and we'd all find out what point he was trying to make. Until then, audience participation had been ticking along nicely. I'd even had the comedian direct a few bits at me earlier. It should have been relatively easy.

Instead, I kept my mouth shut.

Not a terribly significant or interesting story, but it seemed to chime both with a discussion we had on introverts in the classroom over at #eltchinwag and some points made by Hugh Dellar on these classroom management videos.

I would not necessarily label myself an introvert. Like many teachers, I'm fairly mouthy at conferences. But I think there are many solid reasons why I chose not to speak up at that gig. The audience was 80% male and a bit peculiar. I had a bit of a sore throat that night. Overall though, I said nothing because I didn't want to risk embarrassment.

Does the student in the classroom risk embarrassment to the same degree as someone being picked on by a comedian in a bar full of drunk lads? Probably not. But fear of embarrassment, big or small, can cause people to clam up.

So what is embarrassing in the classroom? Not knowing an answer? Getting an answer wrong? Having something patiently explained directly to you by the teacher? Your teacher making a joke about the mistake you made ("You cut your hair! Wow, that's amazing. How did you get the back so straight?....Oh you mean, you had your hair cut!")? Having to talk about something a bit personal (Why don't you drink?) Your teacher making you repeat a word you mispronounced?

It's hard to say. If you don't want to embarrass someone by asking them if they have the answer, what do you do? Ask nobody? Let the same one or two people repeatedly answer while the others avoid eye contact?

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I think in teaching EAP, I've often found myself saying a variation of - Look, when you get to college, you're going to have to speak up in tutorials and give presentations. You should speak up more in class so you get used to it - as a way to encourage the less vocal. Yet, I'm not convinced that this is the best way to motivate someone to speak up - I notice you're very quiet in class so I'm going to make you talk more to help you. 

So what to do?

If I think only about nominating students in some Teacher Student interaction (e.g. checking answers, finding opinions, pair-work feedback) then I've started to question my traditional approach, which can be summed up as - nominate students to answer questions = good.

But why nominate?

If I am checking answers and I just want to make sure all the class knows, who cares if not everyone chips in with an answer?

If I am checking to see if they understood, why wait until everyone else is watching? Why not wander over for a look during the exercise when there is time to do something about it?

If I think they're shy and want them to get involved, why single them out in front of a dozen other people? And how involved is someone if every so often, I make them say True or B. (And do you have to be talking to be involved?)

If I think they have something interesting to say, is there a way that I can give them a bit of a heads up first?

If I am nominating because my experience tells me nobody will answer if I don't name names, then maybe I need to leave a few sticky silences around the place for students to deal with.

Would be very interesting to get students' perspectives on what does or does not embarrass them.