Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Joshua Millage, Cofounder ofLifterLMS and one half of  LMScast. Josh how are you today?Joshua: Hey Jonny, thank you so much for allowing me to come on and do this interview with you!Jonny: Tell me a bit about your background. How did you get in to edtech? Joshua: When it comes to my background and how I got into edtech, I would sayit started when I was really young actually. I had a mother and a father who wereboth educators. My mom was a first grade teacher and my dad was a college professor. My dad had this habit that every Tuesday he would take me to a store called Incredible Universe. RadioShack owned incredible Universe at the time. It was a massive technology store. He would buy me a computer game or some piece of technology every week, and he wanted me to teach him how to use it. I was really interested in technology, so he supported that interest.Through that he learned some really cool ways to bring technology into his classroom. Now this was like mid-1990s, so technology was much different thanit is now. But that's actually what got me interested in technology is just having an exposure at a young age and then seeing how my mother and my father were applying it into their classrooms.As things went on and the online educational boom happened, I watched that. Later in my college career, I kind of hacked at my thesis. I went to Azusa Pacific University, and the dean of my business school asked if I would like to help her develop a new MBA program. This MBA program took place over the course of15 months and allowed students to study for two months in Azusa, and then spend two weeks traveling all over the world. There was a heavy technology component there to sync up the in-classroom work and the out of class case studies that we would do overseas. It was truly a unique way to do blended learning.That just sent me down a rabbit hole. I fell in love with the WordPress space, and over the past year I’ve been watching the WordPress LMS space in particular. And I saw some incredible opportunities to jump in with my client services company, codeBOX, so we decided to do that this last summer, and it's been a wild ride.Jonny: What are the features of a good LMS?Joshua: I think the WordPress LMS space is very different than some of the corporate training or larger LMS systems that are really geared towards universities. I do think that WordPress is going to start to really push on those different systems like Blackboard and BrainHoney and some of the other ones. I think some of the features of a good LMS are really giving you proper insights into how your students are performing. Those are pretty good features. I think the new block of features we're going to start to see come onto the scene is in the way of artificial intelligence and automation. So being able to watch how astudent learns, help engage them and encourage them to continue to learn, and meet them where they're at.What I mean by that is I've seen some features of various LMS systems actually allow students to submit their assignments based on their learning style. If they're an auditory learner or someone who enjoys giving speeches, they're able to upload that sort of content. If they're a writer, they can do that. If they're an artist, they can do more of a photo collage or something like that. So the LMS system is supporting the ways that the students learn. I think those are some of the new features on the block that are really, really cool. I also think that just having agood user experience for teachers to create courses is really important. I hate to see it when technology gets in the way of allowing a teacher to do what they do best, which is teach.Jonny: The LMS world is becoming heavily populated. Which key players will still be around in 5 years time?I think you're going to see Blackboard stay around. It's not going to leave any time soon. Part of the reason is that they're cash heavy, and they're able to acquire a lot of the new key players in the space. That's already happening. They've acquired a handful of companies in the past 12 months. I think that you're going to start to see much more focused and niche companies come in. I really think that we're in the era of the long tail for the learning management space.You're going to see more niche systems that come in and focus on supporting a certain type of learning style, blended learning. Maybe you'll see something, for instance, maybe support Montessori school systems or something like that. You're going to see a much more distributed and fragmented space come alive. I think there will be a couple of big boys left, but I think if they don't iterate fast enough they're going to find themselves extinct.Jonny: So tell me a bit more about LifterLMS? What makes it different? Joshua: LifterLMS is a WordPress learning management system. It's really built tohelp solo teachers build and sell courses online. What's different about it is that itallows you to build, sell, and engage your students. A lot of WordPress LMS systems will just focus on building a course. They won't come with any sort of e- commerce functionality to help you sell your course, and none of them have engagement functionality.What we define engagement as is basically a lightweight marketing automation system. It allows you to do gamification actions like awarding badges and certificates based on students' behavior in your course, as well as automatically sending emails based on what users are doing and not doing. If they're not utilizing your course, you can actually automatically trigger an email to say, "Hey, what's going on? Is there anything that we can do to help you?"We feel like that that's a way to scale the human touch. If I weren’t showing up to my class in college I'd probably get an email or a phone call from my professor saying "Where are you?" Now I went to a smaller school where the class sizes were much more intimate. Maybe that wouldn't happen at a state school, but I think that the people who are going to win online are the ones that do their bestto really bridge the gap and scale the human touch. LifterLMS is really situated to help that type of individual. Those are some of the things that make us different.Jonny: I'm obviously a huge advocate of Free Technology hence the blog Free Tech for Schools. Can you convince me that Lifter does what other free providers can't?Joshua: One of the things I really appreciate about what you do with Free Tech for Schools is that you promote free technology for schools to use. I think that's really, really awesome. There are some things LifterLMS can do that free providers can't do, and that's combining all of the things we've talked about just a minute ago into one plugin. I think that when you get to marketing automationand you get to what I call learning automation, something that we're coining, is that it’s going to be hard to be free. Because there are moving pieces that have to always be moving. There are server costs and things involved with that.With LifterLMS the cost is pretty lightweight. What I mean by that is for $150 and whatever cost it is to host your WordPress site, you can have a full-blown, very dynamic learning management system up and running in a matter of hours. I think that offers a new level of functionality that schools currently don't have. I would love to see a school adopt LifterLMS for each and every one of their teachers so that those teachers can teach in a more dynamic way online.Jonny: A big problem with online learning is a low completion rate for students. How can you best tackle this problem?Joshua: You're right. Online learning does have a low completion rate, and I think that happens for a number of reasons. The main one is that the user experience for the student is really, really bad. Moodle, Blackboard, and all of these bigger systems do not do a good job of making the learning experience fun for students. It's really difficult for a student who's used to a very clean experience that they would get on their iPhone or Mac, or even their Xbox, to jump into a platform that's very archaic and stale.LifterLMS has a very clean user interface, and with some of our themes that we're going to be releasing soon, add a much more engaging user experience. I think this will help students stay in the online learning environment longer and not be so inclined to jump out and do something else.In online learning not many people are doing a good job with the human element. Teachers aren’t connecting with their students. With our engagementfunctionality, like I mentioned earlier, you can award badges, which students are already geared towards with all the gamification that happens everywhere else in their lives. I think using that in the classroom will make the class much more sticky.It’s also helpful to have automatic emails go off when a student hasn't been around for a while. So for instance, if they haven't logged in for seven days, sending an email. I think just small touches like that can really make a huge difference in terms of helping a student complete an online course.The other thing that I would say is that sometimes professors and teachers online just don't know how well their students are performing, so they don't know how to reach out or when to reach out. With our up and coming course analytics feature you'll be able to get some deep insights into how your students are performing and pick up the phone and email, or however you would like to engage your student, because you'll be able to see how they're performing. I think it's on the professor to take action, but that will help student completion rates.Jonny: Finally a few quick fire questions to finish off. Apple or android?Joshua: I'm definitely going to go with Apple. Jonny: Kanye or Beck?Joshua: That's a fantastic question. I definitely like Beck. Jonny: Spotify or Google play Music?Joshua: I've been a Spotify fan from way back when we didn't even have Spotify in the United States, and I was using a VPN connection to connect to Europe so that I could access it. So definitely Spotify.Thank you so much, Jonny, for allowing me to come and do this interview with you. It's been really fun! I hope that your audience finds it useful. If there's anything I can do, please let me know. You can always reach me at joshua@lifterlms.com or @jmillage on Twitter. Thanks again.This is not an official endorsement of Lifetr LMS and I have received no payment for promoting the product.This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Schools www.freetechforschools.com

Stacey Hughes, a teacher trainer in the Professional Development team at Oxford University Press, offers some practical ideas for blended learning in EAP. Although the idea of blended learning is not new, most people now associate it with including computer or tablet and internet use in the classroom. These tools can be used to expand the range of possibilities for communication between students and teachers. Here are some ideas to experiment with. Train your students to use internet It may seem odd to think about training students to use technology - after all, they are digital natives. However, many students have not yet developed a critical mind-set when it comes to assessing whether or not information gleaned from websites is reliable or valid. They also may not be very adept at using key words to search for academic articles and books - resulting in either too many or too few hits or information that is not relevant to their research. 1. Teach students to recognise which sites are reliable for their purposes. Show them Google Scholar as a starting point and teach them to recognise more generally reliable URL endings: .org; .ac; .gov; .edu. Teach them to think about who wrote the page and why. 2. Train students to use the university library search engine to look for information. They will need to understand how articles are kept in the databases and how to narrow or broaden their searches using key words and limiters: and, or, not, "…", etc. 3. Teach students how to use online bibliography tools to create their lists of references. You could start by referring them to Education Technology and Mobile Learning which lists a number of bibliography tools. The university librarians may also have some ideas for good ones to use. Using technology for collaboration There are a multitude of resources that teachers and students can use for collaboration. They can help make teacher-student communication more efficient and can help students work together. If your university has a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) such as Moodle or Blackboard, the tools will already be available for you to use. If not, you can find resources on the internet which can be used for similar purposes. 1. Set up a discussion forum. Post a relevant question or topic and ask students to contribute to the discussion. Make sure they respond to each other rather than just posting their own views - this will make it much more valuable as a forum. 2. Create group or class wiki pages. Use the university platform or a wiki space such aswww.wikispaces.com to set up a virtual space for news, collaborative project work and assessment. Wiki spaces are also useful for uploading handouts for students who were absent from the lesson. 3. Give audio and video feedback on papers to save marking time, give fuller feedback and add listening practice. Visit the University of Edinburgh page to read some case studies. 4. Flip the classroom once in a while. Use screencasts to teach a point, then use the class time for a seminar discussion or debate. 5. Ask students to work in groups to create a video documentary about university culture and the changes new students will have to adjust to. Using technology in the classroom Many students will have tablets or laptops and may prefer to work from them in the classroom. A majority may also have smartphones that can be used for learning. 1. Encourage those students using laptops or tablets to look up information on the internet while engaging in the lesson. Post information on the class wiki that they can access while in class as part of the lesson. 2. Point students to useful apps that they can use for learning: the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, Practical English Usage, Headway Phrase-a-day and English File Pronunciation are all excellent apps for independent study or they can be incorporated into the lesson. Find out more here. 3. Ask students to record decisions made in a group discussion using their smart phone. Then ask them to email it to another group to listen to as a way of comparing information between groups. This article barely scratches the surface of how blended learning can be used in EAP settings. Remember to think first of the pedagogical aim, then look around to find the right technological tool that could help forward that aim. If you are interested in exploring blended learning further, these resources provide plenty of additional information: 1. White paper for support, guidance and best practice ideas on implementing tablets in teaching and learning 2. British Council Report with 24 international case studies which illustrate different blended learning scenario And finally, for some tips on ways to use technology in the classroom, visit the digital resources pages on the Oxford University Press blog. In particular, you may find the following helpful: 1. Edmodo: Introducing the virtual classroom 2. 5 Apps every teacher should have in 2014 3. Using blogs to create web-based English courses   This article first appeared in the April 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults,subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Multimedia & Digital, Professional Development Tagged: Blended Learning, EAP, EdTech, English Language Teaching, mlearning, Stacey Hughes, Technology

Teacher trainer, Freia Layfield, offers some practical ideas to bring CLIL into the young learner classroom. Categorisation tasks (science) Bring a selection of flashcards to class. Draw two large circles on the board. Label them with two different categories. For example, fruit / dairy, plastic / paper, animals / plants. You can use more challenging categories for older students, like living / non-living. Ask individual students to place a flashcard into the correct circle on the board. If the students are older and able to read and write, you can ask them to write the name of the thing in the correct circle. As a group, the students can then check and decide if the flashcards are in the correct circles or not. Measure it or weigh it (maths) Ask the students to measure or weigh a number of objects in class that are related to a topic you are studying. For example, weigh classroom objects or measure hands, feet and height. Ask students to draw and record their results. Allow them to work in pairs. Each pair can share their answers with the class. This exposes them all to a lot of English and develops their maths skills. Magazine collages (art) Bring a selection of old magazines to class, or ask the children to bring in one each. If possible, the magazines should be related to a topic you are teaching. For example, home and garden magazines if you are looking at houses, holiday magazines or brochures if you are studying countries and holidays, or wildlife magazines if you’re looking at animals and the environment. Put the students into pairs and give each pair a piece of paper. Ask the students to cut out, and stick onto the paper, pictures that are connected to a topic. For example, Places you want to go to or Animals you like. Students can share these collages with the class and talk about the pictures they have chosen. This works well with all ages. Internet research and peer teaching (social science) This works very well with slightly older children. Divide the class into small groups of 2-3 students. Give each group a different research topic. For example, if you’re studying animals, assign each group a country to research. They should work together to identify 3-4 animals in that country and then find out a fact about each animal. For example: The Kangaroo is a marsupial. It carries its baby in a pouch. Students can print pictures or download them onto a memory stick to show the other students in class. Each group then gets a chance to present their new knowledge, in English, to the rest of the class. Would you like more practical tips on using CLIL with your young learners?  Head over to the Oxford Teachers’ Club for ideas and teaching tools for young, and very young learners. Not a member? Sign up here - Ii’s easy and free. Filed under: CLIL, Skills, Young Learners Tagged: Children, CLIL, Content and Language Integrated Learning, Flashcards, Internet Research, Maths, Young Learners

Today has been National Learning at Work Day in the UK, when people are encouraged to learn a new skill in the workplace. It doesn't have to be work related, of course, although I'm sure most employers would prefer it if it were.Since I am self employed and no longer really have an 'at work', I sent out an email to the team of 200 or so people who constitute a mailing group for one of my clients. I encouraged people to push the boat out and learn something new.Fairly predictably for a UK audience, I had a very poor response.One person was thoroughly enthused and suggested that we each offer a 60 second micro-lesson online to whomever was interested. But he was a lone voice. At the other extreme, one respondent claimed that, having read my email, he now needed to learn 'how to clean puke off my keyboard'. Charming.But the third and final response, received just minutes ago made it all worthwhile. With the permission of the respondent, I reproduce it here verbatim:Thanks for your message. When I worked at the University of Manchester a few years ago, they made a good effort for the National Learning at Work Day. Five years ago, they organised a day of unusual activities to stretch people’s minds, at the Manchester Museum which is on the university campus - this included things like circus skills (juggling etc). I asked my boss if I could go and was surprised that I was allowed (but for only half a day) - no one else in my department of about 100 people had even asked. The bit that I attended was an indoor planetarium, offered by the School of Astronomy; this consisted of a wonderful introduction to the stars and how things look different in the southern hemisphere and in different seasons etc, and also included lots about the mythology around the constellations (e.g. how Orion the hunter met Taurus the bull). I enjoyed it a lot and it stayed in my mind.I have just completed a Certificate in Introductory Astronomy with the University of Manchester, via distance and e-learning, which I’ve been doing for the past two years. I know that that one day when my boss was good enough to let me ‘learn at work’, planted a seed for pursuing this hobby (a lifelong love of science fiction played a part too of course). Ironically, the course had very little to do with gazing at the stars - it covered the physics and maths behind ‘life, the universe and everything’. But now that I’m finished with the course and with possible clear nights ahead this summer, I have lots of star gazing ahead. So, the day worked for me anyway, five years ago today!Isn't that an encouraging anecdote?Oh... and I spent the day in teach mode rather than learn mode (but I reckon that counts, too), acquainting someone with the use of social media for business purposes. I have already posted a link to one outcome of the day.

In the second of a three-part series on teaching EAP, Edward de Chazal, a freelance consultant, author and presenter, looks at effective listening strategies and appropriate materials to support students in their chosen disciplines. Listening is a core activity in EAP: when students are studying their chosen disciplines, they will have to deal with a range of spoken texts - which involve listening. For many people academic listening implies lectures, yet there many other types of spoken text: presentations and papers; seminars and discussions; tutorials and small-group events; one-to-one meetings and supervisions; collaborative activities such as group work and projects; and more informal activities like dealing with administration staff and social interaction. These can be highly varied - from informal to formal, straightforward to complex, transactional (e.g. a lecture) to interactive (e.g. a group project). Accessing the content further Clearly a lot of information is given through spoken texts, and students need to be able to understand them. However, understanding is just part of the story. Listening is not simply a passive activity. Two key roles of the academic listener are interpreter and recorder. The listener has to work out the meaning of what they are listening to, including the speaker’s main points, arguments, and stance. They may also have to record this information, for example by making notes. In this way the listener can access the main content - via their notes - to use in future spoken and written texts. Lectures can be highly complex, and taking notes typically involves far more than listening and writing. In short, lectures are integrated, cyclical, and multimodal. Lectures are integrated as they develop a topic which students might be reading about, talking about in seminars and discussions, and ultimately writing about in their essays and assessments. They are cyclical in that they form part of longer cycles of knowledge: the material in lectures may also be developed and presented in conferences, and then published in articles and textbooks. Multimodality means using various ways and technologies to present information. These can include visuals (such as PowerPoint slides), embedded hyperlinks to external content such as websites and podcasts, other video and audio content, as well as other spoken and written texts including student questions and handouts. Any or all of these may be incorporated into a single lecture. These characteristics mean that students have to work with multiple inputs of text, knowledge, and language; furthermore, while doing so they have to respond to these inputs by making notes (in a lecture) or making a relevant contribution (in a discussion). Challenges for the student include language (phonology, vocabulary, grammar), and other aspects such as reading a lecture slide while listening, or dealing with the cultural dimensions of the input. Effective learning strategies Given all these characteristics and challenges, how can EAP teachers facilitate effective learning? Above all, learning needs to be focused and realistic, with clear objectives. Good materials are vital. Time is limited, and students typically have a great deal to learn. It is better to follow these principles and make some measurable progress, for example by moving from B1 to B2, than adopt a ‘hope for the best’ approach through unfocused activities such as exposure to a series of difficult lectures without providing the appropriate support. Think of someone you know who has lived in a foreign country for years without learning much of the language - lots of exposure in itself is not the same as moving forward in terms of language level. To be effective, EAP listening tasks need to be staged, scaffolded, and supported. This support can take the form of sample texts to aim for (such as student presentations), carefully selected language for intensive focus, and achievable outcomes like completing a set of notes. With lectures, the tasks can include relating the information on visuals to the lecturer’s spoken text. In addition, reading is a good preparation for listening - in authentic academic contexts students typically read something on the lecture topic before the lecture. Finally, follow-up tasks can be very useful, for example identifying and noting down material in a listening text to use in a new speaking or writing text. What can we learn from these observations? Listening is a core activity in EAP, and it requires a complex set of skills and language. By using appropriate materials with achievable learning objectives, we can enable our EAP students to overcome these challenges and develop their academic listening skills. This article first appeared in the January 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults,subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.Filed under: Business & English for Specific Purposes, Professional Development Tagged: EAP, Edward De Chazal, English for Academic Purposes, listening skills, Methodology, Teacher Development, Teaching EAP

There is much that is amiss with British culture, but there are times when things happen to make me deeply appreciate the things that are so very right with it.I would like to relate a true incident to highlight this.At a recent conference, a prominent American speaker had cause to summon a delegate onto the platform. In a largely white audience, this delegate was one of the few black people in attendance. The speaker explained that, in America, he would call this man African-American, but he didn't know what term to use in the UK. "What do I call you?" he asked the man. To resounding cheers from the by now very uncomfortable audience, the man answered, "I'm British."I have always wondered how 'African American' is a less offensive term than 'black' because it amounts to pretty much the same thing. It is a term which serves to divide a society on the basis of skin colour. What's wrong with 'American'? Why does there have to be differentiation at all?Oddly enough, the one person I can think of to whom the term can accurately be applied is President Obama, since he has one African parent, and one American parent.But the 'African' bit is somewhat misleading, anyway. I play squash once a week with a friend. Let's say two people were watching us play and person A asked, "Who's winning?" If person B answered, "The African woman is behind by 6 points," person A would probably think I had opened a can of whup-ass on my friend. But under those circumstances, they would be dead wrong. You see, she's black-and-British, while I am white-and-African.Some time back, I related how I had been hounded out of an online group for Africans on the basis of my skin colour. To add insult to injury, the ringleader of my virtual lynch party was an American woman who had never set foot on African soil.It doesn't work.In recent years, I have noticed increasingly racist tendencies on the part of friends and family back in South Africa, as the problems in the country fuel the racial tensions and give rise to all manner of blame-game tactics. I have heard the most pejorative terms coming from the mouths of people I love, people from whom I never expected to hear such talk.And I want no part of it.I far prefer a society in which a person of any skin colour whatsoever can say unequivocally, "I am British."

This is the fourth of a six part series of articles from two ELT professionals who have successfully done just that: Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol. Here, they share advice on how to handle the tricky subject of pricing your services and billing clients. In the three previous articles, we discussed the areas you may wish to target as a freelancer, your strengths and weaknesses as a business owner, and how you can market your services to your clients. Following a logical progression of developing yourself and your business, the next three articles will look at pricing and billing, maintaining clients, and dealing with success and failure. How much do I charge? In a previous article we recommended assessing your current (or desired) standard of living on a monthly and yearly basis and then calculating the income necessary to sustain that lifestyle. Following this, you will also need to assess the market value of language training in your area. Many countries have seen increased price sensitivity in recent years, with per-hour training prices steadily decreasing and making it difficult to make a comfortable living. Therefore, we suggest you remain flexible, at least in the beginning. For example, will there be commuting time involved? Will it require a significant amount of preparation time or none at all? Will you need to invest in training for yourself so that you can better adapt to your clients’ needs? What sort of peripheral services will you include (e.g. placement and progress testing, correcting, proofreading or translating documents, follow-up meetings with HR, etc.)? All of these factors will influence the per-hour or per-package price you should set for your training. Beware of clients that try to set the price far below the local market value. Accepting it may have a detrimental effect on your quality, and your well-being. Some freelancers are afraid of asking for too much, however setting prices too low is to be discouraged. This doesn’t help the value of the ELT industry and moreover, it might draw your own credibility into question. Be prepared to justify your prices and the value your services will bring. Just like your marketing plan, how much to charge clients may always be in a state of flux. If your business becomes more successful you can consider charging higher prices. Monitor your income regularly and adjust as necessary to react to the changing market value and additional expenses you take on as a business owner. The first meeting Congratulations! A prospective client wants to discuss a training programme. Do your homework before you meet them: Google them, learn as much as you can about their industry. The size of the company, the number of employees, and whether it is public or private may have a strong influence on the amount of money they will be able to invest. During the meeting, money probably won’t be the first question on their minds. Some clients prefer to sit down and tell you what they want, while others expect you to give them an overview of your services. It’s crucial that you tailor what you offer to what you learn about the client: so ask lots of questions. When the conversation turns to money, don’t be shy, but also don’t feel obliged to quote a price spontaneously. Many clients expect a quote along with a detailed training programme (in the local language if you can), which can take a day or two to write. In the quote, it’s also advisable to include the conditions of payment, however, depending on the company (public or private), they may or may not be able to meet these conditions, so you may have to be flexible. Whatever the payment conditions are, be absolutely sure they appear in the final order/ proposal confirmations. Billing clients Surprisingly, many freelancers struggle with this area of their business. Some admit they feel uncomfortable asking for money while many forget to bill their clients. However, with all the balls you have to keep in the air, billing clients is a ball you shouldn’t drop - your livelihood depends on it! Send invoices that look professional. On them put your company logo (if you have one), your company information (address, phone numbers, email address, government- issued company and tax numbers if applicable), the title of the training, the dates and times, the hourly rate, the total, payment method and conditions. Some clients are better than others at paying on time. Sometimes, you may have to deal with a client that refuses to pay an invoice. In such cases, you should get assistance from an accountant or lawyer. Otherwise, expect delays, and be prepared to send friendly reminders. You should also budget accordingly so that you’re not under too much financial pressure if a client is a month or two late settling their invoice. Now that you’ve got some clients to be invoicing, you need to think about keeping them. We’ll be looking at this topic in the next article.   This article first appeared in the February 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.   © Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to the authors with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.Filed under: Professional Development Tagged: Becoming a freelancer, Bethany Cagnol, ELT, ELT professionals, Freelancing, Mike Hogan, Teaching adults

Image courtesy of Kapa65 Ian Brookes is a freelance writer and editor based in Scotland. He has edited a number of dictionaries and has written books about spelling, writing, and punctuation. In this post, he looks at the origins and use of animal-related adjectives in English. The names of animals are probably among the first things learnt by a student of a language, yet knowing the names of animals doesn’t always help when it comes to their associated adjectives—in fact, sometimes it can be downright confusing. Most of the formal adjectives that relate to animals are not derived from the common English names but are taken instead from the Latin name of each animal. So when you are talking about things to do with dogs, you use the adjective canine (from the Latin word canis) and when you are talking about things to do with horses, you use the adjective equine (from the Latin word equus). There is one of these Latin-derived adjectives for just about every animal you can think of, and some of them can be quite obscure even to native speakers. (Not many dictionaries bother to record ‘murine’, which is the Latin-inspired adjective that refers to mice, or ‘vespertilionine’, which refers to bats.) In a few cases the Latin name of an animal is similar to the common English name, and so it is easy to guess the meaning of adjectives such as elephantine. In most cases, however, there is not an obvious connection between the Latin-derived adjective and the English noun. Yet the common names of animals also give rise to adjectives: ‘horsey’, ‘doggy’, ‘catty’, ‘fishy’, and ‘ratty’ are perfectly respectable—if somewhat informal—English words. A few of these can be used to refer to the animals themselves, so you can talk about ‘a doggy smell’. On the whole, however, they are more likely to be applied to people or things that exhibit qualities associated with animals. In fact, it is possible to identify two distinct groups of adjectives that are formed from the common names of animals. Adjectives formed by adding the combining form -like to the name of an animal are usually neutral or even positive in tone (depending on the typical associations of the animal involved). Someone who moves in a stealthy manner might be called ‘catlike’, while a gentle person might be ‘lamb-like’. A more negative example is the use of ‘ostrich-like’ for people who ignore what is going on about them (a term that comes from the ostrich’s proverbial habit of burying its head in the sand). On the other hand, adjectives formed by adding the suffixes -y or -ish to the names of animals are predominantly negative: someone who is catty tends to say unkind and spiteful things about other people; someone who is sheepish is embarrassed because they have done something wrong; someone who is sluggish moves slowly and lazily; spidery handwriting has long, thin strokes that appear unattractive; someone who is waspish is aggressive and bad-tempered. So if you come across an adjective that looks as though it is derived from the name of an animal, the first thing to be aware of is that these words usually don’t refer to the animals themselves: people might be sheepish, but sheep are not. It is also worth noting that when these words are used to describe people, the comparison is often not a complimentary one.Filed under: Dictionaries & Reference, Grammar & Vocabulary, Uncategorized Tagged: Animal adjectives, English Language, English spelling, Etymology, Grammar, Ian Brookes, OALD, Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

I am shattered at this point, and unlikely to be coherent in my writing or organised in my thinking, but here are my early impressions of my first eLearning Africa conference. I will unpack some aspects in greater depth in due course.Of course, everything runs on 'African time'. The shuttles are late, the dignitaries are late, the food is late. The queues are long and the sun is hot, oh, and impala stroll around the grounds of the conference centre. This is very definitely Africa.There is a craft market on the grounds as well, but my only visit to it resulted in my being mobbed on all sides by insistent, wheedling vendors, each with a sob story about transport money or sick mothers/children. I struggle to cope with that kind of thing, so I fled empty-handed, to my deep disappointment.Also, there have been displays of drumming and dancing every day. The costumes are charming and the skills demonstrated are impressive. The Europeans in attendance were entranced. But one bishop standing behind me in today's lunch queue labelled it an embarrassment. He considered it irrelevant both to elearning and progress in general. I guess he saw it as a perpetuation of the stereotype from which Africa is trying to escape. He was adamant that this tradition was unhelpful to the nation. I guess I can see his point.The shuttles have been utterly haphazard. Each one is manned by a driver and a... well, I don't know what the other guy is, to be honest. I do know that the 'other guy' on our shuttle is about the most efficient man in Lusaka and his frustration is running high at the ineptitude. We often arrive at one hotel (having been sent there by the handlers back at whatever co-ordination centre exists) only to find another bus (or two) at the same place, while frantic phone calls from other delegates indicate that their hotels have not been visited by any buses at all.The lunches have also proved tricky, due to the fact that hundreds and hundreds of people arrived unexpectedly to enrol for the conference, causing a major headache for the organisers.This has proved by far the biggest eLearning Africa conference to date. The Zambian government is enormously proud of this fact, but I'm not sure that it is an unequivocally positive fact. African culture is one of natural deference to elders in society. As a consequence, many of the attendees are, well, venerable is the most polite term I can think of. It is evident that they have little or no connection with the subject matter under discussion and several of them seem to doze their way through the sessions.At the other end of the spectrum, for some reason, the minister of education has seen fit to have hordes of children in attendance. For almost all these children, English is their second language and both the content and the language used in the presentations are highly unlikely to be engaging for them.My biggest surprise has been the source of the most active and outspoken resistance to the concept of using elearning in education. It has been the intelligent, articulate, savvy early-20s crowd who have stood up and declared that Africa is not ready for elearning, or that the culture of elearning is not a good fit. I will unpack this in greater detail in a review of my own session at a later date.I have also been surprised at the complete lack of understanding of the concept of 'workplace learning' or 'corporate learning' (pick your simile). Not just the term, but the 'thing' itself... even when you call it staff training. If it isn't formal education conducted by an accrediting institution, it isn't learning. More of that anon, too.But everyone is incredibly friendly. Total strangers chat like old friends. The Zambians are astonishingly gracious and willing, but they are hamstrung by the fact that an awful lot of stuff just doesn't work... or doesn't work properly, from the Internet connection to the power supply to the roads (oh, and don't bother trying to cross the road at a pedestrian crossing, those white stripes appear to be no more than just a fashion choice!).I have readily been accepted as an African, which took me by surprise. I call myself an African woman, which is unusual for a white South African (it also very unusual for people from the extreme north of Africa (Saharan and supra-Saharan Africa). For many, even in Africa, African = black, but when I introduce myself as and African girl living in England, this has been accepted without question and with a great deal of approval in some cases. Just today at lunch, I was chatting with two Zimbabwean women who were seated beside me, when a Kenyan man called out from the other side of the table, "You know, you are a very African woman!" He explained how, watching my body language and listening to my intonation, he was suddenly able to see beyond my fair skin. I assured him that I saw myself in the same light and that I took this as a huge compliment. The conversation at my table flowed fast, and in numerous directions simultaneously.The food has been very much local fare, and no explanation is forthcoming as the ingredients of any of the dishes. I asked what was in a dish called chiwawa and was told, "Chiwawa". I was at a loss to explain that I already had this much information, and needed more (I have since learned that it is made of pumpkin leaves with onion and tomato).I have made many new contacts, but I am doubtful as to whether it will lead to business opportunities.C'est la vie.It's been fun.

Image courtesy of Colin K on Flickr How do you check your students’ comprehension of a concept or skill? Stacey Hughes, former teacher and current teacher trainer in the Professional Development team at Oxford University Press, shares some ideas for checking students are on the right track. Aren’t students tested enough? Surely the last thing students need is more tests! Continuous assessment is not the same as testing. For one thing, tests are marked or graded whereas continuous assessment isn’t. Continuous assessments are quick checks for the purpose of letting the teacher and student know if more revision is needed. They are also useful for keeping track of progress between more formal tests. Ideas for continuous assessment Below are some ideas for quick checks teachers can use throughout the year. Reading speed quick check: Give students a text to read from the course book or a graded reader. Make sure it is the right level for the class or student. Ask the students to read for exactly one minute. Stop them and ask them to mark the last word they read. Ask them to count the number of words they were able to read in one minute and note it down. Repeat this several times during the term so that students can see if their reading speed is increasing. If it is not, remind them of reading strategies: guessing unknown words from context, skipping unknown words, reading groups of words rather than single words, etc. Listening for gist quick check: Give students a short listening that is at their level. Play the listening once, ask students to discuss what they understood, then play it again. This time, ask students to write a short (1 sentence) summary of what the listening was about. For example: The listening was about the dangers of mountain climbing. At first, students will find this difficult to do and the focus is not on grammatically correct sentences, but on conveying the main idea. Repeat this many times during the term to see if students are improving their ability to understand the main idea of things they listen to. This will also show students if they need to do more listening outside of class and if they need to work on their listening for gist skills. Vocabulary quick check: Write any new vocabulary from the lesson on the board for students to copy down. Ask them to put a tick next to words they feel they can remember the meaning of, a cross next to words they can’t remember and a star * next to words they feel they know really well and can use in a sentence. This will let students know which words to study more and, if you collect the papers, you will quickly see which words need revision in the next lessons. Grammar quick check: Grammar quick checks can focus on form or use. So, for example, if you were teaching present continuous for making arrangements, you could ask the students to write the answers to your questions:a. What do I need to remember about the form of the present simple? (e.g. BE + base form + ing) b. Are there any spelling rules to remember? (e.g. drop the -e and add - ing) c. What have we been using the present continuous for today? (e.g. making arrangements to do something together) These could be collected and checked by you or you could give the answers and ask students to check their own. Ask students if they were able to answer. If they could they can feel like they have learned something and if not, they know what to study. Ticket out the door: Any of the above assessments can be used as a student’s ‘ ticket out the door’. Continuous assessment isn’t new. Teachers naturally assess whether or not their students have understood or mastered a concept or skill before moving on. This non-graded formative assessment is also valuable for students for several reasons. Firstly, it clarifies what content or skills the teacher thinks are important to learn which enables students to review relevant material. Secondly, it shows students the relevance of classroom activities. If performance on tasks is assessed - even informally - then students are more likely to understand why the activity was important. Finally, continuous or formative assessment helps students realise where they are in relation to where they should be in terms of skills and abilities.   This article first appeared in the January 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development, Skills Tagged: Assessment, EFL, Grammar, Reading Tests, Stacey Hughes

Edit note: Please note that I have just discovered that my carefully recorded voiceovers in the PowerPoint presentation below don't work in SlideShare. If anyone has a suggestion as to how to fix this (since my slides are meaningless without audio), please let me know!By contrast with ICWE's annual Online Educa in Berlin, eLearning Africa focused predominantly on formal, institutional learning. Corporate learning didn't occupy a lot of space either on the programme or within the venue. Our session was scheduled for what f2f trainers call the graveyard shift (straight after lunch) on the first day, and we did have a few dozers, it has to be said.The first speaker was Mads Bo-Kristensen from Videnscenter for Integration in Denmark. He spoke about tools in use in Denmark to assist immigrants in gaining proficiency in 'business Danish' to enable them to communicate within the workplace. I can see enormous potential for a tool like this within Africa. It is a hugely multilingual continent. Every country boasts innumerable 'local languages' and speakers of all these languages must work together within large organisations. Quite apart from this, aid workers coming to the continent could fare much better with skills in these local languages.Next up was Mehdi Tounsi from Gatlin International in France. Mehdi is Algerian and we found immediate synergy in the fact that we hail from African countries that often do not refer to themselves as such... and in the fact that we both consider ourselves African in spite of this. Mehdi spoke about a sustainable and affordable business model for e-enabled learning in Africa.To my surprise, the challenge to both their presentations came from the young, outspoken delegates who have been educated abroad. One of these told us that Africa is not ready for elearning because the generation currently holding teaching posts had not learned to use computers at school. Another told us that Africa was not culturally suited to elearning. I promised to address both these points in my own presentation. I have recorded more or less the same words over the slides (I didn't really use notes... as usual), so here it is:Putting the learner in the driver's seatView more presentations from Learning Anorak Ltd.During the question and answer session that followed, one of the young bucks was arguing a point about learning, when I realised that he was referring to an academic situation. I tried to explain that I was talking about workplace learning. Learning on the job. The young man knitted his brows and looked at me blankly. And he was not the only one. If it isn't an academic course of study with an accreditation at the end of it, it fell outside of the frame of reference for many of the people present, even though I had so carefully crafted my story about Abi and his workplace learning needs.The other started up again about his contention that older people in Africa had not encountered computers in school, so I pointed out that I was an older person, educated in Africa without computers... and yet I did this stuff for a living. I was a bit irked that he was prepared to write off his entire continent as beyond e-redemption based on this flimsy fact and it must have showed, because the chairman had to pull me up.I maintain that social learning absolutely fits with African culture, but like the rest of the world, Africa has to break faith with the idea of the instructor/teacher/whatever as sage on the stage. One teacher in a pre-conference workshop emphasised the social structure of the classroom dynamic and spoke of the need to retain it. This is not unfamiliar territory to those of us who have been championing the social learning cause for a while, but these traditions run perhaps a little deeper in Africa than elsewhere.One young man informed us in our corporate learning session that we must walk before we can run. I was disappointed. I had hoped that my anecdotes of TV and passenger flights had demonstrated that this was not a requirement.Who knows? Next year perhaps the ethos will be subtly different.It is worth noting that there were several delegates on Twitter and Facebook throughout the conference, using these tools with the easy confidence of seasoned social media pundits.

This is the fifth of a six part series of articles from two ELT professionals who have successfully done just that: Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol. Here, they share advice on how to develop long-lasting relationships with your clients. In the four previous articles, we discussed conducting market research, reflecting on your strengths and weaknesses as a business owner, how you can market your services to your clients and how much to charge. In this part five we will discuss what goes into maintaining satisfied clients. The exhilaration you feel when you sign with a new client is great indeed. Your business is now officially growing and it’s time to celebrate. But the honeymoon should be quick because you’ll have to jump into quality-control-mode right from the start. In a 2013 webinar, James Schofield listed the three most common ways to annoy the training manager of a company. Lack of professionalism Lack of appearance Lack of time keeping These three elements are crucial in order to build and maintain relationships, and make sure your clients are satisfied with your services. From day one of the training, show up on time (or a bit early just in case), prepared, and looking like a true professional. Communicating with HR Don’t hesitate to frequently report to HR on how it’s going. Stop by their office or send an email and say, "Today went great. We covered these topics …" If you do stop by, and it’s been a long day, be sure you check yourself in a mirror before knocking on the door. Freshen up first, and don’t let your appearance give them reason to worry about the quality of the lessons. If there’s ever an issue in or with your training, you need to take care of it immediately. For example, your clients want to get the best Return possible On their Investment (ROI), and they’re not getting that if your participants are either absent or not focused. It’s good business practice to inform the company when these or other factors that may affect their ROI happen; they will genuinely appreciate that you understand the importance of this. Transparency is key to building trust and relationships, and your honesty is an extra plus the client may or may not have gotten with a previous service provider. Quality Control Methods Questionnaires, handed out at the end of the training, are the most common form of quality control. Standardised corporate feedback forms are generally the same for any type of training delivered within the company, e.g. IT training. You could ask if you can adapt these to include specific questions about the course content, the materials and the methodology used. Most of the time, HR will agree to this, but if they are unable to, you could ask if you could also create your own, personal feedback form. Secondly, ask the training manager if you can hand out the questionnaire half way through the training instead of at the end. This will help catch any issues that might develop into dissatisfaction before they get out of hand and affect your chances of signing on with that client in the future. Thirdly, don’t hesitate to show HR the results of the questionnaire. Don’t hide from positive and negative feedback, and explain how you will modify the training to better meet the needs of their employees next time. And finally, keep copies of the questionnaires because they can be an excellent source of praise for your company to put on your website (with the client’s permission, of course). Of course, in addition to the formal feedback and quality control of questionnaires, you should also always be carrying out informal verbal feedback by just talking to people. Ask them how they’re getting on and if you can be doing anything more/less/differently to be helping them reach their goals, and adapt accordingly. Tough situations Satisfaction can come at a price. Some clients may ask for things that are in contradiction with your company policy. One common example is a client insisting on having native-speaker-only trainers while your company uses a more inclusive approach. In such cases, you could sit down with the client to explain the benefits of both types of trainers and suggest a trial period with a non-native speaker. Another example is with issues surrounding downward price pressure. In the previous article, we warned against clients trying to set the price far below the local market value. In the end, you will waste an enormous amount of time on admin and/or commuting and it will have a negative effect on the quality of training you offer if you accept such contracts. Sometimes it’s best to maintain your own sense of integrity and know when to decline such training requests. Be Referral-Focused Depending on the country in which you live, obtaining new clients often depends on the referrals of others. Therefore, the more you concentrate on the needs, goals and satisfaction of your clients, the more likely they will refer you both internally and to other companies. Bearing these factors in mind will help you lay the foundations for solid and long-lasting relationship with your clients. Reference: Schofield, J. 2013. What are the issues training managers face. February 27th webinar. Cambridge English Teacher.   This article first appeared in the March 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.   © Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to the authors with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.Filed under: Professional Development Tagged: Becoming a freelancer, Bethany Cagnol, ELT, ELT professionals, Freelancing, Mike Hogan, Teaching adults

Yesterday was the Learning & Skills Group members conference (do I sound Very Important if I mention that I am a founder member?), when over 400 people gathered for a follow up event to the Learning Technologies conference held in January.If you follow me on Twitter, you will have been inundated with my observations of some of the sessions already. Internet access in the main auditorium was (as always) patchy at best, so I was unable to share much from the sessions that took place there. In fact, perhaps this is an appropriate place to mention that, of the two most recent conferences I have attended, I experienced better connection in Lusaka than I did in London!One of the things I often note about conferences is that the speakers tend to say things that I have been saying for years... only when I say them, no-one pays the blindest bit of attention. However, when luminaries like Charles Jennings and Jay Cross say them, they cause a huge stir. During discussions with my neighbour in Charles's session, I found that I am not alone in this. It's frustrating for us nobodies!As always, a few of my pet topics came up. Learner empowerment. Permanent beta (aka rolling with the punches). ROI. Aligning with the business.Jay's keynote addressed the subject matter of his new book, Work(ing) Smarter. He talked about the speed of data generation and touched on the power of the individual to change the market, citing the example of United Breaks Guitars. Even though I had seen it before, and even though country and western music sets my teeth on edge, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being with people watching the story unfold for the first time. That YouTube video has taken over 8.5 million hits, and United's share price took a massive hit of its own as a result. Never question the power of the individual to change things! He touched on cluetrain manifesto, and I was surprised at the relatively low number of hands raised in answer to his question as to how many had read it.This addresses the fact that people react very publicly to things. We might think it's a bit rude, or a bit unfair or a bit whatever, when people express their disapproval for all the world to see on FB and/or Twitter, but that attitude isn't going to change anything. We simply have to face up to the fact that that is how the world works now (as predicted by cluetrain) and develop strategies to engage with a public that has a voice and isn't afraid to use it.As I have been saying for a long time now, if we adopt the attitude that all learning/staff training/call it what you will must be officially developed, sourced and/or sanctioned by the L&D department, we will forever be running to catch up, and we will turn what should be an empowering service into a bottle neck. Several times yesterday, we were reminded that L&D should serve the business. That we should talk in the language of the stakeholders and serve the agenda of the organisation, instead of talking the language of learning to support the agenda of the L&D department.It would be doing Charles Jennings a huge disservice to say that he talked about ROI. He did touch on the subject, though, and it was implicit in so much of what he said. Since it's a pet topic of mine, I probably heard the ROI message louder than anything else he had to say. I like Charles's no nonsense approach. I am only sorry that he and I have never had the opportunity to work together professionally. He reminded us that the value of anything at all is determined by the buyer. The seller may set the price, but it is the buyer who decides whether or not to pay it. When it comes to learning solutions and/or environments, while it may be the HR department or the CFO who signs the cheque in monetary terms, the real buyer is the user, the learner, the consumer (or not) of the koolaid. So producing a series of numbers that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt (or not) that the training is a Good Thing, does not address the needs or represent the opinions of the user populace. Those things do not have numeric values and can therefore not accurately be reflected in the ROI model. How do you attach a number to things like staff morale, for example?Furthermore, Charles cited research that demonstrated a chasm between CLOs' perception of their roles and the measures of success and the rest of the C-level suite's perception of the CLO's role and the measurement of success. Startlingly, the C-level suite is so accustomed to making huge decisions with a shortage of quantitative data, that they are utterly at ease basing critical decisions on nothing more than experienced intuition. They have little interest in the numbers. ROI is not regarded as important. So, while the CLO is frantically trying to justify his existence, the rest of the CXOs are quite happy to accept on faith that the CLO performs a necessary function within the business are happy to let him get on with it.I suspect that ROI becomes important when the L&D department is fighting for its life in the face of huge budget cuts. Those numbers will be what are trotted out in a desperate bid for survival. But, if the CXOs make their decisions intuitively, I suspect they are unlikely to be swayed by the numbers at this point.Charles also produced some figures which explored how senior managers themselves learn. These majored on (ahem) radical ideas like Talking To Peers. The suggestion is that, when solutions to learning and support needs within the organisation are being addressed, those same affordances be made available to the entire staff complement.

Julie Norton, a university lecturer and materials writer, considers the benefits of adopting a systematic approach to vocabulary development and suggests a checklist for evaluating the vocabulary included in teaching materials. Takeaway Value All learners want to feel that they are making progress, so it is important for them to take away something at the end of each lesson. Learning new vocabulary is very motivating, particularly for adult learners, because they often feel they have learnt a great deal of grammar at school. Vocabulary is an area where they can make tangible gains relatively quickly, provided they are given appropriate guidance and support. Vocabulary learning is more effective when it is focused and systematic rather than incidental (Nation and Newton, 2009). For example, explicitly teaching the form and meaning of a word, including its spelling, pronunciation and grammatical requirements (e.g. irregular plural, countable noun, phrasal verb etc.) is more effective than leaving vocabulary learning to chance or dealing with it on an ad hoc basis as it arises in class. Learners usually need to encounter a vocabulary item several times before they can recall it. It also helps them to see a word or phrase in a variety of contexts and to have the opportunity to use it to express their own meanings, so practice is crucial. Coursebooks have several advantages when it comes to presenting vocabulary in a systematic way. For example, they aim to teach a certain number of words per lesson and per unit. These words are recycled in revision sections and in consecutive units of the book. Word lists and extra practice activities are often included at the end of the book.  There are also other components, such as workbooks, online practice, and apps which can usefully support and extend vocabulary development inside and outside class. Knowing you are learning the right words Coverage of the most important words should be a priority of a language course. Learners have a finite amount of time, so it seems sensible to focus on the most useful lexical items and the most frequent or prototypical meanings of these items first. A systematic approach to vocabulary development can assure learners that they are focussing on the right words and help them gain control over essential, high frequency items. In recent years, computer corpora (electronically held collections of spoken and written texts) have been drawn upon to inform the development of language teaching materials to ensure coverage of the most frequent words and phrases.  The Oxford 3000™ is a corpus-informed list of the three thousand most important words for language learners which have been selected according to three criteria: frequency, range and familiarity. The keywords in the Oxford 3000 are frequent across a range of different text types and from a variety of contexts. The list also includes some words which are not highly frequent but which are familiar to most users of English (for example, parts of the body or words used in travel). Developing awareness of vocabulary as a system Words do not exist in isolation: they form partnerships and relationships with other words and pattern in certain ways (e.g. regular spellings and sound patterns). Presenting vocabulary as a system by focussing on word-building (e.g. affixes); the underlying meanings of words; and collocations (words that often occur together), for example, can make aspects of this system more explicit for learners, speed up vocabulary learning and develop greater language awareness. A check-list for evaluating systematic vocabulary development Here is a list of questions that teachers can ask to engage more critically with the vocabulary content of their teaching materials. Can you easily identify the target vocabulary in the lesson? Why are students learning this vocabulary? Is it useful and appropriate for their level? How much new vocabulary is taught in each lesson/ in each unit? Have students been presented with enough information to use the new vocabulary? (e.g. context; collocation) How many opportunities do students have to use the new vocabulary in the lesson/in the unit? Is this enough? What strategies are included for learning and developing knowledge of vocabulary (e.g. developing awareness of vocabulary as a system; recording and recalling vocabulary)? What opportunities do students have to revise and study this vocabulary outside class? Does the course package provide other components to facilitate vocabulary development? Reference Nation, I.S.P. and Newton, J. (2009) Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking, New York and London: Routledge.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Grammar & Vocabulary Tagged: Adults, Corpora, Julie Norton, Oxford 3000, recycling, Teaching adults, vocabulary development, vocabulary systems, word-building

What can you do if some of your students find the course book you are using too easy? Ken Wilson, the main author of Smart Choice Second Edition, shares his ideas. I recently got this message from a teacher: Hello Ken. I was wondering if you could answer a question. How can a teacher deal with using a course book that the students find too easy? My colleague is using Smart Choice Starter (an excellent series, by the way), but some of the students think it’s too easy. What advice do you have for her? Thanks in advance! I imagine a lot of teachers find the book they are using too easy or too difficult for their class. Or for some of the class. So here are a couple of ideas to do something about it, assuming that changing the book or moving certain students to a different level are not options. The book seems too easy for all/most of the class Let’s imagine that you realise after a couple of weeks that the book you are using seems to be ‘too easy’, which basically means that the students already ‘know’ the new vocabulary and grammar content, or at least they think they do. A possible solution may be for pairs or groups of students to take responsibility for presenting some of the ‘new’ material to the rest of the class. Let’s say there are twelve units in the book and you’ve reached Unit 2, so there are ten to go. It’s clear by now that the book isn’t challenging them enough. Tell them - in their own language if necessary - that from now on, you would like them to be responsible for the presentation of some of the new material in the remaining units. Put the students in pairs or groups of three, you decide which is best. Ask them to work together in their groups and look at all the remaining units in the book - give them 10-15 minutes to do this. Tell them to choose a unit that they would like to present. They should then tell the rest of the class what the new vocabulary is and POSSIBLY what the new grammar point is. It really doesn’t matter if there are too many or not enough students for each pair/group to have their own unit to present. The process is more important than the end product. I have met teachers who express concern about their students looking at units later in the book. What if they’re too difficult? To these teachers I say - do you REALLY think you students haven’t already looked at every page in the book? They usually do it as soon as they get it, mainly to see if there are any interesting images. So stop worrying about that. After they’ve had a chance to look at all the units, ask them which one they would like to present. Often more than one group will want to present the same unit, so they have to decide who does it. Let them decide by tossing a coin, arm-wrestling, whatever.  There will be some units that no one wants to present. Ask them why. If the answer is that the material looks boring, then you are well within your rights not to do those units. You should find alternative material to present the lexis, grammar and skills practice. And send a note to the publisher telling them what your students thought. Authors and publishers need lots of feedback, and teacher feedback is an essential part of the process of improving material for the next edition. It’s even better if the teachers are passing on the thoughts of their students. But let’s imagine at least some of the groups agree to present the material in different units. How should they do it? My suggestion is that they do it without the book. In Smart Choice, the first page of each unit is devoted to presenting a new lexical set. Ask the students to find images of the key vocabulary from another source - Google images is a good place to start. Another excellent source of freely available photographic material is ELTpics (http://www.eltpics.com), a collection of thematically arranged photographs compiled and curated by ELT professionals. The point is, you should encourage your students to start the presentation with some graphics as back-up, preferably using PowerPoint, keynote or Prezi - whatever the students are familiar with. Some of the lexical sets may be more easily presented using mime or acting out techniques. Encourage the students to explore that possibility, too. Let’s imagine a group of students have agreed to present the vocabulary from the next unit. Remind them at the end of the previous class and check that they have prepared the material for their presentation. The class begins. You ask the two or three students to take over. It’s an interesting moment - the presenters are a bit nervous and the rest of the class are a bit curious. The atmosphere is already much more interesting than it might be if you were doing all the teaching yourself! For guidance, tell the presenters to try to find out what the other students already know, showing them images or acting out/miming to illustrate the new words. Explain that ‘eliciting’ new words/phrases is a good way to start. If the class is a monolingual class, there is every chance that the presenters will occasionally use L1 as part of their presentation. My feeling is that this is fine, particularly at lower levels. You may have a different opinion, but I feel that the occasional use of translation is very helpful, especially for beginners. If the presenters struggle at any point, step in and help them. But give them a chance to do it themselves. They will never forget the experience. Objections When I have presented these ideas in a talk or workshop, teachers have the following objections. You’re asking people to teach who have not been trained to teach. Some students might think - you’re the teacher, I’m the student, YOU should be teaching ME. There could be a rebellion. In a PLS or other institution where the students are paying, they may object and ask for their money back! These are important issues to deal with. Regarding the first point, the fact is that your students may not do a very good job of presentation, in which case you have to step in and help. Don’t take over the class, just add some ideas and help to elicit information from the rest of the class. Regarding the second and third points, in the end it’s all about belief and trust. If you believe that what you’re doing is right and the students trust that you are doing things because they will benefit from them, they will accept any of the crazy methods you’re using. I tried this method of students teaching their peers many times when I was a teacher at a PLS, and I never had a single complaint from students about my methods. I hope it will work for you too! The book is too easy or too difficult for a proportion of the class This is a classic mixed-ability class scenario. In this case, I’m going to suggest that you get your best students to help you with the less able ones. Let’s imagine again there are fifteen people in the class. When you have a new class, how long does it take you to decide who are the ‘good’ students? Not long, right? So here’s an idea. During the first two or three classes, make a mental note of who the top third of the students are. In a class of fifteen, this means five students. Ask them to see you at the end of the class. When the rest of the students have left the room, you tell the top third that they are really good - the best in the class. This is very nice for them to hear. But, you go on to explain, with this ability comes a responsibility. From now on, when you do group work, these ‘good’ students will make a group of three with two of the other students, ie not with another ‘good’ one. So now, one ‘good’ student is helping two more challenged students. Three is much better than two, because the two can learn together from the better student. Meanwhile, you go from group to group, monitoring the work they are doing. I hate to use words like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to describe students, because all students bring something positive to the classroom, but I think you will see the advantage of this idea. At no point have I indicated to the class why the five are taking over, it will just happen. Final thought If the book is too difficult for ALL the class, then you do have a problem. If your feedback suggests that this is something that happens, and there is nothing you can do to change the book, then I will come back with some ideas to help with that situation, too.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development Tagged: Adult Learners, Author, Classroom activities, EFL, ELT, English Language, Ken Wilson, Presenting tasks, Smart Choice, Teacher Development

With one son busy with GCSE exams and the other with A2 levels, I am surrounded by the detritus of exam-time at the moment. Both my sons' girlfriends are also busy with GCSEs, which simply adds and extra dimension to the stress. Snapping and sniping and the occasional bout of near-hysterical laughter at nothing-in-particular are the order of the day.I have shared before my antipathy towards exams as a means of testing competency in a subject, and we once again find ourselves reaffirming our every negative feeling on the matter.My younger son recently sat a maths paper, the first half of which was based around a single scenario. Sadly for him, he didn't understand the initial scenario, so half the total marks for the paper were placed beyond his reach in one fell swoop. Students were presented with a quadrilateral of some kind and given information about a 'transection'. My son is familiar with the word 'transect' in daily language, but assumed that, in this case, it was a mathematical term with associated formulae and methodologies and so forth that he had somehow missed (like integration, for example).Can you imagine his mounting stress as question after question referred back to this diagram that he simply couldn't fathom? Mentally adding up the marks that he was effectively barred from earning must have been gut-wrenching when he had been doing so well in the subject to date. By the time he reached the first question unrelated to the mystery diagram, his stress levels were through the roof and he could barely think straight. He knew he had to get practically full marks for the rest of the paper to be in with a hope of passing, and this placed him under additional pressure.My elder son had a very similar experience last year with a statistics paper which centred largely around a single case-study. He got 37% for that paper, after having fared better in stats than any other subject throughout the year. He promptly betook himself to a tutor (okay, we betook him... and paid the extortionate rates) and got an A on the resit. He didn't learn any more about stats from the tutor. He learnt about exam papers... and went from 37% to 80+% in the space of a couple of months.Now let's think how that scenario might play out in the work place (or anywhere else in 'real life'). Somebody gives you a diagram or a scenario and tells you to perform certain calculations on it which are pertinent to the situation. You can't figure out the diagram/scenario. What do you do? Well, quite clearly, you get some assistance. You ask someone to explain it to you. You look on YouTube or Google or Wikipedia. You look up unknown words in a dictionary. You phone a friend. You ask the audience. Whatever.Then you perform the calculations and present them back to the person who needed them. Or you buy the floor tiles. Or supply the correct does of the required medication.Nobody locks you in a sensory deprivation chamber and expects you to do it all on your tod from memory.Ugh.So irrelevant.

In the last of a three-part series on teaching EAP, Edward de Chazal, a freelance consultant, author and presenter, looks at effective strategies to help students work more independently.  In English language teaching in general, and EAP in particular, independence is talked about a lot. Teachers say they want their students to ‘be more independent’ and ‘work more independently’. But what does this mean, and how can it happen? Student independence is a major aim of EAP - eventually, when they are studying in their departments, students need a significant degree of independence in order to function effectively and succeed. Typically, most of their EAP input takes place before they start their academic programme, so EAP teachers need to use materials which lead to independence. For instance, rather than presenting one particular reading text for intensive focus - an inward-looking task - a more outward-looking task would enable students to learn skills and techniques which they can independently apply to other texts. Independence is both an abstract concept - a ‘state of mind’ perhaps - and a physical concept. Ultimately, students need to become independent of their (EAP) teachers, the timetabled lessons, and the materials. Put simply, the independent student no longer needs to be told when to study, how to learn, and what to focus on. They have become skilled at searching for source texts, selecting and evaluating what they read, and processing parts of the material into their own new texts such as essays and presentations. Linguistically, cognitively, and academically, these are complex processes. Relying on teacher input A key point about independence is that for many students it doesn’t just happen. The role of the EAP teacher is vital: paradoxically, significant teacher input is needed for student independence to develop, especially in its early stages. To illustrate this, I’d like to use an example from my own education. When I was studying English Literature at grammar school (an old-fashioned type of secondary school; there aren’t many grammar schools left now), we had to analyse poems. We had never seen these poems before (they were known as ‘unseen’), and they were quite difficult. Early on in the process, our teacher would try to elicit meanings, using questions like ‘What does this mean?’, ‘Why is the poet using this word here?’, and ‘What does this line suggest to you?’ Yet at this stage the teacher did most of the explaining - we listened carefully and read closely, and by the end of the lesson we were able to understand the poem pretty well. However, I remember wondering how I would ever be able to analyse a poem myself - independently - it just seemed too difficult without the support of the teacher. This story has a happy ending: gradually we did learn how to analyse an unseen poem, and most of us in the class achieved a very high grade in our A-level exam. Significantly, this skill is transferable: poems are not the only things I can analyse. This example tells us several things. The teacher has a key role to play, and they need to use appropriate yet challenging materials. There has to be sufficient support and staging, particularly earlier on in the process of becoming more independent. Independence takes time to develop, and students will develop at different speeds and in different ways. Developing student independence Conversely, if the teacher continues to do too much, their students might remain over-reliant and excessively dependent. In order to become more independent, students need to be engaged with the material, and become more responsible. In this context responsibility means taking the initiative - finding new texts, and using the available resources and technologies. We’ve incorporated many of these ideas into Oxford EAP. The theme of the final unit in Oxford EAP Upper-Intermediate/B2 is ‘Independence’, and the lecture in this unit presents many of the ideas in this article. Integrated throughout the different levels of the Oxford EAP series are Independent Study tasks, which ask students to go and find out something new. Similarly, the sequences of tasks in the skills modules are designed to be transferable, so that the student can apply the similar techniques to new contexts. The independent student has an initiating approach to their learning; they are resourceful, reflective, and critical. They like to go beyond what the teacher and the materials require them to do. In short, the ultimate goal of EAP is independence, and with good materials and teaching, it is highly achievable.   This article first appeared in the February 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults,subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.  Filed under: Business & English for Specific Purposes, Professional Development Tagged: EAP, Edward De Chazal, English for Academic Purposes, listening skills, Methodology, Teacher Development, Teaching EAP

Apologies for the long silence, and a warning that I am thoroughly jet-lagged! I have been to the north-western USA. The first week was an abortive business trip, the second was spent visiting family.I felt the need to share my reflections of the differences I noted between this trip and my last visit to the same area in 2004.Of course, everyone tells me that I have a "cute little accent" and asks me where I'm from.Last time, when I told them I was from South Africa, the response was invariably, "Oh, Africa." The word 'South' was simply ignored as being meaningless. There was no concept South Africa as a country - most people seemed to think Africa was one large country and, in fact, had little concept of how very large it is!This time, when I said I was was from South Africa, (almost) everyone knew what that was, even if they didn't know where it was. One woman promptly told a colleague that I was from South America, but then, perhaps she saw this news report. Most noteworthy response : "Ah. That's where our soccer team is at, right?"Last time, no-one knew much about soccer beyond a game their kids played.This time, people were keeping ludicrous hours in order to watch the games being played halfway around the world, and many were calling it 'footie' or even 'football' (but only when talking to those of us from outside of the USA, I hasten to add). This surely contributed to the improved understanding of African geography, since there were many African teams in the early stages of the competition.Last time, if I said I lived in England, most people called England 'London'. If I was absent-minded enough to say I was from the UK, some complimented me on how well I spoke English and asked me if it was widely spoken there.This time, they were comfortable with terms like UK/United Kingdom as well as England. No-one asked me whether they speak English there. One or two people did use London and England interchangeably, it has to be said.But my favourite encounter was in the gym with the chap on the static bike next to mine. We were discussing the upcoming 4th of July celebrations and I was regretting the fact that I hadn't thought about them when I had made my travel reservations, with the result that my return flight was booked for 4th July, rather than the day after. "I guess it doesn't really feature large enough on my radar," I explained. Having reassured me that it was "just another reason for folks to get drunk," the man said, "So folks don't celebrate the 4th of July in England, then?"Me: I'm afraid not.Him: Why's that, then?Me: Well, let's think about that. What do you celebrate on July 4th?Him: Um...?Me: It's Independence Day, right?Him: That's right!Me: Independence from whom?Him: I don't know.Me: Independence from England.Him: Really? I did not know that! Thank you for telling me....and no, he was not being facetious. It was a very sincere conversation. But I hasten to add, he was the exception!

This is the last of a six-part series of articles from two ELT professionals who have successfully done just that: Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol. Here, they give advice on how to manage the ups and downs of running your own business. In the previous articles in this series, we gave advice on setting up your own freelance training business. In this final article we discuss how to manage some positive and negative challenges that may come up as you are running your business. No business comes without its challenges, and it’s vital when starting out to be aware of what’s ahead and to have a rough plan for handling the bumps along the way. Adding to the team As demand for your services grows, you might find yourself with a fully booked schedule and a phone that keeps ringing. This is great, and you may soon need to bring on more trainers to fulfil the needs of your clients and to alleviate some pressure from your own schedule. The laws associated with subcontracting trainers in your country may be pretty straightforward and easy to set up. Nevertheless, you should look into these laws and check with an accountant before you actually engage anyone. When looking for trainers, it can be a good idea to use the same tactic as for finding your clients: word of mouth. You may already know some good trainers in the network who would be interested in cooperation. If so, get their CVs or profiles (ideally in the language of the client so they can be easily sent on to your clients, if requested) and find out what sort of hourly rate they’d be happy with. From there, you’ll need to add on a certain amount to cover government charges, business expenses, your time spent doing admin, contracts, quality control, any testing, etc. Always draw up a contract with the trainer, which should include details of the number of hours, the hourly rate, payment conditions, any cancellation policies, and a clause protecting the relationship between you and your client. It should also be noted that not only is it poor business practice to (attempt to) steal clients, but it is illegal in many countries. As you work with more and more trainers, concentrate on hiring those with specific and marketable talents. Those with sector relevant backgrounds, such as legal or technical, or those with skills specific experience, such as negotiations or presentation skills will be good additions to your team. Consider also hiring someone who can respond to a call for bids and who writes very well in the local language. Seek out trainers who have the people skills to meet with HR managers and build rapport on your behalf. After all, your new team will be working together to maintain the quality of your "brand". How to deal with challenging clients At some point, you may have a challenging client who requires more time (e.g. additional administration, testing, follow-up meetings with HR, frequent quality control, difficult trainees, etc.). Perhaps you’re helping them set up their training programmes, or maybe they’ve had bad experiences in the past and want to keep in extra close contact to ensure maximum ROI. You should be aware of the time investment necessary for each client, and budget your time and costs accordingly. Having a range of service models will make this easier and more transparent for everyone. Of course, don’t underestimate the goodwill to be generated by going the extra mile. The extra time you spend on that one client could eventually pay off with additional participants, top management signing on, or other company referrals. How to deal with clients leaving Almost every freelancer will lose a client at some point in their career. This may be something beyond your control, but you should still reflect on why this is. Obligatory calls for tender, budget cuts and changing priorities can all result in your loss of contracts. In any case, you should get feedback from them as to why they don’t want to (or can’t) continue the relationship. Any feedback you can get should be seen as developmental and necessary for your future growth. In the unfortunate event that the company is forced to close and lay off all of their employees, you should stay in touch with your trainees: they could refer you to their new HR manager when they move on to other companies. Get in touch Whichever way your business grows and develops, your chances of success will be much better if you are organised, focused, and prepared for a range of eventualities, both positive and negative. We hope you’ve enjoyed and benefitted from this series of articles and would love to hear your feedback. We look forward to connecting with you either on LinkedIn or our about.me pages.   This article first appeared in the April 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.   © Mike Hogan and Bethany Cagnol, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to the authors with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.Filed under: Professional Development Tagged: Becoming a freelancer, Bethany Cagnol, ELT, ELT professionals, Freelancing, Mike Hogan, Teaching adults

When there was about a year to go before the football/soccer (choose your name) world cup in South Africa, I visited the country and had grave misgivings that things would be pulled together in time to make the event successful. I expressed these misgivings publicly. Not in any finger-pointing, accusing way, you understand, but with a heavy heart. I thought my homeland had taken on more than it could chew.I also said that nothing would please me more than to have to admit - after the event - that my fears and doubts were unfounded.May I take this opportunity to state publicly (as I have done on my Facebook page) that I was unequivocally wrong.I believe the event was a resounding success. I know there were complaints about the ball, but that was FIFA's problem, not South Africa's. I know that there were complaints about the incessant sound of the vuvuzelas, but (to borrow an Australianism for just a moment) suck it up, princess. They provided a uniquely African soundtrack to the event, just as the steel drums did to the T20 world championship in the West Indies. Oh, and friends and family back home tell me that foreign visitors were just as responsible for the noise levels as the locals... and not just in the stadium, either... vuvuzelas abounded in the streets, in the malls, on the beaches.... everywhere!South Africans came out in support of the event and their Cinderella team in a way that made my heart swell. Even after their own team was knocked out in the group stages, South Africans chose a team for every game, and supported them with all their hearts. My mother, who has never supported or been interested in a sporting event in her life, not even when I was competing, bought a bright orange T-shirt to show her support for the land of my stepdad's birth.One thing South Africans can always be depended upon to bring to the party, is passion. It is the single thing most lacking in my daily life since I moved to the UK eleven years ago. I miss that buzz and vibe, and time has not diminished that loss. And it was evident in all its uncynical, unbridled glory throughout the weeks of the world cup competition.Ndiyaba, abahlobo bam. Ek het my misgis. I was wrong.

Image courtesy of Jason Howie How can you use digital technology to bring course material to life in the classroom? Thomas Healy, co-author of Smart Choice Second Edition, shares his ideas ahead of his webinar on 23 & 25 September on the subject. It’s an old joke that although the Internet is one of the most important inventions since the wheel, most people just use it to look at pictures of puppies. Certainly, I believed that people, especially younger people, wasted a lot of time on the Internet and on their smart devices. Then I observed an eighteen-year-old student in my class trying to enlarge an illustration in her textbook by pinching it, like an image on a touch screen. This was a wake up call for me. Having grown up with the technology, this student actually expected content to be digital. As someone who prided himself on providing interesting, motivating as well as enriching materials, I looked at my photocopied supplemental activities and wondered how she, and indeed the entire class, must be experiencing them. Her smart device, along with everyone else’s, was in a pile collected at the start of the class, next to a computer that I rarely used. When I considered using smart devices and social media networks with my students, I wanted to devise activities that the class would immediately recognize as being central to the goals of the lesson. If the activities were just games or ‘fillers’, then I imagined that students would naturally gravitate to games such as Candy Crush that they already had on their devices. I also wanted to harness what most of my students seemed to be doing on their smart phones when not playing games: writing messages and taking photos and videos, which they shared with their peers. Using Social Media as a Learning Management System 21st Century learners live in a world where they are constantly producing, sharing and commenting on content. In order to have a place where we can share messages, images, videos and word files, I create a Facebook group for each class. I use this platform because all of my students are already active members. Within Facebook, a group is a private, members-only space. Students can join a group without becoming my friend. When creating activities for Facebook, I started by looking at the supplemental materials I already used in class. Many of these activities practiced, expanded, or personalized the contents of the textbook. Could these be enhanced or transformed by being completed in the digital world? Using Smartphones with Facebook A smartphone is like a portable recording studio. Students can readily practice and personalize the target language of the textbook by using the video function. In one activity I use, after teaching a unit about clothing and colors, students go to their favorite store and describe the clothes and colors that they see while videoing the manikins. I ask students to post the videos to the Facebook group, and comment on others’ videos. This ability to make and narrate videos can bring important but potentially ‘dry’ units to life: those that deal with rooms and furniture, directions, or food. Sharing the videos online provides a lot of additional, fun interaction between students, as well opportunities for language, accuracy and pronunciation analysis. Making a Digital Projector Interactive Since 21st Century learners are engaged by content that they can interact with, I have tried to make the digital projector an active rather than passive experience for my students.  Together with the projector, I use an audience response app, Socrative, which students download for free.  For example, as we work through grammar activities in the textbook, Socrative enables me to project additional practice items on the screen, which students complete on their smart phones. The app automatically checks answers and provides feedback to the class in real-time. Used in this way, digital technology is not merely engaging but plays a central part in achieving the goals of the lesson. Making Digital Technology an essential rather than peripheral tool My students sometimes forget their textbooks, but they never forget their phones. Therefore, every classroom we use is a technology-enhanced space. Smart phones, social media platforms and apps have allowed me to bring my materials to life. I can create colorful, interactive activities and I can encourage students to bring the real world into the class by using the video and photo functions of their classrooms. Instead of having students put their devices on a table by the door, I now ask them to make sure their phones are fully charged when they come to class. They understand that we are not using digital technology and social media for ‘fun’, or when we need to take a breather. Together, we have made digital technology a key part of their learning experience. Take part in Thomas Healy’s live webinar to further explore and discuss how the digital technology your students love to use can become a key part of their learning experience. Register today!Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Multimedia & Digital Tagged: 21st Century skills, Activities, mlearning, Smart devices, Smartphones, Social Media, Thomas Healy

I had to chortle. I have a Google alert set to look for references to Learning Anorak (well, I can't have you lot talking behind my back, now, can I?). Recently, this returned a reference to this post about Warhammer.It seems the god of learning in this fantasy world is called Anorak, and it was he (he?) who taught the humans magic. Sadly, he was killed using the very magic that he had taught these ungrateful wretches.But how deliciously ironic!I only wish that there had been a picture to share with you. Failing that, you'll have to settle for my picture, as the living learning anorak ;o)

Image courtesy of Giulia Forsythe This is the first article of a three-part series on giving EAP students effective feedback. Julie Moore, an ELT writer and researcher, shares her thoughts on how to give your students constructive feedback on their writing. Although I’ve been working in ELT publishing for some 15 years, co-authoring Oxford EAP Advanced was the first time I’ve been involved in writing a whole coursebook. It was a very steep learning curve in all kinds of ways, but perhaps one of the most challenging parts of the whole experience was the process of having my writing edited. I’d spend long hours at my desk writing a unit, then I’d email my completed draft off to my editor and wait with trepidation for her feedback. When I opened up her reply, my heart would often sink at the sight of those tightly-packed comments squeezed down the margin of every page and the prospect of ploughing my way through them! So when I finally got away from my desk and back into the classroom again last summer to teach on a pre-sessional EAP course, I approached giving feedback on my students’ own writing with a fresh perspective. But what lessons had I learnt? Less is more In an EAP context, writing is a key skill and as teachers, we have a tendency to want to give as much feedback on written work as possible. Our intentions are good - we want to help our students improve - but the effect can sometimes be the opposite. Students are so overwhelmed by all the feedback that they either get demotivated and lose confidence, or they skim through to find the grade or the final comment and then file away all our careful feedback, largely unread. Having experienced how daunting masses of feedback can be for a writer, I was determined to make the process less scary and more productive for my students. I turned to publishing again for a way of breaking it down into more manageable steps: content editing - focus on what is written, rather than how copyediting - focus on style, voice, flow, etc. proofreading - tidying up surface errors In this article, I’m going to talk about the first stage of the editing/feedback process: Focus on content For many students new to EAP, their experience of writing in English has been mostly of short, functional letters and emails, and if they have written essays, they’ll have been of the rather simple, formulaic kind which are designed essentially to practise or test the student’s language abilities. In an ELT context, the focus is often not really on what you write so much as the language you manage to display. A student can produce a fairly inane piece of writing, saying really very little of any substance, but if they show a range of vocabulary, reasonably accurate grammar and throw in a few nice discourse markers, they can get a good mark. This simply won’t cut it in an academic context where: "After all, we teach college students to write not because we expect them to become writers, but because writing is the evidence that they are mastering intellectual concepts." (McBride, 2012). So in the first few writing activities I did with my EAP students, I focused very much on content: on what they were expected to write. In my feedback, I ignored the surface language issues and commented only on how well they’d tackled the task. Had they answered the question? Had they put forward a clear argument and supporting evidence? Had they offered analysis and evaluation as well as simple description? As we worked on some of these key principles of academic writing, I encouraged students to evaluate the content of their own writing, establishing routines and checklists they could use to edit their writing in the future. For example, the following criteria to check a main body paragraph of an essay: Have you stated the main argument clearly? Do supporting points flow logically? Are key concepts/terms clearly defined and/or explained? Does the evidence support the main argument? Have you included comment and/or evaluation to make your own stance clear? (Adapted from Oxford EAP Advanced) The initial reaction from some students was uneasy - surely it was my job to correct all their language errors, wasn’t it? It was important that I explained clearly what I was doing and why. I kept copies of students’ writing to use examples (anonymously) as part of other activities on specific language points. I also reassured them that I’d be giving feedback at a more micro-level on their individual writing as the course went on. And did the approach work? Overall, I think it did. By concentrating first on what they were expected to write, it laid a solid base on which to build the details of how to write as the course went on. In my next article, I’ll talk about copy-editing and feedback techniques for helping students achieve that all-important academic style. References de Chazal & Moore (2013) Oxford EAP Advanced/C1 (OUP) McBride (2012) ‘Patchwriting’ is more common than plagiarism, just as dishonest http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/everyday-ethics/188789/patchwriting-is-more- common-than-plagiarism-just-as-dishonest/   This article first appeared in the January 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.Filed under: Business & English for Specific Purposes, Professional Development Tagged: EAP, English for Academic Purposes, Feedback, Julie Moore, Methodology, Teacher Development, Teaching EAP

Ben Shearon, the Presenting Skills consultant for our brand new course Stretch, shares his thoughts on the benefits of integrating presenting skills into EFL and ESL classes. Many people are terrified of speaking in public, even though it probably isn’t true that it edges out death at the top of the list of most common fears.  My first presentation was over ten years ago at a local conference for English teachers. I was very nervous and not at all confident speaking in front of my peers. I don’t really remember much about the presentation, but since then I’ve gone on to give more than 100 talks at conferences, events, and seminars. I’m now pretty happy in front of a room full of strangers, and presenting has become one of the most enjoyable parts of my job. There are several good reasons to introduce presentation and public speaking practice into our EFL and ESL classes. The first and most important is that effective presentation and public speaking skills are a valuable life skill. Many of our learners will need them in the future, and appreciate the chance to practice them now. Presentation practice also allows teachers to introduce personalisation and different topics into classes. Learners can choose the content they present, and this brings a variety of information and ideas into the classroom. Learners can learn more about each other, and presentations can also be an easy way to break up a course and provide a change of pace. Before giving a presentation, learners will have to spend time drafting, editing, memorizing, and practicing their content. This allows them to really internalize the language without the tedium or staleness sometimes associated with drilling and memorization. In addition, learners are able to listen to their classmates talking about variations on a topic, giving them useful extensive listening practice. Becoming an effective presenter requires awareness of effective presenting techniques, having meaningful content to deliver, and most of all, lots of practice. We can provide our learners with the first and third of these, and guide them as they attempt to provide the second. Developing presentation skills One of the most practical ways to teach presenting skills is to break the complex and sometimes overwhelming experience down into discrete skills. This makes it easy to introduce and practice them gradually. Some examples of these skills would be posture (standing in a confident and open manner), making eye contact, using appropriate volume and speed when speaking, choosing content, use of rhetorical techniques, planning and structuring the talk, and use of visual aids. The presenting sub-skills can be introduced one at a time and students can focus on certain skills as they gain more experience presenting. In general, the physical skills are easier to explain and harder to get right, so I usually recommend students start there in order to get the most practice with them. After that they can go on to content selection and organization, visual aids, and rhetorical techniques. Some teachers might hesitate to introduce presentation skills into language classes, especially if they don’t have experience teaching them, but in my experience it is well worth attempting and your students will probably thank you for it! For more ideas on how to integrate presentation into your classes, take a look at Stretch, the new course that features a dedicated presenting skills strand. To celebrate the launch of Stretch I’m asking students all over the world to enter The Stretch Presenting Skills Competition by submitting a two-minute presentation - and I’d love to see your students taking part! Get your students presenting in class and one of them could win a two-week scholarship to Regent Oxford, a renowned English school in Oxford, as well as a classroom set of Stretch for you. Watch my video below to find out more: Why not get your students presenting in class by entering The Stretch Presenting Skills Competition 2014-15? One of your students could win a two-week all-expenses paid scholarship to Regent Oxford, a renowned English school in Oxford, as well as a class set of Stretch for you. Closing date: January 2, 2015. Enter today!Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: 21st Century skills, AMELT, American English, Ben Shearon, ELT competition, Integrated skills, presentation activities, presentations skills, presenting skills, Professional English, Stretch competition