ENGLISH Issue 71

November
2010

Tprofessional
EACHING
The Leading Practical Magazine For English Language Teachers Worldwide

On the subject of language

Simon Andrewes

Myths, mysteries and mottos

JJ Wilson

No more size-zero models!

Sonja Wirwohl

Learning coach
Daniel Barber and Duncan Foord

practical methodology

fresh ideas & innovations

classroom resources

new technology

vk.
com/
engl
ishl
ibr
ary teacher development

tips & techniques

photocopiable materials

competitions & reviews

w w w . e t p r o f e s s i o n a l . c o m
Contents MAIN FEATURE TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

ON THE SUBJECT OF LANGUAGE 4 PINEAPPLE, PLEASE 24

Simon Andrewes appreciates the advantages Yen-Ling Teresa Ting hangs her lessons out on the line
of a more general approach

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
FEATURES
LEARNING COACH 1 53
MYTHS, MYSTERIES AND MOTTOS 8 Daniel Barber and Duncan Foord investigate how
JJ Wilson finds a rich classroom resource we can encourage learner independence
in oral histories
MY LESSONS AS A LEARNER 55
BEING DEREK SIVERS 12 Anne Margaret Smith discovers professional
Chris Roland gets his class to adopt a new identity development on the other side of the desk

POSITIVE AND POWERFUL PUNCTUATION 15

Beata Mazurek-Przybylska proves that
TECHNOLOGY
punctuation matters
READING ONLINE 57
TURNING THE TABLES 18 Nicholas Northall develops his students reading
Jan Harper puts her student in the driving seat skills with a little assistance from the internet

CORPUS DELICTI 2 19 FIVE THINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO 60

Chris Payne incorporates corpora KNOW ABOUT: TEACHING ONLINE
Nicky Hockly talks about tips for online tutors
RELAX, RETHINK AND REFLECT 23
Grazyna Kilianksa-Przyblo uses word association WEBWATCHER 61
to discover new insights Russell Stannard quotes a quiz-making tool with
plenty of options
EAP: AN ALL-ROUND CHALLENGE 3 28
Clare Nukui concentrates on critical thinking
REGULAR FEATURES
ENQUIRE WITHIN 30
Michael Berman investigates intrapersonal intelligence PREPARING TO TEACH ... 40
May and might
OVER THE WALL 34 John Potts
Alan Maley applauds books that tell it like it is
HOW WRONG CAN YOU BE? 63
LEARNING DISABILITY 5 37 Rose Senior
Lesley Lanir considers comprehension difficulties
SCRAPBOOK 42
NO MORE SIZE-ZERO MODELS! 46
Sonja Wirwohl champions achievable examples REVIEWS 44

JUST FOR THE RECORD 50 COMPETITIONS 41, 64

Katherine Short advocates a step-by-step approach
to vocabulary learning
INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION FORM 32

Includes materials designed to photocopy

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010 1

 Editorial
M
any contributors to this issue are concerned with her one-to-one student taking on the role of
with identity. For Simon Andrewes, it is the teacher whilst she played the part of a student. This
identity of the language itself which is the strategy proved beneficial in motivating the student
main concern. He advocates the teaching of a general and getting him through his exams with a good grade.
subject, called language, rather than a division of
The teacher as student is also the theme of Anne
language learning into compartmentalised units, such
Margaret Smiths article. By enrolling in a Polish
as L1 and L2.
language class, she discovered many of the realities
JJ Wilson uses an oral history project to help his of the student experience and found these insights
students research their family backgrounds the myths invaluable in her professional development as a teacher.
and memories that make them who they are. He
In a similar vein, Nicky Hocklys advice to anyone
believes they can establish their own identities through
hoping to be an online teacher includes becoming an
a deeper understanding of where they come from.
online student first.
Chris Roland, on the other hand, gets his students to
take on an entirely new identity, that of accomplished
speaker and presenter Derek Sivers. By imitating,
almost impersonating, Sivers, and delivering one of his
well-crafted presentations themselves, they gain greater
confidence in speaking. Helena Gomm
Editor
Jan Harper also writes of changed identities in the
classroom in her case, this involved a role reversal, helena.gomm@pavpub.com

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2 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

 M A I N F E AT U R E
On the subject
of language
Simon Andrewes takes a philosophical perspective on language awareness.
T
here is little evidence to
indicate that an early start to
learning a language leads
automatically to higher
proficiency later in life. Indeed, a lot of
evidence suggests that any lead the early
starters may have acquired is quickly
wiped out when they are joined in class
by newcomers to the language. This was
the argument of Ping Wangs
convincing article in ETp Issue 68.
One factor that cancels out the
advantages of an early start is the
transition and the break in continuity
between primary and secondary school.
My own experience coincides with
Wangs in telling me that, while learning
a language in primary school is treated
as fun, it rather suddenly gets taken as a
serious business at secondary level. The
pleasure of playing with or in a
language gives way to the chores of
learning vocabulary and irregular verbs,
of getting the tenses and gender
agreements right.
To some extent, these contrasting
teaching styles reflect the needs and
abilities of the learners. It seems true
that up to a certain age children have a
greater ability to mimic the sounds and
sound patterns of a language and absorb
chunks of language spontaneously, but
then this ability declines as a more
cognitive need kicks in and the learner
tends to start looking for parallels and
contrasts between the foreign language
and the native tongue. Before this
cognitive approach takes hold of the
learning process, a distant simulation of
bilingualism might be attempted (that is,
4 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
children may learn the L2 in a similar
way to that in which they learnt their
mother tongue); but afterwards, such a
procedure is not only a waste of time but
runs more and more against the grain of
the learner.
The quote is from Czech linguist
Ivan Poldauf and is taken here from
Eric Hawkins influential article
Foreign language study and language
awareness. Hawkins is today revered as
a pioneer of the concept and school of
language awareness, his pertinent ideas
on the role of awareness in language
learning going back to the 1970s.
Hawkins ideas are still relevant to
the current discussion on teaching and
learning languages, even though they
have in practice been ignored or
marginalised over the years, largely
because of a lack of political will to
carry them out, due, in turn, to lack of
economic incentive. A bold assertion?
We will try to justify it later.
Proposal
The central and most radical element of
Hawkins ideas on the role of language
awareness in language learning is his
proposal for a new subject, called
language, to be taught as a bridging
subject between mother tongue and
foreign language teaching across the
school curriculum.
Underlying the proposal is the
conviction that we have a sort of natural
aptitude for learning language, developed
to different degrees in different people,
but one which is susceptible to further
maturation through teaching. This belief
is given credence by the, in themselves,
unsensational findings of an aptitude test
carried out by Peter Green, a colleague
of Hawkins, back in the seventies, to
assess the ability children have to grasp
structures, patterns, rules and regularities
in a language they have never met before.
This language learning aptitude that
Green demonstrated in his test was not
the same thing as verbal intelligence.
Verbal (and non-verbal) intelligence, it
turned out, was less decisive in the
process of learning a language.
One factor
that cancels out the
advantages of an early
start is the transition and
the break in continuity
between primary and
secondary school
Developing this aptitude, focusing
attention on structures, patterns, rules
and regularities in language, would be the
content of the new subject: language.
Hawkins reported how he drew up a
programme of awareness of language,
starting in the primary school and aimed
at equipping young learners to tackle
the language challenges of secondary
education. In short, Hawkins proposal
for teaching language awareness was
devised precisely to overcome the

Evidence shows
that learning a second
language takes place
in a different part of
the brain than that
activated by mother-
tongue learning
discontinuity in language teaching
between primary and secondary levels.
But did we not previously say that
this discontinuity between primary and
secondary reflected a reality: that very
young learners learn more
spontaneously before the distancing
effect of cognition in language learning
takes over? Not really. For that early
learning process was never more than a
distant simulation of bilingualism (my
emphasis) and it soon becomes
ineffective, perhaps counter-productive.
As Hawkins asserts, evidence shows that
learning a second language takes place
in a different part of the brain than that
activated by mother-tongue learning.
Continuity is provided by a cognitive
reflection on the aspects of language
that appeal to the child: its rhythm and
musicality, the pleasure of its sounds
and its rhetoric ... or, to paraphrase
Brian Tomlinson, the process is likely to
start with experiential involvement,
which engages the learner affectively
and calls on personal responses to
language, and leads on to analytical
procedures which involve making
linguistic connections and discoveries as
the basis for articulating generalisations
and hypotheses.
As a teacher of young learners in
Spain, I observed how particularly
from around the early teens students
would frequently play with language in
their free time before or after the lesson,
exploring differences and drawing
parallels between their mother tongue
and English and making hypotheses,
perverse in many cases, and deliberate
overgeneralisations based on these real
or false parallels. Some of it, indeed,
would appear as graffiti much of it
rude in a sort of Spanglish in the
close vicinity of the school.
This language awareness builds, in
my opinion, on the natural capacity and
inclination we have from a very early age
to manipulate language generatively, that
is, generating new language that we have
never heard before; a use of language that
is original and creative and which helps
us explore and make sense of reality, to
come to terms with our personal and
social environment. The broader language
awareness discussion that such a use of
language might initiate could be more
motivating and more fruitful, I would
suggest, than much of the pragmatically
mundane linguistic content of the foreign
language classroom. Such coursebook
language of typical situations and useful
everyday functions is often stereotyped
and unchallenging, compared to the
creativity and originality of language
use that I witnessed in young learners
outside the classroom.
This brings us back to the bold
assertion that we left hanging in the air
a few paragraphs back: that Hawkins
ideas on language awareness have
remained on the periphery of language
teaching due to a lack of political will.
Hawkins proposed new subject of
Language
awareness builds on
the natural capacity
and inclination we
have from a very early
age to manipulate
language generatively
language has no vested interests to
promote it, no lobby to press for its
realisation. Over the last 40 years
English as a/the foreign language has
gathered momentum and become big
business, and there are too many
stakeholders with a vital interest in its
continuing forward march for it to be
pushed aside in favour of the politically
innocent advancement of language
with no socio-economic sponsor. That
broader language awareness discussion
which I see as desirable comes without
any economic clout.
Defence
Nevertheless, there are plenty of reasons
why Eric Hawkins proposal should
succeed. Among them we might mention
the evident failure of English teaching
programmes worldwide and the adverse
effect they are having on mother
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
tongues. A brief perusal of UK
newspaper The Guardians TEFL website
throws up the following examples:
In Malaysia, a programme to use
English as a medium of instruction
for maths and science in state schools
is being scrapped, firstly on the
grounds that English is less effective
than the mother tongue in getting the
subject matter across, and secondly
because the dominance of English in
the curriculum risks undermining the
students grasp of their first language.
Similarly, Uganda has dropped its
policy of having English as the
official language of instruction in all
school years in favour of mother-
tongue teaching in the first years of
primary. Giving children a more
thorough grounding in their mother
tongue, it is argued, has brought
about an evident improvement in
literacy, particularly in rural areas.
In Norway, it is felt that English has
become so predominant that it
threatens the continued existence of
the mother tongue! English, it is
feared, is replacing Norwegian,
particularly in business and academia.
It is possible that in 30 to 40 years
time, Norwegian will no longer be
used in higher education. Do we want
that to happen? asks Sylfest Lomheim,
director of the Norwegian Language
Council.
Another argument in favour of having a
school subject simply called language
stems from the multicultural,
multilingual composition of todays
classrooms in many parts of the
developed world. Writing in 1999,
Hawkins pointed out that there were
already some 180 different languages
spoken in London schools alone.
Alongside English as the official
national language, the language
classroom has a place for all of these
languages, or at least for those of them
relevant to the particular class
membership. Language awareness can
be developed by drawing on these ethnic
minority languages to explore
differences and universals in language.
In such classrooms, language awareness
has a special role in nurturing a positive
attitude towards and respect for
minority languages and their speakers.
Extending familiarity with the structures
and patterns of these languages will help
dispel prejudices and fears about them 
5

On the subject
of language
 seeming alien or threatening.
Particularly challenged is the teachers
traditional role as repository and
provider of knowledge. On the other
hand, the speakers of the minority
languages will find themselves more
highly esteemed as information sources.
The rise and rise of English as the
worlds lingua franca seems assured for
the time being. But as the weight of the
world economy shifts eastwards, it is by
no means guaranteed. It is not possible
to predict the future language needs of
todays students, and Hawkins suggests
that university students in the UK are
already dropping the language learnt at
school in favour of a new one which is
more relevant to the course being
followed. Indeed, many universities have
a Language Resource Centre, which
allows students to pursue precisely the
language that has proved most relevant
to their studies. In this context,
language on the school curriculum
would have provided a sort of
apprenticeship in learning how to learn
a language. This, Hawkins suggests,
would be more useful than having learnt
a specific foreign language for which
there was later no need.
But in the end, the greatest
argument in favour of language as a
school subject is to be found in the
impact it could have on the students
mother tongue and its educative benefit
in general. When Wang in his ETp
article enters into a discussion about
why the benefits of the early start are so
short-lived in terms of developing
language proficiency, one of the issues
that he raises is that of the educative
value of foreign language learning as
against the mere development of
language competence.
Value
This issue, but in terms of language
rather than a/the foreign language, is
another one dealt with by Hawkins 35
years ago. In fact, it sounds as if Wang is
implicitly referring to Hawkins work or
at least to that of the school he fathered.
For decades, the Communicative
Approach enthusiastically embraced the
needs of business and industry for
6 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
language which would lubricate the
wheels of international trade and
commerce, conveying information down
the lines of management and
transferring knowhow as effectively as
possible. In this context, language is
considered as a pragmatic skill, useful for
getting what you want in the particular
linguistic environment, whether it be a
fresh, clean towel in your hotel room,
outsmarting your business rival, or
greater efficiency from your workforce.
To illustrate the limitations of this
one-dimensional view of language, I find
it helpful to turn to Jrgen Habermass than the undeniably important
theory of communicative action (quoted
by Mathieu Deflem), which distinguishes
between two different purposes of
communication. On the one hand, we
have communication that aims at the
successful realisation of privately defined
The greatest
argument in favour of
language as a school
subject is to be found
in the impact it could
have on the students
mother tongue and its
educative benefit
in general
goals. This, for me, is the pragmatic and
functional communication of the classic
Communicative Approach, as outlined
in the previous paragraph, a language
that tends to confirm rather than
challenge stereotypes. Contrasted to this
is communication that is aimed at
mutual understanding. This latter
concept of communication is conceived
by Mathieu Deflem as a process of
reaching agreement between speaking
subjects to harmonize their
interpretations of the world.
This philosophical perspective
sounds rather grand, but it boils down
to an approach akin to Wangs desire
for the educative value of language
learning. It is an approach to language
that aims at contributing to the
learners personal development,
developing their communication skills
and nurturing a deeper understanding
of themselves and the world. Its
purpose is to broaden the mind,
providing a perspective that extends the
learners language horizons and helps
overcome prejudices against alien
cultures. It feeds on a natural
inclination to play with language,
manipulating it in original and creative
ways. And it would have a positive
empowering influence on the learners
mother tongue, ensuring a more critical
and reflective sensitivity to the use of
language in a social context.
So Wangs hankering for a greater
role for the educative value of language
as something intrinsically more valuable
development of proficiency and
competence in a foreign language is
something that language as a school
subject could cater for directly rather
than through the prism of the study of a
particular foreign language. Many of the
concerns he raises are, in my opinion,
better addressed by the introduction of
Hawkins bridging concept of language
as a school subject than by making
adjustments to foreign languages on the
curriculum. Language and foreign
languages, let it be said, are to be seen
as complementary and not competing
elements of the school curriculum. ETp
Andrewes, S English, foreign languages,
and language Modern English Teacher
16(4) 2007
Deflem, M (Ed) Habermas, Modernity and
Law Sage Publications 1996 (out of print,
but the relevant chapter is available
online at www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/
deflem/zhablaw.htm)
The Guardian TEFL website Max de
Lotbinire, 10 July 2009 (Malaysia); Richard
M Kavuma, 22 May 2009 (Uganda);
Gwladys Fouche, 23 May 2008 (Norway)
www.guardian.co.uk/education/tefl
Hawkins, E W Foreign language study
and language awareness Language
Awareness 8(3 and 4) 1999
Bolitho, R, Carter, R, Hughes, R, Ivanic,
R, Masuhara, H and Tomlinson, B Ten
questions about language awareness
ELTJ 57(3) 2003
Simon Andrewes has
been TEFL-ing away
since the mid-1970s. At
present, he is DoS at the
English department of a
higher educational
college in Greenwich,
London. One of his
greatest defects as a
teacher is that his
attention is more easily
attracted to the grand
overview than the nitty-
gritty detail.
simon@granadalabella.info
 IN THE CLASSROOM

Myths,
mysteries
and mottos
I
JJ Wilson explores the n 1980, US President Ronald
Reagan said, All the waste in a
power of oral histories. year from a nuclear power plant
can be stored under a desk. A few
years later, it dawned on the US
government that they had 40,000 tons
of nuclear waste sitting in temporary
storage. The Department of Energy
thus had a problem. They proposed
burying it under Yucca Mountain,
Nevada, but that had its drawbacks.
Even if the general public could be
persuaded that this was just fine, the
nuclear waste would remain radioactive
for another 10,000 years. How would
future generations know to avoid the
mountain?
To solve this problem, in 1984 the
Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation hired
linguist Thomas A Sebeok. He
immediately discounted any kind of
written warning. Language changes too
quickly; in 10,000 years time no one
would understand the warnings of
today. He also ruled out other forms of
communication; alarm bells, electrical
signals and the like require a power
supply, which he presumed would be
defunct in 10,000 years. Instead, Sebeok
proposed the establishment of what he
called an Atomic Priesthood. This was
to be a select group of scientists and
legend makers whose job would be to
pass on the dangers of the waste
through storytelling. Over the
generations, the precise message would
be warped, just as myths and legends
change through time, but the overall
message would remain: Do not go near
this mountain.
Sebeoks idea never came to fruition
and the nuclear waste is still sitting in
storage. But what interests me is his
proposed solution: going back to the
ancient art of storytelling. Despite, or
Storytellings power
can be seen everywhere
newspapers, fiction,
Hollywood, the fables
of pre-literate societies
perhaps because of, the astonishing
advances in technology that take place
each generation, Sebeok reckoned that
the best way to store a message for the
future was the oldest: word of mouth.
Storytelling
Storytelling has probably existed for as
long as we have had language. Its power
can be seen everywhere newspapers,
fiction, Hollywood, the fables of pre-
literate societies. Every subject under
the sun has its stories: art has the tale of
van Goghs ear; physics has Newtons
apple; biology has Darwin prodding
Galapagos turtles; history has
everything. And as readers of this and

8 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

other educational magazines know,
stories as pedagogical tools never go out
of fashion.
Oral histories
I first came across the power of oral
histories while researching American
slavery. During the 1930s, the Federal
Writers Project interviewed thousands
of ex-slaves. Many of the interviewees
were illiterate, and oral history was the
only way of preserving their stories. The
mostly white American interviewers
recorded and transcribed the stories,
often using phonetic equivalents to
capture the vernacular of Black
Americans from the Deep South. The
pathos of the ex-slaves situation
naturally moved me, but so did the
language and the sense of myth-making.
Several of the interviewees claimed
some with evidence to be well over
100 years old. Their stories can be
found today in the Library of Congress,
Washington DC, typed out yellowing
paper and all on ancient typewriters.
And then it struck me that the oral
history would make a great foundation
for a classroom task. Why? Because oral
histories weave together peoples
cultural identities and language.
They contain family mottos, sayings,
myths, mysteries, even legendary figures
(in the US context where I work, every
family has a heroic and penniless
pioneer who was the first family
member to come to the States). I then
worked out a series of stages for my
students to follow.
Sharing oral histories
Stage 1
To begin with, I model an oral history
by telling my own. I use photos and
documents such as my birth certificate
and passport. For teachers who are
uncomfortable with revealing so much
of themselves, an explanation of oral
histories is sufficient. It is at this stage
that we talk about purpose, content,
form and length.
The pedagogical purpose of the oral
history is to develop fluency while
talking about a personal topic. The task,
of course, has other purposes: it allows
the students and teacher to get to know
one another, as well as asking students
to examine their roots to find out how
they became who they are. One student
told me, on completion of this task,
that it was the first time he had thought
Oral histories
allow the students
and teacher to get
to know one another,
as well as asking
students to examine
their roots to find out
how they became
who they are
about these things. Others have said how
much they enjoyed finding out about
their own and their classmates history.
When I did the task with children, I
noticed that it was a way to involve their
parents (the children interviewed their
parents to learn their family histories),
who didnt speak English and thus
normally had no idea what their
children were up to in an English class.
The content gives an insight into the
students backgrounds, with the
Three tips
Here are three tips, which help the
presentation part of the task run
smoothly:
Firstly, some students will be
nervous. Try to identify these
students early on and work closely
with them at the preparation
stage. Allow them to memorise
parts of a written script, but not to
use it on the day.
Secondly, there is the question of
who goes first. Leave this to the
students to decide a few days
before the actual presentations.
One way to do this is to leave the
room, telling them, I will be gone
for three minutes. By the time I get
back, Id like to see all of your
names written down in the order
you will give your presentations.
This usually works for all but the
most intransigent classes.
Thirdly, if you have a large class, it
is probably better to do a few oral
histories per lesson rather than
hear everyone at one time. It can
be tiring listening for long
stretches.
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
reassuring caveat that they do not have
to tell us anything painful or overly
private. The content should not be
merely a series of names, dates and
places: the teacher must stress that every
family has its stories, its myths and its
sayings; it is these rather than mere
facts that are the lifeblood of the oral
history.
The form, I explain, should be a
simple talk. I have always insisted that it
come without technological aids such as
PowerPoint slides. This is because I
believe technology can create a barrier
between speaker and audience. Other
teachers may disagree.
Finally, the length will depend on
the level and perhaps the number of
students in the class. I usually ask them
to speak for between five and seven
minutes.
Stage 2
Next, I explain that they have about two
weeks to prepare their oral histories,
most of the preparation being done for
homework, although I do feed in
language, ideas and related activities
during class time. The first activity is to
draw a timeline of their family,
including everything they know about
their familys history before the students
themselves were born.
Stage 3
The next stage is to get the students to
prepare the oral history, including as
many anecdotes, family sayings and
family myths as they can. I encourage
them to write notes rather than a full
text, although inevitably at this stage
many will see it as a writing activity.
Stage 4
After the preparation stage, the students
record their oral histories. If your
school has recording facilities such as a
language laboratory, get them to record
their histories repeatedly until they are
happy with them. The recording is for
their ears only. This stage gives the
students confidence and allows them to
see which areas still need work. Perhaps
they are having trouble with verb tenses
in chronological sequences, or maybe
they lack adjectives to describe people
and places.
Stage 5
After a few more days of preparation
time, the students present their oral
history to the class. If you are working 
9
 Myths,
mysteries
and mottos
 in the context of the students home
country (eg teaching Italians in Italy),
there is a good chance they will also be
able to bring in artifacts such as
documents and photos. During the
presentations, the class listens and notes
down any interesting anecdotes or
perhaps things that were not clear. We
ask questions at the end and finish each
presentation with a round of applause.
Stage 6
After the presentation of the oral
histories, there is one further stage
which acts as a kind of wrap-up to the
whole project: an I am from poem.
This poem both summarises and
extends the oral task in that the content
of the oral presentation is reflected in
the poem, but the poem is as most
poems are a distilled version of the
bigger story. Sometimes those students
who struggle while speaking in front of
the class are able to produce thoughtful,
even moving pieces.
To set up the poem, get the students
to write a list of things objects,
sounds, words, people, smells, tastes,
memories that represent their
background. They then each create a
poem using the most vivid, powerful
and specific of their ideas. The only
rule is that each sentence in the poem
should begin with I am from .

We have gone from nuclear waste to
poetry via ex-slaves interviews. The one
theme in common is that of stories, and
perhaps the idea that language and
identity are so closely bound together.
To finish, I will leave you with an
example of an I am from poem, the
product of a recent high-level class. ETp
Eco, U The Search for the Perfect
Language Wiley-Blackwell 1997 (tells
the story of Thomas A Sebeok and the
nuclear waste)
http://www.georgeellalyon.com/
where.html is George Ella Lyons
website, which explains the origins of
I am from poems and contains the
original, Where Im From.
10 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
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 IN THE CLASSROOM
Being
Derek
Sivers
P
Chris Rolands students erhaps one of the most
pleasurable experiences for an
become successful speakers English language teacher is
being able to step back, look
by imitating a successful around your class and see a roomful of
people, every single one of whom is
speaker. completely engaged, at the same time, in
a communicative activity you have just
set up.
This is one of a number of little
golden moments in an English teachers
working term and definitely one reason
I am still in the profession. As regards
task design, planning and execution, it
tells me I am doing something right. In
past years I might have asked myself:
Why couldnt the boss have seen this
right now, instead of that awkward
observation session I did last month? Or I
might have wished that this or that
colleague could have seen said activity
in progress (admittedly, I have
occasionally been known to drag other
teachers into my classes because I was
so enthusiastic about an activity and
welcome such interruptions myself, as
do my students!). These days, I am
lucky enough to have regular
opportunities to share my little golden
moments through workshops and
articles, and that is what you have here:
one of my own such moments that
hopefully will turn into something
special for you.
12 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
Meeting Derek
Derek Sivers: entrepreneur, innovator,
musician and successful TED presenter
If you happen to be near a computer,
please go to www.TED.com, type Derek
Sivers in the search box and select his
talk Weird or just different? It is a two-
minute talk full of great ideas.
If it is your first time on the TED
site, you may wish to spend a while
browsing. Originating from an annual
meeting of minds in the areas of
technology, education and design (hence
the TED abbreviation), the site now
hosts talks on all topics and is an
incredibly rich resource for teachers, all
the more so because there are subtitles
and interactive audioscripts for each
talk, which can be copied and pasted
from the screen and used for follow-up
activities.
If you are not near a computer
screen, read the transcript of the talk
from the TED site, which is given in the
box on page 13.
There is an alternative audio
recording on Dereks own site,
www.sivers.org, which I also strongly
recommend for the quality of his blog
entries, two of which contain the ideas
incorporated in his talk: Japanese
Addresses and Reversible Business
Models. The beauty of the text above,
however, is that it corresponds exactly
to what your students are going to hear.
Being Derek
Okay, so here is where the ELT fun
starts. First, I show the talk to my
students for this a projector really is
necessary. I put the subtitles on to make
things as easy as possible at this stage.
After watching, each student tells a
partner two points from the talk (there
are plenty: Japanese addresses, Chinese
doctors, West African music, world map
and the saying about India).
Each student then receives a
transcript and follows the text closely as
Derek speaks, paying particular
attention to pronunciation, word and
sentence stress, tone and rhythm.
Having the text actually in their hands
helps the students focus here.
Next we check any unknown
language items. Weird or just different?
contains reasonably straightforward
vocabulary for students of an upper-
intermediate level and beyond, and
these are the levels I would recommend
the activity for. The students then read
the text to a partner. One student reads
the first half of the text and the other
reads the second. At any given time, the
listening student is following the text as
their partner reads, underlining any word
they think has been mispronounced.
They tell their partner afterwards and
summon me as final arbiter in the case
of any unresolved dispute.
I then say: Right, now Im going to
be Derek Sivers. I stand in front of the
projector and play the talk again. This
time, however, I mute the sound, switch
off the subtitles, and deliver the talk
myself by providing an improvised
So, imagine youre standing on a street
anywhere in America and a Japanese
man comes up to you and says,
Excuse me, what is the name of this
block?
And you say, Im sorry? Well, this is
Oak Street, thats Elm Street. This is
26th, thats 27th.
He says, Okay. What is the name of
that block?
You say, Well, blocks dont have names.
Streets have names; blocks are just the
unnamed spaces in between streets.
He leaves, a little confused and
disappointed.
So, now imagine youre standing on a
street, anywhere in Japan, you turn to
a person next to you and say,
Excuse me, what is the name of this
street?
They say, Oh, well, thats block 17 and
this is block 16.
And you say, Okay, but what is the
name of this street?
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
commentary to accompany what Derek
is doing onscreen. Dereks talks are all
highly visual so if you forget a bit, his
next slide or gesture will act as prompt.
It is actually quite good if students see
that the person improvising the
commentary is allowed to forget bits
and so, despite knowing the talk very
well by now, I normally make the
occasional slip just to show that it does
not have to be perfect. As a teacher, this
is your chance to be theatrical so
enjoy it! You may even receive a round
of applause for your performance.
I then say: Now its your turn to be
Derek Sivers. Youre going to do exactly
the same. Well start the talk from the
beginning but with no sound, no subtitles
and no reading from handouts. One of
you will improvise the commentary to the
first half of the talk and then hand over
to your partner.
At this point your students may
panic slightly and may ask to listen,
read or both, one more time before
trying themselves. Perfect! This is
facilitative tension at its best. Now they
want to hear the talk again and have a
real reason to listen. Compare this to
merely asking students to listen one
more time without telling them about
And they say, Well, streets dont have
names. Blocks have names. Just look
at Google Maps here. There is block
14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. All of these
blocks have names. The streets are
just the unnamed spaces in between
the blocks.
And you say, Okay, then how do you
know your home address?
He says, Well, easy, this is district 8.
There is block 17, house number 1.
You say, Okay. But walking around the
neighbourhood, I noticed that the
house numbers dont go in order.
He says, Of course they do. They go
in the order in which they were built.
The first house ever built on a block is
house number 1. The second house
ever built is house number 2. Third is
house number 3. Its easy. Its
obvious.
So, I love that sometimes we need to
go to the opposite side of the world to
realise assumptions we didnt even
know we had, and realise that the
opposite of them may also be true.
the next task. In fact, all the activities
above could be seen as familiarisation
for the task itself, so if students want to
listen even a fourth time, thats
fantastic.
Liam OBrien, a colleague at the
British Council in Barcelona, reports on
his version of this stage of the activity:
The set-up for this was dead easy:
watch the video, then watch again with
subtitles, but this time pairs of students
read the text aloud in real time (I told
them not to worry about fluffing, just to
get the rhythm back) with one student
reading the first half and the partner
taking over halfway through, like little
tag-teams. Then they all read it aloud as
a chorus; it was like being in a church
(albeit a secular one). And they all loved
it as far as I could tell.
Then it is time for the improvisations.
Making sure everyone is ready, we start
the video, counting down 3, 2, 1, Go! It is
important that everyone starts on time
as this has a knock-on effect for the
second speaker. Afterwards, I give the
students one last hearing of the talk
and another go at the improvisation, by
which time they are quite comfortable
with the task and really enjoying success
at it. Here you can decide to monitor a
So, for example, there are doctors in
China who believe that its their job to
keep you healthy. So, any month you
are healthy you pay them, and when
youre sick you dont have to pay them
because they failed at their job. They
get rich when youre healthy, not sick.
In most music we think of the one as
the downbeat, the beginning of the
musical phrase. One, two, three, four.
But in West African music the one is
thought of as the end of the phrase,
like the period at the end of a
sentence. So, you can hear it not just
in the phrasing, but the way they count
off their music. Two, three, four, one.
And this map is also accurate.
[Here, Derek shows a conventional
map of the world, upside down.]
There is a saying that whatever true
thing you can say about India, the
opposite is also true. So, lets never
forget, whether at TED, or anywhere
else, that whatever brilliant ideas you
have or hear, the opposite may also be
true. Domo arigato gozaimashita.

13
 Members of Liams August 2010
class and of my own, being
Derek Sivers
Being
Derek

Sivers
pair, get involved yourself as partner for
any student who has been working in a
three up to now or simply sit back and
enjoy the buzz. I have audio recordings
of 12 students doing this, which I have
mailed to them and will use myself for a
deeper analysis. Whether you record
your students or not, I think you will be
surprised just how much new successful
user of English language patterning,
especially on a phrase and sentence
level, learners can take on board in such
a short time.
My take on language learning is that
you cannot say or write language that
you have not first learnt. That would be
magic, and expectations of magic are
something I try to exorcise from the
14 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
classroom. If you are of a similar
mindset, you will probably enjoy Guy
Cooks article on intimate discourse and
repetition if you dont already know it.

When I first began teaching, I came
across recommendations in the literature
to use short film clips with the sound
turned down for students to act out
scenes. My aversion to butchering good
film footage aside, I can honestly say this
is the first time I have found a recording
that I am really comfortable doing this
with. Why do Dereks talks work so well?
I think it is a combination of factors:
they are purpose-written presentations,
their length, pace, fun element, his
charisma as a speaker, the richness and
quality of visuals and right level of
challenge to learners. Derek has given
two more talks at TED, one perhaps
slightly more lexically tricky than the
other, but I think that is enough from
me. I shall leave you to discover more
about Mr Sivers for yourself.
I would, however, like to thank both
Liams students and my own for their
help with the photo shoot, TED for an
inspirational website and, most of all,
thanks to Derek himself for giving me
the green light on this and for his sense
of humour and positivity towards the
idea from beginning to here. ETp
Cook, G Repetition and learning by heart:
an aspect of intimate discourse and its
implications ELT Journal 48(2) 1984
Chris Roland is based at
the British Council
Barcelona, Spain, and
throughout the year is
involved with as much
teacher training and
conference speaking as
is possible on top of his
regular teaching schedule.
He writes primary,
secondary and business
material for several
publishers and is also
involved in projects such
as Inanimate Alice and his
own PowerPoint stories
for very young learners at
www.regandlellow.com.
chris.roland@gmail.com
 W R I T I N G
Positive
and powerful
punctuation
O
Beata Mazurek- ne could hardly imagine
teaching writing to any
Przybylska offers ideas group of students without
teaching them how to
for advanced writing classes. punctuate properly. However, for a
number of reasons, punctuation seems
to be a skill that is difficult to master,
even for more advanced learners.
The matter of
punctuation
The first reason why punctuation is a
problem is that writing already requires
a lot from the students, including
control of content, organisation and
language, which frequently leaves them
with no time or energy to remember
punctuation. The second reason is that,
in the age of the internet and digital
technology, punctuation seems to have
lost its importance, especially for young
people. They communicate mostly via
short text messages and emails, in which
punctuation is reduced to a minimum,
thus saving time and money. In fact, not
only punctuation but also spelling and
grammatical correctness are sacrificed
in favour of brevity. In this climate, the
majority of students simply lose the
habit of using punctuation marks, and
punctuation is undervalued. As their
exposure to well-structured and well-
punctuated sentences decreases, so,
perhaps unsurprisingly, learners tend to
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
display very little motivation to master
the rules of punctuation, which they
find complicated, unexciting and not
very useful.
The problem becomes even more
serious when the learners are students at
a teacher training college and are likely
to become English teachers themselves
in the future. Trainee teachers need to
be able to use punctuation correctly in
order to be able to teach it to others.
They should also be aware of the fact
that poor punctuation not only makes a
Writing already requires
a lot from the students,
including control of
content and language,
which frequently leaves
them with no time to
remember punctuation
bad impression on the reader, but can
also affect their understanding of a text.
Therefore, it is worth putting some
effort into convincing students that
punctuation is the hallmark of good
writing, and a tool which can help them
express themselves better. And, last but
not least, it can also be fun. 
15

Positive
and powerful
punctuation

All this could be achieved through a
well-planned procedure for introducing
punctuation marks and practising their
use. In this article I will suggest a few
activities which help me raise my
students interest in punctuation as a
skill in its own right, as well as adding
an element of humour to our classes
and boosting the students creativity.
Punctuation matters
Students are usually more motivated to
learn something when they are shown its
usefulness. Thus, the beginning of their
adventure with punctuation (or more
advanced punctuation) can start with
making them realise that punctuation
matters. It is also the right time to revise
(or introduce) the names of particular
punctuation marks, some of which
students easily confuse or even forget.
This could be done by drawing the
common punctuation marks on the
board and eliciting their names from
the students. I usually start with the
full stop, comma, question mark,
exclamation mark, apostrophe, colon,
semicolon and quotation marks. I then
write up a sentence (or a few sentences)
which could be punctuated in various
ways to convey different meanings. This
activity could be done in small groups,
with the students later explaining how
the use of particular punctuation marks
influences the meaning of the sentence.
As most of my students have had some
experience of writing and punctuating
sentences, they usually come up with at
least a few correct suggestions. Examples
of well-known sentences which lend
themselves to being punctuated in
different ways include:
1 what is this thing called love
Answers:
What is this thing called, love?
What? Is this thing called love?
What is this thing called love?
What is this thing called? Love?
What is this thing called? Love.
2 a woman without her man is nothing
16 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
Answers:
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
3 the convict said the judge is mad
Answers:
The convict, said the judge, is mad.
The convict said, The judge is mad.
A more challenging activity involves a
short text (a poem or a letter), which
could have two different meanings,
depending on how it is punctuated. The
teacher can either tell the students this
or just ask them to punctuate it,
revealing the other version later. Here is
an example from Lynne Truss:
Dear Jack
I want a man who knows what love is all
about you are generous kind thoughtful
people who are not like you admit to
being useless and inferior you have
ruined me for other men I yearn for you
I have no feelings whatsoever when we
are apart I can be forever happy will you
let me be yours
Jill
Answers:
Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is
all about. You are generous, kind,
thoughtful. People who are not like you
admit to being useless and inferior. You
have ruined me for other men. I yearn
for you. I have no feelings whatsoever
when we are apart. I can be forever
happy: will you let me be yours?
Jill
or
Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is.
All about you are generous, kind,
thoughtful people, who are not like you.
Admit to being useless and inferior. You
have ruined me. For other men I yearn.
For you I have no feelings whatsoever.
When we are apart I can be forever
happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jill
The comma
As the comma is the most frequently
used punctuation mark and the most
difficult for students to master, it
requires clear rules and a lot of practice.
I usually start with a deduction activity
in which I give the students a list of
sentences containing commas. In pairs,
they work out the rule for each
sentence. Examples include:
1 Nevertheless, he was a very
handsome guy.
2 We have a big problem, to be
honest.
3 The boys, who were often lazy, had a
great time hiking in the mountains.
4 This is my car, not hers.
5 Well, I like that house.
6 We are a bit tired, arent we?
When the students are ready with their
rules, they compare them with those of
other pairs and finally, as a class, we
produce a final list. For example:
Use a comma after certain discourse
markers, like nevertheless, however,
etc. (Sentence 1)
Use commas to separate off
additional information at the end (or
beginning) of a sentence. (Sentence 2)
Use commas to separate a non-
defining clause. (Sentence 3)
Use a comma to separate two
contrastive parts of a sentence.
(Sentence 4)
Use commas after words like well, yes
and no. (Sentence 5)
Use commas before question tags.
(Sentence 6)
The lists of sentences and the rules can,
of course, be much longer, depending
on how familiar students are with
commas. In addition to sensitising the
students to the way commas are used,
this activity is also excellent writing
practice, which requires clarity and
grammar awareness on the part of the
students.
In the next stage, pairs of students
are asked to produce further sentences,
similar to those in the examples. They
write them without punctuation on a
piece of paper and give them to another
pair to punctuate. Again, the activity is
not just a punctuation exercise but also
gives practice in controlled writing.
The semicolon
The semicolon can combine two
independent clauses, replacing a full
stop, provided that they are closely
connected. Thus, it can be used to break
the monotony of a text and to make it
more cohesive. I give my students a list
of sentences and ask them to decide
which of them form pairs that can be
combined using a semicolon. Examples
include:
1 I enjoy classical music.
2 The lead singer of the band was too
ill to perform.
3 The British are said to be poor at
learning foreign languages.
4 Nevertheless, the other members
decided to perform.
5 Strausss waltzes are my favourites.
6 The Dutch are considered to be good
at it.
Answers:
1 and 5, 2 and 4, 3 and 6.
The colon
The colon, which can be used instead of
conjunctions such as so and because, is
often used to introduce an idea that is
an explanation or continuation of the
one that comes before the colon. For
example, They knew something strange
had happened: all the clocks were going
backwards. Asking your students to
finish sentences containing a colon will
not only help them to see how the colon
is used, but will also encourage them to
be creative. Here are some more
examples of sentences they could be
asked to complete:
I think he is in love:
I suddenly remembered the fortune
tellers words:
Ann was absolutely shocked:
Another idea is to provide students with
the beginnings of sayings, in which the
colon separates the comparative part
and the explanatory part. For example:
Studying is like __________: _________
Falling in love is like __________: _________
Life is like __________: _________
Our college is like __________: _________
The students finish the sentences and
then write some more, similar ones
themselves. This is a partly-controlled
activity as far as sentence structure is
concerned, but at the same time it gives
a lot of scope for students creativity.
The idea is borrowed from Hugh Cory.
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
Quotation marks
The use of quotation marks is mostly
related to direct speech, so it is not
difficult to find interesting materials for
practising them. You can show your
students a short scene with a dialogue
from a film (preferably one they know
and like) and ask them to write the
dialogue down as direct speech, using
correct punctuation. Alternatively, the
activity can be done the other way
round: the students receive a text of the
film dialogue transformed into indirect
speech and their task is to rewrite it as
they think it was delivered in the film.
Later, they watch the film and check.
This can also be done with part of a
radio interview or an extract from an
audio book. Both activities provide an
excellent opportunity for listening
comprehension practice as well.
Students can also be asked to punctuate
famous quotations and then match
them with their authors.
Revision and
consolidation
Punctuation quiz
Punctuation practice can take the form
of a quiz. This could be done with the
help of short extracts from well-known
novels, from which all the punctuation
marks have been removed. The students
task is to punctuate each extract and
then guess the title of the book.
To make it easier, you can put the
number of the particular punctuation
marks to be used under the text, or next
to the line from which they have been
removed.
Punctuation race
Students should know the names and
the use of most of the punctuation
marks on the computer keyboard. This
could be practised by giving them a list
with the marks, their names and the
rules about how and when to use them.
The students then match each mark
with its name and function. The next
stage is a dictation where the teacher
says the names of the marks and the
students type them as quickly as they
can, competing to get as many right as
possible.
To make this trickier, use some of
the less common marks, such as angle
brackets (< >), double quotation marks
( ), the ampersand (&), the asterisk
(*), the at sign (@), the forward and
backward slashes (/ \), the tilde (~), the
dash (), round brackets ( ) and square
brackets [ ], as well as the more familiar
full stop (.), comma (,), question mark
(?), exclamation mark (!), colon (:) and
semicolon (;).
Of course, this could also be done
with pen and paper.

The role of punctuation in our lives
may be changing, but it is still a feature
of good writing and an indication of
literacy. That is why it should be
definitely be taught in writing classes.
By making sure it is taught in an
attractive and meaningful way, we can
also use it to enhance our students
powers of self-expression. ETp
Cory, H Advanced Writing With English in
Use OUP 1999
Truss, L Eats, shoots and leaves Profile
Books 2003
Beata Mazurek-
Przybylska has 15 years
experience in ELT,
teaching classes of all
levels. Since 2003, she
has been teaching
writing to teacher
trainees at a teacher
training college in
Wroclaw, Poland.
Besides punctuation, she
has a particular interest
in peer correction and
new words in English.
b.mazurek_przybylska@interia.eu

IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
Do you have ideas youd like to share
with colleagues around the world?
Tips, techniques and activities;
simple or sophisticated; well-tried
or innovative; something that has
worked well for you? All published
contributions receive a prize!
Write to us or email:
editor@etprofessional.com
TALKBACK!
Do you have something to say about
an article in the current issue of ETp?
This is your magazine and we would
really like to hear from you.
Write to us or email:
editor@etprofessional.com
17
 IN THE CLASSROOM
Turning the tables
Jan Harper finds that a little role reversal brings real results.
T
eaching English as a foreign
language in a one-to-one
situation, especially when
working in a virtual
classroom, requires a lot of variety
and a few tricks to keep the students
interest. When dealing with adults, it is
generally a matter of keeping the
lessons fresh and interesting, adjusting
the pace as necessary and having plenty
of ideas up your sleeve. With younger
students, it is sometimes more difficult
to capture their interest, and I make
sure I always have a few alternative
plans to hand, just in case I fail to
engage them immediately. However, a
new student of mine recently threw my
entire lesson planning out of the
window. The student in question was a
thirteen-year-old boy who was studying
for the IELTS exam. His English was
about upper-immediate level and I knew
that I needed to find a way of grabbing
his interest from the start.
With younger
students I make sure
I always have a few
alternative plans to
hand, just in case
I fail to engage them
immediately
My student
First of all, I wanted to find out what
he knew, and what he didnt, without
putting him under stress by setting a
test. So I set about finding what his
interests were. My early lessons included
material from the Harry Potter books,
the UK TV series Dr Who and material
about NASCAR wrestling, and his
conversation skills improved very
quickly as he had to explain to me what
18 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
these things were all about. During this
time I made a series of notes on things
that needed attention.
We included short spells of work on
grammar and then went back to
reading, writing and talking about what
interested him. The grammar sessions
later became something that he actually
wanted to do.
My teacher
Then it was time to put the second stage
of my plan into action. I informed him
at the start of one lesson that he was
now the teacher and could use any text,
subject or lesson plan he wished in
order to teach me. This gave me a
chance to find out how much he knew,
as well as how he preferred lessons to be
conducted.
He took a few minutes to think
about how he was going to teach me
and then asked me to prepare for a
dictation exercise. He read a short piece
from a Harry Potter book and I typed it
onto the screen. Before I had finished,
he had corrected two spelling errors and
adjusted some punctuation. One of the
spelling errors was deliberate, but the
other was not.
There, he said, its very hard when
someone has a strange accent and you
dont know the story you are typing.
Maybe I should go a little slower for you
next time.
He certainly made his point and
that was my first lesson.
Next, he placed a long piece of text
on the screen and asked me to underline
the adverbs. I asked him what adverbs
were and he explained very adequately.
Then adjectives and conjunctions
followed. I queried the meanings of a
few words and he answered me like an
expert teacher on most of them. A
couple of others puzzled him and he
excused himself while he consulted his
dictionary. He had shown his expertise
and knowledge without even being
aware that he was being tested.
My students
concentration improved
and the lessons he
set me got more and
more difficult as his
confidence grew
This became a regular thing and he
looked forward to teaching every few
weeks. His concentration improved and
the lessons he set me got more and
more difficult as his confidence grew.

This approach could be adapted to any
one-to-one teaching situation and could
also, with a little thought, be used in a
group. It is a way of testing the student,
and getting a bit of competition going
without creating stress. That young man
really wanted to learn enough grammar
and vocabulary to catch me out, and
when he did, I admitted it and praised
him. At the end of 12 weeks he scored 8
in his IELTS test, a very good result, so
the technique must have been effective.
I believe that making learning English
fun is essential, especially for younger
students and that once the pressure is
taken out of the learning situation, the
results really do multiply. ETp
Jan Harper was born
in England and
travelled the world
as a child. She was a
writer and teacher
who worked a lot via
virtual classrooms.
As a result, her
students came from
all over the globe.
Sadly, Jan died in August while this issue of
ETp was being finalised. We would like to
thank her daughter, Lesley, for kindly
allowing us to go ahead with publishing her
mothers work.
 R E S O U R C E S This is known as Data-Driven Learning
(DDL). DDL is learner-centred in that
it is a discovery-based or inductive

Corpus
approach to learning. The student
becomes a kind of language detective
who investigates and finds clues and
evidence about patterns of language
and what they mean.
One criticism levelled at DDL is that
the language of concordances is beyond
lower-level learners. This is a fair

delicti 2
comment, so we must underscore how
important it is to select only appropriate
examples for use in the classroom. We
can also use graded readers, and even
texts from coursebooks to create our
own concordances, provided that they
offer natural-sounding examples of
language. Rachel Allans corpus of
Penguin Graded Readers illustrates how
graded-reader concordances show

I
Chris Payne atones n Issue 70 of ETp, I confessed to
not having taken advantage of
for his crime and converts corpora as a teaching resource. A
corpus provides useful language
to corpora. learning opportunities for students. It is
a tool that is accessible to all teachers,
and its use does not involve the
possession of arcane computer skills.
Word counts give us frequency
information about words, but the best
way to see how words are actually used
and what their meanings are is with a
concordance. Concordances arrange a
text so that examples of the key word,
or node, appear under each other as in
the example below for watch. They
show us what words typically come
before the key word (known as left-
sorting) or after it (right-sorting).
In this second article I will look at
how we can exploit concordances, and
suggest some activities to use with
students without the need for a
computer in the classroom.
Concordances in the
classroom
Students can be trained in how to use
corpora and concordance lines directly.
students language patterns in a
manageable way (www.nottingham.ac.uk/
english/IVACS/allan.ppt).
A corpus is a tool
that is accessible to all
teachers, and its use
does not involve the
possession of arcane
computer skills
In some cases, teachers and students
do not have access to a computer in the
classroom, but this does not preclude
the use of concordances. Teachers can
prepare and enlarge printouts of
concordance lines before class or get
students to compile their own
concordances using a good corpus-
based dictionary, such as the Macmillan
learner dictionaries. Class-made
concordances are more eye-catching
than those on a computer printout.
They can be fun to design, appeal to
visual learners and, most importantly,

If I notice the banker fidget and look at his watch, I may well conjecture that the game is about to
Dogs often enjoy a run along the beach but watch out for any traces of tar which could adhere to their feet or
From which place we could safely watch the bombing of the city by the Germans. I dont
I wanted only to go down to the summer-house and watch the leaves falling until night fell with them it is on
tomorrow night on BBC 1 and you must watch it at nine thirty in the studio and he
Of er blockages all time. The AA Road watch say its particularly bad Strathclyde and
Although the match might be colourful to watch, it would hardly be good football.


www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010 19

 Corpus

delicti 2
help learners really notice a language
item in context.
Let us now look at some activities
with concordance lines that can be done
without having a computer in the
classroom.
1 Find the context
Aim
To understand meanings of words in
context
The students are given a concordance
with the key word and the words after
it, but not the words before the key
word. The teacher dictates a line from
before the key word (not in order), and
the students must decide where to write
it in the concordance.
This activity can also be done vice-
versa the teacher dictates lines from
after the key word and the students have
the key word and the words before it.
2 Multiple meanings
Aim
To make out the meaning of a word
when it is used in different ways
Activity A
As an example, we can take the key
word hand, meaning a part of the
body and to give someone something. part of several sentences with the key
The students are given the concordance
lines and are asked to work out how
many different meanings the key word
has, and what they are.
Here I have suggested a word with
just two meanings, but you can, of
course, use key words which have more
than two.
Activity B
This is the opposite of Activity A, in
that the students are given the meanings
of the key word, in this example, way.
The students are given numbered
concordance lines in which the key word
has four different meanings. Below the
concordances, you write the four
different meanings, and the students
have to write the line number next to the
meaning it corresponds to. For example:
20 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
1
2
3
The movie is doomed to run way over budget
She was kidnapped as she was on her way to an interview with
Hell do it while hes on his way back to Berlin
4
5
6
in a fun and humorous way. In addition to the book
Excuse me, is this the way to the Eiffel Tower?
Its still way too early to talk about
7 and what its actually going to mean about the way you organise training courses
8 She was lost and didnt know the way home
Meanings of way in this concordance: The students read each other their
A journey = 2, 3 lines and together try to guess the key
Right direction or road = 5, 8 words. This activity can be made easier
Style or manner = 4, 7 by writing up the missing key words on
Much, to a great degree = 1, 6 the board, along with some distractors.
Activity C 4 Concordance race
This activity gives lower-level learners
Aim
practice in identifying word classes. We
can give students a concordance sheet To draw attention to near synonyms
for like. They have to decide in which and to show that words are rarely
lines like is a verb and in which it is a synonymous and interchangeable in all
preposition. For example: contexts
I like chocolate. This activity is for four teams of
My brother eats like a horse. students. Write eight enlarged
concordance lines on four sheets of
3 card, choosing a mix of lines from the
Find the key word
near synonyms that you are going to
Aim use, but with the key words missing.
To raise awareness about common Some examples are big/large and
collocates and meanings of words fast/quick you can have a big or large
garden, but rarely a large problem.
Prepare a sheet of concordance lines
with four or five examples of different Display the four sheets of card
key words you want to focus on. Put the around the classroom, on the board, the
students into pairs. One student is given walls or the door.
the lines before the key word and the Now write each key word on eight
other is given the lines after the key separate pieces of card and stick them
word. in one place in the classroom.
Each student now has a different Each team of students is assigned
one of the concordance sheets. They
words missing. An example is shown have to stand up, go to their sheet and
below, where the missing words are way read the lines in order to work out the
and bill. correct key word.
Student A Student B
We believe that the best ______________ to explore and experience a country
And yet my electricity ______________ is larger than the gas one.
This was the best ______________ to govern the church
Football tops the ______________ in this edition
She was on her ______________ to an interview with one of
Are you on your ______________ out to market? Me too.
I dont mind a big heating ______________ but I dont want a big phone
Take the money to pay this ______________ out of my account
If you dont want your ______________ itemised. Remember
Were very happy with the ______________ the albums selling.
 I had a quick
quick
He is going to miss a big
big
Its a big
big
Exciting car, its a very fast
fast
Which is the fast
fast
Her banker arranged for large
large
Lets have a quick
quick
People go off politics. A large
large
Then they run to the key words and
stick them in the node position on their
sheet. The winner is the first team to
complete all their concordance lines
successfully.
The example above shows how the
concordance sheets might look at the
end.
Although this activity involves a
certain amount of preparation, it can
easily be reused. It is fun and it
generates a lot of discussion among
students.
They would benefit from having
their own individual photocopies of this
activity to keep and do on their own as
revision.
5 Collocation and
colligation
Aim
To notice frequent collocates of words
and common patterns of grammar
words
Activity A
The students look at a concordance
printout and have to identify four or
five of the most common collocates of
the key word. They can also focus on
specific word classes before and after
the key word, such as common
adjectives before nouns, nouns after
verbs, etc.
Activity B
Concordances can raise awareness of
how prepositions and other grammar
words behave. The students can study
concordance examples in order to see
what prepositions are used after
particular adjectives or verbs.
I recommend tailoring this activity
so that you can focus on words whose
prepositions in the students L1 are
unexpected when compared with
English, or are completely absent. For
example, the word depend will show
examples followed by on or upon,
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
word with Mickey.
game. In the 1990 replay
mistake to get intellectual about
car but its a very safe car.
lane.
sums of money to be
look at these types of media.
majority of people, Labour and Tory.
whereas in Spanish the preferred
preposition is of (de) which makes for
endless mistakes, even at advanced levels.
6 Do-it-yourself
concordances
Aim
To encourage the students to become
experts on their key words
This activity is suitable for all levels. It
combines the use of an authentic text
with texts in the students coursebook.
After choosing an authentic text,
select the grammatical or lexical items
you want your students to learn. Give
one word to each student, or two words
to each pair of students.
Ask them to find their word in the
text and write one concordance line for
it. The key word should be lined up in
the middle of the page and written in a
different colour, or highlighted in some
way.
Once the text and its salient
language have been studied, ask the
students to find other example
sentences with their given words in the
texts included in their coursebooks.
They then line up their example
sentences on their concordance sheet.
Follow-up: The finished concordance
sheets could be written on card and
displayed in the classroom. Alternatively,
the students can blank out the key word
and the rest of the class has to guess the
missing word. ETp
Chris Payne is the
owner of Paddington
School of English and
has been teaching in
Spain since 1993. He
has published several
articles on ELT and is
particularly interested in
a greater focus on lexis
in language learning.
paddington@terra.es
ENGLISH
Tprofessional
EACHING
This is your magazine.
We want to hear from you!

IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
Do you have ideas youd like to share
with colleagues around the world?
Tips, techniques and activities;
simple or sophisticated; well-tried
or innovative; something that has
worked well for you? All published
contributions receive a prize!
Write to us or email:
editor@etprofessional.com
TALKBACK!
Do you have something to say about
an article in the current issue of ETp?
This is your magazine and we would
really like to hear from you.
Write to us or email:
editor@etprofessional.com
Writing for ETp
Would you like to write for ETp? We are
always interested in new writers and
fresh ideas. For guidelines and advice,
write to us or email:
editor@etprofessional.com
Visit the
ETp website!
The ETp website is packed with practical
tips, advice, resources, information and
selected articles. You can submit tips
or articles, renew your subscription
or simply browse the features.
www.etprofessional.com
ENGLISH TEACHING professional
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PO Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex,
PO18 8HD, UK
Fax: +44 (0)1243 576456
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21
 Language Learner Literature
Awards 2010
Congratulations to the winners of the
2010 Language Learner Literature Awards.
The LLL Awards are given by the Extensive Reading Foundation
(ERF), a not-for-profit organisation that supports and promotes
extensive reading in language education. The winning book in each
of five categories is chosen by an international jury, taking into
account the internet votes and comments of students and teachers
around the world.
Young learners
 Winner  The Magic Brocade
by Sue Arengo, illustrated by Nancy Lane
Published by Oxford University Press
ISBN: 978-0-1942-2561-8
Judges comments: The Magic Brocade, a
retelling of a classic tale, was judged by ESL
students to be meaningful and to encourage
readers to ponder matters of virtue. The main
characters take great risks and make great
sacrifices to triumph in the end. Nothing, even
language learning, comes easily. .
Finalists Pinocchio retold by Sue Arengo
(OUP); Para-Life Rescue! by Sue Leather
(Heinle Cengage)
Adolescent and Adult: Beginner
 Winner  The Winning Shot
by Sue Murray
Published by ILTS and Hueber Verlag
ISBN: 978-3-1924-2976-7
Judges comments: The Winning Shot takes
the reader on a journey of sport and family,
with a bit of a twist in the tale.
Finalists Gone! by Margaret Johnson (CUP);
Storm Hawks by Helen Parker (Mary Glasgow
Magazines/Scholastic)
Adolescent and Adult: Elementary
 Winner  Titanic
by Tim Vicary
Published by Oxford University Press
ISBN: 978-0-1942-3619-5
Judges comments: Even working at such an
elementary level, the author manages to convey
facts in a reliable and interesting way, and it is
clearly well-researched. ... it has some quasi-
fictional aspects in the narrative that give the
reader some thrill, even though we know the
end of the story.
Finalists The Secret Garden adapted by Elizabeth
Ann Moore (Black Cat); Number the Stars
adapted by Edward Broadbridge (Easy Readers)
Congratulations from
ENGLISH
Tprofessional
EACHING
to all the winners and finalists.
Adolescent and Adult: Intermediate
 Winner  Michael Jackson
by Vicky Shipton
Published by Mary Glasgow Magazines/Scholastic
ISBN: 978-1-9057-7582-8
Judges comments: This is a well-written,
balanced account of the life of a great
entertainer. One student points out This book
tells me how a person changed himself because
of being famous. There are excellent additional
snippets at the end of the book.
Finalists The Mind Map by David Morrison
(CUP); Playing with Fire: Stories from the Pacific
Rim retold by Jennifer Bassett (OUP)
Adolescent and Adult: Upper-intermediate and Advanced
 Winner  The Best of Times?
by Alan Maley
Published by Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 978-0-5217-3546-9
Judges comments: The Best of Times? is the
story of a troubled teen coping with his parents
separation. The story is fast-paced and moving.
As one reader put it, It keeps you reading
continuously and makes you eager about what
is happening next. Many readers praised it for
being realistic, close to life and a story that
could happen to anyone.
Finalists The Kalahari Typing School for Men
retold by Annette Keen (Pearson Longman); Safe
House, adapted by Philip Hewitt (Easy Readers)
2011 Awards
Have you enjoyed a reader that was
published in 2010? The nomination and
voting procedures for the 2011 Language
Learner Literature Awards will be posted on
the ERF website (www.erfoundation.org).
 IN THE CLASSROOM
Relax, rethink
and reflect
Grazyna Kilianska-Przybylo experiments with verbal association.
T
he inspiration for this article
comes from Scott Thornburys
video presentation entitled
6 things beginning with R.
This presentation reminded me that
verbal association tasks can be a very
powerful resource in the hands of
overloaded and busy teachers.
Tasks for students
Verbal association tasks combine two
goals: linguistic (practice or revision of
material) and personal (promotion of
self-expression and creative thinking).
For this reason, they are ideal for
arousing the students curiosity and
waking them up in early morning
lessons. These tasks help to deliver
lessons from nothing and, as such, will
save a lot of preparation time. Here are
a few examples of such tasks:
1 Think of six things beginning with the
letter R.
2 List as many different four-letter
words as you can which begin with
the letter K.
3 Think of as many adjectives as
possible that you can use to describe
a house.
4 Think of as many adjectives related to
personality as you can.
Tasks for teachers
Verbal association tasks are also useful
in another way. Used by teachers, they
can help uncover beliefs, or at least
things which are meaningful to them
and, consequently, lead to a better
understanding of their own teaching
philosophy. In addition, they may shed
some light on teachers priorities and
help them re-examine certain aspects of
their classroom behaviour. In other
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
words, verbal association tasks may
enable teachers to think outside the
box and discover new insights about
themselves.
!
In his presentation, Scott
Thornbury gives examples of the
words beginning with R that are related
to the teaching profession. Before you
read on, you might like to stop for a
moment, relax and think about what
your list would contain. Remember, the
words should relate to teaching and
should all begin with the letter R.
I asked two groups of people (30 in
each group) to brainstorm their verbal
associations on the topic of the teaching
profession. One group consisted of pre-
service trainee teachers with no formal
experience of teaching. The second
group was composed of trainee teachers
with limited teaching experience (up to
two years). In the following tables, their
associations are listed according to
frequency of occurrence.
Group 1 Group 2
(trainees with (trainees with
no teaching one to two years
experience) experience in
teaching)
Reading Reflection
Rules Risk-taking
Repetition Research
Revision Response/
Response reaction
Remembering Revision
Reading
Despite some minor similarities, the
outcomes differ considerably. The words
provided by the trainees with no
teaching experience focus on the
teaching process itself and its content.
Those provided by the slightly more
experienced group evoke the image of a
teacher who is concentrating on two
things: the teaching/learning process and
their own attitudes towards teaching.
These more experienced trainees reflect
or, in other words, rethink, re-question
and reformulate their ideas. They are
sufficiently courageous to initiate their
own research and report its findings to
others. They also feel responsibility for
some of the stages of their lessons and
notice the relevance of the teachers
reaction. Their inclusion of reading
probably refers not just to the reading
that is done in class but reading that
teachers do for themselves.

To sum up, it seems that trainee teachers
with no experience of the classroom are
concentrated on the process of teaching
and learning, whereas those with a little
more experience tend to focus on
teaching and finding a professional path.
Look back at the list you produced.
What does it say about your attitudes to
your profession? ETp
Thornbury, S 6 things beginning with R
Teacher Training Workshop DVD
Macmillan Books for Teachers 2008
www.macmillanenglish.com/methodology
/authors/videos/Scott-Thornbury.htm
Grazyna Kilianska-
Przybylo is a lecturer in
the Institute of English at
the University of Silesia,
Poland, where she is a
teacher of English and
a teacher trainer. Her
academic interests
include: reflective
teaching, learner-centred
instruction, language
and intercultural
awareness.
grazyna.kilianska-przybylo@us.edu.pl
23
 TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS
Pineapple,
please!
Yen-Ling Teresa Ting makes vocabulary repetition for
her pre-school pupils purposeful and painless.
O
ne of the challenges in
teaching English as a foreign
language to young children
is that they receive so little
exposure to English outside the lesson.
Unless they are English-teaching
nannies or run an EFL kindergarten,
most teachers meet with their young
learners for only a few hours a week,
making it difficult to establish the
highly-contextualised continuity by
which children learn their L1. It doesnt
take a linguist to understand that four
hours per week of learning English,
spread over two lessons, is not exactly
the same as learning an L1 through
constant and authentically purposeful
language use. Another challenge in
teaching a foreign language to pre-
literate children is exactly that: they
dont read yet. Much of our teaching
with older learners is reliant on the
fact that they can already read and
write and, more importantly, that they
are familiar with the concepts they have
already met in their L1, and must,
therefore, just learn the L2 equivalent.
The problem
Since the average pre-school child has
had limited life experiences, we cannot
rely on this just learn it in English
24 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

approach. For example, for those of us
living in non-tropical Italy, it is quite
amazing when a four year old says
Ananas per favore, since pineapples, if
available at all, are found in the exotic
produce section of the supermarket
and are a rare occurrence on the Italian
dinner table. And if the child can also
add in the please, parents can brag
about this utterance for years to come.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I
examined the handbook of a popular
and very valid lower A2-level English
certificate for children and found more
than 600 nouns in the should-know
list, among which was pineapple. If we
are amazed to hear the L1 ananas, we
will surely be entered in the book of
Amazing EFL Teachers if we get four-
year-old Italian children to learn
pineapple!
The solution
The following activity was developed in
the context of an intensive programme
offered over two months (eight 90-
minute lessons), which aimed to teach a
group of 18 kindergarten-aged children
about 40 words, plus the concept of
plurals. With such little learning time
(which amounts to only 12 hours), the
only obvious way for the children to
acquire around six to eight words per
lesson would be through memorisation
based on endless oral repetition. The
mere thought of pointing to pictures
accompanied by whole-group and then
individual repetition for even ten
minutes made me feel faint. And what
about the concept of plurals? Not only
would this mundane memorisation and
repetition process challenge my own
limited patience, these young children
would surely hate English for life if I did
not devise something more interesting.
As my own son was in this group,
and I had always believed that logical
reasoning skills would get him further
than memorising the multiplication
tables before first grade, I decided to
kill two birds with one stone and
merged the challenge of vocabulary
learning with the cultivation of logical
reasoning skills. I drew a series of
vocabulary clotheslines upon which a
sequence containing three or four items
was organised. These item sets were
repeated in sequence along the entire
length of the clothesline, which snaked
along the page, with the problem being
that many sets were missing different
items. Figure 1 illustrates a very simple
three-item set, which clearly shows the
children that the target sequence is
scarf, jumper, coat, and the unfortunate
fact that some items have been blown
off the clothesline. Fortunately, the
teacher has braved the wind and
collected all the fallen items. Each child
has a copy of the clothesline and must
first figure out the sequence within the
three-item set and, using the request,
X, please, ask for the items they need
to complete the other sets on their
entire clothesline. Once a child has
obtained a missing item, they must glue
it in the correct place. In the example
in Figure 1, the numbers under the first
set indicate how many scarves (4),
jumpers (5) and coats (4) the teacher
needs to have ready for each child.
Since all the children receive the same
clothesline, the teacher knows
beforehand how many items will be
missing and can thus have these
organised into separate piles or
buckets. To avoid accidents, it is best to
have the children seated at desks
 TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS
4 5 4 of plurals with sock and socks. A
Figure 1
arranged in a circle, with the teacher
sitting on a chair with wheels in the
centre but as close to the desks as
possible.
Noisy, but necessary
I should warn you that this activity
involves a lot of loud young voices
repeating X, please! innumerable times
as the teacher attempts to roll from
desk to desk to give each child their
requested item. The classroom can
become quite noisy as the children
compete for the teachers attention in
order to obtain the items they need.
However, teachers should realise that
this loud repetition is necessary for
learning. Contextualised repetition and
instant feedback/reinforcement is
exactly how children learn their L1. EFL
teaching needs to devise contexts
where authentically-motivated repetition
is necessary, and the urgent desire to
complete their clotheslines prompts all
the children to repeat their requests,
either individually or in chorus, until the
item is obtained. If the teacher
recognises the necessity of repetition
and finds the courage to survive 20
minutes of Scarf, please!, Jumper, please!
and Coat, please! uttered simultaneously
and at all volumes, the children will have
repeated each target item at least 33
times by the time they have got all the

items and completed their clothesline.
And please will be engrained for life.
Those children who finish first can
colour in their clothesline silently
while the ones who finish later can do
the colouring as homework. Having
expended their voices, the children
become surprisingly quiet when they
settle down to colour in their
clotheslines, and teachers can use this
as a moment of rest if they wish.
Although the clothesline completion
part of this activity is not exactly quiet,
if the stoic teacher can see beyond the
noise and hear the learning, the end regular verbs is a matter of minimal
definitely justifies the means!
Simple, but adaptable
This activity can, of course, be adapted
to suit various learning targets. For
example, I used a four-item sequence
covering three words: strawberry,
strawberry, pineapple, apple. Strawberry was
repeated in the sequence because it is
quite a mouthful for Italians and is also
quite different from the Italian equivalent,
fragola. The adjacency of pineapple and
apple was also not coincidental as
pineapple is a mouthful to pronounce.
Although pineapples are exotic, the sets can continue onto the next line,
word was similar enough to the familiar
apple that just one appearance of the
word pineapple was sufficient to allow
the students to acquire it.
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
Another sequence (sock, socks, shirt,
skirt) worked on the pronunciation of
the similar-sounding words skirt and
shirt, but also incorporated the concept
clothesline using foot and feet along
with shoe and shoes also worked well to
provide an intensive exercise on plurals.
I should add two suggestions, plus a
note of caution regarding plurals. In the
beginning, it is best for the children to
ask for one missing item at a time so
that they must repeat the lexis as often
as possible. However, later on, you may
encourage them to ask for Two apples,
please, so they learn about the plural s.
The second suggestion is that irregular
plurals, such as feet, should be
introduced at the same time that
children are mastering the add an s
rule, before they have a chance to say
foots and have it fossilized into their
young brains. For Italians, and I imagine
all children who speak languages with
irregular plurals, foot/feet is not
shocking at all and just one of those
things people say. The caution is with
regard to regular nouns which are not
only irregularly spelled but also
irregularly pronounced, such as scarf,
which requires Two scarves, please and
not Two scarfs, please. In a previous
article (ETp Issue 54) I offered a simple
rule about how the suffix s on plural
regular nouns and even the ed suffix on
mouth movements, and children find
this lazy mouth rule quite easy to
apply. However, as they are pre-literate
and cannot see that the word scarves
has more to do with add an s than
irregular noun, we should treat it like
an irregular noun and provide single
pictures representing two scarves
rather than have the children ask for
two separate scarfs to fill two gaps on
their clothesline.
The clothesline in Figure 2 shows
how the activity can be made more
challenging, since the sets of items are
divided by a big dot on the line but the
rather like words in a sentence. To add
variety from lesson to lesson, the
clothesline may also be presented in a
spiral. 
25
 TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS
Pineapple,
please!
 To focus attention on one
particularly difficult item, the sequences
may contain L1 cognates such as the
sequence banana, orange, kiwi, watermelon,
where banana and kiwi are the same in
Italian and orange sounds like the Italian
arance, thus concentrating the childrens
attention on the word watermelon.
Common features
An important point to consider is that
people tend to learn new information
by categorising, where possible, novel
input with familiar items. This activity is,
therefore, most effective when items of
a set share common features, as in the
examples above (fruit, clothes, etc). This
requires some pre-planning on the part
of the teacher. So, for example, if the
first four words you have to teach are
apple, arm, armchair and baby, these will
be difficult to learn together as they
dont form an obvious category. Spend
some time dividing the target words
into meaningful sets. Another thing to
remember is that the item-limit of our
working memory is around five to
seven items. Therefore, sets containing
fewer items are easier to learn than
sets containing more than seven items.
In fact, a three to four item set is more
rhythmic and easier for young children
to learn: apple, banana, kiwi, orange is
almost a poem while apple, banana, kiwi,
orange, coconut, pear, watermelon sounds
more like a shopping list.
Reading
Once each child has completed their
clothesline, they come to the teacher
and read it aloud by saying the words.
Although these children are pre-reading
age, their ability to read their
clotheslines gives the teacher the
opportunity to evaluate if each child has
26 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

Figure 2
indeed figured out the sequence and
learnt the words on the line. A child
reading my completed fruit clothesline
would say strawberry, strawberry,
pineapple, apple six times. However,
after having said Strawberry, please!
loudly at least 33 times during the
completion of the clothesline, these last
six utterances of strawberry as they
read in English is not really for the
purpose of learning but to boost the
childs ego they were smart enough to
figure out the sequence and now also
know that fragola is called strawberry in
English since they can read their
clotheslines correctly. English is easy!
Recognising
The clothesline activity is most suitable
for learning concrete nouns, and I have
successfully hung out less healthy food
sets, such as pizza, chips, burger and hot-
dog, as well as dislocated body parts in
singular and plural options, such as eye,
eyes, ear and mouth. Although nouns
such as address, cinema, farm and farmer
are difficult to represent through simple
drawings, animals, household electronics
(fridge, toaster, cooker, iron) and furniture
are quite suitable items, as are many
dreaded vegetables (broccoli, carrots,
onions, tomatoes). What is effective
about this activity is its ability to elicit
so much repetition that any and all the
Phillip Burrows
words hung on the clothesline can be
acquired in only 12 hours! And,
amazingly, the children are not at all
bored with the repetition because it
serves a purpose. Moreover, the activity
serves the equally important function of
developing the childrens ability to
recognise patterns, an important
logical-deduction skill which will serve
them well.

I have had opportunities to meet up with
the parents of some of these children five
years later and hear them brag of their
childrens politeness and eloquence. One
couple even told of a visit to New York
where their child answered a waiter with
Pineapple, please when offered a choice
between orange and pineapple juice.
Knowing that I have helped children learn
vocabulary through intensive repetition
without them hating English (or me) is
very satisfying indeed! ETp
Yen-Ling Teresa Ting is a
teacher at the University
of Calabria, Italy, and uses
her PhD in neurobiology
to render neuroscience
research accessible to
teachers so they can
improve their classroom
practice, be it to enthuse
learners about science via
CLIL or enable young
learners to become
eloquent tourists.
yltting1@gmail.com
 EAP An all-round challenge 3
Clare Nukui suggests some critical thinking activities for academic
and general English students.
ritical thinking, thats about
C asking why, isnt it? said one
of my students. Well, thats a
good start. Definitions of
critical thinking are many and varied. I
like Edward Glasers description of it as
involving three things: an attitude of being
disposed to consider in a thoughtful way
the problems and subjects that come
within the range of ones experiences; a
knowledge of the methods of logical
enquiry and reasoning; and the skill to be
able to apply these methods.
My own definition is that critical
thinking is the practice of challenging
knowledge claims. A knowledge claim is
a statement which purports to be true. A
critical thinker uses reason and the rules
of logic to decide whether or not the
knowledge claim is to be accepted and
to what extent. Critical thinkers will also
be aware of the language used by those
seeking to persuade us of a truth and will
take into account vested interests.
Examples of knowledge claims can easily
be found in exam-type essay titles such
as Human beings do not need to eat
meat in order to maintain good health
because they can get all their food needs
from meatless products and substitutes.
To what extent do you agree?.
Critical thinking is something that we
already employ as part of our daily lives.
However, by making critical thinking skills
more explicit, we can help our students
to tackle essay questions of this type
more effectively. Moreover, critical
thinking is not something limited to the
academic sphere and, therefore, beyond
the remit of the general English language
teacher. All students will benefit from
honing their critical thinking skills. Here, I
would like to present some short, fun
activities to develop these skills, all of
which could be used effectively in the
general English or EAP classroom.
Just a critical minute
Level: Upper-intermediate/
Advanced
Ask your students to come up with some
knowledge claims in line with their life
experience, such as Girls are better
cooks than boys. As an alternative, if the
students are unable to think of any, you
28 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
could provide some claims to draw out of 3 My friends cooked pasta for us last
a hat.
Give the students a little time to think
of arguments in support of their statement,
based on observation, experience,
reflection, reasoning or communication,
night. (just)
4 Since I have been in the UK, I have
visited London and Bath. (only)
5 Whats wrong? Oh, its a cold. (merely)
pointing out that these are the tools of a
Note: the adverb generally comes after
good critical thinker.
be, before main verbs and between
Get them to take turns to stand up
auxiliary verbs and main verbs.
and make their claim. The other students
have one minute to challenge it, saying, Discuss with the class not only the
for example: correct placement of these adverbs but
what effect these adverbs have on how
On what evidence do you base this
the information is construed. For
claim?
example, My youngest sister is just a
Do you know of any exceptions to your teacher suggests that the speaker is
claim? disappointed by her choice of profession.
Get the students to prepare mini-
I am a better cook than my girlfriend.
dialogues using the above sentences. For
What do you think about that?
example:
How come most of the worlds most
A: My youngest sister is a teacher.
famous chefs are men?
B: Oh, is she just a teacher?
At the end of the minute, the class has to
A: What do you mean, just a teacher?
decide whether to accept or throw out
the claim. B: Well, teachers are ...
Those claims that are accepted could
Play it up
be used for essay writing much of the
Now ask the students to rewrite these
preliminary brainstorming will already
sentences as superlatives, using the
have been completed and evidence/
verbs in brackets. For example: Shes a
examples will have been aired and are
good teacher. (have) Shes the best
thus available for students to use in their
teacher I have ever had.
writing.
1 My dad is a bad driver. (see) Hes
Play it down, play it up 2 I have a comfortable bed. (sleep) Its
Level: Lower-intermediate
3 That was a tasty pizza. (eat) That
The critical thinker needs to be aware of
how language can be used to manipulate 4 It was a difficult test. (take) It
people into accepting a knowledge claim.
Talk about the effect of the use of the
One technique is to either downgrade or
superlative with your students. Even
over-exaggerate something, opposing
though the listener may think you are
techniques which can both have the
exaggerating about your dads driving in
effect of persuading someone of a
sentence 1, they will think that he must
knowledge claim. This exercise can also
be pretty bad, whereas if you just said he
help in the teaching of adverb placement
was a bad driver, they might question
and the use of superlatives and the
why you thought so.
present perfect tense!
Finish by putting the students into
Play it down teams and giving each a pile of adjectives
Give the students the following list of face down which they take turns to turn
sentences and ask them to decide where over and use to make superlative
to place the adverb in brackets in each of sentences. Teams have to write their
them: sentences on slips of paper, which they
display on the wall. The teams then
1 My youngest sister is a teacher. (just)
compare and discuss each others
2 This car costs 1,500. (only) sentences.
Positive or negative?
Level: Upper-intermediate
When we choose a word, we need to be
aware of its connotations and how this
can affect how we present statements
and arguments. Equally, when we listen
to arguments from other people, the
words they choose will affect the way we
receive and interpret their message.
Students need to be aware that by going
to a dictionary and choosing a word, they
are also choosing a stance.
Ask the students to put the following
adjectives into the table below, using
their dictionaries to help them.
obese stingy quiet well-rounded
scrawny challenging tranquil
mind-bending slim economical
thrifty dead difficult overweight
Neutral Positive Negative
term term term
When they have completed the table, ask
them to decide which of the words to use
in the following sentences:
1 That supermodel should eat more.
Shes too ______________ .
2 Hes always counting the pennies,
never buys anything unless its on sale
and never offers to treat anyone. Hes a
bit ______________ .
3 Our teacher set us some ______________
problems for homework, which I really
enjoyed solving.
4 After six oclock when all the offices
and shops have closed, this town is
really ______________ . There is nothing
to do at all.
Check the sentences and discuss the
choices the students have made. Then
ask them to choose three other
adjectives from the table and to make up
sentences with blanks for a partner to
complete.
Whats my bias?
Level: Advanced
As William Sumner points out, everyone
has subconscious biases, and therefore
critical thinkers must question their
reflexive judgements before making
decisions.
Ask the students to discuss their
opinions on the following topics in pairs:
1 Smoking
2 Education
3 Childcare
4 Housework
5 Science
6 Travel
thin
7 Religion
8 Homosexuality
9 Technology
10 Marriage
When they have finished, ask them how
they think their opinions might affect
them if they were to be asked to
contribute to a debate on the following
topics:
Asking smokers to pay more taxes to
cover increased medical costs;
Setting up a crche at your workplace
to allow mothers to return to work
more easily;
Making a gap year compulsory for all
high school graduates.
Debating
Level: Intermediate and above
A good old-fashioned debate, as
advocated by Edward Glaser, brings
together many critical thinking skills and
is excellent training in applying these
methods. Discover Debate by Michael
Lubetsky, Charles Lebeau and David
Harrington is a great resource, with
advice on how best to set up a debate
and many suggestions for practice.
Before a debate, it could be useful to
help your students to recognise
argumentation strategies that might be
used by the opposing team in place of
logical reasoning. Good critical thinkers
will avoid these strategies themselves,
but will be aware of, and know how to
deal with, their use by others.
Here are some examples of different
types of argumentation strategy based on
the proposition Dogs make better pets
than cats:
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
Being subjective: That is not true in the
case of my family. We had a cat before
and now we have a dog, and shes a
much better pet.
Appealing to common beliefs: Everyone
knows that dogs make better pets than
cats because they are more loyal.
Invoking peer pressure: Dogs are much
cuter than cats. Dont you want to be
like Paris Hilton and accessorise with
your dog?
Invoking anger: Cats are terrible pets.
They are always killing birds and making
a mess in other peoples gardens.
Such arguments can be replaced by the
use of logic and the construction of a
sound argument such as:
Dogs can be seen to be better pets than
cats for several reasons. First of all, dogs
need to be taken out for walks, so they
provide exercise for their owners. In
addition, dogs like being part of a group,
so they are naturally more companionable
than cats, which are solitary creatures ...

There is a place for the teaching of
critical thinking not only in the world of
universities and English for Academic
Purposes, but in every English class.
Good critical thinkers are better equipped
to make informed decisions and are
better able to avoid being manipulated by
such things as the media in their daily
lives. ETp
Glaser, E An Experiment in the
Development of Critical Thinking
Teachers College Record 1941
Lubetsky, M, Lebeau, C and Harrington,
D Discover Debate Language Solutions
2000
Sumner, W Folkways: A Study of the
Sociological Importance of Usages,
Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals
Ginn and Co 1940
Clare Nukui is
Programme Director of
the International
Foundation Programme
(IFP) at the University of
Reading, UK. She
teaches EAP and is also
responsible for the
pastoral welfare of the
students on the IFP. She
is the author of four
books in the Garnet
Education TASK
(Transferable Academic
Skills Kit) series.
c.g.nukui@reading.ac.uk
29
 IN THE CLASSROOM
Enquire within
Michael Berman caters creatively for intrapersonal intelligence.
H
oward Gardners theory of
Multiple Intelligences
accounts for why certain
learners object to working
in pairs despite the fact that it clearly
increases student talking time (STT) in
class. Gardner defines intrapersonal
intelligence as the capacity to
understand oneself including ones
own desires, fears and capacities and
to use such information effectively in
regulating ones own life. Learners with
high intrapersonal intelligence prefer
having an opportunity to look within
first, before discussing their thoughts
with others, and failure to cater for this
fact in class can only lead to resentment.
The activity on page 31 is designed with
this aim in mind, as it gives learners
time to work independently before
groupwork takes place.
Creative teaching
Intrapersonal intelligence indicates the
ability to look within for causes and to
find solutions to problems, and it is
perhaps the most neglected intelligence
type for teaching purposes.
Circle-time
Circle-time provides an ideal way of
catering for intrapersonal intelligence in
class. A group of students works
together in a safe situation where there
are agreed rules. They collaborate on
personal contributions, affirmations,
active and reflective listening and
celebrations. Essay titles such as
Mistakes I wont repeat, My life in the conscious attention of the learner is
future, How Id be different if Id being deflected from the goal which is
grown up in a different culture, How a
Martian might describe me, etc can
also help to facilitate looking within.
Pole-bridging
Another technique that can prove to be
effective is pole-bridging having
students describe aloud what they are
30 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
doing as they do it. You can also
encourage them to reflect on what has
been done and to speculate on what is
to come.
Creative writing
Creative writing, especially the writing
of poetry, involves looking within and
appeals to the intrapersonal intelligence
type.
1 The following poem by Emily
Dickinson can be used for work on
conditionals. The students can be invited
to write their own version of the poem,
starting with the words If I can and
ending with I shall not live in vain.
If I can stop one heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching
Or cool one pain;
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Something learnt from an experience that
includes deeper and wider purposes will
be more readily and more fully available
for future performance than an item
from an experience that has included
only shallower, smaller-scale purposes.
2 The following activity also springs
from a poem and can be used to
reinforce the teaching point that the
zero article is employed when talking
about a subject in general. Moreover, it
is being dealt with indirectly the
Column combinations
another reason why the information is
more likely to be retained in the long-
term memory:
Time is
Too slow for those who wait
Too long for those who grieve
Too short for those who rejoice
But for those who love
Time is eternity.
Students can be asked to write a parallel
poem, using the same format, on the
subject of money or work:
is
Too for those who
Too for those who
Too for those who
But for those who
is .
The activity can be adapted to fit into a
topic-based approach. Other subjects to
write parallel poems about could
include love, food, sleep, sunshine and
rain.
3 Two further activities can be used to
facilitate creative writing. They are not
only non-threatening but also good fun
and can provide a lead-in to more
ambitious projects.
Alphabet combinations
Ask the students to write a list of
words, each one starting with a different
letter of the alphabet. Then get them to
write at least three sentences that use
words from their list in alphabetical
sequence. Tell them to use as many of
the words in combinations as they can,
then compare results with the person
sitting next to them. For example:
The drunk English football supporters
started a fight outside the stadium.
Go home idiots!
Two ugly violinists played a duet.
Give the students the Who/What/Where
table on page 31 and ask them to write
four sentences each composed of one
item from each of the columns.
When they have finished, ask them
to switch the parts around so each Who
has a new What and Where, then
compare results with a partner.
 Twenty ways to make the world a better place
Look at the list below and decide which suggestions you would be willing to take up.
Add five suggestions of your own. Then get into groups to share your ideas.

1 Wear bright clothes once a week. It will cheer everyone up.

2 Telephone or write to someone you havent seen for five years.

3 Take a plant into your office, or take a packet of biscuits and buy everyone a cup of tea.

4 Turn off your TV and do something less boring instead.

5 Keep a bowl of fruit on your desk at work.

6 Pray. Not necessarily to God, just say a short prayer offering thanks at the end of each day.

7 Risk ridicule smile at strangers, talk to shop assistants.

8 If you see someone lost, show them the way.

9 Dont push in crowds.

10 Stop yourself saying I.

11 Take action on things you think are wrong or offensive.

12 If you have any clothes you havent worn for a year, give them away to friends, relatives or charity shops.

13 Plant a tree. Put one in your garden or a local communal space.

14 Listen to children as you listen to adults give them as many rights as you give yourself.

15 Take responsibility for your problems and dont blame others for the situations you find yourself in.

16 .............................................................................................................................................................................................

17 .............................................................................................................................................................................................

18 .............................................................................................................................................................................................

19 .............................................................................................................................................................................................

20 .............................................................................................................................................................................................

Gardner, H Frames of Mind. The Theory of

Who What Where
Multiple Intelligences Basic Books 1983
Gardner, H Multiple Intelligences. The
The tourist guide spat at the tourists in Westminster Abbey Theory in Practice Basic Books 1993
Gardner, H Intelligence Reframed.
The film star wore a pink dress at the awards ceremony Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century
Basic Books 1999
Gardner, H Multiple Intelligences: New
The policeman broke down and wept in court
Horizons Basic Books 2006

The monkey climbed up a tree in the jungle Michael Berman works

as a teacher and a writer.
His ELT publications
include A Multiple
 to the fact that most adults only become Intelligences Road to an
interested in spiritual development and ELT Classroom and The
Power of Metaphor (both
Although interpersonal intelligence is going within later on in life, and what Crown House) and In a
well catered for these days, with plenty we focus on in class reflects our own Faraway Land and On
Business and For Pleasure
of pair- and groupwork opportunities strengths and interests. However, (both O-Books). For more
built into most coursebooks, hopefully the material presented in this information, please visit
intrapersonal intelligence remains a www.thestoryteller.org.uk.
article will go some way towards
neglected area. This could be partly due michaelberman@blueyonder.co.uk
redressing the imbalance. ETp

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010 31

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 Over
the
wall ... Alan Maley
mounts an attack
on misinformation.
hose who wield power have
T always been adept at
manipulating information to their
advantage. From Machiavellis
The Prince to Orwells 1984, literary rulers
have systematically misled their subjects
when it was in their own interest to do
so. More recently, commercial interests
have added their own kind of deceit to
political misinformation. Vance Packards
The Hidden Persuaders was an early
attempt to expose the unseen
manipulation of the consumer. Neil
Postmans Amusing Ourselves to Death
sounded the alarm over the trivialisation
of information by the mass media. There
is also the perennially useful guide to
trickery in Straight and Crooked Thinking
by Robert Thouless. In recent years the
flood of misinformation, facilitated by the
exponential growth of the media, seems
to have reached epic proportions,
however, and the number of publications
unmasking it has risen correspondingly.
Counter-Knowledge
iStockphoto.com / Steven Robertson
In Counter-Knowledge, Damian
Thompson focuses on misinformation
packaged to look like fact so that we are
now facing a pandemic of credulous
thinking, characterised by a casual
approach to the truth. He cites as
examples Holocaust denial, Satanism,
34 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
9/11 conspiracy theories and the anti-
vaccination movement. There are
chapters on creationism (and its
surrogate cousin intelligent design),
pseudohistory and quack medicine. In
demolishing the arguments for
creationism, he notes the dangerous links
it has with fundamentalist religion both
Christian and Muslim. In rejecting
Darwinism, the developing world thinks homeopathy, nutritionists miracle
it is demonstrating moral superiority over
degenerate Western values. In fact it is
rejecting the scientific method itself, and
thereby condemning future generations
to material and intellectual poverty. He
then deals with the pseudohistorical
myths of The Da Vinci Code, Mormonism,
cult archaeology and Afrocentric history,
all of which have wide followings despite
their manifest lack of a basis in fact. The
chapter on Desperate Remedies is a
frontal attack on alternative medicine and
quack nutritionists. These are dealt with
in greater detail by Ben Goldacre (see
below). The final chapter examines the
causes and scale of the problem: in
particular, the explosive growth in the
variety and reach of the media, especially
the internet; the effects of free market
capitalism on the way information is
selected, presented and interpreted (see
Davies below), and the rise of
fundamentalist beliefs. Plenty to think
about.
Bad Science
Ben Goldacre is a medical doctor, and his
book Bad Science is a one-man crusade
against the morass of quackery, sloppy
thinking and deception in the field of
medicine and nutrition. The book includes
carefully analysed critiques of the claims
of a large number of cases, including
products, Omega 3 as a pill for enhancing
intelligence, anti-oxidants, detox
treatments, vitamin C as a cure for AIDS,
health scares such as the MRSA hoax
and the MMR vaccination hoax. Along the
way, he completely discredits the work of
bogus celebrity charlatans such as Gillian
McKeith and Patrick Holford, as well as
the more dangerous activities of Andrew
Wakefield (the MMR scaremonger) and
Matthias Rath, who has the dubious
distinction of having persuaded Thabo
Mbeki that AIDS should be treated with
vitamin C not retroviral drugs. He also
explains in careful detail how claims can
be tested (plenty for applied linguistics
researchers to note here, too!) and
reveals how statistical and other trickery
can distort the truth. He takes the big
pharmaceutical companies to task for
their systemic misleading of the public,
and the media for their role in fostering
public misunderstanding of science
through their preference for the
sensational over the more pedestrian
truth. One of his striking observations
concerns the way in which commonsense
has been commodified. Referring to
Brain Gym, paid for by the British
taxpayer, You can take a perfectly
sensible intervention, like a glass of water
and an exercise break, but add nonsense,
make it sound more technical, and make
yourself sound clever. Likewise with the
advice of quack nutritionists: most
people already know what a healthy diet
and lifestyle is but nutrition experts
need to complicate and mystify it in order
to make a quick dollar. You have to pay
for mumbo-jumbo: commonsense is free.
Apart from its rigorous analyses, the
book is deliciously irreverent. See also his
website: www.badscience.net.
Flat Earth News
In both the above books, the media have
been rightly accused of complicity in the
dissemination of falsehoods, half-truths,
manipulation and deception. Flat Earth
News places the media themselves under
direct scrutiny. Nick Davies, himself a
journalist, offers a detailed account, rich
in fully-described examples, of the way
this has come about. The takeover of
newspapers by media moguls, whose
only interest is in making more money,
has led to cutbacks in reporting staff.
This, coupled with pressure to produce
Books like these offer a superb
introduction to critical thinking
articles faster and in greater quantity, has
led to the inability to check on the truth of
stories and to an overwhelming reliance
by journalists on the large agencies
(Press Association, Associated Press and
Reuters) and on press releases and other
oven-ready copy provided by PR
companies. PR companies do not operate
in the public interest; they work for both
commercial and political vested interests.
The result has been a wholesale collapse
of principled journalism substituted by
churnalism. The failure to provide
context has multiplied, and divided into a
preference for interest over issue; for the
concrete over the abstract; for event
rather than process; for the current over
the historic; for simplicity rather than
complexity; for certainty rather than doubt.
This applies in both print and broadcast,
generating patterns of distortion so
consistent as to amount to a bias against
truth. Quoting Joseph Pulitzer: A cynical,
mercenary, demagogic, corrupt press will
produce in time a people as base as itself.
See also www.flatearthnews.net.
The Rise of Political Lying
The Rise of Political Lying is a remorseless
indictment of politics in Britain under New
Labour. It is scrupulously researched,
with all claims and accusations carefully
documented from unimpeachable sources.
This is presumably why the author, Peter
Oborne, a seasoned journalist, has not
been sued for libel, despite quotations
like these:
Blairs special gift is in saying
what he does not mean, and meaning
what he does not say.
Peter Mandelson lies on principle,
or just for the sheer hell of it.
Estelle Morris, the Education Secretary
claimed that Mr Byers lie was not really
a lie, because anyone could see that what
he was saying was not true. Right!
Part 1 documents the rise of lies and
deception from Thatcher to Blair. The
author asserts that having used lies to take
power, Blair and his cronies then couldnt
stop, so that a whole culture took hold
where truth was downgraded in favour of
political expediency. Henceforth, political
life in Britain would be characterised by a
litany of lies, deception, smear, spin,
misinformation, partial information,
fabrication, manipulation of statistics,
distortion, sleaze and sound-bites.
Part 2 sets out the rationale for this
mendacious culture, with extensive
examples of the deviousness and
manipulation of facts by Campbell and
Blair in the run-up to the Iraq war. The
whole sorry episode of weapons of mass
distraction is exposed.
In Part 3 he examines the
consequences: the corrosive effect on
political life, the loss of public trust in
politicians and the massive growth of
public cynicism.
In conclusion, Oborne offers six
possible remedies: setting up websites
for the vetting of all public information;
creating a National Statistical Service to
take control of information out of the
hands of government; making MPs more
accountable; preventing unelected public
servants from becoming political masters;
and making political lying a crime
punishable by law.
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
On Bullshit
As a fitting close to this catalogue, let me
recommend a brief (67 pages) but dense
view from a contemporary philosopher.
Harry Frankfurts On Bullshit is a
systematic attempt to define the true
nature of this flood of verbal ordure we
wade through daily. He concludes that
bullshit is unavoidable whenever
circumstances require someone to talk
without knowing what he is talking about
... This discrepancy is common in public
life . He argues that the requirement to
speak the truth has been replaced in
recent times by the compulsion to
represent oneself as sincere: a nice guy.
To this extent, sincerity itself is bullshit.
Spot on!

If we are to be more than mere purveyors
of language packaged in textbooks, and
would aspire to a broader educational
vocation, books like these offer a superb
introduction to critical thinking. They also
include texts we can use directly both for
the teaching of language and for raising
awareness of the tricks it can play on us.
Davies, N Flat Earth News Vintage Press
2009
Frankfurt, H G On Bullshit Princeton
University Press 2005
Goldacre, B Bad Science Harper
Perennial 2008
Machiavelli, N The Prince Bantam
Classics 1984
Oborne, P The Rise of Political Lying
The Free Press 2005
Orwell, G 1984 Penguin 1948
Packard, V The Hidden Persuaders
Ig Publishing 1957/2007
Postman, N Amusing Ourselves to Death
Penguin 1985
Thompson, D Counter-Knowledge
Atlantic Books 2008
Thouless, R R Straight and Crooked
Thinking Pan Books 1953
Alan Maley has worked in
the area of ELT for over
40 years in Yugoslavia,
Ghana, Italy, France,
China, India, the UK,
Singapore and Thailand.
Since 2003 he has been
a freelance writer and
consultant. He has
published over 30 books
and numerous articles,
and was, until recently,
Series Editor of the
Oxford Resource Books
for Teachers.
yelamoo@yahoo.co.uk
35
 IN THE CLASSROOM
Learning
disability 5
Lesley Lanir focuses on factors which
affect reading acquisition.
M
y previous article, in ETp
Issue 70, discussed the
nature of reading
disabilities and how to
help with automatic decoding and
reading fluency. Clearly, reading is a
demanding activity requiring the
synchronisation of many processes and
skills that ultimately leads to the main
goal: understanding the writers
message. However, to achieve this end,
in addition to automatic code-breaking
abilities, students need to have:
a wide vocabulary;
knowledge of structure and syntax;
proficient comprehension strategies.
As discussed earlier in this series, poor
decoding interferes with the reading
process. However, whats more, many
individual and joint studies, such as
those by Baddeley and Gathercole, have
shown that the following cognitive
dysfunctions also affect learning to read:
inadequate phonological perception;
limitations in serial memory;
weak working memory;
deficient phonological short-term
memory.
Appreciation of the effects of these
dysfunctions allows us to understand
where and why students are struggling
in many of the parallel skills needed for
success in reading and comprehension,
for instance:
learning and retrieving vocabulary;
understanding complex sentences;
remembering details;
identifying important points;
completing reading tasks.
Appreciation of these cognitive
dysfunctions also allows us to
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
understand where and why students are
struggling in other skills needed to read
and comprehend successfully.
Problem areas
Phonological perception
As I mentioned in a previous article,
poor phonological perception reduces
the quality of verbal input. As a result,
words enter the short-term memory with:
distortions and omissions: everywhere
rewhere; Bluetooth blootoos; Problems with
sound substitutions: thirst first; hurt
herd;
swapping and reversals: remember
merember; suffer fusser. energy in learning lists of words and yet
Serial memory
However, it is not only poor phonological
perception that causes sounds to switch
around. Words and phrases consist of
letters and sounds arranged in a specific
order. This sequence needs to be
preserved to facilitate accurate processing
and retention. Serial memory weaknesses
cause difficulties in handling sequential
information that surface, for example, in:
remembering lists of numbers, letters
and words;
repeating longer words or phrases
without confusion;
recalling what occurs first and what
comes next.
Working memory
Also referred to in previous articles,
working memory or short-term
working memory are concepts coined
by researcher Alan Baddeley in 1986.
Working memory is a complex system
with limited resources that temporarily
holds and manipulates information.
However, sometimes new information
never reaches long-term memory
because working memorys management
system causes it to be replaced by new
input, leak away or disappear.
Phonological short-term memory
Besides working memorys faulty
managerial systems, one of its other
components, the phonological short-term
memory, plays a part, too. For instance,
if all the input and processing systems are
functioning normally, phonemes enter
the phonological short-term memory as
they are perceived: identical in quality,
sound and sequence. They are then
rehearsed sub-vocally for about two
seconds, creating a strong phonological
impression, and are then transferred to
long-term memory for storage.
Dysfunctions in the phonological
short-term memory process cause:
a limited number of phonemes to enter;
phonemes to fade away before or
during rehearsal;
fragile or distorted phonological
impressions to be created.
All of which leads to long-term storage
of incomplete words or words stored in
a degraded form.
vocabulary acquisition
In all classes, a number of students
seem to invest enormous amounts of
cannot retain or retrieve them for later
use. This is because, if the above
processes are not working adequately,
input is always distorted and stable
phonological representations of new
words are not formed and transferred to
long-term memory.
Consequently, every time a word is
encountered, instead of the memory
retrieval system recognising its
phonological features and connecting it
to a previously-made imprint, which
will deepen and reinforce the memory of
the existing phonological impression of
a word, another fragile, inaccurate word
trace is formed.
For example: the target word may be
travel. However, on the first encounter it
may be perceived as trabel, on the
second truffle, on the third trouble,
on the fourth dravel, and so on.
Similarly, Thursday may be perceived
as firzdi, and on consecutive meetings:
thirsty, Tuesday, turzday, or durzdi.
As a result, long-term memory ends 
37

Learning
disability 5
 up being filled with many incorrect,
feeble impressions of non-words, or else
it may automatically erroneously link
an incoming word with its nearest
representation.
How can we help?
To overcome this, teachers have to
consider ways of:
intensifying the input of the
phonological features of a word to
create deep, lasting impressions;
deepening the semantic connections
in order to ensure accurate long-term
storage.
One way to do this is to use a listen-and-
repeat method with no more than five
words in one session. This means that
even before tackling semantics, teachers
have to model a word until a student can
repeat it verbatim. Inaccurate articulation
usually accompanies poor phonological
perception which, as shown above, leads
to incorrect phonological representations
being formed and the word not being
remembered. Correct, extensive modelling
and repetition ensures that deep, accurate
phonological imprints will be formed
and transferred to long-term memory.
We can help accelerate this process
by considering the following:
The phonological properties of
words
If we choose to teach words that have
letters with similar sounds or that are
articulated in the same place in the
mouth, for example the word suspicion,
storage and recall will take longer
because a weak phonological memory
will not be able recognise the distinct
features of each phoneme and make a
precise imprint of the word. Precise
enunciation is needed with such words.
Likewise, to avoid confusion, we
should be careful not to teach similar-
sounding words close together. For
example, different and difficult; picture
and fixture; protest and produce.
Word length and spoken length
A word has approximately two seconds
of short-term phonological memory
time to make an impression. The more
times it is rehearsed within this time, the
38 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
more likely it is that it will be
remembered; hence, shorter words will
be learnt more easily.
For example, if a student has to learn
two words, eg dog and wedding, dog can
be rehearsed more often within the two-
second memory span than wedding.
Word length, however, does not only
apply to the number of letters and
syllables. Spoken duration is the key
factor, and a word that appears short in
length may actually be longer
phonologically. Take, for instance, the
words my and in. Two sounds each, but
because of the long vowel /a / sound in
my, its spoken duration is longer.
Consequently, longer words need many
more rehearsals.
The frequency and usefulness of
vocabulary items
About a quarter of what we read and
write is made up of 12 key words: he,
the, I, of, was, and, it, to, is, a, if, in.
Half of what we read and write is made
up of only 100 words. If a non-learning-
disabled child needs about ten encounters
with a word before it is fully registered
in long-term memory, then a learning-
disabled child will need hundreds.
Therefore, use word frequency lists to
determine whether the words on the
vocabulary list are necessary or not and
take into consideration that frequent
words are not only more valuable but
will be encountered repeatedly and
therefore learnt more easily.
Using different methods and
exercises to deepen semantic
connections
Helpful strategies include:
using pictures and strong colours;
using semantic mapping and word
webs;
using mnemonics;
using associations and contrasts;
emphasising prefixes, suffixes, word
families and common morphological
roots;
recycling and relearning previously
learnt vocabulary.
Problems with language
structure
Words are not assembled arbitrarily
into sentences; syntactic rules determine
their order.
Since learning syntax requires
remembering and sequencing larger
chunks of phonological information, all
the problems that occur during
vocabulary acquisition also transfer to
syntactic patterns just on a larger scale.
How can we help?
The following strategies may prove
helpful:
Dont teach two grammar items
together.
Provide printed rules and many
simple examples of the structure,
using known vocabulary.
Explicitly teach grammar rules.
Employ colour coding to help
differentiate between the different
tenses yellow for future, blue for
present simple, etc.
Use visual and diagrammatic ways to
represent sentence structure, eg different
colours for different parts of speech.
Encourage actual production, rather
than using gap-fill cloze exercises or
circling multiple-choice answers.
Exploit comparative sentences, eg The
girl thanked the boy compared with
The boy was thanked by the girl, to
emphasise meaning and differences
between tenses and structures.
Provide gradually more complex
sentences and ask the students to
interpret probable meanings.
Continually repeat and supply
massive exposure to new structures in
varying written and verbal contexts.
Problems with reading
comprehension
Comprehension depends upon accurate
decoding, fluent reading, awareness of
sentence structure, an extensive vocabulary
and background knowledge, along with
steady sustained attention, keen selective
attention and the ability to manipulate,
retain and retrieve information.
Furthermore, students have to employ
comprehension strategies such as
previewing, predicting, scanning, finding
main ideas and supporting details, making
inferences and drawing conclusions.
With the multitude of processes and
skills involved in comprehending a text, it
is no wonder that sometimes some of the
weaker students seem to be reading but
not comprehending. Yet the cognitive
deficiencies mentioned at the beginning
of this article are not the only disruptive
factors in reading comprehension,
because attention and concentration
also begin to interfere with the
understanding of longer reading texts.
To help pinpoint from where
comprehension problems may originate,
below is a table of common setbacks broken down into smaller, more produce frequent short summaries;
and their probable causes together with manageable parts with one short task use a glossary.
some tips. These are based on the work for each chunk;
of paediatrician and specialist in active underline, circle, highlight: Tips for sequencing/organisation
developmental learning disorders Dr key/new words, facts, main ideas, problems
Mel Levine. cohesive devices, connectors, etc. The students need to know how to:
Although the tips are divided into To help recognise salient points and order sentences to improve sequential
headings, most of them will help overall manage selective attention, students appreciation;
reading comprehension in all students, need to know how to: find cohesive devices that illustrate:
learning disabled or not. predict; cause-and-effect relationships, series,
extract specific information; additional information, temporal
Tips for attention problems find the main message; sequences;
To help sustain attention, the reading recognise text structures; identify paragraph structure and text
comprehension task has to be: fill in outlines; organisation;
time-limited; complete tables; fill in outlines, flow charts and time
interesting and personally motivating; create semantic maps to organise and lines while reading;
paced have the students estimate the consolidate ideas as they read; create numbered lists of ideas in the
amount of time they need to read, summarise. proper sequence of events;
and also the amount they need to summarise facts in a logical order.
fully comprehend what they read; Tips for memory problems
clear, with commonsense aims that The students need to know how to: 
are clearly defined; recognise organisational patterns; The acquisition of reading in a second
preceded by specific tasks that help identify the main ideas and or foreign language is a major
locate precise information while supporting details; accomplishment for any student, but
reading; fill in visual diagrams and flow charts; hopefully this article has given an insight
into the major challenge it presents for
Recurring problem Areas to check Recurring problem Areas to check students with learning disorders or
disturbances, and the effort they need to
Slow reading, poor automatic decoding, Remembers main selective attention
comprehension since cannot process ideas but not facts over-reliance on
perform tasks that many take for
meaning own knowledge granted. Working on reading skills also
word knowledge memory retrieval assists the development of probably the
sustained attention
Understands explicit over-reliance on
two most demanding language skills,
Slow reading, good automatic decoding texts, but poor literal meaning writing and spelling, which will be
comprehension fluency inferential sequencing/ discussed in the next article. ETp
comprehension organisation and
Poor comprehension at word knowledge integration of
sentence level syntactic awareness information Baddeley, A Working Memory OUP 1986
working memory level of processing
Gathercole, S E and Baddeley, A D
sustained attention
Good understanding text structure
Phonological memory deficits in
Good comprehension fluency of narrative texts, but knowledge language disordered children: Is there a
at sentence level, but sustained attention finds expository texts memory retrieval causal connection? Journal of Memory
poor at passage level self-monitoring difficult prior knowledge and Language 29 1990
Better at remembering sequencing/ word knowledge Gathercole, S E and Baddeley, A D
information from the organisation and sequencing/
beginning of texts than awareness of content organisation and Working Memory and Language
from the end structure integration of Lawrence Erlbaum 1993
working memory information Gathercole, S E, Hitch, G, Service, E and
Martin, A Phonological STM and new
Poor overall word knowledge Remembers material automatic decoding word learning in children Developmental
comprehension despite syntactic awareness read orally better than skills
Psychology 33(6) 1997
good decoding skills self-monitoring read silently sustained attention
memory Levine, M A Mind at a Time Simon and
background Remembers material working memory Shuster 2002
knowledge read silently better overall language
Levine, M Developmental Variation and
attention than read orally processing
Learning Disorders Educators Publishing
Remembers information saliency determination Difficulty with selective attention Service 2001
from the end of texts (selective attention) summarising sequencing/
rather than from the working memory organisation skills Lesley Lanir is a
beginning memory retrieval freelance writer, lecturer
expressive language and teacher trainer who
Remembers facts but word knowledge skills has been involved in
not main ideas text structure teaching English for over
knowledge Can answer questions memory 15 years. She specialises
in learning disabilities
integration of ideas with text available, self-monitoring and foreign language
memory retrieval but has difficulty with selective attention learning. She has a BA in
working memory summarising and English and Education,
dependency on recall CTEFLA/RSA and an MA
explicit information in Learning Disabilities.
level of processing
lesleylanir@gmail.com

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010 39

 D E S I G N E D T O P H O T O C O P Y

PREPARING TO TEACH ...

May and might
John Potts may be able to help you tell the difference.
Ai It may be sunny at the weekend, so lets do Cii Candidates may not use electronic devices such as
something if it is. iPods or mobile phones.

Aii It might be sunny at the weekend, but it doesnt Di You may have told me that formal dress was required.
look too hopeful.
Dii You might have told me that formal dress was required.
Bi May I ask who is calling?
Diii You might have told me that formal dress was required!
Bii Might I ask you a rather personal question?
E Your job may be boring, but at least its really well paid.
Ci Candidates may use a dictionary throughout
F You might be more careful with my camera its
the examination.
expensive!

 MEANING  FORM  USE

In Ai, the speaker feels that there is some chance of Both may and might are modal Bi is considered polite, and
sunny weather (say 50%). auxiliary verbs. Bii very polite indeed (and
also rather formal).
In Aii, the speaker feels that there is less chance of Like all modals, may and might are
sunny weather (say 20%). followed by the infinitive without to. Ci and Cii are both
There is no third person s in the formal, and often written
In Bi and Bii, the speaker is asking whether something
affirmative, and negatives and rather than spoken.
is possible or permissible.
interrogatives are formed without
Ci means that the use of dictionaries is definitely using the do auxiliary.
permitted/allowed.  PRONUNCIATION
Di, Dii and Diii show how modals
In sentences Ai, Aii, Di
Cii means that the use of electronic devices is definitely can take on past meanings by using
and Dii, may and might are
forbidden. have + past participle.
often stressed, to indicate
Di means that perhaps you told me this, but Im not the degree of (un)certainty
very sure.  FUNCTION felt by the speaker.

Dii means that perhaps you told me this, but Im very Modals are frequently associated with In sentence Diii, however,
unsure. functions, and any modal may might isnt stressed told
express a number of different carries a big stress.
Diii means that you definitely did not tell me this, and functions.
you should have done. The intonation patterns of
Ai and Aii express degrees of Dii and Diii are, therefore,
In E, the speaker accepts that the job is certainly boring, likelihood or probability, often to make also very different.
and contrasts this with the fact that it is well paid. predictions if referring to the future.
In sentence E, may isnt
In F, the speaker says that the other person is certainly Bi and Bii request permission. stressed boring and well
not being at all careful with the camera.
paid carry the stresses.
Ci gives permission or authorisation.
In sentence F, too, might
 PROBLEMS Cii refuses permission/authorisation,
isnt stressed careful and,
and hence serves as a prohibition.
In sentences Diii and F, might has a counterfactual particularly, camera carry
meaning: in both cases, the opposite is actually true. In Di and Dii express uncertainty big stresses.
Diii, you didnt tell me, and in F you are not being about the past.
careful.
Diii expresses a reproach, criticism,
There are some speakers who always consider might irritation or even anger.
should be used as a hypothetical or subjunctive form,
E expresses concession.
and do not accept it as the weaker more uncertain form
of indicative may. F is a reproach, criticism or warning.

40 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

 D E S I G N E D T O P H O T O C O P Y

PREPARING TO TEACH ... May and might

CONCEPT QUESTIONS SITUATIONS

Dii You might have told me that formal How sure are you? Make one set of Trade-offs Make a worksheet with two
dress was required. cards with dates (eg 2015, 2020, 2040, boxes or columns of data column/box
Am I sure that you told me? (No.) 2050) and another set with events (eg A is negative (eg slow trains, boring job,
Am I a little unsure, or very unsure? (Very.) polar bears/extinct). Alternatively, you etc) and column/box B is positive (eg
can make a worksheet with the data in cheap tickets, good salary, etc). The
Diii You might have told me that formal two boxes. Students work in pairs to students work in pairs and match an
dress was required! produce their predictions, using will/ item from A with one from B. They then
Did you tell me? (No.) may/might/wont according to how combine the two items in one sentence
Am I sure about that? (Yes, 100 percent.) sure they feel about their prediction: using may, eg The trains may be slow
Should you have told me? (Yes.) eg By/In 2050, polar bears may be but at least the tickets are cheap.
How do I feel about that? (Irritated, even extinct.
angry.) It depends how you say it Make a
Extension 1: You can have a follow-up worksheet of pairs of sentences using
Why? (Because I wore the wrong clothes,
activity in which the whole class might have + past participle which are
felt embarrassed, etc.)
compares its predictions and identical, except for the fact that one
E Your job may be boring, but at least its discusses which is most likely. ends in an exclamation mark rather than
really well paid. Extension 2: You can also create a a full stop. The students practise the
Is your job boring? (Yes.) personalised version, in which learners resulting difference in stress and
Am I sure? (Yes, 100 percent.) make predictions about their own intonation: eg You might have told me
Is it well paid? (Yes.) futures. that she was the boss versus You might
Am I sure? (Yes, 100 percent.) have told me that she was the boss!
So what point am I making? (That the pay Polite pairs Make a set of cards, each
compensates for the boredom.) with one noun or verb shuffle the
cards and place the deck face down. John Potts is a teacher
F You might be more careful with my The students work in pairs, taking and teacher trainer based
in Zrich, Switzerland.
camera its expensive! turns. Student A turns over the top He has written and co-
Are you being careful? (No, definitely not.) card and forms a request using may. written several adult
Should you be? (Yes.) coursebooks, and is a
For example: dictionary > May I Joint Chief Assessor for
Why? (Because its my camera, not yours borrow your dictionary?; borrow > May the Cambridge/RSA
and its expensive.) CELTA scheme.
I borrow your pen? Student B replies
And how do I feel about this? (Annoyed, with Yes, of course you may. johnpotts@swissonline.ch
irritated, angry, etc.)

COMPETITION RESULTS
1 2 3 3 4 5 2 6 2 7 8 3 9 Congratulations to all those readers who successfully completed our Prize Crossword 41.
B E L L I G E R E N T L H
2 10 7 7 11 10
The winners, who will each receive a copy of the Macmillan English Dictionary for
E A N N O A Advanced Learners, are:
3 10 1 11 12 6 13 11 11 3 11 5 14
L A B O U R Z O O L O G Y
11 11 4 6 14 15
Jessica Abt, Ennetbaden, Switzerland Niels Elmer, Mellikon, Switzerland
O O I R Y W Betty Andrianopoulos, Tripoli, Greece Alexander Herzer, Iserlohn, Germany
7 6 8 4 16 4 7 17 18 12 3
N R T I M I N D F U L Encarnacin de la Arada, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Aneta Naumoska, Skopje, Macedonia
5 10 19 2 10 2
G A V E A E Spain Bernadette Roberts, Bailn, Spain
4 7 8 2 5 6 10 3 10 20 18
I N T E G R A L A C F Reba Brockington, Cambridge, UK Sheena Weinlein, Neuenmarkt, Germany
7 11 3 3 6 2 21 2 20 8
N O L L R E J E C T Anthony M De Gabriele, Attard, Malta
5 10 6 17 2 7 10 8 21 8
G A R D E N A T T 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
22 14 2 7 23 4 8 14 22 4 7 24 B E L I G R N T H A O U X
S Y E N P I T Y S I N K 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
21 18 11 2 11 Y W M D F V C J S P K X O
J F O E O
4 12 3 1 2 10 12 2
2 10 7 5 12 10 5 2 4 22
I U L B E A U E L A N G U A G E I S
20 9 4 7 20 9 4 3 3 10 22 2 25
15 4 7 2 12 23 11 7
C H I N C H I L L A S E X W I N E U P O N
10 20 20 1 4
8 9 2 3 4 23 22
A C C B I T H E L I P S
17 8 6 2 2 14 26 12 4 8
D T R E E Y Q U I T Virginia Woolf

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010 41

SCRAPBOOK Gems, titbits, puzzles, foibles, quirks, bits & pieces,
quotations, snippets, odds & ends,
what you will

Theatre Theatrical quotes

superstitions be
Theatre is life. Cinem
a is art. Television is
furniture. (Anon)
are all considered to
The following things e:
Those who have free
theatre tickets are the
of the theatr
unlucky in the world (Chinese proverb) fiercest critics.

Real money Acting is the most mi

nor of gifts and not a
to earn a living. After very high-class way
Real jewellery all, Shirley Temple co
uld do it at the age of
w; four. (Katherine Hepb
to actors before a sho urn)
Flowers (when given back
rly unlucky this esgo She runs the gamut
carnations are particula e director of emotions from A to
B. (Dorothy Parker
tom whereby a theatr on Katherine Hepburn
to a 19th-century cus s being
)
t her contract wa
would tell an actress tha ions Im a skilled professio
her roses; a gift of carnat nal actor. Whether or
renewed by sending ate d)
beside the point. (Mich
ael Caine)
not Ive any talent is
ct was being termin
meant that her contra Acting is all about ho
nesty. If you can fake
Peacock feathers made. (George Burns that, youve got it
)
The Bible Im a Method actor.
I spent years training
ntered
en and blue (unless cou carousing I had to do for the drinking and
Certain colours: gre nce; in this film. (George Clo
in the UK; green in Fra Eleven) oney on Oceans
by also wearing silver)
in Spain
purple in Italy; yellow Why am I so good at
actors playing bitches? I thi
en room (the area where not a bitch. Maybe tha nk its because Im
Whistling in the gre ts why Miss Crawford
always plays
stage) ladies. (Bette Davis)
wait prior to going on
the
tead, it is referred to as Poor Ingrid speaks
Saying Macbeth (ins five languages and can
them. (Sir John Gielgu t act in any of
Scottish play) d on Ingrid Bergman)
m in a
or while looking at the
Talking to a fellow act
mirror
y to
od luck (the proper wa
Wishing an actor go
encourage them is to
say Br eak a leg!) A quick-thinking actor
An actor playing the part of Napoleon was enjoying great success,
which made one of his fellow actors, who was playing the part of a
marshal, very jealous. During one scene, Napoleon had to read a long
letter brought to him by the marshal. The actor had never learnt the
letter by heart; he would simply read the text off the pages brought to
him by his colleague by the glow of the footlights. One night, the
jealous actor brought the letter, sealed in red, and handed it over with a
malicious smile, saying, Read, sire. When Napoleon opened the
envelope, he found that the pages were as blank as his memory. In a
iStockphoto.com / John Janssen

moment of panic, he cursed both the instigator of this nasty trick and
himself for being too lazy to learn the text in the first place. As he
watched his colleague savour the moment, he had a stroke of genius
and began to smile himself. Handing the letter back to the joker, he
said, We have no secrets from you, marshal, you read it.

42 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

 Theatre quiz Upstaged offsta
Shes not so gr ge
eat, a fellow ac
tress once proc
Test your knowledge of the theatre. legendary Amer laimed of the
ican actress, Ta
any time. Darlin llu lah Bankhead. I
1 g, Tallulah Bank can upstage her
From which Greek word do we get the head retorted wh
remarks, I can up en told of these
word comedy? stage you withou
t even being on
a) komos At their next perfo stage!
rmance, she prov
b) kamos her rival was en ed her point. In
gaged in a long one scene, while
c) comedia supposed to pu telephone conver
t down the cham sa tion, Tallulah wa
pagne glass from s
d) chaos been drinking an wh ich she had
d make her exit.
2 When did the first actor appear on That evening, sh
e carefully placed

iStockphoto.com / Eduard Hrknen

stage? position, teetering the half-filled gla
at the very edge ss in a precariou
a) 44 BC of the table, half s
The audience on and half off ...
their attention riv
b) 534BC completely ignor et ed by the endangered
ed the other actre glass
c) 1210 surreptitiously at ss. It turned out
tached sticky ta that Bankhead ha
d) 1599 pe to the bottom d
of the glass.
3 What was the first actors name?
a) Tragos
b) Aristophanes
c) Luvvius
d) Thespis
Trying
4 What was the first theatre in England
called? too hard
a) The Curtain As a young aspiring
b) The Globe actor, Peter OToole was
c) The Rose
overjoyed to have landed
d) The Theatre
a tiny part as a Georgian
5 In a theatre, who or what is the house? peasant boy in a
a) the audience Chekhov play. Although
b) the actors the script simply called
c) the light and sound crew for him to come on stage,
d) the set
Mousetrap announce Dr Ostroff, the

marathon
6 If a crew strike a set, what have they horses are ready and
done? exit, the ambitious
a) put the set onto the stage crime writer OToole decided to play
p is a play by
b) taken the set off the stage The Mousetra life as a short
the peasant as a boy of
tie that began
c) painted the pieces of the set Agatha Chris ice, written steel, the future Stalin.
pl ay ca lle d Three Blind M
d) broken a piece of the set radio e consort of
ueen Mary, th He perfected Stalins
7 in honour of Q record-
Where is stage left? V. It began a slight limp, made himself
King George stage on 25
a) to the actors left when on stage facing on the London up to look like him, and
shattering run Am bassadors
the audience
be r 19 52 at the New carefully rehearsed the
Nov em day, though
b) to the left of the director, no matter
tre an d it is still running to line, delivering it with a
Thea eatre. It has
which way he or she is facing
s m ov ed to St Martins Th subtle nuance of socialist
c) on the audiences left when facing the it ha rmances.
er 23,000 perfo resentment ...
stage clocked up ov en, who
h of David Rav
d) on different sides for different plays Since the deat ra ble actor in On opening night, the
e hist or y as the most du excited audience was
mad rmances as
8 An actor walks upstage. In which s 4,575 perfo
the play for hi been duly intrigued by the
direction does he or she go? , the cast has
Major Metcalfe ge usually entry of the angry
a) to the front of the stage ally. This chan
changed annu an d w as the peasant, who, turning to
b) from the floor onto the stage November,
occurs around rs , the original Dr Ostroff, suddenly
c) to the back of the stage
at iv e of Si r Peter Saunde announced, Dr Horsey,
initi n that the
d) onto a walkway above the stage e is a traditio
producer. Ther e new leading the Ostroffs are ready.
tir ing le ad in g lady and th
re together.
ousetrap cake
Answers 1a; 2b; 3d; 4d; 5a; 6b; 7a; 8c
lady cut a M

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010 43

Reviews
Translation in Language
Teaching
by Guy Cook
OUP 2010
978-0194424752
Translation in Language Teaching is a new
addition to the Oxford Applied Linguistics
series. In it, Guy Cook explores the issues
surrounding why translation fell out of
fashion in mainstream language teaching
towards the end of the 19th century and
why most methodology movements of the
20th century also disregarded it. Cooks
objective is to reassess translation against
the still-prevailing taboo about its use in
many quarters. He surveys key criticisms
of translation, including its apparent
inseparability from Grammar Translation,
the charge that it promotes inauthentic
texts, the accusation that it is an
inauthentic process compared with
communicative or task-based activities
and the idea that it represents an
authoritarian classroom technique.
Marshalling a wide range of academic
sources, and often turning criticisms of
translation on their head, Cook skilfully
presents many insights.
Part One of the book reviews the
position of translation as the Direct
Method and then Communicative
Language Teaching emerged. It also
reflects on the more recent recognition of
bilingualism and describes a variety of
types of translation. Part Two homes in
on evidence-based, educational and
pedagogical arguments for translation as
a classroom technique today. It also
touches on the situation of language
teachers who do not know the first
language(s) of their learners, as well as
the validity of using translation in classes
with mixed first languages.
I particularly enjoyed the discussions
of different types of translation in Chapter
4 (there are many, upon close inspection)
and how translation can sit with
surprising ease in a variety of educational
philosophies (Chapter 6). Less enjoyable,
however, is the abundance of
abbreviations and acronyms throughout
(TILT, SLA, CLT, CLIL, etc) which seem to
dog most applied linguistics texts.
Another concern is that Cooks text
appears to flow with surprising ease and
pace from one assault to another in order
44 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
to forward the books agenda.
Readers may feel a little unsettled by
this hit and run style, as it is
unanchored by any core research or
single thesis. Some readers will also
undoubtedly want more examples
of translation tasks, though this is
beyond the remit of the text.
Students of applied linguistics,
individuals on higher-level teacher
training courses, as well as any
language teacher who has
wondered (or worried) about the
place of translation in their work,
will benefit from reading this
book. Guy Cook manages in
fewer than 160 pages to
survey and champion the use
of translation in language
teaching. His text is not a
solution, however, but rather a call for
more research on this much-maligned
technique and an insightful request not to
dismiss translation out of hand.
Peter Lyn
Cambridge, UK
Teaching Vocabulary
(Pre-intermediate, B1)
Teach TEFL DVD
by Jennifer Book and Philip Berman
Teach TEFL 2010
Available from www.teachtefl.co.uk
This is the first of a projected set of DVDs
from Teach TEFL aimed at trainee teachers
on CELTA and CertTESOL courses. They
show actual teachers and students in
action, and each DVD will focus on a
particular area of classroom methodology.
The DVDs have been developed by
Jennifer Book and Philip Berman in
response to a distinct lack of video
materials to help train EFL teachers, and
are very professionally produced (the film
crew is BBC-trained and it shows with
excellent sound, lighting and photography),
with various camera angles to help trainees
focus on studentteacher interaction, use
of gestures, boardwork and classroom
management issues. As such, the DVDs
could also be used for lesson observation
tasks on pre-service courses with no loss
of authenticity: they would provide an
excellent back-up resource for teacher
trainers, or they could be used as a
stand-alone lesson in themselves.
They could also be useful for teacher
development sessions for relatively new
teachers. I myself found Teaching
Vocbabulary inspiring, and it made me
want to go straight back into the
classroom and use the techniques and
thats after over 20 years teaching.
This DVD covers everything trainee
teachers will need to know in order to
conduct a successful vocabulary-based
lesson. It has an introduction, followed by
further sections showing the stages of a
vocabulary lesson: Setting the context,
Eliciting the target language, Concept
checking, Drilling and further concept
checking, Boardwork, Practice activities,
Production activity and, finally, a
Language review. The film shows an
actual class in action going through these
stages with their teacher, and is
extremely practical.
The class filmed for this DVD was a
pre-intermediate-level group of
multilingual students, at various levels
within the Council of Europes B1 band:
an authentic class, in other words! It was
a relatively small class of nine students,
and it would be interesting to see if
further releases in the series deal with
larger groups, as trainees intending to
work in contexts outside the UK may be
faced with considerably larger class sizes.
That said, the methods and techniques
used in this particular DVD were sound
and adaptable to bigger groups.
Reviews
I used the material with a group of
trainee teachers in the first week of their
CertTESOL course, and although one or
two seemed a little intimidated by the
obvious quality of the teaching on show
(a scene where the teacher writes up the
phonemic transcription of the target
vocabulary at lightning speed was met
with incredulous gasps!), they got a lot
out of seeing what was clearly an
experienced and very professional
teacher in action. It was also helpful to
see a well-developed rapport between
teacher and students something trainee
teachers can often struggle with. Within
each chapter, there is a pause for
comment by a narrator who addressed
the key learning points, and this was
useful as a springboard for further
discussion about what the trainees had
seen, and for them to suggest alternative
methods they might use in their own
lessons. In this particular DVD, for
example, it was a long time before the
teacher used any boardwork to focus on
pronunciation of the adjectives being
elicited, and this prompted a good
debate as to when to use boardwork and
the needs of individual learners a
couple of trainees said that when
learning a foreign language themselves,
they liked to see the word as soon as
possible, and so a separate debate
ensued about learner styles.
It was good to have material from
another source which backed up all the
issues of best practice we try to expose
trainees to during their initial teacher
training and to show them that there are
recognised standards and methods used
throughout ELT that they can aspire to.
ENGLISH
Tprofessional
EACHING
ENGLISH TEACHING professional
Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Ltd,
PO Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex,
PO18 8HD, UK
Fax: +44 (0)1243 576456
Email: info@etprofessional.com
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
As this is the first in the series, it will
be interesting to see if there is a DVD in
the pipeline which focuses on presenting
new vocabulary in a little more detail, as
this film focused primarily on eliciting
language adjectives and clothing
which the majority of the students
already knew. Only one word seemed to
be new to the students shown.
Having said this, the DVD provides an
excellent platform for trainers to build
from, and it would be easy to use it to
show teachers how to present and
practise new vocabulary, and then go on
to production tasks.
The lesson in Teaching Vocabulary
runs for about 40 minutes and thus
encourages trainee teachers to teach a
language point thoroughly. At first, they
might think they would struggle to make
a vocabulary lesson containing only half
Reviewing for ETp
Would you like to review books or
other teaching materials for ETp? We
are always looking for people who are
interested in writing reviews for us.
Please email
helena.gomm@keywayspublishing.com
for advice and a copy of our
guidelines for reviewers. You will need
to give your postal address and
say what areas of teaching you
are most interested in.
a dozen items last for 40 minutes but, as
this film clearly demonstrates, theres a
lot more to teaching vocabulary than just
asking the students if they know what a
word means!
I can see this series of DVDs
becoming an extremely useful tool for
trainers to supplement input sessions
and to provide an alternative viewpoint
for trainees to consider, but it will also be
a handy resource for any school to help
refresh and re-focus tired teachers.
The highest praise I can give to this
DVD is that it makes even experienced
teachers want to get back into the
classroom and follow the advice given,
and that is no mean feat! For trainees
and new teachers, the DVDs in this series
should be of real and lasting benefit.
Steve Button
Nottingham, UK

IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
Do you have ideas youd like to share
with colleagues around the world?
Tips, techniques and activities; simple or
sophisticated; well-tried or innovative;
something that has worked well for you?
All published contributions receive
a prize! Write to us or email:
editor@etprofessional.com
45
 W R I T I N G
No more
size-zero
models!
I
Sonja Wirwohl n response to calls from its
readership, a German womens
finds achievable aims magazine recently took the radical
step of banning professional
and peer review lead to models from its pages. The unattainable
ideal of skinny, size-zero teenagers was
communication and bravely replaced by the natural beauty
of real women.
confidence. Do we need a similar revolution in
our approach to exam writing?
Particularly in low-level IELTS exam
classes, I have observed that teachers
efforts to help their students obtain the
required exam result in writing can lead
to frustration and a painful awareness for
the students of their own inadequacies.
Just as being confronted with the flawless
bodies of supermodels may make us feel
inadequate, so presenting students with
perfect texts tends to trigger exasperated
exclamations along the lines of I cant
write like that! Refreshingly, some exam
coursebooks do now present student-
Lets be honest, very
few students spend
much time addressing
their mistakes, and
even fewer actually
re-write their
pieces of work
46 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
written answers, annotated with
comments and given the band score that
such an answer would get in the real
exam, and the use of peer review has
been filtering into language teaching for
some time.
I have started using the peer review
strategy in order to rely less on native-
speaker coursebook models and to
produce a more realistic example text in
the light of what a specific class is
actually capable of.
A negative situation
In my experience, a typical IELTS
writing class tends to follow one of
three structures:
1 Teacher sets homework; students
write at home alone when they least feel
like it; students submit work, teacher
hands back corrected piece; students
do next homework; same mistakes
appear again.
Lets be honest, very few students spend
much time addressing their mistakes, and
even fewer actually re-write their pieces
of work. As the students are motivated
by the outcome, ie the grade, the
process of writing frequently ends with
one glance at the mark at the bottom of
the page. In this situation, valuable
opportunities for learning are wasted, as
the issue of redrafting and improving
ones own work is not addressed.
2 Teacher presents model piece of
writing; students produce similar piece.
Instead of encouraging the students to
use the language natural to them, model
writing tends to lead to a desire to copy
the linguistic features of the model. If,
however, the level of the text we have
chosen is beyond the linguistic reach of
our students, as most native-speaker
examples are, lower-level students in
particular feel constrained by language
that they have not yet assimilated,
leading to an over-reliance on the model
and more often than not confusion.
3 Students write; work is corrected, then
a model piece of writing is handed out.
In my experience, the Heres one I
prepared earlier approach can make
students feel devalued and demotivated,
since the accuracy of the perfect
coursebook model seems beyond reach.
This approach can also convey a feeling
of Yes, students, fine, you gave it a try,
but look, heres how youre meant to be
writing.

Teacher correction
and the students
revision of their own
work dont seem to offer
enough opportunities
for learning
In all three approaches, an
enormous gap lies between the student
output and the ideal piece of writing.
Teacher correction and the students
revision of their own work dont seem to
offer enough opportunities for learning,
as the process of writing, editing and
redrafting is not fully exploited.
For this reason, I have started to
experiment with less reliance on the
native-speaker model, trying to exploit
the students collective abilities to
produce their own model instead. The
best way of doing this proved to be
integrated peer review stages, which my
students needed to get used to at first,
but quickly learnt to appreciate and
actually enjoy!
A positive experiment
On an IELTS exam course with
intermediate-level students, I decided to
introduce the peer review strategy in
relation to a Writing Task 1 practice
exercise, which involved writing a
description of a diagram detailing the
manufacture of tinned tomatoes.
The first lesson consisted of a
language focus and consolidation of the
passive. At the beginning of the second
lesson, the students analysed the task and
brainstormed vocabulary and grammar
which would be appropriate. This was
followed by a brief discussion of two
selected stages in the diagram. In the
writing phase, the students were given ten
minutes to write up a description of these
stages. I then paired them up and asked
them to exchange their work. After some
initial reluctance, the students scrutinised
each others work, addressing the
questions I had displayed on the board:
1 Did your partner cover the main
points? Is anything missing or too
detailed?
2 Did they integrate the passive
appropriately? Find examples in their
text.
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
3 Is there much repetition? Can you
suggest synonyms and alternative
expressions?
4 What aspect of the work is particularly
good? Think about issues such as
sentence structure, organisation,
linking, clarity, punctuation, etc. How
could you improve your own piece by
working on these aspects? Ask your
partner for advice.
During the discussion of their critique,
the students responded to their partners
suggestions, thus reflecting on their own
writing and enabling their partner to do
the same. This set the class buzzing with
heated creative discussions. In a further
collaborative stage, the students were
given the choice of working individually
or in pairs to produce their pice de
rsistance by redrafting and making any
necessary changes. Once the students were
happy with their final drafts, these were
typed up and published on the class blog,
enabling further comments to be made.
As the lesson was so well received,
the class agreed to hold a peer review
session every time a piece of writing
had been set for homework. In addition
to raising the students curiosity about
other writers work, it also added a little
gentle pressure on them to complete
their homework, as they knew it would
be discussed in class.
Student-generated
models
The following are the stages I use to
create student-generated model texts in
peer review sessions:
1 Language focus
Although a language focus session is
not absolutely necessary, it sets the
scene and provides an anchor which
gives the students a basis to work from.
Of course, it is also possible to adapt
the strategy by inserting brief periods of
peer feedback in lessons other than
those concentrating on writing skills.
2 Preparation in terms of ideas
and language
By focusing on and analysing the task,
this stage activates the students
schemata, refreshes their knowledge and
supplies the building blocks needed to
complete the task.
3 Setting of the writing task
The writing task does not have to be a
complete exam task. A short paragraph
can be sufficient, and I have found that
the strategy works equally with just
introductions or conclusions.
4 Exchange of student texts in
pairs or groups
I organise the class according to student
preferences, numbers and abilities.
When using pairwork, I have found that
pairing students of similar abilities
enhances both student confidence and
learning outcome.
5 Peer review
The aim is both to examine strengths
and identify points for improvement.
Setting clear guidelines in the form of a
checklist is crucial to the success of peer
review. If students know what they are
looking out for, the review is likely to go
beyond a search limited to grammar
and spelling mistakes. In determining
the scope of the review, I would suggest
either analysing a short text in some
detail, or narrowing the scope for a
longer text in order to set realistic goals.
6 Discussion of suggestions
Another option is a group review, in
which two or three students work
together on pieces of writing from
another group. This leads to extremely
fruitful discussions in class, which can
be continued in further input lessons. (If
there is time and interest, stages 47 can
be repeated in groups in order to
maximise feedback and to optimise
opportunities for learning in mixed-
ability classes.)
7 Production of a revised draft
Students work individually or in pairs
to produce the best possible piece of
work, including suggestions made by
their reviewers.
8 Distribution of student-
generated models
In some ways, this stage is the one that
is most neglected. The best way of
appreciating and utilising the student-
generated models is to encourage further
comments and reviews. Depending on
the teachers and students degree of
technophobia, this can be done by way
of circulating photocopies, which are
returned to the author with comments,
or by setting up a class blog or space in
a virtual learning environment for
students to upload their work. This way,
the students enjoy both the satisfaction
of having produced a piece of work for
the whole class and that of having

created a future point of reference.
47
 No more
size-zero

models!
Why should I integrate
peer review?
The process of reviewing other learners
writing helps students to identify what
they consider good writing and reflect
on why this is the case. Peer review also
raises awareness of aspects of language
that could improve their own work. As
the examples stem from a student of
similar linguistic abilities, the
motivational factor of achievability is
far higher than having work corrected
by a teacher.
Most importantly, though, creating
peer-edited pieces of writing reduces the
reliance on the native-speaker model or
the teacher as the ultimate authority,
and teaches the students skills of giving
and accepting constructive feedback.
How do the students
benefit?
The main effect of peer review sessions,
in my experience, has been an increased
level of intrinsic motivation. Rather than
feeling intimidated by an unattainable
coursebook model, the students leave
the classroom feeling that they have
worked hard at acquiring redrafting
skills that are applicable to any of their
writing. In encouraging them to work
collaboratively to review and redraft, we
do more than just pay lip service to
student-centredness by elevating their
own work to take centre stage.
A further benefit is the creation of a
highly constructive classroom
atmosphere. As opposed to making
writing an entirely solitary pursuit, peer
review classes add a sociable aspect to
it. In addition, peer review generally
results in confidence building for
students of all abilities. A student who
finds grammar challenging may be able
to help with spelling, or think of
synonyms for a word that has been
repeated frequently. This way, it is
possible to capitalise on each
individuals strength.
48 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
What is the teachers role?
Although the students might happily be
peer reviewing, it is wrong to think that
the teacher is redundant; far from it.
The teacher needs to monitor
proceedings closely in order to respond
to any issues arising on the spot. This
requires a high degree of flexibility and
ability to think on ones feet. Whilst
monitoring, it is also worthwhile noting
down general issues that can be flagged
up in a feedback session at the end of
the lesson, and language points that
need addressing in more detail, as these
can form the basis for future lessons.
The main effect of
peer review sessions,
in my experience,
has been an increased
level of intrinsic
motivation
Feedback need not be limited to the
written word, either. Praising and giving
examples of constructive collaboration
within groups leaves students feeling
positive about the process of peer
reviewing itself. A knock-on effect, in
my experience, has been an increased
confidence and competence in speaking
skills.
If peer reviewing is new to the class,
it is well worth revising language of
praising and making suggestions
beforehand in order to enable the
students to discuss other peoples work in
a positive and constructive way (I really
like the way you structured your answer.
Why dont you try using a passive here?).
Can the strategy be
adapted?
Of course, peer reviewing can be used
with any type of writing. The reason it
works so well in exam classes is that a
mutual evaluation of required criteria,
such as task fulfilment, serves to
address the crucial issue of reworking
and redrafting ones work in line with
what the examiners are looking for.
Rather than dedicating whole
lessons to peer evaluation, brief periods
can be inserted into any lesson focusing
on productive skills.
Are there any drawbacks?
Firstly, peer review is time-consuming,
as texts need to be exchanged, reflected
upon, discussed and rewritten. However,
I suggest experimenting with the
strategy as I have found it is time well
invested. Above all, it builds on skills
that the students will needing in their
future academic careers, which is what
most IELTS candidates aim for.
Secondly, the success of the peer
review models depends mainly on the
students willingness to offer and accept
criticism of their work. However, peer
editing does not have to replace teacher
correction, and I always give my
students the option of handing in their
individual work for further comments.
The one major difference now is that I
am making further comments on a
piece of writing that has been reflected
on and improved, rather than dealing
with work that was hastily scribbled
down without being redrafted.

In summary, I have noticed that creating
peer review texts has led my students to
view their writing lessons in a different
light. More often than not, written exam
practice in class consists of a timed
period of silence during which students
write, or a language presentation session
followed by extensive writing homework.
Using the peer model strategy, students
can reconsider their writing classes,
seeing them as an opportunity for
communication, socialisation and
constructive feedback. ETp
Sonja Wirwohl has been
an English teacher and
examiner since 2000
and is currently involved
in the provision of EAP
at University College,
London, UK. A self-
confessed wordaholic,
she has a passion for
written language in all
its creative expressions.
s.wirwohl@ucl.ac.uk
TALKBACK!
Do you have something to say about
an article in the current issue of ETp?
This is your magazine and we would
really like to hear from you.
Write to us or email:
editor@etprofessional.com
 V O C A B U L A R Y
Just for the record
Katherine Short supports her students by helping them stage their vocabulary learning.
M
ost teachers will be
familiar with that feeling
of frustration when their
students forget words or
phrases they have only recently been
taught. And many teachers struggle
when correcting writing or giving
feedback on speaking wanting to tell
the students that its the right word, but
it sounds wrong like that.
To address these problems you need
to make sure that your students actively
engage with new words and phrases in
the first place. This means they must
learn how to identify useful vocabulary,
record it effectively, learn relevant
information about it and then learn to
use it correctly. Of course, they will also
need to memorise it! Thats quite a few
stages, and we actually need to teach
our students how to do this, because it
doesnt come naturally and its not
always a quick and easy process.
James Venemas article in Issue 70 of
ETp demonstrates how important it is for
students to make words their own. Here I
will outline my own strategy for getting
the students to expand their vocabulary
in an effective and meaningful way.
Stage 1:
Identifying useful vocabulary
How do your students meet new words
and phrases? In lists, in vocabulary boxes,
in texts? The trouble with lists and boxes
is that someone else, usually a coursebook
writer, has chosen which words the
students should learn. Students may look
at these words and feel intimidated by
the number of unknown and possibly
out-of-context words they have to learn,
and they may simply not bother.
A more effective strategy is to ask
the students to choose the words they
want to learn from a text. After reading
or listening to a text, ask them to
underline the words and phrases they
think are useful, and want to learn.
Emphasise that its better to record
phrases than single words.
50 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
You can demonstrate this by giving the
students a sentence cut into single
words to put in the correct order,
followed by a sentence divided into
phrases to put in the correct order.
Which is easier? The sentence divided
into phrases, of course. If you are going
to build a house, would it be quicker to
build it with tiny bricks (like words) or
big blocks (like phrases)? Similarly, if
your brain wants to construct or
interpret language, its easier to work
with bigger chunks than single words.
Its also important to emphasise that if
they look at words in isolation, (eg keep,
up, with), they may feel as if they know
their meaning, whereas in fact if the
words are used in an idiomatic phrase
(ie keep up with), they have a completely
different meaning.
The very action of choosing their own
words to learn means that the students
have a deeper and more personal level of
engagement with them than they might
have with words simply presented in a
vocabulary box. Also, getting the students
to pick words from a text ensures that
they have seen them used in context and
will, therefore, have access to more
information about them and how they
are used (for Stage 3, below).
Stage 2:
Recording vocabulary effectively
The next stage is to record the new
words and phrases. Insist that your
students keep vocabulary notes separate
from the rest of their notes. They can
either keep a separate notebook or use
the back of their existing notebook, but
the precious vocabulary must be kept
separate from the daily mess of class
notes, homework and other exercises.
Try to make the students proud of the
new and diverse words that they
collect compare the vocabulary
notebook to a stamp album, with a
range of words from different sources
all collected in one place and arranged
carefully. Its a good idea to encourage
the students to compare their
notebooks, and take pride in the best
presented or the most detailed pages.
I recommend that each page should
have vocabulary related to a single topic
on it. Some students might be tempted
to keep words in alphabetical order but
then where will they place useful phrases
such as the best day of my life was ?
Under T ? Under B ? Other students
might want to keep a chronological
record, with every word they learn in a
single long list. These students would
have difficulty referring to their notes to
find a phrase they only half remember.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of
recording words by topic, you can show
the students three groups of words for 60
seconds each and ask them to memorise
them. The first group of words can be in
alphabetical order, the second in random
order, and the third group arranged by
topic. Which group could students
remember the most words from?
The other advantage of recording words
by topic is that the students can go back
and add words to topics when they
come across new ones, as well as
making the notebook much easier to
refer to and a valuable learning tool.
Stage 3:
Learning relevant information
Your students have now got their brand
new books open at a blank page, and
written the topic at the top. Is it enough
just to copy out the words and phrases
that they have underlined? Not really.
You need to train them to include as
much useful information about the
word or phrase as possible, for example
a translation, an example sentence,
common mistakes, related grammar, the
opposite, the phonemic script, etc.
One way to introduce this is by asking
students to match cards with these
types of information and examples. On
page 51 there are some photocopiable
cards you can use. Copy and cut them
 translation change = cambiar

The money which is returned to someone

dictionary definition who has paid for something which costs less
than the amount that they gave.

Im really bad at keeping other

personal sentence
peoples secrets.

The shop assistant gave me the

example sentence wrong change. Always check your change
before you leave the shop.

phonemic script / si*krPt /

simple markers of unusual pronunciation com(b) (b is silent)

stress secret

Keep a secret
collocations
Tell a secret

dependent prepositions about: tell a secret about

love + -ing
related grammar
eg I love cooking

picture lips

He told that
mistakes
He told ME that

secret: noun
word family (adj, noun, verb)
secretive: adjective

opposite introvert
extrovert

highlight difficult spelling achieve (i before e)



www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010 51


Just for the record
 out, and then ask the students to match
each of the cards on the left with the
correct example.
Of course, they cant record this much
information about every word it would
take too long. Depending on the word
itself, and your students level and native
language, the information will be different.
For example, lets take the adjective
quiet. Even very low-level students will
recognise this word but, like many
apparently simple words, even high-level
students may not use it 100 percent
correctly. They need to know:
pronunciation: There is an unspelled
/j/ sound in the middle, and the word
has two syllables, unlike quite, which
it is often confused with.
spelling: Its tricky to spell, with three
vowels in the middle.
other forms: Its usually an adjective,
but its also useful to know the adverb
quietly and the noun quietness. Higher-
level students should also know that
quiet can also be a noun, as in peace
and quiet (and even, rarely, a verb).
useful collocations: peace and quiet,
keep quiet, a quiet life, have a quiet
word (with someone). Learning
expressions like this will increase the
range and sophistication of your
students language.
meaning: Its not the same as silent
there might still be some noise, but
not much. Are there two different
words for quiet and silent in your
students language?
The more of this kind of information
your students can record, the better. For
many words, you will have to help them
by pointing out tricky pronunciation, or
reminding them of grammar or supplying
them with useful collocations. Emphasise
by demonstrating with simple words like
quiet that they may feel as if they know a
word if they recognise it, or if they can
say it in their own language. However,
they cant really say that they know it in
English unless they can actually use it
effectively, and that this kind of detailed
information will help them with that.
As well as using the original context
of the words, students can use
dictionaries or online concordances to
find this kind of information. It is, of
course, very time-consuming to pay this
much attention to each individual word,
but the more time and thought your
52 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
students devote to their vocabulary
notebooks, the more likely they are to
remember new words and phrases. ENGLISH
At the beginning, give them plenty of time
in lessons to practise this sort of detailed
Tprofessional
EACHING
recording. Do it yourself on the board
with a few words, and then let the
students work in groups to find
This is your magazine.
We want to hear from you!
information about a single word. You
could then give them a few words each
to research for homework, and ask them
to share the results in the following 
lesson. And remember, they dont have to
record this much information about every IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
single word, only what is useful for them. Do you have ideas youd like to share
with colleagues around the world?
Stage 4: Tips, techniques and activities;
Using words correctly simple or sophisticated; well-tried
or innovative; something that has
Now youve done most of the hard
work, and its up to the students to do worked well for you? All published
the work of moving the words off the contributions receive a prize!
pages and into their heads so that they Write to us or email:
flow smoothly out of their mouths or editor@etprofessional.com
pens. However, you can help the process
by giving suitable writing and speaking
tasks which will guide them towards
using the new language in context,
TALKBACK!
thereby consolidating their learning. Do you have something to say about
an article in the current issue of ETp?
For example, if the students have
collected a lot of phrases related to This is your magazine and we would
houses, ask them to describe their own really like to hear from you.
home, and compare it to their dream Write to us or email:
home. Or if they have been learning editor@etprofessional.com
weather words, encourage them to keep
a weather diary for a week.
When you give feedback on this writing Writing for ETp
and speaking, try to limit your feedback Would you like to write for ETp? We are
to their use of vocabulary: allow some always interested in new writers and
grammar mistakes if they are being
fresh ideas. For guidelines and advice,
experimental with new words. write to us or email:
 editor@etprofessional.com
By guiding your students through these
four stages, you can feel confident that Visit the
you have given them plenty of support
in expanding their active vocabulary,
ETp website!
The ETp website is packed with practical
and helped them take control of their
own learning. ETp tips, advice, resources, information and
selected articles. You can submit tips
Katherine Short is a
senior teacher at the or articles, renew your subscription
British Council, or simply browse the features.
Colombo, Sri Lanka.
She has been teaching www.etprofessional.com
English since 2003,
and keenly promotes
learner autonomy by
coordinating the self- ENGLISH TEACHING professional
access centre resources Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Ltd,
and workshops. She PO Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex,
also trains local school
teachers of English, as PO18 8HD, UK
well as British Council Fax: +44 (0)1243 576456
teachers.
Email: info@etprofessional.com
Katherine.short@britishcouncil.org
 TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

Learning coach 1
Daniel Barber and Duncan Foord advocate shifting the focus in the classroom away from
teaching towards greater learner independence. In the first article of a series on learner coaching, they
ask: Why are we so wrapped up in teaching? Shouldnt we be more concerned with learning?

Imagine two one-to-one teaching The first learns a lot in his lessons One focus
scenarios: on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. He
also devotes Saturday mornings to his So if we are to help our students
1 Good teacher bad student achieve their potential, there needs to be
homework. This is what his learning
2 Bad teacher good student a shift in emphasis in our lessons
profile may look like:
Which student will learn most, do you towards ensuring they learn effectively
think? Classroom-centred learning on their own. Here are the differences,
If you believe that the second is at their starkest, between teaching-
likely to produce better learning centred teaching and learning-centred
outcomes, then it may seem strange that teaching:
most of the focus in methodology
books, magazines such as this one and A teaching focus A learning focus
Monday a.m.
Monday p.m.
Tuesday a.m.
Tuesday p.m.
Wednesday a.m.
Wednesday p.m.
Thursday a.m.
Thursday p.m.
Friday a.m.
Friday p.m.
Saturday a.m.
Saturday p.m.
Sunday a.m.
Sunday p.m.

talks given at conferences is on teaching

The teachers The teachers role is to
techniques and classroom activities, not
role is to teach help the learners to
learning techniques and self-study English. learn for themselves.
activities. How often do you see articles,
books and talks on helping your The teachers The teachers role is to
students become better learners? Now lets look at the profile of a
role is to motivate motivate independent
You may say that of course teachers student who knows how to study alone;
classroom learning outside the
are concerned with learning, thats what who is able to monitor and maximise learning. classroom.
teaching is all about, its only natural his motivation without the teachers
that they should phrase it from their intervention; who, understanding the The experience The learning process
own point of view. After all, we live in need for regular review to learn in the classroom outside school is
student-centred times where best practice effectively, returns to his studies for a is memorable. memorable.
is all about catering to individuals few minutes every day; who regards his
learning styles, where we make sure that time in the class as a valuable Homework is an Homework, or rather
students enjoy their learning experience opportunity to consolidate and extend expected addition self-study, becomes
through songs and games and student- his personal learning programme: to classroom the core of the
centred activities. All well and good. learning. learning process.
But this is still a teaching-centred Learner-trained learning
approach which sees the lesson as the Learning styles Learning styles are
are catered for. explored and
focus, some two hours a week of a
developed.
learning process which has the potential
to expand into many more hours of
Responsibility for Responsibility for
independent study. Time with your
learning lies with learning lies with the
Monday a.m.
Monday p.m.
Tuesday a.m.
Tuesday p.m.
Wednesday a.m.
Wednesday p.m.
Thursday a.m.
Thursday p.m.
Friday a.m.
Friday p.m.
Saturday a.m.
Saturday p.m.
Sunday a.m.
Sunday p.m.

teacher is important, certainly, but it the teacher. learner.

isnt the only learning moment in the
week. Its a highlight, but not Learners are Learners are
necessarily the only one. dependent on the independent from their
teacher to teach teacher and can learn
An ideal English learner, maybe, but a
Two profiles learner we have the power to foster,
them. for themselves.

Lets contrast two good learners and through awareness raising and explicit
The objective in The objective in the
their learning potential: one whose coaching. Coaching is an appropriate the lesson is to lesson is to prepare
learning centres around his lessons, and term here: an athletics coach motivates, learn English. the learner for
one who learns more independently monitors and advises but its the athlete independent learning.
from his teacher. who has to put in the hours on the track. 

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010 53

 TEACHER DEVELOPMENT



My teacher
Circle the number that best reflects your English lessons.
1 = This never happens. 5 = This is always true.

My teacher listens and speaks to me in English so I get lots of fluency practice in class. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher actively encourages me to bring queries to the class and clarifies my doubts. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher brings my errors to my attention. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher recommends reference books, storybooks, magazines and websites

that I might find interesting, useful or entertaining. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher teaches me the phonemic symbols so that I can learn pronunciation on my own. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher shows me how to use a dictionary. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher expects me to do plenty of self-study. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher monitors my motivation levels and suggests ways of maintaining enthusiasm. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher shows me ways to memorise new language better. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher makes sure time is devoted in class to sharing our differing

learning experiences and helping each other learn better. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher gives me real advice on how to improve my skills. 1 2 3 4 5

My teacher helps me organise my work and manage my time. 1 2 3 4 5

In future articles in this series, we Daniel Barber is a Duncan Foord is Director

teacher and teacher
will take a closer look at learner- trainer. He has worked
coaching techniques and ideas. Lets in Mexico, Oxford,
London and Barcelona
finish by reflecting, or asking our and is now a teacher
students to reflect, on the learner- and trainer at Active
Language in Cadiz,
coaching services you provide for your Spain, where he helps
learners. How will your students run English classes and
respond to the questions above? ETp Trinity Certificate
courses.
daniel@activelanguage.net
of Teacher Training at
OxfordTEFL. He is based
in Barcelona and is
author of The Developing
Teacher, published by
DELTA Publishing, and
co-author, with Lindsay
Clandfield, of The
Language Teachers
Survival Handbook,
published by iTs
Magazines.
Duncan@oxfordtefl.com

54 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
My lessons
as a learner
F
Anne Margaret or several years I have taught
the elementary-level ESOL
Smith polishes her Polish. learners in my college, many
of whom are Polish, and I
thought it would be interesting to put
myself in their shoes, and perhaps pick
up a few words of Polish to help me in
the class. So, in September 2009 I signed
up for a beginners Polish class, running
one evening a week, and I was right it
was actually fascinating. In this article I
would like to share a few of my
reflections on the experience.
I am not going to focus on how
useful it was when I could translate a
few words for my Polish learners; that is
probably something that many teachers
experience frequently. I will simply
comment that, since I do not use a
coursebook with my English class, and
nor did my Polish teacher, I was
surprised how closely the ESOL lessons
I was teaching and the Polish lessons I
was attending followed the same
progression from introductions, letters
and numbers, through colours and
classroom objects, to family members
and jobs before finishing the term, of
course, with Christmas customs. These
language areas were simply the ones we
(independently) felt our learners needed
most immediately (and could handle
with minimal grammar input).
Apart from the cultural insights I
gleaned through learning the language,
the most useful lessons I learnt from
this ten-week Polish course were to do
with classroom dynamics, the activities
we undertook in class and the factors
affecting the attendance of adult
learners. This last aspect is perhaps the
most crucial for keeping a course
running, so I will start with this.
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
Attendance
Probably teachers in most settings are
familiar with the challenges associated
with keeping adult learners on a course.
My Polish class started with just eight
participants; by the end of the course
we were down to five attending
regularly, but this was not a problem for
us, since it meant that we were able to
have a lot of teacher attention. Two of
the other participants were also
involved in teaching Polish students,
and two had Polish partners. Our
motivation was, therefore, collectively
quite strong, but even so, none of us
managed to attend every session.
Apart from
the cultural insights
I gleaned through
learning the language,
the most useful
lessons I learnt from
this ten-week Polish
course were to do with
classroom dynamics
Finding the mental and physical
strength to concentrate for another two
hours after a full days work proved to
be a challenge in itself. As the term
wore on and I began to wear out, the
evenings became darker and our
classroom even colder. One week in
November, after a particularly long,
tough day, despite my best intentions I 
55
 TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
My lessons

as a learner
found myself making my way home
instead of going to class. For students
who have family responsibilities, or
work even longer hours than I do, I can
well imagine the struggle to make it to
class every week. Rather than being
annoyed when students miss a session, I
am now full of admiration for those
who do turn up regularly, even on those
grim November evenings.
I was really pleased when I had a
letter in the post from my tutor,
outlining what the rest of the class had
covered that evening and enclosing the
materials for me to look through. I
couldnt make much sense of most of it,
of course, but I felt that my absence
from the group had been noticed. This
has motivated me to send materials to
students, in addition to my customary
we missed you in class text, even if they
cannot do much with them on their
own. It seems important to signal to
absent learners that they should try to
keep up with their classmates. This links
in to a second important observation,
about the role that group dynamics
and especially cohesion plays in the
language classroom.
It seems important
to signal to absent
learners that they
should try to keep up
with their classmates
Dynamics
In my first Polish lesson I was surprised
how little the other participants seemed
to want to talk. I found their reticence
strangely contagious and, instead of
taking the initiative and introducing
myself, I sat quietly, waiting for the
formal lesson to begin. I also noticed
that when our tutor asked a question of
the class, or asked for a volunteer, I was
uncharacteristically reluctant to
respond, even when I thought I knew
the answer (and despite knowing that
56 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
the more practice and feedback I got,
the better for me!). I was surprised at
my reaction to the situation, since I am
not exactly a stranger to the language
classroom but, as the weeks went by, I
did find myself feeling a little more
confident. I put this down to two main
elements of group dynamics. Firstly, our
tutor was unfailingly positive and
encouraging, and she was skilled at
gauging when to push a learner to
practise more, and when to accept that
for the moment, for that particular
I really valued
the opportunities we
had to work with one
or two other students
to practise the given
phrases and work
together to make up
new utterances
language point, he or she had achieved
as much as was possible. This tacit
acknowledgement of individual abilities
and differentiation in terms of
expectation helped to foster a more
accepting atmosphere in the group.
Secondly, and perhaps most
obviously, I began to feel more
comfortable as I got to know the other
participants better and could connect
with them on a personal level. This
brought home to me once again how
crucial it is to spend time at the beginning
of a course encouraging students to get
to know each other on a social level, even
if that means using their first languages
instead of English; it is an investment
that pays off immediately, particularly
for less confident learners. The quality
of pair- and groupwork depends on
good relationships forming early on.
Practice
Most language teachers recognise the
value of setting up small-group and
pairwork activities so that learners can
practise new language in a non-
threatening situation. Even apparently
simple things like counting to 20 threw
up challenges for me in terms of
remembering new vocabulary accurately,
pronouncing it correctly, and being
confident that I would be understood. I
really valued the opportunities we had
to work with one or two other students
to practise the given phrases and work
together to make up new utterances.
Some of my classmates had Polish
speakers at home with whom they could
practise, but I did not have that luxury,
and I know that many of my ESOL
learners do not live or work with English
speakers and so the two hours in my
class is their only live opportunity to
use the language they are trying to learn.
I was aware, too, that our tutor
sometimes provided differentiated input
by working with a learner who had not
fully grasped the language point, so as
to give extra help. This is a technique
that I also adopt in my class, while
making sure that my more able learners
have extension activities to move on to if
they finish the original task. However, as
a beginner I found that for me there was
no such thing as too much repetition of
any material, and if my partner and I
finished a task, we often went through it
again, without feeling that it was
becoming tedious. This was a useful
observation for me, since I often fear
that my learners will become bored if
they repeat something too often; now I
know that this is unlikely, and that truly
mastering a phrase or understanding a
new question gave me a great sense of
accomplishment and achievement.

Whilst I did find it hard fitting the Polish
class (and homework) into my working
week, I feel that I learnt so much more
than how to introduce myself and
count to 20. It confirmed for me the
importance for language teachers of
being on the other side of the desk from
time to time, and remembering again
what it feels like to be a learner. ETp
Anne Margaret Smith
has taught English in a
variety of contexts for
20 years. She also
works with dyslexic
learners and offers
workshops to other
teachers who want to
find out more about
inclusive practice.
ams@ELTwell.co.uk
 T E C H N O L O G Y
Reading
online
Nicholas Northall supports his students classroom
reading with extra help from the internet.
A
s Ray Williams puts it:
Learners learn to read by
reading: there is no other way.
Yet how many of us fill our
reading lessons by asking our students
to read short extracts and then analyse
them profusely? Obviously there are
many reading skills which can be
developed in the classroom, such as
skimming, scanning, and identifying
grammar structures and vocabulary in
context. However, working on these skills
means that our students do not actually
spend that much time actually reading.
In order to fill this gap, therefore, it is
always a good idea to try to motivate
them to read more in their own time. In
this article I want to describe how we
can do this by sending students online
articles to support their classroom work.
Online reading
There are several benefits to getting
students to read in their own time. Here
are some of them:
Firstly, by reading more, students can
improve their reading speed. Olwyn
Alexander and her colleagues assert
that the average native speaker of
English reads at 300 words per minute
(wpm), whereas many English
language students can only manage
60 wpm. By reading as much as
possible, students are able to increase
their speed of word recognition.
Secondly, students can improve their
vocabulary by reading. Patricia Carrell
and William Grabe summarised that
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
a learner would need a vocabulary of
around 5,000 words in order to read
for pleasure, but at least 10,000 words
to study at university. Reading in
quantity will help students extend
their vocabulary, understand words in
context and cope with different forms
of words.
Thirdly, they can practise reading
longer texts to increase their reading
stamina and to improve their global
reading skills, such as understanding
the wider meaning of a text. This is
essential for students who need English
for higher or further education.
Fourthly, free-time reading can ensure
improvements in general language
ability by giving learners the
possibility to move from intermediate
to more advanced levels of proficiency.
Finally, reading in their free time can
ensure improvements in students
exam results on tests such as IELTS
and FCE.
Online articles
Christopher Green believes that reading
done in a students free time, when
combined with classwork, can greatly
influence their linguistic development. If
the free-time reading follows the same
theme as the classwork, students can
repeat and reinforce vocabulary, and
think about the topic from a different
point of view.
A great way to do this is to send
them weekly links to between two and
four online articles which support the
contents of that days or weeks lessons.
For example, if our topic of the week
was the environment, I would send my
students links to some articles connected
with this theme perhaps a news item
on climate change, an article on attempts
to counter deforestation, etc. These links
could be sent via email or by using an
online environment like Blackboard, or
even Facebook as many of my students
have Facebook accounts. See the box at
the end of this article for examples of
materials I have used to support some
common coursebook topics.
Classroom support
Here are some ideas for using online
articles in order to support classwork.
1 Classroom discussion
The texts taken from the internet can be
used as the basis for classroom
discussion. For example, the students
receive links to two texts: one putting
the case for the reality of global
warming and one more sceptical about
it. They are asked to read the articles
and come to the next lesson prepared to
discuss their responses. Alternatively, the
students could read hard-copy versions
of the texts in the classroom and then,
in groups, orally summarise what they
have read. One student from each group
could then present the main points of
their article to the rest of the class.
2 A reading diary
Students complete a diary, noting down
what and how much they read every
day. As well as recording the online
articles, they can also include anything
else they might have read. The contents
of the diary could then be used to
promote discussion (see above).
3 Just read them!
Students are sent links to the texts and
are simply asked to read them. They are
told that if they read them, this will
support their classwork. However, they
are not obliged to do this.
Authentic articles
Although it might be a good idea to
send students links to online articles,
how do we know if those articles are
suitable for them? In Issue 65 of ETp,
Rafael Sabio gave an excellent summary
of how to select online materials for
students in terms of relevance and
appropriateness. In this article I will 
57

Reading
online
 concentrate on how we can assess the
vocabulary load of an article and
change it, if necessary, to suit our
learners. Fortunately, there are a couple
of websites that will do this for you:
Oxford 3000 Text Checker
Go to www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/
teachersites/oald7/oxford_3000/oxford_
3000_profiler?cc=gb.
Paste your text into the first white
box and click on Submit. The page
which then appears will indicate the
percentage of words in the Oxford 3000:
that is, according to the website, words
which should receive priority in vocabulary
study because of their importance and
usefulness. Words not in the Oxford 3000
will be highlighted in red. Words from
specialist lists (arts, science and business
and finance) will be highlighted in blue.
Be careful, as the Oxford 3000
sometimes has a habit of adding an
apostrophe to words. For example,
words such as its and weve appear with
an extra apostrophe, giving its and
weve.
Compleat Lexical Tutor
Go to www.lextutor.ca. Click on
Vocabprofile, then VP English v.3. You could show the students how to
Paste your text into the white box, and
click on SUBMIT. You will then see a
breakdown of your text: the 1,000 most
common words are highlighted in blue;
the next 1,000 most common words in
green; words taken from the Academic
Word List are in yellow; and other
words in red.
Assessing the difficulty
of a text
Lets say that with your pre-intermediate-
level students you are looking at the
topic of transport, and you find a good
article on cars and motoring at
www.newscientist.com/article/dn9922.
You read it through and decide that it
will provide quite a challenge for your
students to read unsupported, but you
are unsure about what to do next.
Thats where the word checking websites
can help.
58 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
You paste your text into Oxford
3000, and it gives you the following
information:
The text (excluding the title) has 571
words. This could be a good length of
text for pre-intermediate students to
read in their own time.
Ninety percent of the words are part
of the Oxford 3000. This tells you that
you were right: this text, according to
the website, has many useful words.
However, it is more suitable for
advanced-level students. But as it is a
good article, you want to adapt the text
to suit your pre-intermediate students.
You might consider the following:
1 Focusing on vocabulary
As previously mentioned, building
student vocabulary is incredibly
important. Therefore, you could focus
on the words highlighted by Oxford 3000
in class and then use the text to support
this. Some of the words highlighted
from the article about transport cited
above include: fading, chugging, risky,
wavers and signified and you might
want to teach these. Others, such as
Brazil and motorbikes, might already be
known to a pre-intermediate group and
could be ignored.
2 Editing the text
You could edit the text. This would
mean either replacing the highlighted
words with synonyms or rewriting the
text completely.
3 Self-study
Principles and Practice Garnet Publishing
operate the text checker websites
themselves so they could use them for
self-study. The information supplied
would indicate to the students which
words they will need to look up in their
dictionaries and which words they
should already know.

Sending your students online texts, with
or without support, is extremely
motivating as students are dealing with
authentic, real English and
understanding it: they will get a boost
from knowing that they are reading
articles written for native speakers.
Furthermore, many students do most of
their reading online anyway, and will be
more likely to read something from
their computer than from an A4
handout with the word Homework at
the top. ETp
Here are some common coursebook
topics with articles which could be
used to support them (correct at the
time of writing but, of course, online
articles do come and go!).
Communication
Communication: a definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Communication
Google phone is latest move
against cell phone status quo:
www.newscientist.com/blogs/
shortsharpscience/2010/01/google-
kicks-off-cellphone-spe.html
The environment
EU holds firm on climate goals:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/
7673684.stm
Gulf state rescues 3bn wind farm
in the Thames Estuary:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol
/business/industry_sectors/natural_
resources/article4958968.ece
Sport
Faster than a bullet the 1,000mph
car:
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/
2008/oct/23/motoring-land-speed-
record
Space diving: the ultimate extreme
sport:
http://space.newscientist.com/
article/mg19626261.700-space-
diving-the-ultimate-extreme-
sport.html
Alexander, O, Argent, S and Spencer, J
EAP Essentials: A Teachers Guide to
2008
Carrell, P L and Grabe, W Reading In
Schmitt, N (Ed) An Introduction to
Applied Linguistics Hodder Education
2002
Green, C Integrating extensive reading in
the task-based curriculum ELTJ 59(4)
2005
Sabio, R Choosing online materials
English Teaching Professional 65 2009
Williams, R Top ten principles for
teaching reading ELT Journal 40(1) 1986
Nicholas Northall works
at the English Language
Teaching Centre at the
University of Sheffield,
UK, where he teaches
EAP and CALL and
contributes to the
Centres teacher training
programme. He has
worked in the UK and
Slovakia and has been
teaching for over ten
years. Last year he
passed the MA TESOL.
northalln@hotmail.com
 T E C H N O L O G Y
Five things you always wanted to know about
teaching online
(but were afraid to ask)
1 Is teaching online and teaching
f2f (face-to-face) so different?
Lets first define our terms. By online
teaching, Im talking about teacher-led
online work with students. Im not talking
about setting students self-study drag and
drop grammar exercises to do on the
computer at home. So if we are clear that
teaching online includes having direct
personal contact with the students, with
the students using the online medium to
communicate and interact with each other
and the language, there are, indeed, many
similarities between face-to-face and online
teaching, at least in terms of underlying
pedagogical principles. But there are, of
course, some major differences. There
are a number of key skills that teachers
can develop to become effective online
emoderators (a term often used in the
literature, meaning online teachers).
2 What makes for effective online
teaching, then?
Good online teaching will put plenty of
emphasis on interaction and
communication, but this communication is
mediated by a computer. If the students are
studying 100 percent online, and the group
never meet f2f, it is especially important
to allow plenty of time for socialising
activities, not just at the beginning of a
course, but throughout on a regular basis.
These activities enable the group to get to
know each other and to gel, which will in
turn foster a sense of responsibility towards
each other and help ensure that online
pair- and groupwork function well. It is
also important to build in direct channels
of online communication between
individual students and the teacher, and
to monitor motivation and participation
constantly. A private online journal, only
accessible to the individual student and
teacher, for example, is one way to provide
such a channel. Another key online
teaching skill is creating a sense of your
own presence on your course. You need to
make clear to the students that you are
reading and responding to their work by
60 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
providing timely, relevant and individualised
responses. Youll find a list of ten key
online tutor skills at http://bit.ly/5aZi8J.
3 What else does online teaching
involve?
So far, weve talked mainly about the
liveware, or human element (also
sometimes unfortunately referred to as the
wetware!). Of course, to teach online you
also need to use hardware: a computer,
microphone or headset, webcam, internet
connection, and even perhaps a digital
camera. And you will need software:
computer programs and tools with which
to deliver your course content and foster
communication. These include VLEs
(Virtual Learning Environments), such as
Moodle see ETp Issue 65), social
networking sites (see ETp Issue 61), wikis
and even online discussions lists.
4 My school wants 50 percent of
a class online. Where do I start?
This so-called blended option (offering
part of a course f2f, and part online) is
becoming increasingly common. The
problem is that teachers are very rarely
offered guidance on how to do it
effectively, even if they are offered technical
advice on how to use something like a
VLE. The trick is how to make the online
part of your course work well! Here are a
few basic steps to get you started:
1 Look at your course syllabus, and decide
which parts could be offered online and
which would be better dealt with f2f. It is
usually much easier to deal with reading
and writing work online, and to keep
speaking for the f2f classroom, for
example. However, the online part of the
course still needs to involve communication
and interaction between the students.
Designing engaging online pair- and
groupwork tasks is a key skill here.
2 Decide what tool you are going to use
to deliver the online part. A VLE? A wiki?
Ensure that you are familiar with how
your chosen tool works, and that you are
In this series, Nicky Hockly
explains aspects of technology
which some people may be
embarrassed to confess that
they dont really understand.
In this article, she explores
teaching online.
able to add a range of multi-media
materials (audio, video, images) to it.
3 Integrate a range of Web 2.0 tools into
tasks for the online part of your course.
For writing practice, how about getting
the students to create blog entries on a
class-related topic and then to comment
on each others blogs? For reading
practice, they could follow a news story
online for a week, and then report back in
a podcast on how it developed. For
language practice, why not get them to
develop online quizzes for each other?
There are many ways you can create
imaginative and engaging online language
tasks that require interaction. A list of my
12 favourite online teaching activities is
at www.emoderationskills.com and
http://sixthings.net.
5 Any other tips for teaching
online?
One of the greatest learning experiences
Ive ever had was taking an online course
as a student myself. It provided an
immense amount of insight into the
experience of learning. I became very
aware of how important ongoing praise,
support and timely feedback are. If you
take a good online course, you will also
be exposed to best practice in online
learning and teaching, and should see
examples of effective online task design
as well. It could be a teacher training
course, or one on a topic such as
photography or cooking. Good luck!
Nicky Hockly has been
involved in EFL teaching and
teacher training since 1987.
She is Director of Pedagogy
of The Consultants-E, an
online training and
development consultancy.
She is co-author of Learning
English as a Foreign
Language for Dummies (John
Wiley & Sons) and Teaching
Online (Delta Publishing).
She maintains a blog at
www.emoderationskills.com.
Contact Nicky at nicky.hockly@theconsultants-e.com
and let her know of any ICT areas youd like her to
explore in this series.
Webwatcher
Web
hen Webwatcher first started, I remember writing about
W online quizzes and tests, which at the time were one of
the few ways of creating interactive content on the
web. With the introduction of Web 2.0 and the ability to upload
and interact with online content, the original quiz makers lost
some of their appeal. However, it is well worth returning to them
as they have moved on and many now offer the chance to
embed video and pictures, keep track of people who take the
quiz and offer feedback. In this issue we are going to take a look
at the free version of ProProfs quiz maker. There is also a
version for which you have to pay.
www.proprofs.com
Making the quiz
Signing up to ProProfs is simple. Once you are logged in, you
need to click on Create A Quiz. You then have two choices.
Choose Scored Quiz. You have to start by giving your quiz a title
and a description and you can also add some tags; the tags
make it easier for people to search for your quiz and should
reflect the topic and content. One thing I like about this site is
that you make all the quizzes on one page, though if you are
using the free version, they will be presented to the students on
separate pages. There are five quiz types and they all work more
or less in the same way. You can add question after question
and, each time, you can change the type of format. So you can
mix multiple choice with multiple answers, multiple choice with
one answer, true/false, fill in the blanks you can even add an
open-ended essay question. You simply click on the type of
question you want to create. With each question type you need
to indicate clearly what the correct answer is. However, with the
essay type question there are no correct answers and the user
simply writes in their answer and uses the quiz maker to submit
it. In this case, it is the teacher who has to check the work.
If you choose the multiple answers type question, then the
first thing you need to do is write in your question. Below you
can add in your answers. Make sure you select the answers that
are correct by ticking in the box at the side. Obviously, you can
have more than one correct answer. You can also add an
explanation at the end, which gives additional feedback to the
users once they have answered the question. This can be used
for all sorts of things, such as giving more details about the
answer or even directing the users to other websites or giving
them links to pages with more information.
Adding features
Notice that you also have the option of adding a picture or
embedding a video alongside your question. This can be really
good as you can take content from video sites like YouTube and
TeacherTube and embed them into your quizzes.
Of course, it doesnt always have to be the teacher that
makes the quizzes. You could get your students to make quizzes
and then get other students in the class to complete them. This
is actually fairly easy to do as the formatting of the quizzes is
pretty simple to master. You could even get the students to
watch the training videos I have made for these quizzes (see
below) and then tell them to make a quiz at home. For example,
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010
Russell Stannard samples
a sophisticated quiz making site.
Embedding video
These are all sites which allow their video content to be
embedded:
www.blip.tv
On this site there is a Share button on the left.
www.youtube.com
You normally find the Embed button underneath the
video. When you click on it, you will also be given some
options regarding size and background colours.
www.metacafe.com
There is an Embed button under the video. Once you
click on it, you will be provided with a variety of settings.
These appear above the video.
the students could make a pop music quiz, where they embed
videos of the songs and artists they like and then add questions.
They could make a quiz about travelling by using some of the
millions of videos related to travelling that they can find on
YouTube. Many video sites, such as TeacherTube, 5min, Vimeo
and Metacafe, allow their content to be embedded. Just look out
for the Embed button, which allows you to grab the code and
paste it into your quizzes.
Changing settings
Once you have made your quiz, you have a few settings that you
can change. You can set a pass/fail rate for the quiz. You can
instruct ProProfs to issue a certificate if the user gets a certain
number of the questions correct. ProProfs will also track the
users and provide information to the teacher on their
performance. You can even set a time limit so that the students
have to do the quiz in a certain amount of time. All these
settings are found in the Score Settings area, which you can find
at the end after you have added in your questions. There are
three tabs: Score Settings, Message Settings and Quiz Settings.
Message Settings allows you to add a banner. This way you can
package the quizzes as if they are part of your school or
institutions own materials. Quiz Settings deals with things like
privacy and the quiz layout. If you have the free version, each
question in your quiz will appear on a separate page, but if you
have a paying account, you can have it appear on just one page.
You can also choose to have an email sent to you each time
someone takes the quiz. All these things are pretty easy to set.
I have made a video which takes you step-by-step through
the process of making a quiz with ProProfs. You can
access this at:
www.teachertrainingvideos.com/proProfs/index.html
Russell Stannard is a principal lecturer in ICT at the
University of Westminster, UK. He won the Times
Higher Education Award for Outstanding Initiatives in
Information and Communications Technology for his
website www.teachertrainingvideos.com. He was also
one of the winners of the 2010 British Council ELTons
awards.
Keep sending your favourite sites to Russell:
russellstannard@btinternet.com
61
 In this column Rose Senior explains why certain teaching techniques and
class management strategies are effective, and identifies specific issues that can assist
all language teachers in improving the quality of their teaching.

How wrong can you be?

ome years ago I found myself programme than many of his classmates, in the days before digital photography and

S teaching a class of students who

had come to Australia from a
variety of countries for intensive
English study. The majority of them were in
their early twenties: lively and outgoing
young people, keen to improve their
English, make new friends and experience
living in an English-speaking country. One
student, Malcolm, stood out from
the crowd. A few years older than Malcolm revealed
his classmates, Malcolm dressed himself to be a deep
conservatively, was deliberate in
his movements, took his time thinker who expressed the response sections
over learning tasks and spoke in
a hesitant way. I remember
thinking to myself, Malcolm is a pretty
unexciting guy. Ill let him plod along at his
own pace and hope he gets on OK.
Those of us who teach intensive
English language classes are familiar with
the experience of facing waves of new
students every few weeks and learning to
match names to faces and establish
relationships with each new group as
quickly as we can. At the end of short
courses, most students quickly disappear.
It is relatively unusual to be able to follow
the progress and personal development of
individuals once they have moved on to a
different programme or institution or
returned to their home countries.
After the course had finished, I was
invited to pilot a foundation studies course
for overseas students wishing to enter
mainstream undergraduate programmes in
my university. Nobody could be more
surprised than I was to find that Malcolm
had enrolled on this course particularly
since most of the students were already
proficient in spoken English. I remember
comparing Malcolm unfavourably in my
mind with one particular student, who was
so bright, confident and fluent that I was
sure that the gap between his level of
achievement and Malcolms would widen
as the course progressed, with Malcolm
being left far behind. How wrong I was!
A short way into the course, it became
evident that Malcolm was more interested
in the topics and themes of this task-based
and he was prepared to think about and
discuss current issues as fully as he could.
With assessment tasks that required the
class to read texts, summarise their
content and provide personal responses,
Malcolm revealed himself to be a deep
thinker who expressed original views and
presented innovative solutions to
contemporary problems.
In contrast, the student
of whom I had high
expectations answered
a-half times the required number.
original views of the task in a hasty
manner, expressing
superficial views and handing in his work
ahead of time without reading through
what he had written.
The most striking way in which
Malcolm displayed originality and
application occurred towards the end of
the course, when each student in the class
was required to devise a questionnaire,
interview a sample of students on campus,
analyse the data they had collected and
present their findings to the
class. The students brief was I shall always
to find out more about young remember Malcolm students (rather than take the
Australians: how they lived,
what their interests were, how because he taught me students from his own
much time they spent doing an important lesson country) and that in the early
different activities, and so on.
Many of the students needed considerable
help, not only with the focus and design of
their questionnaires, but also with the
manner in which they would approach
students and ask for their cooperation. Not
so Malcolm, who quickly became so deeply
absorbed in his project that he required no
assistance at all.
On the day of the presentations,
Malcolm chose to go last and, as he
pinned a colourful backdrop over the
whiteboard (these were the days before
PowerPoint), I suspected that we were in
for something special. In a confident
manner and with a twinkle in his eye,
Malcolm announced that for his project he
had sought to discover which kinds of girls
Australian boys liked best. Since this was
mobile phones, Malcolm had painstakingly
cut pictures of a wide variety of girls out of
glossy magazines: blondes, brunettes and
dark-haired beauties, girls with brown, blue
and green eyes, girls of Caucasian and
Asian appearance, skinny girls and
plumper girls, girls with smiling and sultry
expressions, and so on. Intrigued by the
handouts, students around campus had
been only too keen to answer Malcolms
questions with the result that he had
collected data from 50 students: two-and-
When the course ended, I assumed that
I would never see Malcolm again. But I was
wrong: four years later I ran into him in the
university coffee shop. Looking relaxed and
confident, he explained that he had just
completed a computer science degree and
would shortly return to his home country to
take up a job that he had been offered on
the strength of his A-grade honours project.
I congratulated him on his high achievement
and ventured to ask him what had been
the key to his success. Determination, said
Malcolm, explaining that he
had moved in with Australian
easier option of sharing with
days he had pestered his
flatmates to discuss assignment topics and
lecturer expectations until he understood
fully exactly what was required to do well.
I shall always remember Malcolm
because he taught me an important lesson:
that the students who appear to be the
quickest and smartest often do not go as
far as the quietly determined students who
study in strategic ways to achieve their
goals. ETp
Rose Senior is a language teacher educator
who runs workshops and presents at
conferences around the world.
rsenior@iinet.net.au.

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 71 November 2010 63

 Prize crossword 44
ETp presents the forty-fourth in our series of prize
crosswords. Send your entry (completed crossword
grid and quotation), not forgetting to include your
full name, postal address and telephone number, to
Prize crossword 44, ENGLISH TEACHING professional, Pavilion Publishing
(Brighton) Ltd, PO Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 8HD, UK.
Ten correct entries will be drawn from a hat on 10 January 2011
and the senders will each receive a copy of the second edition
of the Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners,
applauded for its unique red star system showing the
frequency of the 7,500 most common words in English
(www.macmillandictionary.com).

20 13 15 15 6 3 24 1 15 6 12 13 1 18 VERY FREQUENT WORDS FAIRLY FREQUENT WORDS

*** Intelligent or good at doing * A small insect that lives in large
1 1 6 24 17 13 22 something organised groups
*** Indefinite article * A tool for cutting down trees
5 1 17 20 4 24 17 5 22 6
*** ___ You Like It is a play by * To heat a liquid until it starts to
William Shakespeare. become a gas
22 20 24 3 17 1 7 10 24 19 26 17
I *** One of the parts of your head * A glass food container with a lid
1 18 17 16 20 26 22 18 1 6 3 that you hear with and a wide top
*** Not healthy * A school subject involving
19 23 1 17 17 22 22 *** Pronoun calculations
*** If you have much of something, * British slang for a pound (money)
7 17 9 6 24 26 16 21 17 3 17 19 you have a ___ . * Someone who is either a brother or
P *** Something you have not done a sister
6 17 2 6 6 14 17 16
correctly LESS FREQUENT WORDS
11 17 8 8 22 6 6 20 26
*** The opposite of yes A document that gives personal
*** It was __ cold, the pond was details, sometimes with a photo
16 17 22 1 19 4 17 16 17 5 22 6 frozen. Father (old-fashioned)
*** A member of an army A playing card with only one
25 16 9 4 19 26 13 *** Without a bend or curve symbol, which is either the highest or
*** A word used to form the lowest in a suit
6 25 17 19 6 20 4 6 19 24 24 1 16 infinitive of a verb A large monkey with no tail that
*** The highest point of something walks on two legs
*** The opposite of down Lasting only for a very short time
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
I *** A line of water that rises up on If time does this, it passes.
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 the surface of the sea Unable to do something
P FREQUENT WORDS A car with no roof, often used as a
** An attitude that makes people military vehicle
To solve the puzzle, find which letter each number represents. You
treat someone unfairly The plural of ox
can keep a record in the boxes above. The definitions of the words ** To look at someone or A friend (informal)
in the puzzle are given, but not in the right order. When you have something for a long time If you are in a ___ you dont know
finished, you will be able to read the quotation. ** A narrow or pointed end what decision to make.
To put new money into a business
1 10 17 25 6 19 6 25 6 3 22 6 24 15
The period of the year when it is
14 20 4 10 26 26 22 1 19 7 1 19 24 6 3 8
summer
A flat cake with deep square marks
6 3 6 11 1 24 10 15 14 6 18 13 4 17 24 on both sides
A short high sound made by a dog
1 26 19
Mark Twain
Great energy, effort and enthusiasm
Thank you (informal)

64 Issue 71 November 2010 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com